Rocks Beat Paper

by Mike Knowles

  Miles smiled. “Uh hunh. They’re Bronies.”

  “Bronies?”

  “Like ponies but with a b.”

  I shook my head. “And they all want to —”

  “No, not all. That’s why I want you to guess. Go ahead. You get within five percent, and I’ll buy you dinner.”

  I looked around the room. The men were mostly white, mostly slightly overweight, and mostly pathetic. They gave off a last-picked-in-everything vibe. They were outsiders, each and every one of them, but wanting to sleep with a cartoon pony put them on the outside of even the outsiders. “Ten percent,” I said.

  “Not even close. It’s thirty-eight.”

  One of my eyebrows raised. “You’re making that up.”

  Miles laughed. “According to Bronyponies, the largest Brony fan site on this side of the Pacific, the last major convention of this size had an estimated 37.8 percent of attendees showing interest in having a relationship of a, let’s call it, romantic nature with one of the ponies.”

  “They are that open about it?”

  Miles shook his head. “It was an anonymous survey geared at making the next convention even better. I’m sure most never speak about wanting to turn the convention into a real petting zoo, but I’m guessing the remote possibility of getting a bit closer to riding one of the horses made most of the deviants a little bolder than usual.”

  “How do you know all this? Don’t tell me you’re one of the thirty-eight percent.”

  “Nope. I saw the survey on an internet news site and it got me thinking.”

  “About fucking a cartoon.”

  “No — about the people who want to fuck a cartoon. They even have a term for it. They call themselves cloppers.”

  I looked at the crowd. Really looked at the crowd. The demographic of mostly middle-aged white men meant that, statistically, they were likely to be employed. The fact that they were into My Little Pony meant they were probably single and likely loners. Loners with jobs meant disposable income. “What’s the con?”

  “Good to see you’re up to speed. Riddle me this: what is the biggest impediment to wanting My Little Pony to be your girlfriend?”

  “Two things — dimensions.”

  “Right,” Miles said. “So what are you left with?”

  “Porn,” I said.

  “Rule 34,” Miles said.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “It’s an internet thing. Rule 34 states: if it exists, there is porn about it. The ponies exist, therefore the porn is out there.”

  “But we are in here,” I said. “And you . . .” I took another long look at the crowd, “you’re selling them the porn.”

  “No, that would be sick. I’m selling them the prospect of porn, not the real thing. Otherwise, I’d have to go home at night and wash my eyes.”

  “Take me through it.”

  “The convention organizers are estimating two thousand attendees over the whole weekend.”

  “Seems steep for a cartoon convention.”

  “It does, but this convention — they call it the Brony Derby — only happens once every two years, and it’s the only convention that gets some of the voice actors to show up.”

  “So roughly thirty-eight percent of the two thousand are into getting into the ponies.”

  “Right. Knowing that almost 750 marks will be in attendance, I started laying the groundwork online. I hit up chat rooms for a few months and put word on the binary street.”

  “You’re selling porn,” I said. “Porn with some kind of hook. Porn you can’t get anywhere else.”

  “Bingo,” Miles said. “You know what all of these people have in common?”

  “Bed bugs,” I said.

  “Cash. Conventions are a cash business. These idiots are loaded with it and they are not shy about spending it. I set up a meeting spot in a nearby hotel bar and started taking orders. I asked for half up front.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred,” Miles said.

  “Low, but that’s the point. They had already committed to the transaction when they showed up to meet with you; the low price makes them feel better about paying half up front for whatever you’re selling.”

  “Genuine animation cells from the show that have been doctored by one of the show’s original artists.”

  “How many bit on the offer?” I asked.

  “Four hundred.”

  I let out a low whistle. He was on track to make forty grand. “It’s a good scam, but it would have to be. You can’t pull this off more than once. This community has to be so small that word would get out. No one will fall for this again.”

  “None of the Bronies, but the Sailor Moon crowd will.”

  I didn’t know what a Sailor Moon was, but I didn’t come out to talk fringe porn with the con man. “How about something a bit more adult?”

  “You sure you don’t want to get a megaphone and tell all the cloppers that I’m scamming them? That seems to be your thing these days.”

  “You still mad about me showing Johnny what was behind the curtain?”

  “It was a dick move.”

  “It was unprofessional.”

  “Is that your way of saying you’re sorry?”

  “You were unprofessional. You don’t con your crew. You save that for the civilians.”

  “He was a dick.”

  “He was still in on the job and that means he’s off limits.”

  “Even if he’s a dick.”

  “Yup.”

  “Even if he’s a racist dick.”

  “Yup.”

  “I don’t agree with that.”

  “Then walk away from the job. That’s your choice. But you didn’t choose to walk away. You chose to sign on. After that happens, every decision you make affects the crew. Conning the crew puts the job in danger. Worse, you put everyone in danger of getting killed or picked up. You don’t get to make that choice for everyone.”

  “I still say he was a fucking dick.”

  “Grow up. I told you, the only quality a person in our line of work needs to have is reliability. They have to be able to do whatever they say they can do. If they can do that, you can put up with the rest until the job is done.”

  Miles took his eyes off the legions of dateless men. “You really believe that?”

  “I’m here.”

  Miles laughed. “You calling me a dick?”

  “I’m calling you a hell of a con man, and that’s what the job needs.”

  Miles laughed. “Tell me about it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Like Miles, Monica was local, but she wasn’t based in New York. She worked a regular job at a go-kart track in Jersey. The track had a sign outside claiming that it was the biggest indoor track in America. The claim sounded impressive until you walked inside and saw that America’s largest go-kart track was a tire-lined maze inside a warehouse. We found Monica in the garage, working on an overturned kart.

  She looked up from the kart and appraised me through the lenses of her black-rimmed glasses. “And here I thought it was just a one-night stand.” She looked at Miles. “A long boring one-night stand with far too much talking.”

  “And now you find out it was just a first date,” Miles said.

  “Lucky me.”

  “This place yours?” I asked.

  Monica snorted. “If it was, I sure as hell wouldn’t be working on one of these.”

  She put down her wrench and used a greasy rag to wipe her hands. I watched the rag move with practiced efficiency as she drove the grime up her fingers and off her hands. When she finished, she tossed the rag on top of the go-kart’s tire. “C’mon, you can buy me lunch.”

  Lunch was a hot dog at the track concession stand. Monica ate with her blue coveralls unzipped and bunched around
her waist. The cheap white T-shirt showed off her strong arms and the outline of a bra that looked like it might be something colourful and feminine. She started in on her food on her way back to the table and was halfway through her hot dog before anyone else had started theirs. She ate with a carelessness that wasn’t really careless; her movements were quick, but precise. Every time I thought ketchup or mustard was about to stain her white undershirt, she darted her head forward and caught the oozing condiment with a small bite.

  “Do you eat like this every day?” Miles asked. He had made it through half of his hot dog before he put it down and pushed it away.

  “Only when someone else is buying. Otherwise, I skip lunch.” She turned her small brown eyes on me. “So you got a job for me?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Maybe?”

  “If you want it.”

  “Same thing we talked about?”

  I shook my head. “You know why the job got called off?”

  “Jake called me and told me it was off. Later, I saw David and Alvin’s picture in the paper. I figured the job died with our inside man.”

  “It did,” I said.

  “And yet, here we are.”

  Miles gestured to Monica’s lip. “You got a little ketchup there.”

  The driver licked her lips without any attempt at being provocative.

  “That job is dead,” I said. “Without an inside man, none of it will work. Any chance we had of getting inside is gone.” I told them about what I had been doing with my time and what I had seen.

  “So, he’s as paranoid as David said he was,” Monica said between bites of the rest of Miles’s hot dog.

  “No,” Miles said.

  “What?”

  “Saul would be paranoid if he thought people were following him and there wasn’t anyone doing it, but he was being followed. We’ve been on his tail for days. So, I don’t think you can technically call him paranoid if he’s right.”

  “Whatever,” Monica said. “The point is the man is always looking over his shoulder.”

  “That’s why we won’t be able to get inside,” I said.

  “But you’ve been watching him, and you’re here,” Monica said. “So you have something in mind. How do we get at those diamonds if we can’t get inside?”

  “I have to admit,” Miles said, “the question crossed my mind as well.”

  “We don’t get in,” I said.

  “So we just wait for the stones to come to us?” Miles said.

  “Close,” I said. “We get Saul to bring them to us.”

  Miles made a face. “How do we get him to do that?”

  “Simple,” I said. “We tell him what happened to David.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You really think that will work?” Monica said.

  We were back in her shop and she was back in her coveralls, elbow deep in a carburetor.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Miles spun the handle on a table vice. “What do we have to lose if we try?”

  Monica shrugged as she worked a wrench against a stubborn nut. “Nothing really. Just all the money that was fronted for this thing to work. This thing goes south — and let’s face it, it could go south easy — we’re out a hundred K.”

  “Even if we sold off what we bought, we’d be selling it at a loss, and there’s also the vig to consider,” Miles said.

  “There’s always risk,” I said.

  “That’s only if things go bad. If everything goes right, we’re up a couple million.”

  “If it goes right,” Monica said. “And that is a very big if.”

  “It will,” Miles said. “Tell her, Wilson.”

  “Risk versus reward,” I said. “The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. You want a guaranteed return, go buy a savings bond.”

  “Well, if that doesn’t convince her, I don’t know what will,” Miles said.

  “No,” she said. “He’s right. Fine, I’m in.”

  “Almost,” I said.

  Monica’s eyes widened; it might have been surprise, but it could have just as easily been anger. “Almost?”

  “I want to see you behind the wheel,” I said.

  The driver smiled wide. “No problem. I get off at —”

  “Now,” I said.

  “Now? I got work to do. I can’t go driving around town.”

  “Not around town,” I said. “Around the track.”

  Monica laughed. “You want to watch me drive the course?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to watch you race the course.”

  “Against who?”

  I looked at Miles. “Against him.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  At two o’clock on a Thursday, it wasn’t hard to find an open slot in the track schedule. The kid working at the gate wore a shirt decorated like a checkered flag with the words Pit Crew stencilled on the back. The shirt was two sizes too big, and the kid didn’t bother trying to hide it. The uniform hung like a dress over his skin-tight jeans. The kid was leaning against the gate that allowed access to the track and sliding his thumbs all over the surface of a cell phone. Monica made a noise and the kid looked up from his phone. He moved over and said a quiet, “’Sup,” before getting back to his phone.

  Miles followed Monica, but he pulled up short when he saw the helmets. He balked at the idea of wearing a helmet, but Monica ignored him and stepped up to the rack behind the counter and strapped one on. She didn’t bother examining the karts to find the fastest machine; she got behind the wheel of the first kart in line and revved the engine. I heard the motor whine under the pressure of her foot and watched as she interpreted the language of the small combustible engine. Whatever she heard made her grin; the compact smile echoed in the lines that formed in the corners of her eyes.

  Miles flashed a smile of his own as he got behind the wheel of his kart. He revved the engine until the sound hurt my ears and then pulled alongside Monica. The driver gave the con man a glance and then turned her eyes back to the red light. Miles said something over the noise of the engines, but Monica didn’t respond. She cared only about the green.

  A group of college students passed me. The kid on the phone took his eyes off the screen long enough to get the trio helmets and point them towards the karts.

  Monica noticed the new drivers getting behind the wheels of the go-karts and looked over at the kid on his phone. She had to yell his name a couple of times before he pulled his eyes away from the texts that had captured his attention. Monica yelled, “Give us a minute, Frankie.”

  The pit crew member nodded and held up an open palm to the college students.

  One of the kids said, “What the fuck?”

  Monica looked over her shoulder and spoke just as loud. “Private race. It’ll be over in a minute.”

  The college kids wanted to gripe more about it, but Monica fed her kart some gas and the little engine showed that it still could.

  The pit crew member put his phone in his back pocket and fiddled with a control panel. Lights on the track went red, and yellow followed seconds later. The wait for green lasted ten long seconds before the light changed. Miles stomped on the gas and his tires spun on the track until the warm rubber found purchase. His car jolted forward and he set off down the track in second place. Monica, already twenty meters ahead of the con man, tore into the first turn without any hint of slowing down. She glided through the turn, utilizing both lanes to navigate the elbow bend in the track. Her body leaned into and out of the turn, and the kart missed the tires lining the side of the track by inches. Miles hit the same turn seconds after. A few seconds after that, he collided with the tires. The kart skidded sideways into the rubber, and the impact briefly sent the cart onto two wheels.

  I looked at the college kids and said, “You can go now.” The trio needed no furt
her encouragement. Engines whined in Texas Chainsaw Massacre enthusiasm. The pit crew member looked up from his phone and saw that the college kids were ready to give chase. I nodded towards the lights and then stared at the kid until he initiated the sequence. On the green, three karts exploded off the line. The three go-karts pounded into the tires of the first turn like a Mike Tyson body blow. I could see the college kids laugh and hoot as they muscled themselves out of the turn and onto the straightaway.

  Farther up the track, Monica was carving through the turns with the precision of a surgeon with OCD. Her body swayed with the motion of the kart as she forced it to move with an elegance that should have been foreign to such a utilitarian machine. Behind her, Miles attempted to use power to overcome his lack of finesse. On the final straightaway, Monica came out of the turn and let the engine loose. She was easing off the throttle when she noticed my hand pointing down the track. The smile disappeared and the throttle came back in an angry hornet’s drone. I watched Monica pass me and then I looked back at the track. I ignored Miles’s progress and instead focused on the college kids. They were just passing the halfway mark and were still intent on treating the go-karts like bumper cars.

  Monica had covered more than a quarter of the track when Miles pulled to a stop in front of me and pulled off his helmet. “Did I win?”

  I shook my head and kept my eyes on the track as Monica closed in on the college kids. She eased off the gas as she came out of a sharp turn and her momentum carried her within feet of the two slowest drivers. One of the pair used the straight stretch of track to veer left and then hard to the right. He drove the side of his kart into his friend and the two laughed as they rebounded off one another and flirted with the tires lining the track. Monica left the wake of the pair ahead of her and accelerated through the temporary hole they had left in the middle of the lane. The third driver heard the shouts of his friends that they had been lapped and flashed a look over his shoulder. He saw Monica and made a split-second decision that he wasn’t going to get lapped, too. The lead kart drifted into the centre of the lane and increased its speed. Monica edged closer on the right side, but the kid saw her coming and put his bumper in front of her. Monica eased off the gas as they came into the final turn; her opponent showed no sign of taking his foot off of the accelerator. The college kid’s tires screeched as he barely managed to hold the kart on the track. He scraped the tires but lost little of his speed. Monica kept her kart hugging the opposite side of the track. The positioning put Monica in line with the rear tires of the other kart. I waited for the engines to respond to both pedals kissing the floor as the two drivers raced to the finish line, but I got a different sound from down the track. The kid went for the finish line; Monica hit the gas and angled left into the thin bumper inches away. The impact just behind the rear tire of the kid’s car combined with his overcompensation coming out of the last turn forced the winning kart into a spin. Monica maneuvered by the other car as it came dangerously close to tipping and crossed the finish line in first place. If she cared about the fate of the other driver, I couldn’t tell.