by S. G. Browne
But I know this feeling won’t last. Eventually the rush will subside and I’ll need to process the luck into a consumable form. The sooner, the better. The last thing I want is to end up addicted to luck like one of the poachers in Grandpa’s cautionary tales. And after the large mocha from Peet’s and the two cappuccinos from Starbucks, my bladder is lobbying for some stage time. So I catch a cab home to transfer Ralph’s luck out of my system and into an empty Odwalla bottle, which I put into my refrigerator with the two other bottles of Super Protein and the four remaining bottles of Lemonade.
At least my stash is still there.
The rush of poaching good luck is offset by the complete feeling of abandonment when you process it from your body. It’s as if all of the hope and confidence and strength you obtained suddenly drains away, leaving you feeling empty and useless. Add to that the discomfort of having a catheter inserted into your urethra and you might understand why so many poachers end up committing suicide.
Transferring luck from your system isn’t the most pleasant part of being a luck poacher, but it’s part of the job. I could collect my urine in a jar and boil out the impurities, but you just can’t compete in today’s economy with outdated methods. No one wants to buy partially urinated good luck. Unless you live in Arkansas. I hear it’s a delicacy there.
The homeless guy who was camped out in front of my building a few hours ago is gone, but on the corner is a woman who looks as if she hasn’t seen a bar of soap in a few months. To balance out the karma for the luck I just stole, I give her one of the Lemonades and tell her it’s spiked with vodka, then I grab a cab back to my office to do a little research on my Gordon Knight poaching, see if I can find the client who purchased his luck and get that ball rolling. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but at least I have some direction and purpose, so that should count for something.
My dad would be so proud.
As I step out of the cab on the corner of Sutter and Kearny, I get a smile from a leggy redhead with abundant cleavage, who glances back at me over her shoulder, and I’m thinking maybe, in spite of all that’s happened today, things will work themselves out.
I’m still thinking that when I walk into my office and find a dead body.
There aren’t a whole lot of places to hide a dead body in a room that’s barely a hundred square feet and decorated in Early American austere. Other than behind the door, under the desk, or camouflaged as white stucco walls or faded cherry hardwood floors, your options are pretty limited. But I’m guessing that whoever put the dead body in the corner behind my desk wasn’t going for subtlety.
This isn’t what I would exactly call things working themselves out.
I’m not used to dealing with a dead body. Let’s try never. The only other time I saw a dead person was my mother, and that was twenty-four years ago. To be honest, I think I was more traumatized by my father blaming me for my mother’s death than I was by the accident.
So when I see the body slumped against the wall, legs splayed out from the red dress, head tilted to one side, dark hair spilled across the face, mouth open and eyes staring vacantly at the floor, the first thing I do is scream.
At least it’s an honest reaction.
It’s not a long or loud scream. More like a yelp. I doubt anyone heard it, but it’s still not one of my defining moments. Despite that no one else is in the office, I look around self-consciously and try to play it off, like I was walking down the street and tripped over my own feet and I’m hoping to pawn the blame off on the sidewalk.
Once I get over the initial shock, I walk over to the body and crouch down to get a closer look to make sure she’s really dead. I don’t touch her but I snap my fingers, clap my hands, and lean in close enough to whistle in her ear. Nothing. Not a peep or a flinch or a smile. She’s just sitting there, eyes wide-open and not breathing, waiting for rigor mortis to set in. So she’s not faking. Which would explain why she doesn’t smell so much like sugar or spice or everything nice anymore.
I back up to give her some space, more for me than for her, and notice that her dress is riding up on her thighs. I wasn’t lying to Tommy when I said I don’t look good in red. Not my color. Put me in greens and blues and I’m good to go. But I look better in red than Tommy’s dead eye candy.
I check around S’iu Lei for blood, marks on her throat, signs of a struggle, anything to let me know what might have happened. But there’s nothing. It’s as if she just dropped into the corner of my office and died.
I know this is a setup. My father’s assessment notwithstanding, I’m not an idiot. The problem is, do I call this in? Do I wait for whoever killed her to report it? Or do I try to dispose of the evidence without getting caught?
I could stuff her in a garbage bag and dump her down the trash chute, except I don’t have any garbage bags and we’re not supposed to put oversize garbage in the chute that might clog it up. I could cut her up into smaller pieces so she’d fit, just like on The Sopranos, but that would make a mess, and besides, I got a B- in woodshop. And walking out the front door of my building with a dead woman over my shoulder and hailing a cab is bound to draw attention.
So disposing of her body is out.
If I wait around for whoever killed her to call it in, I’ll look suspicious. The last thing I need is to have the police digging around in my life, doing a background check, and discovering that I’m not who I say I am.
Which doesn’t leave me with many other options.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m taking out my phone to dial 911.
Because I poach luck for a living, I often find myself in compromising or awkward situations, but I’m not used to dealing with dead Asian double agents and rich femmes fatales and getting kidnapped and drugged by Chinese Mafia overlords. Things were a lot less complicated when I lived in the suburbs. So it takes a few seconds before my synapses start firing and I realize how much trouble I’ll be in if a dead body is found in my office, no matter who calls it in.
I hang up the phone without dialing and look down at S’iu Lei, at her body growing cold and stiff on my floor, and I wonder who killed her and put her here and why. I wonder if Tommy killed her as some kind of warning. I wonder if Barry found out she was double-crossing him and wanted to use my office to store her for safekeeping.
But mostly, I wonder how the hell I’m going to get her dead body out of here without getting arrested.
I’m still wondering this when my phone rings.
“Nick Monday,” I say, as if nothing is wrong. As if this is business as usual. As if I’m not trying to ignore the hot, dead Asian double agent slumped in the corner of my office.
“Did you find the surprise I left for you?” says Tommy.
“I’m not real big on surprises.”
And from the expression on S’iu Lei’s face, I’m guessing neither is she.
“Consider it a going-away present,” says Tommy.
“I didn’t know I was going anywhere.”
“That depends on how smart you are.”
I suddenly feel like I’m having another conversation with my father.
“You know, if you wanted to get me something, a bottle of wine would have been just fine,” I say. “Or maybe a nice spinach dip.”
“You joke a lot for a man who doesn’t have too many options.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of options. The fact that I don’t like any of them is the problem.”
There’s laughter on the other end of the line. Soft. Chuckling. Kind of creepy. “I like you, Nick Monday.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got a strange way of showing it.”
I glance over again at S’iu Lei, at her splayed legs and her half-hidden face and her slightly parted lips, and I wonder what she did to get here.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“Let’s just say anyone who plays too many sides eventually ends up forgetting which one they’re on.”
“That’s why I prefer circles. There’s just an insid
e and an outside. Less confusing.”
“Yes, but if you walk in circles, you never get anywhere.”
Definitely like talking to my father.
“From where I’m standing, you seem to be on the outside,” says Tommy. “And that’s the wrong side.”
I never was good at geometry. “Is that what this is all about? Choosing sides?”
“More like a friendly reminder,” he says.
“Well, for future reference, you might want to try some positive reinforcement. Movie passes are always good. Or a box of chocolates. Nuts and chews. I’m not a big fan of liqueur-filled truffles.”
“You want to continue being a smart-ass or you want to be smart?”
“Have you ever met my father?” I ask. “Tall, heavyset, prematurely balding? Lots of control issues?”
“I can make your problem go away. In return, all I ask is one favor.”
“I told you. I don’t look good in red.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Apparently Tommy isn’t in much of a joking mood.
“Okay. What’s the favor?” I ask.
“Can I trust you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. But you have to choose a side. Inside or outside?”
I consider saying something about triangles and parallelograms, but I decide that probably won’t help matters.
“I’m on the inside.”
“Good,” says Tommy. “Now that’s what I like to hear.”
An awkward silence follows. I’m not sure if it’s because of Tommy, me, or that I’m staring at a dead body.
“So about this gift you left me?” I ask, looking at S’iu Lei. “It doesn’t really go with my office. Is there any way I can return it?”
“I’ll send someone over to take you out to lunch.”
“Lunch? Is that code for something?”
“It’s code for someone taking you out to lunch,” he says. “When you get back, your visitor will be gone. You’re welcome.”
“Great. Can we get Italian?”
“I don’t care. Just make sure you don’t ask any stupid questions. And don’t disappoint me. Or else the next time you get dumped in an alley, you won’t wake up.”
“Good to know,” I say. “By the way, you didn’t happen to find ten thousand dollars in the backpack that you took from me, did you?”
“No.”
I didn’t think so.
Then he’s gone, leaving me with a dead connection in my hand and a dead body in my office.
Just because I’m curious, I walk over to S’iu Lei, bend down, then reach out a single index finger and poke her in the calf.
Less than a minute later, there’s a knock on my office door.
I have to hand it to Tommy. He’s drugged me. Kidnapped me. Drugged me again. Threatened me. And extorted me into working for him. But I have to give him props for following through and getting someone over here so quickly to remove the dead body from my office. It’s hard to find good customer service these days.
When I open the door, I expect to find a couple of Mafia thugs with a laundry bag or a crate, maybe a skill saw and wall-to-wall disposable plastic tarps. I know it’s just my imagination running away with me, and not in a Rolling Stones kind of way, but right now, my imagination, not time, is the only thing on my side.
Instead of one of Tommy’s men standing in the hallway, I find Scooter Girl.
“Hey,” she says.
She stands there, wearing her precocious smile framed by her soft lips, staring at me with her big, innocent eyes beneath her cute little bangs. She’s like an anime cartoon. My heart’s suddenly pounding and my palms are sweating.
Either she’s carrying Pure or I’m falling in love.
“Are you here to take me out to lunch?”
“Yes.” She nods once as if I’ve asked the right question. “That’s why I’m here.”
I stand there for a moment, just looking at her, which she responds to by smiling and cocking her head in a way that makes me wish I had a breath mint.
The longer I look at her, the more I realize that she reminds me of Tuesday a little around the eyes and mouth. But as opposed to Tuesday’s adorned, movie-star voluptuousness, Scooter Girl is attractive in a girl-next-door kind of way. Cute, pleasant face. No makeup. The kind of woman I could definitely fall for rather than lust after, even if she did encroach on my poaching territory and get me beat up by a bunch of skater dudes and is apparently working for Tommy Wong. But then, I guess I’m technically working for him now, too. So I can’t exactly throw any stones without shattering my own house. Or hitting an adulteress. Whatever.
I never was good with proverbs and metaphors.
“Just a second,” I say, stepping into my office and closing the door and removing my bloodstained shirt, then grabbing my navy-blue Gap sweatshirt off the coatrack. I look once more at S’iu Lei collapsed in the corner like an abandoned erotic marionette, then I step back out into the hallway and lock the door behind me.
“So,” I say, “what’s for lunch?”
We’re sitting at a window table at Scala’s Bistro, an upscale Italian restaurant next to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Powell Street. Scooter Girl is having the spinach-and-goat-cheese tortellini while I chow down on the linguine and clams. It’s the most expensive pasta item on the menu. Throw in half a dozen oysters for an appetizer and a couple of Bellinis and this is the priciest meal I’ve had in months. I figure if Tommy’s picking up the tab, I might as well make the most of it.
“How’s your tortellini?” I ask.
“It’s good. How’s the linguine?”
“Great.”
This is what our conversation has been like. Me asking banal questions and Scooter Girl responding in kind. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to talk to a woman. And most of my attempts at humor have either fallen flat or elicited a cold stare. I’d talk about Tommy and our common genetics, but when you’re luck poachers, you can’t really discuss business in public.
Of course, there’s the whole dead-body-in-my-office thing, which could have something to do with the stilted conversation.
We eat in silence for a few minutes. No meaningful glances. No awkward smiles. Any connection I thought I’d felt earlier today seems to have been severed.
“So,” I say, slurping a strand of linguine between my lips, hoping to lighten things up, “if I can get you to tell me what you’re doing in San Francisco, does that initial offer of yours still stand?”
Just call me Mr. Smooth.
“I told you, I don’t have sex with men who poach bad luck.”
“You want to keep your voice down?” I say. “This isn’t exactly information I want to share with my adoring public.”
“Sorry.” She goes back to her tortellini.
I look around to see if anyone heard. One, because I don’t want to get outed as a luck poacher. And two, saying you poached bad luck is like announcing to the world you’re a premature ejaculator.
“So how could you tell?” I ask, leaning forward, lowering my voice. “I mean, that, well, you know?”
She stares at me a moment, not answering, giving me a look that once more reminds me of Tuesday, until she finally says, “It was in your aura.”
Whatever that means. Auras, energy, astrology. Psychics, crystals, Reiki candles. All that New Age crap and I get along about as well as an alien abductee and an anal probe.
“But I don’t poach bad luck,” I whisper. “At least, not anymore. And I only did it once.”
She shrugs and takes another bite of her tortellini. “It’s like herpes. Once is all it takes.”
It’s bad enough to get turned down for sex by a cute little luck poacher who screwed you over once already. But when you’ve been compared to herpes, that’s when you know you should have stayed in bed.
The emasculation of my ego and the introduction of sexually transmitted diseases puts a damper on the conversation, so we continue to eat in more silence. I
watch her watching me, neither of us looking away. It’s a battle of wills. And it’s not easy to eat linguine and clams without looking down at your plate.
Scooter Girl finally breaks down. “So, Nick Monday. Is that your real name?”
I return her question with a quizzical smile.
“What?” she asks.
“You’re the second person today to ask me that question.”
“Who was the first one?”
“Barry Manilow.”
She stares at me across the table with a single arched eyebrow.
“He’s a big fan,” I say.
The waiter comes by to check on our satisfaction and to ask if we need anything. I could use a do-over on today, maybe get a nice Thai massage or a lap dance, but I don’t think he can help me with either, so I just ask for another Bellini. Scooter Girl asks for the check, which I suppose means she’s had enough of my company.
“Do private detectives always drink on duty?” she asks.
“Depends on the day. And I suppose on the detective.”
“How long have you been a detective?”
“Long enough,” I say, finishing my second Bellini before the third one has arrived. I’d drink some water in the interim to keep myself hydrated, but there’s no booze in water, so what would be the point?
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Which one?” I say. “I’ve lost track.”
“The one about your name.”
The waiter comes back with my Bellini, which I use to wash down the last of my linguine. That my drink and my main course rhyme doesn’t help to improve my mood.
“My name’s real enough,” I say, trying to sound suave and mysterious, but it comes off more like annoyed and petulant. Which I suppose is more honest. “How about you? Do you have a name, real or otherwise?”
“Sorry. Top secret.”
“Like your reason for being here?”
She just gives me an innocent smile.
This is how I live. In a world of professional anonymity. A world of people with fake names and false identities. Or people with no names at all. Faceless people who solicit my services with a phone call or a text message. Customers who meet me in dark alleys or corporate coffeehouses. Strangers who pick me up in unmarked government sedans or who take me out to lunch.
