by S. G. Browne
I don’t know if it’s just a fashion statement or if she believes the tabloid stories about luck poachers, but it seems as though more people today are wearing gloves than they used to. Mostly movie stars and high-profile professional athletes, along with the occasional career politician. But not your average Joe or Jane. Even if they believe in the stories about us, they can’t be bothered to take the necessary precautions. After all, people believe in earthquakes and epidemics and venereal diseases, too.
When it comes to disasters and tragedies and personal health, most people don’t believe that whatever might happen will actually happen to them. It’s just human nature. So they don’t take precautions. They don’t plan for the worst.
They don’t get vaccinated. They don’t practice safe sex. They don’t keep an emergency supply of food and water.
So expecting everyone to walk around wearing gloves to protect themselves against luck poachers is about as realistic as expecting everyone to use a condom.
After the fiasco at my sister’s and my encounter with Jimmy, my mood is subdued, so I decide to try to cheer myself up by altering the order of marks on the list. Instead of saving the best for last, I figure I could use a little pick-me-up right now.
Donna Baker, thirty-nine years old, lives in a blue, two-toned Victorian at 2470 Broadway, between Steiner and Pierce in the heart of Pacific Heights. According to Tommy’s list, her luck is top-grade soft.
That’s about the extent of what I know about Donna Baker.
I don’t know what attributes she exhibited to warrant her grade of good luck. I don’t know her history—personal, health, sexual. I don’t know if she’s liberal or conservative. Religious or spiritual. Vegetarian or carnivore.
All of these details make a difference. Not so much from a philosophical standpoint but from a physiological one. Political, religious, and dietary preferences have a significant influence on a person’s mental and physical health and, consequently, on his or her luck. You get a conservative Republican and you end up with good luck contaminated with self-righteous hypocrisy. Poach from a fanatic born-again Christian and you get luck polluted with intolerant irony. And if you take your chances with a blue-collar noncarnivore, you could end up with someone like Alex the Vegan Douche Bag.
The last thing I want to do is poach luck from some uptight Christian conservative who doesn’t get enough protein in her diet.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or option to find out any of this, so I just have to hope Donna Baker is a moderate liberal, does yoga, and eats bacon every once in a while.
Still, in spite of everything, I have to admit I’m excited and even a little anxious. It’s been a long time since I’ve poached top-grade soft. It would be like not having sex for three years and then meeting someone special and hoping you remember what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to do it and that you don’t do it too soon.
Nothing screws up your confidence like a premature poaching.
WE’RE PARKED ACROSS the street from Donna Baker’s. Alex sits in the front seat and alternately stares at me in the rearview mirror while reading a copy of Vegetarian Times as I drain the last of my cappuccino and finish off my apple fritter with a smile and a long, drawn-out “Mmm.”
“Animal killer,” he says.
“Douche bag.”
I climb out of the car and walk across the street, stopping beneath the shade of an elm tree to collect my thoughts and put on my game face. Poaching luck is a lot like a job interview—if you don’t make a good first impression, you’re probably not going to get what you came for.
Grandpa used to tell me that. Said poaching luck was like any artistic endeavor. The more you practiced, the better you got. It was a gift, he said, to be nurtured and not taken for granted. Bad habits bred bad results.
Grandpa was always full of useful information.
Whenever possible, he would coach me on different techniques and approaches and the dos and don’ts of poaching:
Always act like you’re in charge.
Keep your head clear and your eyes open.
And never poach under the influence of a woman.
Needless to say, my father tried to keep Grandpa away from me and my sister as much as possible, limiting my grandfather’s visits after my mother died in the hopes that he could prevent us from following the poacher’s path. But even though I only saw my grandfather a few dozen times and I was only twelve years old when he died, I still remember everything he told me.
That doesn’t mean I always put it into practice.
After a few deep breaths and a quick adjustment of my tie, I walk up to the front door and ring the bell, hoping Donna Baker isn’t married and doesn’t have any children. Or at least if she does, that she’s home alone. The last thing I want is another encounter like the one I just had with Jimmy Saltzman. Plus, parents are more wary and distrustful of strangers when their children are present. If her husband answers instead, then I’m going to have to abort, which means I won’t be able to come back.
That thought almost ruins the good mood I’ve manufactured for myself. But when Donna answers the door alone, I’m confident this will be an easy score.
“May I help you?” she asks.
“Good afternoon,” I say, extending my right hand. “My name is William Kennedy and I’m setting up a local Neighborhood Watch program.”
People tend to trust someone trying to do something for the safety of the neighborhood more than they do a door-to-door salesman or a special-interest representative or a religious solicitor. And William is a name everyone seems to trust. It’s nonthreatening and has a formality to it that puts people at ease. Likewise, Kennedy has a presidential appeal that still runs strong nearly fifty years after the end of Camelot.
When you’re poaching luck door-to-door, trust is everything. You can’t just pick a random name or crusade and expect people to relax when they live in a multimillion-dollar house and a stranger knocks on their door. Poaching is an art form, not unlike being on the stage. All you have to do is convince your audience that you are whom they want you to be.
“Nice to meet you,” she says. She still doesn’t trust me enough to offer her own name, but I’m not looking for that level of acceptance. All I need is her hand, which she gives to me.
Easy as pie.
Most people don’t notice when their luck runs out, so to speak. It leaves without fanfare, like sweat through your pores or air from your lungs. Donna Baker might notice a slight temperature change or a momentary acceleration of her heart rate, but it’s nothing the human body doesn’t go through multiple times each day.
I, on the other hand, feel a surge of adrenaline through my arteries and organs and tendons. My lungs expand and my pulse quickens. I can feel my pores opening and my face flushing and the blood pumping through my veins. I feel all of this happening in the span of just a few seconds.
The problem is, it’s been more than three years since I’ve poached top-grade soft and I’m out of practice. The sensations overwhelm me and I stagger back a step from the front door with Donna Baker’s hand still clasped in mine.
“Hey, let go of me!” She yanks her hand away. Before I can offer up an apology or try to calm her down, the front door slams and the dead bolt clicks into place. But I’m too busy enjoying the thrill of scoring top-grade soft to worry about what happens next.
The initial moments after a successful poaching of top-grade soft are intense. Colors turn rich and vibrant and full of texture, like an IMAX movie in 3-D or a Van Gogh painting on acid. Half a block away, you hear a crow take flight, hear its wings flap, then a car engine comes to life. You smell the oil on the street and the coffee on your breath and the honeysuckle in the yard next door. Your pores release perspiration to cool your skin as the sun heats the air around you. You feel this. You experience every moment, every fraction of time. It’s as if existence has slowed down and you’re moving at twice your normal speed.
It doesn’
t last forever, this heightening of the senses. This immersion in perception. Being engulfed by colors and sounds and aromas. But for the moment, I’m a walking paradox.
I’m buoyant and grounded. Distracted and focused. Yielding and invincible.
Poachers have used a term over the years to refer to what we experience after scoring top-grade soft. How we feel. Where we go. Our personal nirvana.
A place we call Softland.
I don’t know who coined the term, but it’s been around since before my grandfather, and it’s been used in a number of ways to describe the rush of having high-grade good luck flowing through your system.
Going to Softland. Tripping in Softland. Riding the Softland Express.
Though it isn’t a good idea to let good luck, especially top-grade soft, stay in your system for more than an hour. The longer you have it, the more you crave the high of something you can’t keep. Something that doesn’t belong to you. Something that can become an all-consuming obsession.
More than a few poachers have gotten lost on the road to Softland and never found their way back. Good luck is like any drug. You need to know how to control it rather than allowing it to control you. I’ve never had a problem. I’ve never allowed myself to get swept up in the high or surrender myself to the ride.
But right now, after more than three years of waiting to get a ticket on the Softland Express, I don’t want to get off.
In spite of the flood of invincibility that accompanies poaching top-grade soft, I know I’m pushing my luck by sticking around. So after one last deep inhale of honeysuckle, oil, and coffee, I turn around and head toward the Lincoln town car, feeling the pavement through the soles of my shoes and the blood rushing through my veins.
I don’t pay attention to the approaching hum of tires on asphalt until it’s too late.
A black, unmarked sedan with tinted windows brakes to a sliding stop in front of me. Both passenger-side doors open and two men who look like Jake and Elwood Blues, complete with sunglasses and ties but sans the fedoras, emerge from the sedan. I’m half expecting them to start dancing while singing “Soul Man” or “Shotgun Blues.” Instead, each grabs hold of one of my arms without so much as a shuffle or a note.
As I’m being escorted toward the back of the sedan, I hear tires squealing and I look to see the Lincoln town car with Alex behind the wheel take off down the street.
So much for his tip.
Moments later the door is closed and I’m inside the sedan on a bench seat with my back toward the windshield, sitting next to Elwood Blues and facing Barry Manilow.
“What are you doing here?” asks Barry.
“Are you talking in an existential sense?” I ask as the sedan drives away from Donna Baker’s house. “Why are we here? The whole philosophy-of-the-cosmos thing? Or are you being more specific?”
“Why are you here? At this address? Poaching luck?”
“Well, I am a luck poacher. Asking me why I’m poaching luck is kind of like asking a prostitute why she’s having sex. It’s just . . . wait a minute. That’s not the right analogy. Let me come up with a better one.”
“I don’t want to hear your analogies,” says Barry. “I just want you to answer the question.”
“I thought I just did.”
He lets out an exasperated sigh. “What the fuck have you been doing?”
“That’s a long story.” I lean my head back against the soft leather of the bench seat and close my eyes, relaxing into the luxury. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”
The interior of the car smells like leather and sweat and body odor. Someone had a lot of garlic for lunch. Either that or they’re warding off vampires.
“I’m not interested in your day,” says Barry. “All I want to know is did you deliver the bad luck to Tommy Wong?”
“Sort of,” I say, my eyes still closed.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘sort of’?”
I wish he would stop talking. Or at least speak in hushed tones. His voice is like a cannon booming inside the interior of the car.
I can feel the car engine vibrating through the sedan’s frame like a racing pulse. The sound of the tires humming on the asphalt is an angry swarm of bees.
“I mean he sort of drugged me and took the bad luck,” I say, opening my eyes. “So theoretically I delivered it to him. It’s really just a matter of semantics. How about we call it even?”
“God damn it!” Barry looks out the window with his lips pursed for a few moments before turning back to me with a scowl. “This is not the way things were supposed to go down. You’ve managed to turn this into a complete clusterfuck.”
“So now we’re pointing fingers?”
He continues to stare at me, unamused.
I think about breaking into “Can’t Smile Without You” to cheer him up, but I can’t remember the melody. So I run through the library of Barry Manilow tunes in my head, trying to come up with an appropriate icebreaker, then realize one of the songs is “Mandy,” which I find kind of funny. Though I don’t think either Barry or Mandy would appreciate the humor.
“Where did you get the ride?” he asks.
“What ride?”
“The one that drove you to your sister’s and then to a house in Russian Hill, then pulled out of here like Mario Andretti when we showed up.”
“Oh, that. I just felt like treating myself a little special today.”
I look at Barry and notice that he has dandruff on his eyelashes. And he needs to exfoliate. And the pores on his nose are like tiny open mouths sucking for air.
He could really use a facial.
“Are you working for Tommy Wong?” asks Barry.
“Define working.”
Barry gives me a look that tells me he doesn’t have a dictionary. Either that or he has a limited vocabulary.
“Search him,” says Barry.
Elwood reaches into the pockets of my suit jacket, both the exterior and the interior, and digs around, removing items, patting the pockets of my pants, then searching those, too. In my current frame of mind, it’s more than just a simple patdown. His hands this close to me, searching through my clothes, fills me with a sense of being violated. Assaulted. Invaded.
I’m Normandy. I’m Palestine. I’m a rectum at a proctologist convention.
When Elwood finishes searching me, he’s removed a Starbucks gift card, a roll of Mentos, a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, my keys, wallet, phone, and the folded list of marks, which he hands to Barry. Not that he hands everything to Barry. Just the list. The Ray-Bans, keys, wallet, and phone he gives back to me. The Mentos and Starbucks gift card he pockets. Asshole.
“Your brother’s a more talented singer,” I say to him.
“What?” says Elwood.
“Jake,” I say, nodding toward the front passenger seat. “He’s got a better voice.”
“Who’s Jake?”
“Though I thought you were great in Ghostbusters.”
“What?”
“But Caddyshack II sucked.”
The smell of garlic is definitely coming from Elwood. Which is probably why he took the Mentos. So I’ll cut him some slack. Plus the joke’s on him—the gift card from Starbucks only has seventy-five cents left on it.
“This is a list of poaching targets,” says Barry, holding the list up for me to see, as if I didn’t know what it was. I always appreciate a good demonstration of the obvious. “Where did you get this?”
“From an envelope on my desk.”
He looks at the list again as if to confirm I’m telling the truth.
“Okay, how about this for an analogy?” I say. “Asking me why I’m poaching luck is like asking the mailman why he’s delivering the mail.”
Barry and Elwood don’t respond but just stare at me.
“You’re right,” I say. “That one doesn’t work, either.”
The sedan continues along Broadway and across Polk Street. Outside, I see men and women walking past the Little Thai
restaurant, crossing the street. I hear snippets of conversation through the windshield, and I see faces as clearly as if I were standing next to them. For an instant I think I see Scooter Girl standing out in front of Shanghai Kelly’s Saloon. Then we’re through the intersection and she’s gone.
“What are you looking at?” says Barry.
“Nothing. Just enjoying the scenery.”
“Well, you won’t be enjoying it much longer. My partner is missing and we have reason to believe Tommy Wong has something to do with her disappearance.”
I consider telling Barry about how his dead partner ended up in my office and that she was double-crossing him, but that would probably make things awkward.
I never was good at breaking bad news.
“The fact that you’re apparently working for Tommy makes you an accessory to conspiracy, racketeering, fraud, extortion, bribery, kidnapping, and possibly murder.”
“Is that all? What about global warming?”
“This isn’t a joking matter,” says Barry. “So you might want to change your attitude before you make things worse for yourself.”
Honestly, why is everyone I’m meeting today channeling my father?
The late-afternoon sunlight outside the sedan is replaced by the artificial lights of the Broadway Tunnel as we hurtle under Russian Hill toward North Beach. I don’t know how long this ride is going to last or where I’m going to end up when they decide to let me out, and I know I should be concerned. But when you’ve got 100 percent top-grade good luck pumping through your system, everything seems to take on a Bobby McFerrin quality.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
Still, I realize I need to make a play here. Come up with something that will get Barry off my back and allow me to focus on dealing with Tommy. And keep Mandy from getting hurt.
“Tell you what,” I say. “Let’s make a deal.”
“What do I look like?” says Barry. “A game show host?”
“Actually,” I say to Elwood, “I think he looks like Barry Manilow.”
