by Gary Jonas
How did people without rich parents make it in the world?
I tossed my phone on the nightstand, stretched out on the bed, and went to sleep.
When all else fails, take a nap. That was my motto.
And when it came to taking naps, I had loads of experience.
Too bad nobody would pay me to sleep.
My eyes snapped open. Sleep studies!
A quick web search told me that people often paid to be subjects because they were trying to fix sleep disorders. I didn’t have a sleep disorder. I could sleep just fine. But they wouldn’t pay me for that. Bastards.
Back to sleep.
My phone rang.
I sat up. Teddy.
“Now you call,” I said.
“No hello?” he asked. “What’s up?”
“You called me, dude.”
“You called me first, Brett. I’m just returning your call. Did practice get changed again?”
“Actually, I’m looking for a place to live.”
“What happened?”
“My old man cut me off.”
“Sorry, man.”
“Any chance you could use a roommate?”
“I’m in a one bedroom. If your cousin wanted to stay with me, she would be welcome, but I don’t have room for another dude to crash here.”
“Oh well,” I said.
“What did you do to piss-off your old man?”
“Disappointed him as usual.”
“Maybe you can un-disappoint him.”
“Un-disappoint isn’t even a word.”
“It should be,” he said. “My point is that you had to have done something or more likely in your case, not done something that upset your dad. Can’t you make it up to him somehow? Get back on his good side?”
“I don’t think so, Teddy.”
“You had a sweet deal for a while. You’ll land on your feet. Guys like you always do.”
“Guys like me?”
“I don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“Look, man, I came from a poor family. I’ve had to bust my ass for everything I ever got, and I can never get ahead because just paying the bills takes all my money. Guys like you, and by that I mean guys from rich families, don’t have to work as hard because you’re starting on third base. With what it takes for me to just get to first base lands you a home run.”
“Is that how you see it?”
“That’s how it is, Brett. It’s what we call a universal truth.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Really? You want real-world examples? Have you ever gone hungry because you couldn’t afford to buy groceries?”
“No.”
“I have.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You’re a good guy, Brett, but you’ve always lived on Easy Street.”
“I just got evicted from Easy Street.”
“Guys like you always have a way back, though. Guys like me will never get there to begin with. Life ain’t fair, my brother. The Constitution may declare that all men were created equal, but some are more equal than others.”
“I don’t think Thomas Jefferson would have seen it that way,” I said.
“His slaves would have,” Teddy said. “Look, I’d love to philosophize, but I’m only on break. Just so you know, a break is something working folks get so they can catch their breath between many hours of hard work. Later, tater.”
And he hung up.
In order to survive, I’d need money. And it occurred to me that I had something of value in my bag. Delgado had offered me millions of dollars for the Tarot cards. His card was still in my wallet.
Maybe Teddy was right. Guys like me do land on their feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Delgado answered on the fourth ring. “Delgado,” he said.
“How’s it going, Mario?” I said.
“You have the wrong number.” The accent was gone.
“Don’t hang up,” I said. “This is Brett Masters.”
“Oh. I told you to call me yesterday morning.”
“Better late than never,” I said. “Your name isn’t Mario?”
“Mario is my brother. He lives in Spain.”
“So what’s your name?”
“Mr. Delgado.”
Playing it close to the vest. It made sense, of course. I was from a powerful family of wizards, and names can be used in spells and magic. “You still want the cards?” I asked.
“You know that I do.”
“Still willing to pay for them?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“The terms.”
“You offered me fifty million dollars. That works for me.”
He laughed. “That offer has expired.”
My phone beeped with an incoming call. I glanced at the screen and saw it was Sabrina. “Hang on, I have a call coming in right now,” I said.
“Perhaps you should take it and call me back.”
“It’s just my cousin. It will go to voicemail in a second.”
“Very well.”
The beeping stopped.
“Where were we?” I asked. “Oh yeah, you were going to make me a fresh offer.”
“Very well. Are you listening?”
“Of course.”
“Your attention span seemed awfully short the other day.”
“Dude, make me an offer already.”
The beeping started again. Sabrina trying to call back.
“Let me lay this out for you,” he said.
“Hang on, dude,” I said. “My cousin is being persistent.”
“You will give the cards to me,” he said, “and I will—”
“I can’t hear you over the beeping.”
“Decline the call so we can speak.”
“I tried. Okay, there, she hung up. Let’s try this again. You were saying?”
“I was saying that you will give the cards to me, and—”
“Goddamn it,” I said as Sabrina called back a third time. “She just won’t stop.”
Delgado sighed. “I don’t believe this,” he said.
“Sorry, man. I don’t believe it either. Let me put you on hold and I’ll get rid of her.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I tapped the screen to hold and answer.
“What do you want, Sabrina?”
“It’s still me,” Delgado said.
“Oh, sorry.” I tapped the screen again, this time making sure it took the connection. “Hello?”
“They have your father, and they’re coming for me,” Sabrina said. Her voice was filled with panic.
“Slow down,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“Mako Clansmen! I’m out of power, Brett. They’re going to—”
A crash sounded and the line went dead.
“Hello?” I said.
“Welcome back, Mr. Masters,” Delgado said.
“Yeah, dude, I’m going to have to call you back. Something came up.”
“I did,” he said.
“Not sure what you mean,” I said. “But I have a family emergency. I’ll call you when I can.”
“I am your emergency!”
“Dude,” I said taking the phone away from my ear. “No need to yell. I know you want the cards. I’m happy to sell them, but we’ll have to work out the details tomorrow. Cheers,” I said and hung up.
I grabbed my hotel keycard, and stuck it into my wallet with Delgado’s card as I headed toward the door. Before my hand touched the handle, my phone rang.
It was Delgado’s number.
I answered. “Dude, I don’t mean to be rude here, but I have something to deal with right now. I said I’ll call you back.”
“If you hang up, I will kill your father,” he said.
It finally registered. “Oh,” I said. “You were saying you were my emergency, as in you have my father.”
“And I will kill him if
you don’t give me the cards.”
“The son of a bitch cut me off, so go ahead and kill him,” I said.
“What?”
“You heard me. You’ll be doing me a favor. I don’t know how you managed to get him.”
“My agents captured him.”
“Raymond and Jensen?”
“That’s correct.”
“This I gotta hear,” I said.
“My men were already parked in front of the house when your father pulled up behind them. They followed him up to the house, and while he was fumbling with his house keys, they smacked him upside the head with a baseball bat.”
“Wizards are never ready for the mundane shit,” I said.
“They have your cousin, too.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“They called after you hung up. Simple home invasion. She tried to go on the offensive, but it was too late. Then she tried to run upstairs. Foolish girl. I had plenty of men. They swarmed after her.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever gotten the best of my father. Good work.”
“Here’s how this will work,” he said. “You will bring me the cards, and I will free your father and cousin.”
“I’ll pass on that deal.”
“What? I’ll kill them!”
I paced the hotel room. “Dude, this is a negotiation. I have something you want, and you have something I want. We just need to agree on the terms.”
“My terms are the cards for your family members.”
“Those aren’t acceptable terms. You offered me fifty million dollars for the cards. You’re going to have to pony up some cash for this deal to go through.”
“I will kill them.”
“And I’ll still have the cards.”
“You don’t even want the cards.”
“And you don’t want my father or my cousin.”
“So we trade or I kill them.”
“You’re missing the point here. You have to offer me something I want. I don’t want my father. I want money. I don’t really want my cousin either, but I’ll come down on my price a bit if you spare her. I want twenty million dollars.”
“Ten million.”
“I can probably get by for a few years on ten million dollars,” I said, “but at that bargain basement price, you have to agree to let Sabrina go, and you have to promise to kill my father. But I want to watch him die. Got it?”
“You want to watch him die?”
“He ruined my life,” I said.
“You must really hate him.”
“You have no idea.”
“Deal,” he said.
“Cool,” I said. “Go ahead and wire the ten million to my account. Do you have a pen? I’ll give you the account number.”
“My bank is in Barcelona. It’s just after five o’clock in the evening here, so it’s,” he hesitated because math is hard, “just after midnight there.”
“Banks open at eight, right?”
“Correct. So you will bring the cards to the jetty on the beach between 16th and 17th Street in just under eight hours. Call it one o’clock in the morning.”
“Sounds good. I’ll have my driver bring me out. See you in a few hours.”
“You are a strange man.”
“Like most guys my age, I blame my father for my problems. I’m just willing to take it all the way, as long as I don’t have to lift a finger, of course. Oh, word to the wise? Keep him sedated or he’ll kill us all.”
“I know how to handle powerful wizards. Remember that when you come to make the trade.”
“I’ve never had much luck with magic, Mr. Delgado. You would do well to remember that.”
And I hung up.
Now, I’m not an idiot. I knew he never had any intention of letting my father go. My father was far too powerful to catch and release. He’s not a fish. He’s one of the most powerful wizards in the world with an ego to match. Delgado knew my father would hunt him down and kill him, so my father was doomed from the start.
When it came to Sabrina, it could go either way. She had magical powers, of course, and she was good at using them, but she relied on them too much. She wouldn’t pose much of a threat if he let her live, but guys like Delgado would probably opt for killing her on the better safe than sorry excuse.
And that left poor little young me. If Delgado wanted to use those Tarot cards, he’d run into a slight problem because they were tuned to me. He wasn’t an idiot. He had to know they were tuned to me. That meant for him to use the cards, I would have to be swimming with the fishes.
Or, more likely, eaten by the sharks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The call went like this.
“Hey, Michael.”
“Hey, Brett.”
“I need a ride to the beach to face off against a powerful wizard and an army of Mako Clansmen.”
“Cool. When?”
“Gotta be there at one.”
“Cool. Want to grab a few drinks?”
“I’m not drinking blood.”
“I’m not sharing blood.”
I gave him the address for the hotel.
“Why are you over there?”
“Tell you over drinks.”
“You buying?”
“The drinks were your idea.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll buy.”
Odds were I wouldn’t live to see tomorrow, so I figured I should get a few free drinks before getting eaten alive by shark men. And hey, the Mako guys might appreciate it because if I drank enough, maybe I could get them drunk too.
Probably not. There wouldn’t be enough of me to go around.
Some of those shark guys were going to have to go hungry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The bar was dead.
Michael chose a neighborhood place on the way to the Seawall. It was a little dive bar. Jukebox cranking out old songs by Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, and Loretta Lynn. A beat-up pool table with a few balls scattered on top and a pool cue lying there from the end of the last game. Two old guys at the bar trading lies about the good old days, and a drunk woman wishing she could get the attention of one of the old guys.
The bartender was a woman in her early sixties who had seen the worst the world had to offer and wasn’t impressed.
We bellied up to the bar, and Michael pointed to the counter in front of us. “Couple of whiskeys,” he said.
The bartender nodded, and slid two glasses across the counter. “You want a tab or pay as you go?”
He handed her two crisp hundred dollar bills. “Keep them coming until we hit a hundred bucks. The other bill is yours.”
She nodded, tossed one bill on the register, and stuffed the other in her pocket. She wandered off, still not impressed.
Michael pushed one glass toward me. He pulled a silver flask from his pocket and poured some blood into his whiskey.
I patted the pocket of my cargo shorts. The Tarot cards were zipped up and safe, but the weight of them wasn’t reassuring. Stupid cards were going to cost me my life. Not cool.
After a few drinks, I asked, “Am I an asshole?”
Michael nodded. “Yeah, but we like you anyway.”
“Teddy thinks I’m more equal than slaves or some shit.”
“Teddy is right,” Michael said.
We’d gone over this a couple of times already, but I couldn’t remember what all I’d said so far. The drinks didn’t have any effect on Michael. Being dead meant he kept a clear head. After five or six whiskeys, I was spiraling downward, but thought I was profound and had the secrets of the universe ready to spill from my lips.
“Teddy is a slave,” I said. “But in my own way, I’m a slave too, you know.”
“If you say so, Brett.”
“No, I am. The difference is that I get to live in the big house and he has to work the fields.”
“That’s all well and good, but what are you going to do about the wizard and the army of shark m
en you’ll be facing in an hour?”
“That soon?”
He nodded.
I gave an exaggerated shrug. “I guess I’ll just die.”
“Can you give me some numbers. How many shark men?”
“Hell if I know. And no, that’s not a cross between an elephant and a rhino.”
“Just guess how many of the Mako guys there are.”
“The sharks came marching four by four, hurrah. Shit, man, they’re going to eat me. And I mean that literally.”
“You want to leave Galveston in the rear view, you just say the word, brother.”
“You mean it? That sounds like a really good idea. But Delgado will kill Sabrina.”
“Delgado?” Michael asked.
“That’s his name.”
“Mario Delgado?”
“No, man. That’s like his brother or something. Mario is in Spain.”
“Mario Delgado doesn’t have a brother.”
“Jesus, does everyone know this Delgado guy?”
“Delgado is on par with your father when it comes to magic. He has no siblings.”
“So what are you saying? Delgado lied?”
“Whoever you’re facing lied.”
“Can’t even trust the bad guys these days, man.”
“And I think you’ve had enough.”
“Is the money gone?”
“Yes,” he said. “The money is gone.”
“How come you know so much about magic and wizards and shit?”
“I told you, Brett. I want a cure for vampirism. My only shot is to get a powerful wizard to help me. So yes, I’ve done the research so I know quite a bit about the top wizards in the world and the lines they’ve drawn as borders between them.”
“You lost me after cure, but it’s all good,” I said.
“That depends on who’s using the name Delgado.”
“Only one guy it can be,” I said. “It’s that fucker, Sinclair. You know it, and I know it. He got through the block my father built. Not sure how.”
“Joseph Sinclair is rumored to have killed other wizards.”
“And I’m next on his list. Well, my dad first. Maybe Sabrina second. But the order doesn’t change anything for me. I’m still gonna die. Maybe I should get laid one more time.” I looked at the bartender. Even in my current state, I knew that wasn’t an option. I swiveled on my stool and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder to balance myself.
