by Mike Knowles
I had just folded my sixth hand when I saw Len and Ilir. Len had opted for a blue lightweight suit and another open-collar shirt. The black bag over his shoulder looked like an unorthodox piece of luggage. Ilir wore jeans and a tight black T-shirt that showed off a well-defined chest and thick arms.
Miles caught sight of Len and Ilir a few seconds later. “Our guys are here,” he said.
I nodded.
Carl turned his head and looked at the two men approaching our table. He gave them a few seconds of thought and then went back to looking at his cards. He pushed five ten-dollar chips towards the centre of the table and said, “Raise fifty.”
Miles’ head snapped back to the table. He didn’t look at his cards; he looked at Carl. After a second he pushed fifty into the pot. I folded.
Len took the vacant seat next to me; he put the bag down between us and nodded to me when our eyes met. Ilir took the empty chair next to Carl. We all watched the dealer turn the last card over in the river. Neither of the men holding cards said a thing. Carl just gave his cards another look. Miles, his head cocked slightly like a bird perched on a power line watching a field for mice, kept his eyes on Carl.
Carl raised again, and Miles followed. When it was time to turn the cards, Carl said, “Shit.”
Miles took the pot with a pair of deuces.
“You have enough for the buy-in, Len?” I asked.
“I can cover it,” Len said.
Len played two hands poorly before excusing himself. He left without the bag, and without Ilir. We went a few more hands; Carl tried another bluff, but Miles saw it coming and folded. The next hand Carl baited Miles until the pot was fat. Then he went all in and Miles followed suit. Carl took the pot with a flush.
“Shit,” Miles said as he examined his diminished stacks of chips. “How much did I just give up?”
“Most of it,” Carl said. The driver smiled; the expression made his moustache look even wider while he collected the chips. I stood and shouldered the bag. The money was heavy and it dug into my shoulder. I slid back the zipper and peeked inside at the bound stacks of cash in the bag while everyone else got up from the table and collected what they had left on the felt.
“We’re good,” I said. “Let’s go cash out.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ilir was surprised when we passed the exit; he didn’t say anything, but his head starting moving more than it had when we left the poker table. When we walked into the buffet dining room, he spoke up, “What are we doing here?”
“Breakfast,” I said taking the seat with the best view of the entrance.
“Most important meal of the day,” Miles said as he took a chair opposite me.
Carl sat beside me and Ilir took the last seat. He craned his head around to take in the buffet, but it might have been to sneak a look at the entrance for a friend. I watched the entrance. Breakfast had been going all morning, so the initial rush of hungry gamblers was over. Now stragglers came in to fuel for the day or to feed the hangover dragging its nails down the chalkboard behind their eyes. No one came in alone, and none of the pairs stopped short when they suddenly spotted Ilir and his three new companions. I rested a foot on the bag at my feet and thought about the money. Coming up with four hundred thousand in cash is no small feat when the window is so short. That put a number of people in the know beyond Pyrros, Len, and Ilir. That kind of money in cash, in a bag, makes people greedy. Done right, a snatch could be the perfect crime. Pyrros wouldn’t be offended because the money wasn’t technically stolen from him — once it changed hands it was our responsibility. We wouldn’t be in a position to go after the robbers either because we had such a cramped time frame to get the job done in. The more I considered the bag at my feet, the more I thought there could have been a chance that Pyrros would send someone after the money himself. He was livid when the price of the job changed and even angrier about being forced to pay half up front. Taking fifty percent of the money back would make the job a much easier pill to swallow for the Albanian gangster.
A waitress came by the table and I told her that all four of us would be taking the buffet.
“Great choice, guys. Can I get you something to drink?”
Everyone ordered a coffee except Ilir; he wanted iced tea.
“Seriously?” Ilir said. “We’re eating.”
“Best breakfast for an hour in any direction,” I lied. “Miles, show him.”
Miles got up and Ilir followed suit. I listened to the con man’s loud voice as he walked the kid to the egg station. “So how do you spell ‘Ilir’? One ‘e,’ or two. None? Get the hell out of here.”
Our coffee showed up and I let the waitress pour and make chit chat before I bent over to give the contents of the bag a closer examination. I brought out a banded stack of twenties and held it in my lap while I went through the bills with my thumb.
“Everything cool?” Carl asked.
“Money is all here,” I said.
Carl took a sip of the black coffee. “We here to see if anyone else is?”
I nodded.
“I can think of a few reasons why someone might be tagging along behind us.”
“I can think of four hundred thousand reasons,” I said.
Carl chuckled and took another drink of coffee. “Better odds than the slots,” he said.
Miles and Ilir came back. “Guess who’s never been to a breakfast buffet before?”
I looked at the pyramid of cinnamon rolls on Ilir’s plate. He saw me look and defended his choice. “They’re free, man. Totally free. It’s awesome.”
“Amateur,” Miles said. “You’ll learn, kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” Ilir shot back through a mouth full of sugar and pastry.
“Says the kid who scraped the icing sugar off the side of the container,” Miles said back.
“You said there was no rule against that.”
Miles laughed as he popped a piece of bacon into his mouth. Carl went up a minute later and came back with eggs, bacon, and toast.
“Live it up, Carl,” Miles said.
Carl gave the con man the finger and started in on the food like a kid cramming for a test — head down, no talking.
“You not eating?” Ilir asked.
I shook my head.
Ilir wiped at his mouth with a napkin and drained the rest of his iced tea. “I’m going again.”
When the Albanian was away from the table, Miles said, “I like him.”
Ilir put down three more plates of food before I was satisfied we didn’t have any chaperones. I paid the cheque and walked with the three men to the parking garage. No one followed us. We took the elevator to the second-lowest level. When the doors opened, I stepped out first and gave the garage a once-over. When I was sure it was clear, I nodded to the men in the elevator and then walked down the ramp to the lowest level. In the corner was a black Ford Explorer. The SUV was dirty and the tires looked a little bald, but so did the driver. I smacked the hood twice, heard the locks release, and then opened the rear door. I put the bag in the trunk, slammed the door, and stepped out of the way. The SUV revved to life and then backed out of the spot. The Ford reversed just enough to clear the cars on either side and then accelerated towards the exit. As the SUV hit the ramp, I caught site of Ox in profile and then he was gone.
“What was that?” Ilir asked.
“Can’t take a bag full of money across the border,” I said as I walked to the vehicle that had been parked next to the Ford. Carl opened the doors with a set of keys and got behind the wheel of the dark green Jeep. Miles got in behind him and I took the other rear seat. Ilir took the only seat left.
“So who was that guy?” Ilir asked.
“Safe deposit box on wheels,” I said.
“A lot of money to trust a guy with.”
“There’s not enough in there
to make running the rest of your life worth it,” I said.
“People have done more for less,” Ilir said.
“Not to me.”
By now, Ox was halfway to a storage space parking lot where he would check the bag for anything that wasn’t cash. After he was sure that the money was clean, he would take it back to his place where he would lock it up in a safe hidden under the floorboards. After we crossed back over the border in a few hours, Ox would meet us in the city to hand the bag back over.
The Jeep started with a smooth purr that should have been foreign to a vehicle so old and so American, but Carl was a driver, and like all drivers he was a gear-head. He had worked on the Jeep and turned it into something special that no one would notice unless they sat inside the cab. Carl wound the Jeep through the garage with the precision of a shark gliding through water. We paid at the gate and rolled onto Fallsview Boulevard without feeling the bump of the curb.
“You handle the car well, Carl,” I said.
“Better than I do most things. I drive semis cross-country most of the time. This other stuff just supplements.”
“Supplements what?” Ilir asked. It was a rude question, like asking someone how much they made, but the kid wouldn’t know that.
Carl’s face didn’t flash any sign of annoyance in the rear-view. He inhaled deeply through his nose and let it out slowly as he changed lanes. “My kid is sick and we need to travel out of the country for the kind of treatment he needs. I do alright hauling things back and forth across the country, but alright doesn’t mean the same thing when you apply it to a stack of medical bills. Being a wheelman is the only way I can keep all the plates spinning, y’know?”
“So you’re pretty good?” Ilir said.
It was another question people didn’t ask. Carl was good because he was on the job; no one takes on someone they can’t count on, not anyone good anyway. Ilir not knowing that instantly brought everyone in the car up to speed about the young Albanian.
Carl hooked around a senior citizen taking his Caddy out for a drive. “If I was, you would never know. A good driver gets people away clean. If they get away clean, there aren’t any headlines. No headlines means no reputation.”
“That a yes or a no?”
“I’m good, kid.”
“I’m no kid, old man.”
“No?” Carl asked.
“Young man fancies himself a grown-up,” Miles said.
“I am a grown-up,” Ilir said in a tone that came out whinier than he probably wanted it to. “I’m a fucking gangster.”
Carl and Miles made eye contact in the mirror and started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, kid,” I said. “The word gangster just doesn’t command the kind of respect it used to.”
“Not in this car at least,” Miles said.
“If my uncle were here, you wouldn’t say that.”
“He might say it for us,” I said. “After all, he’s neck-deep in gangsters and yet he went looking for an outside crew to do this job.”
Carl laughed as he hooked around a red Pontiac and got onto the Queen Elizabeth Expressway.
“That’s ’cause we’re working in Buffalo,” Ilir said.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Ilir said, but the speed with which he said the word meant the opposite.
“Sounds like somebody’s got a secret,” Miles said. “Care to share with the rest of the class, Ilir? What’s in Buffalo? Other than overpriced instruments of course.”
“Forget it.”
Outside the Jeep, I could see that traffic on the expressway was moving smoothly. The swarm of cars was like a herd of aerodynamic animals. “Pull over,” I said.
Carl was good. He didn’t argue, and he didn’t ask what I meant. He slipped into the middle lane and eased off the gas. The second the car riding in the Jeep’s blind spot moved ahead, Carl drifted through the opening and onto the side of the road. The driver’s movements were so smooth and precise, there was not one car that had to adjust for the Jeep; the herd just kept on pushing forward at a hundred twenty kilometres per hour.
“This is just like when Dad used to pull over on vacations because me and my brother wouldn’t stop fighting,” Miles said.
“I doubt it,” I said as I went up and over the seat. My right arm snaked around Ilir’s head and held him firm against the headrest while my left hand unlocked the seat belt. With the belt off, I used both hands around the gangster’s neck to pull him over the front seat and into the back with me and Miles. Ilir bucked and kicked the roof as his hands clawed at his closed windpipe, but he couldn’t do a thing to keep his body up front. I clamped down hard on Ilir’s neck with my left arm and used my right to pull the door handle. The door opened a crack and bright daylight put a line across the Albanian’s forehead.
“What the hell is this?”
I used the Albanian’s head to push the door open another inch. Through the rear window I could see a green Toyota Corolla riding the line about a kilometre back — Ilir saw it at eye level. I gave him time to watch the car approaching; then, at the last second, I gave him a shove. His head and shoulders left the vehicle as though he were being birthed by the Jeep. The driver of the Toyota had no time to react or swerve, and all Ilir could do was watch the automotive guillotine slice the air six inches above his head instead of his neck. He screamed, but the sounds of traffic drowned him out. When I pulled him in, he was pale, not like he’d seen a ghost pale — like he was a ghost pale.
“I’m going to ask you again, Ilir. What is in Buffalo?”
I could see Ilir’s face reflected in the side window. He was using his two bulging eyes to look to Carl for help. None was coming.
“Last chance, Ilir. What is in Buffalo?”
“My uncle —”
“Should know better than to keep us out of the loop. What is in Buffalo?”
Ilir said nothing.
“A Ford is coming up,” Miles said. “Good news, it’s red. The blood won’t show. Well, good news for them anyway.”
I pushed Ilir back to the door. The second his forehead began to crown into the daylight, he broke.
“The Albanians in Buffalo,” he screamed.
I pulled him into the car and closed the door. “Go,” I said.
Carl let his foot off the brake. The creases in the concrete lane-divider to our left began to click by faster and faster. Carl let the red Toyota pass us and then we were on the highway again. The Jeep thanked its master for the chance to run with a mechanical purr from under the hood.
“Buffalo Albanians? I thought they only had chicken wings,” Miles said.
“They hate us!” Ilir was screaming like he was outside instead of on my lap.
I righted the gangster and forced him into the small spot between Miles and myself. “Spill it,” I said.
Ilir put his head in his hands. The adrenalin was still pumping hard and his lungs were struggling to keep up with the beating of his heart. “Jesus Christ.”
“Deep breaths,” I said.
“Shut the fuck up, James.”
“That’s not my name.”
“What?”
“My name isn’t James. It’s Wilson. Now you know something about me. Return the favour, Ilir.”
“My favourite colour is blue,” Miles contributed.
“Like that,” I said, “but better.”
“The crew in Buffalo have hated our side for generations. It all goes back to the mother country. We work with each other on certain things, but there are rules. There are rules on top of rules. They don’t let us operate on their turf and we don’t let them onto ours. If they found out we crossed the border for a job, they would want a cut. If they knew about this. What we’re after — they would kill us.”
“Why would they
care about a violin?”
“It’s not the violin, it’s who is going to get it.”
“Who’s the buyer?”
“No one is buying it,” Ilir said. “It’s going to be a gift.”
The road signs let me know that the border was coming up. “Buy us some time, Carl.”
“Got it,” Carl said from up front. The Jeep slid through traffic like breeze through an open window. We pulled into a carpool parking lot and stopped. Carl left the engine idling.
“Give me a name.”
“You won’t know him,” Ilir said.
“A name, Ilir.”
“Arben Malota.”
“Never heard of him,” Carl said.
“I bet Arben Malota is probably like John Smith over there,” Miles said.
“There is only one that matters,” Ilir said.
“Why is Pyrros giving a violin to this guy, and why would it matter to the Albanians on the other side if no money is changing hands?” I said.
“Because Arben is going to retire soon and he has not named a successor. Both families, ours and Buffalo, have stakes in the outcome. We both have family back home who are next in line.”
“So the violin is meant to tip the scales in your favour,” I said.
Ilir nodded. “Now, you know everything.”
I got out of the car. “Out,” I said.
Ilir was slow to move, so Miles gave him a shove. He tentatively got out of the Jeep, keeping his eyes on me the whole time.
“Why are you involved?” I said. “If Pyrros wants to keep this quiet, why involve you? Len was already in the loop, so why add someone else lower on the food chain?”
Ilir didn’t answer.
