“He’ll be okay,” I said. “You know what he’s like. But look at what his boss is going through. It’s no wonder he feels like he has to help out. It’s not like it was in California.”
“Yeah,” Tina said. “You’re right.”
“Is Dean around?”
“No,” Tina laughed. “Of course not. He’s at work.”
“Well, talk to you later I guess.”
“You know,” Tina said, “you can come over any time. He doesn’t need to be here for us to hang out.”
And it would easy for me to play dumb here. Easy for me to say, oh, it just happened by accident, or we just fell into it. But I’m not going to bullshit you. I’ve probably slept with close to 200 women in my life. Yeah, I was in porn, but that only accounts for like thirty or so. I was a relentless force of nature, man. I was driven by wild desire and I was charming as hell. I know women. I can feel opportunities with them. And all that old machinery inside me, that had been unused for a while, started to hum.
“Yeah sure,” I said, although I was resolved to go nowhere near her now. “Anytime.”
Here is what I ended up doing: I went down to the grocery store and bought a bag of those little individually wrapped Babel cheeses. The ones that come in bright red wax. Then I unwrapped them, dipped them in egg, rolled them in bread crumbs, and put them in the deep fryer. After the first two I realized what they needed – hot sauce. I got halfway through the package and I knew I should stop but I was in the grip of some weird compulsion, like I couldn’t relax until they were all gone. When it didn’t make me sick I was more disturbed than relieved. Thankfully Spike TV was having a Star Wars marathon and I was able to pass most of the rest of the afternoon without thinking.
19
Milo lived in a nice condo in Liberty Village. The building was about five stories, with polite East Asian doormen and a garden on the roof. Milo had great parties there, many of them attended by me, and some of them almost getting him evicted, or whatever the equivalent of evicted is when you own the place.
Dean and I drove over together. Neither of us knew what to make of Jamie’s black box story. Dean irritatingly refused to join me in speculating.
Milo met us at the door to his apartment and I gave him a hug, and then he shook hands with Dean.
“A little detective work tonight boys?” Milo said.
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Should be good!” He smiled, and he looked happy, but he also looked a little jazzed up.
“So I think what we’ll do,” Dean continued, “is that Terrell and I will hang out in the closet. After the dude leaves we’ll come out and talk to her. Then we pay.”
“You got the money?” Milo said.
“In cash,” Dean replied.
We drew the curtains so no one could see inside, sat on one of Milo’s soft leather couches, and watched the hockey game for a while. Milo and I drank Bud Light Lime while Dean had a tomato juice. Eventually the phone rang. Milo picked it up and said. “Just a minute.” And then pressed nine on his phone.
“They’re on their way up,” Milo said. “Sounds like a black dude.”
Dean stood up, a little too quickly, and went into Milo’s bedroom. I followed him and started to close the door behind us but he said: “No, let’s go in the closet.
“Oh man,” I said. “Seriously?”
“Come on,” he said, and beckoned to me.
I sighed and followed him into Milo’s shallow walk-in closet. Dean flipped off the light but left the door open, just a crack.
“You smell a bit like cheese,” Dean said.
“Fuck you,” I replied.
We waited just a little while and then there was a knock on the door.
“Hey, how you doing,” we heard Milo say.
“Hello sir,” another male voice said. “Are you Mr. Nagy?”
“Yes I am.”
“My name’s Desean, Mr. Nagy,” the new voice said. “I hope you don’t mind, but it’s something we do with all of Tanya’s new clients. Just a quick look around. Won’t take a minute.”
“Be my guest.”
We heard Desean soft footsteps as he padded around the apartment. He came right in the bedroom, even went over to the bathroom door and peaked inside. For a minute I was like, fuck, is he going to find us?
But he padded back out again and I heard him speak.
“Okay,” Desean said. “Thanks for your cooperation sir. I’m going to ask you to pay in advance.”
“Credit card okay?” Milo said.
“I’m just going to take your number down, sir,” Desean said. “That’s how we do it. If you want to party with Tanya again we’ll just use the same number before she comes over. Can you sign here?”
Before Desean left he said something to Tanya, and sure enough, it was in Russian.
The door closed.
“Can I get you a drink?” Milo said.
“Please,” Tanya said. She had an accent but her English was good.
I was ready to get up, but Dean caught my arm and shook his head for a moment.
“You have a very nice condo,” she said. “How much does it cost?”
“It was two-fifty when I bought it,” Milo said. “One about this size sold for three-hundred a month ago.”
“Wow,” she said. “Have you lived here long?”
“About seven years,” Milo said. “Rum and Coke okay?”
“Sure,” Tanya said. “Oh, wow, you have a drink dispenser.”
At this word, Dean made a face and stood up. We walked into the living room. Milo’s expression was guilty. The girl, who was wearing a shimmery, clingy dress that showed off everything she had without being too slutty, looked terrified.
“Relax,” Dean said. “All we went to do is talk. We have some questions about Brucie Goldstein.”
The terror that had flashed across Tanya’s face retreated to her eyes. She shook her head and said, with a stronger Russian accent, “Ah, sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Nice try,” Dean said, and motioned towards the drink dispenser (it held six bottles upside down, all next to each other, so that you could squeeze out a perfect shot every time without spilling a drop). “You know what a drink dispenser is? You can talk condo valuations? You can answer questions about Brucie Goldstein if you want to.”
She looked down, and when she looked back up again a couple of tears were shining in her eyes.
“Please,” she said. “I cannot talk with you.”
Dean pulled over an arm chair and sat across from her. He folded one foot onto his knee and opened a package of cigarettes. Before he lit it he remembered himself and looked at Milo.
“Go ahead man,” Milo said.
“Do you smoke?” Dean said to Tanya.
She shook her head.
“What’s your real name?”
“Oksana,” she said. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was looking down. Her chest was heaving up and down a bit. This girl was hot.
“Where are you from, Oksana?”
“Ukraine.”
“How long have you been here?”
“One year,” she said, “and six months.”
“Okay,” Dean said. “And about this Desean character.”
“He works for my company,” she said. “Please, you should not tell him that I spoke with you. He is a very dangerous man.”
“Don’t worry,” Dean said. “So who does he work for?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Russians I think. I know it was Russians who brought me here. We landed in Montreal. Then I was sold.”
“Sold?” I said.
She looked at me briefly and then looked back down.
“How old are you?” Dean asked.
“Twenty,” she said. “I paid to come here. It didn’t seem like very much money. It was a trick. When I was taken away from my village the men treated me very, very badly.”
“Where do you live?”
“In an apartment at Jane and Finch.”
/> “Why don’t you run away?”
“I am here illegally,” she said.
“You could try to get refugee status.”
She shook her head.
“You do not understand my village,” she said. “It was a uranium mine thirty years ago. Now? It is like one of those movies at the end of the world. Eleven-year-old children drunk. All the babies born from drunk mothers. Garbage in the streets. Not enough food. Toronto is like paradise. I am a prisoner, I am even a whore, but Desean does not beat me. They put money for me in a bank account. He shows it to me online. In six years I can go to school, or buy a house. Find a husband. If I go back to the Ukraine, I will lose everything. I will be a prostitute, but for five dollars a day.”
Oksana seemed to have regained her composure. She motioned over to Milo who brought her the rum and coke and she took a sip.
“All right,” Dean said, “let’s talk about Brucie.”
“Brucie was a boy. What about him?”
“Did you know he was dead?” Dean asked.
Her eyes widened
“Dead?”
“Yes,” Dean said. “The police are calling it suicide. He fell from a bridge.”
Oksana started to cry again.
“No,” she said. “It’s not true.”
“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “We were hired by Brucie’s father to find out what happened to him. We traced him to you.”
“I see,” Oksana said, and wiped her eyes. Her thin shoulders were heaving up and down. “I’m sorry. I thought he went to school. I thought he forgot about me. He was just a silly boy.”
“Tell me how you met him,” Dean said.
“We met at the Brass Rail in May,” Oksana said. “I was dancing. He came up for a dance. I thought to myself: this is a boy. I almost called security to throw him out. But he was paying, and so I took him to the back and danced for him. He was a funny boy. He kept talking very quickly, saying he loved me. After five songs I said: okay, enough. And I sent him away. But another night he waited outside the bar and spoke with me. I gave him the information to get in touch with me. So I saw him through the summer.”
“Right,” Dean said.
“He kept saying he loved me,” Oksana said, “that he would protect me. But I said to him: you are silly! You can’t protect anyone. You are a boy. Then he asked me if I could see him for free, if we could go on a date. He ran out of money, I guess. And I laughed at him. He was such a silly boy. So he said he would find more money. That was the last I saw him.”
“Did he say anything about comics?”
“No, never.”
“Nothing?”
“No,” Oksana said. “Did he like comics? I am not surprised. He would not tell me. He was always talking like such a big man.”
“Where did you meet with him?”
“Usually the Howard Johnson in Yorkville. One time we went to his parents’ house. I think he wanted to show me he was very rich.”
“Brucie didn’t owe you any money?” I asked. “Or your boss?”
She rolled her eyes.
“The people I work for would not loan money to a seventeen-year-old boy. He paid in advance.”
“Okay,” Dean said. “We’re done for now. Thank you for speaking with us. I know Brucie’s father would really appreciate it. Thank you Oksana.”
“Please,” Oksana said, “don’t tell anyone I spoke with you.”
“We won’t.” Dean said. And then he opened his wallet, took out a business card, and handed it over to her. “You seem like you think you’ve got it all figured out, and maybe you do. But if you change your mind, and you need a lawyer, I can probably get you one.”
She took the card and looked at it.
“You might not believe this,” Dean said, “but I knew girls like you. Girls that, well. They were beautiful and the thought they were smart and they would cash in and they’d be laughing. It didn’t always work out. If things start to go bad I hope you’ll call me or someone and get out. You don’t have to do this. Really. You don’t.”
She stood up.
“Everyone,” she said, “in this country is a silly boy. I thought it was just Brucie but it is everyone.”
She walked over to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. A moment later we heard the shower hiss on.
Dean handed the cash over to Milo.
“Thanks bud,” Dean said. “We’ll head out. When the charge shows up on your credit card statement, can you send it to us?”
“No problem,” Milo said. “Let me know anytime you need me to hire some hookers for you. That’s kind of like my superpower.”
Dean left. Milo and I ended up having a drink to celebrate. Oksana left without saying goodbye.
20
I woke up at home in my bed, hung over. When I stirred a little I bumped into someone next to me. Blond hair spilt across my pillow. It was a woman, late thirties, early forties. One of Milo’s buddies. I couldn’t remember the night before so well, it was hazy. But I guess I’d picked her up.
In the bathroom I leaned against the wall and pissed for a long time. I wondered how to get rid of the girl. The trick, I find, is to already be eating your breakfast when they get up. Then you can be like: no, sorry, I can’t get brunch! I already ate. Although the real fucking trick is to go to their apartment, and not yours. Too late for that.
The sordid little strategies a hundred hook-ups teach you. One time, I had this talk with Dean about genius. I mentioned how Mozart was a genius because he wrote a symphony when he was three years old. Dean said something like, well yes, but his first symphony sucked. I was like, still, isn’t it awesome he wrote it? He said, well, yes, but his dad pressured him into doing it. Mozart didn’t really write any good music until he was twenty.
It turned out that Dean had read a book about the subject, and the book said that it takes 10,000 hours to be great at something. So Dean basically said, sure, Mozart was a genius, a child prodigy, but he still put his 10,000 hours in and worked for it just like the rest of us suckers.
And then Dean said a funny thing: he said that if you loved something, and you did it all the time, you’d get good at it. So basically, it’s that love that makes you strong in the end. Even though you might not start out any better at something than anyone else, if you love it, you’ll keep doing it until you’re amazing.
It was like that with me and women. I remember trying to pick them up when I was a kid. I sucked at it. But I just felt a burning need to hit on ladies. I loved every girl I met, I mean, really loved them. I got into what they were interested in, I chased them around, I liked to meet their parents. Eventually I got good at it. And it was just practice.
Dean, I guess, is almost the reverse of that. He just didn’t feel that pull to get in there. It was like he was looking for something perfect. And of course, that meant he never got any practice. So he couldn’t get the rare girl that he did like.
But the thing is, though, I got tired of it. I could still keep picking up, but it was like a routine. This series of moves I’d go through every time. And they still fall for it, but when they do, it’s like they’re falling for a person that isn’t really me anymore. Say what you will, in my younger days, I really did love all women I chased around, even if it was six at once. It’s hard to explain, but I did. But now? Thirty- three, fat, don’t give a fuck? The fire is gone, but I keep doing it, like a machine, like a series of reflexes that just kick in without my brain getting involved. It’s not cool, I mean it. All these women just falling in love with who I am on the surface. They don’t love me, they love a bunch of rehearsed lines, a little game.
Was Dean shallow too? Falling for Oksana because of how she looked? Just like Brucie had done before him?
It’s hard not be cynical about love when you get good at it. It’s hard not to see it for what it is: a bunch of people buying something without ever opening the box.
21
On Monday I had a fruit cup for breakfast with a cup of gr
een tea and arrived at the Burke residence just in time to catch Anthony coming back from his morning jog. Today he drove straight down to the AGO, spent the morning in meetings, and then had lunch in the fancy restaurant at the ROM, right by the window, so I watch him from across the street while I ate a burrito from Burrito Banditos. Next he went to the gallery for a brief visit, and then he drove to see some clients in an enormous house in Woodbridge. All par for the fucking course.
I got a bleep on my Blackberry while I was sitting in my car waiting for Burke to emerge from the McMansion. It was an e-mail from Milo. The charge for the hooker showed up, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. I called up Dean.
“Hey man,” I said. “Check this out. The charge showed up on Milo’s bill, but it’s not like the other ones. It’s only $1,000 and it’s to some fishing store on Sheppard Avenue West.”
“Really?” Dean said. “A fishing store?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Weird.”
“Well, I guess we should check that out too.”
“I’ll go now,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to get stuck in traffic?”
“No,” I said. “I’m in Woodbridge.”
“Nice,” he said. “Woodbridge is lovely this time of year.”
I put the phone away and got going.
Sheppard Avenue West struck me as an odd place for a fishing store. It was in a shabby little strip mall between a convenience store and a Turkish restaurant. A sandwich board advertising $40 psychic readings was further down the sidewalk. The bright yellow sign over the store read: SHEPPARD FISHING. A hand lettered note pinned to the front door read LIVE BAIT.
Really? I thought. Live bait?
The bell dingled as I went inside. The store, predictably, was empty. Fishing poles leaned up against the walls next to old posters for Ontario’s provincial parks. A few life preservers dangled from hooks. Everything seemed to be coated with a fine layer of dust.
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