“Let’s go,” he shouted.
We passed the sink-urinator in the hall; he gave us a little salute. Then finally we got out of the deafening condo into the hallway and summoned the elevator.
“How’d you come up with that jewelry line?” I asked Dean.
“It’s a real company,” he said. “One of my buddies’ buddies is running it. “
“Did you get any info out of him?”
“As soon as he heard what I was there for he gave me his phone and told me to call his agent. Guy named Vasily Bogdanov. Mikhail said he didn’t give a shit but he was getting in trouble for signing things without reading them.”
“And so did you talk to him?”
“Yep. Sounds like a wheeler dealer. Apparently he’s playing poker tonight some place on Spadina.”
“There’s a casino on Spadina?”
“Well, not a legal one,” Dean said. “Do you know any way we could get in there? Vasily said we’d have to figure out our own way in.”
“I might,” I said, thinking of Mikey. “But what about the hookers? Did you ask about them?”
“I told him I’d heard he liked to party. He just sort of grunted. I didn’t want to pry.”
“So you didn’t mention Brucie?”
“No,” Dean said. “I just got the feeling I didn’t want to tip our hand just yet. Let’s talk to these guys a bit, get to know them.”
“Well, whatever man. Anyway, look what I found.”
I showed him the letter from Over The Boards.
“Holy shit,” Dean said.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s quite a coincidence. These guys just happen to party with Brucie’s hooker, and also have a business relationship with the store where he bought his comic.”
“Agreed,” I said. “It’s weird.”
“Well, good work. But remember one thing.”
“What?”
“I’m Holmes. You’re Watson.”
“Fuck you, you racist.”
“I’m not racist. There’s nothing wrong with being Watson. You’re a very good Watson.”
“That’s the soft bigotry of lowered expectations,” I said.
Dean laughed as we stepped into the elevator.
25
By this time it was six. I called Mikey once we were outside. Sure enough, he knew about the poker game and he thought he could get us in. So we went our separate ways and then we reconvened at Dundas and Spadina a little after nine.
It was a big, plain looking building with few windows, more like a residential apartment building than a commercial unit. You could see the neon lights of Chinatown just to the north. Mikey was wearing a white shirt and denim overalls. An afro pick was stuck in his hair and he was sucking on a lolly pop. He looked like a whiter, sissier, version of Ice Cube from Boys N The Hood.
“Hello gentlemen,” he said. “I hope you’re ready for some poker. Do you have money?”
“Sure,” Dean said.
“Great,” Mikey said.
He dialed in the buzzer and after a moment a big black guy came down and opened the door.
“Hey Mikey,” the bouncer said.
“Hey Marcel.”
“Who are these guys?
“Friends of mine. Is there space at the tables?”
“Sure, it’s still early.”
Marcel held the door open for us and we jogged up three flights of stairs. When we got up top we had to wait, because the iron door was bolted shut. Marcel came up behind us, knocked, and it swung inwards. We went inside.
It was not a fancy place, I can tell you that much. Three or four tables were crammed inside, only one of which was occupied. The dealer was a big fat man, no neck, multiple chins, who looked at us very quickly with his little black eyes. Another big guy was standing next to the door, this one Russian-looking with very short blond hair and a tight t-shirt.
At the far side of the room an old lady with a cashbox was sitting behind a desk. Mikey went up to her and gave her 500 bucks, and she quickly but precisely counted out a stack of chips. I looked back to Dean for assistance (it didn’t look like they took credit cards) but he was already producing a whack of cash.
“Be careful with it,” he said.
We both got our chips. They opened up a new table for us. I sat down with Mikey, an Asian woman, and a smooth-faced bald dude wearing sunglasses indoors who looked like he might surprise his neighbours one day by turning out to be a serial killer. He kept smiling at me, like we were sharing some kind of joke.
Dean sat at the next table with Vasily and three other men.
A thick mullet lay on the back of Vasily’s neck but the top of his head was bald. He had a handlebar moustache so nasty that most of the pornstars I’d known would have shaved it off. The suit he was wearing was as shiny and plastic-looking as the table cloth at the Chinese restaurants up the street, and his purple shirt was unbuttoned half-way down his chest. A gold cross glinted from the forest of his chest hair. A massive stack of chips sat in front of him, as well as a tall glass of vodka.
Our dealer sat down. He was an old man, really worn looking, with blue spidery tattoos on the back of his wrists.
“Let’s play some cards,” Mikey said.
So the cards scattered around the table. I folded every hand. After a few minutes the old woman gave me a glass of Vodka in a plastic cup with a picture of Ronald McDonald on it. I held it to my face but it smelt like gasoline, so I put it back down again.
At the other table, Vasily was winning. It was making him gregarious, and he kept chirping at the other people at the table in his heavy accent.
“I’m bluffing,” he would say. “Come on, please. Call me. I’m begging you.”
At our table, the serial killer smiled and nodded at me.
“He’s in a good mood because he’s winning,” he said.
“Yeah, looks like” I said.
“He’s the worst poker player ever,” the serial killer said. “Too bad I’m not at his table anymore.”
I looked at my hand. Jack Queen. Too risky. I folded.
“Yeah, too bad,” I said.
“A month ago he was banned from here,” the serial killer told me. “He owed them too much money. Like thirty grand.”
“Just play cards,” our dealer said, and gave the creepy dude a hard look. “Stick to the cards.”
At the other table I could hear Dean talking to Vasily, telling him that he’d talked to him on the phone about the jewelry.
“You are a lawyer?” Vasily said. “Are you a Jew?”
Dean missed a beat, but then said, no, he wasn’t a Jew.
“Too bad,” Vasily said, with genuine regret. I mean, regret for Dean, like it was too bad for Dean that he wasn’t Jewish. “Have you heard the joke about Rabinovich and the wolf?”
“It’s on you,” my dealer said, and I folded after giving my cards a token glance.
“So Rabinovich is walking with his sheep in a dark wood, and the two of them fall into a deep hole. They cannot get out. While they are down there a wolf falls in with them. The wolf sees the sheep, it begins to growl, to salivate.” Vasily carefully pronounced this last word. “The sheep is afraid, it starts to cry out. And Rabinovich says, ‘What do you mean, bah bah! Comrade Wolf knows who he is going to eat!’”
Vasily laughed at his own joke, and I heard Dean chuckle. To be honest I didn’t really get it. At my table, Mikey was raising every hand. He had added a fair bit to his pile of chips but he did not look satisfied with it. That’s the problem with gamblers. They’re not really after money, they want to feel excited. I’m just scared of losing.
“Jewelry I don’t know,” Vasily was saying.
“We can set you up with a bunch of pretty nice stuff,” Dean said. “The whole crew. He’s just to make sure to wear it during press conferences, during interviews, around town.”
“I have to inspect contract,” Vasisily said. “I will give you my BBM. Pass me your card.”
Dean handed it over.
“Also,” Dean said, “let me know if you have any spare hockey tickets. People at the office are always looking for them.”
“Yeah?” Vasily said. “Lots of rich lawyers at your firm?”
“Sure,” Dean said. “Two hundred, and the poorest one makes one-thirty a year.”
Vasily grunted.
“Good to know,” he said.
“You’ve got to play if you want to sit at the table,” my dealer said to me. “Not this hand, of course, but. You know. Soon.”
“Dude,” I said, “I feel you, but you’re dealing me shitty cards here. These are some very shitty cards.”
“Sometimes you do not get the cards you would like,” the dealer said. “You still have to play your hand. Unless God wills it, no one is a winner.”
The next hand I got the 6 and 7 of hearts. Mikey raised me like a goof and I called. There were two hearts in the flop, and so I hung around even though Mikey raised me before the turn and the river. No more hearts though. I tried to bluff Mikey at the end, but he called me.
“Well, you got me,” I said, putting down my cards. “This is why I don’t gamble.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mikey said, disgusted.
He threw down his hand, pocket jacks.
“I know, I suck.”
“Oh, you suck all right,” Mikey said. “But you have a straight.”
The dealer was pushing the chips towards me, grinning. One of his front teeth was gold.
“Women’s jewelry, no,” Vasily was telling Dean at his table.
“Really?” Dean said. “No special ladies in your life? No one at all? I heard you like to party.”
“Is that so?” Vasily said. “Well, I don’t give presents to any woman except my mother. Women are either ugly, in which case, no jewelry will help, or they are beautiful, in which case, jewelry is just coals to Newcastle.” Again he pronounced the English expression very carefully. “Do I party? Yes. But I party like a man, Dean. Perhaps one day you will see.”
“Oh,” Dean said, “I’m a married man. I don’t think that’s in the cards.”
A little more time passed, and then I heard Dean getting up behind me.
“Well, that’s that,” Dean said.
“Keep playing my friend,” Vasily said. “Soon your luck will change!”
“Nah,” Dean said. “I gotta get home.”
Dean left quickly. Mikey was reluctant to go, he was just getting into it, but eventually we cashed out and jogged down the stairs. Dean was waiting for us. He had lost his whole five hundred, mostly to Vasily.
“So do you really suck at poker?” Mikey asked. “Or is it all part of your scheme?”
“Can’t it be both?” Dean asked.
“He’s like Homer Simpson,” I said. “He sucks like a fox.”
“Well, now what?” Mikey asked. “Are you guys going out? Otherwise I’ll just end up going home and losing this on Party Poker.”
“I gotta get back home,” Dean said.
“Going to see the wife?” I said, making an obscene gesture with my hips.
“No, she’s asleep.”
“Well, then you’ve got time for some Chinese food,” I said. “Let’s go to Lucky Seven.”
Lucky Seven was one of those restaurants that don’t really get going till around 4 in the morning, when the bars empty out. It was nice to be there when it wasn’t full of drunks. The white walls were covered with gold and red posters of dragons, and the tables sported shiny disposable plastic tablecloths that can get ripped away with a flick of the wrist.
“Man,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here sober and before midnight before.”
Mikey and I ordered while Dean fiddled with his Blackberry.
“How’s Tina doing?” I asked.
“Good,” Dean said, as the waiter came back and set down a small white tea pot filled with weak tea. “She’s not happy about how much I work. But it’s not going to be like this forever.”
“Right,” I said.
It was impossible to pour the tea without spilling it, so the pale yellowish liquid pooled on the plastic table cover.
The food came. We got one of those big pots of hot soup with all the little chili peppers floating in it, topped with a shimmering layer of oil. Snow peas, General Tao Chicken, spicy eggplant, and rice.
Over dinner, Mikey asked Dean:
“So what do you think about Goldstein getting added to the notice of allegations?”
“Jay is my mentor,” Dean said, “and I think that it’s bullshit.”
“Aw man, I’m sorry,” Mikey said. “For what it’s worth I think they’re stretching too. It’s all just a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking.”
“It’s not even that,” Dean said. “He said what the fucking law was. A board member’s personal opinion of the share price isn’t a material fact.”
“What’s up with Jay?” I asked.
“Well,” Dean said, “the OSC decided, after its investigation, to bring him into their court case against Edenfree.”
“Is he going to go to jail?” I asked.
“No, no,” Mikey said. “He might get fined, that’s all. The real issue is, what’s the law society going to do?”
“Nothing in the short term,” Dean said. “But if he’s found to have acted against the public interest, that could change. It will be years before it goes to a hearing.”
“What does he do in the meantime?”
Dean shrugged.
“Jesus,” Mikey said. “What a shit show. It’s a funny profession we’ve chosen.”
“Dean,” I said. “Does this affect anything we’re doing?”
“Not unless he says so,” Dean said. “Just keep at it. Maybe we’ll solve the case. Cheer him up a bit.”
Dean paid for dinner and left. After considering a number of bars, and texting a lot of people, and being unable to come up with something satisfactory, Mikey and I headed our separate ways. I fell asleep early.
26
I was faced with another Saturday morning where I wasn’t hung over and didn’t have much to do. So I got out my laptop and went to the webpage of the Ontario Securities Commission.
It was pretty easy to find the Amended Notice of Allegations because it was the first thing on the first page. I clicked on it and a pdf opened up. The word Amended was underlined in the title, and so was the name “Jason Goldstein” in the list of the respondents. I guess all of the parts that had been added recently were underlined like that, and so it was pretty easy for me to track down the paragraphs that had to do with Jay.
Before releasing the prospectus, Nolan consulted with Jason Goldstein, an Ontario lawyer. Goldstein advised the Board that they did not need to disclose his concerns about the long-term stability of Edenfree.
By providing that advice to Nolan, Goldstein acted contrary to the public interest.
To me, that sounded brutal. I really had trouble understanding how it could be no big deal, as Dean kept saying. I made a mental note to ask him about it.
I met Dean at Paradise Comics just a little after lunch and we went in together.
“Thanks for your help,” Dean said to Peter.
“Like I said,” Peter said. “Anything for Jay.”
Peter handed Dean the box and Dean looked at the comic inside. The Hulk, wearing nothing but his conveniently indestructible purple pants, was battling Wolverine, who was springing forward with his claws pointed at the reader. It was graded 9.6.
“The first appearance of the greatest Canadian super hero,” Peter said. “It’s all to your liking?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Dean said, and then he took out his keys and popped the box open.
“Fuck,” Peter said. “You still have to pay for that.”
Dean took the comic out of the box.
“Can you take a look at this for me?” Dean said. “Let me know if you see anything unusual?”
“Dude, I told you,” Peter said. “That’s
what CQC is for. They graded it 9.6.”
“Humour me,” Dean said.
Peter sighed. I wondered whether he was going to put gloves on, or use tweezers, or anything like that, but he just carefully handed the comic around the edges, gingerly turning the pages and glancing at each one. Slowly, a frown appeared on his face.
“What?” Dean said.
“Something seems … off about it.”
“What? It’s not real? It’s restored.”
“No,” Peter said. “I mean, no. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“It looks fine,” Peter explained. “I can’t say for sure anything is wrong. It just feels sort of off. The colours in some of the panels. And the edges of the paper.”
Peter took out a ruler from under the counter and measured the dimensions of the comic.
“I don’t know,” he said again.
“Would you still pay six grand for it?” Dean asked.
“Dude, you have to buy this comic,” Peter said.
“I know, but I’m just asking.”
Peter held the comic for a long time.
“Not six grand,” he said finally. “I’d pay three. I mean it looks good. And this is another book where a few points make a big difference. A 9.9 sold for $150,000, I believe.”
“Can you resubmit it to CQC for me?” Dean said.
“No man, you have to buy it!” Peter said.
Dean laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, after I buy it. Then I’d like you to resubmit it for me, on a rush basis if possible.”
“Time shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Peter said. “This is a valuable comic and they aren’t going to sit on it for long.”
“Great,” Dean said, and took out his credit card. It was a Minnesota Timberwolves MBNA Mastercard. You would never know the dude made six figures.
Peter visibly relaxed once the transaction cleared.
“You know if this doesn’t come back your way you don’t get your money back,” Peter said.
“Yep,” Dean replied. “That’s how the game is played.”
And at this he gave me a wry look and smiled.
The Black Box: A novel Page 10
