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  She shoved me away and wriggled out of her jeans and panties and looked at me with a crooked smile. Then she reached around and popped off her bra. She fell to her knees in front of me, tugging at my pants, but I grabbed her wrists and hauled her up and threw her onto the bed. She moaned, writhing on the sheets, touching herself, her legs spread wide. It took me about two seconds to shed my clothes and then I dove between her legs.

  She moaned louder and slammed herself against my face. Then she pushed me away, gently protesting. I lifted her legs over my shoulders and angled myself in. She gasped as I entered her with a sudden thrust and then I slowed down. She felt so good.

  She grabbed my ass and said, “Faster … faster.” I obliged, pushing in and out, pounding her hard and then harder. She yelped and bit me like an animal, then pushed me away and climbed on top. I slipped back inside and she rode me fast, trying to jam every inch of me inside her wet slickness, her centre hot like lava, radiating heat and need and want. We went harder, faster, trying to fuck out all the hurt and pain, smash out the suffering and replace it with bliss.

  I don’t know if we succeeded, but we came damn close.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rise and shine, up with the roosters at the crack of dawn. I was nestled up snug beneath Suzanne’s lilac-scented sheets, feeling like I had just slept for a thousand years. Best sleep I’d had in a long time. Possibly The Best Sleep Ever.

  I looked over at the beautiful woman sleeping beside me, her dark hair spilling across the light-blue pillow, and my stomach did this strange thing where it seized up and then dropped. That’s when I realized that if anyone ever tried to hurt this woman again, I would kill them. No questions asked.

  I spilled out into Kensington Market, with its espresso bars and fruit stands, college kids, hobos, and punks. It was just a quick jaunt back to my office and that’s where I was headed.

  Eddie cocked his eyebrows quizzically as I barrelled through the door. He wouldn’t ask any questions and that was just fine by me. That was one of the reasons we were such good friends. We operated on a need-to-know basis.

  “Any calls?”

  “Tommy. Couldn’t really make out what he was saying. Sounded really drunk.”

  “Sad, angry, or happy?”

  “Sounded happy.”

  “Good.” Tommy could wait. “You had breakfast?”

  We went next door and chowed down on bacon and eggs and melon and fresh Chinese pastries. Eddie called the server over and got a refill of steaming hot coffee. I stuck with water.

  “Eddie. Who does your suits?”

  “My cousin Vin. Want me to set you up?”

  “Yeah. Thing is, I need the suit today. Like in an hour.”

  Eddie nodded. “My cousin’s got fast hands.”

  An hour later I stepped out into the Spadina sunlight all spiffed up in a black suit with a light-blue shirt and a maroon tie. Eddie kept pushing me toward the pinstripes. “C’mon, man, live a little. Get some flair, some pizazz.” He missed the point. For this next stop I needed to be invisible, faceless. Just another drone trapped inside the corporate cogs.

  I hailed a cab and two pulled over right away, almost running a bike messenger off the road. The cyclist yelled, “Watch where the fuck you’re going!” but the cabbies didn’t hear him because they had their own argument going, shouting back and forth in rapid-fire Hindi. Fighting over who had dibs on my wallet. I stepped into the first cab and the argument was over. The second cab roared away.

  “Bay Street,” I told the cabbie, and I saw dollar signs going off in his eyes. Must be fresh on the job. I drove a cab briefly, and let me tell you, Bay Streeters don’t tip for shit. The rich don’t get rich by handing out money. The good tips come from either happy drunks or working-class folks who know how hard it is to make a buck.

  We drove east on College Street, past the University of Toronto, past Queen’s Park, and then we turned right onto Bay, driving south toward the lake. Bay Street, the heart and soul of the city’s financial district, Canada’s Wall Street, the location of my next meeting. On Bay Street it was all about the right suit and the right pair of shoes and the right platinum watch. Image was everything. Back when I was a surly teen, I’d hated that shit. I still hated it, but I’d come to a grudging acceptance of the biological facts. We humans are visual animals. In my new suit I should blend in fine. I’d be invisible if it weren’t for my taped-up knuckles. Hopefully I’d come across as just another coked-up asshole who liked to fight on Friday night.

  “Stop here.” I threw some money at the cabbie — tip not too big, not too small, nothing memorable — and then I was out on the street, breathing in smog, cutting through the crowds toward the revolving doors of an office building. The elevator took me up to the seventeenth floor. At the end of the hallway was a wooden door with a small sign on the wall next to it: APEX INVESTMENTS. I rang the buzzer, touched the knife beneath my shirt, and waited for the door to open.

  A tall, reedy man stuck his bald head out. “Yes?”

  I shot him a shit-eating smile. “Hi there! Is this Apex Investments?”

  The tall man turned sour. “That’s what the sign says.”

  “I’ve got an appointment with Hiram Greenstein.”

  The man peered at me suspiciously. “What’s this regarding?”

  “I represent a client who needs Mr. Greenstein’s procurement services.”

  “You’ve been misinformed, son. We don’t procure anything except investment advice.”

  “I understand. This is about investment advice. Namely, how to move one planeload of investments to the proper … ah … bankers.”

  “Wait here a minute.”

  The door shut and I let it click closed. Either they’d be back or they wouldn’t.

  I flexed my still-healing hands. I shouldn’t have given the jockey the business. That was incredibly stupid. Woodbine was crawling with cops and security guards. Sheer dumb luck I was able to get away.

  Inhale, exhale. Play it cool. Unfortunately, not all problems can be solved by grabbing a guy and throttling him senseless.

  The door slid open. There was the tall man, and behind him was a shorter man with slicked-back hair. If my source — that would be Tommy — if Tommy was right, I was staring at two of the biggest arms dealers in the world, Hiram Greenstein and Mohammed Joe.

  Hiram cocked his head back toward his office. “All right, come on in.”

  Once I was past the threshold, Hiram grinned. “We can talk freely here. We sweep for bugs daily.”

  “Attention to detail. That’s good.”

  Mohammed nodded. “In our business, everything is detail. You want us to ship a planeload of goods?”

  “That’s right. You have contacts in the Middle East. My clients need to use those contacts to ensure the safe arrival of their cargo.”

  “And this cargo —”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  Mohammed Joe broke out laughing. “Attention to detail, yes? The contents of the cargo is a pretty big detail.”

  Hiram’s face hardened. He looked like a pissed-off snapping turtle. “We can assume it’s guns. Otherwise why come to us?”

  “Maybe he admires our work ethic. Our spirit of camaraderie.”

  “Look, you want guns moved anywhere in the Middle East, you come see us. And what do you see? The future. One Jew and one Palestinian, working together hand in hand. We’re doing our part for world peace. Isn’t that right, Jo-Jo?”

  “You can shove world peace right up your ass. If there was world peace, you and I would be out of a job.”

  Hiram shrugged. “So we sell white doves instead of missiles.”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t about guns.”

  Hiram stood up. “Then you’ve wasted our time.”

  “It’s about money.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “The two of you happen to have some of my client’s money. My client would like this money back.”

  “
And your client’s name? Before you tell us this isn’t important, let me assure you that this information is very important indeed.”

  I told them the name of Tommy’s father. The gunrunners shot each other looks. Mohammed Joe stood up and strolled from the office. Hiram sat down behind his desk. His right hand dipped out of sight.

  “Jo-Jo is going to make some calls. If you check out, you’re going to be walking out of here with a briefcase full of cash. If you don’t —”

  “Let me guess. You’ll slit my throat with a letter opener.”

  Hiram Greenstein grinned. “If you’re trying to run a scam, we’ll just shoot you in the back of the head.”

  I stood up and began slowly manoeuvring myself into the best fighting position. Hiram watched me, then brought up his gun. “Why don’t you sit back down.”

  I sat back down.

  Mohammed Joe marched back into the office. “The Old Man’s in the hospital. No one knows shit about this guy.”

  “Really.” Hiram’s voice was ice cold. “You thought you could waltz in with some little con and waltz back out with a briefcase full of cash. Well, you just fucked up our entire day. Jo-Jo?”

  “WAIT! Wait. Call Tommy. The Old Man’s son. That’s who I’m working for.”

  “We don’t owe Tommy anything.”

  The common refrain. More and more it was looking like Tommy wouldn’t be inheriting the keys to the kingdom. Tommy hadn’t exactly made a lot of friends during his twenty-eight years of existence.

  “Call him. He’s the one who set up this appointment.”

  Tommy, you fucker. You better be home.

  I sat in Hiram’s office watching the light flicker off the man’s gun.

  Mohammed Joe’s shadow stepped into the office followed by the man himself. “It checks out.”

  “Well.” Suddenly ol’ Hiram was all smiles. He kicked back, gun disappearing back into his desk. “Thank God for that. Did you know the last time we had a disgruntled client in here we had to replace all the carpeting? My suit was ruined, Jo-Jo’s suit was ruined … messy, messy work.”

  I had these guys pegged as soon as they opened the door. These guys … they weren’t hands-on guys. They might’ve been at one point. Hiram probably had some Israeli military training under his belt. Mohammed could’ve trained with any number of military or paramilitary groups. But now … now they sat in their air-conditioned office and moved millions of dollars’ worth of guns with phone calls and computer clicks. One click of the mouse and tens of thousands of guns poured into the streets. For those who got killed in the crossfire, that was the reality. Explosions and blood. Shattered bone and screams. For these guys, it was all abstract. Moving units. Shipping product. If we don’t do it, somebody else will. Sure, people die. People die every day. It has nothing to do with us. The war is Out There, not In Here.

  In Here was a world of soft offices and polished shoes. Out There was a four-year-old on fire with her face ripped off.

  I pushed back and stood up. “Let’s have the money, gentlemen.”

  Hiram shook his head. “As we’ve explained, we do business with the father, not the son.”

  “The father’s business is now the son’s business. Would you like to continue doing business? Then you deal with the son.”

  Hiram craned his neck and looked over at Mohammed Joe. “I don’t think this guy likes us very much, Jo-Jo.”

  There was a pause. Three heartbeats. This situation could turn to shit so easily.

  Hiram chuckled. “We value all our business relationships. Jo-Jo, get the man his money.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Somewhere out there was a poor sucker who had left a briefcase just like this one in the back seat of a cab. Maybe the briefcase was full of money, maybe it was full of drugs. Maybe both. And you know that poor sucker was shitting bricks when he realized that briefcase was missing. Provided the poor sucker lived through the night, there was only one thing he could do: replace the drugs, replace the money.

  My hands were locked iron-tight around the case. I could replace the money, but it would take a few days and all my bankroll, and then I’d be in debt to some seriously bad guys. Forget the rigmarole of changing cabs and streetcars. I was heading straight for Tommy with the cash.

  At the club I breezed through the front door and got a nod from the bartender. Shit, I’m a regular now. Might as well have a vodka soda.

  “Tommy around?” I asked the bartender.

  “Upstairs,” he replied with a jerk of his goateed chin.

  “Thanks.” I knocked back the vodka and headed for the stairs.

  Outside Tommy’s office there was a new guy guarding the door. Another weightlifter gorilla-type dude. Maybe Tommy grew them in tubes.

  The gorilla shook his head as I approached. “Can’t go in. Private office.”

  “I’m here to see Tommy.”

  “Tommy’s busy.”

  “Tell him Jack’s here.”

  “I said he’s busy.”

  I stepped into Tommy’s office and the door swung closed behind me, bumping up against the gorilla now stretched out dreaming in the hall. Tommy, looking tired and tousled, looked up from the middle of a huddle. Three guys with scars and dark suits narrowed their eyes. I smiled and jerked my thumb. “Your guy out there might need some medical attention.”

  Tommy snapped his fingers. Fluorescent light glinted off his rings. “Rocco! Take care of it.”

  One of the dark-suit guys, a little rat-faced man with slicked-back hair, twisted up his lip. “Who’s this fucking guy?”

  Tommy slapped rat-man’s back. “Friend of mine. Don’t worry about it.” Tommy turned to me and shot me a nervous smile. “Howya doin’, Jack?”

  I hoisted the briefcase. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “Hey, yeah … that’s great. Hold on to it for a minute, will you?” Over by the bar Tommy’s cellphone rang. He ignored it and lurched over to me. In a stage whisper he hissed, “Take the case downstairs and wait.” Then he straightened up and smiled. “Go down to the bar, get yourself anything you want. On me!”

  I nodded and smiled. Yessuh, yessuh. Yo’ the boss, suh.

  Three vodka sodas later Tommy came downstairs, sweeping the sweat off his brow with an embroidered linen handkerchief. He and the dark-suit dudes hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks and then the suits were gone, heading out the back. Tommy stumped over to the bar. Without being told, the bartender had a double whisky ready and waiting. Tommy drained it in one pull.

  “Everything all right?” I asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. A few problems to take care of, that’s all. We —” Tommy cut himself off. “Ah, you don’t want my worries.” His cellphone rang again. He ignored it.

  I patted the briefcase. “I got the money from the gunrunners.”

  Tommy didn’t even look at the case. He sat on his bar stool, twisting and fidgeting. He grabbed a paper napkin and started ripping it to shreds. “The what?”

  “The money.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Put it over there. No, wait. Give it here. I’ll throw it in the safe.”

  Tommy’s phone kept ringing.

  “You going to answer that?”

  “What? Fuck no. Let it ring.”

  I sipped my drink.

  Tommy chugged another, then rubbed his eyes. “Thanks for bringing me that case, Jack. Jesus! I haven’t slept in days. Do you know that? There’s all kinds of shit going down. Little Vito, that prick … he’s trying to muscle us. My dad’s in the hospital hooked up to a fucking ventilator and this prick is trying to muscle us.” Tommy bared his teeth. “But don’t you worry about him, Jack. I’m going to cut the fucker’s nuts off. Feed them to my dogs. You just keep doing what you’re doing. Get the money from Joey fucking Economy. Fuck that guy. FUCK ’EM ALL!”

  Tommy’s face twisted with rage. Eyes flashing, he snatched his ringing cellphone and smashed it to shit against the bar.

  CHAPTER 20
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  It didn’t take a genius to see that Tommy was living right on the fucking edge. He was a primed powder keg burning an extremely short fuse. He was gonna go off, and when he did, I planned to be far, far away. Costa Rica, maybe. Monkeys and mosquito nets. But before I left, I had to finish the job.

  Eddie knocked on my door as I was suiting up, strapping on knives. “Hey, you need another guy? I got a cousin who could use the experience.”

  “The tailor?”

  “No. Another cousin.”

  I shook my head. “This isn’t a job for rookies.”

  No cabs for this job, either. Eddie had found me a souped-up Honda Civic CRX with bogus plates. About the only thing this car didn’t have was a Gatling gun.

  But I was too late. Joey Economy was gone. His house near the beach was empty. There was a pile of newspapers on the porch and a For Sale sign stabbed into the lawn. My stomach sank as I thought about Sylvia. Sylvia the receptionist with her piles of red curls and her bifocals on a chain. A little voice of hope bubbled up from within: Maybe Joey Economy had told the truth. Maybe she did get a big pension and now she was sitting somewhere on a beach getting fanned by burly cabana boys as she sipped a peach margarita. It’s possible, right? Right?

  Yeah, right. Godspeed, Sylvia. Rest In Peace.

  I called Grover from a payphone. “I’m coming over. We need to talk.”

  “Tonight’s not really a good time, Jack.”

  “This can’t wait.”

  Muffled voices on the other end of the phone. Then Grover was back. I could hear him smiling. “All right, Jack. Meet me on the water.”

  I made one more call. “Eddie, I need a boat.”

  “How big?”

  “Little.”

  “Done.

  The water churned as I steered the little boat toward Grover’s yacht. I could hear music and laughter drifting out across the lake. A party was in full swing.