Julia Gurr spent the day cleaning the apartment. She felt deep guilt. It was her lifestyle and Bobby’s and Marko’s that put her daughter in danger. It was her own greed that put her in the hands of the Ibrahaims in Spicetown. It was Bobby Preston’s greed that killed the family of migrants in the river. The only goodness around them was Zoe. Something good would have to come out of it all or they’d all destroyed their lives for nothing, for chasing a buck, for carrying on their own parents’ tradition as outlaws.
The day was interminable.
She looked out the window and saw a boxy blue car had parked down the block. She watched it for a while and worried. Deciding that Bobby would need help moving the money, she found his stash of cold phones and began making calls. Some of her contacts hadn’t heard from her since Spicetown; some were a little remote, as if she’d let them down, others were pleased that she was back in business. When she sounded her people out, she was general, taking temperature.
By the time Bobby Preston tapped at the door softly so as not to startle her, she’d made decisions.
He was wet from the shower. He had some insect bites around his neck and his shoes were by the door, mucked and wet. She followed him down the hallway into the kitchen. He began working a corkscrew into a wine bottle. He only drank wine since he’d drunkenly left the Chinese to die in the river. He’d been drunk on Canadian Club when Young Truong wrestled him to the ground when he tried to go in and save them. Wine was okay. He could control wine.
“Bobby? How was it?”
“Fuck. Me.” He shook his head. He had a huge grin on his face. “Ohhhh, fuck me.”
She took wine glasses from the counter and held them while he poured. “Tell me.”
“I dunno. I probably shouldn’t.” He felt playful and coy. “I definitely shouldn’t.” She loved money, always had. Even dope money. Money, she told him, had no smell. Wisdom from the Romans when they put a tax on public toilets.
“But there’s lots of it, right?”
He began laughing.
“Can you move it?”
“There’s a lot of bulk, no question. It’ll be tough.”
“What if you boil it down?” She stared at him. “What if I boil it down, if I do the boiling?”
He looked back at her, no longer smiling.
It was tough, going outside, even with him. She stepped onto the porch, then backed up against the door and asked him to get the gun.
“Jools, it’s okay. We’re just going to the end of the street and back. It’s cool, lots of people down there.”
“Bobby?” She was licking her lips and staring out into the dark shadows. Her eyes were huge, unblinking. The porch light was harsh and her cheekbone looked deeply caved-in, worse than it actually was.
“Okay.” He went off the porch and up the alley to the back of the house and retrieved the gun. He hated having it around, but she was showing that she trusted him and he wanted to reassure her.
As they strolled, he counted off cars parked on the long block and identified three as suspicious. Two had out of state plates, Ontario and Michigan. They were busted-back sedans with bald tires; student cars. The third was a blue Ford 500 without a street-parking permit. At the rear of the vehicle Preston noted there was no dealer identification on the licence-plate holder. He didn’t like that much. They continued on, their heads close together.
“You come clean yesterday?” He leaned close to her, their steps matching. “I think that blue one back there’s bad.”
“I don’t think so. I was careful. Two taxis, the bus. The blue thing showed up this afternoon. Maybe it was you?”
“Last night when I met Marko I think he’d brought somebody with him. I dumped them, but they maybe got the plate. But the guy I got it from won’t say anything. I had nobody on me before I met Marko or when I got home.”
“So, it’s me?”
“We’ll see. Let’s just be careful, okay? I have to do a lot of things very quickly and we can’t draw heat.”
At the end of the street they merged with throngs of people wandering the student cafes, music shops, patios, and clubs. Buskers had their corners, panhandlers had their doorways. It was loud with car stereos.
“Did you talk to Zoe?”
“Yeah, she says she’s good. They had her in a jail cell, then the capitano came and took her to a car. A Mexican guy was waiting, she said he mentioned Marko. She’s someplace with a pool. She doesn’t know where.” He looked into her eyes. “I have to put Zoe aside for now, okay? I have to be logical about finding a variation.”
It was a cool late summer evening, but not cold enough to have shut down the outside patios. Couples and groups wearing light sweaters or thin jackets sat around tables eating and drinking. They passed along the street looking for a free table. After a few blocks, they crossed the street and came back. At the Calliope Café they saw a couple leaving a patio and went in and sat down. Music leaked from the blues bar across the intersection. The waiter cleared the table and took their drink and food orders.
Julia Gurr wanted details about the stash, but she brought him up-to-date first on her moves. “I’ve made some calls. So, we’re a go for a bunch of it. We’ve got people on standby.”
“You shouldn’t get into this,” he said. But he was glad she wanted to get to work, that they could spend some time together. They’d busted badly, hadn’t given it a chance. Between his failed run across the river and her time in Spicetown, he felt they’d never thrashed things out, hadn’t given themselves a real shot. But he had to be square with her. “This could go real bad real fast.”
“Bobby, I’m in. Whatever you’ve got to move, you’re going to have to boil it, right? I can’t sit around hoping things work out for Zoe.”
Preston read the street, thinking. It was like old times, except that it was drug money and their kid was in the switches.
She locked her eyes on him. “So, tell me? How was it?” She made a dirty smirk to help him along. “Did you get hard?”
“Well, it was okay, I have to admit. If it wasn’t the kind of dough it is and with so much at stake, I’d’ve been in heaven. Jerry drove me up, put me through pretty good. When we got there, me and Marko got into his plane and he gave me a ski mask to put on backwards, so I couldn’t see. We flew for a little while. He tried to make me barf, looping around, or maybe, I guess, he was just scrubbing himself.”
“Just the two of you?”
“Yep. I think he’s starting to get a good read on Jerry. Anyway, we land off a sinking dock and I take off the mask. He angles the plane to the dock and out we get. Rundown place, we flew about maybe fifteen, twenty minutes, but we could’ve been anywhere. There’s a log house with a collapsed roof, but we didn’t go there. We go up a path and around a bit.” A fond smile appeared on his face. “Marko’s become quite the outdoorsman. Here, bear shit, see it? There, a moose been chewing on that tree. Like a kid. So there’s a steel shed with trees right up to it, pretty new, no windows, one door, big lock. We open it up and, man, inside is —” He stopped and sat back. “We have any cigarettes? I could use one.”
“C’mon, Bobby. What’s inside?” She appeared to have stopped breathing.
“I better go find a shop, buy a pack.” He edged his chair back, teasing. “Back in a few minutes.”
“Jesus.” She turned to the couple smoking next to them and asked the man for a cigarette. He gave her one and lit it. She thanked him sweetly and handed it to Preston. “So, inside, what?”
“Well, I don’t know how to describe it, it’s …” He made his face dreamy. He was having a little fun. He’d badly missed her, missed business gossip and chat. “Fuck …”
“Money, right? Lots and lots of money.” Her eyes were bright and she licked her lips. The image of it distracted her. She forgot she was out after dark. In the space around their little round table she felt safe, useful. Zoe was safe, at least for now. “Like, how much?”
Preston made her a picture. “It’s dark in there, trees growing right up to it. Stinks. Ten ems, he figures, about. He’s got the place sealed right up. There’s money in old metal garbage cans, there’s money in old-school lockers he got someplace and welded the vents. Some old wooden boxes with hasp locks on them. Bags and bags of it. All, all of them, Jools, full of dough. Some squirrels or something must’ve got in, there’s shredded bills around. There’s rat traps with rats in ’em, there’s mouse traps with mice in ’em, and they’re all rotting away.”
“Ten ems.” She closed her eyes, imagining the money, skipping over the unpleasantness of deteriorating rodentia, passing on the scents and gases. “Wow. Fuck. Wow.” She glowed.
The waiter put glasses of wine in front of them and told them their food would be along shortly. Preston, sitting facing the street, watched a couple pass by for the second time, a cute athletic-looking black woman with spikey black hair and a zany skirt and batik top, and a slim bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt and a hacked leather jacket who looked like a jazz musician. Neither looked at the patio, their heads close together, chatting. Maybe cops, maybe street hustlers. He kept an eye on their whereabouts.
“Bulk, how’s the bulk?”
He made a small disbelieving laugh. “Oh, it’s bulk all right. In all, the numbers are like this, and this is rough because Marko just let things get right out of hand and he doesn’t even know what he’s got. Maybe three em in hundreds and fifties, five em in tens and twenties, a quarter million in five dollar bills, tons of singles, no idea how much, and a quarter million in various Canadian, mostly fives. That’s just wild. All mixed up. A lot of it is just stuffed loose and mixed into bags or boxes. And, believe it or not, he’s got about nine thousand in coins. There’s probably some returnable beer bottles in there, too.”
Julia Gurr used a knife to scoop melted Brie onto a slice of apple. She frowned prettily as she computed. “I figure, what, half-a-million individual bills? Weighs about what? About?”
“If his math’s even close, I worked it out to just about seven-hundred thousand individual bills. With the grime and the elastics in the bundles, figure on fourteen, fifteen hundred pounds. I’m still working on the cube size, but I’ve got to tell you, it’s going to be heavy and cast a big shadow.”
She computed. “If it was in new money, new bills, without the elastics that’s … about two hundred feet tall, stacked up.”
“Once it’s all bundled. I told Marko there’s no way I can waste time counting and bundling. He’s getting a crew working with some counting machines. He figures it’ll take two days, tops.”
“How we going to do it? I mean, not how, but, like … how?”
“Well, if you’re sure you’re in, it’d be nice to cut the bulk. Even changing all the singles and fives into hundreds will bring it way down.”
Across the street the black-and-white couple chatted with each other on the sidewalk, then crossed Nicholas Street and entered a café with an outdoor patio, exactly opposite. They took seats that gave the jazzy man a clear view of the Calliope Cafe patio over the black woman’s shoulder.
Julia Gurr said: “How much time have we got? To boil it?”
“Probably not much, but I’d like to do some of it. Moving a shipment that size really restricts how many options I have. The plan is that Marko’s going to get some labour up there to box it up and get it out. There’s a road that runs about a quarter mile from the stash house. How he gets it down, I don’t care. If I’m lucky, Jerry Kelly’ll take him off, put one in his head and swing with the money.”
“Doesn’t help Zo’ though.”
“I know.” Across Nicholas Street a waitress brought coffee to the couple and the man held up his hand to stop her from walking away and paid her. Ready to dash. Cops, more and more likely, so assume cops. “I don’t think he’s got it all figured out yet. I told him the best scenario is after he gets it counted and ready to go, he moves it down here, someplace in the city where we can get at it. He controls the timetable and what moves I make. I’m going to have to fix that. I can’t have him jerking me around.”
“Marko, I guess, is worried about getting ripped?”
“I asked him about it, I said there’s guys out there’d who’d cook him in a pot, just to eat the bits that float off. He said he’s cool, he’s serene.”
“He means Jerry.”
“He does. I asked who provides the serenity and that’s what he said.” Preston laughed. “Jerry Kelly.”
“Another problem is getting Zoe back. What are the mechanics? How do we know that when the stuff has crossed, that they won’t thump our heads and take the dough, leave her down in Mexico?”
“I’ve got some thoughts for that. I’m pretty sure Marko won’t hurt her. I’m pretty sure that if I called his bluff that he’d just shrug and give her back, try something else. But with Jerry in there, well, who knows?” He put his hand across the table and covered hers. Her hand was cold and white; he hadn’t noticed the temperature dropping, hadn’t noticed the customers gradually vacating the patio. With the gun stuck into the back of his pants he couldn’t give her his coat. “I’ve got to make a plan, I think.”
They sat sipping at the last of their wine. Preston didn’t look at the couple across the road. He leaned his face closer to hers “Jools, we’re rolling hot. They’re all over us.”
She was smart enough not to move her head in the slightest. She lifted his hand and kissed it with cold lips. “Mmmmm.”
“I’ve got to split, stay clean.” He moved around the table and sat beside her. “Take this.” He slipped her the gun below the table top. “Don’t go home. Go to my place.”
“I need you to … Can’t you take me?”
“If they’re not on your place now, then they will be. I can dump them easier, safer, from here. This is better, Jools. I can leave ’em here. Go to my place.”
She bit her lips; her eyes were wide. “I don’t know. What if somebody …”
“You’ll have the gun, right? Just point and shoot. Or get a cab, door to door.” He slipped her his house keys. “Plug in all four cold phones from the closet. I’ll call on one of them.”
He asked the waiter where the men’s room was. Preston got up, put his coat around Julia Gurr’s shoulders, and went inside. At the back he pushed through the kitchen. The Mexican cooks rattled their pots at him and washers made reluctant way for him, chattering in his wake. The rear door was propped open with a chair to let out the kitchen heat and smells. Preston smoothly stepped over the chair and into the back alley. Without pausing he turned left toward the western side street, away from his apartment. He stepped in a black shadow and waited to determine if the cops had a team on the back of the restaurant.
A squeak in a shadow behind a junk shop turned into a scream and a fat rat dragged a small cat through a puddle of leaked greases.
When Bobby Preston didn’t return to the patio, Ray Tate told Djuna Brown they’d been burned off. “This fucking guy, this guy knows his business. That’s the second set he’s walked out of.”
He watched Julia Gurr pay the bill and get up from the table. She stood under the street light as if she didn’t want to leave it. She seemed frozen. A taxi crawled along Nicholas Street and with a jerk she flagged it. She carried Preston’s jacket, bundled, one hand inside it. She got into the back seat and leaned forward to point for the driver.
“We should nest her down, Ray,” Djuna Brown said, leaving the table and flagging a taxi. “Maybe she’s going to meet Marko. Or we get her address.”
Ray Tate followed her off the patio to the taxi. They boarded. The driver was a yawning brown man with red sleepless eyes.
“Don’t say a fucking thing,” Djuna Brown told him, flipping out her badge. “We’re cops. Follow that cab and if you lose it, we go to Homeland Security office on Dearborne. You’re in Juarez for dinner tomorrow.”
“Not a problem,” the driver said, indifferently. “No problemo. I’m from Brazil, but I’d like a free trip to Juarez. I really like Mexican food.”
“Whaaaaatever, amigo. Just don’t lose it.”
Julia Gurr’s taxi went up along Nicholas and up the next side street, rounded a block, and she got out at Bobby Preston’s house and bustled up the walk.
“That’s it,” the driver said. “Four blocks? Two bucks?” He laughed. “For this you send me to tyranny and hot peppers?”
Ray Tate floated a five dollar bill over the seat. “Keep the change, bud.”
“Fuck you.”
Bobby Preston kept up rent on a safe house he almost never used any longer, a furnished room and bath in a corner of a divided-up former factory owned by the wife of a bank robber who was doing harsh time. He liked the aging beauty queen, a former hatcheck at a nightclub, who painted decades off her face with an endless supply of emollients and powders.
He stretched out on a worn sofa and forced his mind still and into the variations. Julia and Zoe had to be put into perspective. He couldn’t let himself think about Zoe the human daughter or about his feelings for Julia Gurr the human former wife. Zoe was a commodity now to be traded for money; Julia Gurr was a tool and a resource.
He wasn’t a fan of Zen or any other Asian persuasion, but he concentrated in a subtractive mystical way, stripping away elements and emotions. Money was matter. It was at this place at this time, and it had to be at that other place at that other time. The problem was how to make it cross space, undetected. The mechanics of figuring out the exchange of his daughter would come into focus once the steps were in place, and he just had to walk down them without tripping. It would be necessary to get Marko to bring Zoe into proximity of the money, to make an exchange that saw everybody walking away satisfied. But that was for later.
His mind became a magnet of shifting elements and eventually all the disparate little parts, the boiling of the dough, doing the runs through the border, recovering his daughter, and maybe fixing things up with Julia Gurr, arranged themselves. Marko and Jerry Kelly, and Pavo the Colombian backend, all of them lost form as sources of fear or danger. They were all just entities, particles of matter, motes.
In the morning he had it.
As long as Marko and Jerry Kelly had Julia and Zoe to control him with, he couldn’t operate freely. Eliminating that was key.
On his last trip to Canada, he’d arrived early in Toronto to pick up a pig train at a hotel near the city hall. He wandered. A stocky statue of Winston Churchill loomed near the sidewalk where Bobby Preston ate a hotdog waiting for the pickup time.
In front of Winston Churchill an old bum screamed abuse.
But old stoic Winston couldn’t hear him.
Winston was a deaf rock.
The bum raved; Winston just loomed back at him.
Bobby Preston awoke, laughing.
The Winston Churchill variation.