Standing at the corner of Queen and Bathurst, I rolled a coin between my knuckles.
“Hey man, got a smoke?”
You often get asked for things on the streets of this city. I looked the interloper in the eyes.
“Nope.”
“What you gonna do with that quarter?”
“Spend it, eat it, who knows?”
“Can I have it?”
“Piss off!” He buggered away a few feet before asking a young woman if she had a subway token.
I fed my coins into the slot of the payphone and heard the click of the dial tone. I punched the 10 digits that I had memorized by then. It rang three times. I had decided
I would wait for the fifth ring before hanging up. On the fourth ring, someone picked up on the other end,
“Hello?” It was her voice.
“Hello this is Kend, um, William.”
“Who?”
“William. We talked a few weeks back at a bar. I can’t remember the name of the place.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I talk to so many guys.”
“You do?”
“I’m kidding. Of course I remember you. Wasn’t it more like a month ago when I saw you?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think I’m available anymore?”
“What makes you think that’s why I’m calling?”
“Isn’t that why you’re calling?”
The noise around me had intensified and a line-up had started in front of me.
“Hey buddy, you almost done with the phone?”
I cupped my hand over the mouthpiece.
“Not yet, beat it.”
We made plans for Saturday night and I hung up. I started walking east on Queen Street, towards Osgoode subway station and got off at Davisville. I was in midtown and that was on purpose. Arnie had sent me on a job to pick some things up for the girls at the pharmacy in this area for various reasons, one of which was that it was far enough away from his downtown warehouse that he didn’t have to worry about me being seen by someone he knew. The other reasons I’ll get to in a moment.
I had gone down the wrong aisle. I just stood there staring at the myriad boxes, containers, and other assorted cosmetic products on the shelf. I was being foolish, sentimental in the strangest setting; hair dyes and hand creams, eye shadow and face powder, the most beautiful packaging filled with waxy promises. The lipsticks were lined up perfectly in dotted rows, ordered by shade and saturation. I reached out and picked up a certain brand. “Cabaret Claret” was the color code it had been given. I rolled the silver bullet around in my hand and removed the lid to reveal the vibrant shade. I smiled and returned the lipstick to the shelf.
I had been sent out to get a list of first aid items for the girls, which was an errand Arnie had someone run for him often. He saw the girls as any other investment or collateral worth caring for, similar to taking a car in for scheduled maintenance. So here I was, filling a basket with vaginal creams, lubricants, topical solutions, band-aids, condoms, and a handful of prescriptions including painkillers and antibiotics, which a doctor Arnie was connected with had written up. He had more than one doctor he used in order to keep the flies away from his shit. He also had certain pharmacists in his pocket, which was another reason I was there. I stepped up to the counter and a man wearing an assistant pharmacist nametag acknowledged my presence.
“Can I help you sir?”
“Your name Masterson?”
“No. He’s on his lunch.”
“Did he go out for lunch or did he stay in for lunch?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m a friend of his. Here to pay him a visit. Is he here or not?”
The assistant became uneasy. “He’s in the back.”
“Tell him Kendall is waiting for him.”
“Um, okay hold on a minute.”
The assistant disappeared towards the back room. I was alone in front of the prescription drop-off window. After about two minutes a man who was not the assistant came through the door. He was in his late forties and bald, with eyes that bulged from his head like a fish. He was a thin little man whose skin hung loosely from his body as though it had no elasticity at all. He spoke in a scared and nervous fashion.
“You people can’t keep coming here. I could lose my job.” He was whispering.
“Not my problem. Take it up with Arnie.”
“Shush! Okay, okay keep it down will you?”
“I don’t see how being inconspicuous is going to help at this point, do you?”
“Fine, okay. What do you want?”
I handed him Arnie’s list.
He looked at it and his mouth opened. “All of this?”
“No, Arnie just wants some of it. The rest he wrote to practice his cursive.”
“I can’t. Someone will notice this much missing.”
“Don’t make me start from the beginning. If I leave here without it…”
He cut me short with wave of his hand. “Okay, please just stop talking.”
I smiled. He took the sheet of paper and got to work. He worked quickly. I assumed he sent the assistant on break. It took him ten minutes to fill the various orders, which he handed me in three brown paper bags.
I had been doing a lot of these assignments for Arnie for some time now. The pay wasn’t as good as the fights but I still got paid. Arnie also had me working directly with the girls and I often received non-monetary perks from those assignments. The work was small-time until a few weeks ago when Arnie and Pink had a meeting with me and asked me to start working on the itineraries for new container shipments of girls from overseas.
It was Pink’s idea and Arnie went along with it. Arnie liked me, but it was Pink who had taken a real shine to me.
I was amazed at the intricate organization they had created and how far Arnie’s business arms reached. He had his hands in everything but his bread and butter was the trading and trafficking of human beings.
The more work I did for them and the deeper I got into their syndicate, the more I was amazed at how much money one single human being would generate in revenue. One female was worth over a million dollars to Arnie and he was trading all over the world. He kept his head operations in Toronto though, due to Canada’s visa exemption policies.
As clever as Arnie’s whole racket was, his real genius was the creation of an online recruitment and advertising system, which was almost undetectable to law enforcement agencies, not just in Canada but worldwide. As far as operating, the system was very simple, yet extremely effective in both recruiting potential women and clients. Each client had to pass a screening process and answer a series of controlled psychological questions, which helped Arnie and his staff determine if the person was a real client or possibly law enforcement posing as a client. A final background check was also performed. All Arnie needed was a date of birth or social insurance number as well as a mailing address, and he could have an entire profile and dossier created on each client within 30 minutes.
The efficiency and accuracy of Arnie’s operation, and his understanding of quality control and compliance was incredible. He could teach some of the top tier financial companies in the world a thing or two. For the first little while it was overwhelming and at times, I needed Pink to walk me through it.
Arnie had gone so far as to set up a series of failsafe protection systems to help mislead law enforcement, including systems that would flag IP addresses as RCMP or police stations. His safeguards were even accurate enough to flag remote sting operations. Arnie had been in business for almost 15 years and in all those years had never even received a slap on the wrist from the law. In fact, after a while I was convinced they didn’t even know he existed.
It was around six in the evening when I boarded Dark Agnes, and Pink had been waiting for me. He was sitting in an outdoor lounge chair at the top of the gangplank. He waved me over to him.
“You get Arnie’s stuff?”
I nodded.
“Good boy, give it here.”
I handed him the bags. He took a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it, taking a long drag. He looked at me.
“What are you waiting for?”
“Arnie said you’d have something for me.”
“He did, did he? Damn, you don’t go easy, do you?”
He put the cigarette between his lips and shoved his hand into his jean pocket. He took out a wad of cash, unfurled three Robbies and handed them to me.
“Now go find a girl and leave me alone.”
I put the money in my pocket and let him finish his cigarette in peace.