Pho Sho was a small restaurant with white bars over the window, an off-white awning, the name bilingual in gray script. I waited for the lull between late lunch and early dinner, ordered a bánh mì and Vietnamese coffee, and handed my card to the server.
“Larry around?” I touched my nose when I said his name, and told her he was wearing a bandage when last I saw him.
The server glanced at the clipboard hanging from the wall. Instead of answering me, she brought an older woman out from the back, who said Larry wasn’t around and she didn’t know where he was. A hint of maternal suspicion in her voice.
I stepped out of the restaurant and looked up and down the street. I didn’t know if Larry was an employee or customer, casual or regular, undocumented immigrant or Vancouver homegrown. But I remembered what Miles had said about being a breed apart.
Towers were making inroads onto Kingsway, displacing the narrow restaurants and the shopfronts with their barred windows. But it was still Kingsway. There were two corner stores within sight, a Korean grocer and a cigarette shop with stacks of Asian newspapers out front. I tried the latter.
The man behind the counter was cutting keys. He was wearing a polo shirt, blue with white piping, with a crude approximation of the Ralph Lauren logo stitched to the breast pocket.
I asked for two cartons of Marlboros. He retrieved them out of the case. Tax stamped and still in their plastic. I looked at him, at the cigarettes, and at the floor behind him. He put the smokes back, disappeared for a moment and came back with two unstamped cartons.
“Turkish?” I asked hopefully. He nodded. “Nothing smokes like a Turkish Marlboro.”
As he bagged one carton I opened the other and took out a pack. Tapping the counter absentmindedly, I said, “You know the guy who comes in here with the thing on his nose? You think you’ll see him today?”
He nodded, grimaced a bit. Evidently Larry wasn’t a popular customer.
“I left my wallet at home, ’bout a week ago. He gave me his last smoke. I wouldn’t’ve done that for me, I was him.” I pushed one pack back across the counter. “He comes in, would you give him this?” I slid over another one. “For your trouble. Thanks, man.”
I found a café up the block with a few tables out front, from which I could watch the front door of the tobacconist’s without drawing attention. If in fact Larry worked at the restaurant, and if he decided to stop into the store on his way, and if I could spot him—too many ifs.
But sometimes you get lucky. It was two hours later when he showed, and the cigarette ruse was all but unnecessary. He pulled to the curb in a lime-green Civic with spinning hubcaps, climbed out, working the door handle with a tenderness toward the machine. The cartilage of his nose was still noticeably askew. He came out of the store holding the cigarettes and a wad of shiny gold strips. Once he got his smoke lit, he held the pack in his armpit while he dug out change and attended to the strips. Scratch tickets. I watched him scratch and curse his way through four before I approached.
“Son of a motherfuck,” he said, tossing another loser into the gutter.
“I’d like a word with you, Larry,” I said.
He jumped a few steps back. When he realized I was between him and his car, he returned, wary. “You the Cigarette Fairy?”
“More lucrative than teeth,” I said. “Another carton and a half if you let me buy you a drink.”
“Jesus,” he said, “you’re not from—”
“Anthony Qiu and Chris Chambers? No.”
“Good, ’cause I’m up on my payment. I’ll even be ahead if a couple things work out.” He paused. “You said no but you know their names.”
I said, “You know the parking garage on Beatty, near Victory Square? Park there, second floor. I’ll meet you in ten minutes.”
“I’m busy, I got to work—”
“I got a picture of you, a description, and your license number.” I aimed my cell phone’s lens at Larry’s face and snapped a shot. “I’m not going to hassle you and I’m not a cop. See you in ten.”
Larry was late. I crossed the street to the Medina Café. There was always a long lineup, extending out into the street, hip young couples with money. I bought a coffee and a lavender latte and two Belgian waffles. Larry’s green Civic pulled into the garage. I crossed the empty road to meet him.
“Not what I thought you meant by a drink,” he said, accepting the coffee and waffle. I moved to enter the car and he stopped me and climbed out. “Nobody eats in her,” he said.
Leaning against a concrete pillar I said, “A couple months back Chris Chambers beat the shit out of you.”
“Only because my hands were cuffed behind me,” he said. “My hands were free, or cuffed in front? ’Tirely different story.”
“You owe him money.”
“He collects for the guy I owe. Winslow.”
“You were behind on installments.”
He lit another cigarette, dragged on it thoughtfully. A tour bus rumbled down Beatty, the uncovered back section crowded, cameras hanging limp around the necks of tourists.
“That restaurant should be half mine,” Larry said. “My parents put it in my big brother’s name, but the profits were always ’sposed to be split. When my brother found out about my gambling addiction, know what he did? You think he offered to get me counseling, his little brother who used to sleep in the same bed with him? No. Offered me cash money for my share. You believe that?”
“And you took it.”
“Well, way he runs the restaurant I figured I can’t do worse.”
“And?”
“Turns out I can do worse.” Larry shook his head, thinking of lost fortunes. “The money got me into this table game, and that’s where I met Winslow.”
“Playing?”
“Working,” he said. “Thought he was a bouncer or one of the guys’ drivers. Who else wears shades in a dark room? When I busted out he stopped me at the door, offered to loan me another K. And then two more. I was into him for seven by the end of the night.”
“Why’d he lend you the money? Just to pick up debt?”
“He thought my name was still on the slip for Pho Sho. When he found out I’m just another broke-ass prep cook, he gave me two weeks.”
“Then he sent Chambers.”
“Right. My brother gave me two—‘gave,’ fucking advance against my minimum wage job—and Winslow said not good enough. I told him I didn’t have a cent to my name. He said to have another grand ready for Tuesday. That would let me put the rest on installments. I didn’t know he’d send a cop.”
“How bad did Chambers hurt you?”
“I’ve been beat on since I was little,” Larry said. “My dad was against it but my mom—shit, she used to break spoons beating my ass. With the cop, I just wish I got a fair chance, y’know? Easy to whip on someone who’s tied up.”
“When’s your next payment due?”
“Two C-notes every Friday,” Larry said. “Only half of one counts toward the principal. I never missed a payment.”
“Then why’d he beat on you?”
“This.” Larry patted the hood of his Civic. “I won it off one of the other chefs—not that he had it legally. When word got back to Winslow that Larry Tranh had a new car, he sent his dog after me, even though it was him said I couldn’t pay extra to work down the debt.”
“Still pissed at Chambers?”
“Hell yes.”
“Interested in payback?”
“Tell me where he lives, I’ll roll by with a Molotov.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe handcuff him, too. Show him how it feels.”
“Punk stuff,” I said, shaking my head at his bravado. “I’m talking about really hurting him. That takes a certain skill which you possess in spades.”
“And that’d be what?”
“You annoy people to the point they want to hit you.”