THIRTY-TWO

Le Central was relatively quiet and uncrowded, apart from the folks at the bar. Music was on the radio, Irma Thomas doing “Ruler of My Heart.” I sat across from Branch in a corner booth, staring at a clean white tablecloth, wanting to get the meeting over with.

“You’re getting three hundred dollars for the job.”

“Three hundred, huh?”

“Do you have a problem with it?”

Branch’s unvarnished antagonism forced the bullet to advise me, like it had so many times before, that when confronting a complete asshole in a business situation, stay loose.

“It isn’t enough.”

“Don’t haggle with me. I gave you that Zegna. I was overly generous with you. Come up with a prediction.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Part of me wanted to tell the truth. Another part said, forget it. The biggest quandary was the money.

“Give me some cash first.”

Branch inserted two fingers in his Gucci jacket, shook out an alligator skin wallet, extracted a trio of spanking new one hundred dollars bills and gave them to me. I stuffed the paper in my jeans.

“Now tell me the future, Ricky.”

“You won’t like it.”

I braced my hands against the table’s edge. This was it. Ground zero. The time had come. I couldn’t waffle no more. I had to tell Branch something. Even if it was bad.

“Ronnie Shmalker isn’t going to win.”

“Say that again.” There was a threat in his command, a challenge to defy him. “Indulge me.”

“He isn’t going to win.”

Branch cupped his chin with his soft hands. In the bistro’s light, his skin had the texture of an orange peel. He looked wistful. Quite bemused. Then his face changed gears, his mouth thinned into a poisonous slit.

“This is bad news. You fucked up.”

I had played my cards with integrity. I’d allowed Branch to see the future. And now I was about to have my ass handed to me for it. I chuckled in outrage. Branch chuckled too, enjoying my anguish.

“You blew it, Ricky. You were supposed to tell me what I wanted.”

“Bullshit. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, you did. You predicted the wrong future.”

In only two days my stature as an oracle had taken me from Market Street to Pacific Heights. In the last two minutes the whole thing had gone to hell. But what else could’ve happened? My rise had been too fast. I’d reached for honey, and I got stung.

I pushed back my chair, stood upright, brushed the lint off my rumpled cashmere coat.

“Kiss my ass, Branch. I’m out of here.”