Blind Luck (6 page)

“We’re going to my friend’s funeral,” Jack said as he lit a cigarette. “His name is, was, Conner Drake. You never met him, but he was a good guy. A loyal guy.” He rolled the window down a pinch to let out some of the smoke.

Dave wondered what all kids wonder when they hear the word “funeral”. “How did he die?”

“Heart attack.”

Dave and his dad were the only guests at the funeral. The sun broke through a pack of clouds as they made their way through damp grass to the grave site, and Dave’s heart began to race.

He had never seen an open grave, and the mound of fresh dirt made it difficult for him to focus on the priest’s words. The thought of being buried terrified him, and suddenly this wasn’t about a man’s funeral, this was about him. He tried to rationalize that he would be dead, so it wouldn’t matter, but the thought of being trapped in a box under all that dirt won. Tears welled up in his eyes, but they weren’t tears of sympathy. He cried because he was terrified that one day he was going to be buried, eaten by maggots and reduced to bones. His eyes dropped to the ground too late to avoid detection, and tears wet his cheeks. He never wanted to go to a funeral again. The thought of his dad dead, under all that dirt, made him want to scream, until his dad’s hand wrapped tight around his.

After his dad thanked and hugged the priest, they took their time walking back to the car. Every few steps, Jack bent down, found something to throw and chucked it as far forward as he could. Dave waited for him to bend down again.

“How come we were the only people at his funeral?”

Jack looked up at him for a moment from his knees before rising. “He didn’t have any family or friends, and he didn’t have a job, not one you go to everyday anyway.”

“What about a wife?”

“Not even a girlfriend.”

Dave didn’t have the nerve to ask what was really on his mind. Why do people have to die? What happens to people after death?

And if he died somehow before his dad, would his dad promise to come to the funeral as a guarantee that somebody would be there?

Jack smoked three consecutive cigarettes as they drove. Dave watched the way his dad held the tip of the filter in his teeth, and he noticed the way his index finger curled over to meet the thumb as he drew deep on the cigarette until his lungs filled with smoke. There was something calming about watching his dad smoke like this.

But the funeral had shaken him. He didn’t want his father to die alone like Conner, so he made himself a promise that no matter where on the planet he would be when his father died, he would attend the funeral.

“You know what we need?” Jack said, tossing a butt out the window. “We need burgers.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe two.”

When his dad was in this type of mood, there were no exaggerations. He ordered two bacon burgers for himself and two junior burgers with everything on them for Dave. They wanted a booth, but the place was crowded, so Dave sat down beside a large man hunched over his food. His dad sat across from him. Dave wasn’t two bites into his first burger before he noticed his dad staring at the large man. And for good reason too. The man had four burgers in front of him, one in his hand and another wrapper crumpled up on the tray made six in total.

Dave did his best to examine the man out of the corner of his eyes without getting caught staring. Huge did not do this guy justice. A black cable-knit sweater with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms looked like it might burst at any moment, the way it stretched over his frame. His face was stubbly, and a smear of mayonnaise stood out on the corner of his right lip as he chewed as much of the burger as he could fit into his mouth. This was not a handsome man.

Jack sat up straight in his chair and turned slightly towards the large man so that they made eye contact.

“That’s a lot of burgers,” he said, gesturing to the man’s tray. The man looked up at him, and his tongue probed at a chunk of food in the pouch of his cheek He didn’t respond, so Jack continued. “What’s the most burgers you’ve ever eaten in one sitting?”

“Ever?”

“Yeah.”

“Ten.”

The man put down his burgers as if the question warranted his full attention. Jack leaned in closer. “Ten? Ten of these burgers?”

“A few times,”

Jack tapped the table with an index finger. “I’ve got a hundred that says you can’t eat ten today.”

“A hundred?”

“Yep. If you don’t eat ten, you owe me a hundred. But if you do, I give you a hundred and pay for your burgers.”

“How much time do I get?”

“As much as you need.”

The man wiped sauce from his hands before extending his podgy finger. “You’re on.”

They shook. Five minutes later. Jack had four more burgers in front of the man. In the first ten minutes, he finished two more burgers, bringing the total to four. He dabbed a heavy sweat from his brow with a napkin before unwrapping another burger. Dave moved from the seat beside the man to one that opened up behind them. The more the man ate, the more he sweated, and the more he sweated, the more he swelled. Nothing had tested Dave’s gag reflex like that before. Burger, ketchup, processed cheese, relish, special sauce and burp mixed with the sweat. Jack didn’t move at all. He just sat back, sipped on his drink and watched the big man go.

Thirty-two minutes later, on his eighth burger, the mouthfuls turned to nibbles, and he thoroughly soaked each piece in his Sprite to make swallowing easier. His eyes bulged like someone had pumped them up with air, while sweat stained both sides of his shirt. Another bite, and his Adam’s apple jumped with a harsh gag.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Jack said. He removed two fifties from his wallet and placed them on the table. “Maybe a little visual incentive will help.”

The man’s eyebrows narrowed like he wanted to swear, reach across the table and strike Jack, but his stomach couldn’t handle the jostling, so he pulled a handful of money from his pants pocket and put it on the table.

“I’m done, you fucking sadist.” He gestured to an ATM. “I’ll be back with the rest.”

The man waddled to a machine near the front doors while Jack pumped his fist in the air.

At the first stoplight, Jack passed Dave twenty dollars. Dave didn’t know how to respond, so his dad prodded him with a wink. “Just don’t show your mother.”

“How did you know he couldn’t eat the burgers? That guy was huge.”

“Because people always exaggerate. That’s the curse of pride. You paid fifty for a pair of jeans, you say thirty-five, you make fifty-grand a year, you say sixty, you can eat eight burgers, you say ten.”

Dave looked at the twenty with thoughts of baseball cards. The day marked a series of significant moments in his life. He’d attended his first funeral, and he’d watched his first proposition bet.

Seven

Dave stared at Shannon’s freshly covered grave after the ceremony ended, with thoughts filling his head of their perfunctory exchanges, morning greetings and lunches. They’d shared an unspoken bond, relied on each other to make every day of work more bearable, and as a result, more meaningful. Most of the people in attendance made their way to the parking lot, but Dave felt someone standing behind him. He pivoted to see a handsome man he guessed to be in his late thirties. With an overcoat, dress pants and a square jaw that centred under a thick mane of hair, his exterior appeared healthy at first glance, but a closer look revealed the man’s eyes were too dry, and the flesh beneath them hollow and drained.

“Dave, right?”

Dave took a moment before nodding. The man extended a large hand.

“I’m Shannon’s husband, Tim. We met at that dinner thing for Christmas.”

“Of course, yeah.”

“Do you know when the other funerals are?”

Dave saw the fog in his eyes. He saw the dam of denial that compelled Tim to ask expected, cliched questions so he wouldn’t throw himself in front of the closest moving car. Dave knew he had to play along. “I haven’t heard.”

Tim surveyed him from head to toe before focussing on his face with the type of awe autograph seekers show celebrities. “How did you survive?”

The question stunned Dave. The right thing to do was to be nice and help the man with his shock, but the words shook him. “I was in the washroom.”

“You definitely picked the right time.” Tim patted him on the shoulder. “Take care.”

Dave got in a cab and headed for Thorrin’s office. He pulled the second envelope Thorrin had given him from the inside pocket of his jacket, as if by holding it he was closer to giving it back. The thought of writing down a few stocks from a newspaper to give Thorrin what he wanted crossed his mind, hilt in the end he didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of losing the man’s money. The risk simply wasn’t worth the daunting odds of a return. He wanted to give back the money, excuse himself politely and forget they’d ever met.

A converted warehouse space in the city’s west end framed Thorrin’s daily business. The location worked because it was close enough to downtown to be a minute away from the action but just far enough outside the city’s core that a ridiculous amount of space came at a reasonable price. The lobby’s speckled floor and the wooden banisters on the staircase made Dave think of Seventies cop movies. A woman in her fifties with a large nose and far too much eye make-up pointed at him with a pen.

“Who are you here to see, sir?”

“Uh, Mr. Thorrin. My name’s Dave Bolden.”

“Take a seat, Mr. Bolden. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

A seat meant the gorgeous black leather couch flanked on either side by silver stand-up ashtrays. Dave felt the leather hug his back as he sat down.

He was wondering whether he could swing an accounting gig from Thorrin’s interest in him when he looked up to see Grayson standing beside him.

“Did you get here easy enough?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. We were going to send a car, but we thought it best to give you your space.” Grayson spread his arms to draw attention to the surroundings. “Let me give you a tour.”

They stepped into an elevator that couldn’t fit more than four people. The tight dimensions made Dave feel claustrophobic for the first time in his life, until the elevator stopped at the fifth floor, where the doors opened to reveal a huge, open office. At first glance Dave guessed it was about five thousand square feet. He followed Grayson through the space, where white veils circled office stations, pool tables sat throughout, and trees in cement blocks painted white ran two lines through the middle of the room.

Dave couldn’t take his eyes off of a bed that was suspended a foot off the ground by four chains hanging from the ceiling and veiled by a see-through white curtain.

“What is this place?”

“It’s a think tank. Minimal employees, client wining and dining, a merger of work and play.” Grayson pointed to a door at the end of the room flanked by two horseshoe pits. “That’s Mr. Thorrin’s office down there.”

They passed a bar area elevated six inches from the rest of the floor. Everything about the place was dreamy. The bar’s floor was aqua, the white seats formed buckets like giant ice cream scoopers, and a series of circular lights were built into the floor.

Grayson led the way past a woman with short, slicked back hair talking on a headset as she pecked at a laptop before they reached Thorrin’s office. Grayson pointed to an L-shaped cream couch.

“Have a seat, and I’ll tell Mr. Thorrin that you’re here.”

Dave waited for Grayson to disappear behind the door before he sat down. A woman behind a see-through curtain that circled her office space caught his attention. He stared to see if she would acknowledge him, but she never did. A model with buck teeth on the cover of a fashion magazine lying on a side table caught his attention until Grayson reappeared from behind the door.

“Follow me,” he said, holding the door open with one hand.

Thorrin’s office was equally opulent. With a stainless steel fridge, stove and two mahogany tables, it looked more like a living space. They passed a half-moon of suede couches before turning a corner to find Thorrin sitting behind a desk. He rose with an extended hand while Grayson left the room.

“It’s good to see you again, Dave.” His hands clasped together as he leaned forward on the desk. “How do you like the place?”

“It’s different. You’re an investment company, right?”

“Not
an
investment company—outside of the banks, we are
the
investment company in this country. We have over a hundred professionals and other offices in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Boston and New York.”

“Why was a guy like you going to a boutique accounting firm like Mr. Richter’s?”

“He’d been handling a section of my finances for thirty years. Before he had his own place, and long before I started this company.” He sat down and traced his jawline with a thumb. “So, what do you have for me?”

Dave put the envelope of money in front of him. “Just this. I came to return your money.”

Thorrin sat upright again. “Why?”

“Because I’m not a good luck charm. Trust me, if you knew more about my life than the facts you’ve pulled out, you’d believe me.”

“I knew enough to know you need this money. I know you have a father in an expensive senior’s home, and I know you borrow money from less than reputable people to keep him there.”

Dave’s face flushed. He wanted to leap across the table and hit Thorrin until he stopped moving, but even anger knew that wasn’t a good idea.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of me by digging into my personal life, but let me save you the trouble—I’m not worth it.”

“I disagree.”

“Think about it, if I was really as lucky as you say I am, why would I need to be in debt to anybody?”

“Because you don’t know you’re lucky.”

Dave shifted his weight to one side of the chair and back again. “Look, you can talk your way around this all you want, but the truth is, I’m just another guy.”

“You don’t believe, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t either.” Thorrin rose from his seat. He looked broader through the chest and longer of limb standing up. “Come with me.”