The Humanist Read online

  “All right,” she finally countered. “But one final condition.”

  I sighed. “What?”

  “You give me a little kiss.” She smiled, her cheeks puffing out.

  I stammered.

  She smiled, a half-moon between two mountain peaks. “It’s either that or you’re going to have to come back here and finger bang my ass!”

  I instantly reached up, grabbed a piece of fat from her face in each hand, and pulled her devil lips toward mine. I kept my mouth shut for fear of having some pink serpent invade my gums. The seconds ticked by slowly in my head. One second, two seconds, three seconds. I pushed her away.

  Her eyes were wide, then her eyelashes fluttered as her brain caught up. “Well, we certainly have a deal, kid.” She waddled off to find some paperwork.

  I wiped my lips. I would need half a bottle of whiskey to get rid of the enduring stench of fish and cigarettes.

  She soon returned with her paperwork.

  “ID.”

  “Excuse me?” I replied.

  “Identification. I need it for the paperwork.”

  “Now, Mary—”

  “Who the fuck’s Mary?” Her face screwed up like a peach.

  I didn’t know what to say. Then I remembered Mary was the name I gave to her.

  “It’s Janet, kid! Perhaps you need another kiss to remind you of that?”

  “Oh, Janet,” I said. “I don’t think I could possibly take any more of your love today. You’ve worn me out! But I was wondering if we could do something different.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Different how?”

  “I was thinking we could keep this between us.”

  “Between us how?” Her eyes were slits.

  I sighed. “How about you mark me down in your books as Romeo? After all, you’ll only be holding onto the watch for a couple of days, and then I’ll be back. It would be like I was never here.”

  “What sort of shady shit are you pulling me into?”

  I stood back. “Does it look like I’m into shady shit?”

  She looked me over. “Yes. It does.”

  Fair call. “Alright, Janet. I didn’t want to have to do this. I’ll throw an additional 500 your way to make my name disappear. How does that work?”

  She chewed it over.

  “Make it a grand.”

  All the gush she had had for me evaporated in the blink of an eye. At her heart, she was an ice-cold bitch driven by the dollar. But aren’t we all?

  “For a grand, Janet, I want all your security cameras turned off when I come in.”

  “Oh, sounds like some sort of spy shit,” she mused.

  “You want the extra grand, Janet?”

  She looked me over again, possibly contemplating if she could take me out if I tried anything shifty while the cameras were off. And she most certainly could, with very little trouble.

  “All right, Romeo. You got yourself a deal.”

  “Ah, Juliette,” I said sarcastically, “I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship.”

  “Oh, Romeo. Any bullshit, and I call the cops.”

  I placed a hand over my heart. “I promise to be on my very best behavior.”

  With money in my pocket, I left the store, feeling her eyes roam over every part of me as I did so. Violated. I felt violated. The things I did for money.

  Chapter 12

  I stood at the end of the bed. On the left side of the mattress was my money, fanned out to show the extent of my wealth. It was limited, and that was unfortunate, but I knew it was only the beginning. You had to start somewhere. On the right side, I had laid out my second-best suit. I chose my second-best suit just in case the night turned to shit and someone needed something nice to bury me in. If the night worked out, my best suit would become my fourth best.

  My plan was simple. Watch people. Find my way in. Go big. Three simple steps. At the time, I thought, “What could go wrong?” But by the end of the night, I could easily answer that question. Oh, the value of hindsight.

  But that was only one part of what I wanted to achieve that night. I was also looking for investors. Foremost on my list was Talon. I knew he had capital, more than enough funds to get me started. He was already part of the underworld. It didn’t seem like much of a stretch for him. It felt like something he would gladly throw money at, given the returns I’d promise him. I would stake my life on it.

  You may think that’s harsh, or that I don’t value my life very much. I call that belief. An overwhelming belief in my ability. An overwhelming belief in the idea. And, really, in the end, that’s all you need. And surely, that belief would be enough to convince others of the concept. Once again, hindsight would prove golden.

  My phone beeped and I checked it. Olivia, my extra special friend, was looking for my companionship. She suggested we meet at a ritzy, drug-fueled dance club downtown, nestled between a cigar smoke-filled gentleman’s club and a cockroach enticing diner that offered pizza slices at a buck ninety-nine. Maybe I should have accepted the invitation. Instead, I politely declined (using work as an excuse) and promised to touch base later in the evening (ideally when she was drunk and horny). Girls were one thing, the opportunity to make money was something else entirely.

  I threw the phone on the bed. It dinged as it landed. I sighed. I wasn’t in the mood for any lovey tête-à-tête with someone I was having a casual fling with.

  However, the message wasn’t from Olivia. It was from...well, at the time, I didn’t know who it was from. The sender was a jumble of characters. The message itself wasn’t any better—merely a hyperlink consisting of a string of randomized characters. I eyed it suspiciously, just like anyone would. One part of me was curious, the other concerned about hackers looking for access to my bank account details or web search history. Either would be embarrassing for entirely different reasons.

  As I stared at the screen, a call came through, the phone vibrating in my hand as it rang. It was from an unknown number. I held the device to my ear.

  "Hello?” My voice was shaky, like I had just been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

  A familiar voice responded.

  “Click the link,” Sonja said. And then she clicked off.

  Puzzled, I brought the phone down from my ear and investigated the message once more. I was caught in that moment. In between What’s going to happen when I do? and Was the line secure enough for Sonja to make the phone call? My paranoia was high—maybe too high, but most likely not high enough.

  Casting aside my fears, I tapped the link. Right after I did, the screen went black. For a split second, I thought I had inadvertently infected my phone with a virus. I thought Sonja had screwed me. For a fleeting moment, I thought the feds were going to come crashing through my door. And then rational thinking and logic kicked in. I hadn’t actually done anything yet. So, what was there to be nervous about?

  A few seconds later, the screen went white and black, with a swirling ball filling the display. It looked alive. Smoke tendrils snaked to the edges of the screen. Something was loading, that was for damn sure. Then it loaded. The result was beautiful. I clicked through the dashboard and explored the capabilities. It wasn’t perfect, but more than sufficient to demonstrate the concept to Talon. Sonja had delivered what I had asked for, and her timing couldn’t have been better.

  ***

  Wet garbage. That’s the smell that attacked my nostrils as I exited the cab. The taxi driver took off in a hurry as soon as I threw some money in his direction and escaped the rear seat, and he seemingly managed to hit every single water-filled pothole he could find as the engine roared.

  I pulled my coat tightly around me and inspected the nondescript alley. Puddles from an evening shower littered the pavement. Rear entrances and dumpsters lined both sides.

  Large dumpsters flanked the back door of the Chinese restaurant. An old, faded globe above the door cast a sickly glow upon the entrance. It appeared to be the only source of light along the stretch of all
eyway.

  The screen door squeaked open. Inside, numerous cooks handled woks over flames, jostling their contents. White-shirted wait staff ran in, dropped off dishes, picked up plates, and disappeared again into another room through a swinging door that was perpetually in motion. No one gave me a second glance. I got the feeling they were used to strangers walking in and taking up temporary residence in their basement.

  Following the instructions I received that afternoon, I found the stairwell and descended the concrete steps. The cacophony of the kitchen slowly faded as I rounded the corner and found another set of stairs. At the bottom was a door. In front of that door was something that should only exist in nightmares.

  He was tall, solid. Not overly muscular. Not that he needed to be, with the shotgun at his side. He wore a tank top. Ink covered every available inch of skin with writing from the tips of his fingers up his arms and wrapping around his neck. Instead of hair on his head, he had even more tattoos, which created swirling patterns on his dome. Tribal? Cultural? I couldn’t tell. His big black goatee that filled his face was so bushy, I couldn’t see his mouth.

  He stared down at me as I approached. I was about to carefully extract my membership card when he bashed a fist into the steel door behind him. I guess he figured no one would be stupid enough to approach uninvited, and there were plenty of eyes upstairs if the cops tried to raid the place. Besides, I seriously doubted Talon would operate without bribing a few officials. It seemed like a requirement for undertaking his sort of business.

  After some muffled clicking and metal-on-metal scraping, the door opened toward us. I navigated my way around the guard and through the door, which promptly closed behind me. There I found another frightful-looking character. He was large in all departments. His stomach overhung his belt, his arms were more fat than muscle. He could crush me in a heartbeat. Islander. Maybe Samoan. That wonderful milk coffee color. A tribal tattoo (I guessed) swirled up his arm. At first, I was taken aback, and then I thought he might like Janet from the pawn shop. She, too, might appreciate someone who was more similar to her own stature.

  I thrust a hand out. “I’m Atlas. Atlas Jones.”

  He grunted and kept his hands firmly planted on his weapon. As if it took all his effort to do so.

  “So, are you single?”

  He raised an eyebrow at this. “You’re not my type, kid.” A croaky voice, like the sound had to fight its way up his throat to get out.

  I held up my hands. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  He pointed the butt of his rifle at me. “Best you be getting on, kid. You don’t want to be late.”

  “I just need to see Talon, first.”

  “Ah, I see. You’re new around here. How about you get in that room before I smash your fingers up real good so you have trouble holding that little dick of yours when you take a piss?”

  With no further conversation, I turned and walked through a doorway on my immediate left.

  The room I entered was dim and sparsely furnished. It reminded me of the room where I first met Talon and his associate, Stone. The banker’s lamp on the desk, the shadow that adorned the corners. This room was a replica. Although, behind the desk, instead of the head of an ominously seedy organization, was a woman pushing sixty who oozed librarian. She had tied her long brown hair into a bun and wore large, white-rimmed glasses, which were held to her person with a silver chain that draped over her shoulders.

  She sucked in a lungful of nicotine as she looked me over, and then blew the smoke out toward the ceiling. “Cutting it kind of close, kid.” The wrinkles danced on her face as she spoke.

  I approached the desk. “Yeah. I’m not too sure—”

  “Oh,” she said with a warm smile. “You must be new. How lovely it is to meet you.” She held her scrawny hand out. “My name is Tessa. I’m the overseer.” Her voice was sweet, school-teacher-talking-to-a-first-year-student sweet.

  I took her hand, and she squeezed. Hard.

  She held me in check as her features dropped. “Now listen here, you little prick. Hand over your damn money so I can chip you in.” She leaned forward as much as her fake bosom would allow and sucked again on her cigarette. Clouds escaped her mouth as she spoke.

  “Your little innocent boy attitude may work for you in there,” she said, pointing to the door at the other end of the room, “but you fuck with me in here, and I’ll put this cigarette out in your eye. You get me?”

  I nodded. Fast. She released my throbbing hand, and I fumbled out a stack of notes.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” she asked, her look of disapproval shrinking my balls.

  I shrugged. “That’s all I got.”

  “Shit.” She delicately placed her cigarette on her lips and inserted my stack of notes in a counting machine on the desk. She hit a button and let it do its thing. “You’re going to need to come with more next time or you ain’t going to last the first hour, let alone the night.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  She cocked her head. “Are two broken legs a problem?”

  I swallowed. “Talon failed to mention that.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  The machine finished its count. She collected a bump of brightly colored chips, stacked them up into a plastic carrier, and slid them over. “You seem like a fast learner. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  She took another puff, drawing the ash back to the filter. She gazed at me as she stubbed the remains into a smoking ashtray.

  “What the fuck are you still doing here?”

  Chapter 13

  “Ah, Mr. Jones! About time you joined us.”

  Talon stood just inside the room, his elbows resting on the bar, a near-empty glass in his hand. Why the fuck there was a bar in the basement of a Chinese restaurant wasn’t a question I was willing to ask, so I’m going to ask you to keep an open mind on that one.

  The room was wide and spacious. Dealers dressed in crisp white shirts and black bowties sat at each of the ten tables. Each table was covered in a black tablecloth that just barely skimmed the ground. The dealers were in the middle of final preparations for the game—feeding cards into the shuffling machine, checking their stocks of chips.

  Meanwhile, the players milled around. Some sat at the bar ordering drinks, others were seated, ensuring they were aligned their chi’s or some shit. A few were off in corners, going through their own pre-game rituals.

  Behind the masses, there was a door. I locked my gaze on it. This wasn’t just any door, mind you. It was the door. The door to the room I wanted to enter. A place I would need to work for—a place where the best players won and lost even more.

  “I was about to send an associate to find you and revoke your membership,” Talon said, pushing himself off the bar and putting his arm around me. The smell of alcohol followed him around.

  “I’m just getting used to the proceedings, the rules and regulations, and all that jazz,” I replied.

  Talon sipped the remains of his drink. “Yeah, well, you’re a fast learner.”

  “People keep telling me that.”

  He shrugged.

  “Listen,” he said, holding his glass out in front of him and pointing. “That’s your table over there. Table four.”

  “Why table four?”

  He turned, and suddenly we were face to face. “You got a fucking problem with the way I do things? You have an aversion to the number four? Unlucky number? Superstitious?”

  “No, not at all.”

  He tapped his glass on my chest. “You’re sitting at table four because the guy that usually sits at four, Aston, is floating in the Hudson with a bullet hole in the back of his head. Oh, and also with seven less fingers and no eyeballs.”

  I learned pretty bloody quickly not to question how or why things were done.

  “And just so we’re clear,” Talon continued. “I spooned his eyeball out and crushed it between slicing fingers four and five.”

  I swallowed. “Well, it�
�s a good thing four is my lucky number,” I said, even though it wasn’t. I didn’t have a lucky number.

  “It had better be,” he breathed at me.

  “Hey, listen, I wanted to run something by—”

  “Tables!” screamed the lady (if you could call her that) who chipped me in. I flinched and turned. She stood assertively in the doorway, hands on her hips, her small frame leaning against the door frame. It looked as if we were all getting told off for being late.

  People instantly stopped mid-conversation and moved directly to their tables. Don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars, I thought. It was almost cultish in the way it happened. Apparently, the cashier had more power than I had thought.

  Talon slapped my back. “Good luck, kid.”

  “But...”

  Ignoring me, Talon walked off across the room. He navigated the writhing mess of bodies attempting to get to their tables, saluting a few, patting others on the backs. At the door at the end of the room, he retrieved a card from his pocket and pushed it up against the frame. The door released, and he entered the void. Others followed. The lucky few were a diverse bunch. A man in a black driver’s cap. A lady wearing a fur scarf. A man with deeply tanned skin, wearing a white jacket. A lady with more diamonds visible on her person than a jeweler. A man with a huge nose but the height of a child. A black man decked out in gold chains and loafers, who, when at the doorway, discretely turned in my direction. At first, I thought I saw fear in his eyes, and then a broad smile swept his face. It was as if his panic had turned to confidence. He placed a finger to his throat and slid it across. I swallowed. I was in the viper’s nest. There was no turning back.

  A faint glow grew in that room, and then the door promptly shut, sealing them inside. Or, more correctly, sealing us outside. The secrets that lay within that room teased my imagination. I fantasized a cork popping from a bottle of champagne. Prearranged stacks of chips on the table in such great numbers the players lacked the ability to carry them in. First class. High roller.