O'Clair read the number on a piece of paper. This was the address Johnny had given him, 612 Rosewood. He'd called him an hour earlier and asked if O'Clair would pick him up. O'Clair had said, "Where are you?"
"At a friend's," Johnny said.
That was code for: I met a girl and shacked up with her. O'Clair was going that way anyway so he said okay. He parked his Caddy on the street, leaned back against the seat, looking at the small single-story white house. Now the front door opened and Johnny Karmo appeared, buttoning his shirt. Johnny stopped like he was talking to someone, then moved back in the house, kissing a girl with long blond hair. He pulled himself away from her and started down the cement walk that led to the street. The girl went after him again, and he kissed her one final time.
Johnny got in the car and said, "I knew when I walked in the bar and saw her I'd take her home. I got this vibe."
O'Clair said, "You got this vibe, huh?"
Johnny gave him a look. "You want to tell it, or let me do it?"
O'Clair said, "I'm on the edge of my seat."
"I held her hand," Johnny said, "traced a line down her palm, like I could see her whole life in that line, and I said, 'You've been hurt, haven't you, baby? By a man.' Who the hell else was she going to be hurt by?"
"She could've been a lesbian," O'Clair said.
Johnny wasn't listening.
"Then I looked into her eyes and she said, 'How'd you know?' Christ they believe anything you tell them."
O'Clair noticed Johnny was losing his hair, going bald on top, dark hair combed over from the side trying to hide it, and dark spots under his eyes, as he sat back in the seat and let out a breath, Johnny, the palm-reading gigolo, looking old.
"She wore me out," Johnny said. "Twenty-two wanted to go all night."
O'Clair put it in gear and the Seville moved away from the curb, accelerating past parked cars. He saw Johnny take a gold wedding band out of his pants pocket and slip it on a nail-polished finger. Then he took a cell phone out of his shirt pocket, dialed and listened.
"Rosita, Johnny, do me a flavor… send a dozen to Darlene at Nino's Salon in Troy." He listened. "I don't know her last name." He paused. "Wait a second…" He glanced out the window. "Okay, ready? 'If I can't be with you these should.' You got it?" He paused again. "Okay." He turned off the cell phone, put it back in his shirt pocket and glanced at O'Clair. "I also use: 'When you look at them, think of me.'"
O'Clair thought Johnny the Chaldean romantic should be writing greeting cards with those corny lines. "If you spent as much time working as you do fucking around you'd be rich." O'Clair shook his head. "Where's your car at?"
"A parking lot in Auburn Hills," Johnny said.
"What were you doing way out there?"
Johnny said, "I've got to go places where people don't know me."
"That's right, you're married," O'Clair said. "I forget. What do you tell Ann-Marie when you don't come home at night?"
"I'm working," Johnny said. "She's used to it."
"I've got to make a stop first," O'Clair said.
Johnny looked at his watch. "I've got an appointment at nine."
"You're not going to make it," O'Clair said.
T.J. Dolliver stared at himself in the mirror, eyes puffy and bloodshot. He got maybe three hours sleep, his mind was racing and wouldn't stop. He didn't have the money and didn't know where he was going to get it. He looked at his watch. It was ten to eight. His wife, Renee, thank the Lord, was up north at her parents' summer home for a month.
T.J. lathered his face with shaving cream, turned on the water, just the hot, and picked up his razor. He heard a voice and looked out the bathroom window. His ditzy neighbor was walking her dog. The window was open and he could hear her through the screen. T.J. put the razor under his sideburn and moved it down his jaw feeling the tug of his beard, clearing a smooth path of skin. He moved the razor around his chin and cut himself and blood appeared, mixing with the shaving cream. He heard a car and glanced out the window as it passed by-an old Cadillac. Take it easy, he told himself, quit worrying.
He finished shaving and splashed water on his face and grabbed a towel. He dabbed the cuts-three of them-with little pieces of Kleenex. He looked out the window and thought he saw someone on the front porch and he moved through the living room and stood at the front door, glancing out one of the narrow vertical windows that flanked it. The doorbell rang and rang again. The sound startled T.J. and he took off, moving through the house to the back door. He fumbled with the lock, swung the door open and stepped out on the deck. Something hit him in the chest and he was down on his back, gasping for breath, squinting up at the morning sun.
O'Clair stood over him. "T.J., where're you going?"
"Watering the plants," he said, getting his wind back.
"You're a little late," O'Clair said, scanning the deck, seeing wilted flowers and weeds in the planter boxes.
T.J. was wearing a black V-neck tee shirt, black pants and strange-looking black tie shoes with thick rubber soles that reminded O'Clair of the shoes nuns wore. He knew T.J. was married and was some kind of advertising executive. He made TV commercials and had twenty people working for him. Put on a black outfit, pretend like you knew what you were doing. O'Clair was in the wrong business.
He was a young guy too, didn't look older than thirty. Borrowed money, lost it gambling, borrowed more and that's where O'Clair entered the picture. He'd stopped by T.J.'s office to collect the original loan plus the juice. First, a snippy receptionist kept him waiting for twenty minutes and then T.J. appeared and started bullshitting him, talking to O'Clair the way he probably talked to his clients, calling him "my friend."
"Give me the fifteen grand I'll be on my way," O'Clair had said to T.J. when they were in his huge corner office that looked out over Troy. O'Clair liked the view. He could see subdivisions and the Somerset shopping mall and 1-75 in the distance.
"Ever done any acting? You've got a great look, my friend." T.J.'s cell phone rang and he said, "It's New York, I have to take this."
New York calling him, he must've been important, or thought he was. While T.J. talked, O'Clair looked around. There were stacks of black boards with scenes on them, commercials, he assumed, and a giant TV with a couch and two chairs, and a desk covered with stacks of papers. On the other side of the room, O'Clair looked out and saw the Silverdome where the Lions used to play. Nice office. T.J. ended his conversation, put the phone down.
"Like commercials, my friend?" T.J. said moving toward the TV. "Want to see our new campaign for the world's thinnest condom? We're calling it Freedom, like screwing with nothing on."
"Listen to me," O'Clair said, "I'm not here to look at commercials, understand what I'm saying?"
T.J. paused and gave him a big grin. "The good news is I have it. Bad news, I don't have it here. Can I get it to you later? Meet you somewhere? Name the place."
O'Clair did, Joe Kool's on Sixteen Mile, and TJ. said, "No problem, my friend, I know where it is, I owe you one."
T.J. looked nervous now stretched out on a La-Z-Boy recliner in his family room. O'Clair stood behind him holding the back of the chair. Johnny was standing next to the chair, gripping a silver aluminum bat that O'Clair had taken out of his trunk. Johnny choked up high, holding the bat like he was ready to swing for the fences. The bat was for show. O'Clair wasn't going to hurt T.J., 'cause if he hurt him, T.J. wouldn't be able to work and repay his debt. "He told me the good news was he had it," O'Clair said to Johnny. "Agreed to meet me and never showed. Isn't that what you said?"
"If you touch me," T.J. said, "I'm calling the cops."
"They can't help you." O'Clair was tired of T.J. jerking him around. He picked up the remote off a table next to the La-Z-Boy, pressed the power button and watched the big Mitsubishi pop on transforming from wavy gray lines to crisp color. Jerry Springer appeared in close-up, asking three seedy-looking guys with mullet haircuts why they had an affair with their mother-in-law.
"With their mother-in-laws," O'Clair said. "Where do they find these wackos?" He turned up the volume and looked at T.J. Dolliver. "Listen to me, my friend. I want you to put the money, $17,500, in my hand by five o'clock today. I don't care what you've got to do to get it. lake out a second mortgage, sell your car, sell your wife if you have to. Hear what I'm saying, my friend?"
T.J. said, "I only owe you fifteen."
"I'm charging you a late fee."
T.J. nodded, looking sad, eyes wet, face splotched with blood from the razor cuts. O'Clair believed he'd finally gotten through to him. He didn't tell TJ. what was going to happen if he didn't come up with the money. T.J. was the creative ad guy-let his imagination run wild.
O'Clair took Johnny to his car and went to Samir's. On the wall behind the table was a huge black and white photograph of Beirut shot from the Mediterranean side. O'Clair told Samir that he'd given T.J. Dolliver a little more time to come up with the money. Samir listened with a mouthful of burgul and mjadara, his snow white walrus mustache moving up and down as he chewed. Across from Samir was Ricky Yono, Samir's nephew in a black nylon warm-up with red and white stripes running down the arms and legs, and a pile of gold chains around his neck that reminded O'Clair of the black dude with the Mohawk.
Ricky didn't acknowledge O'Clair. He kept shoveling kibbee neyee into his mouth, practically inhaling it. Moozie was next to Ricky, flashing his silver front tooth while he ate. Moozie's real name was Mehassen. He was also a nephew of Samir's. He'd come from a village outside Beirut. Samir was trying to figure out what to do with him and had assigned him to Ricky for a couple weeks.
As Samir had said, Moozie didn't know shit about their business, but spoke English. That was a start. And he was a good kid and such, not a smartass like a lot of them his age.
"Hungry?" Samir pointed to the platter of burgul and mjadara with his fork. "Sit down, eat something."
"I'm good," O'Clair said.
"Ricky's going to take Moozie around tomorrow, teach him the business."
O'Clair said, "Who's going to teach Ricky?"
Samir laughed.
Ricky glared at him.
Moozie smiled showing his silver tooth and a mouthful of hummus and tahini.
Samir said, "What about this guy, Gall? Have you found out anything?"
His name was Bobby Gal, a car salesman who'd borrowed money and disappeared.
The Sales Manager at Tad Collins Buick-Lexus said he hadn't seen Bobby for a couple weeks and if O'Clair found him to tell him he was fired. One of the sales consultants, that's what they were called now, told O'Clair Bobby hung out at the Millionaires Club on Eight Mile and also the casinos.
"I'm working on it," O'Clair said answering Samir's question.
"Work harder," Ricky said, "mutt's six weeks late."
Ricky had it wrong as usual, but O'Clair didn't say anything. Ricky had bought a used Lexus from the guy and ended up loaning him twenty grand. Ricky let him slide the first time the vig was due. Now Bobby owed sixty grand and Samir had given the collection to O'Clair.
Samir said, "Anybody seen Johnny?"
O'Clair said, "He had an appointment."
"What does that mean?" Samir said.
"He's probably out hustling some babe," Ricky said.
O'Clair took a wad of bills out of his sport coat pocket and put it on the table next to Samir's plate. "Everybody but T.J."
"You're short," Samir said. "Ricky's short. What's going on?"
"I said I'd have it tomorrow," Ricky said on the defensive.
O'Clair had heard that Ricky was using his collections to gamble and he was in trouble. Samir picked up the money and moved across the room to a cabinet, a built-in, made out of pine with double doors. He opened the doors and there was a black floor safe with gold leaf and Samir's family name in Arabic on the front, Abou Al Fakir. The safe had been in Samir's family since the late 1800s, purchased at the Mosler factory in Hamilton, Ohio, by his grandfather. Samir went down on one knee to work the combination.
O'Clair turned to Ricky. "Hey, Rick, that's a nice outfit, you going to walk around a mall."
"Fuck you," Ricky said spitting bits of kibbee neyee out of his mouth.
He and Ricky had been bumping heads since O'Clair started working for Samir, and things had gone downhill from there.
Ricky didn't have the eight grand he was supposed to collect. He lost it to a sportsbook, an eight-team parlay, got every one wrong. What were the odds of that happening? He was broke and he owed Samir $8,000. That was bad, but what was worse, he'd borrowed $12,000 from CashFast, a payday loan place on Grand River near Eight Mile Road six weeks earlier. He'd done the same thing, used collection money to gamble, and lost it all.
Ricky had gone to Dearborn High with the owner of the place, a cocky asshole named Wadi Nasser. Wadi was about five five, wore Tommy Bahama shirts, smoked Montecristos and drove a Benz. Wadi said he didn't usually loan more than a couple grand at a time, but for Ricky he'd make an exception. Ricky had two weeks to pay back the principal and a $1,800 service charge. Was that okay? No, it wasn't okay, it was fucking robbery, but what choice did he have?
Two weeks later Ricky was in even worse shape and told Wadi to roll the loan over. Sure, no problem Wadi said. He seemed to get a kick out of Ricky having money problems. Now Ricky owed $13,800, with an interest charge of $2,070, and a total debt of $15,870. Ricky felt stupid, dumber than the people he collected from. He was paying Wadi more in interest than Samir charged his clients.
Ricky rolled the loan over two more times, and a month later he owed $35,707.50. Wadi grinned when Ricky stopped by the CashFast office and called him his best customer. Ricky missed the next payment and the next one. He was coming out of the Original Pancake House in Southfield after breakfast one morning, and noticed two Arabs getting out of an Escalade with twenty-four-inch rims. They were coming toward him. One was tall, six two maybe, with a bad complexion and a blank expression. The second guy was shorter and stockier. He had dark serious eyes and a sculpted beard that must've taken a long time to keep so neat and trim-skinny lines of hair that started at his temples and swept down curving along his jaw, meeting his mustache and goatee. He wore his sunglasses on his head, black hair, razor-cut like the beard. His shirt had a zipper that was open at the top, showing chest hair and gold chains.
"Mr. Nasser is concern about you," Beard said. He had a heavy accent. "He does not see you in a long time, want to know, are you okay?"
"Tell him he's got nothing to worry about," Ricky said. "Everything's fine. Wadi and I went to school together. We're old buds."
Beard said, "You know how much you owe?"
Sure, Ricky knew. $35,707.50.
"You know how much is going to be on Thursday of the next week?"
Beard's dark eyes stared into him, never looking away for even a second.
Ricky couldn't figure out what 15 percent of $35,707.50 was, but knew it was a lot. "You're Wadi's collection agency, huh?"
"Forty-one thousand sixty-three dollars and sixty-two cents," Beard said. "Roll it again and it will be-"
"I know," Ricky said, cutting him off. "I get it. You don't have to keep reminding me, okay?" Now they were pissing him off.
"You have collateral?" Beard said.
"You have collateral?" Ricky said, trying to sound like him, imitate his heavy Middle East accent.
Beard grinned now. "You give us something of value. We give to Mr. Nasser until you pay debt."
Ricky said, "Like what?"
"This is your automobile?" he said, looking at Ricky's Lexus.
"You're not taking my fucking car," Ricky said. He put his hands on his hips, flexed his biceps that were sticking out of a black Gold's Gym tank top. They wanted to get tough he'd give them all they could handle.
"Listen to me," Beard said. "It's not finish until you pay. You have to give Mr. Nasser something."
Mr. Nasser. Jesus. If he called Wadi Mr. Nasser again, Ricky was going to deck him. Wadi, the midget Chaldean rich kid. Ricky would always think of him as the loser from high school who didn't have a friend. Ricky considered his situation, heard what the Arab was telling him and took his watch off and handed it to Beard. "It's an 18 karat gold Rolex President worth fifteen grand." He loved it. Hated to give it up but he had to give him something. "Tell Wadi to hang on to it. I want it back." That's how he got out of that one, but now another payment was due and he didn't have the money.