“No!”
“Good. Because that would really insult me, coming from a friend and partner.”
Barry gaped at him. “I don’t get it.”
“Sure you do, Barr. You took something that belongs to me and that makes you my partner. Right?”
Something that sounded an awful lot like denial started coming out of Barry’s mouth so Ricky stepped forward and kicked Rich Leckie hard on the kneecap. Rich toppled to the floor, clutching his knee, his eyes screwed tightly shut. Amy came off the couch but Ricky put his free hand between her breasts and shoved her back into a sitting position, then aimed his pistol at Rich’s head.
“I’m guessing Rich is a friend of yours and you don’t want his brains all over the rug, am I right?”
Barry shook his head, too frightened to speak. The woman, to her credit, at least cried, “No,” and then in a tight, choking voice said, “Please.”
It didn’t take long for Ricky to get the story. Barry babbled it out like a child caught stealing by his dad. He hadn’t known who the goods belonged to. He hadn’t meant any harm. He’d acted on impulse. He’d give it all back, every last pill.
“That’s all right,” Ricky said. “You can keep it.” Which provoked a stunned “Wha?” from Barry.
Ricky said, “You keep it, you sell it, you give the money to me.”
Barry nodded his head vigorously, saying, Of course, of course.
Then Ricky said, “Same with the next batch. And the next.”
“What do you mean?” Amy said. “What next batch?”
“You work for me now,” Ricky said. “You’re my new distributors.”
“How can we do that?” Barry said. “We’re not drug dealers.”
“You are now,” Ricky grinned.
“But-”
Ricky kicked Rich Leckie’s other knee, drawing a howl of pain, and told Barry to shut the fuck up. “You took the goods from Kevin’s house with the intention of selling them, right?”
Barry nodded.
“So obviously you had customers in mind.”
“Just friends.”
“Well, your friends are my friends now,” Ricky said. “And together we’re going to get happy. Any questions?”
“No,” Barry mumbled.
Then he told Rich to stand up. Rich tried but fell back onto the carpet.
“Pick him up,” Ricky told Barry. Barry knelt down and put his arms under Rich and stood him up. Then Ricky waved Barry back to the couch with his gun.
“How you feeling, Rich?” Ricky asked, using his nice voice, his wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly voice.
“Okay,” Rich gasped.
“I hope you understand that was nothing personal there,” Ricky said. “Business sometimes requires out-of- the-box thinking, if you know what I mean.”
Rich said nothing.
“Do you?” Ricky asked.
“Do I…”
“Know what I mean about out-of-the-box thinking.”
Rich nodded.
“Good,” said Ricky, then slammed the butt of his gun against Rich’s nose. The breaking cartilage sounded like pretzels snapping. Rich’s hands flew to his face but blood flowed freely from inside his nose, as well as a cut the gun butt had opened on the bridge.
“Oops,” Ricky said. “Guess you’ll have to get that rug cleaned after all.”
“What was that for?” Amy demanded. “He didn’t do anything to you.”
Ricky asked her if she had ever read a book called The Manager Inside Me or heard it on tape.
“No.”
“There’s a very strong chapter about cultivating your employee culture. That’s what that was for. You work for me now and you need to know what that means. You listening?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And you?” he asked Barry.
Barry nodded, his eyes bloodshot through half-open lids.
“The rules are simple,” Ricky went on. “You do what I tell you, when I tell you, and everything’s fine. You account for every penny and every pill. In return, you get your medications free. Understand?”
“Yes,” Amy said. Barry just nodded.
“But if you steal from me, you die. You tell anyone about me, you die. You question anything I tell you, you die. And not quickly. I’ll skin you both alive and roll you in salt. That clear?”
They both nodded.
“Then it’s settled,” Ricky said with a smile, as if he’d just concluded a minor transaction with a friend or neighbour. Sure, you can borrow my lawn mower, friend. Just have it back by Sunday.
Then he turned to Rich. “But what about you?” he said. “What do I do with you?”
Rich looked like he was going to lose control of his body functions right there on the rug. “I swear,” Rich said. “I won’t say a word.”
“You swear? What’s that to me? I don’t know you. How do I know you’re a man of your word?”
“I am,” Rich gasped, at the same time that Amy said, “He is.”
Ricky laid the gun barrel against Rich’s broken nose. Rich closed his eyes and tried to stop the trembling of his chin.
“Maybe if we were friends,” Ricky said. “Maybe then I’d know. How about that? Want to be friends with Ricky?”
“Oh, God,” Rich said. He began to cry.
“What?” Ricky said. “Rich and Ricky, Ricky and Rich. What could be cuter than that?”
CHAPTER 30
Toronto: Thursday, June 29
We were heading back to town on the DVP, the traffic only marginally lighter than it had been going north.
“Admit it,” Ryan said. “You’re dying to tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Where you learned to shoot like that. One minute you’re the all-Canadian virgin scared shitless of a gun, the next you’re drilling the target like the Rawhide Kid.”
My shots had been every bit as well placed as his, all bunched within a fist-sized area near the heart. “I was in the army,” I said.
“Get out,” he said. “I thought the army was strictly for jugheads who flunk out of shop.”
“I didn’t say the Canadian army.”
“American?”
“IDF.”
“What?”
“Israel Defense Forces.”
Ryan whistled. “Ah.”
“Ah what?”
“They got a rep, don’t they? Being tough. Take-no-shit types. So what, you volunteered?”
“Yes.”
“Why there?”
