“That’s pretty right on,” he said to Red Bear. “Keep going.”
“There is violence in your past.” Red Bear looked up from the cards, a trace of concern on his brow. “You can be a violent man.”
Leon laughed. Maybe with nerves.
“Not really. I’ve mellowed out a lot. Well, okay. Yeah. I been known to lose my temper now and again.”
Red Bear returned his gaze to the cards. “You have coming up some major opportunities for development. Perhaps a way to channel this anger.”
“Okay, all right. Can we move on to another subject, please?”
“You are leaving behind a period of romantic frustration.”
“I hope so,” Leon said. “Women, man. I could use a little action along that line.”
“You are alone right now—romantically, I mean—you’ve been alone for some time.” Red Bear snapped a two of hearts across the king and took off his sunglasses, looked up at Leon. “That, my friend, is about to change.”
It was then that Kevin realized what a handsome guy Red Bear was. Strong bones in that face, two little parentheses at the corners of his mouth when he smiled, and those eyes. When he took off his sunglasses, Red Bear’s eyes were the palest blue Kevin had ever seen, paler than a husky’s, almost transparent.
Red Bear had pointed out a lot of other stuff in Leon’s cards that Kevin could not now remember. Leon had been impressed, excited even, but Kevin hadn’t been, not then: lucky guess on the money thing, and the rest was the sort of crap you saw in astrology columns all the time.
“You’re skeptical,” Red Bear had said to Kevin. Those transparent eyes, those amazing cheekbones. Cherokee. The word had popped into Kevin’s mind, even though he didn’t know a Cherokee from a Blackfoot. The man looked every inch the Red Bear, even before he mentioned his background.
“It doesn’t matter if you believe,” Red Bear said. “A thing will be true whether you believe it or not.” He spread the cards again. “Pick one to represent yourself.”
“Naw, that’s okay.”
“Go ahead. Pick one.”
“No, really. It’s not my kind of thing.”
“I’ll pick one for you.” Red Bear selected a jack of diamonds. Jack of all trades? Jack-off? One-eyed jack? One-eyed monster?
Red Bear shuffled the cards and snapped them off the top of the deck one by one.
“Problems with the family,” he said. “Someone older than you. The two of you bump heads now and again.”
Close. Very close, but Kevin didn’t say anything.
“You have recently overcome a bad habit, perhaps an addiction. That shows clearly, here.” He tapped the pair of threes with a seven of diamonds. Kevin felt the hair at the back of his neck lift.
The queen of hearts came up, separated from the king by another three. “You have a lady in your life,” Red Bear said.
“Not me, man. Broke up with one about six months ago, and now I’m as single as they come.”
“I didn’t say a lover. I said you had a lady in your life. A good woman who loves you. But this habit or addiction is a problem between you.”
Well, all right. That could be Terri. Once you have an addiction, a lot of stuff follows. Call it a lucky guess followed by common sense.
Snap, snap, snap. King, ace, king.
“Oh, you are easy to read, my friend. A pleasure, too.”
“Why’s that?”
Red Bear tapped the cards—strong finger, manicured nail. “The kings, my friend. The kings. You are going to be rich.”
Kevin laughed out loud at that one.
Red Bear leaned forward, squinted at the air around him. “I’m seeing a lot of odd shapes around you. T shapes. This lady of yours, is her name Tammy? Something like that?”
“There’s someone named Terri,” Kevin said. “But she’s not my lady.”
“Really? I see a strong connection there.”
Red Bear finished his lemonade and got up. Somehow he could drink a lemonade and make it seem as serious as bourbon. He signalled to the black car parked across the street. The car started up and made a U-turn, stopping right in front of the café.
“If I see you again, my friend, maybe you’ll tell me how you plan to make all that money.”
“You’re the one who sees the future. You’re going to have to tell me.”
Red Bear had grinned—teeth by Paramount Pictures—and opened the car door.
Kevin rubbed the bite on his neck and stared at the rough wood of the cabin ceiling. He heard another car drive up, and a couple of shouts. That would be Leon back from town; he always made a racket when he rolled up. He’d be knocking on Kevin’s door any minute, wanting to shoot the breeze. Big talker, Leon, but a little too prone to violence for Kevin’s peace of mind. And his talk was getting strange since they’d taken up with Red Bear. Spooky, even.
Although Kevin didn’t believe in astrology or card reading or any of that paranormal blather, Red Bear had been close enough on a couple of counts that a tiny vibration of fear had started in the pit of his stomach. And even though Red Bear treated him pretty well, that fear had never really quit; it hung on like a low-grade fever.
There had been four in Kevin’s outfit back before Red Bear arrived on the scene. Kanga was ostensibly their leader—basically because he owned the only car that could be trusted to make the trip to Toronto and back to pick up the dope. Kanga was a serious pothead who smoked the stuff all day long. He’d once told Kevin that the only reason he’d started dealing was so he could afford his own habit. He tried to counterbalance the weed with a regimen of weight training, but Kevin figured he only did the weight training because it involved a lot of sitting still. Kanga was an optimist, a hopelessly amiable leader—if you could call someone who could hardly keep a toe on the earth leader. He was trim and fit and didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about the future.
Leon Rutkowski was a reformed speed freak with an extremely unpredictable temper. Except for the incident in the Chinook, Kevin had never seen it personally, but he had heard things: one story concerning a man who ended up in hospital, another involving a baseball bat. Leon was all for making lots of money. In fact, Kanga had once said he never would have gotten into the heroin trade if Leon hadn’t bugged him about it so much. They were already well into it when Kevin joined up. Leon was stringy, but with a pot belly that hung over the belt of his jeans owing to the junk food he was so fond of. Kevin wasn’t sure why, but Leon had seemed a good deal calmer since Red Bear had come on the scene; healthier, too, putting more thought into what he ate. And he’d stopped complaining about not getting laid. Every now and again Red Bear would bring babes up from Toronto, hookers no doubt, and share them with Leon.
Then there was Toof. His real name was Morris Tilley, but everyone called him Toof because of the extra incisor that pushed its way to the front of his unruly dentition. That, along with his floppy hair and the droopy way he held his head, combined to give him a doglike air, which was quite appropriate because he was really more of a mascot than a serious member of the outfit. Toof talked a lot and, owing to the fact that he was a hopeless pothead, what he said did not always make sense. And he had an absolute genius for getting lost—not easy to do in a place the size of Algonquin Bay, but Toof seemed to lack the inner positioning device that allows most human beings to leave home in the morning with a reasonable expectation of finding their way back.
Red Bear had come along at the lowest point in their fortunes. The Viking Riders had become more aggressive, consolidating their grip on the whole northern territory. Suddenly they seemed to be moving tons more dope, and there was precious little Kanga and his boys could do about it. Kevin had been reduced to skulking along Oak Street, hoping that some of his old clientele would remain loyal enough to buy the odd dime of smack. A few did, but not enough. Everyone was afraid of the Viking Riders.