Free The Mirror Thief by Martin Seay Page B

worried about his job.
    That may be a consideration, Curtis says.
    The grapevine’s been telling me that heads are already rolling at the Point. They got the Jersey State Police looking for one of the dealers who was on duty that night. Management fired a pit boss on the spot, then they fired the chief of security the next day. I don’t suppose that’s the vacancy
you’re
planning to fill, is it, Curtis?
    Curtis forces a sour smile.
    Now naturally you’re not going to get that gig unless Damon’s around to give it to you. So far, he’s staying afloat. But if Stanley’s name shows up on the Spectacular’s delinquent list Wednesday morning, alarm bells are going to go off, and Damon can start cleaning out his office. Since you know Stanley—because he and your dad are old pals, right?—Damon wants youto track him down and remind him to settle his account before it’s too late. You get nice new job out of the deal. Am I on the fairway here, Curtis?
    Yes sir, Curtis says. That’s about how Damon’s got it figured.
    Curtis swirls the dark puddle in his wineglass. Not nervous anymore, just ill at ease, ready for Kagami to finish. He thinks back as he waits: the look on Danielle’s face when he told her he was going to work for Damon. His father, years ago, behind the plexiglass in the D.C. Jail, after Curtis said he was quitting college to enlist.
    Kagami laughs, wipes his mouth on his napkin. This is really nice, he says. Let me just throw something on the table. Okay? What if this
isn’t
a big misunderstanding? What if Stanley hasn’t been returning Damon’s calls because he just finished screwing him? What if Stanley really
did
hit the Point, and all those other places? What if he put that team together, and he used the Spectacular’s own money to help bankroll it? He’s done stuff like that before, kid. Many times.
    Sure, Curtis says. Thirty years ago. But Stanley doesn’t work with big teams anymore. You said so yourself: he doesn’t have to, he’s got Veronica. Besides, Stanley and Damon are friends. You know how loyal Stanley is, Walter. You really think he’d take advantage of Damon like that? That’s just not Stanley, man.
    Okay. I also know Stanley doesn’t take any shit off anybody. Has Damon done anything to piss him off?
    Not that I know about.
    Well, you
wouldn’t
know, would you? Damon’s the only one you’ve been talking to. Right? When’s the last time you saw Stanley, kid?
    Curtis looks down at his plate. Picturing Stanley on a bench by the Tidal Basin, fanning a deck of cards for Mawiyah’s little cousins. Mawiyah and Curtis’s dad shouting from their pedalboat in mostly mock disapproval. Foamy clumps of cherryblossoms adrift on the water. Danielle beside him, laughing, invisible, on his left. Her fingers laced in his own. It’s been a couple years, Curtis says.
    Kagami looks off into the sun for a while. He’s changed a lot, you know.
    How do you mean?
    For one thing, he’s sick. I don’t know what’s wrong, but he was walking with a cane when I saw him on Wednesday. He didn’t look too great.
    Stanley’s never been sick a day in his life.
    For another, Kagami continues, he’s crazy. For the past couple of years, Stanley has been losing a tremendous amount of money. Just throwing it away at the tables. He comes up with these new systems that don’t make any sense at all, that have nothing whatsoever to do with probability. He’s gotten really strange, Curtis. He dropped six grand in here the other night without batting an eye. I shouldn’t have done it, but I pulled him aside, asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. I told him to knock it off with the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. I told him to stop believing his own bullshit.
    You told him that?
    That’s what I told him.
    What did he say?
    He told me a Zen story.
    Say again?
    He told me this story about a famous archer who lives in Japan. The guy is known universally as one of the great masters of his art. People