The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Power of Compound Interest

Previously: "Inside Dope" 

Caleb is already waiting outside Mr. Leavey's classroom when you arrive. "This is a bad idea," he says nervously.

You glance into the room. It's empty, except for the teacher, who is just turning away from erasing the board. "Nah, it'll be easy," you mutter. "Gimme the band. Come on, hurry," you urge as he fumbles in his bag.

Leavey is a dapper little man, with graying hair and horn-rimmed glasses, and he wears a bow-tie. It's probably the latter that's led people to make "pedophile" jokes about him, for it gives him an odd daintiness that one might associate with a collector of dollhouses--or a collector of those who like to play with dollhouses. He looks up from his desk with a dim and uncomprehending smile as you approach. "Yo, Mr. Leavey, think fast," you say, and strike quickly. The metal band briefly sizzles on his forehead and vanishes. His eyes go out of focus, and his head falls forward into your hands. You arrange it so that it looks like he's taking a nap.

Caleb turns green as you roughly pull him over so he can help block the view of the teacher; together, you lean against the desk, you with arms insouciantly folded while Caleb more stiffly rests his skinny ass on the edge of the desk.

You wait a terribly long time. Students soon begin to file in.

Most of them just sit in their chairs and do their best to ignore you and Caleb and the teacher. Some crane their neck to see what's going on, but you daunt them with a glare; and, anyway, whatever the teacher is doing with his head on the desk is not their business.

But one guy tries to make it his business: James Lamont. "What are you doing here?" he bluntly asks you.

"Fuckin' your sister," you retort. He takes the hint, and retreats.

The bell eventually rings. The students, who have been talking quietly, fall silent. Everyone turns toward the front, and they watch expectantly. You can practically hear the sweat dripping off Caleb. You just smile and ignore the stares.

After you've calculated that the brain-band must have reappeared, you glance behind at the teacher. Sure enough, the band is on the desk, wedged between it and his forehead. You pull it out and slip it into your shirt pocket. "Look after him, okay," you mutter in Caleb's ear, and give him an encouraging clap in the shoulder. You don't look back as you saunter out into hall; then you run hard for Muniz's AP Stat class. He has a few sarcastic words for you after you've puffed and panted through the doorway, but you fall into a chair in the back without taking umbrage. You steal a glance at the strip: ROBERT EDMOND LEAVEY, it says in glowing blue letters.

* * * * *

So you're feeling good when you head into seventh period. You'd already picked up two eighths for Small, and you have a third on you that you weren't able to place with Wooten. It works out: Jonas Martin catches sight as you're making the sale to Small, and you bluff him into taking the third eighth by telling him his best bud Luke Bennett has agreed to go in halvsies on one; the two ballplayers might be pissed when they find out you lied to them, but the fact that Jonas so easily agrees, and even forks over the full cost, suggests they won't be too pissed. You enter the two of them down in your phone list as possible marks for development and exploitation.

All that puts a swagger in your stride when you head into last period: Orchestra, in which you play the viola. Eva Garner plays in that section too. You were too angry and distracted yesterday to do anything but mutely play the notes set before you, but now you glance slyly at Eva as you sit down next to her. "I heard you have a new boyfriend," you say in a teasing leer.

"That's news to me," she says after a pause.

"You mean you and Johansson aren't doin' the nasty?"

She hits you, and it's not a friendly punch either. "Shut up, you sick--"

"I'm just yanking you, girl," you laugh. "You could do a lot worse than Johansson, you know. You could be doin' Pruitt over there." You jerk your chin at Brent Pruitt, a skinny, geeky, wet-looking violin player. "But you could do a lot better, too." You grin. "Give me a chance, show you how gentle I can stroke your strings?"

She turns away. A few minutes later Mrs. Heinz takes the podium and calls everyone to attention.

* * * * *

Probably you shouldn't have teased Eva that way, but you decide it probably doesn't matter. So what if she decides that Caleb Johansson just didn't measure up? Pretty soon Caleb is going to be playing someone else.

Which reminds you that you need to get that set up. You can take care of that while running some other errands.

So, first thing after racing away from school, you swing by the elementary school and pick up the packages that are due at the university. It takes you an hour of driving around to get them dropped off to the four buyers, and you're pleased to see that you actually under-estimated the demand at the house where Ragland lives. "Yeah, we got a new roomie, took the old bedroom up in the loft," he tells you as you stand in a dirty living room. "Man, he puts it away like— Better add, like, at least another ounce to what we've been—"

"Can do," you promise him, and you take the extra he buys off you out of Whitmore's package. That sends you back to the school to collect more from the individual baggies. You run into Caleb there. You just want to get what you need and get out, but he insists on bitching about the thing with Leavey. "I can't believe you fucking ran out on me," he yells.

"So what happened?" you ask, while paying only a little attention. At first you think you're just not hearing him, and turn around only after measuring out another ounce from the stash. His face is red. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he admits. "I ran out right after you did. But I bet anything Leavey's gonna have it in for us!"

"What do we care? We don't have him for any classes."

"But if tells some of the other teachers—"

"So he gets me in trouble. You won't get in trouble, you're gonna be Gardinhire by tomorrow afternoon. Thursday at the latest."

Caleb changes color. "I was hoping you'd forgotten that."

"Not likely. Hey, write down a list of what you remember we need to make a mask. I got the book at my place but I don't wanna stop back there before picking up supplies."

"Are you going to make it," he asks.

You don't like the way he asks it, and you look at him sharply. "Ain't no way I can make those things at my place. You're gonna have to do it here. I want it done tonight, okay, and no excuses tomorrow."

"You know, I do have a life," he says.

"For the next twenty-four hours. Then you're gonna have a different one."

* * * * *

Caleb remembers some ingredients that you forgot, and has forgotten some that you remember, and after getting the last of the college transactions done—which leaves you driving around town with more than seventeen thousand dollars in cash. You don't have it for long, though. Your last stop is a billiard hall downtown. The sun is slanting low as you park in the alley behind it. Nervously, you rap on the metal door leading into the back, and a man in a dirty white apron lets you in. The back half of the building is divided into a small warren of storerooms and offices shared by the billiard room and the bar and the barbeque pit that occupy the converted two-story warehouse space. But you know how to find your way around. Chen has been coming here for years.

Country music filters in from somewhere, along with the sharp clatter of billiard balls hitting each other. The door to Karol Mathis's office is open, but he's not inside. You hunt around, squeezing past open crates containing beer and cola bottles, and you even look out on the floor of the billiard hall itself, though you understand that Mathis is rarely to be found there. You finally track him down in the kitchen of his restaurant.

He's a small man with a paunch; his arms are brown and leathery and covered with wiry hairs. The hair on his head is curly but closely cropped and gray. His eyes are an indefinable color, something between hazel and light blue; they seem empty and soulless. That could describe his whole demeanor, for Karol Mathis never blinks or raises his voice. He looks over now as you appear, and seems no more interested in you than in the pile of unscrubbed potatoes by your elbow; he returns to talking quietly to his cook, who is complaining very volubly in a thick accent about something you can't make out.

You wait patiently.

After a few minutes, Mathis says a few very quiet words to the man, which seems to satisfy him. Then Mathis turns to you. "Chen," is all he says, and you step aside to let him pass, then follow him back to his tiny office. It contains a small, scarred desk and two metal filing cabinets and a small bookshelf. There are no electronics except for an ancient calculator. As he sits in his chair, you set a satchel of money in front of him.

He opens it and counts it out very carefully. It takes a long time, since it's mostly in fives and tens and twenties. You keep your eyes locked on the desk before you. Mathis once caught Chen glancing around, and had said a very sharp word.

That done, he takes out a ledger, enters some numbers, and turns it toward you. You write Gary's name beside the number 19,000.

Such is the power of compound interest at Mathis's rates, that even at four thousand a month, it will be two years before Chen can pay that sum off.

Next: "The Wrong Things, Said" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"