Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

the window, and she reached for the back of her waistband where a concealed—

‘No,’ the man growled.

There was no passing traffic, no pedestrians strolling by, not even the background murmur of wildlife or insects. Just sheer quiet, so his voice practically boomed in the stillness.

Alexis froze with her hand halfway to the small of her back. The guy was within lunging distance and naturally athletic. He could have the blade in her chest in less than a second, and he looked ready to do it.

‘What ya got back ’dere?’ the man said.

‘My phone,’ Alexis said, making her voice tremble. ‘Please. There might be a signal. That way I can find my way back and—’

‘Nar signal out ’ere.’

There most definitely was. Grand Bahama was small, and certainly had cell towers within range of the Old Bahama Bay Resort less than a mile north.

At least now she knew their intentions.

‘C’mere,’ the man on the right said.

He reached for her.

She stepped back.

‘Dun be doin’ dat,’ the man on the left said.

He advanced with the knife.

She stayed put.

Put her hands in her pockets, slumped her shoulders, bowed her head, and forced herself to cry.

‘Owrrr,’ the guy croaked. ‘Dun’ be cryin’. You made da choice, sweetie. You come all da way here. You catch us right at the end of our shift. We be needin’ some fun.’

Her head bowed to the dirt, she asked, ‘Where do you work?’

‘That ain’t nun’ ya business.’

‘Tell ‘er,’ the guy without the knife said. ‘Tell ‘er how bad she messed up.’

‘What good it gon do?’

‘I wanna see her face.’

‘We been workin’ long hours,’ the guy with the knife said. He took a step closer to her, reached out and cupped her chin with flakey fingertips. His skin was like sandpaper, scorched by the sun. ‘We duhserve this. We been slavin’ away for Mista Ricci. You know Mista Ricci?’

Alexis’ heart thudded.

Jackpot.

‘Of course she dun’t know Mista Ricci,’ the other guy said.

‘Mista Ricci run dis here island,’ the guy with the knife said. He brought the blade up — rusted and serrated, an old weapon — and tickled it under her chin, running it along the smooth skin. ‘Mista Ricci give us … privileges. We can do what we want to ya, we be gettin’ in no trouble at all. Even if the puh-lice find out. Mista Ricci pay the puh-lice.’

Alexis made herself cry.

‘Aight,’ the second guy said. ‘Dat’s enough foreplay.’

The first guy smiled. Brought her face up by pushing under her chin, so she had to look at him.

She said, ‘You mean Vince?’

He stopped dead.

Her fist came out of her pocket, her fingers slotted into a set of black brass knuckledusters, and she swung a punch the way Slater had taught her.

32

‘How much have you borrowed?’

Teddy didn’t answer.

Shame and embarrassment were the sealers of lips.

Better to try and fail valiantly than ruin everything through your own idiocy.

‘Come on,’ King said. ‘I guarantee you people have done dumber things.’

Teddy said, ‘Twenty grand.’

‘That’s not so bad,’ Slater said, thinking of the staggering sums he’d thrown away on the tables over the years.

‘Four separate times.’

King said, ‘That’s a little worse.’

Slater said, ‘What was the vig?’

Teddy said, ‘Eleven percent.’

‘On each of the loans?’

‘Yes.’

‘So that’s $2,200 per loan?’

‘Yes.’

‘For a total of $8,800.’

‘Your grasp of mathematics is superb.’

‘Cool it,’ Slater said. ‘Just making sure. What are they charging you weekly?’

‘Whatever I can pay.’

‘Which is...?’

‘Usually I can scrape together a spare hundred dollars a week.’

King said, ‘Which doesn’t even cover the vig alone, does it?’

Teddy shook his head.

‘So the debt is compounding every week?’

‘Yes.’

Pure shame, right there for them both to see. Weighing down his cheekbones, sagging his face.

‘Why did you keep borrowing money?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you need it for repairs?’

‘No,’ Teddy said, taking a deep breath. This was the worst part for him — Slater could see it in his eyes. ‘The hurricane didn’t level my home. There was flood damage, but it wasn’t flattened. We recovered without taking much of a hit. So I can’t use that as an excuse.’

‘What did you use the money for then?’

‘I gambled it. At the casino.’

Brutal, Slater thought. He handed Walcott’s money right back to him.

‘There’s your answer,’ Slater said. ‘You were just waiting to hit big. If not the second time, then the third. If not the third time, then the fourth. But it gets trickier each time, right? Because on the fourth attempt you need to quadruple your money just to cover what you’ve borrowed, so you need to take bigger risks, so you’re likelier to lose. That’s a deep hole you can fall into, isn’t it, Teddy?’

Teddy looked at him. ‘You talk like a man who knows what that’s like.’

‘I was always able to cover it,’ Slater said. ‘But I’ve been there.’

‘Give me something I can relate to,’ Teddy said. ‘Make me want to keep talking. Because right now I want to curl up in a hole and die.’

‘I once lost eight hundred thousand dollars in Monaco after completing an operation,’ Slater said.

Teddy froze. ‘You did what?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Did that ruin you?’

‘No,’ Slater said. ‘I was paid eight hundred thousand dollars for the op.’

Teddy gave the hut around them a fleeting sweep with his gaze, as if thinking, I’m in the wrong business. He said, ‘So you broke even?’

‘Pray you never know what that’s like.’

‘What do you mean?’

Slater sat forward. ‘I almost died three times on that operation. One of those three incidents was horrendously close. I’m talking about the skin of my teeth. It left me with a bad concussion, one of many over my career. If I’d saved that eight hundred grand I could have retired a whole lot sooner, and taken less knocks to the head, and maybe kept five or ten years from being shaved off the end of my life. Those are the consequences of our world.’

He left out the part where he wouldn’t have quit, no matter how many knocks to the head, no matter how much damage absorbed, no matter how much money he earned.

That was the part Teddy