The Okinawa Dragon (Extract)

Published by Five Leaves Publications. You can buy a copy here.

Chicago O’Hare, Gate K9, 4.30 am, Tuesday, November 25th, 2004. As space-time co-ordinates go, these pretty well suck ass.

I’m staring at the arrivals screen, hypnotised by the rhythms of its flicker, waiting for Henri. He’s due off the red eye from Vegas and never has the term been so real to me. I feel like there’s grit dripping from my lashes when I blink. The ETA on his flight is a random variable. It twitches and changes like the last traded price on a stock or share. I’d know all about that because I used to be a market maker for a big investment bank. They took me on ’cos I was sharp with maths and it took me no time at all to do the add-ups.

1. I was never gonna get rich working for someone else

2. You can make a market in anything

That’s how come I ended up here; travelling halfway round the world to sell some collector a few pieces of cardboard.

It makes me laugh out loud.

I’ve been stood so long staring hard at the screen that I’m floating. I got that low blood sugar, frothy-headed feeling. I can see my legs giving way, imagine myself clattering to the ground like a wooden puppet. It’s not just the watching and waiting; it’s the airport thing.

I kinda like airports, which is just as well, but they fuck with my head. They’re not one country or the next, like that place with the ponds in The Magician’s Nephew. There’s that eerie peace, a void echo. And other stuff. The sexy goodwill and edgy chimes of the recorded announcements. The promise of the destinations radiating from the screens and through my grey matter, leaving cells permanently changed: Prague, Tokyo, Dubai. Marrakesh via Casablanca.

Even going to the toilet screws with you; the automatic flush when you stand up and the taps, always willing to give water provided you offer up your hands in prayer to the god of laser beam technology.

The whole thing makes me feel like I walked through security and into the head of Philip K Dick.

And don’t even get me started on the passengers. The calm acceptance in their eyes. The way they pile on to those huge metal monsters and allow themselves to get catapulted several thousand feet into the cold, wet air. It’s enough to set my asthma off, watching them file through the gates.

I’m stood waiting, staring, and I need a wazz pretty darn bad but daren’t move. What I think might happen if I do is undefined. Henri’s flying domestic, so he won’t have to go through all the questions about business or pleasure and cattle in his suitcase like I did, but it’s still gonna take him a while to get through the gate and the baggage hall. This is the deal of my career, though; a fifty grand sale and the rarest collectible cards I’ve ever got my greasy little hands on.

How I got these very special items was a mutual back-scratching situation with this woman who works for the manufacturer. You don’t need to know the details, all you need to know is she gave me the cards. Real collectors’ pieces, real rare. She was very clear about the deal. Here are the cards. You do not have the cards.

Of course, we put something up on our website toot sweet. Not pictures or anything that cheeky. Just a little note; descriptions of the cards. We heard these exist, *waaaay* cool. Man, they must be worth ten grand a piece.

I knew someone would bite and I would have put money on it being Henri. He’s the most powerful collector I know. Must have just about all there is to get by now, first edition playsets, sealed product from forever back. I’d love to see his stash but I don’t know him well enough to ask.

Maybe after this deal.

My need to pee is making me dance so I give in and head to the loos. Of course, when I get back, the sparrow has landed. Innit always the way? It’s like the cigarette rule; derived by first principles from Sod’s law. Whatever you’re waiting for, a bus, train, your main course at a posh restaurant, just light up a fag and, no matter how late it is, or how unlikely it seemed that you’d ever see it, along it will come. I’ve tried and tested this all over the world and it just works lol.

So, I’m dashing back to the gate to head him off, so eager am I. Then I’m waiting there for at least five minutes, though it feels more like an hour. I’m sighing and strutting and looking at my watch.

Henri arrives. When I see him, the usual stuff hits me. How small he is, around five-six and adolescent skinny. The way he dresses in jeans and a T-shirt, threadbare sports jacket. The flecks of grey in his mid-brown hair and his careful way of moving. He doesn’t look like a millionaire.

He nods in my direction, then leads the way to one of those anonymous coffee bars you get in airports. I have a latte, but Henri takes one of those small dark coffees so full of grounds they’re thick as oil. He adds three sugars and stirs the evil concoction with some vigour. It is these small details that make him so very European. Me, I’m from the 51st state, innit?

So, we sit on high wooden chairs and Henri asks if he can see the photo. This is how on-it the man is; he didn’t even dream I’d bring the cards. I dip my head and scan the room, then pull it from my inside pocket. The whole thing is so B-movie it makes me cringe.

The picture is of Uri, my business partner. He’s holding the cards (in protective sleeves of course) fanning them out in one hand and pointing at them with the other, one of those grins plastered over his ugly mug where you can see chinks of light hit his teeth.

‘You bring one?’ Henri asks.

The guy’s so sharp it’s a surprise he’s not a mess of scars. I go into my pocket again and bring out the sample. Henri takes the card from me and removes it from its plastic sleeve like he’s carrying out a surgical procedure. He examines it, front and back, takes a magnifying glass from his pocket and has a look real close.

I’m sweating.

He puts the card back inside its protective cover and passes it back. He nods, half smiles.

I hand him the small piece of paper I prepared earlier. Sort code, bank account number, a figure in sterling.

I’m sweating like a rapist.

He looks lost in his head for a moment or so, then he nods again, firmly this time.

‘Bah, it’s a good price,’ he says.

I smile at Henri, playing it cool, but inside my head I’m running round in circles, doing a little victory dance. But that’s for my eyes only.

Deal cut, I sit against the chair back and the way it feels is like I must visibly relax, my head swinging back, tummy pushing out. It strikes me for a second that this might make me look amateur. But I don’t care. I am flying.

We get chatting then. About the cards, the game. Henri tells me about some of the things he has and I make all the right noises. I talk tournament play and collectibles and I can hear myself going psycho with the words per minute. Henri doesn’t seem to mind. We have more coffee and my heart is racing along with the words. He smiles and nods and I can tell he admires my energy. People do.

We talk about his collection and he gives me a run down. It has two parts; public and private. The latter, he tells me, is kept to himself and a few close associates, to protect the not so innocent. He mentions a couple of cards and that’s when I understand Henri is more than a millionaire. He is someone who is capable of making me a millionaire. And so I have to ask him because you can’t miss opportunities like this.

‘Is there anything you’re looking for now, that you haven’t got? I mean anything at all you need to complete your collection?’

Henri looks at me. Laughs. ‘There’s not much left,’ he says. ‘Not much but the odd thing like this if you find it. And, of course, The Dragon.’

I perk up like some kinda meerkat. He doesn’t need to say which dragon. Okinawa is a legend in our business, the Mona Lisa of the cards. Given as a gift to some Japanese businessman. You can’t buy it off him; he doesn’t need the money and the Japanese honour code says you don’t sell a gift. It is written.

‘How much?’ I say. ‘How much would you pay for a piece like that?’

Henri bats the air, grins. His eye contact goes but I am still looking right at him. ‘Is unobtainable, impossible,’ he says, with a fluff of a laugh.

I do not laugh. I wait for his eyes to come back to me and stare straight into them.

‘Nothing is impossible.’