Prologue
Rock bottom.
Those two words had been bouncing around Smithy’s head all day. This had to be rock bottom. It could take many forms for many people. He’d once known an alcoholic who had woken up naked in a kiddie’s ball-pit. That had been the moment that had pushed him to finally get help, and the one that had cost him his job as a school vice-principal. The comedian Richard Pryor famously set himself on fire while free-basing cocaine and missed the once-in-a-lifetime chance to work with The Muppets.
So, rock bottom was different for everybody. Smithy wasn’t naked, high or on fire. He was in full possession of his faculties, hiding in some bushes and dressed as a leprechaun.
He was also, he now realised with absolute clarity, a gambling addict. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known that before, but there was knowing and there was knowing. Lying face down in the mud to avoid getting shot offered an excellent opportunity for a personal audit. The results were not pretty.
Three weeks ago, Jimmy Trike – who described himself as a “casting agent” but was really so much less – had approached him about a job. Five grand. For an acting gig, that was a lot. For one day’s work, that was an awful lot. For an actor who’d not had a paid acting job for two years, four months and twelve days, that was one hell of an awful lot. On top of that, Jimmy mentioned it was five grand guaranteed, with a chance of it increasing to fifty.
Smithy had been around far too long not to smell a massive rat. It hadn’t been an acting role at all. It turned out Jimmy Trike was who you went to if you were organising a leprechaun hunt and you needed prey. He hadn’t phrased it quite like that, but Smithy had figured it out. Being a dwarf actor, he’d been offered a lot of leprechaun work in the past and had always turned it down, regardless of how much he needed the money, because it played into the bullshit narrative that the only parts people like him could play were inextricably linked to their height. As if the gamut of human emotion could be run only by somebody over six feet tall.
You want someone who can embody the human experience? How about someone who has to put up with a world designed for people two feet taller than them? And who has to suffer the indignity of people treating them like a novelty item?
Smithy had turned down the job, but only after getting into it with Jimmy. Shame on him for making people into some kind of humiliating sideshow for the gratification of Wall Street jerk-offs with the emotional maturity of pre-pubescent boys. He had been forthright, incisive and eloquent. He’d also managed to keep his temper in check. Smithy had a bit of an anger-management issue (at least that was what the judge had called it).
Smithy’s girlfriend, Cheryl, had looked visibly relieved to hear that while he had given the scumbag a large piece of his mind, he hadn’t garnished it with any physical violence. He had neglected to mention that he may have had a run-in with Jimmy’s dumbass jeep in the parking lot afterwards. Who needs a jeep in Manhattan, for Christ’s sake?
The whole thing had felt righteous.
Then, a couple of weeks later, Smithy had felt way too confident about a full house of kings over sevens, and he’d found himself in five grand to Benny Wong. Worse, he hadn’t cleared a line of credit beforehand, assuring everyone he was good for it as he’d bet the pot. Benny didn’t take kindly to such behaviour. You didn’t run illegal card games in Chinatown for as long as he had without having some very strict rules, and without having people working for him who could see to it that those rules were respected, on pain of pain. Five grand bought a lot of pain, or possibly the end of all pain.
There had been rumours. Benny Wong knew a lot of people, and some of those people had occasionally ceased being people. Smithy had managed to negotiate a twenty-four hour grace period, and he’d been lucky to get that. Benny already considered him a pain in the ass – he’d banned Smithy from his games for three months after he had got into a fight with another patron who had refused to stop “rubbing his head for luck”. The world was full of assholes.
Still, flat broke and down five grand to Benny Wong, Smithy couldn’t exactly throw many stones. He’d got the extension only because the next day was St Patrick’s Day. He’d explained about the hunt and how he’d be paid five grand for just turning up. The one part he’d neglected to mention had been the tiny detail that he wasn’t in it.
He was banking on Jimmy Trike being a forgiving sort. After the last time, Cheryl had been clear – if Smithy got himself into another hole with gambling, they would be done. She had been right to say it. He was painfully aware she was out of his league, and frankly, if he couldn’t keep his shit together, then she deserved a whole lot better. She was not a woman to hang around waiting for a deadbeat to wise up, and Smithy didn’t blame her.
And so, he had swallowed his pride and gone to see Jimmy Trike again. It had gone as badly as he had feared it would. The human dumpster fire had lorded it over him, revelling in his discomfort and repeating back to him – word for word and in between gales of laughter – a lot of what Smithy had said at their previous meeting. Then, after he’d had his fun, Jimmy dropped the bomb that all ten positions for prey had been filled.
The following morning, Smithy had been sitting in a diner up by Grand Central, deciding what message he should leave on Cheryl’s voicemail as he high-tailed it out of town, when the call had come. Jimmy, sounding a lot more friendly, informed him that a space had opened up. One of his contestants had got himself arrested overnight for public nudity. Happy St Patrick’s Day! Smithy had flirted with the idea of telling him to shove it, but that would’ve been just another example of the dumb pride that had got him into this situation in the first place. Beggars could not be choosers.
He’d been picked up by a stretch limo out near the Brooklyn Bridge. There had been ten of them, and he’d been the last to hitch a ride. Some of the others he’d recognised from having seen them at auditions, some not. It wasn’t as if the thing actually required actors; actors were just the easiest people to find and, statistically speaking, the most likely to be desperate for money. There had been no small talk. Whether that was because nobody wanted to bond with their fellow competitors, or because they were all simply too ashamed of being involved in this fiasco, it was impossible to say.
They’d been driven out to a country estate; Smithy didn’t know where. His knowledge of New York stretched only as far as to the end of the subway line. At the venue, they had been met by people from the events company, suited and booted, all professional efficiency, as if this were a regular conference and not some Wolf of Wall Street fever dream.
Once they’d signed all the waivers and non-disclosure agreements – and there’d been a lot, because assholes don’t like people knowing they’re assholes – they had been issued with their uniform, complete with tall leprechaun hat. Every fibre of Smithy’s being vibrated with righteous fury. He was all set to tell these people where they could shove it, including the hat, but then he thought of Cheryl and how much he enjoyed his working kneecaps, and kept his mouth shut.
He and the other actors got changed in a stable. A horse huffed as it watched Smithy stuff his clothes into a kit bag. A couple of shaven-headed heavies in sports coats stood by the doors, before a blonde woman in impractical heels asked them to assemble. The briefing was short and to the point. She referred to them as “participants”, clearly too embarrassed to refer to them as leprechauns. Poor woman – Smithy really wanted to stick her in one of these outfits and see how she’d feel then.