Face/Mask Read Online Free Page B

e-message between Terry and her uncle included several pleas for him to join them in their spacious home.
    He finally agreed in the summer of 2037, selling the small piece of land he owned in his native village of Miramare. This was after the third coup in a seven year span had installed yet another military regime in Rome. There was no reason why he should continue living under a permanent state of emergency rule, he told friends, when “ Teresa, la preferita della mia famiglia ,” was willing to sponsor his immigration to Canada.
    He’d imagined that Canada was still America’s friendlier neighbour that Europeans had so long heard about. Well, too bad if we’re not as friendly as he’d expected , Janus found himself thinking within a few weeks of the old man’s arrival..
    He had honestly tried to make Joe feel welcome at first, but Joe’s constant paternalistic interference with every aspect of Janus and Terry’s life quickly soured the relationship. After those first few weeks it was all Janus could do to maintain a cool civility toward him, mostly by spending as little time as possible around the family when Joe was there. His cheerfulness, which had been so welcome in their home, quickly turned to silent brooding and hours spent alone in his home office. Terry complained that Janus was avoiding her and their boys, but he thought she should be grateful to have a peaceful household.
    Considering how little Janus had to do with Joe, it came as a surprise to him that the old man was the only one who understood about the dog-fighting, and the huge losses that he was running up on a weekly basis. Joe had been with them three weeks when Janus found himself having an unexpected late night conversation with his houseguest. He never would have considered this newly arrived immigrant and virtual stranger in his home to be someone he would take into his confidence, especially about something so potentially damaging as the dog-fighting. But Joe was there when Janus needed a sympathetic ear.
    They had cock-fights in his native village, he told Janus that night; not quite as bloody as dogs, but brutally violent nonetheless. And the betting? Joe knew how important that was; even the losing.
    “When you want feel angry at whole world,” he’d said in his thick accent, “you lose even more money. Like you no care. Nothing important. Fuck with everyone, yes?”
    Joe was right. That’s what it really was: a big “fuck everyone” to the crappy world they were all trapped in. The more Janus had bet, the more he lost, leading to ever bigger bets in the hope of getting even. After a while, Janus knew his salary wasn’t enough to fund these losses as well as cover the family expenses. But he needed some way to recoup his money.
    That was when Leblanc, ever-helpful, had directed Janus toward their host, Michael. The man was more than willing to lend Janus all the money he needed to show up every week and try to win his money back. So Janus had bet more and more, and lost more and more often, until the day he woke up to realize he was fifty-two thousand dollars in debt to the city’s biggest dog breeder. Janus made a good living at a time when the unemployment rate hovered near twelve percent, but he didn’t have fifty-two thousand dollars lying around.
    His house was appropriately large for someone in his position, and the mortgage he was carrying matched its size. Add the cost of private school for his three boys and it was a struggle to put money aside for a rainy day. Now he was faced with a deluge, and with interest on his gambling debt going up at an impossible ten percent a month there was no way he’d ever be able to pay it.
    Janus needed a source of quick money. With his crushing debt-load getting a loan would have been difficult. Besides, the bank had to report any loan over five thousand dollars, and his superiors would want to know why he needed the money, as would Terry.
    Janus sat up late into the night in the