Bust (4 page)

At eleven o’clock, Max had his weekly meeting with Alan Henderson, his CFO, and Diane Faustino, the Payroll Director. They went over the company’s payroll and budget and talked about expanding the company
website and the need to hire two more Senior Networking Technicians. Max also told Alan that he wanted to reward his employees with a ten-percent raise next year, and sent out a memo about this pronto, thinking at least no one could say he wasn’t in a good mood a couple of days before his wife was murdered. Besides, he loved giving raises, the surge of power it gave him, that he could make or break these assholes.

That evening, when the last person had left for the day, Angela locked the front door, and came into Max’s office. Max was already naked, lying on his back on his office couch, doing Kamal’s breathing exercise. She turned down the lights. It was almost dark, the only light coming through the window curtains. She took off her clothes slowly, moving the way Max liked, like she was a dancer at Legz Diamond’s, the strip club on Forty-seventh Street where he took his clients. Finally, she took off her bra, climbed on top of Max and gave him some nice warm kisses. Then she slid down and ran her tongue over his thick gray chest hair. As she dipped further, Max grinned, thinking, Who the fuck needs breathing exercises?

Afterwards, holding her tightly, feeling especially close, Max said, “Let’s get married.”

“We’re going to get married.”

“I mean right away.”

“But we’ll have to wait
some
time. I mean it would look suspicious if we did it too soon, wouldn’t it?”

“What difference does it make? Just because my wife is murdered I have to spend my whole life in mourning?”

Angela thought about this for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“There’s another thing I want to talk about — kids. I’ve always wanted a little Max Jr., just not with Deirdre. What do you think about being a full-time mommy?”

“I’d love it.”

“Well, I want to do that right away too — while I still have some good seed inside me.”

Later, while they were getting dressed, Max interrupted whatever the hell Angela was saying, said, “Ange, there’s something I wanted to ask you. I don’t really know how to say this. I mean I don’t want you to get offended or anything. I don’t think you will but—”

“What is it?”

“It’s stupid, really, but...”

“What?”

“It’s just... have you ever thought about adding another cup size to your tits?”

Looking down at her implants, she said, “Why? You think they’re not big enough?”

Max said, “I didn’t say that. I just asked you if you ever thought about it before, that’s all.”

“They’re already thirty-eight D’s. Why, you’re serious? You really don’t like them?”

“I didn’t say
that
. I just didn’t want you to think there was something you couldn’t have if you wanted it.”

“That’s really nice of you... I guess.”

“I’m not saying that bigger tits are something that you necessarily need.” Max wound on his tie, trying to come up with perfect way to explain it. He came up with, “I mean, I want you to have everything you want in life, whether it’s a gold necklace, a beautiful dress, a trip around the world, or great tits.”

Strapping on her bra, Angela said, “You really think it would make me look better, huh?”

“Not necessarily
better
, but I don’t think it could hurt. Anyway, sleep on it. Although I don’t mean that literally.” He laughed to himself, then said, “By the way, did you make that dinner appointment for me tomorrow night?”

“Yes. With Jack Haywood.”

“Good. I’ll have to take him out to some busy restaurant,
maybe some Italian place on the Upper East Side. They have all those little restaurants around Second Avenue.”

“There’re a lot of bars up there, too.”

“I don’t know, I’d look pretty stupid — an old guy like me in some singles bar.”

“You’re not old.”

“I’m only not old when I’m with you.”

When Max finished getting dressed, Angela came over to him and said, “So this is it. The last time we’ll be together — for a while anyway.”

Hugging Angela made Max think about breasts again. He said, “You know, I don’t think a restaurant is public enough. We should be someplace more visible. I know, I’ll take Jack to a strip club.”

If my grandmother had balls she’d be my grandfather.

Y
IDDISH SAYING

“So I’m riding on the bus, coming downtown, when this chick gets on,” Bobby Rosa said. “I got Cinderella going, feeling nice and pumped, so I figure, Why not? She’s like, I don’t know, thirty years old, blonde hair, nice little shape. So I start staring at her, you know, trying to get her to look at me. Make the bitch’s day, right? They always say how chicks are hot for guys in wheelchairs — I wanted to see if that was bullshit or not.”

Victor Gianetti, sitting across from Bobby at a table in the back of Lindy’s diner in the Hotel Pennsylvania, said, “So what happened next?” Trying to sound like he gave a fuck.

“The girl starts to smile,” Bobby said. “But it wasn’t just a smile, like ‘Have a nice day.’ This was the smile of a girl who wants to get laid. So I’m thinking, This is it, my lucky day, when, all of a sudden, my legs start to spasm. I mean it’s like somebody stuck an electric prong up my ass. My legs are shaking, the chair’s bouncing up and down, people’re coming over trying to help me. Finally, I stop shaking and I look up at the chick and her mouth’s hanging open, looking at me like I’m some kind of freak.”

“You are a freak, buddy,” Victor said straight-faced. Then he said, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Jesus, where’s your sense of humor?”

“I think you’re missing my whole point.” Bobby wondered why Victor never seemed to understand what the
fuck he was talking about. “It wasn’t like I gave a shit what some chick thought of me — it’s just the way it is when you’re in a fucking wheelchair, you start buying into this whole being a cripple shit, know what I mean? I mean when it comes right down to it, what does anybody do with their lives? You eat, you shit, you go to sleep — I can still do all those things. I can even screw. They have medicine, all these devices. It probably would be a big pain in the ass, but I could do it. I ride the bus, I can go anywhere anybody else can go. There’s a word for what I’m talking about but I don’t know what it is.”

“You feel like people are putting you down.”

“I said a word, not a sentence.” Bobby thought, Is this guy a freaking moron or what? “It sounds like erection. Perception. It’s like everybody’s got this
perception
of me right off the bat. They see a big guy, late forties, wheelchair — they either feel sorry for me or they think I’m a fuckin’ freak. Kids, Jesus, they’re the fucking worst. Last winter, I go out to get a bottle of Coke when these three little kids start throwing snowballs at me. Not snow — ice. You know, like we used to throw at buses in the old days, now they throw them at people — what’s the fuckin’ world coming to? I swear to God, I was ready to go get my shotgun and blow the little fucks away. What happened to getting a little respect? The old days I’d walk down the street nobody’d come near me, but now the
perception
’s changed. I’m the same guy — I can still beat the shit out of somebody if I had to — but nobody else sees it that way. You see what I’m saying?”

“I guess so,” Victor said and took a sip of milk.

Man, Bobby couldn’t get over how shitty Victor looked in that bellhop uniform. Was this really the same guy who used to dress in style, wearing snazzy pinstriped suits and shiny shoes? Yeah, he’d always had thin hair, but now he was completely bald and he looked like he might’ve
lost twenty or thirty pounds since the last time Bobby had seen him, what, six years ago? There was something wrong with his voice too — it sounded hoarse and scratchy, like an old man. Bobby might not’ve even recognized him at all if he didn’t still have his dark skin and his big bent-out-of-shape nose that he’d probably broken dozens of times as a kid. Bobby could understand how a guy could lose some pounds and pack on the years, but he couldn’t see how anybody could go from armed robbery to carrying people’s luggage. Bobby might have lost his legs, but this asswipe had lost his balls.

Bobby slurped his coffee, said, “Remember the Bowery jobs?”

Victor smiling, suddenly looking young again, going back in time, said, “Those were real beauts, huh?”

“You plan a job, just the way you want it all to work out, and then boom — it goes that way, without one fucking hitch.”

“Except when that little Chink pulled the alarm and started shooting at us.”

“That wasn’t a hitch. You gotta expect shit to happen when you’re stealing jewelry. I’m talking about everything else. Getting to the car, getting on the bridge, getting to Brooklyn, switching cars in Brooklyn, getting to Queens, switching cars in Queens, and then boom — we’re on the Island, counting the fuckin’ take. Like clockwork. We did it, what, three times? All that fucking gold. Man, that was it.”

He felt a rush, just seeing it replay in his head. It was like he was there again — ten years younger, looking sharp and in shape. When he saw himself standing in the jewelry store, holding his Uzi, and then running out to the street, he could feel his legs, like in those dreams when it all seemed so real, then he’d wake up and still be a fucking cripple.

“I should never’a gone out on my own,” Victor said.

“That’s exactly what I was talking about,” Bobby said,
“you can’t second-guess your life. So you fucked up, you took a fall, you’re still what, fifty, fifty-five?”

“Forty-four,” Victor said.

Thinking,
Jeez, the fucking sad sack looks sixty
, Bobby said, “See? Forty-four is like what twenty-four used to be. With vitamins, all the new shit with doctors, everybody’s gonna be living to a hundred soon.”

Victor, looking at his watch, said, “Fuck, I gotta get back to work. So what brings you around here anyway? You just wanted to shoot the shit or what?”

“No, it’s a little more important than that.” Bobby leaned forward, making sure the young guy reading the
Daily News
at the next table wasn’t listening. “I got a job to discuss.”

“A job we did?”

“No, a job we’re gonna do.”

Victor stared at Bobby for a few seconds, like he was trying not to laugh, then said, “Come on you’re joking, right?”

“Does this face look like it’s joking?

“What’s this, April fools? Come on, Bobby, give me a fuckin’ break, all right?”

“I’m serious, man. I came to you first because I know you’re good and I know I can trust you. But if you don’t want to hear me out I’ll go talk to somebody else.”

Bobby wanted to reach across the table and slap him, get him focused.

“All right, so tell me,” Victor said, trying not to crack up. “What’s this
job
?”

“I wanna knock over a liquor store,” Bobby said.

Now Victor couldn’t hold back. He started laughing, but it quickly turned into a cigarette smoker’s hack. Finally, he recovered enough to say, “A liquor store? Jesus, you’re too much, Bobby.”

Bobby still wasn’t laughing, or even smiling.

“Come on, Bobby,” Victor said in that scratchy voice. “A liquor store?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Bobby said. “That time we were shooting pool downtown what, seven, eight years ago, you said you wanted to work together again someday, right? Well, this is fuckin’ someday.”

Victor was staring at Bobby like he felt sorry for him. Bobby had seen this look a lot from strangers on the street, usually old ladies. One time an old lady asked Bobby if she could help him carry his bags home from the supermarket. Bobby wanted to fuckin’ belt her.

“You can’t walk,” Victor said. “You know that, right?”

The waitress came over with Bobby’s cherry cheesecake. Bobby took four full bites of cake then said, “So? Are you with me or not?”

“Come on, man,” Victor said. “Weren’t you just listening to me?”

“You know,” Bobby said, chewing, “the old days you would’ve jumped if I told you I had a job to pull.”

“The old days was a long fuckin’ time ago. You’re in a wheelchair and the doctor took some cancer out of my throat last year. They found a couple of spots on my liver they’re watching — they said if it spreads down there, that’s it — I’m a goner.”

Bobby stared right into Victor’s yellowish eyes. The cancer didn’t surprise him — he knew there was
something
wrong with the guy. He said, “You know what I do every day now? When I’m not watching the fucking lineup on TV, I’m out in Central Park, shooting pictures of the broads in bikinis. I’ve got hundreds of pictures of boobs and asses, lined up on my walls like a fucking porno museum. Now you know that’s not me, right? You know that’s not what I do.”

Bobby realized that he was talking too loud. People at other tables were looking over at him like he was crazy.
Then Victor, looking at Bobby like maybe he thought he was crazy, too, said, “What’s this? You a photographer now or something?”

“Why? You want me to take some pictures of your girlfriend? I’ll make her look so good they’ll put her in
Penthouse
.”

“You couldn’t make
my
girlfriend look good,” Victor said. “To make her look good you’d have to shoot her with the fuckin’ lights out.”

Bobby and Victor stared at each other seriously for a few seconds then they both started to laugh. After a while they stopped laughing, but when they looked at each other they started again. Finally, they got control of themselves. Bobby felt like it was old times again, like he and Victor were twenty-five years old, shooting the shit in some Hell’s Kitchen diner.

Victor, still smiling, said, “If you want to see some good-looking ass you should check out the whores they got workin’ in this hotel.”

Bobby knew Victor was just trying to change the subject but played along anyway, saying, “What? They got some good-looking hookers here?”

“You kiddin’ me? These chicks ain’t the needle whores they got dancin’ on the stages on Queens Boulevard, you know what I’m saying? These are some high-class models they bring in here for the insurance faggots. You know what I’m talking about — call girls, escorts.”