Drawing Dead (25 page)

“Cards?” said Crow. The espresso had his heart ticking like a manic metronome; he hoped it wasn't true that a man's allotment of heartbeats was decided at birth. If it was, between his three years as a cokehead and Debrowski's caffeinated depth charges, he'd be a goner anytime now. The Catfish problem, as he had come to think of it, was tabled for now. Crow set his cup down and stared into it, trying to get a clearer picture of Little Joey Battagno, a.k.a. Joey Cadillac.

“You want another one?”

“I'd better not. You got any bread? My stomach feels like there's somebody down there poking at it with a bad cigar.”

Debrowski laughed and brought him a Moon Pie. Crow looked through the crinkly plastic wrapping.

“You're kidding.”

“You don't like 'em? It's the closest thing I've got to bread.”

Crow tore open the plastic and took a small bite.

“He plays cards?”

Debrowski lit another Camel. “Hosts a regular poker game. He keeps his bimbo in a condo over by the lake. That's where they have their games. Lanny said he played in a couple of them, lost his ass. They play for some big money.”

“Is the game fixed, you think?” asked Crow, chewing Moon Pie.

“Does it matter?”

Crow examined the remaining half of the Moon Pie. “You know, this isn't all that bad. Sort of like an inflated Oreo.”

Debrowski smiled wryly and crossed her arms. “I thought you'd like it. Anyway, I'm thinking that this girlfriend of his might be useful. I could probably get next to her.”

“I don't want you getting into this any further.”

“Crow, you're disappointing me. The son-of-a-bitch hurt me. I'm in it.”

Crow tipped his head back and stared at the white ceiling. A water stain the shape of France spread across its center. He tried to think what was above it. His kitchen? Something he had spilled? He had the feeling that he was poised on the edge of a high balcony, looking up at the stars.

“What do you say, Crow? You want a seat at the table?”

“Let me think about it.” He thought about Freddy Wisnesky tearing the door half off his car. Debrowski being knocked around by some guy named Little Joey Battagno. He remembered the scheme he had dreamed up the day before. Was it any crazier than playing cards with a guy who called himself Mr. Cadillac? The storm of feelings raging through his mind and his body was distincdy uncomfortable. Was he protecting her, or excluding her? Neither was acceptable. He

turned and looked at Debrowski. Her crushed lip sneered at him, her eyes were bright and expectant. He pictured her swinging a bike chain. Suddenly, the idea of protecting her seemed ludicrous.

“I'm working on something else,” he said slowly.

“You're changing the subject.”

“I'm not. You want me to play cards, I'll play cards. But I want to tell you, I think I have a way to get some money out of Dickie. I'm going to get back the money we lost, plus what he owes me, and then some. If it works, it'll more than make up for losing to that pair of fours. What I'm saying is, it's going to work out. You don't have to pay me back. It's not necessary. I've got it covered.”

“It's not about the money, Crow.”

“I was afraid of that,” he sighed.

Most humans are clearly more intelligent than horses. I therefore believed that a patient and intelligent person, by devoting a reasonable amount of time and energy to research and calculation, could do quite well financially. Was my research of poor quality? Who can say…who can say?

—Ben Fink,
talking to an empty seat during the ninth race at Canterbury

“What I want to know,”
said Ben Franklin, folding his copy of the
Racing Form
, “is why we are still here.”

Tom Jefferson's tongue was sticking from between his lips, moving back and forth, up and down, in and out, with the efforts of Shamino the Ranger. He made little grunting sounds and puffed out his cheeks whenever Shamino had to jump.

“Would you please put that down for a minute?” Ben said. He was sitting under the umbrella, his long, pale legs carefully tucked in out of the sun. The evidence of seven shrimp cocktails, a dozen oysters, and a club sandwich rested on the table. An empty bottle of Dom Perignon lay on its side atop a silvered ice bucket. A few yards away, the empty swimming pool glittered bright green in the midday sun.

Tommy lowered his Game Boy and looked over at his partner, pushing the red frames of his new Ray-Bans up his oiled nose. “What's going on? Hey, should we order another bottle of that stuff? You want to?” He set the Game Boy on his lap and shook out his hands. “Man, my thumbs are fuckin' pooped.” He pulled up the back of the lounger.

“I'm thinking we should move on,” said Ben.

“You don't like it here? I like it here.”

“The show is sold out, Thomas. Standing room only. Once we start selling the lobby, it's time to roll. We stayed with the Stasis Shield routine a few weeks too long and look what happened. Now we've got Freddy Wisnesky. You ever try to lose a pet dog?”

“Only reason we hadda blow Chicago was fuckin' Joey Cadillac,” Tommy said.”There's no Joey Cadillac here. What are you worried about? Freddy's dumb as a stump. Tell him he's got a fly on his nose, and he'll knock himself out trying to slap it. Let's just issue some new units, call them bonds or something. No, we'll call them Galactic Convertible Subordinated Debentures, keep Dickie out there humpin' for us. We got a good story, we got a guy that can sell it, why fuck with it? Besides, the way you been droppin' money at the track, we're gonna need all we can get.”

Ben ignored the shot. He was having a bad run, but so what? “You put the dog in your car, take him a hundred miles away, tie him to a tree, drive home, and next week he shows up at your back door, so happy to see you he urinates all over your leg. It's a proven fact that the dog will always find you in the end. You have to shoot the dog. Freddy Wisnesky won't ever go away. I can't even go out for a paper without thinking about how hard it would be to read the thing with two broken arms. In my opinion, we should move on while we are still able, or we'll have more than Freddy Wisnesky to worry about.”

“What are you worried about? Dickie Wicky? He doesn't have a fuckin' clue. And if he did, so what? He's the scam man. Anything goes down, the heat's gonna be on Dickie-boy. He's the man with the license. I don't know what you're worried about. We have to, we just evaporate.”

A waitress, dressed in a uniform that looked like a short-sleeved green tuxedo, arrived with a large tray and began loading it with their used plates. Both men stopped talking and watched her.

“Is there anything else I can get for you gentlemen?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said.

The waitress looked surprised. Mr. Tucker's appetite had been remarked upon by other members of the Whitehall Suites staff, but this was the first time she had witnessed it firsthand. “Yes, sir,” she said, quickly composing herself.

“Another bottle of that fizzy stuff. And a shrimp cocktail. Wait a sec. You got anything like a lobster cocktail?”

“I could have the kitchen come up with one, I'm sure, Mr. Tucker. Will there be anything else?” She had also heard about Mr. Tucker's lavish tips.

Tommy looked at Ben. “Don't ya love the way they remember your name? It's like going to Cheers. You want anything?”

Ben shook his head. After the waitress left, he said, “I don't think Dickie is buying the GGF line anymore. You know, he's not as dumb as he acts.”

“He was, he'd forget to breathe in and out. If he was gonna be a problem, Cat woulda let us know.”

“I do not trust Catherine, and neither would you if you weren't suffering from an overabundance of testosterone. The other night, when we went to that place to play poker, Dickie didn't even ask us about how the acquisition was going. Every other time we've seen him, it was all he wanted to know: When were we going to take possession of the Jones collection? When was the money going to come? All of a sudden he doesn't even mention it. This sort of thing concerns me greatly.”

“He was drunk, man.”

“With Dickie, I don't think that is relevant. He's used to processing large quantities of alcohol. My point is, he might very well be onto the scam, and I think we should collect our assets and move on to someplace where they do not know us. We have close to two hundred thousand in the box right now. I don't want to lose it all just because you got your pecker out of joint over our friend Catherine.”

“My pecker's fine.” He looked over his shoulder toward their pool- side room. “Speaking of which . . .”

“Please try to restrain yourself. I'm trying to make a point here.” Ben's voice was becoming even more cavernous than usual, due to the cigar and the champagne. “She's not going anywhere. Why should she? We're paying for everything. You can go flush your tubes after we decide what we're going to do.”

“I say we milk it till Dickie burns.”

“It's not just Dickie I'm worried about.”

“What, are you talking about that guy Crow? He's a wimp.”

Ben watched the waitress coming across the patio with a two- hundred-dollar bottle of champagne in a bucket and what promised to be another twenty dollars' worth of lobster cocktail. She showed them the bottle, opened it, and poured them each a glass. Tommy forked a quarter of a lobster tail into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of champagne. The waitress twisted the bottle into the chromed ice bucket.

When she was out of earshot, Ben said, “You're thinking with your testicles again, my friend.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Crow. He is not a wimp.”

Tommy shoveled the last of the lobster into his mouth, chewed audibly, poured himself another glass of champagne. “Here she comes,” he said. “Would you look at that suit? Man, I ain't seen nothing like that since Key West.”

Catfish was crossing the patio, carrying a towel under her arm, her face concealed behind a giant pair of round mirrored sunglasses, her breasts swinging back and forth in minute triangular pouches suspended from shoulder straps the thickness of fishing line. The bottom of the swimsuit was similarly designed. As she came closer they could see curly dark hairs escaping from every side of the triangle. She kissed Tommy and wiggled her fingers at Ben, who smiled back without enthusiasm. He regarded her bare bottom with only clinical interest, having learned years ago that a quick fifty-dollar blow job once a week was all it took to keep his glands in balance. He picked up the
Racing Form
and tried to ignore the spit exchange going on at poolside. After enduring too many minutes of their giggling and whispering, he snapped the paper closed.

“Catherine.”

“Yes, Benny-poo?” She looked up and fluttered her eyelids at him. Tommy cracked up.

Ben glared. “Did you tell Dickie that the GGF collection was a fabrication?”

“Well, sure I did.”

Ben nodded and jerked back in his chair, both triumphant and alarmed.

Tommy's mouth fell open. “Whadja do that for?”

“Somebody had to. He was spending our own money on it. I got to look out for
moi
too, y'know.” She pulled a lounger over beside Tommy's and laid herself out facedown. The Tom and Ben Show stared at each other, then looked down at Catfish's ripe, sun-darkened glutei maximi.

“Ben, did you know Dickie was putting his own money into the thing?” Tommy asked.

“It was his money. Caveat emptor, as they say.”

“I don't know what y'all are so worried about,” Catfish drawled. “Dickie's just going to sell them all over again. You all oughta get him to sell some more. He's good at it.”

“See?” Tommy said. “It's okay, Ben. Nothing's changed. Only thing is, the scam man is wise now, but that don't mean we can't keep it going. We just got to whack it up a little different is all. Give him a bigger chunk.”

“I don't like whacking it up at all.”

“Hey, business is business, pod. Ain't you the one always telling me not to get greedy?”

“I don't like it.”

“Benny-poo, you can be such an ol' stick stuck in the mud.” Catfish rolled onto her back and looked at him through her upraised knees. “Why don't you just loosen up a bit, have a little fun? Find yourself a little ol' card game.” Ben looked at his reduced image, twice, in the lenses of her enormous mirrored sunglasses.

“I seem to have some difficulty finding a game in this town,” he said. “Your Mr. Crow has a hard-on for me.”

“I hear he's a pretty good poker player.”

Ben shrugged and poured the last of the Dom Perignon into his glass. “In a straight game, he would undoubtedly do well. I personally do not care for straight games. It's far more challenging and exciting to bend the odds. That is what poker is really about.”

“Cheatin'?” Catfish grinned.

Ben inclined his head. He noticed the waitress coming toward them. She addressed Ben. “Mr. Hogan? You have a telephone call. A Mr. Rich Wicky. Do you want to take it?” She was holding a cordless telephone, offering it to him.

Ben took the phone, turned it on. “Dickie,” he said in his deeper than deep telephone voice. Tommy and Catfish leaned forward. Tommy's right thigh was going up and down; Catfish had a grip on his left.

“Could you hold a moment?” Ben said. He pressed the mute button. “He wants to know what a set of
Detective Comics
, numbers one through one hundred twelve, would be worth. He sounds quite excited.”

“Ask him a few questions. No. Gimme the phone.” Tommy snatched the phone away from Ben and turned it back on. “This is Tom Terrific, Dickie. What the fuck you talkin' about?” He listened. “Uh-huh. You kidding me? Yeah. Yeah. Well, if they were
near mint
, which is about as good as the golden-age stuff gets, it'd be worth about, I'd guess, a hundred thou, maybe more. Could be more. Depends if you're buying or selling. Why, you pitching the fund to some Batman freak?” He listened, nodding, his knee going up and down, foot slapping on the stone patio. “Well, f'chrissake you can tell
me
, Dickie. Aren't we partners? Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Well, come on over, then. We'll have a few pops and talk 'er out. Right. Later, man.” He turned off the phone and dropped it on the patio.