Gorilla Beach (11 page)

“You're the vics. I should have forced my parents to believe me. It's my fault you got the order. I feel horrible about it. You guys have been great to me. Gia, you're the only person who's ever defended me against Cara. You have to let me make it up to you.”

Bella and Gia made eye contact. This could be worth listening to. “How?” asked Bella.

“I want to go with you. Before you say no, hear me out. You two are the luckiest girls I've ever met. I have an idea how we can use your luck to our mutual advantage.”

“I think you have us mistaken for two other bitches,” said Bella.

“You won the bingo game,” he said to Gia. “Do you know that, in twenty years, no one has
ever
beaten my grandmother before? Twenty years. You're, like, a miracle.”

Gia said, “Well, actually …”

But Bella put her finger to her lips, silencing Gia. “So what if she did?”

“We can go places with your kind of luck. I've got a big car, a fat wallet, a full tank of gas, and snacks for the road.”

“What places?” asked Bella.

“What snacks?” asked Gia.

“Just pack your bags. We're going to Atlantic City.”

Fredo steered the Caddie
into the underground parking lot at Atlantic City's premier hotel/casino, Nero's Palace. He'd already reserved a suite. It had two bedrooms, although, if his wildest dreams came true, all three would share one king-size bed, and he wouldn't hyperventilate from nerves.

Uh-oh. Wood. He maneuvered the Caddie into a spot. If he got out of the car now, they'd know in a second. Why did he always get excited at the most awkward moments? He did the one thing he knew would deflate his, er, situation.

He pictured his mother, waving him in for a kiss.

Ecch. Problem solved.

The girls were already pulling their luggage out of the trunk. He'd never seen zebra-print hard-shell suitcases before. Unlike the women in his family, who expected the men to do everything for them, Gia and Bella hauled their own stuff.

Gia said, “Think I'm too pretty for Sin City?”

“Totally,” said Bella. She pulled Fredo's duffel out of the car like a sack of feathers. “You need help carrying your bag, Fredo?” asked Bella, holding it for him.

“Of course not.” He took the duffel from her and nearly fell over from the weight. She rushed to help him. “I got it,” he insisted.

They walked into the Nero's Palace lobby and were instantly awed. Looking up, the ceiling was painted like a blue sky, with clouds. “This place is incredible!” said Gia, shuffling along in furry, black boots.

“I always stay here,” Fredo said. “Nero was
paesan
.” Gia looked confused. She got that deer-in-disco-lights look a lot. “
Paesan,
meaning ‘countryman.' Italian.”

“Wrong,” she said. “Nero was a
Roman
emperor. Like Caesar. Everyone knows that.”

Fredo whispered to Bella, “Nero was Roman, but not Italian?”

“Just let it go,” she said.

In Roman-amphitheater style, the lobby was a huge circular room with columns and marble statues around the perimeter. The statues were of Roman gods and goddesses, including an enormous twenty-foot-tall Jupiter, the king of gods, posed heroically on an island surrounded by a moat. Gia wheeled up to the fenced-in statue and said, “Something's moving in the water.”

Fredo took a closer look. “Are those alligators?”

Sure enough, a pair of small gators floated to the water's surface, their snouts and eyes visible. Gia pointed at another statute, of Juno, Jupiter's babe. “Check it. The world's first pouf!”

Bella said, “I relate to Minerva, goddess of wisdom.”

“I'm Diana,” said Gia, pointing at a sculpture of the hunter goddess. “I hunt gorilla.”

“You're both Venus, goddess of hotness,” said Fredo. “Friggin' obviously.”

The girls thought about it. Gia said, “I'm down with Venus.”

Bella agreed. “And you, Fredo, are …” She searched the statues for his likeness.

“Apollo, the sun god,” he suggested.

“Maybe the sun dog,” said Gia.

“Bacchus, the party god?” he said. “No! Vulcan. God of the underworld.”

“That one,” said Bella, pointing at a sculpture.

They read the carving at the base with the god's name. “Uranus! That's you, Fredo,” said Gia, laughing.

“Very friggin' funny.”

“Just kidding, Fredo,” said Gia, taking his arm.

Bella took the other. “You're our Apollo, okay?”

The three of them walked over to check in. A hot girl on each arm, Fredo felt a dizzying spike in blood pressure—only natural, given his anxieties and the situation. In fact, he was surprised he wasn't a lot worse off. With any other girls, he'd have fainted by now. But he could really talk to Gia and Bella. They seemed to like him, too.

The male concierge smiled at him when Fredo handed him his credit card. As well he should! Fredo was checking into the superluxe penthouse suite with two hot girls. He'd never before felt like such a pimp. The suite cost $1,000 a night. That'd be a lot of paper to drop. It was worth it to feel like this, and to get away from home.

He'd replayed in slow motion a hundred times Cara's fist coming at him. Each time, he felt a little more humiliated. If only it'd happened in private! Why did his worst-case scenario have to unfold in front of his entire family? His father was embarrassed by proxy, whether he'd cop to it or not.

Luigi told him he didn't care what anyone thought, and that what mattered was how Fredo felt about himself. But Fredo knew Luigi would prefer a badass for a son. What man wouldn't? The only way Fredo could redeem himself in his own eyes? Leave town mysteriously and return to Seaside Heights with a ton of cash to offer his dad as a tribute. Thus far, Fredo had been a siphon on the Lupo wealth. The Cowboy Club was his most recent failure. In hindsight, he should've known some of his ventures would fail. Like Cup O' Meat, a boardwalk scrapple stand. And Chunk, the plus-size-stripper lounge on the outskirts of town. It had some
hard-core regulars, but five chubby chasers weren't enough to support the place. Truth be told, the Cowboy Club was his last shot. His dad couldn't keep shoveling money into the Fredo black hole forever.

This time around, he had to succeed without family support. His plan was to harness the greatest power in the universe and exploit it for his personal gain. What was this cosmic unstoppable force of nature?

Dumb luck. And Gia Spumanti had it up to the eyeballs.

Fredo distributed key cards to the girls. They went up to the suite. The porter brought their luggage on a cart. Fredo, the big spender, tipped him a $50. Bella noticed, approved, and gave him a wink.

Ohhh. Wood again.

“Oh, my freakin' Gawd!” screamed Gia. “Look at this place! I'm in
lurve
!” The main room was pretty sweet, like the Guccione version of a Roman bordello, with columns and pillow-covered lounges for reclining and nibbling on grapes and olives. Gauzy drapes floated in the breeze from the open balcony door.

Gia ran around the suite, pointing at the attractions. “Giant flat-screen TV … minifridge, stocked … maxifridge, stocked … ocean view.”

She flung open the balcony's screen door and stepped outside. Fredo followed. They were on the thirtieth floor. The people on the boardwalk scurried like sand crabs. Gia screamed, “Hey, bitches!” A few people looked up and waved back at her. Fredo inhaled the ocean air, deep into his lungs. They expanded, and he relaxed. Gia beamed at him. “This makes up for everything in Seaside, times a hundred.” The warmth in her eyes went straight to his chest.

Bella called for them. Gia let go and ran back inside. Fredo followed. Bella handed him a glass of champagne. “The bedrooms are sick,” she said. “The closet is bigger than my bedroom at home. The bed is round, covered with white satin. The bathroom
has a gold-plated tub, and also one of those fountain toilets that real Italians use to clean their assholes.”

“Classy!” said Gia. “From Prison Condo to Imperial Freakin' Palace. I'm never leaving this suite. You can't make me.”

Bella held up a hotel brochure. “I found this. Listen. ‘Nero's Palace presents the Roman Orgy Salon Package.'”

“Combining sex and manicures?” said Gia. “Gives new meaning to the phrase
hand job
.”

Oh, shit,
thought Fredo. Wood again. He wouldn't last long with these two if every time they made a dirty joke, he got excited.

Gia lifted her glass of champagne. “The whole first week? That didn't happen. Our summer vakay starts right here, right now.”

They clinked and drank. Fredo sipped his. He wasn't much of a partyer, really. He had to go slow, or he'd be facedown on the bed in no time

Bella squinted at him. “Are you sure you can afford this?”

“No worries,” he said. If they lost at the tables, then he'd have to pull the plug on the room after a few days. But if they won … they'd stay as long as the girls wanted to. Speaking of winning—“Are you guys ready to hit the tables?”

“Already? We just got here. I want to chill and change. There's a sink full of bath products. The shower's got five nozzles, including one that shoots water up from the floor,” said Bella.

“More hands-free asshole scrubbing?” asked Gia. “Fredo, this place is right up your alley.”

“As it were,” said Bella.

Fredo laughed. And then realized with a shock that he was laughing
at himself
. Another breakthrough for him, and it felt even better than being a pimp.

“What now? Fredo, are you
crying
?”

“No,” he said, wiping his eyes.

“Aww. I think he likes hanging out with us,” said Gia. “We like you, too, Fredo.”

After their showers, Fredo
stayed at Nero's to scope out the casino while Bella and Gia hit the boardwalk. They aced AC style in monokinis, short shorts, hoop earrings, floppy hats, and platform wedges. The ocean and beach were to their right, and the board-walk empire to their left. “Every store is either a fortune-teller, massages, tattoos, or souvenirs,” said Bella. “Where's a jumbo hot dog when you need one?”

“Plenty of candy shops,” said Gia as they passed Fralinger's, the hundred-year-old taffy puller. “Check out all the strollers for adults.”

The scores of wicker rickshaws did resemble strollers. Tourists sat on the roof-covered bench seat, and the operator pushed the contraption on wheels from behind.
They couldn't walk down the boardwalk?
thought Bella. She and Gia were doing it, in heels. God, people were friggin' lazy.

“We can't all be marathoners like you,” said Gia, reading Bella's mind. “So they want to take a ride. It's hot out. Don't be so judgey.”

“There's a another psychic. Maybe we should ask Madame Olga if I'm too judgey.”

“But we already know you are.”

Bella felt a tug toward the fortune-teller's storefront. It was
absurd to ask a rip-off artist for advice, insight, or information from the great beyond, but she had the urge anyway. “Let's check her out.”

“I'd love to. But, you, Bells? Really? Waste money on a
fugazi
?” Meaning, a fake.

Ordinarily, never. But they were standing right in front of the place, it was vakay, they had time to kill and some cash to burn. And Bella was curious. She wanted to be fed bullshit positive answers to her questions. It'd give her a glimmer of optimism to cling to.

“Bust my balls later. Now, we're going in,” said Bella. They walked into the airy salon. The purple-painted room was divided by a red curtain into two separate mini “reading rooms.” For privacy, each room had strings of beads hanging in front. Behind the bead divider, each space contained a small, round, gold-painted table, two metal folding chairs, also painted gold, and a poster of a palm with captions explaining what each line signified. Under the table, on the floor, was a painting of the round yin-yang symbol. A woman sat at the table in the open booth, reading a novel.

“Madame Olga?” asked Gia.

She looked up from her book. With a Russian accent she said, “I know why you're here.”

“She
is
psychic!” said Gia.

“Sit down,” said Madame Olga.

Bella had expected a crone, like a craggy Gypsy in werewolf movies. But Madame Olga was attractive and decently dressed. Bella put her around fifty, slender, streaked caramel hair in a tight bun on top of her head. She wore a strapless dress that showed off tan shoulders and gave zero boobie support. Bella predicted something about the psychic's future: if she didn't wear a bra, her breasts would one day swing to her knees.

“I can do tarot, palm, runes, I Ching. I've got a crystal ball around here somewhere,” said Olga.

“What about the playing cards?” asked Gia. A deck was on the table.

“That's for solitaire when I'm bored.”

“We just want a basic palm reading,” said Bella. “How much?”

“Three questions, twenty bucks.”

“Me first!” said Gia, sitting in the chair opposite the psychic.

The woman smiled—Gia's enthusiasm brought that out in everyone. “Give me your hand.”

Gia put both hands palm up on the table. The woman examined them and said, “What do you want to know?”

“Will I meet the man of my dreams, and does his last name end with a vowel?”

The psychic checked Gia's palms. “Yes, you will meet a man. Very soon. Not someone you know now, but you'll feel like you've known him forever. He treats you like a queen. And, er, his name ends with a vowel. An
i
. Or a
u
. Maybe an
o
or
a
.”