Gorilla Beach (14 page)

Will's Sharpie flew all over the page of his sketchpad. The marker had a thick tip on one side, and a fine point on the other. He'd uncapped both ends and wielded the pen like a samurai with a blade. Bella was amazed how quickly the caricature took shape. He threw in tiny details that made it unique, such as a freckle on her nose, and a lock of hair behind her ear. He took another Sharpie out of his pocket, light gray with an extrawide tip. He used it to shade the black lines, instantly adding dimension. Three minutes from starting, he was done.

The facial feature he'd emphasized? Not the missing teeth, as Bella thought. He highlighted her cat eyes, which Bella had barely noticed. But now that he'd called attention to them, she could see that the girl's eyes were special. That was the Angelina Jolie part of her face that the mom adored.

Will signed it and sprayed the paper with smudge-proof sealer. He tore it off the pad, removed the perforated edge, and handed
the page to the girl. Her cat eyes glowed when she saw the image of herself. “It's so cool!” she said, absolutely thrilled.

Mom was happy, too. “It looks just like her!”

Dad said, “Great. Can we go in now? The game's about to start.” He peeled a damp twenty off his wad and handed it to Will.

Will deadpanned, “Go, Mets.”

The father grunted. The mom and daughter thanked Will again, and they left.

Bella said, “That was incredible. You just made two people really happy—in three minutes flat. That girl's going to keep the portrait forever. I can see it framed on her bedroom wall.”

Will shrugged. “Or it'll get ripped or stained and she'll throw it out. Daddy will be pissed he wasted twenty bucks. He'll go to the store for cigarettes and never come back. Or head to the bar, drink himself into a coma.”

“You've got a real sunny, optimistic outlook on life.”

“About as optimistic as yours, I'm guessing.”

“Hey, I
am
sunny,” she said. “Just look at my tan.”

“If you say so.”

“You don't know me,” said Bella, starting to get annoyed.

Will flinched at her clipped tone. “I'm sorry. You're right. I can be bleak. It's a bad habit, assuming most people are lying, selfish scumbags.”

“That's been your experience?”

He fiddled with the lace on his black high-tops and didn't answer. They fell silent. Bella thought,
Someone fucked this kid up but good
. As talented as he was, he had major trust issues. Especially about fathers, she noted. Bella's caregiver impulse kicked in. Instead of probing—didn't seem as if he'd open a vein right here on the boardwalk—she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“What the … do I feel a muscle?” Squeezing his biceps, she added, “Yup. Definitely something going on here.”

This brought a splash of pink to his cheeks.

“Why are punks so pale?” she asked.

“I don't have security clearance to speak for all of us, worldwide. But, for me, I've got no choice. I have fair skin. My real hair color is dirty blond. I'm only half-Italian. My mom's side is Dutch and I burn to a crisp in seconds—like a vampire in daylight.” Facing her, giving Bella a full blast of his blue eyes, he said, “Now you tell me. Why are guidos always tan?”

“Not cleared by Guidette Authority to speak for all of us …”

“Of course.”

“I just feel naked without a tan. I've been using bronzer since I was, like, ten, so it's a habit. Even if I didn't use product, I'd lay out. My skin soaks up the sun like focaccia and olive oil. It wants to be dark. I spend a lot of time outside, too. I run and love the beach.”

“So you're an outdoors person with a caring heart,” he said. “And I'm an indoors-type misanthrope. We're made for each other.”

“Really.”

“Yin and yang,” he said, pointing to the symbol painted on Madame Olga's floor. “Question is, which side are you? The white side, because you're kind? Or the black side, 'cause of your tan?”

“You're the black half. But you've got that white dot in the middle. Part of you, a small part, believes the world is a decent place.”

“And part of you,” he said, pointing to the black dot in the center of the white paisley, “is a rageaholic.”

She nodded. He was right. Bella watched as he drew a few more portraits, pocketing twenties. His customers loved the sketches, and Will seemed to enjoy pleasing them. It was fun to watch. Before long, though, her stomach growled.

“Whoa, that was loud,” he said, laughing. “One more drawing to make my daily minimum, and then I'll buy you Atlantic City's famous version of a Philly cheesesteak.”

Her stomach rejoiced. “If you hate people so much, why do you spend all your time studying them?”

“I'm searching for potential. Everyone has some.”

A couple walked by. The girl said, “Ohh, let's get a picture of us together.”

The guy smiled at his girl and kissed her. To Will and Bella he said, “We're on our honeymoon.”

“Congratulations,” said Will. He pulled out a second collapsible stool and had the couple sit together holding hands. “You're in luck today. As my one-thousandth customers, you get two portraits for the price of one.” He found another sketchpad in his pack and gave it to Bella along with a spare Sharpie.

“No, Will, I suck.”

“You're good,” he said with such conviction, Bella believed him. She studied the subjects and started drawing.

They smiled so big and hard, Bella's lips ached in sympathy. But it wasn't fake. They were genuinely happy to be together, to be alive. Bella drew rays coming out of their heads. Their hands were a tangle of fingers, resting on his thigh. She drew it as a big ball with lines, like a monkey knot. For their bodies, she gave the bride a gown, and the groom a tux.

Glancing to her left, she saw Will was putting on his finishing touches with the gray Sharpie. He sprayed it with the smudge-proof sealer, tore it out, and handed it to them.

The bride gasped. Bella looked at the drawing, afraid he'd made the earnest couple look corny. She stood up to look at it. He hadn't done a cartoon for them, but an impressionist portrait.

“This is … holy shit, dude,” said the guy. “I can't believe you did this in, like, two minutes. You're amazing.”

Will shrugged. “Just trying to impress a girl.”

The new bride flashed a smile at Bella and asked, “Is it working?”

Bella hesitated. Could she fall for a punk? In what friggin' universe
would that happen? She glanced again at the gorgeous portrait he'd just created, and at the bashful dip of Will's head. “Yeah, I'm impressed.”

The bride took Bella's cartoon. “Yours is good, too,” she said, and thanked her profusely. Then they walked off, careful not to bend the souvenirs of their honeymoon. These two would frame Will's drawing and hang it proudly. When they had kids, they'd tell the story of meeting a punk and a guidette at the beach on their honeymoon in AC.

Bella felt a glow inside. Forget what Madame Olga did, or whatever ability Gia thought she had. Will's talent was a
gift
. The real thing. And for the last hour, she'd basked in it. Bella felt honored.

“You okay?” he said. “You look misty.”

Shaking off her sentimental moment, she said, “More like hungry. You said something about a cheesesteak?”

Gia had been chilling
at Nero's Palace rooftop pool since noon. Fredo had stayed in to count the cash. Bella went for a run. Gia sought tanning time, but it'd been two hours and she was restless. After the adrenaline rush of last night's triumph at the wheel, she'd thought lying around at the pool by herself was exactly what she needed. To take some time to reflect on how she wound up here, on this orange lounge chair as comfy as her bed. But thinking was way overrated. Her brain didn't want to analyze. It wanted to replay moments from last night. The ball falling into the right slot on the wheel, again and again. The players who bet with Team Gia cheering her on. It was even more exciting to remember what had happened than it'd been last night when she was actually living it. Gia thought there might be a deep and useful insight somewhere in there, about how the past affected the present and the future. She could maybe write a book about it. She'd name it something smart and deep, and a little slutty.
Remembrance of Flings Past
. That had a certain bling to it.

A true highlight of last night was the expression on Fredo's face each time they won a spin. He lit up like a tiki torch. He got flushed and his eyes shone as if they were burning. Gia would bet all her winnings that he'd never had as much fun before in his entire freakin' life. As happy as that made her to give him the gift of
fun, via her own gift of psycho-sight, it was kind of pathetic that his existence before he hooked up with the cousins had been so bleak.

WTF, that hugging anxiety? Fear of spiders, Gia got that. She felt dread when she imagined herself alone in vast empty spaces, like on a mountaintop or on a boat in the middle of the ocean—worst frickin' nightmare. But being afraid of human contact? Gia was terrified of not getting enough of it. She knew that everyone had his or her own demons. Fredo's seemed weirder than average, though. Boobies and poopies? This kid seriously needed to get his smush on, and keep it on. But, Gawd, his clothes! Looking like an awkward embalmer, he didn't stand a chance. Gia and Bella would have to give him a guido makeover—hair to nuts—ASAP.

She put her finger to her forehead and used her gift to picture a transformed Fredo. It was harder than choosing a roulette color. Gia wondered how her gift would play in other areas of her life, now that she knew she had it. She could use it to see, ahead of time, before the interview, if she'd get a job. That would save a fuckton of time! She'd just skip 99 percent of them. Or maybe, here was a thought, she could use her gift to make money! Besides gambling! Like, be a relationship consultant. She'd let her gift tell her if a girl's new boy was going be a serious soul mate, or if he'd turn out to be a major loser she'd regret ever laying her eyes on.

“Excuse me, are you the girl who killed at roulette last night?”

Gia glanced over her heart-shaped sunglasses at the man standing over her lounge. She liked what she saw. In his mid to late twenties, he had thick, dark hair, sprayed and blown guido-style, dark, sexy eyes, and cheekbones sharp enough to slice bologna. A big nose, which she was already imagining getting around for a kiss. Big nose meant big in other places, too. His lips: juicy and dusky pink. Shirtless in black swim shorts, he was big, buff, and tan all over.

“You were there?” she asked.

“Me, and about fifty other people.” He smiled, showing rows of white teeth. Hollywood flawless. “Sorry, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For interrupting you.”

She'd already chased away a few lean cuisines who offered drinks and conversation. But this new hottie was worth keeping around. “I'm glad you came over.”

“I saw you from the pool bar, recognized you, and had to congratulate you. Can I buy you a drink?”

The yummy bro was hitting her up, big-time. She felt a flutter in her chest that, in a few hours, could lead to throbbing in another body part. Could he be the man of her dreams, the one Madame Olga predicted she'd meet “very soon”?

“What's your name?”

“Arthur Ponzirelli.”

“Ponzirelli ends with an
i,
right? Not a
y
?”

“
I
for ‘Italian.'”

Just as Madame Olga had said. Gia
knew
that woman was for real. “That's too long. I'll call you Ponzi. I'm Giovanna Spumanti. Gia.” She reached to shake his warm, rough, tan man-hand. “You're staying at the hotel?”

“Trying my luck,” he said, nodding. “I play in a high-stakes poker game. What can I get you?” He flashed the teeth again. They looked like an ad for a cosmetic dentist. He must have grown up rich. Gia didn't see too many smiles like his in Toms River or Carroll Gardens. Her own teeth, the bottom ones, were slightly crooked. She felt self-conscious all of the sudden.

Nothing a cocktail wouldn't cure. “Vodka seltzer,” she requested.

“Be right back.”

He walked over to the bar. His backside was as scorching hawt as his front. Ponzi's leg muscles rippled as he leaned against the bar. Gia decided that he was the one. The man of her dreams,
or the man of the moment? Either way, she felt the old familiar flicker of anticipation. She was gonna get it in!

If he'd fit.

While his back was turned, Gia sat up and arranged herself on the edge of her lounge, crossed her legs, combed through her hair with her nails, and arranged her black monokini to show more of her cleavage. Not hard to do. Monokinis were made for maximum boobage. She arched her back and held the pose.

Ponzi couldn't believe how
well that went! He ordered two vodka martinis at the bar and tried to calm down. She had great legs. Dynamite boobs. And those eyes! Like he'd walked into a Fellini movie. The fun-size brunette stole his breath. Which was
not
good. Ponzi needed to stay in complete control.

He'd been trying to figure out how to meet her since witnessing her truly unbelievable run last night. The pit boss changed the roulette operator every fifteen minutes to break her streak, but the girl kept winning. She had two friends with her last night—the gawky kid with the weird hair, and the butch chick with the wings tattoo. Where were they now? He had to make his move before they showed up and took her away.

By his count—a rough estimate, since he was parked at a slot machine twenty feet away—the girl and her friends brought in somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 last night. A rich neighborhood. And Ponzi would love to ransack it.