Gorilla Beach (20 page)

He looked panicked. “Not much to say. You're a psychic. You tell me.”

Gia thought about it. “I can't guess specifics. But I think you try really hard to cut off your emotions. I think you're scared of getting with me. You're either afraid of having a relationship, or maybe you aren't sure about me because of my power. Like you think my power is emancipating.”

“Emasculating?”

“Whichever one means you've got a mangina.”

Ponzi paused. “A
what
?”

“Just saying.” Gia peeked at him through the veil of her peacock lashes. “I appreciate your being romantical, and how much you love to make out. But if you really loved and respected me, you'd smush me raw tonight.”

Ponzi raised his arm and yelled, “Check please!”

The waitress brought the
bill. Ponzi was afraid to look. He opened the leather envelope, scanned down to the bottom, and nearly swallowed his tongue. Three hundred and fifty bucks.

“Leave a big tip for Maggie,” said Gia.

Who the heck was Maggie? Oh, yeah, the waitress. “Of course,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I'm sensitive to that, as a former waiter.”

“Where?”

“When I was in high school, I worked at the Clam Dungeon, a seafood restaurant in Hoboken. My dad was the maître d' there.”
Whoa,
he was revealing biographical information that no one needed to know, especially not his next mark. He really had to be careful with this girl. And now she'd forced the issue about sex. He'd been avoiding it, afraid of what he'd say during the act, and after, when lulled by postorgasmic stupidity.

It was put-up time. Ponzi was not going to let this mark go, considering his huge investment in her. He took out his wallet—cash reserves were dangerously low—and took out four hundreds.

“Leave five,” said Gia.

Before he even knew what he was doing, he slapped another benjamin on the stack. “Why do I get the feeling you're testing me?”

She shrugged and drained the last drop of wine from her glass. “Because I am.”

“Making sure I meet your standards?” He liked a challenge. “Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

“Carry me,” she said, holding out her arms. He must have looked confused. “We all have our sexual quirks. I like to be carried. I knew a guy once who liked to watch a girl bounce on a balloon until it popped.”

“That does sound hot,” he said, swooping her into his arms. She weighed nothing. Carrying her like Tarzan, he walked out of the restaurant and onto the boardwalk. She squealed and giggled the whole way. People looked at them and smiled. Ponzi absorbed the positive vibes, their tacit approval of an affectionate, attractive couple having fun on a Saturday night. He hoisted her up, tossing her in the air.

She screamed and then dissolved into giggles. Ponzi heard genuine laughter come out of his own mouth, and almost dropped Gia in shock.

“To your room?” He was prepared to carry her to the end of the earth if she asked.

She thought for a second, then said, “That way.”

He headed for the ramp between Nero's Palace and Bally's that connected the boardwalk to Gorilla Beach. With one smooth move, he spun her around so that she was riding piggyback, her smooth tan arms around his neck, and her legs wrapped around his waist.

“Why is it called piggyback?” she asked. “I feel like a monkey.”

“And you look like one, too.”

“Hey!” she said, laughing, swatting his cheek. “Go right.”

He went right.

“I mean left.”

“To the Gorilla Beach Bar, or the actual beach?”

“The bar,” she said.

He delivered her to a chair at the bar, the ocean in front of them and the boardwalk behind them. The moonlight and ambient
neon from the boardwalk gave her skin an angelic glow. Her eyes, dark as the sky, shimmered like the stars.

Lame poetic rhapsodizing?
Fuck me,
he thought. Ponzi was officially off the rails. A smitten jerkoff. Was there any hope for him? He wouldn't relax until he'd stolen her blind and was a thousand miles away from Jersey. In the meantime, he'd enjoy Gia, in every way a man can enjoy a woman. She'd demanded it!

She called the bartender. “Tanner!”

The guy leaned over the bar to kiss her cheek. “Welcome back, Gia.” The kid was
way
too good-looking for Gia to kiss. Red-hot jealousy burned through Ponzi's gut.

To Gia, he said, “You make fast friends.”

“Tanner, I have a special request from the kitchen.” She motioned the kid in close and whispered in his ear.

When she finished, Tanner said, “I'll see what I can do.”

“You rock.”

“I'm curious,” said Ponzi after the bartender left. “And jealous. Your lips were way too close to his ear. Should I be nervous?”

Gia played with her weave. “They must be cold.”

“Who?”

“The waitresses.” She pointed her square nail at the rear view of five girls in identical red bikini uniforms, clamoring around the bartender station for their orders.

“They should wear skirts or tops at night,” said Gia.

“You're right,” Ponzi said, distracted.

“What's wrong?”

How could he explain? “I didn't notice them.” Usually, he made a point of ogling the Gorilla Beach Bar's waitresses. He planned it in his day. But he didn't notice them when he was with Gia. “I only have eyes for you.” How many times had he used that cheeseball line on rich divorcées without ever understanding what it meant?

Oh, yeah. Ponzi was in
way
over his head.

The bartender returned with a plate covered by a napkin, and
a glass of water. He winked at Gia, and she squirmed in her chair, excited.

“I'm gonna give you a trust test,” she said to Ponzi. “I blindfold you and put something in your mouth. You have to eat it, or I won't believe you really love me.”

“I'm kind of full from dinner.” Blindfold? No way. Ponzi had a deep fear of being in the dark and out of control.

“You're no fun.” Gia pouted, her bottom lip quivering. He'd love to put her lip in his mouth and suck on it. If he didn't do her trust test, he might blow the whole con.

“I don't see why you need to test me, but if it's that important to you …”

“Yay!” Gia tied a spare napkin over his eyes, tight. “Okay, open wide.”

He did as she asked. A morsel hit his tongue. Salty, pliant. “An olive,” he said, chewing. Okay, he could do this.

“Next!”

Another round object. Sweet, sticky. “Maraschino cherry.”

“Okay,” she said. “Open up.”

A long, thin, crunchy thing. He bit down, and his tongue caught fire. He ripped off the blindfold. “What was that?”

“A serrano chili pepper,” she said, laughing.

“You're crazy,” he said, eyes bulging.

“Come on, it's not that hot.”

“Hell isn't this hot!” he wheezed, breaking into a sweat.

“Here,” she said, offering a glass. “Chase it with this.”

Ponzi took a long draw on the glass. Ugh, not water. Something sour and salty. His scorching mouth puckered violently, and it felt as if his lips were sucked backward into his skull. He started coughing, in great heaves. “What. Was.
That?
Battery acid?”

“A pickle back. Pickle-juice shot.”

“I'm dying,” he gasped.

“You'll be fine in a minute.”

He felt woozy. “I hate pickles!” Then he blacked out.

The taxi pulled to
a stop outside Will's place. Bella had expected a condo building. But his apartment was inside a
Boardwalk Empire
–era brownstone. It reminded Bella of the town houses in her own neighborhood of Carroll Gardens, except for one major difference. Will's neighborhood was like a war zone. His old-fashioned house was covered in fresh graffiti. She cringed at the stench of overflowing trash cans on the street. Only a few blocks from the Taj Mahal Casino, it was as if she'd arrived at the slums of India. When Bella approached Will's door, a stray dog who'd been rooting in the garbage nearby tried to steal the bag of burgers she carried. She growled back, and the mutt ran away.

This was where Will lived?

He might be taking the starving-artist thing a bit too seriously.

Bella grew up solidly, proudly middle-class, a third-generation American and daughter of a small-business owner. She was the first of her family to go to college. She accepted that wealth probably wasn't her destiny. She'd never be rolling in dough—unless it was pizza dough. But she'd be okay.

Apparently, Will was not doing okay. The Brooklyn projects looked like the Ritz compared to this. Hoping that the shabby exterior was a front for a gleaming, luxurious interior, Bella found Will's buzzer on the rusted plate and pushed.

No response. She leaned hard on it. Nothing.

She might've hightailed it out of there, but a man exited the building. She caught the door before it locked closed and went in.

Only five units, one on each floor. Will lived on the first floor. She knocked on his door, pounding on it. No response, although she heard thrash punk coming from inside. She tried the knob. It opened.

Her heart beating to the manic music, she crept into the apartment. She knew she was in the right apartment because Will's old Ducati motorcycle was parked in the middle of the living room, a small puddle of engine fluid pooling under it. Otherwise, the room was sparsely furnished with junk that might've been pulled off the street. A lumpy couch, small TV, a scarred table. It reminded Bella of the Prison Condo.

One lamp with a soft bulb shone the way toward the rear of the apartment, where the music came from. Bella passed a kitchenette, clean with the lonely look of disuse. Will wasn't a cook. Too bad. Bella loved to cook. She and Tony had shopped for, prepared, and consumed many memorable meals together. After their first few nights together, Bella realized they cooked better in the kitchen than the bedroom.

“Hello?” Bella called.

No answer, but she could barely hear herself think with the music so loud. She walked by a bedroom alcove, a futon on the floor, tightly dressed with a clean white comforter. In the back of the apartment, she came to a closed door. Not knowing what to expect, she gathered her courage and pushed the door open.

The room contained several lamps with high-wattage bulbs, iPod speakers, cans of paint, and jars of brushes. And Will, shirtless, in jeans, bare feet, and a black, studded belt. He was on his knees, facing the rear wall, a brush in his right hand. In his left, a bottle of beer. He was bent close to the wall, doing detail work on a figure. An animal? She couldn't tell.

All four walls, and the ceiling, were covered, layered, with figure paintings. Bella drew her eyes away from the artist to take in the art. It seemed to be a complex mural that reminded Bella instantly of paintings she'd studied in art history class, specifically the work of Sandro Botticelli. One whole wall was devoted to Botticelli's most famous work, a fleshy Venus rising from the ocean on the half shell, escorted by angels, her golden hair streaming behind her like ribbons. But Will's Venus wasn't a blonde. She was a brunette, with perky boobs, a belly-button ring, and muscular legs. Will's angels weren't pink, chubby cherubs. They were winged dragons, the kind of images you'd find in tattoo parlors and comic books.

Studying the wall to her left, Bella took in the lush forest scene. He'd painted nudes. Male, female, she-males, writhing on top of each other in crazy positions. It was a Roman orgy to make Cupid blush. One wall was an ocean view, a beach with umbrellas, people, the glowing sun. It was so realistic, right down to the nipple piercings on a pair of iron-pumping gorillas, Bella could smell the sea. The ceiling was a sky at night, the moon, constellations, and the Milky Way.

Bella's eyes couldn't take it all in. Each mural was amazingly detailed. Every inch of space was covered, just covered, with figures and scenery. The woods scene had hundreds of animals and creatures in trees and on the forest floor. She simply didn't know how to appreciate the murals. From far away, or up close? Each face seemed so distinct.

Checking to see if Will was even aware of her presence yet—he wasn't—she moved closer to examine Will's brunette version of the goddess of love. He was working on her shell—not a clamshell, but an opalescent oyster. Bella studied Venus's face.

It was like looking in the friggin' mirror.

Will stopped painting suddenly and spun around. “Bella! What are you doing here?”

“I brought burgers,” she said weakly, holding up the bag.

He stared at her, his mouth wide-open. “You're not supposed to see this.”

He looked different without black eyeliner. His hair was washed and hung down like bangs. She'd never seen his bare chest and was pleasantly surprised by his muscle definition. He was slim, but buff. She could count his abs. He switched off the music so they could talk.

“These murals are … I'm blown away. Speechless. I can't believe what I'm seeing,” she said. “How long have you being painting this room?”

“Three years. On and off. You're the first person to see it.”

“In three years?”

“I'm kind of a loner.”

“I see a familiar face here,” she said, pointing to the goddess.

“Are you mad?”

“Are you freakin' kidding? I love it.”

“You don't think it's creepy?” he asked carefully.

Bella took that into consideration. “No. I'm flattered. You made me look beautiful.”

He smiled. “If you like that one, then you'll love the two dozen others I've done since I met you.”