Gorilla Beach (31 page)

The hotel concierge—what was this idiot's name again?—cowered in his presence. It took everything the kid had to say, “Yes, sir. The last to go was the receptionist at the spa. She got an offer at triple her current salary to work at a new nightclub in Seaside Heights.”

“The same freakin' club? Frickin' poachers,” screamed Mr. Violenti. “I pay to train these people, and then a shithole in Trash Town steals them out from under me? What is this club? Who runs it? I want information.”

The idiot looked at his notes. “It used to be called the Cowboy Club, but they changed the name to Venus. The space was rented by Fongul Industries, but I can't get any further details. It's a shadow organization, almost like it doesn't really exist.”

“That's all you got?” asked Mr. Violenti, trying to rein in his impatience. When will his people
get it
? He doesn't want to know what they don't freakin' know! He might as well fire every one of these useless fucktards! If he could clone himself and work every job in the casino and hotel, he would. He
will
. Until technology
catches up to his fervent wishes, he'd suffer through the incompetent idiots he was forced to surround himself with.

The idiot added, “Venus opens on Tuesday night.”

“Venus is gonna get whacked,” Mr. Violenti said, hurling two more whole chickens by their plucked drumsticks into the moat. “Now get out of my sight.”

The cringing idiot scurried away. Mr. Violenti wiped off a fleck of chicken skin on his slacks. He had a bad feeling about all these ex-employees working at the same place. As he built his empire, he'd cut some corners, violated some codes, and broken a few of what the New Jersey gaming commission called “laws.” When he had the staff under his thumb, he didn't worry about being ratted out.

But now they'd wriggled free of his grasp and were together, comparing notes.

“Fuck!” he shouted in the direction of the gators.

“That won't work,” said a passing tourist.

“Huh?” he asked the broad in the floppy hat.

She pointed at the moat. “Gators don't breed in captivity. Yelling the F-word won't help.”

Repressing his rage, he said, “Thank you, madam, for sharing. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a baby club to kill.”

Since the miracle of
her son's birth, Donna Lupo hadn't spent more than three hours out of touch with Fredo. The last three weeks had been like sawing through an umbilical cord made of oak.

The first week? Donna was frantic with worry. Fredo left a note saying he was going out of town, not to worry, and that he'd be in touch. She had no idea where he'd gone. Whenever she called his cell phone, it went to voice mail. She begged her husband to call the service provider and track Fredo down via GPS. But Luigi refused.

“I know where he is,” said her husband. “I've got eyes on him. He's safe. Leave him alone.”

Despite the reassurance that her baby was alive and protected, Donna cried every day. As fast as she could stroke on mascara, her tears washed it off. Despite having had two eye lifts in the last five years, Donna's lids puffed like thick-crust pizza dough.

“I'm a mother!” she pleaded to her husband. “A mother worries!”

“Get over it,” said Luigi.

The second week without Fredo, Donna fell into a depression. She attempted to ease her mind by pouring herself into her new friendship with Maria Crumbi. They had seven-course dinners and went to the mall nearly every day. Donna fretted away the
extra calories, but Maria got fat. Before long, Donna's strategy failed. She never thought it possible: eating and shopping didn't fill the empty shell that was her heart.

She was lonely. She missed her son.

Until he'd run off, Donna hadn't realized how much she relied on Fredo for companionship. Sure, she had a posse of cronies to fill the hours. But they weren't blood. They didn't satisfy the deep craving for the love and connection she felt only in the company of her baby boy.

By the third week of Fredo's disappearance, Donna got angry. How dare her son abandon her like this? After all she'd done for him? If it weren't for her, he wouldn't even be alive! She'd devoted her life to Fredo, and he repaid her by leaving her in a rambling mansion with a husband who barely grunted at her over the dinner table?

If she ever saw Fredo again, she'd kill him.

Donna was having such murderous thoughts while driving home from her plastic surgeon's office after a Botox touch-up. She steered her car down Boulevard and came to a stop at a red light by the Cowboy Club. Fredo's latest fiasco. The place had been empty for the last few weeks, and Donna knew her husband wanted to unload it in August.

Then she saw the club door swing open, and out came a woman who looked exactly like Maria Crumbi, circa a year ago, only fatter. A closer look, and Donna's lipo'ed chin dropped. It
was
Maria Crumbi! She wore a black pouf and a ridiculous leather minidress with cage platform heels.

As Donna watched with horror and fascination, Maria carried a bag of garbage behind the building and heaved it into a Dumpster. Then she teetered back to the front entrance and disappeared inside.

“What the hell does she think she's doing in Fredo's club?” Donna asked herself out loud.

A disgusting thought popped into her head. Were Fredo and Maria Crumbi holed up together in there, like a secret lovers' hideaway? Donna had heard a rumor that Stanley Crumbi was living in one of his other properties for the last few days.

The thought was sickening on so many levels. As soon as the light changed, Donna hit the gas and left a burned-rubber mark to pull into a parking spot. She tore out of the car and into the club.

Expecting the place to be dark and empty, she was blinded by the bright lights inside. Fresh-paint fumes hit her hard. Everywhere she looked, people were doing things. A kid in jeans and a splattered T-shirt was rolling up drop cloths on the floor in front of a freshly painted wall. She glanced around and noticed that every wall had been painted with Roman-style nudes, a hundred of them, some wearing sunglasses, with poufs, dripping with bling. Some wore fuzzy fur boots or leopard-print panty/bra ensembles. A blurring of old world and new that, if she weren't seething with confusion and anger, would have blown her away. The style reminded her of that painting she'd hired some cheap hack to do of Fredo years ago, and of the Crumbi wedding portrait.

“Can I help you?” A guido behind the bar was talking to her.

“Where's the fuck is Fredo?” she demanded.

“He's in his office.”

So he
was
here. With Maria? Who were all these people? Donna clomped toward the back of the club. She flung the office door open.

On the desk, which she'd picked out for Fredo herself, lay a woman on her back. Donna's only son, her baby boy, was on top of the girl, his pants down around his ankles.

“Argghh!”
Donna's French-manicured hands slapped over her eyes.

“Ma?” choked Fredo.

Donna heard movement and dared to peek again. Her son, her
only love, was now upright, his pants buttoned. The girl on the desk (not Maria Crumbi, thank freakin' Gawd) was standing next to Fredo, holding his hand.

“Although this isn't how I hoped you two would meet, Ma, I'd like you to meet my fiancée, Erin. Erin, this is Ma.”

Donna said, “Your …
what
?”

“I know it's sudden. But I love her. She loves me.”

Shocked, Donna couldn't speak for a minute. Then she took a step toward her boy, put her hands on his cheeks, gave him a kiss on the lips, pulled back, and said, “Fredo, you break my heart!”

Then she turned her back on the couple and ran out of there.

“Ma, wait!” he called.

Her only son, engaged! Three weeks away from her, and this happened? The nightmare of nightmares. A redheaded gold digger got her hooks in Donna's pure, innocent son! The worst part: she was definitely
not
Italian. This Erin might as well have the map of Ireland tattooed on her face. Tears, mascara, and fumes temporarily blinding her, Donna didn't see where she was going and collided with someone in the hallway.

“Get out of my way!” she yelled.

“Donna! What're you doing here?” asked her former friend, now enemy, Maria Crumbi. “You remember my bitches of honor, Gia and Bella?”

The two girls who'd humiliated her son and then had stolen the money from Mama Lupo's bingo game at Our Lady of the Perpetual Sorrow were back to cause more trouble. The short one waved and said, “How's it hanging?” The tall one had the good sense to keep her trap shut. The three of them clustered together looked like a magazine ad for tackiness.

Donna said, “You, Maria Crumbi, are dead to me. You are no longer my friend. Your husband can consider his business with Luigi over. I hold you two girls personally responsible for corrupting my son. Enjoy your last minutes in Seaside Heights. I'm gonna
have you ridden out of town on a stretcher. You'll have tire tracks on your asses. I'm gonna slap you so hard, I'll bruise your whole family. I'm gonna—”

“Ma! Shut up,” said a loud voice from behind her.

Donna didn't at first know who spoke. The deep growl that had apparently come out of Fredo's body was unrecognizable to her. She'd never heard him raise his voice before. “Do not talk to me that way! I'm your mother!” said Donna, having to look up at his face. Fredo seemed taller than she remembered. It was as if he'd grown half a foot in the last three weeks. Or maybe he was standing upright. Had he been bent in a crouch for the first twenty-five years?

“You have no right to threaten my friends or insult my fiancée,” he said, pulling the redheaded harlot into a Safety Sidehug, just as Donna had trained him to do.

Donna smiled at the sight. Even though he'd been on top of the girl a few minutes before, when in public he was a good boy. A polite, neutered, sexless boy.

“This is gonna hurt, Ma. But you need to see this.” As if he'd read her mind, Fredo pulled the girl into a full-frontal hug, putting his hand on her rear end, squeezing her against him so hard she might as well have been behind him. “I'm Guido Hugging, Ma. I'm not afraid of anything anymore. I haven't popped an Ativan in days. I even took a dump with the lights on this morning!”

Erin nodded. “He looked at it, too. We both did.”

Gia, the tarty brunette with the doll face, said, “Group Hump!” She attached herself to Fredo from behind, pressing her chest into his back. Maria and Bella, too, clamped their bodies onto Erin and Fredo, making a five-person assault on Donna's propriety.

“Hey, Mrs. Lupo. Get in here,” said Gia. “Once you Guido Hug, you never go back.”

“I can't,” she protested, although, to be honest, she was tempted. She'd been so lonely. Her husband wasn't the most affectionate
of men. But how could she participate in the degradation of her pure baby boy? No, she would not.

“Ma, it's okay,” said Fredo, waving her in. “You can do it.”

“Fredo, I'm afraid,” she said, sensing a momentous shift in the nature of their relationship and in the character of her son. In the press of female flesh, Fredo ceased to be her baby boy. She'd lost him. But Donna had a strange feeling that she'd gained something even more valuable in its place. A grown man to talk to. A daughter-in-law to spend Sundays cooking with.

“Is this really what you want?” Donna asked. “You choose these floozies over me?”

“You're my ma, Ma. That'll never change. But I need other women in my life.”

Fredo's arm, longer than Donna remembered, reached for her and pulled her in. She struggled at first, but then she let herself be enveloped by the warm, open arms of her son, and the women who were physically, emotionally, and professionally attached to him.

It wasn't that bad, actually. Three weeks of loneliness and anxiety sloughed off Donna's skin as if she'd had a full-body microdermabrasion. She felt something she'd never before felt about Fredo: pride. Maybe it wasn't a curse on her house that Fredo got engaged. They could have children soon. Perhaps a baby boy who needed a strong, protective
nonna
to care for him.

After a few moments, the arms loosened, and the group broke apart. Donna stepped back, wiped a tear from her eye before anyone noticed. “I won't run you all out of town after all.”

Gia said, “Yay! No tire tracks!”

Donna squinted at her. This girl really was a dim bulb.

“I'm glad you're here,” Gia continued. “You can see what a balls-to-the-wall hottie your son has turned into. But I've also got a job for you, if you want it.”

“Oh?” asked Donna, wondering what kind of “job” this girl expected a woman of her maturity to perform.

“You enjoy getting revenge on your enemies, am I right?”

“Yeah?”

“Your son has an enemy. A dirtbag who ripped us off in Atlantic City. Wanna help us get revenge on him?”

“I'd really appreciate it, Ma,” said Fredo.

Donna looked at each of them, including Bella and Maria (whose style crisis made her wince), and saw the genuine respect and desire for her to join their crew.

What could a mother do? “I'm in.”

Arthur Sanders sat at
the bar at the Four Leaf Clover, nursing a beer and watching the Mets on the TV. They were losing by a landslide. He was glad he hadn't placed a bet to beat the spread. He needed to conserve cash. He'd already blown through the money he'd stolen in Atlantic City. He'd bought his mom some new stuff. Not that she appreciated it. Arthur opened the box of a brand-new HDTV and his mom said, “Your sister, Angie, comes for dinner every Sunday night with the kids. She's a good girl.” A brand-new couch from Pottery Barn arrived and she said, “Your brother, Chester, visits every Wednesday to watch
Top Chef
. He's a good boy.”