Kicks for a Sinner S3 (29 page)

His possible half-brother ricocheted off in another direction and snatched a photo from the wall. “This is Dad. Look, we have the same eyes. Unfortunately, not the same hairline. I’d give much to have a mop like yours. He’s old in this picture and used to be taller. He could be your father. Yes, I see a resemblance to both of us.”

Howdy didn’t, but he went along with the enthusiastic outburst, as he did to lunch at the country club and a tour of ranches, one of which used to be a bordello, outside the city. It filled the time until four p.m.

TWENTY-NINE

The candidates for most likely blood relative of a Sinners football player showed up promptly, all a little astounded by their number and diversity. Already in his uniform for his night’s work, Billy, the most eager, volunteered to go first. Robson Lovell followed, pumping Howdy’s hand before giving his sample and saying, “However this turns out, a pleasure to meet you. Give some thought to which one of those ranches you’d like.”

Mariah’s agent greased his purported son’s hand with another of his cards. “In case you lost the last one.” He made the “call me” sign and offered up his spit for consideration in the Who is Howdy’s Daddy contest.

As the men filed out, each shook Howdy’s hand again—Billy with a hard but shaky grip, Robson offering the natural salesman’s glad-hand, and Lionel, the sweaty palm. Cassie gave Howdy a jubilant hug and hung on his arm as they left the doctor’s office for the second time.

“The hard part is over. What would you like to do while we wait for the results? We could ride horses at one of those ranches or go see Boulder Dam. I’d love to get Celine Dionne tickets if we can. I guess Donny Osmond would be okay, too, if you want.”

“I don’t feel like celebrating.”

“But why? You found your mother and are about to discover your father. This is great. You’ll know who you truly are.”

“I knew who I was before you dragged me here. Now I’m not so sure. Get in the truck. We’re going back to the room.”

“Sure, if you want. We can celebrate that way, too.”

“Shut up, just shut up.”

He maintained silence all the way back to the Bellagio. She did as well until the door to their suite closed behind them. A complimentary bowl of fresh fruit replaced the breakfast dishes. Cassie selected an apple and bit into its crisp, white center.

“I shouldn’t be hungry after that lunch Rob treated us to at the country club. I think he’d make a great brother. He doesn’t need your money. You could golf together.”

“I don’t play golf, and I’ll have to buy a place in Vegas if it’s him. Not sure I ever want to come here again.”

“Even to get married?” Cassie said with a coy smile and another bite of the apple.

“Do I amuse you? Do you get a kick out of dragging me down to your level with dirty, nasty secrets from my past? Last week, I knew I came from good, caring people. Now I have a whore of a mother and a whole bunch of fathers, none that I want to have as family. Jesus, Cassie, you have destroyed me!”

She’d gone pale but kept a playful façade. “Uh-oh, that’s another quarter in the cuss jar for blaspheming.”

“Yeah, make fun of my morals. At least I haven’t had a kid out of wedlock unlike you and my mother and Joe Dean. You all have that in common.” He ripped open the mini-bar door, took out a miniature bottle of Jim Beam, unscrewed the top and swallowed the contents in two gulps.

Two red spots appeared on Cassie’s cheeks, and she struck back. “Each of us did what was best for our child. Joe is raising his, I gave mine up for adoption, and your mother took you to a safe place to grow up. Imagine what you would be like if Lionel Lowe helped raise you? Didn’t you hear what Billy said? She cried over that decision.”

“I heard. That’s why I kissed her, but you’re whores, you’re all whores, Joe Dean, too!” He selected a tiny bottle of tequila and downed it.

“Yesterday you wanted to marry me. Now I’m a whore, but I’m no different than I was when we came here. Neither are you.”

“The scales have fallen from my eyes, yes, they have. I thought I loved Lupe, too, but she was only a fickle prostitute from south of the border. You gave yourself to that piece of filth, Bijou, and I don’t know how many other men. I only have your word there was no one else between him and you throwing yourself at Joe Dean. You sure seemed to know your way around a man’s body when we got together.”

Cassie slung the half-eaten apple at him hard as she could. He deflected it easily with one hand and chose a little bottle of rum with the other.

“Stop drinking and listen to me, Howard Angus Howdy McCoy. Bijou seduced an innocent teenage girl and made her do all the things he liked best. So, yes, I knew what to do. What I didn’t know was how good those acts could be with someone I truly love.”

“Right. Now you say you love me, but you wouldn’t marry me yesterday when I wanted to give you a ring. All you can think about is celebrating with sex like my mother, exactly like her, and she’s a whore, a God-damned whore.”

“Stop saying that!” Her hand met the side of his face with a sharp slap that made the mouthful of rum he’d swilled spurt from his mouth.

He rubbed his cheek. “I’m taking you to the airport. This is never gonna work. We’re never gonna work.”

“You are so right about that. I’ll take a cab. Why should I risk my life with a drunk?”

She stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door. He finished the rum and a bottle with two servings of red wine while she packed. His stomach roiled with the mixture of drinks he’d consumed, but he cracked open another, Jack Daniels maybe. His eyes weren’t focusing so well. When Cassie rolled her over-stuffed bag from the bedroom and headed for the door, he found himself unsteady when he followed.

“You’re right. I can’t drive. Here, here.”

Taking out that wallet molded by his hip, he handed her a spread of five hundred-dollar bills like she was exactly the kind of woman he’d accused her of being. Howdy remembered her story about the gambler who’d won a night with her from Bijou in a card game. A decent guy, that man had given her part of his winnings for a bus ticket home and never collected on the sex. Did all her relationships end this way—with a ride back where she came from?

He could tell she wanted to throw the money in his face, but knew she’d foolishly maxed out her credit cards on a wardrobe to impress Joe. Her teaching assistant’s salary after rent and food made only a small dent in that debt each month. None of her cards had enough of an open balance to get her to New Orleans. Unless she really wanted to earn her way there as a streetwalker, she had no choice but to take his cash.

“I guess you were right about me,” she said as she took the bills and stowed them in her bra where they wouldn’t be stolen. “I hope I showed you a real good time, cowboy.”

Then she left, striking out hard and fast for the elevator another man held open for her. Howdy swayed in the doorway watching her until she got aboard, smiled a taut thanks to that other man, and pressed the down button.

“I didn’t mean it that way. For plane fare. The money is for plane fare. Should go after her.” His belly heaved. He wasn’t going anywhere, not tonight. Not for another week when the test results arrived.

Hurling his stomach contents and maybe a bit of the lining into the toilet didn’t keep his mind off Cassie or his possible parentage. He spent the night between bouts bent over the commode imagining Cassie had stayed in the hotel, gone with the stranger to another room because the nice guy she’d trusted had kicked her out and made her feel cheap. As for his potential heritage, Howdy dreamed of himself as the son of a mafia don being gunned down at a tollbooth or a bodybuilder swollen with steroids and rage, a junior agent waiting at the bus station to rake in new, unsuspecting talent, and the most innocuous, a golfer playing double with Robson Lovell.

In the morning figuring he needed that hair of the dog everyone talked about, he made an excursion to a liquor store, bought a gallon of rye whiskey, and hauled it back to the suite where he downed as much as he could stand. It came right back up. He made coffee with a shaking hand and sipped it slowly, black and hot. That worked better. After a while, he ordered scrambled eggs and toast and kept that down. Exhausted but afraid of his dreams, he had another shot or two from the giant jug of booze and laid down to sleep away the afternoon after posting the Do Not Disturb sign on his door.

No one bothered him. He ordered a large, loaded pizza and found it went down well with rye. As the lights burned up the night sky of the city and obliterated the stars, he had no desire to quit his room and wander with the crowds coming out in the darkness—if the Strip could ever be considered dark. He stayed in bed where the sheets still smelled of Cassie and sex because he’d refused maid service as he continued to do all week. Food and liquor, easily ordered in. Time passed, staggering by with bleary, bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath.

The pounding on his door in late morning woke him from a great dream where he and Cassie lived at the Bar Mack Ranch and never went to Vegas. He untangled himself from the sheets and staggered close to the suite’s entrance when the drumming continued. “I don’t want my bed made up. Leave me alone. Can’t you read?
No leer
?”

“Howie McCoy, this is your mother. You open up right now, or I’ll scream loud enough to bring the guards.”

Reluctantly, he flipped the security latch, unlocked the bolt, and turned the knob. Mariah Coy stood before him bulging out of the top of her green waitress uniform. She padded in on the same kind of shoes nurses wore and took a good look around.

Kicking pizza boxes and dirty dishes out of the way, she said, “This would be a pretty nice place if a pig didn’t live here. What would your grandma say about a man who didn’t pick up after himself? Huh?”

“That I’m going to hell in a handbasket.”

“Damn right. Good Lord Jesus, you’re knee deep in pizza boxes and liquor bottles. Ruth is turning in her grave right now. The doctor said he couldn’t reach you at the number you gave him. Where’s your phone?’

“Somewhere,” he said vaguely.

Not a bit shy, his mother pushed into his bedroom and found it lying on the night table right next to the dented pillow where he slept. “Dead. You’d think with important news on the way you’d remember to keep it charged. Where’s that girl of yours? Seemed like she had some sense—unlike you.”

“Gone.”

“Walked out? Can’t say I blame her.” She sniffed at the stale sheets spotted with spilled whiskey and bits of pepperoni.

“I sent her away.”

“Then you
are
an idiot. Anyone could see she was crazy about you. So, not even interested in the DNA results? No desire to know who your real daddy is?”

“I don’t think I can handle the news on an empty stomach.”

“Well, man up because I am your wake-up call. Billy cried—when he found out it wasn’t him. Li shrugged. Them’s the breaks. He’s still trying to figure out how to make money off of you.”

Howdy had to admit his mother had a flair for the dramatic, drawing out the suspense. “So is dear old dad Rizzo or Lovell? Just tell me.”

“Chet, Chet Lovell, the only old dude I ever knew who could get it up without little blue pills. He was surely a phenomenon. I hope you inherited that ability. When did you shave last?”

Mariah squeezed his cheeks and ran a thumb along his stubble. “You’d give that gal of yours a bad beard burn—if she’d stayed. Still, makes you look tougher. You could use some tough. Have you changed your clothes in a week? You been sleeping in them? Phew! Get yourself into the shower right this minute.”

She gave him a shove in the right direction. Before he got that far, Mariah had the house phone to her ear. “We need maid service, pronto! Send a whole damn cleaning crew. Howie you have six messages on the hotel phone. How could you sleep with this red light blinking all night long? Drunk, that’s how. I answered my own question. Get in there and come back presentable, you hear me, boy?”

Jeez, she sounded exactly like his grandmother. He decided against telling her that. He lingered in front of the bathroom, no more sanitary than the rest of the place with its smell of barf and heap of dirty towels where he’d tried to clean up his mess. “Any word from Cassie?”

“Very first one. She says she arrived in New Orleans just fine, not that you’d care, and she will be returning one-hundred fifty dollars right away and the rest as soon as she can manage. I have to say you don’t have the same touch with women as Chet did. He knew how to treat a girl, never asked for any change or his jewelry back. Learn from the man, Howie.”

“Yes, ma’am. What about the other calls?”

“Mostly from today. Billy weeping. A ‘congratulations, bro’, from Robson and two panicky calls from his sisters saying you won’t get a dime from them. The last one is from me asking why in hell you don’t pick up your phone. I came over here soon as I got off work.”

“Thanks, I guess. Look, Mom, you don’t have to work anymore. I make a good living. I have a condo in New Orleans with lots of extra bedrooms. You can stay with me. I’ll take care of you from now on.”

“Who says I want that? Singing is my life. Unless I can sing in New Orleans, no sense in going there. Besides, I make my own way. I see what you’re thinking.” She shook a finger at him. “Don’t! Yeah, I slept with Benny Rizzo to get my big break, but I gave money to Li and never got a cent in return. The best Billy can do is put a coral-colored rose in my dressing room every night. As for Chet, yes, I took from him and made him happy in return. I would have married him. No harm in giving gifts to your fiancée is there? Anyhow, you owe me nothing.”

“You gave me life. You left me in safe hands.”

“You’re still drunk. Get in the shower and sober up. Either go hug Robson, and I know he loves to hug, or get on back to New Orleans now that you found out what you wanted to know.”

He didn’t repeat this was all Cassie’s idea. Crude and outrageous as Mariah Coy could be, he still thought saying he hadn’t come to seek her might break her stone cold heart to pieces as if he’d poured hot water over it. He didn’t have it in him to injure the feelings of another woman so soon after Cassie, and that had been wrong, so wrong.