Timothy's Game (17 page)

Tony is already there, thank God, waiting for her at a tiny, two-stool bar to the left of the entrance.

“Hey!” he says, coming forward to take both hands in his. “You made it! Have any trouble finding the place?”

“Not at all,” Sally says, looking around. And then, with feigned surprise: “Tony, I like it. Very pretty.”

“Nothing fancy,” he says, shrugging. “But the food’s great, and you can’t beat the prices.”

Sally sees a typical third-rate New York trattoria. Small, only nine tables, and all occupied except one. Crude murals of Vesuvius, the Colosseum, Venetian canals painted on wrinkled walls. Plastic plants in plastic pots. Checkered tablecloths. Dripping candles stuck in raffia-bound chianti bottles. Paper napkins. And hanging in the air, a miasma of garlic strong enough to scare off a hundred vampires.

Tony snaps his fingers, and a waiter swathed in a filthy apron comes hustling to usher them to the empty table and remove the Reserved card.

“A little wine first?” he suggests.

“Tony, you order,” Sally says. “You know what’s good.”

“A glass of Soave to start,” Ricci says rapidly to the waiter. “Then the cold antipasto, lobster diavolo, linguine, and maybe a salad of arugola and raddichio. With a bottle of that chianti classico I had the other night. The Monte Vertine.”

“Very good,” the waiter says, nodding approvingly.

“Sound good to you?” Tony asks Sally.

“Sounds yummy. You eat like this every night?”

He gives her his sizzling smile, eyes half-lidded. “This is an occasion. Dinner with the boss.”

“Let’s forget about that,” she says, touching his hand, “and just enjoy.”

The food is unexpectedly good. Maybe a little harsh, a little too garlicky, but Sally exclaims with delight over every course, the wine, the crusty bread, the prompt and efficient service.

“You know how to live,” she tells Tony.

“Everyone knows how to live,” he says. “All you need is money.”

“That’s so true,” Sally says. “It’s what makes the world go ’round, isn’t it?”

She gets him talking about himself, his family, his boyhood in Salerno, a motor scooter he owned, a job he had making plaster statues of saints. She bends close to listen to his nonstop monologue over the loud talk and shouted laughter of the other diners, all the deafening sounds bouncing off the low tin ceiling. But, by leaning forward, she gets a whiff of his cologne mixed with the garlic, and she sits back.

She has one glass of the red wine and lets him finish the bottle. He drinks and eats enthusiastically with, she is bemused to note, a corner of the paper napkin tucked into his collar and the remainder spread over his chest, hiding a tie of hellish design.

He insists on tortoni and espresso, and then amaretti with ponies of Strega. Sally takes one sip of the liqueur and then pushes the glass toward Tony.

“You finish,” she says.

“Sure,” he says, and downs it in one gulp.

It’s after ten o’clock when they rise to leave. He pays the bill with cash, Sally sees—no plastic for him—and leaves a lordly tip. They come out into a black, close night, the sky clotted with clouds and a warm, soft mist drifting. They stand for a moment in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says, “I didn’t tell you how great you look. That’s the way a woman should dress. Very
elegante.”

“Thank you,” she says, smiling.

“I mean, a woman doesn’t have to show everything she’s got in public. Am I right?”

“Absolutely,” Sally says, taking his arm. “Where are you parked, Tony?”

“Well, uh, my car’s in the garage right now. Transmission trouble. I cabbed down.”

She knows he’s lying; the poor shlumpf doesn’t own wheels.

“Then we’ll take mine,” she says brightly. “It’s only two blocks away; we won’t get wet.”

They skip, laughing, through the mizzle until Sally tugs him to a halt alongside her silver Mazda RX-7. “Here we are,” she says.

He looks at the car with astonishment. “This is yours?”

“All mine. You like?”

“Fantastico,”
he breathes, and walks around the car admiring the lines.

“C’mon, get in,” Sally says. “You can drive.”

They slide into the bucket seats. Tony caresses the wheel with his palms, staring at the dash. “Radio, air conditioner, cassette deck,” he says. “Even a compass. You got everything.”

“All the comforts of home,” she says lightly. “I also own a Cadillac, but this baby is more fun to drive.”

“I wish—” he starts, then suddenly stops.

They sit in dimness, windows opened a few inches to let in moist night air. The windshield is beaded with mist, and illumination from streetlights is broken into watery patterns, as irregular as pieces from a jigsaw puzzle.

“If you had your druthers, Tony,” she says quietly, “what kind of a car would you like?”

“A Jaguar,” he says promptly. “The XJ-SC Cabriolet. You know the car?”

“I’ve seen it. A beauty. You have expensive tastes.”

“Yes,” he says sadly, “I do. Maybe someday …”

“Maybe sooner than you think,” she says. “Do you mind if we sit here a few minutes? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure,” he says. “The night’s young.”

In spite of all her rehearsals and imagined scenarios, she finds it difficult to state or even hint at what she wants. But Tony is no great brain, she tells herself, so she figures her best bet is to come on as blunt and obvious as possible. Then she can gauge his reaction and play him from there.

“That cousin of yours,” she says. “Mario. What do you think of him?”

Ricci shrugs. “He’s okay, I guess. Sometimes he thinks he’s my father. He knows what he wants.”

“Yeah,” Sally says with a short laugh. “He wants me.”

Tony turns to peer at her in the gloom. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“The guy is driving me crazy. He’s after me every day. He won’t let up. I don’t know what to do about it.”

“He is after you? I don’t understand. You pay your dues promptly.”

“Do I have to spell it out for you, Tony? That cousin of yours is trying to get me into bed. He’s told me a hundred times what he wants to do to me.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes. You didn’t know?”

“I swear I didn’t.”

“I thought he might have said something about it. I know how men talk.”

“Mario is not like that. He is very—how do you say it?—very nearmouthed.”

“Closemouthed.”

“Yes, closemouthed. He tells me nothing. Just Tony, do this; Tony, do that. He keeps his secrets.”

“Well, I’m one of them. No way am I going to spread my legs for that guy. He disgusts me. But I don’t know how to make him leave me alone. I’m not going to ask you to talk to him about it.”

“Holy Mother, no! I couldn’t do that.”

“Of course you couldn’t. Because then he’d know I had talked to you about it. He’d get jealous because you’re young and handsome, and he’d think you and I have something going.”

“Yes,” he says, “that’s true.”

“Tony,” she says, putting a hand on his thigh, “what am I going to do?”

“You told him you don’t want, uh, what he wants?”

“I told him a hundred times, but he won’t take no for an answer. He just keeps after me. Calls me almost every day. Sends me letters. Dirty letters—you know?”

Tony nods. “He is acting like a fool. If a woman says no to me, I say goodbye. There is always another.”

“You think I haven’t told him that? But it hasn’t done any good. I’ve got to get him out of my life, but I don’t know how.”

No response from Tony.

“Sometimes,” Sally says, deciding this is the moment, “sometimes I wish the same thing would happen to him that happened to Vic Angelo.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“You heard me. I just want him gone, and I’m at the point now where I don’t care how it’s done. I hate the guy, and I hate what he’s doing to my life.”

They sit in silence then, and Sally gives him time to absorb what she’s said. If he belts her, she’s sunk. If he gets out of the car and stalks away, she’s sunk. If he tells Mario of their conversation, she’s sunk. That’s a lot of sinking, and her only life preserver is Tony’s ambition and greed.

“I’d pay,” she says in an aching voice, and she doesn’t have to fake the desperation. “I’d pay a nice buck to have it done. Cash. I’d even help plan it. Make it look like an accident.”

He doesn’t answer, and her hand tightens on his thigh. She moves closer.

“And maybe a good job for the guy who does it,” she goes on. “An inside job. No more straining your kischkas lifting pails of garbage in all kinds of weather. You saw that extra desk in my office? That was my father’s. I’ve been handling everything since he died. But the business is getting too big. I need another executive. Someone I can trust. Someone who’s done me a big favor by putting Corsini down.”

She looks closely into his face and sees something new: stoniness. His eyes are hard and shiny as wet coal.

“No,” he says flatly, “I cannot do it. Anyone else, but not Mario. He is my cousin. You understand? He is
family.
”

Sally slumps. “Then I’m dead,” she says dully.

“No, you are not dead,” Anthony Ricci says. “There is a way out for you.”

“Yeah?” she says in a low voice. “Like what?”

“Marry me.”

She looks at him. “Are you nuts?”

“Listen to me,” he says, taking her hand, holding it tightly. “You marry me and Mario will never bother you again. I swear by my mother. And you get to keep the business. Sure, you will still pay dues, but no one will hassle you—because you will be my wife.”

“And what’s in it for you?”

“First, I marry a smart, beautiful, older woman. It will help me stay in this country. Also I get a good inside job, a desk, maybe a secretary.”

“And a piece of the business?”

He gives her his megawatt smile. “Maybe a little piece.”

“And what about the sex department?”

“What about it? Am I so ugly?”

“No,” she says. “Ugly you ain’t.”

“So? What do you say?”

“Let me think about it,” Sally Steiner says, and doesn’t object when he kisses her.

Timothy Cone has covered his table with several thicknesses of old newspaper, and they need it; the barbecued ribs, potato chips, and pickles make for a messy meal. Cleo prowls around, waiting for scraps.

“My live-in garbage disposal,” Cone says.

“Cut the small talk,” Samantha Whatley says, “and get on with your story. I want to know how it comes out.”

As they eat, he describes for the fifth and, he hopes, final time how Sally Steiner was trading stocks on inside information gleaned from the printer’s trash. He tells Sam about the mob’s control of the private carting business and how Sally was giving tips to Mario Corsini.

“For what reason I don’t know, exactly,” Timothy admits. “But I think he was leaning on her; that’s my guess.”

Then he recounts how he went up to see Steiner and did a little leaning of his own, trying to turn her so she’ll go to the cops and end extortion by the skels.

By the time he’s finished his narrative, they’ve demolished ribs, chips, and pickles. Sam has provided chocolate eclairs for dessert, but they put those in the fridge and settle down with their beers, feet parked up on the littered table.

“My, oh my,” Sam says, “you really have been a busybody, haven’t you? But you know what burns my ass?”

“A flame this high?” he asks, holding his hand a yard off the floor.

“Shithead,” she says. “When you found the insider leak for Pistol and Burns, your job was finished. Keerect? That’s what they hired Haldering for, and you delivered. It should have ended right there. But no, you had to push it and get involved with the Mafia shaking down garbage collectors, and trying to get this Sally Steiner to blow the whistle. Why did you do that, Tim?”

He looks at her. “I don’t know,” he says. “It just seemed the thing to do.”

“Bullshit!” Sam says. “You know what I think your problem is? I think you see yourself as nemesis. Death to all evildoers!”

“Nah, not me. I just saw a chance for the good guys to make a score, so I played out my hand. Listen, the cops helped me plenty. If I can fiddle a good bust for them, then they’re happy and willing to keep cooperating. I wasn’t acting out of anything but pure selfishness.”

“Uh-huh,” Samantha says. “Get me an eclair, you Masked Avenger.”

“Up yours,” he says.

They sip their beers, nibble their chocolate eclairs, and agree it’s a loathsome combination—but tasty. Their conversation becomes desultory, with Cone doing most of the talking, and Sam replying with monosyllables or grunts.

“Hey,” he says finally, “what’s with you? Got the fantods or something?”

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“That Sally Steiner. I feel sorry for her.”

He snorts.

“What’s that supposed to be?” Sam asks. “A laugh?”

“If it is, it’s on me. I went up to see that put-together lady to find out if she was ready to talk to the cops.”

“And?”

“She told me to get lost. She’s marrying Tony Ricci, Corsini’s cousin.”

“You’re kidding.”

He holds up a palm. “Scout’s honor. She snookered me. I thought I had her in a bind, but she wiggled out of it. By marrying Ricci she gets to keep the business. And she gets Corsini off her back. Maybe she’ll have to give her husband a piece of the action, but I’ll bet that garbage dump is going to stay in the Steiner family for another generation. She’s a real survivor.”

“Is she pretty?” Sam asks.

“She’s okay.”

An hour later, they’re lolling naked on the floor mattress. Popped cans of beer have been placed within easy reach, and Cleo, protesting mightily, has been locked in the loo.

Samantha, sitting up, begins unpinning her magnificent hair. Timothy watches with pleasure the play of light and shadow on her raised arms, stalwart shoulders, the small, hard breasts. Suddenly she stops and stares at him.

“Listen,” she says, “you made it sound like Sally Steiner is marrying that Tony Ricci just so she can keep the business in the family. Did it ever occur to you that she might love the guy?”

Cone shrugs. “Could be. There are all kinds of love.”