Casino Moon

20

TEDDY AND RICHIE AMATO were sitting in a car parked outside a discount department store on Atlantic Avenue. A homeless man with long nappy hair and no shirt lingered on a fire hydrant nearby.

“All right,” said Teddy. “You got everything?”

“I got everything.” Richie looked at himself in the rear-view mirror, admiring the way the Anadrol and horse steroids pumped up his shoulders and made his neck swell like a tree trunk.

“Well, if you don’t, speak now. You don’t get any points for not asking.”

“I got everything. I told you.”

Teddy struggled out of his seat belt and took a pack of Camels from his coat pocket. “Remember. Bang, bang. Get in, get out. You see Larry’s kid Nicky, you fuckin’ shoot him. No hanging around looking at the scenery.”

Richie frowned and his brow looked like a girder coming down on his eyes. “What do you think? I never done this before?”

“If you’d ever done it before, you wouldn’t still be trying to make your bones.”

Teddy stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He looked like an enormous time bomb waiting to go off. The homeless man got up off the fire hydrant and went into the department store.

“You know, it may take a couple of weeks for me and Anthony to track him down,” Richie warned him. “I know Nicky’s been running around a lot.”

“Just don’t draw it out longer than you have to. Remember how long it took with them horses. What’re you using anyway?”

“I got a .45,” said Richie. “Anthony’s gonna have the .25 his father gave him.”

Teddy blew out enough smoke to fill the car.

Richie put his thumb and forefinger up to his nose and caught a drop of blood coming off the tip. It was all these steroids he’d been taking. They’d given him a body he’d only dreamed about as a boy. A fifty-three-inch chest, nineteen-inch arms. But when he saw the side of his neck in the rearview mirror, it was a boiling stew of veins and sinews. Maybe he ought to try tapering off on the ’roids. That story on TV the other day said they could shrink your balls to the size of peanuts. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

“Don’t be an asshole and leave them guns lying around afterwards.” Teddy coughed twice into his fist.

“I know.”

“And listen,” said Teddy. “If this other kid gives you a hard time, don’t be afraid to whack him too.”

“What?” Richie looked stunned. He fingered his wide, heavy jaw as if he’d just been slugged. “We’re talking about Anthony. You’re kidding, right?”

Teddy looked at him a long time. The homeless man came out of the department store, holding a Barbie doll and kissing it.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m kidding.”

“What were you saying? You wanted me to whack Anthony, instead of Nicky.”

“It was a joke, you moron.”

“Don’t call me a moron.” Richie turned his neck like he had a kink in it.

“Well, don’t act like one.”