Casino Moon

41

THE OLD MAN’S HAIR was a joke, Rosemary found herself thinking the next night. It stood straight up, like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. But his face was a warning to take him seriously. Clenched jaw, missing teeth, a nose that had been broken at least a half dozen times. His eyes looked like they’d seen hellacious things. His hands looked like they’d done worse.

“I hear you been seeing my boy,” he said, leaning on her dressing table.

They were standing in her dressing room a few minutes before show time. When he’d first walked in and introduced himself, she was suspicious about how little he looked like Anthony. But then she remembered this wasn’t his real father.

“So what business is this of yours?” she asked.

“His business is my business. That’s the way it is in our family.”

He began picking up mascara and lipstick cases off her table, and looking at each of them. He seemed like the kind of person who thrived on knocking things down and putting them in his pocket.

“We had an arrangement.” Rosemary hitched up the strap of her orange bikini top. “I don’t see why that should concern anyone else.”

“He’s married, that’s why.” The old man dropped one of her lipsticks into a garbage can. “He’s married with two kids and another on the way. That’s why it’s my concern.”

“I understand that. But we still had an arrangement.”

“Your arrangement is off. Pack your bags. You’re outa here.”

With one sweep of his arm, he knocked the rest of herlipsticks and mascaras to the concrete floor. And then he looked up with eyes the color of hot coffee, almost daring her to make something of it.

Rosemary stared at him. She’d once read a newspaper story about a woman chopped up and left in an oil drum, and wondered what kind of man would do such a thing. Now she knew. What surprised her was that she wasn’t more scared. But then again, maybe somewhere between losing a child and getting into the back of Honda Preludes with strange men, she’d lost her fear of the worst that could happen.

“Does Anthony know you’re talking to me about this?”

“Anthony’s like his mother,” the old man said in a voice as dead as stone. “He flies off the handle sometimes and he needs someone to bring him back.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

He showed her a half-smile and a few more broken teeth. “What’re you, tough? You like to talk back?” He took a step toward her and raised his arm, like he was getting ready to backhand her across the room.

“I just want what we agreed to.” She pulled out some of the bikini that was sneaking up her butt again. She wished she had something more substantial back there for protection. “A deal’s a deal.”

“Pack your fucking bags and don’t ever let me see your face again,” he said. “You can pick up your last paycheck in the parking lot.”

She raised her chin, like she was giving him a free shot at it. “It better have every dime I’m owed, or I’ll make a stink about that too.”

He laughed and it sounded like a truck stopping. “Tough broad, huh? If I’d a been twenty years younger I might’ve gone for you myself.”

She didn’t smile. “Mister, that is the scariest thing you’ve said so far.”