Casino Moon

44

“WHAT THE HELL WAS that all about?”

It was ten minutes after Rosemary did her little performance at the club. I was in her dressing room, still trying to decide what she’d rubbed into my hair.

“What do you think it was about?!” she said, throwing a red high-heeled shoe at me. “You have your father come back here and threaten me? And fire me from a job I need to feed my child? Is that how you keep your promises?”

The shoe had sailed past my ear and broken against the far wall, the heel separating from the sole. I picked up the pieces and tried to put together what had happened in my mind. My father must have come back here and tried to scare her off, thinking Teddy would find out I was cheating on Carla. Now I had my work cut out for me. I had to convince Rosemary that everything was still the same between us.

“Look, I don’t know anything about what my father said.”

“How can I ever believe you again?” She untied her bikini top. “First you say you care about me. Then you use me like a common whore. And then you break your word.”

“You make it sound like that’s never happened before,” I blurted out.

“But I expected better from you!” she screamed.

And what made it hurt was that I did too.

She picked up a quart bottle of Evian water and threw it at my head. It bounced off my shoulder and splashed on the Gianni Versace shirt I was wearing.

“Hey, come on!”

“Anthony,” she said. “I didn’t think it was possible, but you broke my heart again tonight.”

Her bikini top fell off. Her breasts looked like they were about to open fire on me from across the room.

“Rosemary, I’m sorry. This was all a mistake. My father doesn’t know about the understanding we have.”

“Anthony, do not insult my intelligence,” she said in that arch way of hers. “All I want is for you to keep to the terms of our agreement.” I started to say something, but she cut me off. “I don’t want to hear any more about affection or see your stiff prick. I just want half the cash you’re making from this fight. Because you couldn’t have done it without me.

She pulled off the bottom of her bathing suit and stood there, naked and intimidating. This is what they called a tough broad. If she’d been a man, she would’ve had a crew ten times the size of Teddy’s. The water she’d thrown at me was soaking my skin and raising goose bumps on my chest.

“Listen,” I said nervously. “I was just over at Frank Diamond’s suite at the Doubloon nailing down the schedule of the payments. Everything’s just about set.”

Though now I had to figure out how to cut her off a slice of the money I’d have left after I’d paid off Danny Klein and Teddy.

“I can even get you a job at the fight, to put you on the payroll,” I explained. “It’s a lock. It’s guaranteed.”

“Well, that’s one thing you’ve got right, Anthony. Since I’ve got insurance.” She came toward me like a panther stalking her prey.

“What’re you talking about?”

“I know about you and that guy Nicky they found under the Boardwalk.”

I felt pressure building up behind my eyes as my skin turned cold. “I told you I wasn’t responsible for that.”

“I heard.” She stood five feet in front of me and looked right through my eyes down into the pit of my stomach. “You said it was your family. I’m sure that would be enough to interest the police, or the F.B.I., or whoever’s investigating that case.”

“I wouldn’t talk about that if I was you.” I clicked my heel on the concrete floor. “Something could happen.”

“Fuck you,” she said. “Don’t pull that with me. Yourfather already did it. And he’s way better at it than you are.”

She picked up her panties and began to put them on. Here I’d been worried she’d talk and ruin the deal I had with Frank Diamond. And in the meantime, she was thinking about putting me in prison for life on this homicide. I began to have what I think is called an olfactory hallucination—when you smell something that isn’t there. Except it wasn’t Nick under the Boardwalk that I smelled. It was that terrible cat odor in my house.

“Is this any way for two people who care about each other to talk?” I asked.

“It’s the way people who don’t trust each other talk.” She slowly started to pull on her bra. Somehow she didn’t seem as threatening with her clothes on.

“Come on. Let’s go for a ride. We can get a drink somewhere.”

“Forget about it, I brought my own car.” She fished her keys out of her handbag and rattled them at me. “From now on, you and I are not friends and we’re not lovers. We’re just business partners. And the only word you have to remember is ‘half.’ As in ‘half the revenue.’”

She put on the rest of her clothes without talking or even looking my way. I was still shivering from the water she’d thrown on me. I knew I should just go and cut my losses, but there was one question that’d been bothering me the whole time we were talking.

“That thing you said before?” I asked her. “About how Terrence was a better lay than me? You said that just to hurt me, right? You didn’t mean it, did you?”

“Oh yes I did.”