Casino Moon

46

P.F. WAITED UNTIL TEDDY was about to sit down on thecrate outside the grocery store on Florida Avenue before he honked the horn and called him over.

“What do you want?” Teddy lumbered over to the driver’s side window. “I thought I said I had nothing to say to you.”

“People who need people are the luckiest people in the world,” P.F. sang.

“Yeah, you’re starting to look like Barbra Streisand too.”

Actually, it was Teddy who was starting to look like a woman. An old woman, to be precise. With round feminine haunches and a big butt replacing the sandbag he used to have on his stomach. P.F. wondered if he’d been taking estrogen hormones. Maybe the rumors about Teddy’s operation the other week were true.

“I heard you stopped by to see Mike Dillon’s boy the other day,” P.F. said laconically. “Funny.”

“Not as funny as the police having the biggest meateater in the department following me.” Teddy squinted. “How’s that television I gave you? Zenith, right? Is it still working?”

P.F. smiled as if the dig didn’t hurt. “I’m not here on police business. I’m just checking out something for a friend.”

“Bullshit. You don’t have any friends. Whores have customers. And that’s all you are, a whore.”

“Thanks, Ted. I love you too.”

P.F. caught sight of his own eyes crinkling in the side mirror. The crow’s feet had lifted a little since he’d cut back on his drinking. Instead of the long march around his eyes, the birds were just doing a light foxtrot.

”All right,” he told Teddy. “I’m not working for a friend. I’m here for a higher authority.”

Actually, he was there on behalf of the Golden Doubloon Hotel and Casino. Father Bobby D’Errico, the former Franciscan priest who’d just been named the casino’s new vice president for operations, had asked him to find out why there’d been a last-minute switch, with Elijah Barton replacing Meldrick Norman in the title fight. “Consider it your audition for the job as head of security,” Bobby had said. It seemed the casino’s new corporate management was somewhat concerned that Barton’s manager was a front for the mob. Though why that mattered to them P.F. couldn’t say. Half of these corporate outfits acted like mobsters themselves.

“I wanted to talk to you about the boxing thing,” he told Teddy.

“What boxing thing?”

“The story about Michael Dillon’s boy managing one of the guys in the fight next week.”

As frail and discolored as he looked, Teddy scrambled around and got in on the passenger side of P.F.’s cruiser.

“What do you know about this?” he said with grumpy aggression, like he was talking to an aging errand boy.

P.F. looked around and tightened his belt, as if he was in no great hurry to begin. “What I know is you’ve got your boy Anthony in there, representing you as manager of one of the fighters. But the thing is, he hasn’t applied for the proper licenses or tax exemptions from the state athletic commission ...”

Whether any of this was true or not, P.F. had no idea. It was just part of a strategy for finding how much Teddy was involved. He figured if he squeezed Teddy a little, there’d be an indignant phone call from Burt Ryan or some other lawyer within forty-eight hours demanding to review the boxing contracts and procedures, thus confirming the connection between Teddy and the fighter.

But instead of playing it cool with a Bogartesque tug of the ear, Teddy surprised him by rising to the bait immediately. “How much is he making from this fucking fight anyway?”

He leaned across the seat and P.F. caught a whiff of something like dead fish.

“I don’t know what Anthony’s take is, but the overall purse for the fight is something like ten million.”

Teddy began snorting through his nose like some beast about to come charging out of the swamp on Wild Kingdom.

“I’ll kill him,” he muttered. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

P.F. tilted his head on one side. “Are you making a threat in front of an Atlantic City police officer?”

“Only one who used to come by my stash house with Paulie Raymond,” said Teddy, coming to his senses. “You’re as big a thief as your old man. Try putting that on your wiretap and playing it back in court.”

“Are you saying you don’t have anything to do with this kid managing the fighter?”

“What? Me? No. Fuck.” Teddy stared at the scratches on the windshield, as if they could explain his confusion.

“Then where would this Anthony get the kind of money to get started in the fight game?”

“I don’t know.” Phlegm rumbled in Teddy’s chest. “But if you meet the man handing out the cash, give him my name too.”

Just then, Richie Amato pulled up alongside of them, in the navy Impala. Teddy got out of P.F.’s car and went over to clap Richie on the ear with the flat of his hand.

“What’s the matter with you? You were supposed to be here five minutes ago. Don’t you keep none of your appointments these days?”

Richie winced resentfully. “I had to get my other taillight fixed. Remember how you warned me?”

Teddy shook his head and looked back at P.F. in exhausted dismay. “What can I tell you? You can’t trust anyone under thirty now.”