Funny Money

34 The Last Time

Anna and Juraj were hungry, and they were broke. Valentine found an all-night convenience store, bought groceries, and delivered them to the Croatians’ room a short while later. With the food came a stiff warning: Don’t go out unless someone’s dying, and leave the Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

Anna followed him outside. She was upset, and beneath the starless sky she explained why. “Juraj is convinced you are part of The Bombay gang.”

Valentine lit up one of his last cigarettes and filled his lungs with the great-tasting smoke. Did being dead mean he could smoke and eat tons of fatty food, and not worry about it killing him? It seemed only fair, considering what he’d been through.

“Why’s that?”

“When Juraj told you it was Alex who had been murdered, you did not act surprised.”

“I wasn’t.”

She seemed confused, as if Juraj’s accusations were suddenly hitting home. He wagged a finger in her face, the words spilling out in a mouthful of smoke. “What the hell is wrong with you and Juraj? You told me yourself you thought you were being set up by The Bombay. And now you’re surprised that you’re getting killed? You should have left town when you had the chance.”

She stared at the frozen ground. Then her eyes rose to meet his. “Are you always so... I don’t know the expression. Self-righteous?”

“If that’s what you want to call it, yeah, I usually am.”

“What gives you that privilege?” she demanded.

Valentine had to think about it.

“I guess because I’m usually right.”

Anna marched down the path to her motel room. He finished his cigarette, then took a walk on the beach.

His whole life, he’d been taking walks on the beach. After school, after work, and now, in retirement, whenever it suited him, which translated into almost every day. By the shoreline he found a dozen empty beer bottles, and he dug a plastic bag out of a trash can and gathered them up. He’d lived on this beach as a kid, and it made him sick to see the amount of cans and bottles and other trash strewn around. Was it his imagination, or did people not love things as much as they used to?

He walked down to the Blue Dolphin. Going to the fence that separated it from the beach, he stood on tiptoe and peered over. Coleman and Marconi were standing in front of the motel talking to the night manager. Dangling from Marconi’s hand was a large plastic bag. Cops were genetically incapable of hurrying, and he grew cold watching them grill the manager.

He thought about his conversation with Kat the day before. The drug dealer killings Marconi had boasted about had happened three years earlier when he was still on the force. Five coke dealers had been shot in the head and robbed over a period of six months. One shooting had occurred in the parking lot of a casino where Valentine had been working.

The dealer had been dying when Valentine had reached the scene. He’d been no more than a kid. When Valentine had asked him to describe his assailant, the dealer had managed to stroke his face once, then gone to meet his maker. Valentine hadn’t understood the kid’s dying gesture — until now. It was an allusion to the invisible scar on Marconi’s cheek.

Valentine watched Coleman and Marconi get into their car and leave. The manager went inside his office and turned out the light. Popping the latch on the fence, he slipped onto the property.

The plastic key to his room still worked. He entered the darkened room, kicking furniture as he let the shades down. His big toe caught a bedpost. He cursed silently.

Then he turned on a light and had a look around. Marconi and Coleman had rifled the drawers and selectively taken different pieces of clothing. In the bathroom, he found his toilet kit gone. Some pieces of clothing were still hanging in the closet, and he guessed the detectives had only taken items that fit them.

He sat on the bed. His head hurt, his feet were cold, and his stomach was aching for a hot meal. But more than anything else, his sixty-two-year-old body was nearing a state of total exhaustion.

He opened the window an inch, hoping he would hear any unwanted visitors approach. Then, taking off his clothes, he slipped beneath the bed’s warm blankets and was soon sound asleep.

He dreamed he was standing next to a construction worker. The construction worker had a jackhammer and was busting up a piece of pavement. He yelled in the man’s ear but got nowhere, the jackhammer drowning out all sound.

He opened his eyes. Someone was banging on the door of the adjacent room. It was morning, the sunlight splashing on the walls. Rising, he grabbed the .38 off the night table and went to the door to his room. He cracked it open and looked out. And blinked. Kat Berman stood outside.

He shut the door. He slipped the .38 into the pocket of his overcoat, then threw on yesterday’s clothes. Patting down his hair, he opened the door.

“Looking for someone?” he said.

“You,” she said, smiling. “Actually, your son. I was hoping he’d tell me how to find you.”

“Well, here I am.”

She surprised him with a kiss on the cheek. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” he heard himself say.

When they were sitting on the couch in his room, she said, “I need to talk to you.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“Serious talk.” Taking her handbag off the floor, she removed a liter of Fresca and two plastic cups. She poured, nearly emptying the bottle.

“Are we celebrating something?” he asked.

“We most certainly are. I don’t drink booze, so I hope you don’t mind the soda.” She handed him one of the cups. “Cheers.”

“Bottoms up.”

She giggled, reading more into his toast than he’d intended. His face grew red and he shifted uncomfortably. What the hell was going on? Twelve hours ago, she’d been ready to neuter him. They finished their sodas in silence. Then Kat put her hand on his leg. And left it there.

“This morning, Gladys and Donny and I had a meeting with the promoter who staged last night’s show. Guy named Rick Honey. Rick produces wrestling shows for cable TV. Anyway, Rick sits us down in his office, acts like he’s pissed. He used to be a wrestler, called himself Mr. Clean. So Rick says, ‘Whose idea was it to change last night’s script?’ ”

“I hope you told him it was mine,” Valentine said.

“Of course not! Nobody tells the truth in this business, Tony. So Donny says, ‘It was my idea, Rick. I thought the script stunk.’ Now, Rick just stares at us for a minute like he doesn’t know what to say. Then he reaches into his desk drawer and takes out some contracts. He tosses them on the desk, and he says, ‘You know what these are?’ We all nod our heads and Rick says, ‘Before we talk terms, I want there to be an understanding. From now on, we stick to the script, okay?’ Well, Donny and Gladys and I looked at each other, and I can’t tell you how hard it was not to laugh!”

“Terms for what?”

“For me and Gladys to fight each other five times. Rick said the Armory got more calls after last night than any other wrestling match they’ve had. We were a hit.”

“You’re kidding me,” Valentine said.

“No, I’m not. We stole the show.”

He felt his spirits soar. He hadn’t screwed up Kat’s life after all. Maybe spilling his guts out to Father Tom at confession had done more good than he’d realized.

“What kind of money did he offer you?” he said.

“Five bouts, ten thousand dollars a bout.”

Valentine took her hand and squeezed it. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all week. I hope you said yes.”

“There’s a catch.”

“What’s that?”

She removed some legal-looking papers from her handbag and dropped them in his lap.

“The deal is for all four of us.”

“I’m not following you,” Valentine said.

“Donny told Rick you were part of the act.”

“He did what?”

“Tony — don’t get mad, please.”

Valentine picked up the papers and held them up to his face. It was a contract, his name at the top of the page. His role as the jealous boyfriend was clearly spelled out. He would beat Donny up, only this time he’d get paid for it, two grand a pop. On the bottom of the page were the dates, the first show three weeks away at the Orlando Centroplex.

“This is crazy,” he said, putting the contract down. “You should have told this guy the truth, Kat.”

“But, we couldn’t...”

“No — you didn’t want to.”

She started to reply, then dropped her head so her chin was touching her chest. “You’re not going to do it.”

“I’m not a wrestler,” he said, feeling his blood boil in a different way now, unable to rein in his feelings. “I could have hurt someone. You said it yourself. Now you want me to do it professionally. For the love of Christ, what are you thinking, girl?”

“Oh, fuck it.” Taking the contract from him, she threw it across the room. “You stepped into the ring, didn’t you? My life was going along just fine until you came along. This is the chance of a lifetime, Tony — of my fucking lifetime. But do you care? No! You just want to keep messing things up for me, don’t you?”

“You know that isn’t true,” he said.

“Then why won’t you do it? It would be fun, and three of the shows are in Florida, so you’d be in your backyard. And Donny and Gladys are a scream. Come on, Tony.”

Because it’s stupid, Valentine thought. So stupid that he couldn’t see himself participating. The bottom of the social totem pole. But if he told her that, she’d walk out and he’d never see her again, and he didn’t want that either.

“Can I think about it?”

“That is so lame,” she said.

He blew out the air trapped in his lungs. “All right.”

“Meaning what?”

He looked into her eyes. “For you, okay.”

“Oh, Tony!”

She threw her arms around him and started kissing his face. Her breath was hot, her lips as sweet as confectionery sugar. Soon every part of his body was aroused, and he couldn’t have turned back if he’d wanted to.

The last time he’d made love had been eighteen months ago.

He’d done it with his wife on the couch in the living room of their new home in Palm Harbor. The couch had been delivered that morning, and its addition had made the house complete. It was the beginning of their new lives; like a pair of kids he and Lois had stripped off each other’s clothes and done the wild thing.

It had been great. So much so, they’d gone to bed after dinner and made love again, then fallen asleep wrapped in each other’s arms.

The next morning, he’d lain in bed and run his fingers through Lois’s hair, hoping she’d wake up wanting to do it one more time. Only she hadn’t.

The autopsy had revealed that his wife was suffering from degenerative heart disease. Lois had always been in touch with her body, and Valentine figured that she’d known something inside of her wasn’t working right. Only she’d said nothing, wanting to get settled in before seeing a doctor.

Whatever the reason, she had spared him from news he felt certain she knew was bad.

Later on, he’d realized a terrible thing. He’d instigated the sex, something he did from time to time, his choice of venues not always appropriate. Lois never complained, and sometimes had more fun than he did.

Only this last time, it had been all him, and he could not help but think that the exertion had added a strain to her already fragile heart, and that it had killed her.

Which made him what? A carnal killer? It ripped him apart to think that his cravings had destroyed the thing he loved the most in this world. The guilt had hung heavy on his soul, and made the idea of having sex impossible.

Until now.

Had someone been staying next door, Valentine guessed they’d be banging on the walls about now, he and Kat having more fun than civilized people were supposed to have. It was sex with fireworks in the background, the kind of sex you heard about, read about, saw on the big screen, but never got to experience firsthand, the problem not with your plumbing or your mate, but just the situation itself. It was sex with a wild, unbridled glee tacked on to it, a smoldering fire suddenly doused with buckets of gasoline.

He tried not to think of Lois, and for the most part he succeeded. But her memory crept up a few times, and he found himself imagining her in the place she now inhabited, judging him. Any other time, it would have stopped him cold, only he was too far gone to care.

“What are you thinking,” Kat whispered a half hour later.

The blankets were off the bed and the lamp from the night table lay on the floor. Valentine stared at the cheap popcorn ceiling, his lungs aching for a cigarette.

“I’m thinking I’d better up my life insurance if I’m going to hang around with you.”

“Come on, be serious.”

“I haven’t felt this good in a long time,” he admitted.

“Tell me something about yourself,” she said a short while later. “Something no one else knows.”

He turned on his side and looked at her. He didn’t have a lot of secrets — what you saw was pretty much what you got — and had to think about it some.

“And don’t make something up,” she added.

“Okay,” he said after a lengthy pause, “I’ll tell you a story that I never told anyone.”

“What’s that?”

“I once let a cheater go.”

“On purpose?”

“Uh-huh.”

Kat propped herself up on an elbow. “I’m all ears.”

“Back when Atlantic City first opened, the casino owners didn’t know what they were doing. Hustlers liked the town so much, they’d called it a candy store.

“One night, I was standing in the blackjack pit at the Sands. A woman in a motorized wheelchair came in. She was about seventy, and her name was Justine. She told the pit boss she’d been in a car accident, gotten a settlement from the insurance company, and wanted to play some blackjack. The pit boss cleared a spot at a table, and Justine started playing all seven hands, a hundred bucks a bet.

“Woman was a real character. Chain-smoking, drinking whiskey, calling the pit boss and the dealer ‘Honey’ and ‘Sweetie.’ Everyone loved her, until she started winning.”

“How much did she win?”

“After an hour, she had all the dealer’s chips.”

“How much was that?”

“Around twenty grand.”

“Was she cheating?”

“Well, I thought she was.”

“How come?”

“It didn’t pass the smell test. If she’d only played one hand, I would have said beginner’s luck. But she played all seven. It felt like a hustle.”

Kat giggled. “The smell test. I like that.”

He touched his nose. “Still works pretty good.”

“So what happened?”

“The dealer gets more chips, and Justine goes back to work, bam, bam, bam, and just beats him silly. And then she innocently asks, ‘Can I bet more?’

“She’s already betting the table limit, so the pit boss asks the shift manager. The shift manager wants to win his money back, so he says sure. Then he turns to me and says, ‘You agree?’ Well, I didn’t agree. So I grabbed a drink girl—”

“Cocktail waitress.”

“—sorry, and I took a glass of water off her tray. I’d come up with a theory of what Justine was doing, and I decided to test it.”

Their bodies had finally cooled down, and Kat covered them with a blanket. “Which was what?”

“Blackjack is hard to play, especially if you’re talking. And Justine was talking to everybody. I couldn’t figure out how she was keeping track of all her cards. And then it hit me. She wasn’t playing her hands.”

“Who was?”

“The wheelchair. There was a computer hidden in the motor. Justine was entering the cards on a keypad, then looking at a digital readout. So I went and spilled my water on her. The next thing you know, the wheelchair starts smoking.”

“Is having a computer illegal?”

“It sure is.”

“Then why did you let her go?”

“It was strange. I looked at her, and she looked at me. She was scared. I had a feeling it was the first time she’d ever broken the law. I said, ‘Learned your lesson?’ And she nodded. So I looked away, and she ran out of the casino.”

“Did you get in trouble?”

“No. The computer melted, so all the evidence was destroyed. I later got grilled by my captain, but I got out of it.”

“How?”

“I told him I’d doused her with holy water.”

Kat punched him in the arm. “You’re horrible,” she said.