Sex, Lies & Serious Money

30

Butch had just taken Theresa’s boxes to the Fairleigh and left them with the concierge, when the doorbell rang.

Curly stood there, his bulk filling the door frame. “Hi, Butch. You moved and didn’t mention it to me.”

“Theresa is out of town for a few days and offered me the place. I’d ask you in, but I promised her I wouldn’t have visitors.”

Curly brushed him aside, as if he were a pesky insect, and entered the apartment. “I see she took a lot of her stuff with her. Where’d she go for a few days?”

“Out of town. What do you want, Curly?”

“I need some money, not much — a few grand.”

“You got a hundred and fifty grand out of our caper, just like me. In fact, I paid our expenses, so you did better.”

“Well, I had a little run-in with some ponies.”

“You’ve been going to the track? You don’t know anything about the horses.”

“You don’t have to go to the track — there’s a telephone service available, called a bookie.”

“Oh, shit. How much did you lose?”

“How much did I have?”

“Not the whole hundred and fifty grand!”

“A little more than that. That’s why I need the twenty-five grand.”

“You lost...” Butch’s mind boggled.

“The bookie also has a pickup service, where he sends a couple of guys over for the money you owe him. That’s why I can’t go to my apartment, and I have to bunk with you until I pay him.”

“Another twenty-five grand, from me?”

“Actually, better make it thirty-five grand, what with the vigorish, and all.”

“You expect me to give you thirty-five thousand dollars?” Butch asked incredulously.

“Not give, loan. I’m good for it.”

“And just how are you good for it?”

Curly shrugged. “You know, I get ideas.”

“You must be out of your fucking mind.”

Curly took him by the lapels and lifted him to his tiptoes. “That’s not a very nice thing to say to a person, Butch. Now, apologize.”

“I’m sorry, I apologize.”

Curly lowered him onto his heels. He went to the liquor cabinet and found it bare. “Where’s that great scotch?”

“She took it with her. I can’t afford to stock up.”

Curly found a Yellow Pages and flipped through. “There you are — a liquor store that delivers, and it’s just around the corner. Order some of that Talisker, the single malt.”

“I don’t have enough cash to do that.”

“Butch, I know you well enough to know that you have a credit card. I mean, you’re a career guy, now, aren’t you?”

Curly made himself comfortable in an armchair. “Tell you what, give me forty grand right now, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“Now it’s forty grand?”

“I think that’s a bargain, considering how much trouble I can be when I don’t get what I want.”

“Look, I spent a lot of mine, too. I had to fill out my wardrobe, for a start. I have to look good in my work.”

“Okay with me, but I know you’ve squirreled away at least the fifty grand I need. Get it up.”

“What I’ve got left is invested. You think I keep it in a shoe box around the house?”

“I don’t care if it’s in a shoe box or, more likely, in a safe-deposit box, which is where I’d keep it. Let’s go to your bank right now.”

“The bank closed at five o’clock.”

“But that’s where the cash is, right?”

“Curly, I’m not giving you any money. Now get out right now.”

“Or what? You’re going to kill me? You don’t have the guts. Beat me up? You don’t have the muscle. Call the cops? You’d go to jail, too. Are you beginning to get the picture?”

Butch was beginning to get the picture. “Listen, I can give you ten grand — that’s all I’ve got, I swear. I’ll give you a check right now, and you can take it to the bank tomorrow morning.”

“Give me the check.”

Butch found his checkbook and wrote it out.

Curly looked at it. “If this bounces, I’m going to come back here and beat the shit out of you. You won’t be able to work for a few weeks, you understand me?”

“It’s not necessary to threaten me, Curly.”

“I think maybe it is. I think you know I’ll do what I say, too.”

Butch knew he’d do it; he’d seen him do it under the bleachers in the prison yard. Curly had forty pounds on him, all muscle, and nothing short of a shotgun to the head would stop him when he was mad. And he was looking mad.

Butch walked him to the door. “And I want the key to the Fairleigh apartment,” he said.

“I’ll mail it to you,” Curly said, “and I’ll see you tomorrow at the store, if the check bounces. I think your coworkers might enjoy seeing what I do to you.”

Curly walked away, and Butch locked the door behind him. He was sweating profusely, something that always happened when he was scared.

Later, he was putting his things into a dresser drawer when he came across something of Theresa’s. It was a very small .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol, the proverbial “ladies’ gun.” And, on closer examination, he found it loaded, four in the magazine, one in the chamber. He remembered it vaguely as having belonged to their father. He shoved it to the back of the drawer and stacked underwear in front of it. He’d give it back to her later.