Sucker Bet

22

Leaving the Fontainebleau, Candy walked around South Beach for several hours, thinking about how close she’d come to dying that afternoon. With each passing minute she reminded herself of all the things she wanted to do with her life.

It was dark when she returned to the Delano. The Alice in Wonderland lobby was filled with strung-out party people. Standing beneath a billowing white curtain, she called Nigel’s bungalow on a house phone, got no answer, then walked down to the Rose Bar and didn’t find him there. Going outside, she spotted him at a table in the patio restaurant, still in his golf clothes. With him, inhaling a shrimp cocktail, was Rico.

Payback time, Candy thought.

She sat down next to her boyfriend. He kissed her and said, “Where you been hiding?”

Rico stared at her. Then he started to cough.

“Shopping,” she said. “Hey, Rico, how’s it going?”

“Spend a lot of money?” Nigel asked.

“Window-shopping,” she said. “Cat got your tongue, Rico?”

“Rico was just telling me how we’re going to fleece a local bookie,” Nigel said, laughing like someone who’d been drinking all afternoon.

“Wow,” Candy said.

Rico’s face was turning blue, and he was smacking the table with his hand. An attentive waiter brought a glass of ice water. He downed it.

“Damn cocktail sauce,” he gasped. He composed himself, then glanced furtively around the restaurant. “Nigel, this isn’t exactly legal what we’re talking about, you know?”

“Is there anything fun that is legal?” Nigel asked.

“How much are we fleecing his bookie for?” Candy asked innocently.

Rico started choking again. His water glass was refilled, and he asked for the check. Two plump German girls approached the table and in halting English asked Nigel to autograph the restaurant’s paper menus. Nigel obliged, smiling when one kissed his cheek. Candy excused herself to the ladies’ room.

Only, she didn’t go in. Instead, she waited off the lobby until Rico walked past, and followed him outside to the hotel’s valet stand. Rico handed his stub to the attendant, who then disappeared through a thick stand of hedges.

“I want you to get lost,” she said to his back.

He spun around, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “There you are.”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“What?”

“Sweet-talking me, you bastard.”

“It was my driver’s idea,” he said. “I told him to scare you off.”

“Go to hell.”

The valet brought up Rico’s limo. Rico tipped him, then waited until the valet was behind his stand. Popping the trunk, Rico said, “I want to show you something.”

“No.”

“Give me a chance.”

Candy walked around the vehicle. And nearly screamed. Inside the trunk was Rico’s Cuban driver wrapped in a plastic sheet. His shirt was soaked in blood, and his pink tongue hung out of his mouth like a dog’s. Rico slammed the trunk hard. Candy’s legs had turned to rubber, and he grabbed her arm and held her up.

“Work with me, will you?”

She tried to pull away. “No.”

“Don’t fall in love with Nigel Moon,” he said under his breath. “He’ll screw you for a couple of weeks, then get rid of you like a case of the clap. He’s bad news. That’s why I’m scamming him.”

She swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s a concert promoter in New York named Santo Bruno. He books all the big acts. Two years ago, Santo offered One-Eyed Pig fifty million dollars to do a reunion tour. I’m talking ten shows, Candy. Guess what happened?”

“What?”

“Nigel said no, and the deal fell apart.”

Candy vaguely remembered seeing it on the news. “Why did he do that?”

Rico flipped on his shades. “Why don’t you ask him?” he said.