“An’ I used up all my cash in that betting pool. It was a fas’ pool! An’ I thought I knew football, but they do it different here.”
She smothered a laugh. “They sure do. Don’t let the name fool you. The NFL has nothing to do with anything in this part of the world. You’re lucky you didn’t lose your shorts. What are we doing, Rake?”
“Hi, I’m Rake, s’nice to meetcha.”
“Yes, I know. But what are we doing?”
He’d stopped on the shore, the water a foot or so away from his Gucci-clad toes. “You ever skip rocks across a pond? Me neither,” he added before she could say anything, “but always sounded fun. S’broken anyway, can’t use it.”
He shook his wallet like it was a remote with weak batteries, wound up like Roger Clemens (if Clemens were simultaneously drunk and having a seizure), and let it fly. She heard the sploosh! as the wallet hit, and sank, and didn’t know whether to laugh or laugh a lot. “Aw. Didn’t even bounce once. Lame!”
She stared out into the darkness. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Me neither. Totally overrated activity! Say, you’re kinda cute in a—wuh-oh.” Then he bent at the waist, as if bowing to the lake, and threw up what she assumed was a bellyload of Negronis.
Goddammit. If I’d known he was going to spray me with his DNA, I wouldn’t have bothered breaking into his hotel room in the first place!
Not for the first time, she questioned the wisdom of introducing Rake to the girl who could be his daughter.
Six
“I threw my own wallet into Lake Como?”
“Stop screamin’, I hear fine.”
“I. Threw. My. Wallet. Into. Lake. Como?” he whispered, eyes big.
“Yep.”
“Wow!” From the child. “And it didn’t even bounce. No wonder you’re upset.”
“I’d like to say I can’t believe it, but it sounds pretty believable.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then winced, no doubt because he caught another whiff of himself. They were sitting (alone, natch—the one other couple cleared off when they saw/smelled/heard Rake) in one of Venice’s fifteen thousand outdoor cafés, Osteria al Portego. He was starting to dry out and, if anything, he looked worse. The spring sunshine beating down on him wasn’t helping, either. He was drinking glass after glass of carbonated water (or acqua frizzante, as he insisted on calling it each and every time and, needless to say, she was paying), and looking beyond aggravated. “Because I was out of cash and my cards weren’t working.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then how’d I get to Venice?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t. She’d had other concerns—meeting up with Teresa to secure the kiddo, checking the progress of the Big Pipe Dream, laundry, etc. “I think you must have talked one of your would-be muggers into giving you a ride, and checked in with his card. Somehow.”
She still couldn’t figure it. He’d been so drunk, he could hardly stand, but he had tried to come to her rescue, then given her the slip and gotten a stranger—a thwarted mugger!—to give him a ride. Or one of Kovac’s hired thugs? And talked him out of his shirt, apparently? Since he’d gotten barf all over his when he’d puked on the beach? Then stole that same bad guy’s wallet? Or at least just a credit card? Perhaps he seduced the lobby staff.
Or maybe the men who’d been on her tail were now on his, which was disturbing to contemplate.
“I was kinda surprised to see you climbing out of the canal.” Surprised, relieved, a little grossed out … she thought she’d picked the perfect spot to wait for him with Lillith, but her plan’s shortcomings were instantly visible when he swan-dived into a cesspool. Who could anticipate something like that?
“Did not jump. Did not— Wait. So who are you?”
“Oh. Sorry. Claire Delaney.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said automatically, extending a hand. She shook it, shrugged. It wasn’t nice to meet her, and they both knew it.
“And this might be your daughter, Lillith.”
“It means ‘of the night,’” Lillith said helpfully.
“Of course it does.” Bemused, Rake shook her small hand. “Who’s your mom?
“Donna Alvah.”
“Ah-ha! Argh!” He clutched his temples. “Too soon for yelling—yeah, that’s what I thought. I don’t know any Donna Alvah. I don’t know any Donnas at all. You’ve got the wrong guy, kid.”
“Your DNA might beg to differ.”
He snorted. “Sure it might, Claire. Which is— You don’t look—I mean, that’s an old-fashioned name. Nice, though,” he added, as if worried she’d be offended.
“I’m named for my grandmother. But everybody calls me Delaney.”
“Of course they do. Now that makes sense. Because you definitely look like a Delaney.”
“Yeah? What’s a Delaney look like?”
“Uh…”
“Too tall, with a big mouth and tiny eyes, and big feet with absurdly small hands?” But she said it matter-of-factly. There were roughly eight thousand more important things in life to worry about than her looks.
“Well … not absurdly small…” His gaze dropped to her hands anyway. “Not, uh, Dooneese on SNL small.”
“Who?”
“Kristen Wiig? Played a character with a big forehead and a snaggletooth and tiny weird doll hands on Saturday Night Live?”
“Are we seriously talking about this when you should be worrying about having a daughter but not having money or an ID?”
“Hey, you’re right!” At once, he was irritated all over again. “So you just let me do all that stupid stuff? Agh, shit, sorry. You’re not my babysitter.”
Wrong. “Right.”
“I’m normally way more charming than this.”
“I don’t doubt it.” And she didn’t. Even drunk off his ass, Rake had something that pulled people in. “Anyway, as the song says, you were once lost but now you are found. In Venice.”
He frowned. “You saw me in Lake Como as well as here? Quite a coincidence.”
“Yes,” she agreed, straight-faced. “Americans never go to Lake Como and Venice.”
“No, I mean … how’d you even know where to look?”
“Well…”
“Are you a private detective or something?”
“Um…”
Seven
“Y’know what city fuck—fuckin’ rules? Fucking Venice! Okay, it’s just like a regular city with roads, but see, the thing is—it’s old! And no roads! Just water! All of it! Goddamned place is drowning, and they even have water buses, y’know, the vaporettos? Cuz, again: water! C’est merveilleux! No, wait, wrong language—è meravigliosa! That’s it, right? So Venice, and all the water—I’m gonna—I’m gonna go there. I mean—I’m not s’pose to. There’s kind of a ban, but who keeps track of that stuff? Cuz I like Venice, though it’s weird. Maybe ’cause it’s weird an’ I wanna go back, I think. I like the water streets. And the guys who drive the boats! They always have the best stories. S’different, y’know? Venice! Fucking Venice, here I come!”
Eight
“Oh my God.”
She had to give it to him, he sounded pretty appalled.
“Well,” Lillith said, “you weren’t wrong. Venice is great!”
“I hope you picked up on the irony of loving ‘fucking Venice’ because of the water—”
“I know.”
“—and then when you got here—”
“I get the irony!”
“Plop! Into the drink with you.”
“Just stop now. God, this, this is why vermouth is the devil’s urine.”
“Don’t have to tell me. I’ve seen you barf.”
From Lillith: “Twice!”
She glanced at her watch. Putting Rake at ease in a nice restaurant on a beautiful spring day while she picked up the bill was not on the itinerary. Her employer needed him foundering, lost, broke, and laden with child. She needed him (and the forthcoming payoff) safe.
&nbs
p; And speaking of, the same pair of “tourists”
(fanny pack and I ♥ ROME T-shirt? this is what happens when the bad guys watch too many movies)
were coming up on them for the third time.
Delaney got to her feet, and Rake was so busy glugging his fourth fizzy water that it took him a few seconds to notice. She cleared her throat with a delicate bark. “So g’bye, then.”
“Wait!”
Delaney, already leaving, turned back and raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“You can’t just—” He made an all-encompassing gesture that indicated the table, the restaurant, the child, the city of Venice, the country of Italy, the planet of Earth. “Y’know. Leave me in the middle of all this.”
“Don’t worry,” Lillith said. “I have money.”
She figured she had another forty seconds before Frick and Frack were on them, and gave him her card. “I’m at the Best Western Olimpia if you want to get a drink sometime. They make a terrific Negroni,” she teased.
“Not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” To Lillith, who was the way she always was, calm and quiet and noticing everything while the adults talked over her. And who had probably deduced Delaney’s sudden need to depart. “So you two are all set. Gotta go.”
“Thanks for helping me,” she replied. She put a small hand on Rake’s. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Good to know.” She left, and this time he didn’t call her back, which was just as well, because she was about to have her hands full.
Nine
He definitely didn’t watch Delaney hurry away until he couldn’t see her anymore. Well, maybe he did, but it didn’t mean anything. He had to look somewhere, right? While he figured out his next move? He didn’t want to freak out the kid. And staring after the shapely weirdo who walked into his life, wove a tale of vermouth-fueled shenanigans, dropped a child in his lap, then trotted out (almost sprinted out, TBH) was something to do while he pondered.
But! To business. First things first, he’d check his phone. Call his bank, have them wire money, and maybe FedEx new credit cards. He’d promise a four-figure check to whoever could get funds to him the quickest. Then he’d—
He’d—
No. No-no-no.
No.
“Fuck!” he roared, then felt himself flush as Lillith jumped. “Sorry. I’m not that guy. Well, maybe sometimes.”
“Lost your phone?”
“Are you a witch?” he asked with honest curiosity. “That’s totally fine, by the way. I’m just curious.”
Lillith giggled, dark eyes squinching almost shut in her mirth. They were her most noticeable feature, followed by her short, straight black hair, the bangs cut ruler-straight just above dark brows, with dark blue streaks running through the strands. She was pale and slender except for the swell of her tiny tummy beneath the yellow T-shirt (I’M MY OWN SAFE SPACE!). The same message was on her backpack, and blue jeans and battered sneakers completed the look. “No,” she replied. “Not a witch.”
“Then how’d you know?”
“You’re lost in a strange city with no money and no wallet, which you already knew. What else would you freak out over so hard?”
Witch or not, she’d put her finger on the problem: He’d lost his phone. No. That wasn’t right. He knew where it was: the bottom of the Grand Canal. He’d had it on him from the moment he slipped it back into his shorts. And it would have taken some real flailing to dislodge it from the secure side pockets designed by the good people at—Cargo? Was that the name of the company, or just what they called pants and shorts with those nifty side pockets that, normally, cradled his belongings (and his balls) in secure comfort?
Focus, moron.
His bitchy Blake inner voice was right. No time to get distracted (again). It wasn’t difficult to figure out where he’d lost the thing. But that was a big, big problem. His life was in that phone, now marinating in the canal. His numbers. Everyone else’s numbers. Account stuff. All his passwords. His Deadspin app. Not to mention the means to contact—who? The Italian version of Social Services? Did he call the cops and report … what, exactly? How to get rid of this kid, who definitely wasn’t his? He hadn’t the vaguest idea how to begin.
Fine. Fucking fine. He’d find a café or a library, somewhere with free Wi-Fi, and he’d access his bank that way. They could still move money for him. Amex could still FedEx a new card; he’d be a real person again by 10:00 A.M. local time tomorrow.
Where are you going to sleep tonight? Correction: Where are the two of you going to sleep tonight?
He’d worry about that later. First things first: stealing Wi-Fi. He had to find a place that would (a) let him in so he could (b) borrow someone’s phone or laptop in order to (c) use their free Wi-Fi. All this without (d) buying anything, or (e) showing ID. He could eliminate every hotel right off the bat. Oh, and it had to be somewhere close, because he had no money for a vaporetto. Which was too bad, because he loved the vaporettos.
And he had to do it all with a kid in tow.
Normally, none of that would be a problem. Well, maybe the last part. But even then, not much of one: Rake was a vain realist. But normally he didn’t start his day by taking a bath in a toilet.
Several humiliating rejections later (Who knew the word ew translated into so many languages?), the kid stepped up, grabbed his hand, and put those big dark Matchbook Girl eyes to work. My daddy and I are lost, his phone was stolen, they threw him in the canal, can we please use your phone to call for help?
Damn. She was good. Worked on the second guy she tried it on, and—
Wait. That was Italian. Had she been speaking Italian the entire time and he’d only now noticed? The question must have showed on his face, because Lillith replied, “We’re in Italy. What else would I speak?”
“But … you’re not…”
“No, I’m a ’Merican.” She paused, then added helpfully, “I was born in Las Vegas. Then we moved to Colorado. But Mama talked Italian to me as much as English; her mama came from Sicily.”
“Hey, I was born in Las— Grazie,” he said fervently, clutching the proffered phone.
The person who lent him his was, ironically, still a kid himself. The dark-skinned teen, who could have been central casting’s dream Roma Gypsy but for the blue eyes, was probably a pickpocket—he kept a wary eye fixed for cops—and Rake most certainly wasn’t going to judge. Neither was Lillith, who thanked him prettily and got an amused “Sei la benvenuta, sorellina”* in response.
He nearly fell on the teenager’s neck and wept with gratitude, but contented himself with taking the phone and logging in to his bank’s site, which took a hundred times longer than usual without his apps. You’re putting your name and password into a stranger’s phone, moron. Yes. He was. Whatever. He’d move everything but a thousand bucks, fuck it, let the kid take it. He’d never miss it.
Except.
“Fuck!”
The kid laughed at him. Rake supposed he couldn’t blame him. If it had been happening to someone else, he probably would have laughed, too. Or at least giggled.
The good news? No need to worry about being robbed when someone’s already taken all your money.
Ten
I might be in real trouble.
The thought had little weight. It was more like an intellectual puzzle, a mental Rubik’s Cube. He felt faint concern
(how am I going to figure this out?)
and sometimes his brain got stuck in a confused loop
(the money’s gone? the money’s gone? the money’s gone?)
and Lillith kept intruding
(what am I doing with this kid?)
but that was all. Like he was watching a movie. A great movie with a handsome yet cool star everybody rooted for, including him. Go, Team Rake! Was it because he was normally a cool customer, unmoved by the ups and downs of life? Someone who kept his head no matter what was going on, and thus could tackle any problem that came his way with collecte
d, quick confidence?
Nope; that was Blake. Rake tended to roll with the punches (or drunken Lake Como shenanigans). Even now he kept thinking, I’ll just grab my credit card and— No I won’t. I can just use my phone to— No I can’t. I’ve got enough cash left to—No I don’t. His brain, used to using money to solve everything since he was a teenager, was having trouble keeping up with current events: There were no cards. There was no money. There was a kid, though. For some ungodly reason.
He explained this to Lillith, who was heroically unperturbed. “I told you,” she said. “I have money.”
“I’m not taking your babysitting money, hon.”
“I’m too young to babysit.”
“And I’m too old to take a loan from a kid.”
“Possible daughter,” she corrected politely.
He bit back a groan, found them a small bench in the Giardinetti Reali, and tried to think of his next move, tried to think past the drumbeat of your money’s gone your money’s gone your money’s gone, tried to squash the panic.
Okay. First. It probably wasn’t gone. His bank was half a planet away; it was likely an electronic snafu, or their system was down, or something that was completely explainable during business hours—what time was it in Las Vegas, anyway?
Whatever the problem was, he was worth about twenty million, and that much money doesn’t just disappear overnight, not for real. If nothing else, his mother and/or Blake would have warned him, since their names were on all the paperwork, too: When his father had died playing 9 1/2 Weeks foodie sex games with his cutie of the month,* their mother had overseen the trust until he and Blake came of age, and now they all shared the fortune. They weren’t all broke, ergo Rake wasn’t broke. Not for real. Not—y’know—permanently.
But what to do in the meantime? Borrow another phone (and oh God what fun that would be) and reach out to Blake for help?
Except Blake was one of the seven people in America who didn’t do Facebook. At all. Not even ironically. He barely did email; he sure as shit didn’t tweet. He preferred phone calls and—yeesh!—snail mail, and he’d only started texting two years ago, the goddamned Luddite. Thought social media “encapsulated all the ills of the world” and wanted nothing to do with it.
The Love Scam Page 4