“It wasn’t my closet. It was the guest room closet.”
“Oh, the guest room closet. Well, yeah, that should’ve thrown them off. How in the world did they ever figure it out, do you think?”
“Look, I feel bad about it, Stan. I do. I’m sorry. But these things happen. And anyway, you and I don’t need all that money. We’re happy like we are. Aren’t we, Stan?”
“These things happen,” he said. “We don’t need the money. Just like that, blow it off. Are you crazy, Jennifer? Are you fucking out of your mind? Of course we need that money. I risked my goddamn life for that money. Without that money, I got nothing.”
“You got me, Stan.”
With a jerk of her head, Jennifer tossed her hair back over her shoulders, like a horse flicking its tail at the flies. Only there were no flies in the elevator. No reason for her to be flipping her goddamn hair every three seconds. Maybe she’d done it all along and he’d never noticed it before. Maybe it was one of ten thousand annoying habits he was just now starting to become aware of, because Stan wasn’t horny for her at the moment, clear-eyed, seeing her for what she was, a girl whose mind hadn’t caught up to her body yet, probably never would.
She was waiting for him to say the right thing back to her.
You got me, Stan.
Yeah, baby, that’s enough for me. I don’t need no million dollars.
But Stan wasn’t playing that game, and Jennifer gave up waiting.
“You told me to hide it, so I hid it.” Her voice getting pouty. “I don’t know what the big deal is.”
He crabbed over to the left side of the elevator, as far from her as he could get, and leaned against the wall.
“In the guest room closet. That’s what you call hiding it?”
“I put some sweaters and stuff in front of the duffel.”
“Oh, good. Some sweaters.”
“I don’t like it when you’re sarcastic, Stan. I don’t like that. It’s a total turnoff.”
Stan could feel the blood ballooning his face.
“You don’t like it when I’m sarcastic? Well, Jen, hey, guess what? I don’t like it when you’re so fucking stupid. Which, as far as I can see, is most of the fucking time.”
She was staring at her blurry reflection in the steel doors—her slightly bony face, a thin, straight nose, blond eyebrows, narrow lips. She said she wanted to be a model, but she’d never tried out for anything. Just kept plugging along at her job as receptionist at Kendall Toyota, calling out the names of Cuban salesmen all day long over the PA system.
“I know you don’t mean it, Stan. I know you’re only testy from the drugs they’ve been giving you. And the shock of losing so much money. So that’s why I’m ignoring how mean you’re being.”
She flipped her hair again, got it back over her shoulders.
“And stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“That fucking thing with your hair.”
She cocked her head to the side like she was trying to catch the echo of what he’d said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That horse thing with your hair. Flipping it at the flies.”
Jennifer McDougal turned and clasped her hands behind her back and leaned against the opposite wall. She tucked her chin down and looked at him with a sulky frown. She’d chosen a red knit dress to wear this morning. Scooped so low at the neck, the fabric missed the rosy edge of her nipples by about a hundredth of a millimeter. The kind of dress that made it hard to be missed walking down the hospital hallways full of starched white nurses.
“You just left it, a million, two million dollars. You went out with it just sitting there. I’m trying to understand this. I’m trying to picture how your fucking mind works, Jennifer.”
“Jeez,” she said. “I just left the house for half an hour to get my hair cut. If we’re going on a trip, I wanted to let Sheri do my split ends one more time before we took off. But then I was sitting there and thinking how everything was going to be different now, you and me together finally, starting over somewhere else, and I said to Sheri, what the hell, go on, give me a whole new look, layer the sides like that TV girl we like. That’s what I said, and she asked me was I sure, and I said yeah, I was very sure, so she just snipped it right off. And then I walked in here, and all you can talk about is the money, going on and on, without even saying a word about my haircut. I didn’t think you were like that, Stan. I thought you were more sensitive. Not so money, money, money all the time.”
She was chewing gum. Stan could smell it across the elevator, Juicy Fruit. He didn’t know why he hated the smell so much. It reminded him of those little blue disks they put in urinal stalls to keep the smell down.
“Could you spit out the gum, please? Stick it in the ashtray there.”
“The gum? Why?”
She looked up at him. She was moping. Taking her licks because she’d lost the money and maybe felt a little guilty about it and didn’t really know how mad Stan was, what he was likely to do to her, so she was accepting her whipping. Stan didn’t know what he was likely to do, either. He’d just have to wait and see.
“Why?” he said. “’Cause I fucking asked you politely to spit the gum out. Because I’m about to vomit from the smell of it. The combined smell of that and all that other shit you’re wearing.”
“If you’re going to keep being mean to me, I’ll just leave you here. I have my pride, Stan Rafferty. I’m not one of those bimbos you can take it out on when things aren’t going your way. Some punching bag. I’m not like that.”
She made an exasperated noise, tugged on the hem of her dress.
“You’re not going to say anything about my hair at all, are you?”
“Fuck your hair, Jennifer. Sheri could shave you bald, okay? I don’t give a pig’s butt-hole about your hair. The money’s gone; Alexandra’s got it.”
“Alexandra! That’s who was in my house?”
“She has the money and she knows the whole thing. She could put me in the electric chair, Jen. She could have my ass toasted.”
“Can we go on down to the car now, Stan? It’s getting claustrophobic in here. All right?”
“Get rid of the gum, damn it. Before I puke.”
She hesitated a moment more. Then she moved the gum around in her mouth and made a show of swallowing it; a gulping noise came from her throat. Giving him a proud look like, see what I’ll do for you, Stan? See what lengths I’ll go to? Same look she’d given him that first night, gulping down his cum. The moment he knew he was hooked.
“Okay, good.”
He watched the quick clip of it in his head, that first night, how hot it was with her. Leaping and screaming, wrestling, both of them sweaty as hell. Licking, biting, scratching. Nothing like Alex—so cool, so dead.
“Okay,” Stan said. “Let me give you an illustration, Jen. An example of what’s expected of you, this new life you’re a part of from now on.”
“Is this more stories about criminals? ’Cause if it is, I should tell you, Stan, I’m getting bored hearing about criminals all the time. Like that’s all we ever talk about.”
“Just listen to me. Okay? Shut the hell up and listen for about two seconds.”
She mashed her lips tight, giving him her prissy, hurt look.
“So you’ve heard of Meyer Lansky, right?”
She frowned.
“Of course. I’m not stupid. He was some kind of crook over on Miami Beach. Back in the Civil War or something.”
“Not the fucking Civil War. Jesus. He was a modern-day Mafia guy. A kingpin. Boss of bosses. One of the biggest crooks this century. And Meyer Lansky had a wife. Her name was Thelma, but they called her ‘Teddy.’ And Teddy, although she was married to this big-time gangster, she still behaved like a lady. She had class, wore nice clothes, good makeup, great hair, all the shit you like, Jennifer. Crystal and good china. You and her have that much in common, anyway. Expensive tastes.”
�
��Well, thank you, Stan. Thank you for recognizing that.”
Stan rubbed a knuckle across the bristles on his chin. His shinbone was aching inside the cast, and the crutches were too short, making him slump forward, putting another pain in his back.
“The thing is, see, the reason I’m telling you this, Jennifer, is because of the way Teddy acted when Meyer was in trouble, if he was sick, or needed an alibi.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Teddy was always a thousand percent supportive. Even if it meant perjuring herself, risking prison. There was one famous time when she told the court her husband couldn’t possibly have made a payment for a gangland hit that one of his rat-fink cronies testified he did, ‘cause, according to Thelma, Meyer Lansky was in a Boston hotel at the time recovering from a hernia operation, with her being his nurse. The jury believed her and Meyer got off. That’s ’cause she had class. Nobody believed a classy woman like her would tell lies.
“She was smart. And totally, completely loyal. She could stand up to the best cross-examination there was. Because she knew if she fucked up anywhere along the line, it would be the same as cutting her own throat. That’s what she knew, and it kept her operating at a very high level of efficiency.”
“But they were married,” Jennifer said. “Married’s different.”
“Married, not married, it’s all the same, Jennifer. You gotta be there for your man.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? What’s your point?”
Stan settled his armpits against the crutch pads. His lungs felt as if they were filled with sand. He tried to say something, but all that came out was a grumble.
“So if I’m Teddy, that makes you Meyer Lansky. Is that what you’re trying to say, Stan? One robbery and you’re a kingpin and I’m a gun moll. I don’t know. It seems a little quick, like you’re getting ahead of yourself. Way ahead. Especially since you don’t even have the money anymore. Are you still considered a kingpin if the money you steal gets stolen from you?”
She gave him a cute smile.
“See? I can be sarcastic, too.”
“Never mind,” he said. “Never fucking mind. This is hopeless.”
Jennifer stepped forward, gathered some hair with her right hand and lifted it off her neck, then dropped it and did her horse-tail flick again.
“You know what, Stan? I think you’re still in love with your wife. That’s what I think. A wife is a wife is a wife. And I’m just the girlfriend. You don’t truly and completely appreciate me. Because obviously you don’t know, Stan, you don’t know how hard it was to do what I did yesterday.
“I had to dress up in that ugly hot raincoat and hooded sweatshirt and go out there and take those two heavy bags and drive away. That was so scary, driving down into a dangerous part of town like that, all those black people around, the looters and drug addicts.
“And then a couple hours later, there it is on the news. The whole world looking at what we did, on all the talk shows, the radio, everywhere. And next thing I know, I go out to make myself pretty for you, and when I come home, the house is ransacked and people have been into my things, lying on my bed, touching my stuff. And you never told me anything about that. You didn’t say anything about people breaking into my house, or me being in danger or anything.
“I go to all this trouble and put myself at risk and now all of a sudden you don’t like my clothes or my chewing gum or my hair or anything. You don’t thank me for doing my part in this. Instead, you’re giving me lectures about some Mafia guy’s wife. Hey, Stan. It’s not my fault the money is gone. If you’d wanted me to put it in a safe place, you should’ve told me. You should’ve said, ‘Jennifer, hide it under the floorboards, honey, or in the hot tub or somewhere creative like that. Because people may come looking for that money.’ But since you didn’t tell me any of that, I put it where I thought it was out of the way. I don’t have a lot of storage room in that house, you know. It’s not easy to hide things there. It’s very cramped. I just got those two little closets.”
Stan closed his eyes, rubbed the creases at his temple, tight circles of hurt.
“Good, Jennifer, fine. Whatever you say. Your house is cramped. It’s all my fault.” Eyes still shut. Maybe while they were closed, she’d grow a brain.
“So, what about my hair? You don’t like it, do you? You think it’s ugly.”
“It’s fine. It’s beautiful,” he said, opening his eyes. “You’re a beautiful, sexy girl. I’m a lucky man to have you.”
Saying the words he knew she wanted. What the hell. This was the ticket he’d bought. Jennifer McDougal with her tight twenty-one-year-old body. Like it or not, he was going to have to ride these rails a little longer.
Stan leaned forward, smacked the red button, and the car lurched into motion. As the doors rolled open onto the basement garage, a big man in a yellow sports coat and blue pants blocked the door. Ugly man about five feet wide, with a head shaped like a cement block. Beside him was a blond girl with mocha skin and eyes a creepy bleached-out shade of blue.
When the big man didn’t get out of the way, Stan said, “Hey, fella, you mind?”
“Mind what?”
“It’s customary in our country to step back and let people get off the fucking elevator before you try to get on. You know what I’m saying? That’s the way we do things here. In case your fucking raft just washed ashore.”
“What raft is that?” the man said.
“Come on, Stan. Let’s go.” Jennifer had him by the biceps and was trying to pull him away. “We got important things to do, remember?”
Stan was staring at the girl, eighteen maybe, twenty at the most. A large brown roach was crawling up the front of her shirt, a green thread trailing along behind it.
“Jesus,” Stan said. “This fucking town.”
He hobbled forward into the parking garage, into a cloud of carbon monoxide. Glancing back once, seeing the big guy and the girl step into the elevator, both of them eyeing Stan as the door swished closed.
“I need to go home, finish packing,” Jennifer said. “Then we can head on out to Taos like we planned. I can get a job out there, nurse you till you’re back on your feet.”
“No,” Stan said. “First thing we’re going to do is get that money back.”
“Oh, Stan, give it up. I’ll find a dealership out in Taos. I know how to do phones. I have the voice for it. I’ll be fine. Just you and me and those cool desert nights.”
Jennifer led him down a row of cars till they got to the Honda. She opened the rear door, helped Stan into the back seat, got him laid out, and then shut the door. She went around and got in the front seat and started the car.
“First thing I’ve got to do is kill her,” Stan said. “Kill her, get the money; then we’ll go out west. Enough of this chaos bullshit. I’m using a goddamn plan this time. Logical, orderly. Seek and destroy. Fuck chaos.”
Jennifer put her right arm on the back of the seat and swiveled around to look at Stan. The skin on her face was drawn tight. A lump moved in her throat, as if the gum hadn’t made it all the way down. She started to say something, then stopped and shook her head.
“What is it, Jen? Go on, say it.”
“You like my hair or not? Just tell me.”
“I love your hair, Jen. It’s beautiful. An incredibly great cut. Makes you look cuter than ever. Beautiful hair. Gorgeous fucking hair, Jennifer. Okay? Is that enough? Is that fucking sufficient?”
She turned back around, pulled out of the parking space, wound around to the cashier, and handed in the ticket. As the old man was counting out her change, Jennifer caught Stan’s eye in the rearview mirror.
“Thank you, Stan. Thank you very much.”
SEVENTEEN
Parked out on Silver Palm Avenue, closing in on eleven o’clock Friday night, Stan stared at his darkened house, then up and down the street. No sign of cops, no sign of anybody. He’d had Jennifer drive around till it got dark, till the adrenaline and codeine were filtered out o
f his blood. Stopped at McDonald’s for supper, then at a 7-Eleven to pee and call the house. No one home. No one answering anyway. They parked out at the airport, watched the jets take off and land for a couple of hours. Then he couldn’t stand it any longer and he had Jennifer drive by the house three times, looking for stakeouts. And finally at eleven, he told her to park out front.
“If you can come here to your house, why can’t I go to mine, just to pick up a few things? Why is that? That doesn’t seem fair to me.”
“Because I need to go inside. Because if I don’t, this whole goddamn thing falls apart.”
“Oh, come on, Stan, you can’t expect me to go to some motel and hole up with you for who knows how long without any of my bathroom stuff, or clothes or anything. What am I supposed to do, use the little bar of soap in the paper wrapper, get by on that? Wash my hair with hand soap?”
“All right, goddamn it,” Stan said. “Go to a drugstore, buy whatever you want. But don’t go home. Forget your clothes. We’ll pick you up a new wardrobe on the road somewhere. Alex knows where you live, so the cops could have it staked out by now. Okay? Is that clear?”
“And what about Pooh Bear? I’m just supposed to leave him?”
“Your fucking cat can fend for himself, Jennifer. All right, got it? Mice, birds, shit like that. Don’t worry about the goddamn cat. It’s too fucking dangerous to go back over there.”
“You never liked Pooh Bear. You said you did, but I knew you didn’t, not really.”
“Look, Jennifer, you had one freebie. But you fucked up and lost the money. Now you’re in the penalty. Every screwup from here on is going to cost you. Go to Eckerd’s, buy your shampoo and shit, and get back over here quick.”
“All right, all right,” she said. “I’ll show you. I can be faster than Meyer Lansky’s wife.”
She gave her hair a flip and smiled.
“You’re lucky you’re so damn cute,” he said.
“You think this comes easy, Stan? Looking this way? You think I was born like this?”
She leaned over and kissed him on the lips, let her hand brush his crotch. He cringed away.
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