by Jarret Keene
Claudia showed them in, dead-bolted the door, offered a cool muscular hand to Sam with a nod, then gestured everyone into the living room: suede furniture, Navajo rugs, ferns. Two fluffed and imperial Persian cats nestled near the window on matching cushions. Across the room, a mobile of tiny tin birds, dozens of them, all painted bright tropical colors, hung from the ceiling. Interesting, Sam thought, glancing up as she tucked her skirt against her thighs. Thing must torment the cats.
“Like I said before,” Mike began, addressing Claudia, “I think this is a bad idea, but you said okay, so here we are.”
Sam resisted an urge to storm over, take two fistfuls of that pampered hair, and rip it out by the roots. She turned to the woman. “Can we talk alone?”
“That doesn’t work for me,” Mike said.
With the grace of a model, Claudia slowly pivoted toward him. “I think it’s for the best.” For the sake of his pride, she added, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
That was that. He sulked off to the patio, the two women talked. It didn’t take long for Sam to explain her situation, lay out her plan, make it clear she wasn’t being flaky or impulsive. She’d thought it through—she didn’t want to get even, pick off Mike’s customers, nothing like that. “I don’t want to hand my baby off to day care, some stranger. I want to be there. At home.”
Claudia eyed her, saying nothing, for what seemed an eternity. Don’t look away, Sam told herself. Accept the scrutiny, know your role. But don’t act scared.
“There are those,” Claudia said finally, “who would find what you just said very peculiar.” Her smile seemed a kind of warning, and yet it wasn’t without warmth. “I’m sure you realize that.”
“I do. But I think you understand.”
It turned out she understood only too well—she had a son, Marco, eleven years old, away at boarding school in Seville. “I miss him terribly.” She made a sawing motion. “Like someone cut off my arm.”
“Why don’t you have him here, with you?”
For the first time, Claudia looked away. Her face darkened. “Mothers make sacrifices. It’s not all about staying home with the baby.”
Sam felt backward, foolish, hopelessly American. Behold the future, she thought, ten years down the road, doing this, and your kid is where? In the corner of her eye, she saw one of the cats rise sleepily and arch its back. Out on the patio, Mike sat in the moonlight, a sudden red glow as he dragged on his cigarette.
Claudia steered the conversation to terms: Sam would start off buying ounces at two thousand dollars each, which she would divide into grams and eightballs for sale. If things went well, she could move up to a QP—quarter pound—at $7,800, build her clientele. She might well plateau at that point, many did. If she was ambitious, though, she could move up to an elbow—for “lb,” meaning a pound—with the tacit agreement she would not interfere with Claudia’s wholesale trade.
“I want you to look me in the eye, Samantha. Good. Do not confuse my sympathy for weakness. I’m generous by nature. That doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I have men who take care of certain matters for me, men not at all like our friend out there.” She nodded toward Mike all alone on the moonlit patio. “These men, you will never meet them unless it comes to that. And if it does, the time will have passed for you to say or do anything to help yourself. I trust I’m clear.”
The first and oddest thing? She lost five pounds. God, she thought, what have I done? She checked her sheets for blood, then ran to Valley Medical, no appointment, demanded to see her ob-gyn. The receptionist—sagging desert face, kinky gray perm—shot her one of those knowing, gallingly sympathetic looks you never really live down.
“Your body thinks you’ve got a parasite, dear,” the woman said. “Just keep eating.”
She did, and she stunned herself, how quickly her habits turned healthy. No more coke, ditto booze—instead a passion for bananas (craving potassium), an obsession with yogurt (good for bone mass, the immune system, the intestinal lining), a sudden interest in whole grains (to keep her regular), citrus (for iron absorption), even liver (prevent anemia). She took to grazing, little meals here and there, to keep the nausea at bay, and when her appetite craved more she turned to her newfound favorite: stir-fry.
She continued working for three months, time enough to groom a clientele—fellow casino rats (her old quitting-time buddies, basically, and their buddies), a few select customers from the Roundup (including, strangely enough, Harry the homely Brit, who came from Manchester, she learned, taught mechanical engineering, vacationed in Cabo most winters, not half the schmuck she’d pegged him for), plus a few locals she decided to trust (the girls at Diva’s Hair-and-Nail, the boys at Monte Carlo Tanning Salon, a locksmith named Nick Perino, had a shop just up Fremont Street, total card, used to host a midnight movie show in town)—all of this happening in the shadow of the police tower on Stewart Avenue, all those cops just four blocks away.
Business was brisk. She got current on her bills, socked away a few grand. At sixteen weeks her stomach popped out, like she’d suddenly inflated, and that was the end of cocktail shift. Sam bid it goodbye with no regrets, the red pleated dress, the cowboy hat, the tasseled boots. From that point forward, she conducted business where she pleased, permitting a trustworthy inner circle to come to her place, the others she met out and about, merrily invisible in her maternity clothes.
The birth was strangely easy, two-hour labor, a snap by most standards, and Sam shed twenty pounds before heading home. The best thing about seeing it go was no longer having to endure strangers—older women especially, riding with her in elevators or standing in line at the store—who would notice the tight globe of her late-term belly and instinctively reach out, stroke the shuddering roundness, cooing in a helpless, mysterious, covetous way that almost rekindled Sam’s childhood fear of witches.
As for the last of the weight gain, it all seemed to settle in her chest—first time in her life, she had cleavage. This little girl’s been good to you all over, Sam thought—her skin shone, her eyes glowed, she looked happy. Guys seemed to notice, clients especially, but she made sure to keep it all professional: So much as hint at sex with coke in the room, next thing you knew the guy’d be eyeing your muff like it was veal.
Besides, the interest on her end had vanished. Curiously, that didn’t faze her. Whatever it was she’d once craved from her lovers she now got from Natalie, feeling it strongest when she nursed, enjoying something she’d secretly thought didn’t exist—the kind of fierce unshakeable oneness she’d always thought was just Hollywood. Now she knew better. The crimped pink face, the curled doughy hands, the wispy black strands of impossibly fine hair: “Look at you,” she’d whisper, over and over and over.
By the end of two months, she’d pitched all her old clothes, not just the maternity duds. Some bad habits got the heave-ho as well: the trashy attitude, slutty speech, negative turns of mind. Nor would the apartment do anymore—too dark, too small, too blah. The little one deserves better, she told herself, as does her mother. Besides, maybe someone had noticed all the in-and-out, the visitors night and day. Half paranoia, half healthy faith in who she’d become, she upscaled to a three-bedroom out on Boulder Highway, furnished it in suede, added ferns. She bought two cats.
Nick Perino sat alone in an interview room in the Stewart Avenue tower—dull yellow walls, scuffed black linoleum, humming fluorescent light—tapping his thumbs together and cracking his neck as he waited. Finally the door opened, and he tried to muster some advantage, assert control, by challenging the man who entered, blurting out, “I don’t know you.”
The newcomer ignored him, tossing a manila folder onto the table as he drew back his chair to sit. He was in his thirties, shaggy hair, wiry build, dressed in a Runnin’ Rebels T-shirt and faded jeans. Something about him said one-time jock. Something else said unmitigated prick. Looking bored, he opened the file, began leafing through the pages, sipping from a paper cup of steaming black coffee so vile Nick could smell it
across the table.
Nick said, “I’m used to dealing with Detective Naughton.”
The guy sniffed, chuckling at something he read, suntanned laugh lines fanning out at his eyes. “Yeah, well, he’s been rotated out to Traffic. You witness a nasty accident, Mike’s your man. But that’s not why you’re here, is it, Mr. Perry?”
“Perino.”
The cop glanced up finally. His eyes were scary blue and so bloodshot they looked on fire. Another sniff. “Right. Forgive me.”
“Some kind of cold you got there. Must be the air-conditioning.”
“It’s allergies, actually.”
Nick chuckled. Allergic to sleep, maybe. “Speaking of names, you got one?”
“Thornton.” He whipped back another page. “Chief calls me James, friends call me Jimmy. You can call me sir.”
Nick stood up. He wasn’t going to take this, not from some slacker narc half in the bag. “I came here to do you guys a favor.”
Still picking through the file, Jimmy Thornton said, “Sit back down, Mr. Perry.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I said—sit down.”
“You think you’re talking to some fart-fuck, asshole?”
Finally, the cop closed the file. Removing a ballpoint pen from his hip pocket, he began thumbing the plunger manically. “I know who I’m talking to. Mike paints a pretty vivid picture.” He nudged the folder across the table. “Want a peek?”
Despite himself, Nick recoiled a little. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll do that.”
Leaning back in his chair, still clicking the pen, Jimmy Thornton said: “You first blew into town, when was it, ’74? Nick Perry, Chiller Theater, Saturday midnight. Weasled your way into the job, touting all this ‘network experience’ back east.”
Nick shrugged. “Everybody lies on his résumé.”
“Not everybody.”
“My grandfather came over from Sicily, Perino was the family name. Ellis Island, he changed it to Perry. I just changed it back.”
“Yeah, but not till you went to work for Johnny T.”
Nick could feel the blood drain from his face. “What are you getting at?”
The cop’s smile turned poisonous. “Know what Johnny said about you? You’re the only guy in Vegas ever added a vowel to the end of his name. Him and his brother saw you coming at the San Gennaro Feast, they couldn’t run the other way fast enough, even when you worked for them. Worst case of wannabe-wiseguy they’d ever seen.”
Finally, Nick sat back down. “You heard this how? Johnny doesn’t, like—”
“Know you were the snitch? Can’t answer that. I mean, he probably suspects.”
Nick had been a CI in a state case against the Tintoretto brothers for prostitution and drugs, all run through their massage parlor out on Flamingo. Nick remained unidentified during trial, the case made on wiretaps. It seemed a wise play at the time—get down first, tell the story his way, cut a deal before the roof caved in. He was working as the manager there, only job he could find in town after getting canned at the station—a nigger joke, pussy in the punch line, didn’t know he was on the air.
“All the employees got a pass,” Nick said, “not just me. Johnny couldn’t know for sure unless you guys told him.”
“Relax.” Another punctuating sniff. “Nobody around here told him squat. We keep our promises, Mr. Perry.”
Nick snorted. “Not from where I sit.”
“Excuse me?” The guy leaned in. “Mike bent over backwards for you, pal. Set you up, perfect location, right downtown. Felons aren’t supposed to be locksmiths.”
“Most of that stuff on my sheet was out of state. And it got expunged.”
A chuckle: “Now there’s a word.”
“Vacated, sealed, whatever.”
“Because Mike took care of it. And how do you repay him?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Every time business gets slow, you send that fat freak you call a nephew out to the apartments off Maryland Parkway—middle of the night, spray can of Superglue, gum up a couple hundred locks. You can bank on at least a third of the calls, given your location—think we don’t know this?”
“Who you talking to, Mike Lally over at All-Night Lock’n’Key? You wanna hammer a crook, there’s your guy, not me.”
“Doesn’t have thirty-two grand in liens from the Tax Commission on his business, though, does he?”
Nick blanched. They already knew. They knew everything. “I got screwed by my bookkeeper. Look, I came here with information. You wanna hear it or not?”
“In exchange for getting the Tax Commission off your neck.”
“Before they shut me down, yeah. That asking so much?”
Jimmy Thornton opened the manila folder to the last page, clicked his pen one final time, and prepared to write. “That depends.”
Sam sat in the shade at the playground two blocks from her apartment, listening to Nick go on. He’d just put in new locks at her apartment—she changed them every few weeks now, just being careful—and, stopping here to drop off the new keys, he’d sat down on the bench beside her, launching in, some character named Jimmy.
“He’s a stand-up guy,” Nick said. “Looker, too. You’ll like him.”
“You pitching him as a customer, or a date?”
Nick raised his hands, a coy smile, “All things are possible,” inflecting the words with that paisano thing he fell into sometimes.
Natalie slept in her stroller, exhausted from an hour on the swings, the slide, the merry-go-round. Sam wondered about that, whether it was really good for kids to indulge that giddy instinct for dizziness. Where did it lead?
“Tell me again how you met this guy.”
“He wanted a wall safe, I installed it for him.”
She squinted in the sun, shaded her eyes. “What’s he need a wall safe for?”
“That’s not a question I ask. You want, I provide. That’s business, as you well know.”
She suffered him a thin smile. With the gradual expansion of her clientele—no one but referrals, but even so her base had almost doubled—she’d watched herself pulling back from people, even old friends, a protective, judicious remove. And that was lonely-making. Worse, she’d gotten used to it, and that seemed a kind of living death. The only grace was Natalie, but even there, the oneness she’d felt those first incredible months, that had changed as well. She still adored the girl, loved her to pieces, that wasn’t the issue. Little girls grow up, their mothers get lonely, where’s the mystery? She just hadn’t expected it to start so soon.
“He’s a contractor,” Nick went on, “works down in Hen-derson. I saw the blueprints and, you know, stuff in his place when I was there. Look, you don’t need the trade, forget about it. But I thought, I dunno, maybe you’d like the guy.”
“I don’t need to like him.”
“I meant ‘like’ as in ‘do business.’”
Sam checked the stroller. Natalie had her thumb in her mouth, eyes closed, her free hand balled into a fist beneath her chin.
“You know how this works,” Sam said. “He causes trouble, anything at all—I mean this, Nick—anything at all comes back at me, it’s on you, not just him.”
They met at the Elephant Walk, and it turned out Nick was right, the guy turned heads—an easy grace, cowboy shoulders, lady-killer smile. He ordered Johnny Walker Black with a splash, and Sam remembered, from her days working cocktail, judging men by their drinks. He’d ordered wisely. And yet there were signs—a jitter in the hands, a slight head tic, the red in those killer blue eyes. Then again, if she worried that her customers looked like users, who would she sell to?
“Nick says you’re a contractor.”
He shook his head. “Project manager.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Sometimes. Not often enough.” He laughed, and the laugh was self-effacing, one more winning trait. “I buy materials, hire the subs, make sure the bonds are current and
we’re all on time. But the contractor’s the one with his license on the line.”
“Sounds demanding.”
“Everything’s demanding. If it means anything.”
She liked that answer. “And to relax, you …?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got a bike, a Triumph, old bandit 350, gathering dust in my garage.” Another self-effacing smile. “Amazing how boring you can sound when stuff like that comes out.”
Not boring, she thought. Just normal. “Ever been married?”
A fierce little jolt shot through him. “Once. Yeah. High school sweetheart kind of thing. Didn’t work out.”
She got the hint, and steered the conversation off in a different direction. They talked about Nick, the stories they’d heard him tell about his TV days, wondering which ones to believe. Sam asked about how the two men had met, got the same story she’d heard from Nick, embellished a little, not too much. Things were, basically, checking out.
Sensing it was time, she signaled the bartender to settle up. “Well, it’s been very nice meeting you, Jimmy. I have to get home. The sitter awaits with the princess.”
“Nick told me. Natalie, right? Have any pictures?”
She liked it when men asked to see pictures. It said something. She took out her wallet, opened it to the snapshots.
“How old?”
“Fifteen months. Just.”
“She’s got her mother’s eyes.”
“She’s got more than that, sadly.”
“No. Good for her.” He returned her wallet, hand not trembling now. Maybe it was the Scotch, maybe the conversation. “She’s a beauty. Changed your life, I’ll bet.”
Yes, Sam thought, that she has. Maybe we’ll talk about that sometime. Next time. “Have kids?”
Very subtly, his eyes hazed. “Me? No. Didn’t get that far, which is probably for the best. Got some nephews and nieces, that’s it for now.”