by Jack Getze
I push up from the tile floor. He doesn’t object, but the tip of Vargas’ switchblade tracks my nose as I rise. Fighting dizziness, I hold the stall for balance. My forehead pounds—a lump is rising. If I yelled, would anyone hear me?
“Why do you betray him?” Vargas says. “Answer me.”
I freeze as Vargas’ knife touches my neck. My heart thumps like a rabbit’s. What I say next will sound like the truth because I absolutely believe it. “I’m not betraying him. Luis beats guys like you with one hand.”
Vargas smiles. “I have defeated Luis before. I could do so again.”
He flips his back on me and strides away. His reminds me of a larger version of Luis, the quickness of his feet, the shift of his broad shoulders.
“You will of course tell Luis I am coming,” he says.
FIVE
Luis and Solana’s noisy wedding reception fills the Martha Washington Hotel’s fanciest riverside ballroom. The walls are floor to ceiling windows, and a high-ceiling showcase for the picturesque Navasquan River and Branchtown’s waterside cafes and shops. The afternoon light shines spectacularly on the water, our mood happy and festive.
I lift my champagne glass high for a one-on-one toast with Luis’ cook Umberto. We are both in line to officially greet the new couple, shake Luis’ hand and kiss the bride. Earlier, I told Luis what happened with Santo Vargas.
“To Luis and Solana,” I say to Umberto. “To their happiness.”
New Jersey’s best enchilada-maker clinks my glass with his, but Umberto’s dark brown eyes focus on the spreading lump of purple across my forehead. “Happiness for Luis and Solana, si,” the chef says, “but tell me what you have told Luis. It was Santo Vargas who gave you this beating, was it not? He was seen minutes ago in the parking lot.”
I sip my champagne, check out the crowd. “I wouldn’t call it a beating. More of a mini-kidnapping and interrogation.”
The reception at the Martha Washington is a real shopping bag of Luis’ friends and restaurant customers. Eclectic doesn’t cover this crowd. Reminds me of Branchtown’s multi-cultural, four-generational Night Court. Except for the lack of concealed knives and belt-mounted pistols.
“You must tell me,” Umberto says. “Did this man Santo Vargas appear first as a crow? It is said he travels inside the spirit of animals.”
“Ridiculous. But Luis told me not to talk about him.”
Umberto hisses.
I shift forward, keeping in line. Mr. Vic’s mother is headed over here, working her way steadily through the crowd. Mama Bones Bonacelli is not what she seems, that is an old school, Italian grandmother-slash-widow, all in black. This granny has crime connections and paranormal hobbies. I know she eats dinner at Luis’ once in a while—often on Friday’s for Umberto’s Veracruz fish stew—but it surprises me she’s at the reception. I didn’t see her at the ceremony.
Umberto presses closer. “I will ask what happened of Luis,” he says. “You...you are a fornicator of sheep.”
“Sorry.”
Mama Bones bumps into one drink and spills another in her hurried effort to reach me. In a word, she’s eager. I hope not to attack me. She’s some kind of underboss in Branchtown’s illegal, boardwalk-based gambling operation, and though we used to be friendly, she hasn’t spoken to me much since I took control of Shore Securities several months ago. Her son Vic founded the place. Hired me as a rookie. Now he has to tolerate me as his boss. Wouldn’t surprise me if Vic asked his mother to have me killed.
“’Allo, Austin,” Mama Bones says. “You look very handsome today in your tuxedo.”
Handsome? “Thanks. You’re looking pretty good yourself.”
My comment is nervous and bad flattery I hope the old lady ignores. Mama Bones is wearing what she always wears—a simple, high-neck, ankle-length black dress. She’s worn only long, black dresses since her husband died in 1994.
“You big sweetie,” she says.
My blood pressure jumps as Mama Bones clicks open her black leather purse. The bag is big enough to hold an Uzi, and I’m wondering if planned assassination is behind her surprising friendliness. Bobby G teases me all the time about Mama Bones putting out a contract on me, but I figure enough time has passed since I took over Shore. If she was going to get violent, she would have done so by now.
Besides, like I told Rags, deep down she loves me.
Mama Bone’s wrinkled hand reappears from inside her purse with a one ounce perfume bottle. I watch fascinated as she removes the top, flips the glass container, wetting her finger with the little bottle’s contents. Next she slowly rubs the stuff behind each of her bulldog ears.
“It’s a brand new scent,” Mama Bones says. “Straight from Paris.” She leans closer to me. “Go on, take a whiff, you handsome devil.”
To humor her, I bend down to take an exaggerated inhalation near her perfumed neck. Whoa. The ceiling spins. The floor opens. I sense myself falling into an abyss. Rotten citrus, spoiled meat, and the discharge from a construction-site portable potty. Yikes, what an odor. Paris, huh? Smells more like the black hole of Calcutta.
“You like it?” Mama Bones says.
Gasping for air, I try not to make a face, but I can’t help myself. “A bit strong for my tastes.” I cough. “But it’s definitely...uh, unique.”
Mama Bones cackles like a chicken, pushes me forward. “Better get your smooch,” she says. She ushers me toward the top of the reception line. Solana, the new Mrs. Luis Guerrero, is kissing the man in front of me—Umberto. That means I’m next and that I almost missed my turn by sniffing Mama Bone’s ghastly perfume. I still might pass out. Where did she get that stuff?
Oh my, time to forget Mama Bones. Luis’ new wife is one of the most ferociously beautiful women I’ve ever been this close to. Black shiny hair, skin like the creamy latte. I’d use more sexual innuendo to describe her body, her spirit, her overall attractiveness, but this is Luis’ wife.
I shift my weight to step into Solana’s arms, but a strong hand spins me away. Before I even recognize who has me, Patricia Willis presses her drunken mouth against mine. It’s a very friendly wine-flavored kiss, let me say, not something repulsive. In fact, it’s very sexy—wet and wild, greasy even with the bright red lipstick. But then Patricia pulls away mumbling words about “winning the lottery.”
Why talk? Who cares what she says? What a kiss that woman just laid on me. Spicy. Stunning. I feel odd, hot. Lost. The taste of her stings my lips like chili oil. She grins at me. My gaze dives into hers, those blue sky eyes. A buzzing jingles in my ears. “Did you say something?” I say.
“We’re going to be rich,” Patricia whispers. “My brother says the merger will be announced Monday.”
Huh? I sort of want to ask, what does she mean, we, but I can’t make a sound. My lips, my jaw and my throat are fluttering like wind chimes. Jeez, that was some kiss.
Magical.
I’m dreaming of Patricia’s kiss when the sound of a hotel-room key card sliding into the lock snaps me awake. My left hand extends into blackness for the bedside lamp, the brass switch chilly on my fingertips. Then I change my mind. Let’s keep room 233 at The Martha Washington dark.
This was not supposed to happen.
Beneath my pillow, I locate and grip the old semiautomatic Colt .45 Umberto loaned me. Having enlisted several of Luis’ friends to post guard, stand watch, and otherwise protect my baited butt, I figured the room I gave Santo Vargas would be the safest bet of all Branchtown hiding spots. The gun is with me because I once made the same safe bet comment about General Motors bonds one month before bankruptcy.
The room door pushes open until restrained by an old fashioned brass chain. A dark silhouette flashes past a thin shaft of light from the hallway. Santo Vargas? How could he get through all those hombre pals of Luis? Maybe it’s not Vargas. Or maybe my guards went home. The clock does read six minutes after four o’clock.
“It is you in there, is it not?” Vargas says. “The stockbroker? I can
smell you.”
Vargas’ growl vibrates the bruised flesh on my forehead—as if the broken skin recognized its tormentor. My breathing notches higher.
“Why do you not speak?” he whispers. “Be proud that you have tricked me into coming here without good reason.”
I roll off the bed, lift the Colt with both hands, arms extended toward the doorway and Santo Vargas like the cops taught me on Law and Order and the other police shows I loved to watch when I was married. Music drifts down the hotel hallway like drizzling rain. More jazz, I think. From the upstairs bar. Piano with a gloomy bass line.
“Proud of tricking you?” I say. “I have more trouble hitting the toilet when I pee.”
The weight of Umberto’s Colt tugs on my arms.
“You are a funny man,” Vargas says. “And a skilled liar. I believed you had betrayed your friend Luis.”
“Must be my training in professional sales.”
My nose tastes the harsh odor of petrochemicals—a solvent discharging from my borrowed weapon, I suppose. Vargas’ silhouette shifts briefly in the doorway.
“Solana has left on her honeymoon?” he says.
I should call nine-one-one. Or shoot this son-of-a-bitch. But no. I feel like chatting. Maybe I have a death wish. What’s that liquid sound?
“That’s right,” I say. “She and Luis are off for the mountains of Tibet. You can beat them there if you fly nonstop.”
It’s true Luis and his new bride should be cruising high above the Atlantic about now, but not to Tibet. They’re going somewhere I don’t know. Better safe than sorry, Luis and I both figured.
What is he putting on the floor? I can’t see much in the single shaft of light.
“Unfortunately I have other business here,” Vargas says. “But before I leave next week, I may still cut out your eyeballs. I do not like liars.”
My chin points high. The weapon in my hands gives me confidence. “Get in line, turkey.”
Vargas’ hand extends through the opened doorway. He lights a match or a plastic lighter. A fist-sized fire erupts around the match, then falls to the floor...whoosh. Six-foot flames engulf the doorway and blow even higher to the ceiling. The flash of summer sun and fiery heat knock me backward. The hotel carpet between myself and Vargas explodes in flames. The whole room is on fire.
I fire the semiautomatic toward a doorway I no longer see. Flames block my vision, warm my face and suppress the sound of the old Colt 1911. A red light blinks. An electronic alarm screeches. Water sputters, then sprays from four fixtures in the ceiling. The high-pitched jagged squeal of a fire alarm pierces through the snapping flames. For two or ten seconds—it’s hard to judge time—I’m confused what to do. The room is on fire. I have to get out. But the only exits—the door and the window—appear blocked. The still-chained doorway has become a wall of flames. My second-floor glass window to the parking lot is double-thick and sealed shut. I tried getting fresh air earlier.
The answer is in my hand. This time the blasts from Umberto’s weapon reassure me. I aim two shots at the sealed glass, one high left, one low right, and the glass explodes. The flames surge behind me, sucked toward my back by the broken window. I grab my trousers off the chair, wrap them around my forearm, use the padded club to clean off the remaining window glass.
I lower myself down to within six feet of the hotel’s landscaping, drop and roll.
Unhurt, I stay quiet for a few seconds, pull on my pants with my wallet and cell phone inside, then race away in the shadows. I’ve survived two confrontations with Vargas now. I do not like the odds on a third.
Fifteen minutes and five blocks later, I’m tired of skulking. I take a cab to the police station and report the fire and the shooting. I left Umberto’s Colt in the hotel room beside the window—the room registered to me. I see no way out of telling the truth, or why I’d be in serious trouble if I do. All the Branchtown Police Department’s bald, fifty-year-old desk sergeant wants to know is why I didn’t hang around the hotel, talk to the detectives who left ten minutes ago for the scene. I even tell the cops about Vargas.
SIX
With the New York Stock Exchange opening bell only minutes away, I’m at home with my laptop Monday morning, logging onto Carr Securities’ official website. The fire and my confrontation with Vargas, even the questioning by fire and police officials all day Sunday—yesterday—it’s all a nasty dream. What’s on my mind now is Patricia, that wet kiss we shared and her prediction the merger would be announced today.
And oh my, something is happening. On the live stock screen, Fishman Corp. has an asterisk by its symbol. Extended-hour trading in the company’s stock was halted fifty minutes ago. I click on the call letters for Fishman, scroll down and find the latest news headline, the hot flash now spreading across Wall Street and the world: GENE-PAK TO ACQUIRE FISHMAN FOR $46 A SHARE.
My jaw falls. If I’d bought those call options Mr. Greedy considered, Patricia’s inside scoop would have netted me and my kids three hundred, maybe three hundred and fifty thousand dollars—depending on where the stock price opens and the options trade. The forty-six dollar price tag is bigger than anyone could have expected.
I sigh and tell myself I did the right thing.
Parking behind Carr Securities around eleven o’clock, I stride through operations and down the center corridor of our big sales room. The whole place stares at me. Every freaking salesman. The only explanation is Bobby G spread the news that Fishman was on my screen last week—the same Fishman now trading twelve dollars higher than it did Friday.
I need shelter. Quick, before they see my face. I didn’t make any money on Patricia’s inside information, but I knew, and can imagine how guilty I must look. Even Mr. Vic’s office seems like refuge.
As usual, Mr. Vic is hard at work. His plain-tipped black shoes rest on top of his desk. He’s reading the Branchtown paper. The television’s on, Fox Business News showing a variety of talking heads above a live stock market feed with current prices.
I close Vic’s office door so we’re alone. “I didn’t get a chance to ask you at the wedding. Did you and Patricia Willis buy Fishman stock?”
Mr. Vic’s attention remains on the local sports section, as if the Rumson Bulldogs’ latest victory on the football field held greater news value than the insider trading scam we might be mixed up in. Five beats later, he flips a page, says, “Yeah, I noticed you were busy at Luis’ wedding...mainly kissing my girlfriend.”
“Your drunk girlfriend kissed me. Out of excitement. She said her brother claimed the merger was going through today.”
Mr. Vic switches from sports news to financial. So nonchalant. My junior partner is the absolute King of Bull. It makes him a great salesman, but a bad business associate.
“So did you buy Fishman or not?” I say. “As an officer of Carr Securities, you have an obligation—”
Mr. Vic looks at me over the paper. “It would be a lot better if we don’t discuss Fishman Corp. or Patricia Willis. Not until we’re sure there won’t be legal problems.”
“Legal problems?”
“Let’s wait and see if the SEC or the exchanges announce an investigation.”
“You’re telling me you and Patricia did buy Fishman stock?”
“I’m telling you we shouldn’t discuss it,” Vic says. “Two weeks or two months from now, some federal prosecutor could ask you or me what we said to each other today. Lying in that situation could put you in jail, right?”
I nod. “No lying to the feds, that’s a law.”
“But by then maybe you telling the truth could put me or Patricia in jail.”
“Oh shit, Vic. You didn’t?”
“So let’s not discuss it,” he says.
I’m not sure I’m verbal anyway. I can’t believe Mr. Vic—my mentor and former boss—I can’t believe he would involve himself in a crime. Or at least illegal activity where his involvement could be so easily proved.
“Anything else?” Mr. Vic says.
> Mama Bones stares at her lifetime supply of virgin olive oil—forty-eight, two-gallon corked jars stacked on a pallet in the corner of her basement kitchen. If she poured out all the jars into a tub, there’s probably enough greenish liquid to boil that redhead alive.
But how could she heat up the tub?
She walks over by the basement door where she can see the stairway. “Hey, Gianni,” she says. “Come down here a minute, huh?”
Mama Bones worries what to tell her son Vic. She could use some help.
When dark haired Gianni scrambles down the stairs and pokes his head inside her basement kitchen, she motions to the round table with a bottle of Paisano and glasses in the center. Her nephew has on blue jeans and a white T-shirt. Must be warm outside.
“You wanna glass of wine?” she says.
“No, Mama Bones, I’m kind of busy. You need something?”
She coughs.
“What’s the matter?” Gianni says.
“Vic is gonna be mad.”
“Something happen at the wedding? You looked pissed off when you got home.”
“You know Vic’s redheaded comare?”
“Patty?” Gianni says. “Patty Willis?”
“She calls herself Patricia now.”
“Fancy.” Gianni glances over his shoulder, showing her he wants to leave.
“So just-a when Austin Carr is about to kiss the bride at the wedding, right when he’s going to fall in love with his best friend’s brand new wife, that Patricia Willis comes along and ruins everything. She kisses Austin, notta the bride.”
“I don’t get it,” Gianni says.
Mama Bones makes a choking noise. “Listen. I make a love potion. I get Austin Carr to sniff it. Now he’s gonna fall in love with the next person he kisses. That’s the magic of the potion, and I give it to him right when he’s next in line to kiss the bride at Luis’ wedding. Her name is Solana, I think.”