Ringer

by Wiprud, Brian M

  “Why?”

  “If it’s important and we find out all kinds of stuff, it could be worth a lot of money.”

  “Let’s see who he is first, then we’ll talk.”

  “No way, Lena. Remember that other time?”

  “What other time?”

  “That woman. The model.”

  “Seventy-five, twenty-five.”

  “Fifty, fifty.”

  “Seventy, thirty. Going, going…”

  “Sixty, forty.”

  “Sixty-five, thirty-five. Done?”

  “Done.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  LET US CUT AWAY FROM the smoky confines of the palmist’s inner sanctum to the briny exuberance of the sea crashing white froth on the dark sandy shores of East Hampton. The party lights of a lounge called El Rolo are visible beyond the dune. Lightning flutters on the west horizon.

  El Rolo was a velvet rope place. If you were a man, you could only get in if you were accompanied by several beautiful girls or if you were famous and preferably both. Beautiful girls could get in even if they were not famous as long as their shoes were of the Prada equivalent.

  You think I’m kidding, but Wilmer was the bouncer, and he had to know his shoes. Not only could he tell you the manufacturer of almost any woman’s upscale shoe, but he knew them by type: pump, mule, thong flat, espadrille, and even peep-toe slingback. He could even tell the cheap knock-offs, the Canal Street Specials sold in Chinatown back rooms. His job was as much as anything to keep out the riffraff and the paparazzi, so being able to tell a pair of Gucci cork wedges from Payless cork wedges was an important part of his job. That and being large enough to intimidate anybody on the planet. It’s a fact: Mike Tyson came there one night and got drunk. Wilmer threw him out. And I mean that literally. After taking a punch to the chest from the heavyweight champion of the world, Wilmer picked up Tyson and flung him out the back door into the dune.

  It was closing time this particular night. Wilmer had provided drivers for about ten people so far. El Rolo provided drivers and follow cars to get people home safely and help keep them out of the tabloids for DUI. This pleased the customers and the local police, who did not like having to arrest their meal tickets but could not turn a blind eye to their crashing into trees, either.

  Wilmer drew the chain across the driveway so nobody else could try to come in. The sign by the road was turned off, but that didn’t always stop Billy Joel from trying to come in for a nightcap. There were only four cars left. His drivers were all back now, and looking sleepy. So Wilmer went inside to assess who else was there that needed a nudge toward the door and a drive home.

  There was a blond Dolce & Gabbana crisscross sandal with two brunettes, one a Ferragamo leopard-print platform slingback, the other a turquoise Christian Dior slide. No men.

  “Excuse me, ladies, hate to bother you, but it’s that time.”

  The turquoise Christian Dior slide looked sleepily up at him. “Thanks, Wilmer. Any drivers still here?”

  “Sure, sweetheart. All three of you girls need drivers?”

  “Not me,” said the Dolce & Gabbana. “I’ve been on smoothies all night. Can’t be puffy tomorrow for the shoot.”

  “I’m OK,” yawned the Ferragamo, “but you better check on Purity.”

  “Where’s she?”

  “Oceanside.”

  Wilmer squeezed out the back door to the patio. Nobody there, but he could see Purity with her blond pigtails sitting down near where the waves were breaking. So he made tracks—big tracks—down the beach.

  “Purity?”

  She turned, a bottle of tequila at her side and Prada ankle-strap thongs behind her in the sand. She was in cutoff jeans and a sleeveless man’s oxford shirt, open in front and exposing a yellow bikini top.

  “Purity, it’s time to go home, sweetheart. I’ll get a driver for you.”

  “Yeah. I have to get up tomorrow. Have to be in court in Manhattan.”

  “Not for that joyride the other night.”

  “No, another joyride, through Central Park, on a borrowed horse. Wilmer?”

  “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “Come here.”

  He stepped up next to her.

  “Sit down, Wilmer.”

  “No games tonight, Purity. We got to close up. I’ll carry you if you want.”

  “Wilmer, what would you do if you wanted to kill someone?”

  He shrugged and held out his hands. “I’d just kill them with these.”

  “No. I mean kill them and not get caught, make it look like an accident.”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Who do you want to kill, Purity?”

  “I’m just like saying. Nobody.”

  “Depends. Can’t kill nobody in a car wreck if they don’t drive. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you off to bed.”

  “So you’re saying that it, like, depends. Like, if they drive a car?” She staggered to her feet.

  “That’s right.” Wilmer picked up her shoes, then picked up Purity. She sat in the crook of his arm, reclining against his chest, and they started back to El Rolo.

  “Would you hire a hit man?”

  “Nah. Do not do that, Purity. Do not even talk about it. People who try that route always end up in jail. You want bad enough to kill somebody you do it yourself. That’s the rules.”

  “There are rules?”

  “There are always rules.”

  “I don’t like rules.”

  “Just the same. You’re a smart girl. You want to kill someone you do it yourself. But listen to me. I’m your friend, right? Your friend Wilmer is telling you not to kill anybody tonight. Go home, sleep, have some breakfast, take a swim, you’ll feel better.”

  The lights in El Rolo began to go off, and Wilmer stepped sideways through the patio doorway into the darkened bar.

  “You’re a good friend, Wilmer.”

  “That’s what they pay me for.”

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  A NEON SIGN SIZZLES: ACE PAWNBROKER—OPEN 24/7. That’s what our camera sees before drifting down into the confines of a narrow hallway encased in bulletproof thick-as-your-wrist Lucite. This seemingly glass hallway separated the customers from the used merchandise, which included almost anything you could think of that was of any value: guitars, drum sets, barbecue grills, fishing poles, hockey sticks, microwaves, taxidermy, silver sets, jewelry … and guns. Ceiling fans turned lazily under fluorescent tubes.

  The pawnshop smelled of Lysol. Perhaps scratch-and-sniff cards could be given to the audience in the lobby before the movie. There could be a cross-promotion with Lysol.

  While Purity was drinking rum on the beach, Paco was arriving in Memphis by Greyhound, and it probably would not surprise anybody to learn that the bus station in Memphis is not too far from some unsavory neighborhoods. The kind that have pawnshops.

  Behind the Lucite, at the counter, was a compact Bangladeshi man. He had sideburns that went all the way to his chin, and a cutoff T-shirt bearing the Rebel flag. He didn’t seem to like the looks of Paco even though he had not yet met him.

  “Can I help you with something?” The southern lilt of the Bangladeshi’s voice echoed from the other side of the Lucite barrier.

  Paco spotted the gun case and stood before it, looking.

  “You think I’m going to sell a gun to a greaser in the middle of the night you’re crazy, Sanchez.”

  Paco wasn’t entirely sure what the clerk had said—he was a little out of practice speaking English—but he got the gist. He wasn’t so easily offended, and he knew that if this pawnshop was anything like the pawnshops back in Juárez, who you were and where you came from did not matter. Only money mattered.

  He also knew pawnshops had guns on display, and then they had other guns. The kinds they kept around for greasers who shopped in the middle of the night.

  Paco smiled at the clerk. “Very funny,” he said in English. “
We stop the bullshit. What pistols you have for me?”

  The clerk knit his brow. “Who you think you’re talking to, Sanchez?”

  “You want my business? I have money. I go to the shop down the street. OK?” Paco strode toward the door.

  “Now hold on, son. What exactly are you looking for?”

  Paco stopped in the doorway, looked up at the security camera. “Turn that off, yes?”

  The clerk hesitated, then reached behind him and depressed a button on a black digital recorder. “Now you wanna tell me?”

  “Nine millimeter or bigger.”

  “What you see in the case. But…”

  “No, señor.” Paco was smiling, mostly with his eyes. “The other ones. The ones not in the case.”

  “Look, son—”

  “Por favor, señor, you are wasting my time, and your time. Do you have nine-millimeter pistols or do you not?” Paco was looking for the ones that would fly under the radar, ones that there were no records of and that didn’t require any paperwork.

  The clerk squinted at him. “I have a police issue.”

  “Bueno. May I see it?”

  The clerk unlocked a metal drawer behind him, glanced at the front door, and then held up the black automatic.

  “Work the action, please.”

  Paco watched as the clerk cocked the gun.

  “Now pull the trigger.”

  “That’s not good for the—”

  “You think I buy a gun with no firing pin? Show me the real thing, man, stop joking.”

  “You have cash? Serious cash?”

  Paco fished a thick wad of greenbacks from his black jeans and held it up. The robbery in the Dallas bus station wasn’t his only robbery along the way.

  With a glance at the front door, the clerk motioned Paco to the back of the store. At the end of the Lucite hallway was a display case of watches. The clerk detached the top of the display case and set it aside. Below was another display case, lighted. In it were a variety of pistols, the serial numbers ground off of them.

  Paco’s face shone in the light of the display case, his yellow eyes aglow. “This is what I talk about.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  WHERE HAD I BEEN WHILE Grant was falling under the spell of a palmist? While Purity was getting drunk and while Paco was cruising skid-row Memphis for guns?

  There was no way I was cruising the bar at El Quixote again.

  I asked the bald concierge in the red tie at my hotel where one could find a place where singles mingle. In case you do not know—and you might not if you are not gentry—a concierge is someone at a nicer hotel who can arrange things for hotel guests. Things like theater tickets, sporting events, and restaurant reservations. I only say this because you will not find a concierge at most Red Roof Inns. This one had a name tag that read ROGER.

  The concierge leaned in across his desk and whispered, “You looking to pay for it or just to try your luck?”

  “Pay?” I scoffed. “No.”

  “You looking for women or men?”

  “Women, of course.”

  He nodded. “I have to ask. Some foxes like grapes.” He jotted a destination onto a pad, tore the sheet off, and handed it to me. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “You are the concierge, it is what you do.”

  “Do bottle service.”

  “Bottle service?”

  “Find an empty lounge area, and ask the waitress for a bottle of Grey Goose, mixers, and ice. It will cost you, but you gotta break eggs to cook omelets.”

  “I do not drink vodka.”

  “The ladies do. If you hang around the bar you look cheap; the ladies will steer clear. If you stake out a lounge area for yourself, with a bottle and no guests, the ladies will come sit near you hoping you’ll offer them a drink while you wait for your friends. Catch flies with honey.”

  “Ah, this is clever, Roger. We do not have bottle service in La Paz.”

  “When in Rome. So order whatever it is you’re drinking, by the glass if you want. But do the bottle service and they’ll come to you. Do not pay cash, just give the waitress your credit card.” Roger looked at his watch. “It shouldn’t be too busy there now, it’s early, you’ll get the after-work crowd. Girls headed out to celebrate a birthday, like that. Birds of a feather.”

  So I did exactly as Roger had instructed. I went to the West Side swanky bar on the note, I sat at a plush couch with a coffee table and flanking chairs, and I ordered a bottle of Grey Goose, and a glass of burgundy for myself. Just as Roger had said, two girls named Stephanie and Elissa sat across from me, and I offered them a drink. More girls arrived, friends of theirs, Cami, Meg, Grace, Mim, and Vim. Dena was late. I ordered another bottle, setting my sights on Vim. She was closer to my age than the others, slightly larger, so I calculated that she would be more susceptible to my charms. I’m not saying that she was a dog or fat or anything. She was just more full-figured than the others, and I know men these days lean toward skinny and insubstantial women. Vim had long blond crinkly hair, a short print dress, and platform shoes.

  We struck up a conversation. Vim was a legal secretary, and I found that fascinating. I guessed her astrological sign, was wrong, but that never matters. If you show an interest in astrology, women think you are spiritual somehow, and I have found being spiritual is always a turn-on for the fair sex. Religious not so much.

  I lured her away from the others by sharing an interest in wine. We went to the bar, had a glass of something expensive, and I regaled her with stories of La Paz and the life of gentry. While I spoke, she crossed her legs and her eyes were bright. She ran her fingers through her hair three times. Then she touched my arm and said she had to go.

  I hope the men in the audience will pay attention to the little details, as they are crucial. Details of what scientists call “body language.” If you are speaking with a woman in a dress and she crosses her legs, the body language tells you she is testing to see if you are attracted to her legs. You must sneak a look and let her catch you. Conversely—and this I find both fascinating and infuriating—do not let a woman catch you staring at her breasts, no matter how magnificent those parts may be. I cannot say why this is so, but it is OK to look at a woman’s legs but not her tits. You will just have to trust me on this.

  Unless she speaks of her breasts, of course. You think I am making a joke, but I am not. A woman with implants will often come right out and ask you what you think of her enhancements. Then you must tell her what marvelous cleavage she has purchased. Though a friend of mine once doubted they were better than real breasts, and played that line of conversation out to the extent that the woman showed him the breasts and let him handle them for quality. Do not try this at home, kids.

  I think even the dullards in the audience will know that a woman who strokes her hair as she is talking with you wants a compliment to test your level of interest. You may compliment her hair, or better still her jewelry, because that opens a whole other line of ridiculous conversation about where she got it and what it is made of. You might even say something about how turquoise goes well with her skin, or that you prefer sterling silver to gold. It suggests that you know jewelry and more importantly might therefore be disposed to purchasing it, possibly for her sometime in the future.

  If you compliment her shoes she will like it but think you are gay.

  When a woman touches your arm as you are charming her, her body language translates a green light. She is telling you to ask for her number, and even perhaps more.

  “I have to go as well. I really must eat. Would you care to join me?”

  “I’d love to, Morty, but I have to get home to feed and walk my dog.”

  “As I am from out of town on business and really have nothing to do but go back to the room and watch television, I would gladly accompany you on the walk so that we might continue our stimulating conversation.”

  She smiled and laughed gently. “You have a very cute way of speaking, Morty,
you really do.”

  Two insults in one—but I knew she did not mean it that way.

  “You like dogs, Morty?”

  “Dogs? But of course. Who among us does not like a dog?”

  I signaled for the bill. It came.

  “Excuse me a moment, Vim.”

  I found the waiter at the end of the bar.

  “You mean to tell me each of those bottles was three hundred dollars?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought you said thirty.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Tip is included.”

  “At thirty dollars a drink I would hope that a four-course meal and a box of condoms would be included.”

  “There are free condoms in the bathroom.”

  “Yes, thank you, I already prevailed myself of some.”

  I went back to Vim.

  “Anything wrong, Morty?”

  “Of course not, querida. The waiter, he only charged me for one of the bottles, not both.”

  She stood and smoothed her dress around her delightful behind. “And you told him? I’m not sure I would have at three hundred dollars a bottle.”

  “Well, I would hate to see him get in trouble.” Might as well take the opportunity to look flush in front of the girl.

  Six hundred simolions! Ay-yi-yi! Plus for the wine. I was in for almost seven hundred. To be fair, the concierge told me it was expensive, and he gave me the choice of paying for the sex outright. I reminded myself about the millions I had in Banco Cortez and kept my smile.

  Outside, I hailed a cab, but Vim said we could walk. The June night was warm and breezy, so we walked.

  It was a fine night, and as we walked, I inhaled the sweet fragrance of her fruity shampoo and felt her arm brush mine. I told her about Sparky, the mutt I had as a kid, about how I trained him, how he would try to climb trees after squirrels, how he was afraid of cats. “Yes, I loved that dog dearly.”

  “That’s so nice.”

  “As fate would have it, he was hit by a train.”

  “A train!”

  “We were poor and lived near the subway where it was depressed into the ground. Sparky and I were playing fetch. I threw the Frisbee, the wind caught it, and Sparky leaped after it.”