by Arlette Lees
He reached over with great difficulty and took my hand. “There isn’t any air in this room,” he said.
“For God’s sake, would somebody open the doors!” I cried.
“Your hand is so warm. Only eight more years,” he whispered, with a wink. “Then we’re going to....” The light faded from his blue eyes and there was no longer anyone home behind them.
I don’t know why I still loved Cal, knowing he was in on the whole plot from the get-go. If he hadn’t hooked up with the wrong woman things might have worked out for him. In the end he made the right decision. He chose me over Bell and it had cost him his life. I kissed him on the cheek and let go of his hand. There was one more thing I needed to do.
I knelt on the grimy floor where Bell lay crumpled like a broken doll. I wasn’t good at hanging onto hate and I let it all go.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Where did you come from?”
She looked at me like a mental patient in fugue and struggled to get the words out.
“After all the aliases, and all the towns, and all the scams...how the hell should I know?”
Bell gave an ugly laugh
“You were my one mistake, Abby. I should have knocked you off first.”
During the struggle she’d somehow managed to retrieve the gun. She clenched her jaw and pressed the barrel to my cheek.
“Robby!” I screamed.
Bell gave a derisive snort, jammed the gun into her mouth, and pulled the trigger.
CASH
Women! They were nothing but a game to Cash. Three months of pouring on the charm and Carly was in the bag. They’d done it all nice and legal and quiet; preacher, ring, cozy little out-of-the-way wedding chapel. He was looking forward to tomorrow, when everything she owned was going into both of their names; stocks, bonds, bank accounts. Carly was rich and beautiful. Too bad for her that she wasn’t overly bright. If she was, she’d smell him out as the fleet-footed grifter he’d always been. By the time she was onto his game she’d be cleaned out, and he’d be a thousand miles away, licking his chops and counting his take.
He showered, shaved, and put on the open-necked blue shirt that showed a subtle shadowing of chest hair. A strand or two of bling around his neck, a splash of Ax, and he’d be ready to go to work on his next mark, the gorgeous Greta. But, he’d better be careful. Greta was sharper than Carly. He couldn’t afford any missteps. Her ailing banker father was almost ready to kick the bucket. Then he’d be rolling in dough. Her dough, if he played his cards right.
A man could marry an endless succession of women, if he kept moving, used a phone book full of aliases, and never bothered with the inconvenience of divorce. As long as one wife never found out about the others (and that hadn’t happened yet) he could run the same scam from here to kingdom come.
Cash smoothed back his head of black hair, allowing one renegade curl to fall casually over his forehead, like that cool actor on the old Hawaii Five-O. ‘You handsome dog’ he thought, as he checked his image in the mirror, one last time. He smiled his crooked smile. He had a hard job, but, somebody had to do it.
He still had five thousand dollars in his wallet, money from the aging widow who was waiting for him in Tulsa. He snickered. It was going to be a long wait. He’d used what he’d had to bag Greta. He hoped it wouldn’t take much more.
Carly was already in bed glued to American Idol. She looked up absently as he tried to slip unnoticed out of the door of their luxury condo. Yes, he could say ‘ours’, now that they tied the knot. He liked the way the word rolled around in his head like a billiard ball. ‘Ours.’
“You’re forgetting your wallet, darling,” she cooed, from the acre of satin comforters. “I found it on the kitchen counter.” He smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. You get rushed, you start doing stupid things. As he reached for his wallet, that nasty little poodle of hers tried to bite his fingers off.
“Now, now Tiffany!” she scolded.
God, how he hated that pampered little rodent. He was already planning its mysterious disappearance.
He slipped the wallet into the same pocket with the red velvet ring box that held the big blue diamond that Carly had never seen. She pulled him down to the bed for a kiss. He had to admit she was a delicious babe. Golden hair. Skin like white chocolate. But, he wasn’t in the game for love, or sex, or any of the usual clichés. He kept things simple. He was strictly a money man.
She planted a soft kiss on his lips. Gullible piece of fluff. Tiffany snapped and he jerked away.
“Sweetheart?”
Good lord, what now? He was never going to get out of here. His antiperspirant was already letting him down.
“Angel, I’ve got to meet a client. If I can close this deal, we can spend a whole month in Florida, soaking up the sun and living on nachos and Margaritas.”
He could tell from the look on her face that she had something on her mind, if that was possible.
“Please, don’t be mad,” she pouted. “I went shopping this afternoon and the Porsche is out of gas. I pulled into the carport on fumes.” He could swear the dog was gloating.
Cash felt like blowing his stack, shaking her by the hair, slapping her up. He’d certainly had enough practice. But, he wasn’t going to blow his gig. Not tonight. He had to be patient, just a while longer, but all this patience was about to give him an aneurism.
Carly reached for her purse and dangled the keys to the station wagon. Next to the Porsche it was a junkyard on wheels. What did she think he was? A house husband with three kids and a cocker spaniel? This was the car she let the housekeeper drive when hers was broken down. Fine impression this was going to make on Greta.
“It’s okay,” she smiled sweetly. “I know you’ll take good care of it.”
Holding his temper was giving him acid stomach.
Cash glanced at his watch. He was running dangerously late for his dinner date. If he took the time to siphon gas out of the station wagon, Greta would be breathing fire by the time he picked her up and the whole scam would be ruined.
He jingled the Ford keys into his pocket and headed out the door. He’d tell Greta the Porsche was in for a tune-up and he had to borrow his cousin’s wheels. He didn’t actually have a cousin. In fact, he’d left everyone in his family down some long-forgotten road, so many years ago he could no longer remember exactly what they looked like. A dad with whiskey on his breath. A mother with a bad cigarette cough. They’d all be six feet under by now.
Greta took one look at the car, lifted her delicate eyebrows and said they’d take her Lincoln. She was as darkly exotic as Carly was golden, with shiny, long black hair and brown eyes deep enough to drown in. He left the Ford parked on the street outside her luxury high-rise. With any luck someone would steal it and save him further embarrassment.
It wasn’t a very auspicious beginning for such an important evening, but wait until she saw the ring. It was a rock the size of a watermelon and it was the real thing. Scored it from ‘wife’ number three. It had been on a dozen fingers in the last few years, but he’d always managed to get it back before he’d moved on.
He almost laughed out loud when Greta decided on the Fireside Lounge. He’d met both of them there on the same night, Carly during happy hour, Greta later in the evening after he’d dropped Carly back at her place. They ordered up a storm; shrimp cocktail, wilted spinach salad, rare prime rib, expensive French wine. Over Grande Marnier and cherries jubilee, he popped the question and she said, yes! yes! yes! and bubbled like a school girl.
The ring blazed like a small bonfire on her delicate finger. He leaned across the table, kissed her red lips, hugged her the best he could with the table between them. Her white diamond earring felt like an ice cube against his cheek and he could smell the hint of light lemony perfume on her graceful neck. April, she told him, would be the perfect time for a wedding. It was her favorite month and the lilacs would be in bloom. April. Only a few short months away. Victory! Greta was in the bag.
Just like when he was a kid, too much excitement and he had to take a piss. The check arrived, but he had to make an emergency pit stop, now! He left his credit card on the table so Greta could pay the check. Then she said they’d go back to her place and ‘get naked.’ Oh well, it was all in a day’s work.
He didn’t mind leaving the credit card. This way he didn’t have to dip into the ‘real’ money. No one would ever make the connection between the fictitious name on the card and the real him, although there were times when he couldn’t quite remember who the real him was.
He resisted the urge to strut and crow on his way to the head. He was consumed with fantasies of community property rights and joint bank accounts. Her daddy also had a yacht and a vacation home in the Bahamas. He could see himself kicked back in the shade of a veranda, sipping a mint julep. He decided right then and there, his grifting days were over. Greta was a keeper. He was ready to settle down.
When he returned to the table, Greta had gone off to powder her nose, her black sequined purse snugged next to her wine goblet, right out in the open where any passing crook could make off with it. Twenty precious minutes passed before he discovered that the purse was full of Kleenex and the Lincoln was gone from the parking lot. His heart clenched violently in his chest. What the hell was going on here?
Dames were nuts! You never knew from one moment to the next what they were going to do. Her father. That had to be it. A medical emergency. The final one, if his luck held. Relax, Cash. It’s all good.
Now the waiter was standing over him waving the check, tapping his foot. No, the lady had not paid. She’d run out of the establishment like her dress was on fire. He must be right then. A grave family crisis. Even so he’d feel a lot better if the diamond ring were in his pocket instead of on her finger.
The waiter cleared his throat. “Sir, the check.”
Annoyed at having to dip into the ‘real’ money, Cash pulled out his wallet. Irritation in his every gesture, he flipped open the bill compartment. Empty! That was IMPOSSIBLE! The wallet hadn’t left his pocket all evening.
The waiter snorted with disgust and went to get the manager.
Sweat prickled in Cash’s armpits and ran down his ribs like spiders. Now, the manager was walking toward his table, looking none too friendly. Panic stricken, Cash bolted from the restaurant like a common criminal. Normally, he was smooth as silk, could talk himself out of these small fixes, but, with all the worry over Greta his mind simply vapor-locked.
Three blocks away he stopped running, his heart thundering in his chest. Shit! He was too old for this crap. Felt like he was going to have a heart attack. And just when everything was going so well.
Now what? He found a pay phone and fished for the last coin to his name. His phone rang and rang. Damn! Carly had turned off the f-ing ringer again. Then he remembered that the Porsche was out of gas, so she couldn’t have picked him up anyway. He hung up and the phone swallowed his last quarter. He beat the damn machine to death with the mouthpiece, only stopping after he crushed his thumb.
Desperate, he found himself pacing outside a liquor store. He hated this part of town. Reminded him of the kind of neighborhood he’d run away from as a scrawny, hungry kid. He was at his wit’s end until he bumped into a good Samaritan named Blooper, who drank his beer out of a paper bag, and gave him a lift in an old, red pickup that smelled like marijuana and sweaty dogs.
When they pulled up to the high-rise, there was no sign of the Lincoln. He pushed Greta’s buzzer a hundred times and got no response. In sheer desperation, he kicked the security door, until he snapped a toe. Back in the street, the Ford sat low to the ground on four slashed tires.
This kind of shit didn’t happen on this side of town. This kind of shit didn’t happen to him! The sick swirling in the pit of his stomach told him the engagement was off. It also told him his diamond ring was probably in another state by now, along with the exotic, erotic, black-haired Greta. He doubled over and threw up next to the Ford.
Blooper was leaning casually against his truck, rolling a doobie, spilling most of the bud onto the asphalt. He looked up with a shrug.
“Need a ride someplace else, bub?” he said.
It was pitch black with no moon on the rise. As lousy as he felt, it was a comfort to see the golden lamplight spilling from the condo window. It was nice to know that even if he didn’t give a hill of beans about Carly, she’d greet him with open arms. He might even put up with that yapping rodent another day or two.
He slipped his key in the lock, wondering what cover story he’d concoct about the missing Ford. In a pinch he always came up with something. The condo was both quiet and empty. Carly was nowhere to be seen. The satiny bed was made, but every last personal item had been removed from the rooms. The drawers, shelves, closets and medicine cabinet were empty and every surface was wiped clean. It was as if Carly had never set foot in the place. The only thing left behind was a vague scent of lemon in the air. Then he noticed the note pinned to the lampshade.
YOU CAN KEEP THE FORD.
Holy shit! The Porsche!
Cash ran down the stairs and limped toward the carport. The slot was empty. A small patch of transmission fluid shone wetly in the greenish glow from a street lamp.
When he roused the grumbling condo manager from his sleep, Cash’s hair was a mess and he looked like a raving lunatic. There was no Carly Chase in his records and never had been. Condo 205 was owned by a couple who were vacationing in Europe for the last six month. Then the old goat accused him of being on drugs and went to call security.
Cash stood in the dark parking lot, immobilized by shock and disbelief. For the first time in his life he didn’t know where to turn. Everything he’d worked so hard for was gone...the money...the diamond...the Porsche. How could this have possibly happened to him?
In a flash of indignation he had the fleeting impulse to call the cops; then again, he was embarrassed at having been taken. It would also have been a little complicated to explain. What if they asked him a lot of questions? What if they came up with his real name?
His best bet would be to make his way back to Tulsa. He turned his pockets inside out. He’d put through a call to the widow, but it would have to be collect.
AGAINST ALL ODDS
The first rumble of thunder rolled over Little Ireland as I blasted through the front door like the F.B.I. on a midnight bust. Mama jumped a foot off the couch, the extent of her day’s exercise.
“Holy shit, Rosemary! I thought the Russians were coming.” I tossed my books on a chair inside the door.
“Guess what? I’m the best speller in the Hoover class of ’56. I get to compete in the countywide at Cooley next week. If I win, the cash award will cover my books at Community.”
“With such big ideas you’ll need all the help you can get. It’s dark outside. Where the hell have you been?”
“In the library. I only have a few days to prepare. Alexa Micheluzzi almost beat me today. This is serious stuff, Mama.”
“That rich girl from Country Club drive?”
“She’s really very nice once you get to know her, but she doesn’t need the money and I do.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t rig it.”
“The spelling bee? How do you rig a spelling bee?”
“Rich people do whatever they want.”
That’s the way Mama was, always thinking someone was going to pull one over on her. The rich. The Jews. The teller at the bank. We lived in the shadow of the factories on Lower Division Street where Mama kept the windows closed against the smoke and the doors locked against the undefined adversary in her head. A few feet to the east and our house would be in the center of the railroad tracks. Across the street was the Rescue Mission, the Thrift Store and the Tammany Hall Bar that used to belong to Old Da. We had money in those days, enough for center cuts and nice clothes.
Now we make due on Mama’s disability checks.
“So, what was your winning word?”
“Diarrhea,” I said. “Miss Silverwein says it appears in almost every spelling bee.” I worshipped Miss Silverwein with her soft wool suits, cultured demeanor and mist of Blue Waltz perfume. I wanted to be just like her, teach English when I got out of college and smell as sweet as a new doll fresh out of the box.
“Diarrhea,” said Mama. “D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A. That’s an easy one. It’s right on the label of the Pepto bottle.” Mama sometimes surprised me with all the things she knew. “I wouldn’t broadcast it though. It’s not a very ladylike word.”
“At Countywide we have to come up with the spelling and the definition. It’s much harder than what I’m used to.”
“What if they give you fair? That could be county or bus.”
“They won’t. It wouldn’t be fair. Get it?”
She’d lost interest in the subject and I found myself talking to the back of her head. She concentrated on her quiz show. The horizontal on the TV had been going crazy for two weeks and I was afraid she’d go blind if she didn’t stop squinting at it. Time to break the bad news before I lost my nerve.
“Mama, I’ll need a dress for the competition.”
She stared straight ahead like she hadn’t heard me. She’d been pinching pennies to fix the TV. She didn’t want to hear about dresses. That was even worse than yearbooks and class rings, things I had yet to mention and probably never would.
“It’s important, Mama. I’ll be standing in front of the whole auditorium.” “Phoenix,” she said to the TV. “Capitol of Arizona.” She rubbed her left foot. “My bunions are killing me. Wear the blue velvet Aunt Nora gave you for your birthday.”
I was still talking to the back of her head. I stepped between her and the t.v. so she’d have to look at me.