in a private collection somewhere, worth fifty, a hundred
million or something. No, it’s what’s behind the painting that interests me.”
“The wall?”
She taps my cheek. “No, silly. Gerry’s safe.”
39
THIRTEEN
Oh, my. Right away I want to ask what’s inside.
Diamonds? Gold coins? More cash? What red-blooded
American stockbroker wouldn’t? Then a ray of sunshine
dawns inside my dark and addled brain, a light that slowly
becomes a question. Kelly and I both heard Gerry say his
wife’s going to inherit all his money. Why does the redhead
need to steal it?
“Call a locksmith,” I say, “preferably the guy who
installed or serviced it, somebody who might have seen you
around the house before.”
“I don’t remember who installed it.”
“Maybe Gerry kept a receipt.”
She nods. “I’ll check. But you think this locksmith will just open it for me?”
“You live here. Why wouldn’t he? Tell him Gerry’s very
sick, medicated, his attorneys need some important papers
and investment documents for the will. Maybe you cry a little, tell him about Gerry’s cancer.”
Silence. One, two beats. “You’re good, you know that?”
Right. That’s why I live in a rusty camper.
There’s a park on the Navasquan River where you can sit
hidden and watch ducks land and take off. One day a
Mallard, a green-headed male, swam within a few feet of my
hiding spot in the tall grass. He didn’t see me or sense my
presence because his attention was focused on a nearby
female.
It was a big lesson for me at the time. The dangers of being distracted by the opposite sex. And it’s a lesson I remind
myself of now as I walk across the marina parking lot, away
from my all-nighter with Kelly. I have no idea what this sexy woman is up to, what her motives might be, so unlike that
40
Jack Getze
dizzy Mallard duck, I’d better keep a sharp eye on the tall
grass.
“Listen, Susan. The kids need to see their father. This
restraining order is hurting them, too.”
I attracted my ex-wife to the telephone through deceit, but
now that she hears my voice, and feels the deep respect I still have for her, the mother of my children, Susan figures she
might as well negotiate.
“Baloney. Pay me what you owe.”
“I’m giving you almost everything I take home. Some
months, more.”
“It’s not enough. Get another job.”
Sometimes her vicious attitude strikes me as personal.
Wouldn’t a reasonable person see the logic of what I’m
saying? “I can’t even afford rent, Susan. I’m living in a
camper.”
“So I heard. But that’s not my fault. Or my problem. It’s
just another sign what a deadbeat you are.”
Something clicks. Memories collide. Or maybe that
snapping sound is my heart breaking. The mother of my
children has no mercy left for me. None. “That’s how you got the non-visitation order, isn’t it? Telling the court I live in a camper?”
I hear her sniff and I can imagine her chin lifting, the same way her mother’s does. “If you or your lawyer had shown up
for family court, you’d wouldn’t have to ask me, would you?
”
Oh, hell, Susan. I know. “You told the judge I was
homeless?”
“I will do whatever it takes to get my children what they
need. So yes, a friend of mine took pictures of you getting
tossed out of your apartment. He also got a few shots of you living in that wreck.”
“The pick-up runs fine, for your information. And the
camper—”
“Give me a break.”
“Give you a break? This from the woman who called the
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BIG NUMBERS
cops on me for watching Ryan play baseball? I’m paying you
everything I possibly can, Susan. More than I can, really. And I’m doing it—”
She hangs up.
I pull a slow deep breath, hold it for a while, then let the air sift out through down-turned lips.
“—doing it for our children.”
I’m anxious to visit Luis’s Mexican Grill, find out what
happened to my favorite bartender, what’s going to happen
next. But I’d better stop by the office, see who’s called.
Heaven forbid I might stumble into a commission.
What’s that on my desk?
A package about the size of a carton of cigarettes awaits
me. Gift-wrapped in white tissue and a red bow. A handful of nearby co-workers grins or sneaks glances my way. Must be
some kind of gag.
“Open it,” Walter says. “We all chipped in.”
I rip at the tissue. Feels like a box of phony exploding golf balls, a derogatory reference to my ass-kissing golf kinship with Straight Up Vic. The boys kid me hard about playing
with the boss.
“We thought you might be running low,” Walter says.
“We figured gold was the appropriate color,” another
voice says.
What I have in my hand, beneath the paper and red
adornment, is not golf balls, exploding or otherwise. No,
what they’ve packaged for me in crimson bow and white
tissue is at least a five-year supply of prophylactics—factory-lubricated, specially ribbed and scented for my partner’s
pleasure. Tinted the color of a Malibu sunset.
“Bang the redhead with one of those,” Walter says, “and I
guarantee you get discretion on the account.”
42
FOURTEEN
It’s a tough crowd at Shore Securities. No manicured finger
nails or Ivy League business school grads around here. Our
New Jersey backgrounds, the kind of investments we sell,
Wall Street wouldn’t let us sort mail.
I mean, okay, the place looks nice. The best hardwood,
paints, and wall paper. Expensive decorations. But you see
and hear Jersey Shore every time you walk through the big
sales room, listen to us speak or play a vulgar prank.
“Been going over her portfolio in the hot tub?” Walter
asks.
I’d like to rip off at these crude, high-school-educated
former car, shoe, pots-and-pans salesmen, but hostile
language on my part would only produce increasingly
disgusting personal insult. There is nothing to do now but
show them the famous, full-boat Carr grin. Act impervious.
“Are those tits real?” another broker, Bobby G. says.
Rags isn’t the only person who could have kicked off the
rumor I’m providing special intimate services to Kelly Burns, but my sales manager has to be Suspect Number One.
Sure, everyone noticed her the other day with Gerry in the
conference room. The red hair. That figure. But I’m guessing Rags used his brief but very public telephone conversation
with Kelly to leverage his inside status, spread stories with the troops.
I cannot believe how that little scumbag is out to get me.
“She a real redhead?” Walter says.
I swear the only subjects of interest around here are
money, sex, and sports, in that order. No great revelation, I suppose. Probably goes on at every male-dominated office in
Americ
a. Maybe the world.
Civilization, I conclude, rests entirely on the shoulders of women.
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BIG NUMBERS
***
Late that night, Luis’s Mexican Grill is empty but for me,
Luis, and three sixty-something guys with canvas fishing hats and gray stubble watching baseball highlights on ESPN. Luis
walks into their viewing line, checks his watch, shuts off the TV.
“I must close,” he says.
“Shit,” one of the fishing-hat geezers says.
I push up from my stool, ready to stumble out to my
camper, suck up some fresh night air.
“Ten more minutes, Lou,” another fishing-hat says. “Till
the end of the show.”
Luis catches my eye, flashes me a palm. Telling me to stay.
When I sit back down, Luis approaches the closest of the
outdoor geezers. Also the biggest, the one who spoke.
Luis saying, “Leave now or I will dismember your
friends.”
Takes eight or nine seconds for the fishing hat guys to don
windbreakers, throw money on the bar, and make their way
outside. They no longer seem pissed they can’t watch the end of Baseball Tonight.
Luis locks up on their heels, hits a switch for the Dos Equis neon in the window, and the restaurant’s corners flood with
shadow. Luis comes back to the bar in semi-darkness, slips
under the gate, and pours us two shooters of Herradura Gold.
“What is that ‘dismember’ line?” I say. “Some old Aztec
curse?”
“It is possible,” Luis says. “But I think I made it up.”
We do our shooters. All at once. Heads all the way back.
“Something on your mind?” I say.
“There is in fact something I feel I must say, but the
subject is not honestly of my concern. Not my business, you
would say.”
“Luis, you can say or ask anything you want. Anything.”
He pours us both another shot. “It is the senora,” he says.
“Senora Burns.”
I try to stop him. “I know. I understand. She’s another
man’s wife. But to me, Kelly’s a big girl. She doesn’t belong to 44
Jack Getze
any man, let alone a man who’ll soon be worm food. If I
wasn’t painting her wagon, somebody else would be.”
“I hear you say, ‘She is a big girl,’ but is this really how you feel? If you are deceiving yourself, if inside this thing does make you feel dishonor, than your spirit will be harmed. Such injuries can be irreparable.”
I grasp Luis’s spiritual approach to my mental and physical
health, but I’m also pretty sure he’s got the wrong guy. We
stockbrokers pretty much hang our morals on the wall every
morning when we come to work. Like a gunfighter hanging
up his Colt when he visits a whore’s bedroom.
“Also,” Luis says, “beautiful women are expert deceivers
of men. She may be using you for a purpose of which you are
unaware.”
Let’s see. So far she’s exploited me for kinky sex,
laundering money, and planning the burglary of Gerry’s
private safe. What could possibly be left?
In the parking lot, my camper and Luis’s red Jeep are fifty
feet apart, both of our cars tucked up against the old chain-link fence that runs alongside a row of four-story white pines.
The fence and pines mark the always-shady back border of
the restaurant’s property.
A gentle midnight breeze tastes of coming warm rain. A
Gulf of Mexico hurricane landed west of New Orleans
tonight, and trailing moisture is storming up the whole
eastern half of America.
Our shoes kick up rocks in the gravel parking lot. A three-
quarter moon blinks down between fluffy clouds, throwing
slanted and exaggerated shadows as we walk.
“Consider what I have said tonight,” Luis says. “The
senora is married to a rich and powerful man.”
Did something move near those pine trees?
“I’m not planning major moves,” I say. “I just need to
keep the account after her husband dies.”
He offers his hand. “Cruz knows you can sleep here
whenever you like.”
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BIG NUMBERS
My hand gets lost in his huge fingers. “You told me.
Thanks, Luis. See you tomorrow.”
A gust of hot wind rustles the tops of the pine trees as I
reach my camper. A couple of days ago it was cold. Showing
winter’s coming, with snow and ice and frozen car seats. But right now New Jersey’s balmy and summer moist again,
Miami Beach tropical. Whichever way the wind blows.
I unlock my pick-up and notice Luis’s interior light pop on
with mine. I wonder how far he has to drive. Where he lives.
I’ve never even asked him if he’s married.
Luis’s Popeye shoulders impose themselves against the
Jeep’s interior, then get sucked back out the open door by
some invisible force. Whoa. What was that?
A shout startles my ears. Scuffling feet knock gravel
against the fender of Luis’s Jeep. The clatter sounds like hail.
Men are grunting. Fighting. Adrenalin shoots into my blood
stream.
I run toward Luis’s Jeep. My shoes crunch on the parking
lot rocks. Pain stings my stiff knees with each stride.
Shouts cut the warm night as I round the Jeep. Three men
have Luis pinned to the ground, one guy on each arm, a third punching him in the face. The puncher is Branchtown Blackie.
I’d recognize that fedora anywhere.
More adrenaline pumps into my blood. My pulse goes
limit higher.
I goose my jogger’s run into a sprint and leap on Blackie’s
narrow back. He doesn’t set himself, react in any way, and we go rolling together in a tangle of arms and legs, sharp gravel poking our backs. Blackie’s short bony fingers somehow get a grip on my throat, but at least Luis no longer has fists
pummeling him.
A train whistle blows. The bell begins to clang at the
crossing one block away. I tug at the fingers around my neck.
Blackie’s breath is hot on my face. He smells of that ass-crack flowery soap.
A blue flame sparks inside the pine trees. The windshield
of Luis’s Jeep explodes. A firecracker pops by where I saw the blue flame. Glass from Luis’s windshield tumbles onto the
asphalt beside me.
46
Jack Getze
Gunshot.
I twist out of Blackie’s grip and press my face low. Cheek
against the ground. The asphalt tastes like automobile rubber.
47
FIFTEEN
Another blue flash sparks against the pine trees.
An invisible meteorite zips past overhead, the vibration
poking me even before I hear the shot. Zip-bang. I wonder at the sequence, how the soft tissue in my belly senses the
bullet’s super-sonic flight before my ears.
A taste of burnt gun powder drifts in the wind. The train
whistle blows again, closer this time. Louder, more menacing.
Gusts of warm air push leaves and trash scuffling along the
blacktop.
I punch Blackie’s chin as he scrambles to stand. Pain skids
from my knuckles to my wrist, but Blackie doesn’t flinch. His stomach must have sensed that bullet, too. He’s up and
hauling ass toward the pi
ne trees.
I roll into a squat and check Luis. He’s freed himself from
Blackie’s pals. One guy with long stringy hair clutches a
bloody shoulder. The other one, wearing a thick goatee and
thicker gold chains around his neck, drags his friend toward the pines.
Luis touches my head. “Stay down.”
A car engine fires. Doors open and shut, tires spin on wet
leaves. Squealing rubber. A dark shape crosses in front of the pine trees. Light from the approaching train turns a fog of
burnt tire dust pale blue.
The train crackles through the nearby crossing and I catch
a deep breath. And another. Luis and I are alone. He touches his left arm.
“You’re bleeding,” I say.
“Pocito,” he says. “We must find my knife.”
I stand up for a closer look. “You’re bleeding more than a
little bit, Luis. You need stitches. An emergency room.”
“I will be fine. Look for my knife.”
Okay. Fine. I get back down on my hands and knees and
peek beneath his Jeep. I catch a glimpse of shiny metal, a
48
Jack Getze
reflection off the street light, then slide my fingers around something smooth and cold. Ouch. And sharp.
“I found it,” I say.
I bounce the switchblade in my hand, measuring its
awesome weight. I stand up to close the blade, feel it lock
with a click, then immediately press the chrome release
button. Zing. The eight-inch blade snaps out with a
mechanical jolt. An instant sword.
Eat your heart out Errol Flynn.
Don’t know why I’m in such a goofy mood the next day.
Maybe it was me and Luis telling jokes in the emergency
room. But when I see Rags go into Vic’s office for their
regular weekly chit-chat, I get a stupid idea.
Okay, another stupid idea.
It’s an old gag, and the play takes almost nothing to set up.
I have to ask Walter for the number is all, then figure out how to bypass our controller’s block on this type of telephone call.
It’s all doable, Walter assures me, although I will have to pay the price—attribution—if I want to watch this gag go off.
Screw it. I want to watch.
Walter hands me a camera phone. He wants to see Rags’
face, too.
Mr. Vic’s secretary tries to stop me, but it’s a feeble effort.
Determined as I am to screw myself, weapons of mass
destruction couldn’t keep me out of Mr. Vic’s office.
Rags and Vic both give me blank faces when I burst into
Big Numbers (Austin Carr Mystery Book 1) Page 5