Tumblin' Dice

by John McFetridge

  “You can’t kill the undead.”

  Angie smiled and Ritchie was thinking that she did like sitting and talking like this. He was starting to see how she had a good set-up here and didn’t want it to change but she could tell it would. No matter what happened now with Frank and Felix from Philadelphia and these bikers moving in the whole place would change and Angie wasn’t ready for it.

  Then Ritchie realized no one ever is. Even when the High were just fighting all the time or not even talking to each other, he didn’t want the band to break up.

  Hell, even when they were sneaking around behind Frank’s back, Ritchie just wanted to keep seeing Angie.

  Now he was realizing he wanted to keep seeing her now, too.

  He said, “So Morrison stood there all day. John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band came on — they were a surprise. Eric Clapton on guitar. They did some old time rock’n’roll, too, Lennon growling it out, ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie.’ Man, Yoko screeched a couple of songs from inside a big bag — it was wild.”

  Angie said, “You look like you were there yesterday,” and Ritchie said, well, “Truth is I saw a bunch of it on YouTube on the tour bus coming up here,” and Angie laughed.

  “But I remember the Doors like it was yesterday. Morrison put on a great show. The whole band did, they were great. People kept yelling for ‘Light My Fire’ and Morrison would say, should we give it to them? And Kreiger would say nah, and start playing something else. When they played ‘The End,’ Kreiger, man, what can you say, that guitar, but Morrison, he was possessed, jumping way up in the air, falling down in a heap, rising up, the place going crazy. It was incredible — he really learned from those old guys.”

  Then Angie said, “What are we going to do?” and Ritchie said, what?

  “What are we going to do? All these gangsters all over the place, people being killed in the parking lot, Frank’s into something way over his head going to get himself killed — what are we going to do?”

  Ritchie was thinking, we?, and liking it, and he said, “Stay off to the side in the shadows? Watch it all, see how it goes.”

  Angie said, “Yeah, okay, that sounds good,” and she reached across the table and held his hand.

  • • •

  The chick said, “This car is old,” and Frank said, “It’s a classic — it’s a ’72 Barracuda,” and she said, “Well how do you change the radio?”

  Frank said, you don’t. “This is classic, too.”

  She took a drag on her cigarette and blew smoke in his face saying it wasn’t classic, it was just old. “It sounds like a TV commercial.”

  Frank had picked the girl up at her apartment, one of those big concrete slabs in the middle of nowhere, just off the 401 out in Scarborough, and now he was turning north onto the 400 heading out of town.

  Trying to stay under 120 clicks, but tense, nervous, that fucking Burroughs calling him last night telling him about the guy shot in the parking lot, saying, “Good thing you were in Toronto: you’re not a suspect,” and Frank not even telling him to fuck off. Then Burroughs laughing and saying, don’t worry, these hick cops can’t find their own dicks, “This’ll be cleaned up before you get here,” but Frank wasn’t so sure. He hated the idea of getting any attention now.

  Especially now, with half a million bucks in cash in the trunk, Jesus, tens and twenties and fifties all tied up in rubber bands, just tossed into a hockey bag. The Police singing about poets, priests, and politicians all having words for their positions, yeah, but for the rest of us it’s de do do do de da da da, that’s all we’ve got to say.

  The chick (Frank thought her name might be Felice, could that be it?) said, “Oh yeah, this is hot. The Police, that was a blast, that show — they’re so sexy,” and Frank said, what show?, thinking this Felice wasn’t even born when the Police quit, but she said, “At the ACC, couple years ago now,” and Frank said, oh yeah, right, the reunion.

  He liked the Police, maybe the last band to make it into classic rock and still get played on the radio, them and U2, just sneaking in under the wire — like him, this new deal with these new guys, new players, finally getting a chance to step up and be one of them, not just a gofer.

  Felice said, “JayBee had a private box for the show. Like the one for Lady Gaga. Great party.” Then she said, “Hey, you used to be in the music business, didn’t you?”

  Frank said, “Yeah.” He looked at this Felice, maybe twenty years old, working as an in-call escort in Toronto, coming up to the casino to work as an in-call escort in the hotel, special because she could be Arab or India Indian, playing that Desi look. She could be a belly dancer or wear one of those headscarfs. He wasn’t sure what she really was, maybe a real Indian, Ojibwa or whatever they were that leased the land to the casino. Marc set up the deal with a woman named Constance, called her Stancie, who was backed up by the Saints of Hell. Another one of the benefits of working with these new guys, they’d be bringing in all kinds of new girls. And this time Frank would get a piece of it. He said, “Yeah, I was in the music business,” thinking, I ran the fucking music business in Canada, I was the manager of the bands all through the fucking ’80s. But then thinking being the biggest manager in Canada was like being the tallest pygmy — who gives a shit?

  She took another drag, blew out rings, saying, “So why’d you quit?”

  “I didn’t quit,” Frank said, “I moved up.” He pushed a button, lowered her window an inch, did the same to his own. She kept looking at him, blowing smoke in his face.

  She said, “Up? I thought you worked for the casino now?”

  “I run the casino.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  He was going to run the casino, kept telling himself that. Get out from under these American mobsters, take the place over, these new guys helping him out. His plan. Back in the ’90s casino gambling was finally legalized in Ontario and the first casino opened in Windsor, right there at the end of the tunnel looking at Detroit. No casinos in Michigan then, nowhere around there, people coming from all over Michigan, Cleveland, Toledo, all over, and Frank started booking bands in right away. Well, what bands he could — they weren’t too interested in his post-punk, Seattle alt-rock rip-offs, his chick singer-songwriters all wanting to be Sarah McLachlan, or the boy bands he was trying to get off the ground. Frank remembered one of the guys from Philly, some guy younger than him but wearing a suit and tie, like he was trying to look middle-aged, telling him he needed classier bands, “Singers wearing decent clothes, big bands, shit like that,” and Frank thought he was nuts, thinking, you aren’t going to score chicks with some Tony Bennett impersonator, but he had a lot to learn about the casino business.

  Felice said, “Are we stopping on the way?” and Frank said, no, “It’s not even a two-hour drive,” and she said, “Really? There’s nothing you want to stop for?” and Frank looked at her and thought she was coming on to him, and he thought if he wanted any of that he would’ve got it at her apartment. He’d thought about it, but was too nervous, leaving half a million bucks in the car — shit, thinking about it now making him nervous again, five hundred grand — and if he wanted this Felice he’d wait till they got to the hotel. Then he thought, wait a minute, why was he even thinking it? She was probably a bonus from the Saints, a gift for doing business, like a fruit basket.

  Shit, he was getting in his own head.

  He said, “No, we’re driving right through.”

  Frank figured it out, though, when the live music scene dried up, when the boomers were too old for it and their kids weren’t interested in it, that’s when he sold out and went to work directly for the casino. Little Mr. Suit and Tie from Philadelphia made him Assistant Entertainment Director in Niagara Falls, but then got shot in the head in a parking lot in Atlantic City and never did see the new place in Huron Woods open. Frank had to pretty much start over with t
he new guy, Felix Alfano, so it was taking him longer to move up. Too long. He watched fucking Felix and the Philly Mob take the money out of Huron Woods in fucking dump trucks, keeping it all to themselves. Not just the casino profits, the Ontario government getting almost squat, but the money laundering, the loan sharking, the drugs, the sports books, the hookers, all the high roller action that never saw the casino floor.

  He looked at Felice and was thinking she thought he was still some gofer, some guy picking her up and driving her to her gig, not realizing he was the man in charge. Almost. Executive Entertainment Director, but really he was leaving that to Angie and looking to become Executive Director of the Casino. Just Felix in his way, guy who didn’t really give a shit about the Canadian action and wanted to get back to Atlantic City but wasn’t ready to hand it over to Frank. Well, fuck him, take it from him. Frank thinking his time had come. Almost sixty-five years old, hell, mid sixties, no, early sixties but looking good, and still a gofer? No, that’s what this whole thing with the Saints was going to change.

  He said to Felice, “Honey, why don’t you show me what you can do?” Didn’t have to explain it, she unbuckled her seat belt, slid across the seat and started opening his pants.

  They were through Barrie then, nothing but trees and fields till they got to Huron Woods and he was thinking, yeah, it’s not too late for me to step up and get my share. These Saints are strong enough to run these fucking Americans back to Philly — they know what they’re doing.

  And this Felice was good, took her time, no rush. She knew what she was doing, too.

  When he was done she sat up on the seat and got some baby wipes out of her purse, cleaned him up and put him away, Frank thinking she was a real pro. Like everything about these Saints, they were nothing like the beer-gut, long-haired losers he’d thought they were. That one, Danny Mac, gave him the money, that guy’s wife was hot.

  And then Frank thought, no, fuck, get that out of your head, you know what you’re doing. Pretty sure, anyway.

  • • •

  Gayle had a million questions for these women. The first one was “What’s a zip?” but they didn’t seem interested at all. It was like the ’50s or something, out with the ladies who lunch, the most important thing on their minds some new hairdresser that just came over from Italy, some new diet fad, who’s sleeping with the pool guy. Shit, Gayle couldn’t believe how cliché these chicks were, actually had pool guys.

  One of them said they should’ve gone to Zizi’s and another one said they went to Zizi’s last time and the oldest one, late-fifties, early-sixties at least but done up, make-up, jewellery — had to be twenty-five grand in necklace and earrings alone, never mind those four, five rings she had on, said, “No, last time we went to Il Cavallino,” and they all said, oh yeah, right. All these expensive Italian restaurants Gayle really had no idea even existed, all the way up here in Woodbridge, north of Toronto.

  Not one of these women cared that their husbands made the money bringing heroin and coke into the country, running hookers and killing off the competition. Thinking that made Gayle smile a little, realizing that the reason she was at this lunch was because the husbands couldn’t kill off the new competition, her Danny and Nugs and all their boys, coast to coast. This time they had to make a deal with the competition, cut up the pie a little more, and still all these women cared about the money was spending it. They’d walked into this restaurant like they owned it, calling the waiters and the maître d’ by name, making jokes, no idea how their world was changing.

  Except maybe one, Rita, sitting across from Gayle in the big half-circle booth. Gayle watched her, the way she drank her glass of Merlot in two long drinks and poured herself some more, not offering anyone else any. This Rita was a little younger than the others, mid-thirties maybe, flipping her long, curly black hair over her shoulder, wearing her sunglasses still.

  Gayle was thinking she might know a little about this Rita, about her type, a woman smarter than anyone gave her credit for, her brains just making it tougher. Probably had a wild youth, got in some serious trouble, bailed out by her daddy, now still drinking too much, being halfway miserable in a marriage she didn’t have the fight to get out of. Like a few of the biker chicks Gayle knew who stayed with their men as they rose up the ranks. Hell, what Gayle’d been doing till she got her act together, started actually running Danny’s fronts like real businesses, making money with the car rentals and the detailing shop, and now looking at the real businesses, and thinking, shit, was she really?

  There were so many changes happening every day, might as well look at it. Danny sure wasn’t.

  Other than Rita, though, the rest of the day was the Twilight Zone. First of all, Woodbridge wasn’t that backwards little town anymore, it was an Italian city. All the billboards and businesses, the real estate agent signs, the new developments, everything had Italian names. This restaurant, the Tremonti Ristorante, might have looked like a typical Canadian strip mall place on the outside, could have been an Outback Steak House or an East Side Mario’s, but inside it was all marble floors and hardwood, plants everywhere, paintings of Italy on the walls, villages and mountain views, not homesick stuff like the travel agency posters in the Greek places on the Danforth, these were classy paintings, originals.

  One of the women was saying something about it being so hard, so lonely, and Gayle looked around till the one next to her, the oldest one, the mother hen, said, “Poor Lorraine, she lost her husband last year.”

  Gayle said, wow, “That’s too bad,” and, looking at Lorraine, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Lorraine said thanks, said it was a tragedy, he was so young, “My Pietro,” and Rita across the table was looking at Gayle and said, “Big Pete,” and then Gayle really wanted to say she was sorry because Big Pete was one of the first casualties in what Danny called the Negotiations with the Eye-Talians.

  So this whole cultural exchange, as Gayle thought of it, still had some rough spots ahead, no doubt. But Gayle was thinking of it as a business move, like in the old days when they arranged marriages between the big families, like royalty. Except now the kids were too much trouble, didn’t stay in the marriages, so the wives were getting together for lunch. Same idea, though — make them a social group, bond with them, do more than business. It could work.

  The menu was all Italian, with English descriptions underneath, which Gayle was glad about because she might have figured out that Insalata Cesare Con Reggiano was a Caesar salad but she didn’t think she’d ever get that Filetto di Struzzo In Agrodolce was ostrich with a raisin sauce or that Costolette Di Cervo Con Bacche Selvatiche was venison chops. She had the Pappardelle Ragù di Cinghiale, wild boar ragu, and was the only one who ordered off the menu, all these other women giving the waiter special orders. The guy was good about it, but Gayle could tell, anybody else, he wouldn’t put up with it.

  They ate and drank and told Gayle about great vacations, places in Florida with the best spas, and South America, Venezuela and how wonderful the mountains were, and Gayle wanted to say, you know your husbands go there to drive over those mountains into Colombia and buy drugs, right? She thought about telling them what it was like to sit on the back of a Harley, three hundred bikes rolling down the highway, everybody getting out of their way, but she didn’t think they’d appreciate it.

  Maybe Rita — have to wait and see. Looked like she’d already put away the bottle by herself. This could still be some afternoon.

  But the women started saying they had to go, they had nail appointments, and they were winking and saying the pool needed cleaning, even Lorraine getting into it, laughing and saying, well something needed to be cleaned, and then it was just Gayle and Rita, Gayle saying, you don’t have to be anywhere?, and Rita sliding across the big booth to get closer saying, “I can’t think of anywhere.”

  Gayle said okay, and ordered an Upper Canada Lager, and Rita said, “So, what do you thi
nk of the Mafia wives?” and Gayle said, “I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Mafia.”

  Rita said, that’s right, there isn’t, “And your husband’s in a club of motorcycle enthusiasts.”

  Gayle said, that’s right, thinking how they were able to use that con in Canada for so long, people thinking they were fat, dumb thugs. Yeah, well, all good things come to an end.

  “They don’t know what’s coming,” Rita said, “these chicks,” and Gayle said, oh yeah, what’s coming?

  Leaning back in the booth, the wineglass in her hand, Rita said, “Come on.”

  Gayle shrugged and Rita shook her head, saying, “Don’t bullshit me. You can bullshit them all you want, don’t bullshit me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Rita looked around the restaurant, mostly empty by now, saying, “I can’t tell if they’re too stupid or just don’t give a fuck,” then looked right at Gayle and said, “But you know.”

  Gayle figured this Rita was drunk and looking to become a mean drunk, trying to pick a fight, so she said, “I’m going to step outside for a smoke.”

  Rita said, outside? She shook her head and opened her purse, going through it and coming out with a pack of smokes, offering one to Gayle. “We can smoke here, honey. We can do anything we want here.” Lighting the cigarette and handing the lighter to Gayle, saying, “For now. Right?”

  Gayle lit her own cigarette, inhaled deep and leaned back in the booth, blowing smoke at the ceiling, glancing around, seeing a couple of waiters by the bar looking over but not moving.

  Rita was laughing then, blowing smoke across the table and saying, “But when your husband and his gang of goons get too greedy and my husband and his fucking thugs have enough, they’ll go to war, kill each other, and we’ll be left with fuck all.”

  Gayle took a drag, looking at Rita through the rising smoke, thinking, sure, it was a possibility, all these tough guys trying to get along, might not work out at all.