3 Favor

by Parnell Hall

  I strolled down the Boardwalk. I liked it. For one thing, it was made of boards. I know that seems logical, but it didn’t necessarily have to be. The fact that it was was nice.

  To my left was the beach and the ocean. To my right were the ice cream parlors and souvenir shops and penny arcades. And casino hotels.

  I went past Caesar’s Palace. I’d heard of Caesar’s Palace, so I went in to check it out. Very much like Bally’s. Huge room, lots of machines, lots of old women.

  I bought some quarters, strolled around the casino floor, played some slots, checked out the layout.

  I went back outside and walked down the Boardwalk. I stopped in at all the casino hotels. I didn’t gamble though, didn’t let myself get sucked in. Just checked out the layouts and piddled around with the slots.

  The last hotel on the strip was the Golden Nugget. I thought of the TV ads as I walked in. I didn’t see Frank Sinatra, though. I didn’t see Kenny Rogers or Dolly Parton, either. I didn’t even see Steve.

  I left the Golden Nugget and strolled back down the Boardwalk to Bally’s. It was a long walk, but pleasant. I passed it up and continued on to the casinos on the other side. I did them, then strolled back.

  In Bally’s I had one of the cashiers validate my parking ticket. She seemed happy to do it.

  I went back to the parking lot and got my car. They gave it to me free. God bless gambling.

  I pulled out, stopped and checked my map. I discovered there were two casinos I’d missed. Harrah’s and Trump Castle. That’s because those two weren’t on the Boardwalk with the others, but were a little further north around the tip of the bay. Seeing as how I had no idea where Harold might like to hang out, I decided to check ’em out too.

  I followed the signs to Trump Castle. There was a free parking garage. I spiraled around and around up to the third level and found a space. “Free Parking, No Validation Necessary,” the sign said. I liked that.

  Trump Castle advertises too, and I wondered if I would feel like the king of the castle.

  I took the elevator down from the parking garage and the elevator up to the main floor and walked into the casino. It seemed to be much the same layout.

  I bought some quarters, checked out the layout, and piddled around with the slots.

  I’d just fed my last quarter into my last machine when it suddenly hit me. I’d bought eight rolls of quarters! That’s eighty bucks! I couldn’t believe it. There I was, so afraid I’d lose fifty bucks at roulette, and I’d just pissed away eighty at the slots!

  I stood there, in the center of Trump Castle Hotel and Casino, as waves of nausea engulfed me. Believe it or not, I didn’t feel like the king of the castle.

  I felt like a fucking asshole.

  I got into my car and drove straight back to my hotel before I got into any more trouble. To be honest, I didn’t feel truly safe until I got back into my room.

  The light on my telephone was on, indicating there was a message at the desk. Shit. I realized, in all my excitement or lack of it, I’d forgotten to call Alice. And it was too late to call her now. I called the front desk to pick up the message.

  It wasn’t from Alice. It was the final kick in the teeth, and somehow a fitting end to that draggy day.

  The message was to call Rosenberg & Stone the next morning at nine o’clock sharp.

  8.

  I GOT UP EARLY the next morning, drove out to Traymore Avenue and staked out the house. I felt like a damn fool. For me this was nothing new. Feeling like a damn fool, I mean. Staking out houses was a little out of my line. But I was doing it for MacAullif and I knew it was important to him, so, stupid as I thought it was, I tried to make a good job of it.

  Green as I am at this game, I did know one thing. When you’re following someone, you can’t sit right outside their front door. The object is not to be seen.

  Across the street, two houses down, I found the perfect spot. A big oak tree by the side of a driveway overhung the road. Pulling in under the overhanging branches, I could be protected both from the sun and from a casual glance from across the street.

  I pulled into the spot to test the theory. It looked good to me. The car was facing away from the house, so I wouldn’t be sitting there staring at it. But by angling the rear-view mirror slightly, I could frame the front door of the house and be able to see who went in and out without having to look around. Moreover, the car was now pointing back towards town, in the direction in which I assumed Harold would be going. It was perfect.

  I checked my watch. Seven o’clock. I figured there wouldn’t be any activity before eight A.M. at the earliest, but I’d wanted to make sure. I sat in the car, sipping coffee and trying to convince myself that I was a TV detective on an important stakeout. It didn’t work. The thing is, on TV you never see a detective sit in a car for hours. After all, they only got an hour to solve the whole case. At worst, you get a time-dissolve, and then the quarry emerges from the house.

  In real life it doesn’t work that way. I sat there sipping coffee and looking in the rear-view mirror, and by eight o’clock I was bored silly, I had a stiff neck, and I had to take a terrific piss.

  The front door opened at 8:05.I was all tensed up and ready to go, but it wasn’t Harold. It was Barbara and the kid.

  MacAullif had given me a snapshot of Barbara and Harold, which would have been helpful in case I’d happened to confuse them with some other young couple with a seven-year-old kid who happened to live at the same address, which gives you some idea of MacAullif’s estimation of my detective skills.

  I must say the picture didn’t do her justice. Barbara MacAullif Dunleavy was a knockout. Short brown hair, round pink cheeks, soft eyes, and a figure that wouldn’t quit, as a tough detective would say. And all of that through the rear-view mirror. I would have loved to have turned around and taken a better look, but my prudence and/or cowardice forbade it.

  The kid was cute too, by the way, but then, all seven-year-old kids are. The mom was something else. Jesus Christ, I thought, so this is MacAullif’s daughter. Who would have thought it?

  Barbara went to the garage and swung up the huge double door. Inside were a Chevy station wagon and a Mercedes convertible. I knew Barbara and the kid were going to get into the wagon. They did. I cursed Harold Dunleavy for a sexist pig. Barbara would have looked great in the convertible.

  The station wagon pulled out of the driveway, hung a left, passed me and drove on down the street.

  O.K., ace detective, put that down in your notebook: “8:05—mother drives kid to school.”

  I sat there, feeling stupider by the minute. It didn’t help, having to take that piss.

  At 8:25 the front door opened and a man came out. About thirty, 5’ 10”, one hundred sixty pounds, dark hair, blue eyes. I checked the photograph. Son of a bitch. It was him. Harold Dunleavy. The perpetrator himself. I’d done it. I’d identified him.

  Harold Dunleavy got in his car, pulled out of the driveway, turned left, drove past me, and headed back toward town. I gave him a head start, then pulled out and tagged along.

  There’s a trick to following someone in a car. Unfortunately, I don’t know it. However, in this instance, there was a saving grace. A stockbroker living in the suburbs with his wife and kid doesn’t expect to be tailed on his way to work.

  Harold drove into downtown Atlantic City, drove down Atlantic Avenue and pulled into a parking lot. I was lucky to find a meter. The meter said no parking between eight and nine A.M. It was only 8:45, but I figured I couldn’t be fussy. I also figured if I got a ticket it would serve me right.

  Harold came out of the parking lot, crossed the street and went into an office building.

  I whipped out my pocket notebook and checked. Sure enough, that was the address MacAullif had given me for Harold’s firm.

  I didn’t follow Harold into the building. I didn’t want him to see me, and there would have been no point. I just stood on the sidewalk, cursing Harold, cursing MacAullif and cursing myself.<
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  I stomped off to a diner down the street, went in the men’s room, took the piss of my life and stomped back out again, without even feeling guilty that I hadn’t ordered anything.

  There was a pay phone on the corner across from the office building. I went to it and called Rosenberg & Stone.

  Wendy/Cheryl answered the phone. “Good morning, Stanley, right on time,” she said.

  “I believe in punctuality,” I told her.

  “You went out of beeper range,” she said accusingly, as if that were my fault. “Richard was furious. We had to stay late last night and call every hotel in town.”

  “I’m glad you found me,” I lied.

  “Yes but it’s a real nuisance, having you out of beeper range. Richard wants you to call in four times a day, at nine, twelve, three and five.”

  “I’ll set my watch.”

  “What?”

  “No problem. You got anything for me?”

  She did. Two more photo assignments, vaguely in the area, confirming my suspicion that Richard was paying me back by loading me up with the shit. I didn’t care. Having figured out what was going on, I knew there was nothing urgent about the photo assignments, so it didn’t matter when I did ’em. I figured I’d knock off as many as I could on my way back. I certainly couldn’t do ’em now. Not while I was on this terribly important assignment.

  I got off the phone with Wendy/Cheryl and called Alice. Predictably, she was pissed I hadn’t called her the night before, but delighted to discover I wasn’t dead.

  I told her about my adventures in the casinos. She voiced the opinion that I was an ignoramus. I had to concur. I promised her I would lay off gambling and concentrate on the very important MacAullif’s daughter case. I also told her I was defraying my expenses by knocking off photo assignments for Richard. That mollified her somewhat. I was glad. It sure as hell didn’t mollify me.

  I got off the phone and went back to take up my vigil. Nothing much seemed to be happening. The front of Harold’s office building looked pretty much the same as it had when he’d gone in.

  For lack of anything better to do I checked my car. I hadn’t gotten a ticket, but the parking meter was beginning to look hungry.

  I checked it out, something I hadn’t bothered to do when I’d been keeping Harold in sight.

  It was an hour meter. It said: “1 dime = 30 minutes.” Underneath it said: “For your convenience: 1 quarter = 1 hour.”

  I blinked. I looked again. Yes, I’d read it right. Only in Atlantic City, where all machines are designed to rip people off, could you consider it convenient to be ripped off for a nickel.

  I fished in my pocket. All I had was quarters. I didn’t have any dimes.

  I was pissed off at the parking meter, and I didn’t want to give in.

  There was a newsstand across the street. I figured I could run in there, give ’em two quarters and ask for five dimes. But I figured if I did, Harold would probably come out and I’d miss him. Besides, the guy probably wouldn’t give ’em to me unless I bought something. I’d have to buy a candy bar to get change. I didn’t want a candy bar. Shit.

  I put a quarter in the meter. I felt like an asshole.

  Three quarters later Harold emerged from the building with another young man, similarly dressed in suit and tie.

  I followed them two blocks down Atlantic Avenue, where they went into a restaurant. Gee, I thought. I think I can figure this one out.

  Forty-five minutes later they emerged, walked back to Harold’s office building and went in. I was glad. It was just time for me to shove another quarter in the meter.

  It was about 2:30 and I was really getting fed up when Harold came out of the building again. This time he was alone. He set off down Atlantic Avenue.

  I still had a good half hour on the meter, but I didn’t know how long this was going to take, so I shoved another quarter in just to be sure, and set off after him.

  Harold walked about a half dozen blocks and then turned onto Tennessee Avenue, heading south. My pulse quickened. Great. He was heading for the Boardwalk and the casinos.

  Two doors down the street, however, he went into an office building. I couldn’t go into the lobby with him, of course, so I watched from across the street until he got into the elevator. As soon as the elevator doors closed, I raced across the street and into the lobby.

  I watched the elevator indicator to see which floor he got off. Unfortunately, that turned out to be another one of those things that works great in the movies but sucks in real life. There’d been people in the elevator with him, and the elevator stopped on four of the five floors.

  I checked the call board in the lobby. The tenants in the building were largely lawyers, real estate brokers and, yes, stockbrokers.

  I waited outside the building for forty-five minutes. Toward the end I started getting antsy, wondering if I was going to get a parking ticket on top of everything else. Then Harold came out again. He walked right back to Atlantic Avenue, back to his building and in.

  I fed another quarter into the parking meter.

  I considered strangling MacAullif.

  Five o’clock, Harold emerged from the building, went to the parking lot and got his car. I wondered who’d paid more for his parking, Harold with his lot or me with my quarters.

  I followed Harold up Route 30 back to Absecon and home.

  The double doors to the garage were open and the station wagon was already inside. Harold pulled in beside it, got out of the car, pulled the double doors down, and locked the garage.

  I figured Harold was through for the night.

  I figured I was too. Jesus Christ.

  I went back to the hotel and called MacAullif. He didn’t seem a bit disappointed with my report.

  “Ninety percent of surveillance is waiting,” MacAullif said. “We do it all the time. Just stick with it. You’re doing fine.”

  I hung up the phone and called Rosenberg & Stone for the fourth time that day. They seemed to have run out of moldy photo assignments. I assured Wendy/Cheryl I was on the job, promised to call first thing in the morning and hung up.

  I called Alice. I got to talk to Tommie about camp. Swimming had been great, but they hadn’t played baseball.

  Alice got back on the phone. I told her what I’d accomplished. As usual, she was sympathetic and supportive.

  “So, what are you doing tonight?” she asked.

  I hadn’t even thought of it. I told her so.

  “I hope you’re not going to gamble,” she said.

  I told her I thought I’d had my fill.

  I hung up the phone and lay down on the bed, exhausted. Jesus, what a day of doing nothing. All right, what the hell am I gonna do tonight? I mean, here I am, footloose and fancy free in Atlantic City, with the evening stretched out before me. Aside from gambling, what sort of pleasures could a gentleman seek?

  The thing is, I’m not the type of guy to cheat on my wife. Now please don’t take that to be any chest-thumping declaration of overwhelming virtue on my part. True, I’m a happily married man and I love my wife and kid and all that, but that’s not the only reason. The fact is, I am scared to death of women. They are an inscrutable species. I don’t understand them. In my opinion, any guy who claims he understands women is either a fool or a liar. Oh, sure, some guy may be considered a great ass-man and do well with women, but understand them—I don’t think so. Women are incredible creatures. They have an almost magical quality. I don’t know what it is—if I did, it wouldn’t be magical—but they have it. And they all have it, from my wife right on down to the gum-chewing ticket seller in the movie theater.

  So chasing after women isn’t quite my style. Oh, that’s not to say I haven’t thought about it. Like Jimmy Carter, I have lusted in my heart many times. I have my fantasies. One of them has always been becoming so successful a writer that starlets and groupies and what-have-you were constantly throwing themselves at my feet. This is a very pleasant fantasy. My wife and kid don’t ente
r into it, incidentally. In the fantasy, they just conveniently aren’t there. That’s the nice thing about a fantasy. Reality doesn’t have to intrude.

  That particular fantasy sustained me for many years.

  Then along came AIDS.

  I must say, I resent AIDS. I realize that’s an incredibly boorish and insensitive statement, sort of on a par with saying, “Lepers make me nervous.” But it happens to be the truth. I resent AIDS. I mean, here’s a reality so harsh, so cruel, so brutal and so graphic that it does intrude on the fantasy. And that’s the unkindest cut of all.

  I remember back in the days when sex was young and innocent. It used to be, if you had sex, you might get the clap, in which case you’d get a shot and have to take it easy for a week. Then it got a little worse: if you had sex, you might get herpes—you couldn’t get rid of it, but it wasn’t that bad: a lot of people had it, and you could all kind of itch together.

  Now, you have sex and you die.

  AIDS has gotten so frightening they’re even advertising condoms on TV. To me, this is mindboggling. When I was a kid, you couldn’t even find a condom. Druggists kept them hidden under the counter. If you wanted one, you had to ask for it. For a pimply-faced kid, that took a lot of guts. And you’ll recall, I was never long on guts.

  They didn’t call them condoms then, either. We kids called ’em rubbers, of course, but that was slang. The proper names were contraceptives (for prevention of pregnancy), or prophylactics (for prevention of disease). A contraceptive or prophylactic or rubber was like a thin, transparent balloon. One looked at it and thought, “Jesus Christ, this is the only thing standing between me knocking up some girl, dropping out of school and fucking up my entire life?” And then one usually wound up filling the damn thing up with water and dropping it out the window on a passing classmate, which, while not quite as much fun as having sex, was infinitely safer.

  But that was contraceptives and prophylactics. Today we have condoms, which I hope would be tougher, seeing as how they have a more important job to do, keeping you from getting dead. They seem tougher, somehow. Even the name sounds tougher. CONDOM. It sounds like a steel-belted radial. It inspires confidence. CON-DOM.