“I got a lot of time on my hands. What do I got to lose?”
“Sure. Will you give me first refusal on the film rights?”
There was just a trace of irony in the producer’s eyes. He seemed like a man who spent his life throwing stuff against the wall to see what stuck.
“Just don’t stiff me on the residuals.”
“You kidding? You’d hire a hit man to do me?”
This time Sammy laughed. He let it settle for a while, then asked Charlie Berns if he still knew how to get in touch with the hit guys. For research for his book.
“1-800-XTERMIN.”
“Come on. Really?”
“You don’t forget that number.”
For a number of reasons, Sammy Dee did not immediately call the number that Charlie Berns had given him. The chances were these guys were no longer in business. It wasn’t a profession that people tended to stay in long. Maybe the cops had flipped them, and the number was used to entrap killers. Maybe they were in fucking WITSEC just like him, getting their maintenance cut ten percent.
He was looking at twenty-five, thirty grand, on the inside. And the only way he would be able to get his hands on that type of money would be to mortgage the condo. He could maybe get twenty-five at five percent, but if Dylan found out—and they seemed to have ways of finding these things out—he’d have to justify it or get his maintenance cut, if not eliminated.
Doing the hit himself was not an option. In his thirty years with Phil Finoccio, Sammy had never pulled the trigger on anyone. He had roughed people up, he’d even stuck a gun in a guy’s mouth and threatened to pull the trigger if he didn’t pay up, but he had never actually offed someone.
There was probably a millimeter of Catholicism still left in him—somewhere, he wasn’t sure where—and he was concerned it might resurface, dormant from the days as a teenager when he would go to confession after jerking off.
As it was, he slept okay at night. It had taken him a while to get over flipping on Finoccio, but he had managed, through an elaborate set of rationalizations, to see it, ultimately, as self-defense. If he hadn’t sung, he would have shriveled away in some small apartment in Garden City, living on handouts from Finoccio until the man himself pulled up stakes and moved to Tempe.
No, he had done what he had to do. And he wasn’t going back there again. He was moving forward with his life, living, if not off the fat of the land, at least not off the gristle.
Two days after his lunch with Charlie Berns, however, Sammy Dee’s resolution to leave well enough alone began to falter. He was sitting under an umbrella by the pool. Across from him were Chris and Edie, Paradise Gardens’ resident swingers. They were a couple of leathery sun freaks pushing sixty. They hosted parties in their unit. Couples their age would get together, swill gin fizzes, and swap partners while the CD player belted out Johnny Mathis.
They had approached Sammy one day and asked if he had a girlfriend he wanted to bring by for drinks. Chris had actually tilted his head in Edie’s direction, suggesting that all that could be his if he provided tit for tat.
“Thanks,” he had said. “But I’m between girlfriends.”
“Guy like you shouldn’t be without one for long,” Edie purred.
“With any luck, I will be,” he replied. The sarcasm went right through them and out the other side.
Edie waved to him from the other side of the pool. She was wearing a bikini that accentuated her tit job. The effect, in the morning sun, was of a car with protruding headlights. Sammy waved back minimally, avoiding any expression that would encourage them to come over and talk to him, and closed his eyes to indicate that he was about to take a nap.
He drifted into a doze and was daydreaming about autumn on Long Island, the smell of leaves being burned in his neighbors’ driveways, when he heard his name. He opened his eyes to see Marcy Gray standing over him.
She was wearing an age-appropriate bathing suit, a straw sunhat, and a pair of heels. “What you doing?”
“Not a whole lot,” Sammy managed, telling the truth.
Taking the chaise longue beside him, she stretched out, kicking her heels off in a little coquettish move.
Even in the flat desert light, she looked appetizing. She was one of those women who knew how to present themselves. All those years facing cameras had taught her how to angle herself in the most attractive manner.
She opened a copy of Entertainment Weekly, absently leafed through it.
“Crazy world, the movie world, huh?” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“I bet you know a lot of people in Hollywood.”
She nodded. Sammy wondered whether she still expected the phone to ring. The town was full of aging starlets living on the fumes of their careers.
“You know Charlie Berns?” he asked.
“The producer?”
“Yeah. He lives here.”
“No kidding? I didn’t know that.”
“Had lunch with him the other day.”
She perked up. “Didn’t he win an Academy Award?”
“Twenty years ago.”
“Oh, right. It was some kind of period piece, with Jeremy Ikon and Jacqueline Fortier, I think . . .”
Sammy shrugged. During that period of his life he hadn’t gone to the movies much. All he could remember was seeing The Godfather with Joyce. It turned out to be the beginning of the end of their marriage. She started doing a Diane Keaton number, wanting to get out. It was downhill from there.
“I should get him a headshot,” she said with sudden determination. “You never know, right?”
“Right.”
As he was wondering whether she was delusional or merely hopeful, Diddly Shit showed up. With a thermos full of margaritas and two glasses.
“Cocktail hour,” he said from behind his Porsche Aviator sunglasses, helping himself to the recliner on the other side of her.
“Would you care to join us, Sammy?” He pronounced the name Sah-mee, with the accent on the last syllable. The insincerity of the invitation was evident.
Sammy passed, getting up and surrendering the field to his rival. He wasn’t going to take sloppy thirds on the margaritas. He had better things to do.
Inside his unit, he went directly to the telephone and dialed 1-800-XTERMIN.
The voice mail picked up. “Hello, you’ve reached Acme Exterminating and Patio Decks. Please leave your name, a brief description of your vermin problem, the dimensions of your patio, and a mailing address. You will receive an estimate in the mail. Have a nice day.”
Sammy did not leave his name and address. Not yet, at least. First he would find out how much cash he could pull out of the condo. And while he was doing that, he hoped that maybe the whole idiotic notion of having the African whacked would collapse under its own weight.
A loan officer from Wells Fargo came out to appraise the condo. Millie Peterman, a desiccated, fiftyish woman—a widow, he figured, whose husband had carried cut-rate life insurance—asked him questions. How long had he owned the unit? What was his equity? Any termites or mold?
“Lot of mold out here in the desert,” she said.
“None in this place.” Sammy held her look.
They’d let him know in a week. In the meantime, he had to say something to Marshal Dillon, who would no doubt find out about the loan app. WITSEC had wires into the banking system, to monitor money laundering operations, and they got notification of any kind of large money transaction.
“I’m thinking of starting a little business,” he told the marshal, in the front seat of the county car parked in the Home Depot lot out on Indian Canyon Road, near the airport.
“That’s good, Sammy. Being self-sufficient is the first step to getting your self-esteem back.”
“Right, not to mention the fifty-four grand added to your self-esteem.”
The marshal didn’t dignify Sammy’s crack with a response. Instead, he asked what kind of business.
“Import/export.�
��
Dylan gave him a look that said, it better not be drugs.
“Strictly legit,” Sammy added quickly. “African art. Fertility statues, that kind of stuff. Should sell good with the old ladies around here that want to start another family.”
“Don’t get cute with the IRS, Sammy. You know, your returns get audited automatically. Nothing personal. Everyone’s in the program does.”
“It’s nice to know that you guys are looking after us.”
Marshal Dillon took a toothpick out of his pocket and started working over his teeth. “One other thing, Sammy.”
“What?”
“Your phone log registered a 610 area code on the 19th.”
“You guys check my fucking phone?”
“You know we do.”
“No, I didn’t. I thought there were some things that were private.”
“Afraid not. We know you called your daughter.”
“It was her birthday.”
“Her birthday’s in February.”
The marshal exhaled deeply, as if he were about to scold a six-year-old for not cleaning up his room. “Sammy, you know the drill. We were very clear about it. You don’t call anybody from your old life.”
“I just needed to say hello.”
“You can send her a letter.”
Sammy nodded slowly. He wasn’t holding the cards, and he knew it. What he would do, he decided, was get another phone. One that wasn’t tapped by the fucking Marshals Service. Either that, or a carrier pigeon.
Millie Petersen called to give him the good news—twenty-five grand at 5.02 percent with a balloon payment in seven years. With any luck, Sammy wouldn’t be around to pay it. They could have his unit in Paradise Gardens. Mold and all.
To celebrate, he invited Marcy Gray to dine at Le Vallauris, an overpriced French place in town that dialed a 28 Zagat rating. She looked scrumptious in a black sheath that wrapped itself around her like a cigar leaf. She didn’t have one of those reedy model’s bodies that were fashionable these days. You got the feeling that she didn’t starve herself on yogurt and cottage cheese. She was definitely a meat and potatoes woman.
Which didn’t stop her from ordering the Russian River Petrossian caviar. At $85. She applied the bitter little black pellets liberally on her rosemary baguette, smiling beguilingly over a glass of Château something or other, recommended by the wine guy to “complement” the Beef Wellington.
It was going to be three hundred bucks with the tip, but it would be worth it if, afterward, he could sweep Klaus out of the bedroom and roll around on the big bed with her.
She asked him about the cement business. The WITSEC people had told him to research his cover in the event that someone wanted to know about it. Sammy had subscribed to Cement Industry News, but glazed over after a couple of pages. Nevertheless, he’d made himself memorize a couple of facts that he could toss out like confetti strands when needed.
“Did you know that the U.S. produces ninety-three million metric tons of cement every year?”
“Wow.”
“Of course, with the mafia going out of business, we get fewer requests for cement boots.”
She laughed, loud and full. He loved it. He imagined that she made love the way she laughed, holding nothing back.
“But, like I said, I’m retired,” he protested. “I’m in the investment business these days.”
“I bet you do very well,” she said, with a touch of coquetry.
“I make a living. It’s basically a crap shoot. Like your business, right?”
He wanted to get her talking about herself. With women, listening was an aphrodisiac. Though it hadn’t worked very well with Joyce, who could go on for hours without his uttering a word and still wear cold cream to bed.
“You know what they say—you can’t make a living in show business, but you can make a killing.”
“So what was it like working with Sly and Jimmy?”
“They’re actors. Like all of us. They slap some makeup on, say their lines, and hope they don’t wind up on the cutting room floor. The way to survive is just to keep swimming. We’re like sharks—we stop swimming, we die.”
“What was your favorite film role?”
She told him. At length. And while she did, Sammy was deciding whether they ought to skip the after-dinner drink. They had polished off a couple of Mai Tais and a bottle of expensive red. It was clear that she was already lubricated, and any more might be counterproductive. Not to mention dampening.
The little blue pill was in his wallet, stashed there like the rubber he used to carry around as a teenager. He didn’t want to drop it unless he knew he was going to use it, but by then it could be too late. Or unnecessary.
Wouldn’t that be nice? Capillaries dilating like they used to. Let’s twist again like we did last summer.
Worst-case scenario, it would be redundant. High-class problem.
When she went to the ladies room, he washed it down with a glass of the $9 San Pellegrino. They were twenty minutes from home, forty-five to lift off. The timing should be optimum.
He paid the check and was on his feet, her wrap in his hands, when she emerged. She had touched up her lipstick and looked even more appetizing. Her perfume mingled with the night-blooming jasmine as they stood outside waiting for the valet to bring the car.
When she leaned against him in the car, he could feel the heat emanating from her. He kept his attention on the road, convinced he would never pass a Breathalyzer. He didn’t want to be sitting in the Palm Springs Police drunk tank, all alone with his hard-on.
He managed to get the car safely into the garage and parked in his space, more or less. Charlie Berns’s old diesel Mercedes was, as usual, badly parked, and Sammy had to help Marcy wiggle out of the passenger seat. She pressed against him, and he could feel his blood already moving south.
As they went up the elevator and stepped out into the lobby, the your-place-or-mine moment arrived. Sammy had been debating the question all the way home. Her place had Klaus, but it also provided an escape hatch if things did not go well. He could beat a retreat back to the safety of his own place.
Their units were both on the ground-floor level, hers closest to the elevator. He would let her make the decision. It was always the woman who made the decision anyway, wasn’t it? They knew, usually even before they agreed to go out with you, whether or not you were going to get lucky that night.
She had given him all the right signals. He decided that wherever it happened was okay. The way he was feeling, he could have done it standing up in the garage. It was all systems go.
And then disaster struck. As if he had been lying in wait, Diddly Shit opened the door of his unit.
“Mais bonsoir, mes amis . . .”
There was a bottle of cognac in his large hand. And a big smile on his face. “A petit cap de nuit?”
Sammy followed Marcy in the door, if only to keep her out of the African’s clutches. It would be a fucking shame if he had gotten her prepped and then Diddly Shit swooped in for the kill. An hour or so later, drunk and pissed, he escorted her to her door and got nothing more than a sloppy kiss, somewhere near his mouth.
Back at his own place, he went directly to the phone, dialed the number.
“Hello, this is Sammy Dee. Could you mail me a brochure?”
He gave his address, enunciating as best he could, then took off his shoes, plopped onto the couch, and fell into a remorseless stupor.
It took a week to get a response from Acme Exterminating and Patio Decks. During that time, he had to endure more French lessons and an untimely bout of prostatitis that ruled out any action with Marcy Gray.
Mel Cardazian, the Armenian urologist he went to see for his prostatitis, told him that he needed to “regularize” his sex life.
“It’s a feast or famine kind of deal,” he said, as Sammy bent over the examining table in serious discomfort. “Like any other muscle, the prostate needs to be exercised in some sort of systematic m
anner. You go out and run once a month, you’re going to feel it the next day, right?”
Sammy pulled up his shorts, exhaled deeply, and collapsed into the chair in the examining room.
“I’m going to be seventy in December, doc. I’m not married. I don’t think I’m a good candidate for the feast deal.”
“Women are not your only option.”
“I’m not going there.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Your prostate doesn’t care if you ejaculate inside or outside a vagina. It just needs to be exercised.”
“You want me to start jerking off?”
“Either that, or you could avoid sexual stimulation.”
“How do I do that? Join a monastery?”
“Get a girlfriend,” Mel Cardazian said.
Now, Sammy told himself, he was having the African whacked for medicinal reasons.
Returning from the urologist, Sammy found the application in his mailbox from Acme Exterminating and Patio Decks. They redid your patio while they took out your enemies. One-stop shopping. On the surface, it looked like an ordinary work contract, the estimate to be filled in after a visit to the site and an agreement on the size of the patio and the materials to be used. But, unlike most contractors, they required a great deal of personal information, things you wouldn’t think necessary to resurface a deck. They wanted his social security number, bank references, last three addresses, employers’ name(s) and address(es).
Sammy Dee had been provided with all the fictitious information he would need for his adopted life, including, as it turned out, for ordering a hit. He possessed a computer-generated social security number, tax returns, and names and addresses of former employers—actual WITSEC personnel possessing fabricated work records for him.
Acme Exterminating and Patio Decks clearly had some sort of method of determining from the required information if the applicant was working for the police or the Justice Department. Or did they just want you to run through hoops? Make sure it wasn’t just an impulse buy?
When he dropped the application in the mailbox, he felt as if he were inching closer to a cliff. But the way down wasn’t as long as it used to be. He found it strangely comforting to think that, one way or the other, he would be dead in less than twenty years.
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