“Pizza parlors and trucking in AC and he’s a friend of Joey the Horse. Come on, Lavert.”
“You know what else?” Lavert’s face beamed. “He’s a great painter.”
Both of his friends cracked up.
“No, really. Nudes. There are a couple hanging in the dining room of Va Bene, his club. You’ll see.”
“I can’t eat dinner with a mobster,” said Sam.
“How many times do I have to tell you? He’s not a mobster. You’re suffering from a common problem of WASP debutantes, you know that? Going around categorizing folks. I guess you think everybody who’s black’s gonna mug you?”
“Give it up, Lavert.”
“And you think all Italians are mob? I have some Italian friends who get awfully sick of that stuff.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” He was making her a little uncomfortable.
“I’m telling you, I bet more than one of the august members of the Atlantic City police force has tied on the old feedbag with Ma and been damned grateful for it. Maybe you’d rather have another meal in this hotel.”
“Cripes! Enough. You’re making me sound like a card-carrying member of the Klan. You’re right. Forget what I just said. What’d you say the club’s called?”
“Va Bene. Means ‘all right.’ Like—how y’all? You say, va bene. It used to be called Tiro a Segno, but there was a falling out among some of the members, and they went away and formed their own club and took the name with ’em, so—”
“That’s pretty,” said Sam. “Tiro a Segno. And it means—?”
“‘Shoot the target.’” Lavert held up a huge hand, but it was too late.
“Uh-huh.” Sam nodded. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
“It’s not what you think. It’s a hunting club. There are chapters all over Italy—”
“Forget it, Lavert. Just shut up and take us to dinner and we’ll be grateful,” said Harry.
“They don’t hunt anymore, though there’s still target shooting in the basement.” Lavert couldn’t let it go.
Sam was shaking her head in disbelief, still laughing.
Harry said, “Look at her. You’re just making it worse, man.”
“I already talked with Ma, and he really wants to meet you, Sammy,” said Lavert.
“Meet me? He wants me to ghost his autobiography ‘I Was a Close Personal Friend of the Mob’?”
“Maybe, if you’re good. Nawh, he likes to talk about all this Miss America stuff.”
“Michelangelo is a Miss America buff? And he paints nudes? Oh, my God! I know you didn’t make this up. It’s too good.”
Harry and Lavert just stared at her.
“Are you through?” Lavert finally asked.
“Yes.” She blew her nose. “I’ll try to stop.”
“You might say he has a special interest in Miss America.”
Sam gave him a long look while she considered the possibilities. “His daughter’s a contestant. No. Wait. He owns a Miss America franchise—Miss New Jersey. No. Oh, he’s a bookie, right? He’s making book on Miss America? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“He is, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he a bookie?”
Lavert stared off into the distance for a long time. “Maybe he’s been known to place a bet now and then.”
“Yeah. And maybe he makes a loan now and then too. To his best friends. Am I right? Am I right, Lavert?”
“She can really get on your nerves, can’t she, Harry?”
“She tries. And it’s not as if she hadn’t ever placed a bet before. She’s got a hundred down with the Philly Inquirer—and she’s about to be into me for a thousand.”
“Whew! That’s going some. Stakes too rich for my blood. High-rolling, Sammy.”
“Don’t be absurd. Harry’s not telling you the whole story.”
“What’s Miss High and Mighty betting the grand on, Zack?”
Harry told him the story about Kurt Roberts.
“I’m with you. Sammy, you want to give me a piece of that action? Let’s say, five hundred. Me and my main man here love to take money from a debutante. And all we have to do is find this Roberts safe and sound.”
“I was not a deb, and you know it.”
“Sammy, Sammy. Don’t get your blue blood in an uproar. You going to need your wits about you, ’cause you know what a mean team we be, little Robin here with me his Batman. Like back home, when we were investigating Church Lee’s untimely demise for you. Saved your bacon.”
“Saved my bacon? I beg your pardon. What you two did was create a royal cock-up, ending with that shooting—”
“Did you do any shooting, son?” Lavert asked Harry.
“I didn’t do any shooting. I don’t even own a gun.”
“Me neither. Sammy does though. That little .38. You reckon that’s why she thinks she’s the cops, seeing danger everywhere, getting herself all upset over a man checking out of a hotel, going home, thinking he’s been killed? Willing to bet perfectly good money on it, we’re happy to take out of her hands? That’s how cops are—suspicious—whoowhee!”
“I didn’t mean killed—literally. Well, maybe not, I’m not sure. I just think—I feel so strongly—something happened to Roberts. The man did not just go home.”
“Well, you’re the smart lady. I guess that’s why it’s gonna take the two of us big, strapping, stupid boys, to prove you wrong, relieve you of some of your trust fund.” Lavert checked his watch. “This contest start now?”
“Anytime,” Sam said. “Clock’s running. Speaking of which, I’ve got to get moving. Either of you big spenders interested in a stroll down the Boardwalk, walk off some of this ptomaine? I’ve got about an hour before the Fruit of the Loom Award press conference. Rae Ann has a shot at being DoGooder of the Year. ;Y’all want to bet on that too?”
“Nawh. I don’t want to bankrupt you, Sammy,” said Lavert. “And as much as I enjoy jawing with you, I’m going to let you guys get on with your day. I’ve got lots of stuff to do putting together the celebration for Lucinda tonight.”
“Oh, really? Celebration for what?” asked Sam.
“She’s gonna take talent breezing. You’ll see. You ought to talk to her, Sammy. Magic’s a great girl, and I’m not saying that just ’cause she’s my kin.”
“Magic? Miss Louisiana’s called Magic?”
“That’s her talent. Wait till you see it. You talk with her and her friend, Miss Texas, that redhead won swimsuit last night? They’re a trip. Not your garden-variety beauty queens. Did you see Texas, Harry?”
“I saw her, Lavert. And she’s got nothing on Sam—”
She punched him in the ribs. “Shut up, Harry. The girl’s half my age. Don’t start that phony baloney—”
“Honest to God, Lavert. If you ever saw Sammy naked, you’d think—”
“I’m out of here,” said Lavert, standing and grabbing the check. “That woman’s gonna stab you with a fork, about half a minute. You not gonna have to wait for Ma to shoot you, Zack, at dinner tonight when Sammy asks him in that pecan-pie voice of hers, ‘Tell me more about your bookmaking business, Mr. Amato.’”
“Aw, man. Don’t you know better than to say that kind of thing in front of her?” Harry groaned. “She’ll do it, in between the cheese course and the espresso. I’m too young to die.”
“And too cute,” said Sam. “And I bet you don’t even have any life insurance.”
“Me? The big-time part-time insurance investigator, no life insurance?”
“Not a cent.” She turned to Lavert. “Son thinks he’s going to live forever. Youngsters always do. I may have to take him upstairs and pummel some sense into him.”
“Pummel me. Pummel me. I’ll give you every penny I’ve won.” Then he turned to Lavert. “I’m up to two thou, playing blackjack. Did I tell you that?”
“I figured you must be on a roll, you stopped shaving. Isn’t
that your private little magic trick?”
“Shhhhhh. Don’t say it out loud. Put the hex on my deal, lose Big Gloria’s rescue fund. Me and the Big Gloria, splitting even, I’m going to have her and Junior back home in no time. I’m hitting that twenty-one just like I had a crystal ball.”
At the talk of magic, Sam stared across the room, seeing in the far distance the face of that crazed magician Skeeter Bosarg with his knife tricks and his rope, loop-de-loop-de-loop. But that was bad magic. They were talking about good magic. Good times. Good luck. Now, if only she could scratch her itch. Damned intuition.
9
It was a cute little house, especially since Gloria had laid her strong hands on it, shoring up the sagging porch, installing new plumbing, painting every inch of it a nice cream, the trim a soft blue. But the rooms were small. So Junior, getting dressed for school, was having a hard time running from Big Gloria, which he would have anyway even if she hadn’t picked up a broom.
“Mama, what did they do to you at work? You lost your mind?”
“Just tell me where you went last night, son.”
“I told you. Nowhere. I went to sleep.” She whacked him hard with the broom handle. He backed away, hands up, saying, “They’re gonna get you for child abuse.”
“They’re going to get me for first-degree murder if you don’t tell me. I called around nine, you’re supposed to be here. You think I don’t check on you?”
Well, no, he didn’t. She didn’t used to. He told her that.
“Yeah, and you didn’t used to be a juvenile delinquent. You think I want to wake up some morning and see your name in the papers? When you reach your goal, life of crime, kill somebody? ‘Junior Jolted!!!’ That’s what the headlines’ll read when they strap you in the chair and stick the juice to you.”
“Aw, Mama.”
“Don’t you aw-Mama me. Just tell me what you were doing, Junior.”
“Hanging.”
“Hanging where?”
Junior ran his hand over the little twists that covered the top of his head. Baby dreads is what they called his do. He said, “On the Boardwalk.”
“With who?”
“Some guys.”
“What guys?”
“Guys, Mama. You know, guys from school.”
Big Gloria reached for a pencil and paper. “Names?”
Junior fell back on the blue and gold paisley sofa, arms wide. “What you gonna do? Call their folks before breakfast?”
“I most certainly am.” She was standing over him now, leaning down, putting her face right close to his. He could smell her talcum powder. “I am not standing by and watching you turn into a hoodlum like every other boy around here. You’re not stupid. You do fine in school. And I’ve raised you better. Just because you turned sixteen, your hormones got you all in an uproar, does not mean I’m setting you loose. I’ve told you a million, jillion times, you’re going to college, boy—”
“I know, I want to.”
“—or I’ll know the reason why. You’re going to make something of yourself, support me in my old age.” She poked him in the chest right at the green line on his T-shirt that said Fill to here with margaritas. “And I want you to stop wearing this stupid stuff. Where’d you steal this, anyway? You keep going this way, you’ll run up on some security that won’t call me, is going to send you straight on to juvie. It’ll probably do you some good. Let you practice up for prison, the big time.”
“Aw, Mama.”
“Your record’s stuck, boy.” She tapped pencil to paper. “Names?”
There was no getting around a woman who thought she was big as the Taj. She almost was, too. And stubborn as all get out. “Rachel Rose,” he mumbled.
“What’d you say, Junior? Speak up.”
“Rachel Rose,” he hollered.
She stood staring at him, hands on her hips, staring in amazement. “Who?”
*
From there it was easy, making up the rest of the story. Not that that part wasn’t true, being with Rachel Rose.
It was true too that they bumped into each other in front of the arcade. Rachel Rose looked like a million bucks wearing an off-the-shoulder black midriff top that clung to her sweet chest, cutoffs over black tights ending in lace at her little ankles, high heels.
She said, God, how’re you feeling? He shrugged like he almost drowned every day, no biggie.
Then they’d hung out for a while at Aladdin’s Castle, the arcade at Bally’s, playing pinball. Rachel Rose had thought he was some kind of wuss at first, said she never saw a pinball machine before. She said it was nothing at all like video games—NARC, Gauntlet II.
Which gave Junior a chance to be the man of the world. He explained to her how pinball was back. How these new machines in the arcade, Big Betty’s Truck Stop, Monday Night Football, had high-tech thumper bumpers, stereo sound, modular plug-in boards. How when he went down to visit his Great-Aunt Beautiful in New Orleans, his second cousins took him to a pool hall that had about a dozen old pinballs, the kind that go ka-chunk when you knock a row of targets down. The kind you finesse, hitting them on the opposite side when a ball’s about to go out.
He told her about his favorite, an antique from the fifties called Central Park. It had a monkey that hit a bell, a horse and carriage, a man on a bench feeding pigeons, a cop, a garbage man. He didn’t tell her that Jake, the man who owned the pool hall in New Orleans, had painted all the faces black—except for the garbage man’s, he left it white. He did tell her he’d been to New York, where he saw the real Central Park, which was really cool, most parts of it. Especially the little zoo. They had penguins, polar bears, the coolest little monkeys, so tiny their little hands almost broke your heart. And all over the place people were doing their thing, one heck of a lot better than here on the Boardwalk. He saw rappers, roller skaters, jugglers, pretty girls in little bright-colored skirts jumping two ropes, so good, people gave them money. But the park was dangerous too. There were bums all over the place. People living in cardboard boxes. Gangs of kids wilding scared him.
Rachel Rose shivered. She was from LA, Newport Beach, where she said it was a lot safer.
It was a lot whiter too—as in totally. If a black person came on the island who wasn’t a maid or a handyman, patrols were all over them like a cheap suit. That was her daddy’s expression.
But she didn’t tell Junior any of that. Instead, she said, wasn’t it funny, they both lived on islands on opposite sides of the continent, facing the ocean. But her life was so boring, she said. Kids did nothing but go to movies, hang out in shopping malls, South Coast Plaza, places like that. In California you had to go cruising around looking for fun. Whereas Junior had it all, right here, every night.
Junior thought she must be putting him on. AC had to be one of the deadest places on earth. Used to be something, that’s what the grannies said, back in the twenties, when fancy rich people drove great old cars like Stutz Bearcats down from New York. Now all you saw every day were thousands of tour buses full of old, old people with their plastic cups full of quarters.
His best friend, Rashad, he’d told her, enjoying talking with her a lot, used to wait tables at one of the casino coffee shops till Rashad got to where he flat hated old people. He said, first of all, they give the codgers these coupons on the bus worth ten dollars for lunch. Rashad sat down with the menu, put together every combination on earth, and there’s no way you can come out an even ten, excluding tax and tip—and there’s a joke, that last word.
Rashad told the old folks that from the get-go when they put their coupons on the table, but did they believe him?
Nooo, said Rachel Rose.
They tried the hamburger, fries, cole slaw, giant Coke. That was $9.50. The deluxe turkey club and coffee was $11.25. And on it goes, until finally they ordered, always under what the coupon was worth. And then they wanted change.
Like the casino owed them that back. No way, Rashad told them. So then they get mad and what do they
do?
Stiff him, said Rachel Rose.
That’s right, said Junior, loving the way she looked when she laughed. Plus they take everything that’s not nailed down. They bring plastic zip-up bags, dump in the whole bucket of pickles. All the crackers and bread and Sweet’n Low. It made Rashad so frustrated, it’s no wonder, said Junior, that sometimes the two of them, after Rashad got off work, they’d find themselves a couple of people who look prosperous, not the codgers, but regular tourists, lady wearing gold chains and diamonds, and—
“And what?” said Rachel Rose.
Uh-oh. Junior realized he’d gone too far with this story, making up most of it as he went along. Rachel Rose was giving him this look.
“And what?”
“Well, you know.”
“You rob ’em?” Rachel Rose’s big blue eyes were even bigger. And softer. Her voice was whispery and really low.
“Well—”
She stepped a little closer. He could feel her warmth, see every eyelash. “God, that’s exciting,” she said.
There you were. It just goes to show you. There’s no way to know what’s going through a girl’s mind.
That’s what Rashad, who was always studying people because he was going to be a movie director like Spike Lee, said. He said, “Boy, you’re just humping along, doing your stuff. Half of it makes girls mad as hell, but some of it, and there’s no predicting which part, makes ’em look like that. Like starlets in the movies, faces all soft, ready for their close-up.”
Just like Rachel Rose looked now.
“Well, yeah,” Junior said, giving his dreads a little shake, puffing his chest, shifting his weight.
“How do you do it?”
Junior stood off and looked back at himself. “Actually, we have several different methods.” Sounding like an expert. Trying not to crack up.
“Like what?”
“There’re different ways—”
“Show me one,” she breathed. “Show me one now.”
She was begging him. He had to pull this off—and make it look like he knew what he was doing.
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