by James Swain
“Do you still want to eat?” he heard himself ask.
“I ordered breakfast through room service. I hope you like your eggs scrambled with cheese in them.”
“That’s exactly how I like them,” he said.
“You’ve got a neck like a bull,” Gloria said, examining the bruises on the back of Valentine’s neck while he sat on the couch in her living room.
“I should. I stand on my head ten minutes every day.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
“About twenty-five years.”
She sat down beside him with a funny look on her face. She wore a powder blue suit, white blouse, and a Hermès scarf wrapped around her neck. She’d told him a few days ago that her network was putting her out to pasture because she was getting older, but to him, she looked just right.
“It’s one of my judo exercises,” he explained. “I took judo up when I started policing casinos. My boss didn’t want us using our guns on the casino floor, so I got involved in the martial arts.”
“Let me guess. Shootings are bad for business.”
“Yes. It seems gamblers see it as a sign of bad luck, and stay away in droves.”
“So you still practice?”
He stretched his neck and nodded. Normally he went to judo class three times a week, and could still throw around guys half his age. Telling her would only sound like bragging, so he kept quiet. Breakfast sat on a trestle tray in an alcove off the living room and smelled delicious. Gloria saw his eyes drift toward the food, and she brought her hand beneath his chin. She raised his face an inch and held his gaze.
“If I were to ask you a question, would you give me an honest answer?”
“I’d try,” he said.
“Come on. Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“Did you shoot those two men in the stairwell last night? Everyone says you did.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Please answer me,” she said.
You couldn’t be a television announcer for as long as Gloria and not have great eyes. Hers were a soft aqua that could melt your heart if you looked into them too long.
“No, I didn’t shoot them,” he said.
“Do you know who did?”
“No idea,” he said.
Gloria stared deeply into his eyes. After a few intense moments, her face softened, and he guessed she believed him. She gave him a soft kiss on the lips, then led him to the food.
He pulled a chair out for her, then sat down to break fast. He’d known Gloria four full days, and their relationship seemed to be forging ahead at warp speed. He liked her, she liked him, and they never ran out of things to talk about.
Below a metal tray a Bunsen burner kept the food warm. Everyday scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, hash browns. She loaded up his plate, and as he bit into a strip of bacon, she gave him a look.
“Something wrong?”
“I was wondering about your sports jacket,” she said, serving herself half the amount of food she’d served him. “You’ve worn it every day, yet it always looks fresh. No wrinkles or stains. Do you get it dry-cleaned each night?”
“I have several,” he admitted.
“You alternate them?”
“Yes.”
“Are they all black?”
“All black. My late wife used to call them my uniform, I guess because you can only wear a black sports jacket with a white shirt and dark pants.”
“You been wearing them for a long time?”
He thought about it. “Twenty-eight years.”
Her fork landed on her plate with a jarring clang. “You’ve worn the same make of black jacket for twenty-eight years?”
He suddenly realized the deep hole he’d dug for himself. If he’d learned anything since he’d started dating, it was that women were as interested in a man’s personal habits as they were in his opinions. And he had just told her that he was a neanderthal.
“Maybe I should explain,” he said.
She leaned forward. “Please do.”
“It’s sort of a long story.”
“I like long stories.”
His mouth had become dry, and he sipped ice water.
“In the 1970s, New Jersey was going broke, so the politicians tried to convince the voters to legalize casinos, even though nobody wanted them. Our illustrious governor, a guy named Brendan Byrne, barnstormed the state, and told people that New Jersey’s casinos would be different than Las Vegas, and would feature ‘European-style’ gambling.”
“As in Monte Carlo?”
“Yes, as in Monte Carlo. Byrne made it sound like James Bond was going to be gambling, instead of some poor guy who hauled garbage.”
“How funny.”
“It was. When gambling was legalized, Byrne established a dress code. Men were supposed to wear jackets inside the casinos.”
“Classy. Did it work?”
He smiled, the memory as fresh as the day it had happened. “It was a disaster. The first casino was Resorts International. It opened on Memorial Day weekend, and the line of people was a mile long. When the doors opened, they came in like a stampede. The casino had put five hundred black sports jackets in a cloak room near the entrance, with the idea being that men who didn’t have a jacket would rent one. No one did.
“I was working inside the casino. One day, the floor manager comes up to me, and says, ‘Tony, turn around.’ I did, and I felt him run a tape measure across my back like a tailor in a clothing store. He said, ‘Perfect, you’re a size forty-two,’ and he told me to follow him.
“He led me to the room where the sports jackets were, and pointed at a rack. He said, ‘Tony, these jackets are forty-twos. Take what you want. We’re throwing them out.’ Well, they were all brand new, and my wife and I were barely scraping by, so I loaded up my car, took them home, and stored them in a spare closet. The next day, I loaded up the car again.”
“How many did you take?”
“All of them.”
“How many was that?”
He’d worn through two jackets a year for the past twenty-eight years, and still had a half dozen left.
“Sixty-two,” he said. Then added, “It saved us a lot of money.”
“Did you ever consider retiring the jackets after you left the police force?”
“Yeah, but I decided against it. The jackets were Geoffrey Beene, who’d had a boutique at Resorts. They were the best clothes I’d ever worn.”
“Your uniform,” she said.
“Yeah. My uniform.”
Gloria looked at her watch and stood up. “I need to run. I have an interview with one of the poker players in ten minutes. Stay and finish breakfast, if you like.”
She grabbed her jacket off the couch and hurried to the door. He followed her, not certain what she thought of his story. He hoped it didn’t make him sound too eccentric.
“Will I see you later?” she asked, stopping at the door.
They were the sweetest words she could have said. Valentine started to answer, then remembered what he’d wanted to talk to her about.
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
She put her jacket on, and tossed back her hair. “What’s that?”
“There may be another hitman gunning for me.”
“That’s awful, Tony. What are you going to do?”
“I need to change my room, maybe start wearing a disguise when I’m in the hotel. I wanted you to know in case—”
“In case what?”
“In case you didn’t want to be around me.”
“But I enjoy being around you,” she said. “Do you think I invite every guy I meet up to my room for break fast?”
He did not know what to say. She put her arm on his shoulder and rested it there—something a good friend might do. She crinkled her nose. “Thank you for telling me. May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Move in with me. You can sleep on the couch.”
&n
bsp; His napkin escaped his fingers, and fell to the floor. Gloria was the nicest woman he’d met in years, but that didn’t change the fact that he was investigating the tournament, and she was covering the tournament for her network. He never mixed business and pleasure, which was why the words that came out of his mouth surprised him.
“Okay.”
“Just okay?”
“I mean, yeah, that’s great.”
She gave him a kiss, then consulted her watch again.
“Now I’m late. Talk to you later.”
She was out the door before he could say good-bye.
15
Al “Little Hands” Scarpi was pumping iron in the weight room at Ely State Penitentiary when an inmate named Big Juan came in. Six six and about three hundred pounds, Big Juan walked with a strut that came from having his way most of his life. Little Hands was six inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, but not easily intimidated.
Sweat poured down Little Hands’s face as he curled a pair of fifty-pound dumbbells. The weight room was quiet except for the belching guard reading a comic book in the corner. In exchange for additional time in the weight room, Little Hands waxed the guard’s car every week, using nothing but a can of Turtle Wax and a rag. It was boring work, but got him out of his cell for a few hours. Sometimes, that was all a man needed to keep from going insane.
Big Juan came over to watch. He had a towel slung over his shoulder and a teardrop tattoo beside his left eye—meaning he’d killed someone. Little Hands had killed plenty of people, but had never done anything as stupid as write it in ink on his body. He continued to curl the dumbbells.
“You Little Hands?” Big Juan asked.
Was the guy blind? Al’s hands were the size of a child’s, the fingers thin and delicate, and had caused him undue hardships growing up. Kids in school had made fun of them, and as he’d gotten older, guys in bars had picked fights with him. The hands were his handicap, and why he’d taken up weightlifting.
“What do you think?” he replied.
Big Juan stared at his fingers, then over his shoulder at the guard.
“I need to talk to you,” he said quietly.
“About what?”
“A deal.”
Little Hands had gotten a head of steam going with the dumbbells, and his sweat made a small puddle on the floor. He started every day like this, sweating so hard that he was able to forget he was a prisoner, a man going nowhere for a very long time.
“I’m available next Tuesday morning at nine,” Little Hands said.
Big Juan gave him a dead-eyed stare. Little Hands had tried to develop a sense of humor since coming to the joint. It made the day go quicker.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a joke. You like jokes?”
“Fuck no,” Big Juan said.
Little Hands had run into a bunch of humorless guys in Ely. Nearly all came from the streets and acted like a different species. He kept pumping the dumbbells.
“You want to hear my deal or not?” Big Juan asked.
“Sure.”
Big Juan lowered his voice. “I can get you out of here.”
Little Hands didn’t slow down or pause or do any of the things that inmates did when someone mentioned freedom to them. Lawyers did it all the time, as did wives and loved ones and cops who wanted you to cooperate with them. They talked about freedom like it was something that could be pulled out of a top hat, and handed back to you. Little Hands knew better. The system was the only thing that could give a man his freedom back.
“How much is it going to cost me?”
“That’s the good part,” Juan said. “It won’t cost you nothing.”
Little Hands put the dumbbells on a rack, then walked over to a weight bench. There was a barbell across the bench with three hundred pounds in weights fitted on it. He always ended his sessions doing bench presses with the barbell.
“Keep talking,” he said.
Everything cost something in the joint, especially a favor. Little Hands suspected that Big Juan was playing him for a fool. He didn’t like that.
He asked Big Juan if he lifted. It was a dumb question, but Little Hands liked to play stupid sometimes, just to see where it would get him.
Big Juan said yes, and Little Hands asked him to spot for him.
“Sure,” Big Juan said.
Little Hands lay down on the weight bench. The bench was made of steel, and had uprights to hold the barbell in place. He lifted the barbell off the uprights, and pressed it five times over his head. Finished, he asked Big Juan to help him, and the bigger man lifted the barbell off Little Hand’s chest and fitted it into the uprights.
“Your turn,” Little Hands said, rising from the bench.
Big Juan hesitated. Three hundred pounds was a lot of weight, even for someone who lifted every day. But Big Juan was a macho man. He wasn’t going to take weight off the barbell and humiliate himself in front of Little Hands. He was the bigger man, so he lay on the bench and lifted the barbell off the uprights.
Big Juan pressed the barbell above his chest, and the effort made his face change color. Little Hands stood over him.
“Come on, you can do it. Four more.”
Big Juan blew out his cheeks and strained to press the barbell again. His arms began to tremble, and Little Hands put his hands on the bar to help him.
“Thanks, man,” Big Juan said.
Little Hands continued to hold the bar and let Big Juan catch his breath.
“How are you going to get me out of this fucking place?”
Big Juan looked up at him. “You know the conservation camp?”
Ely Conservation Camp was part of the prison and was run in conjunction with the Nevada Division of Forestry. The warden assigned camp operation support activities to model inmates. Working at the camp was the dream of every Ely inmate.
“What about it?” Little Hands asked.
“You’re being assigned to it.”
“When?”
“Today. This morning.”
Little Hands released his grip on the barbell, and it sunk down to Big Juan’s chest.
“Come on. Do another.”
Big Juan strained with the barbell, barely lifting it a foot above his chest. When he could lift it no farther, panic set into his eyes. Little Hands picked up the barbell and held it a few inches above him.
“Then what happens?”
Big Juan was blowing out his cheeks, regretting every bad thing he’d ever done to his body. In a whisper he said, “You’ll take a truck over to the conservation camp and check in. Another truck will take you out to a forest to do a clean-up job. You’ll walk away from the job into a waiting car.”
“Where am I going?”
“Las Vegas.”
“Who’s behind this? Someone in Las Vegas?”
“Yeah,” Big Juan wheezed.
Little Hands was getting the picture. He’d lived in Las Vegas and knew how that town worked. When one of the casino bosses wanted something done, palms got greased, phone calls got made, and it got done. He made Big Juan do another press. The effort nearly killed him.
“Who does this person in Las Vegas want me to kill?”
Big Juan was opening and shutting his eyes while sucking down air. Each time he inhaled, cherry-sized lumps formed where his jaw met his sideburns.
“Who said this was a hit?” Big Juan asked.
Little Hands leaned down and breathed in Big Juan’s face. “I was a hitman. Ain’t no other reason someone is going to go to the trouble to spring me out of here.”
“Some retired cop,” Big Juan said.
“That’s the hit?”
“Yeah. He’s in Las Vegas.”
Little Hands felt his brow tighten the way it did when his blood pressure rose. A retired cop was responsible for putting him in the slammer.
“What’s his name?”
“Valentine.”
“Tony Valentine?”
“Yeah.
You know him?”
Little Hands lowered the barbell and forced Big Juan to do another press. He’d dreamed about snuffing Valentine ever since being locked up. Valentine had sucker-punched him in a Vegas motel while Little Hands was staring at a porno movie playing on the TV. The movie had reminded Little Hands of something he’d seen his mother doing when he was a little kid. It had messed Little Hands up real good.
Big Juan was shaking his head in defeat. He’d had enough. Little Hands lifted the bar off his chest, and Big Juan shut his eyes.
Little Hands crossed the weight room with a towel in his hands. He looked out the barred window that faced the yard. Ely housed over a thousand prisoners along with the state’s Death Row inmates. Security was tight, with armed guards sitting in turrets on the two main buildings, watching the yard twenty-four hours a day. He’d heard lifers talk about “escaping” by running between the two main buildings, and going out in a blaze of gunfire. No one had ever escaped, and he imagined the glory of being the first.
“Get your hands off the bars,” the guard called out.
Little Hands released the bars and turned to face the guard.
“Sorry.”
Comic book in his lap, the guard fingered his double-barreled shotgun. He was a round kid with a moon face and flour-sack arms.
“Get away from the window,” the guard said.
“I was just looking.”
“You heard me, Hercules.”
Little Hands walked back to the weight bench. Big Juan was still panting like he’d just run a four-minute mile. The guard picked up his comic book and emitted a loud belch as he flipped back to his spot.
“I want the job,” Little Hands said.
Big Juan nodded, then tried to get up. He fell back hard on the bench and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, there was a new appreciation in his face.
“Doesn’t all that weight make you hurt?” Big Juan asked.
“Sure,” Little Hands said.
“Why do you do it?”
Little Hands smiled to himself. Big Juan’s muscles would be burning, his body going into shock. He would hurt for days, had maybe even damaged his joints or his heart. He did not understand pain the way Little Hands understood pain. Few people did.