by James Swain
He had a good laugh. How stupid were these folks? Of course the hundred winners were involved. Maybe not all of them, but certainly the majority. They were the takeoff men. Hustlers used takeoff men all the time. They were usually upright John Q.
Citizens who appeared beyond reproach. Their cut was generally 25 percent.
A car horn’s beep shattered his concentration. Looking up, he saw a rattling Toyota Corolla sitting next to his car, headed in the opposite direction. Behind the wheel sat a grinning Saul Hyman.
Saul’s eyes were dancing. Then Higgins understood. Saul had hired the kid on the bike and written the note. He’d seen the article and realized it would hold Higgins’s interest long enough for him to pull his car onto the street.
Higgins shrugged his shoulders indifferently. He’d already admitted to himself that he was too old for this kind of work, and this proved it.
“That’s it?” Saul said indignantly.
“What do you want, a medal?”
“I outwitted you, flatfoot.”
“You look cute in a dress,” Higgins told him.
Saul gave him a Bronx cheer, then sped away.
“Put some clothes on,” Nigel said. “We’re going out.”
Candy was lying naked in bed, sipping coffee and reading the Miami Herald. She’d woken up expecting Nigel to be angry at her. She’d questioned him the night before. For a lot of guys, that was enough to get rid of a woman.
Only her prince hadn’t said a word about it. They’d made love, and then breakfast had arrived at their door along with a dozen red roses, just like the day before, and the day before that. Nothing had changed.
“Fancy or casual?” she’d asked.
He gave it some thought. “How about Madonna in heat?”
Candy went through her clothes. She had a leather miniskirt with a slit up its side that was supposed to be worn with leggings. She slipped it on, then tried on several blouses, finally settling on a red job that looked like a three-alarm fire. Nigel hung in the doorway.
“Lovely,” he said.
At eleven-thirty, an executive from Polyester Records appeared at the bungalow’s door. Polyester had signed Nigel’s band, One-Eyed Pig, to do a greatest-hits collection, and Candy had seen the contracts and reams of legal bullshit lying around. The executive’s name was Rod Silver. He was about thirty and talked like a pitchman on the Home Shopping Network. He shoved a promotional poster in Nigel’s hand.
“So what do you think? Beautiful, you ask me. The colors are outstanding.”
Candy peeked over Nigel’s shoulder. The poster was a group shot of One-Eyed Pig taken twenty years ago. Wild-eyed, Nigel sat chained to his drum kit. The other members hovered around him, holding their instruments protectively in front of their bodies, like they were afraid of what Nigel might do if he got loose.
“Great,” Nigel said.
Silver kept talking all the way to the stretch limousine parked in front of the hotel. The limo was pink, as was the driver’s uniform, a Miami Beach fashion statement if there ever was one. The driver was a mean-looking black man with a shaved head.
Candy got in, her bare legs sticking to the leather seat. She felt cheap, but Nigel seemed to be having a good time, and that was all she cared about. Silver sat opposite them and glanced discreetly out the window as Candy got comfortable.
“Where are we going?” Candy asked.
“The Virgin record store,” Silver said. “Nigel’s going to sign autographs.”
“You mean the Virgin store on Collins?”
Silver nodded enthusiastically. “There’s already a huge crowd. This baby’s going to go platinum in six weeks. Mark my words. Six weeks.”
Candy looked at Nigel. They had gone shopping in the Virgin store three nights ago. It was two blocks from the hotel. Sensing her confusion, he explained. “I can’t just show up, my dear. My fans would not tolerate it. I must appear in an impossibly expensive car being driven by a menacing-looking fellow who may or may not be a homicidal maniac.”
“It’s in the contract,” Silver explained.
Candy looked at the driver, then at Nigel. “Is he?”
“Is he what?”
“A homicidal maniac?”
“He’s an actor,” Silver said. “We hired him because he fits the bill.”
Candy fell back in her seat.
“Oh, wow” was all she could think to say.
The line outside the Virgin store stretched around the block, the faithful done up in leather and chains and motorcycle boots. They would have looked real tough if not for the gray hair and potbellies. The driver got out and opened their door.
“It’s show time,” Silver declared.
He walked Nigel and Candy to the front door, where they were greeted by the gushing store manager and a handful of employees. Introductions were made. Nigel shook everyone’s hand while clutching Candy to his side. Candy played along, smiling and giggling and showing plenty of leg.
“I saw you at Shea Stadium in 1980,” the store manager said. His name tag said Trip. A forty-year-old hippie who looked like he smoked his breakfast. “Greatest concert I’ve ever seen. You went through three drum kits and two cases of beer.”
“I was sick that night,” Nigel said.
“You were?”
Nigel nodded. “Had to take it easy.”
Trip laughed. So did Silver and the driver. Candy didn’t get it but laughed anyway, because that was what you did around a celebrity.
The store was a high-ceilinged monster with the personality of an airplane hangar. Trip escorted them to the back. A large area had been cleared. Sitting on a table were stacks of CDs and DVDs. Hanging behind the table, a giant poster of Nigel’s famous Rolling Stone cover, his naked upper torso swathed in rusty chains, his eyes gleaming like a maniac’s. Candy had always thought it was the ugliest picture she’d ever seen.
“Ohhh,” she purred into Nigel’s ear.
“Does it turn you on?” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
A devilish gleam spread across his face. He got behind the table and took the chair. A pen was produced. He took it in his right fist, poised for the onslaught.
“Ready?” Trip said.
“Bring on the mob,” Nigel replied.
Trip clapped his hands like a dance instructor, and the employees opened up the store. The crowd came in a little faster than Candy would have liked, and she got behind Nigel and stayed there as he chatted and signed autographs. She’d seen her share of celebrities, and Nigel was a class act. He was friendly and didn’t mind pumping the flesh.
Soon the store was mobbed. No one was leaving, and Candy found herself staring at a big white sheet on the other side of the room. It was covering something fairly large, and at first she thought it was a car. Only, it was too small to be a car.
A voice came over the store’s PA. Nigel lifted his head. Trip was standing by the sheet, mike in hand.
“Folks, we have a real treat for you this afternoon. Through the generosity of Polyester Records and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio, we have flown in one of the most famous musical instruments in the world.” Grasping the sheet with his free hand, Trip whisked it away to reveal a gleaming drum kit, the initials NM written in block letters on the face of the base. “Used in the famous East End recording sessions for One-Eyed Pig’s first album, Baby, You Need It Bad, here they are, Nigel Moon’s own drums!”
The crowd hooted and hollered. Someone started to chant “Nigel, Nigel” until it became a chorus. Nigel got out of his chair and wrapped his arm around Candy’s waist.
Candy could feel his heart beating wildly.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course,” he said.
They walked over to where Trip stood, and Nigel took the mike. “Monster, Monster,” the crowd chanted, that being the name of the band’s most famous song. Nigel tried to speak. The crowd would not stop.
“Would you?” Trip asked, holding u
p a pair of sticks.
Nigel stared at them, then him.
“Where’s your bathroom?”
Trip pointed across the room. Nigel handed him the mike, then bowed to the crowd. Still chanting, they parted and let him through.
He was moving quickly, like he really had to go, and Candy saw him pick up speed as he reached the front of the store. Instead of veering to his left—in the bathroom’s direction—he went straight instead.
His body hit the front doors hard.
31
“You look like a bag of wet doughnuts,” Victor Marks said.
“It’s been a long week,” Rico admitted.
“Appearances are important,” Victor said, his tone scolding. “In this racket, they’re the most important thing you’ve got.”
They were sitting at the Seafood Bar in Victor’s favorite hangout, the Breakers in Palm Beach. The bar was an aquarium, and Victor identified the fish as they swam past. “The orange and white one is a clown fish. That one’s a purple damsel. And that big guy is a spotted eel. Every day, the eel eats one of the other fish. It costs the hotel a lot of money to keep replacing them. Know why they leave the eel in the aquarium?”
“No,” Rico said.
“Appearances.” Victor motioned for the bartender. “Two more,” he said, pointing at their glasses. When the bartender was gone, he said, “How’s the basketball scam going?”
“It’s going to be tough to pull off.”
“Of course it’s going to be tough to pull off. If pulling cons was easy, every blowhard from here to Cincinnati would be in the racket. You’ve got to play the part.”
“I’m trying.”
Victor touched Rico’s sleeve. “Look at me.”
“Okay.”
“What do you see?”
What Rico saw was the best-dressed guy in the hotel, an eighty-year-old with a perfect haircut and capped teeth and tailored clothes. He saw a guy he’d like to be one day.
“A guy on top of the world,” Rico said.
“That’s right. And I’m working a job, right now.”
“Here?”
“Yup. Surprised?”
“Yeah . . .”
“It’s called the confidence game, kid. You’ve got to exude confidence, otherwise you won’t fool a blind man.”
“What you got going?”
Victor dropped his voice. “I come here three or four times a year, and I always leave with a bag of money. Twenty grand, sometimes more. Pays for my vacation and the broad on my arm.”
Rico felt his spirits pick up. Victor did that to him. Victor was the epitome of what a criminal was supposed to be, the master of a universe of his own creating. Every pearl he passed along, Rico knew would bring him closer to his own dream.
“Come on. Tell me.”
“It’s the Titanic Thompson/Arnold Rothstein con.”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t read the book I gave you?”
Rico lowered his head in shame. He hadn’t read a book in twenty years.
“No.”
Victor looked out the window as two well-kept women walked by. He spoke in a normal voice, no longer caring who heard. “I give you a book, you’re supposed to read it. Titanic Thompson was the greatest con man of the twentieth century. Arnold Rothstein was one of the greatest gamblers of the twentieth century. He fixed the 1919 World Series.”
“The Black Sox scandal,” Rico said.
“Go to the head of the class. One night in New York, Rothstein got into a poker game at the Roosevelt Hotel with a bunch of heavy hitters, one of whom was Thompson. Rothstein ends up losing half a million bucks. We’re talking 1927 here, which might make this the biggest pot ever.”
“Was Thompson cheating?”
“Of course he was cheating!”
Rico slumped in his bar chair. “How?”
“That’s the good part. Thompson had been watching Rothstein for years. He’d noticed that whenever Rothstein played poker, he always bought the cards himself. That way, the cards were always clean. So Thompson loaded marked decks in every gift shop and stationery store within a two-block radius of the hotel. When Rothstein showed up to the game and took two brand-new decks out of his pocket, Thompson knew they were his.”
Rico beamed. “Is that what you’re doing here, using marked cards?”
Their drinks came. Victor sipped his soda water, savoring the moment. “The hotel has its own decks of cards. I went to the plant and bribed them into changing the plates.”
“You mean all the decks in this joint are marked?”
“Heh, heh, heh,” Victor said.
Victor’s scam was a lot like Tony Valentine’s marked-deck scam. A real sweet deal. That was the thing about the old guys, Rico thought. They knew how to make money without getting their fingernails dirty.
Thinking about it reminded Rico why he’d asked Victor for a meeting, and he lowered his voice. “Victor, I have a problem.”
Victor was watching broads. A pair was standing outside, smiling and waving through the glass. Victor blew one of them a kiss. “I took her husband for ten grand, and she’s been flirting with me ever since. God, I love rich people.”
“A real problem.”
Victor turned in his chair. “What’s that?”
“A guy named Tony Valentine is putting the muscle on me.”
“Tony Valentine?”
“You know him?”
“He was a dick in Atlantic City. Made life miserable for me and my crew.” The fun had gone out of Victor’s voice. “What does he want?”
“A cut.”
“What for?”
“He knows about the scam I pulled at the Micanopy casino, and about Bobby Jewel.”
“How does he know that?”
“Dunno. I haven’t told the details to anybody but you, Victor.”
Victor’s eyes grew narrow. “Bull.”
“What do you mean?”
“You probably told the last broad who showed you her titties.”
“You think so.”
“Yeah. You’ve got a big mouth.”
Victor was talking to him like he was a punk, showing no respect. Rico didn’t like it. “The only person I told the details to was you, Victor.”
Victor took out his wallet and threw down his resort charge card, money not allowed on the property. The bartender said, “On the house, Mr. Marks,” and Victor put the resort card away. Under his breath he said, “Are you accusing me of ratting you out?”
“You’re the only one who knows.”
“You came to me six months ago, asked me to teach you the ropes. Said you wanted to screw a bookie out of a few million. So I taught you the rackets. And this is my reward?”
Rico grabbed the older man’s sleeve. “I didn’t tell nobody else.”
Victor slapped his hand on the bar so hard that a school of tiny fish disappeared. The bartender hurried toward them, a worried look on his face. Victor waved him off. Shaking free of Rico’s grasp, he said, “Go back to New York, kid. You’re out of your league down here.” Then he straightened his jacket and walked away.
Rico got out of the Breakers, but just barely. Two mean-faced security guards appeared within moments of Victor’s departure. They followed Rico to the valet stand and watched him get into his limo and drive off, the one in shades scribbling down his license number. Staring at them in his side mirror, Rico let out a stream of obscenities.
He drove through Palm Beach, drawing stares from other limo drivers, who wore hats and neckties. He needed another driver, someone to play the part, so he could play his part. Victor was right. Appearances were everything.
He drove west until he saw signs for the Florida’s Turnpike. There was no doubt in his mind that Victor had told someone. And that someone had told Valentine. It could have been anyone—a mutual friend, even a barber—but Rico had to find out who it was, before he told someone else.
He got on the turnpike and headed south. He needed to
put the screws to Valentine and make him talk. Which was what he probably should have done in the first place.
Fishing out his wallet, he removed the napkin that Gerry Valentine had scribbled his phone number on, and dialed it on his cell phone.
“Fontainebleau hotel,” an operator answered.
This was going to be too easy, he thought.
32
The scene at the Virgin store got ugly fast.
Nigel’s turn on the drums had been advertised in the newspaper and on the radio. The crowd had come to get a taste of the old-time mayhem that only he could produce, his wild-eyed, manic intensity one of the few lasting images of the cocaine- and booze-injected rock and roll of the early eighties.
The record promoter tried to defuse the situation by grabbing the mike and telling a few bad jokes. Someone in the crowd threatened to kick his bonded teeth down his throat. Candy ducked out the back door and circled the building. The pink limo was parked out front, but she was not sure she wanted to be associated with it.
Instead, she started walking to the Delano and immediately regretted it. She was dressed like a streetwalker, and cars did the slow crawl down the street, a few male drivers waving handfuls of bills, trying to entice her to jump in.
Candy cursed them, and Nigel for reducing her to this. It was one thing to be a whore. It was something else entirely when the man you loved made you feel like one.
Her stilettos left puncture wounds on the Delano’s wood floors. The Rose Bar sat off the lobby, an unfriendly space with muted lighting.
“Where is he?” she demanded of the bartender, knowing that it was to the bottle that her lover had surely run.
Polishing a highball glass, the bartender pointed in the direction of the bungalows. Candy stormed out.
She had to pass through the patio restaurant to reach the bungalows, and a couple she’d chatted with in the pool now avoided making eye contact. Why had she let Nigel talk her into wearing these horrible clothes? It made her so angry, she wanted to kill someone.