“Are you talking about the cancer? Or the abuse?”
“When I was a kid. If I… fought back. He’d hurt me even more.”
“You think it’s the same thing with cancer?”
“I’ve been through two rounds of chemo and radiation. They were the low points of my life. And, believe me, I’ve had some lows. I don’t want to do that again. So I’m not going to. Sometimes, you can’t win. So I’m going to let—” I almost said Earl. “Let the cancer win.”
I didn’t like saying it. I didn’t like thinking it, either. It felt weak. And it was weak. But delaying the inevitable just caused more pain.
I looked at Pasha, expecting to see pity.
I only saw acceptance.
“So you take drugs.”
I nodded.
“Do you take drugs to cope? Or do you take them because they keep you from fighting back?”
A knock at the door saved me from answering. I checked the peephole, Hardballer in hand. It was the pizza guy.
We ate in bed, without any more psychotherapy. Pasha talked more about Davesh, focusing on his inadequacies as a lover.
“I tried to explain the female body to him. He mistook my direction for criticism. What it came down to is, he cared about his own needs more than mine.”
“Isn’t that every relationship?”
She dropped a pepperoni on the blanket, picked it up, and devoured it. “I hope not. But maybe it is. I’ve only been in love twice. Both times, the men were selfish. The first was in high school. He was on the swim team. I loved his body. So did he. When we went out, he spent more time looking at himself. He was my first sex. It wasn’t bad, but it seemed like he was in a race, competing for the best time.”
“Young men don’t have much self-control.”
“That particular problem isn’t monopolized by the young. How about you? Been in love?”
“Once.”
“What was her name?”
“Annie.”
“Tell me about her.”
So I did. I told her about meeting her, falling in love, the life we planned together, and then leaving her after my diagnosis.
“Because you didn’t want her to watch you die?” Pasha asked. The question didn’t seem as weighty with her mouth full of pizza.
“Yeah.”
“So if we got close, you’d leave me?”
“Probably.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier just to get more chemo?”
“No. Having someone I care about watch me go through that would make it even worse.”
“So it’s cocaine and pills and liquor until you die alone.”
“You forgot sex,” I said.
“Cocaine, pills, liquor, and sex. But no love.”
“No love.”
“Well, then. I’ll take extra care to make sure I don’t fall in love with you.”
She said it playfully, smiling when she did.
But for some reason, I didn’t find it amusing.
Pasha might have noticed my mood swing, and she changed the subject.
“I’ve never paid for sex. Is it weird?”
“Believe it or not, it’s informal.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how you can go to a nice restaurant with a really good server? You can have a good time, but you know that even though they’re kissing your ass, they don’t actually like you. It’s a business transaction. Same thing.”
“Do these women like sex?”
“A few of them do. For most, it’s mechanical. They want to finish as quickly as they can and find the next guy. Some like to party. A few days in a hotel, food and drugs. They seem to be enjoying themselves, in a self-destructive way.”
Pasha didn’t eat her crust, so I picked up one she discarded and began to nibble.
“What’s the most you’ve ever paid a sex worker?”
“Most I paid for a single woman? Or for one time?”
“Both.”
“For one time? Two thousand dollars.”
Pasha’s eyes got wide. “That much? What did you do together?”
I smiled, the memory coming back. “Her name was Silli. With an i. She was one of the few who really liked her job. We had a pretty good time.”
“And what’s the most?”
“Thirty-two thousand dollars.”
She punched my arm, playful. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“I hope that was a pretty good time.”
“It wasn’t. We didn’t have sex.”
“Now I’m really intrigued.”
“She was thirteen years old. A sex slave, kidnapped from Thailand. I bought her from the sex trafficker who smuggled her into the USA. Thirty grand for her freedom. Two grand to send her to her relatives in California.”
“And what about the trafficker? Did you go to the police?”
“He wound up giving me a refund. And the other six girls he’d taken.”
“What happened to him?”
“He doesn’t hurt anyone anymore.”
He’d died, accidentally, from internal bleeding. It probably had something to do with the cattle prod I’d jammed up his pimp ass.
“Did the other girls get to safety?”
I nodded.
“And this is a true story? You’re not just saying this to impress me and get me into bed again?”
“True story. And I’m not trying to impress you. Two times in the same afternoon is my limit.”
Pasha put her arm around my neck. “That’s too bad. Women don’t have a limit.”
We kissed, gently.
She tasted like green peppers.
I didn’t mind.
“Question,” I said. “When you said that no one has ever gone down on you before…”
Pasha grinned, wickedly. “A fib. You caught me. I haven’t been with many men, but that’s a good test. If they don’t want to do that, I don’t want them in my bed.”
“Well, then. I’m happy I passed the test.”
“You did. I’d give you a solid B+.”
I furrowed my brows in mock anger. “B+?”
“If I gave you an A, you wouldn’t feel like you had to try harder next time.”
I put my arm around her bare waist and drew her to me. “In that case, you get an F.”
“An F?!”
“But you’re in luck. I’m willing to give you a make-up test.”
I kissed her.
It turned out two times wasn’t my limit after all.
It was a little after midnight. As Pasha snored softly I swung a foot out of bed and began to dress. Getting her out of Flutesburg was the primary reason I’d taken her to Redemption. The secondary reason was Jimmy Mulrooni.
Mulrooni lived in Redemption.
With LaBeck out of the picture, Mulrooni had no business reason to continue to bother Pasha. But he had every reason to hold a grudge. The mob wasn’t the type of organization that forgave and forgot. Besides Pasha, Jack and Harry would also be on Mulrooni’s retribution list.
I needed to end this. And I didn’t like my odds.
With Griffith and LaBeck, breaking and entering was the best option. But Mulrooni was rich, and he was connected. He’d have guards. Lots of guns. Maybe even attack dogs.
So I had to go a different route.
I put my Taurus in the glove compartment, and shoved the grenade in my jeans, tucked into my boxer-briefs under my balls. It was uncomfortable, and from the wrong angle I looked like John Holmes.
Then I climbed into the Bronco and headed to Mulrooni’s house.
You’ve had some dumb ideas, buddy. But this one is the worst.
The town of Redemption took up ten square miles west of Lake Michigan. About twenty thousand people called it home, and it didn’t seem like a bad place to raise a family. Lots of trees, lots of parks, a few scattered farms, nice houses, and I didn’t see a single strip mall or convenience store during my drive.
Following the map I�
��d picked up earlier that day, I turned down a small road and passed a smattering of NO TRESSPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY signs. The trees lining the road were old, thick, and reminded me of the witch’s forest from the Oz movie. At the end of the road, a big iron gate, even bigger than the one in LaBeck’s neighborhood.
A man in a suit with a machinegun slung over his shoulder stood behind the bars and motioned for me to roll down my window. I did.
This plan just keeps getting stupider and stupider.
“Phineas Troutt to see Mr. Mulrooni.”
“What’s this about?”
“Dennis LaBeck.”
He took out a walkie-talkie, spoke a few words, and got a reply I couldn’t hear.
“Go up the driveway to the garage, get out of the car, and put your hands on your hood.”
The gate opened. I tucked the Hardballer I’d been gripping underneath my front seat, and then did as the lackey said.
My old friend Bruiser met me at the garage. I resisted two urges; the first, to shoot him, and the second, to start weeping in terror and crimp a Shatner in my pants. Instead of giving in to either instinct, I got out and slapped my palms on my car.
Bruiser began the frisk at my armpits, moving his enormous hands down my body.
“You have a very tender touch,” I said. “Don’t deny you’re enjoying this.”
He purposely began to squeeze my muscles hard enough to hurt. But, as I’d hoped, he avoided patting down my groin.
Thank you, homophobia.
Once his hands were off me, Bruiser gave me a hard stare.
“What are you doing here?”
“Me and your boss have business.”
Bruiser stared at me so hard that puppies died.
“What kind of business?”
“I’ll tell him when I see him.”
We exchanged tough guy glares, Bruiser’s much tougher than mine, and then he told me to follow him. Mulrooni’s house had to be twice the size of LaBeck’s. I guess organized crime paid better than crooked politics. After a short walk up the circular driveway, we went through a side door and entered the attached garage.
It was four times the size of my room at the Michigan Motel, and a whole lot cleaner. Parked in the center was a stock race car, bright yellow, covered in advertising decals. I had enough white trash in me to recognize NASCAR.
I whistled. It was a guy thing. Even in the bad guy’s lair, you can’t help but appreciate a sweet ride.
“Do you like it?”
I looked up, saw Mulrooni enter through the house, followed by two of his soldiers. Bruiser stood between us, hands on his hips.
“Looks expensive.”
“Three hundred K. Plus a fortune to keep it racing. Now explain to me why you’re here, at my house. You got ten seconds before I let Bruiser beat you to death.”
Unlike LaBeck, Mulrooni wasn’t a talker.
“I didn’t come to fight.”
Two more guards came in behind me, blocking my exit.
Charles Darwin just called. You lose at natural selection. You moron.
“Eight seconds.”
“Let me piss first. Can I use your bathroom?”
Mulrooni seemed seriously irritated by the suggestion. “No, you can’t use my bathroom, you fuckwad. Five seconds.”
“Suit yourself.”
I quickly unzipped my fly, reaching inside as Mulrooni raised an index finger in anger.
“Don’t you fucking—”
And then the grenade was out and the pin was pulled and I was holding it above my head, squeezing the safety lever. After an initial move toward me, Mulrooni’s thugs quickly stepped back. Mulrooni also leaned away.
“I take it you know what this is. Four second fuse. Fifteen meter blast radius. It would really mess up your nice car, here. And if that goes up, it could burn down your whole house.”
Mulrooni turned red, and the left side of his face began to twitch. “How do you expect to get out of here alive, Troutt?”
“I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“You gonna kill me? With that grenade?”
“I don’t want to do that.”
“So what do you want?”
What do you want, you idiot? Is this how you beat me? Getting killed by the mob?
“We never got a chance to gamble on the boat. You said you like to gamble.”
“Get to the point.”
My plan seemed really stupid, now that I was about to say it. But I didn’t have any alternatives.
“We each draw a card. High card wins. It’s me, we’re even. You leave me and my people alone. It’s you, I’ll put the pin back in, and you can do whatever you want with me.”
He’s not going to buy that, dumb ass. Your best bet is to pull the grenade and sit on it.
Happily, Mulrooni wasn’t as skeptical as Earl.
“What if you lose and decide to throw the grenade anyway?” Mulrooni asked.
“Even if you killed me, I know you’d still go after my people. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching my back.” I tried to make the next sentence seem matter-of-fact, rather than threatening. “And neither do you.”
His face twisted in disgust. “You think I’m worried about a little nothing like you?”
“Of course not. But you know that no one is 100% safe. I came to you like a man, with a deal. I could have waited until morning, and shot you with a sniper rifle from three hundred meters away.”
“You think you could do that?”
There’s no way you could do that, Earl said. You don’t have the skills. Or the rifle.
But Mulrooni didn’t know that. And I was a decent enough poker player that I could get away with a bluff.
Occasionally.
I doubled down. “You saw what I did to LaBeck.”
“His old lady killed him.”
“Really? Point blank, back of the head, in his den? Have you been in his den? Why don’t you ask a few of the dead animals on his walls. Ask them what I did.”
Mulrooni rubbed his chin, mulling it over.
He’s not gonna buy it. You’re dead. You’re so very, very—
“Bruiser. Go into my office. Get me a fresh deck of cards from the top drawer.”
Bruiser flexed, then trotted off to fetch for his master.
Unbelievable.
“You got balls, Troutt.”
“I didn’t have a choice. You’re powerful, and you scare me. This was my only play.”
He nodded, appearing to like my answer.
“I gamble a lot. I’ve also seen a lot of men beg for their life. But this is the first time I’ve seen a guy gamble for his.”
I shrugged, trying to seem cool. But I didn’t feel cool. I felt like yakking. “Life is a gamble, isn’t it?”
“Muhammad Ali said that. I got an autographed poster of that quote in my den. Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you. He was the GOAT, Ali. Greatest Of All Time. But he was wrong. You may not believe it will happen to you.” Mulrooni smiled slyly. “But it always does.”
He’s right, Earl said. Everybody dies. Some of us sooner than others. A lot sooner.
Sweat was rolling down by back, pooling at my waistband. What was taking Bruiser so long?
“I lost a lot of money on LaBeck,” Mulrooni said.
I didn’t like where this was heading. “Your money? Or someone else’s?”
“My money. This was my operation. No one else got a cut.”
That was the good news. And the bad news. On one hand, there was no one above Mulrooni to swear revenge. On the other, Mulrooni probably didn’t like losing money.
“I’m sure you’ll find another politician to own. Ali also said that He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
“He said that
?”
“I think so.”
“I don’t know that quote. Maybe you think you’re smarter than me, huh?”
Psychotic bully alert. He’s going Joe Pesci on your ass, Phin. You’re dead. D-E-A-D.
“You’re a lot smarter than me,” I said.
“If I’m so smart, how did I wind up with you in my garage, holding a grenade?”
“It’s your grenade. One of your men wired it up to my car. You’ve been in control this whole time.”
“So why aren’t you dead?”
“You know gambling. No matter how good you are, sometimes the other guy just gets lucky.”
My hands were starting to sweat. Holding a live grenade was a level of stress I’d never experienced before. I didn’t like the feeling.
Bruiser reappeared with a card deck. It looked miniature in his huge paws. He handed it to his lord and master.
Mulrooni cracked the plastic seal on the pack. “Okay, Mr. Gambling Man. One card each, high card wins. You want to shuffle?” He offered me the deck.
“I trust you,” I said.
I had no other choice.
He shuffled the cards. Not in a Fast Eddie Felson way. In a regular guy way. It gave me a bit of hope that he wasn’t good enough to cheat.
“You want to draw first?”
“Draw for me,” I said. “Top card.”
He pulled the top card.
The seven of clubs.
Your plan sucks, Earl said.
I had to agree with him. But I’d done all I could. I flattered him. I let him save face. I showed him I respected him. Now it was all up to the cards, and if he’d hold up his end of our deal if he lost.
Because I had no idea what to do next.
“My draw.”
He took the next card—
Three of hearts.
I blew out the breath I was holding.
“So, we’re good?” I asked.
Mulrooni’s poker face broke, and his emotional fireworks came spitting out at me in a very scary way.
“Good? You come into my house, pull this shit? I’m going to hunt you down, Mr. Troutt. You, and everyone you’ve ever met. The doctor. The cop. That asshole private eye with the TV show. Everyone you’re related to, all the way down to your third cousins. I’m going to find out who your fucking kindergarten teacher was, and take a blowtorch—”
Do something, jackass!
I threw the grenade so hard it broke all of Mulrooni’s front teeth, and probably his jaw, and stuck in his mouth like an apple in a roast pig.
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