The Devil's Punchbowl

by Greg Iles

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Quinn asks with his usual diplomacy.

  “Making sure the police don’t turn my ex-girlfriend’s son into hamburger.”

  There’s a short pause. “Where are you now?”

  “With my old girlfriend.”

  “What girlfriend? The bookstore woman?”

  “No, my old old girlfriend. The mouthy cunt, as your boss called her.”

  Caitlin shoots me a sidelong look.

  “What kind of game are you playin’, counselor?”

  “No game. You told me to do what I would normally do. The chief called me about Soren Jensen, I went to deal with it. I’m still looking for your property.”

  “And you haven’t found it?”

  “I covered the whole cemetery today, but I couldn’t find anything.”

  “Keep lookin’.”

  On a hunch, I decide to take a gamble. “I did find Tim Jessup’s car.”

  “Did you, now? Where was that?”

  “Bottom of the Devil’s Punchbowl.”

  “Ah. Well. That doesn’t interest me.”

  So they already knew about the car. They may even have burned it and run it into the Punchbowl. But from Quinn’s tone, I don’t think he has Carl Sims on his radar. “Does your company own a black Escalade?”

  “Don’t know what you’re blathering on about,” Quinn says. “But stick her once for me tonight, eh? She’s a hot piece.”

  Caitlin obviously heard this last remark. She’s acting like she can’t believe the guy would say that, but she knows better, and she leans close to hear the rest of the conversation.

  “I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sleeping at her place. Tell your goons to keep their distance.”

  “High and mighty,” Quinn says. “Know her type well. They want it nasty. She looks a bit young for you. Give me a ring if you run out of steam.”

  Quinn is laughing as I click END.

  “Was that Sands?” Caitlin asks.

  “No, his security chief. He’s a thug. A monster, probably. Sands talks like the Duke of York. At least until he takes off the mask. Then he sounds like what you just heard.”

  “Charming.”

  “Don’t try to find out for yourself.” I slide lower in my seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “These guys are predators, you can’t forget that. Tim told me that the first night, and I didn’t let it sink in. Don’t make the same mistake.”

  Caitlin nods thoughtfully in the dark, but her eyes are bright. As it does most people, evil fascinates her. Like me, Caitlin has probed the dark side of human nature through her work. But unlike me, she has not become exhausted by the effort. As I descend into sleep, I recall a line of Wilde’s that she once quoted to me: The burnt child loves the fire.

  CHAPTER

  26

  It doesn’t take long for a hooker to latch onto Walt. He’s playing the craps table in high style, like an oilman with money to burn, and nothing draws girls like burning money. This one’s young, and that fits his role: sugar daddy on the prowl. She’s a bottle blonde with skinny legs, a hard face, and hard little tits, but she’s not more than thirty, so she’ll do. Walt likes dark-haired women, but he’s somebody else tonight—J. B. Gilchrist from Dallas, Texas—and picking a wrong woman makes it easier to remember that.

  Walt’s working the Zephyr, not the Magnolia Queen. In a market this small, word of a big player will spread plenty fast. His goal is to lose enough of Penn’s money that by tomorrow night, every pit boss and dealer in town will know his name.

  The crowd on the Zephyr is mostly black, which he’d expected when a guy on the shuttle bus joked about him going to the African Queen. The majority of this clientele clearly doesn’t have money to lose, but here they are, dropping their dollars into the slots and looking longingly at the table games. He feels guilty sliding the brightly colored chips across the felt under their watchful eyes, but he’s got a job to do, and there’s no point worrying about something he can’t change.

  It takes about fifteen minutes—and a good deal more of Penn’s cash—before the table hits a hot streak. Walt’s not the roller when it happens, but that hardly matters: Craps is the most social of casino games, with the players rooting for each other, united against the house. By laying down hundreds per bet, Walt’s become the de facto “table captain,” and all eyes are on him. If he wins, everybody wins, at least in spirit.

  By the time the roller has hit his fifth point, Walt’s up by thousands, and the hooker’s snuggling closer on his arm. His fellow players’ eyes go from Walt, as he makes his bet, to the tumbling dice, then back to Walt, who’s increased his line bets to a thousand dollars.

  A couple of men in Western-style suede sport coats have joined the swelling crowd waiting for an opening at the table. Well-heeled rednecks by the look of them—one older with gray whiskers, the other a Tim McGraw look-alike in his midthirties—father and son, maybe. If they stick around, Walt might ask them about finding some action. They’ll ogle the blonde and say, “It looks like you already found some, partner,” but he’ll shake his head and draw them in close and ask about some real sport. They might act confused, play it carefully, but the young guy’s wearing an Angola Prison Rodeo belt buckle, so he can’t be from too far away. Walt suspects that he, at least, knows the score.

  “Five, five,” the stickman calls out. “No-field five.” He pushes the dice to the red-hot roller. “High, low, yo, anyone?”

  The stickman’s pushing for prop bets, bad-odds wagers that only amateurs make.

  “Thousand on the yo.” The crowd hushes, watching as Walt tosses out two purple chips. “One for me and one for the boys.”

  “Thank you very much for the action, sir,” says the stickman loudly, placing the chips in the middle of the table, one representing Walt’s bet, the other $1,000 bet for the stickman, the pit boss, and the two dealers running the table. Now Walt has the employees’ attention as well. If his bet hits, the dealers will win a tip that comes only a handful of times in a career.

  “Whew,” breathes the girl on his arm. “That’s a lot.”

  Walt grins like he’s lapping it up. “That’s the secret of this game, hon. Soon as you get a good run going, you ride it. Ride her till she bucks ya and go home happy.” He leans down to her ear and adds, “And ride some more.”

  “You go, Dad,” says the rodeo fan. “Show ’em how it’s done!”

  Walt gives the kid a hard look, then softens it into a smile, hugging the girl to his side. “This’un here’s the only one who gets to call me daddy.”

  There’s general laughter from the crowd, and the roller tosses the dice.

  The crowd whoops as the dice come up eleven.

  “Yo eleven,” says the stickman, barely controlling the excitement in his voice. “Pay the line, and pay the gentleman. Thank you again, sir.”

  Walt gives a casual nod as the dealers collect a total of $16,000 in tip money to divide as they see fit.

  He lays down the same bet again, to sincere thank-yous from the crew. Predictably, it misses. And just as predictably, the roller’s hot run ends a few throws later. Gradually, the dice make their way around the table. When they reach Walt, he gestures graciously to the hooker that she should take his roll. She squeals and squeezes his arm, then takes a gulp from her rum and coke. He drops the dice into her moist palm, tells her to blow on them before she rolls. Her eyes light up like a penny slot machine. She blows on the dice, then flings them down the table like a kid skipping rocks on a pond.

  “Seven,” says the stickman. “Winner, seven. Pay the line, take the don’t.”

  The crowd roars as usual, and Walt uses its attention like a spotlight. “Let’s do another bet for the boys,” he says generously. “You can win it for them, right, honey?”

  The hooker giggles wildly as the stickman places another thousand-dollar “yo” bet for himself and his coworkers.

  The hooker rolls the dice, establishing a point of four, but losing the prop bet. The crowd sighs.

  “Sorry, boys,” Walt says. “Let’s hit that point. What do you say, Fancy?”

  “It’s Nancy,” the gir
l says with an exaggerated pout.

  Walt grins for the crowd. “I knew a Fancy in New Orleans once. Or was it Dallas? Hell, I can’t remember. But I sure remember her. How ’bout you be Fancy just for tonight?”

  The hooker looks uncertainly around at the attentive eyes, then down at Walt’s long rack of high-value chips. Her eyes flash, and she pumps her fist like a high school cheerleader at a pep rally.

  “Fancy Nancy!” she cries. “Gimme those damn dice!”

  The crowd chatters while Walt places the maximum odds bet on his four, then falls silent, waiting for the throw.

  “Roll ’em, Fancy,” Walt says. “Put the magic on ’em, baby. Give us a four. Make those old bones pay, I know you know how to do that.”

  The crowd laughs again, but the girl’s past caring now. Walt feels like a son of a bitch, but it takes a son of a bitch to get his rocks off watching two dogs tear each other to pieces to please men who don’t care if they live or die, except as extensions of their own pride.

  Nancy blows on the dice again, then gives them a backhand throw, but the pit boss’s eyes are on Walt now. Just like the PTZ cameras in the hanging domes on the ceiling. The guys in the security room were probably bored shitless when he started his run, but now they’re watching with the same hunger as the people leaning against the table, wishing somebody would beat the house and walk away flush.

  Suckers every one, Walt thinks. How empty does your life have to be to spend your nights in this place?

  The dice come up three and one—the needed four. Nancy shrieks, and the crowd surges against Walt like a tide. It’s so easy to win when you don’t care one way or the other.

  Walt ups his line bet, and Nancy rolls, establishing a point of four again. Walt takes the maximum odds, then places two thousand-dollar bets on “hard four”—one for him, and one for the dealers. Another crazy bet, way past the edge of probability. But a thrumming on that old taut wire stretched from his balls to his throat tells him that tonight is his night.

  “Get ready, boys!” he says, feeling like Joe Namath before Super Bowl III. “You’re going home with folding money tonight!”

  Nancy skips the dice across the table with evanescent excitement, and they rebound half the table’s length, wobbling over to a two and a two.

  The dealers blink in astonishment as the crowd goes wild around them.

  “Four the hard way,” the stickman says with unaccustomed awe. “Hard four. Pay the man.”

  “And don’t forget to pay yourselves, son,” Walt says with grandiose intimacy, having won both men another two grand each to take home. “You’re gonna remember J. B. Gilchrist, aren’t you?”

  The stickman smiles with genuine gratitude. “Yes, sir.”

  “Color me up,” Walt tells the dealers, and the crowd falls silent. The dealers change his winnings into high-denomination chips that he can carry easily to the cashier.

  Walt pockets the chips, then grabs the hooker and dips her low, like Fred and Ginger. Nancy squeals, but the crowd claps and cheers as Walt brings her back up, red-faced from the effort. “Time to move on, hon!” he bellows. “I like action, and the action’s always moving. Anybody knows where to find it, you come talk to me. I’m always looking!”

  The crowd parts as though for a prophet, and Walt leads his hooker across the casino floor like a king escorting a royal consort. He hasn’t felt this good about a job in a long time. He’d never gamble with his own money, but he does believe in luck. Any man who’s been in combat has seen luck in all its infinite variations, and Walt has been putting his life on the line for fifty years since he got back from Korea. He’s the last of the Rangers from his old company still doing law enforcement work, and while he knows that judgment and experience have helped get him this far, without luck he would have died long ago. Driving out from the ranch, he’d wondered if he might be pushing a little too hard this time, tempting the lady to turn against him. But tonight he feels the fullness of his abilities in all their old potency. He’s got his mojo working, as an old Houston cop used to tell him.

  “I’m waiting for you,” he says softly, thinking of the man who threatened Tom Cage’s granddaughter. “Come on and take a nibble, sonny. I’ll set the hook so hard it’ll break your goddamn jaw.”

  In the parking lot on the bluff, Walt tips the driver of the shuttle bus, then steps off and joins Nancy on the pavement of the parking lot.

  “Where’s your car?” the hooker asks, looking up the line of modest cars in the lot. “I’ll bet you drive a big old Cadillac or something, don’t you? Old school, right?”

  “Hell no,” says Walt, pointing to the big Roadtrek van. “That’s me right there.”

  The girl’s mouth falls open. “Where? That?”

  “That’s me.” Walt clicks open the locks from his key ring. “Wait till you see her.”

  The girl looks wary, but she follows him into the van, which is finished as finely as a boat cabin. “Ain’t no regular RV, is it?” she marvels, turning in the small space. “You got a stove and a microwave and a flat panel and a refrigerator and a—”

  “Shower,” he finishes.

  “Man! What did this thing set you back?”

  “’Bout a hundred,” Walt says.

  Nancy shakes her head and eyes the sofa in back doubtfully. “You’re not sleeping in this thing, are you? I mean, you got a hotel room, right?”

  “Sure. I’m at the Eola.”

  She smiles and nods knowingly. “Well, hell. Let’s get this thing going and get up there. We’ll open up the minibar and have us a party, Daddy.”

  Walt opens a cabinet over the sink and pours himself a shot of Maker’s Mark. Then he sits at the table in back and drinks it, feeling the burn in his gullet.

  Nancy looks puzzled. “You got any rum, by any chance?”

  “Rum is for pirates and high school girls. You’re out of high school, aren’t you?”

  She giggles. “Maybe I am and maybe I ain’t. Do you want me to be?”

  “What I want is for you to pour yourself a little whiskey and sit here by me.”

  Nancy pours a glass of whiskey and sets it on the table, then sits beside Walt and nuzzles her face into his neck. For an instant he feels a shiver of desire, but then her hand creeps across his thigh and down between his legs, rubbing insistently.

  “Don’t you want to get on over to that hotel?” she coos. “We wanna be where we can spread out. Don’t we?”

  Walt doesn’t want to take the girl back to the hotel. He wants to go back to his room alone and call Carmelita. He can’t do that, of course, not without breaking cover. He never had any intention of screwing Nancy. He figured he’d get her to do a little striptease, overtip her, then pretend to pass out and hope she didn’t try to rob him. If she did, he’d “wake up” and ease her out gently. But now that they’re alone, he knows he doesn’t have the stomach for even that. Seeing those little tits drop out of that dress wouldn’t do anything but make him think about the kids she has waiting at home, and the idea of her working with mechanical urgency to make him climax nauseates him.

  What he really feels like doing is talking to her. Asking the same stupid question he asked the whores back in Korea—“How did you wind up doing this?”—which was all the more pointless back then because almost no one could answer even the simplest queries in English. Only in Japan had he received a real answer, on his extended R&R, and that had almost changed the course of his life.

  “Don’t you want it, Daddy?” Nancy murmurs, rubbing clumsily at his trousers. “Huh?”

  He drinks off her shot, then says, “Listen, Nancy,” and gently moves her hand out of his crotch. “You brought me some good luck in there, and I sure appreciate it. But I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

  The girl’s face falls. “What’s the matter, J.B.? You don’t like me?”

  “Oh, I like you. A lot. But I’m gettin’ on up there in age, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Nancy gives him a conspiratorial laugh.

  “Hell, I got kids older than you. I like having a girl on my arm, putting on the dog a little. But the truth is, honey, old J.B. can’
t really get it up no more.”

  Her brow furrows as though she’s trying to understand an algebra problem. “What about Viagra?”

  Walt chuckles as though with embarrassment. “I’ve got a bad ticker, hon. Can’t take that stuff.”

  Nancy looks almost frantic. “Well, there’s other things I can do. I mean, you got me out here and all. And I got to make a living, you know?”

  “Oh, I know that, sweetheart. Don’t you worry ’bout that.” He digs out his roll and peels off five $100 bills. Nancy almost licks her lips at the sight of them, but she waits until he passes them to her. “Does that cover your time?”

  The glow in her eyes tells him she hasn’t seen that kind of money in a long time, if ever. “What about my tip?”

  Walt hesitates, then winks like a man who knows he’s being taken advantage of and peels off another hundred, which he folds into the damp little palm.

  “How long you gonna be in town, J.B.?” Nancy asks, obviously thinking about her future prospects. “I can put on the dog all you want, darling.”

  “I’ll be around all week. Got a piece of some Wilcox wells down here. You’ll see me around the boats. If I’m with somebody else, you just give me the high sign, and I’ll come get you if I can. If not, I’ll catch you the next night. Okay?”

  She nods soberly. “I got you.”

  Walt smiles with genuine gratitude. “Can you get home all right?”

  “Yeah, my car’s in the lot here.”

  “Where?”

  “Other side.”

  Walt gets up and cranks the Roadtrek, then follows Nancy’s pointing finger to the other side of the vast lot, where he stops beside her wreck of a car.

  “It’s a junker,” she admits, “but it runs good. My ex is a mechanic.”

  Walt feels like giving her the rest of the roll, but that would be pushing it.

  Nancy raises her slim frame from the seat, leans down, and kisses him on the top of the head, then walks to the door in the side of the Roadtrek. As he looks back to watch her go, she pauses and lifts her tight skirt over her hips. A thin band of black elastic encircles her surprisingly feminine hips, and the thong disappears between the firm cheeks of her rump. She bends and touches her toes without effort, then stands and turns to face him, drawing the thong away from her pubis. The hair there is trimmed flat, a dark shadow over taut skin and protuberant lips. This time something stirs in him, something beyond thought or reason, the old Adam in him coming back to life.