Before the clock turned the day over, Jimmy was forced to give up his first Vegas dream of becoming a career gambler. Three hours in the casino and his pot was already down five hundred between the craps and blackjack tables. Not long after his final double-down implosion, Jimmy was filling out an application in the casino bar for poker dealer. Work had never exactly been Jimmy's favorite four-letter word, but all he had to do to stay positive was to remind himself that he was alive and 2,500 miles away from Jonathan Bass' pointy things.
"Rise and shine Jimmy," came Norm's cheerful voice from behind the door.
Jimmy's eyes sprung open. He sat bolt-upright out of another nightmare (pointy, pointy). Then his stomach sat bolt-upright. While the rest of Jimmy found its bearings, his stomach went on to do the Worm, the Slide, the Twist and every other dance move Wilson Pickett sung about.
First night in Vegas, Jimmy had allowed himself a couple of drinks. The price was right in his new budget, in that they were comped. A couple turned into God-knows how many. Even skunk drunk as he was from the free table liquor, Jimmy managed to charm the phone numbers off two women he'd struck up conversations with. He was too shitfaced to entice them back to his room, but he'd be damned if the old Jimmy Romance magic wasn't still strong as ever.
Jimmy opened the door too quickly, then stumbled back as the heat and blinding sunlight smacked into him again. That shit was going to take some getting used to. It also felt like unbelievable torture on his hangover.
"Whoa," said Norm. "Looks like somebody tasted a bit too much of the old Vegas high life last night." Norm cackled and Jimmy fought the desire to unpack his gun and put an end to the high-pitched torture. "Listen," he said, "I'll go get some breakfast and be back in an hour. You think you'll be ready?"
"Yeah," Jimmy mumbled through dry and cracked lips.
"Super."
Jimmy took the coldest shower of his life, hoping to wash the hangover away. He stood under the freezing jets with an empty coffee cup, repeatedly filling it under the stream and chugging it back into his dehydrated self. When he was done, he felt a little better, but his schlong had crawled halfway up his sternum.
When he pulled a shirt out of his bag, Jimmy looked at the revolver he'd packed just in case. He'd disassembled it and packed each piece into a different item, but it was still a minor miracle that the TSA hadn't dragged him off and turned him into a sock puppet for a few hours just for the attempt.
Luck.
Jimmy Romance was feeling it, brother. Long as he could suppress the memory of the previous nights' bad streak at blackjack, it was all coming up roses. He was gonna make it work.
He was heading out the door when he looked at the gun on the bed again. His problems were gone. What did he need the gun for now? Jimmy stopped at the door again.
Looked back at the gun.
Just in case.
The hard sell started the second Norm pulled onto the highway. Jimmy had trouble keeping his eyes open.
"Fortune Estates is going to be the premiere…" Jimmy's eyes drifted shut. "…golf courses accessible from the property."
Closing again.
Asleep.
Jimmy jumped up with a start at the hand on his shoulder.
"Whoa, whoa, there cowboy. Didn't mean to scare you," Norm said, his hands held up in mock-defense.
"Where are we?" They weren't even on any road to speak of anymore. All Jimmy could see on three sides was desert. Directly in front of the car was a ramshackle construction site. A couple of empty bulldozers were parked at the lip of what looked like a half-dozen empty foundations.
"The future site of Fortune Estates." Norm held his arms wide, like he was introducing Adam to the Garden of Eden.
"Nothing here," Jimmy croaked. His throat felt like it was full of dry ash. He went to get a bottle of water, but the glove compartment was locked.
"Nothing yet," Norm said, reaching into the back seat. He handed Jimmy a plastic gallon of Poland Spring. "Truth is, you're the first potential buyer we've brought here. We weren't planning on showing the site for another month. Been waiting for the weather to cool off a bit, but your circumstances made us bump up the schedule."
Jimmy sucked hungrily at the water, his head pounding a rumba. This was why he didn't drink.
"That wasn't fair of you," Norm said with a wink.
"What wasn't?"
"Sleeping through my pitch." Norm gave Jimmy another toothpaste ad smile. "C'mon. Let's go see the construction."
The desert wasn't what Jimmy expected. The ground had a gravelly consistency, like the stuff they poured in the infield at Jimmy's old Little League park. He was expecting more of a beach-type sand. There were no pointy cacti, just a lot of scrub. Scrub, gravel, and not a lot more. Jimmy stared down into one of the eight-foot deep foundations. His foot skidded in the sand and Norm grabbed Jimmy by the shoulder.
"Don't want to fall in there. It might be just sand, but that first step's a doozy." Norm haw-hawed.
Jimmy forced a smile. Yeah, a doozy. Me breaking my neck is real funny, too. He started feeling the old paranoia creeping back. There he was, literally in the middle of nowhere. The sensation was somehow sharpened to a point (pointy, pointy!) in the desert. The city kid inside him screaming for some concrete, one skyscraper to base perspective from. The sickness in the pit of his stomach was familiar, but the sweats were missing. Where were the sweats? Oh yeah. Sucked off by the hot air. Even his familiar fear felt wrong in this overheated death hole.
He'd tuned out Norm as they walked around the big nothing. What was wrong? There wasn't anybody who knew he was there. There was no place for anybody to hide. It was just the two of them, the open desert and…
And…
And a lot of holes in the ground.
"…right back." Norm said.
"Huh?"
"I said I'll be right back. I want to go get something in the car." Norm smacked Jimmy on the shoulder and trotted off. "Don't fall in."
It all came to him in a rush. Was it just a fucking coincidence that the offer came just at the right time? Jimmy hadn't been offered any timeshares before in his life. The thoughts bounced around Jimmy's brain like a superball. Butcher Bass had connections. Connected connections. Connections to crime.
Sin City.
Mean Gene. Mean Gene was getting a head start on his vacation tan. In Paris? Who the fuck went tanning in Paris?
In April.
There was, however, a casino called Paris right here in Vegas, the town hot enough to suck the moisture right off your bones.
Sin City, baby.
Jimmy watched Norm open the passenger door and lean down.
He was unlocking the glove compartment.
Jimmy didn't think Norm was getting mittens in the 110-degree heat.
For the first time since he'd arrived, Jimmy felt sweat on his neck as the rest of his body went numb. Without a second thought, he pulled his gun from the back of his pants and fired three shots into the windshield. The windshield splintered with a sound that reminded him of the one that Ricardo's face made when he slammed the tanning bed on it. Norm's outline bucked once and slumped over. Jimmy sucked the furnace air in rapid gulps. A couple of breaths later, his throat was squeaking dryly.
He started shuffling over to the car when the engine turned. Jimmy started running (to hide where exactly?) and emptied the gun at the shiny Beemer as it surged forward. The windshield exploded. The huge car didn't get far. It rolled into one of the empty foundations with a boom that echoed in the desert's empty expanse. The car's rear wheels kept rolling even though they had no ground to roll against anymore.
Jimmy jumped into the ditch, gun ready. He didn't realize that he'd emptied the clip in his panic, but it didn't matter. "Kill me, huh? You think you're gonna sucker Jimmy Romance? Fuck you!"
Jimmy opened the door. Norm's body lay still in the wheel well. Blood spurted from the puncture in his neck where one of Jimmy's bullets hit home, the tan linen jacket quickly going to red.
Jimmy rolled him off the pedals onto the hardened foundation floor. Once his body was off the accelerator, the engine slowed, coughed once and died.
Norm's mouth moved like a dummy who'd lost his ventriloquist. Tears rolled down from eyes that weren't looking at anything in particular. Then with one heaving gasp, he was still.
Jimmy once-overed the car's interior. No gun.
With a loud crack, the wall of the foundation gave under the Beemer's weight and came crashing down. The car rolled onto its roof, over Norm's body with a wet crunch.
Good thing he's already dead, Jimmy thought. Now it was his turn to laugh, even though the sound of it was alien in his ears. Jimmy carefully climbed into the compacted luxury car and looked in the glove box.
Jesus, it's stifling.
He found blueprints, a contract and a smashed bottle of sparkling wine. Cheap bastard couldn't even spring for the good stuff. On the roof of the car (now the floor) lay two jugs of water. One was empty, a ragged bullet hole through the plastic. The other was intact, but more than half empty, since Jimmy had greedily drank from it only recently.
No gun. No knives. Hell, there wasn't even a toenail clipper in the car.
How do people live in this heat?
Jimmy climbed out the car and considered his options. They weren't bad. Yeah, he'd killed the guy, but it already looked like an accident. It wouldn't take much to torch what was left and let any evidence burn up.
The feeling of freedom washed over Jimmy again. He would get away with it. Sorry Norm, but there just wasn't any motive. Jimmy grabbed the bottle of water and walked over to the partially-collapsed foundation wall. He could climb over, follow the tire tracks, flag a car and sob his story to the cops.
As Jimmy tried pulling himself over the edge, his feet kept sinking into the loose earth. Skidding backwards, Jimmy fell ass-over-teakettle, the desert gravel crumbling through the now fully-collapsed wall. Sand and dust quickly poured in to fill the vacuum. Jimmy sat up, spitting out grit from between his teeth.
Jimmy rinsed the dry earth from his mouth, dusted off his pant legs. So the collapsed wall was a bust. No biggie.
Jimmy went to the other side and tossed the jug over the edge ahead of him. Jumping up, he grabbed the wall and scrabbled to get his leg over. The rim came free under his shoe, sending Jimmy tumbling onto his back, clutching two handfuls of foundation wall.
Jimmy crumbled the cheap concrete between his rolling fingers. Looked like the people building Fortune Estates were going to make their fortunes by cutting back on materials.
North and south walls, same goddamn thing.
He couldn't get out.
Damn, it was hot. Jimmy looked at his arms, which were already going a dangerous shade of red. He checked his watch.
11:42 a.m.
It was only going to get hotter.
Jimmy climbed onto the overturned car, tried to get up speed and flung himself towards the edge. He hit the lip of the foundation halfway over and slid back slowly into the hole, his fingers scraping over the all-too-yielding ground. Almost made it, until the fingernail on his left pinky finger ripped out. Jimmy fell onto his ass once more and screamed his curses into the air.
In frustration, he marched over Norm's corpse and kicked him in his dead face. Too bad you're dead, Norm. I could have used the number for your manicurist.
The second time, Jimmy tried to psyche himself up. This was the only way he was going to get out. Do or die. Now or never. The old Brooklyn try.
On the second step of his second attempt, Jimmy's ankle caught under the muffler. His shin snapped like a chopstick as he face-planted into a muddy pool of Norm's blood. Jimmy rolled back and forth in Norm's gore, howling in obscene pain at the merciless sun.
The sun didn't care.
Jimmy closed his eyes, steeling himself against the pain. A shadow flickered over his clenched eyelids. Jimmy opened his eyes. A few seconds later, the shadow returned.
Huh, thought Jimmy. Would you look at that? Don't see too many of those back home.
Nope. Of all the negative things he could say about New York, one thing it had going for it was that there were no buzzards in Brooklyn.
Angelo Death
For the third time in a week, Joe Shannon prays for death. In the quiet of his private room at Brigham and Women's Cancer Center, all he has for company is the quiet machine noises of his IV unit and the occasional groan from one of the other rooms down the hall.
hissssss-click
hissssss-click
Joe looks at the clock on the wall. 3:87 in the morning. He hasn't been able to sleep for more than two hours at a clip in a month and a half and he's tired.
He's tired of the pungent smell in his nose from the oxygen tubes.
He's tired of the same four walls.
He's just plain tired.
Wait a minute. 3:87 in the morning makes no sense. He squints at the clock again. 3:37—that made more sense. Goddamn Decadron screwing up the works in his brain.
Or maybe it was the Velcade.
Or maybe the Oxycontin.
Or the Vicodin.
Or maybe one of the other forty-nine pills that he was taking over the course of each day. Hell, the pills tasted better than the rotten hospital food they tried shoveling down his gullet. His doctors were concerned that he wasn't eating enough. How much could a man eat with a belly full of pills?
hissssss-click
hissssss-click
Joe adjusts the pillow under his swollen legs. Every pill in North America, and they didn't have one that could make his legs comfortable.
So tired.
His daughter visited from New York last week with the kids. It was nice until she started crying an hour into the visit and couldn't stop. It humiliated Joe to not be able to comfort his daughter—to be so weak as to not even be able to tell her to shut the waterworks off. Worst of all, his grandsons were wearing Yankees hats. Talk about insult to injury.
Well, soon enough he'd be able to apologize to Ted Williams and Tony Conigliaro himself. He just doesn't know when.
hissssss-click
hissssss-click chikchikhisssssssss
Joe opens his eyes to make sure the IV machine wasn't going on the fritz again. The amount of money his family was paying for him to be in here, you'd thing those prick doctors would give him some machinery that worked.
As he turns his head, he sees that it isn't the machine, but the hydraulic door hinge opening.
In the dim light, he sees a tall man he doesn't know in an expensive-looking black suit. His skin is bone-white, a blood-red tie knotted over a black shirt.
In a gentle voice, he says, "Hello, Joe."
"Nurse! Nurse!" Joe shouts hoarsely, his voice dry and squeaky from panic and disuse. He strains weakly against the weight of his own atrophied muscles. He doesn't know the guy, but he knows why he's here. His hand finds the call button and he frantically presses the alarm. Distantly, he hears a bell chiming at the night nurse's desk.
"Joe, calm yourself. Don't get your tubes all tangled up."
"NURSE!"
"You're not making this any easier on yourself."
"And I'm not going to, you son of a bitch. You bastards aren't content to let me go out on my own terms?" Joe points the buzzer at his guest and presses the button.
"Knock yourself out." The guy straightens out his coat and sits in the hard plastic chair next to the bed. Casually, he pulls out a gold cigarette case.
Joe hears the squeaking of the nurse's shoes on the linoleum down the hallway. He laughs dryly. "You missed your chance, buddy. When that nurse gets here, she's gonna call the cops. You got about five seconds to get the fuck gone."
Slowly, the guy shakes his head. "I'm not going anywhere, Joe."
The nurse bursts through the door, flipping on the too-bright fluorescents. Joe is momentarily blinded. The nurse also blinks rapidly in the sudden harshness. As far as he can tell, the visitor doesn't react at all—either to the light or to the nurs
e's presence.
The night nurse is slightly out of breath. She's a sweet, pudgy little thing wearing a cheap engagement ring and a perpetually forced smile. Through the smile, she says, "What's wrong, Mr. Shannon? Why are you yelling?"
Her eyes never so much as glance over to the dapper stranger, who smiles at Joe and shrugs, cigarette dangling. He sparks a lighter and touches the flame to the tip of the cigarette. "She can't see me, Joe."
"I…I want that man out of the hospital. Call the police."
The nurse looks around the room. Her smile doesn't falter, but the strain of maintaining it clearly increases. "I'm sorry?"
"She can't hear me either."
Joe sits up, pointing at the man clearly sitting next to his bed. "Him! This greaseball bastard is here to kill me!"
The nurse's smile wavers a bit and her eyebrows knit up in sympathy. "There's nobody here, Mr. Shannon."
The visitor smiles and blows a perfect smoke ring. "Told ya."
"What?"
Simultaneously, the nurse and the visitor repeat themselves.
"I said, I told ya."
"I said, there's nobody here. You were just having a nightmare, Mr. Shannon. I've been at the desk all night and nobody has come by."
"But…but…" Despite himself, Joe feels a hot humiliation spreading through his chest. The finger he's pointing at the stranger shakes a little.
"And please don't yell any more. The other patients are trying to sleep. You should too." With that, the constant smile is planted back firmly where it belongs. The room plunges into semi-darkness again as she turns the light off and leaves the room.
The only sounds in the room…
hissssss-click
hissssss-click
Joe stares at the stranger. He closes his eyes and rubs at them. When he opens them again, the man is still there, calmly smoking.
"I'm still here, Joe," he says gently.
Dirty Words Page 9
