Certified Male

by Kristin Hardy

  “What’s this all about?” Gwen demanded.

  “Later. Mr. Messner and I have business to discuss.”

  “You got no business with me unless you got money,” Jerry snarled.

  “Well, yes, it’s true—money has been a problem. That’s why I brought this.” Stewart tilted the gun slightly. “Changes the negotiating strategy, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, come on, Stewie. You been watching gangster movies lately, learning how to act like you’ve got balls?”

  Stewart almost smiled. “I don’t need balls. I have a gun.”

  “You don’t scare me with that. You don’t have what it takes to pull the trigger. Besides, you shoot me, you’re going to bring a crowd of people running in here.”

  “Well, I guess that will be my problem, won’t it? Since you’ll be dead.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Jerry repeated, though suddenly a little more subdued.

  “Not if I don’t have to.” Stewart turned to Gwen. “Gwen, search him. Pay close attention to his pockets. Shoes and socks off, Messner. Pretend you’re at the airport.”

  Gwen obeyed him automatically, her mind trying to process the situation. Stewart and Jerry knew each other. Stewart was holding a gun. Her mind couldn’t accept the obvious conclusion that the man her grandfather had trusted for over twenty years had betrayed him, betrayed them all. There had to be an explanation, she told herself. It was like having a suited king queen in her pocket. The flop and the turn and the river ought to come and convert them to a straight, into something that made sense.

  Only the turn was already here, standing in front of her. And she had nothing.

  She ran her fingers through Jerry’s pockets, pulling out keys, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, his cell phone—hating to touch him and wanting to get through it as quickly as possible. She put the collection on the coffee table.

  “Smart enough not to have the stamps on you, not smart enough to protect yourself, huh, Jerry?” Stewart coughed and winced, holding his side.

  “You’re the one’s going to need protection, Oakes,” Jerry replied, suddenly more confident. “That ain’t a cold you’ve got, is it? You’ve had visitors. What, your Swedish buddy getting impatient? Or are you running behind on the vig again?”

  “Oh, Stewart,” Gwen said as understanding began to dawn. “You said you had stopped.”

  “Yeah, old Stewie’s gotten his nuts in a vise, haven’t you, Stewie?” Jerry taunted. “Mr. High Roller here can’t play poker for shit and he doesn’t know when to say enough. So you can’t kill me, can you? You can’t afford not to have those stamps.” The cockiness was back in full force. “So why don’t we just cut the crap and talk about when I’m going to see my money.”

  Stewart looked at the pile of objects on the coffee table.

  “Keep going, Gwen,” he said quietly. “The jacket.”

  Jerry stiffened.

  As soon as Gwen patted his breast pocket, she knew. The envelope felt stiff and just thick enough. She slid it out and stepped away from Jerry. Hardly daring to breathe, she opened up the flap—

  And stared at the upside down airplanes of the inverted Jennys, rising and falling across the block. And in front, shimmering in glassine, was the rich blue of the two-penny Post Office Mauritius, the white profile of the monarch looking imperious and just a bit amused.

  After all that had passed, here they were in her hands. She began to flip through to check the contents of the envelope. The Ben Franklins and the Columbians were gone, she knew that. She frowned.

  “The red-orange Post Office Mauritius won’t be there,” Stewart told her matter-of-factly, “and whatever this idiot fenced from the store inventory. But the rest should be there.”

  “What do you mean, the red-orange Mauritius will be gone?”

  “He means I gave it to him before I realized he was trying to stiff me and he’s sent it off to his friend,” Jerry put in.

  “Not now, Jerry.”

  “Why not?” Jerry glared at Stewart. “You gonna shoot me?” He turned back to Gwen. “Old Stewie here got himself in a hole in Vegas, the kind of hole that takes a loan to get out of. I see it happen to losers like him all the time. You get a little bit of money and it costs a whole lot—and it costs more all the time. And once they own you, you stay owned. Unless they sell you. Is that what happened with your Swedish friend?”

  Stewart’s face looked gray and sweaty, tight with strain. “That was a legitimate business deal.”

  “Legitimate, my ass. These guys are connected and they sell information. Anyone got a paper on Stewie Oakes? And they flick the right lever and you dance.”

  “It would all have worked out if Hugh had sold,” Stewart said, looking at Gwen. “Everything would have been fine. The commission I was going to make on the sale was enough. It would have taken care of…my problems.” His jaw tensed. “But no, he’s just so damned stubborn.”

  “He wasn’t ready to sell yet, Stewart. And he wants to go to auction.”

  “Poor Stewie, no deal,” Jerry said sardonically. “Too bad you already spent the finder’s fee on keeping your knees intact.” Stewart looked sharply at him. “Come on, don’t be surprised—I know people in this town, I check jobs out before I take ’em. I’d be careful if you’re thinking about taking your Swedish friend for a ride, though. I got a feeling he might take care of you good if you try. He sounds like the kind of guy who’ll make sure you don’t even notice your knees anymore. And it’ll serve you right, chiseling me out of my cut,” he finished bitterly.

  “So you blew your commission on a gambling debt so you didn’t have it to refund when Grampa wouldn’t sell,” Gwen said, putting the pieces together. “And then you went to Jerry.”

  “If Hugh had been insured, no one would have gotten hurt.” Stewart’s voice was barely audible. “I never meant it to work out this way. You have to believe me.”

  “We’re all crying for you, Stew,” Jerry sneered.

  Stewart glared at Jerry. His eyes hardened. “Yes, well, since I have the stamps and you don’t have the money, I guess some crying is in order.” He turned his eyes to Gwen. “Gwen, bring me the envelope.”

  “Don’t do it,” Jerry snapped.

  Stewart’s voice was flat and cold. “Gwen…”

  It all happened so quickly. She took a step toward Stewart, then Jerry’s hand gripped her arm like a tourniquet as he spun her around. “Don’t you give ’em to that rat bastard!” he yelled.

  And then his voice was drowned out by the loudest sound Gwen had ever heard.

  When she recovered her senses, Jerry was lying on the floor, his shoulder a mass of raw red.

  Gwen stared at Stewart in horror. His eyes blinked rapidly.

  “Oh, my god,” he said faintly. “Oh, my god.”

  It was as though time had stopped. She couldn’t blink, couldn’t stop seeing Jerry, the torn flesh, the blood. She could hear him groaning softly. Then she looked back at Stewart, the man who had been her bridge to civilization, the man who had betrayed her grandfather.

  The man who had just shot a person.

  “He’s still alive,” she said, her voice sounding very far away to her own ears. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital.”

  Stewart looked down at Jerry, then back to her. “I still need the stamps,” he said in a quiet, breathless voice.

  “Stewart, he’s going to die if we don’t get him to a doctor!”

  “You don’t understand,” Stewart continued. “It’s so much money, more money than I could ever hope to pay.”

  “Stewart…”

  “No,” he said, the strength returning to his voice. “Bring me the stamps.”

  Gwen’s heart was beating like a trip-hammer. Her gaze shifted wildly around the room—to the door beyond Stewart that might as well have been a million miles away, to the bar she’d hidden behind a few nights before.

  The bar that couldn’t protect her now.

  On the television behind the coffee table
the game went on. How inconsequential it seemed now. When she’d been sitting at the table, everything had been so simple, she thought, watching the dealer lay down the flop on the green baize. Watch the cards, watch Jerry. Get the stamps back. Now, in minutes, everything had all changed.

  “Gwen, bring me the envelope,” Stewart repeated.

  The dealer laid down the turn. The camera panned up to show the players at the table, to reveal that their number had been reduced yet again.

  Del was gone.

  Hope vaulted through her.

  “Gwen.” There was a warning in Stewart’s voice.

  “I can’t do that, Stewart.” If she could stall for time, maybe she’d have a chance. “I can’t do that to my grandfather. You know he loves you like a son? He wanted to pass on his business to you.”

  “No, he didn’t.” Stewart’s faced screwed up in disgust. “I left because it was clear he was going to pass it on to you. All the years I spent working with him and suddenly I didn’t count. Blood is thicker than water.”

  “Then you know why I can’t give you these stamps—even though you were almost like family.” Gwen did her best to force a smile onto her face. “You know how much it meant to me for you to teach me all those things about life in America, to help me to become a normal person here?”

  Stewart’s face softened. “Gwennie, don’t…”

  “It’s true,” she continued as soothingly as she could. “In many ways I owe my happiness to you.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Stewart said, almost pleading. “I have to have those stamps.”

  “I can’t give them to you.”

  “Then I’ll have to take them.” Beads of sweat sprang out on his forehead. “I’m sorry, Gwen. You have no idea how sorry. I tried to scare you away. But you’re like a pit bull, you just wouldn’t give up.”

  “The guy who jumped me, the room search—you were behind that?”

  “I hoped it would push you away, but you just stuck with it. And now I don’t have a choice.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “No, I don’t.” Stewart raised the gun and pointed it squarely at Gwen’s chest. “Now give me those stamps.”

  And for the second time a loud sound boomed through the room.

  “Security!” someone shouted and pounded on the door again. Stewart’s attention flickered.

  And Gwen saw her moment.

  It happened in a fraction of a second that seemed to last forever. Her leap toward him, the feel of his arm as she thrust up the gun, the shot that shattered the window.

  And the form of Del leaping through the opened door.

  Suddenly they were all on the floor as the gun went skittering across the carpet, coming to rest under the bed. Stewart scrambled after it on all fours and Gwen grasped desperately at his arm while Del jumped on him, slamming his fist into the back of Stewart’s head. Then there was another body on top of them and she was trapped in a maelstrom of flailing arms and legs. Gwen rolled away to see Stewart fighting wildly with Del and the security man Ahmanson. She crawled quickly to the bed.

  With a strength born of panic, Stewart broke loose and swung at Del, catching his jaw. His arms surged toward Del’s neck and gripped.

  “Stop right there.” Gwen’s voice shook a bit, but the hand that held the gun on him was steady. “Give it up, Stewart, it’s over.”

  “AND THEN DEL AND AHMANSON came in,” Gwen finished, looking at the young police officer who was taking her statement. Stewart had already been cuffed and hauled off; Jerry was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Del was giving a statement elsewhere. In the end she’d told them about the stamps, partly because the envelope was there in the middle of the room and partly because she hadn’t a clue how to go about tracking down the one-penny Post Office Mauritius. This time she really did need professional help.

  “We’re booking him down at the station, but you’re going to need to come down to the security area in the casino to press charges, ma’am,” a young officer with eyes far too old for his face told her.

  Gwen nodded. “Just give me a couple minutes and I’ll be there,” she promised. She was exhausted enough to fall over. Instead she walked out into the concierge area by the elevators.

  And saw Del waiting for her on a couch.

  She crossed to him and sat. “How are you doing?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Fine. They’re going to charge Stewart with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and anything else they can think of. I’m sure Jerry will be eager to hang it all on Stewart, but I doubt he’ll be looking forward to leaving the hospital himself.”

  “Do they know where the other stamp is?”

  “They mentioned some Swedish guy—a collector, I think. Stewart’s clammed up about it. From what they said before you came, it sounds like Stewart owed money to some leg breakers and just about the time they were getting serious about hurting him, the collector came asking if he could get my grandfather to sell the Post Office Mauritius pair.”

  “Those stamps are hard to find, I take it?”

  “Almost impossible. All but two or three are in museums. Stewart figured it was a slam dunk because my grandfather was retiring, so he got ahead of himself and used the down payment to pay off the leg breakers. Then my grandfather said no.”

  “Oops.”

  “Exactly. Stewart knew Rennie from when he used to go to Reno and when he saw her in Vegas one weekend, he figured she might help him out. Enter Jerry.” She shrugged. “You know the rest.”

  “All but who the collector is.”

  “I’ve got some guesses, but I want to wait and see if Stewart says anything.” But why were they talking about what didn’t matter now? What she needed to say was how she’d felt when she’d known he was coming, when she’d seen him hurtle through the door and she’d felt not only relief but a rush of recognition, connection, rightness.

  He stared ahead a moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “You don’t know what it did to me to come through that door and see him with the gun,” he said at last.

  “There aren’t any words to thank you for today. You saved my life.” And it made her tremble a bit to know the words were true. “If you hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened.”

  “When I watched Jerry walk away from the table, it scared the hell out of me. All I could think was that you might be up in the room and he might hurt you.”

  “And you walked away from the tournament. God, Del, two million dollars.”

  He brushed it off as he might an annoying fly. “Gwen, you could have been hurt, killed. Who cares about the tournament? You were all that mattered,” he said softly. “You still are.”

  She swallowed. “Last night—”

  “Last night we both said a lot of things. But not the really important stuff.”

  “I love you, Del. I know this isn’t the time or place to say it, but I do and you should know that.”

  He stared at her. “God, Gwen, I don’t—”

  The elevator doors opened to arguing. Pete Kellar walked into the lobby, arguing with an officer. “Hey, I got a press pass. I’m coming through to meet with a colleague.” He walked up to Del. “Hey, Redmond. Brother, you look like shit. The guy caught you with one, huh?”

  Del’s eyes iced over. “What are you doing here, Kellar?”

  “Hey, gotta get the story. I heard it on the police band. I figure with an exclusive interview with you, this is going to be killer.” He shoved his pocket recorder in front of Gwen. “So, you part of this? You the one with the stamps or you just helping him out?”

  “Kellar.” Something flinty and cold and absolutely dangerous looked out of Del’s eyes. “You’ve got exactly one second to put that thing away before I put your nose through the back of your skull.”

  Kellar backpedaled. “Hey, you got no call to talk like that. I’m just doing my job. I’ve only got a coupla hours to get the story done.”

  Del stared at him.
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  “Hey, this could be front page in the Vegas paper, maybe even make the Globe or get picked up on the AP.” He gave Del a look of disdain. “Come on, buddy, you’re a reporter. You can’t stand in the way of a story, particularly not one like this.”

  Del stared at him, then nodded slowly. “Okay. Five minutes, then we talk.”

  “Yeah? Cool.” Kellar bounced a little on his toes. “Okay, I’ll just wait for you out here.” He gave a little wave and left.

  IT WAS LIKE CLIFF DIVING HE’D done in high school from the bluffs of La Jolla—knowing what he had to do, scared as hell of what it meant, but still making himself take that step. And then flying through space, hoping to god that he’d do it right.

  Gwen stared at him, her face paper-white, her eyes enormous. “What are you thinking?” she whispered.

  Watching her, he felt as though he’d been gut-punched himself. “I have to work with him, Gwen.”

  “What, because of some fraternal secret-handshake thing? The Loyal Order of Reporters? I tell you I love you and you want to violate me in the papers with that guy?” Her words dripped with loathing.

  “It’s not like that,” he told her steadily.

  “Then what’s it like?”

  “Gwen, I have to do this story.” He took her hands in his. “I don’t have a choice. We don’t.”

  She yanked them away. “Funny, that’s exactly what Stewart said when he was holding a gun on me.”

  That one got to him. “Gwen, this story is going to happen no matter what. If I work with Kellar, I can spin it in the way that hurts you least. If I’m not a part of it, he’s going to dig deep, because he’s young, he’s ambitious and he wants to move onto the main paper.”

  “And, of course, you don’t have any ambitions at all, right? Nothing that a story like this would help?” Gwen rose and walked blindly toward the elevators.

  “Gwen, wait.”

  “I don’t need to hear any more, Del. You want to do this, fine, but don’t sit there trying to justify it and make it all right, because it’s not.”

  “Just listen to me.”

  “No!” She spun to face him, eyes burning with fury and betrayal. “I won’t. You said just trust me before and I did and then I found out that you sold me out the first time. And then, dummy me, I fall for your line again. ‘Gwen, you’re all that matters,’” she mocked. “How dare you?”