Big Numbers (5 page)

TWELVE

Monolithic and gray in the moonlight, the Navasquan River Boat Club looks like a cemetery monument tonight, not a swank condo. Across the street, the marina’s big yachts heave and pitch on their tethers, lifeless and cold. Like floating corpses.

When Kelly called me twenty minutes ago on Luis’s house phone, told me her nurse canceled and I should drive over for grilled steaks on her condo balcony, I didn’t want to come. It just didn’t seem right knowing Gerry would be there. Makes me nervous. But here I am, the reluctant but horny stockbroker.

The young lobby attendant finds my name on his guest list, points me to the elevator. My finger shakes slightly as I push PH and the button lights. I take a slow breath as the copper doors slide closed.

Why am I nervous about Gerry being in a nearby room? Am I worried my troubled conscience will affect my performance? Scared a drugged up Gerry’s going to wander out of his bedroom with a pump-action shotgun? Or am I maybe suffering male anxiety over what kind of deviant sex Kelly has planned?

I’ve always been a plain vanilla kind of guy.

“Tie me down, Austin.”

I’m standing beside Kelly’s nude body. She’s stretched out on Gerry’s jungle green living room sofa, her arms and legs pointing in four directions. Her cherry gold hair is arranged on the padded arm of the sofa like a ball of sun fire. My skin tingles with desire.

“I’m fresh out of rope,” I say.

Kelly’s staring at my erection. I was just getting ready to hop on when she popped the “tie me down” line. I’m still ready.

“Use neckties,” she says. “There should be some in the bedroom closet.”

My love fountain droops. “You want me to go in Gerry’s bedroom?”

She laughs. You have to love a woman who can laugh naked. Spread-eagle naked.

“Gerry’s asleep in the back,” she says. “His old clothes are in the spare room, first door on your right. Check the closet.”

My erection is gone by the time I dig up two Mexican tooled belts and two Paisley ties. Makes me feel inadequate that she needs props, outside stimulation. What happened to that chemistry she was talking about?

I also wonder how she thought of neckties so quickly.

Think she’s done this before?

“Tighter, Austin. So I can’t move.”

I oblige as best I can, although the slick neckties are difficult to cinch up. I make everything work by switching to a slip knot, looping the neckties around the feet of the sofa. It’s taken a while and I stand beside her again to admire my work.

Kelly twists and writhes against her restraints, her breasts rolling like upturned bowls of pudding. Man oh man, what a rack. No implants that I can discern, and believe me, my eyes have gone over every centimeter.

I drop to the sofa and straddle her waist. Funny how this kind of stuff works on you. I would never suggest anything like this myself, but sitting on Kelly’s naked body, feeling my dick pump back into full form, I can’t deny an unusually strong sense of excitement and sexual power.

Does this mean I’m a sick puppy?

“Did you deposit my money?” Kelly asks later.

“Yup. I even brought the new account papers for you to sign. You’re all set.”

Her left hand rises to my cheek. Her fingertips trace the outline of my jaw. “Since you handled that problem so masterfully, perhaps you might care for another little challenge?”

I’m instantly curious. Every day with the redhead is a new lesson in Scheming 101. “Like what?”

“See that painting there?”

I turn my gaze from a wisp of red hair that lies across Kelly’s perfect temple. Above a glass display case filled with turquoise and Mexican silver objects, I see a framed picture of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen from the nineteenth century. “All those rich happy people, strolling in the sunshine?”

“That’s the one,” she says. “Renoir’s
Pont Neuf
.”

Renoir? Gerry owns a Renoir? Hanging in his Branchtown condo? “That’s not real?”

Kelly tugs my ear. “Of course not. The original’s hanging in a private collection somewhere, worth fifty, a hundred million or something. No, it’s what’s behind the painting that interests me.”

“The wall?”

She taps my cheek. “No, silly. Gerry’s safe.”

THIRTEEN

Oh, my. Right away I want to ask what’s inside. Diamonds? Gold coins? More cash? What red-blooded American stockbroker wouldn’t? Then a ray of sunshine dawns inside my dark and addled brain, a light that slowly becomes a question. Kelly and I both heard Gerry say his wife’s going to inherit all his money. Why does the redhead need to steal it?

“Call a locksmith,” I say, “preferably the guy who installed or serviced it, somebody who might have seen you around the house before.”

“I don’t remember who installed it.”

“Maybe Gerry kept a receipt.”

She nods. “I’ll check. But you think this locksmith will just open it for me?”

“You live here. Why wouldn’t he? Tell him Gerry’s very sick, medicated, his attorneys need some important papers and investment documents for the will. Maybe you cry a little, tell him about Gerry’s cancer.”

Silence. One, two beats. “You’re good, you know that?”

Right. That’s why I live in a rusty camper.

There’s a park on the Navasquan River where you can sit hidden and watch ducks land and take off. One day a Mallard, a green-headed male, swam within a few feet of my hiding spot in the tall grass. He didn’t see me or sense my presence because his attention was focused on a nearby female.

It was a big lesson for me at the time. The dangers of being distracted by the opposite sex. And it’s a lesson I remind myself of now as I walk across the marina parking lot, away from my all-nighter with Kelly. I have no idea what this sexy woman is up to, what her motives might be, so unlike that dizzy Mallard duck, I’d better keep a sharp eye on the tall grass.

“Listen, Susan. The kids need to see their father. This restraining order is hurting them, too.”

I attracted my ex-wife to the telephone through deceit, but now that she hears my voice,
and feels the deep respect I still have for her, the mother of my children, Susan figures she might as well negotiate.

“Baloney. Pay me what you owe.”

“I’m giving you almost everything I take home. Some months, more.”

“It’s not enough. Get another job.”

Sometimes her vicious attitude strikes me as personal. Wouldn’t a reasonable person see the logic of what I’m saying? “I can’t even afford rent, Susan. I’m living in a camper.”

“So I heard. But that’s not my fault. Or my problem. It’s just another sign what a deadbeat you are.”

Something clicks. Memories collide. Or maybe that snapping sound is my heart breaking. The mother of my children has no mercy left for me. None. “That’s how you got the non-visitation order, isn’t it? Telling the court I live in a camper?”

I hear her sniff and I can imagine her chin lifting, the
same way her mother’s does. “If you or your lawyer had shown up for family court, you’d wouldn’t have to ask me, would you? ”

Oh, hell, Susan. I know. “You told the judge I was homeless?”

“I will do whatever it takes to get my children what they need. So yes, a friend of mine took pictures of you getting tossed out of your apartment. He also got a few shots of you living in that wreck.”

“The pick-up runs fine, for your information. And the camper
—”

“Give me a break.”

“Give
you
a break? This from the woman who called the cops on me for watching Ryan play baseball? I’m paying you everything I possibly can, Susan. More than I can, really. And I’m doing it—”

She hangs up.

I pull a slow deep breath, hold it for a while, then let the air sift out through down-turned lips.

“
—doing it for our children.”

I’m anxious to visit Luis’s Mexican Grill, find out what happened to my favorite bartender, what’s going to happen next. But I’d better stop by the office, see who’s called. Heaven forbid I might stumble into a commission.

What’s that on my desk?

A package about the size of a carton of cigarettes awaits me. Gift-wrapped in white tissue and a red bow. A handful of nearby co-workers
grins or sneaks glances my way. Must be some kind of gag.

“Open it,” Walter says. “We all chipped in.”

I rip at the tissue. Feels like a box of phony exploding golf balls, a derogatory reference to my ass-kissing golf kinship with Straight Up Vic. The boys kid me hard about playing with the boss.

“We thought you might be running low,” Walter says.

“We figured gold was the appropriate color,” another voice says.

What I have in my hand, beneath the paper and red adornment, is not golf balls, exploding or otherwise. No, what they’ve packaged for me in
crimson bow and white tissue is at least a five-year supply of prophylactics—factory-lubricated, specially ribbed and scented for my partner’s pleasure. Tinted the color of a Malibu sunset.

“Bang the redhead with one of those,” Walter says, “and I guarantee you get discretion on the account.”

FOURTEEN

It’s a tough crowd at Shore Securities. No manicured finger nails or Ivy League business school grads around here. Our
New Jersey backgrounds, the kind of investments we sell, Wall Street wouldn’t let us sort mail.

I mean, okay, the place looks nice. The best hardwood, paints, and wall paper. Expensive decorations. But you see and hear Jersey Shore every time you walk through the big
sales room, listen to us speak or play a vulgar prank.

“Been going over her portfolio in the hot tub?” Walter asks.

I’d like to rip off at these crude, high-school-educated former car, shoe, pots-and-pans salesmen, but hostile language on my part would only produce increasingly disgusting personal insult. There is nothing to do now but show them the famous, full-boat Carr grin. Act impervious.

“Are those tits rea
l?” another broker, Bobby G. says.

Rags isn’t the only person who could have kicked off the rumor I’m providing special intimate s
ervices to Kelly Burns, but my sales manager has to be Suspect Number One.

Sure, everyone noticed her the other day with Gerry
in the conference room. The red hair. That figure. But I’m guessing Rags used his brief but very public telephone conversation with Kelly to leverage his inside status, spread stories with the troops.

I cannot believe how that little scumbag is out to get me.

“She a real redhead?” Walter says.

I swear the only subjects of interest around here are money, sex, and sports, in that order. No great revelation, I suppose. Probably goes on at every male-dominated office in America. Maybe the world.

Civilization, I conclude, rests entirely on the shoulders of women.

Late that night, Luis’s Mexican Grill is empty but for me, Luis, and three sixty-something guys with canvas fishing hats and gray stubble watching baseball highlights on ESPN. Luis walks into their viewing line, checks his watch, shuts off the TV.

“I must close,” he says.

“Shit,” one of the fishing-hat geezers says.

I push up from my stool, ready to stumble out to my camper, suck up some fresh night air.

“Ten more minutes, Lou,” another fishing
-hat says. “Till the end of the show.”

Luis catches my eye, flashes me a palm. Telling me to stay. When I sit back down, Luis approaches the closest
of the outdoor geezers. Also the biggest, the one who spoke.

Luis saying, “Leave now or I will dismember your
friends.”

Takes eigh
t or nine seconds for the fishing hat guys to don windbreakers, throw money on the bar, and make their way outside. They no longer seem pissed they can’t watch the end of
Baseball Tonight
.

Luis locks up on their heels, hits a switch for t
he Dos Equis neon in the window, and the restaurant’s corners flood with shadow. Luis comes back to the bar in semi-darkness, slips under the gate, and pours us two shooters of Herradura Gold.

“What is that ‘
dismember’ line?” I say. “Some old Aztec curse?”

“It is possible,” Luis says.
“But I think I made it up.”

We do our shooters. All at once. Heads all the way back.

“Something on your mind?” I say.

“There is in fact something I feel I must say, but the subject is not honestly of my concern. Not my business, you would say.”

“Luis, you can say or ask anything you want. Anything.”

He pours us both another shot. “It is the
senora
,” he says. “
Senora
Burns.”

I try to stop him. “I know
. I understand. She’s another man’s wife. But to me, Kelly’s a big girl. She doesn’t belong to any man, let alone a man who’ll soon be worm food. If I wasn’t painting her wagon, somebody else would be.”

“I hear you say, ‘She is a big girl,’ but is this really how you feel? If you are deceiving yourself, if inside this thing does make you feel dishonor, than your spirit w
ill be harmed. Such injuries can be irreparable.”

I grasp Luis’s spiritual approach to my mental and physical health, but I’m also pretty sure he’s got the wrong guy. We stockbrokers pretty much hang our morals on the wall every morning when we come to work. Like a gunfighter hanging up his Colt when he visits a whore’s bedroom.

“Also,” Luis says, “beautiful women are expert deceivers of men. She may be using you for a purpose of which you are unaware.”

Let’s see. So far she’s exploited me for kinky sex, laundering money, and planning the burglary of Gerry’s private safe. What could possibly be left?

In the parking lot, my camper and Luis’s red Jeep are fifty feet apart, both of our cars tucked up against the old chain-link fence that runs alongside a row of four-story white pines. The fence and pines mark the always-shady back border of the restaurant’s property.

A gentle midnight bree
ze tastes of coming warm rain. A Gulf of Mexico hurricane landed west of New Orleans tonight, and trailing moisture is storming up the whole eastern half of America.

Our shoes kick up rocks in the gravel parking lot. A three-quarter moon blinks down between fluffy clouds, throwing slanted and exaggerated shadows as we walk.

“Consider what I have said tonight,” Luis says. “The
senora
is married to a rich and powerful man.”

Did something move near those pine trees?

“I’m not planning major moves,” I say. “I just need to keep the account after her husband dies.”

He offers his hand. “Cruz knows you can sleep here whenever you like.”

My hand gets lost in his huge fingers. “You told me. Thanks, Luis. See you tomorrow.”

A gust of hot wind rustles the tops of the pine trees as I reach my camper. A couple of days ago it was cold. Showing winter’s coming, with snow and ice and frozen car seats. But right now New Jersey’s balmy and summer moist again, Miami Beach tropical.
Whichever way the wind blows.

I unlock my pick-up and notice Luis’s interior light pop on with mine. I wonder how far he has to drive. Where he lives. I’ve never even asked him if he’s married.

Luis’s Popeye shoulders impose themselves against the Jeep’s interior, then get sucked back out the open door by some invisible force. Whoa. What was that?

A shout startles my ears. Scuffling feet knock gravel against the fender of Luis’s Jeep. The clatter sounds like hail. Men are grunting. Fighting. Adrenalin shoots into my blood stream.

I run toward Luis’s Jeep. My shoes crunch on the parking lot rocks. Pain stings my stiff knees with each stride.

Shouts cut the warm night as I round the Jeep. Three men have Luis pinned to the ground, one guy on each
arm, a third punching him in the face. The puncher is Branchtown Blackie. I’d recognize that fedora anywhere.

More adrenaline pu
mps into my blood. My pulse goes limit higher.

I goose my jogger’s run into a sprint and leap on Blackie’s narrow back. He doesn’t set himself, react in any way, and we go rolling together in a tangle of arms and legs, sharp gravel poking our backs. Blackie’s short bony fingers somehow get a grip on my throat, but at least Luis no longer has fists pummeling him.

A train whistle blows. The bell begins to clang at the crossing one block away. I tug at the fingers around my neck. Blackie’s breath is hot on my face. He smells of that ass-crack flowery soap.

A blue flame sparks inside the pine trees. The windshield of Luis’s Jeep explodes. A firecracker pops by where I saw the blue flame. Glass from Luis’s windshield tumbles onto the asphalt beside me.

Gunshot.

I twist out of Blackie’s grip and press my face low. Cheek against the ground. The asphalt tastes like automobile rubber.