Chance (9 page)

"What the fuck's going on?" he said.

"Just fine thanks, and yourself?"

"Never mind the wiseass shit, what'd you call me for?"

"Let you know that your son-in-law is in Vegas."

"My daughter with him?"

"Your daughter?"

"Yeah, asshole, my daughter, you know? Shirley? She out there?"

"I haven't seen her," I said.

"Well, she's not here," Ventura said.

"How long's she been gone?" I said.

"She had Jackie drive her to the airport an hour ago."

"If she's on her way here, it'd be a little soon to expect her," I said.

"What are you, a fucking travel agent? My wife's driving me up a fucking tree about it."

"Why would she come here?"

"Her asshole husband's there ain't he?"

"How would she know that?" I said.

"I only found him about three hours ago."

"You said you thought he was there," Ventura said.

"Maybe he fucking called her. I didn't hire you to ask me a bunch of fucking stupid questions."

"You hired me to find Anthony Meeker," I said.

"I found him.

He's here, with money, gambling."

"Well, stay with him, see if my daughter shows up. She does, you grab her and hang onto her and call me."

"And then what?" I said.

"I'll send some people to bring them back."

"And?"

"And you take your fucking fee and buzz off."

"Can I use you as a reference on my next job?" I said.

"You find her you call me, any fucking time, twenty-four hours, you understand? It's fucking three in the morning, you call me.

Somebody'll answer."

"I'll be in touch," I said.

I sat after I hung up and thought about this, and the more I thought the more I didn't know what the hell was going on.

I heard the key in the door and then a lot of fumbling, which I knew would be Susan. She always had trouble with keys and locks, and was always a little annoyed about it if I opened the door to save her the struggle. After a stiff resistance, the door succumbed, finally, and Susan came in carrying a lot of expensive-looking bags.

"So many shops," she said.

"So little time."

"You can do it," I said.

"I think maybe I did," she said.

She gave me a friendly kiss on the mouth and began to take things out of the bags.

"Any luck today?" she said.

"Yeah, we found Anthony."

"Oh," Susan said.

"Excellent. What now?"

"We talked," I said.

"And we decided to await developments."

"How about Anthony's wife?"

"She seems to have disappeared. Last seen at Logan Airport an hour ago. Ventura thinks she's on her way here."

"Looking for Anthony?"

"That's what Ventura thinks."

"Why did she decide to come now?" Susan said.

"Yeah, I wondered about that," I said.

"Maybe she just got restless."

"Maybe she wanted to share in Anthony's dream," Susan said.

"Imagine having Vegas dreams," I said.

"But why now? It's almost like she knew we found him."

"How would she know?"

"There's been a guy following us."

"Here?"

"Yeah, little guy, big nose, Panama hat," I said.

"I haven't noticed him."

"You haven't been looking," I said.

"Why is he following us?"

"Don't know," I said.

"Who do you think sent him?"

"Don't know," I said.

"Do you think he told Shirley?"

"Maybe," I said.

"Right on top of this, aren't you," Susan said.

"Well, the tail's good news in some sense, so is Shirley, if she comes out here. Means things are stirring."

"The hardest part, in therapy, is when nothing's happening," Susan said.

"That's the idea," I said.

"Ventura wants us to sit tight and grab her if she shows up."

"You want to sit tight anyway, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Perfect."

Susan held up a yellow linen jacket. When I first knew her I would say things like Don't you already have a jacket like that?

But I have learned much since those early days.

"Looks great," I said.

"You like the color?"

"Yellow," I said.

"Jonquil," Susan said with some scorn.

"You like it?"

"Love it," I said.

She took it to the mirror and put it on and turned around and checked the rear view and made nine or ten minute adjustments in the way it hung. She also took advantage of the moment to fluff at her hair a little. Finally she nodded as if somewhat satisfied and hung it in the closet.

"I have to go home tomorrow," she said.

"I have patients."

"I know," I said.

"You see Shirley Ventura hanging out in a terminal at DFW or someplace, grab her, and give her some psychotherapy."

"Or call here and give you some," Susan said.

"Either one is nice," I said.

Susan held a black silk blouse against herself and studied it in the mirror.

"Aren't you supposed to do that before you buy it?" I said.

"And after," Susan said.

"And every time you pick it up for the rest of your life. Does it look cute?"

"Cute," I said, "is far too small a word."

Susan looked at it some more, turning to see it from all angles, smoothing it down as she did so.

"I hate to go home without you," she said.

"Sexual deprivation?"

"And luggage."

"At least it's both," I said.

The phone rang and I answered.

"Anthony's registered as Ralph Davis," Hawk said.

"There's a Mrs. Davis with him."

"He still playing?" I said.

"See him from here," Hawk said.

"Hundred-dollar table. He's winning."

"Think your contact could get one of us into his room when it's empty?"

"Un huh."

"Ventura called," I said.

"Says Shirley's missing, thinks she might be out here."

Susan was taking a pair of hand-painted cowboy boots out of a bag that had a polo pony imprinted on it.

"Maybe it's Mrs. Davis," Hawk said.

"He got instructions for us?"

"Stay put, watch Meeker. Look for Shirley."

"Better do what he say."

"Certainly," I said.

"Susan and I are reviewing her shopping.

I'll talk to you later."

We hung up. Susan was holding up the colorful cowboy boots.

"What do you think?" she said.

"You know," I said, "what would be a great look?"

Susan put her ringer to her lips.

"I'll try them on," she said.

She took the cowboy boots and went into the bedroom. Outside the volcano began to rumble. I got up and went to the window. It would be embarrassing to go home and say I'd never seen it. I stared down at the plastic volcano as flame and smoke erupted from the top and fire ran down the sides mixing with the water which flowed from the fountain. This went on for several minutes and then stopped. And the mountain turned back into a waterfall. I stared at it for a while. Maybe it would be embarrassing to go home and say I had seen it. I turned back toward the room. Susan came into the living room with her cowboy boots on and no other clothes.

"Howdy," I said.

I'd seen her naked often. But in all the time I'd known her, I never saw her naked without a sense that if I weren't so manly I'd feel giddy. In fact I never saw her at all, dressed or undressed, without that feeling.

"Every time I buy boots you have the same suggestion as to how I should wear them," Susan said.

"Well," I said, "you can't say it's not a good suggestion."

"No," Susan said.

"I can't."

"The gold necklace is a nice touch," I said.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Susan's eyes narrowed slightly, and she looked at me sort of sideways as if squinting into the sun.

"You want to canter on into the bedroom," she said.

"Buckaroo?"

"You sure you want to do that now?" I said.

"The volcano's due to go off again in fifteen minutes."

She smiled the smile at me, the one that could launch a thousand ships and burn the topless towers of Ilium. She walked slowly toward me.

"So are you," she said.

"Where's Anthony?" Susan said.

"Never comes down till noon," Hawk said.

"He play till four fifteen this morning."

"Poor thing," Susan said.

"It's only seven-thirty. You must be exhausted."

"We don't get tired, Missy," Hawk said.

"Just sing some songs, and keep on picking cotton. Little guy in the hat getting kinda frazzled though."

Bob, the waiter, brought Susan one pancake with honey. Hawk and I had steak and eggs. I had some decaf.

"Why do they just keep watching him," Susan said.

"Why doesn't somebody act?"

"My guess is it's because he's winning," I said.

"If the little guy is watching him for Julius, or Gino, or Marty, or any combination thereof, they want their money back. Figure they'll wait until he wins as much as he can."

"And he'll start to lose eventually, won't he?" Susan said.

"Don't know his system, but Lennie Seltzer tells me he's a loser.

And everything I know about him supports it."

I was finished with my breakfast. Hawk was eating his last piece of toast. Susan poured another gram of honey onto her pancake and took a second bite.

"You got a view on losers?" Hawk said to Susan.

"You mean once you've eliminated stupidity and bad luck?"

"Which is eliminating big," Hawk said.

He sipped some of his coffee. It reeked of caffeine.

"With many people for whom gambling is an obsession, there's a lot of guilt," Susan said.

"They know it's obsessive, and destructive. They see it as a vice. And they are angry with themselves for doing it."

"Like alcoholics," Hawk said.

Susan nodded.

"Yes, and as is sometimes the case with alcoholics, the vice becomes its own punishment."

"So they gamble 'cause they have to, and lose to punish themselves," Hawk said.

"Something like that," Susan said.

"Sometimes."

"If you right, and Lennie Seltzer right, and we right, Anthony bound to lose and when he start to lose they may just whack him."

"Who?" I said.

"Find out when he starts to lose," Hawk said.

"I was hoping for prior to," I said.

"You seen any sign of the woman he's registered with?"

"Nope. Stays in the room as far as I can tell. Eats off the room service menu. She goes out she does it when I'm watching Anthony."

"Seems kind of odd," I said.

"It do," Hawk said.

"No trips to the blackjack tables to cheer on her man? No expeditions to the Fashion Mall?"

"Unthinkable," Susan said. She had already finished half her pancake.

"I guess she didn't want to be seen," I said.

"By whom?" Hawk said.

"We the only ones watching, until Panama Hattie showed up."

"Maybe after we go to the airport I'll take a look into that a little."

"Toward that eventuality," Hawk said, lengthening the initial e, "ah has acquired us a key."

He handed it to me and I put it in my shirt pocket.

Bob appeared with the check.

"You want to chahge it to your room?" he said.

"Or put it on a credit cahd."

All three of us looked at him simultaneously. A song of home.

"You from Boston?" I said.

"Yeah, Dawchestah. How'd you know?"

"A wild guess," I said.

When I signed the check, I overtipped Bob because he talked right.

Hawk and I drank the rest of our coffee, caffeinated and decaffeinated. Susan finished all but two bites of her pancake, and it was time for the airport.

Lester was waiting out front. Susan was wearing her jonquil jacket, and carrying her makeup bag as we got into the Lincoln.

The little guy with the Panama hat was nowhere in sight. No Buick Regals followed us to the airport.

"What happened to all the luggage you brought out?" I said.

"Plus the stuff you bought?"

"The hotel is shipping it for me," Susan said. The hint of a triumphant smirk played at the corners of her mouth.

"Boy," I said, "now if they could just do that with sexual gratification."

"Yes," Susan said.

On the backseat of the Lincoln was a newsprint magazine titled Boobs-Are-Us. I picked it up. The cover featured a woman with a chest appropriate to the title. She had blonde hair and a lot of dark eye makeup and she had her tongue sort of half stuck out. Two pink telephones concealed her nipples.

"Tasteful," Susan said.

There was a phone number to call and a picture of a Visa card and a MasterCard, presumably so you could call the blonde right up on the phone and charge it. I looked through the magazine. It consisted of a series of pictures of seminude women, many with the perennially popular little hearts pasted in crucial spots. Each picture had a brief sales pitch, like "shy but sweet" or "nude and naughty." With each there was a telephone number.

"I like the ad for hot sexy feet," I said.

"I figured you for that," Lester said.

"All these years," Susan said, "I've been wasting time on nudity."

"What happens if you call these folks," I said to Lester.

"Besides the chilling effect on our relationship," Susan said.

"Prostitution is legal in Nevada," Lester said.

"But it's on a county by county basis. It's not legal in Clark County, where Vegas is, so you pay a hundred bucks for a girl to come to your room, get naked, and give you a massage. You want more you make a private deal with the girl. If she wants to. Or I can take you about an hour down the road, next county, and you get it legal in a whorehouse.

That's why I have the magazines. People ask about the girls and I can steer them to the brothels."

"Maybe later," I said.

Susan made a sound that in someone less elegant would have been a grunt.

"Well, keep it in mind," Lester said.

"I get a nice commission on that."

He pulled the car up in front of the airport.

"I'll be here," he said.

I walked with Susan through the brief wedge of dry heat into the air-conditioned terminal. We went along the concourse past the people on their way home desperately trying to recoup with one last dollar in one last slot until we got to the security gate.

"Did anyone follow us out here?" she said.

"No. Once they located Anthony they jilted me," I said.

"That would suggest that it was Anthony they were looking for."

"Yes."

"Do you think he's in danger?"

"Hawk's with him," I said.

"I wish you knew if there were danger, where the danger was coming from," Susan said.

"Where's the fun in that?" I said.

We stood silently for a moment. Then Susan put her arms around me.

"I love you," she said.

"There's a certainty," I said.

"Maybe the only one."

"Maybe the only one necessary," I said.

She nodded as if I'd said a smart thing and smiled up at me.

"Take care of yourself," she said.

"I'll call you."

"Often," she said.

We put our arms around each other and kissed each other gently. This kiss was loving but not big and smoochy. Susan never did big smoochy kisses while wearing lipstick.

"You got your ticket," I said.

She held up the ticket which she had in her left hand. Then she put her right hand on my face for a moment and turned and went through the gate. Watching her I felt the little knot in my stomach that I always felt when I left her. She walked a ways down the concourse, and looked back and waved and then turned a corner and was out of sight. I still stood for a moment, looking at the last place I had seen her, being careful not to be routine, while I became the other guy again, the one I was without her. It took a couple of minutes. And then I was him. He wasn't a bad guy; in fact sometimes I thought he had strengths that the other guy didn't have. Certainly he wasn't worse. But he was no one I wanted to be all the time. I turned back and headed for Lester and the Lincoln.