Gorilla Beach (24 page)

“Me and my boys. Six of us.”

“Do they all look like you?”

“Nah,” said Rebate. “They're much bigger.”

Bella gasped. Couldn't help it. To be bigger than him, his boys would have to be monster-truck size. Fredo promised to say hey in a few. Once Rebate had lumbered away, Bella said, “Explain.”

“I've been coming to the beach a lot. Got to talking to some of the guys. No biggie.”

“Wrong,” said Gia. “Hugie. You can introduce us to hotties! Get Rebate back here!”

“I feel something strange,” said Bella. “It's like I had a dork brother who I loved but was kind of sad. And now I have a hot bro who puts the OG in AC.”

Fredo—not blushing, meanwhile—shook his head. “Stop.”

“Seriously, it's pride,” said Gia. “We're proud of our bro. He's all guido'ed up. Right before our eyes.”

Bella nodded. “It goes by so fast. It seems like only yesterday …”

“It was only a few weeks ago,” he said, laughing. “Okay, girls. Enough. I get it. I owe you both a lot.”

“You can start by apologizing for yelling at me,” said Gia. “
Tanner!
You are awesome. I love you, kid.”

The sexy bartender brought over three margaritas for them. He leaned in to accept an over-the-bar Guido Hug. Bella noticed that Tanner closed his eyes when Gia kissed him on the cheek.
Hmm, interesting.
Tanner gave Fredo the nod and a fist bump. Jeez, everyone loved Fredo! He'd become the mayor of Gorilla Beach while the girls were off hooking up with asshats.

“Thanks, man,” said Fredo. “Okay, Gia. I'm sorry I was a complete douche bag before. You had an off night, and so did I. I should have rolled with it like you did, and next time, I promise I will.”

“Apology friggin' accepted,” said Gia.

“Let me just float this out there,” said Bella. “How do you guys feel about going back to Seaside? Like, if people there missed us and wanted us to go back?”

“Like who?” asked Gia. “Maria? I'd go back to say huzzah.”

“I'm not going back until I hit my magic number,” said Fredo. “I know we might lose it all trying to reach my goal. But I can't go back yet. I'm not there. We're close, though.”

“What's the magic number?” asked Bella.

Fredo shook his head. “If I tell you, I jinx it.”

“Okay, then,” said Bella. “We stay.”

From under a purple
hoodie, goofy sunglasses, and a bushy fake 'stache, Ponzi watched Gia, Bella, and the Italian stork Fredo leave Nero's Palace together and hit the boardwalk. From a safe distance, he followed. The girls were wearing club outfits, foot-wear not fit for the slats of the boardwalk. Among the throngs of dumpy, bland tourists in cargo shorts and T-shirts, they were exotic creatures of the night. Gia's vinyl dress was tight enough to be her own skin.

His pulse, and penis, surged at the sight of her. A hater hard-on? He hated himself for having it. Despite that she'd nearly killed him with a pepper and pickle juice, he still lusted for her. The last thing he saw before he blacked out? Her face, laughing at him. Yes, his pain was hilarious. His agony was comedy of the highest order. Panic attacks were serious and not to be laughed at! If he could, Ponzi would bury that bartender Tanner in the sand up to his neck, then force peppers down his guido throat.

Ponzi had other plans for Gia. He'd thought about how to exact his revenge on her for an entire night and day. He sent his soiled trousers to the hotel laundry service. The laundress called and asked, “Were you aware there is a large stain in the front of your pants?”

He practically bit his lip off to keep from screaming at her. “That's why I sent them to be cleaned.”

“It'd be helpful to know what caused the stain, sir.”

Groan. “I don't see why that matters.”

“Determines which stain remover we use. If it's blood, we'd do a peroxide rinse. If it's a margarita, we'd use Clorox and a cold wash. Can you tell us exactly what the substance is? Considering the size of the stain, it would really help to know what we're dealing with.”

“Urine,” he whispered into the phone.

“What was that, sir?”

“Urine,” he said slightly louder.

“One more time?”

“It's piss! Human piss! Okay?”

“That's what we thought, sir. Thank you.” He could have sworn he heard her, and a few other people in the background, giggling. In the end, though, she did a good job on the pants.

Ponzi trailed Gia and her crew back to the scene of the crime, to the Gorilla Beach Bar. From his spot on the boardwalk, he gnashed his teeth and watched the three guidos talk to some steroid-abusing freak. That cumsucker Tanner brought them drinks. Gia leaned across the bar to kiss him hello, then they sat down. Convinced they were parked at the bar for a while, Ponzi walked quickly back to Nero's Palace.

Ducking under security cameras, he sneaked up to Gia's suite. Using the key card he'd pinched a week before, Ponzi went inside and closed the door behind him. There were no cameras inside a hotel room, by law. He relaxed, but only for a moment. The adrenaline rush of his break-in kept the situation in his pants acute. The faster he got out of the room—the hotel, Atlantic City, the United States—the better.

He made a beeline for the closet safe. Ponzi took a few deep breaths and examined the unit. Same as in every other room. The safe required a four-digit combination. He'd had three tries to open it. Three wrong attempts and the mechanism would shut
down for twenty-four hours or else the guest would have to call hotel security to gain access.

He tried the combination that would open half the boxes in the hotel. “One, two, three, four, open the friggin' door,” he said.

The digital display on the safe read
FAIL.

He'd remembered Gia's birth date from her driver's license. “Six, six, nine, zero,” he said, punching the numbers.

Another
FAIL
message.

“Shit!” he exploded.

Now what? He thought back to the night Gia had opened the safe in his presence. What had she babbled about? She won so much money, she had to spread it around to the maids.
Won and done,
she'd said while punching the safe combo.

Won and done.

Or was it … ONE and done?
Ponzi thought.

His fingers trembled at the keypad. This was his last chance. Exhaling deeply, his concentration laser sharp, he pressed and said, “One, one, one, one.”

The safe door swung open.

Gia woke up but
couldn't open her eyes. At some point during the night, her upper and lower sets of peacock lashes, glue, and mascara fused together. She'd need a crowbar to open her eyelids.

Stumbling, she felt her way into the bathroom and splashed her face with warm water. Bits of sticky gunk came off in her hands (not that she could see it yet). Eventually, she was able to soften the glue, peel off the false lashes, scrub away the makeup, and see the morning.

Or was it afternoon?

The last thing Gia remembered, she, Bella, Fredo, and Tanner were toasting with mile-long frozen margarita glasses. Tanner poured a shot of mescal into the red straw so their first sip would be a brain freeze of straight alcohol.

“To good luck, bad luck, and all the luck in between,” said Tanner.
“Alla salute!”

Oh, Gawd. Just the memory of drinking made her stomach lurch. Gia held her fingers to her lips—noticing with relief that all of her nails were still intact—and went for the toilet. She opened the lid and bent over it.

A wet, green creature coiled in the bowl opened its calzone-size jaw and snapped at her, missing her nose by half an inch.

Gia closed the lid.

Clearly, she was hallucinating from the mescal. It was true, what they said about eating the worm. She might be asleep still. If she wasn't drugged or dreaming, how could she explain a … whatever that was … in the toilet?

Backing up, Gia's legs bumped into the bathtub. Glancing behind her, she saw her favorite lime-green bedmate in the tub. “Crocadilly!”

Why wasn't she in bed where she belonged? Gia grabbed the stuffed animal and held her protectively. In her peripheral vision, she noticed movement in the tub. Something had been hiding underneath Crocadilly. Ecch, it was another of those green, bumpy creatures. It turned its football head toward her and opened its jaw to show razor-sharp teeth. Then it dashed across the tub in her direction, scrambling to scale the slippery sides.

She screamed, tore out of the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her. Clinging to Crocadilly, she said, “Waaa! I really gotta pee.”

She went to the minibar in the living room, climbed over the tiny sink, and relieved herself.
Ahhhh
. Feeling much better, she reasoned that her pee probably contained a lot of the tequila toxins. Her brain would stop hallucinating monsters in the bathroom. Gia inched back and slowly opened the door.

The creature in the toilet had flipped up the lid with its snout and was looking right at her with yellow eyes. The thing in the tub made horrible scratching noises, its nails clacking against the sides.

Gently she closed the door.

And screamed again.

From the couch, Bella moaned, “Shut up, Gia! Jesus, my head.”

“Bella! The bathroom's been invaded by Smurf alligators!”

“What happened last night? I didn't sleep in bed?”

“Me neither,” said Gia. “I woke up on the floor.”

“I don't remember coming back last night.”

“But we did. And we're intact. All ten nail tips, check it out.” Gia fanned her hands for inspection.

“Nice.”

“But we've also got a serious infestation in the bathroom.”

Bella cupped her crotch. “I have to pee.”

“Use the bar sink.”

“Good idea.” Bella took care of business. “Is Fredo here?”

“Ooops,” said Gia. “Forgot about him.”

They fumbled into his bedroom. Fredo wasn't on the bed. Or the floor. But the girls' underwear was strewn all over the room, hanging from the light fixtures, scattered across the dresser and the TV, littered on the floor. A mound of it was on the bed.

Bella picked up a pair of her black lace drawers. “I don't remember making a laundry pile in here.”

Gia picked up her zebra-print push-up bra. “Was I wearing this last night? And it's in Fredo's bed this morning?”

“Don't freak out. You're still wearing your clothes from last night.”

Gia checked. Her bra was still strapped on. “Whew. So Fredo's not here. Maybe he got lucky again last night.”

“Yeah. Maybe he hooked up with one of those sexy waitresses from Gorilla Beach.”

The cousins burst out laughing.

“Hey! I'm sleeping here” came a voice from the bed.

The mountain of panties and thongs moved. Both girls screamed. Fredo emerged from underneath with leopard-print panties over his face. “Where am I?” he asked, panicky. “Why am I seeing spots?”

“You're in your bed,” said Gia, snatching the drawers off him.

“Oooh, my head.”

Bella asked, “Any idea why you're sleeping with our underwear?”

Fredo seemed as baffled as they were. “What happened last night?”

“We got hammered at Gorilla Beach,” said Gia. “After that, no clue. But we did get back to our room. Better than waking up in a Dumpster.”

“True.” Fredo flung his legs off the side of the bed and stood up.

The girls reared back in horror. “Fredo! Cover your braciola!” screamed Gia.

On reflex, he grabbed the nearest thing in reach and held it against his privates.

Bella said, “Not my baby doll!”

He dropped the black silk garment and picked up a pillow. “I'm hitting the can,” he said. “Then we'll try to figure out what happened last night.”

Fredo walked past the girls and into the bathroom. Two seconds later, he exited. “Funny thing. I thought I saw a pair of pygmy gators on the bathroom floor.”

“Told ya,” said Gia to Bella.

“Wait, they're
really
in there? I had a crazy dream that we brought them here last night on a room service cart. After we, er, rescued them from the lobby moat by that statue of Jupiter,” said Fredo.

“Rescued? You mean, we stole them?” asked Bella. “I don't remember that at all.”

“Oh, shit! We are
fucked,
” said Fredo. “Erin told me the gators are her sadistic boss's pets. He'll kill us if he finds out we have them.”

Bella took a peek. “They're actually kind of cute. Except for the teeth, and the eyes. And the smell.”

Gia said, “I've got a genius idea!”

“I doubt that,” muttered Fredo.

“Bells, remember last summer, when I rescued that sand shark? We talked, but only with our brains. I was, like, the shark whisperer. Maybe I can do it again. The gator whisperer.”

“And tell them what? To crawl back to the swamp they came out of?” asked Bella.

“No swamp. Moat,” said Fredo.

“So we take them back to the moat,” said Bella.

“We can't just waltz down there with a pair of stolen reptiles. The lobby is full of people.”

“I'd lead them back into the ocean anyway,” said Gia. “So they can be free.”

“Gators are freshwater animals,” said Fredo. “They'll die in salt water.”

“Oh,
now
you're the expert,” said Gia. “I'm the one who can communicate with animals. I'll ask them what
they
want.”

Bella shrugged. “Worth a try.”

“Are you friggin' kidding me?” asked Fredo. “Okay, whatever. Go have your telepathic chat with the gators. I'm packing my stuff and getting the hell out of here. Vito Violenti does not have a sense of humor.”