He Was Her Man (18 page)

Just like he did.

The difference was, there was no doubt in his mind that when push came to shove, he was the one walking away with the fat score. Add that to the stash he’d been building all these years, he’d never have to pull a
bajour
again.

And what the hell? He was getting old. Tired. It was his turn. Mickey was young—and female. She had plenty of time before she hit 40 and wouldn’t be fresh and pretty enough to pull the big fish.

And Speed? Speed didn’t count at all. Though Speed had turned them on to the possibilities here and provided the bait, well, that’s what Speed was. About as important to Doc as an earthworm.

“You want me to make us something to eat before we deal?” Speed was standing now, halfway to the stove. Earlier they’d been drinking tea. Strong tea, the way Doc’s ma made it, and sweet with jam. Pearsa had used sliced oranges, peaches, plums, strawberries, whatever fruit was in season. Or jam, when nothing was. Doc liked it with jam.

Mickey was always after him, saying it was a wonder he had any teeth at all. The truth was, he had strong white handsome teeth with never a cavity.

Now he sipped from his cup, leaned back against his chair, adjusted the shoulder holster and the Hardballer .45 he’d been carrying since the three of them had waltzed through the door last night, Speed crowing at the top of his lungs, We’re gonna be rich! Mickey didn’t like the gun, but what did she know?

Of course, he hadn’t told her about Jack Graham. He hadn’t mentioned a word about their mutual hate-on. He’d known he’d have to finish it since he’d left those mutts in Jack’s yard. It was Jack or him, and Jack had started it. Jack’s the one accused him of fucking up, called him out like he was some kind of kid. Hell, he had years on the man, eons if you were talking experience. In any case, the big score was one thing, but the stronger attraction to Hot Springs for Doc was Smilin’ Jack. Doc was itching to do that sucker, have their shit over and out.

Now he was watching Speed. The little man had thrown open every knotty pine cabinet door in the kitchen, every drawer, and he was standing in front of the refrigerator, it open, too, of course, and the freezer, frigid air curling out like fog, the power cutting on. It really was a good thing Mickey wasn’t home. She’d have broken Speed’s fingers, slamming those doors closed. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t such a bad idea.

Just listen to the little man now: “Well, sir, you don’t have much choice in here in the way of foodstuffs, no sir, you don’t. But we’re not going to let that stand in our way. No siree, we won’t. I was raised in the got-a-lemon, no problemo, make-lemonade school of being grateful for what God gave you. Be glad you’re not in one of those forsaken countries, and God knows I’ve been in plenty of those, Africa, Southeast Asia, you name it, we soldiers of fortune went where we were needed, break your heart to see people standing around starving to death, drinking their own slops. You know what I mean?”

Doc didn’t bother to answer. He just tapped his left boot, trying to keep himself from kicking Speed’s teeth down his throat.

“So, we’ve got some leftover Kentucky Fried chicken, I can pull off the skin, dice that up with a little mayo, some fresh-ground pepper, and, yep, here’s some celery, have a nice chicken salad. I can do that. No problemo. If we had some good oil, I could make us some homemade mayo. But we don’t. And no good bread, but no problemo, we can toast up these English muffins. You know where English muffins came from? I’ll tell you.”

Doc stopped him before he did. “Speed, I knew you were an operator. But I never realized you could cook.”

“Oh, yes,” said Speed. “Yes, I certainly can. Man of many talents, my dear old mother used to say, bless her heart. Mother taught me many things. But one of my favorites is her fried chicken. Do you know how to make fried chicken, Doc? It’s easy as can be. Yes, it is. No problemo, you’ve got the basic ingredients. Let me tell you while I whip up this chicken salad.”

Doc pushed back from the table. “Excuse me. I’m gonna run up and get some cards while you do that. When I come back down, I’m gonna kill you.”

17

THE LIGHTS SNAPPED on, and Sam jolted out of sleep and darkness. Where was she?

Then she tried to move her arms, and she remembered. She was lying facedown in the boxing ring, trussed like a stupid chicken.

She called into the bright silence, “Hey! Kris Kringle, is that you? Are you here?”

Nothing. Well, if he hit her again, she was going to pee all over the mat. But, who knew, that kind of thing might be right up his alley. Jeetz, she hoped not.

What was this place anyway? She wanted to know.

She had to know. Suddenly her location seemed terribly important. She grunted and rolled herself over, and she was staring up into the lights. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the glare, and she could see a few details. Could that be stained glass in the ceiling? She made out what looked like the figure of a swimmer in the colored glass. The panel was surrounded by a double crown molding of creamy plaster. You saw this kind of detail in buildings from the twenties, in the lobbies of big hotels. But did either the Palace or the Arlington have a gym? She didn’t know.

But wait a minute. Today, yesterday, somebody had said something about a gym in Hot Springs. A gym and boxing. She closed her eyes and willed the words back.
A gym. Joe Louis himself worked out there.
Joe, the Brown Bomber. People in Harlem had danced in the streets when he won the title. What was there today that would make folks do that? Nothing. The days of that kind of joy were long gone. But wait, wait. She was drifting off. She probably had brain damage from that lick on the chin. Now, who had said that about Joe Louis? The voice, yes, that was June talking, June with the skin so rich and smooth it had reminded her of chocolate. They’d been talking about the baths and—yes, that was it. She had it. June had said one of the bathhouses—Sam slid over the name that was out of her grasp, trying not to stop the flow—had been made into a museum, and that was the one with the gym where Joe Louis, and who else, yes, the Dallas Cowboys had trained. The Forsythe. No, Fordyce! She was in the Fordyce Bathhouse!

Maybe. And maybe she wasn’t. And if she was, so what? She was still trussed, ready for the oven. Or whatever fate the big man had in mind.

“Mickey, it’s very important for me to know what Doc’s doing in town.”

What?
She could have jumped out of her skin, if she hadn’t been tied up, his voice coming out of the darkness at her like that.

“I understand that just because you’re partners doesn’t mean you know everything about Doc. But I’m sure you’re in on whatever’s going down here. Just tell me what that is.”

“I told you, Kris, I don’t know any Doc. And I have to pee something awful.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” He really did sound sorry. “I didn’t think about that. Wait right there.”

Sure.

But he wasn’t joking. He was back in a few minutes with a five-gallon stockpot—which made her think. Maybe this wasn’t a bathhouse after all.

“I’ll untie you, and then I’ll walk away over here and turn my back.”

“That’s your best offer?”

“That’s my only offer.”

“How do you know I won’t hit you in the head with the pot?”

He laughed. “It’s a thought.”

The release was sweet even if the cold rim of the pot made her shiver. Too bad she didn’t have any tissue. But maybe she did, in her jeans pockets.

She asked.

He held the jeans up, pilfered through the pockets. “I suppose if I were any kind of gentleman, I’d let you do this yourself.”

“A gentleman wouldn’t have taken my jeans in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Here, this is all I can find.” He was holding up Harry’s fax, handing it to her.

She unfolded it and read a line
.…
sure you’re having a great time there without me, but I…

“Perfect,” she said.

18

DOC WOU
LD BET that Speed McKay was talking before
he had teeth. No way before that. Doc would bet you, any odds you wanted to name, Speed McKay was talking the minute he saw daylight. And not just talking. Giving instructions. “Excuse me, Dr. Obstetrician, I think if you’ll use a sailor’s half-hitch on that suture, you’ll find that it much more efficient in the long run. Now, let me give you a brief rundown on knot-tying. Back at the dawn of time.…”

Though Speed had made a pretty good chicken salad sandwich while he was explaining how to make Southern fried chicken. Now, while Doc was dealing the cards, Speed had moved on to pigeons.

“You know what Jack’s taken up? Pigeons. He’s got a slew of ’em over at his place. They’re descendants,” Speed was saying, “of Owney Madden’s birds. You know who I’m talking about, Owney? A little man with the biggest set in New York City, running beer, ’shine, got himself in a pinch with FDR.”

“You want to skip the history lesson and play cards?” said Doc.

But Speed, once he was started, wouldn’t or couldn’t stop, unless you hit him with a club. Doc remembered the eyes of racehorses glazing over when Speed talked to them. That’s how long-winded the little man was.

“It didn’t look good when Governor Roosevelt wanted to run for President, having somebody like Owney full-throttle on his turf. No sir. FDR got the man exiled here to Hot Springs. Now, Owney had raised pigeons from the time he was a boy in Leeds, looked after his dad’s birds. Kept ’em atop the Cotton Club in New York City. Yes, he did. That Owney, did you know at one time he and Frank Costello had a regular flotilla of boats, ships, tugs, they even had some submarines fighting off the Coast Guard, bringing in booze? They used the pigeons to deliver the all-clear signal, so they could off-load those boats.”

Doc didn’t believe a word of it, even though, actually, Speed was telling the truth.

“But these birds, that’s what I was talking about,” Speed said, as he picked up the king Doc had just discarded, “they came down from pigeons that Owney was given by Governor Earl Long—one of the Louisiana Longs?”

Doc turned a queen, which gave him three ladies, a four-card run in clubs, two aces, and a deuce. Two cards in, he could have knocked with four, but why do it? The way he cheated, his gin card would be in the next pull.

Speed kept the next card he took from the deck, discarded Doc’s winning ace, and said, “Gin.” Four kings, a diamond run, three deuces.

The little bastard had suckered him even when he’d stacked the deck! How the hell did he do that? Nobody suckered Doc Miller. Nobody.

Speed scooped up Doc’s 20 bucks, saying, “With your pigeons there’s racers and fancies, you know, the ones you use for aerial shows. Tumblers, what they do is fly straight up, then tumble down. Rollers, you train for flying for distance—up. They go so high you can’t see ’em anymore, then plummet. I’ll tell you, I love those birds. Thoroughbreds and pigeons, they’re better than any broad.”

The phone rang twice and stopped. Then rang again. Doc picked it up. He said, “She said what? When did you talk with her? Then why did it take you so long to call? What are you saying? I don’t believe it. Listen, get back here. What do you mean, don’t tell you? I’m telling you, something’s screwed up. You get back here, and we’ll talk about it.”

19

NOW
THEY WERE both sitting on the floor, leaning
up against the side of the ring. Sam had promised she wouldn’t try anything if he didn’t tie her up again. He’d brought her a bottle of cold mineral water. She was actually feeling kind of cozy, like he was looking after her. She wondered if Patty Hearst had felt this way when Cinque let her out of the closet.

He was smoking a cigar. “So how do you know Joey the Horse?” You’d have thought they were sitting across from one another at a sidewalk cafe, on a first date, he rolled the question out so casually.

She explained how her friend Lavert used to work for Joey as a chef and chauffeur. How Joey had sent Lavert to cooking school in France and Italy, Lavert having picked up his basic culinary skills jailing in Angola, the state penitentiary. She noticed how she left out the part about Lavert being Harry’s best friend and partner.

“Lavert’s a big black man? About six-five, six-six?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’ve eaten his grub. The man’s a genius in the kitchen. I’d
forgotten
about Lavert.” Then, more to himself than to her, “Maybe I could get him to come up here, cook in my place.”

“Your house, do you mean? Or do you have a restaurant?”

He didn’t answer that.

So she said, “I first met Lavert in New Orleans when I was still working for the Atlanta
Constitution.
I used to be a reporter. Sam Adams, reporter. I still have some business cards in my wallet, if you want to see them. Along with my driver’s license. My Social Security card. You could call the paper, ask them. They’d ID me.” Though the way some of the staff had felt about her by the time she left, they’d probably hang up. Hell, let her rot.

“A reporter, huh?”

“Yes, and—” Then she remembered something else. “You know, last night, boy, talk about a small world, I saw somebody else here who knows Lavert. I don’t really know him, but I saw this man, a black man named Early Trulove, who—actually, I think Early used to work for Joey, too. He groomed horses for him. Or worked for Joey’s trainer, I’m not sure.”

He was staring at her. “Where did you see Early?”

“At the piano bar in the lobby of the Palace. The same place I saw Mickey, the woman you’ve mistaken me for.”

“Where were you sitting?” He was getting excited. His face was flushed.

“Like I said, right at the bar with Early. He was a couple of seats over from me. I was going to speak to him, but he left.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” He stood up.