Standing over Jack’s shoulder, Jorge announced, “Look! It’s Mrs. Landis!”
“I know who it is,” Jack snapped. “Shit, I’m married to her, ain’t
I?
Not for long, thought Jorge.
“Connie,” Candy said, “I think it’s so important that the viewers out there understand that rape is not always committed by strangers in a dark alley. Sometimes it’s someone you know…”
Jorge handed Jack the phone.
“What!” Jack yelled.
“Are you watching this?” Joey screamed. “That’s your wife!”
“I recognized her.”
“What’s she doing on there?”
“Sawing my balls off,” Jack said. The world was starting to close in-black, hot and stuffy as an East Texas summer night. You want to get out, get away from the suffocating heat, and there’s no place to go but to more of the same.
“The bitch lied to me…” Jack mumbled, more to himself than to Joey. “She said she forgave me… coming home…”
“I find it incredible that the two of you have become such close friends,” Connie said. “How in the world did that happen?”
“Well, of course we had something in common,” Candy said.
As Connie giggled and shook her head, Jack handed Jorge the phone.
“Tell that son of a bitch I’m going to the Grand Caymans,” he muttered. “He can have fucking Candyland.”
The world was spinning.
“You’re a son of a bitch and Mr. Landis is going to the Grand Canyon,” Jorge said. “You can fuck having Candyland.”
Visions of a Caribbean beach, women with skin like cocoa butter, and a cool grass shack sparkled in Jack’s eyes as his arm went numb, his heartburn returned, and he felt as if someone was wrapping barbed wire around his chest.
“And then when someone tried to kill her…” Candy drawled.
Joey was trying to figure out why Jack was going to the Grand Canyon when he heard the bit about someone trying to kill Polly.
“Wait a second. That’s me!” Joey yelled indignantly. “Why the hell does she have to drag me into it? What the hell did I ever do to her?”
“You stole a boatload of money from her,” Harold suggested.
“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that!” Joey whined. “That’s not fair!”
“Why would someone want to kill you?” asked Connie breathlessly.
Please, please, please, please, please, Harold prayed. Don’t say it.
Please, please, please, please, please, Joey prayed. Don’t say it. Carmine will have me melted into a wax candle and burn an inch or two of me every day.
“I don’t know,” Polly answered. “There are a lot of crazies out there.”
Thank God, thought Harold.
Thank God, thought Joey.
“She’s a stand-up broad,” Harold said when he got his breath again.
“Yeah, she’s okay,” Joey said when he realized that it still wasn’t too late to knock her off.
If that numbnuts Overtime can get it right for once.
Overtime limped down the hallway and rapped softly on Withers’s door.
“Who is it?” Withers asked.
“Open the door before someone sees me,” Overtime hissed.
Walter cracked the door, Overtime pushed it open, shut it behind him, and grabbed Withers by the lapels.
“Listen, you drunken buffoon,” Overtime said. “You’re going to deliver the target the way you’re supposed to so I can get the job done.”
“Who are you?” Withers asked. “Do you work for Scarpelli?”
“Yeah, okay,” Overtime answered.
One more float, he thought, in this endless parade of idiots.
Why would they want to kill her? Neal asked himself as he watched the interview. What could she say that she hasn’t said already?
“It’s going great, isn’t it?” Karen said.
“Yeah,” Neal said.
“What?” Karen asked, picking up on his mood. Neal was such a damn perfectionist. Polly had probably dropped a t or an r or put a diphthong where there wasn’t supposed to be one or something.
What could she say that she hasn’t said already?
She talked about the affair; she talked about the rape-what else was there to Pollygate? Joey Foglio, obviously, but she didn’t even know about that until we found out that her good buddy Gloria was giving her up…
From the Book of Joseph Graham, book one, chapter one, verse one: Don’t look so hard at what’s there that you forget what’s missing.
So when you told Polly that Gloria ratted on her, she never asked, “Who’s Joey Foglio? How does Gloria know him? What does Gloria have to do with a mobster?” Nothing, just that same stupid, resentful acceptance that all men are shits, so it was no surprise Joey turned on her.
“What did Gloria owe Joey Beans?” Neal asked.
Polly kept her eyes on the television and said, “I didn’t know Gloria even knew Joey Beans.”
Joey Beans, just like that. Not “Joey who?” Not “That’s a funny name.” Nothing. Which is strange, because I never called him Joey Beans before. Neal watched her beautiful, honest image on the screen-the one he’d worked so well to bring out-and got an awful sinking feeling.
“I thought they only killed their own,” Karen had said.
I’m afraid you were right.
What could she say she hadn’t already said? That she worked for Joey Beans. She was Joey’s hook into Landis. That she pulled out too soon and Joey Beans was pissed off and scared-so pissed off and scared, he put a hit on her.
“Awwwww,” Neal groaned.
“What?” Karen said.
“How much was he paying you?” Neal asked.
“Who?” Polly said.
“Who?” Neal mocked. “You mean there was more than one!
She got that defensive look in her eye, the one he hadn’t seen since… the moments after the attempted murder.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“I don’t either,” Karen said. “What are you talking about?”
“Aw, man,” Neal groaned again. “She’s a player.”
“What do you mean?” asked Karen.
“Because I slept with Jack Landis?” Polly asked.
“Because you took money from Joey Beans to sleep with Jack Landis,” Neal said.
“I did not!” Polly yelled as she stood up.
Yeah, you did, Neal thought. It’s in your eyes; it’s in your voice.
“How’d it happen?” he asked.
“It happened just the way I told Connie-”
“Look, I’ve told more stories than the frigging Brothers Grimm,” Neal said. “Don’t bother.”
“I-”
“No, seriously,” Neal said. “I was stupid enough to believe you; it’s my fault. You and Joey ran a scam on Jack. Hathaway made you a better offer. You took a shot… I hope it works out for you. Now just shut up.”
Because I need to think how to get the hell out of this.
“He raped me!”
“Yeah,” Neal said. “Listen, you should have taken the three mil. What did you think, that the TV performance was going to up the ante? Now they’ll get on the phone and offer you five? What Joey Beans is going to offer you is a mouthful of concrete somewhere. But I’m not going with you, Polly, and neither is Karen.”
“He raped me!” Polly screamed.
“And that wasn’t part of the deal, was it?”
“No!”
Neal sat down on the bed.
“Bummer, huh?” he said to Karen.
Karen said, “Polly, how could you let us put ourselves on the line like that and not-”
Polly pushed past and ran out of the room.
“Let her go,” Neal said.
“We can’t just-”
They heard the door slam behind her.
Walter Withers saw Polly come out the door.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he thought. Walter, this is your big moment. One moment to do it all right and redeem yourself, a fresh start.
He tightened the knot on his tie, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.
Miss Paget was weeping.
Perhaps the gallant approach.
“Excuse me, my dear,” Withers said. “I could not help but notice that you seem to be in some distress. May I be of assistance?”
“I don’t have no one,” Polly wept.
“Ah, loneliness, perhaps my greatest area of expertise,” Withers said. That treacherous young weasel Carey will be out here any second. Must move with dispatch. “Didn’t I just see you on television?”