“To gay sex,” Royce said, watching Maven almost choke. “I got you.”
Maven grinned, then drank down about half, as much as he could handle until the coldness started to close his throat. The suitcase was just sitting there on the counter. He forced himself to look away. Through the short hallway to the front, he saw a large pool table. “Damn,” he sighed, moving to it.
The table had tassels on the sides and soft, ropy purses for pock ets. Massive mahogany legs. A real Victorian-type piece set out on a plush Oriental rug, the entire room given over to it.
Maven ran his fingers over its crimson cloth playing surface. A cue-stick rack hung on the wall between two enormous World War II — era propaganda posters. AVENGE DECEMBER 7 rallied the first, an angry man raising his massive fist into the air. BOOKS ARE WEAPONS IN THE WAR OF IDEAS proclaimed the second, a giant book burning in vivid color. The opposite wall was dominated by a stone-manteled fireplace.
“They had to bring this thing up from the outside, like a piano,” said Royce, coming along behind him.
Maven went to the far, curved wall, the centered window offering a view across Marlborough Street, and, over them, the top of the Prudential building beyond.
Cars lined both sides of the street below, the wind spiriting the last of the fallen tree leaves. From the east, two men came along the brick sidewalk, each carrying a duffel bag. Maven made the Latino and the blond, approaching the front door below.
He stepped back from the window. He felt anxious suddenly, out of place. He needed a moment to get his shit together, and emptied his beer glass. “There a bathroom?”
It smelled clean, spiced with cologne. The shower curtain was brass-colored and drapes-thick, the walls and floor made of marble tile.
He ran cold water, splashing some on his face, then looked at himself in the mirror over the sink. He wondered again, How did I get here, exactly?
The ceiling creaked. Light footsteps along the third floor overhead. Somebody upstairs. Faint music too.
Then voices down the hall. Maven hated being the new guy. The first day of school all over again. He sucked it up and opened the door into the hallway.
The Latino and the blond all-American had dumped their duffels in the kitchen, turning to Maven as he entered.
“We’re good?” said the Latino, referring to Maven.
Royce said, “What do you think?”
The Latino then came forward, offered his hand. Maven shook, a good Marine grip. “Name’s Suarez. Carlito Suarez.”
“Neal Maven.”
“Carlito, just like Al Pacino in that movie.” Suarez grinned. “Only more badass.”
The blond came forward with a similar grip. “Jimmy Glade. How’s it goin’? Where’d Royce find you?”
“Pulled him off the scrap heap,” said Royce, coming out with more beers, passing them around, no glasses this time. “Same as you.”
Glade said to Maven, “You snore, man?”
Carlito said of his big blond friend, “Milkshake here likes his beauty sleep.”
Maven shook his head in confusion.
Royce said, “Jimmy’s going to be your roommate.”
Maven stopped with his bottle at his lips. “My roommate?”
“You’re moving in. This is your new place.”
Maven stared at him. “I’m doing what?”
Royce stepped over to the suitcase. “Sticking close is how we do. This is your barracks now. Eat together, sleep together.”
“Not together together,” stressed Glade.
“And, rent-free,” said Royce, drawing the zipper along the edges of the suitcase. “Except on paper.”
“More flow for the tax man,” said Carlito.
“You’re learning,” said Royce, lifting the top of the suitcase as if he were opening the white box cover on a cake.
The cash was laid out in overlapping stacks of elasticized bundles. All Jacksons and Franklins, staring faceup.
A moment of reverence as they all took in the beautiful sight.
Carlito said, “Fuckin’ Fourth of July.”
He gave Glade some skin. Glade said, “’Lito, you get any chub out there today? What about you, Maven? Get any chub on that lick? A combat rodney?”
Maven said, “Not like I’m getting right now.”
Glade nodded in agreement. “Chub factor of three. Just north of flaccid.” He finished his beer. “Saving it for tonight, is all.”
A key scratched in the lock. Royce dropped the cover on the money bag, but it was purely precautionary and nobody was really concerned.
In walked the black guy, the fifth member of the crew. Royce said, “What took so long?”
“Settling up at the front desk,” he said, laying down a tan garment bag. “Who the fuck cleared out the wet bar?”
Glade smiled, pulling a handful of vodka nips from his pockets.
“That fucking nine-dollar Snickers, that’s coming out of your kick too.” The black guy sized up Maven, standing on the side of the island, and still didn’t smile. “So what’s the verdict on the FNG?” FNG: fucking new guy. “We going to deep-six this motherfucker, or what?”
When the others laughed, Maven smiled. The black guy kept his snarl, but some play came into his yellowed eyes.
“Just shittin’,” he said, offering Maven his hand.
Royce did the introduction: “Neal Maven, meet Lewis Termino.”
They shook, Maven hearing something in the name.
Termino said, “You look like you heard of me before. You grow up in Brockton?”
“Near there.”
“Lewis ‘the Dynamo’ Termino.” He dropped his chin and assumed a loose-fisted fighter’s stance. “Rocky Marciano, he was the pride of Brockton. But Dynamo was its soooul.”
“I do remember,” said Maven.
“He had all the tools,” said Royce. “Fast hands, granite jaw. All class. Only problem? Feet of fucking clay.”
“I’d rather stay and take a beating than retreat. Turns out that ain’t good for judges’ cards, or a long-term career.”
Glade uncapped all four nips, sliding them around the island. Royce watched everyone drink together. “Now we’ve got trust. We’ve got a foundation. We sealed the deal with a crime. Better than a contract inked in blood. Maven — you’re one of us now.”
Glade said, “Soldiers of fortune.”
“You got something on us,” said Carlito, swallowing, “and we got something on you.”
Royce said, “It’s the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. The best possible basis for a secure and honest partnership.”
Termino nodded and opened the suitcase lid on the cash. “Nobody pushes the button on anyone else without everyone going ka-plooey.”
Maven did not feel the vodka burn until he was in the pool-table room with Glade and Carlito. Royce and Termino remained behind in the kitchen to handle the split. The bluster and the buddy talk was easy to fall back into, caught up in the crosscurrent of a waning adrenaline charge and his burgeoning buzz. The cold beer warmed Maven’s tongue magically, and he had questions, lots of them.
He learned that, whether he rented or owned it, the building belonged to Royce. Neither of the other two had any idea how he had made his wad in the first place.
Maven learned that they had not been at this long. “Not long enough” was Carlito’s answer, as he banked the eight ball into a corner pocket.
Maven learned that the hotel jump was maybe 5 percent of the total effort expended on this job. Most of it was van surveillance and telephone traps.
He learned that Royce was the one who put them on the Venezuelan. They did not know how he originated the information, nor did they care.