A hot Creole Card called Hortensia had gone out to the Caymans with a Wall Street type for the weekend and didn't come back when she was supposed to. The guy rang Carmine up and said the bitch had freaked out on him and gone AWOL that morning. Carmine sent Beeson out to look for her. He found her thirty-seven hours later, back in Miami, holed up in a shitty hotel, a loaded gun in one hand, a bottle of sleeping pills in the other, trying to decide which way out she wanted to go. Looking back and seeing the state of her now, Carmine didn't know why the bitch hadn't just gone ahead and pulled the fucking trigger. He would've done. Mr Wall Street had given her a shot which had put her to sleep while he'd tattooed the whole of the bitch's beautiful face so she looked like someone out of Kiss. Although Carmine had wanted to cut Hortensia loose, she'd begged to be kept in the Deck. Good thing he'd agreed to it too, because now she had a small but loyal clientele of weirdo freaks who went in for her kind of looks. Then there was Valerie, a Diamond who'd been jumped outside a hotel and pack raped by a bunch of jocks in the back of a van. When they were through, they'd thrown her out at seventy miles an hour on the freeway. She survived but looked like the
5ť I Elephant Man's twin sister. Carmine couldn't think of anyone who'd want to fuck that, but men never stopped surprising him. Like Hortensia, Valerie had her paying devotees.
'Su perfume es bueno' Corrina said as she came back from serving Stinkyman, sniffing her wrist and beaming that smile at him. He thought it her worst feature. It made her look simple and stupid. He'd make her drop it.
'Solamente el major,' Carmine replied. It often baffled him how dumb a lot of these bitches were, believing any old shit they were told as long as the teller looked the part.
Corrina was a case in point. She thought he was a photographer from New Orleans called Louis De Ville. That's what it said on the business card he'd given her. It was a classy-looking thing thick textured cream card with his name embossed in metallic emerald-green capitals. His profession, address and number were printed in smaller lettering below. The number and address were for a downtown office block. The office was empty but for three phones and three answering machines, each corresponding to one of his chosen identities. He had a specific profession and business card to match a target Card's dreams. They all wanted to be at least one of the impossible trinity actress, singer or model - in that order. Accordingly, he'd pose as a talent scout, an agent or a photographer; never too big a cheese, like a director or producer, because that came over as too good to be true and even the dumbass ones'd get suspicious.
He'd already broken the ice with Corrina. He'd taken her out twice, walked her home twice. The last time he'd kissed her goodnight on the doorstep of the shithole house she rented a room in. He knew she wasn't a virgin from the way she kissed. She'd stuck her tongue in his mouth. He could have gone further with her then, but he hadn't fucked a target since the first month of his first year on the job. That had been a mistake. The intimacy had messed with his head, made it harder for him to get nasty with the bitch when
she'd got out of line. He'd shared something with her, something fragile and unguarded, something that was all his and she'd tried to turn it on him. She hadn't got far, but since then he'd vowed never to let one of those bitches get close to him again. He left all that to Sam.
Corrina was going to meet Sam tonight, although she didn't know it yet.
Carmine checked his watch. It had gone i o a.m.
The brother in the tennis-player costume settled his bill and left. He looked like he belonged in the Village People in that get-up. Carmine followed him out the door with his eyes, the slow walk across the forecourt, the way he stopped to check out his fine Mercedes coupe and then looked back at the diner to see if he could spot its owner, probably correctly guessing that it belonged to the fly-looking, green eyed brother he'd seen as he'd left. Carmine thought the brother might be getting into the dirty-brown Camaro parked nearby, but it wasn't the right kind of ride for him.I He figured him as a classier type, a Porsche or Ferrari manŚ if he had the bread._ A few minutes later the white guy in the leather jacketŚ came up to the counter to pay his bill. Close-up he lookedh a bit of a mess. His face was pale, unshaven, sweaty and bad tempered; there were bags under his bloodshot blue eyes.
Carmine could feel him scrutinizing him from the side, taking in his fine suit and shoes. It was an intense looking over too, the kind a guy wanting to start a fight might give you to get you riled up enough to ask him what was up.
The man gave Corrina a twenty and drew a bit closer to Carmine.
The motherfucker stank like he'd fucked a skunk in a distillery: shitty bad breath, booze, cigarettes and stale sweat.
The guy's stare stayed on him until he started to feel small, like he was being looked at under a microscope.
What's with this guy? thought Carmine. Is he a pissed off redneck?
Carmine put his game face on and turned to Stinkyman and looked him straight in his squinty eyes.
Stinkyman met his glare full-on and threw it back at him.
Scary ass motherfucker! thought Carmine, but he didn't let it show. Bitch! Give this peckerwood his fucken' change so's he can be outta my damn face!
Then he saw something glinting under the guy's jacket.
He broke the stare and followed the light to a pair of cuffs and the piece Stinkyman was wearing on his hip.
Shit a cop!
Carmine felt like a pussy but he turned away, none-of my-business, look-the-other-way, you-just-carry-on-and-act like-I-ain't-here style. He thought about having to explain the switchblade and the roll of cash in his pockets. He thought about the cigar tube full of the beans he'd picked up from Sam's for his mother.
He'd never been in trouble with the police his whole life.
He ran his business real careful and, besides, the SNBC saw to it that the right palms were greased.
The cop was still staring at him. Corrina barely had any bills in the register so she was counting out his change in quarters. He could almost feel the guy knew what he was, like he could look into his skull and read all his thoughts, see all his plans.
Bullshit, he told himself. Cops ain't psychic. They just get lucky.
Corrina was turning to give the cop his change when he told her to keep it and abruptly walked out of the diner.
Comemierdar she hissed, and dumped the quarters back in the drawer and hit the no sale button.
'He ain't that bad,' Carmine said. 'He gave you money for nothing.'
'Den him grande comemierda,' Corrina said, holding out her hands wide apart.
You'll go far, thought Carmine.
Ten minutes later Carmine walked out of the diner and headed for his car.
He was real proud of his dark blue Mercedes coupe convertible with its beige leather interior and gunmetal blue rims. Driving it was pure pleasure, gliding through the streets in his own unassailable, aerodynamic little world, top down, radio on, volume up.