Jesus, what am I afraid of?
“So work harder next month,” Perlow said. “You got a check for me?”
“Bookkeeping’s running a little late, Max.”
The old man hacked up a wet cough. “You momzer! You make me waste my time coming over here?”
“C’mon, Max. Couple days is all.”
“Screw that.” Perlow pulled out a handkerchief, spat into it, then folded the corners toward the center, as if covering the afikoman matzoh. “Write me a personal check, then reimburse yourself.”
“You gotta understand, Max. Revenue’s down but payroll keeps growing.”
Perlow nodded and Ziegler relaxed for a moment, thinking the old mobster had agreed. Instead, Perlow came back with, “Payroll. I meant to talk to you about that. Your chippy. What’s her name?”
“Who? Who you talking about, Max?”
Perlow reached into his pants pocket, drew out a crumpled piece of paper and read, “Melody Sanders.”
“What the hell? You snooping on me?”
“Nestor Tejada followed you to your little love nest. This Melody. She’s on the payroll.”
“What’s the big deal, Max? I’ve had women on the books before.” Not liking the sound of his own voice. Whiny. Pleading. Weak.
“I didn’t know about this maidel.”
“What, I need your permission to get laid?”
“You in love, Charlie?”
“What kind of question is that? I like the woman or I wouldn’t be spending Saturday mornings with her instead of working on my short irons.”
“When a guy falls for a dame, he starts opening up. Talking about his business and his friends. He lets his guard down, and says stuff he shouldn’t.”
“Only thing I say is, ‘Close your mouth, you’re letting air in.’ ”
“I know you, Charlie. You got this sentimental streak.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Max.”
“Sha! Ben said the same thing to Meyer.”
Here we go again, Ziegler thought. Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. Maybe Scorsese thinks mobsters are entertaining, but if he’d ever met Max Perlow, he’d have made romantic comedies.
“Ben was schtupping every starlet in Hollywood. He changed girlfriends like he changed his boxer shorts. But he fell for Virginia Hill, and before long, they were opening Swiss bank accounts.”
“I know, Max. I know.”
“Then you also know someone out of Chicago aced Ben right in his living room. Cops found one of his eyeballs halfway across the room.”
“This is bullshit, Max!” Raising his voice to the old man for the first time in twenty years. “I don’t talk to Melody about business. I’m not stealing. She’s not stealing. And I’ve had about as much of you as I can take.”
Perlow sat there, hands resting on his watermelon belly, sausage fingers laced together. “What are you saying, Charlie? Spit it out.”
“My debt to you has been paid ten times over.”
“You haven’t been listening, Charlie. We’re partners for life.”
“Fuck that. My wife’s not even my partner for life.” Proud to be showing some guts after all these years of groveling.
“Weren’t for me, Charlie, you’d still be on the beach, hustling girls with your Nikon.”
“Fine. You gave me seed money, like a hundred years ago.”
“Seed money? You little pisher! You ungrateful shit.”
Perlow’s face reddened and his jowls quivered. With any luck, he’d stroke out.
“Fifteen percent for life! That’s the deal. You don’t want to pay me, Charlie?”
Ziegler didn’t answer. The courage he’d felt just seconds ago was slipping away. He was starting to hate himself all over again. “Maybe slice your piece down to ten percent.”
“Pay me, you miserable gonif!” Perlow exploded. “Every cent.” Perlow’s little ferret eyes were wide open now, dark and dangerous. “Or do you want to finish this conversation with Nestor?”
Ziegler put his hands in the air, as if surrendering. “Sorry, Max. My meds make me nuts. Depression. Anxiety. I say crazy things.”
Perlow still glaring at him
“Won’t happen again,” Ziegler promised.
Just as he was wondering if he should offer Perlow a conciliatory drink, Ziegler heard a jarring noise. A crash from the pool deck on the far side of the solarium. Sounded like one of the hundred-pound clay planters toppling onto the hand-cut tile.
“You got somebody out there?” Perlow demanded.
“No, Max. ’Course not.”
“Then what the hell was that?”
“Don’t know.”
“You been acting queer all night.” Keeping his eyes on Ziegler, Perlow yanked up a polyester pant leg and drew a small handgun from an ankle holster. “Let’s find out what the fuck’s going on, partner.”
42 Orchids and Blood
The moment they walked into the solarium, Ziegler felt the warm air and smelled the moist earth. His favorite corner of the world, home to his beautiful and blessedly silent orchids. His refuge. From his wife, his work, his life.
But not from Max Perlow, whose Hush Puppies squeaked a step behind.
A toad with a gun.
Floor-to-ceiling glass looked directly onto the pool deck, the glare from the solarium lights turning the windows into mirrors. The two men could only see their own reflections.
Ziegler stopped, listened. Nothing.
Perlow shuffled past him, the lavender leaves of a hanging Mendelli orchid catching the old man’s arm. Perlow seemed not to notice the Mendelli or the Sophronitis the color of a Cabernet Sauvignon or the vanilla orchid, its column a delicious snowy white, open like a wet and willing pussy.
“My fucking sinuses,” Perlow said. “How do you live with all these weeds?”
The man is a barbarian, Ziegler thought.
Another sound. Softer. Something brushing up against the glass outside. Spanish bayonet shrubs were planted there. The leaves so thick and dense they barely moved in a windstorm.
Unless someone was out there.
“Turn off the lights,” Perlow barked.
Ziegler flipped the switch, and the solarium went dark. Night lights illuminated the pool deck and cabanas, the Roman pillars casting shadows across the water.
The next few seconds went by in a blur.
Perlow pressed his face to the window.
Outside, a flash of movement in the bushes.
“Max!” Ziegler shouted.
“Sha!” He yelled through the closed window: “Who the hell’s out there?”
An explosion of glass. Behind them, a hanging pot splintered and crashed to the floor.
Ziegler dived under a table.
Unfazed, Perlow stood rock still. Crisis calmed him. He’d once finished a side order of cioppino, moments after a tablemate had his throat slit in a Little Italy restaurant.
“You?” he said, looking into the eyes of the shooter outside. Perlow raised his gun. Maybe thirty years ago, before arthritis chewed at his joints, he would have been faster.
The second gunshot hit him squarely in the chest and knocked him on his ass.
Stunned, Ziegler crawled out from under the table and saw the silhouette of a person running away from the house. Trembling, he gazed at Perlow, flat on his back.
“He-lp,” Perlow croaked, blood oozing from his chest.
Ziegler’s mind careened, his thoughts shooting rapid-fire. Was the bullet meant for him? Would the shooter come back? Could there be another gunman?
“Who was it, Max? Who’d you see?”
“Nine-one-one,” Perlow whispered.
More questions shot through Ziegler’s brain. Did Tejada, around front in Max’s Bentley, hear the shots? How long would an ambulance take? Could the old buzzard survive?
“Paramedics. Please, Charlie.”
A memory flashed back to Ziegler. The worst night of his life. Eighteen years ago. “Paramedics!” he spat out the word.