The bartender relayed the message. Through the mirror, Rico watched Gerry leave. Splinters started to walk out.
“Tell me where you got the money,” Rico demanded.
“You don’t know?” his driver said.
Rico leaned back in his chair. That was the crazy thing about Cubans; they never answered you directly. “You shot the carny owner,” he guessed.
“His chimp.”
“You shot his chimp?”
“Fucker attacked me.”
Rico massaged his brow with his fingertips. The night before, he’d dreamed he was five years old and visiting the Bronx Zoo with his parents. They’d gotten separated, and Ray Hicks’s chimp had walked out of a cage, taken Rico by the hand, and led him to his mom and dad. Everyone had been smiling, and then Rico woke up.
Through the wall, Rico heard hooting and hollering, the strippers taking turns spinning naked on a barber pole. He removed a leather bag from beneath his desk and tossed Ray Hicks’s money into it. Standing, he shoved the satchel into Splinters’s hands.
“I did good, huh,” his driver said.
Rico looked at the TV. A Miami College player was at the free throw line. He missed both shots. The buzzer sounded, ending the game. In one swift motion, Rico drew his .45 Smith & Wesson and shoved the barrel into the satchel’s folds.
“Not really,” he said, pulling the trigger.
22
Leaving the Fontainebleau, Candy walked around South Beach for several hours, thinking about how close she’d come to dying that afternoon. With each passing minute she reminded herself of all the things she wanted to do with her life.
It was dark when she returned to the Delano. The Alice in Wonderland lobby was filled with strung-out party people. Standing beneath a billowing white curtain, she called Nigel’s bungalow on a house phone, got no answer, then walked down to the Rose Bar and didn’t find him there. Going outside, she spotted him at a table in the patio restaurant, still in his golf clothes. With him, inhaling a shrimp cocktail, was Rico.
Payback time, Candy thought.
She sat down next to her boyfriend. He kissed her and said, “Where you been hiding?”
Rico stared at her. Then he started to cough.
“Shopping,” she said. “Hey, Rico, how’s it going?”
“Spend a lot of money?” Nigel asked.
“Window-shopping,” she said. “Cat got your tongue, Rico?”
“Rico was just telling me how we’re going to fleece a local bookie,” Nigel said, laughing like someone who’d been drinking all afternoon.
“Wow,” Candy said.
Rico’s face was turning blue, and he was smacking the table with his hand. An attentive waiter brought a glass of ice water. He downed it.
“Damn cocktail sauce,” he gasped. He composed himself, then glanced furtively around the restaurant. “Nigel, this isn’t exactly legal what we’re talking about, you know?”
“Is there anything fun that is legal?” Nigel asked.
“How much are we fleecing his bookie for?” Candy asked innocently.
Rico started choking again. His water glass was refilled, and he asked for the check. Two plump German girls approached the table and in halting English asked Nigel to autograph the restaurant’s paper menus. Nigel obliged, smiling when one kissed his cheek. Candy excused herself to the ladies’ room.
Only, she didn’t go in. Instead, she waited off the lobby until Rico walked past, and followed him outside to the hotel’s valet stand. Rico handed his stub to the attendant, who then disappeared through a thick stand of hedges.
“I want you to get lost,” she said to his back.
He spun around, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “There you are.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What?”
“Sweet-talking me, you bastard.”
“It was my driver’s idea,” he said. “I told him to scare you off.”
“Go to hell.”
The valet brought up Rico’s limo. Rico tipped him, then waited until the valet was behind his stand. Popping the trunk, Rico said, “I want to show you something.”
“No.”
“Give me a chance.”
Candy walked around the vehicle. And nearly screamed. Inside the trunk was Rico’s Cuban driver wrapped in a plastic sheet. His shirt was soaked in blood, and his pink tongue hung out of his mouth like a dog’s. Rico slammed the trunk hard. Candy’s legs had turned to rubber, and he grabbed her arm and held her up.
“Work with me, will you?”
She tried to pull away. “No.”
“Don’t fall in love with Nigel Moon,” he said under his breath. “He’ll screw you for a couple of weeks, then get rid of you like a case of the clap. He’s bad news. That’s why I’m scamming him.”
She swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s a concert promoter in New York named Santo Bruno. He books all the big acts. Two years ago, Santo offered One-Eyed Pig fifty million dollars to do a reunion tour. I’m talking ten shows, Candy. Guess what happened?”
“What?”
“Nigel said no, and the deal fell apart.”
Candy vaguely remembered seeing it on the news. “Why did he do that?”
Rico flipped on his shades. “Why don’t you ask him?” he said.
23
The afternoon had turned into evening, and still no sign of Gerry.
Valentine sat on his balcony, growing worried. Gerry’s cell phone was in Puerto Rico with Yolanda, and there was no way to reach him. What if something had happened during his meeting with Rico? The phone in the room rang. Valentine ran inside and snatched it up.
“Where have you been?”
“Right where I’ve always been,” Mabel replied. “Someday, Tony, I’m going to convince you to keep your damn cell phone on.”
It was the first time Valentine had ever heard his neighbor swear. He swallowed the snappy retort about to trip off his tongue. Taking his cell phone out, he hit power.
“You just did,” he said.
“Oh, my,” she said. “Did you actually just turn your cell phone on for my benefit?”
“Yup.”
“I’m touched. I left a message for you earlier. Rather than repeat it, why don’t you just pick it up, and hear what I had to say?”
The line went dead. His cell phone beeped, a message waiting in voice mail. He retrieved it and heard Mabel’s voice. “Tony, it’s me. I’ve been trying to reach you. Now, you may not like this, but I made an executive decision an hour ago.”
“Uh-oh,” he said.
“Jacques called. He said the craps dealer admitted to shrinking the casino’s dice. The craps dealer told Jacques he wanted to cut a deal. He said another gang of cheaters was ripping the casino off for a thousand bucks a night at roulette. Jacques had the roulette wheel tested and also watched surveillance tapes of the table, but he didn’t see anything wrong. He wants you to look at the tapes.
“First I said no,” his neighbor said, “knowing how busy you are. But Jacques insisted and said he’d wired your fee to a nearby Western Union office. I called the office, and, yup, the money’s there, so I caved in and said yes. I mean, he has been a good customer.”
“And a jerk,” Valentine said into the phone.
“So here’s what I had Jacques do,” Mabel said. “He sent an E-mail to your hotel that contains a copy of the surveillance tape of the roulette wheel. Go to the front desk and ask for Jodisue. She’ll retrieve the E-mail from her computer, and you can have a look. And, Tony . . .”
“Yes, Mabel,” he said.