Finally, though, the numbers started coming up, and the ring sold for $150,000 to, of course, a Japanese businessman.
What with the administrative fees Fox got and the percentage I'd worked out with Lowe for setting up the deal, I'd take home a little over a hundred grand. That was before settling my bill with Kleinhardt. Goddamn, I needed a fuckin' break, and in a hurry.
A day later it was settled.
"Seventy large it is," Kleinhardt said to me. He snapped his cell phone shut. "Mom and the daughter's lawyer are convinced of your sincerity, Zelmont. And they acknowledge there may have been some slight innocent, unconscious enticement on the young woman's part, being not wise in the ways of the world. But that's in the past. They all want to move forward with their lives."
''Especially since they figure they'd only be beatin' a dead horse to hold out for more.'' We were standing in the waiting room of a foreign car repair place on the Miracle Mile. Kleinhardt was having some work done on his sharp ride, an emerald green Beamer sedan.
I didn't have much to say so I stood there, hands in my pockets.
"What's on deck for you now, Zelmont?"
Kleinhardt said it like I had a future mapped out. More and more, there was only one direction I was heading. Sitting in the restaurant the other day at the airport, I was kinda in, kinda not. Like how I've been pretty much with every woman of mine. In the mix, but sorta standing outside of it too, watching stuff go down around me even though I was involved.
There I was, standing around like any other middle class square. Kleinhardt was on the phone again, happy with himself for keeping me out of jail. Shit, I was the one that came up with the idea. What'd I get? Money out of my pocket and then some. Not one goddamn cent of the ring money was mine to keep, and I had a hefty mortgage to meet. One of the mechanics was working underneath a Jag, back toward the muffler. He was probably in a better financial situation than me. That didn't make me sad, just determined.
"I'll see you, Barry."
He waved at me and continued gabbing on the phone. I was already played, as far as he was concerned my big paydays behind me. Wouldn't be no calls to get in nine holes like there used to be from him when I was raking in the green. I was swimmin' with the sharks. And if I wasn't careful, I might be their food real quick.
The garage opened out on an alley and I took that and turned at the corner where the car repair place was. I crossed Wilshire at an angle and went into the Conga Room. It was a big building near the corner of Detroit painted a slate blue. The club had once been a Jack LaLanne's gym and sauna. Some actors and others had invested some dough and turned it into a salsa joint. There was a big bongo drum hanging next to the roof.
At the bar I had a Maker's Mark, then another one. The bartender, a decent-looking chick in black pants and matching vest and white shirt, eyed me twice but didn't say anything. The TV was on and Weems was talking.
"As I've said, I'm not insensitive to how this might appear to our fans. They are the only reason we want to bring them the kind of football we know they want and deserve."
Trace and a couple of other flat-shouldered boys were flanking the Comish like what he had to say was important.
Weems tried to smile but knew it looked too fake. "It was no easy task informing the team owners that certain men wouldn't be allowed to play, but we must have standards. We must adhere to the new course we've taken if we're to restore the integrity of football. It must be made clean and good and strong like it was when we all first became fans."
One of the reporters asked him about playing fast and loose with the rights of free trade and so forth, but I was into my second whisky and couldn't care less what the fool had to say. Apparently, though, he'd bounced me and five other sorry bastards out without so much as a blink or a nod. Cold, cold motherfuckah.
I weaved outside after my third drink. Kleinhardt shot past in his BMW heading west and didn't even see me. Or at least he made like he didn't. I got in my ride and went home. Nothing else to do but chill with my buzz on.
Back at the pad there was a message waiting for me from Isabel. I called her, but she was out. I needed something to do, I was wound up tight and had to release it somehow. The phone rang and I grabbed the thing.
"Yes," I said, trying to sound relaxed.
"We're on for tomorrow, stud."
It was Nap. "What?"
"One-thirty on the t-i-t, and you'd better take a nap before you get over there."
"Negro, what you goin' on about?" I sure wished Isabel had called me back.
"Service with a smile, homebrew."
Then it sunk in "Oh damn."
The next day I headed out to Stadanko's pad, following the directions Nap had given me. As I neared the place, I started to get more hyped. I was thinking it had to be a trap that Chekka had set to get back at us. After all, Ysanya was one of them, from Kosovo or some such place where fools were still lighting each other up over who killed who in what century. But Nap said everything was on the positive tip, plus this was an important part of the plan. I was sure this sneaking around was really just part of the freak game him and missus were into playing. Me being in the middle didn't make me feel too easy.
I got lost a couple of times but found my way onto the right street in Palos Verdes Estates. The joint was huge like I'd expected, and there was a gate attached to a high brick wall around it. I pulled up to a call box on a post beside the entrance. I sat there looking at the box, not knowing what to do. Sweat was making the top of my lip wet.
"Come on in, Zee," Nap said over the intercom.
One side of the gate opened quietly. I drove in and followed the drive to the front door. The housemansion, I guess you'd really call it was three floors and had balconies and vines crawling all over it. It wasn't a modern look. No, Stadanko's pad reminded me of the kind of cribs I'd seen in old flicks from the '40s where the crazy widow hangs out and the stranger rolls up to throw her life off balance.
But I was the one off balance right now. Nap's car was there and I parked near him. I didn't see any other ride, but that didn't ease my nerves. There were big dragon heads on both sides of the double wooden doors. Before I reached the heads, one side opened and I froze like a high schooler caught in a double team.
"Sir." A heavy woman wearing jeans and a work shirt was standing at the door with her hand on the knob.
I considered spinning around and bolting, but she'd already seen me, so that would have done no good. I went on in.
The woman didn't say anything else as she shut the door behind me. She just smiled and pointed up the stairs. Then she walked off through a doorway to my right. I hit the stairs and went up past some photos hanging along the wall. One was Stadanko and Chekka in younger days. The two punks had their arms around each other, standing in front of a bar with foreign letters in the window.
I could hear voices and followed them down a bend in the hall to a set of doors with fancy glass knobs. I went in and found myself standing in a room with colored light coming in from above. There was a skylight made of stained glass cut in the ceiling. The walls were painted a girly shade of pink, the bottom half of them made of dark wood. Normally, I wouldn't pay attention like some faggot decorator to stuff like that, but I'd learned from past incidents involving me and my johnson that it was best to know as many details as possible.
There were paintings on the wall, modern jive that for some reason I kinda liked. Off to one side was a desk with a computer. The curtains were open to those French windows houses like this always have. A long telescope was pointed out the windows to the ocean.