Jag jumped out of the bed and grabbed his undershorts, but then on impulse leaned over the bed close to her face. He was trembling from adrenaline. In dramatic whisper, he said, “You know, Karly, you’re rotten right down to the core. I’ve been good to you, never jerked you around. And now you decide you can blackmail me with all that shit you think you know about me.” He had given up trying to pull his shorts on. “Open your eyes. People are used to it. They don’t care. Nobody cares. And who would believe a casino hooker anyway?” He was shouting now.
“Well, let’s just find out if anybody cares!” The flash from Karly’s eyes said she had something in mind that would trump everything.
She pressed the redial button on the bedside phone while she was yelling, and the live voice on the speakerphone startled Jag: “Washington Post. May I help you?” Momentarily confused, Jag glared at the phone and stiffened against the torrent of blood that surged through his veins as his hopes for his future flashed through his mind. This belly-crawling two-faced morally bankrupt societal parasite has decided she can take what she wants from me. Blind now with rage he lunged across the bed for the phone, but his feet caught in the covers and he fell against the lamp table, knocking everything to the floor. He felt a sharp pain in his right hand, which had landed on the cheese knife and was bleeding badly. He flew to his feet grasping the knife.
“May I direct your call? Hello? You’ve reached the Washington Post!”
Those were the last words Karly Amarson heard. The knife wasn’t large, but Jag, enraged now, plunged it into her chest. Her eyes widened in stark fear. Jag watched for a moment as blood slowly covered the discreet starburst tattoo on her belly and strangely thought of the parlor in New York where she got it on their last visit there as the reality of what he’d just done sank in.
Frank Gallardi had donned his tux and was about to leave the office when one of his private lines rang — the one for Trophy Club members. He was running late but picked it up.
“Frank! Oh thank God you’re there!” Gallardi didn’t recognize the hoarse voice for a moment. Its owner was shouting. “You alone?”
Gallardi moved the receiver away to protect his ear. “Yeah, leaving to go downstairs. What’s the matter?”
“Don’t say my name for Chrissake. S’body’ll hear you. Just listen—”
“What the hell is it?”
“I don’t know, it’s…uh…I’ve…I mean Karly, she’s…uh…I—”
“Get hold of yourself. Make some sense.”
“Karly…she’s dead, Frank, I think she’s dead.”
“Is this some kind of joke? What the hell—”
“No, it’s not a joke! I need your help. Listen to me: No police. None of your security. I mean nobody,” he demanded, still shouting.
“Are you drunk, man? Calm down! Calm down! What’s this about?”
“Listen to me, Frank!” He instructed Gallardi to send someone he trusted from outside the hotel up to Karly’s apartment to remove her body and anything that pointed to violence, like the bloody carpet and sheets. It should look like Karly just moved out — nothing so unusual about that. Frank must know someone he could trust to do it and keep it quiet. Things just happen in hotels.
Gallardi, in a daze, was through listening. “That’s enough! Stop running off at the mouth. This is a respectable place, it’s my place, and you’re screwing with my reputation. What the hell have you done, anyway?”
“Frank, look. Karly was going to blackmail me. There was an argument. It ended up bad, and I swear, if anything goes wrong — ever — I’ll cover you. I’ll say I forced you to help me. This gets out I’m dead anyway.”
“You realize what you’re asking me to do? We’ll both end up in prison.”
“This can’t get out. I’ll be ruined. Listen, I’ll put it all out on the table here. It’s terrible and I wish it hadn’t happened. I’d change it if I could. But Karly, Frank, face it, she was a prostitute. Prostitutes disappear. They vanish sometimes. Nobody expects them at home for dinner or at some PTA meeting. They’re always unaccounted for. Nobody’s going to start looking around for Karly and causing trouble. If anything ever comes up, I’ll pull some strings. I’ll handle it! But right now you gotta help me!”
Gallardi thought about the trap he was in. If he did nothing and waited for someone to find her body, there would be police all over the hotel and casino, non-stop TV coverage, stories in all the papers. He’d have to risk telling the police he knew nothing about it, or tell the truth and destroy this man he considered a friend, a course contrary to his personal code. “I’ll think about what I’m going to do,” he said.
He slammed the phone onto its cradle and paced around his office for a moment before staring out at the few souls on the Boardwalk below, for whom life went on as if nothing had happened. Frank Gallardi was faithful to a framework of his own principles when making decisions, but now the principles that involved integrity and those having to do with loyalty sat staring at him from opposite corners. This was a problem that had no solution. Even all his wealth couldn’t make it disappear. Whatever his decision now, it would affect the rest of his life. He sat at his desk, hypnotized by the raindrops trailing down the window, reflecting the light from the flashing sign on the Precious Metal Casino next door. He felt sick in his stomach. Maybe he would sit this one out and let the chips fall where they fall, he thought. But the questions wouldn’t go away. When do you pull up stakes on a friend? Fingers get dirty? So what.
It wasn’t like violence was alien to Gallardi. He had straddled the fence between his friends in the mafia and the law for years. Both sides used him for a sounding board, so he always knew what was going on in town. The mob had never pressured him. He wasn’t sure why. Respect, he wanted to think. He had made it this far on his own and didn’t like the idea of calling on them now. If he did, he knew the rule: Ask for help and you get it, and when asked you give back, whatever it is. It’s that simple.
Gallardi swung around to his credenza, looked up a number and dialed.
“Yeah.” The voice was coarse, almost threatening.
“This Matty Figueriano?”
After a moment, “Who wants ta know?”
“It’s Frank Gallardi.”
Matty’s tone changed immediately. “Aw, Frankieee! Long time, my man. How you been doin’? I was in the casino last week. Didn’t see ya ’round.”
Any other time those words would have struck fear in Gallardi. An underworld character in a casino brought on more scrutiny from the regulators, but there was no time to worry about that now. “Look, I need a favor.”