Jewish conspiracy?‘’ he said.
“I know you’re mocking, bu
you’ll see. Jews, Catholics, one-worlders, anybody who wishes us to give up our sovereignty to a foreign power.”
“Like the Pope, or the UN,” Fish
said.
“Yes.”
Fish looked again at Vinnie Morris.
“See?” Fish said.
“Didn’t I say it would be worth it to have him come in and see us.”
“That’s what you said.”
Jo Jo didn’t like the way this was going.
He didn’t have any idea what Hasty was talking about. He never had known why the Horsemen ran around in the woods with guns.
This was the first he’d heard about one-worlders, whatever they were. But he knew Gino was having fun with them, and it made him feel sweaty. For his part Hasty wasn’t used to being laughed at. He wasn’t sure how one was supposed to respond to being laughed at.
“Lot of unmarked UN helicopters hovering over, ah, where are you from again?”
“Paradise,” Hasty said.
His face felt somewhat stiff.
“Ah yes,” Fish said.
“Paradise.”
“I am doing business with you,”
Hasty said. His voice was hoarse and seemed hard to squeeze through his windpipe.
“Admittedly. But you are also doing
business with me, and goddamn it, if you don’t want the business, just keep it up and I’ll take my money somewhere else, where they don’t have a damned fairy at the reception desk.”
There was silence in the office for a long moment.
Vinnie kept his blank stare on Jo Jo. Then Fish smiled slowly.
“He used the F word, Vinnie.”
Vinnie Morris nodded without saying anything. His eyes steady on Jo Jo.
“Spunky devil, isn,‘t
he?” Fish said.
Vinnie shrugged.
“Well,” Hasty said, hoarsely.
“You want the business OF not.”
“Of course I do,” Fish said.
“Let’s talk particulars.”
“Well, did you ever think of doing
that?” Cissy Hathaway said.
-They were sitting on the king-sized bed in a Holiday Inn in the middle of the afternoon drinking California champagne out of the little plastic glasses.
“Jesus, no,” Simpson said.
“Cissy, you got to understand, I haven’t had that much experience, you know? I mean you weren’t my first, but, well, I got a lot to learn.”
“But you have youth,” Cissy said.
“And energy.”
She drank champagne and refilled her plastic cup.
“Thank God,” she said,
“for energy.”
Simpson blushed again and drank, as much to occupy his hands as any other reason. He didn’t really like champagne.
It was SOur compared to Pepsi, and sweet compared to beer. He really liked beer better. Hell, he .admitted to himself, he really liked Pepsi better. But sitting in a motel with a married woman you were about to screw, didn’t seem the right time for Pepsi. Cissy was wearing a little black dress with thin straps over the shoulders and very high heels. She had gotten to the hotel first and he knew she had changed into these clothes. He could see the brown dress she’d worn hanging in the closet. The mirror in the bathroom was still misted so he knew she’d
