Timothy's game

“There you are,” Eddie Steiner says, gesturing. “In all your primitive glory.”

Sally stares at the completed oil painting propped on an easel. “Jesus!” she bursts out. “You made me look like a tough bimbo.”

“You are a tough bimbo,” her brother says. “But forget your vanity for a minute; what do you think of it as a painting?”

“It’s good, Eddie,” she says grudgingly.

“Good? The goddamned thing is magnificent. It’s just one hell of a portrait. The best I’ve ever done. Ever will do. But then I’ll never find a model like you again.”

She moves closer to inspect the canvas.

“Careful,” he warns. “Don’t touch. It’s still wet; I just finished it last night.”

“I’m going to have to lose some weight,” Sally says. “Look at those hips. And that ass. My God!”

“You’re just a strong, solid woman, sis. Don’t knock it.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I told you about that gallery in the East Village that wants to give me a show. I finally agreed. I’ll bet this thing will be the first to sell.”

“I hope you’re not going to call it My Sister or anything like that.”

“Nah,” he says, laughing. “I’m calling it Manhattan.”

Good title, she thinks. In the nude body of a thrusting woman, he’s caught the crude, exciting world she lives in. The colors are so raw they shriek, and sharp edges and jagged composition reflect the demonic rhythm of the city.

“Yeah,” she says, “I think you got something there. If no one wants it, I’ll buy it.”

“And cut it up?” he teases.

“Never. When I’m old and gray, I’ll look at it and remember,” she says, smiling. “Well, look, here’s a package for Paul. Cash and a note telling him what stocks to buy. Okay?”

“Sure. I’ll give it to him. He likes the idea of being the Boy Wonder of Wall Street. Listen, Sal, you’re not going to get into any trouble on this, are you?”

“Trouble? What trouble? I’m giving stock tips to a good friend, that’s all. Nothing illegal about that.”

“I hope not,” Eddie says. “I’d hate to visit you up the river on the last Thursday of every month, bringing you some of Martha’s strudel.”

“Not a chance,” she says confidently. “No one’s going to lay a glove on me.”

She walks back to the office, thinking of her portrait. It lights up that entire dingy apartment. The more she recalls it, the better she likes it. It’s Manhattan, all right, but it’s also Sally Steiner, shoving belligerently from the canvas.

“That’s me,” she says aloud. “A tough bimbo.”

It’s almost noon when she gets back to Steiner Waste Control. There are four big yellow trucks on the tarmac, waiting to unload. Most of the guys have gone across to the Stardust Diner for lunch, but Anthony Ricci is waiting in the outer office. She knows what he wants.

“Why don’t you go to lunch,” she says to Judy Bering. “I’ll hold down the fort until you get back.”

“I may be a little late, Sal. I want to get over to Bloomie’s. They’re having a sale on pantyhose.”

“Take your time. Tony, come into my office.”

The kid really is a beauty, no doubt about it, and she wonders what Eddie could do with him-and then decides she’s never going to bring them together and find out. Paul Ramsey would kill her.

Ricci has a helmet of crisp, black curls, bedroom eyes, and a mouth artfully designed for kissing. That chiseled face might be vacuous except that, occasionally, the soft eyes smolder, the jaw sets, lips are pressed. And there, revealed, are temper, menace, an undisciplined wildness when the furious blood takes over.

He’s got a muscled body and moves with the spring of a young animal. He’s been working all morning, but he doesn’t smell of garbage; he smells of male sweat with a musky undertone from the cologne he keeps in his locker and uses every time his truck returns to the dump.

“How’s it going, Tony?” Sally asks him. “Like the job?”

“It’s okay,” the kid says. “For a while. I’m not about to spend the rest of my life lifting barrels of shit.”

“You’re not?” she says, putting him on. “And what have you got in mind-an executive job where you can wear monogrammed shirts and Armani suits?”

“Yeah,” he says seriously, “I think I would like a desk job.”

“With a secretary? A blue-eyed blonde with big knockers?”

He gives her the 100-watt grin. “Maybe. But not necessary.”

“No, I don’t imagine you have much trouble in that department. You got someone special, Tony?”

He shrugs. “I have many friends, but no one special, no. Mario, he’d like me to marry a woman he has picked out for me, but I don’t think so. Her father is respected and wealthy, but she looks like a-like a-what is it that farmers put in their fields to frighten birds away?”

“A scarecrow?”

“Yeah,” Ricci says, laughing, “she looks like a scarecrow. Not for me.”

“What kind of a woman are you looking for?”

He leans toward her slightly, his dark, burning eyes locked with hers. “An older woman,” he says in a low voice. “I am tired of young girls who talk only of clothes and rock stars and want to go to the most expensive restaurants and clubs. Yeah, I’m interested in older women.”

“Because they’re grateful?” Sally suggests.

He considers that. “It’s true,” he says finally, and she decides he may be an Adonis, but he’s got no fucking brains. “Also,” he continues, “older women are settled and know about life. They are smart about money, and they work hard.”

“Uh-huh,” Sally says. “Sounds to me like you’ve got it all figured out. An executive desk job-with or without a secretary-and an older woman you can tell your troubles to. And what would you give her? You’d be faithful, I suppose.”

He doesn’t realize she’s kidding him, but sits back with a secret smile. “She would not care about that,” he says. “Where I come from, a man provides a home, food on the table, and takes care of his children. What he does outside the home is his business. The wife understands.”

“Well, I wish you luck,” Sally says. “I hope you find a rich older woman like that.”

“I intend to,” he says solemnly, staring at her with such intensity that she begins to get antsy.

“Well,” she says, “let’s get down to business.” She slides a sealed white envelope from the top drawer of her desk and hands it to him. “You know what’s in that, Tony?”

He nods soberly. “More than I make in a month for lifting garbage.”

“You better believe it,” Sally says. “So don’t lose it or take off for Las Vegas. A receipt isn’t necessary.”

Her sarcasm floats right over those crisp, black curls. “A receipt?” he says, puzzled. “Mario didn’t say anything about a receipt.”

She wonders if this boy has all his marbles. “Forget it,” she says. “Just a joke. Nice talking to you, Tony.”

“Maybe some night we could have dinner,” he says, more of a statement than a question. “I know a restaurant down on Mulberry Street. Not expensive, but the food is delizioso. Would you like to have dinner with me?”

She realizes that if Terry Mulloy had made the same proposal, she’d have told him to stuff it. “Sure,” she says to Anthony Ricci. “Why not?”

After he’s gone, she questions why she didn’t cut him off at the knees. Not, she decides, because he’s so beautiful and dumb. But he’s Mario Corsini’s cousin, and she has a presentiment that he might, someday, be of use to her. She has never forgotten that on the morning Vic Angelo was murdered, Ricci didn’t get to work until noon.

She calls Mario, leaves a message, and he calls back in twenty minutes.

“I delivered the mail to Tony,” she tells him.

“Okay,” he says. “You got anything else for me?”

“Yeah,” she says, and gives him the name of the smaller food processing company involved in the merger