“Well?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Jack answered.
“Maybe,” Joey echoed. “So tell Candy to pay her off.”
“It’s not that easy,” Jack said.
Joey cut another bite of steak, chewed it deliberately, then said, “Sure it is. If Canned-Ice believes you, you got no problem. If Canned-Ice believes her, you still got no problem. You just drag her wifely ass into the bedroom and tell her to shut her mouth. What you do outside the house is none of her business. Tell her she’s got a nice deal going-lots of money, good clothes, nice furniture-and if she wants to hold on to it, she’ll stay in line. She gets mouthy with you, take your belt to her. Either way, lay her down on the bed, do the job, be a man, Jack.”
“That’s what you’d do, huh?” Jack asked sarcastically.
Both men stopped to look at a comely brunette stroll by the table.
Joey said, “A man keeps his wife in line. He also keeps his mistress in line. That way, the wife doesn’t suffer disrespect.”
Jack Landis had heard about enough. He wasn’t some poor little diner owner you bully into taking your vending machines. He was Jackson Hood Landis, he owned about half this town, and he could make one call to the Rangers and they’d beat the olive oil out of this cheap gangster. Except it would be inconvenient to explain his relationship to Joey Beans.
“Well, there’s one problem, Joey,” he said. “I’d be happy to take my wife into the bedroom and smack her around, except I don’t know where she is!”
Joey Foglio stared at him.
“You keep losing women, Jack. You should burn a candle to Saint Anthony.”
“My wife isn’t some fat guinea with eight kids, a mustache, and signing privileges at Two Guys from Sicily Pizza Parlor,” Jack said. “She’s a smart businesswoman. If she gets mad and decides to divorce me, she can take about half that business with her, maybe more.”
Wait a second. Now we’re talking about my money, Joey thought.
“I think we need a new plan,” Joey answered.
“Well, make it good this time,” Jack snapped as he stood up to leave.
“Not to worry, Jack. Not to worry,” Joey said. And that remark about my wife is going to cost you, by the way, you cracker bastard.
Landis huffed off.
“Harold, get on the horn and find out what’s happening.”
Joey looked up at the bridge, where another delectable piece of ass strolled in front of a little one-armed guy who was likewise ogling her.
Joey cut another bite of steak and debated whether to pursue the blonde or the brunette.
10
Karen sat down on the edge of the bed next to Neal.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I did my best.”
“Don’t apologize, you did great,” Neal said. “I’m the one who screwed up. I thought I was taking Walter Withers for a ride, and he was taking me.”
He played me like a piano, Neal thought.
“Anyway,” Neal continued, “it looks like it might work itself out.”
He gestured to the kitchen, where Polly and Candy sat at the table in earnest conversation.
“She’s left her husband, you know,” Karen said. “She had what’s — his — name-”
“Charles?” Neal asked.
He wished Karen hadn’t let Candy send old Charles and his little helper away. He would have liked to have asked Charles some questions-like how they got the mike in Hathaway’s briefcase and what else they had heard in Kitteredge’s office. It would be nice stuff to throw in Ed’s face when he called to let him know the job was all but over.
“-Charles, call and tell him they’d found Polly, but not to say where.”
“What’s she going to do now?”
“She doesn’t know,” Karen answered. “I invited her to stay here.”
That’s nice. What?
“Here?”
“Until she figures things out,” Karen said. “I mean, there’s no point in running away now, is there? Candy doesn’t want people to know where Polly is any more than we do. Besides, they have things to work out.”
“So you’re going to have a slumber party?” Neal asked. “Would you like me to go back out and get some popcorn, some stuff for hot-fudge sundaes, maybe an all-night supply of nail polish? I have to tell you, Karen, I thought they pretty much worked things out when Mrs. Landis called Polly a whore and Polly expressed the opinion that Candy was a, quote, ‘frigid, ball-busting bitch.”
“That was the female equivalent of a fistfight,” Karen explained. “They’re talking now.”
“What’s there to talk about?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Neal,” said Karen. “For starters, if it were me, I think I’d like to know if my husband of twenty-odd years was a rapist.”
“Or a father,” Neal said.
“Shit, I forgot.”
“You forgot?” Neal asked. “How you could forget something like that!”
“Well, there was a little excitement around here, you know.”
Candy Landis came to the doorway. She looked tired and somewhat chastened, not at all the superwife she was on television.
“If that invitation is still open, I’d like to take you up on it,” she said shyly.
“If you can handle a foldout sofa,” Karen answered.
Candy nodded and stood perfectly still in the doorway.
After a few moments, she said, “I think this has been the worst day of my life.”
Karen held out her arms and Candy slid into them. Karen cuddled the sobbing Candy while Neal sat there paralyzed by this female display of emotion and feeling about as comfortable as a pork chop at a bar mitzvah.
The crying had settled into sniffles by the time Polly came in.
“Guess what, everybody?” she screeched. “I’m going to have a baby!”
Candy broke into sobs again.
“A baby!” Karen said, then she started to cry.
Neal left the three hugging, weeping women, went into the bathroom, and threw up. None of them even noticed when he slipped out to Brogan’s.
Graham leaned his back against the painted brick wall and talked into the phone.
“I’m telling you, I’m staring at his ugly face right now,” he said. He looked across the crowded floor of the Lone Star Cafe, where Joey Beans and his muscle sat at a table trying to chat up a leggy blond urban cowgirl and her redheaded friend.
“And you’re sure it’s him,” Ed said.
“It’s the same guy I saw get out of the limo,” Graham said. “It sure as hell looks like Joey Beans.”
“And you saw him talking with Jack Landis,” Ed prompted.
“Are you going to repeat everything I tell you?” Graham asked. “Because this conversation is going to take a long time if we have to do it twice.”
Maybe, Ed thought. He’d spent the whole damn night poring over the accountant’s report, and it didn’t look good.
“If I have to kick this up a level, I need to be sure,” Ed answered.
“You want a positive ID?” Graham asked. He was getting irritated.
“I want a positive ID.”
