'Okay,' Jumbo said. 'I'm fucking her.'
'Dawn,' I said.
'Who the fuck else?' he said. 'Little Bo Peep?'
'Or her sheep,' Z murmured.
'Hey, man, you wanna hear or not?'
'Sure,' Z said.
'I don't know what he tole you,' Jumbo said to me. 'But I'm speaking the God's-honest truth.'
'Keep it up,' I said.
'So we done pretty much everything I know how to do,' Jumbo said, 'which is a lot, and she wants me to try something new. So I'm game; she takes out this scarf from her purse, and ties it around the bedpost, then she loops it around her neck, but she keeps hold of one end, you know, so she can tighten it or loosen it. And then she tells me to do her again. That's what she said, 'Do me again.' So I'm game, and I do, and she tightens up the scarf and loosens it and tightens it, and it's like she passes out for a few seconds, and then loosens up and wakes up and, you know, really goes crazy. We been drinking some champagne and doing some dope most of the evening. I was kind of fucked up and starting to feel sick, so I tell her to hold on, and I go in the bathroom and . . . I'm sick for a while . . . and then I'm feeling better . . . and I clean up and come out, and she's hanging off the bed. She's got the scarf wrapped around her hand for some reason, and it didn't loosen.'
'You think she passed out?' I said.
'Yeah,' Jumbo said. 'And--my luck--rolls off the bed and fucking chokes herself.'
'Scarf was still around her wrist,' Z said. 'When I went in.'
'And you had Z pretty everything up,' I said.
Jumbo was looking out the window at the rain and the murky figures under the awning.
'Yeah, man,' Jumbo said. 'There is important money in this picture. I'm trying to save it, you know?'
'Heroic,' I said.
'It's not my fault,' Jumbo said.
'You know how she got to the hotel?' I said.
'Yeah,' Jumbo said.
He continued to slug champagne from his bottle.
'Talk about a hoot, man,' Jumbo said. 'Her old man drove her in. He knew where she was coming, too. Even gave her a note to give me.'
'The note say something about insurance?'
Jumbo raised his eyebrows.
'Yeah,' he said. 'It did. How you know all this shit?'
'I'm a trained investigator,' I said.
'Whaddya gonna do about Stephano?' he said.
'Nothing yet,' I said.
'But I told you the honest-to-God truth.'
'Maybe,' I said. 'But the thing is, Stephano is not after you, at least at the moment. He's here to kill me.'
Jumbo looked out the window again. There was nobody under the awning next to the truck. He looked back at me and started to speak, and stopped, and sat down suddenly.
He seemed smaller, as if he had imploded.
59
IT HAD GOTTEN DARK earlier than usual because of the clouds and the rain. We drove back from South Boston along Atlantic Ave in heavy traffic made heavier by the rain. Stephano and company had been parked next to us at the set, and were now behind us as we inched along.
'This is getting annoying,' Z said. 'Every time I see him, I think this is it. Is this when the balloon goes up?'
'The readiness is all,' I said.
'Whatever,' Z said. 'It's working on me . . . which is why I suppose he's doing it.'
'One reason,' I said.
'There's another one?'
'It excites him,' I said.
'And it gives him the chance to pick his spot,' Z said.
'It does,' I said. 'But he won't act until the tension gets too big for him to hold off any longer.'
'You mean like sex,' Z said. 'Foreplay, foreplay, then zoom.'
