minutes were the first time I’d heard her speak when she wasn’t bored, or pretending to be, anyway.
I hopped out of the back, facing the room, the shotgun in front me, out of sight from any motel guests who might have been loitering, although there really weren’t any-they were all around the bend down at the Paddlewheel.
“Get out,” I told her.
She gazed up at me in fear and loathing-she looked a little like Tuesday Weld, Dobie Gillis — era, though her cheeks were more sunken; still, it was Tuesday’s smirky kiss of a mouth. Her eyes, dark blue and large, showed no sign she’d been tooting recently, neither dilated nor red. She’d apparently spent her time with Jerry G in the private poker room either filling him in or getting filled by him. Or both.
I unlocked the room and she went in first, and sat on the edge of the bed, still in the pink shirt tied under her nice little titties, her jeans so tight they would have given Brooke Shields pause. The pink purse was beside her, and I reached over and flipped it out of her reach.
She was studying me. Looking to see how much trouble she was in. Looking to see how she could get out of it.
I went to my suitcase on its stand and got out my spare nine millimeter, and left the sawed-off on top of some clothes.
“Let me tell you all about you,” I said, pulling up a chair opposite where she sat, but angling it so my back wouldn’t be entirely to the door.
“You don’t know me,” she said.
“You were a cheerleader in high school, but you had a bad reputation, well-deserved. Your grades and activities were just good enough to get you into college, but you either flunked out or got in trouble over drugs, and so you started dancing. Maybe in Chicago. You caught somebody’s eye in family circles, maybe Jerry G himself, on a visit…but anyway, when Jerry G did see you, he knew you were something special, way too cute to waste on dancing or whoring, and anyway you didn’t like to think of yourself as a whore, so you became Jerry G’s favorite little squeeze. He lavished you with credit cards and cocaine, with never a notion of wasting you in any capacity at the Lucky, and then he got an idea. He knew all about Dickie Cornell’s weaknesses, and he needed somebody to keep an eye on the Brit prick’s activities and ambitions. So you enrolled in community college in River Bluff… probably just a class or two…and you applied as a waitress at the Paddle-wheel. I’ve seen the female help there, it’s like walking around inside a men’s magazine. But you are exceptionally cute, Chrissy, even by Paddlewheel standards, and when Dickie interviewed you, you two hit it off. Were you ever a waitress there, I wonder, or maybe a bartender? Or was it straight up to the Playboy penthouse on the third floor, with hot-and-cold running tootski and all the decadence a nice Midwestern girl could ever dream of?”
She had started frowning about halfway through that. The frown indicated that in about ten years she’d look like hell, even if at the moment she did look heavenly.
She said, “You didn’t get everything right.”
“What did I miss?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Come on,” I prompted her. “What did I get wrong?”
“I wasn’t a cheerleader. I was a pom-pom girl.”
“Even better.”
“And I never danced. I was never a fucking… stripper.”
I could see that. Her boobs were even smaller than Candace’s.
“What were you, then?”
“I was a hostess at a restaurant.”
“An Italian restaurant?”
“Yes, an Italian restaurant! What of it?…Listen, I haven’t broken any laws or anything.”
“You haven’t? When did cocaine get legalized? While I was away on a boat trip?”
“I mean, it’s not illegal to fool somebody. Or to tell somebody else about somebody else.”
“You mean, not illegal to work for Jerry G and spy on Dickie Cornell? You could be right, but when you’re dealing with men whose business is illegal gambling, or in Jerry G’s case, gambling and prostitution and drug- running, legal doesn’t come into it. Somebody feels fucked over, so somebody else…somebody like you, for example…gets killed.”
Her chin came up. Her defiance was almost equal to her fear. “Are you going to kill me?”
“I don’t think so. You almost got me killed, though, tonight, so it’s a possibility.”
Her eyes and nostrils flared. “How did I get you…almost get you…killed?”
“You told Jerry G about the conversation you over-heard today-about me ‘taking care of’ Jerry G for Dickie bird. And then Jerry G handed me over to a couple of pals of his, who took me for what was supposed to be a one-way boat ride.”
The big blue eyes went to half-mast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know if you do. I don’t know if I care. Tell me, what’s on Jerry G’s mind tonight?”
She blinked; nice long lashes, under the mascara. “On his mind?”
“Yeah. You just came out of that private poker den of his. What’s his mood?”
“Well…good, I guess. Just getting ready for his regular Friday night poker game.”
“Didn’t seem anxious? Waiting for word on some pressing matter?”
“No. He was in a good mood.”
This was encouraging. He clearly felt I was out of the picture. No extra security measures were being put into motion at the Lucky, meaning no reason to think I’d be up against anything out of the ordinary. The only possible hitch was if he expected to hear from the boys in the boat.
But why should they report back? As far as Jerry G was concerned, I was a dead man. They were just out dumping the garbage. They’d probably either go home or resume their duties at the club, and with as many bouncers as Jerry G employed, on a busy Friday night, the pair might not be missed.
I hoped I wasn’t kidding myself.
“That Firebird,” I said. “Is it yours?”
“Yes.”
“You make payments on it?”
“No. It was a gift.”
“From Jerry G?”
“Actually, from a nice man in Chicago who’s a friend of Jerry G’s.”
I frowned at her. “A man named Giardelli? Vince Giardelli?”
“…Yes.”
Vince was Jerry G’s godfather, just as Tony was Cornell’s, courtesy of wife Angela. That meant the insertion of Chrissy as an under-the-covers agent at the Paddlewheel was a scheme conceived at the highest lowlife level.
I said, “The Firebird-where do you keep the title?”
“Well, in my glove compartment. Where else?”
Oh, a safe deposit box maybe, or a fireproof safe. But somehow I knew Chrissy would come through for me, with just the right idiocy.
“I need wheels,” I said. “Jerry G stole my car and dumped it somewhere. I’ll buy it from you. I’ll give you cash, and you’ll sign the title over.”
“I don’t want to sell it.”
“I wasn’t asking. I’ll give you four grand.”
“It’s worth a lot more!”
“I know it is, but because of you, the other day I got beaten to that bloody pulp you hear so much about, and then, this evening, almost got killed and dumped in the Mississippi. So I figure you owe me. Anyway, you know what they say-you lose half the value the minute you drive it off the lot.”
She thought she understood me now. She unknotted the pink shirt and let the twins out for some air. They were small but perfectly shaped and tilted up, and the nipples were large and puffy and very appealing.
“I told you before,” I said, “that I’d rather kill you than fuck you.”
The little Tuesday Weld mouth was twisting into a knowing one-sided smile. “I don’t think so.”
