he saw Splinters enter the club. He said good-bye to the bookie, expecting Splinters to come back and tell him how things had gone with Candy. Only, Splinters didn’t do that. Bellying up to the bar, he ordered a rum and coke and clicked his fingers to the music. The DJ liked disco, and Splinters sang along to an old Donna Summers song, having the time of his fucking life.
Rico picked up the phone and called the bar—“Send that asshole back here”—and looked at the TV. Fifty seconds left in the game, and Miami College was down by six. Splinters sauntered in. His starched white shirt was covered in tiny red dots.
“What did you do, cut her fucking head off?”
“I drowned her,” his driver said.
“In the ocean?”
“In the swamps, where we dumped the blackjack dealer.”
“So what’s with the shirt? You cut yourself shaving?”
Splinters glanced at the TV. He knew a little bit of what was going on, and how important Miami College was to the scheme of things. He removed two stacks of hundred-dollar bills from his jacket and dropped them on the desk.
“Where did you get that?”
The phone rang. Rico answered it.
“You’ve got a visitor,” his bartender said.
Rico stared into the mirror. Goofy Gerry Valentine from Brooklyn was sitting at his bar, nursing a Budweiser.
“Tell him I’m not here.”
“He says his father’s in town, wants to set up a meeting.”
“
“That’s what he said.”
An alarm went off in Rico’s head. Gerry’s old man had blown up the Mollo brothers in Atlantic City and was not someone to take lightly. “Tell him to come back tomorrow morning.”
The bartender relayed the message. Through the mirror, Rico watched Gerry leave. Splinters started to walk out.
“Tell me where you got the money,” Rico demanded.
“You don’t know?” his driver said.
Rico leaned back in his chair. That was the crazy thing about Cubans; they never answered you directly. “You shot the carny owner,” he guessed.
“His chimp.”
“Fucker attacked me.”
Rico massaged his brow with his fingertips. The night before, he’d dreamed he was five years old and visiting the Bronx Zoo with his parents. They’d gotten separated, and Ray Hicks’s chimp had walked out of a cage, taken Rico by the hand, and led him to his mom and dad. Everyone had been smiling, and then Rico woke up.
Through the wall, Rico heard hooting and hollering, the strippers taking turns spinning naked on a barber pole. He removed a leather bag from beneath his desk and tossed Ray Hicks’s money into it. Standing, he shoved the satchel into Splinters’s hands.
“I did good, huh,” his driver said.
Rico looked at the TV. A Miami College player was at the free throw line. He missed both shots. The buzzer sounded, ending the game. In one swift motion, Rico drew his .45 Smith & Wesson and shoved the barrel into the satchel’s folds.
“Not really,” he said, pulling the trigger.
22
Leaving the Fontainebleau, Candy walked around South Beach for several hours, thinking about how close she’d come to dying that afternoon. With each passing minute she reminded herself of all the things she wanted to do with her life.
It was dark when she returned to the Delano. The Alice in Wonderland lobby was filled with strung-out party people. Standing beneath a billowing white curtain, she called Nigel’s bungalow on a house phone, got no answer, then walked down to the Rose Bar and didn’t find him there. Going outside, she spotted him at a table in the patio restaurant, still in his golf clothes. With him, inhaling a shrimp cocktail, was Rico.
Payback time, Candy thought.
She sat down next to her boyfriend. He kissed her and said, “Where you been hiding?”
Rico stared at her. Then he started to cough.
“Shopping,” she said. “Hey, Rico, how’s it going?”
“Spend a lot of money?” Nigel asked.
“Window-shopping,” she said. “Cat got your tongue, Rico?”
“Rico was just telling me how we’re going to fleece a local bookie,” Nigel said, laughing like someone who’d been drinking all afternoon.
“Wow,” Candy said.
Rico’s face was turning blue, and he was smacking the table with his hand. An attentive waiter brought a glass of ice water. He downed it.
“Damn cocktail sauce,” he gasped. He composed himself, then glanced furtively around the restaurant. “Nigel, this isn’t exactly legal what we’re talking about, you know?”
“Is there anything fun that
“How much are we fleecing his bookie for?” Candy asked innocently.
Rico started choking again. His water glass was refilled, and he asked for the check. Two plump German girls approached the table and in halting English asked Nigel to autograph the restaurant’s paper menus. Nigel obliged, smiling when one kissed his cheek. Candy excused herself to the ladies’ room.
Only, she didn’t go in. Instead, she waited off the lobby until Rico walked past, and followed him outside to the hotel’s valet stand. Rico handed his stub to the attendant, who then disappeared through a thick stand of hedges.
“I want you to get lost,” she said to his back.
He spun around, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. “There you are.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What?”
“Sweet-talking me, you bastard.”
“It was my driver’s idea,” he said. “I told him to scare you off.”
“Go to hell.”
The valet brought up Rico’s limo. Rico tipped him, then waited until the valet was behind his stand. Popping the trunk, Rico said, “I want to show you something.”
“No.”
“Give me a chance.”
Candy walked around the vehicle. And nearly screamed. Inside the trunk was Rico’s Cuban driver wrapped in a plastic sheet. His shirt was soaked in blood, and his pink tongue hung out of his mouth like a dog’s. Rico slammed the trunk hard. Candy’s legs had turned to rubber, and he grabbed her arm and held her up.
“Work with me, will you?”
She tried to pull away. “
“Don’t fall in love with Nigel Moon,” he said under his breath. “He’ll screw you for a couple of weeks, then get rid of you like a case of the clap. He’s bad news. That’s why I’m scamming him.”
She swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”
