I play all right but the odds're still against you. Anything serious I do with money? I make sure the odds're on my side.
"Hey, Larry," one of the cops called to Stanton. "Didn't mean to be an asshole when I collared you. Just thought it'd be more, you know, realistic."
"Handled it just right, Moscawitz. You're a born actor."
Stanton and the detective walked past the unmarked squad car and continued down the dirty sidewalk. They'd known each other for years, ever since Stanton had worked as head of security at Midwest Metal Products.
"You okay?" Fanelli glanced down at Stanton's limp.
"I was racing somebody on a Jet Ski up at Lake Geneva. Hit a wake. It's nothing."
"So when're you going back to Tampa?"
"Tomorrow."
"You flying down?"
"Nope. Driving." He pulled keys out of his pocket and opened the door of a new BMW sports car.
Fanelli looked it over admiringly. "Sold the Lexus?"
"Decided to keep it." A nod toward the sleek silver wheels. "I just wanted something sexier, you know. The ladies in my golf club love a man in a sports car. Even if he's got knobby knees."
Fanelli shook his head. "Felt bad about that kid. Where'd he get the money to sit in on a high-stakes game?"
"Tuition money or something. He inherited it from his folks."
"You mean we just dipped an orphan? I'll be in confession for a month."
"He's an orphan who cheated the pants off Keller and everybody else."
"What?"
Stanton laughed. "Took me a while to tip to it. Finally figured it out. He must've had some kind of electronic shiner or camera or something in his coffee cup lid. He was always playing with it on the table, moving it close to the cards when he dealt--and the only time he won big was on the deal. Then after the bust I checked out his car--there was a computer and some kind of antenna in the backseat."
"Damn," Fanelli said. "That was stupid. He'll end up dead, he's not careful. I'm surprised Keller didn't spot it."
"Keller was too busy running his own scam, trying to take the kid." Stanton told him about the pro's setup of Tony.
The detective laughed. "He tried to take the boy, the boy tried to take the table, and it was us old guys who took 'em both. There's a lesson there someplace." The men shook hands in farewell. "See you next spring, my friend. Let's try Greenpoint. I hear they've got some good high-stakes games over there."
"We'll do that." Stanton nodded and fired up the sports car. He drove to the intersection, carefully checked for cross traffic and turned onto the main street that would take him to the expressway.
NINETY-EIGHT POINT SIX
Suit jacket slung over his shoulder, the man trudged up the long walk to the bungalow, his lungs aching, breathless in the astonishing heat, which had persisted well after sundown.
Pausing on the sidewalk in front of the house, trying to catch his breath, he believed he heard troubled voices from inside. Still, he'd had no choice but to come here. This was the only house he'd seen along the highway.
He climbed the stairs to the unwelcomingly dark porch and rang the bell.
The voices ceased immediately.
There was a shuffle. Two or three words spoken.
He rang the bell again and finally the door opened.
Sloan observed that the three people inside gazed at him with different expressions on their faces.
The woman on the couch, in her fifties, wearing an overwashed sleeveless house dress, appeared relieved. The man sitting beside her--about the same age, rounding and bald--was wary.
And the man who'd opened the door and stood closest to Sloan had a grin on his face--a thick-lipped grin that really meant, What the hell do you want? He was about Sloan's own age--late thirties--and his tattooed arms were long. He gripped the side of the door defensively with a massive hand. His clothes were gray, stained dungarees and a torn work shirt. His shaved scalp glistened.
"Help you?" the tattooed man asked.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Sloan said. "My car broke down--it overheated. I need to call Triple A. You mind if I use your phone?"
"Phone company's having problems, I heard," the tattooed man replied. Nodding toward the dense, still night sky. "With the heat--those rolling brownouts or blackouts, whatever."
He didn't move out of the doorway.
But the woman said quickly, "No, please come in," with curious eagerness. "Our phone just rang a bit ago. I'm sure it's working fine."
"Please," echoed the older man, who was holding her hand.
The tattooed man looked Sloan over cautiously, as people often did. Unsmiling by nature, Sloan was a big man, and muscular--he'd worked out every day for the past three years--and at the moment he was a mess; tonight he'd trekked through the brush to take a shortcut to the lights of this house. And like anyone walking around on this overwhelmingly humid and hot night, every inch of his skin was slick with sweat.
Finally the tattooed man gestured him inside. Sloan noticed a bad scar across the back of his hand. It looked like a knife wound and it was recent.
The house was overly bright and painfully hot. A tiny air conditioner moaned but did nothing to cool the still air. He glanced at the walls, taking in fast vignettes of lives spent in a small bubble of the world. He deduced careers with Allstate Insurance and a high school library and nebulous involvement in the Rotary Club, church groups and parent-teacher organizations. Busmen's holidays of fishing trips to Saginaw or Minnesota. A vacation to Chicago memorialized in framed, yellowing snapshots.
Introductions were made. "I'm Dave Sloan."
Agnes and Bill Willis were the couple. Sloan observed immediately that they shared an ambiguous similarity of manner that characterized people long married. The tattooed man said nothing about himself. He tinkered with the air conditioner, turning the compressor knob up and down.
"I'm not interrupting supper, I hope."
There was a moment of silence. It was eight p.m. and Sloan could see no dirty dishes from the night's meal.
"No" was Agnes's soft reply.
"Nope, no food here," the tattooed man said with a cryptic edge to the comment. He looked angrily at the air conditioner as if he were going to kick it out the window but he controlled himself and walked back to the place he'd staked out for himself--an overstuffed Naugahyde armchair that still glistened with the sweat that'd leached from his skin before he stood to answer the door.
"Phone's in there," Bill pointed.
Sloan thanked him and went into the kitchen. He made his call. As soon as he stepped back into the living room, Bill and the younger man, who'd been talking, fell silent fast.
Sloan looked at Bill and said, "They'll tow it to Hatfield. The truck should be here in twenty minutes. I can wait outside."
"No," Agnes said. Then seemed to decide she'd been too forceful and glanced at the tattooed man with a squint, almost as if she was afraid of being hit.
"Too hot outside," Bill said.
"No hotter'n in here," the tattooed man replied caustically, with that grin back. His lips were bulbous and the top one was beaded with sweat--an image that made Sloan itch.
"Set yourself down," Bill said cautiously. Sloan looked around and found the only unoccupied piece of furniture, an uncomfortable couch, covered in pink and green chintz, flowers everywhere. The gaudy pattern, combined with the still heat in the room and the nervous fidgeting of the large tattooed man, set him on edge.
"Can I get you anything?" the woman asked.
"Maybe some water if it's not too much trouble." Sloan wiped his face with his hand.
The woman rose.
"Notice," the tattooed man said coolly, "they didn't introduce me."
"Well, I didn't mean--" Bill began.
The man waved him silent.
"My name's Greg." Another hesitation. "I'm their nephew. Just stopped by for a visit. Right, Bill? Aren't we having a high old time?"
Bill nodded, looking down at the f
rayed carpet. "High old time."
Sloan was suddenly aware of something--a curious noise. A scraping. A faint bang. No one else seemed to hear it. He looked up as Agnes returned. She handed Sloan the glass and he drank half of it down immediately.
She said, "I was thinking, maybe you could look at Mr. Sloan's car, Bill. Why don't you and Greg go take a look at it?"
"Dave," Sloan said, "Please. Call me Dave."
"Maybe save Dave some money."
"Sure--" Bill began.
Greg said, "Naw, we don't wanna do that. Too much work in this heat. 'Sides, Dave looks like he can afford a proper mechanic. He looks like he's rollin' in dough. How 'bout it, Dave? Whatta you do?"
"Sales."
"Whatcha sell?"
"Computers. Hardware and software."
"I don't trust computers. Bet I'm the only person in the country without email."
"No, a good eighty million people don't have it, I heard," Dave told him.
Bill piped up. "Children, for instance."
"Like me, huh? Me and the kiddies? Is that what you're saying?"
"Oh, no," Bill said quickly. "I just was talking. Didn't mean any offense."
"How about you, Greg?" Sloan asked. "What line're you in?"
He considered for a minute. "I work with my hands . . . . Want to know what Bill does?"
A dark look crossed Bill's face then it vanished. "I was in insurance. I'm between jobs right now."
"He'll be working someday soon, though, won't you, Bill?"
"I hope to be."
"I'm sure you will," Agnes said.
"We're all sure he will. Hey, Sloan, you think Bill could sell computers?"
"I don't know. All I know is I enjoy what I do."
"You good at it?"
"Oh, I'm very good at it."
"Why computers?"
"Because there's a market for what my company makes right now. But it doesn't matter to me. I can sell anything. Maybe next year it'll be radiators or a new kind of medical laser. If I can make money at it, I'll sell it."
"Why don't you tell us about your computers?" Greg asked.
Sloan shrugged dismissively. "It's real technical. You'd be bored."
"Well, we don't want to bore anybody now, especially us kiddies. Not if we're having such an enjoyable party, the family all together . . . family." Greg thumped the arm of the chair with his massive hands. "Don't you think family's important? I do. You have family, Dave?"
"They're dead. My immediate family, that is."
"All of 'em?" Greg asked curiously.
"My parents and sister."
"How'd they die?"
Agnes stirred at this blunt question. But Sloan didn't mind. "An accident."
"Accident?" Greg nodded. "My folks're gone too," he added emotionlessly.
Which meant that, because he was their nephew, Bill and Agnes had lost a sibling too. But Greg didn't acknowledge their portion of the loss.
The sound of the air conditioner seemed to vanish as the silence of three mute human beings filled the tiny, stifling room. Then Sloan heard a faint thumping. It seemed to come from behind a closed door off the hallway. No one else noticed. He heard it again then the sound ceased.
Greg rose and walked to a thermometer tacked up on the wall. A silver wire ran through a hole sloppily drilled through the window jamb. He tapped the circular dial with his finger. "Busted," he announced. Then he turned back to the threesome. "I heard the news? Before? And they said that it was ninety-eight degrees at sunset. That's a record 'round here, the newscaster said. I got to thinking. Ninety-eight point six--that's the temperature of a human body. And you know what occurred to me?"
Sloan examined the man's eerie, amused eyes. He said nothing. Neither did Bill or Agnes.
Greg continued, "I realized that there's no difference between life and death. Not a bit. Whatta you think about that?"
"No difference? I don't get it." Sloan shook his head.
"See, take a bad person. What sort of person should we use, Bill? Maybe a person who doesn't pay his debts. How's that? Okay, now what I'm saying is that it's not his body, it's his soul that's a welsher. When he dies, what hangs around? A welsher's soul. Same thing with a good man. There's a good soul hanging around after a good body goes. Or a murderer, for instance. When they execute a murderer, there's a killer's soul still walking around."
"That's an interesting thought, Greg."
"The way I see it," the intense man continued, "a body is just a soul warmed to ninety-eight point six degrees."
"I'd have to think about it."
"Okay, our folks are dead, yours and mine," Greg continued.
"True," Sloan replied.
"But even when they're gone," Greg said philosophically, "you can still have trouble because of them, right?" He sat back in the slick, stained chair and crossed his legs. He wore no socks and Sloan got a look at another tattoo--one that started on his ankle and went north. Sloan knew that tattoos on the ankle were among the most painful on the body, since the needle had to hit bone. A tattoo there was more than body painting; it was a defiant reminder that pain was nothing to the wearer.
"Trouble?"
"Your parents can cause you grief after they're dead."
Any psychiatrist'd tell you that, Sloan thought, but decided that this was a bit too clever for Greg.
The young man rubbed his massive hand over his glistening crew cut. That was quite a scar he had. Another one was on his opposite arm. "There was this thing happened a few years ago."
"What was that?" Bill asked.
Sloan noticed that Agnes had shredded the napkin she was holding.
"Well, I'm not inclined to go into specifics with strangers," he said, irritated.
"I'm sorry," Bill said quickly.
"I'm just making a point. Which is that somebody who was dead was still causing me problems. I could see it real clear. A bitch when she was alive, a bitch when she was dead. God gave her a troublemaker's soul. You believe in God, Sloan?"
"No."
Agnes stirred. Sloan glanced at three crucifixes on the wall.
"I believe in selling. That's about it."
"That's your soul then. Warmed to ninety-eight point six." A rubbery grin. "Since you're still alive."
"And what's your soul like, Greg? Good, bad?"
"Well, I'm not a welcher," he said coyly. "Beyond that, you'll have to guess. I don't give as much away as you do."
The lights dimmed. Another dip in the power.
"Look at that," Greg said. "Maybe it's the souls of some family hanging around here, playing with the lights. Whatta you think, Bill?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"A family that died here," Greg mused. "Anybody die here that you know of, Bill?"
Agnes swallowed hard. Bill took a sip from a glass of what looked like flat soda. His hands shook.
The lights came back on full. Greg looked around the place. "Whatta you think this house's worth, Sloan?"
"I don't know," he answered calmly, growing tired of the baiting. "I sell computers, remember? Not houses."
"I'm thinking a cool two hundred thousand."
The noise again from behind the door. It was louder this time, audible over the moaning of the air conditioner. A scraping, a thud.
The three people in the room looked toward the door. Agnes and Bill were uneasy. Nobody said a word about the sound.
"Where've you been selling your computers?" Greg asked.
"I was in Durrant today. Now I'm heading east."
"Times're slow 'round here. People out of work, right, Bill?"
"Hard times."
"Hard times here, hard times everywhere." Greg seemed drunk but Sloan smelled no liquor and noticed that the only alcohol in sight was a corked bottle of New York State port and a cheap brandy, sitting safely behind a greasy-windowed breakfront. "Hard times for salesmen too, I'll bet. Even salesmen who can sell anything, like you."
Sloan calmly asked, "Something about
me you don't like, Greg?"
"Why, no." But the man's steely eyes muttered the opposite. "Where'd you get that idea?"
"It's the heat," Agnes said quickly, playing mediator. "I was watching this show on the news. CNN. About what the heat's doing. Rioting in Detroit, forest fires up near Saginaw. It's making people act crazy."
"Crazy?" Greg asked. "Crazy?"
"I didn't mean you," she said fast.
Greg turned to Sloan. "Let's ask Mr. Salesman here if I'm acting crazy."
Sloan figured he could have the boy on his back in a stranglehold in four or five minutes, but there'd be some serious damage to the tacky nicknacks. And the police'd come and there'd be all sorts of complications.
"Well, how 'bout it?"
"Nope, you don't seem crazy to me."
"You're saying that 'cause you don't want a hassle. Maybe you don't have a salesman's soul. Maybe you've got a liar's soul . . ." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Damn, I've sweated a gallon."
Sloan sensed control leaving the man. He noticed a gun rack on the wall. There were two rifles in it. He judged how fast he could get there. Was Bill stupid enough to leave an unlocked, loaded gun on the rack? Probably.
"Let me tell you something--" Greg began ominously, tapping the sweaty arms of the chair with blunt fingers.
The doorbell rang.
No one moved for a moment. Then Greg rose and walked to it, opened the door.
A husky man with long hair stood in the doorway. "Somebody called for a tow?"
"That'd be me." Sloan stood and said to Agnes and Bill, "Thanks for the use of the phone."
"No problem."
"You're sure you don't want to stay. I can put some supper on. Please?" The poor woman was now clearly desperate.
"No. I have to be going."
"Yeah," Greg said, "Dave's got to be going."
"Damn," the tow operator said. "Hotter in there than it is outside."
You don't know the half of it, Sloan thought, and started down the steps to the idling flatbed.
The driver winched Sloan's disabled Chevy onto the bed, chained it down and then the two men climbed inside the cab of the truck. They pulled out onto the highway, heading east. The air conditioner roared and the cool air was a blessing.
The radio clattered. Sloan couldn't hear it clearly over the sound of the AC but the driver leaned forward and listened to what was apparently some important message. When the transmission was over, the driver said, "They still haven't caught that guy."
"What guy?" Sloan asked.
"The killer. The guy who escaped from that prison about thirty miles east of here."