Queenpin

  Never fuck up, she told me once. That’s the only rule.

  “You’ve never made a mistake, not one, in all these years?” I asked. “Mixing up numbers, late to the track, one drink too many and you start talking too much to the wrong fellas?”

  She looked at me in that icy way of hers. Then, in a flash of the hand, she tugged open her crepe de chine jacket, buttons popping. There, on her pale, filmy skin, skeined over with thready wrinkles, I saw the burn marks, long, jagged, slipping behind her bra clasp, slithering down her sternum.

  “How—,” I started, my mouth a dry socket.

  “A state trooper pulled me over for speeding downstate,” she said, palm flat on her chest, patting it lightly. “Made me open the trunk, tapped the sham bottom, and found sixty K in hot rocks, each one a fingerprint.”

  “But that wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  “I should have been more careful,” she said. “I learned the hard way. The boss then, the big one, he watched while one of his boys did it. Pressed me against a radiator until the smell made us all sick.

  “I learned the hard way,” she repeated. “Now you’ve learned it easier. You don’t need this on your fine chest,” she said, fastening the mother-of-pearl buttons. “So don’t fuck up, baby.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I won’t.” And I meant it.

  But he was the one. I could feel the way it was going the minute I saw him losing his shirt at the tables. Loose and easy grin and a gambler’s slouch, a back-patting, hand-shaking way of moving through a room. But when his eyes narrowed on me, his smile disappeared and I could feel him. I could feel him on me. My palms itching, I rubbed them together. I could feel it everywhere, something sharp pulsing under my skin. I’ll crawl on hands and knees for this one, I thought. I can feel I’m going to be on my hands and knees for this one. He saw it on me too. He figured fast he had the upper hand. He was the first man I ever met.

  Things got pretty crazy right off. I couldn’t help myself. I let him do whatever he wanted. Who was I to say no. There was nothing he could do that I didn’t want. Not even that.

  Okay, I’ll tell you how it went. I was making my rounds at a new casino running in the lower level of Yin’s Peking Palace. It was my last stop of the night and I was tired. She was on a plane east that night for the kind of big deal I wasn’t let in on yet. Now that she had me around, she had a lot more time to do fancier jobs for them. Once, one of the jewelry fences told me they had her flying to Switzerland, but that seemed like movie stuff. I didn’t buy. The operation was big but it was still small potatoes compared to the networks running out of Chicago, New York, Miami. I knew my bosses had bosses and even they had bosses.

  Point was, I had no place to go and it was only one o’clock. I figured myself for a whiskey sour and a walk around the joint to see what was flying. Maybe I’d stumble upon something. I’d been hoping the furrier might pop up. It’d been three weeks since the deal went down and maybe she had something new cooking.

  What was great about walking around these places was that, by now, people started to know who I was. At the track, I had to be discreet, blend in. But at the casinos, I was there to show myself. And people took notice. The men and women both. Sometimes, you’d hear the regulars trying to explain who I was to one of the newer marks.

  “She’s Gloria Denton’s girl. She works for Gloria.”

  And if they didn’t know who she was, they weren’t worth anybody’s time, might as well be in the back alley with the dishwashers, giving up their coins at three-card molly.

  That night, there was a lot of action at the roulette wheel in the back. Somebody had a real spinner going. Larry, the manager, was standing by the table, which meant whoever was winning was winning big enough to demand a close eye.

  I slipped through the crowd of spectators, all eager to catch some of the luck. That was when I saw him standing at the table, eyes on the felt. All black mick hair and sorrowful eyes and a sharkskin suit cut razor sharp. He had some candy on his arm, a sometimes-pay broad I knew from the lobby of the Fabian Hotel.

  Spin after spin, he must have pulled in close to a grand, big money in these parts. It was like he’d set off some kind of crazy energy in the air around him. I liked it, but not that much. Not yet.

  “Golden numbers,” Larry said to me, quietly. “Would you look?”

  “Gaffed wheel?” I said, eyeing the croupier, who was sweating the attention from his boss.

  Larry shook his head. “That’s Vic Riordan. He’s no worry of mine. He taps out here every night. He practically pays my salary. And yours. Or he would if he ever had more than a red cent when he came in the door.”

  “Looks like his luck’s changed.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  And Larry was right. Just when everybody was urging him to stop, to walk away while the table was still hot, the guy gave the crowd a smarmy smile. “What, I’m gonna rathole after this streak? If I’m gonna lose, it’s gonna be here with Mama,” he said, winking at the dealer.

  Sure enough, he did start to lose. And then he kept losing. The gaudy-colored stacks got smaller and smaller, the crowd slowly drifting away, and before I knew it, it was just Vic Riordan, his whore, and me.

  I couldn’t stop watching. Something about the way he just kept going, never seemed frustrated, never lost his temper, just kept sinking, sinking.

  It wasn’t until he’d watched his last four chips disappear behind the croupier’s rake that he seemed to notice me. He looked over with a funny kind of smile. Not like a man who’d just won and lost Blackbeard’s booty.

  He looked at the wilting lily on his arm. Her head darting around, she was eyeing greener pockets. “Some lucky piece,” he said to her. “I need something shinier. All your shine’s rubbed off.” She shrugged. He shot a smirk my way. “There’s the metal I need in my pocket.”

  I took a sip from my glass and didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t you owe me a drink for the show?” he said. “They should name a church after me after that sacrifice.”

  “You’ll rise again,” I said, turning to leave. Already though, I didn’t want to go. His patter was nothing special but there was that kind of crazy bravado, a drowning man wondering what the water would do to his new suit. Still, I started walking.

  He didn’t follow. I thought he would. So I left the back tables, but I stuck around the joint. Which meant something. I watched some baccarat, sucked on some pretzels, asked around a little about the furrier, caught some gossip about a new carpet joint opening in the back of an appliance store downtown.

  He was at the bar when I saw him again.

  “Someone bought you that drink,” I said.

  “You can always find a few knee-bending Catholics in these places,” he said, raising his glass lightly. “They’ll always do a favor for a wayward soul.” He put a hand on the leather stool beside him and cocked his head.

  I didn’t move. I felt like something was turning.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get drunk. I want to see you with a hair out of place.”

  His grin did me in.

  Before him, I’d never fallen for one. Never bothered to look up for one that wasn’t just a money clip to me. In all my girl years, I’d only rolled pro forma with high school boys, office boys, head knocking on Adam’s apples in backseats, mouth dry and raw. By their closing shudder, I was already snapping my garters back up and biding my time for the finer things. All the ones before Vic Riordan, I was just killing time. They never made me want more.

  I wasn’t drunk and neither was he. But we were standing by his car in the parking lot of Yin’s. We were leaning close to each other. It was coming on three A.M.

  “It’s too bad you’re such a kid. Otherwise, I’d take you home. Mess up that fancy girl posture. Bend you back a little, you know?”

  “Who says I’m a baby,” I said. “I’ve been in long pants for years.”

  “Are you kidding?” He put his hand on me, just a
bove my chest. “I bet I could smell Mama’s milk on your breath.”

  “Come close. I’ll open wide and you can see. No milk teeth.”

  He moved closer and his smile reminded me of the wolf in bedtime stories. When I was a kid, whenever my sisters would tell me fairy tales, running their fingers up my arms and legs, I always felt it for the wolves. Narrow eyes, teeth glittering like a handsaw. The wolves were waiting, but you had to put yourself in a dangerous place first. You had to play your part. I would dream myself into the thicket, swinging a basket, whistling a tune, waiting for the growl, the flash of yellow eyes, the sudden pillage, the blood tear. The wolf got you where it counted.

  When Vic got close, that’s what it was like. I’d invited him in, with his sharp cologne, his darting eyes, his pockets empty of chips, all his spoils gone by night’s end as if he had holes in the lining, which, in a way, he did. He was a loser, straight up. A chalk jumper. A sucker bettor. But his hands. His hands tore me to ribbons and left me that way.

  I should be ashamed. I should be filled with shame. That night, right off, he had me.

  There I was in his apartment, half past four. Nothing in it was paid for, not the chrome and leather sofa, the mirrored coffee table, the thick buff-colored drapes, not even me. I gave it to him without so much as a steak dinner, a wilting rose, a smooth line. Let’s face it, he broke me because I was begging to be broke, his hand so hard on my shoulder, my shoulder so hard on the sofa, I couldn’t steer the Impala for a week without gasping for air.

  The next day, I had to pick her up at the airport. I was feeling all nerves. I’d been late for some of my appointments and had forgotten to make two drops the night before. Scrambling all over town to catch up, I could hear her voice in my head, See what happens? See how quickly it falls apart if you don’t keep your legs together?

  Walking across the tarmac, she looked tired and pleased. When she got in the car, she tossed me a box wrapped in bright tissue. I opened it and it was a pair of long silk gloves in pearl gray. She had a pair like it from some famous glovemaker back east and I was always talking them up, always complimenting her on them.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, feeling, I’ll admit it, a pinch over my chest. I felt like I’d done something lousy.

  “Let’s go get some dinner, kid. Some lobster and pink champagne,” she said, smoothing her hair back. “Things are really cooking with gas. I got an eye for talent, that’s what they’re saying Upstairs. The more they see the way you roll, the more honey for us both.”

  All through dinner, I kept saying to myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong, not yet. I wasn’t going to let it get in the way, not like she might think. Besides, I might never see the fella again.

  But I knew I would.

  And I knew, somehow I knew, that it couldn’t help but interfere, that I couldn’t help but lose control of it. I wanted to lose control of it.

  That night, as we toasted, I got dizzy with the endless champagne, the rolling piano at the supper club, the fine food prepared tableside, her glowing face. It was glowing like I’d never seen before. With her, you couldn’t tell with laughter or smiles or words even. She didn’t wear it like that. You could tell from something in her that came out once you knew her bone deep like I did. I knew her bone deep and I could see that she was so happy she was glowing. And I wanted to cry. I sat there and I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. She’d already schooled me long past the point of crying. I was better than that. Instead I smiled for her, laughed for her, and was beautiful for her. It was the best dinner I ever had.

  I never let her see me with him those first weeks it was going on, hotter and crazier every night. I finished every run before I hightailed it to his place. Some nights, she had to do numbers late for the new dog- and cockfights over in the warehouse district. They were nasty bits of business and we never had to show up at them, no woman would (Not even women like us, she said and I didn’t like the way she said it). On these nights, I was supposed to go to her place after my last rounds. Impatient to get to Vic’s, feeling things in my hips just thinking about seeing him later, I hurried as fast as I could to help her look for hits, envelopes from all over the city spread across her glass coffee table. She always wore her gloves when she did it, not to hide her worn hands, not from me, but because she knew where the betting slips had been, grimy candy stores, shylock newsstands, back kitchens, bowling alleys, those same down-at-the-heels warehouses where the fights were held.

  Her gloves, in one of a dozen shades of white, rose, pale yellow, danced along the envelopes, flipping over the slips, looking for the matches. She was fast, and I was getting fast too. And I never said a word to her about him. I knew what she would say. You lost it, you little bitch. You lost it. You can’t discipline yourself, you’re of no use to me.

  But what could I do? Three, four in the morning, I’d find myself driving over to Vic’s place to see what would happen. To see what I’d do. He was always waiting for me with a smile, his collar open, a drink in his hand, a quick line about how he almost had it, almost scored a big pot. How if I’d run into him a few hours before, I would’ve seen him with bills falling out of every pocket. I told him I didn’t care. I told him I didn’t care at all. I dared him to show me what I would do. He liked dares.

  One night, he ripped my $350 faille day suit from collar to skirt hem in one long tear. Fuck me, I was in love.

  I’m yours, that’s what I told him without ever spitting out a word. He could see it on me, feel it on me. He liked to have me on the bare mattress, liked the way it rubbed me raw. I liked it. Liked the burn of it. Liked thinking of it all the next day, every time I leaned against anything, every time the strap on my brassiere pulled across it.

  It was like—it’s not a thing I like to say, but it’s the way it was, I tell you—like at mass. After kneeling so long on the warped wood floor. Some of the rabble used the flat pillows Saint Lucy’s set out. Not me.

  If you don’t feel it cracking your knees, your spine, was it really praying? Was it worth God’s time to listen?

  If you didn’t feel it on your body long after he’d left, was it really worth laying for him? I wanted to feel it.

  I didn’t know what he saw in me, I didn’t care. I was crazy about him and it made me feel tough, not soft, like she might’ve thought. I felt a hardness in my chest as I made the circuit, chin-wagging with the runners, the casino managers, the controllers. Nothing could touch me. That’s how I felt. Except when I was with her. When I was with her, it all fell to pieces and I had to set my jaw, steel my spine, build myself up new again.

  But you couldn’t just keep on losing like Vic did, could you? If anyone knew that, it was me. I saw it happen every day. I was never involved in the part of the life that was about consequences. She wasn’t either, not anymore at least. I heard, sure, I heard a lot, about the old-fashioned kneecap-busting, the gut punches, the head batterings, worse. And I saw it with the way the Tee Hee went up in flames (only to reopen, three weeks later, as the Swizzle Lounge, doing bang-up business even as I steered clear, superstitious).

  Still, I told myself I was keeping it all contained. It was organized and I had it under control. I only saw him at his place and everything that went down went down there. And I did all I could to make sure she never saw him. I knew if she saw him, she would know I’d gone for him. I felt like it was all over me, all over my face. What I didn’t realize was that you’re always on borrowed time when it comes to these things. She could have told me that, if I’d’ve listened.

  It turned like this:

  It was a Friday afternoon and I ran into Vic at the Casa Mar track. I didn’t know he bothered with the showplace baby bullrings they sent me to, the kinds of places that blew a ton on their overhead for hoity-toity banners and grandstands trimmed like layer cake, all to draw society green. But there he was, and the minute I saw him, I got nervous. If I’d had half a second, I might have walked in the other direction. He was just the kind of dyed-in-the-wool day
player I shouldn’t be seen with. I had to look clean. But he’d already spotted me.

  “I didn’t know you came out in daylight, little girl,” he said. As he got close, I could smell him, the bay rum and smoke and everything else. I felt things stirring in me and I had to hold on to the rail to stay standing. As much as I felt it each night when he opened the door to his apartment, I felt it ten times more here, off guard, under the sun, with people pressing against us, shouting, the energy wired through the whole place.

  “A girl’s gotta get herself some sun,” I finally managed, trying to steady my voice. “And a chance to wear her brand-new hat.”

  He looked up at my broad-brimmed society sun-catcher. “And it’s a damn fine one, honey. They coulda used you on the Titanic.”

  He was standing closer. All I could think of was what she would think seeing me here with him, with a guy like him. In front of everybody. Everybody with deep pockets who laid money out for sin in three counties.

  “How ’bout we go behind the paddock for a minute, have a smoke?” I said.

  He looked at me and I saw a glint of teeth flashing. “Sure, baby, sure.”

  That wasn’t why I wanted him back there, by the jockey quarters. But once I was there he had me against the back wall and no one was around and I won’t tell you about what we did. I don’t want to tell you about it, but it was in the daylight and I was on the job, and when it was over, it took me ten minutes and two cigarettes to stop my knees from shaking.

  God help me, I was weak. Strong as I felt, I was weak.

  That was when he started talking about the hole he was in. With a shark named Amos Mackey, a big-time fella, a comer with stakes all over town. I knew Mackey, though I didn’t say so. You couldn’t miss him. A barrel-chested swell fond of three-piece suits and bright pocket squares, he owned five red-sauce Italian joints and a couple of watering holes and he had eight, ten guys working for him just to keep things moving smooth. He’s going to give our page-turners a run for their money one of these days, she once told me. This town can’t hold him. And he meant business. Mackey had big grins for everybody and could glad-hand it with every gray-suited businessman this side of the chamber of commerce. But I’d heard enough back-alley talk to know that if Vic had dug himself a hole with the man, he’d better start filling it with bills or, as they say, he’d be filling it with something else.