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  What Teddy did finally, he put on his Van Halen tape with the volume turned up and David Lee Roth set him free. He had George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” ready to go when his mom said, “Go on, take the car. I can’t listen to that no more.”

  She wouldn’t give him any money though. He had about ten bucks left . . . Hey, and a twenty stuck down in his camera case! He’d forgot about it. His mom said, “Oh, you going out to take pictures in the rain?”

  Teddy said, “It’s stopped, Mom. It’s gonna be a beautiful evening.” He believed it, just remembering he had that twenty-dollar bill. It meant he could get back to trailing the cop and not have to bother some old lady.

  * * *

  It was close to eight o’clock when the cop came out of the Holmhurst.

  Teddy had gone in, taken a chance, and asked the desk clerk if Mr. Mora was in his room. The clerk checked a file and said to dial three-ten on the house phone over there. Teddy dialed it, heard the cop’s voice and hung up, got out of there, sat in his mom’s big yellow turd to wait. It really surprised him when the cop got in the tan Datsun in front that he’d admired and wished was his. He believed it was a sign. He liked the idea of signs and omens: they showed you were on the right track.

  He followed the Datsun’s taillights into the poor section and look, another sign: the Datsun pulling up at the house on Caspian where Iris had stayed, the cop going inside.

  He had followed Iris here . . .

  He had followed Iris all over the place. He had tried to talk to her in the lounge, in her cute little cocktail waitress outfit and tried to get her to go out with him and even offered money he didn’t have. Had twice seen her come out of the hotel with three guys, one of them a big jig, and another woman and get in the limo he followed to the condo in Ventnor. Three A.M. he walked all around the building, looking up at the windows from the other side of the street and saw where lights were on: hardly any except for half the top floor on the Atlantic Avenue side. Half past four they came out and the limo took them home. The next night she went up again, Teddy learning surveillance work was a pain in the ass. Fun in San Juan but not here. Never be a private eye. But the next morning Iris didn’t come out with the three guys and the woman and Teddy perked up, wondered if this was his chance. He sat there all day. No Iris. All day thinking.

  Half past eleven that evening he went in with the cheese steak subs from the White House, ran a game on the security guy telling him he’d lost the slip with the name on it, but the apartment number was eighteen-something. The security guy looked at his clipboard list with one hand on the phone. Let’s see, it wouldn’t be 1802, nobody was there and 1803 was out for the evening; 1804, also 1805, they went to bed early, never ordered carry-outs; he said it must be the Shipmans in 1806, he’d ring. Teddy said that was it, Shipman. The security guy still wanted to ring them. Teddy said, ‘ey, how’d you like a sub? Happen to have an extra one. Mmmm, smell those onions . . . That was how he got upstairs to knock on the door to 1802.

  Then he had to run a game on Iris when she opened the door, not looking very happy. He told her somebody from the hotel had sent the food over. She nodded, closed the door, didn’t even offer him a tip. He ran down the stairs and opened the delivery door in back. Ran up the stairs, thought he was going to have a heart attack, caught his breath. Then rode the elevator down, stepped off in the lobby and said nighty-night to the old guy eating his cheese steak sub.

  Now he entered from the rear, walked up the stairs this time and when Iris opened the door gave her a smile and a wink and said, “Miss me?”

  It amazed him they would hire a girl with so little personality. Especially a PR.

  “Don’t you know how to smile?”

  “I’m tired of smiling.”

  See? She was a grouch. She didn’t seem afraid of him or even care he was here. It was something else bothering her, or her life in general that made her crabby. Sitting there pissed off in her black bra and panties.

  “You staying here now?”

  “If I feel like it.”

  He looked around the apartment. There was all kinds of booze in one of the kitchen cupboards, the cheese steak sub sitting on the counter. Teddy realized he was hungry and ate it. Even cold it was good. He fixed two rum-and-Cokes then, emptying a street-lude cap into Iris’s—eighty milligrams of Valium to take off her edge—and brought their drinks out to the living room.

  Of course she didn’t want it; made a face. So he slapped her, hard, and when she looked up at him, startled and then scared, he said, “Drink it. Don’t gimme any shit. Drink it.” Then when she took a sip he eased off and said with a grin, “I’m gonna make you smile if it kills you.”

  She yawned instead. He acted nice with her, sympathetic, said come on, what’s the matter?

  She told him about this man with the eyes of a snake from Colombia who made her take her clothes off in front of everybody and then rubbed the dice in her cocha to bring him luck.

  Teddy said, “ ‘Ey, yeah? Did it?”

  She said it was the worst experience of her life. He was so angry when he lost he was rough with her in the bed, he was an animal and punished her with his bicho, the way he would push it into her and make her cry out.

  Teddy said, “Yeah?” interested. He said, “I’m getting a Spanish lesson. How do you say titties?”

  She said she came here to be as a hostess with gentlemen, not an indio who should be in a field. Teddy asked her if she felt like going to bed, her story getting him in the mood. She said no, she was too sore. He made her finish her drink and said, well, let’s keep it in mind. He made them each another drink, came back in and asked her if she felt like going home to San Juan. She said, sometimes.

  “You miss Vincent?”

  “That guy? Why would I?”

  “He’d protect you, wouldn’t he?”

  “If I want him to.”

  She was yawning and sounded sleepy, her eyes closing. Maybe he shouldn’t have given her the whole street lude. He believed he’d better hurry.

  “ ‘Ey, why don’t you write Vincent a letter? Ask him to come up here and see you.”

  “Why would he?”

  “Tell him you miss him.”

  “You think he do it?”

  “Tell him you’re in terrible danger, you need him,” Teddy said, pulling her panties out and peeking in.

  “Yeah? You think? . . . Man, I’m so tire.”

  Shit, he didn’t bring any paper. He said, “ ‘Ey, don’t go to sleep on me.” There was a desk in the room. He went over to it and found a writing pad, envelopes, a pen . . . What he needed to do was pep her up. He went back to her and said, “Here, get started,” putting an envelope on the cocktail table in front of her. “Write his name and address on there. I’ll be right back.”

  Teddy took her glass out to the kitchen and poured rum in it. Maybe it would give her a kick. He should’ve brought meth—she needed to get up, not down. He’d wanted to be able to control her, but should’ve remembered how she moved, like it was an effort. One of those girls, his mom would say was so slow she couldn’t get out of her own way.

  With his help, dictating, she got the envelope addressed, but that was it. At this point Iris lay back in her chair and konked out on him. He could slap her face all he wanted, throw water in it, hold her under the shower—he could see she wasn’t about to come around for the rest of the night.

  Well, he wasn’t coming around here either, anymore. He’d had enough of playing private eye in his mom’s car staring out the window, then getting a chance like this that might not ever come again. He thought about printing a note that would say COME QUICK I NEED YOU. I AM IN DANGER and put it in the envelope. But the cop, come to think of it, would get the note and probably phone her. If he bothered at all.

  When Teddy thought of how to do it he knew it would work because the cop wouldn’t have a choice anymore. They’d make him come. It was exciting thinking about it. Jeez, he wanted to lay her on the floor right here.r />
  He did, he pulled her out of the chair, her eyes coming open a little, but closing again when he got her stretched out on the carpet. He raised her up to unhook her bra, pulled it free and laid her down again. She would have to have her panties on . . .

  Another kind of feeling came over him, that he’d better leave them on and get out of here. What if somebody was coming upstairs this minute?

  Teddy folded the addressed envelope once, twice, and slipped it into the front of her panties. He pulled her up, got underneath to let her body fall across his shoulder and carried her out to the balcony this way, into the overcast night. A wind came up as he sat her on the rail in front of him and held her tight under her arms, standing between her bare legs.

  Iris moaned, cold, but didn’t open her eyes.

  Teddy brought his hands away slowly. Her head lowered. As her body came toward him he placed his hands against her shoulders to push her upright, to let her tilt back just a speck, there. Then took his hands away and watched her go off the balcony without a sound, her body turning over as it dropped into the night.

  An eight-point-five, Teddy thought. Nice execution, but ‘ey, she didn’t keep her feet together.

  They were coming out of the house now. The cop and a woman in a dark coat. It looked like the woman from the funeral home, Linda.

  Teddy saw himself slipping the car into gear, creeping up the street silently toward the Datsun. Time it, get almost there and pop the lights on and as the cop came around to the street side of the Datsun and stood close to it as he saw the headlights coming, shoot him going by.

  Except that he wasn’t ready. He’d have to have his gun out, the window open on the passenger side . . . He should’ve thought of it sooner. Except what if the cop had a gun and had time to shoot back and hit his mom’s car? How would he explain it?

  No, it seemed like a good idea and it was a good place, dark and lonely. But it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to see the cop’s eyes again just before and wanted the cop to see his. Hi. Remember me?

  17

  * * *

  TURNING ONTO ATLANTIC AVENUE Vincent said, “I’ve tailed cars for a living, but I’ve never been tailed myself, that I know of.” He glanced at the rearview mirror.

  Linda turned in the front seat to look back. “All I see are headlights. Are you sure?”

  “When the same car turns the same corners you do, it’s a good bet.”

  “I thought you were lost. Which one is it?”

  “It’s three back. Looks like a Chevy, light color, maybe yellow.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “I think it’s a guy who usually drives an Eldorado, but somebody broke his window so he borrowed a friend’s car. Or else it’s a friend of the guy who drives the Eldorado.”

  Linda said, “Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

  Vincent drove straight to Spade’s Boardwalk now; he left the Datsun with the valet parking attendant. It seemed to surprise Linda. And when he brought the blue canvas carry-on into the hotel with them she said, “I thought we were just having dinner. Are we spending the night?”

  Vincent smiled. It had crossed his mind. He checked the bag with the bell captain, La Tuna sounds coming from the lounge across the lobby. He asked Linda if she’d like to go in and mambo and she asked if he’d like a kick in the balls. Was she touchy or being funny? Sometimes it was hard to tell when she was serious. Up a gold elevator to a dining room of crystal chandeliers and scenes of Versailles on the walls, heavy silverware, gold linen, candlelight . . . Was she impressed? Vincent was. They drank scotch and looked at menus, silent, but it was okay; he was comfortable with her and in no hurry. He felt a glow; he believed it might be fun to have a lot of money. Linda could be wealthy, she had the right look in the navy-blue dress. The pale skin and dark hair, fine bones, a $500-an-hour model. Cosmetics, shampoo . . .

  “What’re you looking at?”

  “Nothing.”

  She brought her napkin up. “Do I have lipstick on my teeth?”

  “You get cleaned up you’re a knockout.”

  She narrowed her eyes in those long lashes, said, “Thanks,” gazed at him another moment, suspicious, and returned to her menu. “What’re you going to have?”

  “Liver and onions. Or the Dover sole. I don’t know anything about you,” Vincent said. “You started playing piano when you were about nine . . .”

  “Eight.”

  “You grew up in New York.”

  “New Orleans. I played trumpet in the Tulane marching band . . . I prefer the cornet.”

  “You fooled me. I thought you had kind of a Brooklyn accent. Just a little. You played the trumpet, huh?”

  “You making conversation?”

  “I’m interested.”

  “You know something you’re not telling me. You’re trying to act cute and you don’t know how.”

  “I feel good, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I had a pretty good day. How was yours? You get an audition?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m in at Bally’s, if I want it. But I’d have to go with a guitar and drummer they want me to use. Which is okay, I guess. At least I’ll be working.”

  “You like it here, Atlantic City?”

  “Compared to what? The Holiday Inn in Orlando? If I can play just a little of my music for an audience that listens part of the time and isn’t too drunk, that’s as good as it gets in a bar. Most of what I have to play, you take it out of a can and heat it over a low fire. Some of it’s okay, some riffs you can have fun with, fool around. But you do the same kind of pop stuff every set, the computer music, key in a little bossa nova—I feel like an engineer, I ought to be wearing a white lab coat with a row of pencils in the pocket. Once in a while, I play with my own guys we throw the charts away and break loose, take some chances. Who’s doing that and getting paid? Nobody. McCoy Tyner, Gil Evans, maybe a few other guys. Let the audience keep up if they can—why not? They can tap their toes if they want, but it’s a head trip too. Where’re we going—who knows? Let’s find out, feel it and play it, look for an opening and break out . . . Do you know what I mean? The manager gets nasty, I go, ‘Wait a minute, they came to hear me play, right?’ The manager goes, ‘They came to drink and be entertained, but mostly they came to drink.’ And hands me a bunch of requests that read like Michael Jackson’s greatest hits. So . . . What was the question?”

  “I’d like to hear you play sometime,” Vincent said, “doing Linda Moon instead of Carmen Miranda. I got to admit, though, I enjoyed that.”

  “You would,” Linda said. “I’m surprised you don’t wear a double-knit suit with white stitching. Cops being known for their daring fashion statements.”

  “Let’s have another drink.”

  “I’m ready.” She was looking him over, his new sportcoat, white cotton shirt. “You’re not a bad dresser, really.”

  “I’ll take my tie off and open my shirt, you want me to.”

  “No, you won’t, you’re too conservative.” She raised her eyes to his. “It’s okay. I like a change now and then.”

  Driving back to Linda’s rooming house Vincent said, “I never saw a skinny girl eat so much. Where do you put it?”

  “I’m not that skinny,” Linda said. She looked at a street sign as they passed it and said, “I think you should’ve turned,” though didn’t seem to care. “Are you a little high?”

  “Just right.”

  “I get mellow when I drink. I mel-low.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “All the streets are named after states . . .”

  “North and south.”

  “Except they aren’t in order, they’re all mixed up. North Carolina, Pennsylvania . . . Shouldn’t we have turned?”

  Vincent glanced at the rearview mirror, at headlights and reflections on wet pavement. “He’s with us again.”

  Linda turned in the seat to look back. “The same car?”


  “Yellow Monte Carlo . . . I don’t think I should take you home. He probably saw me pick you up . . .”

  She was quiet a moment. “You’re saying, what, I should stay with you?”

  “I think it’d be safer.”

  “For who? If the guy’s after you why would it be safer for me to be with you?”

  “You don’t want to go home,” Vincent said, “and I don’t think you should be alone. They’re bad guys.”

  “I think you hired somebody to follow you. Is that it, Vincent, to get me in your room?”

  He said, “Let me tell you about Ricky Catalina and what a sweetheart he is.” He gave her a profile, a brief one on the way to the Holmhurst, told about meeting Ricky and taking him to Gardner’s Basin, but didn’t go into detail or mention the blue canvas bag.

  As they walked up to the hotel entrance Linda said, “He’s after you because you broke his car window? . . . Why did you?”

  They went inside. Vincent turned to look through the glass door, in time to see the yellow Chevy creep past.

  “Get his respect,” Vincent said. “Show him I have a violent nature.”

  “Is it fun,” Linda asked, “being a cop?”

  “Some times more than others. I’ve never given a traffic ticket or busted a hooker.”

  On the way up the stairs Linda said, “You forgot your bag, you checked at Spade’s.”

  “I’m leaving it there for safekeeping.”

  She gave him her narrow look. “You’re not telling me everything, are you? I won’t ask what’s in the bag.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Twelve thousand eight hundred and seventy dollars.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  They walked down the third-floor hallway, silent.

  “You didn’t win it.”

  “In a way I did.”

  She stopped. “That’s why he’s after you.”

  Vincent brought her along by the arm. “He thinks I probably have it, but he’s not sure.”