Authors: Anthony Bruno
Bad Luck
Also by Anthony Bruno
BAD GUYS
BAD BLOOD
ANTHONY BRUNO
A Novel
For Barbara
Contents
he steel I-beam sailed through the clear blue sky, so nice, like a bird. Sal Immordino stood there facing the yellow-beige aluminum wall of the trailer, looking straight up at the towering crane and the rust-colored I-beam on the end of its cable, pleased to see that something so big and heavy could be so graceful. He followed the long metal beam's flight high over the construction site, grinning a little as he pulled down his zipper and fished around in his underwear.
“Hey! Whattaya doing over there?”
“Leave him alone, Mike.”
Aaaahhhhh . . . A dark blot spread through the sand on the ground. It made a nice sound, Sal thought, the steady stream hitting the sand. Sorta plopped when you poured it. He stared up at the sky, smelled the salt air on the breeze, and ignored the two stupid bodyguards standing over by the trailer door.
“Go use the Porta Pottie, for chrissake.”
“Shut up, Mike.”
“Whattaya mean, shut up? He's out in the open, peeing against the wall, for crying out loud. That's not right.”
“Just shut up, Mike.”
“What? You think he understands me? Lemme tell you. That guy's not right in the head. He's a friggin' dummy. He doesn't understand what you say. That's why he's standing there with his thing hanging out, doing it like nobody can see him.”
“Mike,
shut up.”
“Hey, what's he gonna do, beat me up?”
“Shut up, will ya? He's gonna hear you.”
“I'm supposed to be afraid of him because he's big, because he used to be a pro boxer, a heavyweight? I don't give a shit. Look at him. He's all fat. He must weigh two sixty, two seventy. At least.”
Two fifty-five, Sal thought, shaking himself off. Two fifty-five and six foot four, asshole.
“I don't get it. What the hell could Mr. Nashe want with this big jerk? I mean, look at the way he's dressed. Mr. Nashe doesn't even let the janitors at the hotel go around looking like that.”
“Mike, will you just shut the fuck up?”
Yeah, shut the fuck up, Mike.
Sal zipped his pants and headed back inside, deliberately dragging his feet in the dirt. As he came up to the steps leading to the trailer door, he got a good look at this Mike character. Sal didn't like his looks. Tall, built like a light heavyweight, the type who thinks he's good-looking. Straight dark hair falling over his forehead, deep-set eyes. Probably thinks he looks like Tom Cruise or something. Suspicious eyes. A real wiseass. Sal didn't like his looks at all. He looked like a fucking cop. Prick.
As Sal lumbered by he deliberately bumped into the guy's shoulder, hard. He stared the asshole in the eye. “You my brother? You Joseph? You ain't Joseph. No . . . Where's my brother Joseph?”
The guy shook his head and stared right back at him. “In
there, genius,” and he jerked his thumb at the door. Real arrogant little prick. Typical bodyguard, all balls and no brains.
Sal climbed the steps and opened the metal door. It was like a piece of cardboard in his hand. He shut the door behind him and turned the bolt, glanced at Joseph and the Golden Boy, then went back to his chair, the metal folding chair. He didn't like the other ones in here. They all had arms. He usually didn't fit into chairs that had arms.
“Sal, why don't you take one of these chairs? They're more comfortable,” the Golden Boy said.
Sal looked at the floor and shook his head. He never risked getting stuck in a chair with goddamn arms when someone was watching.
“Okay. Whatever makes you happy, Sal. So where were we?”
Sal reached into the pocket of his warm-up jacket and pulled out a black rubber ball. As he started to squeeze it, he stared at Nashe, the Golden Boy, standing behind that drafting table.
Russell fucking Nashe. Mr. Cash. He better be. Jesus, please, he better be.
Sal pulled a pack of Dentyne out of his other pocket. He stopped squeezing the ball long enough to unwrap two pieces and stick them in his mouth. He looked at Nashe blankly as he rocked back and forth in his seat, chewing his gum and squeezing the rubber ball, giving the man a good show. Nashe was smiling at him, leaning over the drafting table in his two-thousand-dollar banker's suit, his knuckles on the blueprints, smiling with his eyebrows, like he was posing for the cover of
Time
magazine. Sal kept rocking back and forth. Russell fucking Nashe. Bright blue eyesâprobably bright blue contacts. Wavy dark hair slicked back with that mousse crap they use now. A skinny guy but with a big headâtoo big for the rest of him. Chubby cheeks, like he always had something stuffed up his mouth. And those stupid buckteeth. Sal switched the ball to his other hand. Billionaire, huh? Nashe looks like a goddamn rabbit. He
looks like Bugs Bunny. How can you trust a guy who looks like Bugs Bunny?
Nashe crossed his arms, rubbed his chin, shifted his smile over to Sal's older brother Joseph, who was sitting in one of the good chairs, the chairs with the arms. “Twenty-nine million . . . That's a lot of money. I can't just write you a check, just like that. What do I look like? Donald Trump?” Nashe flashed that wiseass smirk of his with the rabbit teeth sticking out.
No, not this time, you fucking jerk. Don't wanna hear the song and dance anymore. Time's up. For both of us.
Sal looked at his brother, waiting for him to say something, but Joseph just sat there, stroking his silver-gray pencil-thin mustache, glaring up at Nashe. Another fucking jerk. Joseph thought he was tough. He thought he looked like Burt Reynolds too. Maybe Burt Reynolds with a potbelly and without the wig. Maybe. Joseph thought he was being real cool now, but his red face gave him away. He was pissed as shit, ready to explode. He wasn't saying anything now because he knew he'd start screaming like some kind of cuckoo bird if he opened his mouth. Burt Reynolds, huh? How about Elmer Fudd? These two were a fucking pair. They deserved each other.
Sal turned away and looked out the window, biting his bottom lip. He scanned the muddy construction site outsideâthe big hole they'd dug last November, the cement trucks revving their motors and spinning their drums, the construction guys yelling at each other, telling each other what to do, the big sign down by the boardwalk with the twelve-foot redhead in a Hawaiian-print sarong: “The BIGGEST name in Atlantic City is building the BIGGEST casino hotel in the world. NASHE PARADISE. Coming Soon.” Sal lowered his head so he could see the giant silver letters on top of Bugs Bunny's other casino down the other end of the boardwalk. He wanted to see if Nashe was using the same typeface for the new casino. The letters were blinding in the sun, so it was hard to tell. C'mon, Joseph, say something, for chrissake.
“Twenty-nine million, four hundred thousand,” Joseph finally said, struggling to hold his temper.
“Today.”
Nashe was grinning at him. “I made my original deal with Seaview Properties, Joseph. I think it's only proper that I continue with them.”
Joseph kept stroking his mustache. “We
represent
Seaview Properties. Two weeks ago you could've dealt with them. Now you're late, so you deal with us.” Joseph sucked on his teeth. Must've seen that one in an old gangster movie. Cagney, maybe. What a jerk.
Nashe shook his head, still grinning. “You know, Joseph, you come here to the construction site to find me, no appointment, no warning, nothing. This isn't my office. I've got no papers with me, no files. You expect me to just give you a check right here? Is that what you think? Be real. I have to review the contract. I don't have the exact terms of the contract in my head.”