Drawing Dead (27 page)

You couldn’t stop him when he got like this. I went to the kitchen to pour myself a drink.

I’ll have a Grey Goose, said Peter, on the rocks, dirty, with, ah, one olive.

Whatever that means, I said. I’ll do what I can do.

I know it’ll be enough, Daddy, he said.

Peter, said Kelley, it’s time to calm down.

Oh dear, he said. I guess you’re right.

For some reason I began thinking about Henderson. Dani. How she’d put the children’s toys away. Quickly. Nervously. Like she didn’t want me to think of her as a mother.

Everything had screamed desire.

Of course, I’d made that mistake before. Wishful thinking. Followed by swift humiliation.

I was willing to risk it though. The navel ring. Those tight abs. But I’d need an excuse, to just show up again. These Midwestern girls, they stand on ceremony. I needed a hook.

Basements, I said, returning with the drinks.

All right, Peter said. Your turn. What about basements?

Seems like everything important’s in a basement.

I think you may need to clarify, said Peter.

Yeah, Dadski, said Kelley. What’s this all about?

The Brighton Beach game was in a basement, I said.

O-kaaay.

And.

Yeeesss?

I’m sure there are others. Dani said something about a basement.

Who’s Danny?

Never mind. Somebody I interviewed.

Sure, Dadster. Anyway. I used to live in the basement.

When you were trying to avoid … I started.

You can stop there, she said.

I’m sorry. I know. I’m sorry.

So, she said, what are they? The other basements. Not ours. The others.

I’m quite certain some other basements will turn up, I said.

Funny how they do that, she said.

You’re sitting in a bar, said Peter.

Minding your own business, said Kelley.

In walks a basement.

As though it owned the place.

Sits on the stool next to you.

Just shoves right in there.

God, it pisses you off.

They can be so presumptuous.

Those damn basements.

All right, all right, I said. All this basement talk. How did this start?

The one with Danny in it.

That’s the one. Well, I was just thinking, when she told me about overhearing Vladimir talk about the bartender?

Dadster, what the hell are you talking about?

She said they were in the basement.

Who?

Eloise and Vladimir. When she overheard them. She said they were in the basement.

Hello? said Kelley. Interpreter, please?

In a minute, said Peter. We need to get to the bottom of this.

Har, I said.

And? asked Kelley.

I never went to the basement. I mean, I didn’t have a search warrant or anything. But I could have asked. I don’t know. It just seems like maybe there was something there.

Where?

In Henderson.

Henderson’s about a thirty-minute cab ride from here.

I think I could do it in twenty-eight. With the right driver.

Dadminton?

Yes, my dear?

Sometimes I think there may yet be hope for you.

You’re the sweetest, I said.

Brownie? she asked.

The ones with the Nutella sauce? Peter replied.

Yup .

Ohhhh, baby.

We ate. We laughed.

This was the life.

A life that was ever receding from my grasp.

W
HEN
I
GOT BACK TO THE MOTEL
, nobody was there. I lay back on the sectional, closed my eyes. There was something about spending time with Kelley. It took the tension away. I dreamt of dreamier days. Life with Kelley and Melissa. Before Melissa’s Monster intervened. Melissa, lovely and evanescent. I hadn’t yet discovered what the evanescence meant. That she couldn’t face her demons. That she’d needed to anesthetize herself. But Kelley was everywhere, distracting me, making me dance to Frank Sinatra singing ‘Chicago.’ That toddlin’ town. Jokes, pictures, stories. Homemade plays with her friends. Reading silly books to me. As though she were the parent, I the child …

Butch shook me awake.

Hunh? I said.

We got a meet, he said.

What meet?

With the Russkies.

Yeah? What about it?

They called.

They called you?

No, they called you. I picked up your cell. You were long gone.

Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?

So sue me.

I’ll definitely take that option under consideration. What did they say?

It’s at some bar called the Shining Mullet or something.

Thanks for your help.

You can’t miss it, he said, it’s right across from the place that says My Horse Shall Be Called a Horse of Prayer, For All Peoples.

What?

Just a couple doors down from Furry Paws.

What?

Furry Paws Pet Supplies. And, by the way, they have free delivery.

The horse place?

Furry Paws.

Thank God for America.

Amen.

Find me a pet store with free delivery in Bulgaria.

Exactly. Brendan’ll meet us there.

Turned out the joint wasn’t that far away. We could walk it. Though the distance was magnified by the fact that the hundred-twenty-degree-in-the-shade trek was across acres of parking lot and a four-lane highway. I slogged across the softening asphalt. I bitched. I whined. I caviled. I’d have ululated. If I’d known how.

Butch ignored me.

The place was a cheesy joint that some of the less affluent WSOP players stayed at because you could get a room for sixty bucks a night. In Vegas, as elsewhere, you can reliably estimate the cheese factor from the room rate. If that wasn’t enough, you could tell from the waitresses: they were trying way too hard. And not looking too good.

We tracked down Brendan at the bar. He was wearing some kind of zoot suit and a scarf thing that you might have seen on Cary Grant in 1953. I provisionally refrained from comment.

We had some time to kill before the meet, so we checked out the poker room. The Bellagio it wasn’t. On the floor next to the manager’s booth was an empty blue plastic milk bottle case. The kind you made bookshelves with in college. On the empty crate was taped a crudely hand-lettered cardboard sign that said:

Okay, I said. I’ll resist the temptation.

The biggest game going was 1–2 no limit, but Michael the floor man assured us the place was packed with donkeys, and money could be made. That didn’t turn out to be entirely accurate. Apart from a couple of frat boys who would call you down with anything but who packed up early to go party, the players were pretty decent. Nevertheless, I managed to hit a good run of cards and pick up a few hundred dollars before trekking back over to the bar.

Three doubles in, the Russkies still hadn’t arrived.

We took a table. Brendan was talking about some movie he’d seen. Something about a guy who did a thing, a girl who got involved, shit happening. The girl gets killed. Turns out she was a guy.

Sounds like a piece of shit, I said. The real world isn’t like that. And where the fuck are your friends?

But it’s based on real events, he said.

Based on real events. Tell you the truth, sometimes I think my life
is based on real events. But most of the time I think it isn’t. And by the way, where the fuck are your friends?

They’ll be here.

That wasn’t the question.

Did I ever tell you that you get obnoxious when you drink? he said.

That’s assertive of you, I said. You’re showing improvement. And no, you haven’t. Nor has anyone else. In fact, I am renowned city-wide for the friendliness of my exuberation. I mean inebriation. The exuberosity of my imbibation.

Yeah, Butch interjected. Not just the city, either. Jersey, too.

Even in Jersey, I agreed. They know me well in Asbury Park.

Seaside Heights, said Butch.

Cape May, I interjected. All the way to the bottom. And by the way, I said to Brendan, what’s with that suit? You don’t wear suits.

And you sure as hell don’t wear
that
kind of suit, said Butch.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, said Brendan.

Uh, the wide lapels? I said.

The tight ankles? said Butch.

Since when do you guys give a shit about what I wear? he said.

It’s one thing to hang out with a bunch of Russian scumbags, said Butch. It’s another thing to become one.

Fuck you, said Brendan. I’m going out for a smoke.

That reminds me, I said. Here.

I tossed him the crumpled pack of Gitanes.

Since when do you smoke these? he asked.

I don’t. That’s why I’m giving them to you. I got them from the sister.

The sister?

Eloise.

What … he began. Headed outside for his smoke.

We were spared further inanity by the appearance of the Russian Delegation. Evgeny waddled in the lead. For the first time I noticed that, while his torso was almost completely tubular from top to bottom, his extremities, his legs and arms, were tiny sticklike things, like Maxie Veinberg’s. I wondered how he kept himself upright. Didn’t you need some balance from the extremities? That tightrope walker’s pole thing?

Following Evgeny were a couple of guys I hadn’t seen before. A skinny fellow with wispy strands of straw-blond hair, a cleft chin and an air of utter imbecility. He had a long Roman/Armenian nose. Might
have been handsome if it weren’t for the hair, the slack facial expression and the fact that he looked like a child molester. The other guy had gray hair flecked with white, a receding chin, a turtleneck—who the hell wears a turtleneck anymore?—a stocky build and a menacing air. The kind of immovable cubic gentleman who, should the occasion arise, most definitely was not letting you leave the room.

No Andrei.

No Anatoly.

Gentlemen! cried Evgeny in his heartiest bellow. So goood to see you!

He extended a foreshortened appendage.

I took it manfully, shook it respectfully.

He introduced his companions: Ziggie, he said, and Manfred.

Ziggie was the skinny guy. I could see how he got the name. Never a dull moment, I figured, with this guy at the party. Way Ziggie wid it. Manfred, you could see, lived up to his name, too. The Teutonic bulk. The immobility. The immutable talent for following orders.

Evgeny, seated at last, let it be known with a sigh that they didn’t have time for dinner. So sorry, he said with an air of genuine regret. Other business. You understand.

It was just fine with me.

Evgeny, I said, can we step aside for a minute? Something I need to talk to you about.

Sure, Rick-ay. Is alone here! Don’t be worry!

Ah, okay, I said, recognizing the finality crouching behind Evgeny’s jolly tone. I have something for you.

Evgeny gave me his biggest vodka smile, placed his hands on his enormous belly. I had the impression he meant to enlace his fingers. Look patrician. But his hands couldn’t reach each other across the expanse.

You man of honor, Rick-ay. I know that.

I am, actually, I said. This is half of it.

I handed him the envelope.

The rest in two weeks, I said.

Is good, he said. Is good.

He handed it to Ziggie. Ziggie, without hesitation, slipped it into the back of his pants.

I’d have preferred somebody to count it in front of me. Avoid any unwarranted accusations, later. But I wasn’t about to argue with Evgeny’s methods.

Brendan got back from his smoke break.

Sit! Sit! Evgeny said, motioning to the chair next to him. Johnny bring drinks. Johnny!

Brendan sat gingerly in the high-backed chair. Evgeny leaned over with a grin and ruffled his hair. Brendan grimaced, like he was eight years old, enduring the indignities bestowed by a maiden aunt.

Johnny brought straight vodkas for everyone.

So, said Evgeny, we have job for you. Is small job. You do good, bigger job later. Yes?

Sounds good to me, I said. But I need to tell you right out. You know I’m a lawyer, right?

Sure, sure.

My law license is worth a lot to me. I can’t be doing anything … shady, if you know what I mean. I can’t take that kind of chance.

Rick-ay, Rick-ay. I not getting you in trouble. I get you in trouble, what good you are to me?

Okay. I hear you. But I’ll have to be the judge of that. When I hear what the job is.

Sure, Rick-ay, Evgeny laughed. You be judge.

We celebrated our new business arrangement with a round or seven of vodka shots and some stuff on some bread that I took for an attempt at focaccia. The waitress made up for her lack of good looks with an excessive application of good cheer.

The business part of the meeting over, we got down to business.

Okay, Rick-ay, said Evgeny, you want job, yes?

Like I said, we’ll consider a proposal.

Ah, ha, ha, went Evgeny.

I tried to maintain my seriously businesslike air through the vodka haze.

Okay, Rick-ay, Evgeny said again. Here is job. We haff friend, name Yugo. Yugo is good fellow. We work together. Do jobs. Yugo has job. Needs help. You going to help him, yes? Go see Yugo. He has something for you. Yugo tell you rest. Yugo is good fellow, also smart fellow. He has something for you. Is simple job.

Sounds basic enough, I said. If a little vague.

Though something was telling me there wasn’t anything simple about this, at all. There were sure to be several layers to it that I couldn’t see, and no doubt never would. Even if I took the job.

Which I more or less had to do. If I’d already paid back Evgeny in full, not to mention replenished Louise’s retainer, I could see turning it down, maybe. In the present circumstances, I couldn’t. And anyway, I didn’t have a plausible reason to say no. I wasn’t about to say, Evgeny, you guys are obviously a bunch of scumbag shakedown artists and border line personality types or quite possibly worse and I’d prefer not to be involved with whatever unsavory scam you may be cooking up with your good friend Yugo. And anyway, wasn’t the Yugo the lousiest production automobile ever built? Or was that the Lada? Same car, I think.