Matchstick Men: A Novel About Grifters With Issues (11 page)

Over the next week, Roy and Frankie move eight of the paintings, with promises to deliver more. Their contact downtown, a fellow Roy’s known since he was paired up with Hank, knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. Beyond that, Roy doesn’t want to be involved. He and Frankie are splitting about eight grand per piece. Roy’s satisfied with the take.

The third night they’re running the art, one of the pictures catches Roy’s attention. Brighter colors than the rest, interesting shapes. It’s abstract, but Roy thinks it might mean something if he looks at it hard enough. “This is a Miró,” Saif tells
him. “A woman from Brussels copying a man from El Salvador copying the man from Spain. Very famous.” As thanks for his services, as a gesture of goodwill, Saif gives the picture to Roy, free of charge. Roy pays him a thousand dollars anyway. He doesn’t trust anything that comes free.

When Roy goes home that night, he hangs the painting, unframed, above the ceramic horse in the den. It contrasts wildly with the dull watercolors. Brings out the meager light in the room. That night, he sleeps in the den for the first time since he bought the house. Opens up the fold-out sofa and falls asleep right there, staring at the picture. At the forgery from Brussels.

The next morning, Roy wakes up late. Sun streaming in the window, blue sky lighting the room. Barely any time to shave and shower. No time for food. He’s got an appointment with Dr. Klein.

“Am I late?” he asks the secretary as he walks in the front door. “I’m late, right?”

Wanda is used to Roy by now. She smiles and waves as he rushes by. “He’s running late himself. Go in, don’t worry about it.”

Klein sits behind his desk, as usual, scribbling on a notepad. As usual. Roy notices a stack of textbooks perched on the desk corner. A duffel bag flung onto the carpet. “Hey, doc,” he says, “how’s the brain game?” Roy plops down in the chair and makes himself comfortable.

The doctor looks up from his work. “Roy. You’re … up.”

“Almost wasn’t. Overslept.”

“I mean emotionally. You seem up. Good to see.”

Roy shrugs. “Magic pills, doc. Got somethin’ special in ’em.”

Klein laughs. “They’ve got an SSCI inhibitor in them, if you
want to be specific, but sure—magic pills. It’s about time they kicked in like this.” He fidgets with the notepad for a moment. Plays with his pencil holder. “I hear you had a nice time with Angela last week. I hear it went well.”

“Yeah. It went okay. I mean, I know fourteen-year-olds like I know gardening, right? But we had some nice conversations, I think. It went—it went okay.” Roy stops, wonders how the doc knew they hit it off. “You talk to her?”

“I did. I did, and that’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Something about Angela?”

Behind him, Roy can hear the waiting room door opening. Footsteps padding down the paneled hallway. Light, carefree. He knows she’s coming even before he turns around, before he sees her there, plaid skirt and blue blouse, ripping away at a plastic candy bar wrapper with her teeth.

“The machine was outta Snickers,” says Angela, “so I had to get a Twix. I hate these things.” She looks up, into the room, and sees Roy. A smile leaps onto her face. “Hey, Roy. Nice tie.”

She hops into the room and plants a kiss on Roy’s cheek. He’s not sure if he should give her a kiss back, but by then she’s already halfway across the office and sitting in her own cushioned chair. Legs folded beneath her. Bouncing. Like Heather used to do.

“It’s—it’s Wednesday,” Roy says, surprised. “I thought you’d call about—I figured on the weekend—”

“Yeah, the thing about that, goes like this. Basically, I told mom you said hi. Remember at the train station, you told me to tell her you said hi, and I said it wouldn’t do any good, and—”

“I remember.”

“Right. So I told her you said hi, and she said she didn’t want to hear about it. And I told her I thought that it wasn’t so bad that you were saying hi, and that if you wanted to say hi, she should at least listen to it. It’s one word, right? Hi, that’s all. But she said she didn’t want to hear about it, and she didn’t want me speaking for you. And I said that I didn’t think she should decide who I speak for and who I don’t speak for, and she said that if I kept telling her you said hi, I’d be grounded. So I told her you said hi, just to see what she’d do, and she actually grounded me. So then I started saying it over and over again, and then she went ballistic, and then I went a little ballistic, and …” She smiles and picks up a duffel bag next to her chair, hauls it onto her lap.

“You’ve got room at your place, right?”

“This happen a lot?” Roy asks her that evening. He’s preparing the sofa bed, pulling on new sheets. The den is dark, the Miró covered in shadows. “You leave home a lot?”

“You’re not freaked out or anything, right?” says Angela. “It happens sometimes.”

“Freaked out? No, I just didn’t expect—”

“I stay with friends, usually, girls from school. Doesn’t last more than a few days for mom to come down off the ladder, then she lets me back in the house.”

Roy fluffs the pillows as best he can. “She still got a temper, huh?”

“If that’s what you call it. Sometimes, she’s great, she’ll get me ice cream, we’ll go out walking, just walking, you know? Walk and talk and whatever and she’s a pretty cool mom. Lets
my friends hang out late, doesn’t bother us. Other times, she’ll freak out for no reason, go all mad scientist on me. Pulling at her hair, shrieking, spinning in circles. The dog goes and hides under a table. You never know.” Angela sits on the sofa bed; it creaks beneath her meager weight. “She like that when you two were together?”

Roy sits on the other side of the bed. It sags. “A little,” he says. “Mostly, we yelled at each other, I don’t know what started it. I do remember one time when we’d gone out for a bite to eat, late at night after all the clubs had closed. We found this place, a nice place, really, that was open till three.”

“Like a diner?”

“Not a diner. Usually it was a diner, but this was a few steps up. This wasn’t an after-bars place, this was an after-theater place. You know, folks go to the late show, they wander in for dinner, that sort of thing. Only we weren’t part of that set. But we sit down, we order dinner, and we’re looking around us at the suits and the dresses and laughing with each other, and then—then I think it was the busboy spilled a little water near her feet. Near your mom’s shoes. And I don’t know if they were special shoes or not special shoes or what, but she flew off the handle. Flew off the handle, broke it in two, and shoved it up that bus-boy’s ass, is more like it. By the time they threw us out, your mom had broken three place settings and insulted just about everybody in the place.” Roy realizes he’s smiling as he’s telling this story. Good to be talking about it.

“Sounds like mom.”

Roy shrugs. “I guess.”

“You think she’d still be that way if you two were together?”

He looks at Angela. Innocent eyes. “What’s that mean?”

“It means what it means. Maybe mom’s angry ’cause she had to raise me on her own.”

“Wait a second,” says Roy, flustered. “Wait—I didn’t leave your mother. I didn’t—I didn’t even know you—that you were—”

Angela puts her hand on Roy’s forearm. Soothing. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not blaming you—I don’t blame anyone. Mom, maybe. I just thought maybe if you two were still together, it would be easier on her. Less stress.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it. I don’t—let’s not worry about it. It’s late, you’re tired. I got some business to attend to.” He stands, and the bed rises. “If you get hungry, I got deli meats in the fridge.”

“I’m okay,” says Angela, “but thanks.”

“I got bread in the freezer, you just gotta warm it up in the microwave. Mustard in the fridge. There’s a frozen soup in there, too, but it’s kinda old, so … Forget about the soup, there’s canned soup in the pantry.”

“Really, Roy, I’m not hungry.”

“Okay. If you want a drink—do you drink?”

“I’m fourteen.”

“Right. Right.” He’s not sure what she means by that. “So if you want a drink, the liquor cabinet is in the living room, next to the stereo.”

Angela crawls into bed, pulling the covers beneath her chin. She moves like Heather, Roy thinks. Like she’s swimming through the air. “I gotta go out for a bit,” says Roy. “You’ll be okay.”

“I’ll be sleeping. Where you going?”

“Meet a client.”

“Another one? At midnight?”

Roy nods, pulls a quilt over Angela’s covered body. “Antiques wait for no man.”

She giggles and turns on her side, grasping a pillow in her arms. “Night, Roy.”

“Good night, Angela.”

At the diner, Frankie can’t stop talking about the art deal. He has plans, big plans, he tells Roy. Ideas and methods and new ways to get the merchandise moving across the country. He has local, regional, global networks. He can see this becoming their main business, their main source of income. All the while, Roy wonders if Angela is doing okay at home. He’s wondering if she is sleeping all right. He’s wondering if she’s woken up and seen the ceramic horse. He’s wondering if she’s been able to pull off the head. He’s wondering if she’s looked inside. If she has, he’ll have to tell her what he does for a living. If she has, he’ll have to come clean.

“And what I’m thinking,” Frankie is saying, “is that we take the money that we get from, say, the British sales, and we funnel it back over to the connections we make in Asia. That way, we’re dealing with two different sets of funds, two different operations.”

“Uh-huh,” mutters Roy. His turkey is dry tonight. The mustard isn’t helping.

“And then there’s currency exchange. If we time it right, we can add on an extra grand or so per piece, just by changing over the money at the right time. I saw this whole financial thing on CNN.”

“Right, sure.”

Frankie puts down his burger. Stares at his vacant partner. “Thought maybe I’d go home early tonight and screw a hamster,” he says calmly.

“Good idea,” Roy murmurs. “Sounds good.”

Now Frankie’s up, halfway out of his seat, throwing his fork to the ground. Roy flinches, awake. “I thought the goddamned pills were working,” Frankie growls.

“What? They are.”

“Fuck that, then you’re not taking ’em.”

“I am, I am, what the hell are you talking about? Sit down.” Roy looks around the diner; they’re causing a scene. Other patrons are looking, talking. Whispering. “C’mon, siddown.”

“What the fuck is up with you?” Frankie asks, still half standing at the counter. “Tell me what the fuck is your problem.”

“You wanna calm down first, then we’ll talk.”

“We been talking. At least, I been talking. You’ve been uh-huh-ing me and mm-hmm-ing me for thirty goddamned minutes. I’m talking about money here, about ways to make us money, and you’re off in dreamland.”

“That’s not it. That’s—”

Frankie cuts in. “I know this art money is a joke to you. I know ten grand is a joke—”

“Never,” says Roy. “Ten grand is ten grand.”

“—’cause you got so much frigging money, comin’ out your ears, you and your investments and your … whatever you do with it.”

Roy doesn’t know what Frankie knows. Or what Frankie thinks he knows. He’s sure Frankie doesn’t know about the horse. And he’s sure Frankie doesn’t know about the Caymans, the accounts.
Beyond that, he doesn’t want to take any chances. Frankie is his partner, and Frankie is a good guy. But Roy’s money is Roy’s money. No one else need concern himself with it.

“Calm down,” Roy suggests. “Just calm down. I don’t know where you get the idea I got so much money.”

“Come off it. We make the same score, I know what you take in.”

“So you got just as much.”

“But I spend it. I buy myself nice things. You got a crappy little car and a crappy little house, and suits ten years old. And you’re always talking about saving your money, rainy day, anything can happen in the life of a matchstick man, all that crap.”

Roy sits back. He breathes deep. Relatively easy. “Where’s all this coming from?”

Frankie plops back down onto the stool. The other diners give up and turn away from the show. “The thing is,” he says, “I still gotta hustle for my money, you know? I still gotta do the things we do just to keep afloat. And it ain’t good for my morale when my partner drops his ass on everything I say.”