A Long Walk Up the Waterslide (27 page)

“Joseph,” he said when his hotheaded associate came on the line, “I hope you haven’t done anything hasty.”

“Of course not, Carmine,” Joey answered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this Paget woman has just bought herself some protection,” Carmine said.

“She’s playing with us, Carmine. This is flat-out extortion,” Joey answered. “I don’t think we should stand for it.”

Carmine sighed. “You don’t think at all, Joseph.
I
think, and then you do what I think. I think we should proceed slowly and with great caution. Don’t do anything. Do you understand?”

“Sure.”

There was a long silence before Carmine said, “Joseph, tell me you haven’t done anything stupid. Because if anything should happen to Miss Paget now, we would be subject to considerable unwanted attention.”

Joey felt as if he was kneeling in the street munching on garbage.

He said, “She’s as safe as in her mother’s arms.”

“See that she stays that way,” Carmine said. “At least for the time being.”

“We got any way of contacting Overtime?” Joey asked Harold when Carmine had finished.

“No. You know Overtime. Paranoid.”

“Yeah,” Joey said, praying that numbnuts Overtime didn’t get it right this time.

“So who are you,” Polly asked Overtime, “the photographer?”

Because he just couldn’t resist it, Overtime said, “That’s right. They’ve hired me to shoot you.”

Finally, he thought.

Polly looked around the room. “This is it? No studio? No lights?”

“You’re the photographer?” Withers asked. “Why didn’t you—”

Overtime’s pistol snaked out and clubbed Withers once and then twice against the side of the head. Withers dropped heavily to the floor.

Overtime put the pistol against Polly’s head.

It’s odd, Overtime thought, hearing her on the TV and seeing her live in front of me at the same time. Live, he thought. For a moment anyway.

“That smart son of a bitch,” Ed Levine said. “He beat Jack to death with Polly’s performance, showed us he had Candy on his side, threatened to squeal about the attempted hit, and then made a peace offer by not going through with it.”

“He’s still fired,” Kitteredge said. “How do you think Mr. Bascaglia will react?”

“The Banker will want to go back to the table,” Ed thought out loud, “but he’ll want to deal with Mrs. Landis instead of Jack, because Jack is dead meat now. He’ll also want to roast Neal over a bed of coals.”

You smart little SOB, Ed thought. You might just pull this off. Now, what can I do to help?

“You want me to get Bascaglia’s people on the phone?” Ed asked. “Tell them three million, plus Jack’s confession.”

“Possibly—”

Connie was wrapping it up with, “Now you said you had one announcement you wanted to make.”

Great, Ed thought. Now what?

Jack Landis was trying to get enough breath to get up from the sofa.

All that money, he thought, waiting in the Caymans … warm beach … skin like cocoa butter … and I can’t get up off my ass to go.

He looked at the blurry images of his wife and mistress on television. Hard to hear—what was Polly saying?

“And I’m going to have a baby,” Polly said. “Jack Landis’s baby.”

A baby, Jack thought. Jack Landis—

Then something cracked in his chest, he pitched forward, and landed face-first in the guacamole.

“You’re pregnant?” Overtime said.

He held the gun on Polly, who sat on the bed, her back against the headboard. She was too scared to talk, so she nodded.

“This is a complication,” Overtime said. He held the gun on her while he dialed the phone with the other hand.

“I’m not shooting a pregnant woman,” he told Harold indignantly.

Polly felt a breath come into her lungs.

“Unless you pay me double,” Overtime finished.

Walter Withers could just make out the man’s back. Blood caked one eye and the other didn’t focus terribly well. He felt as if he were listening to someone talk underwater.

But it appears, Withers thought, that this man is actually intending to kill this young lady. And I have led her to this.

“Counts as two people,” he heard the man insist. “Hell, I thought you guys were Catholics. What do you mean, ‘academic’?”

Walter felt as if a cold river were running through his brain as he tried to push himself onto his hands and knees. The man looked over his shoulder at him.

It’s nice, Withers thought, to hear someone play a Hart tune without butchering it, but this unpleasant, amoral young man needed correcting. And the young lady needed rescuing.

“You may want to call it off, but she’s seen me now,” Overtime said. “I’m killing her and you are going to pay me.”

As Overtime aimed the pistol, Withers pushed himself to his feet.

“See here,” he said as he reached into his jacket for the revolver he had left in New York, “the game just isn’t played this way.”

Overtime turned around and shot him in the chest.

Oh dear, Withers thought, I’ve made a mess of this.

Walter Withers’s last act on earth was to lunge forward on Overtime’s arm, stopping him from lifting his pistol as Polly sprang from the bed and ran for the door.

Overtime dropped Walt, put a bullet into his head, and said into the telephone, “Great, now she got away.… What do you mean, ‘Thank God’?”

Overtime was long gone by the time Polly banged on Neal’s door, sobbed out her story, and brought him to Withers’s room.

“Oh God,” Neal said when he saw the body.

Polly went to cradle Withers in her arms.

“Don’t touch him,” Neal said. “Don’t touch anything. You’ll screw up the cops.”

“He saved my life,” Polly cried.

Neal looked down at the sad, crumpled corpse of Walter Withers.

“Yeah, well. He was a gentleman,” Neal said.

Then he hustled Polly out of there and went back to his room to phone an anonymous tip.

26

By midafternoon of that day, the court of public opinion had decided that Jack had been a good sport to have his fatal heart attack when he did. It provided a neater ending to Polly Paget’s victory, spared the public the long but titillating ordeal of “The Jack and Candy Family Hour” ending in divorce, and left Jack’s virtuoso “I have betrayed you” performance as a final memory.

By the evening drive time radio shows, the “Name the Baby” contests broke out on several competing stations, each, however, offering the same prize of an all-expenses-paid trip to Candyland.

Jorge became a celebrity on the evening news shows with his vivid description of finding Jack taking the long nap in his breakfast, a narrative that provided comic relief against the stark images of Candy arriving at the airport a widow, shielded from the media hordes by her grim bodyguard.

By that time, Polly Paget had risen once again, transformed from vengeful psycho female to heroic Madonna even though she remained in seclusion. Rumors that she had signed to make a porno film, or was going to be a centerfold, or had been involved in a bizarre shoot-out in a Las Vegas hotel were dismissed as idiotic and tasteless. Hollywood producers cheerfully slashed one another’s throats to see who would make Polly, the movie or Polly, the miniseries. Several name actresses were said to be already signed to do the role.

Candy Landis, too, experienced a public metamorphosis—from hopelessly out-of-it suburban recipe queen to hip practical neofeminist. Scores of women ex-cons appeared on dozens of shows to tell how Candy’s wisdom helped them to start a new life, and herds of sociologists went on to explain that Mrs. Landis’s rural roots, keen business savvy, and courageous integrity made her a role model for thousands of women across the country.

By the time the network anchors gave their signature sign-offs, Overtime had recited his litany of complaints against Joey Foglio to Carmine Bascaglia, Joey had cleansed his soul again, and the Las Vegas police were investigating the homicide of a down-and-out New York P.I. who’d spent his last day in Pompeii.

And by the time the late news came on, a new deal was in the works.

“So everything’s okay now, right?” Polly asked the group assembled in Candy Landis’s living room.

“No,” Neal answered coldly. “Everything is not okay, America’s Sweetheart. A man is dead.”

“Two men,” Candy corrected.

“Right,” Graham said. “One man died and another man was murdered.”

“The mob is still entrenched in our business,” Whiting added.

“And it’s business as usual,” Karen said.

“I’m sorry,” Polly said. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Neal looked at her to see whether she was using the sincerity he had taught her or whether it was real.

Damned if it didn’t look real.

“Bascaglia wins; Hathaway wins; Joey Beans wins.…” Karen mused.

Candy said, “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Well,” Neal said, “at the end of the day, you do what you can do.”

“So do you want to do it?” Graham asked.

Neal thought about it. He could walk away now, go back to Nevada with Karen, forget about the whole stupid thing, or …

“Yeah, I do,” he said.

“I think we’ve taken a lot of shit from these people and it’s time to give some back,” Karen said.

Chuck nodded.

Culver grinned.

“At the end of the day,” Candy said, “I guess I just can’t accept being a partner with criminals.”

Everyone looked at Polly.

“I’ll ask St. Anthony,” she said, “to help us turn the tables on these … these … these dirty … penises.”

“She needs work,” Graham said to Neal.

“I know.”

But don’t we all.

At the offices of AAA Trucking and Hauling, Harold held the phone away from his mouth as he said, “Joey, you ain’t gonna believe who’s on the phone.”

Harold had developed a small tic under his left eye. It had started shortly after Carmine called to warn them that they’d better not be thinking about whacking Polly Paget, had gotten a little worse after the news that Jack was on his way to that big fish fry in the sky, and was now quivering away with every fresh turn and dip on the roller-coaster ride that was life with Joey Foglio.

“I dunno,” Joey answered, looking like none of this even bothered him. “Who?”

“Jack’s wife. Uhhh, widow.”

Joey smiled and held up his hands as an “I told you so” gesture and boasted, “See? What did I tell you? Jack ain’t even cold and his old lady is scrambling to make a deal. I hope the bitch don’t think it’s going to be easy. This should be funny—put it on speaker.”

This was his legitimate business number, so it didn’t matter as long as he discussed legitimate business.

“Hello, Mrs. Landis,” Joey said. “Sorry to hear about Jack. So young, so vital.”

So stupid.

“Mr. Foglio?” Candy asked in a tone that gave credence to her nickname, Canned-Ice.

“The
g
is silent,” Joey corrected her.

“I see,” Candice said. “Well, however you pronounce your name, I’m just calling to let you know that you’re fired. I’m canceling all contracts as of today. Please be so kind as to have all your equipment off of Candyland within the next forty-eight hours. Thank you.”

That wiped the smile off Joey’s face. He had an audience to play for, so he replaced the smile with a smirk and said, “You can’t just cancel contracts, Mrs. Landis. I’d have to sue you.”

“While I can picture you in a courtroom, Mr. Foglio,” Candy answered, “it’s easier to imagine you in handcuffs.”

Say what?

“Are you threatening me?” Joey asked. He couldn’t believe it. This cracker twat was threatening to drop a dime on him!

“I’m giving you a break,” Candy answered. “I’m not going to press charges against you for fraud, theft, extortion, and blackmail, but I do want you out of my hair. It’s my final offer, Mr. Foglio. I suggest you accept it.”

“Oh, is that what you suggest, you—”

“Careful, Joey,” Harold warned. Joey’s face was the color of an overripe tomato and his own eye was quivering like crazy.

“Shut up,” Joey answered. “Hey, lady! You don’t know who you’re messing with!”

“Joey …” Harold moaned.

“I know precisely with whom I am messing,” Candy answered, “and I don’t care. Forty-eight hours, Mr. Beans.”

The loud hum of the dial tone filled the room as she hung up.

“You killed Jack, you know!” Joey screamed. “Murdered your own husband like you stuck a knife in his back, you witch! Forty-eight hours! I’ll give you forty-eight hours hanging upside down on a meat hook, you tight-ass Texas—”

“Joey, she hung up,” Harold said.

“Goddamn it!” Joey yelled. He slammed his fist on his desk.

“This is troublesome,” Peter Hathaway said.

He had come to San Antonio for Jack’s funeral and to make new arrangements with Joey Foglio. Now Candy’s unexpected fortitude seemed to threaten those arrangements. And without the rake-off money coming in from Foglio, he’d be nothing more than Marc Merolla’s beard for the rest of his pathetic life.

Something had to be done.

“Something has to be done,” Hathaway said.

Harold warned, “Joey, we can’t be involved in any—” . “You got any suggestions?” Joey asked Hathaway.

“Joey …” Harold moaned.

“Yes,” Hathaway answered. “Actually, I do.”

Joey smiled at Harold and said, “Actually, he does.”

“I have an old friend,” Hathaway said, “who handles just this sort of thing.”

Harold thought his eye might just rattle out of his head.

Joe Graham held the phone away from his ear as Carmine Bascaglia yelled dire threats about killing him, Neal Carey, Polly Paget, Candy Landis, all of their families, friends, and pets.

Then Graham said, “You’re not going to do shit, Mr. Bascaglia. Let me tell you why.”

After he told him, Carmine Bascaglia swept all the paper off his desk, smashed the window with his chair, and had his boys go fetch Overtime.

Overtime left Bascaglia’s office a happy man.

Work found for work lost, he thought. Fair enough. One last hit and a long retirement overseas.

There was a message for him when he got back to his room. He dialed the San Antonio number and was surprised to hear the voice from the past.