Stick (23 page)

“She said Norman Enterprises and I asked for Leo. She goes, who is this, please? I told her I had spoken to Leo about investing in his new one,
Scam,
and she goes, oh, well I'm the only one here right now and would I like to leave my name. Very cagey.”

“You tell her?”

“I hung up on her and called Florida First National.”

“You did?”

“It's true, they got an account there.”

“They move fast,” Stick said.

“I'm thinking,” Chucky said, “sign the subscription agreement, get it over to the Eden Roc . . .  they see my name they might make up an excuse . . .”

“They might.”

“But not if the money's already put in their account.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I deposit cash, the bank reports it to the IRS, but it doesn't affect me any.”

“I don't know anything about that,” Stick said.

They saw Barry coming in now, his arm around Aurora's shoulder, Kyle following them.

Chucky said, “Possessive son of a bitch. Selfish. Spoiled rotten . . .”

They watched Barry walk up to the bar and point a finger at Bobbi. “What's the last thing goes through a bug's mind—”

Bobbi's smile faded; she tried to get it back looking eager, interested.

“I tell you that one? . . .  I tell you about the Polack who think's Peter Pan's a wash basin in a cathouse? . . .  The difference between erotic and kinky? Erotic you use a feather, kinky you use the whole chicken?”

Stick said to Chucky, “But he sure has fun.”

Chucky said, “Jesus, get him outta here.” Then said, “Wait a minute. On the subscription agreement? . . .”

“Yeah?”

“What should I put where it says ‘Occupation'?”

“Put down Big Shooter,” Stick said and saw Chucky actually consider it and shrug. It always surprised Stick, what you could tell people and they believed. Chucky was leaning over the table on his arms. He seemed relieved, as though now everything was all right between them: a couple of friends talking.

“I got to get out.”

“I do too,” Stick said. He put his hands on the table to rise.

“I'm pushing it now,” Chucky said, confiding. “You can't stay in this ten years. Too many people, they start out they want a piece of you, then they want the whole thing.”

Stick said, “Well . . .”

“People you deal with, you don't sign anything in this business, a subscription agreement . . .”

“I got to go,” Stick said.

“You ask me if I did time? This's doing time, man. Same thing. You can't do what you want, you can't fucking
move.
Try and get some space—you know what I mean? To breathe in? You got to pay for it, buy people . . .  I don't get out now, shit . . .”

Stick said, “So get out.”

“They don't leave you alone. People like Nestor, Moke . . .  I started out, I was quick, man. Now it's like . . .  it's hard to explain. I'm still moving but it's like you cut off a snake's head, or a chicken, its body keeps moving, but its head doesn't know what the fuck's going on. It sees the body moving, flopping around, but it can't
feel
anything . . .  You see a choice?”

Stick didn't say anything. Looking at him, hearing him, his tone, maybe beginning to understand Chucky for the first time.

“I got no choice. I stay in I get eaten up or I get picked up. Same thing. I get blown away by some crazy fucker like Moke or I get arraigned, sooner or
later it'll happen, and they lock me up. You know how long I'd last? I wouldn't ever come up for trial. I wouldn't make it through—what is it, they can hold you like seventy-two hours? I wouldn't make it through the fucking
night.
They lock me up . . .  I'd find a way. Bring in the kind of cap, man, concealed on you that'll set you free. There're ways . . .”

“Well, you been lucky so far,” Stick said. “You must know what you're doing.”

“I been lucky, sure. You got to be lucky. But I been stoking the fire, too, man, all the time stoking my fire . . .  Well, it's burning out. I'm tired . . .”

Stick watched him straighten then, pushing back in his chair, his vacant gaze showing a faint gleam of hope.

“So I'm glad you came along,” Chucky said. “You might not know it, but you're helping me get out.”

Stick kept looking at him. He didn't know what to say. He didn't want to feel sorry for him. It wouldn't make sense to feel sorry for him . . .

He said, “I got to go.”

He couldn't understand why people who lived in a place worth a couple million would go someplace else to enjoy themselves. He drove Barry, Diane and Kyle to Leucadendra in the Rolls and brought them home again at eleven, an uneventful trip both ways.
When the Stams went inside Kyle walked out into darkness, to the seawall, and Stick followed.

She said, “So Chucky thinks
Scam
is for real. But what happens now?”

“What'd you tell me? Get 'em to believe they'd be a fool to pass it up?”

“You gave him a prospectus?”

“The old one, the one you showed me, but changed here and there.”

She looked puzzled. “And he believes the investment's only five thousand?”

“Little more than that.”

“How much more?”

“Seventy-two five.”

“Seventy-two
thousand
?”

“I had to make it look real.”

“My God, I'm helping you commit fraud!”

She was facing him, the lights of Miami behind her and he couldn't see her eyes, though in the tone of her voice there was something more than amazement.

“I thought, in the bar, you were talking about a few thousand, what he owes you.”

“Yeah . . .”

“I could see what Chucky was doing, looking for some kind of verification, trying to be sly about it . . .”

“That's right.”

“So I played along. What else was I going to do? You're sitting there in the middle.”

“How does the amount change anything?”

It stopped her. “I shouldn't have come to the table. I saw you with him, I should've known.”

“Sunday you wanted to help me.”

“I know I did, but it was different then, exciting. Chucky was the bad guy . . .”

“He still is,” Stick said. “He's so bad he'll never miss it.”

“That's not the point. You're trying to swindle a client of mine out of seventy-two thousand dollars and I'm helping you.”

“I appreciate it, too.”

“But I
can't.
He pays me to look after his money.”

“Well, he probably won't go for it anyway.”

“I'm going to have to talk to him about it,” Kyle said, “say
some
thing. Advise against it . . .”

“Why don't we just, for the fun of it,” Stick said, “see if it works. If he pays up and you still feel sorry for him—”

“It isn't that at all, it's fraud.”

“Okay, whatever the reason. If it bothers you too much I'll give it back. But let's see what happens.”

“You promise?”

“On my honor,” Stick said.

CHUCKY ARRIVED AT
Florida First National, corner of Biscayne Boulevard and Thirty-Sixth, a few minutes past one. Lionel, carrying the suitcase, followed him in and waited as Chucky looked from the teller windows to the bank executives at their desks in the fenced-off area. He wondered how they could work, being out in plain sight like that, people walking by outside looking at them.

“We don't want to give it to a teller,” Chucky said. “Won't have the right effect.”

Lionel didn't know what he was talking about or that he was about to witness one of Chucky's fantasies come to life. Chucky took the suitcase now and Lionel followed him over to the assistant manager's desk, which was by the big plate-glass window.

Chucky said, “I'm here to make a deposit.”

He snapped the suitcase open, turned it over as he raised it high, dumped banded packets of currency on the assistant manager's desk, all hundred-dollar bills, and gave him a big smile.

“Seventy-two thousand five hundred dollars, pay to the account of Norman Enterprises. We're in show business.”

The assistant manager said, “Oh, really?”

“He wasn't too surprised,” Chucky said to Lionel, crossing the Julia Tuttle on their way to the Eden Roc.

“We're in Miami,” Lionel said.

They went up to Suite 1503, Chucky with his signed subscription agreement in a plain white envelope, and knocked on the door. He waited and knocked again.

“She's still at lunch,” Chucky said. “Though to look at her you wouldn't think it would take long.”

They went down to the lounge and had a few, returned in an hour to knock on the door again and waited in silence.

“I'll slip it under the door,” Chucky said. “It might even be better if I do it that way.”

They stopped at the main desk just to make sure. The clerk went to look, came back and said it seemed the party checked out this morning. Chucky said, “Gone on a trip to the Apple, huh? But they kept the suite, didn't they? The production office?” The clerk said no, checked out and didn't leave a forwarding address.

Chucky said to Lionel, “I want to go home right now.”

He needed a secure atmosphere in which to think. Maybe scream, if he had to.

Avilanosa had some fun with Moke when he came to get his revolvers. He said, “Let the man take your pistols, huh? Why you do that?”

Moke would like to have gotten out without seeing Avilanosa today. See Nestor, pick up his guns and leave. But Nestor was resting, not to be disturbed—most likely in a deep nod—and his father-in-law was in charge of the house.

Moke said, “Come on, gimme 'em.”

“What, these pistols?” Avilanosa said, offering them, then raising them over his head as Moke reached to take them.

“Come on, don't fuck around.”

“Oh, listen to him, the
pistolero
,” Avilanosa said, “who lose his pistols. Let them be taken away from him. Here.”

Moke reached. Now, as Avilanosa raised the guns over his head, Moke shoved him hard. Avilanosa stumbled against the stone patio table, smiling, not appearing to be angry, playing with Moke. He said, “Here.” But now Moke wouldn't take them, so Avilanosa placed the revolvers on the stone table and stepped aside. He waited for Moke to pick them up and work the barrels into his waist. At that moment he stepped toward Moke, chopped him with a backhand
fist that was like a club, caught Moke across the face and sent him sprawling in the grass.

Moke came up with the nickel-plated Mag drawn and Avilanosa shook his head. He said, “You must not be feeling so good, you want to die. You should take some medicine, go to sleep.”

Moke lowered the revolver to his side.

Avilanosa said, “You have the truck again you always lose? Man, you lose your pistols and your truck, uh? Get in that truck and go see Chucky.”

“What for?”

“Scare him. Time to scare him so he don't forget to pay. You think you can scare him good?”

Moke walked away from Avilanosa, toward the door in the wooden gate that sealed off the driveway, Avilanosa's voice following him, pushing him: “Try see if you can scare him and not lose your pistols again . . .”

Barry told Stick that morning all four cars were ready for an oil change and lube; take them over to the Amoco station on 125th, he had a charge there. Stick said, “One at a time?” Seeing it as an all-day job.

Barry said, “No, you hook 'em end to end like a choo-choo, for Christ sake, of
course
one at a time. Get 'em gassed and washed, too.”

It sounded like make-work, which could take two hours a car, easy. While Barry and Kyle spent the
morning in his den shuffling through papers and doing figures. Stick began with the Lincoln, took it over, brought it back and they were still in there. He couldn't see a way to get Kyle alone. He called the bank around noon, gave his account number and said he wanted to verify his balance. The woman's voice said, exactly five hundred dollars and no cents.

He drove the Rolls over. They were busier now at the station and it took two and a half hours, round trip. He called the bank again, gave his number and said he'd like to verify his balance. A different woman's voice this time said, “Mr. Norman?”

“Mr. Stickley.”

“Yes, that balance, Mr. Stickley, is exactly . . .  let's see, seventy-three thousand dollars and no cents. Nice round figure.”

He said, “Jesus Christ.”

The woman said, “Pardon me?”

He had never had a feeling like this before in his life. He was worth at this moment seventy-three thousand dollars. He had thought up an idea with a little help, had talked to a guy for about a half hour selling him on the idea, and he was now worth seventy-three thousand dollars. The same thing they were doing in there in Barry's den, the same kind of thing, making money without working. It seemed the way to do it. He wanted to tell Kyle, but they were still at it.

He wanted to tell Cornell, somebody. But when he saw Cornell he thought better of it and tried to appear calm.

“Well, what're you up to today?”

“Cleaning silver.”

“What is this, clean-up, fix-up day?”

“Got to keep us busy, man.”

“Slave labor,” Stick said.

Cornell grinned at him. “That slave duty can wear you down, man. But you get into it, it's kinda fun. You know what I'm saying? Lose yourself. Be anything you want.”

“You do other . . .  different things like that?”

“Mostly the queen and the slave.”

“What's she the queen of?”

“Queen—I don't know exactly—queen of the afternoon with nothing to do. Queen of the Jelly Bellies. I never seen a lady wished so much she was a queen.”

“Well,” Stick said, “she looked like a pretty good one.”

What he thought of doing, go in the den and tell Barry he was quitting. Except he had to talk to Kyle first. He took the Cadillac over to the station, thought of the movie girl, Jane, as he waited and called the Eden Roc.

Gone.

He hung up with the feeling it had been close. That if the timing hadn't been perfect he'd still be
worth five hundred instead of seventy-three thousand. He said the number over and over again. He would like to sit down in a quiet, clean place without distractions, wrenches and tire irons hitting cement, and think about it. Prepare a speech. Hope that Kyle, later, would be in a realistic frame of mind. If she wasn't, deliver the speech: why it would be wrong . . .  morally wrong to give dope money back to a dealer so he could buy more dope, corrupt more people and not pay any income tax on it. When on the other hand he would use the money wisely. How? . . .  Christ, any way he wanted! Buy things. Buy a car. Buy things for Katy, clothes. Buy a truck, buy a business. Buy Wild Turkey instead of Early Times. There were wonderful ways to spend money that he and Frank had only begun to experience when their hundred days ended, abruptly.

Back and forth, the Stickley shuttle. He wanted to tell the Amoco guy with
Steve
on his shirt, but he didn't. It was nearly six by the time he got back with the Mercedes, the last one. Twenty-four hours since he'd pulled the deal of his life.

The Rolls was not in the garage.

He got out of the Mercedes, walked over to the edge of the grass. Barry was alone on the patio, sitting at the umbrella table with a drink and newspaper. Stick walked down there.

“All through.”

“That wasn't too bad, was it?”

“No, sir, not at all.” Why was it easier to say having seventy-three thousand dollars?

“I noticed the Rolls is gone.”

“I let Kyle have it.”

“Oh . . .” Could he ask? He had to. “Where'd she go?”

Barry looked up at him, frowning. “What?”

“I said, where'd she go?”

“That's what I thought you said. She went to see Mr. Gorman.”

“When?”

“What's the matter with you?”

“
When
?”

“Little while ago. What
is
this?”

“Did he call her or she call him?”

“He called.”

“And she left right away?”

“Yeah, soon after. The hell's wrong with you?”

Stick turned and ran.

Barry stood up and yelled at him. It didn't do any good. Stick was in the Mercedes now wheeling out of the drive.