"Mothers really can screw you up, can't they, Novack?" Maggie said, hopping toward him. "But you have to acknowledge that, forgive your past, and move on. Take responsibility for your own actions."
Henry Novack looked past Maggie to Saint Just. "Women. Always got an answer, don't they?" He turned back to Maggie. "You want my help or not?"
"Not," Maggie said, turning the walker and heading back to the steps. "Now go away."
"Come on, come on. I'm on Disability. I could use the extra bucks. Under the table, like, you know? Okay, here's the thing. I'll go out hunting tomorrow, give you something for free. I give you something, prove myself, and I'm on the payroll. Is it a deal?"
"Will you go away if I say yes?" Maggie asked as Saint Just coughed into his hand to hide his amusement. They were like children, squabbling. He should probably give one a carton of cigarettes, and the other a joint of beef to gnaw on, before things turned nasty.
"With some money, you know, I could go into one of those treatment centers? One of those fat farms? I'm forty-two. I have a life to live, somewhere inside me. Where the thin person lives. You took my machine, cost me my jackpot, cost me my chance. You killed me, Maggie Kelly. Now you have to save me."
"Oh, for crying out loud. Just what I need, another guilt trip. Alex?" Maggie bleated. "Help me."
Saint Just got to his feet. "You make a convincing argument, Mr. Novack," he told him. "Now, how can we use you, hmm? I know. Tomorrow, why don't you take yourself over to the bowling alley, listen to people talking, and then come back, tell us what they said? I agree, Maggie and I both would be too obvious. And, although it would be impossible to say that you, Mr. Novack, would blend into any crowd, I do think you wouldn't arouse any suspicions, now would you?"
"Not if he hangs out at the snack bar," Maggie grumbled, balancing rather precariously on her good foot. "Can we go upstairs now? I think I've just about had enough for one day."
"When do I meet you?" Novack asked, pushing away from the streetlamp, his enormous face shiny with sweat in the December chill. "Not the Music Pier, but maybe here? Same time, same place, tomorrow night?"
"Yes, that would be fine. But please bring your cart. You don't look well, Mr. Novack."
"I'll look a lot better when the thin guy gets out," he said sincerely.
And then Henry Novack shuffled off down the street, his massive corduroy slacks swush-swush-ing together audibly between his thighs, his shape in the fading light reminiscent of one of the balloon characters Sterling had so admired in the recent Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan.
"The entire world has problems, Maggie," Saint Just told her as she leaned against him while he folded the walker. "And we all deal with them in our own way. Mr. Novack eats."
"And I smoke. Someone else crawls into a bottle, or hits things, or shops for fancy cars they can't afford. I get it, Alex, you don't have to hammer the nail all the way in. I'll make it through this without the damn nicotine, I promise. He's really something, isn't he?"
Saint Just lifted her up into his arms. "You're going to give him money, aren't you, sweetings? You've always been planning to give him money."
"I took his machine, Alex. You can say I didn't. The people at the casino can say I didn't. But I did. I saw him look at it, and I took it. With malice of forethought, you could say."
"Well, at least now we can pretend that he's earned whatever largesse with which you propose to shower him, hmm?"
"Works for me," Maggie told him, snuggling close. "At least something's working out ..."
Chapter Fifteen
Socks ran out into the street to assist Maggie from the rental car, helping her hop to the curb and then stepping away from her, bowing to her three times, his arms stretched out in front of him. "All hail, all hail!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Socks?" Maggie asked as Sterling brought her the walker from the backseat.
"I'm bowing to brilliance, of course. Maggie Kelly won the big jackpot. Three-point-something mill –ion dollars. Quick, rub my arm. Give me some of your luck."
"You're an idiot," Maggie said, pushing past him. "You have no idea how much trouble that jackpot has caused me." But he took hold of her arm, holding her back.
"I think I do, Maggie. You don't want to go in there. Not until I clean out the place."
"Clean it out of what?" Maggie asked him, eyeing the doorway to the condo building with some trepidation. "And don't tell me someone else mailed me a rat. That joke isn't funny anymore."
Socks looked to his left and right, as if expecting attack from some unknown quarter. "No. Not rats. Leeches."
Maggie grimaced, feeling sick. "That's not funny, Socks. Rats aren't funny. Roaches aren't funny, either, but at least most of them are native New Yorkers and will outlive us all. But leeches aren't funny. Not even a little bit."
"I know. And these are human leeches. They started showing up here the minute the newspapers identified you as the big winner in A.C. I've been keeping them out, keeping them away. But it's cold, you know, and I felt sorry for a couple of them. Such sad stories, Maggie. Every one of them had a sad story, and every one of them thought I needed to hear it. I think they were practicing on me."
Maggie hopped backward, planning a hasty retreat. "You've got people in the lobby now, Socks? That isn't allowed. Damn it, Socks, it's not allowed." That last was, unfortunately, even to her own ears, a bit of a whine.
"Okay, okay, so give me a minute to get rid of them, all right? It's just the guy with the warts all over his chin and Mrs. O'Reilly. She wants a bus ticket to Las Vegas, to visit her grandson—plane fare, if you can see it in your heart to keep an old woman off the bus. Except I don't really think her name is O'Reilly, and I don't think she has a grandson. And I guess I don't have to tell you what the wart guy wants, huh? Money for wart removal. Hey I told you anyway! Sorry."
"Warts all over his—? Never mind, just get rid of him. And the grandma, too. Wait. I'm going to regret asking this—but why don't you think her name is O'Reilly?"
"Because she keeps saying begorra, and blessin's o' the Irish on ye, mate. With a Brooklyn accent you could slice salami with. You stay here, you and Sterling—hi ya, Sterlman—and I'll boost them out of there."
"Your first thought, and still a good one," Maggie said, balancing on the walker and longing to be upstairs, in her own condo, maybe with a hot cup of tea, begorra.
"I'll stand in front of you, Maggie," Sterling offered valiantly. "Block you from sight, and all of that."
"Thank you, Sterling. People are crazy. You know that, Sterling? People are just plain nuts. Do they really believe they can make up some sad story out here, on the street, and I'll reach in my pocket and throw money at them?"
"Saint Just said you're going to pay the man in the go-cart."
"Maybe. Maybe I'm going to pay the guy in the go-cart. But that's different, Sterling. At least he offered to work for the money. It's what people do, you know. They work. Most of them."
"I don't," Sterling said quietly, "and you and Saint Just are going to give me all of the money. That doesn't seem fair. I don't think I'll take it."
"Oh, jeez." Stupid, stupid! She should have seen that one coming. Maggie lowered her head, wishing she felt less harassed, wishing she felt more human, wishing herself out of the cast and her father out of trouble. Maybe then she could speak without putting her remaining good foot in her mouth. "No, Sterling, sweetheart, it isn't the same."