“Hey, Marcy, you calmed down yet?” Rufus asked, back to his drunk act.
“Fuck you,” she said.
“Sore head.” He turned to her companion. “So, Greek, any truth to the fact that you want to challenge me again?”
The Greek eyed him suspiciously. “What do you have in mind?”
“I hear you’re good at golf,” Rufus said, sipping his whiskey. “Someone said you were runner-up at the National Amateur Championship once. That true?”
“That’s right,” the Greek said.
“You still play?”
“Now and then.”
“What’s your handicap?”
“I don’t have one,” the Greek said.
“Except that lovely lady sitting beside you.”
“Fuck you,” Marcy said.
“Mine’s about ten,” Rufus went on. “Want to play?”
The Greek was still simmering from the losses he’d suffered at Rufus’s hands. If a gambler had anything in abundance, it was ego, and the Greek’s had taken a beating.
“For how much?” the Greek asked.
“Same as before,” Rufus said. “Half a million bucks, winner-take-all. I’ll even give you an edge, since I know you don’t trust me, and figure I’m going to cheat you.”
“What kind of edge?” the Greek asked suspiciously.
“On every hole, I’ll let you take three drives. You can pick which drive you want to use, and that will be your ball. Sound fair?”
Valentine couldn’t believe what Rufus was suggesting. He’d tried golf a couple of times, and knew it was a game in which you beat yourself. Giving a scratch golfer three drives a hole was the same as throwing the match.
“Do I get to pick the course?” the Greek asked.
“Sure,” Rufus said.
The Greek looked at Marcy, their eyes communicating silently. She was an attractive woman, save for the harshness her chosen lifestyle had produced.
“Go for it,” she said. “I’ll call my mother.”
“You sure she’ll lend it to you?” the Greek asked.
“Sure,” Marcy said. “She’s loaded.”
“You’re on,” the Greek said to Rufus. “When do you want to play?”
“How about crack of dawn, tomorrow?” Rufus said.
“Okay,” the Greek said.
They shook hands on it. Rufus pretended to notice Marcy’s cat for the first time. With his finger he pulled her handbag farther open. The cat cracked an eye, but did not stir.
“Nice cat,” Rufus said. “What’s its name?”
“Medusa,” Marcy said.
“Is she friendly?”
“No.”
“Just like her owner,” Rufus said.
“Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on,” Marcy hissed.
Rufus downed the rest of his whiskey, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. As if adding an exclamation mark to the picture, he belched into his hand. “I used to train house cats down on my ranch. They can do just about anything, once you teach them. You train this one, Marcy?”
“You’re drunk,” Marcy said. “Cats can’t be trained.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. I’ve owned cats my entire life.”
“I can train any cat. Including yours.”
“Train them to do what?”
“Circus tricks, real clever stuff.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Sure,” Marcy said. “I’ll bet you.”
Rufus went to the bar, returned with an unopened sixteen-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola. He dropped it on the table with a loud plunk! “Five thousand bucks says I can train Medusa to pick up that bottle, cross the room, and drop it on a table of your choice.”
Marcy did not hesitate. She turned to the Greek. “Put up the money,” she said.
The Greek pulled back in his chair. “But…”
“No buts, unless you don’t want to see mine anymore,” she said. “Put it up. There’s no way on God’s green earth that this broken-down cowboy is getting my cat to do that.” She looked at Rufus. “You’re not going to hurt her, are you?”
“I’ll handle your kitty with kid gloves,” Rufus said.
“Take the bet,” Marcy told the Greek.
“But…”
“Do it!”
The Greek put up the five thousand.
Rufus reached into his pockets and removed a pair of tan gloves. Slipping them on, he reached into Marcy’s handbag and removed the comatose kitty, putting her elastic body on the table. He grabbed the animal by the base of the tail and lifted her into the air. The cat opened its eyes and emitted a scream horrible enough to wake the dead.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!” Marcy screeched.
“I said I’d use kid gloves,” Rufus corrected her.
“These are kid gloves I’m wearing.”
“Do something!” Marcy told the Greek.
The Greek had crossed his arms in front of his chest, and seemed resigned to his fate. “Go ahead,” he told Rufus.
Holding Medusa by the base of the tail, Rufus lifted her clean into the air. The cat twisted its body and tried to scratch him, but couldn’t get through the gloves with its claws. In desperation, Medusa stuck its paws out, and attempted to latch onto the table. Rufus positioned her paws directly over the Coca-Cola bottle, and the cat grabbed the bottle by the cap and lifted it clean into the air. It was truly something to see: a drunk cowboy holding a screaming kitty holding a bottle of pop.
“Which table?” Rufus inquired.
“Make him stop!” Marcy cried.
“That one,” the Greek said, pointing across the room.
“God damn you!” Marcy exclaimed.
Rufus crossed the bar while holding the screaming cat at arm’s length. It was a great way to clear a path, and someone snapped a picture of him. Rufus came to the specified table and stopped. A handsome young guy was sitting there, chatting up a pretty young girl. Introducing himself, Rufus asked the guy to hold out his hands. The guy obliged him, and Rufus loosened his grip on Medusa’s tail. The cat dropped the bottle into the guy’s hands, then slipped out of Rufus’s grasp and ran away.
The guy handed the bottle to his girlfriend.
“Thanks, mister,” the guy said.
Rufus returned to the Greek’s table. Medusa had run to Marcy’s handbag and was shivering in fear. Marcy had turned her back on the Greek and acted like she was never going to speak to him again. The Greek wiped a crocodile-size tear from his eye.
“I win,” Rufus declared.
Part IV
Showdown
39
“You busy?” Gerry Valentine asked. Nurse Susan Gladwell lifted her eyes from the hospital report she was filling out. It was a few minutes past midnight, and she’d just come on her shift at the cancer ward of Atlantic City Medical Center, which was as quiet as a church.
“Yes, I am,” she said.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, you’re Gerry Valentine, Jack Donovan’s friend,” she replied, putting her pencil down. “We spoke yesterday about the poker scam you were investigating. I was going to look into the hospital records to see if anything was stolen from our medicine department while Jack was here. Which I actually did, believe it or not.” Reaching across the cluttered desk, she plucked a blue folder from a stack. “Here’s the report.”
Gerry was standing at the nurse’s station where Gladwell worked. He’d brought a cup of steaming hot coffee for himself, and one for her. He made no attempt to take the file. “Let me guess,” he said, “there was nothing stolen.”
She held the file motionless in the air. “That’s right. How did you know?”
“Because most hospitals don’t report theft of medicines to the police. I learned that from my wife. She’s a doctor.”