She was looking right at him again, those brown eyes patient, waiting.
“They come out of Raiford, quite a few of them, they think they’re pretty tough guys. After all, they made it. Or they learn how to survive as snakes. Never confront a problem, someone giving you a hard time, if you can stick him in the back. Which I think is Teddy’s classification. He’s the kind of guy, he’ll do time, never lay the blame on himself for being there. Or any trouble he was in, it was always somebody else’s fault. The guy who stuck the gun in his ear and put the cuffs on him.”
She said, “And you were the arresting officer.”
“The Nemo Hotel in South Beach, a room on the third floor. I pulled him out of bed-” Vincent paused. “I almost threw him out the window. Teddy raped a seventy-year-old woman. Beat her up, she was in the hospital I think nine weeks.” He saw Nancy Donovan staring at him in silence, into his eyes. “You look at him you think he’s harmless. Kind of guy, you can see him riding a three-wheel bike selling ice cream. But he’s nasty and I don’t think he’s been rehabilitated. Not after two falls. Sooner or later he’s gonna try for three.”
She said, “How do you know?”
And Vincent said, “It’s the way it is.”
They stared at one another across the marble table and he felt she was going to ask him about himself, something about his personal life. But after a moment she looked at the note again. “He’s staying at the DuPont Plaza.” Her eyes raised. “That’s a pretty expensive hotel. If he just got out of prison…”
Vincent was nodding.
She said, “Wait,” and looked at the note again. “He put down a cash deposit for the car.”
“So he’s got money,” Vincent said, “but hasn’t had time to earn any, at a job.”
She was giving him a funny look. It surprised him because it was so intent. Wanting to ask a question but not wanting to. Finally she said, “This is getting close to home.”
He didn’t know what she meant.
“Are we coming to my husband now? I’ve been trying to figure out how he could be involved with Teddy.”
Vincent had to smile. “No, no-this has nothing to do with your husband.”
She said, “Are you sure?”
He would remember that. Are you sure? And the look in her eyes. “No-I came to see him about something else.”
She said, “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
He would keep that one, too. A dry offhand remark, not trying to be funny. He said, “Is your husband around?”
She hesitated now. “I’m afraid not.”
Vincent didn’t believe her. “All I want to do is ask him something. He hires a girl as a hostess, what exactly does that mean?”
“A hostess… This is a friend of yours?”
“Her name’s Iris Ruiz. She’s twenty years old,” Vincent said, “she’s been out of the country once, spent two weeks in Miami and thinks she knows everything.”
“But basically she’s a decent girl,” Nancy Donovan said, “and you don’t want to see her get into something she can’t handle.”
Vincent said, “Let’s just say a young, very pretty girl who has her heart set on going to the States, but isn’t really experienced enough-”
“Wait. I thought she was offered a job here.”
“No, Atlantic City. Spade’s Boardwalk.”
“Oh, she’s something special.”
“Ask her, she’ll tell you,” Vincent said. “She’s not going to New York and live with her cousins and she knows she’s not going with me, if I ever go back to Miami Beach”-he saw the lady’s eyebrows raise at that-“because I won’t take her. You have to understand, there’s nothing between us. So, she’s going to Atlantic City.”
“Out of spite.”
“Out of dying to dress up and be a hostess. What I’d like to know, is if a hostess does what I think she does.”
“Tell you the truth,” Nancy Donovan said, “I’m not sure myself what a hostess is. Unless you’re using the term loosely.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“We have hosts, all of them men who know the business inside and out. Their job is to bring in the elite customers, the high rollers, and take care of them, keep them happy. Arrange transportation, tickets for shows, introduce them to celebrities, entertainers, maybe throw a cocktail party… Now there are girls at the parties you might consider hostesses, some who work at the hotel. They’re more decorative than anything else. They mingle, smile a lot.”
“If one of the special customers,” Vincent said, “the high roller, invites the girl up to his room, then what?”
“You mean his suite. Well, she can always say no.”
“And keep her job?”
Nancy Donovan hesitated. “Do you know anything about casino gambling?”
“The first week I was here,” Vincent said, “I lost sixty dollars playing the slots.”
“Well, when you’re willing to play with five thousand or more the hotel will comp you for just about anything you want. Your room, your food, your drinks are all complimentary, as long as you gamble. You can win, everything is still on the house. We want you to keep coming back. Because if you do, in the long run we’ll take about twenty percent of whatever your line of credit is, or the amount you deposit with us.”
“So the hostess,” Vincent said, “is there for any crapshooter you want to keep happy.”
Nancy Donovan said, “You’re very serious about this, aren’t you? But whatever the girl does, it’s still her choice. No one forces her to dress up and smile and be charming. Some girls love it.”
“No one’s forcing her,” Vincent said, “but to me, you know what it is? Take a girl like Iris, born in Mayaguez in a barrio? Dress her up, dazzle her with all that glitzy bullshit? It’s entrapment, the same thing, and entrapment’s against the law.”
Nancy shrugged. “What can I say? Her choices may be limited, but it’s still a choice. Unless there’s something you’d like me to do, speak to my husband.”
“No, you’re right,” Vincent said, “it’s up to her. She’s like a little kid, but I can’t force her.”
Nancy Donovan seemed relaxed, her gaze lingering on him, almost but not quite amused. “Teddy and now Iris,” she said. “You keep pretty busy, don’t you?”
“I’m not even working,” Vincent said. “I mean I’m not supposed to be. I’m on a medical leave.”
Her gaze moved to his hand on the curved end of the cane. “What happened to you?”
“I got shot.”
She said, “You did? Where?”
“In Miami Beach,” Vincent said, and saw a glow in those brown eyes, the lady of the house, Mrs. Donovan, looking at him the same way he was looking at her.
She said, “And what happened to the man who shot you?”
Nancy sat on the patio deck, in the glow of a citronella candle. She watched Tommy swimming lengths of the illuminated pool, his flesh shining in the pale green oval. She could hear his wet breathing, his labored slapping strokes. Beyond the pool and the amber insect lights in the garden, beyond the hedge of hibiscus and the row of palm trees and the chainlink fence, the beach stretched flat to the Atlantic and the Atlantic reached into the night. She could hear her husband but not the ocean.
She watched him rise out of the pool, naked, lumber over to the umbrella table to his towel and can of beer. She would cast him as a politician, or a New York City judge, on the take. His favorite line, looking over his domain: “Who would’ve ever thought a Mick from Columbus Avenue would someday own a layout like this?” At either of the hotels he might recite the line looking over the casino floor. She had the feeling he couldn’t believe it himself, that it all had to do with luck.
What he did believe, with his jock attitude, he could swim every evening, jog a mile now and then and drink all the beer he wanted, it was okay, and nip at stronger stuff. Tommy would say, “Look at Paul Newman, he drinks beer all the time.” He would say, “I might not look it but I’m in shape, guy my age,” and slap his belly with both hands. “Go on, hit me as hard as you can,” arms extended, offering himself. “Sock it to me.” Tommy was easy to cast. Vincent Mora…