"Maybe because he's still in love with Dakota, who's about to sleep with a hood who could qualify as a hemorrhoid substitute. Some life you people lead."
"It's a living," Duffy said, and he went back to work.
Victoria moved out of the dining room into the living room, got a Coke out of the minibar, and slipped out onto the deck, passing Roger, who had curled up on the silk-covered sofa and was snoring. She sat next to Beano in one of the patio chairs and looked out at the moonlit ocean. A searchlight on the hotel roof was aimed out at the jagged rock outcroppings and lit the sharp foam-wet ridges. They glistened in spotlit beauty.
"Duffy's credit is approved," she finally said. "You didn't ask, but that went off just the way we planned… two hundred thousand."
"The casino manager told us," he said and he fell silent again.
"You didn't want Dakota to be the roper? Was it because you didn't want her with Tommy?" she said.
"It's not about Dakota. I was stupid. I knew she was a mack when I took up with her. I was just so damned lonely I made a mistake. It's over."
She wasn't sure what else to say to him. He was so unlike the Beano Bates of two days ago. The one who'd conned her in the Jersey restaurant and sold the pearl; the one she'd helped set up the moose pasture. This Beano Bates was sad and vulnerable, and she found herself drawn to him.
"Are you afraid of Tommy?" she finally asked.
There was a long moment while he sat absolutely still, not moving a muscle. Then he started to talk. His voice was very soft, almost blown away by the tropical wind.
"I don't know why," he started, "but something happened to me the night Joe beat me with that club. I lost my edge, my mental toughness. I walk around and I think I'm the same, but I'm not. At first, I thought I was afraid of Joe and Tommy, but now I think that's not it. I'm not afraid Tommy will hurt me… but that, somehow, I won't be able to square things for Carol." He never looked at her. His handsome profile was lit by the distant moon and the kick from the hotel lighting.
"All she would ask is that we try," Victoria said.
"No, she wouldn't ask that, not Carol, not the nurse. She'd say, 'Go home, Beano. Don't do this. It's not worth it.'" He hesitated, then went on, "All my life I've been alone. Even with my parents I was alone because we never talked about what we were feeling. For a sharper, that can never be part of it. You're taught to act a role and never reveal anything. You suck it up, play the game, never show weakness. Only suckers show weakness. But I am weak. I'm weak in my center and I've done it to myself. There's an old Gypsy saying: 'If you don't believe in your con, the mark won't believe it either.' I've believed in too many cons. I've passed myself off as so many people, I don't know who I am anymore. I've traded myself away, with tiny pieces of bullshit. The only one I could ever talk to about it was Carol. Carol knew. She was raised by her parents with the same values I was raised with, but she rejected them. We talked about it when we were children. Later, when I was in prison, she told me, 'What you steal won't nourish you. In order to be nourished you need to care about what you're doing.' I used to think I could take pride in running a great hustle… but there was never anything left behind. I had no legacy, nothing to pass on to my children. No children to pass it on to, anyway. Everything was bullshit. So, she was right. Now I'm only left with revenge. Revenge is a pitiful emotion, and it's leaking out of me faster than I can pour the hate back in. So I'm here wondering whether I can even pull this off. I keep thinking, 'What the hell am I doing? How is this going to help her? Am I just trading another piece of myself away, devaluing what's left?' I think that's what's been scaring me."
When he finally fell silent, she didn't know what to say. They were so different, and yet exactly the same. "Carol lied to me to save your life…"
He turned and looked at her.
"… She never witnessed that beating. She was trying to get Joe Rina convicted. She loved you, Beano… so much she risked and gave her life to save you. She used me, but you know something, that's all right because it's brought me to this place. You know what I think…?"
"No."
"Carol has brought us here. She put us together and she expects something from us. Maybe not revenge for her death… maybe it's not that at all. Maybe she's trying to teach us something. But I know this much, she's watching.
"I've spent five years in courtrooms prosecuting scum like Joe and Tommy Rina. For them, people have no value except as criminal end users. They can kill us, but Joe and Tommy Rina can't control us anymore, because they have nothing we want except them. Their usual tools of money, bribery, and intimidation won't work against us, and that's what gives us power. Carol wanted to protect you. She gave up her life trying. It's a legacy, Beano. You can't spend it or trade it, but it might nourish you with its memory."
There was a moment of silence, and then he reached out and took her hand and held it for a moment, before he got up and walked inside. It was far from her best closing argument, but she hoped she had reached him.
Tommy had taken a shower and had changed into a silk shirt that his brother Joe had brought back for him from China. Joe said the silk worms were specially cultivated and that the shirt had cost a fortune. He'd spent another thousand in "ditch Calliope" money, telling her he had business in the casino office. He had left her standing at the roulette table with a handful of hundreds, chewing on a nail, wondering whether to bet red or black… a decision that promised to consume all of her thoughts for hours.
When Dakota walked into the Flamingo Bar again, Tommy couldn't believe his good fortune. She moved right to him and smiled. "You changed," she said, looking at his green silk shirt and taking his hand.
"No, I haven't," he said, missing the point badly. "I'm the same guy I was this afternoon."
"I can hardly wait to see what a High-roller floor looks like," she said, still holding his hand.
Tommy led her to the elevator and put in his key. They went up to the tenth floor, exited the elevator, and went past Suite 10-B, where Duffy was at that moment doctoring the dice, then moved on to the end of the hall to a very small but beautiful gambling area. The Stickmen and Croupiers were all in tuxedos; the crap tables were hand carved and imported from European casinos. There were only half-a-dozen players, mostly Arabs and Asians. Crystal chandeliers hung low over the tables. The effect was startling.
"You really own this place?" she said, still holding his hand.
"Ask anybody. Ask him," Tommy said, pointing to the Host of the room, and Tommy led Dakota to the tuxedoed man. "Go on, ask him."
"He says he owns this hotel," she said.
"If Mr. Rina says it, then you better believe it," the Host replied.
"That makes me the luckiest girl on the island." She sat on the bar chair, letting the slit on her dress fall open. Her long legs flashed in the incandescent chandelier light.
"Buy ya a drink?" Tommy said, hoping to get her blitzed.
"Only if you'll join me. Scotch straight," she said, smiling.
The challenge was drawn, and Tommy ordered two double Scotch shooters, falling into her trap. One thing Dakota Bates could do was drink. In fact, she could out-drink every man she'd ever met. It came in very handy in her profession. She would drink them under the table, romp them, roll them, and be gone with their money and credit cards before sun-up.
When the double Scotch shooters arrived, she teased… "I hope you wouldn't take advantage of a poor girl?" She smiled as they clicked glasses.
Tommy grinned back. He intended to take advantage, all right. First, he was going to get this luscious creature to smoke his pink cigar. Then he was gonna screw her blind.
Trouble was, she matched him drink for drink, and by one-thirty he could barely stand. "Enough drinking," Tommy slurred, "let's fuck." He spewed a spit-spray of Scotch mist and bad breath into her ear, then pulled back and leered at her through alcohol-dimmed eyes.