“If this is a social call …”
“Hey, do yourself a favor, Johnny. Put on your pants and get out of here. She won’t be turning any more tricks tonight.”
Christo bore down on him, looking from side to side for a heavy object. “I think I would like to drop you out the window.”
“Stay out of my way, Johnny.”
They were inches apart and breathing on one another, but Tildy interposed herself, pressing a shoulder into Christo’s chest and pushing him back.
“Butt out. I can cope with this flunky.”
“Hey, watch that talk.”
Pulling at the brim of her cap, “Don’t play like you came on your own. What does Pete want from me?”
“An apology to start. When you jumped the team like that it really hurt his feelings. We looked after you and we gave you whatever you wanted. Didn’t I always let you bat leadoff? And then you go AWOL in the middle of the season. The ingratitude really got under Dad’s skin. He’s just that kind of guy. Dad believes in a kind of basic decency and when it’s flouted he gets very upset. That kind of stress isn’t good for a man his age, you follow me?”
“I’ll write him a letter.”
“Okay. You had your screen time, asshole. Now beat it.” Christo had edged back within striking distance.
“I said I’d handle it. It’s my problem.”
“And a letter just won’t cover it. Not nearly.” Vinnie stroked his sideburns, glowered. “It gets into a legal and moral area. Dad sees the idea of the contract as very crucial to our society. It’s not just a piece of paper, it’s a symbol of something much bigger, a complex system of cooperation and mutual trust. When you break a contract with Dad it’s kind of like spitting in church, you know what I mean? No, I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back to Florida and work this out with him face to face.”
“This is a joke, right? Are you really going to these lengths because Pete couldn’t turn out one of his girls as a shortstop?”
“I think I’ve explained it.”
“Not at all. You can start by explaining how you tracked me down.”
When he smirked, Vinnie’s eyes became little slashes in his sandpaper face. “No big miracle really. A pretty short order once I talked to your husband. A real good old boy, by the way. A great sport. We sat around and had a few and he let slip you were up here. In another little while I was able to make him see it would be to everyone’s advantage to be a little more specific. Then I caught the first plane out. Nice. I got prime rib and a movie.”
“You knocked him around. You leaned on him, didn’t you, fuck-face.” Tildy hurled a glass ashtray; it whistled past Vinnie’s ear and exploded against the wall.
Vinnie swept ashes from his lapel and popped his lips. “I hoped things wouldn’t develop this way. I hoped you’d come with me voluntarily.” He slipped one hand inside the trench coat and came out with a snubnosed.45.
“Lovely.” Christo subsided onto the bed and took a cigarette from behind his ear. “I used to have one just like it. Got it by selling a hundred and twelve tins of White Clover Salve.”
“Go fry your head, Johnny.” Though he’d practiced all his moves in front of a mirror, Vinnie was close to wetting himself.
“You don’t remember White Clover Salve? Used to advertise on the back page of the comic books. They sent you a consignment and depending on how much you could unload you’d get an archery set or a pair of binoculars or a model airplane or a cheezy little tin bank that was supposed to be like a miniature safe with this plastic combination dial—”
“Shut up! You shut up.” Vinnie hopped from one foot to the other, gesticulated meaninglessly with the barrel of the gun. “Come on, Soileau, shake it. We got a plane to catch at LaGuardia in two hours.”
“Vinnie, this is really too ridiculous. And I’m not getting on any plane with you.”
“Don’t push me.” Vinnie thumbed back the hammer and the three of them played eyeball billiards.
“Okay, you win,” Tildy finally said.
“Wait a minute.”
But she scuttled to the bed and held Christo down. “I’d better do it. He’s more afraid of his father than anything else.”
“Who the fuck is his father?”
“Enough!” Vinnie released the hammer, circled around to the door. A votary of private-eye novels, there was a deep invigoration for him in bringing the timeworn gestures to life. The gun felt warm and comforting in his hand, like a baby animal. He could almost hear background music, bongos and walking bass: Vinnie’s Theme. “Hurry it up.”
“Sure, Vinnie. I’ll just put on some makeup and get my stuff together, okay?” She backed toward the bathroom, her movements slow and easy, her smile placating, as if dealing with a maniac bent on swallowing lye. “Don’t get all worked up now. I’ll just be in the bathroom getting ready.”
“You got five minutes.” Maintaining pistol position, Vinnie took out one of his miniature cigars, but didn’t have enough hands to light it with. “You, Johnny, you lay back easy on that bed and don’t try and be a hero. You’ll just end up making a mess on the floor.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell what I’ll do, even for me.” Christo plucked thoughtfully at his lower lip. “I been in and out of the psycho ward pretty near all my life, Vinnie. I think that’s something you ought to know right at this moment. I’ve been declared a SCUT three or four different times. Schizophrenic, Chronic, Undifferentiated Type. That’s how they label the real savages, Vinnie, the ones even drugs can’t touch. You know I once bit an orderly’s nose clean off his face, and after that they used to cut cards to see who had to bring me my meals. So you can’t tell. You can’t ever tell what I might do.”
There was hissing and knocking from the pipes as Tildy opened the taps full.
The little cigar jigged at the corner of Vinnie’s mouth. “You’re all noise, Johnny. You don’t worry me.”
“How many feet from the end of the bed to where you’re standing? Eight, ten maybe? I could be on you in one jump.”
“You want your ass in a sling?”
“You’re losing it, hotshot. Little by little you’re losing it.”
“One more word.” Vinnie snapped into firing position, both hands on the pistol grip and arms stiffened. “I don’t need any more reasons to blow you right through the wall.”
Tildy materialized from the bathroom trailing steam. Tightly, down behind her leg, she held the bronze canister of her father’s ashes, the last thing wedged into the suitcase back in Gibsonton on the chance she might find a becoming place to scatter them somewhere along the way.
“Vinnie, should I wear this beige skirt or something more formal?”
He turned to face her and, with the quick release that had started countless double plays, sidearming across her body, she threw the canister at a crucial point between his navel and his kneecaps and hit it dead on. Clutching his groin, Vinnie collapsed like a marionette and the gun skittered free. Christo sprang from the bed, scooped up the weapon and drove his heel into Vinnie’s liver.
“A great throw,” he said. “An honest-to-God, Hall-of-Fame throw.”
“Been wanting to do that for two years. I only wish I’d had something heavier, like a thirty-six-ounce bat.”
“You want me to kill him?” Christo spun the cylinder, stepped back. “Christ. It’s not even loaded. You shmuck, I ought to break this thing down and make you eat it piece by piece.”
Vinnie sucked air, unable even to whimper.
“Let’s just tie him up and get out of here.”
“I’m with you. Tear that bedsheet into strips and soak them in water so they’ll hold good and tight.”