“If you say so.”
“Crystal’s a dancer and a cake popper. You know, bachelor parties, birthdays, conventions. A real piece of talent. Tells me she gets so turned on to an audience when she works that she actually comes.”
“An act you can book with pride.”
Pete sank into his swivel chair, picked up one of the plastic puzzles he liked to fool with when talking on the phone. “You got a world of nerve, I’ll give you that. Went AWOL on me in the middle of a tour, attacked my son when he came to straighten things out and nearly jeopardized his ability to have children, and yet you can blow in here without an appointment and crack wise about a girl who’s got twice your sex appeal. You do have a strong supply of nerve, I surely will stipulate to that.”
“Thanks, Pete, even though you didn’t intend a compliment.” She kept her eyes off his, tore dead skin from her lower lip. “I was hoping we could stay off the past and concentrate on business. I don’t want to waste your valuable time.”
She placed the round package she’d brought atop his IN basket.
“So what’s this, a bomb?”
“You could say that.”
Dolly came in with mugs on a tray and from her expression, she’d put rat poison in one of them. She threw down some packets of nondairy whitener and said, “You’ve got a three o’clock with that new candy salesman.”
“The one who wanted me to put granola health bars into all my drive-ins? Fuck him. He can wait.”
Outside, Dolly slammed drawers and spun the dial on her radio.
Sparn held the package to his ear. “Anyway, it’s not ticking.” Tinny thumps when he shook it.
“Take a look inside, Pete. Something pretty.”
He cut the twine with scissors, separated petals of brown paper, lifted out a rusted coffee can. “You sure this won’t go off in my face?”
“Promise.”
Slowly, he prized off the lid; inside was a nest of glinting shellfish, antique watches all of gold. He showed her his poker face, bent over the desk blotter to study a diamond chip monogram, a carved hunting scene, ruby numerals and enameled hands.
“Lovely. People had more time for time in the old days.” Sparn pulled a whiskey bottle out of a bottom drawer. “I like my coffee with a stick in it. Join me?”
Tildy shook her head and pushed the words out. “I want to fence them, Pete. Do you know anybody?”
He smiled lewdly at her and stroked his necktie. “Where’d you get them?”
“Let’s say they were a gift from a friend, an old man who thinks he has a crush on me.”
“Hell of a gift, he must dream about you every night. Just how old is this old fool?”
“I don’t know. In his seventies I suppose.”
Sparn sipped from the bottle before pouring a shot into his mug. “You got some strange birds down there in Gibtown, no doubt about it. Whole town’s kinky when you come right down to it, but I guess you’ve gotten used to that by now. Some strange birds, though…. Just recently I was reading about this ole boy, Les Clines, did for himself right there in the hoosegow. Heard about it?”
“I seem to remember something.”
“Yeah, that Lester was quite an item. He ran with the carnies for years, but thieving was always his first profession. Had his own mob for a time, the fox, and did real well according to some of the old timers. There was a big beast of a roustabout named Thunder who supplied the muscle, and the Diropolous brothers had the finesse. They were safecracking Siamese twins and real artists. Never once blew a box open, so it’s told. But Clines, he was the brains of the operation and picked all the marks. No better place to read people than at the fairgrounds, but I don’t have to tell you that, do I? See, he used to work one of those guess-your-age-and-occupation gimmicks and he’d find out all sorts of interesting things about the town doctor and the local lawyer and so on. Les was scrupulous. He kept all his info in a card file and then they’d hit these people on getaway night, just as quiet as a summer breeze. This was years ago but … Am I boring you?”
Tildy felt a rubber ball bouncing in her stomach. “Not at all, Pete. The taller the tale, the better I like it.”
Sparn poured himself another shot. “To departed friends and colleagues,” knocking it back in one go. “Funny thing about all this … Well, must have been three, four years ago I heard that Thunder passed. Working on his car when it slipped off the jack and crushed him. Now the Diropolous brothers, they were down in Sarasota. Worked in a supermarket. One was a cashier and the other one bagged the groceries. I’m on the phone with a client of mine down there and he happens to mention in passing how both of them drowned in the bathtub. Probably fighting over the soap or something. Real sad. Now here’s old Lester with his name in the paper, he’s checked himself out, and that’s all four. Kind of ties it up with ribbon, if you see what I mean.”
“I’m fascinated, Pete, but I’m also on a schedule. So …”
“I know, I know. I’m really an old cornball, yammering away about those old guys. But, man, they used to tell some stories. Late-night stories when you’d have that glow on, just a round or two short of toppling off the barstool. They’d talk about all the yummies Lester was supposed to have put in the ground and how one day we’d have to put our heads together and go looking for them. Saw in the paper where they found a block of ice at his place turned out to be Mrs. Clines. Wonder what else they might have dug up around there.”
“If it was anything interesting,” Tildy said with a kind of paralyzed composure, “they’ve certainly been quiet about it.” Her mouth was very dry, but she wouldn’t touch that coffee. “But those watches, beautiful as they are, I need to turn them over. You can help me if you want to. Will you help me or not?”
“Sure, kid. I can call around, talk to some guys. I’m willing to forgive and forget so long as everything’s on the table. I have this thing about secrets, it’s almost like an allergy with me.”
“I’m not keeping any. Guy’s a little weird for me, I need ready cash, you’re a man who can do favors. Pretty basic. No secrets.”
“I’m so glad. Help is much easier to give when I feel comfortable…. And about that friend of yours. Think he might be good for some more gifts anytime soon?”
“Possibly.” Tildy looked at her wrist where there was no watch and got up. She had to get out of here right away, before Sparn brought out the thumb screws. “Possibly.”
“Let’s stay in touch then, kid. If you’ve got a problem, any kind of problem, I’m always ready to talk.”
She trembled in the elevator and stumbled in the lobby. Back to the heat in the street, where she felt stupid and girlish. This exploratory trip, contacting Sparn at all, had been a mistake — that was obvious as a neon sign. But it didn’t have to be an enormous mistake, only a modest one. Despite his lumbering innuendo, Sparn had nothing conclusive to go on, no way to make the connections definite. Still, he’d laid out those connections so readily that he must have been working from a script formulated in advance. Which meant what? Surely nothing good. Keen temptation notwithstanding, it was never wise to underestimate Sparn, particularly where money was involved. Maybe he’d even sent someone to follow her?
Driving home through thickening darkness, all Tildy saw were dim and scabby faces staring back at her from stoops and alleyways, the circuit bums who flocked to Jacksonville each year to wait out cold weather up north, men with corroded vision and the cowering instincts of dogs systematically abused. Tildy sat feebly in her car as shadows deepened, filled with the realization that she was as defenseless as they were. The more she told herself to stop thinking about probabilities, the more relentlessly her mind turned and turned on the knot of her troubles, making the same progress as a canvas drill bit. Facts were facts. Sparn had her in his crosshairs, Karl was a refugee in fantasyland, there was a trunkload of secret wampum to take care of, and everything teetered over her head. Tildy had the frantic wish of someone who had just lost fingers in an industrial accident: If I could only go back in time; back to before.