“How many what?”
“How many people were in that car?”
“Two.”
“Both were sent to…hurt Dickie?”
“Both sent to kill Dickie.”
“He’d be dead if…”
“If I hadn’t stopped it, yes. It wasn’t my idea to involve you. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. She was very beautiful, but she did look well-past forty, and every year of it. Minus plastic surgery, a woman could not exist as a nightclub singer without the drinking and smoking and carousing, her own and of those around her, taking a toll.
Still, I found her very attractive. I liked the mix of worldliness and vulnerability, and let’s face it, she had a rack to die for, even if it was lost in the sweatshirt half of a purple running suit. Her long reddish-blonde hair was back in a big ponytail, which revealed some of the miles on the nice face, and the grooves in her neck.
“Listen,” she said, leaning in, “I said I’d help, when Dickie asked, and I did it with my eyes open. We’re in a tough business, Dickie and me. How much do you know about what’s going on right now in Haydee’s? And for that matter, Chicago?”
The restaurant was fairly full-the crowd looked local, including farmers, as we were past the drinking-crowd breakfast of the earlier morning. But I was still concerned about being overhead, though we’d kept it nicely hushed.
“This isn’t a come-on,” I said, “but if you want to talk, we could have some privacy in my room.”
She shrugged. “Let me get another coffee to go.”
She did, and I finished the breakfast.
My motel room had a little area with a round table and two chairs, probably designed for businessmen to work, and I sat her and her coffee there. I invited her to watch the television while I showered, and she declined. She said she preferred to sit and think.
I got out of the black clothing I’d done the killing in, showered and got the sweat and any stray blood or dried gore off me, shaved and generally became human again. I’d brought a fresh pair of black jeans and a light blue polo shirt in the bathroom with me, and I put them on, then padded out barefoot.
I sat across from her. “Sorry to make you wait. I had a long night. I probably ought to get some sleep pretty soon.”
She sat up straight. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can-”
“No! I’m fine with your company. I like your company. Anyway, I want to hear what you have to say.”
She managed a smile. “I may be out of line getting into any of this. Dickie should probably fill you in, but…I don’t know why exactly, I just think you have a right to know, before you get in over your head.”
That was an interesting remark. She knew I’d just murdered two people, even if she didn’t know the details, and yet she didn’t think I was in over my head yet.
“Jack…it is Jack?”
Actually, it wasn’t, but she didn’t need my real name any more than you do.
“It’s Jack.”
“Jack, do you know whose daughter I am?”
I nodded. “Your husband told me-Tony Giardelli’s girl.”
“Right. And you know who he is.”
“Sure. He and his brother Vincent and their late brother Lou are about as high up in the Chicago Outfit as you can go.”
“All right. You know that much. Have you ever worked for the Giardelli interests?”
“From time to time, but not directly.”
She nodded. “I understand. My father has always liked to be…well-insulated…from anything violent or illegal. What you probably don’t know is that my father and his brother Vincent are not partners-they each have their own interests, and over the years they’ve been friendly rivals. Lately…not so friendly. It’s never been direct, again there’s much insulation, but Haydee’s Port has become a kind of a breeding ground in the family war that’s brewing.”
“How so?”
“My father backs me, and Dickie, in the Paddlewheel, maintains a financial interest. It’s Papa’s belief, a belief fostered by my husband, that the future of Haydee’s Port is upscale. This Wild West wide-open downtown doesn’t mine the full potential of Haydee’s, taking money from drunks and bilking the blue-collar crowd. And it’s dangerous, the kind of eyesore that at some point the politicians could be pressured into removing.”
“Whereas,” I said, “the classier Paddlewheel can be a Midwestern Las Vegas, where everybody wink-winks at the illegal side of it.”
“If Dickie has his way, with a new hotel, and beyond that plans to refurbish and reinvent downtown Haydee’s Port, we might see gambling become legal, in this county anyway…and it could truly become, as you say, a Midwestern Vegas.”
“What do you think of that plan?”
“I think it’s brilliant. I think I’ll be very wealthy in my golden years, and I’ll probably have a place to practice my art for as long as I want.”
“I wouldn’t think you’d need the Paddlewheel to have a singing career. Between your talent, and your daddy’s connections-”
She had stopped me with a raised palm. “No. I don’t want to travel, and I don’t want to be beholden to Papa.”
“You already are. Didn’t your Papa make the Paddlewheel possible?”
“Of course he did. But my talent, and Dickie’s business sense, and vision, have taken it to a whole new plateau.”
“Okay. But there’s a problem, right? Uncle Vince?”
She shrugged. “Hard to say whether it’s coming directly from Vince or if it’s the Lucky Devil crowd, causing trouble for Dickie, knowing they have the tacit approval of their Chicago backer.”
“Who are the Lucky Devil crowd?”
“The old man who owns virtually every bar, strip club and brothel downtown is Gigi Giovanni. He was thick with Uncle Vince back in the ’40s and ’50s, came with Vince’s blessing and backing to Haydee’s Port, in the early ’60s. He’s kind of a recluse, and has turned most of the responsibility over to his son, Jerry G. My guess would be, any trouble that’s been sent Dickie’s way, comes from Jerry G, not his father.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Jerry G is ambitious, and he’s a hothead. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch and he’s a goddamn cheat and he drinks and dopes more than any of his customers and breaks in all the young girls before putting them to work on their backs.”
“Any bad qualities?”
That made her smile. “Nothing much fazes you, does it?”
“No.”
“You’ve heard what you’ve gotten yourself into, and you don’t mind?”
“I won’t mind if the money is right. I’ll have to talk to your husband.”
“We keep referring to Dickie as my husband…and he is my husband. But we are separated.”
“Right.”
“You mind if I turn off the lights?”
“No.”
She rose, and went over and turned off the lights and I sat at the table and waited while she went into the bathroom and took her own shower. When the bathroom door opened, the light was behind her and the front of her was in blue-gray shadow. She was voluptuous and those breasts were full with nipples that were erect and thick and long and a deep pink against very pale flesh. Her pubic bush was thick and dark, her thighs a little fleshy. She was no kid.
But she knew what she was doing when she knelt in front of me, where I sat, and opened my trousers, unzipped me and got my already erect cock out to have a look at it.
“I want to thank you for what you did for my husband,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, and felt myself slip into the warmth of her mouth.
She brought me almost to climax and I swear I was cross-eyed when she took me by the hand like mommy leading baby, assuming baby had his trousers around his ankles, and all but shoved me onto the bed, where she climbed on top of me and took my dick up into a warm, tight place and ground her hips into me and ground them some more and I watched hypnotized by the swaying fruit of those breasts, reaching my mouth out to grab at them, like a child on a merry-go-round going for the brass ring, and when she came, she came so hard her eyes rolled back in her head.
I came so hard my eyes uncrossed.