Glitz. Part 28

Jackie was looking this way, Jackie saying, "It works. Somebody sent in the f.u.c.king clowns. Where you going?"

To the bandstand-was he kidding? Through the tables to the small stage, one step up and across to the piano where Linda stopped playing as she saw him. Was she sad or smiling? Or both. He wasn't sure. He said, "You're here..."

And she said, "I missed you, Vincent. Boy, did I miss you."

27.

AS LONG AS HE COULD LOOK at Linda Moon, close enough to touch, he could be patient and courteous and listen to Jackie, at least while the champagne lasted. Vincent's whole outlook had changed. He sensed there was even something different about Jackie. Listen.

"When you know you're getting it up the kazoo but you allow it, then it's not what you ordinarily call forcible entry. You know what I'm saying?"

Sort of.

"I was hurt. Lemme tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, I can't remember in my experience ever being more deeply hurt . . ."

Actually on stage. He stood at the edge directly above them, a dead mike in his hand as a prop, his audience two light faces and one dark face in the gloom of the nearly empty noontime lounge: Linda, Vincent, DeLeon seated with Jackie's offering, the bottle of champagne, Jackie the good guy continuing: ". . . I couldn't believe it. Here's this honest cop, supposedly, using what he calls leverage, holding my old sidekick, my confidant, the Moose, over my head as a threat. When all he had to say was, 'Mr. Garbo, you mind if we use your company plane? It's very important.' I mean that's all you had to do, ask." Jackie paused, lowered his head, raised it slowly. "Moose, am I a reasonable guy? Relatively you'd say easy to get along with?"

"Kindest man I know," DeLeon said, back in his old job under new conditions, a favorable location.

"Thank you."

"He's a peach," Linda Moon, Now Appearing in the Sultan's Lounge, said. "Has a great ear for music." And looked at Vincent. His turn.

But he couldn't think of anything to add until DeLeon said, "Man's wise, too. Knows when to bail out," and Jackie hooked the mike onto the stand and stepped down to the table.

"He's an entertainer at heart," Vincent said. "Should have a stage in his office."

Sitting down with them Jackie said, "I wanted to I could work this room right here, get a routine together. It's a gift, you got it or you don't. Confidence, presence . . ." Turning to DeLeon. "But I didn't bail out up there, the inference being I ran out on the Donovans . . ."

"Uh-unh," DeLeon said, "I know you wouldn't do that."

"What I did, I excused myself," Jackie said. "Left d.i.c.k and Jane playing cutthroat with each other. She is, he's thinking up catchy names for the sandwiches in the deli or he's playing with his w.a.n.g. Hey, they want to run the casino and and the hotel, good luck, they're princ.i.p.al stockholders. I'll run the show here from now on, that's the understanding. Some morning four A.M. I'll get a frantic call, hop back up there and straighten things out. Otherwise I'm here and I love it." the hotel, good luck, they're princ.i.p.al stockholders. I'll run the show here from now on, that's the understanding. Some morning four A.M. I'll get a frantic call, hop back up there and straighten things out. Otherwise I'm here and I love it."

"There's something different about you," Vincent said.

"You notice 'cause you got an eye, you don't miss anything."

"What is it?"

"I'm gonna pay you the highest form a compliment," Jackie said. "You came in my office when we met, sat down, didn't say much . . ."

"Got carried out."

"That was your own fault. You should a stated your business, not led me on like that. But I should a paid more attention to you at the time, your style, the way you handle yourself. You know why? 'Cause I thought about it later. I realized something. I said to myself, this guy's got nice easy moves, never pushes, he listens and he learns things. Which is how you found out all you did, right? I said to myself, that's the way to do it. Don't get excited, lay back. But listen, that's the key to it I learned from you. Listen and don't talk so f.u.c.king much. See, guy like you, you prob'ly think you don't have any effect on people. Well, don't sell yourself short, my friend, you got a very nice way about you. Stay with it, you'll do okay."

"Thanks," Vincent said.

In the lobby he said, "I'm not gonna be able to keep my hands off you." She said, "I hope not." In the elevator he said, "I can't wait," and she said, "I can't either." So they took hold of each other and began, their mouths not able to get enough, and didn't come apart when the door opened. They went all the way to the top and had to come down to Vincent's floor to hurry through the hall and into his room, no words between them now, nothing in the way of "I can't wait I can't either" once she stepped out of her pants and raised her dress as he shoved down his jeans and they joined together across the bed, not a moment too soon, breathing into each other until it was done and with immense relief they could again smile, speak.

Teddy was worried he'd have trouble staying on Vincent's tail in this automatic Chevette he'd rented. Some piece of equipment-it took about twenty minutes for the son of a b.i.t.c.h to lug out of low gear and get moving. When he saw Vincent also had a Chevette he had to laugh. Here they were playing a deadly game in a couple of kiddie cars. The red one following the white one from Isla Verde through the busy Condado Beach section and across the bridge to Vincent's old neighborhood. In fact, it looked like he and Linda-wherever the h.e.l.l she had come from-were going into the same place where he'd stayed before. The Carmen Apartments above the liquor store. The cop sure had a lot of cla.s.s, didn't he? Moving in, it looked like, both of them with suitcases. Well, wasn't that cute?

What he'd do, work something like the idea he had in Atlantic City but never got to use. Follow Vincent to get Vincent to follow him. Come up next to him at a light. Let him see you. Maybe make some remark to the girl, or to Vincent about the girl-she wasn't bad looking-and then lead them out in the country somewhere. Have a place picked out. Stop off the road in some trees and wait for Vincent to come up to the car to chat or whatever- look up in his police rule book to see what he could do and what he couldn't, as dumb and stupid as he was. Time it, pull out the new stainless steel Smith & Wesson .38 they said was a military weapon, stolen from the army depot; it was okay, nothing fancy. Mr. Magic would do a job with it-pop the cop between the eyes looking in the car at him and then give old Linda a pop, hey, give her two pops for one, both at the same time, Jesus-and bid adieu to sunny Puerto Rico on the first plane out. Get back to Atlantic City and see what was cooking.

His mom had said on the phone nothing was. She said the police had not stopped by or called, not even that nice colored man who had admired her parrot stuff so much. He'd told her, "Mom, the jig ain't a cop he's a G.o.dd.a.m.n kidnapper." His mom said, "You didn't learn language like that in my house." He asked her to send him a check on account of lawyers didn't take VISA and he was going to sue the a.s.s off the police here for persecuting him. His mom said, "What? I can't hear you so good, this connection . . ." Teddy said, "Sure, Mom. All I can say is, you got a pretty s.h.i.tty att.i.tude for a mom." His mom said, "What? What'd you say?"

Parked across the street and down a bit toward the Hilton, Teddy looked up at the Carmen Apartments, three floors of windows and tiny balconies, an old building on a street named after an Indian, Calle Geronimo. Which didn't make much sense. He didn't believe Geronimo had been a PR. He wondered what apartment they were in ...And just like that stopped wondering, as Linda appeared on a second-floor balcony, right above the liquor store.

Vincent didn't mention Miami Beach, that it was time for him to go home, past time; he would set it aside for a while. They were together now, closer because they had been apart. They sat in the sun at Escambron beneath that clean sky and talked about things as they thought of them, Teddy already out of the way as a topic, done to death.

"I can't play with him anymore."

"Good. But it makes you mad."

"More than that."

"You have to forget about him."

He was trying. They watched the sleek young bodies in skimpy stringy bathing suits, the vendors cooking, selling, the families on blankets, and looked out at the low barrier of rock a hundred yards offsh.o.r.e and imagined it, squinting, a rusting snip's hull, a long brown submarine . . . And a red Chevette behind them. Parked back in the shade of Australian pines. He didn't imagine the car, it was there, and felt someone inside it watching them- trying to forget Teddy but feeling his presence.

Linda had said, "I missed you, Vincent. Boy, did I miss you." And it was true, he believed it. But then learned another truth. An executive at Bally's had forced a keyboard player on Linda. "A guy who used to arrange for Jerry Vale-I'm not kidding, he actually did, and he brought his charts, very tight with the exec, you understand, had worked for him before and I was supposed to play his music, this high romantic drama or cute little happy Italian numbers . . ."

"So you didn't leave there-" Vincent began.

"Wait. I had to get out, Vincent, it's true, I won't lie to you. But I missed you-I mean I really missed you, and that's truer. I could've gone to Orlando, I had an offer . . ."

"You got a ride with Jackie . . ."

"I went to see Tommy about a job and ran into Jackie as he was getting ready to leave. He said the building was starting to shake and things were coming loose. He said he needed somebody to talk to, preferably a woman."

"He sounds different."

"Don't you know why? Wait. First I find out Miss Congeniality left him."

"She didn't."

"LaDonna went back to Tulsa. Jackie said after all he did for her. Could've made her a star. Then, I find out, he had a long session with the cops, I guess about Ricky and the guy Ricky shot."

Vincent said, "That was it," with a grin. Jackie had got out before they connected him with the bad guys; no other reason. "He's the same Jackie but he sounds different."

"That's it exactly. He was more nervous than usual-I mean when I went to see him. But he came onto me without wasting a minute. 'You want to work, kid? You're just what I need down at Isla Verde, make you a star within eight weeks, guaranteed.' The hotshot from Vegas. On the plane he starts telling me about all the celebrities he knows, his very dear friends, all the personally signed photographs in his office and how he makes a bet with everybody who comes in . . ."

Vincent nodding, "I know."

". . . he'll give 'em a hundred bucks if they can name a major f.u.c.king entertainer who isn't on that wall. Well, I bet him a hundred bucks he couldn't go the whole trip, from wherever we were at the time all the way to San Juan without saying 'f.u.c.k' in one form or another at least once."

"He lost."

"He could barely speak. He'd start to say something and there'd be a long pause, like he was learning a foreign language. Finally he said, 'f.u.c.k it,' and handed me a hundred-dollar bill and said he was going to do it on his own."

"That's what it was," Vincent said, "I noticed in the lounge. It isn't that he listens any more than he ever did. But he didn't use the word, I don't think even once."

"He did use it once, I remember," Linda said, "but for Jackie that's f.u.c.king remarkable."

As they dressed to go to dinner Linda watched Vincent slip the blue-steel automatic in the waist of his trousers, at the small of his back, and glance at his profile in the dresser mirror, his linen sportcoat hanging open, limp.

"You saw him," Linda said.

"I think so."

"He knows where we are?"

"I think so."

"What're you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"You're shutting me out," Linda said.

No, he was detached; he was a policeman, he knew how to get outside of himself, look at something without letting his feelings get in the way. Teddy might be back but he was not between them. He told her that at dinner in the Spanish restaurant, Torreblanca. He told her Teddy would have to wait, and maybe he would get tired of it and go home. He told her he wasn't worried about Teddy, as long as he sat facing the door. Linda said, "I've never even seen him."

Vincent said, "Would you like to?"

They came out of the restaurant, waited as the parking attendant brought them the white Chevette, backing it up the entrance drive from the street. "He's about halfway down the block," Vincent said, "to the left."

Ready to tail them. Magdalena one-way east and Vincent would have to turn to the right leaving the drive.

But he didn't. He turned left, no cars coming in the moments it took to coast quietly toward the red Chevette, head on, to hear tree frogs shrilling and see Teddy raise his hand in the headlight beam- there he was. Linda saying, "That's Teddy?" as Vincent cut around the car and picked up speed. He turned off Magdalena at the end of the block.

"That's Teddy."

In the night traffic on Ashford Avenue, the young Puerto Ricans cruising the Condado section, he appeared behind them again. Vincent kept track of him in his mirror. Linda turned in her seat to look back.

"He waved waved. Did you see him?"

Vincent didn't answer.

The red Chevette's headlights moved out of the rearview mirror. Vincent glanced over. Teddy was coming up gradually on their right. They stopped at a light and Teddy pulled up next to them, close.

Linda said it again. "That's Teddy?"

Vincent watched him, Teddy looking straight ahead, drumming lightly on the steering wheel to the music coming from the car radio. The light changed. Teddy looked over and gave them his smirky grin.

Linda said, "You haven't even laid a hand on him? I don't believe it."

"If I started," Vincent said, "I don't think I could stop."

"Why would you want to?" Linda said.

The white Chevette and the red Chevette crept along in traffic side by side, came to a stop at the light in front of the Holiday Inn.

Teddy looked over. He said, "This your new girlfriend? . . . Nice-looking babe." He waited, staring, Linda staring back at him. " 'Ey, arn'cha talking to me no more?"

Vincent kept quiet; he believed he'd better.

Linda turned to him. She said, "Vincent?" But didn't say anything after that.

Teddy said, "She as good as our PR p.u.s.s.y was?"

The light changed.

Vincent was watching it and the white Chevette moved off the light ahead of the red Chevette, coming to the end of Condado Beach now, out of the rows of hotels and shops, to cross the low bridge that was like a section of causeway over the inlet and pointed one-way in the direction of Old San Juan.

Vincent pushed the white Chevette to forty-five watching the mirror to see the red Chevette gaining, coming up again in the lane on Linda's side. He eased back slightly on the accelerator. The red Chevette came up, pulled even, close to them, Vincent thinking, Give him a nudge, just enough. Teddy was yelling in the wind, through his open window and into their car, " 'Ey, stupid! Catch me if you can!"

Now, Vincent was thinking, ready to crank the wheel, when Linda beat him to it-Jesus, with the same thought, the same urge-grabbed the top of the steering wheel with both hands, gave it a quick hard yank to the right as she yelled, "f.u.c.k you, Ted!" Even the proper name he would have used, amazing. And saw the guy's eyes go wild in the moment the white Chevette tore into the side of the red Chevette, metal sc.r.a.ping ripping metal, forcing the red one to veer off and jump the sidewalk, out of control. The white one slowed down, Vincent and Linda looking back at the sounds of horns and brakes; the red one last seen, a glimpse of it, plowing along the guardrail, metal sc.r.a.ping cement till it ground to a stop.

He told her in the night he wasn't going to lose her. Not now, after all this. She told him he couldn't lose her if he tried.

They could tell each other in different ways they were in love and couldn't live without each other and become a.n.a.lytical and say it wasn't just physical either, the hots. Was it? It was was physical, you bet it was, not able to get enough of each other, but it was even more than that. Wasn't it? Yes, of course, it was. It was real. They could talk in the night about love, with feeling, using familiar words, and it sounded wonderful, natural, no other way to say it. physical, you bet it was, not able to get enough of each other, but it was even more than that. Wasn't it? Yes, of course, it was. It was real. They could talk in the night about love, with feeling, using familiar words, and it sounded wonderful, natural, no other way to say it.

But he had to go home.

Tomorrow they'd go to Mayaguez and the day after that, in the afternoon, he'd leave for Miami.

She understood. She had an eight-week engagement and would do part of it, a couple of weeks, then follow him to Miami and find work.

She said, "You can't follow me around, doing what you do, and you're more important to me than playing a piano, Vincent. But I wish I could make you stay a while. I wish you had just come here on your leave and I had just started playing ...I play better when I know you're close by . . . And we'd have all day together and almost all night and nothing to think about but us. Wouldn't that be neat?"

"That would be neat," Vincent said.

Later on in the night, waking up, he walked to the balcony and stood for several minutes looking down at the empty street.

Teddy got up during the night to go to the bathroom. "Go potty," his mom called it; woman her age. She'd even say to Buddy, p.o.o.p all over his stand, "Buddy go potty?" Tub a lard trying to be cute. He had actually been inside her and almost killed her, she said, coming out at birth. Well, excuuuse me. It could still be arranged. She's sleeping, hold a pillow over her face so as not to have to look at her. Lay on top of it till she finally quit bucking and breathing and he would never have to hear her say "Kisser mom" or "Buddy go potty" again. He shouldn't think things like that. He said to the bathroom mirror, "Would you do that to your mom?" Then had to grin at himself, turning his head to look at the grin from different angles.

"Hi."

"Hi, yourself."