The Ethical Assassin_ A Novel Part 5

"Boy, you don't know who you're messing with," the Confederate said.

But I did. I knew I was messing with a guy who wouldn't give a second thought about sucker-punching me and kicking my head when I was down. Still, I was apt to run my mouth. The thing I'd learned over the years was that the only power I had against someone like this was in mouthing off. It didn't keep me from getting my a.s.s kicked. It might even promote an a.s.s kicking, but at least I got to perpetuate the stereotype of weak kids being verbally dexterous.

But this wasn't high school, and I'd already learned tonight that the stakes were higher than a few bruises and a dose of humiliation. It was time, I decided, to show some deference.

"I didn't mean to be pushy," I said quietly. "I just want to pay."

"It ain't time time for you to pay. You think you go walking around here in your tie and your fancy briefcase and you don't have to wait on line? You think you're somehow better than us?" for you to pay. You think you go walking around here in your tie and your fancy briefcase and you don't have to wait on line? You think you're somehow better than us?"

The math, science, and language arts curricula had been pretty weak, but the one thing I'd learned back in middle school was that accusations of thinking I was better than someone else were a prelude to violence. Some a.s.shole revving his engine, in the process of convincing himself or witnesses or G.o.d that the a.s.s kicking he was about to unleash was utterly righteous.

I needed to cool things down, but it was hard to figure out my next move when my brain was spinning with terror. There was a tiny hamster wheel of fear clacking around, and I just couldn't get my thoughts to settle. So I said what was probably the worst thing I could have. I said, " 'We.' "

The Confederate angled his head and stared. "What?"

It was an out-of-body experience. I saw myself speaking, and I had no power to stop.

"You meant, 'You think you're better than we. we.' We is a subject. 'We are here.' 'We are here.' Who is here? Who is here? We We are. Us, on the other hand, is an object, the recipient of action. ' are. Us, on the other hand, is an object, the recipient of action. 'Bob gave the ball to gave the ball to us. us.' Who gave the ball? Bob, the subject, did. To whom did he give it? Us, Us, the object." the object."

A stupid smile flattened out across my face.

The Confederate stared as though I were a formaldehyde freak behind Coney Island gla.s.s. The girl behind the counter took a step back. Her eyes went wide and she half raised her hands as though to protect her face from the coming blast.

The blast never came. Outside the store, Bobby's Chrysler Cordoba pulled gloriously, miraculously, into the parking lot. The most fortunate timing in the history of the world-far better luck than my nearly eighteen years had led me to expect or even hope for. "That's my ride," I said, as though we'd been hanging out, talking sports.

The Confederate didn't say anything. I looked to the counter girl, but she would not meet my eyes. Nothing to do but forget the soda, so I put it down on a pile of Coors cases and began to head for the door.

"You leave now, and you're stealing." It was the counter girl. Her voice had grown small, and her hands, which now hung limp by her side, trembled just a little.

I stopped. "Then let me pay," I said.

"You gotta wait your turn." Her voice was just above a whisper.

Now the redneck bent toward me. He wasn't unusually tall, just under six feet, and he had maybe an inch or so on me, but he bent forward like a giant stooping to offer advice to a midget. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked. "Correcting me?"

I turned away, hoping to G.o.d that Bobby could see me, would come to my rescue if he spotted trouble. Feeling the burn of the redneck's eyes, I picked up the soda and took the dollar out from my pocket. I put it back on the counter. I didn't care that they were a.s.sholes, and I didn't care about the change. I cared only about getting out of there.

I turned away and pushed open the door, which chimed merrily along with the sound of my laughter, unhinged with giddy disbelief.

I had survived a double murder, I had survived an interview with the killer, I had survived a sure beating by a redneck whom I had insulted. I ought to have felt some measure of relief, but a churning dread burned away at my stomach. I had survived only that moment, and plenty more moments were coming.

Chapter 7.

NO ONE ELSE was in the car yet, which was some small comfort since it was a two-door and I hated being crowded into the backseat. In the months since I'd signed up, I'd become Bobby's biggest earner, and that meant I received certain trivial privileges, like good pickup times and the moochiest neighborhoods. was in the car yet, which was some small comfort since it was a two-door and I hated being crowded into the backseat. In the months since I'd signed up, I'd become Bobby's biggest earner, and that meant I received certain trivial privileges, like good pickup times and the moochiest neighborhoods.

"You don't look so hot," Bobby said. "You blank?"

I shook my head and then peered into the store to make sure we weren't in any trouble. The Confederate had gone back to flirting with the counter girl, and appearances suggested I'd been more or less forgotten.

"No, I scored." I opened my bag and handed Bobby the paperwork. "I almost got a double, but it didn't pan out."

Bobby smiled. "h.e.l.l, my man. You scored two days in a row. You're on fire." p.r.o.nounced, for sales motivation effect, "fie-yah." "Just stay pos, keep thinking pos thoughts. It's the pos att.i.tude that will get you the double or triple tomorrow."

Bobby was a big guy, big like a football player or more like an exfootball player. He had meaty arms and thick legs, no neck, but he also had a sizable gut that jutted out over his cloth belt. Bobby's face was wide and boyish and almost preternaturally charismatic. I wanted to be too smart to be drawn in by Bobby's charm, but I was drawn in all the same.

The fact was, I found it impossible not to like Bobby. He enjoyed everyone's company, and he displayed a generosity beyond anything I had ever seen. Part of it was his command of the power of money. Bobby wanted always to demonstrate to his crew that he had cash, that cash was good, and that cash made you happy. He would buy us beer and lunch and, on occasion, a night out. During long drives, when we stopped for fast food, Bobby tipped the counter workers at McDonald's and Burger King. He tipped tollbooth attendants and hotel clerks. He was, to use his word, pos. pos.

"You don't have a check here," Bobby said, waving my paperwork at me. He ran a hand through his short, almost military style hair. "You didn't get green on me and forget again?"

I had scored a double my first day on the job. My first day. No one expected people to score their first day, so Bobby hadn't yet talked me through the credit app, and consequently I hadn't asked my buyers to fill one out. Bobby had then taken me over to both houses-and this was now after midnight and all lights were out-getting the people out of bed so they could sit around in their robes and fill out credit apps. I would rather have given up the sales, but Bobby worked himself up into a feverishly rotating tornado of sales energy, and he'd insisted. Then again, he knew he could get away with it. He had that chummy grin and inviting laugh and that way of saying h.e.l.lo that made strangers think they must have met him before and simply forgotten. I would have had the door slammed in my face, but Bobby had the wife at the second house making us all instant hot chocolate, the kind with the little marshmallows that melted into gooey clouds.

And he had motivation. I made $200 off each sale, Bobby made $150 each time I or anyone else in his crew scored. That's why people wanted to be a crew boss. You made money for getting other people to do work.

The paperwork Bobby now held in his big hands belonged to Karen and b.a.s.t.a.r.d. I had handed over the wrong sheets. The momentary relief I'd felt at escaping the redneck was now gone. I was back to the roller-coaster feeling of plummeting straight down.

"Sorry," I said. I was bearing down, clenching my abdominal muscles, to keep the fear from seeping into my voice. It was like trying to stanch a gaping wound. I knew that the more time went by, the more time I could spend living a normal life, the less I would remember Karen lying on the floor, her eyes wide open, a jagged crater in her forehead, blood pooling around her like a halo. I'd forget the acrid and coppery smell in the air. I wanted it gone.

"That was the one I blew." I fished around in my bag and got the paperwork from early that afternoon. The quiet little couple in the run-down green trailer. Their two kids and four dogs. The stench of unpaid bills. That had been a walk in the park.

Bobby looked it over, nodded definitively. "This looks pretty good," he said before filing the papers in his own bag. "Shouldn't be a problem pa.s.sing." I had missed out on commissions and bonuses because credit apps hadn't pa.s.sed. I'd even missed out on a big one, a huge one, because of credit apps. My third week on the job, I'd rung a doorbell and a skinny man, pale as cream cheese, wearing a bikini brief swimsuit, bald but for a wedge of hair no thicker than a watchband, had come to the door and grinned at me. "What are you selling?" he'd asked.

Somehow I'd sensed that it wasn't the right time for the usual line, so I'd said, straight out, that I was selling encyclopedias. "Come on back, then," the man had said. "Let's see what you can do."

Galen Edwine, my host, was in the midst of a barbecue with about eight or nine other families. While the kids splashed around in the moochie aboveground pool, I pitched them all-nearly twenty adults. They drank beer, they ate burgers, they laughed at my jokes. I was like the hired entertainment. And when it was all over, I'd sold four of them. Four. A grand slam. Grand slams happened, but rare enough that they were legendary. That day there was a $1,000 bonus for a grand slam, so I racked up $1,800 for a day's work.

Except I didn't because none of the credit apps pa.s.sed. Not a single one. It had happened to me before and it had happened since, and it never ceased to p.i.s.s me off, but the tragedy of that day really got to me. I had had a grand slam, and then it turned to dust. Still, the reputation stuck, and even if I hadn't earned the commissions, I'd earned a certain respect. a grand slam, and then it turned to dust. Still, the reputation stuck, and even if I hadn't earned the commissions, I'd earned a certain respect.

"So," Bobby pressed, "what happened here?" He held up Karen and b.a.s.t.a.r.d's app.

I shook my head. "They balked at the check."

"s.h.i.t, Lemmy. You got inside and you couldn't close? That's not like you."

I shrugged in the hopes that this conversation might simply go away. "It just sort of worked out that way, you know?"

"When was all this?"

Maybe I should have lied, but it didn't occur to me. I didn't see where he was going with this. "I don't know. Tonight. A few hours ago."

He glanced at the credit app for a minute, as if he were looking for some forgotten detail. "Let's go back there. If this was only a few hours ago, I bet I can work them."

I put a hand on the car for support. I shook my head. There was no way I wanted to return to the scene of the crime. "I don't think it will do any good."

"Come on, Lem. I can work them. What, you don't want the money? You don't want the bonus? Commission and bonus, so we're talking about another four hundred in your pocket."

"I just don't think it will help. I don't want to go."

"Well, I want to try. Where's Highland Road?"

"I don't remember." I looked away.

"Wait here. I'll go in and ask."

Bobby moved to go into the Kwick Stop. I figured asking for directions, especially from a guy who seemed already to want to kick my a.s.s, a guy who had seen me go into Karen and b.a.s.t.a.r.d's house, and then then going would be worse than just going. I let out a sigh and told Bobby that I now remembered the way, and we drove back to the trailer. It was just a few minutes along the quiet streets, but the ride seemed to go on forever, and it seemed all too short. Bobby parked the car along the curb and got out, slamming the door hard enough to make me wince. going would be worse than just going. I let out a sigh and told Bobby that I now remembered the way, and we drove back to the trailer. It was just a few minutes along the quiet streets, but the ride seemed to go on forever, and it seemed all too short. Bobby parked the car along the curb and got out, slamming the door hard enough to make me wince.

The trailer looked quiet. Freakishly quiet, a beacon of stillness in the ocean of shrill insect sounds. No trailer had ever looked as still as this one. Somewhere, not too far away, a dog barked-an urgent bark that dogs saved for when a murder suspect lurked nearby.

Bobby walked over to the trailer, up the three cracked concrete stairs, and rang the bell.

I looked back and forth compulsively. A beat-up Datsun trawled past on a perpendicular street half a block down. Did it slow down to look at us? Hard to say.

Bobby rang the doorbell again, and this time he pulled back on the screen door and pounded softly, if pounding can ever be soft, just below the eyehole. I caught myself thinking that they were never going to write that check if they were p.i.s.sed off at being pulled out of bed.

From the steps, Bobby leaned over to peer into the kitchen window. He pressed hard against the thin gla.s.s, and I was sure he would go crashing through.

"Christ," he said. "Either they're not home or they're dead."

I laughed and then realized Bobby hadn't said anything funny, so I stopped. Together we walked back to the Cordoba, where I slouched in the front seat, breathing in fear and indescribable relief while we headed out for the next pickup.

The inadequate air-conditioning washed over me, and I tried to recede into the freshly washed leather. I wanted to pa.s.s out and I wanted to weep and, on some level, I wanted Bobby to hug me. But Bobby busied himself by fiddling with the radio stations, finally settling on Blue oyster Cult, but somehow the song's insistence that I refrain from fearing the Reaper didn't make me feel much better.

"A single isn't bad," he said, maybe thinking that I probably needed a good pep talk. "Not bad for a day's work. You're still in the game, but a double's better, right? . . . Huh? But you'll get a double tomorrow. You're a power hitter, Lem. You're doing great."

If I hadn't been numb from having witnessed a double homicide, I felt sure that Bobby's pos comments would have perked me up. I hated the way I lapped up Bobby's praise, as if being a good bookman, selling a set of books to people who would never use them and couldn't afford them, were worth a pat on the head. Good doggie, Lem. But I loved it. Two people dead, holes in their heads, blood and brains on the peeling linoleum, and I still sort of loved it.

The other three guys in the Ft. Lauderdale crew-Ronny Neil, Scott, and Kevin-piled one by one into the backseat, each at his own pickup stop. They all harbored resentment against me, since Scott was both fat and unimpressed by conventional ideas of personal hygiene, and he crammed the rest of them in tight. I, meanwhile, basked in legroom and relatively sweet air.

Kevin was a quiet guy, a bit short and stocky, but affable in a self-contained way. It was easy to forget he was around, even on long road trips. He laughed at other people's jokes but never told his own. He always agreed when someone said he was hungry but probably would have starved to death before suggesting we stop to eat.

Ronny Neil and Scott, on the other hand, were not so retiring. They had joined up together and were like wartime buddies who enlisted from the same town and were a.s.signed to the same platoon. Their friendship consisted, as near as I could tell, of Ronny Neil hitting Scott in the back of the head and calling him a fat a.s.shole.

Ronny Neil thought of himself as being strikingly handsome, and maybe he was. He had a sharply detailed face with big brown eyes of the sort that I thought women were said to like. His straight, straw-colored hair came down to his collar, and he was deeply muscled without being bulky. Not like there was time to lift weights while we sold books, but I did on occasion catch him doing push-ups and sit-ups around the motel room. On those days that I managed to get up early enough to take in a run before the morning meeting, Ronny Neil would earnestly advise me to take up lifting weights instead of doing p.u.s.s.y exercises. But, he would muse, if there was one thing a Jew ought to know how to do, it was run fast.

Each time he picked someone up-at the designated convenience store-Bobby would take the guy around to the back of the car and open the trunk to shield their conversation from the rest of the crew. Once they entered the car, you couldn't ask if they'd scored or blanked. You couldn't ask how they did. You weren't allowed to tell stories about anything that happened to you that day unless the story was in no way related to scoring or blanking. Bobby and the other bosses knew there was no way to keep people from talking about it. If someone hit a triple or a grand slam-sometimes even a double-everyone in all the crews would know by the next morning, but you couldn't say anything in the car.

These rules appeared not to apply to Ronny Neil, who didn't know how to shut up, about scoring or anything else. Ronny Neil was a year older than me and he'd gone to a high school across the county from mine, so I hadn't known him, but the rumor machine had churned out some interesting details. By all accounts, he'd been a serviceable placekicker for the school's football team, but he'd been convinced of his greatness and convinced that a football scholarship would be his for the taking. As it turned out, the only offer he received was from a historically black college in South Carolina that was interested in diversifying its student population. Ronny Neil had gone off in a huff and come back at the end of his freshman year with his scholarship revoked. Here details get fuzzy. He was kicked out either because he failed to keep his grades up, because he'd been involved in a drunken and sordid s.e.x scandal that the university wanted desperately to keep quiet, or-and this was my personal favorite-he'd never quite gotten the hang of avoiding the word jigaboo, jigaboo, even when black students outnumbered him three hundred to one. even when black students outnumbered him three hundred to one.

On the drives back to the motel, he'd tell us about how he'd scored, and he'd share with us some of the more implausible incidents from his colorful life. He'd tell us about how he'd filled in briefly for the ba.s.s player of Molly Hatchet, how he'd been asked to join the navy SEALs, how he'd finger-f.u.c.ked Adrienne Barbeau after his cousin's wedding-though it was never clear what a movie star was doing at his cousin's wedding. He told these stories with such surety that they left me wondering if my own sense of the universe was hopelessly skewed. Was it possible that I lived in a world in which Adrienne Barbeau might let herself be finger-f.u.c.ked by a moron like Ronny Neil Cramer? It hardly seemed likely, but how could I really know?

On the other hand, he bragged about things that were true, too. Like about how the last time we were in Jacksonville, when we'd stayed at the same motel, he'd stolen a pa.s.skey off the cleaning cart and slipped into half a dozen rooms, lifting cameras and watches and cash out of wallets. He'd laughed himself sick watching Sameen, the Indian man who owned the place, defending his wife-the hotel maid-from accusations of theft. He told us that the previous year, before the election, he'd put on a suit and tie and gone around soliciting donations for the Republican Party. He'd have people make out checks to "RNC," and then he'd just write in the rest of his last name. Seedy check-cashing places on Federal Highway had no problem cashing his checks for R. N. Cramer.

Tonight he was going on about how some hot redhead had been begging for him while her husband watched, helpless to do anything about it.

"You sure it wasn't the husband wanted you?" Scott asked, the words coming out as a high-pitched jumble of spit from his rather serious lisp.

"Yes, I'm thur," Ronny Neil said. He flicked Scott in the ear. "You smell worse than a piece of s.h.i.t, you tongue-tied dumb-a.s.s."

For someone who'd just been insulted, injured, and mocked for a speech impediment, Scott took it all in stride. I felt a sympathetic knot of outrage on behalf of a guy I couldn't stand.

"How would you know what a piece of s.h.i.t smells like," he asked sagely, "unless you were going up to them and sniffing at them?"

"I know what a piece of s.h.i.t th.e.l.lths like, you f.u.c.king p.u.s.s.y, because I'm thitting next to one." Still, Ronny Neil looked away, embarra.s.sed that Scott had drawn blood with so cutting a zinger.

When we got back to the motel, we walked through its forlorn main parking lot, cradled between two parts of the two-storied L-shape. Here were the cars of the lost, the wandering, the short on gas, the long on fatigue, people who had left their dreams up north or out west and were now willing to let their lives take meaning from nothing more complicated than the absence of snow. In the light of day, the buildings were pale green and bright turquoise, a Florida symphony of color. At night it appeared desolately gray.

We filed into the Gambler's room. His real name was Kenny Rogers, so the nickname had come with depressing inevitability, but we treated it as though it were the height of wit. As I understood it, the Gambler didn't own the company that contracted with Champion Encyclopedias' Champion Encyclopedias' publisher, but he was high up. The chain of command was lost in interlinking strands of haziness, and I suspected intentionally so, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty: Every set of books that got sold meant money in the Gambler's pocket. publisher, but he was high up. The chain of command was lost in interlinking strands of haziness, and I suspected intentionally so, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty: Every set of books that got sold meant money in the Gambler's pocket.

He was probably in his fifties, though he looked younger. His slightly long white hair gave him an angelic cast, and he had one of those easy-grinning faces that made him a natural at sales. He looked you right in the eye when he spoke to you, as if you were the only person in the world. He smiled at everyone with fond familiarity, the lines around his eyes crinkling with good humor. "A born f.u.c.king salesman," Bobby had called him. He still rang doorbells two or three days a week, to stay fresh, and rumor had it that he hadn't blanked in more than five years.

When I walked in, the Gambler hadn't yet arrived. He was always the last to show, strutting into the room like a rock star coming out onstage. Ronny Neil and Scott were off in the corner, talking loudly about Ronny Neil's truck back home and how big the tires were, about how a cop had stopped him for speeding but let him go because he admired the tires.

The Gambler's Gainesville crew finally came in, strolling with the confident sense of superiority of a king's retinue. The Gambler drove a van, so he had a large crew-nine in all-but only one woman. Encyclopedia sales held particular challenges for women, and even the good ones generally didn't last for more than two or three weeks. Rare was the crew with more than a single woman. Long hours spent walking by deserted roadsides, going alone into strangers' homes, lecherous customers, and lewd insinuations from the other bookmen dwindled their ranks, and I suspected, with great sadness, that this one wouldn't last, either. Nevertheless, I'd been thinking about her since her appearance the previous weekend.

Chitra. Chitra Radhakrishnan. During the past week, I'd caught myself saying her name aloud, just for the pleasure of hearing its music. Her name sounded kind of like her accent. Soft, lilting, lyrical. And she was beautiful. Stunning. Far better looking than any woman I thought myself ent.i.tled to like, even from a distance. Tall and graceful, with caramel skin and black hair pulled into a ponytail and big eyes the color of coffee with skim milk. Her fingers were long and tapered, finished off with bright red polish, and she wore tons of silver rings, even on her thumb, which I'd never seen anyone else do.

I hardly knew her, I'd had only a single extended conversation with her, but those words had been electric. For all that, I couldn't say why this woman should be the one to send me into a tumbling vortex of infatuation. There were other women in the group, though not many, and there had been, in a purely objective sense, far prettier ones in the past. I'd never had a crush on any of them.

I had to consider the possibility that it was Chitra's foreignness. Perhaps her being Indian among the otherwise all white population made her a misfit and therefore accessible. Or maybe for all her beauty, and it was considerable, there was something vaguely awkward about her-a slightly ungainly walk, an absent, self-effacing way of holding her head in conversation.

Whatever it was, I wasn't alone in admiring her. Even Ronny Neil, who complained bitterly about his daily interactions with mud people, couldn't take his eyes off her. Now he rose and went over to her, just like that. The words came out of him, easy as anything. I couldn't hear except that Ronny Neil said, "Hi there, baby," and Chitra smiled at him as if he'd said something worth smiling about.

I felt a comforting rage-comforting because of its familiarity and because it had nothing to do with the murder, which for a moment I could tuck into a neat little compartment toward the back of my brain. I could understand why Ronny Neil liked Chitra. She was beautiful. That would be enough for him. But why would Chitra even speak to Ronny Neil? Surely she was the antiRonny Neil, with her quiet reserve, her skeptical glances at the Gambler, the kindness she radiated that stood in counterbalance to Ronny Neil's malevolence.

I knew almost nothing about her, but I was already certain that Chitra was smart, and Chitra was discerning, but she was also from India. She had been here since she was eleven-she'd told me that in a brief conversation I had strategized into existence the previous Sat.u.r.day night-but she was still from a foreign country. She spoke English well, having studied it even before moving here, but she spoke in the formal way many foreigners had, suggesting they're always tripping over something, always making decisions, worried about mistakes.

To me, her foreignness raised the possibility that she might not be able to recognize the furnace of a.s.sholery that smoldered inside Ronny Neil. Surely they didn't have rednecks in Uttar Dinajpur, from which she told me her family had emigrated. They had a.s.sholes of their own variety, obviously-singularly Uttar Dinajpurish a.s.sholes, a.s.sholes who would send up a.s.shole flags the instant they entered an Uttar Dinajpur bar or restaurant-but it might be hard for an American instantly to see such a person for who he was. Chitra was clever, but Ronny Neil might nevertheless prove illegible to her. So I had my eye on her. To keep her safe.

Ronny Neil sat next to her, and the two of them started talking quietly. The fact that I couldn't hear a word of it made me furious, and for a moment I considered getting up, going over to them, inserting myself into the mix. The problem was, I knew it would make me look foolish and desperate, make my situation immeasurably worse.

My position was just fine for the moment. The previous week, after a couple of rapidly consumed cans of Miller beer, I'd managed to work up the courage to sit next to her and casually introduce myself. She'd listened to my bookman advice, laughed at my bookman war stories-a genuine laugh, too, an infectious, almost convulsive giggle that came with mild torso rocking. She talked about the novels she liked, how after the summer she would be starting at Mount Holyoke, where, she had already decided, she would do a dual major in comp lit and philosophy. She loved living in the United States, she said, but she missed Indian music and street food and the dozens of varieties of mangoes you could buy in the markets. The conversation had been marvelous and full of promise, but I hadn't initiated it until two in the morning, and I had hardly overcome my initial nervousness before she announced she absolutely had to get some sleep.

I saw her the next morning but did nothing more than smile politely and say good morning, lest I betray the fact that I liked her. Now I kept still, averted my eyes for as long as I could before sneaking glances. Then I watched them talk while trying not to think about the dead bodies I'd seen that night. Though "dead bodies" already seemed a bit of sanitizing. I hadn't seen dead bodies, I'd seen bodies becoming dead. That, surely, ought to keep me from dwelling on Chitra, on the graceful length of her neck, on the vaguest hint of cleavage that peeked out from her white blouse. It ought to have, but somehow it didn't.

Meanwhile, the Gambler had started talking. He'd been saying something about how it was all in the att.i.tude, about how the people out there wanted wanted what we had to sell. what we had to sell.

"Oh yes, my friends," he cried out. His face was darkening, not with the blood red of exertion, but with the vibrant pink of exuberance. "You know, I see them out there every day. They're out in front of their homes with their plastic swimming pools and their Big Wheels and their lawn jockeys. You know what they are, don't you? They're moochie. They want to buy something. They're looking around with their greedy little eyes, and they're thinking, What can I buy? What can I spend my money on that is going to make me feel better about myself?"

The Gambler stopped and unb.u.t.toned the collar of his blue oxford and loosened his tie with one finger like Rodney Dangerfield not getting respect. "See, they don't understand money. You do. They want to get rid of it. They want you to have it. You know why? Because money is a good thing to have. You know those songs? You know the ones-they tell you money isn't important. Only love matters. That's right. Love. You get together with your special love, and as long as you have each other, nothing else counts. You can live in a run-down shack as long as you have love. You can drive a beat-up old car as long as you have love. That's awful pretty."

And then he did that odd thing. His arms were out, flailing wide, as if he were about to hug a bear, and he just paused, held the pose in the air. He didn't do this every session, not even every weekend, but I'd seen him do it three or four times before. It was weird theater, but the crowd loved it. Everyone broke out into applause and cheers while the Gambler held the position for twenty, maybe thirty seconds, and then he went back to his rant.

"Yeah," he said, as though he hadn't been playing statue, "those words are nice, but those songs don't tell you about when the guy from that better neighborhood drives by in his brand-new Cadillac on his way to his beautiful home, and he winks at that in-love woman standing in front of her run-down shack. See, now that beat-up car don't seem like it's enough.