Vincent said to him, “Teddy, I know where you’ve been, what you learned in there, how to make a shiv, how you settle your differences. I know what a sly little back-sticking motherfucker you are and I know what you feel like doing.”
“You know everything, ‘ey?”
“I know I’m not gonna walk backwards the rest of my life,” Vincent said to him, “worry about a freak who wants to get even. You understand what I’m saying? Nod your head, I don’t want to hear any more from you.”
Teddy was about to speak, but the curved end of the cop’s cane came up to rest against the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t say it,” Vincent said to him.
Teddy didn’t move. Those eyes were different now. They still weren’t mean, they were calm. But they stared into him the way they had stared once before-when he had opened his own eyes to see the gun in his face in the hotel room in South Beach and the cop’s eyes staring. He wanted to say, Jesus, loud as he could, You don’t know anything! Yell it out. You don’t know shit! Scream it in that cop face.
But he clenched his jaw shut to keep from making even a sound and when the cop told him to nod his head, yes, he was leaving and would never come back, he nodded his head down and up, once. Because the cop’s eyes told him the cop was ready to kill him if he didn’t.
IRIS SAT IN THE EASTERN BOARDING LOUNGE waiting for the flight to someplace in Florida where she would get on another flight to Atlantic City. “Follow me,” Tommy Donovan had said, “when we change in Tampa-St. Pete,” and winked at her and said he didn’t want to lose her. “But don’t talk to me. You understand? I’m going to be with someone.”
Sure, he was with his wife. His wife was attractive, beautifully dressed-sitting over there by herself reading a magazine-but she was old. She was perhaps forty, or close to it. Sitting with her legs crossed, nothing to worry about. Not with her money. Tommy was standing in line at the Duty Free counter. He had said to her, “Have you got a coat? It’s going to be cold up there for a while.”
She had a pink sweater with sequins in her shopping bag and a black raincoat like rubber across her lap for the weather. She had a Mademoiselle magazine also in the shopping bag to read on the plane, select a wardrobe to buy in Atlantic City. She could hardly wait now. She didn’t care if it was cold up there, she’d buy a fur coat, a long white one. Wear a green silk scarf with it, look nice. Tommy would buy her whatever she wanted.
Two months ago she had met Vincent at the beach and her life began to change and then stopped changing.
One month ago she had met Tommy Donovan and her life began to change again and was still changing.
She would remember standing in the lobby of Spade’s Isla Verde Resort, the casino part, near the entrance to the Sultan’s Lounge. A group in there, dressed in orange satin shirts, was playing salsa, calypso, mambo, making a lot of noise. It was late. There were no tourist guys to be seen anywhere except in the casino and they told her if she went in there, no standing around, she had to spend money.
Suddenly he came up to her, taking her by the arm into the Sultan’s Lounge, not saying a word. This big American guy with a red face and silver-white hair. He seated her before going over to converse with the barman for a moment. He wore a black silk suit-she could see it shining in the dark. Very soon a bottle of champagne was presented to them by one of the girls wearing the harem costume-they called it that-a bra and panties, gold necklaces with a glowing jewel stuck in the girl’s navel. The guy sipped his champagne staring at her, still not saying a word. He was old, but not old enough to have white hair. He was too big to ever let him be on top. She sipped her champagne. It was good. He sipped his, his eyes never leaving her. Finally he said, “I’m gonna take you to Atlantic City with me.” She had heard of it, of course. The Miss America on TV. He said to her then, “Little girl with your looks, you must work your ass off during the season.” At this time Iris was catching glimpses of a fashionable apartment in the Candado section, this big silver-haired rich guy coming in with his key. In the next blink of an eye she would see them together on a sailing boat. It could happen to her. She didn’t need any Miami Beach cop. This guy could be sent from heaven. Except he was assuming she was a whore and it was offensive to her.
Iris said, “Oh, thank you very much for thinking I’m a person like that. Escuse me.” She took a small risk and got up to leave. He surprised her by getting up also.
He said, “I want to talk to you. We’ll go upstairs, have some privacy.”
She said, “Oh, you mean to your room?”
He said, “Rooms, honey, rooms.”
“Oh, you still think I’m that kind of person?”
He said, “Look, I’m your friend, Tommy. Say my name. Go on. Tommy.”
He sounded crazy. She said, “Tommy?”
“Not like that, like you’re not sure.” He grinned. “Hi, Tommy. Like that.”
Wow, crazy. She said, “Hi, Tommy,” and had to smile. It sounded okay, like they were friends.
He said, “Hi, Iris.” Even pronouncing it correctly.
She said, “Hey, how do you know my name?”
He said to her, “Honey, I even know your future.”
It gave her that strange feeling like someone was blowing on the back of her neck, making her shiver. But it felt nice, too, because she could tell by Tommy’s look he saw only good things in there. The waitress said, “Goodnight, Mr. Donovan,” flirting with him a little as they left. The barman hurried to the end of the bar to say goodnight. The guys in the group, in the orange shirts making noise, waved to him. A couple of casino employees, in the lobby, said his name, bowing to him.
Iris said, “They certainly treat you with respect.”
That was when he said they better, since he owned the fucking joint-and Iris knew her life from now on would never be the same.
He was buying cartons of cigarettes at the Duty Free, waiting for the girl to bring him his change. Iris watched him look across the lounge toward his wife, checking, then look this way-Iris pulling her hair aside so he could see her good-and wink before turning back to the counter. He liked to wink, meaning by it there was a secret between them. Though she was sure everyone in the hotel knew he was taking her to bed. Through his office into a study with a white sectional sofa you could make a square bed out of and he called his playpen. He made her put a towel under her. Then he would get on and do it to her, arms stiff to hold up his weight and so he could look down, trying to hold his stomach in, and watch himself doing it. He didn’t want to try any new ways to do it that had been discovered since Rae Dawn Chong showed that cave guy in the movie how to make fire and do it face to face. Being an important man Tommy was always in a hurry.
He had given her the plane ticket but no money, no paycheck, because she hadn’t yet started to work. He would have to give her money for hostess dresses, too, a red one, a bright green one…
She had worn her black cocktail dress, nice one but old, last night when she went to Tommy’s hotel to get her ticket. Waited forever and then sat in a booth in the Sultan’s Lounge between Tommy and a fat guy with curly hair named Jackie Garbo. The Caribbean group, La Tuna, was gone. The picture out in the lobby for the past two weeks was of a girl named Linda Moon. She was playing the piano and singing slow songs.
Tommy called to her, “Do ‘Here’s That Rainy Day’ again.”
The girl looked at him for several moments across the piano before she began to play it, for the third time.
Iris tried to sit closer to Tommy than to Jackie Garbo, so Tommy wouldn’t get jealous. Jackie Garbo’s leg was against her, the way they were squeezed into the curved booth looking from this dark part of the room to the girl playing in a pink spotlight. The girl, Linda Moon, sang in a low voice without trying very hard.