The Deadly Kiss-Off Read online

  “Stan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You are my new retroactive role model for my own teenage years. You were living the American Pie dream. I doff my figurative hat to you.”

  “You can joke, but the whole deal was not like the fantasy. There was a lot of sneaking around and nerves and guilt. Rosa coulda lost her job, got prosecuted for sex stuff. She was almost twenty years older than me. But we couldn’t quit it. There was just some badass unstoppable chemistry between us. It was like we went crazy when we were alone together. It wasn’t all sex, though. She meant a lot to me, and I guess I meant a lot to her. Because of what she did when my mother died. I came crying to her about the group home and running away. And she said she had a solution. We’d get married. That’d make everything all legal and safe.”

  “You married a thirtysomething gal at age sixteen?”

  “Sixteen and a half. You make it sound like it never happened to anyone else before. Didn’t you ever hear of Jerry Lee Lewis?”

  “I know you’re big on the blues and rockabilly and such, but Jerry Lee Lewis’ life does not present the greatest model for ethical or emotional smooth sailing.”

  “Well, maybe neither of us was thinking straight. But that’s what we did. And, of course, Rosa had to quit her job anyhow when we went public. You can picture the scandal. Lotta frigid old maids got their panties in a bunch. Anyhow, we set up housekeeping together, and thanks to some odd jobs and pinching pennies, we managed to stay afloat. But it only lasted about a year and a half. There was too much tension; we were too far apart in who we were and what we wanted and how we looked at the world. Sure, I remember lots of good times from that year and a half. But on the whole, it was a really rough patch for us both. So as soon as I turned eighteen, I hightailed it outta the apartment and outta her life. Rosa got in touch with me a short while later to file for divorce. But we never saw each other after that. Twenty years. I never tried to look her up, and she never came after me, neither, far as I knew. Just too much pain involved.”

  “And now here she is. Mrs. Luckman.”

  “Yeah, I wonder how that happened.”

  “Happily for you, my friend, we live in an age of miracles. Allow me to consult my crystal ball.”

  It took me all of three minutes online to learn that Rosa Saxby Luckman had been the secretary for the State University Physics Department for fifteen years, until her marriage to Professor Ronald Luckman a few years ago resulted in her voluntary retirement from that position.

  The news seemed to relieve Stan of some small measure of unease and anxiety. “She had an okay life, then, I guess. I useta picture her in bad circumstances when I thought of her at all, and it always tore me up.”

  “Is her presence going to interfere with our plans?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I’m gonna have to get her alone and talk about things.”

  “Maybe you can catch her when Luckman’s in church.”

  “Oh, you are just the funniest goddamn comedian since Pauly goddamn Shore.”

  24

  Stan and I were showing up at Vin Santo’s illicit dice-and-drinks dive so often that we should have been given loyalty cards. Get nine punches and your tenth lap dance is free. (I seemed to recall, from my first drunken visit, a back room where such frivolities occurred, although Stan and I had not visited it since.) Instead of a suspicious reception at the entrance, we were waved in with a gap-toothed smile from a scar-faced doorman whose formal training must have taken place at the box office of cockfights where the mortality rate among the patrons rivaled that of the roosters in the pit. Even the two goons stationed as bodyguards inside the sanctum sanctorum honored us with stone-faced nods of recognition, as if to say, We now deem it somewhat unlikely that we will have to blow your heads off, but we continue to stand ready to do so anyhow—although with maybe the faintest scintilla of regret, should the occasion arise.

  Driving here with Stan the night after the day of our interview with Dr. Luckman, I had silently assessed my partner’s mood after the shock of yesterday’s chance meeting with Rosa Saxby Luckman. We hadn’t discussed the event any further during the past twenty-four hours. I wondered what, if anything, he had said to Sandralene. But whatever unburdening he had done, he seemed to have made some inner accommodation to the revelation. He appeared alert and on top of things, although a trifle less cocky than usual. I guessed I could count on him to whatever extent I always did.

  This evening, the ill-proportioned Santo wore a nicer-than-usual suit, complete with a dashing boutonniere. It raised his appearance from his customary Catskills tummler to Olive Garden sommelier.

  Sensing my attentions to his fancy dress when we were ushered in, he explained, “You’re lucky to find me here, gentlemen. Just back from a funeral.”

  I did not choose to inquire into Vin’s relationship with the deceased, or the deceased’s mode of death. “I hope it wasn’t too painful an occasion, Vin.”

  “Not at all. I was able to console the widow in a very meaningful way.”

  Stan leered. “I been there, too, Vin.”

  “I doubt it. Not unless, as matters eventuated, you likewise were able to pass on nearly five hundred grand that was owed your untimely demised partner.”

  Stan managed to sound contrite. “Pardon my foolish presumptions, Vin.”

  “No biggie. Now, I assume you boys are here to inform me of what came to pass with this hotshot inventor guy you went to interview.”

  “That’s exactly right, Vin,” I said before Stan could utter anything else off-key. “And we’re happy to report that this affair is shaping up to be a bonanza for all of us. Not only are you going to offload those chips, but you are going to turn them into solid gold, thanks to our research and initiative.”

  I then laid out all the details of Luckman and his invention, and our plans to monetize it, deploying all my salesmanship and jury-swaying eloquence. Santo nodded with seeming appreciation at intervals, sipping on his soda all the while. When I felt I had engaged his interest and greed sufficiently, portraying the venture as a business challenge and a diversion from his usual rackets, I ventured to propose the four-way split that would come after he had recouped his sunk costs off the top.

  When I had finished speaking, I sat quietly and nervously alongside Stan, awaiting a response. Stan had one leg crossed over the other and was rubbing the knee that had been shot, either because it pained him or as some kind of good luck talisman, or perhaps just as a nervous tic. Whatever the cause, it struck me as a kind of tell, and I telepathically sent Stan a message to desist. But my ESP must have been offline.

  Santo set down his drink, clasped his hands across the Brooks Brothers tattersall vest that encompassed his considerable belly, and looked ruminatively up at the stained ceiling of his shabby office. After a wrenching ninety seconds, he lowered his gaze to our level.

  “Boys, I like the way you think and the forthright manner of your presentation. But I will immediately propose a minor change to the terms, without which there will be no deal. I stipulate this due to the largeness of my investment and risk as against the zero-to-chickenfeed nature of your stake. I am reclaiming my up-front money first, of course. And then I am assuming fifty percent of whatever else we take in. Let’s say, for instance, there is a hundred and twenty million left after my expenses. I get sixty, and then you two and the prof split the remaining sixty as you see fit.”

  Twenty million apiece? Or more, if we could con Luckman somehow? It was a step down from thirty-five million, but still nothing to sneeze at.

  I looked at Stan, and although he was frowning slightly, he nodded yes.

  “Vin, we are all on the same page.”

  “Excellent! Then I believe we can get this show on the road pretty quick. And to demonstrate that I am not taking my extra share for nothing, I am going to move right away to recruit, through my
extensive network of pals, a valuable component into this enterprise, the necessity of whose skill set you have so far overlooked.”

  “And who might that be?”

  “I don’t know their name yet, just their job. You need someone experienced in the international arms trade—a salesman. Some joker who hangs out with the right people. You can’t just run an ad on Craigslist for these pricey suckers. You gotta use someone with contacts and experience—a broker, like. And I’m pretty sure I can find the right guy for you.”

  I had to admit, Santo was absolutely right. Stan and I would not have had the barest idea how to solicit buyers for the Luckman Preemptive Blast Agent Sensor. We needed a person well versed in the marketplace, someone with real contacts.

  “Vin, this is just another example of why you sit at the top of the free-enterprise pyramid in this region. You’re always thinking one step ahead of everyone else. Now, this broker—he’ll work for a flat fee, not a share?”

  “You will have to negotiate that detail yourselves. But it seems unnecessary to cut in a mere freelancer for any large sum.”

  “I like it,” Stan said. “Just a hired gun.”

  “Not literally,” Vin replied. “But I can provide those, too, of course, should any such urgent need arise.”

  25

  Her ecstatic yelps ceasing, Nellie rolled off me and onto her back. Her ardent activity, now at an end, rendered her a compact, moist, toffee-colored landscape of hills and vales and oases, like one of her native islands, rising from a sea of rumpled blue-green sheets. Her thick billows of black hair might have been a raft of seaweed or a dangerous oil slick laving the shore of the headlands. Or perhaps that was where my metaphor-making facility broke down.

  “Deus!” she gasped. “You knocked all the stuffing right out of me. I can’t even remember no more why I was worried.”

  I replied, “I can’t even remember what century it is.”

  “Ai, Glen, you are always tantu loku! Maybe that is why I love you so much.”

  “I must be loku to share my bed with a wild-eyed nymphomaniac.”

  “I am just a healthy girl with normal needs. Meu cona gets to burning sometimes.”

  “That must explain why I can’t even move.”

  She suddenly jumped up. “Oh, but we have to move now. Look at the time! You and Stan have your appointment, and I have to be at the bank by three.”

  Nellie had reached a point, in her ramping-up of Tartaruga Verde Importing, where our personal bankroll would no longer suffice and was, in fact, dangerously close to zeroing out. I could not tell her yet that we would soon be so rich that I could personally fund a score of small businesses. And in any case, those riches lay in the future, inaccessible for any current needs. And so Nellie was seeking to arrange a line of credit. Fear that she would not get approval had been preying on her mind, and I had suggested a pleasant bedroom interlude as at least a temporary balm.

  Having Stan and Sandralene out of the apartment at this moment was added incentive to make the most of our freedom and privacy. Not that our housemates exhibited any reciprocal courtesy. Lately, I spent a lot of time in our laundry room, the farthest I could get from the noises of athletic sex emanating with uncanny frequency from behind the closed door of the guest room Stan had commandeered upon our return from Hedgesville. The uninhibited clamor of their lovemaking featured half--strangled bellows from Stan and oscillating whoops from Sandralene, evoking the clash of the Titans.

  Nellie headed into the attached bathroom for her shower. I didn’t jump up yet, nor did I find a need to pull the covers over me. The heat in the condo was running against the mid-November cold, but it was on much too high for my taste. Neither Nellie nor Sandralene was responsible for the abusive temperature setting, however. Rather, it was Stan who proved a self-indulgent baby in the face of any ambient chill.

  “I spent too many damn days freezing my ass off indoors when I was a kid,” he said. “And the last winter in that dive where we currently got Caleb stashed was miserable. I never want to go back to being cold again inside a house. Now that I can afford it, I like things tropical.”

  “Now that you can afford it?” I replied. “I haven’t seen you kick anything into the utilities kitty just yet.”

  “Keep your pants on, Glen boy. I’ll write you a check at the end of the month.”

  I figured I should get up and get dressed. Stan and Sandralene would soon return from their visit to Sandy’s mom at the Uncle Ralph and Suzy Lam ménage. My dissolute uncle and his squeeze had even started taking Lura to the racetrack with them. Then Stan and I had to go visit Gunther Stroebel. As Vin Santo’s property manager of sorts, Gunther had been delegated the task of finding us an appropriate building to convert into a factory for the manufacture of the LBAS. Gunther had phoned to say that he had something good lined up and we should come take a look. Once we approved, we’d swing around to Luckman’s place with the agreement that Santo’s army of attorneys had crafted, get him to sign—he hadn’t minded waiting a couple of days—and the assembly and stockpiling of the units could begin.

  Our eventual customer or customers were an unknown quantity and would remain so until Santo sent to us the experienced broker who would presumably hook us up.

  Meanwhile, we had Nellie and Sandralene happily bamboozled under the carefully cultivated impression that Stan and I were still employed by Hertz in its mythical car-transport business, but in a more elevated capacity that did not involve so much interstate travel.

  All the parts of our scam seemed to be falling nicely into place, and I had the same feeling of warmhearted pride and satisfaction I had gotten whenever past larcenous gaffs were humming like a top.

  So far as I could see, the only unsettled matter was Stan’s relationship with Rosa Saxby Luckman. The two had not staged a formal private reunion since that chance meeting in Luckman’s living room, and I hoped any such reconciliation would go smoothly. The last thing we needed was an aggrieved Rosa trying to turn Luckman against us.

  Nellie’s reappearance in the bedroom, swathed in a big white towel, motivated me out of bed to play a bit of grab-ass. Eventually, we both managed to get dressed.

  Out in the main room of the condo, Nellie gathered up her coat and hat and my car keys. “Wish me luck, bebe,” she said. “If this goes through, I’ll be off to the islands again. You’ll miss me a little maybe, huh?”

  I tried to convey my imminent longing for her by cupping her lovely bum through her coat and giving her a long, juicy kiss. Then she was off.

  Sandralene and Stan returned just fifteen minutes later to find me dressed and ready. When Sandy doffed her cold-weather gear, I sent a silent prayer of thanks heavenward that Nellie had already rendered me relatively immune to spontaneous arousal. Looking like a Deadhead girl circa 1971, our West Virginia Hippolyta wore farmer jeans and candy-apple-red clogs. Under the bib of the overalls, she sported a tie-died thermal shirt, its waffle-weave fabric attenuated by the might of her matchless bosom.

  Stan kept his coat on. “Hustle, Glen. We don’t want to keep the man waiting.”

  I got into my jacket. “Sandralene, are you still up for going with Nellie to Caboverde? I can’t, and I’d feel better if she had someone with her.”

  Sandralene’s sunny Woodstock smile completed the hippie-hottie allure. “Sure, Glen,” she said. “It’ll be fun. I’ve never been out of the States, you know. But I got my passport when we were all planning to go there after the Motor Lodge deal. Do you think it’s still good?”

  “Yep. Your passport lasts ten years.”

  Stan managed to take Sandralene’s first comment as a mild criticism. “I know I haven’t showed you a real good time yet,” he said. “But don’t you worry, doll. Pretty soon we’ll be visiting places a lot more exotic than this old town.”

  Out in Stan’s car, I said, “How was Lura?”

  “Man, it�
�s like night and day. She was wasting away down there in Dixieland. Now that all her meds are straightened out and she’s got some company, it’s like she won the lottery.”

  “That’s good news.” I let a few blocks go by in silence before I said, “You had any more insights into approaching Rosa?”

  “I just figure when we go out to Luckman’s place, I’ll get her off to one side and tell her my honest feelings. What more can I do?”

  “Happy to hear you trying out the path of righteousness for once.”

  “Hey, man, I don’t mess around with my friends. That leaves everyone else in the world.”

  I realized that we were not heading directly to the warehouse--district address Gunther had given us, but rather to Stan’s old apartment, which was not far removed. Stan responded to what must have been a questioning look.

  “We’re picking up Johnny Reb,” he said. “When I invited him to come back here with us, I had a feeling we were gonna be able to use him somehow, and now I know how. He’s gonna oversee the factory. You and I don’t wanna do it, right? But someone’s gotta be there all the time to make sure everything’s running right. And I can tell Luckman’s not up to it. His head’s in the clouds.”

  “You think Caleb will agree?”

  “He already has.”

  “Well, I guess it’s a good idea. But you could’ve at least consulted me about it first.”

  “Maybe I woulda, if you didn’t always have your nose buried in pussy.”

  “That is the worst case I have ever heard of someone trying to deflect his own immense load of guilt onto the nearest innocent bystander.”

  “Yeah, so you say. But what you don’t know is, Sandy and me got back to the apartment while you and Nellie were still going at it. I was so damn mortified, and for my innocent girlfriend to hear such sex talk! We hadda leave and go straight to the neighborhood church until we guessed you two were finally done.”