Killing Yourself to Survive: Stories Read online

  The cop’s smile turned poisonous. “Know what Johnny said about you? You’re the only guy in Vegas ever added a vowel to the end of his name. Him and his brother, saw you coming at the San Genero Festival, they couldn’t run the other way fast enough, even when you worked for them. Worst case of wanna-be-wiseguy they’d ever seen.”

  Finally, Nick sat back down. “You heard this how? Johnny doesn’t, like—”

  “Know you were the snitch? Can’t answer that. I mean, he probably suspects.”

  Nick had been a CI in a state case against the Tintoretto brothers for prostitution and drugs, all run through their massage parlor out on Flamingo. Nick remained unidentified during trial, the case made on wiretaps. It seemed a wise play at the time—get down first, tell the story his way, cut a deal, before the roof caved in. He was working as the manager there, only job he could find in town after getting canned at the station—a nigger joke, pussy in the punch line, didn’t know he was on the air.

  “All the employees got a pass,” Nick said, “not just me. Johnny couldn’t know for sure unless you guys told him.”

  “Relax.” Another punctuating sniff. “Nobody around here told him squat. We keep our promises, Mr. Perry.”

  Nick snorted. “Not from where I sit.”

  “Excuse me?” The guy leaned in. “Mike bent over backwards for you, pal. Set you up, perfect location, right downtown. Felons aren’t supposed to be locksmiths.”

  “Most of that stuff on my sheet was out of state. And it got expunged.”

  A chuckle: “Now there’s a word.”

  “Vacated, sealed, whatever.”

  “Because Mike took care of it. And how do you repay him?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Every time business gets slow, you send that fat freak you call a nephew out to the apartments off Maryland Parkway—middle of the night, spray can of Super Glue, gum up a couple hundred locks. You can bank on at least a third of the calls, given your location—think we don’t know this?”

  “Who you talking to, Mike Lally over at All-Night Lock’n’Key? You wanna hammer a crook, there’s your guy, not me.”

  “Doesn’t have thirty-two grand in liens from the Tax Commission on his business, though, does he?”

  Nick blanched. They already knew. They knew everything. “I got screwed by my bookkeeper. Look, I came here with information. You wanna hear it or not?”

  “In exchange for getting the Tax Commission off your neck.”

  “Before they shut me down, yeah. That asking so much?”

  Jimmy Thornton opened the manila folder to the last page, clicked his pen one final time, and prepared to write. “That depends.”

  Sam sat in the shade at the playground two blocks from her apartment, listening to Nick go on. He’d just put in new locks at her apartment—she changed them every few weeks now, just being careful—and, stopping here to drop off the new keys, he’d sat down on the bench beside her, launching in, some character named Jimmy.

  “He’s a stand-up guy,” Nick said. “Looker, too. You’ll like him.”

  “You pitching him as a customer, or a date?”

  Nick raised his hands, a coy smile, “All things are possible,” inflecting the words with that paisano thing he fell into sometimes.

  Natalie slept in her stroller, exhausted from an hour on the swings, the slide, the merry-go-round. Sam wondered about that, whether it was really good for kids to indulge that giddy instinct for dizziness. Where did it lead?

  “Tell me again how you met this guy.”

  “He wanted a wall safe, I installed it for him.”

  She squinted in the sun, shaded her eyes. “What’s he need a wall safe for?”

  “That’s not a question I ask. You want, I provide. That’s business, as you well know.”

  She suffered him a thin smile. With the gradual expansion of her clientele—no one but referrals, but even so her base had almost doubled—she’d watched herself pulling back from people, even old friends, a protective, judicious remove. And that was lonely-making. Worse, she’d gotten used to it, and that seemed a kind of living death. The only grace was Natalie, but even there, the oneness she’d felt those first incredible months, that had changed as well. She still adored the girl, loved her to pieces, that wasn’t the issue. Little girls grow up, their mothers get lonely, where’s the mystery? She just hadn’t expected it to start so soon.

  “He’s a contractor,” Nick went on, “works down in Henderson. I saw the blueprints and, you know, stuff in his place when I was there. Look, you don’t need the trade, forget about it. But I thought, I dunno, maybe you’d like the guy.”

  “I don’t need to like him.”

  “I meant ‘like’ as in ‘do business’.”

  Sam checked the stroller. Natalie had her thumb in her mouth, eyes closed, her free hand balled into a fist beneath her chin.

  “You know how this works,” Sam said. “He causes trouble, anything at all—I mean this, Nick—anything at all comes back at me, it’s on you, not just him.”

  They met at the Elephant Walk, and it turned out Nick was right, the guy turned heads—an easy grace, cowboy shoulders, lady-killer smile. He ordered Johnny Walker Black with a splash, and Sam remembered, from her days working cocktail, judging men by their drinks. He’d ordered wisely. And yet there were signs—a jitter in the hands, a slight head tic, the red in those killer blue eyes. Then again, if she worried that her customers looked like users, who would she sell to?

  “Nick says you’re a contractor.”

  He shook his head. “Project manager.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Sometimes. Not often enough.” He laughed and the laugh was self-effacing, one more winning trait. “I buy materials, hire the subs, make sure the bonds are current and we’re all on time. But the contractor’s the one with his license on the line.”

  “Sounds demanding.”

  “Everything’s demanding. If it means anything.”

  She liked that answer. “And to relax, you … ?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got a bike, a Triumph, old bandit 350, gathering dust in my garage.” Another self-effacing smile. “Amazing how boring you can sound when stuff like that comes out.”

  Not boring, she thought. Just normal. “Ever been married?”

  A fierce little jolt shot through him. “Once. Yeah. High school sweetheart kind of thing. Didn’t work out.”

  She got the hint, and steered the conversation off in a different direction. They talked about Nick, the stories they’d heard him tell about his TV days, wondering which ones to believe. Sam asked about how the two men had met, got the same story she’d heard from Nick, embellished a little, not too much. Things were, basically, checking out.

  Sensing it was time, she signaled the bartender to settle up. “Well, it’s been very nice meeting you, Jimmy. I have to get home. The sitter awaits, with the princess.”

  “Nick told me. Natalie, right? Have any pictures?”

  She liked it when men asked to see pictures. It said something. She took out her wallet, opened it to the snapshots.

  “How old?”

  “Fifteen months. Just.”

  “She’s got her mother’s eyes.”

  “She’s got more than that, sadly.”

  “No. Good for her.” He returned her wallet, hand not trembling now. Maybe it was the scotch, maybe the conversation. “She’s a beauty. Changed your life, I’ll bet.”

  Yes, Sam thought, that she has. Maybe we’ll talk about that sometime. Next time. “Have kids?”

  Very subtly, his eyes hazed. “Me? No. Didn’t get that far, which is probably for the best. Got some nephews and nieces, that’s it for now.”

  “Uncle Jimmy.”

  He rattled the ice in his glass, traveled somewhere with his thoughts. “I like kids. Want kids. My turn’ll come.” Then, brightening suddenly: “I’d be up for a play date some time, with Natalie. I mean, if that d
oesn’t sound too weird.”

  That’s how it started, same playground near the apartment. And he hadn’t lied, he hit it off with Natalie at first sight—stunning, really. He was a natural, carrying her on his shoulders to the park, guiding her up the stairs to the slide, taking it easy on the swing. He had Sam cradle her in her lap on the merry-go-round, spun them both around in the sun-streaked shade. Natalie shrieked, Sam laughed; it was that kind of afternoon.

  They brought Natalie home, put her down for her nap, then sat on the porch with drinks—the usual for him, Chablis for her. The sun beat down on the freshly watered lawn, a hot desert wind rustling the leaves of the imported elm trees.

  Surveying the grounds, he said, “Nice place. Mind if I ask your monthly nut?”

  “Frankly?”

  He chuckled. “Sorry. Professional curiosity. I was just doing the math in my head, tallying costs, wondering what kind of return the developer’s getting.”

  She smiled wanly. “I don’t like to think about it.” That seemed as good a way as any to change the subject. “So, Nick says you wanted to ask me something.”

  Suddenly, he looked awkward, a hint of a blush. It suited him.

  “Well, yeah. I suppose … You know. Sometimes …” He gestured vaguely.

  She said, “Don’t make me say it for you.”

  He cleared his throat. “I could maybe use an eightball. Sure.”

  There, she thought. Was that so hard? “Let’s say a gram. I don’t know you.”

  “How about two?”

  It was still below the threshold for a special felony, which an eightball, at 3.5 grams, wasn’t. “Two-forty, no credit.”

  “No friend-of-a-friend discount?”

  “Nick told you there would be?”

  “No, I just—”

  “There isn’t. There won’t be.”

  He raised his hands, surrender. “Okay.” He reached into his hip pocket for his wallet. “Mind if I take a shot while I’m here?”

  She collected her glass, rose from her chair. “I’d prefer it, actually. Come on inside.” She gestured for him to have a seat on the couch, disappeared into her bedroom, and returned with the coke, delivering the two grams with a mirror, a razor blade, a straw. As always, a stranger in the house, one of the cats sat in the corner, blinking. The other hid. Sam watched as Jimmy chopped up the lines, an old hand. He hoovered the first, offered her the mirror. She declined. He leaned back down, finished up, tugged at his nose.

  “That’s nice,” he said, collecting the last few grains on his finger, rubbing it into his gums. When his hand came away, it left a smile behind. “I’m guessing Mannitol. I mean, you’ve got it around, right?”

  Sam took a sip of her wine. He was referring to a baby laxative commonly used as a cutting agent. Coolly, she said, “Let a girl have her secrets.”

  He nodded. “Sorry. That was out of line.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She toddled her glass. “So—will there be anything else?”

  She didn’t mean to sound coy, but even so she inwardly cringed as she heard the words out loud. The way he looked at her, it was clear he was trying to decipher the signal. And maybe, on some level, she really did mean something.

  “No,” he said. “I think that’s it. Mind if I take one last look before I leave?”

  And so that’s how they wrapped it up, standing in the doorway to Natalie’s room, watching her sleep.

  “Such a pretty little creature,” he whispered. “Gotta confess, I’m jealous.”

  Back in his car, Jimmy horned the rest of the first gram, then drove to the Roundup, a little recon, putting faces to names, customers of Sam’s that Nick had told him about: card dealers, waitresses, a gambler named Harry Thune, homely Brit, the usual ghastly teeth. After that, he drove to the strip mall on Charleston where the undercover unit had its off-site location, an anonymous set of offices with blinds drawn, a sign on the door reading “Halliwell Partners, Ltd.” He logged in, parked at his desk, and wrote up his report: the purchase of one gram Cocaine HCL, field tested positive with Scott reagent—blue, pink, then blue with pink separation in successive ampoules after agitation—said gram supplied by Samantha Pitney, White Female Adult. He invented an encounter far more fitting with department guidelines than the one that had taken place, wrote it out, signed it, then drove to Metro tower, walked in the back entrance, and delivered the report to his sergeant, an old hand named Becker, who sent Jimmy on to log the gram into evidence. Jimmy said hey to the secretaries on his way through the building, went back to his car, moved $120 from his personal wallet to his buy wallet to cover the gram he’d pilfered, then planned his next step.

  The following two buys were the same, two grams, and she seemed to grow more comfortable. He got bumped up to an eightball, and not long after that he rose to two. He always took a taste right there at the apartment, while they were talking, one of the perks of the job. Later, he’d either log it in as-is, claiming the shortage had been used for field-testing, or he’d pocket the light one, chop it up into grams, then drive to Henderson—or, on weekends, all the way to Laughlin—work the bars, a little business for himself, cover his costs, a few like minds, deputies he knew.

  He found himself oddly divided on Sam. You could see she’d tried to cultivate an aura: the wry feminine reserve, the earth tones, all the talk about yoga and studying for her real estate license. Maybe it was motherhood, all that scrubbed civility, trying to be somebody. Then again, maybe it was cokehead pretense. Regardless, little things tripped her up, those selfless moments, more and more frequent, when she let him see behind the mask. Trouble was, from what he could tell, the mask had more to offer.

  He’d nailed a witness or two in his time, never a smooth move, but nothing compared to bedding a suspect. As fluid as things had become morally since he’d started working undercover, he’d never lost track of that particular red line. That didn’t mean he didn’t entertain the thought—throwing her over his shoulder, carrying her into her room, dropping her onto the bed, watching her hair unfurl from the soft thudding impact. Would she try to fight him off—no, that would just be part of the dance. Soon enough she’d draw him down, a winsome smile, hands clasped behind his neck, a few quick nibbles in her kiss, now and then a good firm bite. And was she one of those who showed you around the castle—how hard to pinch the nipples, how many fingers inside, the hand clasped across her mouth as she came—or would she want you to find all that out for yourself? Playing coy, demure, wanting you to take command, maybe even scare her. How deep would she like it, how slow, how rough? Would she come in rolling pulses, or one big back-arching slam?

  Then again, of course, there was Natalie. Truth be told, she was the one who’d stolen his heart. And it was clear her poor deluded mother loved her, but love’s not enough—never is, never has been. He remembered Sam asking, in their first face-to-face, about his marriage, about kids. You’re not a cop till your first divorce, he thought, go through the custody horseshit. Lose. Bobby was his name. Seven years old now. Somewhere.

  When he found himself thinking like that, he also found himself developing a mean thirst. And when he drank, he liked a whiff, to steady the ride, ice it. And so soon he’d be back at Ms. Pitney’s door, repeating the whole sad process, telling himself the same wrong stories, wanting everything he had no right to.

  Six weeks into things, he asked, “What made you get into this business anyway?”

  She was sitting on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, wearing a new perfume. From the look on her face, you would’ve thought he’d spat on the floor. “No offense, but that came out sounding ugly.”

  He razored away at three chalky lines. “Didn’t mean it that way. Sorry.”

  She thought about it for a moment, searching the ceiling with her eyes. “The truth? I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.”

  He had to check himself, to keep from laughing, and yet he could see it. So her, thinking that way. “Why not marry the father?”

&n
bsp; Again, she took her time before answering, but this time she didn’t scour the ceiling, she gazed into his face. Admittedly, he was a little ragged: His mouth was dry, his eyes were jigging up and down, his pupils were bloated. And his hands, yeah, a mild but noticeable case of the shakes.

  “Some men are meant to be fathers,” she said. “Some men aren’t.”

  Sam let one of the Claudia’s Persians settle in her lap, pressing her skirt with its paws. The other cat lay in its usual spot, on the cushion by the window, lolling in the sun. Natalie sat in her stroller, gumming an apple slice, while Claudia attended her ferns, using a tea kettle for a watering can.

  “I usually charge thirty, which is already low, but I’d trim a little more, say twenty-eight.” She was talking in thousands of dollars, the price for a pound—or an elbow, in the parlance.

  “That’s still a little steep for me.”

  “You could cut your visits here by half. More.”

  “Is that a problem?” Secretly, Sam loved coming here. She thought of it as Visiting Mother.

  Over her shoulder, Claudia said, “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe I’ll ratchet up another QP. I don’t want any more than that in the house.” Claudia bent to reach a pot on the floor. “The point is to get it out of the house.”

  Well duh, Sam thought, feeling judged, a headache looming like a thunderhead just behind her eyes. She was getting them more and more. “There’s something else I’d like to talk over, actually. It’s about Natalie.”

  Claudia stopped short. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Not yet. I mean, there’s nothing to worry about. But if anything ever happened to me, I don’t know who would take care of her.”

  A disagreeable expression crossed Claudia’s face, part disdain, part calculation, part suspicion. “You have family.”

  “Not local. And not that I trust, frankly.”

  “What exactly are you asking?”

  “I was wondering if she could stay with you. If anything ever happened, I mean.”

  Claudia put the tea kettle down and came over to a nearby chair, crossing her legs as she sat. “Have you noticed any cars following you lately?”