Ask the Dice (26 page)

"Dr. Moe Zinberg."

"That's it! Good, old, Dr. Moe the Mole. Call him for an appointment if you think you should see him."

"That's not possible unless he holds office hours inside his casket."

"Oh, I didn't know he'd died. Your voice is so flat. What's troubling you?"

I felt as if I was 16 again talking to my mother, but I needed this information tonight. "My day job is getting to be a royal grind."

She paused as if I'd told her something profound—maybe I had—and she groped for a way to respond in kind. "Sorry to hear that. What is it you do again?" Self-conscious, she laughed. "I'm not sure I ever knew."

"Security. There's some travel involved, mostly in the continental
U.S.
"

"Well, put the day job out of your mind. Have you caught any good shows? You used to play your jazz records day and night if we let you. We thought it was quaint for a kid to be so infatuated by the old-time jazz. But then you always knew your own mind. Remember the Labor Day when I drove you and Kathy to see the Duke and his band play downtown?"

"She hated it, and I loved it."

"Your sister and you are different as day and night."

"I hit a jazz club tonight," I lied to Amanda.

"A jazz club is now open in
Old
Yvor
City
." She laughed again. "Boy, I need to get back there more often if it's going to be the new hot spot."

"Listen, it'll probably awhile before I'll get in touch again."

"Oh?"

"I'm starting work on a big project." That wasn't a lie.

"It sounds ominous."

"Well, I should hope not."

"Just flush
Texas
from your mind, Tommy Mack. Erase it. For you, it never happened. That's for the best, I think."

"Is that why it never came up much with us? I had lots of questions, and I still do."

"We never learned any special knowledge on it to share with you. The adoption agency didn't give us a dossier or pass along any personal history. I'm sure what you know is pretty much what smattering we do."

"Why did you guys adopt me anyway?"

"We had the financial means, and you had the need. It seemed like the right thing to do, and it was."

That had a sound practical logic. "A business trip took me by
Champagne
's Folly, and I stopped there."

"That was brave of you."

"The old stucco house I grew up in is still intact."

"I see. Does anybody dare live inside it?"

"Not in a long time. It's rundown, and the lane is rutty, and a bunch of weeds glut the yard. Even the peach orchard is going to pot."

"You hate peaches."

"Not always, Mom."

"I wish I could be of more help."

"You did your best, and I'm grateful to be old enough now to understand what it took. Thanks for everything, and I mean that."

"No thanks are owed, but I'm appreciative to hear it. I better go. Running this bed-and-breakfast keeps me hopping around the clock."

"Be well. I'm grateful for your talking with me."

"Nonsense, Tommy Mack. Call any time, and don't make yourself into such a stranger. Love you, dear."

“I love you, too, Mom.”

After we broke off, I tapped out a
Blue
Castle
, screwed it into my lips, and scraped the match head to spurt alive. The trivial act struck me as hollow as my heart felt, but I lit up anyway, and I tried to follow Amanda's advice and shake off my shroud of self-pity. Some things—even the most vital things—in our lives were best left unvisited or dug up. For me, that was
Texas
. The alleyway's hush brought me a measure of peace, like my escapes as a kid out to the peach orchard had done. Phil Zane, my adopted dad, was a legendary insomniac who late in life had grown addicted to watching the History channel when not restocking his Netflix DVD queue. He was quick to jump on my next signal.

"I've heard nothing in months from you, so it must be important."

I found myself thankful for the use of reliable clichés. "Time slips away from you."

"Ain't it the galling truth? What's on your mind tonight?"

"
Texas
."

"I know it's our second largest state."

"Just my neck of the woods interests me."

"That was back when Christ was a corporal. Sorry, but I have to plead ignorance. Your mother took care of the adoption stuff. I was always on the job and hardly at home."

"You never liked the dirty looks we got while out in public."

"People would do well to mind their own business."

"Agreed. Are you still seeing what's-her-name?"

"Alicia. Not anymore, I'm not. She died. Pulmonary emulsion. I got her pet

ferret Banquo. How's the job going?"

"Busy."

"Where are you working again?"

For a refreshing, welcome change, I saw no advantage in my lying to him. "I'm in Watson Ogg's outfit."

"Sure, he's the cutthroat gangster."

"What makes you say that? Nothing has been proven against him."

"I got an earful from Juana after she quit as his maid. She told me all about the dark suits that guard his evil empire."

"Juana—right, I forgot about her. How is she?"

"She's moved back to
Manila
to be with her niece."

I'd bet Mr. Ogg had boned Juana, too, before she left the country. "Mr. Ogg prefers to call himself a businessman."

"He's full of shit. Just keep your nose clean."

"Good advice to live by."

"Then I'll be seeing you. My TV show has started. Bye for now."

Just as easy as that, Phil was gone again. I didn’t bother to phone my sister Kathy who by now was almost a stranger to me. Behind me, I could hear the club pumping out its guitar jams, vocal squalls, and drum solos. The alleyway door slammed out, and when I turned, the music poured out in a brash blast. The figure-8 silhouette of Danny that I'd missed seeing in her before leaned in the doorway's rectangle of reddish light.

"So there you are, you will-o'-the-wisp," she said. "Big Jamal said you'd stepped out here. Is everything all right?"

"Hi, Danny. Can you round up D. Noble? I've just about burned out hanging out here."

"I'd wait a bit longer. Big Jamal insists Rita will come along."

"He should know. Cigarette?" I offered her one from the pack of Blue Castles.

Danny's headshake refused my gift. "I better not since I've decided to quit. But light up, if you like. I don't mind."

So I did.

"Come on back inside, Tommy Mack. Hanging out in this alleyway is for the rats."

"Then I should feel right at home."

"You've taken some strange ideas in your head."

I laughed, no joy. "You don't know how right you are, Danny." I flicked away the lit cigarette. "But after tonight, there's no turning back for me."

Chapter 29

D
anny guided us inside where the overheads had brightened on the revelers who were the modern adherents of Caligula, the Roman emperor crazed by his lust and deviance. Too many of them crushed me, and I grew frantic to retreat to my quiet hanging post, but the side exit to the alleyway fell from view as the swirls engulfed me. The oily cannabis miasma—I coughed on it like a goat does—dirtied the air, and the milling revelers trampled on my shoes. My fists knotted up to slug me a swath through, but I'd no room left to swing.

I scanned my wary eyes over the mêlée. Hourglass nymphets cavorted in lap dances with clients on the leather couches. Hydraulics in the steel rafters had lowered the go-go cages on their spindly, silver chains. Blue body-painted canaries, all female nudes, jounced in herky-jerky gyrations behind the cage’s wire mesh. Others dancing on the chair seats shook their fleshy booties. I lost sight of Danny and D. Noble. Big Jamal sank behind the bar, and I winced at an elbow jabbed my short ribs.
Screw this. I'm gone
, I thought as the music trailed off its punishing grind on my ears.

"Hi, sweetheart."

Esquire was the stable boulder off to my right. He came dressed in a jacket of the same tweed fabric as he stitched on for upholstery seat covers.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"D. Noble invited me."

I gave Esquire an incredulous look. "What? He thinks you carry the bubonic plague."

He lifted his oxen shoulders. "He's a practical man who tells me you've hit a buzz saw. Buzz saw extractions happen to be my specialty."

"Where is Hermes?"

"Oh, that guy." Rolling his eyes, Esquire quirked his lips. "He's is out of it. He took some codeine, and he's dead to the world until the morning. Is your party girl Rita on the premises?"

"Not even a glimpse of her, so far."

He did a thumbs up. "What's on the floors above us?"

I shrugged. "Just empty warehouse space, I suppose."

"Big Jamal doesn't think so."

"What does he say?"

"Your boss and his outfit just bought out this club, and he runs it now."

I was surprised. "How does Big Jamal know that?"

"He saw the dark suits park outside, go in a side door, and so he asked around and confirmed it."

Mr. Ogg's tentacles always stretched for the city's most rotten spheres. Maybe the hedonistic Rita and Gwen had lobbied him to buy Caligula's, and he agreed as long as he could plunder it for his profitable gain. I realized what came next for us. "We'll head on upstairs."

"They won't like us barging in like this."

I drew out an invisible object from my hip pocket for study. "Really? My engraved invitation says I can invite as many guests as I want."

"Who's on your guest list?"

"Round up Big Jamal, Danny, and D. Noble and add in us. That's a full house, always a winning hand to play."

"We better go up there armed."

I nodded. "I'll meet you just outside the front entrance in five minutes."

I found Danny talking to Big Jamal, and we rendezvoused with Esquire and D. Noble just as the blaring music inside restarted. D. Noble, the fleetest among us, sprinted off down the block and hustled back carrying Danny's three sawed-off 12-gauges, body armor, and all the extra ammo we'd left stowed in the coupé.

Wearing the body armor molded us into fighting ninjas. We stuffed the extra ammo in our pockets and wielded the sawed-offs behind our thighs in our best concealment. The scar-faced midget Big Jamal now packed a .44 Magnum in a customized Sam Brown duty belt (taken from his weapons stash kept here) under his pearl-gray suit jacket. Esquire turned his brass-encased knuckles into a pair of 6-pound sledge hammers, and we felt primed to take on the high rollers upstairs.

"Saddle up," I said.

Big Jamal funneled us back inside to Caligula's dance floor, and we next filed through the marked exit by the aquarium. The flight of metal stairs with open treads made for a steep climb. My index finger rode near the sawed-off's trigger. Letting the others go first and protecting our rear, I was psyched out for a clash. We hiked up to the third tier where the metal stairs petered out. No gunfire had strafed us, but I didn't grow lax.

Poised on the landing like a giant puma, Esquire cast me a questioning look. I signed with my fingers: stove in the door. He refitted the brass dusters, and his right cross clubbed a splintery hole through the wood door. Now they had to know we'd come. He groped his hand down and slid off the inside deadbolt. The first to enter the lions' den, he surged forward, chopping his savage fists. I heard metallic knuckles splinter and crunch bone, a sickening but sweet noise.