Grifter's Game (2 page)

But it was a dollar or so away from Philly by train and on the right side of the Jersey line. It was a resort town, a town filled with floaters and a properly neutral shade of gray. It was a new place to connect. Properly, this time.

No more fooling around. No more winning the battles and losing the war. No more games with chesty chickens like Linda Jamison.

I got in a cab and told him to take me to the railway station. He hurried along on Market Street and I wondered when the flunkies at the Franklin would realize I had skipped.

It was a slow train but it didn’t have very far to go. It passed through Haddonfield and Egg Harbor and a few more towns I didn’t bother to remember. Then we were pulling into Atlantic City and the passengers were standing up and ready to roll.

The sun was hot as hell and I couldn’t see a cloud in the sky. I was glad I’d worn my bathing suit. It would be good to get out of my suit and into the water. I’ve always liked to swim. And I look good on the beach. It’s one of my strong points.

I was out of the railway station before I realized something. I needed to stay at a hotel, and I couldn’t stay at a hotel without baggage. Oh, I could—but not very well. Without luggage it’s strictly a pay-as-you-go proposition, and at the type of place I had in mind the tab was going to come to fifteen dollars a day without meals, twenty with. Rates are high in resort towns in the tourist season. Sure, there are rattraps anywhere, holes where a room is two bucks a day with no questions asked. But that wasn’t for me. If you go anywhere, you go first-class. Otherwise there’s no point in going, to begin with.

Luggage. I could pick up a second-hand cardboard suitcase in a hockshop, fill it with old clothes and a phone book or two. But that wouldn’t do me a hell of a lot of good. The big hotels frown when a guest checks in with cheap luggage. The chambermaids don’t go wild over a suitcase filled with phone books.

I had no choice.

I walked back into the railway station, walked in slow. There was a line at the luggage counter and I joined it. I looked over the merchandise set on display and tried to pick the best. It wasn’t hard. Two matching suitcases, monogrammed LKB, nestled on the top of the counter. They were top-grade stuff, almost new. I liked the looks of them.

I took a quick look around. Mr. L. K. B. was taking a leak or something; nobody seemed to be interested in his luggage, including the attendant.

I took both bags.

It was that simple. No baggage check, nothing. I picked up the bags, tossed the attendant a buck, and strolled off. Nobody questions a buck tipper. Not an attendant who gets crapped on five times a day for forty bucks a week. The attendant wouldn’t even remember what luggage I had taken, and I’d be long gone before L. K. B. realized just what had happened. People take their time putting two and two together, and even so they generally come up with five.

A cab took me to the Shelburne. A doorman opened the door and took my bags. A bellhop took them from the doorman and walked me over to the desk. I gave the desk clerk a quick smile and asked for the best available single. I got it. He asked me how long I’d be staying and I told him I didn’t know—a week, two weeks.

He liked that.

My room was on the top floor, a pleasant palace big enough for six full-sized people. The furniture was modern, the carpet thick. I was happy.

I took off my clothes, took another shower to get rid of the train smell. I stretched out on the double bed and thought happy thoughts. I was Leonard K. Blake now. A good name, as good as David Gavilan, as good as my own.

I got up, walked over to the window, stared out. There was the boardwalk, and on the other side of the boardwalk there was the beach, and on the beach there were people. Not too many people on this stretch of beach, because it was private—reserved for guests of the Shelburne. No rubbing elbows with the garbage. Not for Leonard K. Blake. He went first-class.

There were men on the beach, and there were girls on the beach, and there were children on the beach. I decided that it was about time there was
me
on the beach. It was too hot a day to sit around the hotel, air conditioning notwithstanding. I needed a swim and I needed some sun. Philly has a way of turning a tan complexion to a sallow pallor.

I put the swim trunks back on, hung up the suit in the closet, put the rest of the stuff I’d brought with me in the dresser drawer. I stuffed L. K. B.’s bags in the closet. I could unpack later and find out what little goodies I had inherited from him. From the looks of the luggage, his clothes would be good enough to wear. I hoped he was my size.

I took the bathers’ elevator to the beach level and accepted a towel from another faceless attendant. The Shelburne had a private pathway from the hotel under the Boardwalk to the beach, which was handy. I found a clear spot, spread out my towel, and played run-do-not-walk into the water.

It was a good day for swimming. I let the waves knock me over for a while, then got up the strength to fight back and give them a run for their money. I gave that up, stretched out on my back and floated. I managed to stay awake, though. An uncle of mine once tried floating on his back at Jones Beach and fell asleep. The Coast Guard picked him up fifteen miles off-shore. So I stayed awake.

After awhile, staying awake got to be a bit of a chore. I got out of the water and clambered up on the beach like a walrus with leaden arms. Or forelegs. Whatever it is that walruses have. And I found my towel and stretched out on my stomach.

And fell blissfully asleep. Her touch woke me. Not her voice, although much later I remember having heard it while I slept, about the same way you can remember the ringing of an alarm clock that you never got up to turn off.

But her hands woke me. Soft hands on the back of my neck. Fingers drumming out not-too-complex rhythms. I rolled over and opened my eyes.

“You shouldn’t sleep like that,” she was saying. “Not in this sun. You’ll get a bad burn on your back.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me. I wanted to wake you up. I was lonely.”

I looked at her. I looked at the very good body in the one-piece red suit. The suit was wet and it hugged her like an old friend. I looked at the blonde hair that was blonde all the way to the roots. I looked at the mouth. It was red and wet. It looked ravenously hungry.

And, out of habit, I looked at the fourth finger of her left hand. There was a mark there from a ring, but she wasn’t wearing the ring now. I wondered whether she had taken it off before coming to the beach, or when she spotted me.

“Where’s the husband?”

“Away,” she said, her eyes laughing at me. “Away from me. Not here. I’m lonely.”

“He’s not in Atlantic City?”

She reached out a finger and chucked me under the chin. She was just a little too good-looking. That bothered me. When a woman’s beauty blinds you, your work suffers. A certain part of your anatomy leads you around. That can screw things up.

“He’s in Atlantic City,” she said. “But he’s not here.”

“Where’s here?”

“The beach,” she said. “Where we are.”

Where half a hundred other people also were.

“Want to go swimming?”

She made a face. “I already did,” she said. “It’s cold. And my bathing cap is too tight. It gives me a headache.”

“So go without one.”

“I don’t like to. I hate to get my hair wet. Especially with the salt water. You have to wash forever to get it out and it ruins the hair. I have very fine hair. I mean the hairs are thin, that is. I’m not complimenting myself.”

“You don’t have to,” I said. “Everybody else must do that for you.”

That one got the smile it had to get. A little experience and you learn the language. You have to.

“You’re sweet,” she said. “Very sweet.”

“Isn’t your husband sweet?”

“Forget him.”

“How can I? He’s married to the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Another smile.

“Well?”

“He’s not sweet. He’s old and he’s fat and he’s ugly. Also stupid. Also revolting.”

It was quite a list.

“So why did you marry him?”

“He’s also rich,” she said. “Very rich. Very very very rich.”

We forgot her husband. She did, anyway. I didn’t, because he was an important part of the picture. The fat, ugly, old husband, who was also rich. The pretty wife, who wanted more than the old husband was giving her. It was almost standard.

The deviations from the norm were small ones—they only bothered me a little. For one thing, she was too young. Not too young to marry a rich old goat, because you can do that at any age. But too young to chase. She was twenty-four—or twenty-five or twenty-six or twenty-seven. It was perfectly logical for her to be married to the old goat, perfectly logical for her to be interested in getting into the sack with somebody else. But at her age, and with her looks, she shouldn’t be the one to do the pursuing. She didn’t have to be chaste, but she should at least be chased, to coin a phrase.

Later on, when the years went to work on the high breasts and the clear skin, then she could get into the act a little more. She could do the chasing, and she could do the paying. But at this stage of the game there were plenty of guys who would chase her without any encouragement whatsoever, plenty of guys who would bed down with her without expecting to be paid for their labors.

Of course, we hadn’t talked about payment yet. We hadn’t even talked about bedding down.

We were swimming. Anyway, we were in the water. Her bathing cap was trying to save her fine blonde hair from the horrors of the salt water, and the two of us were busy letting the waves knock us over. Then, of course, she wanted to learn how to swim, and I wanted to teach her.

I held out my hands and she stretched across them, learning to float on her stomach. She managed to lie with her breasts on one of my arms and her thighs across the other. I could feel the sweet animal warmth of her even in the cold water.

“Like this?”

I told her she had it down pat.

“Now what do I do?”

“Move your arms.” She moved more than her arms. She moved them in an overhand crawl so that her breasts bounced around on my arm. She kicked gently with her long legs and her thighs worked on the other arm.

I wondered who was getting a lesson.

We clowned around some more. She told me her name was Mona and I told her my name was Lennie. She was a lot of fun, besides being a sex symbol. From time to time I even managed to forget that she was somebody else’s wife, a potential meal ticket. I thought we were just two nice people having fun on a beach.

Then I would remember who she was and who I was and the pleasant illusion would fade and die.

“Lennie—”

We were on the sand again and I was drying her back with a big striped towel.

“I have to get back to the room, Lennie. I think he’s waiting for me. It’s been a while.”

I knew who he was.

“When can I see you again, Mona?”

“Tonight.”

“Can you get away?”

“Of course.”

“Where and when?”

She thought for all of three seconds. “Right here,” she said. “At midnight.”

“Isn’t the beach closed at night?”

She smiled at me. “You’re a clever man,” she said. “I’m sure you can find a way to get out here all by yourself. Don’t you think so?”

I thought so.

“Midnight,” she said. “I hope there’s a moon tonight. I like it when there’s a moon.”

She turned and left. I watched her go—she had a good walk, just a step on the right side of whorishness, as much provocation as a woman could get away with without looking like a slut. I wondered how long it had taken her to learn to walk like that. Or if it was natural.

The sun dried me. I walked back over hot sand to the passageway, through the passageway to the bathers’ entrance. I tossed my towel back to the attendant and smiled at him. I rode up in the elevator to the top floor and walked to my room. I had buttoned the room key into the pocket of my swim shorts. I brought it out, wet, and opened the door.

I took another shower, this one to get rid of the salt water. It took longer than it should have, because the hotel had a cute set-up whereby you could take a salt water shower or a fresh water shower, depending upon how you felt about life in general. I goofed the first time around. It was a nice shower, but it left me as salty as ever. Then I figured out the system and rinsed with fresh water.

By the time I was done it was time for dinner. The idea of wearing the same damn clothes I’d worn on the train didn’t particularly appeal, and I decided to have a look at L.K.B.’s donation. With luck, his clothes might fit. With more luck, he might have packed some cash in his suitcase. Some people do, believe it or not.

The bags were locked. But suitcase locks, like trunk locks, are all the same. I found a key that fit the little bag and opened it.

Whoever the hell he was, he was the wrong size. His pants were too short and too big in the waist and the behind. His underwear fell off me. But his feet, God bless him, were the right size. There were two pairs of expensive shoes in the little bag and they both fit me. There were also ten pairs of socks which I didn’t bother to try on. If the shoes fit, the socks would fit. Unless the guy had very unusual feet.

That took care of the little bag. I put his junk in my drawers and stuck the bag back in the closet. I got the big bag and propped it up on my bed, then opened it with the key.

I hung up the jackets in the closet without looking at them. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t fit anyway, and I didn’t want to chance running into the bum with his jackets on. Shoes and socks he wouldn’t notice, whoever he was. A suit he might.

I got lucky again with his shirts. We were built differently, he and I, but his arms were the same length as mine and his neck the same circumference. His shirts fit me, and he had a lot of shirts. I put them in the drawers.

There was the usual junk—tie pins, cuff links, shirt studs, miscellaneous junk. I went through everything and put everything away. His clothes were from New York and I wondered if he was, too, or if he simply went shopping there.