“You don’t mean to tell me.”
“They pull the all-time Miami dope scam. Walk in and con the Feds out of forty million bucks worth of pure coke they’d taken off some Colombians. After a lot of action and sex, dirty words—be a minus R—they have a retirement party and invite all the narcs to it. It’s a comedy, only based on real life.”
“Charlie and Buck?”
“Cool guys. Witty. Barry wants a lot of sex in it.”
“Yeah?”
“They did the story fast, you know. Leo says rough but inspired. It sounds pretty good to me.”
Chucky flipped through pages. “Say the offering’s different now?”
“They took the tax fraud out of it. Now it’s a straight deal like any other offering. You put in seven-two five and you and the other investors own half the movie. Not twenty percent like before, half. It’s all in there. They put the investment money in Florida First National and if they don’t make the picture you get it all back with interest.”
“So when’s Leo going to pitch this one?” He saw Stick glance around again.
“What do you think I sneaked it out for—give you a peek if you’re going to see it anyway?”
“That was my next question.”
“He’s not going to show it, he’s afraid to.”
“Who is?”
“Leo Firestone—who’re we talking about? He finds out who some of Barry’s friends are yesterday, the guy’s scared shitless. Won’t have anything to do with anybody that’s dealing or can’t give him an authorized cashier’s check on the investment without moving a kilo of flake. I mean the guy’s scared to death at how close he came, talking about spics and scum . . . You heard him.”
“Man didn’t seem too bright.”
“Yeah, well, his movies might be shitty but they gross big. All over the world. That’s why Barry’s so anxious to go in business with him. Have some fun and the dough keeps coming in for years. No risk at all the way Barry sees it.”
“Yeah?”
“I suppose he’s wrong sometimes, but, I don’t know . . . So Barry had to promise Leo okay, he’d leave yesterday’s group out of it. Maybe contact a couple of big shooters he knows, that’s all. That’s why they’re using one of Leo’s other company names. In case anybody hears about it. It gets in the paper nobody’ll see it came out of the other deal.”
“Fucking Barry . . .” Chucky said.
“He can’t help it. See, Leo came down here as a favor to Barry, made the pitch. He wanted to raise the dough in New York.”
“Leo did?”
“Yeah, so that’s what he went back to do. He told Barry—I heard him—get your couple or three guys quick, ’cause I’m going to move on this right away, button it up.”
“How quick?”
“From what I understand you got to get in right now. But that’s only what I heard. It doesn’t say anything about a time limit in there.”
Chucky leafed through the prospectus. “It looks like the same one exactly. Most of it.”
“Yeah, all the legal and technical stuff. What’s changed is the story and the amount you invest. Barry says all the rest is boilerplate.”
“Subscription application,” Chucky said. “That part’s different.” He pulled the bill of his cap lower on his eyes, saw Stick in a misty gray wash, most of the tables empty behind him, not many at the bar, the patrons still sober, quiet: a restful atmosphere conducive to clear thinking, spotting false notes and shifty moves. “What else?”
“What do you mean, what else? Read it, see if you want to go in.”
“You just said the guy doesn’t want me in. The fucker tries to sell a fraudulent deal, but he won’t associate with certain types?”
“I think if you hand him the money,” Stick said, “he’s not going to turn you down. You know, once he sees he’s not going to have any trouble . . . maybe.”
“But he won’t take cash. Didn’t you just tell me that?”
“Write him a check.”
“I don’t write any in that amount. Seventy thousand.”
“Seventy-two five.”
“Never put more than nine grand and change in the bank. I’m referring to cash,” Chucky said. “And they won’t know how much you got.”
Stick said, “It was an idea.” He said after a moment, “Wait. Firestone’s in New York, I took him to the airport this morning. But they have an office in the Eden Roc and I’m pretty sure his girl’s there. You know the one?”
“The skinny broad.”
“Take her the money, see what she says. The address and phone number are in there. I think the second page . . . Suite fifteen-oh-three, something like that. It’s where you send the subscription agreement, Norman Enterprises Production Office.”
Chucky leafed through the prospectus another moment or so before he got up and walked around the table.
“Where you going?”
Chucky completed his turn, providing his need for activity, motion, as his mind worked. He sat down again and said, “Something smells. I never heard of raising money and keeping it quiet or leaving people out . . .”
“If you got more people wanting in than units to sell,” Stick began.
But now Chucky was saying, “How about Kyle? She know about this?”
“I don’t recall she said much.”
“These two guys are putting together a deal and she doesn’t open her mouth? After she neutered Leo the day before?”
“She must’ve liked it.”
“I better give Barry a call.”
“You do,” Stick said, “I’m back on the road.”
Chucky grinned at him. “You believe I give a shit? I’m dying to know what you’re up to.”
Stick said, “Let’s forget it.” He picked up the prospectus. “I made a mistake.”
Chucky squinted beneath the plastic bill. “I don’t see what you get out of it. Scam, that’s what it sounds like, all right, but I can’t figure the angle . . . You pick up an old prospectus Leo tried to peddle when he was Norman Enterprises? My mouth is suppose to water, envy gets in my eyes, Barry running off with another winner, and for your trouble I let you have . . . what? You’re still going for that five grand, aren’t you?”
Stick said, “You ever do time?”
“ ‘Nam. That’s time and a half.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stick said. “I’d have gone to Vietnam in a bathing suit. I know you can die in war, but worse things can happen to you in Jackson, Michigan. Sometimes you do favors for people so they don’t defile you or piss in your food. Like a peace offering or buying insurance. You understand what I’m saying?” Chucky was looking away. “All I want is to be left alone.”
“We’ll get it settled,” Chucky said.
He was looking toward the terrace at Kyle. She had come in from outside and stood there a moment before she saw them.
Stick said, “You’re early. It isn’t even four o’clock yet.” He had the prospectus in the envelope again and was standing. “I’ll get the car.”
Chucky said, “Now don’t rush off.” He was up, pulling a chair out for Kyle.
She said, “We may be a while yet. Barry and Rorie are having a fight. And there’s no possibility of it ending because they don’t know what they’re fighting about.”
“Clash of personalities,” Chucky said. “Where they, outside?”
“On the boat.” She looked at Stick. “You might as well sit down.” Then smiled at him. “You look nice.” When he didn’t smile back her expression changed. She glanced at Chucky, and Stick could see she was beginning to get the picture. Lionel brought Chucky a drink. Kyle shook her head saying she didn’t care for anything, looking at Stick again. This time he gave her a weak smile.
Chucky said to her, “Well, how’re you and Leo getting along? You make up?”
“He went back to New York,” Kyle said. She glanced at Stick and he gave her another smile, on and off.
Chucky said,
“Too bad that deal didn’t work out. I think if they’d turned the story around, made the two guys like, oh, a couple happy hustlers . . . You know what I mean? Make it a comedy.”
“And called it Scam?” Kyle said. “How about if they con the customs agents out of millions of dollars worth of stuff?”
Chucky was staring at her.
“And they stage a retirement party somewhere, Nassau, and invite all the customs guys . . .”
Chucky said, subdued, “That doesn’t sound too bad . . . Change the offering to get the fraud out of it?”
“I would,” Kyle said. “Maybe lower the price of the units . . .”
“Change the names of the two guys?” Chucky asked.
Kyle nodded. “Definitely. You want names that sound fun-loving but have character.”
Chucky said, “How about Charlie and Buck?”
“Not bad.” She was nodding again, giving Stick a look then as she got up. “If you’ll excuse me . . . We’ve got a dinner engagement tonight and Barry’s going to sulk all through it if he and Aurora don’t kiss and make up. I’m going to see what I can do.” She said to Stick, “You could get the car. Just give me a few minutes.”
Stick sat back, watching that wonderful girl making her way through the tables. He was aware of more noise in the place, more people, music playing now.
Chucky said, “I pay her a consulting fee. She’s suppose to advise me.”
“I think she did,” Stick said. “Look, I’m not going to beg you. You want Barry to have all the fun or it’s too rich for your blood, forget I ever mentioned it.” He pushed the manila envelope toward Chucky. “But if you want in you better move.”
Chucky pushed his chair back to get up but continued to sit there. “Keeping it to themselves,” he said.
“Trying to.”
“I’d have to get them to take cash.”
“Tempt ’em.”
Chucky got up. He said, “Stay here,” and walked out toward the foyer.
Stick went over to the bar and got another bourbon. Looking down the aisle, he could see Chucky out by the front entrance talking on the phone. The tricky part; all Stick could do was wait.
“Broad was very cagey,” Chucky said, sitting down again.
Stick acted surprised. “You called the Roc?”
“She said Norman Enterprises and I asked for Leo. She goes, who is this, please? I told her I had spoken to Leo about investing in his new one, Scam, and she goes, oh, well I’m the only one here right now and would I like to leave my name. Very cagey.”
“You tell her?”
“I hung up on her and called Florida First National.”
“You did?”
“It’s true, they got an account there.”
“They move fast,” Stick said.
“I’m thinking,” Chucky said, “sign the subscription agreement, get it over to the Eden Roc . . . they see my name they might make up an excuse . . .”
“They might.”
“But not if the money’s already put in their account.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I deposit cash, the bank reports it to the IRS, but it doesn’t affect me any.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Stick said.
They saw Barry coming in now, his arm around Aurora’s shoulder, Kyle following them.
Chucky said, “Possessive son of a bitch. Selfish. Spoiled rotten . . .”
They watched Barry walk up to the bar and point a finger at Bobbi. “What’s the last thing goes through a bug’s mind—”
Bobbi’s smile faded; she tried to get it back looking eager, interested.
“I tell you that one? . . . I tell you about the Polack who think’s Peter Pan’s a wash basin in a cathouse? . . . The difference between erotic and kinky? Erotic you use a feather, kinky you use the whole chicken?”
Stick said to Chucky, “But he sure has fun.”
Chucky said, “Jesus, get him outta here.” Then said, “Wait a minute. On the subscription agreement? . . .”
“Yeah?”
“What should I put where it says ‘Occupation’?”
“Put down Big Shooter,” Stick said and saw Chucky actually consider it and shrug. It always surprised Stick, what you could tell people and they believed. Chucky was leaning over the table on his arms. He seemed relieved, as though now everything was all right between them: a couple of friends talking.
“I got to get out.”
“I do too,” Stick said. He put his hands on the table to rise.
“I’m pushing it now,” Chucky said, confiding. “You can’t stay in this ten years. Too many people, they start out they want a piece of you, then they want the whole thing.”
Stick said, “Well . . .”
“People you deal with, you don’t sign anything in this business, a subscription agreement . . .”
“I got to go,” Stick said.
“You ask me if I did time? This’s doing time, man. Same thing. You can’t do what you want, you can’t fucking move. Try and get some space—you know what I mean? To breathe in? You got to pay for it, buy people . . . I don’t get out now, shit . . .”
Stick said, “So get out.”
“They don’t leave you alone. People like Nestor, Moke . . . I started out, I was quick, man. Now it’s like . . . it’s hard to explain. I’m still moving but it’s like you cut off a snake’s head, or a chicken, its body keeps moving, but its head doesn’t know what the fuck’s going on. It sees the body moving, flopping around, but it can’t feel anything . . . You see a choice?”
Stick didn’t say anything. Looking at him, hearing him, his tone, maybe beginning to understand Chucky for the first time.
“I got no choice. I stay in I get eaten up or I get picked up. Same thing. I get blown away by some crazy fucker like Moke or I get arraigned, sooner or later it’ll happen, and they lock me up. You know how long I’d last? I wouldn’t ever come up for trial. I wouldn’t make it through—what is it, they can hold you like seventy-two hours? I wouldn’t make it through the fucking night. They lock me up . . . I’d find a way. Bring in the kind of cap, man, concealed on you that’ll set you free. There’re ways . . .”
“Well, you been lucky so far,” Stick said. “You must know what you’re doing.”
“I been lucky, sure. You got to be lucky. But I been stoking the fire, too, man, all the time stoking my fire . . . Well, it’s burning out. I’m tired . . .”
Stick watched him straighten then, pushing back in his chair, his vacant gaze showing a faint gleam of hope.
“So I’m glad you came along,” Chucky said. “You might not know it, but you’re helping me get out.”
Stick kept looking at him. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to feel sorry for him. It wouldn’t make sense to feel sorry for him . . .
He said, “I got to go.”
He couldn’t understand why people who lived in a place worth a couple million would go someplace else to enjoy themselves. He drove Barry, Diane and Kyle to Leucadendra in the Rolls and brought them home again at eleven, an uneventful trip both ways. When the Stams went inside Kyle walked out into darkness, to the seawall, and Stick followed.
She said, “So Chucky thinks Scam is for real. But what happens now?”
“What’d you tell me? Get ’em to believe they’d be a fool to pass it up?”
“You gave him a prospectus?”
“The old one, the one you showed me, but changed here and there.”
She looked puzzled. “And he believes the investment’s only five thousand?”
“Little more than that.”
“How much more?”
“Seventy-two five.”
“Seventy-two thousand?”
“I had to make it look real.”
“My God, I’m helping you commit fraud!”
She was facing him, the lights of Miami behind her and he couldn’t see her eyes, though in the tone of her voice there was something more than amaz
ement.
“I thought, in the bar, you were talking about a few thousand, what he owes you.”
“Yeah . . .”
“I could see what Chucky was doing, looking for some kind of verification, trying to be sly about it . . .”
“That’s right.”
“So I played along. What else was I going to do? You’re sitting there in the middle.”
“How does the amount change anything?”
It stopped her. “I shouldn’t have come to the table. I saw you with him, I should’ve known.”
“Sunday you wanted to help me.”
“I know I did, but it was different then, exciting. Chucky was the bad guy . . .”
“He still is,” Stick said. “He’s so bad he’ll never miss it.”
“That’s not the point. You’re trying to swindle a client of mine out of seventy-two thousand dollars and I’m helping you.”
“I appreciate it, too.”
“But I can’t. He pays me to look after his money.”
“Well, he probably won’t go for it anyway.”
“I’m going to have to talk to him about it,” Kyle said, “say something. Advise against it . . .”
“Why don’t we just, for the fun of it,” Stick said, “see if it works. If he pays up and you still feel sorry for him—”
“It isn’t that at all, it’s fraud.”
“Okay, whatever the reason. If it bothers you too much I’ll give it back. But let’s see what happens.”
“You promise?”
“On my honor,” Stick said.
25
CHUCKY ARRIVED AT Florida First National, corner of Biscayne Boulevard and Thirty-Sixth, a few minutes past one. Lionel, carrying the suitcase, followed him in and waited as Chucky looked from the teller windows to the bank executives at their desks in the fenced-off area. He wondered how they could work, being out in plain sight like that, people walking by outside looking at them.
“We don’t want to give it to a teller,” Chucky said. “Won’t have the right effect.”
Lionel didn’t know what he was talking about or that he was about to witness one of Chucky’s fantasies come to life. Chucky took the suitcase now and Lionel followed him over to the assistant manager’s desk, which was by the big plate-glass window.