Omerta - Mario Puzo [53]
“Right.” Franky was beginning to hate the word hacker.
“You have to learn the strokes and serve when you’re a kid,” she said.
“Is that right?” Franky teased. “But I’ll beat you before we leave here.”
Rosie grinned. She had a wide, generous mouth for such a small face. “Sure,” she said. “If you have the best day of your life and I have my worst.” Franky laughed.
Stace came up and introduced himself. Then he said, “Why don’t you have dinner with us tonight? Franky won’t invite you because you beat him, but he’ll come.”
“Ah, that’s not true,” Rosie said. “He was just about to ask me. Is eight o’clock OK?”
“Great,” Stace said. He slapped Franky with his racquet.
“I’ll be there,” Franky said.
They had dinner at the ranch restaurant, a huge vaulting room with glass walls that let in the desert and mountains. Rosie proved to be a find, as Franky told Stace later. She flirted with both of them, she talked all the sports and knew her stuff, past and present—the great championship games, the great players, the great individual moments. And she was a good listener; she drew them out. Franky even told her about coaching the kids and how his store provided them with the best equipment, and Rosie said warmly, “Hey, that’s great, that’s just great.” Then they told her they had been high school basketball all-stars in their youth.
Rosie also had a good appetite, which they approved of in a woman. She ate slowly and daintily, and she had a trick of lowering her head and tilting it to the side with an almost mock shyness when she talked about herself. She was studying for a Ph.D. in psychology at New York University. She came from a moderately wealthy family, and she had already toured Europe. She had been a tennis star in high school. But she said all this with a self-deprecating air that charmed them, and she kept touching their hands to maintain contact with them as she spoke.
“I still don’t know what to do when I graduate,” she said. “With all my book knowledge, I can never figure people out in real life. Like you two guys. You tell me your history, you are two charming bastards, but I have no idea what makes you tick.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Stace said. “What you see is what you get.”
“Don’t ask me,” Franky said to her. “Right now my whole life is centered on how to beat you at tennis.”
After dinner the two brothers walked Rosie down the red clay path to her cottage. She gave them each a quick kiss on the cheek, and they were left alone in the desert air. The last image they took with them was Rosie’s pert face gleaming in the moonlight.
“I think she’s exceptional,” Stace said.
“Better than that,” Franky said.
For the rest of Rosie’s two weeks at the ranch, she became their buddy. In late afternoons after tennis they went golfing together. She was good, but not as good as the brothers. They could really whack the ball far out and had nerves of steel on the putting green. A middle-aged guy at the tennis ranch came with them to the golf course to make up a foursome and insisted on being partnered with Rosie and playing for ten dollars a hole, and though he was good, he lost. Then he tried to join them for dinner that night at the tennis ranch. Rosie rebuffed him, to the delight of the twins. “I’m trying to get one of these guys to propose to me,” she said.
It was Stace who got Rosie into bed by the end of the first week. Franky had gone down to Vegas for the evening to gamble and to give Stace a clear shot. When he returned at midnight, Stace wasn’t in the room. The next morning when he appeared Franky asked him, “How was she?”
“Exceptional,” Stace said.
“You mind if I take a shot?” Franky asked.
This was unusual. They had never shared a woman; it was one area where their tastes differed. Stace thought it over. Rosie fitted in perfectly with both of them. But the three couldn’t keep hanging out together if Stace was getting Rosie and Franky was not. Unless Franky brought another girl into the combo—and that would spoil it.
“It’s OK,” Stace said.
So the next night Stace went down to Vegas and