Omerta - Mario Puzo [54]
But the next day when the three of them had breakfast, Franky and Stace didn’t know quite how to act. They were a little too formal and polite. Deferential. Their perfect harmony was gone. Rosie polished off her eggs and bacon and toast and then leaned back and said with amusement, “Am I going to have trouble with you two guys? I thought we were buddies.”
Stace said sincerely, “It’s just that we’re both crazy about you, and we don’t know exactly how to handle this.”
Rosie said, laughing, “I’ll handle it. I like you both a lot. We’re having a good time. We’re not getting married, and after we leave the tennis ranch, we’ll probably never see each other again. I’ll go back to New York, and you guys will go back to L.A. So let’s not spoil it now unless one of you is the jealous type. Then we can just cut out the sex part.”
The twins were suddenly at ease with her. “Fat chance,” Stace said.
Franky said, “We’re not jealous, and I’m going to beat you at tennis one time before we leave here.”
“You haven’t got the strokes,” Rosie said firmly, but she reached out and clasped both their hands.
“Let’s settle it today,” Franky said.
Rosie tilted her head shyly. “I’ll give you three points a game,” she said. “And if you lose, you won’t give me any more of that macho crap.”
Stace said, “I’ll put a hundred bucks on Rosie.”
Franky smiled wolfishly at both of them. There was no way he would let himself lose to Rosie with a three-point handicap. He said to Stace, “Make that bet five.”
Rosie had a mischievous smile on her face. “And if I win, Stace gets tonight with me.”
Both brothers laughed aloud. It gave them pleasure that Rosie was not that perfect, that she had a touch of malice in her.
Out on the tennis court, nothing could save Franky—not his whirlwind serve, not his acrobatic returns or the three-point spot. Rosie had a top spin she had never used before that completely baffled Franky. She zipped him 6–0. When the set was over, Rosie gave Franky a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “I’ll make it up to you tomorrow night.” As promised, she slept with Stace after the three of them had dinner. This alternated for the rest of the week.
The twins drove Rosie to the airport the day she left. “Remember, if you ever get to New York, give me a ring,” she said. They had already given her an open invitation to stay with them anytime she came to L.A. Then she surprised them. She held out two small gift-wrapped boxes. “Presents,” she said, and smiled happily. The twins opened the boxes, and each found a Navajo ring with a blue stone. “To remember me by.”
Later, when the brothers went shopping in town, they saw the rings on sale for three hundred bucks.
“She could have bought us a tie each or one of those funny cowboy belts for fifty bucks,” Franky said. They were extraordinarily pleased.
They had another week to spend at the ranch, but they spent little of it playing tennis. They golfed and flew to Vegas in the evenings. But they made it a rule not to spend the night there. That’s how you could lose big—take a shellacking in the early-morning hours when your energy was down and your judgment was impaired.
Over dinner they talked about Rosie. Neither would say a disloyal word about her, though in their hearts they held her in lower esteem because she had fucked both of them.
“She really enjoyed it,” Franky said. “She never got mean or moody after.”
“Yeah,” Stace said. “She was exceptional. I think we found the perfect broad.”
“But they always change,” Franky said.
“Do we call her when we get to New York?” Stace asked.
“I will,” Franky said.
. . .
A week after they left Scottsdale they registered at the Sherry-Netherland in Manhattan. The next morning they rented a car and drove out to John Heskow’s house on Long Island. When they pulled into the driveway, they saw Heskow sweeping his basketball court clean of a thin skin of snow. He raised