Sucker bet - James Swain [7]
“I’m cutting off my alimony payments. You’re making a good buck, and I’m not. My lawyer said you won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell if you take me to court.” He took out a Bic and handed it to her. “So, if you’ll do me the pleasure of signing the last page.”
“Is this why you wanted to see me and Zoe?”
“It wasn’t the only reason.”
“This is so low.”
He shrugged. “Happens every day in America.”
“What am I going to tell Zoe?”
He shrugged again. “I really don’t like the makeup, if you want to know the truth.”
Kat felt something inside of her snap. Zoe had appeared in the doorway, a Mountain Dew dangling in her hand. Her mother ushered her into the hallway.
“Go get in the car,” Kat said.
Zoe glanced into the dressing room. Her father held a handful of legal-looking papers in one hand, a cheap pen in the other. Shit, she thought.
“Is something wrong?”
“Just do as I say,” her mother said.
Zoe came out of the underground tunnel to the parking lot behind the Arena just in time to see Tony’s ’92 Honda Accord pull out of its spot and drive away.
“Hey, Tony!”
She waved to him, hoping he’d stop, only he didn’t. God, how she hated Tony’s car. It was old and plain and had so many miles on it that the odometer had stopped. Tony had the money to buy something sexy—like a Mercedes or a Lexus—but he wouldn’t take the plunge. Zoe hated him for that. She and her mother deserved better than a smelly ’92 Honda.
Zoe watched him drive to the lot’s exit. His window came down, and he tossed something out. Then the car crossed the street and climbed the ramp to Interstate 4. Tony was a geezer, but he could be a lot of fun sometimes. Especially when hokey magicians were on TV. They never fooled him.
Walking over, she picked up the small box he’d tossed from his car. It was a gift, the wrapping paper bruised and torn. Standing beneath a bright halogen light, she tore away the paper and opened the lid. A cry escaped her lips as she stared at Tony’s gift to her mother.
It was so beautiful, she thought.
2
Palm Harbor sat north of St. Petersburg, on Florida’s laid-back west coast. Back when Valentine and his late wife had considered retiring there, there were five thousand residents. Sleepy and small, it had seemed like another world compared to bustling Atlantic City.
Fifteen years later, the residents numbered fifty thousand, the town’s quaintness run over by a developer’s bulldozer. Every day, the roads got more clogged, the public schools got more overcrowded, and the drinking water tasted a little less like drinking water.
Winter was particularly gruesome. The restaurants were asses-to-elbows with rude northerners, as were the beaches and malls. Valentine had been a rude northerner once, but had shed that skin soon after arriving. Palm Harbor’s lazy cadence suited him just fine, and he looked forward to the sweltering summers, when the snowbirds flew home.
He sat on his screened front porch and read the paper. The stock market had been flip-flopping, and he checked his mutual funds. As a cop, he’d never made much money. Now, in retirement, he had more than he knew what to do with.
Mabel came up his front walk, wearing canary yellow slacks and a blue blouse, her hands clutching a Tupperware container. He rose expectantly from his rocker.
“Good morning,” he said. “How you doing?”
“Who cares?” she replied.
Florida’s elderly took grim delight in discussing their ailments, their deterioration becoming monumental epics of collapse and decay. Mabel was having none of it. Who cares? summed up her attitude nicely.
“You up for breakfast?” she asked.
“Sure.”
They went inside. Mabel had been bringing him meals since Lois had died, nothing fancy, always hot and good. He set two places at the kitchen table, then fixed a pot of coffee while she stuck the container of