Sucker bet - James Swain [86]
“Where is Rico Blanco?” Hicks said.
“Get that fucking ape away from me! I’m just the DJ.”
The naked girl was crying. Hicks pointed the bat in the DJ’s face.
“Answer me,” Hicks said.
“He’ll be at the basketball game tonight,” the DJ said.
“What time?”
“Seven, seven-thirty.”
“Where?”
“American Airlines Arena.”
“Is that nearby?”
“Up the road.”
“Will he be driving his limousine?”
“It’s the only wheels he’s got.”
“I would suggest that you avoid calling him,” Hicks said.
The DJ was shaking. Mr. Beauregard had seen the girl and was drooling.
“Get him away from me!”
“Do you know what a chimp’s greatest sense is?”
“No . . .”
“Smell. I could set him loose on South Beach, and he’d find you in an hour. Maybe less. And do you know what he’ll do?”
The DJ didn’t want to know. He removed the gold cross that was hanging around his neck, and said, “I swear to God I won’t call Rico.”
Back in the car, Hicks gave Mr. Beauregard a Snickers bar as a reward for not touching the girl. The chimp tossed it out the window. Seeing so much flesh had set his heart on fire, and Hicks watched him pick up his ukulele. The song that came out was instantly familiar, and one that Hicks had not heard in years.
Layla.
40
The phone in Nigel’s bungalow rang at four o’clock.
They were taking a nap. Candy’s eyes opened first, and she stroked her lover’s hair. Yesterday, she’d wanted to kill him; now she loved him more than ever. Her mother had always said that if you could love a man, then hate him, then love him again, things would usually work out. On the tenth ring, Nigel reached over her and picked up the receiver.
It was Rico.
Nigel slid out of bed and sat on the edge with the receiver pressed to his ear. “Half hour it is,” he said.
Hanging up, he slapped Candy playfully on the buttocks. “Get dressed. We’re going to a basketball game.”
“Is this the game you’re betting two hundred thousand dollars on?”
“Yes.”
“I still think this is a mistake,” she said, her head buried in goose down.
“What the hell,” he said. “It’s only money.”
He went into the bathroom and shut the door. Candy slipped out of bed and pulled Tony Valentine’s business card from her purse. She punched in his cell phone number. Valentine answered on the second ring.
“How would you like to put the screws to Rico Blanco?” she said.
Celebrities did not show up anywhere on time, and Rico was pacing when they met up in the lobby forty-five minutes later.
Nigel went to the front desk, and the hotel manager was summoned. The four of them went into a back room where the safe-deposit boxes were housed. Nigel produced a key and opened a box, then began removing stacks of hundred-dollar bills and dropping them into Candy’s leather bag. At twenty he quit.
Rico lugged the bag to his limo. It stayed in the backseat with Candy and Nigel as Rico drove.
The demarcation line between the trendy and hip and the rest of Miami Beach happened at 26th Street, and the sidewalks were filled with garishly dressed retirees. Reaching the Arthur Godfrey Road, Rico put his indicator on.
“Don’t be turned off by Bobby Jewel’s store,” he said as he parked. “It’s a toilet, but that’s how Bobby likes it.”
Calling the store a toilet was being kind, Candy thought as they entered. Small and unbearably hot, the store reeked of body odor. Behind the counter sat an enormous man who resembled Jabba the Hutt. Rico did the introductions.
“Nice to meet you,” the bookie said.
A Cuban man came out from the back and counted the money in Candy’s bag. Candy had heard that Bobby worked for a syndicate that could cover any bet. The Cuban said something and returned to the back room.
“You want to bet it all on Miami College?” Bobby said.
Nigel grunted. “Think you can handle it?”
“Sure I can handle it. Don’t you want to know the spread?”
The newspaper store grew deathly still. Gamblers always wanted to know the spread. Bobby was wise to them, Candy realized. Nigel frowned at the bookie.
“I would assume it’s a large one,” he said.
“Twenty-to-one.”
“Can you cover it, or should I take my action