The Bobby Gold stories - Anthony Bourdain [38]
"Will he tell Tommy?"
"That's the question, isn't it?"
"Suddenly, Provincetown doesn't seem far enough away."
"No, it doesn't, does it?"
"I was in it with a friend. You think —" Bobby didn't let her finish her sentence.
"I think they got your friend strapped to a table battery by now. I bet he's coughing up whatever his cut was and whatever he knows or suspects or can dream up. I think when they're done asking him questions they're going to drive him out to Jersey and dig a hole and put him in it. Maybe they'll shoot him first."
"Oh," said Nikki. "Oh."
She sat quietly in the dark for a while. Bobby thought he could hear an occasional sniffle between cigarettes. He kept his eyes on the road, speed just under the limit, thinking about what to do next. A place in town was now out of the question. He knew somebody who could hook them up with a dune shack which would have to do until they figured out what to do next. Terrible things were going to happen in New York. People were going to die. Eddie being "boy most likely to." He figured he'd wait. See who fell and who survived before he made any rash moves. With luck, something bad could happen to Tommy in the shake-out to come. Letting some girl saute cook take his crew off for a night's receipts didn't look good. Such things were bad for you, the business Tommy was in. With any luck, a few whispers, some young Turk would maybe make the problem go away. Maybe Eddie would turn state's evidence, go off to Arizona and rehab, keep Tommy and his people hunkered down filing motions and answering summonses. On the other hand, maybe Tommy would come after them with everything. Maybe Tommy would go have a nice talk with Paul and tell him what a terrible thing that Eddie's man Bobby did — how he cast aspersions on Paulie's sainted, no-doubt-virginal daughter to get out of a previous jam, how he was a thieving, cowardly, and potentially dangerous problem who had to be taken care of immediately — along with his puttana. This, of course, was the more likely scenario.
"Pull over," said Nikki.
"What? Why? You sick?"
"No. I'm horny. I get horny when I get scared."
She was already unsnapping Bobby's blue jeans when he pulled over to the side of the road.
"Slide over," she said, her feet over the dashboard as she yanked off her pants.
"This is not smart," said Bobby. "This is not smart at all."
She straddled him on the front seat and pushed down.
"Oh."
"Yep."
"You're a dangerous woman. You're going to get us both killed," said Bobby, already way way way beyond caring.
"I know," said Nikki. "Feels good though, doesn't it?"
After a month, when nobody came, when no strangers had been noticed in off-season Provincetown, where people tended to notice such things, they began to visit town more often, usually for breakfast at the Tip for Tops'n on Bradford Street, or for dinner at a Portuguese fisherman's joint where Nikki liked the squid stew. Nikki took a job part-time at a pizzeria, spinning pies, and Bobby did a little roofing and carpentry, a little day labor at the boatyard. It was cold and crisp during the day, but with brilliant, sharp-focused light, the sunsets spectacular, and the sound of foghorns and boat whistles, the smells of fish and salt spray, the slowed down, more relaxed life of an off-season resort town making Cape Cod seem much farther away from whatever was happening in New York.
Bobby read the Times, religiously, looking for news of dead organized crime associates, and Nikki read Vogue and Marie Claire and Bazaar and planned her wardrobe for the spending spree they were going to have whenever they made their next move. Whatever that was. At night it was freezing cold in their beach shack — and on really cold nights, they'd leave the oven on with the door open and huddle naked under four or five blankets, noses cold, giggling, and curiously without care. Bobby kept the H&K under the pillow for the first few weeks then moved it to the night table. They fucked almost every day and spent