The Weight (27 page)

“What about mine?” she said.

I closed my eyes for a second. Took a couple of quick-and-shallow breaths through my nose. “What’s the game?” I asked her.

“Which game? There’s always a game. Lots of them. Going on at the same time. Sometimes, one inside another.”

“That’s cute. You’re cute. This is your house. I get all of that. What I don’t get is why you keep trying to insult me.”

“Insult you? Like
you
said, it’s just a game, Wilson.”

“How about if I don’t like your games? I got to find this Jessop. So just tell me what you’re going to do … what you’re
willing
to do, okay?”

“What
could
I do?”

“Fair enough. Is it all right if I stay here while I’m looking for him?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Uh-huh. And could I borrow the car you picked me up in?”

“For what?”

“I have to look for somebody. I can’t call a cab to do that. That car, it looks like a thousand other ones. If the registration—”

“It’s in my name. So is this property, matter of fact.”

“You have a Xerox here?”

She just nodded.

“So I make you a copy of my driver’s license. You give me a phone number that the cops can call if I get stopped. That’s all the cover I should need.”

“You don’t know your way around.”

“This town’s not that big. I’ll find the kind of places I want easy enough.”

“What kind of places would those be, strip bars?”

“That’d be one kind, yeah. I don’t need his picture; I’ll know him when I see him.”

“And then what?”

“Whatever Solly told you.”

“Solly didn’t tell me anything.”

“There you go.”

I guess she liked doing stare-downs. Probably practiced on her mirror. I got up and walked out.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, she stepped into the little suite she’d put me in. I’d noticed before there was no lock on the door—I left it standing open, so she’d know I had.

I was coming out of the shower, wearing this fluffy white robe I found in the bathroom. She strolled over to the closet. Went through all my stuff in about thirty seconds.

“None of this is going to work.”

“Work? For what?”

“For you
not
looking like a stranger in town.”

“What do I care about that?”

“You care because you already look like a bad guy. A
big
bad
guy. A guy who wears sunglasses indoors. You put on that stupid
Sopranos
stuff of yours, you’ll stick out a lot worse.”

“I don’t—”

“Sure, you do. What’s
your
plan? Visit the kind of places where Jessop might hang out? Think you’ll get lucky and spot him? Or maybe you just want word to get around? Leave your phone number, maybe he’ll call?”

“You got a better one?”

“A much better one. I’ve got Albie’s workbooks. His ledger, he called it.”

“So he’d have this guy’s contact info, right?”

“Probably. I never opened them.”

“So why can’t we just—?”

“Because you and me, we’ve got a problem.”

“Do we?”

“How could we not, Wilson? All we know for sure is that Albie and Solly, they trusted each other. We don’t know how much they trusted either of
us
.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“Oh, I think it is,” she said, walking over and sitting on the bed. I didn’t see a cigarette in her hand. I guess I’d been expecting one.

I stood there, waiting.

“You’d rather try it your way?” she finally asked me.

“I’d rather look at those books. Only, you don’t seem to want me to.”

“I didn’t say that. What I was talking about was trust, remember?”

“I remember. But I got no answers for you. I don’t know how deep Solly trusts me, and I
damn
sure don’t know how it was between you and Albie.”

“Albie’s not here.”

I felt ice under my feet. Thin, slippery ice. I knew if I said the wrong thing I’d either fall down or fall through. But I didn’t know what the
right
thing was. And if I just waited, I’d freeze to death.

She smiled like she could see the trap I was in.

“You trust
me
?” she said, real soft.

“I don’t know you.”

“Now you’re getting the picture, Wilson.” She looked at the clock next to the bed, one of those digital ones; 9:19, it said, a little picture of the moon next to it. “You’re not going to find him tonight, anyway. You need new clothes, a clean phone, and—what else?—some protection you can carry around?”

“No.”

“Think that last one over. This isn’t New York. I can ID you up without ever leaving this house. Then you just walk into a gun shop and pick out one you like.”

“They don’t print you for that?”

“Uh, you think any broad with plastic tits, she’s got to be stupid, is that it?”

“I didn’t say—”

“You think I wanted
you
to walk into a gun shop? All I was saying, that name you’re under,
that
person would do it. Get printed. And those prints, they’d come up clean as a vultured body after a month in the desert. Your picture, his prints. Jesus!”

“I don’t know what
you
know, that means I’m calling you stupid?”

“Forget it. Maybe I’m just … super-sensitive since Albie’s been gone. Anyway, travel throws your rhythm off. You don’t want to be working unless you’re sharp, yes?”

“I’m sharp enough.”

“Just sleep on it, okay? We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Just like prison
. I couldn’t keep that out of my head. They’re always telling you that you made bad choices. And then they put you in a place where
all
your choices are bad.

That digital clock said 11:24, with a little blinking picture of the sun next to it. I’d been sleeping a long time. But except for that little clock, there was no way to tell.

I took a quick shower, put on clean clothes, and walked down to where the kitchen was.

She was there. Sitting on one of those padded bar stools, watching another flat-screen. I didn’t know there even was one in there; you had to open a couple of the cabinet doors to see it.

I took some more of her special water out of the refrigerator, sat down, and drank from the bottle, mixing it with bites of three power bars. Chewing real slow, like you’re supposed to.

“You people eat special food?”

“What ‘people’?”

“You know, like weightlifters or bodybuilders or whatever you are.”

“I’m not any of those.”

“That body built itself?” She kind of sneered, as she cupped one of her boobs and jiggled it.

I closed my eyes. Kept chewing and swallowing, chewing and swallowing.

“I hurt your feelings?”

“No,” I told her. “But you’re a bad listener.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you answer your own questions.”

“That’s what happens when nobody else will.”

“You actually want to know? You really give a rat’s ass about me not being a weightlifter or a bodybuilder?”

“I
always
want to know things. New things, I mean.”

More fucking word games
, I thought. But I figured, if I want to ever get a look at Albie’s books, see if the one Solly wants is in there, I have to go along. So I told her: “A weightlifter, he’s trying for the most he can lift. He don’t care how he looks. Could have a belly on him like a wrecking ball, it wouldn’t matter. Power-lifters, they’re pretty much the same, only they do different kinds of lifts. It’s all about how much weight you can rack up, not how many times you can do it. But bodybuilders,
all
they care about is how they look. Weightlifters, they talk about leverage, position,
driving
the bar. Bodybuilders, it’s all about definition. The look. How you’re cut. Vascularity.”

“What?”

“The more the veins pop out, the better. That’s why they shave.”

“Everywhere? Like … girls do?”

“Everyplace that shows. They put tan on, too. Not in the booths—that’s bad for you—like a lotion.”

“Are they all fags?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s the same everywhere. Some are, some aren’t.”

“But you’re not either?”

“What are you—? Wait, you mean, how come I’m not a weightlifter or a bodybuilder, right?”

“Sure,” she said, flashing a big smile. She had perfect teeth.

“They’re both all about … competition, I guess. It’s not about lifting weight; it’s about who can lift the
most
weight. The bodybuilders, they have contests, too. Those are about how they look. Like beauty contests.”

“And you don’t like to compete?”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. I mean, people compete all the time, don’t they? Women do, anyway. When I walk through the mall, I’ll bet there’s more women checking out my ass than men. Why do you think that is?”

“Men don’t spend that much time in malls?”

She walked over to where I was sitting, stood over me, hands on her hips. “That was very sweet.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“That’s what made it sweet, stupid.”

I only had a little of the last power bar left. I chewed it, making it last.

“You need special food?”

“Not special. Just not certain kinds of stuff.”

She walked over to the counter, grabbed a pad and a pen, and sat down next to me.

“Give me a list.”

“Do they have, like, a GNC store around here?”

“They’ve got Florida State University, Wilson.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Don’t follow football, huh?”

“No.”

“What I’m saying, this town is lousy with athletes. Every kind you can think of. Besides, I’m used to tracking down food. Albie, it had to be glatt kosher. You know what that is?”

“Jewish food?”

“Extra-
Jewish food, yes. Now, come on, give me that list. I have to go out shopping anyway.”

“I’ll go with—”

“Let me show you something first.”

“This must have cost a fortune,” I told her. The place looked like a Nautilus showroom, a different machine for everything. Plus all kinds of free weights. Jump ropes, pull-up bars. A shower next to a wood-and-stone sauna. Even a lap pool.

“You’re not so far off. After Albie had his first heart attack, I had this built. Not that I could ever get him to really
use
it or anything—he’d just sit there and watch
me
work.”

“You—”

“Six days a week, honey. It’s different for women. For us, the competition never stops. You might not always get a medal, but, you come in last too many times, you end up out of the next race.”

“That doesn’t sound fair.”

“Aw, poor baby,” she said, in a sad little voice, making sure I knew it was fake.

“Not fair to Albie, I was saying.”

“What!”

“You’re a gorgeous girl. But there’s no way you look the same as you did twenty years ago, right?”

“Don’t be so sure,” she said, sticking out her chest again, like she was selling implants.

“The man stayed with you twenty years. He didn’t leave you, he died, right?”

“Right.”

“And
he had a ton of money.”

“He did.”

“So how are you being fair to him, talking about all this competition stuff?”