Sarah Weinman - Sex, Thugs, Roll, and Rock & Roll

“Maybe he was a little green?”

“Green? Come on, give me a fuckin’ break. It was, what, his fourth time out? Mark my words, that horse’ll never win a fuckin’ race, not at this track anyway. Maybe if they ship him up to fuckin’ Finger Lakes or some shit track he’ll break his maiden.”

My heart was racing and my face was burning up. I felt the way people probably felt before they had heart attacks.

“Well, thank God there’s five more races to get ’em back, right?”

“Not for me. I came here to be the six horse.”

“And I came here to talk to you.”

During our conversation so far, I’d been looking away and at my glass mostly, but now I looked at the guy in the suit and said, “And who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Your name’s Jimmy Guarino, right?”

He got my name right, but I said, “Who the fuck’re you?”

I’d been doing PI and protection work for eleven years, three on my own. I hadn’t made a lot of friends along the way and I never knew when somebody’s life I’d fucked up would show up looking for payback.

“DiMarco,” he said, extending his hand. “Andy DiMarco.”

I didn’t shake his hand, just asked, “The fuck do you want?”

“Big Mikey said I could find you here.”

Big Mikey was a good guy, a bookie/loanshark from Staten Island. He grew up in my neighborhood-Brooklyn, Bay Ridge-and when I was a teenager I went out with his sister for a while.

“Sorry about that,” I said, feeling bad for treating him like shit. I smiled, trying to make nice, and said, “I hope you’re not looking for a hot tip, ’cause I’m telling you right now, you came to the wrong guy.”

“I’m not looking for any tips, I’m looking for a good PI, and Big Mikey said you’re one of the best.”

“I always do what I’m hired to do if that’s what you mean by good.”

“I was interested in hiring you to do a job.”

“What kind of job?”

He took a sip of his drink, swallowed hard, then said, “I think my wife’s fucking somebody.”

He sounded a little choked up, like it was hard for him to talk about it. I almost felt sorry for him.

“Take it from me,” I said, “guy’s been divorced three times. If you think she’s fucking somebody, she is.”

“Yeah, well, I want to know for sure.”

“Yeah, well, I’m telling you for sure.”

He glared at me, then said, “I want the fuckin’ evidence.”

They always wanted evidence. I guess seeing was better than believing, or at least it made it easier to walk out the door.

But I didn’t know why I was giving this guy marriage counseling. Cheating spouses were my easiest cases, how I made most of my money. I liked them because they were fast and uncomplicated. When spouses cheated, they were so lost and in-love that they got careless: writing incriminating e-mails, making long phone calls, doing public displays of affection. It was almost like they were begging to get caught, to get out of their shitty marriages. So I just took the pictures, got paid, and everybody was happy.

“If you want evidence, I’ll get you evidence,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said. “What do you take up front?”

I usually took five hundred as a retainer, but I took another glance at the well-pressed suit, the gleaming Rolex, and decided to roll the dice.

“A thousand,” I said.

“No problem,” he said.

Fuck, should’ve asked for two. Talk about nothing going my way.

He opened his wallet and took out a money clip. He peeled off ten hundreds from the wad and handed them to me.

I pocketed the money, then asked, “So why do you think she’s cheating?”

“She’s acting funny,” he said. “Been acting funny for a year, wanna know the truth.”

“Funny?” I asked. “What’s funny?”

“She doesn’t tell me where she’s been, sometimes I can’t get her on the phone, shit like that. I swear to God, I don’t know how many times she’s told me her cell phone wasn’t working or she couldn’t get service. Shit like that.”

“Who do you think the other guy is?”

“Got no fuckin’ clue, that’s why I’m hiring you.”

I asked for the usual-his address and phone numbers, his wife’s work address, the time she left for work in the morning, the time she usually came, et cetera.

“And I’ll need a picture,” I said.

He opened his briefcase, took out a photo, and handed it to me. I suddenly understood why he was so worried. Some guys came to me, worried their wives were cheating on them, and then I’d see a picture of the old cow and think, What’s your problem? You should be thanking God she’s fucking cheating on you. But Debbie DiMarco was a total knockout-wavy blond hair, dark tan, and somebody had paid good money for that rack.

“Good-looking woman,” I said.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he said seriously, like he really thought I wanted to bang his wife. I did want to bang her, but still.

“Take it easy,” I said. “It’s a compliment. You have great taste.”

I looked at the picture again, thinking, There’s no way in hell this broad ain’t cheating on this guy.

“Sorry,” he said, calming down. “I just get a little possessive sometimes, I guess. As you can see, she’s very beautiful. I was the happiest man in the world when I met her, but now she’s making me fuckin’ miserable.”

Jesus Christ, he wasn’t going to cry, was he?

Yes, he was.

He dabbed his eyes with a napkin, then blew his nose into it. People were looking over.

I downed the rest of my drink, then said, “Look, I’m gonna do everything I can to get you what you want, but just get ready because it probably won’t be pretty.”

He stood up and looked at me, eyes all bloodshot, and shook my hand, squeezing much harder than necessary.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” he said. “I’m really counting on you, man.”

He finally let go of my hand, and I walked away, letting Mr. Rich Guy pick up the tab.

I probably should’ve left the track with DiMarco’s thousand bucks and considered myself a winner for the day, but when was the last time I did the thing I “should’ve done”? Instead I went back downstairs and invested about two hundred bucks in triples and pick threes and watched the bets go promptly down the tubes as none of the horses I needed on top hit the board. This time there was no drama, no close calls. I just bet, watched, ripped.

In the next couple of races, I didn’t fare much better, dropping another couple hundred. I knew it was happening, that there was no way I was leaving the track a winner, but I stayed and bet the rest of the card. I hit a nice exacta in the seventh race, which built up my stake back to about a thousand, but then I went banzai in the late double and walked out with about two hundred bucks in my wallet.

I knew the smart thing to do was to stop gambling and get right to work on the case, but I got in my car and drove right to Yonkers Raceway. By the fourth race, around nine o’clock, I was back in my car, driving home to Brooklyn, broke and feeling like shit. I knew this wasn’t any way to live my life, but I didn’t know any other way to live it. I didn’t smoke, barely drank, and never did heavy drugs, but I’d been gambling for years, losing my money faster than I earned it. Sometimes I felt like I was falling, except, unlike a dream, I didn’t wake up and find out everything was okay. My nightmare went on and on.

In the morning, I woke up and got to work on the car. I had no choice. I would’ve loved to chase my money at Belmont, but I was broke and had rent and bills to pay. Business had been slow lately and if I hadn’t run into DiMarco at the track, I didn’t know what I would’ve done for money.