Joe Gores - 32 Cadillacs

“I was the best I’ve ever been...”

“When you handed him the phony package to burn—”

“Did you see the switch? The smoothest...”

“If he had looked inside—”

“I had stage money in the prepared package...”

Yana took Teddy’s $5,000 package from the pocket inside the bosom of her blouse, and put it on the boojo table. Next to it Ristik laid the tiny hand-carved devil’s head he had scooped from the bowl just before Teddy had stood up. Just as he had flipped the gym bag to the floor so the money would spill out.

Yana gestured at it. “Half is yours.”

Ristik protested, rather weakly, “You did all the work...”

“Equal partners, brother of mine.” She embraced him again, and laughed at him. “Go! To your poker or dice game...”

He laughed almost sheepishly as he took $500. “Keep the rest for me, Yana. Otherwise I will just gamble it away.”

“We will get much more than that with the cemetery dig.”

“You truly believe that he will go along with that? What if his sciatica clears up?”

“He will still think it is there.” She extended a foot like a ballet dancer on pointe . “He would lick this shoe if I asked him.” Her laugh was not pretty. “He is mine. I own him.”

After she had gotten rid of Ramon, she smiled a secret smile and went to put on perfume. She had another fortune to tell tonight. She knew Ramon’s ingrained rom disapproval, but Ballard was necessary to save the pink Cadillac so she would be Queen of the Gypsies. She merely had to get him to...

The trouble was, conning Teddy had her in a state of sexual arousal. Seeing Larry would heighten and focus that arousal.

From her vantage point in the recessed doorway of a small grocery store at the head of Romolo Place, Giselle had seen Teddy White enter the ofica . She hadn’t tried to dissuade him previously in Tiburon over caffe latte : there was one born every minute, and what Yana did to him interested her not at all.

Unfortunately, what Yana did with Larry interested her a great deal — to her eternal shame. Oh God, acting like a jealous teenager! Over Larry , always only a friend. If he knew how she felt, he’d laugh at her. Yet here she was, consumed.

She watched the dazed Teddy eventually go back down Romolo toward Broadway with the limping, shambling gait of a drunk. Minus, she was sure, that silly damned egg wrapped in a sweatsock and stuck in the toe of his running shoe. Minus, also, whatever money he’d crammed into the gym bag with it. Poor fool.

She sighed. A wasted stakeout, what had she accomplished? What had she learned? Who was the bigger fool?

But still she stayed.

The door emitted a swaggering Ramon Ristik. The brother, off to celebrate a successful con in a bar or poker game.

And still she stayed. Waiting for what now? What other shoe was there to drop?

Larry Ballard climbed the steep side of Telegraph Hill to Madame Miseria’s door, was admitted.

Of course. That was why she had waited. For the final humiliation at the hands of Yana. Oh, the bitch!

“You have come.”

“To get my fortune told?” Ballard made it a question.

Yana drew him up the stairs, her hand hot in his. Wearing the same sort of flowing silks as that first time in Santa Rosa. He found it so erotic he got a strong erection just walking hand in hand with her down the dim narrow curtained hallway.

He finally broke the silence. “Did you have... a séance here tonight?”

“A reading. Theodore Winston White the Third.”

There was an electricity in the air, a tension so palpable it was almost unpleasant. Also a tremendous excitement in her — as if she had just made love. He told himself it had been just another con, nothing physical, but he felt a stab of jealousy.

He tried to keep his voice neutral. “Successful, I hope.”

“Very.”

“For him or for you?”

The ofica was dim, he could smell snuffed candles; now the only illumination was the glowing crystal ball back on the table, beautiful and cool and disturbing. She stopped and turned so abruptly that he collided with her. The length of her body pressed against his. Her eyes gathered light like a cat’s.

“For me,” she said in a low intense voice. She was speaking almost into his mouth. “It was a poisoned egg. It is a cruel deception, but he is only a gadjo .”

Ballard’s arms had come up around her. She was naked under the thin silk, her body almost feverish to the touch. She made a small despairing sound in her throat. She must not. She was rom , Ballard was gadjo . But she felt the same wild excitement as the first time with him. She belonged to no man, no concept: only to herself. Therefore she could give herself to any man she desired, rom or gadjo , couldn’t she? Yes!

Their mouths met, their tongues sought. Their bodies began to move together in that most ancient rhythm of life even as they were sinking to the floor, even as his hands went up under the silk garments to open her waiting flesh, even as her hands almost magically freed his stiffened member so it could enter her.

Above them, the crystal ball faded slowly to darkness.

When the dim light was gone from the front room, Giselle left her stakeout, feeling humiliation almost as vindication. No wonder Dan Kearny kept DKA out of domestic investigations: they were degrading. No more of this for Giselle Marc, not ever.

Ken Warren sat upon the edge of the couch and looked at his wristwatch. Not quite six in the morning. He yawned and started to stand up and fell back in a sitting position with a grunt of surprise. He had to put his hands on his knees and push to get himself upright, his knees popping like dry kindling. Goddam couch. Old and not very good quality in the first place.

In the shower, hot enough to turn him lobster red, then cold enough to chatter his teeth, he knew that he would have to get his bed back. Which meant getting Maybelle an apartment.

Yesterday he’d returned her Connie to the dealership, only to be faced by an edgy Giselle when he’d got to the office.

“Ah... fast work on that Continental, Ken.” He’d shrugged, but she wouldn’t go away. “You... ah... have any trouble?”

He faked amazement. “Nthixty-one an’ phat an’ hmblak?”

She put her hands on her hips and tried to stare him down.

“All of those,” she said, “and a hooker besides. But also a human being who deserves some decency and a few breaks.”

Ken had patted her shoulder and walked around her and gone up to type reports. When he had looked up an hour later, Giselle was leaning in the doorway with her arms folded, waiting.

“You know she was sleeping in that car?” Warren nodded, kept hitting the keys. “Now where’s she going to sleep?”

Unwillingly, still typing, he said, “Nthees ngoht frenz.”

Softly, “Thanks, Ken.” When he looked up, she’d been gone.

None of that helped with this morning’s aching back. He’d give Maybelle this apartment and move into a furnished room in a minute — but she’d never stand for it. No, she had to have legit work that paid enough better than piecework at a dry-cleaning plant to let her get a place of her own.

As he turned off the icy stinging water and rubbed down vigorously with the napless towel, he started to laugh. She was big, strong, eager, and the job was there. He’d make it happen.

Meanwhile, he’d repo’d all the easy ones the DKA gang had left for him. Today he wanted the tough ones.

Today Giselle wanted Angelo Grimaldi.

She would uncover his scam, then take his big black limo away from him. To hell with Larry Ballard and his Gyppo broad. Today she was Boadicea, war queen of the Britons, slashing Roman legionnaires to bloody ribbons with flashing blades fixed to the wheels of her chariot.