Lawrence Sanders - Timothy's game

“Who the hell cares what he thinks. I talked to ma a couple of days ago. She sounded as cheerful as ever.”

“Yeah, she never complains. Where’s Paul?”

“Bartending at a joint on Eighth Avenue. It’s just a part-time thing, but it brings in some loot. Including that wine you’re drinking.”

“Paul’s a sweetheart,” Sally says.

Her brother smiles. “I think so, too,” he says. “Hey, listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“Ask away.”

“I want to do a painting of you. A nude. Will you pose for me?”

“A nude? What the hell for? You’ve seen me in a bathing suit. You know the kind of body I’ve got. My God, Eddie, I’m a dumpster.”

“You’ve got a very strong body,” he tells her. “Good musculature. Great legs.”

“And no tits.”

“I’m not doing a centerfold. I see you sitting on a heavy stool, bending forward. Very determined, very aggressive. Against a thick red swirly background laid on with a palette knife. And you looming out. What do you say?”

“Let me think about it-okay? You’ve never seen me naked before.”

“Sure I have,” he says cheerfully. “You were five and I was seven. You were taking a shower, and I peeked through the keyhole.”

“You louse!” she cries, punching his arm. “Well, I’ve added a few pounds since then.”

“And a few brains,” he says, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. “So good to see you, sweetie. But you seem down. Problems?”

“Well, you know, with ma and pa. And you.”

“Me?” he says, amused. “I’m no problem.”

“And me,” she goes on. “I’m a problem. I’m not doing what I want to be doing.”

“Which is? Making money?”

“Sure,” she says, challenging him. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” he says, sighing. “The bottom line.”

“You better believe it, buster. I see these guys raking in the bucks. … Like those banditos pa went to pay off tonight. I’ve got more brains than they’ve got, but they’re living off our sweat. What kind of crap is that?”

“Life is unfair,” he says, smiling and pouring them more wine.

“If you let it be unfair. Not me. I’m going to be out there grabbing like all the rest-if I ever get the chance.”

He looks at his paintings hanging on the walls. “There’s more than just greed, Sally.”

“Says who? What? Tell me what.”

“Satisfaction with your work. Love. Joy. Sex.”

“Sex?” she says. “Sex is dead. Money is the sex of our time.”

He doesn’t reply. They sit silently, comfortable with each other.

“You’re a meatball,” she says finally.

“I know,” he says. “But a contented meatball. Are you contented, Sal?”

“Contented?” she says. “When you’re contented, you’re dead. Once you stop climbing, you slide right back down into the grave.”

“Oh, wow,” he says. “That’s heavy.”

She drains her wine, rises, digs into her shoulder bag. She comes up with bills, smacks them into his palm.

“Here’s a couple of hundred,” she says. “Go buy yourself some paint and spaghetti. And a haircut.”

“Sally, I can’t-”

“Screw it,” she says roughly. “It’s not my dough. I’ll take it out of petty cash at the office. Pa will never know the difference.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Before she leaves, he embraces her again.

“You’ll think about posing for me?”

“I will. I really will.”

“I love you, Sal.”

“And I love you. Stay well and say hello to Paul for me. I’ll be in touch.”

She gets back to Smithtown a little before midnight. Goes up to her mother’s bedroom and opens the door cautiously. The night-light is on, and Becky is snoring grandly. Sally goes back downstairs to the office-den. The books for the accountant and tax attorney and IRS are kept in the office safe of Steiner Waste Control on Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan. The real books are kept here, in a small safe disguised as a cocktail table.

She spends a half-hour crunching numbers, using a pocket calculator that has no memory. Profits are up over the corresponding week of the previous year. But not enough. The tax paid to the bentnoses for the right to collect garbage is a constant drain. Go sue city hall.

Next she flips through the current issue of Barron’s to see how their equities are doing. A small uptick. Jake lets his daughter do all the investing. “I can’t be bothered with that shit.” He doesn’t know an option from a future, but he can read the bottom line. Every month. Then it’s a grudging “Not bad” or a furious “You trying to bankrupt me?”

Sally pushes the papers away on the big, leather-topped desk scarred with burns from her father’s cigars. She sits brooding, biting at the hard skin around her thumbnail.

They’re doing okay-but nothing sensational. Most people would consider the Steiners rich, but they’re not rich rich-which is all that counts. It’s not for lack of trying; the want is there. But what Sally calls the Big Chance just hasn’t come along. She can buy a thousand shares of this and a thousand shares of that, and maybe make a few bucks. Terrific.

But she’s also bought some dogs and, on paper, the Steiner portfolio is earning about ten percent annually. Hurrah. She’d be doing better if she socked all their cash away in tax exempts. But where’s the fun there? She doesn’t go to the racetracks or to Vegas; stocks are her wheel of fortune. She knows that playing the market is a crapshoot, but once tried, never denied.

Later, naked in bed, hands locked behind her head, she tries to concentrate on the Big Chance and how it might be finagled. But all she can think about is Eddie asking her to pose in the nude.

That’s the nicest thing that’s happened to her in years.

Judy Bering, the receptionist-secretary, opens the door of Sally’s office and sticks her head in.

“There’s a guy out here,” she says. “Claims he was hired and told to report for work this morning.”

“Yeah,” Sally says, “pa told me he’d show up. What’s his name?”

“Anthony Ricci.”

“Sure,” Sally says. “What else? What’s he like?”

Judy rolls her eyes heavenward. “A Popsicle,” she says.

Ricci comes in, an Adonis, carrying his cap and wearing a smile that lights up the dingy office.

“Good morning, miss,” he says. “I am Anthony Ricci, and I am to work here as a loader.”

“Yeah,” Sally says, “so I heard. My name is Sally Steiner. I’m the boss’s daughter. Sit down. Have a cigarette if you like. You got all your papers?”

“Oh, sure. Right here.”

He digs into his jacket pocket, slides the documents across Sally’s desk. She flips through them quickly.

“Everything looks okay,” she says. “You been over here six months?”

“Maybe seven,” he says. “I never want to go back.”

“You speak good English.”

“I thank you. I study hard.”

“Good for you,” Sally says. “You know what a loader does? He lifts heavy cans of garbage and dumps them into the back of a truck. You can handle that?”

Again that high-intensity smile. Ricci lifts his arms, flexes his biceps. “I can handle,” he says.

“Uh-huh,” Sally says. “We’ve had three hernias in the past year. They call you Tony, I suppose.”

“That’s right. Tony.”

“Well, Tony, the boss isn’t in right now. He’s out inspecting a new territory we just took over. He should be back soon, but meanwhile I’ll show you around. Come along with me.

As they’re going out the door, he flashes those brilliant choppers again and asks, “You married?”