Paul Levine: Riptide

“So how come he gave you fifty-five large just for showing your tits?”

“Whatsa matter?” Violet asked. “Doncha believe me? Or ain’t my tits worth that much?”

“They’re million-dollar hooters, Vi, but that’s not the point. It’s just weird, he could get a hooker with a tongue like a lizard for a hundred bucks, but he pays you fifty-five K just to pose.”

“Maybe he’s in love with me. Ever think of that?”

He hadn’t before, but he did now. After a moment, he said, “So why don’t you do something about it? Shit, all that money for posing. What would he pay for a blowjob?”

“Why doncha make him an offer and see?” Violet said, her eyes narrowing. Not that she hadn’t thought of sucking some life into the old man, but hearing Harry suggest it, like he was running the show, burned in her gut. Sam Kazdoy was her private fishing hole, and she didn’t need any advice on how to bait the hook.

Ever since he had given her the bonds, Violet had been even more helpful at the theater, offering to run errands, and the old man seemed happy enough to have her around. Ey, bubeleh, get me a coffee, black, and a bagel with a shmeer. And she did, stepping into the dark office and hanging around, but there was no talk of breasts or bonds. Relying on a lifetime of experience with men, Violet would bide her time. Let him make the first move.

“Harry Marlin, you listen and you listen good,” she ordered “If ah’m going to get the rest of those bonds, ah’ll do it my way and in my own time.”

Violet Belfrey had a daily routine. Her job was to be the first one at the theater, pick up the mail, turn on the lights and air-conditioning, and make sure the old rummy of a projectionist showed up in condition to load the reels in the right order. She also checked the door to the mezzanine office, just as she had every day since the old man had introduced her to winged eagles with dollar signs. The door was always locked, a cheap Schlage with a skinny bolt, and when she leaned against it, she heard the groan of metal against wood.

On the way to the theater, Violet stopped at the Lincoln Road Grill, a place never mistaken for the Poodle Lounge at the Fontainebleau. She swiveled in and hugged the pudgy counterman from behind, grinding her pubic bone into his butt as he squashed hamburger patties on the grill.

“Seeyuh right after the show,” she said.

“I’ll be here,” Harry Marlin replied, winking at a customer and wiping his hands on a dirty white apron. He was proud that this savvy blonde had fallen for him. Besides being the best lay he ever had, she was a great listener. Harry needed that because he was a great talker. His monologues could last hours. Schemes and scams, deals with guys whose offices were the trunks of cars, always a big plan for easy money. In fact, Harry Marlin was a loser. When he gambled, he lost. When he sold drugs at his lunch counter, he was paid with counterfeit currency. When he fell for one of his waitresses, she cleaned out the cash register and beat it to Jamaica with a local wise guy who made porno films.

Harry had bounced through a series of restaurant jobs in Detroit and when he moved to Miami Beach fifteen years ago, he took over the lease on the Lincoln Road Grill, a run-down luncheonette. The food was greasy, but he had fresh copies of the Daily Racing Form on the counter for his best customers, the bleary-eyed bettors from the dog and horse tracks and the jai alai frontons. And a motley congregation it was — gamblers, aging dancers from the Beach Burlesque, lobster-pot poachers plus assorted retirees, none of whom seemed to mind the stale doughnuts and metallic coffee.

Harry Marlin made it through each day because he had a dream. He would get out of Miami Beach, would say adios to making chili burgers for the menacing teenagers who skulked through the neighborhood. He would read The Wall Street Journal each morning and call his broker each afternoon. He would leave behind the wacko bag ladies who had buried their husbands in Cleveland and Newark, and the bearded rabbinical students who ordered seltzer and made faces at anyone eating the chili. Someday… when he scored.

Harry wore an unbuttoned white guayabera, the loose linen shirt with four pockets, which he thought made him look professional, a pharmacist maybe. He was forty-three and camouflaged a growing bald spot with back-to-front and side-to-middle brushstrokes. He was short, olive-skinned, and paunchy, with shoulders like a wire coat hanger, but he had a smile born of innocence and the heart of a wide-eyed grifter who could not help but believe that his next scheme was laced with gold.

One look at Violet that first day and Harry knew she wasn’t in the running for Orange Bowl Queen. She was the kind of woman who looks better from across the street than across the counter. Still, he admired her style, the way she perched on a barstool, her legs wrapped around the metal post like snakes on a tree trunk. She was fresh talent in a part of town where the favorite nightcap was prune juice. Round, full breasts, low-cut blouse, chiseled features, and hair bleached too often and too harshly. Maybe a cocktail waitress at a Ramada Inn, Harry Marlin thought at first. Probably heard every line from every costume jewelry salesman on the East Coast, but play your cards right, a pushover and no hassle in the morning.

Harry remembered the first words he spoke to Violet. He had patted his thinning hair, smiled, and asked, “How Tjout some chili, honey?”

“How hot is it?”

“How hot you like it?” he replied, flashing the wide grin.

She examined him as if he were a roach on the bathroom tile. “Just coffee, Jose, and save the bullshit for your senoritas.”

“My name’s Harry and I’m not a Latino,” he said, anxious to distance himself from the guys who smack their lips at every chica on the block. “My family’s from Beirut.”

“Mine’s from Macon,” she said, “a shithole full of clover kickers. Where’s Baberuth?”

“Lebanon. And it’s not doing so good neither. Haven’t seen your classy chassis around here before. This is my place, you know. But just temporary. I’m working on a couple of big deals. You know anything about the stock market?”

“Sure, a little.”

Violet Belfrey knew as much about the stock market as she did about nuclear fission, but for a reason she could not explain, she wanted the soda jerk with the sappy smile to like her.

“Great, let me tell you about my investments, all imaginary of course, for the time being.” So Harry talked about his mythical stock portfolio, his puts and calls and selling short. He invested the way some guys play the ponies, with a make-believe grubstake on paper. “Today I’d be a rich man if I’d had the dough to put in.”

Violet listened and the romance began. She would have dinner at Harry’s after selling tickets at Kazdoy’s theater. On Sundays, the Grill was closed and Harry treated Violet at an Italian place with a clean checkered tablecloth, and afterward they walked along the empty boardwalk and listened to the gentle shorebreak.

With a full moon over the Atlantic, they crawled under the walkway, where Violet’s skilled fingers stroked him with the light touch of a pool shark on a cue stick. She bent over him and Harry leaned back, legs spread in the sand, watching Violet’s platinum hair streaked by moonlight filtered through the slats of the boardwalk. Then he closed his eyes, at peace with the world, and thought, Harry Marlin, you sumbitch, you’ve let your sorry ass fall in love.

It had been a month since she’d told Harry about the bonds when he finally asked, “How much you figure the old codger has in that cabinet?”

“Never you mind.”

But the same question kept haunting her. How many eagles were perched there with only a thin, hollow door and a combination lock in the way?