T. J. Dolliver got there early and ordered a Ketel One martini up, extra dry, Dean Martin style, with a lot of olives, five ounces of icy vodka to settle his nerves. He was sitting at the bar at Joe Kool's, watching the door for O'Clair. Get the crazy Irishman off his back and never borrow money again. He had to go to his father-in-law for a loan and explain how he'd gotten himself in trouble and then agree to counseling, talk to a psychologist about his gambling problem. He also had to pay his father-in-law, the cheap bastard, back the loan plus 10 percent, the going rate for sons-in-law who fuck up.
T.J. finished the martini and ordered another one. He felt good, a nice relaxing buzz settling over him. He'd somehow managed to get through it all without his wife, Renee, finding out. Count your blessings, he said to himself.
He looked over at the door now and saw O'Clair come in and his body tensed. O'Clair came right at him, eyes glued to him the whole way. Looking at him and then past him at the half dozen drinkers stretched out along the length of the bar. T.J. took another sip of vodka.
"A prompt man is a lonely man," O'Clair said.
"Huh?" T.J. wasn't expecting that.
The bartender came toward them and asked O'Clair if he wanted something and he shook his head. Now O'Clair stared at T.J., his face was blank.
"Got the money, my friend?" O'Clair said, using T.J.'s line, putting it in his face.
T.J. felt a rush of nerves like he was back in his house stretched out on the La-Z-Boy with O'Clair and the other guy. "Right here," he said, patting the front of his sport coat.
"Give it to me outside."
T.J. picked up his martini and finished it and felt the cold liquid burn his throat.
They walked out and T.J. followed him across the parking lot to the back of the building. He was thinking about what O'Clair said when he walked in: a prompt man is a lonely man. It was true. The shylock was a philosopher. T.J. reached into his sport coat pocket and took out the envelope and handed it to him. "That's all of it, seventeen five."
O'Clair took the envelope and hit him in the stomach and T.J. felt his insides explode. He dropped to his knees, holding his gut, bent over and threw up the two martinis and six olives. T.J. sucked air and heard him walking away now, relieved, the heavy sound of his shoes on the asphalt parking lot.
The girl on stage whose name was Misty took off the pleated schoolgirl skirt at the start of the second song, and was spinning around the silver pole in a G-string with a crazy expression of liberation on her face. O'Clair watched from the bar. If he saw Bobby he'd wait till Bobby walked out and follow him. He'd locked the money he collected from T.J. in the glove box of the
Seville. He'd drop it by Samir's later, make his 15 percent, plus the twenty-five hundred T.J. overpaid.
Misty was crawling around the perimeter of the horseshoe runway in her G-string, collecting bills from drunks and fools. The G-string looked like some kind of carnival outfit with all the bills sticking out of it. O'Clair drank Early Times and water and scanned the crowd. He asked the bartender if he knew a guy named Bobby Gal.
The bartender said, "The country western singer?"
"No," O'Clair said, "the car salesman."
The bartender shook his head.
The house disc jockey said, "Give it up for Misty Rain."
O'Clair got up after Misty finished her set and moved down the bar past three guys in golf shirts, drinking Lite beer. They were trying to impress a young stripper who was wearing a G-string and high heels.
"Gaskets are my life," one of the men, a balding salesman in a pink golf shirt said, "and it's a damn good one."
The stripper didn't seem too impressed, like she entertained gasket salesmen all the time. O'Clair moved toward the bouncer. He was a big guy, with a beer gut, six three, must have gone two sixty. O'Clair stood next to him and felt small. Guy wore a leather vest over a Stevie Ray Vaughan tee shirt, ball cap on backwards, plastic tightener let out all the way. O'Clair watched him give people a hard time, ruling over his little area of authority. O'Clair said, "Seen Bobby Gal around?"
The bouncer said, "Who?"
"Bobby Gal, car salesman comes in here," O'Clair said.
"Preppy smartass, son of a bitch?"
That sounded about right.
"Never heard of him," the bouncer said.
O'Clair knew where he'd hit him first, step in, nail him in the solar plexus, see how funny he was then. "You know, with that wonderful sense of humor you've got, you should be on stage telling jokes not standing here giving paying customers a lot of shit." The wop bouncer stared at O'Clair for a couple of seconds, but didn't say anything, his brain working overtime.
"That's what I want to do," he said. "How'd you know? I've got a routine and everything," excited, trying to be friendly but still had the tough guy edge.
O'Clair tried to imagine this clown doing stand-up, coming across like a raunchier version of Andrew Dice Clay. If you didn't laugh, he'd jump down off the stage and kick your ass. O'Clair said, "What's your stage name?"
The bouncer said, "Justin the Bouncer. What do you think?"
Justin the Bouncer, was he kidding? O'Clair said, "I'll be looking for you on Letterman."
He said, "Want to hear my opening joke?"
"Another time," O'Clair said. "I got to find the car salesman."
"He lives with Colette. She's off today."
"Got an address?"
O'Clair woke her up, he was sure of it, one in the afternoon. He knocked for five minutes before the door finally opened and he saw Colette standing there in shorts and a tank top, a cigarette hanging down from the corner of her mouth, eyes puffy, voice gravelly as she talked about Bobby, stopping to inhale a Newport 100, blowing smoke through the screen door, coughing. She sounded sick, the coughs coming up from the depths of her lungs. She came out on the second story porch and sat on the railing, scratching her head where blond hair turned dark running along the part. She lived in the upper flat of a building behind an adult bookstore and a massage parlor. He could see cars zipping by in the distance on Eight Mile Road.
"Bobby was a regular at the club," Colette said. That's where she got to know him. "And when he wasn't at the club he was downtown, playing blackjack."
Colette said Bobby was the only guy she'd dated in ten years who wasn't a drummer and should've known better. It was a bad omen. O'Clair asked her why she was attracted to drummers?
"They've got the beat," she said. "There's something primal about them."
She'd lived with Corky, the drummer of a speed metal band called Ramrod, before Bobby moved in. Corky was an asshole too, but at least he had coke all the time. Woke up, had a speedball for breakfast. Bobby, on the other hand, was a mooch from the word go. Had alligator arms, couldn't reach his wallet. Never paid for a thing the whole time he went out with her.
O'Clair said, "You know where he is?"
"No," Colette said, "and I don't want to."
"If you were trying to find him, where would you look?"
"I'd call his cell phone."
Of course, O'Clair was thinking. "248-555-5035," Colette said.
O'Clair left Colette and went to his car and called the number she gave him on his cell phone, and was surprised when he heard Bobby's voice say hello.
"Hey Bob," O'Clair said, "how's it hanging?"
"Who's this?"
"Guy you owe sixty grand. What're you-" That's as far as he got before Bobby hung up. Of course, he hung up. What did O'Clair think he was going to do, invite him out to lunch?
O'Clair called Ameritech, asked for Stu Karp in security. He and Stu had worked Green Street, an East Side precinct together, part of the same squad. He contacted Stu from time to time when he needed phone records or subscription information. O'Clair gave Stu Bobby's number and asked him to do a tower check, see if he could find out where Bobby was at when he made or received his last phone call. Stu told O'Clair to relax, give him a little time and he'd get back to him.
Ten minutes later Stu called and said he's in downtown Detroit. What's at 3rd Street and Bagley?
"The MGM casino," O'Clair said.
"Then that's where I'd go if I was looking for him," Stu said. "I hear it's got a new Wolfgang Puck restaurant."
"No kidding," O'Clair said, wondering who Wolfgang Puck was. He drove downtown and parked at MGM valet. He walked through the casino, checking tables. It was a big room with restaurants at the far end. He saw the Wolfgang Puck Grille, the Saltwater and the Bourbon Steak. None of the names meant anything to him. Colette said blackjack was Bobby's game. O'Clair walked past tables and looked around but didn't see anyone that fit Bobby's description. He walked over to the slots and cruised past rows of video poker games, and slot machines with bright flashing lights and the lure of huge instant jackpots.
O'Clair went back through the casino a second time, and saw the high-limit room and went in and there was Bobby holding court at a blackjack table. He took the picture Colette had given him out of his pocket just to make sure. Yeah, it was the same guy, no mistake about it. O'Clair watched him throw down drinks and strike up conversations with people around him. He bet a lot of money and people noticed him. How could you not?
"Who's going to win the next hand? Bobby is."
He bet $500 and won.
"I told you," Bobby said.
It was a high stakes table in the high stakes room. He was pissing off the other gamblers. But a crowd had formed behind him and the people liked him; he was entertaining.
"Who's going to win the next hand?" Bobby looked around, making eye contact with people in the gallery. "I can't hear you. Who's going to win the next hand?"
And now the crowd responded: "Bobby is."
"That's better," Bobby said. He finished his drink and held the glass up, shaking the ice cubes. "Bobby needs another one, cosmo on the rocks."
A waitress in a black vest showing a lot of cleavage pushed through the crowd and handed Bobby a fresh drink and took his empty glass.
"Thanks, hon," Bobby said. "Keep them coming."
The drink was red and looked like something a kid would order, a Roy Rogers or a Shirley Temple. Bobby took a sip and slid a stack of chips toward the dealer. He split a pair of tens and busted. O'Clair could see the guy next to Bobby grin, probably thinking this loudmouth was all show, he didn't know what he was doing. Bobby's chips were stacked in front of him and reminded O'Clair of the skyline of a city. He started with Chicago and now he had Detroit. Bobby's mood changed. He stopped talking, concentrating but lost three more hands, then a fourth.
"Come on, you idiot," he said to himself. "Get your goddamn head out of your ass."
The dealer told him to watch his language. Now the pit boss came over and asked Bobby if there was a problem.
"I just lost ten grand," Bobby said. "You ask if there's a problem. What're you a moron?"
He moved toward Bobby and Bobby said I'm out of here. He passed his chips to the dealer and colored out. O'Clair tracked him as he moved across the casino to the cashier cages. Watched him cash in his chips and get a stack of bills that he divided in two and stuffed in the front pockets of his khakis.
He followed Bobby to an elevator, but didn't get on in time. He watched it go up to the second level and come back down and O'Clair got in and rode up to the poker floor. He saw Bobby standing near a table. Bobby watched a couple hands and moved to another table and watched a couple more. O'Clair took his eye off Bobby for a few seconds, staring at a good-looking cocktail waitress in a low-cut dress. When he looked back Bobby was gone. O'Clair scanned the room and saw him heading for the elevators.
O'Clair moved fast and got there as the doors were closing and pushed his way in. It was packed with gamblers. Bobby moved in next to two blondes with big hair and blue eye shadow. They were wearing tube tops, showing their taters. The elevator started to go down.
Bobby said, "Know what's white and ten inches long?"
The girls gave him dirty looks.
He said, "Nothing," answering his own question.
A couple guys with sideburns and ball caps on backwards laughed.
"Thanks a lot… ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week," Bobby said.
Now the blondes cracked a smile
Bobby said, "What're you doing later?"
The girls looked at each other and said, "Nothing. What do you got in mind?"
"Ever fed a piranha?"
Bobby glanced at him and O'Clair said, "Where's the money?" O'Clair reached over and pressed the emergency button and the elevator jerked to a stop between floors.
"You talking to me?" Bobby said. "What're you drunk, had a few too many?"
"The sixty grand," O'Clair said, "you borrowed from Ricky."
"Who's Ricky?" Bobby looked at the girls, winked and said, "He should go home sleep it off."
"I'll take what you won," O'Clair said, "and anything you got on you. See where we stand." The elevator was buzzing. People looked nervous. He pushed the button and they started to go down. The elevator stopped on the main floor and the doors opened. O'Clair grabbed Bobby by the collar of his yellow golf shirt that had a little green alligator on the front and pulled him out of the elevator.
"Get your hands off me," Bobby said. "Help," Bobby yelled. "He's trying to rob me."
Three beefy security guards, muscles bulging under blue blazers, came running toward them and surrounded O'Clair. They were all bigger than him and looked capable. They had fake smiles on their faces, trying to appear friendly but ready for action. The gamblers moved past them coming out of the elevator, looking at him, probably thinking he got what he deserved.
Bobby said, "He watched me cash out and followed me."
"Sir, you're going to have to come with us," the first security guard said to O'Clair. He was Italian and reminded O'Clair of De Niro, but a bigger version, De Niro on steroids. It didn't make any sense to argue. He was going with them whether he wanted to or not. They escorted O'Clair to a room that reminded him of an interrogation room at a police station. He sat at a long table across from two of the security guys, nobody saying anything. What was he going to do, tell these meatheads he was collecting the vig from a mark who was four weeks late? Would they understand that?