Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll

THUG)

Double Down

Jason Starr

I needed the six horse to win the fourth race at Belmont in a big way, but as the horses went around the far turn I knew it wasn’t happening. The six made the lead but he was all out and another horse, the nine, was flying on the outside. In mid-stretch the nine hooked the six, but the six dug in—just to extend my torture a little longer—and they went neck and neck past the sixteenth pole.

Hold him off, you cocksucker! I yelled. Get up, you fucking son of a bitch!

Naturally, I was wasting my breath. Seventy yards to the wire, the six hit quicksand and the nine drew off to win by an open length.

I went back into the grandstand, cursing, ripping tickets. The six was my big play of the day. I bet my lungs on it—five hundred win and another six hundred in exactas and triples. Yeah, I hit a couple cover exactas on the nine-six, but what would that get me, a hundred and change? Big whoopy shit.

I rode the escalator to the second floor, went to the saloon, and ordered a J.D. straight up. I downed it in one gulp and asked for a refill. A guy sat next to me. He was my age, early forties, had a big gut and thinning gray hair. He was in an expensive suit and was wearing a Rolex. But he had a wannabe way about him. Maybe he was rich, maybe he wasn’t, but he wanted everybody to think he was.

He ordered a gin and tonic, then said to me, How you doin’?

At the racetrack when somebody asks you how you’re doing they’re not inquiring about your health.

How do you think I’m doing? I said, figuring I’d let the fact that I was at the bar downing J.D.’s at two in the afternoon on a bright sunny day do the talking.

Had the six in the last, huh? he asked.

Tell me how he fuckin’ loses that race, I said, getting aggravated all over again. I mean, okay, the nine was good. But with the fractions he got, what, half in forty-seven and change? He should’ve won by open lengths.

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.

I lived in a ridiculously small apartment in Brooklyn, above a deli on Avenue M off Flatbush. It was on the second floor of a tenement-style building. There was one room—my combination living room, dining room, and kitchen—and a tiny bathroom. I couldn’t meet clients there, so I did most of my business at diners, bars, and racetracks. I had no overheard and I didn’t run ads. My business was all word of mouth and by referral. My only equipment was a laptop, a digital camera, and a gun. I usually left my gun at home, knowing firsthand what kind of trouble those things can get you into.

The DiMarcos lived in Mill Basin. When I got to the house again, I realized how badly I’d fucked up by only asking for a thousand up front. The house was three stories, had to be worth a couple million.

But I already had an idea how I could make that lost money back and then some.

He said his wife went to the gym every day at seven fifteen and, sure enough, at seven fifteen she left the house. Man, she was even better looking in person. She had great legs, like she could’ve been a model, and looked like she was thirty, tops.

She got in her shiny red Merc and drove to the gym DiMarco said she’d go to on Ralph Avenue. I was in sweatpants and T-shirt and followed her inside. I watched her head towards the women’s locker room; then I went to the desk and told them I was thinking about joining and asked for a free day’s trial. The guy tried to make me fill out a form and wanted me to go into the office for a sales pitch. I didn’t want to let Debbie out of my sight, so I promised the guy I’d listen to his spiel after I worked out. Yeah, like that was gonna happen.

While Debbie used a StairMaster, I was right behind her, using an exercise bike. Let me tell you, it was a nice place to be. She was in great shape and spent about forty-five minutes on that thing. I was pedaling as slow as possible and I was still winded.

She did a half hour running on the treadmill while I did some pull-ups and very slow rowing. After she did about twenty minutes of abs and stretches, her workout ended, thank fucking God. If it went on any longer I probably would’ve died.

She went into the locker room again, and came out about a half hour later looking all spruced up and perfect. Meanwhile, I was a sweaty mess because I didn’t want to wash up and risk missing her leave the gym.

She got back in her car and I thought she was heading back to her apartment, but she turned down Avenue N and double-parked in front of a dry cleaner’s. She came out with the clothing, got back in the car, and then drove to Flatlands Avenue. She pulled into a gas station, filled up, then went inside to pay. Then she got back in the car and drove home.

So far the tailing had been a big bust. I was on DiMarco’s tab, but I liked fast cases. I wanted to get my money, ideally today, so I could make it up to Yonkers for the early double.

For all I knew, she was going to stay in her house all day and I would just have to give up and come back tomorrow morning. But after about an hour, she left the house and got back in the car and I followed her onto the Belt Parkway, heading south. She was driving fast, weaving in and out of traffic. A couple of times I thought I lost her.

She exited near Brighton Beach and I figured she was just going to do some shopping or something. But instead she drove into the parking lot of a motel right off the Parkway. Suddenly things were heating up.

She got out of her car and went right to a room. My camera was zoomed in, ready to shoot. The door opened and, as she planted a kiss on the guy’s lips, I started snapping pictures, getting at least four good ones before the door closed.

So it had turned out to be an open and shut case after all.

The guy she’d met seemed familiar, and then it clicked—he was the mechanic I’d seen her talking to earlier at the gas station.

I smiled, then said out loud, Guess she likes to get her tires rotated every once in a while.

It wasn’t exactly hard to connect the dots of Debbie DiMarco’s story. She married a rich guy, got bored, and started screwing the hot young Guido at the gas station.

I took out my cell, about to call Andy DiMarco, when I suddenly had a better idea.

If I gave DiMarco the pics, he’d pay me the balance due—a thousand bucks, plus another hundred for expenses. But I had rent and bills coming up, and the way my luck was going, that eleven hundred bucks wasn’t going to last very long. I needed more than eleven hundred bucks and I knew exactly how to get it.

I drove back to the DiMarcos’ house and parked right in front. A couple of hours later, the red Merc pulled up into the driveway and Debbie DiMarco got out. As she passed by on her way toward her house, I said, smiling, Have a nice afternoon, Miss DiMarco?

She stopped, turned, and looked at me suspiciously.

Before she could say anything, I said, I’ll take that as a yes.

She started to walk away.

I think you’re gonna want to take a look at these, I said.

She looked back slowly and saw me holding up the digital camera. Who the hell are you?

I laid it all on the table—told her I was a PI, that her husband had hired me, and that I had pictures of her and the mechanic.

Let me see them, she said.

She came over, looking at the slide show on the LCD screen.

Why’re you showin’ me these? she finally asked, her voice trembling.

Because I’m a nice guy?

Fuck you.

Hey, is that a nice way to talk to a guy who might be able to save your marriage, or at least your ass in a divorce settlement?

The fuck’re you talking about?

These are your two choices, I said. I can give these photos to your husband and he can divorce you like he’s going to, or we can go on to plan B.

What’s plan B?

I don’t give them to your husband. I delete them and you do the right thing and fix your fuckin’ marriage.

And how much is that gonna cost me?

Five thousand dollars.

That’s blackmail.

I like to call it ‘a favor.’

Of course she bit, why wouldn’t she? Nothing like making a quick, easy five g’s. I felt like I’d just hit the fucking triple.

She got back in her car and I followed her to the nearest Chase bank and she made the withdrawal. Before she gave me the money, she said, Let me see you delete the pictures.

I deleted them one by one. Satisfied, she gave me the five large.

Pleasure doing business with you, Miss DiMarco, I said.

The next afternoon at the bar at Belmont, I met Andy DiMarco.

Got good news for me? he asked.

Depends what you mean by good.

I handed him printouts of the photos I’d taken. Before I’d deleted them from the camera, I’d uploaded them onto my laptop. I guess I could’ve played it straight and told him his wife wasn’t cheating on him, but I’d already lost most of the five grand I’d gotten from Debbie DeMarco and I wanted the one-grand balance from Andy DiMarco. In other words, I wanted to soak this thing for all it was worth.

Looking at the photos, DiMarco said, I can’t believe it. I feel like such a fucking idiot. I go into that gas station all the time.

Hey, it happens to the best of us, I said.

DiMarco gave me the thousand balance and expense money, which of course I’d jacked up by a few hundred bucks. The first race was going off soon and I couldn’t wait to go play it.

DiMarco was saying, Funny thing is, things were getting better the last couple of days. We’ve been talking more, spending more time together. It seemed like we were working things out.

He looked like he was about to start crying again. I couldn’t take it and said, Good luck to you, and headed for the betting windows.

A few weeks later, I was in A.C., at The Taj—broke, losing my balls—when I ran into Big Mikey by the slots.

We bullshitted for a while; then I said, Oh, I meant to tell you, thanks for that client rec.

He looked lost.

You know, I said, the guy from Mill Basin with the slut wife? For a few seconds I couldn’t remember his name; then I said, DiMarco. Remember, last month you put him in touch with me, told him he could find me at the track? I did a job for him, caught his wife with another guy.

Big Mikey’s eyes widened.

What’s wrong? I asked.

You didn’t hear? he said.

Hear what?

It was in the papers.

"The only paper I’ve been reading is the fuckin’ Racing Form."

Holy shit, you really don’t know.

Know what?

Couple weeks ago DiMarco came home from work and shot his wife a bunch of times, then shot himself. It was a fuckin’ bloodbath. Sucked too, because he was a big client of mine. He didn’t know shit about football, dropped five g’s a week like clockwork. And baseball, forget about it. You say you found dirt on his wife?

I felt sick, knowing if I’d kept my word to Debbie DiMarco she’d probably still be alive.

Yeah, I said, a little.

That’s fucked up, but it’s kinda funny too. I mean, when you think about it. You okay?

Yeah, fine, I said. I’m just getting the shit kicked out of me on the tables, that’s all.

Join the fuckin’ club, he said. I’m tellin’ you, gambling’s a lot more fun when you’re on the other side of the action.

Big Mikey told me a story about this big hand he’d lost in seven-card stud at Bally’s, but I was barely listening. I really needed to bet, to clear my head, and I told him I’d catch him later.

I dropped another few hundred in slots, played a few more losing hands of BJ, got the shit kicked out of me in craps, then walked away in disgust. At least I wasn’t thinking about that other thing anymore.

On the way out of the casino, I passed a roulette wheel and put all the chips I had left—about four hundred bucks—on black.

Guess what came in?

The story of my fucking life.

Like Riding a Moped

Jordan Harper

…And now, the last bad thing about being so fat: my fingers can’t find the bullet holes. They’re there, because they brought me down and now there is sticky blood mixing with the sweat all over, but my clumsy hands can’t find what kind of holes just got poked into my body. Are they just little puckers in the flesh? Or is it worse than that? Are scoops of me missing?

Somebody will write about this on the Internet. I bet they call the article Fatty and Clyde, or something like that. Everyone will read it and chuckle. And everyone will look at me and see something else, which is what always happens. That’s how Benny got to me when I should have known better. He looked right at me.

Men sit next to me on the Metrolink and talk about women like I’m not even there. I’m just the thing taking up two seats when the train gets crowded. Everyone shifts their body away from me. Nobody looks and nobody points and laughs unless there’s a kid. Then the mom can try and shush the little kid and maybe smile an apology and then look away, tell the kid it’s not polite to stare. Honest, it’s okay when the kid stares. At least it stops me from feeling invisible.

The others, the adults, they look and they just see other things. They picture me sitting at home, a pizza box open in front of me and me eating with the lazy mania of a zombie in a horror movie. They see my chomping jaws and glazed eyes, dipping crusts in ranch dressing, how only one slice lives to make it to the safe haven of the freezer—me eating so much that for the next hour every burp will send a chunk of half-chewed dough back into my mouth, so I have to swallow it again.

Maybe they wonder about my shower, about how I have to lift the three folds of my belly and point the handheld nozzle to try to clean out the gunk that forms there. They wonder how I wash my back, if I own something like the rag on a stick in that Simpsons joke.

They imagine the underwear hidden beneath my clothes, both wispy and huge, a negligee knapsack. Maybe they think of the way the panties must smell when I peel them off at the end of the day, like a swamp or a beer left open.

All these things are true.

All these things are true, so when Benny puts his tray across from mine at the Galleria food court, I don’t believe him for a second. But he is so pretty, really, like Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise. Later on I’ll learn that he’s from Springfield, down in the opposite corner of the state, same as Brad. And once he’ll even try to tell me that they’re cousins. Yeah, right, I’m sure Brad Pitt just has dozens of relatives who work for the St. Louis mob. What kind of cousin, I ask, like your mother’s brother or what? And he says, No, I mean cousin cousin, like that means something.

But all that comes later. When Benny sits across from me I’m sitting in a corner of the food court with my fried rice and egg rolls, thinking about the store. I want to be a salesgirl. Mr. Nesbitt laughed when I told him, and said he didn’t know what he’d do without me working the computers. The salesgirls—like Amanda, who sits in the middle of the food court eating a salad—don’t know half what I do about carats and cuts and clarity, but they look like the kind of woman you want to drape in diamonds. And now I’m replaying the conversation in my head, the way Mr. Nesbitt won’t look at me while he laughs at the idea. And then there’s Benny staring straight into my eyes and asking if this seat is taken.

So he sits across from me talking and smiling, and I’m trying not to stare at him. The napkin I put over my General Tso’s chicken is turning orange from the grease it’s drinking, and there’s still my crab Rangoon under that napkin. As soon as this gorgeous dip gets up and leaves I’m going to dip it in the General Tso sauce and suck out the cream cheese. But he doesn’t leave, and after one lame joke he tells he actually winks at me. I wonder if the girls at Nesbitt’s maybe hired this guy or something.

I mean, I’ve met chubby chasers, and this guy isn’t one. Guys like that like to say something about my size right away, to try and make me feel comfortable. Oh God, like how they like a woman with some meat on her bones. Great image, right, like maybe they’re planning on cooking me up later.

Most amazing, he’s not looking around the room while we talk. Most men, when they end up in a conversation with me in a bar or something, they’re always looking around. Maybe they’re looking for better options, but mostly, I think, it’s because they’re afraid someone might see them. A friend told me this joke once, I guess it’s a joke men tell to each other:

Why’s a fat girl like a moped?

They’re a lot of fun to ride, but you wouldn’t want your friends to see you on one.

Benny looks right in my eyes. His eyes are clear blue, and I don’t see myself reflected in them at all.

He asks if I want to go see a movie after work. I never told him that I worked at the mall. I could have been shopping. This is something I don’t think about until later. At the time I can hardly think at all. But later on, it will come back to me and make perfect sense.

Back at the store, Amanda corners me. Her skin is the color of Arizona dirt, and it’s stretched so tight you can see three sides of her collarbones. She asks me