Funny Money Page 4

  Parker lay quietly for a few minutes, willing herself to drift off again. She was wasting her time. She had an eerie feeling that, if she tried to count sheep, the sheep would turn into babies.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and there they were, an endless succession of identical infants in diapers, leaping cheerfully over a rail fence. No, they weren’t identical. Every second baby had Jack’s adult face, and the ones in between looked exactly like her.

  She pushed aside the covers and got out of bed, found her slippers and robe and padded silently downstairs to the kitchen. She wanted a small Scotch, but she’d stopped drinking the night Jack had made unprotected love to her. Something else he’d failed to notice, she thought resentfully.

  She definitely wanted to have a baby. Three or four of them, as a matter of fact. She got the milk from the fridge and poured a mugful into a pot and put the pot down on the stove. She turned the gas burner on low.

  She had to tell Jack she was pregnant. The longer she waited, the harder it was going to be to talk to him. But it was already impossible, so how much harder could it be?

  She leaned against the kitchen counter. The fridge hummed and the electric clock over the back door made a small, shuddering sound with each second that twitched by. She’d lived in the house for several years, but in all that time she’d never been aware that the clock wasn’t perfectly, utterly silent.

  What would Annie say, if she knew? How would Sean react if he found out she was pregnant? Willows’ children meant so much to her, as much as if they were her own. No, that wasn’t quite true. Or maybe it was. She wanted it to be true and she hoped it was true — wasn’t that enough?

  She stirred the milk.with a spoon and turned up the gas. Jack was a decent man, and she loved him. What had come over her to make her trick him like that? She wanted so very much to have a child, but not like this, as a treachery and deceit. Parenthood should be the result of a mutual decision, made calmly and rationally. But she’d never felt so passionate, so needy. She’d been out of control. What was wrong with that? The second hand shuddered around the dial. It was just past midnight, and she was wide awake. When the milk was hot, she poured it into the mug and turned off the stove. As she crept down the hall, she noticed a crack of light under Annie’s door. Six months ago she’d have knocked and said hello. Not now, because she was in no mood for a fight, and with Annie, nowadays, even the simplest discussion seemed to deteriorate into an argument.

  Tripod was curled up on the sofa. Parker resisted an urge to give him a sharp poke in the ribs. She sat down in an overstuffed chair and sipped her warm milk. The city might be seething with crime, but the house was wonderfully quiet. Her horrid neighbours often let their horrid little cockapoo out about midnight, to do its business wherever it chose — usually on the boulevard in front of the house or in Parker’s small, carefully tended garden. A few nights ago a late-night excursion had been cut short by a pack of coyotes. The yappy little thing had escaped, but both it and its enormously inconsiderate owners had been traumatized. A fence was in the works. In the meantime the dog was let out only on a leash, and even then it was encouraged to empty its bladder and bowels with dispatch. Parker liked dogs in general, but she wished the coyotes had been a little bit quicker. Thinking about the cockapoo’s close call made her feel better, though she didn’t know why. She finished her milk, stood up, and started towards the stairs. Tripod watched her but made no move to follow. Lucky for him. Parker yawned. The milk had made her drowsy, and she was eager to get back into bed.

  Chapter 9

  Nick counted the money over and over again. He counted it slowly, and then he counted it quickly, shuffling the bills from hand to hand. He counted six hundred dollars three times and six hundred and twenty dollars once and five hundred and eighty dollars once. Frustrated, he counted the money again, painfully slowly. Six hundred even.

  He was sweating heavily. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and started over again. Two of the bills must have been stuck together, because this time he got six-twenty a second time.

  He counted it one last time, to make sure. No doubt about it, he was holding six hundred and twenty dollars in crisp new American twenties. It was an unbelievable windfall. Just absolutely fucking amazing. He danced around Chantal, clutching the cash.

  “C’mon, lets get something to eat.”

  “I’m too tired.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He noticed at last that her tight-fitting white cotton T-shirt was torn and spotted with orange. What was that all about? He wasn’t going to ask. Whatever had happened, there was nothing he could do about it, because nobody could go backwards in time. He said, “You’re tired because you’re hungry. Your energy levels are low. You’ll feel better if you fuel up, get something to drink, grab a bite.”

  Chantal cocked a hip. She was angry: not play-acting, but really, really angry. Pissed, and she let it show. “You can’t wait to spend it, can you?”

  Nick mimed amazement. “Didn’t anybody ever explain that’s what it’s for?”

  “I got hurt, Nick.”

  He checked her out. She looked okay. Her face was clean. A little swelling, but no more blood.

  She said, “Tell me something, have you ever met a great big asshole named Carlos?”

  Fool that he was, Nick thought about it. A memory dimly stirred. “The guy who wrote that book?”

  “I’m talking about a trick, not a writer. Long stringy hair, a big, muscular face …”

  Nick shrugged. The guy could’ve been a dozen people he knew, or nobody he’d ever met.

  “He punched me, Nick. Punched me for no good reason, punched me just because he felt like it. He cut me inside my mouth. It hurts. I can taste blood. When was the last time you tasted your own blood, Nick?”

  He lit a cigarette. The last time he’d tasted blood. Let’s see now … that would be the day before he met Chantal. He’d gotten into a tussle with a punk over … something. The punk whacked him a few times, kneed him in the balls and then swung from his ankles and hit him flush on the nose, so hard he’d thought for sure it was broken. He flagged a cab, told the driver to take him to St. Paul’s. The guy took a quick look at him, told him he was bleeding, shoved him out of the car. Prick. Nick tried to stop thinking about that night, because what’s past is past, but that worm of blood was leaking out of his nose again, across his lip and into his mouth, the memory of it salty and warm. How long ago was that? He tried to pin it down, but the days and weeks were a blur. Thinking about the past was an even bigger waste of time than contemplating the future.

  He pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt and a sweater and his boots. He saw that Chantal’s leopardskin jacket was stained with dark smears of blood. He tossed her his leather jacket. “Get changed, put that on, let’s get the fuck out of here.” She shed the leopardskin and he grabbed her by the arm and hustled her towards the door, eager to leave that cramped little room that stank of seduction and betrayal. Chantal pulled back, resisting. Tripper raced around in circles, making sounds like a big furball steam train.

  Nick turned on the charm. He pointed out that the dog could use some exercise. What was the point of working so hard if they didn’t have a little fun with the money?

  His strategy backfired.

  “You fucking prick! D’you remember why I started hustling, Nick? Because we were broke, and cold, and hungry, and tired of living in fucking doorways, getting hassled by cops and fucking psychos. Because you were sick, and I was worried you were going to get fucking pneumonia and die.”

  Nick raised a hand to ward off her anger. “I know, I know …”

  “It was supposed to be temporary, a way of getting by until you got a fucking job!”

  Nick yanked open the door. It banged against the wall and rebounded towards him. He kicked it, hard. The shock of impact travelled up his leg as far as his knee. Fuck! He kicked the door again, relishing the pain. He didn’t want to eat any more, all he cared about was sliding o
ut from under Chantal’s growing rage, the fire in her eyes and her hard words. Why was she talking to him like that? So abusively. She came in the door and there he was, waiting for her. What did she want?

  She wanted to humiliate him, because now she was shouting at him, her voice shrill, spittle flying. He edged out of the room. Doors were opening all along the hallway. Disembodied heads turned towards him, an uneven row of mocking, toothless grins.

  Chantal followed him into the hallway. “I hate hooking! You don t know what it’s like, you have no fucking idea how horrible and degrading it is, just no … fucking idea!”

  “I thought you liked sex.” Nick knew or at least suspected that this remark would enrage her, but everybody was watching him and he had to defend himself. Didn’t he? He rushed towards a door and it slammed shut. He ran at another door. Bang! Tripper barked furiously and hurled herself in the air. Now all the doors were shut. Nick yelled at Tripper to shut up. He kicked at the dog and then turned on Chantal. She wasn’t afraid of him and she wasn’t done with him.

  “What happened to you? You used to love me. You told me you loved me. Now I come home, I’ve been hit and I’m bleeding, and all you want to do is count the fucking money. You don’t love me. You don’t even care about me. All you want to do is hang out with your creepy fucking drug-addict friends!”

  Most of this was true. Maybe all of it. It was good that Chantal walked her ass out on the street, brought home so much money. But at the same time, Nick had to admit he was sort of disgusted with her. He’d rather die than go out there on the street and sell himself to some fucking pervert. Why didn’t she feel the same way? Also, come to think of it, he wasn’t the only one who had a weakness for drugs. When it came to snorting up a line, Chantal had always been pretty damn quick to get her nose into the trough.

  If there was one thing Nick couldn’t stand, it was hypocrisy. He looked her straight in the eye. “Don’t lie to me. You love your job and you know it.”

  Chantal’s face crumpled. She burst into tears. Fucking great, that’s exactly what he needed.

  He waved the money in her face. “You think this is all I care about? Watch!”

  Nick crumpled a bill and threw it over the staircase railing. Their room was on the top floor, five storeys up. The twenty fluttered down and down until it was caught by an updraft, warm air from the lobby. Eerily, it stopped falling, hung motionless for an instant and then lifted up a few slow feet before drifting across the breadth of the stairwell and resuming its fall.

  Nick couldn’t believe what he was doing, even as he continued to do it. He peeled another bill off the roll, pinched it between his thumb and index finger and dangled it over the railing. As he did this he wondered what Chantal had done to earn all that money. What special convoluted tricks had she performed? It made him sick to think about it but he couldn’t help thinking about it, just couldn’t stop himself from wondering.

  His imagination ran laps around his brain. He hated her and he almost hated himself for hating her. He wanted to drag her back into the hotel room and throw her down on the bed and make her show him what she did. Make her do it to him. Everything. He wanted to hit her. Furious, he crumpled the second twenty and let it drop.

  “Fuck off, stop it, cut that out!”

  Chantal rushed him. One hundred and four pounds of outraged fury. Nick was six-foot-one. Thin, but muscular. He fended her off easily, using his hard-earned street knowledge of leverage and stance. She kept at him, flailing away. Her sharp nails raked his cheek, burnt him but failed to draw blood. The high-pitched, manic squiggle of his laugh infuriated them both. He pushed her away and turned his back on her.

  Nick balled up another twenty and flipped it negligently over the railing.

  That’s three. Sixty dollars. Cash enough to buy a bag of weed or keep them in this fleabag hotel through the weekend. Nick experienced an adrenalin rush. It was weird, but throwing away money was a real fun thing to do. Now he understood why people bothered to drop a few coins in a panhandler’s cup. It’s the ultimate form of conspicuous consumption, spending money without actually buying anything. He laughed, but the look of rage on Chantal’s face made him clamp his mouth shut so hard his teeth hurt.

  He crumpled another bill. Couldn’t stop himself. The need to defy and hurt her was like a sickness, an addiction. He crushed the twenty into a ball, tossed it into the air and hit it with his fist, sent it flying over the railing.

  Chantal was still crying. Her eyes were red, puffy with tears.

  He crumpled another bill in his fist.

  She rushed him again and he slyly retreated, his back to the railing. He taunted her with the bill, waved it over the empty stairwell, pretended to let it go. Tripper was barking loudly, excited and confused.

  From far below them came a hoarse shout. Pinky, the night clerk. His booze-addled voice demanded to know what was going on up there.

  Nick leaned over the railing and peered down. One of the bills was on the stairs, the rest lay on the ancient white-and-black tiled floor.

  Tripper wouldn’t stop barking. The fucking dog was going to get their asses kicked out of the hotel.

  Where was the third twenty?

  Nick had forgotten about Chantal. She lunged at him, snatched at the wad of bills.

  He jerked away, lost his balance and went over the railing so easily that he might have rehearsed the move a hundred times. He fell twelve feet and then his arm hit the railing. He and Chantal and Pinky all clearly heard the bone snap. Nick’s hand fell open. The crisp new bills trailed after him like the tattered fragments of a green parachute.

  Two levels down he hit the railing again. The blow numbed him and violently disrupted his flight pattern, but hardly slowed him at all.

  He dropped sixty-two vertical feet in just over two seconds, screaming all the way down, into a heavy thump and heavier silence.

  Myron “Pinky” Koblansky stared at Nick for a moment or two and then looked up. The bills floated down. He’d been reading a paperback he’d bought used from a nearby bookstore. When Chantal and Nick started yelling at each other, he’d marked his page and put the book down on the counter in front of him. He was still at his desk when — splat!

  The book’s jacket was a minimalist black-on-white photograph, now speckled with shiny droplets of red. Pinky rubbed the ball of his thumb across the cover, right to left. The red dots were warm and sticky. His thumb made a red smear.

  “Holy fuck!”

  Pinky shied away from the book as if it had suddenly burst into flames. His chair fell over. He’d been smoking an El Cheapo and working on a mickey of vodka, but he was so terrified that he forgot all about the bottle at a time when he needed it most.

  He told himself to get the money, unlocked the door behind him and hurried out of his chicken-wire cage and down a short hallway and into the lobby through a service entrance. The corpse slowed him. He saw everything at once, and it was too much for him to handle. His mind backed off. He picked at details, critically compared what he saw to similar circumstances he’d viewed on TV cop shows.

  A few years back, maybe on a recycled “Hill Street Blues” episode, a tenement kid had fallen off a fire escape. The kid had witnessed a crime …

  Pinky recognized Nick’s black leather boots, which he coveted. His eye took in Nick’s buzzcut. What a waste to have all that hair and cut it so short. Enjoy it while you got it was his motto.

  Nick lay face up on the tiles. Pinky guessed that Nick’s head must’ve cracked open, because there was an awful lot of blood. He followed the trail of blood that led from Nick’s shattered skull to … nowhere. Despite the building’s age, the floor was flat as a pool table. Now he had to go back to Nick, because he was unable to think where else to look. Nick’s face was white. It occurred to Pinky that the white face floating in the middle of the shiny red puddle looked like a poached egg. Pinky never thought like that, never compared one thing to another. It really bothered him that he was thinking like that now.


  The last bill floated down.

  Pinky chewed on his cigar. Crooked lines of blood radiated out from the red puddle in several directions, following the zigzag pattern of grout that ran between the octagonal tiles. The blood was still moving, in erratic fits and starts, so it looked like a spiderweb under construction. Pinky’s brain was getting away from him again. He was very careful not to step in the blood as he circled the corpse and snatched up the money.

  Nick’s hand twitched. He made a fist. His fingers curled into his palm, dug into his flesh with so much force that, when the pathologist conducted the autopsy, he would log three small cuts he briefly considered might be defensive wounds.

  Nick’s knuckles drummed on the tiles. He leaked a little more blood. His hand fell open, and he was still.

  Pinky bent to pick up a twenty. A length of ash tumbled from his cigar and he blew it carefully away, his hot breath making the ash scoot across the tiles.

  Chantal had stopped screaming. Where was she? He climbed the stairs all the way to the top floor, finding three more bills along the way. The dog was in their room, barking furiously, the door shut and locked.

  Winded, gasping, Pinky hurried back to the lobby, took a last quick look around and found Nick staring up at him.

  By the time the cops arrived he’d seeded the floor around the corpse with a handful of small change, and sincerely believed he had an answer for every question the city’s finest could think to ask him.

  Chapter 10

  Carlos’ bolt-cutters crunched through the chain. He stared fixedly at the gleaming, rain-speckled row of stainless-steel carts and then said, “The way they shove these things together, it’s real sexy, like they’re all humping each other.”