After the best meal he’d had in ten years—possibly the best meal he’d ever had—Harold took Jimmy to another room. More-muted colors here, no reds and golds but soft browns. There was a time in his life when this would have felt comfortable, but after the last ten years Jimmy felt out of place.
“My study,” Harold Landrigan said. “There’s also a library in the house. Too many damn rooms.”
Jimmy knew Harold’s wife had died while he was in prison. He also knew there was a child, but Jimmy hadn’t seen anyone during dinner except Harold.
“Cigar?” Landrigan asked.
“No, thanks.”
“That’s right,” he said. “You didn’t smoke inside.”
Cigarettes were currency in the joint. You used them to buy what you wanted or needed. Jimmy had also used them to play poker with, until the other inmates had gotten smart and stopped playing with him. Smoking them would have been like burning money on the outside.
“More bourbon?”
“That I’ll take.”
Jimmy felt good. He was showered, shaved, fed, and rested—he’d had an hour nap before dinner—and he was wearing clothes Landrigan had supplied. He didn’t know if they’d been bought specifically for him, but they were his size and what he would have worn—solids, dark.
His host handed Jimmy another glass of bourbon, then sat across from him with his cigar.
“When do you make the five-thousand-dollar pitch?” Jimmy asked.
“Oh,” Landrigan said.
He got up quickly and went to a small, flimsy-looking piece of furniture in one corner. Jimmy guessed it was something French, expensive, and probably old, but he knew fuck all about furniture. But he definitely knew that Landrigan took a stack of cash out of the top drawer, dropped it into his lap, and then sat back down with his cigar.
“Five grand, as promised.”
Jimmy picked it up. It still had the bank strip on it. “I could walk out now.”
“You could,” Landrigan said, “but you only had a nap on that bed. My guess is you want at least one full night.”
It was a good guess, but Jimmy didn’t let him know that. He set the five Gs back down on his lap and sipped his bourbon.
“Okay, Harold, make your pitch. Who do you want me to kill?”
Harold Landrigan waved his hand and said, “We don’t do that, you and I, Jimmy.”
“What do you think I was in for?”
“Man two,” he said. “I know what you were in for. You hit a guy and he died. From what I found out, he deserved it.”
“He deserved to be hit,” Jimmy said, “but maybe he didn’t deserve to die.”
“And you didn’t deserve to go inside for fifteen years,” he said. “You didn’t belong in there any more than I did. You never talked about it, but somebody railroaded you, same as me.”
True, but Jimmy knew he belonged inside more than Landrigan did.
“Jimmy, I want to help get you back on your feet,” he said. “Even better. I want to set you up.”
“So what do I have to do?”
He hesitated a moment, studied his cigar. Jimmy gave him the time to find the words.
“My only child is twenty-one,” he said, “and hates me. My wife died while I was inside. She couldn’t take the disgrace, and I take full blame for her death. She died of humiliation and a broken heart.”
“Your only child?” Jimmy felt Harold was leaving something out purposely. “Your son?”
“My daughter,” he said. “Kat.”
“Is she a runaway or something?”
“No,” Harold said. “I know where she is. I set her up in a condo in LA, and I send her a cash allowance every month.”
“Lucky girl.”
“Don’t misunderstand,” Harold said. “I made her take the deal. She wanted to go off on her own. I convinced her to make me pay for my mistake, so I cover all her expenses.”
Harold drew on his cigar, then studied it again—the lit end this time—while he let the smoke out in a long, slow stream.
“I want to do the same for you, Jimmy.”
“Set me up, pay my expenses?” Jimmy asked. “For what? Come on, Harold, drop the other shoe.”
“The girl wants to play on the poker tour, Jimmy,” he said finally. “I want you to help her.”
“Teach her to play poker? That’s not my style.”
“Oh, come on,” Harold said, cutting him off. “As I understand it, she’s quite good. It’ll be easy.”
“Then what does she need me for?”
“She’s young, cocky, stubborn . . . I think they’ll eat her up on the tour. I want you to . . . look out for her, make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”
“I’m not a babysitter, Harold.”
“This won’t be babysitting,” Harold insisted. “I want you to—” he groped for the right words, “be her friend, maybe even her mentor. Just keep an eye on her.”
Still sounded like a babysitter to Jimmy.
“Let her learn from you and keep her safe.”
“So babysitter, bodyguard, and tutor. What else would you like?”
“Well, actually,” Landrigan said, “to soften her up a bit.”
“Soften her up?”
“You know, get her to be . . . more feminine. The way she dresses and acts now, men might think she’s . . . well, a dyke. Maybe you could make a lady out of her.”
“Oh, so now I’m Miss Fucking Manners?”
“Damn it!”
He’d succeeded in frustrating Landrigan, and he immediately regretted it.
“All right, Harold,” he said soothingly. “I know what you want me to do.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m going on the tour myself,” Jimmy said, and added to himself, as soon as I raise a stake. “I don’t have time to be a . . . I don’t have time, Harold—”
“Ten grand.”
“What?”
“If you don’t have the time to do it as a favor, let’s make it a straight business deal.”
“Ten grand over the five I have here?”
“No,” he said. “Ten grand a month.”
“Harold—”
“I’ll set you up, buy you a condo,” he said, ticking items off on his fingers, “pay your expenses—including the buy in for any tournament you want to play in—and deposit ten thousand dollars in a bank account for you every month.”
Jimmy hesitated, then asked, “And I have access to that bank account?”
“It’s yours,” he said. “You’ll be able to deposit and withdraw. With ATMs you’ll have twenty-four-hour access.”
“And you’re willing to do all this for a kid who hates you?”
Harold shrugged. “She’s my daughter,” he answered. “What can I say? I love her. Do we have a deal?”
Harold sat forward in his chair, with the cigar he’d been studying so intently now forgotten in his left hand. He extended his right to Jimmy, who took it.
“There is a catch, though.”
Jimmy knew it. “What is it?”
“She can never find out that you’re working for me. If she does, she’ll hate both of us, and the cash will stop.”
“Well, that part doesn’t sound very fair.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a head start.”