42

“Hey, man, I was just gonna call you.”

Why didn’t Wayne believe that? Dean, the equipment van man, was standing outside the loading dock with a bunch of other guys. Now he was looking around, kind of nervous like. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to talk to civilians on his lunch break, but Wayne was still wearing his Monopoly Special Services cap, which ought to count for something. Besides, even the uptight Convention Hall Center geeks weren’t that security crazy, were they?

“Hey, man, let’s take a walk.” Dean took Wayne by the arm, pulling him past a bunch of grunts setting up parade bleachers on the Boardwalk. Dean was holding a pepperoni sub in the hand that was free.

“What’s the matter?” Wayne asked.

“You know, we’re going to talk business, I don’t want any of those other guys listening in.”

Hey, hey. That must mean he had something good. He knew who else was willing to cough up some bucks for the Miss A signal. Maybe even why.

“So what’s the word?” Wayne asked trying to imitate Dean’s low-slung walk. The dude strolled like he was sitting in a Maserati, which Wayne thought was supercool.

“Word is”—if Dean lowered his voice any more, Wayne was going to have to borrow a hearing aid from one of the geezers passing by—“listen, man, I could get in a lot of trouble telling you this.”

Wayne knew what that meant. He palmed Dean a hundred like Dean was the maître d’ in Park Place, the Monopoly’s exclusive high-roller club.

Dean’s eyebrows wiggled, but his mouth didn’t move.

Well, Wayne had another one where that came from. The petty cash fund for Action Central was pretty big, and then there was all the equipment he’d bought at Ace Electronics—he had a deal with the guy—that had never found its way to the Monopoly’s back door. That was cash in his pocket.

Plus, of course, just for the hell of it, on his way out, he’d grabbed Crystal, Mr. F’s little bitch of a receptionist, knocked her out, dragged her into a maid’s room where he’d dumped her into a laundry cart and wheeled her up in the service elevator to 1803. Nobody was going to be using that room for a while.

He’d tied her spread-eagled to the bed and said, “Honey, don’t you worry. You’re not going to be lonely for long. Those busboys and porters love a bargain, and at $10 a pop, you’re gonna get lots of takers. I posted a sign, CHEAP TWAT, in the men’s room of the employees cafeteria.”

He hadn’t, but he was thinking about it. If he made it $25—figure she could handle maybe four, five an hour—count it up.

Dean was staring at the $300 in his hand like he was trying to figure if that was as high as he could push it. The answer must have been yes. “Okay,” he said, twisting his head around to see if anybody was watching. If Wayne was a cop, he’d have arrested him on the spot and figured out the beef later. “It’s Michelangelo Amato, and it’s Miss New Jersey.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“We gonna stand around arguing about it all day, or what?” Then Dean strolled off.

He did have a point there. And Wayne had to get moving. Now that he knew who to approach, he had to figure out a plan and execute it, and he didn’t have much time. How much? He checked his Rolex, exactly like Mr. F’s. Then he stopped dead in the middle of the Boardwalk.

“Yo! Dude!” he yelled at Dean’s back, but Dean just waved him off. Okay. So he didn’t want a solid gold Rolex that left a bad taste in Wayne’s mouth now that Mr. F had disowned him. Thrown him out like garbage. All that trouble, didn’t even care any more about the Miss America thing. Who could figure? But he bet this black kid knew which way was up, rolling down the Boardwalk here with his wicker chair.

Wayne was right.

Rashad took the watch and said, “Thank you for your munificence, oh kindly gentleman.”

Which Wayne thought was bullshit.

Rashad knew it for what it was, shuck and jive.

But he also knew who Wayne was, the electronics bubba he and Junior had ripped off. The man finding him and making him a gift, now that had to be a sign of good things to come.