Bobby Gold nowhere in sight; 5:30 A.M. in the NiteKlub office with Lenny, in ludicrous-looking ski goggles, working the power saw, Nikki wetting the blade down with water from a kitchen squeeze bottle. Halfway through the second metal pin on the revolving money drop in the safe and Lenny is bathed in sweat, his goggles beginning to steam up.
"Jesus! This thing is taking forever!" says Lenny, turning off the drill for a second and listening for the sound of the floor waxer. "You sure that guy's still got his Walkman on?"
"He's always got his Walkman on," says Nikki, wiping Lenny's brow with a paper towel, hands like Lenny's - in surgical gloves from the kitchen. "C'mon. You're almost through there. Keep at it."
Lenny turns on the drill and proceeds, bits of metal bouncing off his goggles, stinging his face, lodging in his teeth.
"Ouch!" he complains. "That hurt!"
"Pussy," says Nikki.
Finally the sound of the saw changes pitch, the shelf falls free of the last pin. Lenny yanks it out and hurls it into a corner. "I've gotta piss like a racehorse."
"Use the trash," suggests Nikki, pointing at a plastic wastebasket.
While Lenny empties his bladder, Nikki reaches her arm (longer than his) down into the safe and starts pulling out banded stacks of cash. There are a lot more of them than they'd expected.
"Uh . . . Lenny," she says. "You see this?"
Lenny, zipping up his fly, turns and looks. The pile of cash on the floor is large - and getting larger. "Holy . . . shit!"
"No kidding! . . . Holy . . . shit is right!" says Nikki, suddenly damp, a few strands of hair glued to her forehead. "There wasn't supposed to be that much — was there?"
"Let's get the fuck out of here," says Lenny.
Lenny leaves first: down the back kitchen stairs, through the service entrance to the hotel. Nikki drops the duffel full of cash out the window and into his arms before following a few moments later. Two hours later, the money divided up and hidden — for the moment under a pile of sweaters in Nikki's closet — the two are sitting in the cellar of Siberia Bar, leaning forward, heads close, talking.
"What's the matter?" asks Lenny, bothered by Nikki's stunned expression, the way she keeps shaking her head.
"I'm alright."
"No. Really. What's the matter?" he repeats.
Nikki slams back her third vodka shot, her eyes beginning to fill up. "Everything is different now, isn't It?"
"What do you mean?" says Lenny, playing the tough guy.
"I mean . . . How do we go to work tomorrow? It's gonna be a shit-storm in there. How do I look anybody in the eyes? They'll fucking know."
"Who are you worried about? The Chef? Ricky? What? Nobody's gonna think it was us! Who would think it was us?"
"There was so much. There wasn't supposed to be that much. I'm worried. I admit it. I'm worried."
"Fuck them. They're idiots. They'll never find out as long as we don't tell them."
"I'm worried about Bobby. I don't want him to lose his job."
"Bobby!? Bobby!! That security goon? Fuck him! He's not a cook! He's not one of us! What do you care about that asshole? Are you fucking that guy?"
"Yes," says Nikki. "Yes. I'm fucking that guy. I've been fucking that guy for months!"
"I can't believe this!" shrieks Lenny. "You're doing the head of fucking security?!" His hands trembling, Lenny takes a pull on a beer, missing his mouth and slobbering on his chin. "You're not going to tell him anything? You're not that stupid."
"I won't say anything," says Nikki.
"You better not!" Lenny thinks about this for a while. "In fact . . . In fact . . . if it looks like he's getting close to figuring anything out — you better tell me. You will tell me, right?"
Nikki waves him away, dismissing the prospect. "I think you should bug out tonight, Lenny. You can have the money. Okay . . . maybe I'll keep some . . . but you can have most of it. Go to fucking Florida or something. But you should go. That's a lot of money there. You should be fine."
"What are people gonna say, I disappear the day they find somebody cracked the fucking safe? They'll know!"
"We didn't think this out too good, did we?"
"What do you mean? Stick with the plan. We stick with the plan. That's what we should do!"
"The plan? There was no plan, Lenny. You know what my fucking plan was? You know how stupid I am? My plan was to take the money and get out of the fucking business for a while and maybe rent a nice place somewhere where there's water and maybe a beach and buy some clothes and a TV and like . . . live like a normal person for a while. That was what my plan was, Lenny. You know . . . a nice boyfriend . . . hole up behind some white picket fucking fence with a garden and like, live like a regular person. You know . . . he goes to like . . . work . . . wherever that is . . . and I putter around the house. I order shit outta catalogs . . . make myself a midday martini . . . watch soap operas . . . cook, like, tuna noodle casserole. Friday nights he comes home, we get dressed up, go out to dinner and maybe a movie — after which we go home and he throws me on a big four-poster bed and fucks me till my nose bleeds."
"Are you fucking kidding me? Are you nuts? I feel like . . . it's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers!! What is with you? My fucking partner is going Suzy Homemaker on me? What the fuck!?"
"I always wanted to putter," says Nikki, glumly, not looking at Lenny when she says it.
"Putter? You want to putter?"
"You know. Do normal shit. Whatever it is people do. You know. When they're not like us."
"This is great," says Lenny, returning from the bar with a Jager shot and two beers. "This is great. I don't even know you anymore. You couldn't a said this before? You're going out with the head a fuckin' security . . . you got some weird-ass idea you're gonna turn into some kinda suburban housewife or some shit. We put down the biggest score of our fucking lives — I'm thinking, buy a couple a kilos a coke and turn that over and, like, open our own place or something — "
"I'm not opening a restaurant with you, Lenny, I said that. I always said that."
"I thought you were kidding. I thought . . . Jesus, Nikki," says Lenny. "I thought you liked me. I thought. You know . . ."
Nikki just shakes her head and then leans forward and gives Lenny a sisterly hug. He tries clumsily to kiss her but she turns her head away, avoiding his mouth.
"I see. I see what it is now," says Lenny. "I'm outta here tonight. I'm outta here tonight before you fucking tell the fucking ape-man and blow everything. You . . . you . . . fucking whore!"
Nikki is up in a flash. She reaches back and pops Lenny a good one in the right eye that knocks him back into his seat. Two customers look up quizzically but immediately look away as Nikki glares right back at them and Lenny bursts into tears.
Nikki cradles Lenny in her arms on the hardwood floor of her tiny apartment. They're both still in their coats. Lenny is still crying, his nose running profusely, chest heaving with suppressed sobs. Nikki is petting the back of his head like he's a child, saying, "That's okay . . . that's okay." Though, of course, nothing is okay now.
The money has been divided, Nikki keeping only a relatively small share — getaway money should things really turn sour. It's morning already — and Nikki can't remember a time the cheeping birds and early morning garbage trucks have sounded so sinister. Lenny's money is in an airline bag, ready to go.
"You should get out of here," says Nikki. "Take your money, get on a train. Go someplace nice and live a little. Get yourself a fucking girlfriend. You're a rich guy, now, Lenny. You'll have to beat them off with a stick."
"I want you to be my girlfriend," snivels Lenny, his face collapsing all over again.
"That ain't gonna happen, Lenny," says Nikki, wiping tears off his receding chin with her sleeve.
Lenny gone, morning commuter traffic in full swing outside her window, Nikki lays on her bed, staring at the ceiling. This was something she never should have become involved in. "Story of my life, right?" she says out loud.
Her cut, still in the nearly empty duffel bag, sits on the floor — more an affront than a windfall. It isn't the prospect of cops she is worried about. Or the chaos and paranoia and whatever else awaits her when she goes in for work today — if she goes in for work today. It wasn't Eddie Fish — who always struck her as a pathetic little shrimp anyway — or what he might do. She could stand up to an interrogation. She'd hide the money somewhere and she'd ride it out. She doesn't feel guilty about taking money from a dishonest shithole like NiteKlub - probably go out of business in a few months anyway (a la carte dinners were getting slower and slower and the party business was drying up for the season). The owners had already skimmed their money out, that was for sure. Only a matter of time till they were all out of work. They deserved it. They'd probably barely notice the money had gone missing. One night's fucking receipts — okay, there had been a disconcertingly large amount in there this time —but what would really happen now? It isn't getting caught that bothers her. She wasn't going to get caught. It isn't guilt. Or fear — not much anyway. Who'd suspect a chick? Especially now, with Lenny gone? She closes her eyes and tries to forget about the whole thing — pushing the office, the safe, the bag of money on her floor out of her mind. But something keeps intruding. Keeps waking her up, eyes wide open, her breathing getting faster, a painful, swelling ache in her chest.
It's Bobby.
That bothers her. It really does.