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