a big, black Cadillac. All us kids wanted to be like him … lotsa women, great clothes. Always wore the Italian or French designers. Everything was great till Saturday, June eighteenth, 1978. …That was the day we all changed our minds about being like Soapy.”
“Really?” Beano said, his smile pasted on his face, his puckering dick hanging forgotten in his hand. He put it away, zipped up, and moved to the washbasin, wishing he didn’t have to hear the end of the tale.
In a minute, Joe Dancer’s reflection joined his in the mirror. “Yeah. Poor Soapy got caught jammin’ some players at the Purple Tiger, which was a little card club down on the wharf, by the pier. Those guys he was cheatin’ were serious players, and they were real mad ‘cause they trusted Soapy, so they held him down and jointed the poor guy while he was still alive.”
“I beg your pardon?” Beano said.
“One guy, I think he’d been a medic in ‘Nam, am putated Soapy a section at a time, while the others held him down. They had a plumber clamping off veins and arteries so he wouldn’t bleed out. Kept him alive for about fifteen or twenty minutes. By the time they took off his left arm, poor Soapy’s heart stopped.”
Somebody flushed a toilet in the stall behind them.
“That’s a damn good reason not to cheat,” Beano managed, his insides now frozen like his smile.
“I always thought so,” Joe said. And without any expression crossing his gorgeous aquiline face, he walked away from the sink.
The story made its point. Beano figured eighty-six grand was plenty. He decided to just hold even, maybe give some of it back, until the game time limit.
The game was called at exactly midnight, and Beano cashed in seventy-eight thousand in chips. Joe Rina left without saying another word. Beano stayed in the bar talking the losers down for about an hour, drinking and telling everybody it had been the best card night of his life.
At a few minutes past one, Beano walked out of the almost deserted country club and headed to his rental car.
What happened to Beano in the parking lot wasn’t as bad as what had happened to Soapy Smith in Atlantic City, but it certainly made the same point.
He had just arrived at his car and was putting his briefcase into the trunk when he was staggered by a massive blow from behind. It hit him with such devastating force at the back of his skull that Beano instantly dropped to his knees, splitting open his forehead on the back bumper. He spun awkwardly around in time to see a nine-iron flying out of the darkness, right into his face. It was a chip shot from hell that broke all his front teeth and shattered his jaw, skewing it terribly. Beano fell to the pavement, then grunted in horrible, unendurable pain as four more horrendous blows from the golf club broke the third, fifth, and seventh ribs along his spinal column, also shattering his clavicle and sinus cavity.
Beano was barely conscious when Joe Rina stuck his handsome face down so close that Beano could smell his breath and mint aftershave.
“You look pretty bad, Mr. Lemay,” the mobster said. “You might be able to pull this stuff on that buncha buffaloes in there, but you should know better than to try and cheat Joseph Rina.”
Beano couldn’t talk. His jaw was locked by bone chips and a break that knocked it badly out of alignment.
“Now I’m gonna take my money back. But let me assure you this has been very helpful,” Joe Dancer said with exaggerated politeness. “I’ve been having trouble with my short game. I think I wasn’t keeping my head down and following through like my guy keeps telling me. Thanks for the practice.” Joe stood up; then Beano felt pure agony as two more blows rained down onto his body for good measure. He started to cough up blood. Beano knew he was badly wounded, but more important, in that instant he felt something die inside him. It was as if the most critical piece of Beano Bates, his charming confidence, had left him like smoke out of an open window. It was his confidence and ego that allowed him to be the best. As he lost consciousness, he somehow knew that if he survived he would never be the same again.
He woke up in New Jersey, at the Mercer County Hospital. He was in ICU. The nurses