2

Pozzi accepted the ride without saying a word, just nodded his head when Nashe told him he was going to New York, and scrambled in. From the way his body collapsed when it touched the seat, it was obvious that he would have gone anywhere, that the only thing that mattered to him was getting away from where he was. He had been hurt, but he also looked scared, and he behaved as though he were expecting some new catastrophe, some further attack from the people who were after him. Pozzi closed his eyes and groaned as Nashe put his foot on the accelerator, but even after they were traveling at fifty or fifty-five, he still did not say a word, had barely seemed to notice that Nashe was there. Nashe assumed he was in shock and did not press him, but it was a strange silence for all that, a disconcerting way for things to begin. Nashe wanted to know who this person was, but without some hint to go on, it was impossible to draw any conclusions. The evidence was contradictory, full of elements that did not add up. The clothes, for example, made little sense: powder blue leisure suit, Hawaiian shirt open at the collar, white loafers and thin white socks. It was garish, synthetic stuff, and even when such outfits had been in fashion (ten years ago? twenty years ago?), no one had worn them but middle-aged men. The idea was to look young and sporty, but on a young kid the effect was fairly ludicrous - as if he were trying to impersonate an older man who dressed to look younger than he was. Given the cheapness of the clothes, it seemed right that the kid should also be wearing a ring, but as far as Nashe could tell, the sapphire looked genuine, which didn't seem right at all. Somewhere along the line the kid must have had the money to pay for it. Unless he hadn't paid for it - which meant that someone had given it to him, or else that he had stolen it. Pozzi was no more than five-six or five-seven, and Nashe doubted that he weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds. He was a wiry little runt with delicate hands and a thin, pointy face, and he could have been anything from a traveling salesman to a small-time crook. With blood dribbling out of his nose and his left temple gashed and swollen, it was hard to tell what kind of impression he normally made on the world. Nashe felt a certain intelligence emanating from him, but he couldn't be sure. For the moment, nothing was sure but the man's silence. That and the fact that he had been beaten to within several inches of his life.

After they had gone three or four miles, Nashe pulled into a Texaco station and eased the car to a halt. 'I have to get some gas,' he said. 'If you'd like to clean up in the men's room, this would be a good time to do it. It might make you feel a little better.'

There was no response. Nashe assumed that the stranger hadn't heard him, but just as he was about to repeat his suggestion, the man gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. 'Yeah,' Pozzi said. 'I probably don't look too good, do I?'

'No,' Nashe said, 'not too good. You look like you've just crawled out of a cement mixer.'

'That's pretty much what I feel like, too.'

'If you can't make it on your own, I'll be happy to lend you a hand.'

'Naw, that's all right, buddy, I can do it. Just watch. Ain't nothing I can't do when I put my mind to it.'

Pozzi opened the door and began to extricate himself from the seat, grunting as he tried to move, clearly flabbergasted by the sharpness of the pain. Nashe came around to steady him, but the kid waved him off, shuffling toward the men's room with slow, cautious steps, as if willing himself not to fall down. In the meantime, Nashe filled the gas tank and checked the oil, and when his passenger still had not returned, he went into the garage and bought a couple of cups of coffee from the vending machine. A good five minutes elapsed, and Nashe began to wonder if the kid hadn't blacked out in the bathroom. He finished his coffee, stepped outside onto the tarmac, and was about to go knock on the door when he caught sight of him. Pozzi was moving in the direction of the car, looking somewhat more presentable after his session at the sink. At least the blood had been washed from his face, and with his hair slicked back and the torn jacket discarded, Nashe realized that he would probably mend on his own, that there would be no need to take him to a doctor.

He handed the second cup of coffee to the kid and said, 'My name is Jim. Jim Nashe. Just in case you were wondering.'

Pozzi took a sip of the now tepid drink and winced with displeasure. Then he offered his right hand to Nashe. 'I'm Jack Pozzi,' he said. 'My friends call me Jackpot.'

'I guess you hit the jackpot, all right. But maybe not the one you were counting on.'

'You've got your best of times, and you've got your worst of times. Last night was one of the worst.'

'At least you're still breathing.'

'Yeah. Maybe I got lucky, after all. Now I get a chance to see how many more dumb things can happen to me.'

Pozzi smiled at the remark, and Nashe smiled back, encouraged to know that the kid had a sense of humor. 'If you want my advice,' Nashe said, 'I'd get rid of that shirt, too. I think its best days are behind it.'

Pozzi looked down at the dirty, blood-stained material and fingered it wistfully, almost with affection. 'I would if I had another one. But I figured this was better than showing off my beautiful body to the world. Common decency, you know what I mean? People are supposed to wear clothes.'

Without saying a word, Nashe walked to the back of the car, opened the trunk, and started looking through one of his bags. A moment later, he extracted a Boston Red Sox T-shirt and tossed it to Pozzi, who caught it with his free hand. 'You can wear this,' Nashe said. 'It's way too big for you, but at least it's clean.'

Pozzi put his coffee cup on the roof of the car and examined the shirt at arm's length. 'The Boston Red Sox,' he said. 'What are you, a champion of lost causes or something?'

'That's right. I can't get interested in things unless they're hopeless. Now shut up and put it on. I don't want you smearing blood all over my goddamn car.'

Pozzi unbuttoned the torn Hawaiian shirt and let it drop to his feet. His naked torso was white, skinny, and pathetic, as if his body hadn't been out in the sun for years. Then he pulled the T-shirt over his head and opened his hands, palms up, presenting himself for inspection. 'How's that?' he asked. 'Any better?'

'Much better,' Nashe said. 'You're beginning to resemble something human now.'

The shirt was so large on Pozzi that he almost drowned in it. The cloth dangled halfway down his legs, the short sleeves hung over his elbows, and for a moment or two it looked as if he had been turned into a scrawny twelve-year-old boy. For reasons that were not quite clear to him, Nashe felt moved by that.

They headed south on the Taconic State Parkway, figuring to make it down to the city in two or two and a half hours. As Nashe soon learned, Pozzi's initial silence had been an aberration. Now that the kid was out of danger, he began to show his true colors, and it wasn't long before he was talking his head off. Nashe didn't ask for the story, but Pozzi told it to him anyway, acting as though the words were a form of repayment. You rescue a man from a difficult situation, and you've earned the right to hear how he got himself into it.

'Not one dime,' he said. 'They didn't leave us with a single fucking dime.' Pozzi let that cryptic remark hang in the air for a moment, and when Nashe said nothing, he started again, scarcely pausing to catch his breath for the next ten or fifteen minutes. 'It's four o'clock in the morning,' he continued, 'and we've been sitting at the table for seven straight hours. There's six of us in the room, and the other five are your basic chumps, chipsters of the first water. You give your right arm to get into a game with monkeys like that - the rich boys from New York who play for a little weekend excitement. Lawyers, stockbrokers, corporate hot shots. Losing doesn't bother them as long as they get their thrills. Good game, they say to you after you've won, good game, and then they shake your hand and offer you a drink. Give me a steady dose of guys like that and I could retire before I'm thirty. They're the best. Solid Republicans, with their Wall Street jokes and goddamn dry martinis. The old boys with the five-dollar cigars. True-blue American assholes.

'So there I am playing with these pillars of the community, having myself a real good time. Nice and steady, raking in my share of pots, but not trying to show off or anything - just playing it nice and steady, keeping them all in the game. You don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. They play every month, those dumbbells, and I'd like to get invited back. It was hard enough swinging the invitation for last night. I must have worked on it for half a year, and so I was on my best behavior, all polite and deferential, talking like some faggot who goes to the country club every afternoon to play the back nine. You've got to be an actor in this business, at least if you want to move in on the real action. You want to make them feel good you're emptying their coffers, and you can't do that unless you show them you're an okay kind of guy. Always say please and thank you, smile at their dumb-ass jokes, be modest and dignified, a real gentleman. Gee, tonight must be my lucky night, George. By golly, Ralph, the...