The Picasso Flop Page 4

  The room—all reds (the upholstery and curtains), golds (the rug), and cherrywood (desk and paneling)—was in stark contrast to prison gray. Jimmy had the feeling this might have been Harold’s intention, to set this room up so that it’d be completely different from the walls he’d had to stare at for two years. After ten years it was sure as hell easy on Jimmy’s eyes.

  “What are your plans?” Landrigan asked.

  Jimmy let the bourbon sit on his tongue for a moment, savoring it, before swallowing so he could speak. “Well, I damn well hadn’t been planning on coming to California. But now that I’m here . . . I don’t know. I was thinking of hitting you up for a wad of start-up cash, but I can’t do that now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Come on, Harold,” Jimmy said. “I’m out five years ahead of time. I know who did that. It must have cost you plenty.”

  He waved his hand. “I have plenty,” he said, “so don’t sweat that, Jimmy.”

  “Naw, Harold,” Jimmy said. “A plane ticket, some cash—” he touched his pocket, where the cash he’d already been given resided, “—and a glass of good bourbon, that’s all I expect to get out of you now. We’re square.”

  “We’re not even close to square, Jimmy,” Landrigan said. “Not by a long shot.”

  “As far as I’m concerned we are.”

  Jimmy finished the bourbon, put the glass down, and stood up.

  “Stay, Jimmy,” Harold said, also standing. “Have a meal, a shower . . . stay overnight and listen to what I’ve got to say.”

  “About what?”

  “I want you to work for me.”

  Jimmy laughed. “Yeah, right. Vice president of the bank? Stockbroker? I know, debt management. I think my qualifications are kinda lacking.”

  “But you are qualified for one particular thing, aren’t you?”

  Jimmy stared at him.

  “Poker?” he said, as if reminding Jimmy.

  “I know that, Harold, but how does that help you?”

  “Like I said,” he answered, “stay, eat, and listen.”

  Jimmy hesitated.

  “I’ll give you five grand,” he added. “No strings attached.”

  “Five grand? To stay, have a shower, a meal . . . and listen? That’s all?”

  “I hope it’s not all,” he said, “but, yeah, that’s what five thousand will buy me. Whaddaya say?”

  Jimmy might have said no but he caught a whiff of himself at that very moment.

  “Okay, sure,” he agreed with a shrug. “Why not? I’ve got nothin’ to lose, right?”

  “Great,” Landrigan said. “I’ll tell Cook to set another place for dinner, and then I’ll show you to your room.”

  Cook, Jimmy thought, as Landrigan rushed out. Aside from the house and money, that was the first sign he’d seen that prison had not squeezed all the affectation out of Harold P. Landrigan.

  SIX

  After the best meal he’d had in ten years—possibly the best meal he’d ever had—Harold took Jimmy to another room. More-muted colors here, no reds and golds but soft browns. There was a time in his life when this would have felt comfortable, but after the last ten years Jimmy felt out of place.

  “My study,” Harold Landrigan said. “There’s also a library in the house. Too many damn rooms.”

  Jimmy knew Harold’s wife had died while he was in prison. He also knew there was a child, but Jimmy hadn’t seen anyone during dinner except Harold.

  “Cigar?” Landrigan asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “You didn’t smoke inside.”

  Cigarettes were currency in the joint. You used them to buy what you wanted or needed. Jimmy had also used them to play poker with, until the other inmates had gotten smart and stopped playing with him. Smoking them would have been like burning money on the outside.

  “More bourbon?”

  “That I’ll take.”

  Jimmy felt good. He was showered, shaved, fed, and rested—he’d had an hour nap before dinner—and he was wearing clothes Landrigan had supplied. He didn’t know if they’d been bought specifically for him, but they were his size and what he would have worn—solids, dark.

  His host handed Jimmy another glass of bourbon, then sat across from him with his cigar.

  “When do you make the five-thousand-dollar pitch?” Jimmy asked.

  “Oh,” Landrigan said.

  He got up quickly and went to a small, flimsy-looking piece of furniture in one corner. Jimmy guessed it was something French, expensive, and probably old, but he knew fuck all about furniture. But he definitely knew that Landrigan took a stack of cash out of the top drawer, dropped it into his lap, and then sat back down with his cigar.

  “Five grand, as promised.”

  Jimmy picked it up. It still had the bank strip on it. “I could walk out now.”

  “You could,” Landrigan said, “but you only had a nap on that bed. My guess is you want at least one full night.”

  It was a good guess, but Jimmy didn’t let him know that. He set the five Gs back down on his lap and sipped his bourbon.

  “Okay, Harold, make your pitch. Who do you want me to kill?”

  Harold Landrigan waved his hand and said, “We don’t do that, you and I, Jimmy.”

  “What do you think I was in for?”

  “Man two,” he said. “I know what you were in for. You hit a guy and he died. From what I found out, he deserved it.”

  “He deserved to be hit,” Jimmy said, “but maybe he didn’t deserve to die.”

  “And you didn’t deserve to go inside for fifteen years,” he said. “You didn’t belong in there any more than I did. You never talked about it, but somebody railroaded you, same as me.”

  True, but Jimmy knew he belonged inside more than Landrigan did.

  “Jimmy, I want to help get you back on your feet,” he said. “Even better. I want to set you up.”

  “So what do I have to do?”

  He hesitated a moment, studied his cigar. Jimmy gave him the time to find the words.

  “My only child is twenty-one,” he said, “and hates me. My wife died while I was inside. She couldn’t take the disgrace, and I take full blame for her death. She died of humiliation and a broken heart.”

  “Your only child?” Jimmy felt Harold was leaving something out purposely. “Your son?”

  “My daughter,” he said. “Kat.”

  “Is she a runaway or something?”

  “No,” Harold said. “I know where she is. I set her up in a condo in LA, and I send her a cash allowance every month.”

  “Lucky girl.”

  “Don’t misunderstand,” Harold said. “I made her take the deal. She wanted to go off on her own. I convinced her to make me pay for my mistake, so I cover all her expenses.”

  Harold drew on his cigar, then studied it again—the lit end this time—while he let the smoke out in a long, slow stream.

  “I want to do the same for you, Jimmy.”

  “Set me up, pay my expenses?” Jimmy asked. “For what? Come on, Harold, drop the other shoe.”

  “The girl wants to play on the poker tour, Jimmy,” he said finally. “I want you to help her.”

  “Teach her to play poker? That’s not my style.”

  “Oh, come on,” Harold said, cutting him off. “As I understand it, she’s quite good. It’ll be easy.”

  “Then what does she need me for?”

  “She’s young, cocky, stubborn . . . I think they’ll eat her up on the tour. I want you to . . . look out for her, make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.”

  “I’m not a babysitter, Harold.”

  “This won’t be babysitting,” Harold insisted. “I want you to—” he groped for the right words, “be her friend, maybe even her mentor. Just keep an eye on her.”

  Still sounded like a babysitter to Jimmy.

  “Let her learn from you and keep her safe.”

  “So babysitter, bodyguard, and tu
tor. What else would you like?”

  “Well, actually,” Landrigan said, “to soften her up a bit.”

  “Soften her up?”

  “You know, get her to be . . . more feminine. The way she dresses and acts now, men might think she’s . . . well, a dyke. Maybe you could make a lady out of her.”

  “Oh, so now I’m Miss Fucking Manners?”

  “Damn it!”

  He’d succeeded in frustrating Landrigan, and he immediately regretted it.

  “All right, Harold,” he said soothingly. “I know what you want me to do.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m going on the tour myself,” Jimmy said, and added to himself, as soon as I raise a stake. “I don’t have time to be a . . . I don’t have time, Harold—”

  “Ten grand.”

  “What?”

  “If you don’t have the time to do it as a favor, let’s make it a straight business deal.”

  “Ten grand over the five I have here?”

  “No,” he said. “Ten grand a month.”

  “Harold—”

  “I’ll set you up, buy you a condo,” he said, ticking items off on his fingers, “pay your expenses—including the buy in for any tournament you want to play in—and deposit ten thousand dollars in a bank account for you every month.”

  Jimmy hesitated, then asked, “And I have access to that bank account?”

  “It’s yours,” he said. “You’ll be able to deposit and withdraw. With ATMs you’ll have twenty-four-hour access.”

  “And you’re willing to do all this for a kid who hates you?”

  Harold shrugged. “She’s my daughter,” he answered. “What can I say? I love her. Do we have a deal?”

  Harold sat forward in his chair, with the cigar he’d been studying so intently now forgotten in his left hand. He extended his right to Jimmy, who took it.

  “There is a catch, though.”

  Jimmy knew it. “What is it?”

  “She can never find out that you’re working for me. If she does, she’ll hate both of us, and the cash will stop.”

  “Well, that part doesn’t sound very fair.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have a head start.”

  SEVEN

  Jimmy remembered the first time he saw the kid. She was hanging around the pool.

  As promised, by the time he got to LA his condo was ready, as was his bank account, the first installment already on deposit. He also stuck most of the fifteen Gs Harold had given him in there, so he had a pretty good bank balance. For the hell of it he hit an ATM for three hundred dollars just to make sure he could.

  His place had five rooms, and he was surprised to find a note from Harold taped to the refrigerator. “Had a designer come in and do up the place the way I thought you’d like it. If you want to change anything, give him a call.” The man’s business card was stapled to the note. Jimmy tore it up and deposited it in his spanking new stainless steel kitchen garbage can.

  The condo had hardwood floors, dark wood paneling, and lots of windows. When you’ve been in stir for ten years, you kinda miss windows. Harold had only been in for two, but obviously he knew that. Jimmy hadn’t had the desire to change anything. He was just glad not to be living in a huge cement box with hundreds of other guys.

  He walked out onto the terrace which, since he was on the second floor, had a great view of the pool. At that moment there were only three people around the pool. Two were male and the third was Kat Landrigan. He’d been hoping for some girls in bikinis. What women were wearing now was certainly different from ten years ago. One thing he really liked was how girls showed off their midriffs and belly buttons. But recently the navels seemed to have moved five or six inches north of the belt lines. Sometimes there was this huge expanse of flesh with the shirt actually covering the navel. At times it looked to him as if women had lost their belly buttons entirely.

  Jimmy recognized Kat from a recent picture Harold had given him. She was a little bit of a thing, wearing a two-piece bathing suit, even though she didn’t have much in the way of curves to show off. In fact, the two dudes playing poker with her weren’t paying much attention to her at all, other than when they had to. Even from his balcony Jimmy could read the body language, a talent he’d always had but honed to near perfection in the joint. You never knew what another prisoner had in mind when he was approaching you, unless you learned to read him. The guys weren’t flirting with her and she was concentrating on her cards, even in a game that was taking place on a chaise lounge instead of a felt tabletop. According to her father, all she cared about was playing poker. To the “detriment” he’d said, of all other aspects of her life. Jimmy had told Landrigan if that was the case, she already had the correct mind-set to be a solid professional. It remained to be seen if she had the skills to go with it.

  Jimmy wasn’t ready to meet her, though, not that first day. He went into the bedroom and found the closet and dresser drawers filled with clothes, all in his size, including three different bathing suits. He tossed them, though. He wasn’t really a bathing suit kind of guy. He’d buy something else to wear around the pool if, indeed, that was where he chose to make young Kat’s acquaintance.

  He sat on the king-size bed—covered with a two-tone brown bedspread—and looked around. The walls were cream colored, the furnishings plain but costly. He recognized quality when he saw it; he just could never have named the furniture makers or artists.

  He was the product of two educations. His first was growing up in Philadelphia with a cop for a father. He went to public schools, worked odd jobs, got himself a college education that he ultimately never used because, by then, he was making money playing poker. But what college had done was smooth out any rough edges he might have had from the streets of Philly and from his dad and his cop buddies.

  In Vegas he had never become a superstar during the eighties and nineties, preferring to remain under the radar while playing in lucrative side games.

  His second education came on the inside. He went into prison as a “fish,” an innocent first timer, but came out as someone who’d learned to survive. His rough edges not only back but razor sharp.

  What he had to do now that he was on the outside again was find a balance between the two schools he’d been to and make them both work for him. He wasn’t some ex-con with a chip on his shoulder and an eighth-grade education, but he also wasn’t some Ivy League asshole.

  And before he could take a kid under his wing—especially a girl—he had to find the real Jimmy Spain.

  He spent a month building his cover: passing Kat in the hall, getting his mail when she did, seeing her at the pool. During that time he played poker in various poker rooms around town to get his timing back, but he made sure he didn’t frequent any of the rooms she went to. It wasn’t easy: the kid played a lot.

  However, by the end of the month he started showing up in the same places. One or two times he sat at the same table to observe her. She was so into the game that he didn’t think she even recognized him. That was the first chink he found in her game, which he intended to address when the time came. Too much time spent on her own cards, not enough time watching the other players at the table.

  She dressed horribly, too. And she was obnoxious, smacking her chewing gum, talking fast and smart: “Are you all in, baby? I thought I felt a tickle.” He still wasn’t Miss Manners, but he thought he could help her out there, too.

  When he finally made up his mind to meet her, he figured the pool was as good a place as any. It had been March when he first arrived at the condo, and by April he decided to make his move. Jimmy contrived to be at the pool before her that day, armed with a deck of cards and a copy of Brunson’s book.

  He had time to watch the men and women—or boys and girls—at play. The men wore what looked like bikini briefs, and the girls showed off everything they had in the tiniest two-piece suits.


  Jimmy wore full trunks and a yellow sports shirt which he left open. He had none of the insecurities of the men who needed to show off their package, in tiny briefs.

  When he spotted her coming through the gate carrying a towel and an iPod he quickly dealt out two hands and a flop. Knowing in advance which chaise lounge she preferred he had situated himself so that she’d have to walk past him and the white table he was sitting at. He made sure he was staring down at the cards when she reached him. There was no guarantee she’d stop, or even see what he was doing, so it was with great satisfaction that he felt her pause next to him. He was about to look up, when she reached down to look at the opposing hand he’d dealt.

  “Looks like you’re screwed, dude,” she said. “You dealt him a pair of kings and he flopped a set.”

  He looked up at her. She was wearing a powder-blue two-piece bathing suit. It wasn’t exactly a California bikini, but he was able to see that her belly button was pierced and there was a tattoo on her tanned midriff that was so small he would have had to lean in closer to make it out. She was flat chested and seemed to have the hips of a fourteen-year-old boy. As he’d noticed before in the poker rooms, she had multiple piercings in both ears and a ring through her right eyebrow. Her jet-black hair was cut very short, spiked with purple highlights. And her fingernails were painted black.

  “You want to play the hand?” he asked.

  He had to squint up at her despite wearing sunglasses. As if sensing this she moved so that he was in her shadow.

  “You know what I have.”

  “You don’t know what I have,” he said.

  She studied him for a moment, probably dismissing the thought that he might be hitting on her because she’d stopped and spoken to him first. She was wearing sunglasses, which masked her expression somewhat, and he couldn’t see the color of her eyes.

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug.

  “What about your two partners?” he asked, jerking his head toward the two guys she usually played with.

  “Dude, they’ll live.”

  She sat opposite him and put her iPod on the table next to what were now her two hole cards.

  “What are we playin’ for?” she asked.