2 Double Dip Read online

  “Smile!” Thatch said, pasting on his own. “Look up at me through your eyelashes, chin down,” he spoke through his mask, “and don’t say cheese, say home.”

  The whole thing was over in three seconds.

  “You wouldn’t believe,” Thatch dismissed Rodney, checked his seat for crumbs before taking it, then smoothed his tie, “how much mileage I’ve gotten out of you fainting.” He shifted positions, crossing his legs the other way, picking at the pleat in his pants. “Word spread like wildfire. Five hundred people have asked me who you are, how you’re doing, and have made me promise to catch them if they fall.”

  I’d known for a while that this wasn’t about me, so I didn’t pout.

  “Hope you won’t mind a little Page Six.” He winked. “Follow up for my peeps, you know.”

  Page Six in The Biloxi Sun Herald was a bigger deal here than Page Six in The New York Post was there. Page Six was the casino news. Several local casinos reported not only the amounts of huge slot machine wins, but the machine serial numbers and locations too. There were lots of winner photos, restaurant specials, and a Q & A section where gambling experts weighed in. Page Six was the addicted gambler’s bible, complete with daily gaming horoscopes, which had every sign under the sun winning. Thatch, believing me to be from out of town, was explaining the relevance and privilege of Page Six to me. “I kept a scrapbook the first year,” he said, “but I’m in it every other day”—he threw his hands in the air; what’s a boy to do?—“and I couldn’t keep up. I have a huge Page Six following.”

  No Hair wasn’t going to have a cow. He was going to have a tractor.

  “Marketing wants me take a first aid and CPR course,” he said, “just in case an opportunity like this comes up again.”

  I could see the publicity possibilities, so I smiled an Oh, really?

  “But rest assured,” he leaned in. “Mouth-to-mouth is Thatch choice only.”

  Gross.

  He reached under the table and pulled out a gift bag. “I have a treat for you.”

  “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, but I did.” He placed it on the linen between us. “Go ahead.”

  I pulled out tissue paper, then a thick sealed envelope that I placed on the table for later. No doubt it was an autographed studio portrait of him for my nightstand. I shook out the treat. It was a T-shirt, size S, bright red. On the front, the Bellissimo logo. On the back, the whole back, in letters large enough for an interstate billboard, it read THATCH! PICK ME!

  “Is the color okay?” he asked. “They come in every shade in the rainbow.”

  I knew this. Thatch had a whole line of T-shirts, and casino patrons wore them all the time. Thatch, call my name! I (heart) Thatch. One had a quip he’d made famous around here, his stock greeting when he stepped up to the mike: Who wants Thatch to call their name? The crowd went nuts when that particular question boomed out of the sound system. You could buy them in the gift shops, and I’d been in the casino before when he’d come through accompanied by half-naked girls shooting them out of guns. They were part of the Thatch phenomenon, and now I had one of my very own.

  “It’s lovely,” I lied.

  “Wait,” he said. I was rolling up the shirt. “Look closer.”

  He’d signed it. Saved by the Thatch! –Matthew Thatcher. Big fat Sharpie letters. EBay, here I come.

  “Open the envelope.” He nudged it.

  It was an invitation to a slot tournament, die-cut, shaped like an ice-cream cone, two scoops above a gold cone, the individual scoops loose slips of pastel silk. Everything was sprinkled with dots of cubic zirconia. I lifted the strawberry silk scoop to see that the buy-in was $25,000 per player. I lifted the chocolate scoop to see the theme—Double Dip.

  “This,” he leaned in, he needed a Tic-Tac, “is the hottest ticket in town.”

  “I’m honored.” I wasn’t.

  “It’s a spectator pass, mind you,” he said, “but you won’t want to miss a minute of it.”

  * * *

  Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning after a great night’s sleep in my slot-tournament hotel room, I speed dialed Fantasy at eight on the nose. “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting on you,” Fantasy said. “How was dinner? Is he bigger than life?”

  “His head is.” I was zipping through the Bellissimo lobby, overdressed in last-night’s clothes for today’s early hour. I passed the T-shirt to the first person I made eye contact with. “Listen, I’m going by my place real quick for some people clothes. Pick me up there in thirty minutes and we’ll head that way.”

  “I was hoping you were calling to tell me we didn’t have to do Alabama today.”

  “We’ll hurry.” A porter held the door for me. “We’ll find Peyton, check her for bullet wounds, snap a few pictures for No Hair, then be back by dinner.”

  “The chances of it going down that way are slim to none, Davis.”

  On the drive home I listened to the messages that had parked themselves on my phone for two days. Bradley had left a quick one: The movers called, they were going to charge us $2,500 for the $1,200 move because we hadn’t let them know in time. (In time for what?) Surely something could be done. (One would think.) He was up to his eyeballs; could I handle it? (Handle what?) Bradley again. Where was I? Could I possibly call the movers and work something out? (Work what out? Reschedule the move?) Then my sister, Meredith. Same question. Where was I? She hoped I remembered. (Where I was? She hoped I remembered where I was, or she hoped I remembered something else? Was it our mother’s birthday again already?)

  I stepped into the front door of our condo, my Armani shoes starting an echo that bounced off the walls. There were three things, and only three things, in the whole condo: dust hippopotamuses, my grandmother, and my ex-ex-husband, Eddie Crawford.

  SEVEN

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Fantasy drove a mom car, a white Volvo XC90. I stood beside it, in front of the building Bradley Cole and I—news to me—had already moved out of. I looked in the backseat. I waggled my fingers, then said to her, “No, you’re kidding, right?”

  Fantasy twisted in her seat. “Don’t move.” Her long legs came out of the car, the rest of her followed, and she crooked a finger at me. I turned, held up a wait-a-sec finger to my crew, and followed her.

  “Are your grandmother and your ex-husband going with us?” she asked.

  “Is your kid going with us?”

  Fantasy’s smallest child—I never could remember her sons’ names because they all started with the letter K, so it was either Krane or Keef or Kite—was in the car, poking on a noisy electronic handheld game.

  “You’re the one who said we were zipping down there, snapping a few pictures, then zipping right back,” she said.

  “It’s up.” I pointed. “Alabama is zipping up there.”

  Fantasy smiled at her small child. “He asked if he could ride. I said yes. Besides,” she said, “you brought Granny and your ex. You win.”

  “I didn’t bring them,” I said. “They were here when I got here.”

  “Why?”

  “I got here three seconds ago, Fantasy. I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “Can you leave them here?”

  “No.” I looked up at the building Bradley and I used to share. “Apparently, we’ve already moved out.”

  “When did you do that?”

  “Four seconds ago.”

  It took an additional ten thousand seconds to get on the road. Both Granny and K, the small child, had to visit the facilities in the empty condo, and Eddie Crawford, that sorry bastard, refused to get in his car and leave until I bought him a tank of gas. My sister, Meredith, who usually shuttles Granny to and fro, was busy, and with zero consideration for me, had roped Eddie into driving
Granny down for her gamble, which I’d completely forgotten about. Eddie, who all but refused to work, would use any excuse to get to Biloxi, his old hangout, and would give a ride to the devil himself to get here. He was, for a long list of reasons, eighty-sixed from the Bellissimo, but there were a dozen other casinos he was more than welcome in.

  “How much, Eddie?”

  “I like your hair that color.”

  “Shut up. How much?”

  “Two.” He batted his long black lashes at me. (As if.) “Hundred.”

  “Two hundred dollars for a tank of gas? That’s not gas money, you jerk, that’s gambling money, and I’m not giving it to you.” I didn’t have a dime on me had I wanted to. Which I didn’t. “Granny?” She was shuffling our way, K bringing up the rear, still poking on his game. “Do you have any cash?”

  “Honey, we already ate,” my grandmother said. “I’m full as a tick.”

  We piled in, Granny in the third row of seats, a mile away. “IT’S NICE AND ROOMY BACK HERE.” Fantasy’s kid clapped his hands over his ears. “YOU NEED ONE OF THESE CARS, DAVIS.”

  Eddie was following us to a convenience store two blocks away so I could buy him a tank of gas (what an ass), but his rattletrap car, a relic Lincoln Continental the size of a tugboat, died across two and a half lanes of busy Beach Boulevard.

  I dug in the bottomless pit of my purse for my phone. “I’ll call a tow truck.”

  “No,” Eddie the Ass said, “let the city get it. Scoot over, kid.”

  I almost jumped out the window at every mile marker until the stowaways fell asleep. Two were drooling. All three were snoring. Fantasy and I were breathing sighs of relief. I caught her studying Eddie the Flea in the rearview mirror.

  “He’s a total waste of pretty,” she said.

  My ex-ex-husband was famous for his dark, swarthy, Danny Zuko-vibe good looks. “Let’s call him a total waste,” I said, “and leave it at that.”

  Welcome to Pine Apple, Alabama. One four-way stop. One water tower. Fifty goats.

  My sister owned a curiosity shop, The Front Porch, that was the ground floor of a restored antebellum on Main Street. She and Riley lived upstairs. We dropped everyone off there. Meredith was none too happy about it. “We’ll be right back,” I said. “Sometime this afternoon. Maybe tonight.”

  “Dammit, Davis!” You’d think that was my name, Dammit Davis, because it’s almost always how my sister addressed me. (She loves me.) (I love her, too.)

  “Dammit, Davis?” I was practically in Fantasy’s lap trying to get through the driver window to get to my sister. (The one I love.) “What were you thinking sending Granny with Thing,” my right arm shot out in Thing’s direction, “to my home! How about dammit, Meredith?”

  “Dammit!” My niece Riley announced.

  “Dammit!” Fantasy’s small child stamped a Jordan. Super.Fly.

  “Jesus,” Fantasy mumbled.

  “Hey.” Eddie the Thing was stretching off his nap. “Whenever you all wind this up, I’m going to need a ride to my place.”

  “First of all, Eddie,” I turned to face him, “you don’t have a place. Say, ‘I need a ride to my parents’ mobile home.’ And second of all, walk.” Then to Fantasy, “Go, go, go!”

  There were two hours of road between Pine Apple and Beehive, a lot of it standstill traffic in Montgomery, and Meredith let us get through all the 85/65 exchange construction before she called and said, “I hope you know Granny’s sleeping in the back seat.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror. Granny was awake, upright, and smiling. Her hair was awake, upright, and screaming. “I COULD USE A LITTLE SOMETHING TO WET MY WHISTLE, DAVIE.”

  I hung up on Meredith.

  We found a diner in Shorter, Alabama. We chose a booth. Granny sat beside me. Fantasy pulled a thick file folder out of her bag, and I turned to Granny. “We’re going to work a few minutes while we wait on our pie.”

  “The secret to a perfect pie crust is ice water and a wooden rolling pin.” Granny was wide-eyed, her little head bobbing. “And you can use your rolling pin to bop someone over the head if need be.” Then my eighty-two-year-old grandmother reenacted a rolling-pin head-bopping, complete with soundtrack. “THWACK.”

  “What happened to your grandfather?” Fantasy asked from behind her hand.

  “We’re not sure,” I said from behind mine.

  Fantasy’s eyes were wide. Granny patted her blue hair. I patted Granny’s little bird arm.

  “Why do you have a picture of Jewell?” my grandmother asked.

  Double take. I flipped the eight-by-ten black and white and moved it as close to Granny’s nose as I could. “Do you know this woman, Granny?”

  A crooked finger shot out. “That’s Jewell Maffini.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “From the Fortune Casino,” Granny said. “She played there before it was shut down. You know who her grandson is, don’t you?” Granny dragged Jewell’s picture an inch closer.

  “No,” I shook my head. “I don’t know her grandson.”

  “Mr. Microphone,” Granny said, “at your casino. If things don’t work out with you and your new young man, I could have Jewell introduce you.”

  And this would be what caught No Hair’s eye. If Jewell Maffini is related to Matthew Thatcher, and Jewell Maffini is related to Bianca’s missing assistant, Peyton Reynolds, then Matthew Thatcher and Peyton Reynolds are connected.

  “Of course, I’ll always have a soft spot for Eddie,” Granny said. “He’s a hunk.”

  * * *

  Beehive, Alabama. Who knew?

  I knew the necessities, because I’d grown up not too far from here. It was one of many small Alabama towns named, surely, over pints of ale.

  “Let’s call ye ole town Flabbergast Foot.”

  “Thee’s crazed. We shall call it Horse’s Large Member.”

  “What hast happened to thou?”

  “A bee’s hive hath dones’t dropped on mine head.”

  Well, there you go. Beehive. Every time I’d heard mention of Beehive, Alabama, it was either about the church we were here to take a look at, rumored to be outrageously large, or cheeseburgers, rumored to be heavenly. And also outrageously large.

  Population: roughly five thousand. Beehive was more an exurbia of Auburn, Alabama, twenty miles away, than anything else. It was mostly residential, make that mansionential, the four corners of the city made up of subdivisions named after horse race tracks. Fountains, statues, magnolias, and elaborate guard houses announced entrances to Churchill Downs, Belmont, Saratoga, and Pimlico.

  “These people have some money,” Fantasy commented.

  “I’ll say.”

  “DO YOU SEE A LADIES ROOM ANYWHERE, DAVIS?”

  We found an elegant strip mall, complete with valet parking, that had a coffee shop, Bistro de Jesus. (“I’LL BE BACK IN A JIFFY.”) On one side of the coffee shop was a burger joint, Our Daily Burger, home of the heavenly burgers, and on the other side, a fancy steak house, Holy Cow.

  The next few blocks of Beehive were not as blatantly religious, but just as noticeably stylish. There were fancy banks, fancy topiary gardens everywhere, and a string of fancy mountain-stone buildings with arched stone breezeways connecting Beehive’s elementary to middle to high schools. Everything in Beehive was professionally manicured. We saw one gas station, and even it was pretty. We thought we’d reached the end of main street, which was God’s Boulevard here, having missed the church, when the road took a sudden sharp left and the church loomed before us in the distance like a divine palace.

  “Good God.” Fantasy hit the brakes.

  “Amen.”

  “PRAISE BE.”

  A vast parking lot circled the castle of a church like a concrete moat, and was sectioned off like
Disney’s, segregated by reminders: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord (who’d park there?), and Daisy Duck (kidding).

  “I wonder if they tailgate,” Fantasy said.

  I turned to her. “We’re on the Polar Express and this is Holy Santa’s Village.”

  “IS THIS A NEW CASINO?”

  At least fifty SUVs filled several long rows of Fortitude. God’s staffers, it would seem, favored Lexus. We worked our way to the front, then drove through a massive stone archway leading to the main entrance, and, stupefied, read the sign.

  WELCOME TO THE

  SO HELP ME GOD

  PENTACOSTAL CHURCH

  MARION BEECHER, SENIOR PASTOR

  COME ONE, COME ALL

  “Beecher?” Fantasy turned to me.

  “Beecher?” I was dumfounded. “Isn’t that one of Peyton’s names?”

  “Holy crap.” Fantasy shook her head. “What is going on?”

  “WE GOT COMPANY.”

  A black, four-door sedan came out of nowhere and angled itself ten feet from Fantasy’s front right bumper. Another one pulled up behind us, counter, on the back left bumper of the Volvo. NFL linebackers (they had to be) exited the cars, two each, everyone wearing black, and surrounded us. One guy behind us, I could see in the side mirror, was poking on his phone, running our plates. Fantasy and I exchanged a quick look, mapping a plan. She put an elbow on the console between us, ready to snap it open should she need its loaded contents, and with her other long arm, reached over and pressed the button that lowered the driver window.

  “Gentlemen?” She smiled.

  “Ma’am,” one said. “Can we help you?”

  “We’re here to see God.” Fantasy nodded in the direction of the massive stone sanctuary.

  “He’s not in.” The man reached inside his jacket and I had to clamp down on Fantasy’s arm to keep her from shooting him. He pulled out a printed card, not a firearm, and held it in the open window. I let go of Fantasy’s arm. “Here’s a list of worship services, Ma’am. You’ll need to either call and make an appointment with one of our counselors, or come back during one of these times.”