Snow(68)

Kantos and his men had picked him up in the parking lot of the track. They were leaning against his car, four or five of them, each only uglier and angrier than the next. He’d already had a few run-ins with Kantos’s men, the most recent one outside a Manhattan bistro where two of them smacked him around a little bit—a run-in that had hurt his pride and his conscience more than his face and ribs. But he knew Andre Kantos meant business; he wasn’t going to be able to put him off for too much longer.

Todd had paused in the parking lot when he saw Kantos and his men leaning against his car. The sun was already setting, the sky the color of ripening fruit on the horizon, and his shadow was stretched out long and skinny on the gravel before him.

“This is where I find you,” Kantos said, peeling himself off Todd’s car. He was stocky with large meat-hook hands and a face like a patchwork quilt. His thinning hair was the color of steel wool, greased back off his Neanderthal brow. A diamond stud earring winked at Todd, catching what remained of the sunlight. “You owe me a shitload of money, Curry, and this is where I find you?”

“I was gonna call you tonight, Andre,” he said.

“Well, shit.” Kantos smiled—a grim Halloween pumpkin smile. “I must be a f*ckin’ psychic, huh?”

“I’ve got your money.” He’d produced the cashier’s check with the racetrack logo in the corner. One of Kantos’s men came over to him, plucked the check from his fingers, and nearly pressed his beaky nose to it as he examined it. Todd also showed him the racing form. “See? I’ve got it.”

Kantos came over to look at the check and the racing form. His beady little eyes glittered. When he turned back to Todd, there was a dispassionate sneer tugging at the corner of his pocked face. “You know, Curry,” Kantos said. “I take it back what I said to you last time we met, about how you’re one unlucky son of a bitch. Maybe I had you pegged wrong. Maybe you are lucky. What are the odds, right?”

Some of Kantos’s men grumbled with laughter.

Andre Kantos took the cashier’s check and folded it nicely into the front pocket of Todd’s shirt. He did the same with the racing form. His face so close to Todd’s, every nick and pore and crosshatched pockmark was clearly visible. The man’s ruinous little eyes glittered like polished jewels.

“So I guess I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning with my money, huh?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” Kantos turned and lit a cigarette. “I hate motherf*ckers like you who get lucky when the cards are down. Luck is for slouches and losers, Curry. People too afraid to cut their own way rely on luck. I ain’t had a day of good luck in my life, you know that?” He turned to one of his men—a beastlike guy with a mug like an old catcher’s mitt. “Show Mr. Curry how much I hate slouches and losers.”

They showed him.

He’d slept off the worst of the pain in the backseat of his car, too defeated to attempt to drive. Later, he’d had to pull over on the Black Horse Pike where he vomited blood into the bushes at the shoulder of the road. The next morning his face had looked like a Halloween mask and he was certain his nose was broken, along with a couple of ribs and the knuckles of his right hand. (He’d been right on all accounts—it seemed his luck had turned around, after all.)

But the worst was not the pain. It was not the doctor visits or the bandages or the harness he’d worn to bed for weeks until his ribs managed to mend themselves. The worst was that he could not let his son see him like this, that he could not tell Brianna that he had sunk so low. He’d canceled the boy’s visit. And wept like a child himself that night.

Those thoughts washed through him now, a tidal wave of emotion. He felt something heavy in his chest.

“Hey.” It was Kate. In his recollection, he hadn’t heard her approach.

Stuffing the racing form back into his wallet, he looked up at her and tried to summon his best smile. He wondered if she could see through it to the misery and torment boiling just beneath the surface. “Didn’t hear you sneak up.”

“Am I interrupting anything? Did you want to be alone?”

“Not at all. Have a seat.”

She sank down beside him, her back against the wall. “You feeling okay? You look a little…disconsolate.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Disconsolate?”

“It means sad, pensive, melancholy.”

Grinning, he shook his head and put his wallet back in his pocket. “I know what the word means. I just never heard anyone actually say it in a sentence before.”

“But am I totally off the mark?”

“I guess I’m just thinking about things. Giving myself time to let my life flash before my eyes. Just in case there isn’t time for it later.”

“Don’t say that. Todd, you’re gonna find that computer, bring it back here, and help us call the police.” She leaned closer to him. “All of us. You’re all coming back to save the day.”

He just kept grinning like an idiot. He couldn’t help himself. “What’s this big change in you, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re certainly not the same woman I met last night at the airport bar.”

“Jesus,” she said. “Last night? It seems like a year ago.” She looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”