Tumblin' Dice by John McFetridge Page A

owns her/Nobody tells her what to do.” Ritchie’d said, yeah, like Roxanne, and Cliff said yeah. That Ritchie, always clever but never knowing what to do with it.
    â€œSo, what do you want to do,” Cliff said, “go over to the office and say, hey, Frank, we figure you owe us two million bucks, hand it over?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    Cliff downed the last of his Scotch and saw a woman walking through the bar. She was in her forties, too, carrying a little more weight than the flirty one in the booth, but also showing it off in a tight, low-cut minidress, stockings, stilettos, and attitude, walking through the place like she knew everybody was looking at her and she didn’t mind — she liked it. Cliff was thinking it was good to see that kind of confidence in a woman her age with that extra weight, could tell she knew how to use her body better than any skinny twenty-something.
    He said to Barry, “You figure he’ll just hand it over?”
    The woman got to the booth with the flirting couple and sat down, looking around for a waiter.
    And Barry was saying, “I don’t see why not. The shylocks do.”
    Cliff watched the scene at the booth, not as much fun now with the third wheel, hands coming up above the table, tight smiles all ’round, and he said to Barry, “They don’t have much choice, you holding a gun on them.”
    And Barry said, “I still have the gun.” Cliff looked at him and Barry said, “Have one for you, too.”
    â€œAre you fucking kidding? I told you after that French fucking asshole nearly killed me I’d never do that again.”
    â€œIt isn’t exactly the same.”
    â€œNo?”
    Barry finished off his drink, tapped the bar, and said, “I can’t believe you can’t smoke in here. I’d like a smoke, how about you?”
    â€œYou’re not serious about this?”
    Barry said, why not, it’s our money. “You know, you actually handled it pretty good. You didn’t panic or yell or anything.”
    Cliff said, yeah, right, looking at Barry nodding, acting like he was impressed. Bullshit. Cliff knew he thought he was a pussy, standing there with a gun on the guy, not shooting him, getting smacked and tossed in the fucking trunk of the car. Pussy. Then he said, “It’s all I fucking think about.”
    Barry said, come on, “Let’s step outside,” and Cliff followed him out the side door of the place to the patio that wouldn’t be used for anything other than smoke breaks in the summer.
    A waiter in his buckskin jacket dropped a butt and went back inside, and they were alone.
    Barry said, “You know, most guys, they would’ve started pulling the trigger right there in the lot, place’d be swarming with cops, everybody busted, some fucking dope dealer shot in the head. The next ten years’d be all lawyers and trials — you don’t end up in jail, you still end up broke.”
    Cliff said, yeah, that’s true, but he hadn’t thought about that at all. He just thought about pointing the gun at the asshole and shooting, watching the back of his head splatter all over his fucking piece of shit Monte Carlo like in a movie. What he wanted to do.
    Barry lit his cigarette and said, no man, “You’re good at it.”
    Well, Cliff thought, he was getting better anyway. He lit up, sucking smoke deep into his lungs and letting it out slow, saying, “So, you think Frank has that kind of money, and he can just hand it over?”
    â€œGuy runs a casino: I’m sure he can get his hands on some cash.”
    Cliff said, “Shit, Barry, we don’t see each other for a few years, and it’s like I don’t know you anymore. You’re a different person.”
    Barry smoked, didn’t say anything.
    Cliff said, “It is our money, though, isn’t it? Two million bucks?”
    â€œProbably way more than