slipped out onto the deck, passing Roger, who had curled up on the silk-covered sofa and was snoring. She sat next to Beano in one of the patio chairs and looked out at the moonlit ocean. A searchlight on the hotel roof was aimed out at the jagged rock outcroppings and lit the sharp foam-wet ridges. They glistened in spotlit beauty.
“Duffy’s credit is approved,” she finally said. “You didn’t ask, but that went off just the way we planned … two hundred thousand.”
“The casino manager told us,” he said and he fell silent again.
“You didn’t want Dakota to be the roper? Was it because you didn’t want her with Tommy?” she said.
“It’s not about Dakota. I was stupid. I knew she was a mack when I took up with her. I was just so damned lonely I made a mistake. It’s over.”
She wasn’t sure what else to say to him. He was so unlike the Beano Bates of two days ago. The one who’d conned her in the Jersey restaurant and sold the pearl; the one she’d helped set up the moose pasture. This Beano Bates was sad and vulnerable, and she found herself drawn to him.
“Are you afraid of Tommy?” she finally asked.
There was a long moment while he sat absolutely still, not moving a muscle. Then he started to talk. His voice was very soft, almost blown away by the tropical wind.
“I don’t know why,” he started, “but something happened to me the night Joe beat me with that club. I lost my edge, my mental toughness. I walk around and I think I’m the same, but I’m not. At first, I thought I was afraid of Joe and Tommy, but now I think that’s not it. I’m not afraid Tommy will hurt me … but that, somehow, I won’t be able to square things for Carol.” He never looked at her. His handsome profile was lit by the distant moon and the kick from the hotel lighting.
“All she would ask is that we try,” Victoria said.
“No, she wouldn’t ask that, not Carol, not the nurse. She’d say, ‘Go home, Beano. Don’t do this. It’s not worth it.’” He hesitated, then went on, “All my life I’ve been alone. Even with my parents I was alone because we never talked about what we were feeling. For a sharper, that can never be part of it. You’re taught to act a role and never reveal anything. You suck it up, play the game, never show weakness. Only suckers show weakness. But I am weak. I’m weak in my center and I’ve done it to myself. There’s an old Gypsy saying: ‘If you don’t believe in your con, the mark won’t believe it either.’ I’ve believed in too many cons. I’ve passed myself off as so many people, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve traded myself away, with tiny pieces of bullshit. The only one I could ever talk to about it was Carol. Carol knew. She was raised by her parents with the same values I was raised with, but she rejected them. We talked about it when we were children. Later, when I was in prison, she told me, ‘What you steal won’t nourish you. In order to be nourished you need to care about what you’re doing.’ I used to think I could take pride in running a great hustle … but there was never anything left behind. I had no legacy, nothing to pass on to my children. No children to pass it on to, anyway. Everything was bullshit. So, she was right. Now I’m only left with revenge. Revenge is a pitiful emotion, and it’s leaking out of me faster than I can pour the hate back in. So I’m here wondering whether I can even pull this off. I keep thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing? How is this going to help her? Am I just trading another piece of myself away, devaluing what’s left?’ I think that’s what’s been scaring me.”
When he finally fell silent, she didn’t know what to say. They were so different, and yet exactly the same. “Carol lied to me to save your life. …”
He turned and looked at her.
“… She never witnessed that beating. She was trying to get Joe Rina convicted. She loved you, Beano … so much she risked and gave her life to save you. She used me, but you know something, that’s all right because it’s brought me to this place.