Free Sucker Bet by James Swain

famous,” Rico explained.
    “Right.”
    “Nigel Moon.”
    Candy had nearly laughed. Fall for one of the world’s biggest assholes? She’d seen pictures in
People
magazine of Moon dropping his shorts. All the money in the world couldn’t erase that kind of ugly.
    “Give me a break,” she said.
    “He’s got a lot of dough.”
    Nigel Moon was no richer than plenty of guys she’d done in Las Vegas, and she hadn’t fallen for any of them. Her body might be for rent, but her soul wasn’t.
    “I don’t care.”
    Rico had smiled. “That’s my girl.”

    So that was the deal. Candy had been okay with it, until something strange had happened.
    After the Davie carnival, they’d gone to Nigel’s bungalow at the Delano on South Beach and burned up the sheets. Candy had clutched a stuffed panda the whole time Nigel had screwed her. Then Nigel had ordered room service.
    The hotel had a killer restaurant, and they drank champagne and ate lobsters in their bathrobes, the stereo playing a Joshua Redman CD, the music on loud because Nigel’s eardrums were shot from his drumming days. Normally, Candy hated loud music, but tonight she hadn’t minded, the notes flowing over their overheated bodies like a siren’s song.
    Still in their robes, they’d ventured outside. The moon hung a few fingers above the horizon, looking ten times its normal size. A hundred yards away, guests ate on the patio. They walked to the edge of the property, away from the noise. Not many stars were visible, and Candy had to search until she found a constellation whose name she knew.
    “There,” she’d said, pointing.
    “Where?” Moon said, straining to see.
    “Over there.”
    “Okay,” he’d said after a few moments. “I see it.”
    “Know which one it is?”
    “No.”
    “The Little Dipper,” she said.
    “Let’s not get personal.”
    “Huh?” she said.
    Turning, he parted his bathrobe and exposed his round English belly and the fleshy little ornament that hung beneath it. Candy had shrieked with laughter.
    And that was when the strange thing had happened. Nigel’s dick was small, but so were most guys’ dicks. Only, most guys lied about their dicks. Yet here was Nigel, telling her he didn’t care if
she
didn’t care. Making a joke out of his little dick.
    Only, it wasn’t a joke to Candy. Her whole life, she’d been looking for a guy who would come clean with her. It didn’t matter if he was fat or bald or had a little dick, just so long as he was honest about it. All she was asking for was an honest, down-to-earth guy. What her mother had called the full bucket.
    And she’d found the full bucket in Nigel Moon.

10
    “You were telling me about Jacques when we got interrupted,” Valentine said to Mabel the next morning, trying to get back on track. It was eight-thirty, and his neighbor was at his office, manning the phones.
    “He called yesterday in a tizzy,” Mabel said. “He checked the employee lockers like you suggested, only he didn’t find any of those tools you told him to look for. No sandpaper or drills or fast-drying cement. He thinks you were wrong about one of his employees doctoring the dice on his craps tables.”
    He’d ordered room service, and a piece of toast hit the plate. “Is that what Jacques told you, that I was wrong? Why that stupid horse’s ass—”
    “Tony! That’s not a nice thing to say.”
    “All right, he’s not stupid.”
    “
Tony!”
    “His casino is bleeding money, and he’s got the chutzpah to tell you I’m wrong.”
    “He’s just frustrated.”
    “Call him back, and have him inventory everything in those lockers. One of his employees is doctoring those dice. And I’m going to find out how.”
    “You’re sure about this,” she said.
    “One hundred percent sure. And you can tell Jacques that if I’m wrong, I’ll give him his money back.”
    His neighbor fell silent. Valentine picked up the toast and bit into it. The end was burned and tasted like soot. He ate it