Who’s Angie Dickenson
Seventy-three years old and the guy wanted to go again. Stacey looked at the clock radio beside the bed, seven twenty-seven p.m., and said, “In a minute, okay, let me catch my breath.”
Frank said, “You do that,” and watched her stand up and stretch. She started to walk towards the bathroom and he said, “Don’t go far.”
She said, “Don’t worry,” thinking, shit, I hope I’m doing the right thing.
In three minutes there’d be a knock at the door, she’d let a guy in and he’d shoot Frank Colucci. She’d get an extra grand on top of the five hundred Frank was paying – what he paid her every Thursday, same time, same hotel.
She looked in the bathroom mirror, the lines on her face in the bright fluorescent light. A couple years past thirty, shit, she couldn’t believe she was still doing this. Well, really she pretty much wasn’t. Frank and maybe two or three tricks a week, barely paying the rent. Someday she’d get out, she always said that, hell, everybody says that, but pretty soon Frank would want some seventeen year old Romanian chick, the only English she’d know would be, “Greek okay.” Then Stacey figured she’d have nothing.
But that didn’t really seem like Frank’s style. Sometimes she thought she only stayed in it this long because of him, sweet old guy, said she reminded him of Angie Dickinson. Stacey had no idea who that was, had to ask Summer, the chick she bought her weed from. Looked her up on the IMDb, Summer said she was in a cop show in the 70’s, but Stacey looked at the laptop screen and said, Frank’s probably thinking about the movie with Sinatra.
Then there was the knock on the door, quiet.
She looked at her purse on the little suitcase table in the closet with no door across from the bathroom. Still naked, she opened the door.
The guy was maybe thirty-five, wearing a sweater, jeans and a leather jacket. He looked her up and down, then walked past her into the hotel room like she was the maid.
She heard Frank say, “What the fuck,” and the guy said, “Yeah.”
Frank said, “They sent you?”
The guy said, yeah, “They sent me.” He pulled the gun out of the pocket of his leather jacket.
Stacey shot him in the back. He started to turn as he fell and she shot him two more times, the gun making a pop, pop sound, barely as loud as the TV.
Frank was out of bed and coming towards her, saying, “You see?”
She said, yeah. “Easy.” She was standing there naked, feet wide apart, holding the gun in both hands.
Frank was looking good, looking fit and ready to go. He said, “Wipe that down and leave it in the bathroom, drop it in the toilet.”
She went into the bathroom saying, “Was it who you thought it would be?” and started wiping the gun with a towel.
In the room Frank was getting dressed, saying, no, it wasn’t my first guess.
Stacey watched the gun splash into the toilet, the gun Frank had given her when she told him about the phone call, the guy who said to make sure the old fucker was in bed and open the door at exactly seven-thirty.
Then Frank was at the bathroom door saying, “Now I know how they knew about you, though,” and Stacey said, “Good.”
She was glad Frank knew she really didn’t have anything to do with it. She really did like him. Now she was sure telling him was the right thing.
He said, “Come on, get dressed, we’ll get some dinner.”
Stacey smiled and said, “Sure,” thinking this guy’s got quite a few years left in him, he’s not going to quit till he’s ready, just like Sinatra.
She figured she could be his Angie Dickinson.