Page 5 of Nikki Sinatra: For Her Lover
“Sure about that?” Teddy looked past her as Big Steve nervously stood from his table and followed Hoke down a back hall. Steve was constantly looking back at his family as if he wasn’t at all sure he would ever see them again. “I hear your ass been selling your ass to stay high,” said Teddy.
Anita didn’t expect him to be that blunt. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Get the fuck out of my face then,” Teddy said.
“Okay, I been doing that, yes I have. How else I’m gonna get coins? You dumped me. I ain’t got no benefactor. My body all I got.” She looked Teddy up and down. “Men love my body. Remember when you used to, Teddy? We can go in your car. Around the corner in the alley. In the bathroom if you want. You used to love my body.”
Teddy couldn’t imagine what he used to love about it even when she had more meat on those bones. She was still boney even then. After he slept with Nikki for the first time, he wondered how on earth did he think those rail-thin women he favored had hotter bodies? Once he slept with Nikki, he never looked back. Not that he wasn’t attracted to other women. He was. Before Nikki he had to have variety. He still had that need. But now, every woman that caught his eye had Nikki’s body type more so than the body types of any of the women he used to sleep with. They even favored Nikki more so than any of the others.
Anita was so far removed from what he now preferred that the idea that he used to love her type amazed him.
But he had work to do. He stood up from the table and tossed her his business card. “You ever want to get clean for real, call me. I’ll get you set up.”
“Thanks, Teddy, thanks. But. . .”
Teddy knew what thatbutwas about. She was scratching her arm. She couldn’t wait to get her next fix. Which was a shame.
He pulled out a thick wad of cash, slid off five hundred, and then tossed it on the table in front of her.
“Oh thanks so much, Teddy,” she said as she stood up and hugged his neck. She smelled like onions and liquor to Teddy.
“Don’t lose that card,” Teddy said.
“Oh I won’t.” She put it down her cleavage. “Oh I won’t!”
Teddy tossed a couple twenties on the table to cover his drink, and then he walked away.
As soon as he did, Anita was about to head for the exit. But the waiter hurried over and stopped her. “Give it to me now,” he said to her in a low tone.
“Give you what?”
“Give me my tip,” he said as he tried to snatch the five hundred dollars from her hand.
“But that’s your tip,” she said, pointing to the forty on the table. “Teddy gave that money to me.”
“Liar,” the bullying waiter said and tussled with her for that money. The restaurant was so loud and crowded that nobody noticed the small infraction.
But Teddy noticed. He hadn’t walked past Big Steve’s table where his wife and kids were still eating dinner when he looked back and saw the waiter tussling with Anita. Then he saw the waiter snatch that money out of her hand. He frowned and hurried back to the table.
He got up so close to that waiter that their bodies were touching. Then he grabbed the waiter’s balls and began pinching into them and twisting them violently. “Scream and I’ll twist harder,” Teddy whispered in his ears.
The waiter’s eyeballs wanted to pop out of their sockets he was in so much pain, but he didn’t scream out.
“I gave that money to the lady,” Teddy said to him. “Not to your ass. To her. You got one second to give it back or I’ll twist these limp motherfuckers all the way off.”
“Yes sir,” the waiter said with terror in his voice as he quickly handed Anita her money. Sweat was already forming on his forehead.
But Teddy continued to hold on. “Try that shit again with anybody else and I’ll finish the job next time. Understand?”
“Yes sir. I understand, sir. I understand.”
Teddy gave it one more twist, let go and backed off. The waiter nearly doubled over in pain.
“Get out of here,” Teddy said to a relieved Anita and Anita hurried out of the restaurant.
Teddy grabbed his forty from off the table. When the waiter stood erect and saw that his tip was gone, Teddy wasquick to respond. “I don’t like thieves. They always get what they deserve in the end.” And then he pocketed the forty, left the table, and headed toward that back hall.
CHAPTER THREE
