Florida Straits (12 page)

"But that's just it," said Joey. "I don't
know where my best shot is."

Bert neatly laid his knife and fork across
his plate as Joey poured more wine. "Well, kid, there's nobody that
can tell you that. That you hafta decide for yourself."

Sandra had her hands in her lap and was
making a point of looking past Joey, through the louvered windows
at the empty night. "Well, I've had enough," she said, referring to
her dinner. "Bert, how 'bout some steak for the dog?"

"No, Sandra, no thanks. Dog's a
vegetarian."

"A dog vegetarian?" said Joey. "This I never
heard of, a dog vegetarian."

"Not by choice. Meat don't agree with 'im.
Kinda clogs 'im up. You don't wanna hear about it, believe me."

Then the telephone rang.

This was a rather rare event, as the only
people who ever called were tellers from the bank who wanted Sandra
to take a shift for them, or avid young men looking for a former
tenant named Pippy. Joey got up. In his concern to be a gracious
host, he'd been pouring wine at a brisk clip, and was a shade
unsteady on his legs. The bedroom phone was on its fifth ring when
he reached it.

By the time he returned to the Florida room,
the table was cleared and coffee cups had been placed around a tray
of pignolia nut cookies. 'That was my brother Gino," Joey
announced. "He's here. In town."

The news was sufficient to spoil the
evening. Gino Delgatto had a gift for that kind of thing. Every
face clouded over, although each for a somewhat different
reason.

"Why's 'e here?" asked Bert, wondering how
much, if anything, Joey had told Sandra of the family business that
was, strictly speaking, none of her business at all.

"He says he's on vacation." Joey had had
just enough to drink so that he heard his own voice from the inside
of his eardrums, and he didn't like the steely sound of it. "Says
he figured he might as well come down and pay a visit."

"You believe that?" Sandra asked.

Joey took a heavy breath that had a tough
time coming in and going out again around a bellyful of steak.
"Yeah, right. I believe it. He's here to fuck things up for
me."

"Joey, don't—"

He cut her off quick and hard. "And don't
tell me not to curse."

"That isn't what I was gonna say," she came
right back. "Don't fucking let him, Joey. That's what I was gonna
say."

—
16 —

The first thing Joey noticed about his half
brother Gino Delgatto—noticed from thirty feet away—was that his
new girlfriend had enormous breasts. They started about three
inches below her shoulders, then billowed out and down but mostly
out, tapering only slightly as they went, with the jolly, bouncy,
cozy taper of small blimps. You could have run raft trips down her
cleavage. Measured against these monumental bosoms, the
girlfriend's features could only appear ungenerous and pinched, the
eyes smallish in spite of all the tricks to make them bigger, the
narrow nose barely equal to the job of sucking in air, the mouth,
for all its caked-on lipstick, as austere as a mail slot. Gino did
not think to introduce her. He would as soon have introduced a new
settee. Instead, he watched Joey approach their booth at the
Eclipse Saloon, and when he was still far enough away so that the
remark needed almost to be shouted, said "What's with the pink
shirt, Joey? Ya look like some kinda fairy."

Joey walked faster toward his brother's
table, not because he was eager to get there, but because he wanted
to close the space between them before Gino could fill it with any
more embarrassments. "That's not the kinda thing ya say down here,"
he said.

Gino didn't seem to notice he'd been
scolded. In his world, there were people above you and people below
you. If someone above you set you right on something, your whole
soul immediately changed to accommodate the advice. This was
education of a profound but brittle sort. If someone below you made
bold to criticize, you could shrug it off or hit him, but usually
neither was necessary. Opinions from below just didn't
register.

"And the pink shirt," Joey went on, "is what
I work in."

"Oh yeah," said Gino. "You work." To show
that the idea amused him, Gino smiled. It was an odd, abrupt smile
that squeezed his eyes and stretched his mouth so wide that the
flesh of his cheeks piled up like drifted snow. But there was no
humor whatsoever in the smile, and it seemed like Gino struck the
expression only because he'd seen it on other people. "Well,
siddown, siddown."

He motioned Joey into the booth next to the
girlfriend, and still he didn't introduce her, so Joey introduced
himself. He would be sitting thigh to thigh with her, breathing in
her perfume that smelled like a rose garden on a very humid day. He
ought to know her name at least.

"I'm Vicki," she said, and she held out a
hand whose long red fingernails jabbed into Joey's wrist as they
shook. Hearing the name, he could not help taking a quick
confirming glance at this Vicki's semi-credible boobs. Their top
acre jiggled as she slid across the booth, and he felt reassured
that they were made of flesh.

"Had lunch?" asked Gino. He had a frozen
daiquiri in front of him and a menu at his elbow.

"Don't have time," said Joey. "Gotta get
back soon."

"My brother the executive," said Gino.

"Someday, maybe. Or maybe not. So what's up
with you?"

Gino shrugged. His elbows were on the table
and his beefy forearms framed a triangle of his wide and powerful
chest. There was a definite resemblance between the two half
brothers, but everything about Gino was thicker, coarser, more
rough-hewn, as if he'd been sprung from the mold and sent on his
way while Joey had continued to be carved and whittled, losing in
strength what he gained in elegance. Where Joey's neck was thin but
graceful, Gino's was sturdy but squat. Where Joey's gait was modest
but springy, Gino's was imposing but earth- bound. And while Gino
had a handsome face, it was a handsomeness that existed on the very
edge of the ugly. His black eyes were bright and hard, but at
moments they fell into a beady stare that suggested a birdlike
unintelligence. His strong square nose, with its ample nostrils,
could have been lifted directly from a Roman statue yet was only a
hair's breadth away from being hoggish. His mouth was as lippy and
sensual as his girlfriend's was unpromising, yet sometimes in the
effort of forming words it appeared blubbery and almost lewd.
'Things are pretty much status quo with me," he said. "But hey kid,
I got a bone to pick with you. How come you didn't come see me
before you left New York?"

Now it was Joey's turn to shrug. To answer
the question properly would have taken a lot more time than he had,
probably the rest of his life in fact, and Gino wouldn't get it
anyway. "Lot to do," he said. "And you know how it is, once you
decide to go somewhere, ya just wanna get onna road. But how'd you
decide to come to Key West?"

"Like I said, just a vacation. As good a
place as any to catch a tan, and this way I get to see you."

Joey pulled his eyes away from his half
brother and looked around the Eclipse on the pretext of scouting up
a waitress. He found one and ordered a club soda. But all the
while, he was reflecting on what a lousy liar Gino was. Or rather,
Gino was a barely adequate liar, given the very low ambitions of
his lying. A top- notch liar was satisfied with nothing short of
convincing. An imaginative liar could spin out a story whose
amusingness made up at least in part for the fact that you were
being jerked around. But Gino didn't have enough imagination to
make up a good story, or enough shame to give a damn if you knew he
was lying in your face. It was just his way his way—one of his
ways—of letting you know you would get nothing from him.

"Well, it's nice you came," said Joey,
deciding to answer lie with lie. "So what'll you do while you're
here."

"Ya know," said Gino. "Hang around. Eat. Do
some shopping."

The word galvanized Vicki like a pinch on
the nipple. "Shopping's lousy here," she suddenly piped up. "I
never seen a town where all they got is T-shirts. All up and downa
street."

"So you'll buy T-shirts," Gino said.

Vicki pulled her thin mouth into a pout.
"Inna Bahamas, at least there's duty-free. Ya know, like perfume,
jewelry—"

"Shut up," said Gino. "We ain't inna
Bahamas."

"You could take a tour of the condo," Joey
said, and regretted it before the words were out of his mouth. But
he had a long history of misspeaking around Gino, out of
discomfort. Besides, it was already getting to be a salesman's
reflex with him to tell people they should have a look at Parrot
Beach.

"That might be fun," said Vicki.

Gino didn't look like he thought so. He had
no interest in Florida real estate. Or maybe what he had no
interest in was what his kid brother was doing with his time.

So Joey backpedaled. "Nah, forget about it.
It's not that inneresting, and besides, you hafta qualify."

"Whaddya mean, qualify? What kinda bullshit
is qualify?" As a great sprinter comes to full speed in a single
stride, so Gino Delgatto had the knack of coming to full
belligerence in a single word. He was always ready to take umbrage
at the merest suggestion that he might not be good enough for
something.

"Like, for one thing," Joey said, "you need
a credit card. You got a credit card, Gino?"

"Course I got a credit card. What kinda jerk
travels these days widdout a credit card? I got a Gold Card. Dr.
somebody. From Westchester, I think." And Gino smiled, not the
stiff, forced grin but an easy smile of true delight. He was
stealing. He was happy.

"And a license," Joey said.

"I got Bald Benny's old license," Gino said.
"You know that."

Joey sipped his club soda. He was almost
enjoying the conversation now. Should he point out that it might be
awkward when Gino was asked to show both IDs, or should he leave
his big brother with the mental challenge of figuring it out for
himself? In the meantime he glanced at Vicki. Not much of a
vacation for her, he figured. No shopping, no condo tour, no
casinos with big-name entertainment. Did she withhold sexual favors
when she was ticked off? Joey hoped so.

Gino at length came to the end of his
analysis. "Yeah, I guess it would look, like, strange."

"Too bad," said Joey. "I coulda made forty
bucks offa you guys."

"Hey, you strapped?" said Gino, and
predictably, he reached into his pants pocket. Joey had seen him do
it hundreds of times. He did it as naturally as other guys took
their dicks out to pee. A single motion, the fat, spiraled wad of
bills appeared, and Gino was once more master of the situation.

But this time Joey waved him off. "No,
thanks, Gino. I'm not strapped. Besides, it wouldn't be the same,
taking the money from you. It's a game, getting people to take the
tour. The kick, that comes from figuring the game out, playing it
good, and winning. Winning—you can understand that, can't ya,
Gino?"

—
17 —

After work that day Joey drove the Cadillac
to the Paradiso condominium and went looking for Bert the Shirt. He
wasn't in his apartment. He wasn't under the steel umbrella by the
pool. He wasn't in the screened gazebo where four old guys were
playing gin.

"Anybody know where Bert is?" Joey asked the
group.

One of the card players slowly lifted his
left arm, held his wrist as far away as possible, and squinted at
his watch. "Probably on the beach by now. His dog likes to watch
the sun go down."

So Joey picked his way through the traffic
on A1A, slipped through the ranks of bicycles and scooters
streaming along the broad promenade that flanked the road, found a
gap between two joggers, and stepped onto Smathers Beach.

An odd beach Smathers was, not like Jones
Beach, Rockaway, or Coney Island. It was made of old coral, the
bigger pieces resembling knucklebones, the smaller ones looking
like shards and ribs from a well- picked chicken. Over the coral
was a layer of imported sand that the town fathers had decided
would be good for tourism. Where did it come from, this
yellow-brown sand that looked like nothing else in the lower Keys?
Or, for that matter, where did it go? Joey had no idea. But from
day to day, and even from hour to hour, the sand seemed to sift
downward through the coral, gradually disappearing into the bowels
of the earth. What didn't fall through the cracks in the limestone
blew unpredictably on every changing wind. One day it seemed that
every grain of sand had decided to congregate up near the airport;
next day the yellow-brown mass had migrated three quarters of a
mile and was leaning against the fence that enclosed the private
beach of the Flagler House hotel. There was only one thing you
could count on about this sand: it would not be where your next
footstep fell. No, your next footstep would carry you to an exposed
and upturned knuckle of coral, a piece of ancient Florida history
that would stab you in the arch.

But for Joey, wearing new tennis shoes
purchased with his own earned money, the torturing surface of
Smathers Beach was no more a problem than the hot sidewalks of
Duval Street. His feet were comfy. His feet had adapted to where he
was. Too bad it wasn't as easy for the rest of him.

He scanned the beach, looking for his
friend. The sun was low, and the western horizon had taken on that
perfectly neutral color where you can no longer tell if it's cloudy
or clear, whether the sun will douse itself in the ocean or vanish
in mid-sky, slipping into haze as modestly as a letter slides into
an envelope. Joey saw no one except one guy with a metal detector
and another flying a kite.