Mangrove Squeeze (9 page)

Bert reached across the table, tapped Sam's wrist with his gnarled and spotted fingers. "A great idea, a useful gizmo, it could pop into your head at any second."

"
Oy
," said Sam. "Things pop out. They don't pop in."

"Stay with it, Sam. Ya never know. Besides, what choice ya got?"

It was twenty after seven, and Lazslo Kalynin was inspecting himself in the full-length mirror on the inside of his bathroom door.

He hooked his fingers in the corners of his mouth and stretched his cheeks out wide to look for specks between his teeth. He tilted back his head to search out errant nose hairs. He leaned in close to examine his pores, to root out clogs, and preempt the occasional pimple.

When he had dealt with minor flaws, he turned sideways to appraise the bigger picture, trying to imagine how a casually passing stranger might perceive him. He came away pleased with his stylish haircut, manly but hip; with the rich sheen of his blue silk shirt, the understated chains beneath it; with the hug of his jeans, whose fly was cinched together not with a zipper but a rank of cool steel buttons. When Suki undid them, she would be greeted, titillated, by a swath of flame red briefs.

Content with his person, he strolled through the apartment, whose every primped pillow and dimmered light switch said seduction. Ludmila, the Belorussian housekeeper, had not only done the dinner preparations, but had left big vases of fresh flowers on the dining table and next to the sofa. The Gibson guitars, acoustic and electric, were strewn here and there with a studied carelessness. The Harley posters were straight on the walls. A six-pack of CDs had been loaded up with music designed to showcase Lazslo's sensitivity, his many moods.

At 7:35 the doorbell rang.

Lazslo patted his hair and checked the tuck of his shirt before sweeping open the door—and then he tried not to show his disappointment when he saw how Suki looked. He'd imagined she'd be all made up, her full mouth red and beckoning, wearing something slinky, showing hints, at least, of perfumed cleavage. In fact she'd left her blue eyes unadorned, her lips unpainted; she wore no scent, and her loose concealing blouse was buttoned resolutely to the neck. If Lazslo's brain registered the message, his glands negated it at once. She was teasing, he decided, continuing her strategy of being hard to get

He was standing in the doorway, leaning at an angle he thought was very sexy, blocking passage with his arm against the jamb. He said hello and gave a meaty smile. Unyielding, he stayed there in the portal, and they both knew he was trying to exact a toll of contact before she could pass into the apartment. She managed a weak greeting, thinking
What an asshole
.

Not for the first time but nearly for the last, she wondered how far she could push her luck with this preening brat, and just what the hell she was trying to accomplish, as she arched like a gymnast to slip past him without their bodies touching.

"Fred," said Pineapple, "ya know what I sometimes wonder about?"

They were sitting on the seawall just south of Houseboat Row. The sun had been down an hour or more but there were still faint gradations in the sky, hints of pink rays being smoked out into negatives. Fred didn't take the bait and Pineapple went on: "Luck."

The word brought forth a snort from Fred. "Luck? What about it?"

"Like for starters, whether it exists."

Fred thought about the people he dug holes for—people with big houses, swimming pools. He thought about people he met in bars—fat bankrolls, nicely dressed. Some of these people, he admitted, seemed a lot smarter than himself. Others really didn't. He said, "Damn straight, it exists."

Pineapple looked across the shallows where unlikely shoots of mangrove were colonizing the sea, buying back land for North America one sand grain at a time." Ya think it changes? Luck, I mean?"

"Ours hasn't," said Fred. He sucked his beer.

"Finding the hot dog, that was lucky."

It was true but Fred had staked out the bitter position and now he didn't want to change. He said, "Piney, is there some point you're aiming at?"

"Not really," acknowledged the man with the medieval face. "It's just that, well, ya hear different things."

Fred left that alone, rested his beer on the seawall and lit a cigarette.

"Like ya hear people say," Pineapple went on, "don't push your luck, like you only have a limited supply, and once it's gone, that's it."

Fred said, "And you're shit outa luck from there."

"But then," said Piney, "other people, they make it sound the opposite, like exercise, like the more you push your luck the more you have."

"I don't see the point of exercise," said Fred.

"Like, in battles," said Pineapple, "the guy that leads the charge hardly ever gets shot. Not in movies at least."

"Exercise," said Fred, "I get enough fuckin' exercise digging holes and riding my bike for beer. What kinda bullshit is more exercise?"

Pineapple looked down at his long thin legs as they dangled over the seawall, his bare feet just a few inches above the flat water that held the dying colors of the sky. "Fred," he said, "we weren't talking about exercise."

"Ya think I don't know that? We were talking about war movies."

Piney gave up on conversation and looked down at the ocean.

Lazslo wished that she would drink more.

He kept topping up her Chardonnay. He topped it up when they were sitting at the table, eating steak; he topped it up now that they had moved onto the sofa. Every time he drank some beer, he went to replenish her wine, finding each time that the level of her glass had barely budged. As if to compensate, he drank more beer himself.

He couldn't decide how the evening was going. Suki was keeping her distance—that was bad. But conversation was very lively—that was good. Except there was a tension in the talk, a constant tugging—and he couldn't tell if that was playful or just difficult. Lazslo spoke of Caribbean islands, exotic travel—sensuous things that cost money, that Suki was supposed to believe they might do together if she became his lover. But she followed up on none of that. She talked about rents and business and politics and crime.

"The diving off Cozumel," Lazslo was saying now. "Fantastic. And Yucatecan food—great fish with lime and orange sauces, none of that rice and beans garbage."

Suki had an ankle folded under her against the velvet of the couch. She leaned back just outside of Lazslo's reach. She said, "And how about the food in Russia?"

Lazslo made a gesture of distaste. He didn't want to speak of Russia. He was an American now, with flame red underpants and Bruce Springsteen on the stereo. He said, "Russia, no big fat juicy steaks. No asparagus in January."

Suki said, "Amazing, what's happened to that country."

"Forget that country," Lazslo said. "Dreary, cold. When, so close, we have the Grenadines, the Cayman Islands..."

He moved to touch her hair, her ear. He had to slink, almost grovel to reach her. She had time to seize his wrist and fend it off. She said, "Caribbean, that's just vacation. Russia, that's history. Fascinating."

She released his wrist, and Lazslo found himself lying at an uncomfortable and undignified diagonal. His lunge had sent a throb up to his head, and he very vaguely realized he'd gotten one Budweiser ahead of himself. He said, "Fascinating?"

"The way authority just collapsed," said Suki. "The way a Mafia seemed to spring up practically overnight, good Soviets suddenly becoming master criminals."

Lazslo straightened up, regrouped. He put his hands on the cool glass coffee table and studied her a moment. Her eyes were bright and wide, her throat a little flushed. Her fingers were splayed out on her knees and for the first time all evening she was leaning toward him. A shrewd, sophisticated thought occurred to him. He didn't recognize it as a desperate stratagem whispered by his gonads. He topped up her Chardonnay, and said with a worldly lift of his eyebrows, "This Mafia stuff—I think it excites you."

Suki held his gaze a moment then looked down as if caught at something naughty. "Maybe it does," she said. She sipped a little wine.

"Why?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe just the boldness of it. The daring."

The word echoed in Lazslo's loins. Ill-advisedly he swigged some beer. He said, "Daring, yes. Especially when you consider the constant fear that Russians lived with."

"Turning to crime," said Suki, a little breathlessly— "it's like a crazy but perfect facing down of that fear, the final rebellion against the control—"

"The control," said Lazslo, "that was giving even ordinary people a million daydreams of revenge, of breaking loose." He'd swiveled toward her now, his knees far apart, a hand on one ankle.

"And," said Suki, "the sheer scale of what they're doing over there—"

"Ha!" said Lazslo. "Americans can't even begin to understand the scale."

Suki said nothing, just reached for her glass next to the vase of extravagant flowers, and sipped some Chardonnay.

"What Americans don't get... " said Lazslo. "Look, American criminals—even your big bad Mafia—all they do is nibble around the edges. Skim a little here, break a little piece off there. In Russia, we ... What they've done in Russia is go to the very heart of the wealth. You understand?"

Suki only looked at him. Her lips were slightly parted, her shoulders rounded toward him.

"You say daring?" he went on. "Your tough Americans, they rob a drivethru teller in a shopping mall. Russian Mafia, they cruise right into the treasury. They steal history. Old Church ikons. Jewels left over from the tsars. Famous paintings. Even military hardware."

"Military?" Suki said.

"You forget your own propaganda?" Lazslo said. "The Soviets put guns before butter—isn't that what you were taught? The masses starving while the generals get fat? So where else is more wealth?"

Suki reached toward her wine then stopped her hand. Lazslo widened the angle of his legs and savored her discomfiture.

"Military, yes," he went on. "Why not? Renegade scientists and highly placed bureaucrats—why couldn't they steal guns? Missiles? Nuclear material? Daring enough for you, Suki?"

Suki licked her lips. Her hands were bundled in her lap. She couldn't speak.

Lazslo was titillated by victory; he gloated. "So now you are shocked. Crime excites you and now you are shocked."

Suki sipped some wine, took a moment to collect herself. "Well yeah," she admitted. "Sort of. But all that wealth— where does it go? What good does it do you in Russia?"

Lazslo swigged some beer. "In Russia? No good at all," he said. "It has to travel. Say you have church art—you open up a shop in Moscow? No, you go where the collectors are. Paris, New York, Hong Kong. Say you have something for which there is a great demand in Libya, Iraq—"

"Iraq?" said Suki. "Libya?"

He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, slid toward her on the sofa. With difficulty she held her ground.

She murmured, "What would they want in Libya, Iraq?"

Weirdly, Lazslo laughed. It was a barking laugh with lust and recklessness and maybe a hint of secret fear in it. "What," he said, "would feed their pathetic fantasies of destroying the West someday? Yes, the wealth has to travel. And you know what? That kind of travel is very, very tiring. So after that, the money needs vacation. Someplace sunny. Relaxing."

"Weapons, Lazslo? Are you saying bombs?"

"Someplace easygoing. Full of beautiful women who don't ask so many questions."

"Lazslo, do they smuggle bombs?"

He snorted. "Bombs? No one's
that
crazy ... Spare parts, maybe. Useful ingredients perhaps."

"Ingredients?... Ingredients?"

He studied her. Her eyes were wide, her chest was heaving. He chose to see arousal rather than horror. "Enough ingredients to make Chernobyl look like a weenie roast, okay? You have a strange idea of foreplay, Suki."

"So your uncle," she said. "The shops—"

Lazslo hushed her with a hand raised like a traffic cop. He leaned very close, arched over her. Heat pulsed off him and his breath was sour with hops and barley. "Mafia excites you," he whispered, "you must be very ready."

Ready to throw up
, she thought.

"No ... I'm not," she said. At a measured pace intended to reveal no panic, she began to slide away from him along the sofa.

He groveled after her, put a damp hand on her breast.

She brushed away his fingers and got her legs unfolded. She smoothed her blouse and started standing up. "I've had a lovely evening, thank you, but now I'm going home."

Lazslo was watching her rise, enjoying the flex of her butt as she straightened her knees, measuring the weight of her chest as she lifted her shoulders. "You're what?" he said.

She rounded the coffee table, got the big piece of glass safely between them. "You've been a gracious host," she said. "Delicious dinner."