Welcome to Paradise (11 page)

He was even with the rockpile when he saw
that the shark had changed its course, had circled up ahead of him.
Had cut him off from other swimmers the way a lion cuts from the
herd a single antelope; blocking the salvation of the beach and
forcing him seaward once again.

Al skidded against the scant resistance of
the water, begged his body to pivot, somersaulted outbound. His
lungs burned; his arms screamed in their sockets. Confused and
piteous thoughts raced through his mind: the orphaned Fifi, never
knowing what terrible thing she'd done to be abandoned on the
beach. Old Mr. Kleiman with his opal tie tack, standing on an
ottoman to eulogize his favorite salesman . . . He swam, waiting
each moment for the clamping bite and the nauseating rend of flesh,
the iron smell of his own blood spilling in the ocean. He couldn't
tell if he was crying or if his eyes were simply melting into the
salt water.

Ahead of him the blank and bright horizon was
suddenly sealed off by the gray flank of the shark.

It had circled once again, bands of muscle
folding back upon themselves with humiliating ease. The red cave of
the open mouth was like a door to hell. Once again Al did a
desperate one-eighty. His arms would no longer lift clear of the
water; he paddled like a hound dog throwing dirt. His hip joint
scraped, his pumping legs abraded sinew with each kick.

Sucking spasmodically at the soup of air and
water, his lungs heavy and puffed up like a mildewed sponge, he
flailed toward the impossibly distant shore. Flailed until his
sinking feet miraculously touched bottom.

Leaning forward on numb hands and jelly
knees, droplets flying from his heaving chest, he rose up and
stomped through the cruel knobs of coral that floored the last
fringe of the ocean, escaping at last from the horrors of the sea
and collapsing full-length on the beach like a shipwrecked, sun-mad
sailor.

Fifi ran over and licked his face. He turned
on his side and burped up salt water, gurgling and wheezing as he
strained to breathe.

In the shadow of his rock, Squid Berman's
brain was itching underneath the shower cap, his eyes tearing with
squelched laughter inside their glinting goggles. He fiddled with
the radio control and steered the toy shark back to him, then
pulled the little air plug and deflated it at leisure in the
privacy of his grotto. No one but Big Al had seen a thing.

The tough guy writhed on the beach a couple
minutes, coughing, spitting. Then he sat up, shaking his head,
groping for his sunglasses.

When he finally stood up on shaky legs to
leave, Squid noted with satisfaction that he was too freaked even
to go to the water's edge to rinse off the coarse and salty sand
that coated him from feet to cheek.

Katy Sansone knew what she would find when
she returned to the Conch House.

She'd find Big Al either sprawled out on a
poolside lounge or chest-deep at the swim-up bar. Either way, he'd
have had a couple drinks. That boy-devil look would be stretching
the corners of his eyes, and he'd be getting horny. He'd make some
teasing cracks to stoke himself along. Ask her if she got picked up
by any bulging Cuban studs at the beach. Offer comments on the
breasts and backsides of the women at the pool. It would all be
flip and crude—and also, Katy could not help but admit, comforting
in its familiarity. Al had his routines. He was predictable. A man
in whom habits cut an instant groove. Blunt in his wants,
consistent in his appetites. And, no matter what else was right or
wrong or crazy or impossible, it was nice to be consistently
desired.

So she was surprised and, in spite of
herself, a little disappointed when he wasn't where she thought
he'd be. She walked the whole perimeter of the pool, skirted the
lanai rooms, the towel kiosk. Scanned the flushed and vacant faces
at the bar. No Al. She took a moment to decide what she should do.
His absence, she felt, gave her permission to go off on her own a
little longer. That might be nice, and yet.. . and yet she sort of
didn't want to. This embarrassed her. Did it mean, she wondered,
that she actually missed the sonofabitch? Or only that she'd had
all the independence she could handle for one day?

She went up to their room, found Al in the
same long pants he'd been wearing when they parted. He was pacing
between the TV and the window, and his expression wasn't playful.
Katy's first thought was that she'd stayed away too long and he was
mad. She waited for him to talk.

"How was the beach?" he asked. He said it
with neither interest nor blame, and Katy felt relieved.

"Fine. Nice," she said. No reason to
elaborate, since he wasn't listening. She watched him pace. The
skin was drawn and gray around his eyebrows, the stubble on his
chin was flecked with silver, and she realized that he truly wasn't
young. Not young, not happy all the time, not free of worries and
responsibilities. "Something wrong?" she asked.

Big Al paused in his circuit, briefly stared
up at her. The question gave him a dilemma. You didn't talk to
broads. That was elementary. But up North he would have had pals,
goombahs, that he could bitch to. Here there was no one else, and
keeping silent gave rise to stomach acid. Laconically, he said,
"Guy I left in charge .. . aw, it's all fucked up."

The answer, in turn, put Katy in doubt as to
how much further she should go. Left in charge of what? She pretty
much knew that Al was Mafia. He carried guns and knives and large
amounts of cash; his New York friends all talked like they were
eating crackers. But as to the specifics of his business, she was
serenely in the dark. She had noticed that, when they dined out in
the city, it was almost always seafood, and Al got fawned over
shamelessly. The best tables. Free champagne. But that was as much
as she knew. Now she tried to steer a middle course between showing
concern and seeming to pry. "Fucked up how?" she asked.

Al was wearing a loose-fitting shirt, but he
twisted his neck like his collar was too tight. Fighting back each
word, he grunted, "Guy they replaced my guy wit'— worst guy they
coulda picked."

Katy sat down on the bed, tried not to notice
the two big bags of sex toys leaning up against the television
cabinet. "How come?"

"How come what?" said Al, his throat closing
down around the rising question.

"How come he's the worst guy?"

" 'Cause we hate each other's guts."

"Why?"

"Why?" Al echoed, and stopped to ponder. Up
until that moment it hadn't dawned on him that there had to be a
reason. "He hates me," he said at last, " 'cause he thinks I took
his job away. And I hate him 'cause he hates me."

Katy said, "If that's the only—"

Big Al, suddenly impatient, annoyed with
himself for blabbing, waved his arms, started pacing once again. "I
don't wanna talk no more," he said. "What I said, fuhget about
it."

Katy watched him pace, the short legs seeming
disconnected from the barrel chest, the skin of the face pulled
back taut as that of an astronaut. He went from carefree to
wretched with almost nothing in between, and Katy had to
acknowledge that his seldom-seen unhappiness gave a new dimension
to his carnality, made of it a kind of victory. He stole pleasure
between fits of misery. The pleasure had to be as extreme as his
anxieties, and his greed for it was in proportion to his
desperation. Knowing in some corner of her being that she was being
suckered, was suckering herself, she felt a surge of tenderness for
her thug of a boyfriend. He had his problems, too. "Hey, Al," she
said. "How 'bout a back rub?"

"A back rub?" he said, and he gave a little
snort. The snort was not derisive, just surprised. A back rub. A
simple kindness. Unselfish. "Katy," he said, "you're really a good
kid."

"Come on," she said, and motioned him off his
circuit to the bed.

He threw himself facedown at her feet.

She got up on her knees and worked his knotty
shoulders. He moaned, he sighed, and after a few minutes, not
really meaning it but feeling it was called for by the moment, he
said, "I don't deserve a girlfriend good as you."

Powered by a stubborn reflex sympathy, she
leaned into his flank and vaguely wondered why it was so hard for
her to accept that he was absolutely right.

*

The knots were somewhat letting go until the
phone rang.

But at the first clang of the instrument they
came cramping back all along his spine. Big Al quickly scrambled
onto his side and told Katy maybe she'd like to take a bath. He
didn't pick up the receiver until she'd closed the bathroom door
behind her and started running the water.

Then he finally squeezed the thing and said
hello.

"Al? Carlo."

He knew it would be Carlo. He'd tried to
reach the
consigliere
an hour or so before. It took the
frail old guy about that long to drain his silty bladder and
shuffle to a safe phone he could use.

Now Big Al got straight to the point. "What's
this bullshit Nicky's in charge?"

"Someone's gotta be in charge," said Carlo
calmly.

"Why him?"

"Who else is there, Al?"

Big Al knew this argument, and for him it
didn't wash. Sure, the ranks had thinned. Sure, it was tough to
find a colleague who was halfway competent and not in jail. But it
wasn't
that
tough. "Come on," he said. "There's Rod the Cod.
There's Big Tuna Calabro. Guys I trust. Guys I can talk to, for
Chrissake."

Carlo didn't answer. Air wheezed through his
nose.

"Somethin' else is goin' on," Al said.

Carlo came forth with a soft and weary sigh.
"Don't make more a this than what's there."

"So what's there?" pressed Al Marracotta.

Ganucci sniffled, said at last, "Al, ya want
the trut'?"

"Nah, I want more bullshit."

"I think Tony's p.o.'d ya took vacation."

Al sprang up from the bed, wrapped himself in
phone cord. "P.o.'d I took vacation? This is fuckin' rich. Once
every t'ree, four years a guy can't go off wit' a broad a lousy
week or so? This is fuckin' America, Carlo!"

"I'm not takin' a position," the
consigliere
purred. "You asked what's goin' on, I gave you
my opinion."

Big Al thought that over. He hoped that
thinking would calm him down, but for him it didn't work that way.
"So lemme get this straight," he said. "I'm forty-six years old. I
been workin' wit' you people thirty years. An' I'm bein' punished,
like a fuckin' kid, for goin' on vacation?"

"Al, don't look at it like—"

"I mean, if Tony wants me so bad to be home,
he can't call me, man to man, and ask me ta come back?"

"He doesn't want you to come home," the
consigliere
said. He said it softly, and he meant it to be
soothing, though, of course, Al heard it just the opposite.
Defiance and insecurity were inseparable in Big Al. You couldn't
tell him what to do and you couldn't tell him you didn't much care
what he did.

He said, "That preening fuck Nicky's doin' my
job, and Tony doesn't want me to come home?"

Ganucci sighed. These logical tangles—they
happened more and more as he got older, and he never quite knew
where the confusion started. "Al, he'd love to have you home. Tell
ya what. I think I got it, a way that everybody's happy: have
vacation, then come home."

Stubbornly, Al said, "Like I could be happy,
this bullshit goin' on?"

"Al," the
consigliere
urged,
"relax—"

"Well, I'm gonna be happy," Big Al insisted,
his feisty side once more rearing up to defeat his paranoia. He
thought about Katy, naked in a fragrant bath. He glanced off at his
brand-new stash of gizmos. "I'm gonna have a fuckin' cabaret."

He almost knew that he was lying. His body
was still in Florida, there was still sunshine and champagne and
sex, but his vacation was basically over, and in the pit of his
stomach he knew it. Nicky Scotto, after all, had succeeded
brilliantly in spoiling it for him, if not quite in the manner he'd
intended.

"Fine, Al, fine," said Carlo Ganucci. His
bladder was burning and he wanted at all costs to end this no-win
conversation. "Have a great time and come home when you're ready.
We'll be thrilled to have you back. Goo'bye."

Lungs sodden, legs heavy and chafed, Al
Tuschman trudged slowly back toward his hotel. Salt simmered in his
belly; he coughed if he drew air too deep into his chest. Late sun
baked his back, and he was barely aware of Fifi tugging at her
leash, urging him along the sandy road between the navy's
chain-link fences.

He was thinking about his luck.

There were perhaps two dozen people in the
water near where he'd been swimming. Why had the shark selected him
to chase? For that matter, why had some crazy, tourist-hating
vandal picked his car to trash? And what about the freak hijacking?
And what about the faceless delivery man putting lobsters in his
bed?

Coincidence? Up until that moment he'd
assumed so; his misfortunes had come too thick and fast for him to
think about them in any other way. Luck, after all, good or bad,
was famously streaky. He'd seen that on the selling floor, the
ballfield.

But there were limits to what could be
ascribed to luck alone, and now, finally, it dawned on Alan
Tuschman that perhaps there was some other cause for his
misfortunes. A pattern. The shark, okay, that was an act of God.
But the other disasters—they were bizarre, ridiculous, but maybe
there was a pattern to them nonetheless.

He pondered as he strolled. Was someone mad
at him? He ran a catalog of those he might have wronged. Salesmen
were not above exaggerating the merits of their wares—might there
be a seriously disgruntled and deranged customer lurking out there
somewhere? Possible; not likely. His ex? She was happily remarried,
their relation cordial though distant. For better or worse, there
were no scorned women in his recent past, still less jealous
husbands. Who then?