Welcome to Paradise (16 page)

Transfixed, Squid stared at the creature a
long moment, then gestured for the waiter. "That fish," he said.
"Zata . . . whaddyacallit?"

"Sailfish," said the waiter.

"It's beautiful," said Squid.

The waiter nodded in wistful agreement. He
was a burly guy who liked to fish. He wished that he was fishing
now. "People catch 'em just beyond the reef," he said. "Usually
release 'em nowadays. People don't make real trophies anymore."

"How'd they used to do 'em?" asked Squid.

"The real ones? They'd peel back the skin,
sever the backbone, pop the eyes, scoop the brains out with a
little pick—"

"Hey," said Chop, "I'm eatin' heah."

"Sorry," said the waiter. "The new ones,
they're just paint and plastic over Styrofoam."

"But that one's real?" asked Squid. It was
important to him that it was.

"Pretty sure," the waiter said. "Been there
years and years."

Casually, Squid said, "How sharp's the
nose?"

"You mean its sense of smell?"

"No. I mean, the nose, how sharp, ya know,
for sticking things."

The waiter let out a respectful sound. "Like
a razor. That's how he feeds. Gets into a school of jack or
yellowtail and just starts slashing. Sometimes hacks 'em up,
sometimes runs a fish right through."

Moisture was pooling beneath Squid's tongue.
He swallowed hard, said to Chop, "Hey, Joe, wouldn't it be great to
tell the folks back home we caught one a those?"

Parilla, still working on his plate of wings,
his celery and blue cheese dressing, was slow on the uptake, didn't
answer.

Squid said to the waiter, "How much ya want
for it?"

The waiter gave a nervous laugh. "It isn't
mine. It isn't for sale."

"Okay, okay, but how much is it worth?"

The waiter shrugged. "You see 'em now and
then, antique stores, estate sales, three, four hundred."

"Take two thousand?"

The waiter paused to see if he was
kidding.

"Cash. Right now," Sid Berman damply said.
"Look, we gotta drive back t'Ohio right after lunch."

The waiter said, "You're serious. I'll ask
the manager."

While he was gone, Chop said, "Two grand,
Squid? You're fuckin' crazy."

Squid was looking at the seafood with the
razor nose. "Worth every penny," he said. "The absolutely perfect
ending don't come cheap."

They left with the stuffed fish tucked under
Squid's proud arm like something he'd won at a carnival.

For Big Al Marracotta, things went from bad
to worse. He'd reached that stage of being mad where he had no clue
who he was really mad at.

Back in his hotel room, alone, he nipped into
what was left of last night's scotch and decided that everyone was
betraying him, everyone was letting him down. His goombahs up in
the city. One asshole gets himself indicted. Does anybody think of
telling Al, giving him some notice? No, he's gotta be put through
the embarrassment, the humiliation, of having it thrown in his face
by the bosses. And what do they do? Do they talk to him like a man,
a respected colleague? No, they cut him right out of the loop,
treat him like a punk who needs a lesson, and put his worst enemy
in charge. Nicky Scotto. Preening wiseass conceited cocky
shithead!

And why does all this happen? Why? Because
he's trying to have a short vacation with a woman who turns out to
be an ungrateful flirty bitch. Couple of hours on her own, she's
throwing herself at some big hairy guy with muscles. And does she
have one shred of sympathy or understanding for what he's up
against, the pressure that he's under? Does she cut him any slack
at all? No. He has one tiny second of losing his temper, and she
has the gall to walk.

Well, she'd be back—he had no doubt of that.
All her stuff was here; he was still her ticket home. She'd walk
off her hurt feelings, size up her situation, and return.

But what if she returned and found Al moping
and drinking in their empty room? How would it look? It would look
like he was a little bit lost without her, like he had nothing
better to do than brood and pace and wait to see if they could turn
things around and maybe try again.

It wouldn't do to have her see that, think
that. Wouldn't do at all.

So Big Al Marracotta, clutching his glass in
one hand, started undressing with the other. He'd get into his
cabana suit and go down to the pool. Let Katy know he wasn't about
to piss away the day just because she got huffy. Let her see that
he was perfectly content to tan alone, sneaking peeks at the
breasts and asses of other men's girlfriends, sipping coladas at
the swim-up bar without the hassle of a moody, flirty woman
cluttering up his mind.

*

"Nothing till nine-thirty," said the desk
clerk, muffling the phone against his chest. He said it with a
smile, happy in the knowledge that it caused inconvenience to the
suburban salesman and his unregistered, unpaid-for visitor.

"I'll take it," Katy said, bearing down to
hold on to her resolve. Leaving was never easy, and leaving
something awful was in some ways harder than leaving something
almost good.

"So what now?" Al asked her, when the booking
had been made. "Wanna hang out here?"

Secretly, the desk clerk winced. Ruby studs
moved above his eyebrow.

Katy bit her lip, considered. "What I'd
really like to do is go back to the beach. See that green water.
Wanna come along?"

This sounded good to Al. After these few days
wholly on his own, it was a relief to have someone else suggest a
plan. But he could not help glancing down at his blistered feet.
"How 'bout we call a cab."

Katy suddenly brightened. Her jaw relaxed,
her eyes got wide, she stopped looking like somebody's mistress and
resembled instead a kid with a day off from school. "Let's rent
bikes!" she said. "That's what people do here. Rent bikes and ride
around with maps."

Al cleared his throat to stall for time. He
hadn't ridden a bicycle in many years.

Wanting to be rid of them so he could settle
back into his semi-doze, the desk clerk said, "There are a couple
here that you could use."

So they got on clunky one-speed cruisers and
rode off to the beach.

Al put Fifi in his basket. She clamped her
tiny claws around the wire mesh as her master jerked the
handlebars, causing palms and mopeds and other bicyclists to sweep
past in a sun-shot blur. Katy seemed unhindered by her high-heeled
sandals; without apparent effort she stood up on the pedals and
held her slender butt above the seat. They rode through the
faux-Bahamian development and down the sandy road between the navy
fences until they reached the shore.

Afternoon was well advanced by then. The
Australian pines threw long and feathery shadows. Sunburned people
with beach chairs held in the crooks of their arms were heading for
the parking lot. On the water, catamarans were returning from the
reef; the yellow sun seemed at moments to balance on their giant
masts. Al and Katy sat down at a spot where the sloping sand was at
an angle like a lounge.

Katy curled up, knees to chest, and stared
out at the water as though she didn't expect to see anything so
beautiful for a long, long time, as if trying to memorize the
shifting patterns of emerald green with gold-white flashes. At some
point she glanced at Alan Tuschman's striped Bermudas. "Jeez," she
said, "I didn't even give you time to change. You could've
swam."

"Not me," said Al. "Swam here yesterday. Got
chased by a shark."

"A shark?"

"Were, like, thirty other people swimming.
Thing zeroed in on me like it had radar."

Katy shook her head. "Car heist. Shark
attack. Now you're stuck babysitting me. You always so
unlucky?"

"You always so down on yourself?" he
countered.

It was mostly just a reflex quip, but Katy
took the question seriously. She'd kicked off her sandals; now she
sighed and buried her toes in sand. "No," she said. "I don't think
always. Just the last thirteen, fourteen years or so."

Al did not know what to say to that. He lay
back on his hands, felt hot sun underneath his chin.

As if she were talking to herself, Katy said,
"Before that I think I was a pretty happy kid. Felt safe. Felt
confident. Then I sort of messed it up."

Alan Tuschman briefly weighed the words, then
said, "Got pregnant?"

Katy swiveled toward him, sand making a
crunching sound beneath her. "How'd you know?"

"I did the math and took a wild guess."

Katy stared down at her knees.

Al said, "Come on, everyone gets pregnant at
that age."

"Not exactly everyone."

"Get pregnant, crash a car—everybody makes
the same mistakes."

"Maybe," Katy said. "But not everybody's from
a really Catholic family in a really Catholic neighborhood."

"Ah," said Al. "You had the kid?"

Katy nodded. "Dropped out of school. Hid out.
A sinner with the nuns."

There was a pause. Offshore, a schooner
tacked, its sails flapping like wet laundry until they filled.

Katy looked away and said, "I don't talk
about this stuff."

"Hey, we're on vacation."

She didn't quite see what difference that
made. "Your life is still your life."

"Okay. But you're allowed a little breather
from it now and then."

Katy pouted. She watched Fifi busily digging
a hole in the sand, wondered if the dog had some deep purpose in
doing so. She surprised herself by going on. "You give away a baby,
it's supposed to haunt you, right? Well, call me unmaternal, it
isn't that for me. I mean, sure, it's weird to think I have a kid
out there somewhere. But he, she—they're better off adopted. That's
the simple truth. What gets me, though ... I just lost my momentum.
Never really got on track again. Forgot how to be a regular person
around regular people. Understand?"

Al half nodded. He wanted to say something
but nothing would come.

It didn't matter. Katy wasn't stopping now.
"You know what it's like? It's like when people choose up sides in
the playground. But now it's like the teams are the good people and
the bad people. And once you make a big mistake, and your father
calls you terrible things and your family is ashamed of you, you
get put on the bad team. And then the people on the bad team are
your friends, whether or not you really like them. They're your
people. The good people—you sort of stop understanding them, stop
knowing how to talk to them, stop knowing how to meet them even. So
you're stuck. It doesn't change. You see?"

Al came up a little ways on sandy elbows.
"Except it can change. Any day."

She tried to smile, waved her arms like she
was swatting hope away. Again she looked off at the water. The
colors kept changing as the sun slipped lower. Finally she said,
"It's nice to talk to you." She twisted up her mouth. "I just wish
you had a different name. Nickname, even. Didn't you ever have a
different nickname?"

Al hesitated, then confessed. "Had one all
through childhood. Hated it."

"What was it?"

He shook his head.

"Come on," she urged. "We're on
vacation."

He reached forward, brushed some sand from
above his dog's eyes. "Tusch."

"Tusch?"

"Last name's Tuschman. And as a kid I had a
big behind."

"Tusch," she said again. "Mind if I call you
that instead of, you know, that other name?"

Al grimaced though he didn't really mind.

"Come on," she said, "it's only for a few
more hours."

He grabbed his dog and wrestled her a little
bit. "Okay. What the hell," he said. "Only for a few more
hours."

Big Al Marracotta was quietly flabbergasted
when Katy had not returned by sunset. Very gradually, in blips of
irritation and waves of masked regret, he lost his certainty that
she was coming back at all.

He'd been drinking at a measured pace all
afternoon, never quite getting drunk, but proceeding on a slow
slide from anger and frustration to befuddlement and self-pity. At
moments he even felt a grudging respect for his vanished
girlfriend, for her moxie in standing up to him and skipping.

When thoughts like that began occurring to
him, he'd wade over to the swim-up bar and have another
cocktail.

The day dragged on. Eventually the sun dipped
behind the building; an oblong of shadow crept across the pool.
People started leaving. They left in couples; they had other things
to do; and Big Al hated them for it. Curtains were drawn across the
sliding glass doors of the lanai rooms. The shutters were closed on
the towel kiosk. With maybe half a dozen sun-fried people still
glued to their lounges, Big Al got up to leave. He was damned if he
was going to be the last one there, lying by himself like some kind
of loser.

He went back upstairs to the room. In spite
of himself, pretending that he wasn't doing it, he snooped around
to see if Katy had perhaps been by. Everything was as before. Her
suitcase on its stand next to the armoire; her makeup kit on the
bathroom counter, unzipped and gaping open. The two big bags of
goodies from the porno store. They mocked him now: all those toys
and no one to play with.

He sat down on the bed, reached deep for
another dose of anger to chase away the gloom. "Fuck her," he said
aloud, though with faltering conviction. He had three more lousy
days down here before returning to the shit storm in New York, and
one way or another he was going to make them memorable.

He picked up the phone, called room service,
and ordered himself a steak and a bottle of red wine.

Half an hour later, the waiter's knocking on
the door woke him from a leaden sleep.

*

Katy and Al Tuschman watched the sunset at
the beach. They saw the sun squeeze out of round just before it
touched the water; saw its reflection rise to meet it, transforming
it for a time into a fat and melting candle; saw it slip at last
beneath the surface like a vast quarter sliding down a slot.