Welcome to Paradise (20 page)

Besides, he could not get comfortable in his
cheap new suit. The rough wool chafed him behind the knees. The
stiff sleeves bound him at the elbows. His lapels would not lie
flat, and he could not banish the thought that when he saw guys
whose lapels stuck out like that, he thought of them as
pissants.

The morning went very slowly. He kept waiting
to be summoned to the pay phone across the yard, to get the news
that his nemesis had in fact been iced. He tugged on his lapels.
The call didn't come.

Finally, around ten-thirty, he broke down and
decided to get in touch with Florida.

He left the office, went outside, trudged
through oily puddles and around the loading dock, and lifted the
freezing-cold receiver to his ear. Inhaling diesel, exhaling steam,
he dialed. The phone rang a long time and then a sleepy Chop said,
"Yeah?"

"So what's the story?"

"Nicky?"

"No, Santa Claus. Didja do 'im yet?"

Chop struggled up onto an elbow, used his
other hand to rub his eyes. "Well, not exactly."

"Fuck is not exactly? Ya did 'im or ya
didn't."

"We tried," Chop said. "He wasn't in his bed.
Some broad was there."

Nicky could not help being curious. "Tall
broad?"

"How you know?"

"Lotta attitude? Kathy, Kitty, somethin' like
that?"

"Squid went in wit' a stocking on his head,"
said Chop. "I don't think they chatted."

Nicky did a little dance to warm his feet.
"Okay, okay. So when ya gonna try again?"

Dryly, Chop said, "I guess when Squid wakes
up."

There was a pause. Nicky shivered and tried
to figure why his cheap new suit made him sweat indoors but didn't
keep him the least bit warm outside. Must be a fucking blend.

"Nicky," Chop went on at last, "this isn't
turning out to be as easy as you think it is."

"Come on. The guy's on his own, ya know where
he is—"

"Squid won't use a gun or a knife."

"So let 'im use a wire, an ice pick—"

"He won't use anything but seafood."

"Say wha'?"

"Seafood. He started the job wit' seafood, he
says he won't finish any other way. Last night's try was wit' a
sailfish."

"Sailfish?"

"Stuffed. Ya know, the nose."

"For Christ's fucking sake," said Nicky.

"You wanted a genius," said Chop. "You got
one."

Nicky chewed his lip, wrapped himself in the
cold, metal housing of the phone wire. "Chop, I ain't got time for
this. Tell Squid—"

"I've told him," Chop interrupted. "The
fucking guy's impossible. I don't know what he's gonna do. Get a
octopus ta strangle 'im? Give 'im a heart attack wit'
men-a-war?"

Nicky finally realized that, on top of his
frustration, he was getting very scared. He'd hired lunatics and
they were blowing it. His plot would be discovered and he'd be sure
as hell rubbed out. Every hour that passed increased the chances it
would go that way. In a pinched, congested voice, he said, "I want
him done today. Today."

Chop said calmly, "Nicky, I'm bein' as
straight wit' you as I can be. All I can promise you is seafood. I
can't promise you today, I can't promise you tomorra—"

Nicky Scotto slammed down the phone, slammed
it down with such gusto that he felt the lining in the right
shoulder of his cheap new suit begin to tear.

In the narrow bed across from Chop's, Squid
Berman was still pretending to be asleep. But he couldn't quite
hide that he was smiling. He was winning. He was happy. He was
doing things his way and not letting anybody spoil it.

*

Big Al Marracotta had had worse outings, but
they'd generally entailed someone ending up in a car compactor or a
garbage dump. For an occasion not involving death, the misery of
this last night would be hard to top.

Humiliated in the drag bar, he'd staggered up
Duval Street, back toward his hotel. But his nerves were shaken,
and he needed one more drink. He had it, then resumed his journey.
His legs were tired, however; the walk seemed long, and he decided
to break it up by stopping for another cocktail. By four A.M. he
was within two blocks of the Conch House. Cruelly, the lights came
up in the last place that would serve him, and he threw himself
into the meandering stream of diehards on the sidewalk.

Surrounded by taller men, unseeing and
unseen, he'd stumbled right past the glaring window of an all-night
diner. A stupid little dog had singled him out to bark at.

Back in his room at last, he took some
aspirin and immediately threw up. Rising from the bowl, he'd
wandered to the bedroom and walked around in dizzy circles, looking
down at the tattered shreds of Katy's underthings. Then he'd passed
out, small and alone and smelling foul, on the huge bed meant for
frolicking.

He awoke now to a shard of late-morning sun
slicing through the drapes and a monumental hangover. His eyeballs
had dried out, his cheeks stuck to his gums. His kidneys felt like
they had sugar crystals deep inside them. He put a pillow on his
head but could not get back to sleep. Finally he called room
service, ordered every purported cure that he could think of.
Tomato juice. Oysters. Soft- boiled eggs.

In the agony of waiting for his breakfast, he
tried but failed to fend off a terrible admission: vacation, all in
all, was going lousy. For a rare and blurry introspective second,
he wished he could pinpoint and repair the moment it had all gone
wrong, but he knew that he could not. He'd lost his girlfriend and
he felt like hell. He was bored stiff with lying in the sun.
Business problems were preying on his guts and he saw no way to
turn the thing around.

The embarrassing truth was that he might as
well go home. Back to wife and work and aggravation, back to the
stinking weather and the smell of fish.

He just had to find a way to explain it to
himself, and to others, so that it wouldn't look like he had caved,
so that leaving early wouldn't feel like a defeat. Once he'd
figured that one out, he was ready to get on the road.

Katy and Al Tuschman had finished their
coffee, then retrieved the dog and gone to the pier at County Beach
to watch the sun come up.

They'd sat on rough boards damp with night,
their feet dangling above an ocean so still that it reflected pale
blue stars amid the gold-green streaks of phosphorescence. For a
moment Katy's head had rested on Al's shoulder. He didn't know if
she had meant to put it there or if she'd briefly nodded out. He'd
thought to touch her hair, but didn't. He'd stroked the dog
instead.

Just after six, the eastern sky had turned a
rusty yellow and swallowed up the constellations. Narrow, scattered
slabs of cloud went lavender, and the water changed from black to a
strange and depthless burgundy. When the sun cracked the horizon,
it was instantly too bright to look at. The air grew hot in seconds
and the tropic day came on so suddenly that there was no way to be
ready for it. Caked sand sparkled; shadows stretched away from
palms, opaque and confident, like they'd been there all along.

Taken by surprise, Al had shaded his itching
eyes and was overtaken by a yawn. "What now?" he said.

Katy shrugged and yawned in turn. Pelicans
flew by. Fifi stood and stretched over her front paws.

Thinking aloud, Al went on, "We go back to
the hotel, we're sitting ducks."

Katy had squinted against the glare that
skipped across the ocean like a spray of pebbles. "Maybe that's not
the worst idea."

"Maybe not the best."

"Face them," she went on. "Explain things,
get it over with."

Al thought about the fish stuck in the bed.
"If you get time to explain."

Katy yawned again. It was a deep, sinuous
yawn that made her feel the cut on her side. "Probably they won't
do anything daytime."

Big, strong Al Tuschman considered that, then
said, "What's the argument against bolting? Fleeing? Running
away?"

For that Katy had no answer she could put in
words. She just looked at Al with intimately tired eyes, and he
understood, though he couldn't say it either. The only argument
against fleeing was that if they bolted now they would lose each
other. He'd get a flight to Newark, she to LaGuardia, and since
they were very different from each other and weren't lovers, that
would be the end of it. That's what happened when vacation was over
and real life reasserted its habits and limits and demands. After
sunset and sunrise and sharing a room, after dancing, and talking
in their underwear, they'd go back to being the selves that they
were used to, and it would seem preposterous, impossible that they
would hang around together. That was the only argument against
bolting right this minute.

Al bit his lip, looked down at the twinkling
ocean. Not totally persuaded, he said, "I guess they won't try
anything in daylight."

They stood and stretched. Fifi shook herself,
dried her damp fur in the hot morning sun. They strolled slowly
back to Paradise, where they soon fell sound asleep, side by side,
on shaded lounges near the pool.

*

A block and a half from the fish market,
beneath a torn green awning on a bent and rusty frame, there was an
Irish bar. It had a chrome steam table filled with cylinders of
soggy vegetables, and a plastic slab where a man in a spattered
apron carved hunks of fatty meat. The place smelled of cabbage and
stale beer and in the lull before lunch hour it was a perfect place
to talk.

In a booth way at the back, Nicky Scotto was
leaning forward above a Heineken and saying, "I gotta go to Flahda.
Right away."

"Don't do it," said Donnie Falcone, solemn in
his big black overcoat.

"It's the only way," said Nicky. Desperation
made him lean still farther.

Donnie leaned in, too. Their noses were
close. They could smell each other's aftershave. "Think. You can't
be seen in Flahda. It's suicide. What about the guys you—"

"They're fucking up," said Nicky.
"Unbelievably, they're fucking up. I gotta do the fuckin' job
myself."

"You told me they were pros," said Donnie. "I
don't see what's the—"

"Problem?" Nicky interrupted. Furiously he
swigged some beer, wriggled against the booth to try and stop the
itching from his cheap and crappy suit. "Here's the fuckin'
problem." He told Donnie about his hired men's determination to
finish the job with seafood.

"Jesus Christ," said Donnie, and he shook his
head of beautiful black hair. "Where'd you find these guys?"

"Chop's solid," Nicky said. "Does cars in
Hialeah. I've worked wit' 'im through Miami. But the other guy—
Squid. He's good people but he's crazy."

Donnie rubbed his cardboard coaster; little
tubes of paper rolled beneath his thumb. "Nicky, listena me. You
cannot let yourself be linked—"

The other man locked his jaw to keep his
voice from getting loud. "I'm runnin' outa time! How much longer's
he gonna be down there? Two days? Three?"

"Nicky, please. Stay out of it. Let it run
its course."

"They fuck it up," the man in the bad suit
rambled, "and then what? Big Al gets outa Flahda. Comes back and
takes over the market. Now he's surrounded wit' goombahs—"

"And you're no worse off than you were
before," Donnie pointed out.

"Except I am," said Nicky. " 'Cause I got my
heart set on it. 'Cause in my mind it's done already."

"Nicky, please. I'm begging you—"

"I'm goin', Donnie. I got to. First plane I
can get on."

Donnie pursed his lips and slowly pushed
himself upright in the booth. He scratched an eyebrow and said,
"Nicky, I got a question for you. From the very start a this whole
fuckin' mess, every single thing I tell you not to do, you do it.
Why you bother askin' my advice?"

Surprised by the question, Nicky blinked. He
thought the reason should be obvious. Absently, he tugged at his
gapping lapels. " 'Cause you're my friend," he said.

After his late breakfast, Big Al Marracotta
ate more aspirin, then pulled on his cabana set and went down to
the pool. He simply didn't know what else to do.

But the midday sun ratcheted up the dull ache
in his head until it was an unbearable throbbing, so he retreated
into the shade and looked at women, shamelessly stared as they
coaxed their bathing suits down over the pale crescents at the base
of their buttocks, as they rearranged their bosoms after
diving.

After a while he waded to the swim-up bar,
had a Virgin Mary, and then another. He sucked the lemons, chewed
the ice. Very gradually, the spices and the celery joined forces
with the aspirin and made him feel a little better. He dunked his
head in the pool, and the cool water seemed to siphon pain away. He
ate an order of conch fritters. They expanded in his stomach and
made him feel almost okay.

In its grim but loosening grip, the hangover
now seemed less like an overwhelming fact than an arduous but
necessary passage. On the far side of that passage lay something
like peace of mind, in the form of several benign, face-saving fibs
he could tell himself about vacation.

Sipping yet another Virgin Mary, he was
beginning to believe it had all worked out for the best. He'd had a
bunch of first-rate sex, then got rid of Katy without tears or
complications. He was due to ditch her anyway; it was a good thing
it happened now, so he could have his blowout then get back to New
York. Face it—he was needed there. He counted. He was an important
guy, and nobody's patsy. He'd proven that by taking vacation when
he damn well wanted to. But now he'd be big about it, responsible,
and go home early. Impress the hell out of Tony Eggs with how fast
and neatly he could get the market back in order.

Resolved, almost happy, he waded out of the
pool, reclaimed his cabana jacket. He air-dried for a minute, then
went up to his room.