Welcome to Paradise (4 page)

"Very nice," said Katy. "Maybe we'll go out
now, see the town?"

Al said, "First let's go downstairs
awhile."

Katy dabbed her lips on a napkin to hide the
pout.

They rose, and thereby became a spectacle.
Katy had her high-heeled sandals on; they boosted her like
afterburners. A high-tech bra made architecture of her bosom; Big
Al could have worn her boobs as a cure for whiplash. Her waist came
to his armpits, her spiky raven hair drew attention to his quarter
inch salt-and-pepper helmet.

People watched as the two of them went
by.

Big Al knew they did. Let 'em look, he
figured. He liked it. Let 'em eat their hearts out.

*

Chop Parilla kept his gaze locked on Alan
Tuschman's vanity plate as the short convoy continued down Truman
Avenue.

At Elizabeth Street, the Lexus took a right
and headed toward the Gulf. After eight or ten uncertain blocks,
with a narrow slice of the waterfront coming into view, the
salesman found, on the left side of the street, the sign that he'd
been searching for. It was made of cypress wood, discreetly lit by
soft floods bedded in shrubbery below. Immodestly, the sign
proclaimed a single word: PARADISE.

Squid Berman could not let that slide. "His
own little corner of hell is gonna be more like it," he said.

They watched Big Al pull into the parking
area that was open to the street and paved in gravel. Then,
unnoticed in the twilight, they slowly drove away.

Al Tuschman, weary from the road, switched
off his ignition, picked up his suitcase and his dog, and trudged
toward the office.

While he was filling out the registration
card, the desk clerk asked him cheerfully, "And how did you find
us, Mr. Tuschman?"

Without looking up, Al said, "I won you."

"Won us?"

The tall man glanced up now, smiled
winningly. The imminent mention of sales made him act the salesman.
"Contest where I work. Selling furniture. Dinettes."

"Ah," said the clerk, and he tried not to
frown. He had a shaved head and a row of ruby studs along one
eyebrow. He'd worked at Paradise for five years, and derived a
large part of his self-image from his job. It was important to him
that the place was classy, that its clientele were of a certain
standing. Promotional junkets for salesmen in shiny shirts and
pinky rings—that didn't sit so well with him. He changed the
subject, gestured toward the shih tzu sniffing quietly around the
small but airy office. "The dog's okay as long as he's
leashed—"

"She. Fifi."

"—as long as she's leashed in public
areas."

"No problem," said Al.

"Breakfast is from seven-thirty till eleven,
and clothing is optional at poolside."

"Excuse me?"

"Mr. Tuschman," said the clerk, allowing
himself a note of condescension. "We try to give our guests a
totally natural and relaxing experience. There are no televisions
and no phones. No entertainment other than the sun and the beauty
of the gardens."

"Any single women?"

The row of rubies quivered on the desk
clerk's eyebrow. "Our guests are very mixed," he said. "We're proud
of that. We don't believe in segregation. God forbid a straight
person should witness two men kissing, two women giving each other
back rubs. Here at Paradise we don't think that way."

Al Tuschman pursed his lips and blinked, put
the pen down softly on the registration card. "Bear with me," he
said. "I'm a little tired. Are you telling me that I broke my ass
from the Fourth right through Columbus Day, worked extra Saturdays
plus Thursday evenings to win a free trip to a gay nudist
colony?"

Contemptuous of categories, the desk clerk
held his ground. "We get a lot of Europeans," he said. "Now and
then celebrities who just want to be left alone. This place exists
so that people can be happy. That's our only mission."

"Mission?"

"May I help you with your bag?"

*

Big Al Marracotta's suite was on the top
guest floor. It had a king-sized bed with canopy, two bathrooms, a
slice of harbor view, and a giant television set.

As soon as he and Katy had trundled down from
the rooftop bar, Big Al called the desk to rent a VCR. He suggested
to Katy that she might like to put an outfit on.

"Which one?" she asked.

Big Al put a finger on his chin and a twinkle
in his eye. "The calico, I think. Maybe we'll go Western."

She went to the bathroom to change. Big Al
went to the satchel of porno tapes he'd brought down from New
York.

The bellman hooked up the VCR, and when he'd
left, Katy reemerged. Her outfit was a thong and a tiny bra that
looked like they'd been cut out of a tablecloth from a rib joint. A
frilly garter cinched one thigh, and she wore a big felt hat like
Dale Evans.

Big Al got naked and they watched the movie,
which prominently featured a horse. Katy was impressed, maybe even
aroused, but she wasn't having that good a time, and after a while
even Big Al noticed.

"Whatsa matter?" he asked as the horse and
the heroine were contemplating something hard to believe.

"Oh, I don't know," said Katy, pushing back
the wide brim of her hat. She pushed it with her knuckles, and the
chin strap moved against her jaw, and for a second she looked like
a real cowgirl. "Vacation. Ya know. I thought we'd see the
town."

This hinted at a basic philosophical
difference. Some people thought vacation was about the place they
went. Others viewed it as respite, pure and simple, from the place
they'd left behind. "We'll get to that," he said. "We'll see the
town."

"When?"

Al's eyes were on the screen. Either it was
trick photography or he hoped to shake that woman's hand someday.
"Little while later."

Katy had been seeing Al around eight months
now. Their average date lasted three, four hours. Usually it was
dinner and bed. Sometimes it was drinks in places where everyone
knew Al, came over in waves to say hello, to hold impromptu
meetings, sometimes argue. Once in a while they spent a whole night
together; very rarely, when he could concoct a story to tell his
wife, a weekend. This was the first time they were traveling
together. "Al," she said, "I know you're like, high-spirited, but I
never realized you're an out-and-out sex fiend."

Big Al took this as a compliment. It showed.
"And not just sex!" he said. "Food. Excitement. Going fast.
Gambling. It's got juice in it, baby, I'm there!"

From the TV came a chorus of whinnying and
human moans.

"Later?" Katy said. "Later can we see the
town?"

"Sure we can. 'Course. Crab claws, beach, a
little jazz, anything ya like."

The girlfriend pursed her lips. She knew that
was as well as she was going to do. First what he wanted. Later
what she wanted. Maybe.

Big Al's eyes were on the screen. His tongue
flicked out to lick his lips. He said, "Next year, maybe, I can get
away, we'll go out West."

"Next year; Al?" said Katy. It seemed
improbable to her.

Above the moaning and the horse sounds, Al
said vaguely, "Arizona. Colorado. Looks nice, no?"

A bewildered, Al Tuschman, already wondering
how to tell Moe Kleiman to fire his fancy new travel agent,
followed the clerk out of the office, through the deserted
courtyard, and around the pool, whose water glowed an unearthly
blue from the soft lights beneath the surface. A mild breeze moved
the shrubbery, drew forth dusty, scratching sounds and the
melancholy smell of used-up flowers. Fifi stopped to investigate,
wiggled her nose at the tang of iodine, the sharpness of salt. Her
master barely noticed. Uncharacteristically, his mind was still
sniffing around something the clerk had said. That happiness was a
mission.

This was not the kind of thing Alan Tuschman
generally thought about. At home, schmoozing, doing business,
obeying habits and following routines, who had time? But here, now,
on vacation and by himself, the notion somehow tweaked him.
Probably because he thought it was ridiculous. Missions were about
active things, challenges, dangers. Catching a pass in heavy
traffic on third- and-six—that was a mission. Making the layup and
drawing the foul when your team was down by three— that was a
mission. But happiness? That was . . . what? An accident? A
by-product? A prize? No—prizes, he'd won plenty. Prizes,
trophies—cobwebs made bridges between the heads and elbows of his
trophies; trophies were a different thing from happiness. He gave
an audible harrumph that made the desk clerk turn around and look
at him a second.

They continued down a path lined with
philodendrons so enormous that a dog the size of Fifi could have
hid beneath each leaf. At the end of the path was a whitewashed
bungalow.

The clerk unlocked the door, turned on a
dimmered light switch to reveal a tropically tasteful suite. Wicker
this and rattan that and bamboo the other. Al the furniture maven
knew it was cheap stuff, borax, from the Philippines, from
Thailand, but in this room it worked. A huge ceiling fan turned
lazily enough to slow the pulse. A cozy alcove held a fluffy sofa
with rain-forest upholstery. There was an outdoor shower framed in
thatch. On the bureau, a platter of ripe fruits. On the raw wood
walls a passable print of greenish women with greenish breasts, and
a couple of flower paintings, coyly lewd.

The desk clerk left, smugly declining to be
tipped, and Al, exhausted, lay down on the bed, his heel against
the mattress seam. He thought he'd rest awhile, then go out.
Margaritaville. Sloppy Joe's. He'd never been to Key West before,
but he'd heard about those places. Fabled joints where inhibitions
melted down and fell away, and bad behavior was applauded. Where
women sucked cigars and cakewalked in wet T-shirts. Rubbed
strangers with their bare knees, showed off intimate tattoos.
Bartenders poured liqueurs down chutes of ice, and mouths became
acquainted as they shared the sticky stuff. Every day was Mardi
Gras, and the neighbors back at home would never know.

Al Tuschman lay there, resting, thinking,
imagining the noise and the crush and the smoke, and gradually he
realized that he wasn't going out. Not tonight. Didn't have the
strength, the will. Arriving someplace new, alone—it wasn't all
that easy. Smiling, being friendly, looking for a pickup or only a
smile in return—a lot of the time it just seemed like one more game
to win, one more sales pitch to deliver.

He kicked off his shoes. The dog,
understanding that he was now down for the count, jumped up and
joined him on the bed. Happiness, Al Tuschman caught himself
thinking once again. A mission? Well, maybe. Who knew?

He looked up at the ceiling fan. If he
squinted very hard he could stop the motion of the blades. The
effort made him deliciously sleepy, and he didn't fight it. A week
in Key West, he thought. Contentment, relaxation, pleasure. He'd
get with the program. Tomorrow, maybe. Tomorrow, in daylight. After
a long and peaceful and refreshing sleep …

*

While he slept, sometime after midnight,
Squid Berman and Chop Parilla wreaked havoc on the Lexus, whose
lease had two years, three months still to go, and which assessed
stiff penalties for excessive or abnormal wear.

The attack was Squid's idea, and bore the
stamp of his malicious artistry.

It began with fifty pounds of calamari,
purchased at deep discount because it was getting old and turning
faintly blue. The calamari was packed in ten-pound plastic bags
that had the sodden lumpiness of the internal organs of someone who
was very, very ill. When the bags were opened, there issued forth
an ocean smell that, at first whiff, was not unpleasant, but soon
grew tinged with unwholesome odors of metal and ammonia.

With the seafood stashed in Chop Parilla's
trunk, they drove back to Paradise, using the Jag to block the view
of Alan Tuschman's car. The street was quiet but for the humming of
the streetlamps, and it took Squid Berman about half a minute to
pick the lock of the target vehicle. The alarm wailed for three
seconds before Chop disarmed it, and, as usual, no one paid
attention anyway. Then Squid slipped into the driver's seat and got
down to business.

Most guys, of course, would simply have
dumped the calamari in the car and bolted. This would have been
adequate to achieve the minimum goal of stinking up the car. But
such slipshod workmanship would have appalled Squid Berman. He was
there to make a statement, feverish to create. His eyes were
rolling and his knuckly hands were twitching as he opened the first
sack of seafood.

He started with the passenger seat.
Carefully, he laid out a squid, tentacles forward. Next to it he
placed another tentacles behind. The two squids interlocked like
tiles, and their own slime grouted them nicely to the leather. He
pressed down row on row of calamari, making an upholstery of
seafood, a rank mosaic gleaming opalescent in the streetlight. When
the passenger side was finished, he stood up to do the driver's
seat. Calamari forward, calamari back. The gummy creatures seemed
to wriggle like paisleys, and the morning sun would bake them on
for good. Calamari on the seat back. Calamari on the headrest.
Teach this scumbag to serve rotten seafood to his friends.

Sid Berman lavished so much time on his
creation that even Chop was getting nervous. Two guys spreading
calamari in someone else's car in the middle of the night; this
would be a hard thing to explain. Although one bag of goods was
still unopened, he said at last, "Enough already, Squid."

Squid was too intent to look up. With too
much moisture underneath his tongue, he said, "I've got enough left
to spell out 'Fuck You' on the dashboard."

"I think he'll read that on the seats,"
Parilla said. "Come on, we're outa here."