Paradise Man (13 page)

It grew dark. He closed his eyes. It was like the times he waited for Loretta Howard to come home when she was still with his dad. She’d spring upon him while he was dozing in his chair, and she’d have some tiny gift for him: toffee or hazelnuts, and she’d be dressed like a dream, with a hint of perfume behind her ears, and if his dad came home first, Holden would sulk, because he wouldn’t have his hazelnuts or a hug, and he’d watch the door for Loretta, watch and wait until the lock turned slowly, and his heart would pound. She’d have to deal with his dad, soothe him before she could come to him, and he’d wish his father dead. It was that moment when his career was made. He’d become a bumper in his father’s house.

He must have been snoring, because he hadn’t heard his darling knock. He forgot to give her a key. He opened the door, and a kind of happiness crossed his face. His cheeks were red. The bumper began to blush. She had one small suitcase and a shopping bag filled with trinkets. It didn’t seem worth a trip uptown, frightening him with her absence when he could have bought her anything she desired. “Darling,” she said. “I wasn’t away that long ... there were neighbors. I couldn’t cut them off. And Rex was home.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing much. I needed a vacation from him and the girls.”

“Does Rex know about me?”

“Of course.”

“And he wasn’t angry? I mean, a man can run off with his wife just like that and it’s okay with Rex?”

“You’re not a stranger I met on the street.”

“Almost. I met you in a bungalow. I shot Red Mike. That’s not exactly a marriage.”

“But we aren’t married. I’m your sweetheart.”

“Tell me,” he said, taking the suitcase and the shopping bag, “have you ever run away with a man before?”

“No, not that I can think of.”

“I’m the first?”

“If you don’t count Michael. I didn’t run away with him. He took me by surprise.”

“Michael, it always comes back to Michael.”

“But that week with him prepared me for you ... would you rather I left?”

His hand was shaking again. “I didn’t say a word about leaving. We were having a conversation, that’s all. I’m glad you’ve come back.”

“You don’t sound glad.”

“I was worried that Rex or somebody would convince you to stay uptown.”

“But didn’t I promise you?”

“Fay, should I tell you how many promises I’ve had to eat?”

“But I belong to you, Sidney.”

“Yeah, now that Mike is dead. Would you be here if I hadn’t killed him?”

“Probably not ... but you might not have wanted me, darling.”

It was true. His whole goddamn romance hinged on Mike’s death. He kissed Fay and his terror was gone. They explored the trinkets in her shopping bag. She had a crazy little animal with its head on backwards so it could see its tail.

“That’s you, Sidney. You’re so suspicious, you can’t swallow without turning your head. That’s why I love you. You take nothing for granted.”

“My dad was a suspicious man. The United States was after him all his life. He lived in exile until a friend sneaked him back into the country.”

She took out other trinkets: a cloth cat stuffed with pine cones, a jar of jelly beans, little brass pots that she arranged on Holden’s windowsills, a torn doll, a pencil sharpener from her hometown in Illinois, wedding souvenirs, a sorority pin, locks of hair ... like a history of Fay in miniature, a map that she distributed in Holden’s rooms, a little circus of herself. And it amazed Holden that she could stuff her past into a shopping bag and carry it downtown. He had nothing like that, no menagerie.

She entwined her life with his and built her own contours in the apartment, a borderland where she kept her animals and her clothes. She was happy here. That’s how it seemed to Holden. The mysterious lady who’d arrived out of some catacomb, appeared in Far Rockaway without her clothes, another man’s wife, devoted to Rat and Eddie and Red Mike.

One afternoon while Fay napped he walked over to Aladdin. Holden couldn’t believe what the Cuban carpenters had done. The whole fucking factory was restored. The nailers were at their benches. The cutters waltzed around Nick Tiel’s dummies with tape measures like yellow collars at their necks. The fluorescent lights hissed over his head. His title, last name and first initial had been redone on his door. His office opened with the same old key. He still had a VCR. He could smell the fresh paint, but there wasn’t a single bubble in the wall that could remind him of the fire. He went into his closet. Some of his underwear was gone. An old shoe. But his wardrobe had survived the crisis. He packed his favorite clothes and left without consulting Nick.

Holden hid out in Chelsea with his love. His apartment was on Tenth Avenue, near a seminary with a garden in the middle. Holden could see the young seminarians from his bedroom window. He’d had three semesters at Bernard Baruch, where he’d studied banking and Aristotle, and he wondered now if the seminarians were discussing Aristotle and Aquinas or Qaddafi and the fate of the world. He’d enjoyed his three semesters at Baruch. Swiss had sent him there to master the art of accounting so Holden could help with Aladdin’s books. But he was much more valuable out in the field. How could Swiss have known beforehand that an eighteen-year-old kid would have such a talent for bumping people? College began to interfere with his work at Aladdin. The kid was studying all the time. Holden had to drop out. And he watched the seminarians with remorse. He envied their Aristotle. But suppose he’d become an accountant? Would he be a fat cat, like Infante, with an aristocratic wife who loved to eat at Mansions around a lot of kings?

Holden took care of a different sort of books. He collected for Aladdin. And he bumped. Fay caught him at the window, recognized his sadness, and took him in her arms. “Sidney, we shouldn’t sit around like this. We have to get out.”

And they went to the movies together, to the theater, to concerts, to performances of dance. Holden knew there was a danger. But he had Harrington drive him to all the shows. He searched under the seats for a Cuban cocktail. He was that animal with its head on backwards. He had to be.

He couldn’t avoid Fay’s old girlfriends, who’d appear at concerts and eye Holden as if he were Ali Baba in a British suit; they must have known he was the one who’d rescued Fay and killed the three bad brothers. He could feel a sexual edge to their glances. Who were these girlfriends? Had they gone to Swarthmore with Fay? They chattered about a universe Holden couldn’t enter at all. Benefit concerts. Charity balls. A pianist named Vladimir. A dance company out in Brooklyn where women whipped men with their hair. Had he seen
Pixote
? No.
El Norte
?
A Nos Amours
? They weren’t into
Destry Rides Again.
And Holden gave up pretending he had the least bit in common with the girlfriends. He was Fay’s bandit lover, the vice president of a fur company who couldn’t even quote the price of Canadian mink.

But she never called him Sidney in public, and she didn’t leave him floating in a corner with the girlfriends. She stood next to Holden, touched his arm. And whatever brought her to him—the feud between a district attorney and wild men in Queens, her own strange marriage, Red Mike, the barrel of a .22 long—there was nothing tricky about Fay’s devotion to her bandit.

He had to find Huevo, but he went to the theater with Fay. He ignored little Barbara and Mrs. Howard. He wouldn’t visit Gottlieb. Holden had gone off the street. He’d glued himself to Fay’s curly hair. He’d never been so passive, not even with the twig. He forgot he ever had a secret service.

And then Holden bumped into his own tail at a temple on Fifty-fifth. He’d arrived with Fay to watch a dance company at City Center. They had seats in the sixth row. Holden was content. He held Fay’s hand. She never lectured him. He watched. The first dance was about the Fourth of July. He could see the women’s nipples under their tights. It didn’t turn him on. They were moon creatures to him, dancers on a stage. Fay had been a dancer once at college. But she didn’t have that crystalline look, a body made of prisms and planes. She was much rounder than the women in this company. He decided that he loved round women after all. The twig had been an accident of fate.

A figure crept out of the aisle. It was Jeremías, Don Edmundo’s bodyguard. He haunted the temple like a spook with sick eyes. When the lights went on Holden saw half of La Familia. Edmundo had gobbled up an entire row in the middle of the orchestra. He had his daughters with him, his sons-in-law, his soothsayers, his wife, business associates, and another man who turned away from Holden. It was Count Josephus from that restaurant of kings. And suddenly Holden’s three semesters at Baruch made sense. He understood the economics of owning a restaurant. Mansions was a Cuban front, a cashbox for Don Edmundo. The count was Edmundo’s doll.

Edmundo bought champagne for Holden’s darling. No one mentioned Rex.

“That tall one, Gladys,” Edmundo said to Fay about one of the dancers, “did you like her elevation?”

Holden looked at the count, remembered the executioner’s heart on his hand, an Albanian with a Cuban prison tale to tell. But the count never looked back.

Holden didn’t have to lie. He announced to Fay that he was keeping business hours again. But first he taught her to use a gun. He had a Llama .380 in the house. He took her with Harrington to some deer park on the other side of the George Washington Bridge and had her fire into a tree.

“Darling, this is a waste of ammunition. I could never shoot a man.”

“It doesn’t matter. At least you know how.”

He returned her to Chelsea, squeezed her in back of the car, left her with the Llama .380 and its shoulder cup, which he strapped to her chest while she laughed. “It’s ridiculous. I look like Belle Starr. I’ll have to get a new wardrobe to go with that gun. I won’t wear it.”

“You will.”

“Are we going to fight in front of Harrington? ... at least come upstairs.”

“I can’t. But wear the gun, Fay. I have enemies.”

“I thought this apartment was a big secret.”

“It’s only a secret if we stay indoors. We’ve been hopping around. Too many people know about us. I’m a worrier, Fay. I’d never be able to leave you alone. You’d get sick of me. I’d crawl inside your pajamas.”

“That’s not so bad. But I’ll wear your silly gun.”

He kissed her and drove uptown to Mansions. Florinda Infante was at her window table, eating medallions of pork with King Alfonse. Holden saw the streak in her hair through the glass. She knocked on the window, summoned him inside.

“Say hello to Fatso,” she said. “You’re his hero. He read all about the mystery man who stole Fay Abruzzi from the big bad borough of Queens. I think he wants to shake your hand. Right, Fatso?”

“Indeed,” Alfonse said.

“But he’ll be crushed when he hears that you’ve been banging the lady.”

“He doesn’t look crushed to me,” Holden said.

“That’s because it takes time to penetrate. He’s a king ... Holden, you shouldn’t duck out on your friends. I don’t mind your liaisons. But to shack up with a housewife who’s a real flake? Rex is laughing in his pants. I think he got his father to stage that kidnapping. He ought to give you an allowance. Should I ask?”

“I’ll do my own asking.”

“Aren’t you going to sit down with us? Fatso will be disappointed.”

“Sorry. I have an engagement with the count.”

Florinda looked up at Holden with her aristocratic face. She had more bearing than the twig, and she was twice as voluptuous as Fay, but she couldn’t move him to madness. His head wasn’t occupied with the purple in her hair.

“It’s funny the count never told me you were coming. He tells me everything.”

“Well, his calendar got a little clogged.”

Holden bowed to Fatso, kissed Florinda’s hand, and went into the heart of the restaurant. The count was at a table with several other kings. Seeing Holden gave him a touch of gloom. But he wasn’t fickle. He stood up and accompanied Holden to his office behind the bar without exaggerating his limp.

“Count, I don’t want to discuss your imperial past. How you got from Albania to Cuba is your business. Just tell me about the jails.”

“What jails, Monsieur?”

Holden grabbed Josephus’ hand and displayed the executioner’s heart. “Don’t monsieur me so much. You’re a fucking convict. You killed people, or you wouldn’t have that mark.”

“But I could also kill you,” Josephus said.

“Not a chance. You gave up the life. You’re a restaurateur. And restaurateurs are notoriously slow. Tell me, count, were you with Huevo’s gang once upon a time? Be careful, because if you lie I’ll come back and tear your face off.”

“Yes. I was with Huevo.”

“Did he fix up your hand, give you the tattoo?”

“Yes. It’s Huevo’s work.”

“And you sailed out of Cuba with him on a boat from Mariel?”

“Holden, I’m sixty-one.”

“And you really are noble, like those other lost kings who collect here. You came to Cuba without a dime. You ran a couple of casinos, I figure, and you might have switched to Castro’s side, because most counts are a little crazy. But the Fidelistas found out you had your own black market in Havana, and they threw you into Taco-Taco.”

Josephus smiled. “You’re not a bad biographer, Holden.”

“How did you earn the mark on your hand?”

“I killed for Fidel ... and other people. My politics were very wide. I could swing right or left.”

“And where did you meet Huevo?”

“In Taco-Taco. We were both politicals. They stuck us with ordinary convicts. We survived and got to America. Edmundo took us in. He’d never had a count fighting in one of his wars. He groomed me for this job. But Huevo wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to start his own family. He did.”

“And you didn’t go with him.”

The count twisted his head. “Do you know how hard I worked to make Mansions a success?”

“Yeah, you gave every king in town a free ride.”

“But look what a clientele we got out of it? Customers like to eat around kings. They feel good.”

“And you convinced other Bandidos to stay with Edmundo.”