Scarface (11 page)

Actually, Manolo was doing most of the pointing. Tony was pretty subdued. They left a window full of color TV’s, and the next one down was a bank. Through the ice-green glass, the workers and customers of the Banco di Venezuela passed back and forth through the air-conditioned reaches. Manolo ogled the lady tellers. Tony checked out the guard’s weapon.

“Twenty-five tons,” he said, “figure ten million bucks. What do we get? A lousy five hundred.” This was not the first time he had said it. It was beginning to sound like a broken record.

“Yeah, but it’s like I keep tellin’ you, Tony. They got the organization.”

“I got more brains than that fruitcake Omar. His organization can eat my dick. If you weren’t suckin’ up to him all the time—”

“Look, chico,” interrupted Manolo, ignoring the bait, “you mind if we just get started? They’ll cut us in. There’s enough for everyone.”

“You sound like a goddam communist. I say we get our own stash. Sell direct.”

Manolo didn’t seem to be paying attention. He took a step back so he could check his hair in the window. “How we gonna do that?” he asked. “We don’t got any money. Hey Tony, I just fell in love.”

He turned to look at the girl he had glimpsed reflected in the window. She had just stepped out of the bank and was walking in their direction. Hot Cuban girl, spike heels, in a tight skirt and lacy blouse that left nothing to the imagination. Though she pretended not to look at them, she was eyeing Tony and Manolo from the moment she caught sight of them. She stopped and opened her purse, pouting her lips as she fished for something, but really just to give them a better look. She pulled out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. Then she started walking again, like she meant to pass right by.

Tony stuck out his chin and said: “Hey baby, wanna fuck?”

She didn’t even break her stride. She lowered her eyelids and swiveled her head toward him as she passed. “Turn to shit,” she said.

Tony burst out laughing. Manolo was livid. “How you gonna score that way?” he demanded, slapping at Tony’s head. “You don’t got any finesse. Watch me.” And as Tony looked over at him he opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and wiggled it up and down, quick as a baby bird.

“—the fuck was that?” asked Tony, laughing.

“You don’t know nothin’ about chicks, do ya? That always works. Chick sees that, she
knows.
They can’t resist it.” And he did it again, licking the air at sixty miles an hour, his eyelids drooping—as if he were crouched between a woman’s legs, drinking her in. Tony laughed so hard, he had to hold his sides. “You laugh,” said Manolo. “Chicks see me, they start pullin’ their panties off, right in the middle o’ the street.”

“Okay, Romeo,” Tony said, nodding down the sidewalk, “do your stuff.”

She was a tall cool blonde in a silky dress, and she’d just come out of a jewelry store. Very high-class. As she approached along the sidewalk, she didn’t even see Manolo and Tony slouched against the bank. They simply didn’t exist. Manolo wasn’t fazed. He flicked an imaginary speck of lint from his iridescent shirt, and he followed right behind her as she passed. He caught up with her at the corner, where she paused to wait for the light to change. She glanced up at Manolo as he stood beside her. Manolo’s back was to Tony, so all he could see was the blonde’s face. A puzzled frown came across her features. She leaned forward, embarrassed, and said: “I beg your pardon?” Like she was dealing with a deaf mute.

Manolo did not reply. He must have redoubled his efforts with his tongue, for now the blonde looked quite alarmed, as if he was having an epileptic fit. Tony was weak with laughter, watching. Then all of a sudden she seemed to get it. Her mouth dropped open. The blood drained from her face. She opened her purse and pulled out a small revolver. Manolo bolted. He ran by Tony, and Tony chased after, shrieking now with laughter. They ducked in an alley and didn’t stop running till they came out into the next street.

“Bitch!” said Manolo. “Cunt’s prob’ly all sewed up.”

Tony grinned. “I told you, chico, you don’t understand this country. To get a woman you gotta get money first. Then you got power. And when you got power, that’s when they want you. Not before.”

As they crossed to the opposite curb, a car ran the light and nearly clipped them. They both turned and let out a string of obscenities. Affixed to the car’s rear windshield was a sticker with the image of the stars and stripes. It read: “Will the last American leaving Miami please bring the flag?” Tony and Manolo threw the finger and walked on into a shopping arcade. Speakers were blasting country-western out of a gaudy electronics store. Street vendors were selling burritos and waxed-paper cones full of fried shrimp. They sat on a bench between two planters full of dead bushes and litter.

“Okay, so where do we get the money?” Manolo said.

“I been talkin’ to this guy,” said Tony. “Nick the Pig. Moves a lotta cocaine.” He paused, as if to give Manolo a chance to protest. Manolo said nothing. After watching Tony hustle himself a place with the dealers of Havana when he was just sixteen, Manolo knew better than to ask how Tony had met this character. Tony always found them. “He says he’s got some keys comin’ in tomorrow afternoon. Ninety percent pure shit. He’ll let us in on a key for thirty grand.”

“Thirty grand! Where the hell we gonna get that?”

“So I says Nick, I tell you what. I’ll give ya twenty up front and the other ten on consignment. That means we pay him when we sell it.”

“Yeah? So?”

Tony stretched and yawned. He snapped his fingers, and the boy selling shrimp looked over from his cart, a rickety homemade affair under a beach umbrella. Tony nodded at the tray of greasy cones. The boy scooped up a fresh batch and brought it over to the bench. “That’s a buck fifty,” he said, handing it over to Tony. Tony dug a five out of his pants pocket. He nodded the boy away when he tried to make change. The boy blushed with gratitude as he turned back to his cart.

“So he says okay,” said Tony, popping a shrimp in his mouth. “Nice guy, Nick. Not too bright.”

“Oh yeah? What’s he bein’ so nice for? He tryin’ to go to heaven?”

Tony flared. “Hey, Manny, if he’s messing with me, I’ll nail his head to the wall. You got that clear?” Manolo was silent. After a moment Tony held out the bag of shrimp, and Manolo took one. “I figure we put a full hit on the key,” said Tony. “Then we got two keys. We distribute the shit to our ouncers . . .”

“What ouncers?”

“Our gang, jerkoff.”

“What gang?”

Tony gave an impatient sigh. “Marielitos,” he said. “Angel, Chi-Chi, Gaspar, Hernando—all them guys who can’t get jobs. We’ll have our own distribution, right on the streets. At eighty bucks a gram, we stand to clear fifty G’s on the first buy. Then we cut a new deal with Nick, and we’re in for two keys. Then four. Then eight. Can you count that high, chico?”

Manolo nodded. He didn’t say anything for about a minute, just kept nodding. He seemed lost in the higher mathematics of it all. Then he said: “So where do we get the first twenty thou?”

Tony grinned. “Where does anybody go when they need money? The bank, right?”

“What bank?”

“Oh, I got a nice bank picked out.” He popped the last shrimp and tossed the greasy paper into the planter. Then he stood up and began to walk away. Manolo had to run to catch up.

“Okay, Tony, we’ll try it. But we gotta plan this thing. Real careful.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got lotsa plans,” said Tony. They reached the curb, and he grabbed Manolo’s arm and darted through the traffic. “We gotta hurry,” he said. “They’re pickin’ us up in half an hour.”

There was no point trying to make an objection. Tony had it all worked out—or not worked out at all, but you couldn’t stop him once he had it in his head. They went into a discount gun shop and picked up five cheap handguns for a hundred and thirty dollars and change. They waited on the corner of Brickell Avenue, Tony eating a bucket of fried chicken, till a beat-up Monte Carlo, its muffler shot to hell, lurched to a stop beside them. Angel was driving, with Chi-Chi beside him in the front seat and Gaspar in back. Chi-Chi was wrecked on something—PCP, it looked like. Manolo and Tony hopped in beside Gaspar, and the car went weaving back into traffic.

Tony directed Angel to a busy shopping mall, where a small branch of the Bank of Miami was tucked between a Baskin-Robbins and a video-game arcade. Tony had noticed the place when he tracked down Gaspar and Chi-Chi playing Pac-Man in the arcade. He never even bothered to walk in and check the layout. All he knew was he needed a small bank. The robbery would take care of itself. He must have had a wonderful intuition for the American system, for when he and Manolo and Chi-Chi burst in, leaving the others out in the car, the bank’s sole guard, a retired postal worker, surrendered in two seconds flat.

The tellers and customers were ordered to the floor. As Tony and Manolo shoved the manager back to the safe, Chi-Chi was left to cover the huddling victims. As they watched Chi-Chi weave with double vision, the gun in his hand veering wildly, they hugged the floor and shook with fear. Tony cursed the manager as he fumbled with the combination. When the cash stocks were finally revealed, Tony could see there wasn’t much more than a few thousand.

“You cheap sonuvabitch!” snarled Tony. “This all you got?”

“Sir, I can’t control the currency supply. Every week the Federal Reserve—”

“Shut the fuck up. Gimme this,” he ordered, tugging at the watch on the manager’s wrist. Manolo came hurrying in from the tellers’ windows, where he’d scooped up a couple of thousand. He snatched the cash from the drawers in the safe, then turned to Tony. It was time to run.

But Tony was twirling the manager around, checking out the cut of his suit. “I want this too,” he said gruffly. “Take it off.”

“Hey man, what are you doin’?” Manolo shrieked.

There wasn’t any rushing Tony. As the manager, quaking, removed his jacket and pants, Manolo ran out to the main room to help Chi-Chi. Perhaps a half dozen people had wandered into the bank during the robbery, and they too now huddled against the floor. Manolo stood at the window, nearly jumping out of his skin for nerves, and watched for the arrival of the police. Out in the Monte Carlo, Angel and Gaspar appeared to have fallen asleep.

At last Tony emerged from the manager’s office, spiffy in a three-piece glen-plaid suit and tie. Manolo beckoned him frantically, but he took his time, glancing from one to the other of his victims to see if there was anything still worth taking. Chi-Chi staggered out to the car, dropping a bag of change as he got in. Immediately he passed out, and Angel and Gaspar scrambled to pick up the rolls of coins from the pavement. Manolo stood at the door of the bank, hollering at Tony to hurry. Tony grinned and saluted his victims, thanked them for their time, and sauntered toward the door.

“C’mon, will ya!” Manolo shouted. “What are you—crazy?”

“You gotta take your time, chico. You never enjoy it otherwise.” He turned to survey the room once more, while Manolo gnashed his teeth. “Hell, I never robbed a bank before. It’s like poppin’ another cherry, huh? You get on your deathbed, chico, this is the stuff you remember.”

And with that, almost reluctantly, he followed Manolo out, and they jumped into the Monte Carlo. As Angel left the parking lot and disappeared into traffic, Manolo did a quick count. “ ’Bout eight grand,” he said, weary and frustrated. All he wanted was a drink. Chi-Chi was still dead to the world, and Angel and Gaspar were passing a reefer. Tony glanced mildly out the window, as if all he cared about was the view. “Next time,” Manolo grumbled, “we’ll plan it first.”

Tony stirred from his reverie. “Let’s get the rest of it now, huh? Long as we’re in the mood.”

Manolo sputtered in protest, as Tony nudged Angel and pointed to a parking lot on the right. Angel swung the Monte Carlo wide and headed in. It was a supermarket—medium-size, its plate-glass windows plastered over with notices announcing sale items. Young housewives and old pensioners trundled in and out, pushing carts. It was mid-afternoon busy. Not the best time for a hit, as Manolo seemed to be trying to tell Tony, pummeling his shoulder with both fists, cursing the half-assed risks they were taking. Tony was already out of the car, stuffing the gun in his pants, not even telling them who was to follow, who to stay.

He walked in the automatic door and stood near the registers, glancing around till he saw the manager. Impressive in the suit, he walked through the crowd of housewives—short-shorts and halters—and drew his green card out of his pocket as he approached the whey-faced manager. Tony flashed the card once in the fellow’s face, then slipped it back in his pocket.

“Sergeant Montana,” Tony said in a hushed voice. “Metro Dade Homicide. Looks like there’s a security problem here. We better go back to your office.”

“Homicide!” gasped the manager, as Tony prodded him down the aisle. He was shaking as if he expected to be accused of the murder himself.

They reached the cramped back office next to the loading dock. Tony closed the door behind them and drew down the shade. The manager was wringing his hands.

“Maybe I should call the district office,” he said.

Tony pulled the snub-nosed pistol from his pocket. “All right, short stuff,” he said, “I want all the cash you got. No bullshit, or I’ll drill a new hole in your head,
comprende
?”

“But I can’t,” the manager squeaked, looking as if he was about to fall on his knees. “It’s all in the safe. I don’t have the combination.”

“Then you better get a drill. We got all the time in the world.”

As the sweating manager rooted in his tool box, Tony bent to the floor beneath the desk and dismantled the alarm button. Meanwhile, the Marielitos had got their act together and entered the front of the store, waving their guns and shouting. Manolo was furious with Tony, but he methodically cleaned out the cash registers as Gaspar and Angel shook down the terrified shoppers. Manolo sent Gaspar out to the car with the loot in a paper bag, mostly so he could check on Chi-Chi, who looked like he’d fallen into a coma. Angel covered the clump of shoppers, an unwieldy bunch of whimpering women, as Manolo ran back to the office to get Tony.