Scarface (28 page)

The vows were exchanged in front of the very monsignor whose picture was on Frank Lopez’s wall at the bakery, shaking hands and wearing a baseball cap. The monsignor had made a couple of unctuous visits to Elvira on the yacht, treating her properly like a widow, which nobody else did. As soon as Tony wrote out a check for the bishop’s building fund, the monsignor finished his song of sorrows and began to treat Tony and Elvira as a marriage made in heaven. He would even gladly officiate, for a well-placed five thousand in cash.

Manolo was best man. Gina was maid of honor. While Tony and Elvira wore traditional black and white, Manolo sported a blue satin tux and Gina a dark blue ball gown, “Tara Blue” they called it. Of course all of Tony’s payroll was there, down to the ounce-men of Calle Ocho. Only the police sent no one. The Miami Chamber of Commerce dispatched a gelatinous man to give a toast at the wedding feast, but not the police. Even on such a triumphal day, when differences were buried, the police were required for the sake of discretion to maintain the position of silent partner.

Tony and Elvira looked as grave as children when they made their vows, as if they had stolen the lines from a much more formal culture, where men and women met in the old way and slowly grew to love one another, till at last they decided to risk their lives. Or was it perhaps that they didn’t quite believe the words, even as they said them? A certain glint of irony was in their eyes, of melancholy even, at so much talk of forever. Yet they looked astonishing that day, young and vital and yearning for each other, possessed of a secret place no one else could enter. It was as if they knew they might not have much time, and they mustn’t let today slip through their fingers. So they glowed like newlyweds all day long, like real ones.

There was supper under the trees by the quiet canal, mountains of shrimp and Dom Perignon, and an orchestra lush enough to have played Roseland. Tony led several groups to the tropical garden behind the house, where he showed off his wedding present to his bride. Huge wire cages had been set up among the trees, with a wilderness of monkeys in them, gibbons and tamarins and marmosets. Beyond was a lily-padded artificial pond, fifty feet long and kidney-shaped, with a small flock of flamingos promenading. Then there was a birdhouse full of twenty different kinds of parrots and macaws, jabbering as they flared their iridescent plumage.

“Here’s the king over here,” said Tony, guiding a party across a bright-red Japanese bridge to the orchid garden. They passed through a clump of tree ferns and came to the edge of a moat. Across the water, beneath a solitary banyan tree, stretched a nine-foot Bengal tiger. His stripes shivered as he paced his island. Mama and Aunt Theodora gasped in wonder.

“What is it?” whispered Mama.

“That’s the king, Mama,” said Tony, drawing Elvira into the circle of his arms. “He ain’t scared o’ nothin’.”

“What are you gonna do with him?” asked the old woman.

Tony laughed. “He’s gonna eat my enemies, Mama.”

He turned to Nick the Pig, who looked in his rented tux and ruffled shirt a bit like Charles Laughton. “Hey Nick, throw him his cake.”

Dutifully Nick unwrapped a paper napkin, revealing a sizable chunk of wedding cake. He tossed it across the moat, where it landed just in front of the pacing tiger. The beast gave it a cursory sniff, almost seemed to sneer, and resumed his pacing. “He ain’t hungry, boss,” Nick said.

“Maybe he ain’t ever been to a wedding,” said Tony.

Chi-Chi, who was escorting Aunt Theodora on his arm, piped up: “Hey Tony, let’s throw Nick in. He’ll like that better.”

Aunt Theodora clucked her tongue. “We better not, Chi-Chi,” she said. “Nick the Pig would eat the tiger.”

Everyone laughed. Just then they seemed extraordinarily like a family—all different shapes and sizes, brought together by a blessed event, wanting only the best for each other. In the end Mama was smitten by Elvira, whose laugh was brighter that day than even the coke could make it. She joked with Mama and Aunt Theodora, fresh as a schoolgirl, gay and irreverent. Nobody mentioned coke at all, and it crossed Tony’s mind that for once Elvira was clean. Perhaps it would become a habit. He was wrong, of course—there were dozens of tucks and folds in a bridal gown where a girl could hide her paraphernalia—but he couldn’t be blamed for wishing it so. It was the perfect day for pipe dreams.

They trailed back over the Japanese bridge, leaving the tiger to his deeper hunger. Chi-Chi and Nick the Pig bore the old women away to the dance floor. Tony pulled Elvira off the path and ducked among the banana palms. As he gathered her into his arms, the gown whispering about her, he caught a glint of blue out of the corner of one eye. He turned his head and thought he saw Manolo and Gina disappearing among the trees. But then Elvira drew him back to her, nibbling at his lips, breathing into his mouth.

“Is this the happy ending?” she whispered between kisses.

“No,” said Tony tenderly, “this is just the beginning.”

And they embraced again in the glut of tropical green, the orchids thick around them, the parrots shrieking. It was all a mirage, this paradisal island; but for now, this afternoon, it was lush as the Garden of Eden. They kissed and laughed and kissed again, and they looked in their formal clothes as if they’d escaped from a wedding cake to a place of constant summer. Nothing hunted them. Nothing threatened. Just for a moment they seemed to live in a wilderness all their own.

The Banco Sud di Miami had a beautiful green marble facade that fronted Brickell Avenue. It faced a Barclay’s Bank across the street and fitted securely between Payne Webber on one side and Dreyfuss on the other. The Banco Sud di Miami had only been chartered a year ago, but it was no slouch in the money department, able to hold its own quite well among its tonier neighbors. Even the fireplug on the curb out front was brass.

In the parking lot in back, Tony and Manolo supervised as Chi-Chi and Martin unloaded several duffel bags from a Volkswagen van. A bank guard appeared from the rear of the building, pushing a kind of trolley. The Banco Sud di Miami had had to order these trolleys special. No other bank had ever needed one, not in Miami anyway. Maybe in Vegas, maybe in Jersey they used such things. The duffel bags were piled one by one on the trolley, and Manolo went along as the guard wheeled it back to the counting room. Manolo would have to supervise the counting; it would take hours.

Tony headed into the bank proper and was escorted upstairs to the president’s office. He didn’t have to wait ten seconds before the ebullient man himself appeared to pump his hand. Samuel Taft Eliot Stearns couldn’t have been more than thirty-five. With his razored hair and his SCUBA tan and the snug fit of his Lanvin suit he could have been a movie star; he would have been the first to acknowledge that. He was a man who never stopped thinking money. On weekends he followed the Hong Kong money markets on a terminal in his house, so he would always have a jump on Monday.

He ordered beers for him and Tony. He told a stupid joke. He thought it was he who had called this meeting, that what they were getting around to was what Stearns himself had to say. Perhaps this was why he was so full of upper-class airs this morning. He fiddled with a pipe. He kept stretching one arm and kneading the elbow, unconsciously it seemed, but he acted as if he’d played two hours of tennis before coming in. His bow tie was tight as a drum and wobbled when he swallowed. He was cleaning his glasses, talking about his weekend sail, about to speak man-to-man, when Tony interrupted.

“Sam, I can’t pay this percentage no more. I’m gonna be bringin’ in more than I ever brung in before. I’m talking maybe ten mill a month. Ten percent off the top o’ that’s way outa line. You gotta come down, it’s as simple as that.”

“Can’t do, Tony,” said Stearns, with an irritable shake of his head. He was annoyed at having his thunder stolen. His pipe went out.

“That’s too bad, Sam, ’cause I’ll tell you somethin’. There’s other banks.”

“Hey, Tony, this is not a wholesale store, sellin’ stereos to niggers. The more you bring in, the harder it is to wash. I’m sorry to tell you, but we’ve got to raise our rates.”

Tony stood up and turned to go. It wasn’t that he had so many banks to choose from. Banks were the hard part; Sheffield had made that clear from the first. But right now he figured he’d be better off stashing the whole load in a coffee can under the porch. He was that mad.

“Tony, what am I supposed to do? The IRS is coming down real heavy on all of us. The
Time
cover didn’t help one little bit. I gotta do it, Tony, I got stockholders.” Tony stopped a foot from the door and waited. The deal was about to be proposed. “I gotta go twelve percent on the first ten million. That’s if it’s all in twenties. I’ll go nine percent on tens, six on fives, same as before.”

Tony turned, his lip curled in an arrogant sneer. “Kiss my ass,” he said.

Stearns shrugged and showed his open palms, thick with tennis calluses. “You’re not gonna do any better than us, babe, I’m tellin’ you that right now.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll fly it to the Bahamas if I have to.”

Stearns frowned at such obvious naivete. “You gonna fly it yourself, Tony, on a regular basis? Once maybe. And then what? You gonna trust some monkey in the Bahamian cabinet with twenty million of your hard-earned greenbacks?” He shook his head gently, and his voice grew more and more soothing. “C’mon Tony, don’t be a schmuck. Who else can you trust? Ask Sheffield. That’s why you pay us what you do—because you
trust
us.”

The phone buzzed from the outer office. Stearns flicked a button and took the call. Tony stared at the banker with huge contempt, his mind racing with revenge. Methodically he added Stearns’s name to the list in his head of those who would be sorry. Then just as suddenly a wave of weariness washed over Tony. Taking care of all the money was getting to be more than he could handle. The duffel bags piled up in the stash houses with ludicrous regularity. Millions of dollars in tens and twenties amounted to an enormous volume, and then there was the need of guarding it, getting trustworthy people to count it. The whole thing made Tony crazy—he felt like a two-bit gangster emptying slot machines, the trunk of his car a foot deep in quarters. He had no time any more. He couldn’t keep track of every phase of the operation and do the laundering too. Being rich was beginning to eat him up.

“I should be done here in a second,” said Stearns into the phone. He glanced at his Rolex as he hung up. He smiled at Tony. “So what do you say, Tony? Stay with us, huh? You’re an old and valued customer.” Three months was apparently long enough to make you old at the Banco Sud di Miami.

“Yeah, okay,” said Tony sullenly, his face a mask of indifference.

Stearns grinned. “I knew you’d see it our way,” he said. “Hell, there’s enough for everyone, right?”

Tony lay back in his marble gold-leaf bathtub, a Cuban cigar clenched between his teeth. A color TV was hooked to one side of the tub, a long phone line to the other. Within reach across the terrazzo floor were a stereo console and a portable bar. The bathroom was enormous, with a great baroque chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, mirrored walls, a sauna, a steam room, and a balcony overlooking the zoo. Tony lay there watching television, while Manolo sprawled on the sofa across the room, leafing through the racing sheet. Elvira sat at the vanity next to the balcony doors, slowly painting her eyes.

Tony was watching the Dolphins game, but just now they were into a string of advertisements. John Houseman stood in a college lecture hall, books under his arm, touting the praises of Smith Barney. “They make money the old-fashioned way,” Houseman intoned. “They earn it.”

Tony hit the remote control and snapped it off. “Twelve fuckin’ percent,” he grumbled. “What kinda jerk do they think I am? I remember when we used to knock those places over ’stead of takin’ shit from ’em.”

“They’re too smart,” said Manolo. “They got all the angles figured. You steal it, and then you gotta pay to put it back in.”

“You know what capitalism is, don’t you?” Tony tossed the cigar butt into the toilet. He sounded a bit like John Houseman himself. “Capitalism is Getting Fucked. Everybody gets fucked, ya know? You get fucked in the ass, you get fucked in the face, you get fucked in the ear—”

“God, you’re so articulate,” said Elvira, reaching over from the vanity and grabbing up the remote control. She snapped on the television and flicked the channel to the cable news. She reached for a vial of coke from among her creams and powders. She began to tap out lines on the mirrored surface of the vanity.

“You do too mucha that shit, you know that?” said Tony. He opened the door of the portable bar and pulled out a slip of champagne.

“Nothing exceeds like excess,” said Elvira, bending her swan neck and snorting through a rolled-up fifty. “You should know, Tony. You’re the king of excess.”

“Ex-what?”

“So why don’t we talk to this Jew Seidelbaum?” asked Manolo, folding his paper. “He’s got his own exchange, he goes four percent tops. Besides which he’s real well connected.”

Tony popped the cork and swigged the champagne down like Pepsi. He burped. “Are you kiddin’? He washes for the mob. It’s all Guineas.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “Fuckin’ peasants,” he said. “Hey look, there’s Keyes.”

He pointed to the television. Elvira rolled the volume up. A bespectacled man in a three-piece suit, tall and patrician, was talking to a reporter. He could have been the father of Samuel Taft Eliot Stearns.

“. . . the problem can only be solved the way Prohibition was,” said Keyes. “We must stop outlawing the substances. Once we legalize them, we can start taxing them. That’ll drive out the organized crime.”

“How ’bout the organized crime in the police department?” sneered Manolo, shooting the bird at the TV set.

“As a U.S. attorney, Connie,” said Keyes, his voice getting breathy like a politician, “I can only tell you it’s like having your finger in the dike, down here in South Florida anyway. We can’t put a dent in a hundred-billion-dollar-a-year business, not with our budget . . .”