Scarface (30 page)

A big banquet was set out among the trees that fronted the beach, and the three of them had a long and lazy lunch, drinking pitchers of margaritas with the circus people. After lunch they all three mounted the horse, Gina in front and Elvira in the middle and Tony in back, and the clowns led them through a grove of sea pines. The trees were full of birds wintering like pensioners. At the edge of a fresh water pond they passed the ruin of an old stone house, and Gina shouted: “That’s where we’ll all live some day! Okay?”

“Okay!” chorused Tony and Elvira.

And later on he nuzzled his face against Elvira’s neck and whispered: “I ain’t said fuck once today. You still mad at me?”

“No,” she whispered back. “And besides, you can say it once in a while. As long as you really mean it.”

All the way back to the beach he couldn’t keep his hands off her. She was cradled tight against him, plus there was the rhythm of the horse moving sinuously beneath them. Tony got very hard, and he stroked her thighs and rubbed up against her buttocks. Elvira didn’t mind at all, in fact it turned her on. But Gina was right there, cradled between Elvira’s own thighs, so she elbowed Tony in the gut to make him stop. This only made him more horny and more playful.

Gina didn’t notice. She was holding on to the horse’s mane for dear life, singing a Cuban love song full of fatal love and final kisses. Tony joined in on the choruses, breathing the words into his wife’s ear, drunk on the sweat of her, all mixed up with lemon and roses.

When they reached the beach again, the circus people were packing up their boxes, ferrying them out to the seaplanes. The Key Largo cowboy who’d rented them out the horse was pacing impatiently, waiting to lead him away. The leopard was nailed in his cage. They got off the horse and blinked around at the disappearing dream. Tony was so impatient to make love to Elvira that he hardly noticed. The women noticed.

It was still mid-afternoon, bright and dazzling, when they scampered up from the launch onto the boat. Gina, dark as Tahiti already from a day outside, laid out her mat on the roof of the main cabin so she could sunbathe all the way home. Tony pulled Elvira inside, through the main lounge and down to the master bedroom. Elvira grabbed her bag on the way, and as Tony tore the spread from the bed and pulled off his clothes, she drew out her vial of cocaine and began to tap out lines on the bedside table.

“Hey honey,” he said, “don’t do none o’ that, okay?” She didn’t even answer him but kept on tapping, four lines altogether. His voice hardened. “Elvira, you don’t need that.”

“Hey, give me a break, huh?” She was cheerful as hell and feeling just terrific. She drew a half-straw from her wallet. “I haven’t even had any yet.” Today, she meant, as she bent and tooted two lines.

Tony stood rigid across the bed, naked and hard, clenching and unclenching his fists as if they were taped for a fight. She stood up and spun around, then tossed off her dress in a single wonderful shrug. She came around the bed laughing, wearing a skimpy black lace bra and panties. She looked like a million bucks. Of course he couldn’t stay mad at her, his hunger was too great. As he unhooked the bra she was gasping for it. She pulled him close and rubbed her panties against his swelling cock.

“Wanna fuck?” she asked, her green eyes glinting with laughter.

He lifted her up and set her down on the bed, so lightly it felt like tumbling into water. He drew off the panties; they hissed as they slid down her legs. He bent and kissed along her inner thigh, beginning to grunt with hunger now. His lips grazed between her legs, his tongue snaking out to probe, and she groaned and gripped his hair. She was already wet. He drank her in.

When at last he moved up her body, nibbling at her flesh, she was crying softly, stung with pleasure, spent somehow though they’d barely started. She bit at his lips and whispered his name. No matter how much they squabbled—hurling accusations, seething with contempt—the trouble always vanished when they were in bed. Wild to kiss, deeper and deeper, they moaned in each other’s mouth. She dug her nails in his shoulder blades, begging for him. He could feel her burning body quivering beneath him, and as he entered her slowly she arched up against him, whimpering with desire, rolling her head back and forth on the pillow.

They were lousy at living together. They fought like a cat and a dog, and they couldn’t seem to get out of each other’s way. Sometimes it didn’t look as if they could last another minute. But they made it up in spades at a time like this, and they knew it. They were twinned like a force of nature, tidal as the sea that rocked them. Over and over he brought her up to a pitch, till they were both balanced on a knife-edge. They went on and on, shifting places like a couple of dancers, the sweat pouring out of them. It was as if they had to reach some awesome height in order not to forget. Sex was the only thing they still had left that made them prince and princess. They came staring into each other’s eyes, blinding clear like the light on the water, seamless as the shore.

And when at last they lay exhausted, shipwrecked in one another’s arms, they stroked each other lazily and played out all their dreams. They talked about kids, and within ten minutes they’d peopled their lives with three or four, boys mostly, running around and laughing in the walled-in yard, growing up clean and easy. Then Elvira ran down a list of all the places she wanted to see, from the Scottish coast to the Vale of Kashmir. She had a secret wish to be constantly in motion, roaming about the world in a boat like this, without a schedule, without any destination. She slipped to the side of the bed and did another stiff toot. This time he joined her.

“Some day,” Tony said, “we’re gonna have places all over the place, just like Sosa. California, the Riviera, apartment in New York, you name it. Stick with me, we’ll have a place in China before we’re through. And hey, Gina can come with us, huh?”

He tickled her under her ribs, and they rolled on the bed and wrestled till she pleaded for a truce. Tony reached for the phone and dialed the steward, ordering up a couple of iced coffees. When he turned back she was sitting cross-legged, her head tilted as she studied him. He suddenly felt very naked, as if there was something she could see in him he couldn’t see himself. He moved toward her to kiss her, almost as if to silence her, but she held him back gently and said:

“You have to let her go, you know.”

“Who, Gina? She’s only nineteen.
Somebody
’s gotta watch her.”

“Let her go, Tony. She’s got a good heart. Let her ask if she wants some help.”

“Yeah, well mind your own business, okay? I don’t want her growin’ up like you, you know. Fuckin’ every gangster in town.”

He didn’t mean it to sound as hard as it did, and he turned away embarrassed. She winced slightly, feeling it more somehow than she did when they were at home, brawling at each other across the bedroom. As if on cue they both moved to put some clothes on. He got up off the bed and went to the dresser and pulled out swimming trunks. She reached to the floor for her bra and panties.

“I’m gonna go catch some rays,” he said, moving toward the door, one eye shyly watching Elvira as she slipped back into her underwear.

“Hey, thanks for the circus,” she said, bending once more to tap out lines.

He paused with the door open, looking back at her. He was filled with an inexpressible sorrow, to think he could not hold on to the truce they’d reached on the desert island. Would he have to provide a circus every time they pulled too far apart? How many circuses were there? She looked up with a wistful smile of her own, and they nodded, as if to say they would both go easy. But as he closed the door behind him and padded up on deck, neither could have said for sure exactly what it was they’d lost.

They’d had it there for a minute.

Nick the Pig was frantic. He stood in the doorway of the greenhouse, talking to Manolo on the phone. “Hey Manny, I was just playin’ with it, y’know? It flew outa the cage. How’m I supposed to know the Malayan sun bear likes parrots for lunch?”

An empty birdcage lay on its side on the parquet. Through a chain-link fence just opposite, Nick watched as the sun bear licked its paws. Feathers still clung to its underjaw.

“What the hell you want me to do about it?” Manolo asked through the phone.

“Tony’s gonna kill me, Manny. That’s a ten-thousand-dollar bird!”

Nick, it had turned out, was an amateur naturalist. He liked nothing better than to feed the animals in Tony’s zoo. A professional keeper was on duty three days a week, but Nick took up the slack, flinging steaks to the tiger, sardines to the flamingos, handfuls of grain to the birds. Tony and Elvira were spending the day out on the boat. Nick was in hog heaven, wandering through the cages, letting the birds perch on his shoulders. Then catastrophe struck.

“Goddamnit Nick,” said Manolo, “there’s a hundred different birds out there.
He
can’t tell ’em apart no more. Forget it.”

“It’s terrible, just terrible,” Nick said soberly, shaking his head.

And out in the street about a hundred yards away, in a steel-gray van with tinted windows, two men in earphones huddled over a console where a tape was running. The two men looked at each other strangely as they listened to Nick and Manolo.

“Tell him the bird flew out the fuckin’ window,” said Manolo with annoyance. Then he hung up.

The tape in the van clicked off. The two wiretappers looked at each other with a thrill of excitement. One said: “Something’s gone wrong. Let’s call the chief.” And like a couple of kids they threw off the earphones and scrambled for the walkie-talkie.

Tony was at the wheel of his new white Corniche. Manolo sat beside him, scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad as Tony ticked off a hundred things that needed attending to. They glided along the lush and winding streets of Coral Gables. The cypresses hung low, their trunks and outer branches wreathed in Spanish moss. Most of the houses were nestled behind high stone walls and imposing gates. Tony was rattling off figures to give to Sosa as he made the turn on the avenue, heading toward his house.

All of a sudden he said: “Hey Manolo, d’you sweep the house like I told you?”

“Yeah, sure. Last month. The cars too. Set us back five thousand.” He went on making notes.

“What about Seidelbaum?”

“All set,” said Manolo. “Next Thursday at ten. We’re doing a million and some change. I’ll take Nick with me.”

“No, I’ll handle it. You go up to Atlanta for me, handle the Gomez delivery.”

“Why?” Manolo sounded wounded. “Listen, I set Seidelbaum up—”

“ ’Cause you’re a lousy negotiator, that’s why.” Tony slowed the car to make the turn in the driveway. “See that cable truck?”

Manolo followed his pointing finger. A panel truck was parked across the street. “Yeah, what about it?”

“Hey, chico, since when does it take three days to rig a cable system, huh?”

Manolo’s eyes narrowed. “What are you thinkin’? Cops?”

“Who knows,” said Tony with a shrug. “Maybe it’s the Diaz Brothers. Maybe they’re plannin’ to rip us off.” He sounded like he didn’t really care. It was just another stupid hassle.

“Don’t worry, I’ll check it out.”

“Yeah, you check it out. Then we’re gonna blow that fuckin’ truck to Bogota.” Tony nudged the Rolls up close to the double iron gate, so the wall cameras could sweep them.

“Listen, they’re probably buggin’ one o’ the neighbors,” said Manolo. “We’re not the only dopers livin’ on the block, y’know.”

“Hey, don’t get casual, chico. Casual means you’re dead.” The gates began to swing wide. An armed guard appeared and nodded at Tony.

Manolo was steamed. “I told you I’d check it out, didn’t I? Look, we’re spending too much on this counter-surveillance shit. Seven percent—that’s seven percent of adjusted gross. It’s like Fort Knox in here!”

But Tony wasn’t listening. He was staring into the rearview mirror, following something with his eyes. The gates were wide open in front of him. The guard was patiently waiting for him to drive on through. Tony said: “See that fat guy?”

Manolo craned around and saw a jogger trotting by along the sidewalk. Very civilian-looking, mid-fifties, dressed in an aquamarine sweatsuit.

“I been seein’ him for a week now,” said Tony. “Everyday. Just joggin’ around.”

“So what? He’s just some dentist or somethin’. Big fat ass, big deal.”

A second armed guard had now appeared. They stood on either side of the Rolls, watching the street like hawks. Tony said: “But how do you
know
that, chico? The FBI’s got fat guys too.”

“Hey, Tony, if he’s a cop, don’t you think running in circles around a house is a pretty dumb way to watch it?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Tony gunned the Corniche through the gates, churning the gravel. The guards stayed to cover the street as the gates swung slowly shut. Tony’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. He was very, very agitated. “I’m tellin’ you we’re gettin’ sloppy. Our whole attitude. We’re not fuckin’
hungry
any more!”

He swept up the long curved drive to the enormous pillared house. A pair of white peacocks went skittering onto the lawn as he zoomed past. Manolo said nothing and sat there sullen. He never knew what to say any more. Whatever he said, Tony was ready to jump him. A gulf was beginning to yawn between them, and they had no time for building bridges. Or maybe no desire.

It was a warehouse just off an exit of the Palmetto Expressway, indistinguishable from most of the buildings for half a mile on either side. A name was stenciled across the corrugated metal: CONSOLIDATED CARRIERS, INC. The name meant nothing, of course, but then neither did most of the corporate titles that stared down dully from the warehouse signs. The white Corniche looked most improbable as it threaded its way over railroad sidings, past the hulks of burnt-out trucks and rusted dumpsters.

Tony drew up close to the warehouse and parked. Nick went around to the trunk and retrieved the duffel bag, which he lugged across to the entrance as if it was a body. Tony pressed a buzzer above the door three times—the signal worked out by Manolo—and it was opened right away by a small, slug-faced man with pale green eyes like grapes. This was Seidelbaum himself, and he stood on no ceremony at all, barely murmuring hello to Tony as he bent to help Nick pull the money in.