Welcome to Paradise (21 page)

Upstairs, he sat down on the bed and tried
not to realize he was nervous. He studied the telephone, silently
rehearsed. The words, the tone of voice—it had to be exactly right.
He breathed deep and dialed Tony Eggs' social club.

An underling answered. The underling was
allowed to pass along the call only as far as Carlo Ganucci.

The old
consigliere
got on the line
and said hello.

"Carlo!" said Big Al, bearing down to put
some Florida sunshine in his voice. "How are ya?"

Ganucci's eyeballs had turned yellow and he
was down to 115 pounds. He wasn't sure what was killing him but he
knew that he was dying. He said, "Fine. How're you?"

"Tan. Rested. Fabulous," said Big Al. "Tony
there?"

Carlo tried to do his job. "Zere a message I
can give 'im?"

"Please," said Al. "I'd really like to talk
to 'im myself."

There was a pause. Ganucci figured that Tony
probably didn't want to be bothered with this call, but resisting,
arguing, took more strength than he could spare. He padded off to
get the boss.

The line was vacant for what seemed to Al a
very long time. He strove to keep his concentration. Be upbeat, he
told himself. Cheerful. Strong.

Finally Tony Eggs picked up the phone. He
didn't say hello. He said, "So how's the weather down in
Flahda?"

The sarcasm put a ding in Big Al's
confidence. But he had a game plan and he stuck to it. "Beautiful,"
he said. "Incredible. But listen—"

"What ya got left down there?" Tony
interrupted. "Two days? T'ree?"

"This is why I'm callin'," said Big Al. "I
mean, it's great down here—the sun, the palm trees. But, hey, I got
responsibilities. You got, like, a situation up there. I'm a guy
does the right thing. So I'm comin' back early. Leavin' today."

Tony didn't answer right away. Big Al knew
why. He was impressed. Grateful. Maybe even touched. Didn't know
exactly what to say. Al basked in the silence, knowing that things
had worked out for the best and he was scoring a lot of points.

At last Tony said, "Don't bother."

Big Al squirmed against the rumpled sheets.
"Excuse me?"

"Don't bother. Take your time. Enjoy
yourself."

Al squeezed out half a laugh that sounded
sick. "Hey, that's nice a you, but my mind's made up. Where things
stand wit' the market—"

"The market isn't your concern no more."

"What?" He jumped down from the bed, wrapped
himself in phone cord.

Tony Eggs was very calm. "It isn't yours no
more. I gave it back ta Nicky."

Numbly, Big Al echoed, "Gave it back to
Nicky? Just like that?"

Tony said nothing.

"After the fuckin' job I did for you?"

"You did okay, Al," Tony Eggs conceded. "But
your time there, it was, like, a tryout."

"A tryout? A fucking tryout? No one ever said
anything about it bein' a tryout."

Tony put a shrug in his voice. "Well, that's
what it was."

"Sonofabitch!"

"And inna meantime, Nicky convinced me just
how bad he wanted it. Me, I like a guy who's hungry."

Big Al took tiny steps that led him in a
circle. "I can't believe I'm hearin' 'iss."

"Believe it, Al," said Tony. "No hard
feelins, huh?"

Marracotta tried and failed to keep a note of
pleading out of his voice. "Don't do this ta me, Tony!"

"Enjoy the resta your vacation."

Big Al heard the phone click in his ear. He
held the receiver at arm's length and stared at it a moment. His
first impulse was to bash it against the wall, but he was suddenly
too drained to do it. He replaced it gently in its cradle, sat down
softly on the high edge of the bed.

In the social club on Prince Street, Tony
Eggs Salento turned to his favorite nephew, Donnie Falcone.

Donnie said, "Thought fast on that one,
zio
."

Sorrowfully and mordantly the old boss shook
his head. "Those guys are both such fuckin' losers."

*

In the courtyard at Paradise, Al and Katy
had slept for hours as the other couples and the European threesome
woke up and breakfasted, as the sun rose higher and tested their
parasol of leaves and fronds.

They slept until the crisscrossed straps of
their lounges had impressed their pattern on legs and arms and
faces, and they now awoke among naked people basted with sunblock,
breathing air perfumed with coconut and chlorine.

Katy yawned and stretched and rubbed the
corners of her mouth. "Delicious sleep," she slurred. "Needed it.
Delicious."

Cottony and not quite awake, carrying over
some refrain from a vanished dream, Al Tuschman blinked at her and
mumbled words that were mashed by the weight of his cheek against
the lounge. "Mishin tibby hoppy."

"Hmm?"

With effort he rose up on a crampy elbow.
Fifi squirted out from underneath his lounge and tried to lick his
chin. He said, "People kept saying it to me when I first got here.
'Mission to be happy.' 'Happiness our mission.' Sounded stupid
then."

Katy came up on an elbow, too, and rearranged
her blouse. "And now?"

He yawned and pulled his eyebrows close
together. "Person doesn't just change," he said. "Score the basket.
Close the sale. Ya know, those are missions."

"But you didn't answer the question," Katy
pointed out.

"Yeah, I know I didn't," he admitted.
Absently, he tugged his lower lip. The air felt great. Someone
dunked in the pool and the water made a beautiful sound. Lizards
clung to croton branches and billowed out their ruby throats. Al
Tuschman gave an embarrassed little laugh. " Ya know," he said, "I
think I sort of half believe it."

Katy reached across the space between their
lounges and touched his hair. She didn't mean to do it; it just
happened. His hair was dense and springy and a little moist from
the heat of sleep. She quickly pulled her hand away and spoke
immediately, as though to erase the fact that the touch had
happened. "Mind I take a shower?"

He nodded and lay down flat again, thinking
about her fingers in his hair, trying to forget that someone out
there had in mind to make a dumb mistake and murder him. She went
to the bungalow. The housekeeper apparently had been too shocked or
baffled to make the bed. The stuffed fish, its blue and silver fin
unfurled, still had its nose deeply buried in the mattress. Katy
pulled it out. The nose offered a fair bit of resistance and made a
creaking, scratching sound as it was withdrawn. The puncture in the
sheet was neat and round.

She put the trophy on the dresser, then
straightened out the tortured blanket and folded it neatly at the
foot of the bed. At first she didn't know why she was bothering to
do those things just then.

She stepped into the thatch enclosure and had
a long warm shower.

When she went outside again, she was wearing
a bathrobe that Al did not immediately recognize as his. The
sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, the lapels were wrapped
modestly around her throat. Her hair was wet and combed straight
back and she hadn't bothered to put on makeup. She sat down on her
lounge so that her knees were level with Al's chest.

He had to say something, so he said, "Nice
shower?"

She didn't answer that. She said, "Tusch, I
think it's time. Don't you?"

He knew what she was saying but he needed to
be absolutely sure he knew. He'd started down the gallant path, and
they probably should have fled by now, and as the hours passed he
knew he should be getting more afraid; but he couldn't say or do a
thing until he was absolutely certain what this tall young woman in
his bathrobe was saying to him. So he just stared at her a
moment.

She reached out and touched his hair again.
"Time," she said again. "For us. Don't'cha think?"

Nicky Scotto's plane was just then landing
in Miami, settling onto a tire-scarred runway that shimmered in the
heat of afternoon.

In his sticky suit he hurried through the
terminal, past pyramids of plastic oranges and mobs of South
Americans checking in with televisions and Pampers boxes, and
caught the jumper flight to Key West. It was a short flight but the
attendant went through twice with drinks. People traveling in tank
tops wolfed beers and margaritas out of cans, getting ready to be
loud and silly.

Nicky thumbed a magazine, then looked out the
window as the small plane started its descent. Where the flats
began, the water of the Gulf thinned out from indigo to milky
green; tide-scoured channels branched and meandered among the
splotchy russet and maroon of coral heads. Colonies of mangrove
sprouted inexplicably; gradually they thickened into islands,
scraps of forest with their feet in swamps. Beautiful, thought
Nicky. Lots of places to dump a body.

He caught a taxi at the airport and went
straight to Chop's motel.

In the still-searing sun of four o'clock, he
climbed a flight of outdoor stairs then knocked on the hollow,
rotting door of the hired killers' room. The door was opened by a
heavily sweating guy in a sleeveless T-shirt. Veins stood out on
his neck and arms.

Nicky said, "You must be Squid."

"That's right," said the bandy man. He didn't
offer his hand and he didn't smile.

Nicky tried a compliment. "Always heard good
things about your work."

"When I get to do it," Squid said dryly.
"Come in, ya want. I'm doin' calisthenics."

Nicky stepped over the threshold, closed the
door behind him. Ignoring the guest, Squid dropped to the ratty
carpet, started doing push-ups, the kind where you clap between
each one.

"Where's Chop?" asked Nicky, sitting on a
damp and musky unmade bed.

"He's doin' somethin'," grunted the man on
the floor.

"He's workin' for me," said Nicky. "What's he
doin'?"

"I don't really know," said Squid. He rolled
onto his back and started doing sit-ups.

"I fuckin' told him when I'd be here," Nicky
said.

Squid didn't bother answering that, and
Nicky's irritation ripened quickly in the steamy climate. His two
great hit men. One didn't have the decency to be there to greet
him, and the other was an exercise freak who was giving him
attitude. Where was the respect? Adding to his annoyance, the room
was broiling hot and stank of mildew. He took off his jacket. His
thin gray turtleneck was wet under the arms and along the spine.
"This dump ain't got AC?"

Squid was curled up like a bug, hands behind
his head, his left elbow reaching for his right knee. "While I'm
sweated up?" he said. "You crazy?"

Nicky rose, started walking toward the
bathroom to throw cold water on his face. Halfway there, his very
fragile patience disappeared. "Am I crazy?" he said. "You wanna
take a guy out wit' a stuffed fish hangin' on a wall, and you ask
me if I'm crazy?"

Squid kept on with his crunches. With a quiet
but implacable resentment, he said, "All I know is, ya hire guys to
do a job, y'oughta let 'em do the job."

Nicky stood right over Squid. "Look, you seem
to be forgetting whose job this is. For what I'm payin' you—"

Squid did not like looking at Nicky's crotch
and up his nose. He sat and swiveled on his haunches. "You think
this is about the money?"

Scotto was stumped by the question. What else
could it be about?

"Fuck the money!" Squid went on, sitting
lotus-style on the floor. "This is about symmetry. Completion."

Nicky blinked at him, scratched his ear,
resumed his journey toward the bathroom.

"Fuck the money!" Squid repeated to his back.
"The money for this hit, which now you're making about as elegant
as a Kotex, fuhget about it. All I want's my per diem."

Nicky turned around. "Your per fucking
what?"

The door opened. Light rolled into the room
like a giant wedge of yellow cheese. Chop stepped in behind it and
Nicky jumped right down his throat. "Where you fucking been?"

Unfazed, Chop said, "Picking out a spot. Ya
know, for later. You guys been gettin' ta know each other?"

*

Big Al Marracotta had sat for a long time on
the high edge of his hotel bed, sat there stunned, like a man amid
the charred and tangled wreckage of what used to be his house. Too
fast for sanity to track, everything was gone. Work; power; status;
sex life—vanished. Just another aging middle-level wise guy once
again. He stared at the wall and tried to get used to the idea.

Eventually he rose on numb legs and showered.
He barely felt the water on his skin or the brisk rub of the
towel.

Hiding in a hotel bathrobe, he walked in
absent circles around his suite, tried out different armchairs. He
noticed vaguely that the light outside was changing, turning
golden. Soon it would be sunset. The big event of every day. Some
event! Then again, at least it could not be taken away. In a morbid
mood of anti-celebration, he decided he would leave his room to
drink champagne as the sun was going down.

He got dressed. Stepped into sharkskin pants
and, by force of habit, tucked his slender knife inside his sock
before putting on his shoes. He combed his half-inch helmet of
salt-and-pepper hair and headed for the rooftop bar.

Big Al was not a sentimental guy, had always
moved too fast for nostalgia to catch up with him. Riding the
elevator, smelling the sea, whose tang penetrated even to the
airshaft, he didn't realize he was acting out an unamusing parody
of his first evening in Key West. Reliving the sunset of just a few
short days ago, when he'd been a big shot and a lover. Going back
to the beginning, as though he could start vacation over and get it
right this time.

*

Katy and Al Tuschman lay beneath the
punctured blanket on the punctured bed and talked about their
plans.

"Maybe South Beach for a coupla days," said
Al. "Rent a car and drive right up."