Welcome to Paradise (25 page)

Big Al went crawling after it. He was about
to grab it when a pair of long bare legs moved in to block his
path.

Katy Sansone lifted up a high-heeled sandal
and kicked him in the face. He saw the shoe hurtling toward him and
then he felt his nose cave in, spiky shards intruding on his
passages. Like a half-crushed bug he tried to keep on crawling,
swimming toward the knife, but Al Tuschman had him by the feet,
pulled him back across the lacerating shells.

The desperate and preposterous tug-of-war
went on for several seconds, then Nicky Scotto sauntered over and,
with a wagging pistol, called it off. Dryly, he said, "Amateur
wrestling. Tag-team. Very entertaining."

Big Al lifted his neck and rolled his eyes
way up like in a painting of a saint, saw Nicky's gun poised not
far above his head. He tried to speak but blood and mucus had
pooled in his throat and for the moment he could only gurgle. He
kicked his legs and made a reflexive attempt at standing.

Nicky cocked the hammer of his pistol. "Don't
bother getting up," he said. "You'll only fall back down
again."

That's when the truck came tearing around the
back side of the snack bar.

It whined and roared, its tires spitting
gravel out behind as it rocked on the uneven ground. Glowing softly
in the moonlight, the writing on the trailer said LOWER KEYS
SEAFOOD COMPANY—EAT FISH LIVE LONGER. Through a glaring silver
starburst on the windshield, Squid could just barely be seen,
manically grinning, spasmodically swallowing. He drove straight at
Big Al.

"Jesus Christ," said Nicky, as everybody
scattered.

Al Marracotta, his back to the screaming
vehicle, crawled and reared and scrabbled to his knees but was
flattened by the fender and pounded like a cutlet by the left front
tire. It crushed his ribs; the doubled rear wheels wrung his
innards out like sponges, made them into paste. He twitched once
like a shocked frog, and after that was still.

The truck's momentum carried it another fifty
yards. It came to a skidding halt on the coral rubble and slowly
turned around. Squid paused a moment then revved it high in first,
slammed it into second.

"The motherfucker's crazy," Nicky said,
though it would be another moment before he realized that the
seafood truck was coming back for him.

He didn't realize that until the truck had
veered so that its hood ornament was pointing squarely at his face.
Disbelieving still, he yelled out, "Hey!" And when the truck did
not change course, he raised his gun and shot the windshield
out.

Squid Berman, hunkered down beneath the
dashboard, reveled in the spray of broken glass.

Nicky Scotto fired again, this time murdering
the radiator, and then he started running, his stiff, cheap jacket
flying out behind. He took off over humps and mounds, past headless
speaker posts sprouting bouquets of disconnected wires. Squid
dogged him like a cowboy, pivoting and leaning, motor whining like
a whinnying horse. Nicky ran along the contour of a mound, seemed
for a deranged moment to be racing across the drive-in screen.
Finally, legs heavy, breath failing, he turned around to fire once
more. The bullet exploded a sideview mirror; but after that, winded
and dispirited, the doomed man could hardly do more than jog.

The truck caught up with him but failed to
run him over. It somehow lifted him behind the knees and waffled
him against the grille, broken but alive. A disembodied hand raised
up grotesquely, wagged a moonlit gun above the level of the hood.
Squid Berman floored the truck and headed for a speaker post, used
Nicky Scotto's body as a ram to knock it down. The pistol went off
skyward as his back was snapped and his lifeless body rolled in its
horrendous suit down a hump of shells and coral.

"I wasn't afraid! I wasn't afraid!" Al
Tuschman had said to Katy in the moment before his knees had
buckled and he'd crumpled slowly to the ground.

He sat there now, his back against the Jag,
his eyes tracking with a dreadful fascination the homicides by
seafood truck. Katy sat near him, dabbing his cut shoulder with a
hankie. Fifi smelled her master's precious blood; full of worry and
compassion, she wouldn't stop licking his hand.

Chop nonchalantly kept his gun pointed at the
captives as he watched his partner run people down.

Then Squid drove back across the humps and
mounds and screeched to a stop half a dozen feet away. The truck's
windshield consisted now of several snaggled shards quaking in the
frame. Antifreeze was dribbling from below and the engine was
already smoking. The driver jumped down from the cab, arms
twitching, tongue busy at the corners of his mouth.

"Nice work," Chop said to him.

Modest and not completely satisfied, Squid
said only, "Aawh."

He did a little pirouette, then pulled his
pistol from the waistband of his pants, and for a few moments he
paced intently back and forth in front of Al and Katy. Moonlight
rained down and a smell of damp rubber rose up from Big Al
Marracotta's corpse. Whenever Squid changed the direction of his
pacing, his feet broke some seashells and they made a crispy
sound.

Finally he paused, leaned low before his
captives, and barked right into their faces, "I fucking hate to
make mistakes!"

He sprang into motion once again, and added,
"It's like noisy, cockeyed, out of tune. Depressing. Ya see what
I'm saying?"

Cautiously, Al and Katy nodded.

"Coulda been a masterpiece, this job," the
bandy man continued. "Had everything. Theme. Shape. Room ta
improvise. Instead I hadda backtrack and erase. And now I got these
extra pieces."

"Extra pieces?" said Al Tuschman.

"You, numbnuts."

A puff of breeze made the tilting movie
screen groan on its moldy pilings. Squid kept on pacing and Fifi
kept swiveling her head to track him. After a time he stopped
again, crouched down, and put the muzzle of the gun very close to
Alan Tuschman's forehead. He said, "Lemme ask you a fairly
important question. Tell me what you did tonight."

A little cross-eyed, Al said, "Huh?"

"You deaf?"

Katy said, "We checked out of our hotel.
Rented a car. Drove up to South Beach."

"Meet anyone? See anything unusual along the
way?"

"Nobody," said Katy. "Nothing."

"Nothing at all," Al Tuschman blithely
said.

"Then how'dya cut your shoulder?"

"Umm ..."

"Lover's quarrel," Katy said. "Nobody's
business."

Squid considered that a moment, then he
started pacing once again. In his pacing was the torment of the
artist before a canvas that simply would not come together.
Sighing, he said at last, "Look, it bothers me ta have ta kill ya.
But come on. After what you saw? Nicky woulda took you out. Big Al
woulda took you out."

"And look where it got them," said Katy.

"Not the point," said Squid.

He did his anguished laps. Chop, impatient,
started slapping his gun against his other palm. Al Tuschman's
mouth went very dry.

After a moment Katy said, "But we're the ones
who did it."

Squid said, "What?"

"Mind if I get up?"

She unfolded very smoothly, brushed coral
dust from the backs of her legs. Slowly and deliberately, she moved
toward the truck. With Squid right behind her, she climbed into the
driver's seat, firmly wrapped her hands around the steering wheel.
Then, through the vacant windshield, she called out, "Tusch—pick up
the knife."

The salesman rose on shaky legs, found Big Al
Marracotta's blade against the pale, rough stones, squeezed the
handle in his palm.

Katy said to Squid. "Nice clear
fingerprints." She pointed to Al's bloody shoulder. "Signs of a
struggle. Stormy history with the deceased. Love triangle gone
wrong."

Squid did a crunching pirouette and thought
it over. Then he jerked a thumb in the direction of the other
corpse. "And Nicky?"

"Showed up in the wrong place at the wrong
time."

Squid scrunched up his mouth. "Sloppy."

"Hey," said Katy, "jobs sometimes have extra
pieces, right? Besides, it's still easier to believe than what
really happened."

"That's a point," the bandy man conceded.

"I ran these guys over," she said. "To save
Tusch, who was fighting with the knife. Are we going to the
cops?"

Squid pawed the ground, swallowed deeply,
pulled his ear. Finally he looked at Chop.

Chop rubbed his stumpy neck, said, "I got
nothin' against these people, long as they don't get stupid."

Squid licked extra wetness from the corners
of his mouth, said to no one in particular, "Would blow the
symmetry, we waste the extra pieces."

"Wouldn't be symmetrical at all," said Alan
Tuschman. "Would be like both end tables on the same side of the
couch."

Squid told him to shut up.

Feigning confidence, Katy got down from the
truck. She tried not to let it show that she was trembling as she
offered Squid her back.

But he'd made up his mind. He didn't shoot
her. He made a moist noise protesting all the world's rough edges,
all the bumps and snags that mocked perfection. Then he put the
pistol in the waistband of his pants and started walking toward the
Jag.

Chop seemed to remember something then. He
opened the passenger door, reached into the glove box, and
retrieved a crumpled piece of paper. He handed it to Al.

Al couldn't read it in the moonlight.

"Pick-up order from Sun Motors," Chop
explained. "Driver's signature. Proves they came and got your car.
They had it, they lost it, they owe you a new one. . . . Myself, I
think it looks better in navy."

He went around to the driver's side, climbed
in, and started up the engine. Squid settled into the passenger
seat and propped a bandy forearm on the window frame. "And get a
different license plate," he said.

Al nodded that he would, then moved close to
Katy in the moonlight. The shih tzu wiggled among their ankles and
wagged its tail. They looked at the car that was about to pull
away, and the tableau, in some unlikely manner, suggested a
reluctant parting of old friends.

Almost sheepishly, Squid said, "Hey, no hard
feelings, huh? Sorry ta fuck up your vacation."

"Ya didn't fuck it up," Al Tuschman
volunteered.

"I didn't?" In spite of himself he sounded
disappointed.

"Just made it sort of different," the
salesman from New Jersey said. He took Katy's hand, took it in the
serious way, with all the fingers interlinked. "Made it more a
mission, kind of."

"Poor Nicky" said Donnie Falcone as he hung
up the pay phone in the social club on Prince Street and moved
languidly back toward the table he was sharing with his uncle and
their dying
consigliere
.

"Stupid Nicky," Tony Eggs corrected.

Donnie came forth with a rueful little laugh,
gave his chin a squeeze. "Yeah, not the sharpest knife inna drawer"
he said. "Pretty easy ta string 'im along." He sat down and
reclaimed his glass of anisette. "
Salud
."

Salud
. Health. Carlo Ganucci's
eyeballs were bright yellow and the skin of his neck was blue. Tony
Eggs had kidney stones and his teeth were loose in their sockets.
The two old men joined in the toast.

Shaking his head, Donnie went on. "Right from
the start, I knew that all I hadda do was give 'im advice th'
opposite a what I really wanted. I tell 'im don't even think about
takin' the market back, right away that's all he thinks about."

"He wanted that job bad," Tony Eggs put in,
and could not help smiling, showing mottled gums. "Ya shoulda seen
the dumb fuck stomp his suit."

"I tell 'im don't even think about goin' ta
Flahda," Donnie said, "right away I know damn well he's goin'."

Carlo Ganucci roused himself to say, "But
howd'ya know who he was workin' wit' down 'ere?"

Donnie laughed. "I asked him. Casual like. He
tells me guy who does cars in Hialeah. Then it's no problem gettin'
in touch through our people in Miami."

Tony Eggs tugged at the fraying collar of his
plain white shirt. "An' once ya got in touch," he said, "ya knew
how ta get the best work from these people. One guy likes ta hijack
trucks, ya let 'im grab a truck. Th' other guy has this thing, he
wants ta do the job wit' seafood, ya let 'im do it wit' seafood. Ya
motivated 'em good."

"Didn't hurt," said Donnie, "that I paid 'em
double what Nicky was."

"Aaw, the money's overrated," Tony said.
"Point is, you're a natural manager. This is why you're gonna do
brilliant wit' the market."

Donnie made an attempt at sounding humble.
"I'll try,
zio
. Ya know I'll do my best."

Tony Eggs patted his beloved nephew's cheek.
"An' 'iss way," he said, "no one can accuse me playin' favorites. I
tried two other guys. My fault they turned out ta be assholes? My
fault they took each other out? Am I right, or am I right,
Carlo?"

The old consigliere smiled faintly at the
intrigue. He blinked. It took him a long time to get his crinkled
and translucent eyelids to roll back up again.

"But here's one thing I still don't get,"
Tony Eggs resumed. "I know ya worked a deal wit' our people inna
Catskills ta get inta that kitchen . . . but howd'ya poison the
clams?"

Donnie leaned in a little closer. "Raw
chicken."

"Raw chicken?"

"Took a chicken," Donnie said. "Left it out a
coupla days. Got that whaddyacallit, salmonella, going. Took a
brush, stuck it up the chicken's ass, dabbed a little funky juice
on all the clams. Simple."

The old boss shook his head admiringly,
showed his long loose teeth. "Salmonella. Beautiful." His nephew
was the right guy for the job. He had no doubt of it. He raised his
glass to the fish market's new regime. "
Salud
."