One Big Joke

by Laurence Shames

  “Look, man, woman, I’m trying to get a deal done. And it so happens that the woman in question is as tough and stubborn as any man I know.”

  “That don’t make her not a woman,” Peppers said. “We got our standards, Mr. Clifton.”

  “Our self-respect,” said Carmine, puffing out his chest.

  While this discussion of the finer points of chivalry was underway, Bert was pursuing his own thoughts, and the process was causing him anguish. A woman? A tough-minded woman with a lease on a waterfront property where a ferry terminal might go? How many of those could there be in little old Key West? Hoping he might be wrong, he said, “Excuse me, but moving on from this sensitivity training regarding gender issues, perhaps it would be useful or a propos to talk about specifically who this woman is.”

  Clifton leaned back in his gorgeous chair, crossed his arms against his soft pink chest, fixed Bert with his cold blue eyes and said, “I think you know. It’s Pat Coates and it’s Titters.”

  “That dump we were at last night?” Carmine blurted. “Christ, one match and a splash’a gas, and that shithole is history.”

  “Now, now,” said the businessman, casting a quick nervous look at Bert, “we don’t need to talk about anything like that.”

  But then, sensing a chance to win allies, to gain momentum, he circled back and continued on. “But it is a dump, isn’t it? And it’s losing money anyway. And it shouldn’t take any violence to get it, just some…convincing. But Bert here, while he’s posing as this all-wise and totally neutral mediator, happens to be chummy with the owner. Which is an obvious conflict of interest and nothing but a headache. Which is why, Bert, I really think it’s better if you just forget you were even at this meeting and stay the hell out of the way.”

  Bert petted his dog. He stole glances at Peppers and Carmine, who’d somewhat resented his presence from the start and who now, in response to this conflict of interest gambit, seemed to be leaning toward siding with Clifton. Doing the math, that made three men who wished he would just shut up and go home, and for the space of a long-held breath he wondered if he should do exactly that.

  What’s the worst that would happen if he just quit and dropped out of the picture? He doubted they’d kill Pat Coates. He hoped they wouldn’t hurt her badly. They’d need to intimidate her, of course, find ways to make it impossible for her to run her business. Torching the joint would be one time-honored way of doing that, though there were plenty of others. If she continued to be stubborn, she’d probably end up with nothing; if she wised up and played ball, maybe she could walk away with a few bucks in her pocket. And Titters would be gone, her dream of running a club would be over along with the laughs, and another victory would be chalked up for the bad guys in league with the worse guys.

  By instinct more than by thought, Bert decided in that moment that he would not shut up and not go home. He heard himself say, “Hol’ on a minute. You guys got me wrong. What makes you think I’m neutral? Did I ever say I was neutral?”

  No one answered the question and Bert stayed on the offensive. Leaning forward across the slightly squished chihuahua in his lap, he put a firm hand on Clifton’s desk.

  “Fat Lou happens to be a very old friend of mine. A sworn friend, if you catch my drift. Pat Coates is a casual acquaintance. Do I like her? Yeah, she’s okay. But where’s my greater loyalty? Come on, you really think that’s a tough call for me?”

  Clifton’s blue gaze was still chilly and suspicious but maybe a notch less downright hostile than it had been a minute before. Carmine and Peppers shared a glance and squirmed as their sympathies kept wobbling back and forth.

  Looking for a clincher, Bert said, “And another thing. You guys think I’m here for my health? You don’t think I have a stake in how this thing plays out? You don’t think I’m anglin’ for a payday, just like youse? You score, I score. Whaddya think I’m livin’ on, a fuckin’ pension?”

  The two goombahs looked sideways at each other. They’d been wondering why this old geezer was taking the time and trouble to school them and shepherd them around. Suddenly they understood. He was doing it for money. Of course he was; it was the way of the world. Why look any farther for his motives?

  Confident that he’d won them over at least for the moment, Bert went on, “But about this woman thing, it so happens I agree with Ted. When it comes to business, man, woman, doesn’t matter. What matters is we need her out of there. And we’ll get her out of there. I think we all agree on that, right?”

  He looked from face to face. Peppers and Carmine were nodding solemnly. Ted Clifton allowed himself no expression whatsoever.

  “On’y question is how we do it. My preference is that we do it wit’out anyone goes to the hospital, the morgue, or the Pen. Let’s call that Plan A. Plan A doesn’t work, we up the ante as required. But inna meantime, we do things like I say. Agreed?”

  PART THREE

  27

  Lenny had agreed to help out as bartender that evening. His repertoire of cocktails was pretty limited, but there weren’t many customers to serve, and most of them just ordered beers or wine or shots or margaritas. By ten pm, the first few acts had come and gone, leaving a few chuckles in their wake. In the tip jar at a corner of the stage were some dollar bills, a five, and a crumpled twenty that a drunk had dropped in by mistake.

  Another comedian took the stage, acknowledged the smattering of applause as though it had been a great ovation, and launched straight into a riff about New York. “Great place, great place, but ya gotta know how to handle it, ya gotta speak the lingo, ya gotta prove ya belong or they’ll eat ya alive. Like the first time I went there. I was very green. A nice, polite kid from the Midwest…Yeah, don’t laugh, I was nice and polite back then. But I didn’t wanna be taken for a rube and get mugged, ripped off, whatever. So I decided I wasn’t gonna say a word until I was sure I could pass for local. Not a single word. Not hello, not goodbye, not nothing. So for a few days I just studied up. I watched, I listened. Finally I had it down, I knew how to sound like a real New Yorker. So I go up to this guy in the subway and say, ‘Excuse me, sir, could you please tell me what time it is or should I just go fuck myself?’”

  At that moment the door of the club swung open and Bert and Peppers and Carmine came walking in.

  Lenny’s mouth went dry at the sight of them. He wondered if they had guns hidden in their pants, knives strapped against their ankles. He drew himself a little beer and quickly drank it down to get his throat to open.

  The three men moved silently and slowly toward the bar. The two young ones had shiny shirts on; the shirts were a dark red that reminded Lenny of drying blood that was still sticky and just starting to scab over. The old man wore a monogrammed silk pullover in a funereal midnight blue. Even the dog looked somber.

  Trying to sound practiced and blasé, as if Mafia assassins sat down right in front of him all the time, Lenny managed a meek hello and asked what they would like to drink. The young guys asked for shots and beers. Bert asked for an Old-Fashioned. Not wanting to admit he didn’t know how to make one, Lenny said, “Um, we’re out of those.”

  “Out of those?”

  His poise leaking quickly away, Lenny gave an awkward shrug.

  “Just gimme a beer. And a couple cherries with a little bourbon in a saucer for the dog.”

  With unsteady hands, the fill-in bartender delivered the drinks.

  “Pat around?” asked Bert.

  “She’s in the back.”

  Peppers let a smirk stretch across his concave face. “This place has a back? The front looks like a back.”

  Lenny let that pass and went to get her. She was working in what had been the engine room many years ago, when Titters was a houseboat that could actually move. Now the cramped chamber was mainly a holding tank for burned-out spotlights, cables with rotted insulation, chairs and barstools with splintering legs—all the things that needed fixing and most of which would never get fixed. She was wrestling with a length of duct
tape when Lenny said, “Your friend Bert’s here with the butchers. You still think he isn’t trying to lead them to Ricky?”

  She said nothing, just wiped her sticky fingers on a rag and headed through the low doorway to the bar, Lenny following a discreet two steps behind. With a brave attempt at a smile, she splayed her hands out on the slab of wood that separated her from her worrisome guests, wished them good evening, and asked if they were having fun.

  “We ain’t here for fun,” said Carmine.

  This was exactly the kind of confrontational approach that Bert would have counseled against, and he tried to undo it with some softer words. “What he means to say is we haven’t settled in yet, haven’t really relaxed.”

  Unhelpfully, Peppers added, “Ain’t heard nothin’ funny yet either.”

  Pat could not help saying, “Maybe you’re just not in the mood to laugh. Maybe some other place would suit you better.”

  “You suggesting we leave?” demanded Carmine.

  “Not at all. I just like my guests to be happy.”

  Bert fed his dog a maraschino cherry and gestured vaguely behind him at the rest of the room. “Guests seem happy. Just too bad there isn’t more of ‘em.”

  Pat shrugged.

  “Must be tough. The rent. The overhead.”

  She shrugged again, but by now there was getting to be a tension in her shoulders that would not allow them to drop back into their normal posture.

  “That lease must be a burden,” the old man went on in the same mild tone. “Month in, month out, season, off-season, money’s always due.”

  Pat said nothing. Her wrists were starting to hurt from the way she was leaning on the bar. A sick metallic taste was rising from the pit of her stomach; her body seemed to be realizing more quickly than her mind that something was going very wrong between herself and this nice old man she’d thought of as a friend.

  “Course,” he went on, “it’s bad news, good news. Lotta times, a business isn’t doin’ so hot, it’s the lease where the value is. Lotta times it’s worth way more to somebody else.”

  “Like Ted Clifton?” Pat spat out the words like she’d bitten into something rotten.

  “He might be an interested party.”

  At that, the thugs closed ranks on either side of Bert and curled in with their outside shoulders. Absurdly, they looked in that moment like a vocal trio clustering toward a microphone before breaking into three-part harmony.

  Pat didn’t want to give ground, but by instinct she fell back half a step. Then she said, “Excuse my slowness, Bert. I’m new at this. Just why are you guys here? You here to scare me? Threaten me? Does it really take three guys?”

  “Threaten? No. No one’s making threats. Just asking you to consider possibilities. To think about where your interest lies. Ted Clifton is not an unreasonable man. He’s willing to pay for things he wants. You could come out okay. Think it over.”

  With that, he reached into a chest pocket of his silk pullover, just below the fancy monogram, and produced a small and neatly folded piece of paper. He nudged it across the bar toward Pat. “Here’s my number,” he went on. “Call me anytime if you’d like to discuss your options.”

  Mustering as much defiance as she could, she pushed the paper back toward him. “Thanks, but there’s nothing to discuss.”

  He left it sitting on the bar as he began the labored process of rising from his stool, the woozy dog cradled in his arm. “Keep it anyway. Just in case. You never know.”

  

  When they’d left, Pat poured stiff drinks for herself and Lenny and tossed hers back with a trembling hand. The fear that she hadn’t had time to feel while the mobsters were confronting her was now, in retrospect, flooding in like a polluted tide. But even more than fear, she just felt disappointment. Shaking her head, she said, “The old man shilling for Clifton. How’s it possible to be so wrong about someone?”

  Not wanting to make his old pal feel even worse, Lenny said nothing.

  “Go ahead,” she went on without rancor. “You can say I told you so. You were right. I was wrong. You saw right away that old Bert was a Judas.”

  “Except I wasn’t right,” he admitted. “Not even close. I thought the whole thing was about Ricky and the jealous boyfriend. I had no idea that…that…”

  “That they’re here to shake me down and take my place away?”

  “I didn’t want to come right out and say it. But yeah, I guess that’s why they’re here.”

  With a quick bitter laugh, Pat said, “Well, I get that much satisfaction, at least. I nailed it that there’s some other reason they’re in town.”

  Lenny thought that over for a moment while he sipped his drink. A joke was cracked on stage. A few laughs came from the audience. Then he said, “So if they’re really here about the club, where the hell does that leave Ricky?”

  28

  Except for the Mafia shakedown, it turned out to be a pretty good evening at Titters. There was never exactly a rush, but customers kept drifting in and at some point, as if by stealth, the place had gotten nearly full. The money in the tip jar had risen halfway to the brim, and as the audience approached a kind of critical mass, the performers started seeming funnier. Laughs became contagious, spreading from table to table, bouncing from mind to mind, rippling back and gaining energy like colliding waves.

  By midnight, the bar was crowded enough that Lenny and Pat were working side by side. It was only then, while she was mopping up some beer foam with a dishrag, that she noticed the neatly folded piece of paper that Bert had left behind. The sight of it offended and depressed her in the midst of the modestly successful evening and she nearly threw it in the trash. Then, without exactly knowing why, she stuffed it into a pocket of her jeans instead, and promptly forgot about it.

  By closing time, the two friends were too worn out even to talk. They did a cursory clean-up, locked the door, and headed home to the perfect little house on Pine Street. After a comradely hug goodnight, Pat went up the porch steps to the front door and Lenny made his way through the tangled and fragrant side-yard to his glorified cabana by the pool.

  He was so tired that he didn’t even turn a light on when he got inside. He undressed in the dark, left his clothes in a pile on the floor, threw some water on his face, brushed his teeth, had a pee, and got into bed.

  Actually, he got halfway into bed.

  Then he realized there was a body there. His naked backside, expecting empty air and the cool feel of a sheet, encountered skin and what felt like a knee instead.

  Adrenaline scorched his nerves from head to toe and he frantically sprang up again. His feet got tangled in his abandoned clothes and he let out a half-stifled little shriek. His hair was standing on end, his testicles were retreating upward toward his abdomen, and by instinct he began groping in the dark for a weapon, any weapon. His hand found the borrowed tennis racquet and he raised it as high as he could as though to hit a murderous smash. His feet were planted, back arched, abs tensed, shoulder muscles loaded…

  That was when the bedside lamp came on. It was not a bright lamp but its suddenness was blinding. From somewhere behind the glare came a familiar voice. “Funny time to practice your overhead, Lenny.”

  “Marsha?”

  “And you forgot to put your shorts on.”

  “Marsha, what the—?”

  “Come to bed. I’ve missed you.”

  “But how—?”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow. Come to bed.”

  

  In the bedroom of the main house, Sam was sleeping soundly, as she always did after many hours on the court. Pat went over, smoothed the cotton blanket that lay across her shoulder, and kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck. They saw so little of each other during season. Day shift, night shift, never a whole weekend together. Maybe one of these years they’d get their schedules aligned. She supposed that would be one good thing, at least, about having the club taken away from her. But damn it, s
he didn’t want to let the club be taken away and she didn’t plan to let it happen.

  She got undressed. While hanging up her jeans, she noticed the slight bulge that Bert’s folded paper made in one of the pockets. Shaking her head in remembered disappointment, she plucked it out and, for the second time, was just on the brink of throwing it away when she decided, out of simple curiosity, to look at it.

  She wasn’t expecting much. She wasn’t really expecting anything except a phone number she had no intention of ever calling. To her surprise, the note contained some words as well. They’d been written with a smudgy pencil in a small, crabbed script and they weren’t easy to make out. She sat down on the edge of the bed, switched on her reading light, and squinted. Finally she could read the message. Don’t believe everything you hear. Bert.

  That’s all it said. She read it over and over again, trying to make it say more, but it refused. She knew what she wished it said, but she didn’t want to go too far believing that because what if it was just another ploy, another lurking disillusionment? If she shouldn’t believe everything she heard, why should she believe everything she read? On the other hand, if everything was as it had seemed earlier that evening, why would he have bothered writing at all? Then again, why would the old man be double-agenting his own allies, and how likely was it that he’d be passing seditious notes right under their noses? Then again…then again…then again.

  She folded up the paper and placed it on her night table. She switched off the lights and snuggled into bed knowing that, wiped out though she was, she probably wouldn’t sleep. She tried lying on her left side, her right side, her back, her tummy, but no matter how she turned, the simple words of Bert’s message kept turning with her, teasing and tweaking her deep into the shortening night.