“You seem to be good at that. Getting obsessed with things, I mean.”
“Yeah, I guess I tend that way,” he said, and laughed. It was the first time she’d heard him do that. It was a resonant but quiet laugh, not exactly bashful, not exactly guarded, but not free and easy either. It was more of an it-just-slipped-out kind of laugh, and it sounded wonderful inside the copper tank. Their voices did, too. There wasn’t an echo, exactly, just a soft chiming that harmonized with whatever they were saying. It was like having a chit-chat in a bell. It made even the most mundane exchanges feel like swapping secrets.
“So why’d you switch to rum?”
“Well, everyone and his brother was making beer. And there’s only so much you can do with it. I got more interested in the science part.” He paused in his brushing because he’d found a greenish spot, about the size of a quarter, that wasn’t cleaning up so well. He squirted ketchup on it. “Carlo put me through junior college so I could learn all the technical stuff.”
What with the chiming undertone inside the tank, Rita wanted to be double-sure she’d heard right. “Carlo? Our Carlo?”
“Yeah, I thought you knew.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“It’s no secret. Carlo put me through school and pretty much invented this job for me. I thought everyone who works here knows.”
“Not me. Still the new kid on the block, I guess. I only met Carlo once. With his bodyguards or whoever they are. He kind of scared me, to tell ya the truth.”
“Yeah, he can be that way,” said Anthony. “He can be a lot of different ways. That’s Carlo. But he’s been very, very good to me. Was my Dad’s best buddy up in Mass. Ever since he died, Carlo’s really looked out for Mom and me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rita said. “About your Dad, I mean.”
He shrugged. The leather apron rustled slightly and the paper hat barely shifted on his fluffy hair. “Very old news. I mean, I wasn’t even born yet when he died. Car crash. Hit a tree. That’s life, I guess.” He licked his lips and turned back toward his scrubbing. “Anyway, see how good the ketchup works? Comes right off with the brush afterwards.”
They didn’t speak for a while after that. Anthony didn’t seem inclined to take the lead, and Rita had pretty well used up the questions she thought she could comfortably ask. But suddenly there seemed to be plenty more for her to think about as she kept on sloshing vinegar.
So: Carlo was Anthony’s benefactor; practically his—once the word suggested itself, it became irresistible—godfather. And Carlo was a criminal; a Mob-style one at that. So: Close family friend. Family, as in Mafia family? And this rum business; invented just to give the young family friend his dream job? What if the enterprise was crooked from the ground up? Would Anthony even realize it? He seemed so innocent with his halo of hair and cockeyed paper hat. Would he just be the dupe, the in-the-dark savant, or could he possibly be a co-conspirator? Would he even care if it was crooked or not, as long as he got to follow his passion for turning sugar into booze?
So many questions. But alongside all of them was a simple fact that could be neither fully explained nor denied: She liked Anthony. There was something soothing about him. She was happy working next to him in the middle of a copper tank. She liked his low-key matter-of-factness, his unemphatic voice, his very occasional laugh that seemed to take him by surprise. She liked the un-pushy way he shared what he knew and she wanted to believe in his purity of heart. She just liked him.
And it tweaked her a little—no, actually it tweaked her quite a bit—that she knew damn well by now that it wouldn’t be his style to ask her out. For her, these moments of strange intimacy inside a tube of chiming copper had been revealing and romantic. Was it possible that for him they had been nothing more than having some help in cleaning out a tank? She couldn’t accept that, but she was determined to find out.
They brushed and scrubbed their way toward daylight, toward the end of their task together. The ceiling got closer, the moment was slipping away. Her feet were on a metal rung; one hand gripped the top of the still, the other brandished the glorified toilet brush as if it were a magic wand or a baton from a circus. Summoning courage, she said, “So Anthony, it might seem like a funny question to ask someone in the middle of a distillery, but can I buy you a drink sometime?”
18
“H e said that?” asked Albin.
“Yeah,” said Bert. “Word for word. That’s exactly what he said. Is he all right? And he said it in this sweet little way, like he was singin’ a lullaby or somethin’.”
“That’s nice. I’m touched. I am.”
“Right, then soon as he realizes you didn’t catch cancer or have a heart attack or somethin’, the Scarface routine is back. Snarling. Suspicious. Tough guy to read, your brother.”
“Glad you noticed.”
It was an hour or so before sunset, and the two of them—three if you count the dog—were strolling down Greene Street toward Mallory Square, dodging and weaving to avoid the daily stampede of thousands of tourists rushing back to the cruise ships. There were so many sunburned and scurrying people, all headed in the same direction toward the very edge of land, that it sometimes seemed like the entire island of Key West was about to tip over and sink like an overloaded dinghy with everybody on one side. Massed like refugees, but with shopping bags, ice cream cones, and plaid Bermudas, the tourists would then crawl up the gangplanks, seldom bothering to look back at where they’d been, since they’d be someplace else by morning and the whole trip would end being a bit of a blur anyway. The crew would cast off giant ropes just in time to clear the horizon for the famous sunset, and when the enormous ships had tooted their horns, spewed out their exhaust plumes, and lumbered away, the whole town seemed to quiver, wobble, right itself, and gradually settle back toward even keel like a toy sailboat once a gust of wind has passed. Not that the island city was ever exactly quiet or that downtown was ever entirely serene. But once the ships left port, at least Key West seemed like Key West again.
In any case, Bert and Albin and the dog had almost made it to the waterfront when Bert decided he needed a rest. He plopped down onto a bench and bent low to sweep the chihuahua into his lap. Albin settled in next to him, adjusting the crease in his linen shorts just so. Bert took out a handkerchief, blew his nose, and gestured toward his right. “That hotel didn’t used to be there.”
Albin gestured toward his left. “Neither were those fancy shops that you can also find in Easthampton and Nassau and everyplace else.”
Bert pointed straight ahead at the water. “Remember the old dock? Guys useta fish off it. Pilings were wood. They stood their beers on ‘em. I can still see the way they useta balance the bottles between the splinters. Light would come through the glass. Green glass, brown glass. It was beautiful. Guys useta throw fish guts innee air and watch the terns and seagulls dive for ‘em. It was nice. This new dock, it looks like it was built for a goddamn aircraft carrier. Like somebody shines it every night. Like birdshit wouldn’t even stick to it.”
“Remember how it was back before they dredged the channel?” Albin asked. “Big ships couldn’t get in at all back then. Had to anchor way offshore and send passengers in by launch.”
“Yeah, I remember the launches. Course I do. Carried thirty people at a time, maybe forty, tops.”
“It was really rather elegant,” said Albin. “The launch skippers in white uniforms. Even white gloves, for when they helped the ladies step ashore. I think they even saluted. But that might be a memory I just made up.”
“And what about the taverns?” Bert said. “The old ones, I mean. Useta be, ya went in a place two, three times, the bartenders would know ya. Knew you were local. Knew what ya drank. There was none a this phony smile where ya visitin’ from bullshit. Where am I visitin’ from? I’m visitin’ from the same place I was visitin’ from last week and the week before that and twenty years ago. I’m visitin’ from two blocks away, ya transient moron!...But hey, why get worked up ab
out it? Prob’ly I just sound like one more old fart pissin’ and moanin’ about how those were the good old days. But fuck it, they were the good old days. Am I right or am I right?”
Albin said nothing. He was looking off a little ways to where some buskers were preparing for the Sunset Celebration—tuning guitars, stretching tightropes, practicing their juggling or climbing up on stilts. The Celebration had some old acts and some new acts. Some of the new acts were better than the old acts, though locals hated to admit it.
“Weren’t they the good old days?” Bert pressed, when some seconds had gone by and Albin still hadn’t replied. “I mean, is it just me? Was Key West nicer then—I mean, it’s nice now, it’s great, don’t get me wrong, but I mean like cozier, homier, more whaddyacallit, concentric —”
“You mean eccentric?”
“Yeah, thanks, I knew you’d understand. That’s why I’m askin’ your opinion. Was Key West nicer then, or is it just that we were younger?”
“How about some of both?” said Albin.
Bert stroked his dog’s head while he considered that. The dog licked his wrist like it was checking for a pulse.
“Look, here’s what I think,” the elegant man continued. “People have a moment—one single moment—when they first fall in love with this town. Maybe it’s the first time they really smell the air. Maybe it’s the color of the water on a certain afternoon. Maybe they have a great night in a bar. Whatever. Different for each person. Usually a youngish person. Anyway, that single moment becomes what their idea of perfect is. It’s a snapshot, a freeze-frame. Since it’s perfect, it can’t get better, it can only get less good. Any change is a change for the worse.”
“Amen to that,” said Bert.
“Except it isn’t really like that,” Albin countered. “It couldn’t be. Listen, I moved here in the seventies. I must’ve been told a thousand times how much nicer it was in the sixties. The eighties came around, I heard myself boring people to death with stories about how much better it was in the seventies. The nineties came around, suddenly it was the eighties that were the golden age. Et cetera, et cetera. So let’s be logical. If the town had really gotten worse in every decade like people said it had, it would be hell by now. Does that match your take on it, Bert? You think it’s hell by now?”
He petted the dog, sniffed the salty air, blinked toward the water, noticed the soft humid breeze that was tickling his hairline. “Nah, course I don’t. I still think it’s pretty damn nice. Guess it’s just that I’ve gotten old as fuck and a little bit cranky. Wanna walk a little more?”
When they’d gone half a block, he very casually resumed, “Ya know, when I was talkin’ wit’ your brother, I mentioned the possibility of maybe havin’ a drink sometime, the three of us.”
“And?” said Albin. It was just one syllable but even through the sarcasm and dread it seemed perhaps to hold as well a hint of shy and secret hope.
“He nixed it.”
After the briefest of hesitations, Albin said, “Good. To use your very quaint parlance, I would have nixed it, too.”
“Which actually might make things easier.”
“Excuse me?”
“Follow the logic, Albin. It’s like this. Say one guy wants to get together for a drink and the other guys does not. They can’t both get their way. Someone has to cave. And, let’s face it, no disrespect, wit’ two pigheaded guys like your brother and you who have like half a lifetime habit a not talkin’ to each other, neither wants to be the one to cave. But if neither of ya wants to have a drink, then no one has to give more ground than the other guy. No one loses face. Plus, now we know there’s at least one thing ya both agree on. Ya both agree ta nix the drink idea. Maybe that’s a start, somethin’ ta build on. Every negotiation starts from one thing that the antagonists or let’s say the pissed off parties agree about. That’s as basic as it gets.”
19
W ith the hard heel of his enormous hand, Rocco hammered on the steel door of Mikel Shintar’s lab. The dull clang of flesh on metal echoed through the dark and empty distillery. After a pause just long enough to be annoying, Shintar’s pinched and nasal voice said, “Who is it.”
Carlo said, “Cut the shit and let us in, Mikel.”
The chemist decided not to push his luck with the password routine, but he still looked through the peephole. Then he opened the door just wide enough for his visitors to pass through and locked it again once they were inside. “How are you?” he asked his business partner.
“Not happy,” said Costanza.
Rocco and Max puffed up a bit at this, stretching to full height, crossing their arms against their chests, pressing out with their knuckles to make their biceps bulge. They were pros and they knew what was expected. If their boss was unhappy, it was their job to remind others that there could be consequences to his discontent. So they held their menacing poses even though Max’s attention had been suddenly distracted; while glowering around the room, he’d noticed Shintar’s test tubes and it occurred to him that they would make the most adorable bud vases. Ever since his and Rocco’s heart-to-heart out on their deck, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the florist shop of his dreams. Everywhere he went, he got ideas for new arrangements, corsages, boutonnieres, ways of interweaving greens and blooms. Now he was thinking that six test tubes in a wooden rack, each one holding a different flower bedded in soft loam, would make a smashing centerpiece. Industrial. Contemporary…
Shintar said to Costanza, “Sorry you’re not at your sunniest.” He gestured around at his beakers and pipettes. “Shall I whip you up a little anti-depressant?”
“No time for jokes, Mikel. We got a problem. The Feds have been sniffing around.”
“Your Feds or mine?”
“Mine. The IRS. But a guy I know, a very shrewd guy in my opinion, has suggested it’s only logical that at some point they’ll come sniffing your way too.”
Shintar shrugged. That was Shintar, always blasé. Devoid of conscience, he didn’t fret about whether he was doing right or wrong; he didn’t even worry much if he’d get caught. To him, the only question that really mattered was whether the charges would stick, and in his arrogance he believed they never would. He’d believed this even when they were leading him away to prison, and he’d believed it at the outset of every failed appeal. Strangely, these multiple experiences of being flat dead wrong had done nothing at all to dent his confidence. “So let ‘em sniff,” he said breezily. “I don’t see where we’ve committed any crimes so far. Is there suddenly a law against losing money?”
If the quip was intended to brighten Costanza’s mood, it didn’t help. “And that’s another thing, Mikel. How much longer you expect me to bankroll your fun and games in here? All I hear from you is I’m close, I’m close. Well, close don’t mean shit. People go broke every day from coming close. Fuck close! When are we gonna have some product?”
“Carlo, if you only understood how exceptional, how extraordinary—”
“Yeah, but I don’t. And wipe that condescending little smile off your face. It’s really starting to piss me off.”
The chemist hadn’t been aware of the condescending little smile. He tried to change his expression but from long habit it seemed to be locked in place. Carlo, meanwhile, was at that stage of a slow burn where a simmer just begins to boil at the edges. He started pacing through the gleaming lab, hips bumping shiny counters, heedless elbows threatening glassware. Rocco and Max stood still as traffic cones as their employer slalomed around them.
“Listen, Mikel,” the boss went on, “it’s not my job to understand how exceptional, how extraordinary, and whatever other bullshit you were about to say. That’s your job. You’re the genius here. By reputation, at least. But now that I think of it, who’d I hear that reputation from? I think I heard it mainly from you, Mikel. Like every friggin’ day at Cumberland. Yeah, and I believed it. But after all this time, I’m beginning to have my doubts. And I just had a scary fuckin’ thought. What if i
t turns out you’re not a genius? What if it turns out you’re just one more quack geek scientist with a white coat and a bad haircut? Where the hell does that leave me, huh?”
The aspersions didn’t even seem to register. Shintar shrugged again. As usual, he seemed to be naked underneath his lab coat, and the shrug revealed a bit more of his pale but hairy legs. Blithely, he said, “I guess that would leave us pretty close to broke. Although, as you were just saying, close don’t mean shit. Besides, you’ve probably got way more stashed away if we need to tap into it.”
“Don’t assume that, Mikel. You don’t know anything about it.”
“Okay, fine. But here’s what I do know. You don’t need to worry, because I am a genius. That’s really never been in doubt.”
His relentless certainty only made Costanza more exasperated. “For Christ’s sake, stop telling me that. Show me!”
“Show you what? A molecule? You wouldn’t understand. You just said so yourself.”
“I don’t need to understand. I need to see. Show me something. Anything. Just something to convince me you haven’t been just jerking off in here and burning up my savings all these months.”
The chemist sighed and pouted. Such a waste of time, explaining his art to ordinary dolts. He thought maybe if he stalled, passively resisted, Costanza would give up on his pointless demand.
The stratagem didn’t work. The boss shot a quick, impatient glance at his muscle guys and they leaned in closer to Shintar. That’s all they did; they leaned. They didn’t move their feet, they didn’t raise their arms. They just leaned, and the space between and above them narrowed down like a swath of sky pinched between tall buildings.
“All right, all right,” the chemist said at last, and he moved in a slow sulk to a corner of the lab where he suddenly dropped to his knees. Casting a paranoid glance back across his shoulder, he swept aside a curtain that was covering a set of low steel shelves. Reaching far in where no probing eyes could follow, his fingers found and twirled the dial of a combination safe. When he rose from the floor, he was clutching a notebook, an old-fashioned loose-leaf binder with a blue canvas cover and some brightly plastic colored tabs. It was quaint, that notebook, it might have belonged to an obsolete eighth-grader. Shintar lifted it onto a gleaming work table and carefully, lovingly, opened it. The other men positioned themselves to have a look.
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