That’s all the invitation Master needs. He climbs down from his stool about as quickly as he ever moves, settles me into the crook of his arm like I’m a football, and steps right over to them. I take a quick sniff. They don’t smell that great. It’s not B.O. exactly, just that sort of curry smell that develops when polyester sits in a suitcase for a while. Anyway, since Master doesn’t know which one of them is who, he fixes his gaze halfway between them and says, “Good evening, Agent Johnson of the IRS, and welcome to Key West.”
Now, I think I’ve mentioned that Master generally speaks softly, in a gravelly baritone not much above a whisper. That’s not the voice he’s using here. He’s talking loud, not yelling or anything, but projecting like a guy who’s hard of hearing, which he isn’t, at least for his age.
It quickly becomes clear that the tall one with the toupee is Johnson, since he’s the one who says, “How you know my name?”
Instead of answering directly, Master sings out, “I understand you’re doing some undercover work here in town.”
A few heads turn.
The fat guy says, “Could you talk a little softer, please.”
Master cups his free hand to his ear and says, “What?”
Johnson says, “Please, a little softer.”
“An investigation is what I heard…” says Master, with no reduction whatsoever in his volume.
I’m noticing by now that the two guys’ smell is starting to change, taking on that soupy, nervous note of full-on B.O.
“…Of a guy whose debt to society has already been paid and who’s now tryin’ to bring a few jobs and some much-needed revenue to our little town.”
More heads have turned by now. In fact, it’s one of those moments when other conversations and goings-on just seem to stop. The two agents look left, right, up at the ceiling, down at their fingernails. They seem to be running out of places where their eyes can rest.
“And along the way”, Master continues, “harassin’ one of his employees, a young female, on a dark street, which is never a right thing to do, but especially in the current climate, not a smart thing either, should it come to light.”
The accusation alone was enough to make the Feds look guilty, especially the fat one. “Look, all we did was talk to her.”
“After sneakin’ up on her from behind in a bullyin’ and highly distressin’ manner. Be that as it may, now you’re acceptin’ free drinks from an interested party in the case, which could possibly be interpreted or let us say construed as receivin’ if not exactly a bribe, at least a gift or an emollient of a sort that is highly inappropriate under the circumstances.”
The B.O. level is going through the roof by now. Even humans must be noticing. Johnson’s toupee is moving at the edges like a conga line of ants is dancing underneath it. Finally, red in the face, white in the lips, he manages to say, “Listen, mister, we didn’t ask for the drinks and we had no idea that you’re an interested party. Just who the hell are you anyway?”
At that, Master drops the deaf routine and goes back to his regular voice. “D’Ambrosia’s the name. Bert d’Ambrosia. A mere acquaintance of Carlo Costanza, but, more to the point, a concerned citizen. I thought you should be aware that if you go around harassin’ people, people might harass ya back. Ya spy on people, scrutinize ‘em, maybe even entrap somebody now and then, well, it cuts both ways, it’s whaddyacallit, mutual, it might bite ya innee ass sometime. Just thought ya should know. Good luck wit’ your investigation and have a nice evening.”
He tucks me a little more firmly into the crook of his arm and turns to walk away. By the time we get back to our seat next to Albin, the agents are nowhere to be seen. Their free drinks had barely been touched.
22
“A nthony, we gotta talk,” said Carlo. “In private. Can you come on up here?”
The distiller was at work when the call came in. Above the hissing of the valves and the muted clomp of the crew’s rubber boots, he said, “Gee, Carlo, we’re right in the middle of a batch here—”
“This is way more important than a batch of booze. Let the other guys handle it for once. Please.”
So Anthony took off his leather apron, got into his old Toyota, and drove three hours to South Miami, where Costanza was renting a house. The house had once been part of an avocado farm and it was nothing fancy; low ceilings, dark walls, old Florida furniture with wicker backbones and cushions gone limp and lumpy with damp. Carlo wasn’t one for personal luxury; never had been, even in his flushest years as a seafood kingpin. He hadn’t grown up with luxury and didn’t have time for it; in fact, luxury made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t what money was for. Money was for making things happen. True, sometimes a small display of wealth—a gorgeous pair of hand-sewn Italian loafers, say—was necessary to establish what was what and who was who. But that was a tactic, not an end. The end was to be able to reach into your pocket and have an effect rather than standing helplessly by as something you cared about was turning to shit.
In any case, he was sitting on his porch, looking at the last few unpruned and gnarly avocado trees still standing on the property, when Anthony pulled into the unpaved driveway. The younger man poured his lanky body out of the cramped car, stretched a moment with his fists in the small of his back, ran his fingers as far as they would go through his spray of kinky hair. Carlo met him halfway to the porch and gave him an Old World-style hug and kiss on the cheek.
“How was traffic?” His voice was not gruff when he spoke to Anthony.
“’Bout like usual.”
“No big tie-ups?”
“Not really,” said the younger man, wondering why his benefactor and employer was making small talk. He didn’t often do that. “Everything okay?”
“Come on, we’ll have a beer.”
He grabbed a couple longnecks from the house and they sat down on the porch. They clinked bottles and had a swig. Carlo pointed toward the little clump of untended trees by the driveway. He said, “Can’t really pick the fruit without they prune the trees. Fruit just falls on the ground and splits.”
Anthony nodded. He was still thinking about the half-distilled batch of rum he’d left behind, hoping his crew would get the timing just exactly right. He said, “I don’t think you invited me here to talk about avocados.”
“No, I didn’t.” Carlo crossed his legs and grabbed an ankle. “This isn’t easy, Anthony, but okay, I’ll cut to the chase. I don’t know how much longer I can keep supporting Wreckers. Probably not more than a month or two. The business is draining me dry.”
The distiller took in the news along with a pull of beer. If he was terribly surprised, it didn’t show. “Is it my fault, Carlo? Is it the product? Is the rum not good?”
“The rum is fine. Far as I can tell, the rum is excellent. Far as I can tell, you have a gift. I mean that, Anthony. You have a gift. But the quantity we turn out, we can’t possibly break even. You’re not to blame for that. It was the plan. Right from the start.”
“You planned on losing money?”
“On the rum, yeah. But me and Shintar were so damn clever. We figured we’d make it other ways.”
“From the lab,” said Anthony. It was not a question.
“From the lab,” admitted Carlo.
“Where Shintar was supposedly working on new flavorings.”
Costanza said nothing.
“Better than vanilla. Better than cinnamon. Better than anything out there. Did you really think I believed that, Carlo?”
Still the other man kept silent.
“I wanted to believe it. I tried to believe it. But come on, I’m not a kid anymore. And I’m not quite as totally unworldly as you think. I mean, Christ, if I was, how could I even get though the day? I figured something more must be going on back there.”
“I was trying to protect you, Anthony.”
“I know you were. You always have. And I’m grateful. Beyond words I’m grateful. What can I do to help?”
The older man looked
down at his lap and shook his head. “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do. Me and Shintar, the partnership has gone very, very sour. We just see things way too different and I don’t think it can be fixed. I don’t think it should be fixed.”
Anthony sipped his beer, crossed his long legs, uncrossed them, crossed them on the other side, and finally brought himself to say, “What he’s really been working on back there?”
Costanza could not hold back a bitter little smile. “Flavorings.”
“Come on, no bullshit.”
“No, at the start, he really was. Seems almost funny now. Says he did it as a kind of warm-up, just to get a feel for the materials. Worked out formulas. I’ve seen ‘em.”
“Seen ‘em?”
“In his geeky little notebook in the lab. He worked out formulas, says he made some little batches, samples like, then lost interest. Not challenging enough. So he moved on.”
“To what?”
“It’s better you don’t know.”
“How illegal is it, Carlo?”
“Don’t ask me that. Don’t make me ashamed.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do. I would never blame you. Never. I just want to know. How illegal is it?”
For a long moment, Costanza looked off at the avocado trees, then slowly reeled his gaze back in. “Anthony, you say you’re not a kid anymore. You don’t want to be sheltered anymore. I respect that. I really do. But there are still some things you don’t quite understand. Like the difference between illegal and evil. Was the plan illegal from the start? Yeah, it was. And I was fine with that. It’s who I am. What Shintar wants to do now is evil, and I can’t bring myself to go there.”
“So what’s he want to do?”
“You don’t need to know that. Knowing makes you guilty. You’ve done nothing wrong, Anthony. Not one single thing. Let’s keep it that way.”
The younger man pressed his lips together, nodded. “The rum. The quality of it. It never really mattered, did it, Carlo?”
“Of course it mattered. Matters. Matters to me. Matters to you. It’s what you bring to it.”
“Is there any way to save it?”
“Without the illegal part? Without Shintar? It would take more cash than I have left. Maybe I can raise it, but it’s doubtful. I’ll try. I promise you I’ll try. But it’s not looking good. Not good at all. I’m sorry, Anthony. I really wanted this to work for you.”
23
“W hatcha writing today, Albin?”
It was a cloudy morning, almost chilly. The overcast sky gave a steely cast to the water in the pool; ripples bunched up at one end as on a windblown lake. Albin wore a heavier robe than usual, forest-green brocade with a braided belt; it made him look vaguely Persian, almost seemed to call for a scimitar. Rita had made herself a bowl of oatmeal, the kind that comes in little packets for the microwave; that was about as domestic as she got.
“I don’t seem to be writing anything,” he said, though his suicide journal was open at his side, his fountain pen uncapped. “Which is actually sort of funny, considering the topic on my mind.” He broke off there. He could be very coy at times.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the topic?”
“Well, I’ve been wondering lately why it is that some people take action and some people don’t.”
“Take action? What kind of action?”
“Oh, could be almost anything. But something bold. The beau geste, as they say.”
“Who says that, Albin? Nobody I know.”
“What I’m trying to get at,” he went on, “is why it is that some people have a tendency, a drive, to jump right into situations, to insert themselves, and other people have the opposite tendency, just as strong, just as basic to who they are, to hang back and observe.”
Rita ate some oatmeal. That microwave stuff needed to be eaten pretty quickly or it turned to glue. “A for instance would be nice.”
“Okay. Simple example. The other evening I was at a bar with Bert. The IRS men who hassled you happened to come in. Bert went right over, engaged them, and made a bit of a scene.”
“Cool! What kind of scene?”
“Oh, he outed them as Feds, blew their cover. The details don’t much matter. But my point is that Bert took action, jumped in with both feet, and I wouldn’t have done that in a thousand years. I would have avoided the unpleasantness, not risked a confrontation. As it was, I tried to talk him out of it, cringed, and kept on cringing, even as I was sort of enjoying the spectacle, but from the safety of my barstool, fifteen feet away. Why did Bert plunge in and I just sat there?”
“Well, Bert seems to know more about Feds than you do.”
“True, but even if it was…I don’t know, fruit peddlers or something, Bert would have behaved like Bert and I would have behaved like me. Maybe I’m just a coward.”
“You outed yourself in the ‘70s, Albin. You are not a coward.”
“They why do I hang back?” He shrugged with his eyebrows, poured himself another cup of tea, and argued with himself. “Not that hanging back is the worst thing in the world. I mean, people who hang back don’t hurt anyone, don’t pick fights, don’t start wars. If everybody just hung back, the world would be a way more peaceful place.”
“A little dull maybe,” Rita observed, spooning up some of her rapidly congealing oatmeal. “A little too, oh, I don’t know, sort of Scandinavian or something.”
There was a pause. The clouds lowered till they were almost fog. You could see their edges trailing off in streamers. Suddenly Albin said, “Or, like, with my brother...”
“Like, with your brother, what? Were we talking about your brother?”
“Sorry, I’m just wrestling with this.”
“Yeah, that much I can see.”
“My brother was never one for hanging back. He took action. Saw a situation he didn’t like, and tried to change it. Broke laws and went to jail. Okay, fair enough. But there’s another question here: Would it have been better all around if he took no action at all? If he hung back like me, just quietly and legally accepted that our town was going down the tubes and walked away? Would that have been the better thing to do?”
“I think you’re beating yourself up again, Albin.”
“Probably. Or maybe just trying to be honest. Gets a little bruising, you know, trying to be honest. Or maybe it’s just that older people bruise more easily than young ones.”
He put his teacup down and finally picked up his pen.
So I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever make it out the door. True, it’s a chilly, clammy morning, and Master knows that I shiver in the cold with my short hair and maybe two measly tablespoons of body fat, and he gets really worried if I start doing those little dog sneezes that people for some reason find adorable—which is really odd, since they don’t think it’s so damn cute when a human sneezes without a hanky and sprays that stuff all over. So anyway, he’s very slowly going through the drawer where he keeps my vests and jackets, and I’m thinking, “Just pick one out already! We’re only going to Albin’s place, not a freakin’ fashion show!”
Don’t get me wrong, I want to look my best for this excursion. So why am I feeling so impatient? The truth is that I’m all excited and a little flustered because I’m hoping Rita will be there. Yes, I have a crush on her. There, I’ve said it. I’ve had a crush on her since that first time we saw each other and, for as long as that wonderful moment lasted, it was as if there was no one in the world but her and me, gazing at each other, petting and licking and rolling on the floor and getting tickled on the belly and behind the ears.
It was intimate, it was sensuous. But let me clear that it was also pure and chaste. I’m not the kind of dog who starts off with some innocent petting then tries to work things around to a good angle to hump somebody’s leg. I certainly wouldn’t try to pull that kind of stunt with Rita; I have too much respect for her for anything like that.
And yeah, I know what some of you
are thinking: “That’s what they all say, and then, next thing you know, they’re rubbing what’s left of their privates against your shin and secretly saying in their dirty little minds, ‘Take it all, bitch!’” Well, I know there are dogs who would do that. Happens every day. I don’t deny it and I don’t defend them. I’m just saying I’m not one of them. Then again, that’s another thing they all say, so who are you gonna believe?
Anyway, Master finally picks out a vest for me, lightweight wool in a classic red/black Tartan plaid. I’m twitching with anticipation as he buckles me into it, thinking it’s the last detail before we’re on our way. I’m wrong, of course. Master now seems to decide we clash. He’s wearing a teal silk button-down, and I must say I agree with him that it doesn’t work against the red wool. He taught me everything I know about style, after all, so it makes sense we’d agree.
So he takes his shirt off, carefully puts it back on its wooden hanger, then struggles a bit to button the top button so the shoulders don’t stretch out; I guess it isn’t so easy to button a shirt you aren’t wearing. Then he steps back like a painter sizing up a canvas to double-check that the halves of the shirt are hanging symmetrically. Wearing just his undershirt—which, forgive me if I sound momentarily disloyal, is not the prettiest sight in the world—he now climbs up on a stepstool in super-slo-mo, pausing for breath and balance on each of its three stairs, his torso bent and his arms reaching out at precarious and brittle angles like the branches of a bonsai tree. From a high shelf, he takes down a charcoal velour crew-neck in a sweater bag. The bag has snaps. Snaps and arthritic knuckles are not a good combination, so more precious time is lost while he wrestles with the bag.
I’m running around in little circles on the floor, working up a sweat inside my vest. My impatience is selfish, I admit it. But there’s more to it than only that. Can you imagine how badly I want to help? How frustrated I feel that I can’t? Not even with little things that used to be easier for Master, like buttoning buttons or snapping snaps. Not to be morbid, but it’s really hard watching someone you love get older and older and slower and slower. Deep down, you have to face it that at some point there’s no more slower left before you get to altogether stopped.
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