"We've been watching you. We've been watching her. It seems, to put it delicately, that the two of you have become an item."
"And what are you, the sex police?"
The agent crossed his arms, pushed up his biceps with his knuckles. "Mr. Magnus. . . . May I call you Arty?"
The other man just leaned back in his chair and glared at him.
"Listen," the agent resumed. "I'm not your enemy. I'm trying to help you out. Your lady-friend here—you know she's on probation on a drug charge?"
Arty tried not to look surprised. But he couldn't help glancing at the picture of Debbi, the wide and avid eyes, the smile so big it was almost goofy. Steeling himself, he said, "This is Key West, Sutton. Am I supposed to be scandalized?"
"Scandalized? No. But I thought you might be a little bit concerned."
Arty said nothing, struggled to hold his face together. A nasty glozing doubt had suddenly sprung up to mock him. Reluctant Arty. Cautious Arty. What did he really know about this woman he'd fallen into bed with? Only that she had a trusting, life-embracing gaze and an exhilarating way of shrugging. Only that she seemed the greatest thing that had happened to him in as long as he could remember.
"She was caught red-handed with cocaine," Sutton hammered on. "Not a little stash for personal use. A lot of cocaine."
"You're telling me she's a dealer?"
"I'm telling you she got off with a suspended sentence and probation. Part of the probation—no contact with felons. Like Gino. Like Vincente. Arty, listen to me. We tell what we know, we show the pictures, she goes away for two, three years. She won't be the same person when she gets out, believe me."
Arty sat. Something seemed to be pushing down on his shoulders, sapping the starch from his posture. He thought about thrall. The thrall of his pledges to Vincente, now the more visceral thrall of desire, of the joyful and reckless beginnings of love. He looked at the picture of Debbi, then said miserably to Sutton, "Just what the hell do you want from me?"
By way of reply, the agent reached into his briefcase again. He pulled out an infrared image of Arty and Vincente at the metal table on Joey's patio, placed it next to the other photo. Vincente had his finger raised in a Socratic gesture. Arty had his notebook on his lap.
"I think the pictures tell the story," said Mark Sutton. "You lied about why you go to that house, Mr. Magnus. You looked us in the eye and you lied. But OK, no hard feelings. Let's keep it practical. Over here, you've got the girl. Over here, the Godfather. You can protect one of them, Mr. Magnus. You can't protect both."
Arty splayed his hands out on his desk, let out a long slow breath. Behind him the droning air conditioner dribbled condensation onto the rotting floor.
"I'd like to know what you're hiding," said the agent. "Maybe you'd like to tell me what you and Delgatto talk about. Maybe you'd like to show me what's in that little notebook."
"And if I tell you it's got nothing to do with you?"
Sutton frowned down at the picture of Debbi Martini. "I think we both know that's not good enough," he said.
43
"Certain things in life," the Godfather was saying, "they just ain't supposed ta happen."
He and Arty were sitting around the low metal table on Joey Goldman's patio. It was dusk. The still swimming pool gave off a sapphire glow; in the west, behind the aralia hedge, slabs of flat red cloud were squeezed between layers of green and yellow sky.
"A child dies," Vincente said. "Shouldn't happen. A beautiful woman gets a cancer in her breast. A rotten son of a bitch gets to de end of his life wit'out it ever catches up wit' 'im. A son turns against his father. These things make any sense to you, Ahty?"
The ghostwriter sat with his spiral notebook spread open on his lap. His cheap pen was in his hand. Now and then he broke through his own preoccupations long enough to scrawl a phrase, but his mind wandered. For the first time he thought he truly understood what Vincente meant when he spoke of being overstuffed with secrets.
"On'y way it makes any sense at all," the Godfather went on, "is if ya figure maybe there's some crazy balance, it's got nothin' ta do wit' good and bad, right and wrong, who deserves a break and who deserves a hot poker up de ass, it's just some crazy way that things, like, average out."
Slowly, stiffly, the old man reached forward toward his glass of wine. Arty watched him. He didn't look tired, exactly; he looked drained and jittery together, at that point of fatigue and strain where one has forgotten what it is to rest. His hand trembled slightly as he raised his glass; his lower lip pushed out to meet the rim as in an awkward unsure kiss. Then he said, "An' this is where God comes into it. Ya see what I'm sayin', Ahty?"
"No, Vincente, I don't think I do."
"If it's all just averaging out, random like ... I mean, lemme ask ya this. Which d'ya think is worse: Ya don't b'lieve in God at all; or ya wanna b'lieve, ya try, but ya look around and y'end up sayin', Wait a second, what kinda cruel sick bastard could He be? I mean really, which is worse?"
For this Arty had no answer. The Godfather didn't seem to notice. He took a wheezing breath and reached under the lapel of his satin smoking jacket.
"OK," he went on. "So say it all comes down t'averaging out. So whaddya do? Ya do what ya can ta help the percentages, improve your odds. An' 'at's where this comes in."
He pulled his hand out of his jacket. It was holding the snub-nosed .38.
Arty's mouth fell open. He'd never seen a gun in someone's hand so close to him. It looked obscene, disgusting. The barrel had a dull industrial sheen, the muzzle was dark as the bottom of a mine.
"Yeah, ya get yourself a gun," the Godfather resumed, absendy gesturing with the weapon, "an' ya tell yourself you're helping your chances, improving your odds, it's less likely you're gonna be the one that gets fucked. But ya know what, Ahty? Y'ain't doin' nothin' about your odds. Nothin' ya do does nothin'. That's the joke. Innee end, things either work out or they don't."
He broke off, slowly waved the gun, put it softly on the metal table. Arty's eyes followed it down, and he was visited by an ugly thought. Perhaps Vincente really was just a criminal and nothing more, as mean and vulgar and unredeemed as Mark Sutton made him out to be. Could there be any virtue in standing up for such a man, any goodness or even any sense in sacrificing others on the crooked altar of promises made to him?
Vincente was looking off toward the west, at the fading clouds. His tunnel eyes were out of focus. After a time he said, "But where was I goin' wit' this?"
Arty put his notebook down, leaned far forward, his forearms on his knees. "Vincente, you OK?"
The old man didn't react right away. Then he put on a masked wry smile, scratched behind an ear. Was he OK? This was not a question he was often asked. Of course he was OK. He was the Boss, the elder, the one who knew. He had to be OK; why bother asking?
Why bother answering? Instead, he said, "Ah, I remember now. The gun. I'm showin' ya the gun because I was thinkin', this book we were doin', it woulda been nice ta leave the gun out of it, like, ya know, it didn't exist, wasn't part a the story. Like we could say Vincente Delgatto wasn't a punk, he was a man wit' some dignity, maybe he knew a couple things. But ya couldn't leave the gun out, Ahty, ya couldn't pretty it up like that—"
"The book we were doing, Vincente?"
The old man pulled up short. His mouth worked a couple of seconds before sound came out. "Before things got all fucked up. Before it got too dangerous."
A yellow light came on just inside the house. Joey, carrying the enormous pasta bowl, appeared in the doorway and told them it was time for dinner. He saw his father's revolver glinting dully on the table and pretended he did not.
When he'd withdrawn, Arty said, "Vincente, you and me, we have a deal. You don't just break it off like that. The deal lives as long as we do, remember?"
The old man's eyes stung, he rolled his tangled brows down to hide them. Talking through that book, easing his mind—it was as close as he was ever going to come to salvation, but he
wasn't going to get anybody killed for it. Bitterly, he said, "The deal lives unless it doesn't."
He put his hands on the arms of his chair, and began the arduous process of getting to his feet. Arty closed his notebook and wondered if he'd just been released from his pledges, wondered how he would know honor from treachery, gallantry from treason, beyond the strict bounds of his promise.
Perversely, his gaze was pulled toward one last look at Vincente's thuggish weapon; somehow the Godfather had already stashed it. He must have been wicked quick when he was young, the writer thought.
———
Gino Delgatto, wearing borrowed clothes that didn't fit exactly right, drove his rented T-Bird south on Seven Mile Bridge, on his way to murder Arty Magnus.
The thought of Arty dead didn't trouble him in the least. In fact his own world would seem considerably less cluttered without this skinny brainy Jew outsider who had somehow wormed his way into his father's confidence, was taking money from the old man while seducing him onto a course that could only end in family humiliation and disaster. A book! A public guts-pilling! And meanwhile this nobody is skimming off his five grand every month and getting tighter with Vincente every day, getting to be real buddies, confidants. He had to go.
Still, Gino wished there was someone else to do the killing. He drove under the starry sky between the Atlantic and the Gulf, barreled past the muck-anchored pylons that carried power to Key West at the end of the line, and wished to hell that Pretty Boy and Bo had done the job. It would have been so neat that way; it would have been over with by now.
Who knew about this FBI connection? Who knew even now how far it went? So Messina had thrown it back on Gino. That was the deal—if you could call it a deal. He killed the writer, he was given absolution; he didn't kill the writer, he'd better not buy green bananas. If the writer was wired, if the Feds were watching him, that was Gino's problem; he would take the fall.
Gino chuckled over that one as he drove. Him take the fall? In a world of rat-outs and gut-spillings, him be the only sucker that keeps his mouth shut? Not likely. Worse came to worse, the Feds nailed him murder one, he'd sing; he'd sing so loud they'd think Caruso had come back. The kind of information he could give them . . .
What kind of information could he give them? He was the Godfather's son, OK. But what did he know, what could he tell, that would give the prosecutors a bigger hard-on than a sure conviction on murder one?
Right offhand, Gino couldn't think of anything, and for a single awful moment he doubted he was as important as he liked to think he was. He banished the thought, watched a moonlit pelican fly next to the road. He wouldn't need to cut a deal. The killing would go just fine. To reassure himself, he reached a hand into the pocket that held the nine-millimeter pistol graciously lent by Charlie Ponte. It made him confident that the odds were heavily on his side.
44
In the cramped kitchen of a fourth-floor walkup on Sullivan Street, Bert the Shirt d'Ambrosia, his monogrammed cuffs rolled up past his elbows, was making meatballs, while his sniffly chihuahua lay on the cracked linoleum, content in its master's nearness and in the homey smells of meat and garlic and frying onions.
The old mobster, humming tunelessly, sculpted a hollow into the big raw mound of blended beef and pork and broke an egg in it. He kneaded the mixture through the fingers of both hands; it made squishy sounds as the egg yolk ran and bubbled. Then he split the gooey mass into two batches.
He went to the doorway and peeked through it into the living room. Bo, who believed that people should keep up with things, was sitting rapt in front of the evening news, frowning at earthquakes and warlords. He wasn't getting up anytime real soon.
Bert went back to the counter and reflected on how lucky he was in his jailer. Bo had been nothing but considerate, gentlemanly. He'd taken Bert uptown to the Stafford, let him gather up his things, even carried his bag for him. Downtown again, they'd walked Don Giovanni together, shopped for dinner like roommates, met Pretty Boy for a drink at a bar on Bleecker Street. The handsome thug moved from speedy to opinionated, in what seemed the early stages of a night of getting blotto, but Bo had remained a pleasant companion all the while.
He'd been so nice that the Shirt felt almost bad as he dumped the rest of the flaxseed into Bo's half of the meatball mixture and worked in the oily pellets with his fingers. The arthritic chihuahua roused itself at the familiar smell and did a jointless little pirouette next to the garbage can.
———
The ceiling fan turned slowly above Joey and Sandra's dining room table; the blades sliced through the steam that wafted up from the giant bowl of fusilli and shrimp and the tails of langostinos.
Arty held out a chair for Debbi. He smelled her hair as she settled in, but his mind was not at peace.
When everyone was seated, Vincente, regal in his smoking jacket, raised his glass and said, "Salud." Five arms stretched across the table; glasses clinked.
Heaping bowls of pasta were handed round. Arty thought about the first time he'd eaten here. Out of nervousness, he'd had three helpings of linguine, and everyone had offered an opinion on his appetite and his physique, talked about him like he wasn't there—or as if he'd always been there.
Now salad was making its way around the table.
The ghostwriter, his insides stuffed with secrets, felt no appetite. He tonged a few leaves onto his side plate. Joey said to him, "Take more. There's avocado at the bottom. You like avocado."
Debbi shot a quick wry look at Arty; this was just the kind of thing the two of them would smile about together. Arty felt her glance but was too knotted up to return it. "How do you know I like avocado?" he said to Joey.
"Come on," the other man said. "I don't know what you like by now? I don't see? It's like family already. Family, ya know who likes avocado, who hates onions, who peppers make 'im burp. Ya just know."
So Arty dug out some avocado.
There was a silence which then phased into a rumble as the air got ready to carry sound. Vincente said softly, "Family changes. It changes. I didn't used ta think it did, I thought it was the only thing that stayed the same. I was wrong—what else is new? The feelings change, the boundaries, like, they ain't so solid like I thought. People leave. People come in. It changes, yeah."
He blinked from underneath his awning brows. He looked through the steam that wafted from the pasta bowl, saw Joey and Sandra, Arty and Debbi. They were staring at him, and only when he saw them staring did he realize he'd spoken aloud. They looked worried, they looked sad for him. It didn't do for people to be sad at table, and Vincente tried to smile. To his surprise, a small smile came easily, he felt in some way unburdened. "It changes, yeah," he said again. "I ain't sayin' that's bad."
Bo the gentlemanly thug dabbed his thick lips on a napkin and patted his distended tummy. "Terrific meatballs, Bert," he said. "Howdya make em?"
The old mobster, his own small stomach pressing lightly against the bone buttons of his shirt, got up to clear the table that was squeezed into a shadowy alcove with a hissing radiator. "Ya gonna tell me why you're keepin' me heah?" he said.
"We been tru dat," said Bo. "Ya know I can't."
"Then I ain't givin' up my recipe." He ran dishes up his arm and headed for the kitchen. His dog followed stiffly behind, paws ticking on the floor.
"Ya puttin' up coffee?" Bo asked him.
Bert put the dishes in the sink. There was a clock on the wall; it said ten after nine. With the dog, it usually took about an hour for things to happen with the flaxseed. Of course, Bo was a lot bigger than the dog. Then again he'd had a lot more meatballs. Bert didn't know if it would make a difference either way. He didn't hurry on the coffee; eleven minutes were gone by the time the brown foam dribbled out the spout of the espresso pot.
Bo had moved to the living room by then. He was sitting in front of the television, but there was no sound on, only pictures. The Shirt handed him his coffee. Bo said, "So Bert, ya like it down in Florida?"
"Love it," said the old man absently. He'd settled into a blue vinyl chair from which he could see the kitchen clock.
"Ya drive New Yawk-Miami," Bo informed him, "the state a Florida is like one-third the ride. Lotta people don't realize at."
Bert reached down for his dog, put the brittle creature in his lap. "Big state," he said.
Bo slurped espresso, pictured the maps, the mileage charts in little boxes. "Big state," he agreed.
Bert smiled blandly, peeked into the kitchen. He figured that in forty-one minutes, give or take, things would start to rearrange themselves inside his captor's belly.
———
With some difficulty, Gino Delgatto, hunkered low and squinting over the steering wheel of his rented T-Bird, found the narrow and ill-marked entrance to Nassau Lane.
By the moon and the streetlamps he recognized the cottage that the Fabretti thugs had described. There were no lights on inside. He drove to the end of the short street, turned around in the cramped cul de sac. Stray cats fled from the panning headlights that lit up garbage cans, fallen coconuts, bundled cuttings of pruned shrubbery.
He parked across the street and one house up from Arty's place. He sat quietly a moment, summoning concentration like any workman with a job to do. He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, thin and supple as condoms. He checked the pistol in his right-hand pocket, the small flashlight in his left. He got out of the car and walked past the close-together Christmas palms to his victim's door.
The screen was torn; a corner of it hung down and shook like a brittle leaf in the light breeze. The front door lock had not yet been repaired. Gino tried the knob; it turned easily.
He stepped inside, his right hand in his pocket, and closed the door behind him. He took out the little flashlight and looked around the living room. He saw the mismatched furniture with its loose strands of splintered ancient rattan. He saw the cheap table with its metal legs, the rough rug with its unraveling edges. "Place is a fuckin' dump," he murmured aloud. "Guy's a fuckin' nobody." He moved toward a low bench that held a telephone and an answering machine and casually yanked their wires out of the wall.
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