He nodded and lay down flat again, thinking about her fingers in his hair, trying to forget that someone out there had in mind to make a dumb mistake and murder him. She went to the bungalow. The housekeeper apparently had been too shocked or baffled to make the bed. The stuffed fish, its blue and silver fin unfurled, still had its nose deeply buried in the mattress. Katy pulled it out. The nose offered a fair bit of resistance and made a creaking, scratching sound as it was withdrawn. The puncture in the sheet was neat and round.
She put the trophy on the dresser, then straightened out the tortured blanket and folded it neatly at the foot of the bed. At first she didn't know why she was bothering to do those things just then.
She stepped into the thatch enclosure and had a long warm shower.
When she went outside again, she was wearing a bathrobe that Al did not immediately recognize as his. The sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, the lapels were wrapped modestly around her throat. Her hair was wet and combed straight back and she hadn't bothered to put on makeup. She sat down on her lounge so that her knees were level with Al's chest.
He had to say something, so he said, "Nice shower?"
She didn't answer that. She said, "Tusch, I think it's time. Don't you?"
He knew what she was saying but he needed to be absolutely sure he knew. He'd started down the gallant path, and they probably should have fled by now, and as the hours passed he knew he should be getting more afraid; but he couldn't say or do a thing until he was absolutely certain what this tall young woman in his bathrobe was saying to him. So he just stared at her a moment.
She reached out and touched his hair again. "Time," she said again. "For us. Don't'cha think?"
31
Nicky Scotto's plane was just then landing in Miami, settling onto a tire-scarred runway that shimmered in the heat of afternoon.
In his sticky suit he hurried through the terminal, past pyramids of plastic oranges and mobs of South Americans checking in with televisions and Pampers boxes, and caught the jumper flight to Key West. It was a short flight but the attendant went through twice with drinks. People traveling in tank tops wolfed beers and margaritas out of cans, getting ready to be loud and silly.
Nicky thumbed a magazine, then looked out the window as the small plane started its descent. Where the flats began, the water of the Gulf thinned out from indigo to milky green; tide-scoured channels branched and meandered among the splotchy russet and maroon of coral heads. Colonies of mangrove sprouted inexplicably; gradually they thickened into islands, scraps of forest with their feet in swamps. Beautiful, thought Nicky. Lots of places to dump a body.
He caught a taxi at the airport and went straight to Chop's motel.
In the still-searing sun of four o'clock, he climbed a flight of outdoor stairs then knocked on the hollow, rotting door of the hired killers' room. The door was opened by a heavily sweating guy in a sleeveless T-shirt. Veins stood out on his neck and arms.
Nicky said, "You must be Squid."
"That's right," said the bandy man. He didn't offer his hand and he didn't smile.
Nicky tried a compliment. "Always heard good things about your work."
"When I get to do it," Squid said dryly. "Come in, ya want. I'm doin' calisthenics."
Nicky stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind him. Ignoring the guest, Squid dropped to the ratty carpet, started doing push-ups, the kind where you clap between each one.
"Where's Chop?" asked Nicky, sitting on a damp and musky unmade bed.
"He's doin' somethin'," grunted the man on the floor.
"He's workin' for me," said Nicky. "What's he doin'?"
"I don't really know," said Squid. He rolled onto his back and started doing sit-ups.
"I fuckin' told him when I'd be here," Nicky said.
Squid didn't bother answering that, and Nicky's irritation ripened quickly in the steamy climate. His two great hit men. One didn't have the decency to be there to greet him, and the other was an exercise freak who was giving him attitude. Where was the respect? Adding to his annoyance, the room was broiling hot and stank of mildew. He took off his jacket. His thin gray turtleneck was wet under the arms and along the spine. "This dump ain't got AC?"
Squid was curled up like a bug, hands behind his head, his left elbow reaching for his right knee. "While I'm sweated up?" he said. "You crazy?"
Nicky rose, started walking toward the bathroom to throw cold water on his face. Halfway there, his very fragile patience disappeared. "Am I crazy?" he said. "You wanna take a guy out wit' a stuffed fish hangin' on a wall, and you ask me if I'm crazy?"
Squid kept on with his crunches. With a quiet but implacable resentment, he said, "All I know is, ya hire guys to do a job, y'oughta let 'em do the job."
Nicky stood right over Squid. "Look, you seem to be forgetting whose job this is. For what I'm payin' you—"
Squid did not like looking at Nicky's crotch and up his nose. He sat and swiveled on his haunches. "You think this is about the money?"
Scotto was stumped by the question. What else could it be about?
"Fuck the money!" Squid went on, sitting lotus-style on the floor. "This is about symmetry. Completion."
Nicky blinked at him, scratched his ear, resumed his journey toward the bathroom.
"Fuck the money!" Squid repeated to his back. "The money for this hit, which now you're making about as elegant as a Kotex, fuhget about it. All I want's my per diem."
Nicky turned around. "Your per fucking what?"
The door opened. Light rolled into the room like a giant wedge of yellow cheese. Chop stepped in behind it and Nicky jumped right down his throat. "Where you fucking been?"
Unfazed, Chop said, "Picking out a spot. Ya know, for later. You guys been gettin' ta know each other?"
*
Big Al Marracotta had sat for a long time on the high edge of his hotel bed, sat there stunned, like a man amid the charred and tangled wreckage of what used to be his house. Too fast for sanity to track, everything was gone. Work; power; status; sex life—vanished. Just another aging middle-level wise guy once again. He stared at the wall and tried to get used to the idea.
Eventually he rose on numb legs and showered. He barely felt the water on his skin or the brisk rub of the towel.
Hiding in a hotel bathrobe, he walked in absent circles around his suite, tried out different armchairs. He noticed vaguely that the light outside was changing, turning golden. Soon it would be sunset. The big event of every day. Some event! Then again, at least it could not be taken away. In a morbid mood of anti-celebration, he decided he would leave his room to drink champagne as the sun was going down.
He got dressed. Stepped into sharkskin pants and, by force of habit, tucked his slender knife inside his sock before putting on his shoes. He combed his half-inch helmet of salt-and-pepper hair and headed for the rooftop bar.
Big Al was not a sentimental guy, had always moved too fast for nostalgia to catch up with him. Riding the elevator, smelling the sea, whose tang penetrated even to the airshaft, he didn't realize he was acting out an unamusing parody of his first evening in Key West. Reliving the sunset of just a few short days ago, when he'd been a big shot and a lover. Going back to the beginning, as though he could start vacation over and get it right this time.
*
Katy and Al Tuschman lay beneath the punctured blanket on the punctured bed and talked about their plans.
"Maybe South Beach for a coupla days," said Al. "Rent a car and drive right up."
Katy stroked his chest. She liked the way the whorls of hair wrapped themselves around her fingers. "You sure you wanna be with me that long?"
He ran a hand over the smooth rise of her hip. "Come on," he said. "Don't start that stuff. Coupla days in South Beach. Finish with a real vacation. Whaddya say?"
A breeze moved the thin curtains of the room. It was cooler than the breeze had been before and it lacked the brickish smell of high afternoon. The day was ending and the
crazy, mistaken dangers of night were coming on.
"I say whatever we're gonna do, we better get started doing it."
She kissed him once then moved to get up from the bed. Al held her close a moment more, reveled in her length. Her toes tickled his insteps, their loins nested without contortion, her tanned cheek fit like a violin in the hollow of his neck.
He marveled once again at how smoothly she unfolded, as she rose to walk off toward the shower.
32
Across the street, in the lengthening shadow of the buttonwood hedge, Squid was sulking in the backseat of the Jag. Chop sat observant and serene behind the steering wheel. Next to him, Nicky Scotto, jumpy and perspiring, kept plucking at his trousers, and gave off the funky acetone smell of a nervous man whose clothes were wrong for the tropics. He was very aware of the weight of the pistol Chop had given him; it pulled down on an inside pocket of his jacket and made him lean that way. He stared at the wooden gate of Paradise and said to no one in particular, " Ya sure he's coming out?"
"Fuck knows?" said Squid, enjoying the other man's discomfort. "Guy gets hungry, thirsty, he's comin' out."
Nicky prayed in secret that it would be soon. He could feel in his bowels that his nerve was wearing thin. He'd killed before, but never a made man. An equal. Someone with friends who solemnly believed in getting even.
Chop picked up where Squid left off. "Or if he has ta walk his little dog."
Nicky was plucking at his sticky pants and watching the shadows slowly stretch across the street. "Little dog?" he said. "He's got a big dog."
Chop Parilla felt just the faintest of misgivings but held his face together and said nothing, only looked across the street and drummed lightly on the steering wheel.
In the backseat, Squid Berman was taking a bleak pleasure from seeing more and more that the guy who wouldn't let him complete his masterpiece was a total idiot. Not bothering to mask his contempt, he said, "Have it your way, Nicky. Guy's got a big, gigantic dog."
*
"We're leaving" said Al Tuschman to the desk clerk with the ruby studs above his eye and the purple bags beneath them.
The drowsy fellow seemed indifferent yet confused. He glanced at the departing guest's suitcase, and at the woman who had not been with him when he'd arrived, and at the register before him on the counter. "You're booked for two more nights."
Al said, "I know that. We're going."
The clerk tried his best to look concerned. "Was everything all right?"
"No," said Al. "There's a gash in the mattress."
"A gash?"
"You might wanna think about security. Where can we rent a car right now?"
"Right now?" Time being featureless for him, he had to glance down at his watch. "Only place, the airport."
Putting his room key on the counter, Al said, "Would you call us a taxi, please."
He and Katy headed for the office door. Al held his suitcase and Katy held Fifi. The clerk watched them go, and could not help seeing some vague personal failure in their retreating backs. Through his exhaustion he rallied for one last burst of rote and insincere professionalism. "Please come back and see us!" he chirped.
Al looked across his shoulder. "Yeah, right."
But when he crossed the office threshold and stood for the last time in the courtyard with its pool and hot tub, its lounges where people rubbed and cooed and chattered, a strange thing happened: he suddenly felt a fondness for the place. In spite of everything, in spite of what, minute by minute, had felt like loneliness and awkwardness and misery, it now seemed to Al that he'd had a pretty good time there. He was tan and freshly showered. He'd caught up on his rest and had a tall new lover at his side. In some cockeyed, screwball way, vacation had turned out pretty well.
He took a last deep breath of chlorine and spent flowers, a last look at the closely tended palms with a yellow sunset glow behind them. He leaned close to Katy and kissed her on the neck, and then they headed for the wooden gate.
*
Across the street and thirty yards away, Chop Parilla watched as Al Tuschman dropped his suitcase and Katy bent down smoothly to put the leashed dog on the ground. He squeezed the wheel of the idling Jag and pointed with his big square chin. "There he is!" he hissed.
Nicky Scotto felt the urgency deep down in his guts. He narrowed his eyes and craned his neck. He squinted down, he stretched and strained, but finally he had to say, "There who is?"
In the backseat, Squid Berman chewed his tongue and thought, Is this guy a moron or what?
"Big Al!" said Chop.
Nicky tightened down his abdomen and rubbed his eyes and felt the gun against his ribs. He grabbed the dashboard and leaned far forward. "Where?"
Christ, thought Squid, the motherfucker's blind!
"Right there!" Chop said. "Wit' the tall broad and the dog!"
Nicky stared, and stared, and saw a stranger. A long and sweaty moment passed. Then he said, "Come on, don't fuck around."
For a heartbeat no one moved. Then Chop shifted very slightly in the driver's seat and slid his gaze to the rearview mirror, silently but desperately conferring with his partner.
Nicky tracked his eyes, saw the look on his face— hangdog, crestfallen. In a nauseating instant, he understood. He said, "You fuckin' assholes! You think that's Big Al?"
"That is Big Al!" insisted Squid.
"You're telling me who Big Al is? I don't know that fuckin' guy from Adam!"
"The license plate—" said Chop.
"Fuck the license plate! Geniuses! Ya got the wrong guy all this time!"
Neither Chop nor Squid had anything to say to that. Chop just looked down at his knuckles. Squid thought ruefully about his brilliant work. Some masterpiece— wrong from the start.
"I tol' you," Nicky hammered on. "Little guy, big dog." He gestured toward the threesome quietly waiting for their taxi on the dusky sidewalk. "Zat look like a big dog ta you? Zat look like—"
He stopped himself mid-rant. Something had clamped on to his attention. A spiky head of raven hair above a pert, small-featured face above a healthy chest above a long thin pair of legs. He said, "Wait a second. Who's the broad?"
"You know everything," Sid Berman said. "You tell us."
"Come on, come on. Who is she?"
Chop shrugged. "Some broad that he picked up. Wasn't with 'im at the start."
Nicky looked harder. Long neck, slightly pointed chin. He'd seen her in New York. He was sure of it. At various bars and seafood joints. Sassy. Pouty. With a way of looking bored. He said, "Shit, I think that's Big Al's girlfriend."
Everybody was confused. Squid could not help saying, "Big Al's girlfriend. But not Big Al."
"Shut up," said Nicky. He plucked at his pants and tried to stitch his torn-up thoughts together. After a moment he said, "We're grabbing them."
Chop began, "But you just said—"
"Shut up. Go."
He put the idling Jag in gear.
33
Al and Katy had been talking about the great time they would have in South Beach. Long walks by the ocean. Cocktails in the crazy lobbies of old lime-green hotels. Finger food in suave cafes as beautiful people glided past on Rollerblades.
When the Jaguar stopped in front of them, Al tried to make a little joke. "Pretty fancy cab."
Katy smiled but did not have time to laugh. She looked up to see a suit moving toward her, caught a sickening glimpse of a big hand wrapped around a gun that gleamed a dull blue in the deepening dusk.
Squid spilled from the backseat right after Nicky. He bounded over to Al Tuschman and poked the muzzle of a pistol between his ribs.
Fifi barked. Nicky kicked her in the snout. He grabbed one of Katy's wrists and wrenched it behind her back and let her feel the gun against her spine. "Inna car," he whispered. "Not a fuckin' sound."
He used her long arm as a lever and pushed her to the Jag. She dragged the dog behind her; no one seemed to care.
Squid prodded Al Tuschman, who move
d like he had just woken up. His suitcase, ghostly, stayed there on the sidewalk.
It happened too fast for real fear to grab on until they were seated in the car. That's when the milky feeling swelled up from the stomach, the cold burn moved down the legs. Al and Katy and the shih tzu were huddled in the back with Squid. Nicky swiveled toward them, his pistol poking lewdly through the slot between the bucket seats.
Chop drove away. Drove calmly, slowly. A sightseer's pace through peaceful, unsuspecting streets, past clapboard houses whose emerald and coral and turquoise shutters hoarded up the fading light.
Nicky said to Katy, "I know you." The simple statement was a horrid accusation. "Kitty. Kathy. You fuck Big Al. Am I right?"
Katy said nothing. By now she vaguely recognized her captor. One more thug from the thuggish places she used to let herself be taken to. She could not recall his name. Frankie, Funzie, Petey, Sal—what did it matter? They were all preening, back-slapping show-offs; she could seldom even tell who were friends and who were enemies.
After a moment Nicky wagged the gun toward Al. "So who's this other asshole?"
Katy stayed silent. So did Al. Squid reached across and slammed the butt of his gun into the tall man's solar plexus. Fifi tried to nip his hand. "Answer the fucking question."
Al had a hard time getting his breath to hook up with his vocal cords. Weakly, he managed, "Name's Al Tuschman."
Squid's eyes pinwheeled. "Big Al Tuschman, any chance?"
"Wit' a license plate that says so?" put in Chop.
"Yeah," admitted the furniture salesman.
"I tol' ya!" Chop insisted.
"Shut up," said Nicky Scotto. "Let it go, already." To Katy he said, "But ya didn't come here wit' this asshole, did ya? Ya came here wit' the real Big Al."
Katy said nothing. Chop wound slowly through the streets. Cats skulked along the curbs. Brightening streetlamps put orange starbursts on the windshield.
"So where the fuck is he?" Nicky said.
Katy kept quiet. She was not a traitor. For the last few days she'd worked hard at killing her old life, shedding the hurt parts that had inhabited that life; she didn't need to kill old boyfriends, too.
Welcome to Paradise Page 16