by Mike Dennis
Money was never a problem, though. I always had plenty of it to spend, so spend it I did. That's where a lot of the dough I made from my early scores went, on these girls I kept trying to impress.
That's how it went, year in and year out, just one piece of bad news after another.
Until Norma.
I found her serving drinks one night at this little locals' spot over in one of the neighborhoods. Her second husband had just dumped her, so she was definitely rebounding.
She wasn't what you'd call a knockout. Hell, I guess you could say she wasn't even that good-looking, but once I got to know her a little, I could see her insides. You know, they glowed like a warm summer sunset, while her smile was just the biggest and brightest thing I'd ever seen. Whenever she turned it toward me, it damn sure made everything right again.
She evidently found something in me that she thought was worthwhile, because once we linked up — I guess it was back around eighty-two or three — we were solid, I mean tighter than three coats of paint.
Even now, I can hear her whispering, "Don Roy, I'll make you so proud of me."
You have no idea what that meant to me, hearing her say something like that. No one, but no one, had ever felt that way toward me before. Or since.
So I hope you can see how I was so quick to forgive her for what she did while I was gone. Hell, there's times when we've all got to do things we don't want to do — God knows I've done a few pretty disgusting things that I thought were necessary at the time.
Norma was always a real confused girl. I guess she figured she was only trying to get by when she left me for that fucking weasel BK just before I split for Vegas. He was right when he said I couldn't afford to take her with me. That's when he apparently made his move on her, so she took the bait.
You've got to understand something. See, to a girl like Norma, having someone like BK come sniffing around you is a big deal, because that kind of guy is usually way, way out of reach. The fact that he was married wasn't important.
He's from one of the oldest families on the island, with plenty of dough, and his life damn well set up. But there he was, making like he cared for her. That was the play. She had nothing better going for her. I was leaving soon for Vegas.
What was the point of refusing?
***
Norma had just dropped me off at Mambo's later in the day when I saw the car out of the side of my eye.
A big silver Mercedes, out of place in this neighborhood, sat on the corner. As soon as Norma pulled away, it hummed to life, then rolled up alongside me. The front seat passenger door opened as a guy about my size stepped out. He had long blonde hair, down around his shoulders. I didn't know him.
"Get in the car," he said, in an accent that wasn't from around here.
He opened the back door, pointing my way inside. He obviously didn't know me, either, or else he wouldn't have ordered me around that way.
"Ask me nice and I'll just walk away without telling you to go fuck yourself."
"Mr Whitney would like to see you."
His tone was still flat, without feeling. His broad shoulders and thick biceps bulged under a tight black T-shirt. He was no stranger to the gym. Confidence spread all over his youngish face.
"Whitney? Which one? BK or the old man?"
"Former mayor Wilson Whitney Senior," he said, now with a little zing in his voice.
Punks like him are always trying to impress you with who they know.
"Is this how he makes his appointments? Snatching people off the street?"
His buddy got out of the driver's side. He was also about my size and he had long hair, too, only it was dark brown. He didn't move, though, he just stood there glaring at me.
I guess he thought I'd jump right in after seeing the two of them.
"What's he want with me? I don't even know him."
I knew I would go, even if it was just out of curiosity, but I wasn't going to make it easy for them.
"Just get in the car, Doyle," the driver said.
Everything about him told me he was the ringleader of this little duo, so I looked over the roof of the car at him.
"Not till I know what this's all about. Otherwise, you can kiss my ass."
Tight T-shirt developed a little tic under his left eye. His sidekick's jaw tightened beneath a reddening face.
I knew the rough stuff was only moments away.
"Get in the fucking car, asshole!" said the T-shirt.
He grabbed my arm, jostling me toward the gaping rear door.
"Milton, no!" cried the driver.
Too late. I'd wheeled around behind Milton, pulling his arm into a hammerlock, while grabbing a handful of his long blonde hair. I slammed his head into the frame of the big car, where the roof meets the front door. He fell to the sidewalk, bleeding from the gash on his forehead.
The driver rushed around to his fallen comrade, putting a handkerchief over the wound.
While he knelt over Milton, I said before sliding into the back seat, "Now let's go see your boss, and you can explain how Milton's blood spilled all over these nice leather seats."
ELEVEN
WILSON Whitney lived out in Key Haven, the closest thing there is to a suburb around here. It's actually on Stock Island, the first island up from Key West.
Living up there gives you a lot more space than you can get in town, and of course the taxes are a whole lot less because it's outside the city limits. Before moving up there, he occupied a huge family home on William Street right in the middle of town, but instead of selling it, he gave it to BK and Rita somewhere along the line.
I guess he was afraid his ancestors would put a curse on him if he ever sold the house to a non-Whitney.
After a brief stop at the hospital to drop Milton off at the emergency room, we pulled into the driveway of the big man's house. Up on the veranda, the driver opened the big double doors to the house, motioning for me to go in.
The place was relatively new — what I mean is, it wasn't as old as a lot of the houses back in town.
The way it looked when you walked in, I mean, you just knew that someone with major bucks lived there. Gleaming tile floors gave the whole place a wide-open, Mexican look, and fancy lighting fixtures stuck out from every corner. Sunlight rushed in through big front windows and adjoining open rooms, making everything look airy and inviting.
As I walked through the foyer, I caught the smell of some heavy meat dish simmering back in the kitchen. A uniformed Cuban maid dusted a big, black grand piano in the living room. She was pretty in the way that only Latin women can be.
I wondered if she thought this was the best she could do in life.
The driver led me into a dim study where the old man sat, shuffling papers around on his desk. Thick green curtains covered the windows, allowing only a sliver or two of sunlight to peek in.
A floor lamp provided some light. It wasn't enough.
A big, matching leather couch and chair set took up one corner of the room. Behind the desk a floor-to-ceiling bookcase stretched across the wall, filled with leather-bound books in sets, where they all looked alike. The other walls had lots of plaques and shit, just like with Sully.
What's the deal here? Once you get a little respect, you're supposed to plaster it all over your walls?
"Thank you, Bradley," he said.
The driver left the room, shutting the door.
"Please sit down, Don Roy."
Without offering a handshake, he pointed toward one of two comfortable-looking leather chairs opposite the big desk. I sat in the other one.
"My son tells me you and he were in high school together, is that right?"
He appeared to be pushing seventy, but looked a long way from frail. He was not the least bit overweight, and his posture was erect. His eyes were vigilant, overcast-gray, like his full head of hair, while his voice brimmed with strength and authority.
"That's right. We graduated the same year."
"I thought I knew
everyone in his class, but I don't remember you."
"You wouldn't. I didn't make much of a splash."
But he had a big presence, I had to admit.
He was one of these guys who was used to having power and plenty of it. Kind of a natural-born top dog. He generally got his way with everyone he came in contact with.
Especially the lower species like myself.
"Well, be that as it may … I'll come right to the point."
He shifted in his chair a little more toward me. I caught it.
"You are not to interfere with my son's gambling or with the manner in which he pays his debts. Do you understand?"
"Provided your son doesn't expect my woman to prostitute herself for the sole purpose of giving him the money."
His voice softened. "Don Roy, look. My son likes to gamble. Maybe a little too much, I'll admit, and maybe I've been too lenient with him. But from what I understand, they're seeing each other … they've been friends for quite a while...so let's just let it go for now.
"It's like I told BK this morning, Mr Whitney, I'm taking Norma out of that place, and she's through paying his debts."
His teeth clenched just a little while his head moved forward, but he was trying to keep his voice at an easygoing level. He wasn't succeeding.
"I know you just got back home after being away for several years," he said. "Things change when you stay gone like that. Sometimes the change isn't to your liking."
He leaned back a little in his expensive chair and relaxed his shoulders, his fingers interlaced in front of him on his stomach.
"Let's look at this the way it really is," he went on. "I know my son fooled around with her for awhile before all this … before she … started helping him out. He showed her a good time for a couple of years and … well, now she's just paying him back, is all."
I could tell he liked that one. The smug SOB. That really made sense to him.
Norma was just repaying BK for all the wonderful things he did for her. Like honoring her with his dick in her mouth whenever he could slip away from his wife.
Yes sir, now there's one she owes him.
What is it with these people?
Then he leaned all the way back in his chair and spread his hands out in front of him.
"Besides, this is the nineties. We've got to be broadminded about this sort of thing."
I gripped the arms of the chair and clenched my teeth. Then I reached down into the front pocket of my guayabera for the red dice and began silently grinding them inside my big fist.
After a moment of this, I could speak.
My voice was ice. "BK's free ride is over. And that's final."
"From what I understand, this bookie is very impatient with people who owe him money. If it were anyone else, I'd deal directly with him, but he's a DeLima. His family and mine have had sort of an understanding over the years, so I don't question his policies. If he says my son has to pay up, then that's the way it is. So we move down a couple of levels, and that's where we find you and your … girlfriend."
He was looking so far down his nose at me, I felt like I was in another area code.
"Move to whatever level you want, but the elevator doesn't stop at Norma's floor."
His upper body then moved as far forward as possible without leaving his chair.
"All right, I'll lay it out for you. I don't really care about his gambling. I don't even care about the money. And I certainly don't give a damn about this slimy Stock Island whore in that back-alley brothel. But when you blow back into town, fresh out of prison, and start pushing my son around, my son the mayor, I might add, then you've got trouble. So your price for avoiding that trouble is to stay out of my son's private life."
I ground the dice together harder and harder.
"I didn't push anybody —"
"Shut up!"
He put his palms down on the desk and almost stood up.
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to, you fucking ape! My family's been on this island seven generations, and you come in here telling me what my son is going to do with some whore who fucks niggers and Cubans all night long? If he wants to ship her up to Miami to work the streets, he'll do it! Without any shit from you!" Then he sat back and added, "Unless that girl resumes her duties, this might be the most expensive conversation you've ever had."
He was pissing me off, but that was about it. I was getting ready for the "you're-going-back-to-prison" speech.
My eyebrows raised, then my head tilted a little, asking him silently what he meant, thinking I knew the answer.
He said, "Yes, I said expensive. I know you're back here looking for the money that Irish saloonkeeper is holding back from you. You lay off my son or you'll never get it."
Whoa, where'd this come from? Now it was my turn to lean forward.
I said, "You're the one who's —"
"Don't bother with a comment. Today is Friday. If the girl's not back to work by tomorrow night, you'll never see the money. And I'll know if she's there, because I own the building. Bradley!"
The door flew open and Bradley appeared.
"Take him back to town."
TWELVE
BY Sunday night I'd moved out of the rooming house and in with Norma.
Her apartment was pretty nice, with a sweeping view of the parking lot, but with the two of us in there, it was small. No room for anything. That's what she kept saying, anyway.
I told her if she'd spent three years in a tiny cell with a jigaboo gangbanger, she'd think this place was the fucking penthouse suite at Caesars Palace.
We'd ordered out for pizza. The room was dark except for some sitcom she had on the TV, along with whatever light drifted in from the kitchen. The air conditioning cooled things off nicely. Norma felt good curled up next to me on the couch.
"So what're you gonna do now?" she asked.
"Well, first thing is, I'm gonna have a beer before the pizza gets here."
She playfully slapped my arm.
"No-o-oo. You know what I mean. What're you gonna do from now on?"
I pushed the remote button to lower the TV volume.
"Like I told you, this week I come into some money. It'll be a lot, and it can hold us for a good while, but not forever. We will have time to plan things out, though."
I held her closer to me, then lowered my voice accordingly. "Think about it, honey. It's gonna be a little easier. No more pressures of having to make the rent. Or a car payment. We can have a few nice things. A little breathing room for a change. And now that you're out of the Fun House, there'll be no going back. How do you like that?"
"Oh, it sounds wonderful. Just wonderful. I hope we can 'plan things', as you say, so that we won't have to go back to the way things used to be."
She turned her head up from my chest so she could look at me.
"You know, a couple of months ago, there was this guy on Oprah who said planning a better life is something everybody ought to sit down and do. Like, he said you should sit down with a pencil and paper and actually make a list of things in life you want to do. But he said that sticking with that plan is really, really hard, and that most people fail. We won't fail, will we, Don Roy?"
Before I could tell her no, she sighed, "You know, all I want...I just want us to have a … a … future."
That was a word she'd always had trouble with. The concept was pretty hard for her to comprehend.
Fact is, I'd never really had a solid grip on it myself.
I'd always lived in the weedy undergrowth of straight society, raised in one of those dried-out-white shotgun houses on the edge of Old Town, scraping through on a mix of wits and muscle. My adult life was a blur of moving from score to score, then back into the safety of the shadows.
I usually got by all right, but how could I, or Norma for that matter, see our "future" the way everyone else saw theirs? Our futures growled in front of us, like a dark, curvy, mountain road full of big potholes and upturned nails.
Smal
l wonder, with the way we were brought up, the way we steered our lives. Very few doors were ever open for us, so we took what limited choices we had.
Shit, who could blame us?
THIRTEEN
IT was barely dawn Monday morning when the repeated pounding on the door woke me up. Not with knuckles, but with a fist.
The sound was unmistakable.
Cops.
Norma threw on a robe. She stood at the door yelling, "Who is it?"
"Police! Open up."
As she opened the door, I already had my pants on. I heard his distinct Cuban-Conch accent.
"Where is he? Where's Doyle?"
Ortega.
He shoved his way into the apartment, followed by his plain-clothes partner and two uniforms. Norma's objections trailed off into space.
I moved out into the living room. As he approached me, the only thing between us was his attitude. It was way out in front of him, like cheap cologne.
"Looks like you fucked up big-time, Doyle."
His sneer really got to me. I wanted to slice it right off his wise-ass face.
"Today's April Fool's Day, Ortega. This your idea of a joke?"
"The joke's on you, big man. But you probably won't think it's too funny."
I could tell by his smirk he thought it was hilarious.
"Okay, it's tearing me up. Now, what's your beef? And make it snappy. I want to go back to bed."
"You might be sleeping in county facilities by nightfall. Where were you last night?"
"Right here. What's the deal?"
"Can you prove it?"
His eyes wandered downward to my bare shoulders and chest, checking out my jailhouse tats.
"Yeah. Norma here was with me the whole —"
"Oh, right! This bitch. Like she's a real reliable fucking witness."
"Witness? To what? What's this all about?"
The uniforms had unhooked their clubs from their belts. They were slapping them into their palms, almost in sync with one another. Warning me not to get out of line, yet itching for me to do just that.