The philosophers say nothing in the mind is inaccessible to the mind. They are wrong. The mind is promiscuous. It collects more than you can ever possibly know. It—not me — had seen white shoes, and taken in the man on his back, sleeping under the newspaper. Minutes after the phone call, as I stood at a coffee counter, still tumultuous, I saw white shoes dangling from legs on either side of a stool and I remembered — I’d seen them before — remembered what I didn’t know I knew. I remembered the newspaper, too, which the man was now reading.
I left my coffee untasted on the counter, went to a phone, trying to be efficient, though hurried and frightened. I dialed Information, then Sam Halpert. Not once did I glance back at White Shoes, but I’d have bet a million dollars his eyes were set high in his head, which I’d seen as a blondish blur, complexion pocked and gullied from cheek to neck, as if he’d been washing in acid. Somebody picked up the phone, and, without any hello, said, “Can you hear me good?”
I said, “Yes. Sam Halpert?”
“Start laughing.”
“I have nothing to laugh at, Mr. Halpert.”
“This is a hilarious phone call, if somebody is watching you.”
I laughed, laughed.
“Don’t overdo it, kid. What does he look like?”
“Blond. Ha, ha, ha. Maybe six feet tall. Late twenties. Your average white trash.” The expression surprised me. It came flying out of fear, as if to strike the man. “Ha, ha, ha. Blue-and-white Hawaiian shirt, white slacks, white shoes with pointed toes. Ha, ha, ha. I’m scared out of my mind.”
“I want you to talk to me. Move your mouth, shake your head, laugh. Then hang up and go look for a taxi. Don’t run. Don’t dawdle. Don’t get ideas about calling a cop. Tell the taxi driver to go to Bayside, and to drop you at the flags.”
“The flags?”
“You’ll see like a park, flags at the entrance. An aisle of flags. Walk through the flags. There’s shops on either side. Go straight, straight, straight till you’re standing on a concrete ledge facing the bay. Below the ledge you’ll see a parapet. Go down to it and walk right. Repeat what I said.”
“Taxi to Bayside. Aisle of flags.”
“Laugh.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Through flags to water, down to parapet, walk right. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
“The taxi will cost maybe fifteen bucks. You got fifteen bucks?”
“Yes. What if you’re not there? It isn’t even 6:00 a.m. I’ll be alone, Mr. Halpert. Wouldn’t it be advisable to wait a few hours until there are people in the streets? Ha, ha.”
“Am I here?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there.”
“But wouldn’t it be advisable …”
“I gave you the best advice you’ll ever get.” He hung up.
Another outrage. Zev had told Sam Halpert to expect my call. He’d known this would happen. I wasn’t living my own life. Walking, talking, laughing, but it wasn’t me. There was no trouble getting a cab. Maybe Zev had arranged that, too. I was driving through Miami followed by a creep.
Minutes later, I dragged my shoulder bag out of the backseat of the taxi, paid the driver. He abandoned me in the tremendous and brilliant emptiness of a business center, tall new buildings amid older ones alongside the park and Bayside, a mall built at the edge of Biscayne Bay. The aisle of flags marked a wide bleak walk into the mall. I was entering it when I heard a car door slam. I turned, saw a taxi and the blue-and-white shirt moving free of it. I thought to drop my bag and run, but I wasn’t supposed to know I was being followed. It wasn’t advisable.
The water lay before me, black but for the lights of slow-moving boats way out and city lights skimming the surface, defining the shore. Where concrete ended and became a ledge, I saw the parapet, wide enough for two men walking side by side. A stairway took me down. I walked right, doing everything right. Below, water slapped listlessly at the wall. It didn’t give a damn about me. There was nobody in sight along the parapet, but after a few yards I saw a man up ahead descending a stair toward a small dock, taller than the blond, wearing a Windbreaker, jeans, and tennis shoes. He stopped to light a cigar, all very casual. A local yachtsman. He started toward me along the wall to my right. I had to keep to the water side, which unnerved me, though there was room to pass each other easily. He walked in a loose, loping, athletic way, slightly tipped forward. I assumed he was Sam Halpert, but maybe he wasn’t Sam Halpert. As we drew close, he looked for my eyes and said, “Good morning, kid,” and passed me. Then I heard a cry, and turned. The blond in the Hawaiian shirt, kicking and flailing, sailed off the parapet through the air.
The tall man, his arm thrust out with the shove he’d given the blond, flicked his cigar into the water. The flying blond, having hit with a great splash, thrashed toward the wall, slapping at its slimy face, seeking a finger-hold. There was none. He couldn’t drag himself out. Halpert came toward me. “Forget him. Let’s go.”
The blond thrashed in the water, mouth a black O closing, going under, then bobbing up, opening to an O again, as if swallowing a pipe, his eyes wild with lights of fear.
“He’s drowning,” I said.
“You kidding? This is Miami. Everybody here is a fish. Let’s go.” He began tugging at my arm. I pulled it away.
“That man is drowning, Mr. Halpert.”
“Call me Sam.”
“You and Zev have your ways and I have mine, Sam.”
That instant, a chunk of concrete broke from the wall above my head, leaving a hole big as a grapefruit, and I heard the gunshot — much louder than I’d have expected — and I saw the blond go under again, black booming steel in hand.
Sam said, “I’ll hold your bag, kid. Jump in after him.”
We took off along the parapet as I yelled back at the water, “Drown, fucker. I hope you drown.”
Sam drove, sometimes stopping at stop signs, sometimes not. I wasn’t concerned. Little concerned me. The shot missed my head and left me with a sense of my potential for instant nothingness. The blond face lingered in memory, mouth and eyes wide open, begging life to enter, aware it was drowning, but I couldn’t feel for his terror, too much awed by myself being alive, strangely humiliated, but alive.
We cut through residential areas heavy with the sweetness of flowers. I lay back against the seat. A dark sensuous weight of air and silence lingered before morning, neither dark really nor yet morning, and I took in solemn banyan trees beginning to emerge, hulking, elephantine, streaming tendrils, and I saw white houses set back from the road.
“I could go Dixie Highway,” said Sam, “but I figured you’d want to look at the neighborhoods. Ever been to Miami?”
“No.”
“You’d never guess how little it costs me to live here.”
“Probably not.”
“I don’t live like the dancing man. Never stops, that guy. I told him I play tennis on the local courts. He says, ‘You don’t own a court?’”
“That’s Zev.”
“Not in the mood to talk? You can’t believe Sam is blabbing.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“We’ll talk later. No hurry. It’s beginning the way Zev figured. Fidel made his move. Now we make ours, and play it through to the end. Fidel never quits. Blood of the conquistadors.”
“What if he drowned?”
“Fidel is a great swimmer.”
“I mean White Trash.”
“What I’m about to say is not an insult, but you’re an asshole.”
“Do you carry a gun, Sam?”
“Am I an American?”
“I keep seeing his face go under.”
“A face like that should go under. You told him to drown. Don’t you say what you mean?”
“You sound like my girlfriend Sonny. She expects to see me tomorrow, but I’ll be in Miami. She’ll say, ‘If you wanted to be here, you’d be here. Don’t you say what you mean?’”
“She talks like that to you? Let me ask you a question, man to man
. Is the screwing you get worth the screwing you get?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “We have different needs.”
“What do I smell?”
“Mango. We’re passing an orchard.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Most of the trees have been cut down. Beautiful trees. I love mango. Very good for your digestion. Do you know the death rate in Florida is higher than the birthrate, but the population is growing. Five thousand new residents a week. They need houses. Goodbye mangos. There’s money around to build a lot of houses.”
“Drogas?”
“I don’t know from drogas. Ask your uncle. He owns a bank in Miami. I’m just his lawyer.”
“I’m dying to sleep, but I’m afraid I’ll dream. That guy’s face. I’m still watching it.”
“It could have been him watching you. You never saw a man die. Don’t worry. You came to the right city.”
“I’m flying out of here.”
“I know what you mean. It’s a rude introduction to the life, but Zev needs you. There’s my house. You sleep. Later, we’ll talk. Work things out.”
“Why does Zev need me?”
“There’s a hundred guys who would kill for Zev.”
“Like you?”
“Like me.”
“So why me?”
“You’re family, people he trusts.”
“He’s got a son.”
“Zev wouldn’t want Chester to do it. The kid is too eager to please. He’s a crook. He’ll see chances for himself, lose sight of the goal. Anyhow, Zev doesn’t want to owe him anything. We talked about you for a long time before you got that call. You’re not a crook. There’s nothing you want. You’re perfect.”
“For what?”
“We’ll talk later.”
We were in the driveway to Sam’s house, parked beside a wood fence about seven feet high.
“I want to go home.”
“You want to be with your girlfriend, what’s her name. I know how you feel. Hungry?”
“I couldn’t eat. I haven’t slept for two or three nights, partying in Havana. Then this. I expected to sleep on the flight to San Francisco, but look where I am. Where the hell am I?”
“South Miami, at the edge of Dade County. It’s good you’re sleepy. That’s an animal feeling. You’re going to like it here. Hey, do you like mud wrestling? We got that in Miami Beach. We’ll go tonight. What do you say? Twenty-five naked girls wrestling in the mud. It’ll take your mind off your problems. Tell me, kid, what’s not to like in Miami?”
“I must be out of my mind, feeling depressed in Miami.”
Sam’s house, a stucco box with a flat roof, had a red tile floor in the living room and very little furniture — rattan couch, rattan chairs, a coffee table, and a dining-room table. No curtains, no rugs. A bachelor’s house. Some full-page cartoons, cut from magazines, were pasted to a wall in the living room, perhaps hiding cracks in the Sheetrock. There was a kitchen, dining room, and two bedrooms.
He showed me into one of the bedrooms. I dropped my shoulder bag, took off my clothes, and lay down on a thick foam mat on a plywood base. It felt good, but I could have slept on the ground. I didn’t wash, didn’t want to move. I sprawled on my back beneath a light wool cover, in my underwear, and shut my eyes.
Sam began making phone calls in the living room, beyond the wall, door shut, but I heard every word. It was early, too early for phone calls. He talked to an international operator, then people overseas, in different time zones, making hotel reservations. Somebody was going to travel “overseas.” Beautiful word. It named a feeling. Sorrow at not going home. I missed Sonny and thought again of the man’s face, drowning.
Sorrow attached to the face more strongly than would a feeling in waking life; weepy pressure, as if I were about to cry, but I was tired and slid into dreaminess. I never act out in dreams. Doing nothing, I’ve come, not even touching the woman. Sonny once said she’d come during a lecture, toppling out of her chair, moaning. I teased her. She said men have impoverished lives. So much they don’t feel. How much did a man need? My feelings reduced to her. She was wearing her black leather miniskirt, sitting in the front row, naked legs crossed. She leaned over the armrest where it expanded into a table for her notebook and uncrossed her legs. The flash of her underpants shocked the professor, made him brilliant, made her go toppling out of her chair. Seeing her taken like that, we came together, she on the floor, me in South Miami, loving her feelings, but, in the bowels of sleep, Sonny on the floor, ravished, unconscious, it wasn’t her. It was Zeva. How an innocent moment becomes another, which is depraved, I don’t know. Sam’s voice returned to me, saying, “Don’t worry, kid, you’ll see her again.”
I felt light without opening my eyes — the way an amoeba sees — through skin. I knew it was afternoon.
“Was I talking in my sleep?”
He stood beside the bed. Sam. No dream. I hadn’t yet seen him in natural light — tall with dark little close-together eyes and the sloping shoulders of an athlete, holding a glass of orange juice in a long hand. “I never met Zev’s kid,” he said. “She got to you. Have some orange juice from my trees. Zev calls her ‘it.’ The poor bastard doesn’t even let himself call her a her. He’s been dying twenty years, telling nobody. Did you fuck her?”
“I didn’t hear you say that.” I sat up and took the juice from his hand. “I told her what I was supposed to, that’s all. About the money. Then we just talked. I liked her a lot and felt very happy for Zev. I didn’t know what’s what. I still don’t.”
“This has nothing to do with money. Let’s go eat. I’ll tell you what’s what.” He put my bag in his car. Apparently I wasn’t coming back.
I recognized neighborhoods we’d driven through earlier in the semidarkness. Then we were near the center of town and out of Sam’s car, walking through the funereal lobby of a hotel. Somebody was shoving a vacuum cleaner across the rug. It droned, abdominal and despairing in the shadowy cave of the lobby. A buffet had been set up in the dining room. We loaded trays, took a table in a corner beside a long window, light filtering through gauzy white curtains, bathing us in a smoky glow; its quality came to me, as had odors in the night air, mixtures of perfumed decay, but the light wasn’t as palpable. It stirred different nerves, like desert light, with holy intimations. Sam and I ate in silence, soldiers on a lonely mission. Coffee was served.
Sam looked to see if I was ready to listen. I avoided his look, but felt its pressure. He would talk, tell me what’s what, whether or not I was receptive. There was no forgetting what had happened, trying to enjoy sensations of light, as if I had time for the mere luxury of being alive.
He said, “This is about women and power, kid. They need each other, like Samson and Delilah, or Zeus and Leda. In Cuba, Fidel is known as the Bull. A force of nature, you know what I mean? Like he told Khrushchev to grow balls — bomb New York, vaporize Washington? What a guy.”
Sam had shoved a man into Miami Bay and been indifferent. Now he leaned toward me, grinning, glee in his eyes, loving the great destroyer. He expected me to relish the idea of Fidel. I could only nod, which wasn’t enough for him, but he continued to lean toward me, grinning, urging me to feel something in myself that wasn’t there.
“When Fidel was in the mountains, there was a shortage of women. What did he do? He didn’t do anything. They came to him.”
“They came to him?”
“Naturally. But some didn’t go because they wanted to fuck a god. They were sent. You think this is incredible? See it. The afternoon is hot. You can hardly breathe. Mosquitos cover your skin like hair. Fidel and the others have just returned from patrol. They squat in a clearing in the woods, too tired to worry about Batista’s police. A woman steps out of the woods. She doesn’t say a word. She’s gorgeous. The men wait for Fidel to acknowledge her. What does he do? He does nothing. He’s Fidel. So she goes to him and stands until he feels that her claim on his cojones is not inconsistent wi
th his revolutionary principles. ‘Are you the only one?’ he asks, thinking of his men. She says her colleagues wait in the woods. He nods to his men. They go into the woods. Listen, kid, it is the common practice. The shah of Iran had high-class whores sent to him from Paris, and he couldn’t always get it on, let alone up. Fidel never paid a cent. Women wanted to go. Their motivation was basic to the universe, like the law of gravity. Every woman wants to fuck a god. No exceptions. Here is where Zev comes in.”
“I can guess.”
“You’re a quick study.” He looked pleased and disappointed at once. “Go ahead. Guess.”
“Zev was already in the business.”
“You and me will have conversations at a high level, but you look like you tasted something distasteful, not familiar to your mind.”
“I thought Zev’s business had to do with gambling. I never asked what else.”
Sam shook his head, then blinked and rubbed his eyes, as if he’d developed a tic. He was trying too hard. This wasn’t exactly the conversation he’d expected. I felt dim regret. He was doing his job. He wanted to come through for Zev, but I wasn’t listening to him in the right spirit.
“Your uncle was in the business,” he said quietly, no longer working on me. “Gambling, drugs, whores — so what? He’s diversified since Cuba, but he’s still in the business. You see in the newspapers how a cabinet official is getting off a plane in Berlin with fifteen advisers wearing suits and ties. To you they look important. Compared to Zev, they are errand boys. You will never see Zev stepping off a plane in Berlin, Beijing, Dakar, or Teheran on anybody’s business but his own. Before the government types get on their planes, they phone Zev, ask if he’s free for lunch. Maybe he’ll give them some phone numbers in Helsinki. Sure, they’re going to talk about arms control, but there’s talk and there’s talk, and nobody ever talks to anybody except in bed. Departments of the CIA and KGB are run by whores, many of them supplied by Cherchez La, Zev’s international information service. For you, he got on a plane. He’ll be at the airport in a little while.”
The Collected Stories Page 33