Paradise Man

by Jerome Charyn

He had to go against three crazy brothers, and Goldie had given him a Llama .22 long, just like the Parrot wore in Queens. It was a good sheriff’s gun, accurate and swift to the touch. Holden always took his target practice with a .22 long.

  “It’s not Eddie and it’s not the Rat,” Goldie muttered. “It’s Mike. Mike will smell us from the beach.” His mouth began to quiver.

  “You promised me you wouldn’t cry,” Holden said.

  “Who’s crying? I’m worried about Red Mike. You won’t get past the door.”

  “You promised me,” Holden insisted. “If I took you along, you’d sit like a gentleman and wouldn’t twitch.”

  “I am sitting like a gentleman.”

  “Then how come your whole face is moving?”

  “It likes to move,” Goldie said. “You need a back-up man.”

  “You get killed faster with a back-up man. They’re always fucking up. You have to start thinking about them, and it hurts your timing. I’m better off alone.”

  “Not against wacked-out brothers who’d steal family from a D.A.”

  “They had cause,” Holden said. “Abruzzi stole from them.”

  “Yes. A father who strangles people. Sisters who’ll cut off your arm if you look at them the wrong way.”

  “They’re still family,” Holden said, and Goldie held his trembling lip as they traveled on Seagirt Avenue. Holden stopped the car along the beach. Goldie listened to the tear of the ocean. He thought of London and his childhood digs. He’d been a thief since he could remember, swiping nails and bolts from an ironmonger, hurling them into the damp sky. His bones were always cold.

  “Goldie, are you in a trance?”

  “It’s not important. I was recollecting a few nails out of my rotten past.”

  He removed the .22 long from an old paper bag. Holden took the gun and stuffed it into his pants without inspecting the magazine. He knew Goldie had licked every bullet in its copper jacket. Nothing had ever gone wrong with a tailor’s .22.

  “Don’t you consider following me inside, Goldie.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. But kiss me,” the old man said.

  They hugged in front of the car like a couple of bears.

  “I never failed you, Goldie.”

  “I know, but I’m getting superstitious. A kiss brings good luck.”

  Holden walked toward a line of shabby summer houses and Goldie got back into the car. He had a second .22, a Llama short, in the glove compartment. He didn’t care what promises he’d made. If Holden didn’t come out in a reasonable time, Goldie would have to give his regards to Red Mike.

  “Careful, God damn you,” he muttered as Holden halted outside a bungalow. A body appeared in the door, lean as a snake.

  Holden nodded to Red Mike, whose hair wasn’t noticeably red. He had lighter skin than his dad, and must have seemed like a ruddy man to the rest of the Pinzolos.

  “Hello, Frog,” he said from the door. “Have you come to kill me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Then come on in.”

  Holden climbed the steps of the bungalow with the Llama high against his waist, so there wouldn’t be any confusion about the gun. Mike had a Walther PPK 7.65 in a cream-colored holster under his heart. He’d picked up that gun at the movies. It was a James Bond Special. Red Mike had modeled himself after Sean Connery ever since junior high. He hated Roger Moore. He felt as if the Secret Service had betrayed him when Roger Moore grew into 007. And he was the one man Holden would allow to call him Frog. Red Mike had given him that name because Holden spent the first three years of his life in France.

  He entered the bungalow. Eddie and Rat stood in the living room with deer rifles trained on Holden’s groin. They were older than Mike, had little mouths and little, searching eyes.

  “Mikey,” Rat said, “should we lend him to the sharks?”

  Red Mike smiled under his dark brown mustache. He had three mistresses and two wives. It depressed Holden to think of all the widows he’d have to make.

  “Relax, relax,” Mike said to his brothers, pointing one of the rifles away from Holden’s crotch. “It’s a friendly chat. We haven’t gotten to the bargaining stage.”

  “What’s there to bargain about?” Eddie asked, his eyes searching hard.

  Holden loved all three brothers. Eddie with the crazy eyes. Rat who always had tonsillitis. And Red Mike, who’d taught him to hold a gun.

  “There’s plenty to bargain,” Mike said, patient with his brothers. “We don’t even know who sent the man.”

  “It don’t matter,” Rat said, with a sudden surge of intelligence.

  Mike pinched his mustache. “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you eat stracciatelle with this man? Frog never fucked us. The D.A. did.”

  “Mikey, Mikey,” Rat said. “He’s the D.A.’s boy.”

  Mike turned to Holden, his mustache flaming in the sun that broke through the porch. “Frog, is that right? Did the D.A. deputize you?”

  “I never worked for Abruzzi.”

  “It don’t matter,” Rat said. “It comes to the same thing.”

  “It’s not the same thing ... Frog, the D.A. is practicing genocide on my family. You know that.”

  “But if you hadn’t touched his daughter-in-law, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Mike’s eyes went beady the way his brothers’ did. “Frog, who’s sitting in your car? Some ice man you brought? I pity the bastard.”

  “It’s Goldie. He came along for the ride.”

  “You should have said so. Invite him inside. He’ll have some spumoni with us,” Mike said, fondling his holster. And Holden shivered under his shirt, shivered for Goldie. He shouldn’t have brought his tailor on the job. And then Rat intervened.

  “Mikey, should we show him the little darling?” Rat said. “She can have some of our ice cream.” He left the living room, returned with Fay Abruzzi, and began to titter with Ed. The daughter-in-law wasn’t wearing any clothes. Holden didn’t go searching below her neck. But he couldn’t avoid the woman’s breasts. She had big shoulders. There weren’t any bruises on her arms. She looked at Holden and lowered her eyes.

  “She does the cooking,” Rat said.

  “Frog, we didn’t touch her,” Mike insisted. “I’m a married man.”

  “She does the cooking,” Rat said. Holden pulled the .22 out of his pants and shot Red Mike. Mike’s lips pursed as he fell. The hole in his forehead could have been a red dime. Ed and Rat were horrified. Holden shot them both before they remembered the deer rifles they had.

  The woman never screamed. She watched the three dead men, her neck high as a swan.

  “Come,” Holden said. “Where’s your clothes?”

  He had to ask her twice.

  “They ripped them,” she said, “ripped them up and used them for rags ... so I couldn’t escape.”

  He’d never heard a woman talk with such a fine melody. Her voice was softer than Goldie’s wool. But he didn’t have time to chat with the bitch. And the open forks of her body made him uncomfortable. He couldn’t relax around a naked woman he didn’t know. Her ripeness bothered Holden, obliged him to consider Andrushka’s chest.

  He wasn’t going to pull clothes off three dead men. He’d have to find other things for Fay to wear. He went into the closets and discovered a whole new wardrobe each brother had. He dressed Fay Abruzzi like some kind of man. She didn’t object. Her bosoms disappeared under the drape of Red Mike’s shirt. Holden felt relieved.

  He had to send her out of the bungalow in a pair of Eddie’s sandals. Goldie stood on the porch with a .22. Now she could identify his tailor.

  “I was worried,” Goldie said.

  “Get back into the car.”

  “I heard three shots, and—”

  “Get back into the car.”

  Goldie returned to the Lincoln.

  A limo seemed to come out of the sand dunes with Venetian blinds. Holden never looked. One of his stoolies, Harrington, owned a car service, and Harrington
himself had arrived in the Rockaways.

  Holden led Fay to Harrington’s limousine. She tightened under the shirt. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Home. But I’m not taking you. My associate is.”

  “Do you work for the police?”

  “Not very often,” Holden said.

  She entered the limo and Harrington took off.

  Holden didn’t like it at all. He’d killed three men and she’d never cried. He’d expected her to shove around in a shaky dream. But she talked like a music teacher.

  He got to the Lincoln. Goldie sat like a guilty child. “Give me that gun,” Holden said. He took the tailor’s .22 short, removed the cartridge, then banged the gun against the dashboard until the gun broke. “Some terrific back-up man. A .22 short? You could hit a guy in the head and the bullet would stand there, stuck in the flesh. Wouldn’t even penetrate the skull. Goldie, who asked you to bring a gun?”

  “There were three maniacs. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “But Jesus, I have to depend on you. You’re my package man. And you pick yourself a stupid gun.”

  “Not so stupid,” Goldie said. “The bullets dance a lot. I always aim for the ear.”

  “Then I’ll use a .22 short next time,” Holden said. “But you keep your guns in the closet.”

  5

  HOLDEN KNEW HE WAS near the end. He sat in the kosher deli with all the Greeks who’d discovered pastrami for themselves and couldn’t go back to a diet of olives and brittle white cheese. And a police captain from the old burglary squad had come in to congratulate Holden.

  “That was a beautiful piece of work.”

  This captain had no influence at all. He couldn’t have gotten close to Abruzzi, and yet he’d learned where Holden had been. Holden didn’t even bother to deny it. If a disconnected captain had tied Holden to the Rockaways, then the story had to be out on the street.

  The captain had mustard on his collar. His clothes were full of dandruff. He wore hand-me-downs from a bargain basement. Holden wanted him to disappear. But he couldn’t pinch a captain in public: He had to wait until the captain grabbed a few of Holden’s half-sour pickles.

  “You need a favor, Holden, you come to me.”

  And the captain walked away in filthy trouser cuffs, collecting gifts from the Greeks, because he was supposed to discourage burglars. It was a scam, but why should Holden warn the Greeks, who would love to have him dead? If a captain could finger him that quick, Holden was lucky he’d last the week. Bumpers couldn’t afford to be movie stars. Holden had to depend on the anonymous lair of a fur company. Clients might develop a sudden itch if Holden could be traced back to them.

  “Mikey,” he said. “Red Mike.”

  He left a five-dollar tip, but the waiter followed him out the door.

  “Mr. Holden, please ... I’ll get into trouble.”

  Holden forgot. The kosher deli wouldn’t take his tips. The owners liked to have him around. They hadn’t been held up ever since the sheriff of Aladdin Furs started swallowing their pastrami.

  Holden went up to Nick Tiel. There was a glaze in Nick’s eye. Holden wondered if Nick was about to unravel. He’d have to take the designer along to Paris, or the Greeks would steal from Aladdin. And Holden couldn’t shoot half the fur market to get back Nick’s designs. But Nick lost that crazy luster. “You did it, Goddamn.”

  “Couldn’t you be a little more quiet?” Holden said. Nick Tiel’s assistants were nailing skins a few yards from Holden.

  “Ah, so what?” Nick said. “If people like to listen, they’ll have to suffer the consequences of their own ears.”

  The nailers picked up their boards and moved to the end of the factory.

  “Holden, it was just on the radio. They called you the mystery man. You could run for mayor, start your own ticket.”

  “But that ticket might come home to you.”

  “Let it come,” Nick said. “There’s no danger to us. Holden, you’re a hero.”

  “Good. I’m going to bed.”

  “Infante is here.”

  “What does he want?”

  “Be a little human, Holden. The man admires you.”

  Robert Infante was their lawyer. He was also the lawyer of the biggest Greek furriers and a peacemaker for all the crime families. He’d settled the policy war that broke out between the Italians and the Cubans in 1980. The Italians couldn’t keep La Familia under their wing. It was during the boatlift from Mariel. La Familia had hired the Bandidos to bomb Mafia betting parlors. Italian bumpers looked everywhere for the Bandidos. But the Bandidos dressed in women’s clothes like their god Changó, and the bumpers could never find them. That’s when Infante was brought in, an Italian lawyer who pleaded La Familia’s case. The Italians sold half their betting parlors to the Cubans. And La Familia became one of Infante’s clients. He sat around with the Cuban chiefs, lawyers like himself, drank bitter coffee and discussed politics.

  Infante had his own office at Aladdin Furs. It belonged to the Swisser before the Swisser moved to France. Infante had started out as a prosecutor in the Queens district attorney’s office. Now he controlled every piece of sable that moved into the fur market. He was the most feared lawyer in town. Once, only once, the cops had put handcuffs on Holden. Infante was there when Holden arrived at the central booking station. The cops removed the handcuffs, and half the sergeants in the house apologized to Holden.

  Infante was forty-five. His wife Florinda ate at Mansions restaurant with a lot of kings. Infante would ask Holden to be her bodyguard from time to time. Holden had become a big hit. He was a bumper with better clothes than any billionaire.

  Holden knocked on Infante’s door and went in. The lawyer sat behind his desk, counting furriers’ markers and notes. He tied them with a rubber band and stood up to paw Holden. He had an elegant stink of toilet water. Holden used nothing but slightly scented soap.

  “Holden, Holden,” the lawyer said. “I’m proud ... you sneak Fay back into Manhattan in a man’s shirt and pants. Who else would have thought of that?”

  “I had to, Robert. Red Mike destroyed her clothes.”

  “Then Mike deserves a bit of credit, eh? Credit he’ll never claim.”

  “He was my friend. I can’t celebrate his not being here.”

  “I know,” Infante said. “I was fond of the big bastard myself. But he went too far. He wants to machine-gun a house, okay. Bump a couple of competitors, fine. But steal Abruzzi’s daughter-in-law?”

  “He never really harmed the girl. He burnt her underwear, so she couldn’t run away.”

  “That’s sick,” Infante said. “But why are we arguing? Abruzzi sends his regards. He’s awful fond of Fay. You met her husband a couple of times. Rex, a tall guy who likes to scribble. I got you tickets for one of his plays, The Purple Farm.”

  Holden remembered now. He’d gone to that play with Nick Tiel. It was three hours of talk. There were no purple farms. The play was about a sea captain and the voyages he took, the women and children he acquired, all the different crusts a man can wear. Holden had never been to sea. And he couldn’t sympathize with this sea captain. Nick Tiel had his fun in the dark, watching fur coats. Nick could tell the quality of any mink draped over a chair. Holden had nothing but the sea captain ... and Rex, a giant who sat through the performance holding his jaw.

  “Robert, I didn’t care so much for Rex’s play.”

  “That’s because you’re a snob, like your London tailor. It bothers me, Holden. No matter how rich I am, I’ll never dress as well as you.”

  “Hire Goldie.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Infante said. “You’re practically his kid. He’s devoted to you.”

  “Make him an offer.”

  “I already did. I offered him ten thousand a year not to dress you, and he laughed in my face.”

  “Well, you’re industrious, Robert. You have a lot of bumpers in your back yard. You could convince one little tailor.”

  “Fat cha
nce,” Infante said, “when the tailor has you on his side.”

  “I’m just your servant,” Holden said.

  The lawyer started to laugh. He was vain about his narrow, birdlike body and wore the tightest clothes he could find. But his vest rippled with short explosions of laughter and broke his trim, matador’s line. Infante realized this and stopped laughing.

  “I’d like to meet a servant that draws your kind of salary.”

  “I’m expensive, but so what? The Swisser owns me.”

  “Own? You’re the lord of the fur market. Everybody begs favors from you ... including myself. You’ve been ignoring Florinda, Holden. Every time you disappoint her, she takes it out on me. Florinda thinks I can produce her Holden like a bunny out of a hat ... she’s expecting you at Mansions for a late lunch.”

  “Sorry,” Holden said. “I have other plans.” He felt unwired after the Rockaways and wanted to disappear into his office-home and watch The Third Man or sink into his tub like a sea captain.

  “Holden,” Infante said, “will you meet my wife? ... as a favor to the firm.”

  He walked into Mansions wearing a dark velvet suit. His display handkerchief was a piece of pure red silk Goldie got from a Pakistani merchant who once supplied household goods to a colony of rajahs and royal Brits. The handkerchief sat like an exquisite blood clot on Holden’s heart. His shoes were from Seville. Goldie had buffed the leather to look like burnt clay. Holden’s tie, also red, had come from the closets of the late King George. His shirt, with broad blue stripes, had another king’s signature on one of its tails. Holden could have been some apparition off the streets. Goldie had designed him to move like a sculpted man.

  No one stopped him near the door. He didn’t need a reservation. The owner, Count Josephus, hobbled next to Holden and shook his hand. The count had been wounded in some mysterious war. He spoke half a dozen languages, his shirts carried the monogram of kings, but Holden knew that Josephus had been a convict before he was a count. He had the same tiny tattoo hidden in the webbing of his thumb that the Bandidos sometimes wore. A heart with the word “madre” in the middle. An executioner’s sign. Holden had wondered for half a year why the count liked to curl his left thumb and keep it closed against his hand. And then, while the count was in the middle of a story about his boyhood in Albania, he’d gestured with the wrong hand and Holden saw that heart under the thumb. The count could blab about Albania until he was blue in the head, but he’d done some time between his royal birth and his restaurant.