Paradise Man

by Jerome Charyn

  “Who is this poor slob?” Holden asked as Billetdoux stripped the popgun and dug pieces into his pockets.

  “Don’t know,” he said.

  “And you popped him? Just like that?”

  “I had a feeling,” Billetdoux said. “He followed me while I was following you.”

  Holden protested. “I would have seen him. I’m not a kid.”

  “Your eyes were in your ass,” Billetdoux said. “Will you dance with him? People will notice he’s nearly dead.”

  Holden held up the man, who coughed in his arms. “Billet, the guy could be a perfect stranger.”

  “Of course,” Billetdoux said, pulling on the man’s coat until a spear with three prongs dropped out of the sleeve. “Recognize that?”

  It was a fisherman’s claw that the Bandidos would use to destroy a man’s face.

  A police car stopped in front of Andrushka’s building. This wasn’t Manhattan where Holden could buy his way into some police lieutenant’s pocket, or count on his killer attorney. Billetdoux was a bumper from Marseilles. He couldn’t have had much of a rabbi on the rue de Vaugirard. But the flics didn’t get out of the car.

  “Walk him,” Billetdoux said. “Walk him gently.” And Holden waltzed the coughing man to the police car. Billetdoux opened the rear door and Holden sat the man down on the seat. There were no tattoos on his fingers. “Come on,” Billetdoux said. But Holden pulled on the man’s lip and saw a blue mark inside the flesh of his mouth. It was the moist little heart of an executioner. The man hissed at Holden with his eyes.

  “Come on,” Billetdoux said.

  Holden ducked his head out of the police car. Billetdoux slammed the door shut and the car bumped along the rue de Vaugirard like some mortuary wagon.

  “Billet, I didn’t know you were into the police.”

  “I’m not,” the bumper said. “Those weren’t flics. They were friends of mine. The suits were rented.”

  “And the car?”

  “Also rented. Don’t worry. I didn’t have to pay.”

  “Who’s my benefactor?”

  “The Swiss.”

  “I thought you work for Bronshtein.”

  “I do. But I also work for Schatz.”

  “Let’s have a coffee,” Holden said. And the two bumpers marched up to a café near the Place St. Sulpice.

  Carmen

  7

  HOLDEN ALWAYS WENT TO Muriel Spencer’s when he was in despair over the twig. He didn’t have to worry about any girl with a hardened look, because Muriel wouldn’t tolerate a whore in her establishment, and Holden would drink a lemonade and lie with the girl for half an hour. None of the girls ever stayed longer than six months. They’d marry one of Muriel’s clients or become an intern at a brokerage house. They were always young and narrowly built, and they never talked foul. Holden learned from his spies that Muriel had an exclusive arrangement with several finishing schools in the Midwest, but all the girls couldn’t have come from finishing schools. A couple of them were as ignorant as Andrushka had been before she’d discovered what a museum was.

  Holden hadn’t returned from Paris for some polite, skinny-boned girl. He’d given up the delusion of finding another twig at Muriel’s place. But he wanted to know how come the Bandidos were so eager to have him dead. Holden didn’t believe it was on account of the Parrot and his mistress. They were rip-off artists from Miami. They weren’t connected to the Bandidos up here. The Parrot had an isolated game. Why should the Bandidos have cared ... unless the Parrot was related to one of them. Holden had to know.

  His spies had fallen down on him. His secret service ought to have sniffed whatever danger there was. Half of Holden’s income went to his rats. And some moron with a tattoo in his mouth had nearly ruined Holden’s face with a fisherman’s spear. He wondered what kind of secret service the Bandidos had if they could afford to send a man to Paris. He had to grab hold of Gottlieb. But Muriel cornered him in her parlor. She was as tall and thin as the debutantes she produced. Her eyes were painted aquamarine, just like a water goddess. Holden had never desired the woman. Her manner, her whole allure, seemed to have come out of a finishing school. That was charming for a girl of nineteen. But Muriel was forty-five.

  “Holden,” she said, with a slight pinch of her mouth that was a mark of naughtiness, “where have you been? Everybody wants your autograph.”

  Muriel wouldn’t allow her girls to mingle with the men in her parlor. She did the selecting for you. The girls would wait upstairs in their clothes, like some banker’s daughter. They always unzipped themselves and lay like dolls while they were being caressed. Muriel discouraged all signs of passion. The girls were notorious for doing very little. That’s why Muriel married them off so quick. Her clients didn’t have to worry about the phantom of any other man. Muriel wouldn’t permit lust without marriage.

  There was a lone card game in the parlor. Holden recognized Robert Infante, Don Edmundo (chief of La Familia), Edmundo’s bodyguard, and another guy, that playwright Rex. Abruzzi had brown hair. He wore suspenders and a bow tie and looked like one of Edmundo’s thugs. His nose had been broken and he had the small, baffling eyes of a dreamer. He was an enormous man. Holden assumed he was writing dialogue in his skull while he held cards at the table.

  It was Infante who looked up first. “Ah,” he said, “our man is back ... Holden, I think Rex wants to shake your hand. You remember Rex. Fay Abruzzi’s husband.”

  Rex stood up. He was six-five, and Holden felt like a bear cub in his presence. The playwright squeezed Holden’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Lend him your wife,” Infante said, and Abruzzi laughed. He had yellow teeth. The laughter traveled through him like a gigantic pipe. Holden tried to conjure up that naked woman he’d collected from Red Mike. She had big shoulders and a round face. But he couldn’t remember if she was pretty.

  “Holden’s good at escorting wives,” Infante said. “He takes Florinda to lunch. But he’s getting a little too popular, right Edmundo?”

  “Right,” Edmundo said, winking at his bodyguard, who was a Batista baby, like him. Edmundo had been a jeweler in Havana. He fled to Miami after Fidel came down from the hills. He disappeared into the Florida Everglades for six months and surfaced again after the Bay of Pigs. He arrived in Manhattan with his own Familia. Didn’t bemoan Castro any more. He established betting parlors, dabbled in cocaine. Holden had killed the Parrot essentially for him, because the Parrot had been ripping off Edmundo and his people. But Edmundo’s bodyguard didn’t appreciate the attention Holden got. The bodyguard despised Holden, fancied himself as Edmundo’s enforcer. But he was frightened of the Bandidos, frightened of moon, sun, and sky. He’d come out of the Everglades with Edmundo, married Edmundo’s niece, could fire a machine gun, drive a car. But the bodyguard had never bumped a man in his life. He was Edmundo’s little wax soldier, the family clown.

  “Jeremías,” Edmundo said, “be kind to Holden ... he sends people to paradise.”

  “He’s okay for punching women,” the bodyguard said. “Edmundo, I’m not interested in your paradise man.”

  The bodyguard yawned into his cards. He knew Holden wouldn’t slap him in front of Edmundo and start a war with La Familia. The Bandidos had kidnapped him twice, and twice Edmundo had ransomed him for much more than Jeremías was worth. Edmundo was such a king, he could afford to keep a fool and advertise him as his bodyguard. But he did have soldiers in the hallway and on the roof. Because the Bandidos were crazy enough to kidnap Don Edmundo himself, and who would negotiate ransom money for a king?

  “Holden,” Edmundo said, “the boy is rude. Forgive him, please.”

  The bodyguard crumpled a card in his fist. “I’m not a boy, Edmundo. I’m fifty-seven. I fought Fidel ... I’m not a boy.”

  “But you behave like one.”

  “Because you dishonor me, Edmundo. You let this assassin do my work.”

  “Shut your mouth, Jeremías. We have a guest.” And Don Ed
mundo smiled at the playwright and then turned to his bodyguard. “Go up to the roof and look for Huevo, eh?”

  “If he decides to bother us, Edmundo, can I have him for myself?”

  “Of course.”

  The bodyguard got up from the table, tried to uncrumple the card, bowed to Muriel, excused himself, and left for the roof as if he were on the journey of his life.

  “He finished high school, but he has no manners,” Don Edmundo told the playwright. “He couldn’t find a career in the United States. Holden has a career. Holden is important to my family, so Jeremías suffers a lot.”

  “Who’s Huevo?” the playwright asked.

  “Nothing,” Don Edmundo said. “A boogeyman for us. He haunts my family. You should write about Huevo ... Big Balls. That’s his religious name. He’s one of the boat people. I adopted Huevo, fed him, and now he makes war on me.”

  “Edmundo, when can I meet him?”

  “I told you. He’s the boogeyman. Huevo has such big balls, he never goes out on the street. He sleeps with witches and rides the roofs ... Holden, tell our friend, have you ever seen Huevo?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But he murders my lieutenants, shoots them in the mouth. And he won’t take money from me. He’s not a businessman. He likes blood.”

  The playwright held his chin. “And what would Jeremías do if he found Huevo on the roof?”

  “Scream to Jesus, I suppose ... but we’re boring Holden. He didn’t come to hear me lecture on Huevo. He’d like a girl. Holden, it’s my treat.”

  “I can pay.”

  Edmundo’s lips shrank into his mouth. “Don’t embarrass me in front of an artist. Rex will write about us. We’ll appear in his next play. I’ll become the sissy who can’t capture Big Balls or treat you to a girl.”

  “My apologies, Don Edmundo. I meant no harm.”

  “Ah, Holden’s some politician,” Infante said. “Like his dad. Holden Sr. knew how to apologize with pie in his face.”

  “My father loved pies. He’d always eat something with lemon meringue.”

  “What happened?” Infante asked. “You come home from Paris surly as hell, insult Edmundo and me, barely say hello to Rex. Don’t even ask how Florinda is.”

  “Some monkey wanted to claw my face outside the Luxembourg Gardens. I think he was a Mariel.”

  “Impossible,” Infante said. “Bandidos never ride in planes. They’re religious freaks. Their gods wouldn’t allow it. And most of the Bandidos can’t spell. How would they get to the right gate?”

  “Let him finish,” Edmundo said. “Holden, what makes you sure it was a Bandido?”

  “He had a tattoo inside his mouth ...”

  “Anyone can imitate a tattoo.”

  “I agree, Don Edmundo. Thought of that myself. Only why would someone go through all that trouble?”

  “To bring you into our war and create worse and worse relations between the Bandidos and ourselves.”

  “Who would benefit?”

  Edmundo laughed. “Half the world ... or one of my lieutenants who would like to start his own family. We’re talking ambition, Holden. And I’m surrounded by ambitious men ... take Robert, for instance. He could move his Italian friends into all my boutiques.”

  “Fuck yourself, Edmundo,” Infante said. “I’m a lawyer. I create the peace.”

  “But lawyers bend the language. Tuesday’s peace is Wednesday’s war.”

  “Then find yourself a Cuban witch doctor. Let him write up your articles of intent.”

  “Huevo has all the witch doctors. I’ll hire Rex. He has imagination, eh? ... but I was only citing an example, Robert. Don’t be offended, please. I value you and trust you. We’re friends. My point is that some jíbaro with a tattoo in his mouth isn’t necessarily a Mariel. But Holden still doesn’t have a girl. Mrs. Spencer, find him the thinnest creature in the house. Make her adorable, please. I haven’t forgotten his wife.”

  Muriel whispered into a telephone, then she put her arm around Holden and accompanied him to the door. “The north room, upstairs. Melissa.”

  The name didn’t carry much of a magic song. He wasn’t even curious. He’d have to give her a perfunctory kiss, or she’d feel insulted. But he didn’t climb up to Melissa right away. He went searching for Gottlieb. Holden discovered him in an office behind the stairs. Gottlieb wore a gun this afternoon. Any of the police inspectors who visited with Muriel could have picked the gun off Gottlieb’s chest and buried the little bastard. The boy was seventeen and had almost as many bank accounts as Holden. He was much more sophisticated than a bumper who’d been to France. Gottlieb knew about wines and temperatures for aging cheese. He’d established his own private college near Muriel. He was a nymphomaniac about books. Gottlieb read all the time. He’d been a male hustler when Holden found him on the street, dressed in princely rags at fourteen. He could feel the boy’s intelligence and Holden recruited him as a rat, placed him with Mrs. Spencer. He was a sandwich boy with the title of assistant manager. Muriel’s was a haven for La Familia, for mob lawyers like Infante, for police chiefs with a little cash in their pockets, and Gottlieb was Holden’s highest-paid rat.

  “How can I get to Huevo?”

  “You can’t,” Gottlieb said.

  “He sent me a greeting card, a goddamn claw, and I still don’t understand. The Parrot wasn’t his people.”

  “I warned you, Holden. The Bandidos are after your life.”

  “Well, can’t we have a meet?”

  “No.”

  “Gottlieb, it’s not nice to say no. Get me to Big Balls. I don’t care who you bribe. Sell your ass.”

  “What if I sold yours?” Gottlieb said.

  “If that’s the road to Big Balls, I’ll take it. Come on, you can come up with one of his witches.”

  “Holden, you don’t fuck with a man’s religious beliefs.”

  “I’ll cross you off the payroll.”

  “You wouldn’t dare. Holden, you taught me too much. I could hire a bumper to crack your neck.”

  “And what if I cracked your neck, kid?”

  “You’d miss me, Holden. In your heart of hearts you’d really love to make my ass.”

  “I have no heart of hearts, kid.”

  And Holden marched upstairs to Melissa. But Melissa wasn’t in the north room. Holden wondered if he could march back down and offer his regrets, declare that he wasn’t quite in the mood to lie face to face with a debutante, but Edmundo might laugh at him and Holden could lose his standing in the house. Where would he go when he wanted to close his eyes and sleep with a long-stemmed beauty for half an hour? So he sat on the bed with its decorated quilt in a room that could have been designed by Grandma Moses, because Muriel wouldn’t tolerate whips and boots, ceiling mirrors and garter belts on a doorknob. I’ll marry Melissa, Holden decided, make love to her in a mask.

  A girl came into the room. She seemed much too throaty for a debutante. Her legs weren’t long enough. “Melissa?” But she was more like a girl out of a convent than a finishing school. She was dressed in black and Holden felt numb behind the ears because he was staring at Red Mike’s little sister, Carmen Pinzolo, with a hammer in her hand. “I’ll kill you,” she said, and he didn’t move. The hammer went higher and higher in the air. “This is for Eddie and Rat and Red Mike.” Holden, the ice man, loved that throaty girl, loved her anger, her marvelous black hair. She was nine or ten when he’d married Andrushka. She’d scribbled love letters to him when she was fifteen.

  “Carmen, I had to—”

  The hammer landed. Holden heard a roar inside his head. His brains were sticky. He floated in a stupor, saw his bloody skull in the room’s only mirror and socked the hammer out of her hand, said, “I love you, Carmen,” and slapped her in the face.

  Blood trickled from her nose.

  “I’ll kill you, Holden. Today, tomorrow, I don’t care.”

  “Baby, it wasn’t my fault.”

  “I’m not your baby now,” she said, lea
ping at the hammer on the floor. Holden kicked the hammer across the room, seized her by the neck, and brought her out of the room with blood in his eye.

  Carmen twisted and tried to bite his face, but Holden shoved her head into the stairs and walked her down one step at a time. He got her into the parlor with a bumper’s crazy will.

  “Hey, Muriel” he said, “does this look like Melissa?” before he crashed into the card table and scattered piles of blue and red chips.

  8

  HE WAS IN AVIGNON with his dad. Holden Sr. wore military boots and a sergeant’s coat. They climbed up the steps of the Palais des Papes. The palace was white, and Holden didn’t see any popes. But he saw a bridge that stopped in the middle of the water, and he wondered what a bridge like that could bring. His dad was the handsomest guy in town. Holden Sr. had different-colored bars and stripes across his chest and the palace walls were reflected in the wax of his boots. Holden wouldn’t talk French with his dad. He was an American boy. Holden and his dad were polite to all the priests and nuns who settled on the palace stairs. The priests were taking pictures. And Holden wanted one of his dad, so he could remember him in his uniform and the white gloves a sergeant major was allowed to wear. He posed with his dad for a number of priests and scratched his address on a sliver of sandwich paper, so the priests wouldn’t forget to send the photographs.

  The nuns had floppy capes and their stockings gathered round their knees like stalks and Holden asked his dad if these nuns were his people. Holden Sr. said God didn’t wash His own underwear. He gave it to the nuns to wash and that’s when Holden opened his eyes, after he heard his father’s raucous laugh. “Daddy,” he muttered until he realized his father wasn’t there. Holden was in Muriel’s north room with a fancy turban on his head. The room had become a hospital station while Holden went to Avignon. An oxygen tank like a huge green bullet stood near the bed. Another machine monitored the rhythms of Holden’s heart. Jeremías, that miserable bodyguard, sat in a chair next to Holden, like some Cuban angel of mercy. Jeremías seemed glad that Holden had come out of his sleep.