by SKLA
The Shirt petted his chihuahua, scratched it behind the ears. "He used us. As decoys. No hard feelings, Gino, but that wasn't right. Someone coulda gotten hurt. Sandra here, she coulda been with us."
Joey's fiancée gave a small nod of gratitude for Bert's concern. The nod stretched but did not violate her crisp outline.
Then a low rumble seemed to ripple the striped dimness of the Florida room. It was Joey and Gino's father starting to speak. The voice was very sad. "To your own brother you do this, Gino?"
"Pop, hey, it's history," said Joey. "Besides, Gino and me, we forgive each other, don't we, Gino? Life, ya can't get through it without ya forgive people, ya drown in bullshit otherwise. I mean, forgiveness, that's really what this meeting is about."
"Bullshit," put in Charlie Ponte. "This fucking meeting is about what happened to my fucking emeralds."
"Right, Mr. Ponte. You're right. But forgiveness, the stones, it all comes together. 'Cause here's what happens. Gino realizes there's no way he can salvage the wreck alone. So he goes to a pro—that's Clem Sanders, the salvage guy. He reaches him through me, 'cause, hey, this is my town now, I know who to go to. This much, Mr. Ponte, I'm involved"—he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender—"and this is why, me too, I'm asking your forgiveness.
"But this Sanders, he's a businessman, he's legit, he's got a certain way he does things. An expedition, he sells shares. He keeps a third, he keeps the right to sell a third, the third third he sells to the guy who proposes the search. So now Gino is back to being a one-third partner. You follow?"
Charlie Ponte propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his crisscrossed fingers. "So you're telling me that Gino owns a one-third share a my fucking emeralds?"
"This is exactly what I'm telling you, Mr. Ponte. It's in the public papers, you can check for—"
"Now wait a—" Gino interrupted.
His father cut him off in turn. "You done enough, Gino. Your brother's talkin' now."
Joey hesitated. He glanced at Bert, pulled in a chestful of air, and continued. "Now here's where the forgiveness comes in. The shares that Gino bought, they cost ten thousand dollars. Bert fronted the cash for 'em, didn't ya, Bert?"
The old mobster nodded, his chihuahua twitched.
"So Gino is gonna pay that money, outta pocket, that's gonna be, like, his cost for forgiveness, his penalty for fucking with you."
For an instant Gino froze like a skunk in headlights. Then he pitched thickly forward on the settee. "Joey, hey—"
His father raised a single gnarled finger. "Zippuh your fucking mouth shut, Gino. You'll pay the money."
"And of course," Joey resumed, "his third of the emeralds, that goes right to you."
He fell silent, as though his pitch was over. Outside, the pool pump switched on and hummed, the palm fronds rustled dryly. Don Giovanni stood up and did an impatient pirouette in his master's lap. Sandra smoothed her cream-colored skirt across her thighs. Joey glanced at her pink neck and wondered how many years in Florida it would take for her to get a tan.
Charlie Ponte's mouth was moving as he worked out some arithmetic, but the numbers didn't solve his problem. When he finally spoke, it was not to Joey but to Vincente Delgatto, and his tone was oddly calm. It was the tone of a general who'd endured the charade of diplomacy and could now move joyously into war.
"Vincent," he said, "outta respect for you I'm sittin' heah quiet, I'm listening, I'm giving these boysa yours every chance. Joey heah, what he says, a lot of it makes sense. I give 'im credit. But Vincent, his bottom line, it fucking stinks. I lost tree million dollars in emeralds. He's telling me he can get me back one million, and he's makin' it sound like a big fucking favor. Come on, Vincent, you know it as well as I do—the numbers don't add up. Whaddya want from me? I got no choice."
Vincente Delgatto sat still as a parked truck. But there was an admission in his posture.
Even Bert the Shirt could not deny the numbers. "Don't come out right," he muttered, like he was checking over a grocery receipt.
Sandra, who never fidgeted, started fretting with her fingertips.
"Wait a second, Mr. Ponte," Joey said. "Who said anything about one million dollars? I'm talking four million. This is what I was tryin' to tell ya all morning. Since last night I been tryin' to tell ya this."
Everybody sat. Everybody waited. There was a lull in the breeze and the air smelled like scorched sand.
"Mr. Ponte, lemme ask you something. The Colombians—you ever tell 'em about the missing stones?"
The Miami Boss could not help snorting. "Right," he said. "And look like a horse's ass? Like I can't control my own people?"
Joey raised a pacifying palm. "Who's gotta know it was your own people that heisted 'em? You never got 'em. End of story."
Ponte pursed his lips and considered.
"Now tell me if I'm wrong," Joey continued, "but these emeralds, they were, like, a goodwill gesture, like to make it up to you for some other business they screwed up, right?"
Ponte gave a grudging nod.
"Well, they screwed up again. I mean, hey, what kinda goodwill gesture is it if you never got the stones? The way I see it, they still owe you."
The Miami Boss threw a sideways look at Vincente Delgatto. The patriarch sat still, his expression blank as the ground.
"They're gonna believe me," Ponte said, "I tell 'em the stones never got to me?"
Joey leaned forward over his knees and put a conspiratorial rasp into his voice. "Mr. Ponte, this is the beauty part—they don't hafta believe you." He gestured past the louvered windows at the world. "They're probably watching it on television right now. It's gonna be in all the papers. Headlines. Pictures. Three million in mystery gems—this is a big deal down heah, you know that. Your stones ended up innee ocean, you have no idea how. This is what you tell the Colombians. Shit, what's three million to them? They wanna keep you happy, they'll give ya three million more. Three, plus the one ya got from Gino. That makes four, am I right?"
Ponte tugged an ear, looked down at the sisal rug striped with filtered sunlight. Then he shrugged. Then he almost smiled. Then he said to Joey's father, "Vincent, where you been hiding this boy?"
The patriarch moved his lips a fraction of an inch and his filmy eyes darkly gleamed with something like pride.
"So Mr. Ponte," Joey said, "we have an understanding here?"
"Enough with the Mr. Ponte shit," said the little mobster from Miami. "Call me Charlie, kid."
— 50 —
"Come on, Pop," Joey Goldman said. "This is Florida, we'll sit out by the pool."
It was mid-afternoon, the sun was fierce though the breeze was freshening, and Joey slid the outdoor table into a patch of shade. The compound had grown weirdly, blessedly quiet. Gino Delgatto, fat, oily, and ashen, had bolted immediately at the conclusion of the sit-down. Bert the Shirt, using his frail dog as an excuse, had gone home to take a nap. Charlie Ponte had kissed his older colleague from New York, given Joey an avuncular pat on the cheek, gathered up his sweaty minions, and headed for Miami. Sandra had excused herself to take a long hot bath, to try to soak the terror and the memory of captivity out of her sunburned skin. Only Steve the naked landlord was about, and he turned his bare backside on his newly troublesome tenant, this quiet guy who all of a sudden was always entertaining.
"A swim or something, Pop? I'll lend ya some trunks."
Vincente Delgatto hadn't even taken off his dark gray suit jacket, and he seemed to find something droll in being invited to go for a swim. He gave a small smile, strong, veiny teeth flashing for just an instant between his thin dry lips. Then he waved the suggestion away. "No, Joey, no thanks."
They fell silent and for a moment the father and the son enjoyed the air that was the temperature of skin and carried the pleasantly rank sweetness of wet cardboard. "Joey," Vincente Delgatto said at last. "Joey. The way you handled that, it was beautiful. Beautiful." He sounded transported, as though by an aria perfectly sung. "I never
realized, Joey. What you could do, I never realized."
Joey Goldman toyed with the ribbing on the sleeve of his pink knit shirt, slid the earpieces of his sunglasses through his hair. "There was nothin' to realize, Pop. Up in New York, when I lived up there, hey, let's face it, I couldn't get outta my own way, I couldn't do nothin'."
His father shook his head, which wobbled slightly on his shrunken neck. An old man's errors mattered both more and less than a young man's. More because there was less time to undo them; less because there was less time to endure their consequences. "You coulda done plenty, Joey. I never gave you a chance."
Joey just shrugged. The palm fronds scratched like brushes on a snare drum, the little wavelets in the pool traced a bright pattern on the bottom. The silence went on a beat too long, and Joey fiddled with his glasses. "Sal gave me these shades, ya know. Like a going-away—"
"You hate me, Joey?"
The son hesitated. It was not so much that he was in doubt about his answer as that he was taken aback at being asked the question. His father was not a man to make a habit of offering his upturned throat.
"Nah, Pop," Joey said at last. "I don't hate ya. I wish some things were different, but hey."
"Things could be different, Joey." Vincente Delgatto reached up to straighten his already perfect tie. This was still, as it had been for as long as Joey could remember, the signal that the Don was about to offer the benefits of his influence. "I could set you up good. You wanna come back to the city, I could set you up very nice."
"Nah, Pop, that's not what I mean. I don't want that anymore. I'm over it. What you do, what Gino does, it's not for me. I know that now." Joey paused, tapped his fingers on the table, and gave a little laugh. "I ain't a tough guy, Pop. Never was. I useta try to be, and let's face it, it was fucking ridiculous.
"Besides, New York? Nuh-uh. Pop, my life's in Florida now. I like it here. It's easy. Palm trees. Sunsets. And I'm gonna tell ya somethin', it's gonna sound, like, sarcastic, but I don't mean it that way. You did me a big favor, not takin' better care a me before. I mean, if things weren't so, so frustrating up there, I never woulda left. I wouldn'ta thought of it. I mean, how many guys even think of it?"
It was not a question meant to be answered, but Vincente Delgatto raised a finger as though he might try. Then he dropped his hand into his lap and a faraway look came into his deep but filmy eyes. His lips pushed slightly forward toward what might have been a pout but looked, oddly, almost like the preparation for a kiss, and suddenly, for the first time ever, it occurred to Joey to wonder if his father had sometime thought of leaving, of changing, of turning his back on the neighborhood and his place within it to live a life he'd chosen for himself.
"Pop," said Joey, "can I ask you something?"
The old man simply cocked his head to listen.
"Did you love my mother?"
For some moments Vincente Delgatto did not answer. He stared down at the damp tiles around the pool, at his polished shoes. He was still a married man. It was not proper to discuss such things. But Joey had received so little and was asking for so little now.
"Yes," the father said. "I loved her very much."
Joey nodded. "I'm glad. She loved you too. You ever think of being with her? I mean, really being with her?"
The old man retreated behind his filmy eyes and scudded backward through the decades, back to the times when, just as now, his errors had both mattered more and mattered less. "Often," he said, in that voice that was like a rumble underground. "Every time we could get away, ya know, to someplace peaceful. Every time I held her in my arms. But Joey, I couldn't do it. I couldn't."
"I know you couldn't, Pop," said Joey Goldman. He reached out and put a hand on his father's. From inside the bungalow, he faintly heard the whoosh and plunk of Sandra getting out of the bathtub. She was so neat, Sandra was, so precise. By now she'd have a towel tucked under her arms, she'd be wiping the steam off the mirror to brush her hair. "I'm glad you thought of it at least, Pop, I really am. I'm glad you were, like, romantic."
— Epilogue —
Charlie Ponte's emeralds were appraised at three million two hundred and ten thousand dollars. But Joey was mistaken in imagining that his one-third share, discreetly registered under the name Zack Davidson, would break out at seven figures. In his newfound enthusiasm for all things legitimate, he'd overlooked the one great disincentive to doing things the lawful way: taxes. The disbursed funds were just under eight hundred thousand per partner.
Charlie Ponte took this graciously. He could afford to. The Colombians seemed mainly amused that he'd gotten his stones heisted; they seemed, as well, reassured at the disorganized state of the Italian-American mafia. They added three million dollars' worth of free cocaine to Ponte's next shipment and told him not to lose it.
Zack himself, ever the gentleman, insisted on giving up a proportionate fraction of the quarter-million Joey had promised him.
Joey brought home something shy of six hundred thousand, and tried without success to give part of it away. Bert the Shirt d'Ambrosia would not accept a penny beyond Gino's repayment of his ten-thousand dollar loan. "But Bert," Joey had argued, "nunna this coulda happened without you. It was you that started me thinkin' about a scam that fits the climate. You helped with—"
The old man had stopped him with a wave of his elegant, long-fingered hand. "Joey, I got what I need." Then he paused. "You wanna do something for me?"
"Yeah, Bert. This is what I'm saying."
"Here's what you can do." He held Don Giovanni in his palm and lifted the tiny animal toward Joey's face. "The fucking dog, if I die again, I mean for good this time, promise me you'll take care a the dog. It's like a curse from my wife, I'm passing it along."
Vincente Delgatto gave an admiring chortle when Joey confessed to him how he'd finagled a third of the treasure, but he also declined to share in his younger son's windfall. "No, Joey," he'd said, his profound voice thinned out by the wires of the pay phone a discreet distance from his social club. "From Gino I'd take because to Gino I've given. But from you, no, I'd be ashamed."
The Don, however, did accept a first-class round trip ticket to Key West to attend Joey and Sandra's wedding. He was accompanied by best man Sal Giordano, to whom Joey had also sent the finest pair of sunglasses he could find. Gino Delgatto was invited but did not attend. Perhaps he did not want to chance being spotted at the reception at the Flagler House, where he—or rather, Dr. Greenbaum—still owed a tab of nearly eleven thousand dollars.
Joey and Sandra were married in a civil ceremony on a blisteringly hot day in the middle of June. Outside the courthouse, the palm trees rustled dryly, sounding like a broom on a sidewalk; smells of jasmine and iodine wafted through the dusty air. The bride wore a cream-colored skirt and a matching blouse with shoulders built in. She'd tried to get tan for her wedding day, but had managed mostly to turn her short hair nearly white. She flushed a becoming pink during the ceremony; her green eyes moistened and shimmered like the calm and prosperous ocean.
Bride and groom held hands as the vows were pronounced, and Joey Goldman made no attempt to choke down the lump in his throat. He took in the grand words pronounced in a somewhat hurried monotone by the judge, and in his own mind he distilled them down to an essence from which he took enormous comfort: "To make, ya know, a life together. Do stuff, look out for each other. It's, like, serious."
Suddenly awash both in romance and funds, Joey had suggested a lavish honeymoon, perhaps in Rio, but Sandra, practical and steady, had argued for postponement. There was, for now, too much to be decided. Joey and Zack had agreed in principle to become partners in business; they had not, however, figured out what kind of business it should be. In the meantime they were keeping their jobs at Parrot Beach, conferring as often as time allowed while leaning on the Plexiglas that covered the pristine and silent model of the perfect life in Florida, the Saran Wrap swimming pool and the tiny people on lounges. Sandra was still working at the bank, but had c
ut back on her hours so she could begin to shop for a house. She wanted something small, unpretentious, easy to keep clean; Joey lobbied for something grander, hidden behind hedges and banks of bougainvillea, and of course with a pool.
They looked at many places, and after looking they would sit in the old Caddy with the smashed windshield and come up with all sorts of reasons not to buy. The truth was they were looking for excuses not to move just yet. They had come to feel an odd affection for the mismatched furnishings and thrown together people of the compound. It had been, after all, their first nest in their new life, and the more they thought about it, and the more they understood they would in fact be moving on, the more it seemed to them that they'd been very happy there.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR— Laurence Shames has set eight critically acclaimed novels in Key West, his former hometown. Now based in California, he is also a prolific screenwriter and essayist. His extensive magazine work includes a stint as the Ethics columnist for Esquire. In his outings as a collaborator and ghostwriter, he has penned four New York Times bestsellers, under four different names. This might be a record. To learn more, please visit http://www.LaurenceShames.com.
ALSO BY LAURENCE SHAMES—
FICTION—
Scavenger Reef
Sunburn
Tropical Depression
Virgin Heat
Mangrove Squeeze
Welcome to Paradise
The Naked Detective
NON-FICTION
The Big Time
The Hunger for More