Tricky Business

by Dave Barry

  The women whooped; Johnny spat out his beer in mid-swig; Wally and Ted exchanged laughs. They were used to women hitting on Jock, but this was an indoor record.

  “How about it, Dr. Jock?” said Wally. “You want to play doctor with Connie here? Help her through this difficult time in her life?”

  Jock pointed a drumstick at Connie and said, “You are looking fine tonight.” More whoops from the women. Connie did a little bump and grind, inadvertently knocking into Strom Thurmond, who went down again.

  “I feel a lot of love in this room,” said Wally. “This calls for a very special song, a very romantic song, a very tender song for this very special lady, Connie, on her very special night.”

  Then he stomped on his distortion pedal, cranked up his volume knob and slashed out the opening riff to “I Want Your Sex Pootie,” by the Seminal Fluids. Jock caught it instantly and came in right behind him, and in a heartbeat everybody on the floor, including Strom Thurmond, was bouncing up and down, chanting with Wally:I want your sex pootie

  I want your sex pootie

  I want your sex pootie

  I want your sex pootie

  There were more people coming up the stairs now, drawn by the noise. Some of them watched; some of them joined the dancers, a couple dozen out there now. This was, by far, the best response the band had gotten on the Extravaganza : an actual audience, including actual babes, actually dancing. As the band reached the end of “Sex Pootie,” Wally shot a glance back at Jock to let him know that he was going to keep it moving and blasted into the high-energy opening chords, E-A-D-A, of the Romantics’ “What I Like About You.” The crowd responded as it always did to that song, a song so danceable that even middle-aged white men can sometimes locate the beat.

  Still more people were coming up the stairs. Even the Bud Light dudes drifted onto the floor, assuming the pseudo-soulful facial expression of men dancing and insinuating themselves into the clot of gyrating divorce-party women. Somebody bumped into Strom Thurmond and he went down again, but this time he wisely elected to stay on the floor and dance in a prone position.

  As “What I Like About You” ended, the band followed Wally right into AC-DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long,” which begins with a tender couplet of almost Shakespearean eloquence:She was a fast machine

  She kept her motor clean

  Midway through the song, Connie, the grieving divorcée, pulled up her top and flashed her breasts at Jock, although the rest of the band was in a position to benefit visually. The dance floor was actually crowded now; Wally saw all ages and types out there, old people and young people, and . . . Jesus, was that a shell?

  Sure enough, out there in the middle of the mob, clearly disoriented, flailing his pink arms around, was Conrad Conch. He’d come up the stairs and started feeling his way toward the buffet when somebody had grabbed him and pulled him onto the dance floor, where he was being bounced from dancer to dancer like a giant pink beach ball. He got shoved toward the band, where the divorce-party women surrounded him and began feigning lewd acts of human-mollusk sex, one of them dropping onto her knees and applying her mouth vigorously to what would be the penile area of the shell, if conchs had penises. The crowd was going insane, stomping its feet and cheering the women on. At the microphone, Wally was laughing so hard that he had to stop singing.

  This was precisely the moment when Manny Arquero appeared. He didn’t even have to tell the band to stop playing ; the fury of look he gave them made it almost physically impossible to continue. The sound drained from the room; the crowd quieted down, interested in this new drama. Arquero stepped around the microphone, got his face right into Wally’s. He was exactly Wally’s height, but somehow he gave Wally the impression of being three or four times Wally’s size.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he said, quietly but violently.

  “We’re just—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Arquero.

  “Yes,” said Wally.

  “Now you listen,” said Arquero. “From now—”

  “Hey!” said Strom Thurmond.

  Arquero turned around, noticed the old man on the floor. “What the hell happened to you?” he said.

  “Tell ’em to play that song,” said Strom Thurmond. “About the thing. With the car.”

  Arquero turned back to Wally.

  “Hey!” said Strom Thurmond, again.

  Arquero whirled back around, pissed off, and said, “What?”

  “I think I shit myself.”

  This got a big laugh from the crowd, which pissed Arquero off even more. He turned back and grabbed Wally by the arm. He had a painful grip.

  “Listen,” he said. “You don’t play that kinda music on this boat, you understand?”

  “What kind of—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t play the kind of music that’s loud and sounds like somebody’s up here killing a bag of cats with a shovel and makes the customers crazy, that’s what you don’t play.”

  “But the crowd was—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Yes.”

  “You play the kind of music you been playing since you got this job, which is quiet music people can maybe listen to a little bit and then go back downstairs, you got that?”

  Wally said nothing, because he figured Arquero would just tell him to shut the fuck up.

  “I said you got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Because the way we make money on this boat is, people gamble downstairs. We don’t make money if we got all our customers up here listening to you killing cats and watching some bimbo give a fucking blow job to a fucking shell.”

  “But we didn’t—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Yes.”

  Reminded of the conch, Arquero turned around, grabbed Conrad by one of his pink arms, yanked him over, stuck his face into the mouth hole.

  “I told you I didn’t want no trouble,” he said.

  “Mmmmwmf,” said Conrad.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Conrad nodded.

  “I got half a mind to throw you off this ship,” said Arquero. “You, too,” he said to Wally. He now was gripping each of them, the guitarist and the shell, by the upper arm. “Anymore trouble from either of you, you are gonna be very fucking sorry, you got that?” He gave each of them an extremely painful biceps squeeze.

  “Ow!” said Wally.

  “Mmmmwmf!” said Conrad.

  “Good,” said Arquero. “Remember that.” He let go of their arms, turned to Wally. “Now you and your so-called band play some nice quiet music, doesn’t cause any problems with our customers.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Wally, to Arquero’s retreating back.

  Wally turned to the band and said, “Thanks for the backup, guys.”

  “Hey,” said Ted, “looked to me like you had him right where you wanted him.”

  “I was this close to beating the shit out of him,” said Johnny.

  Wally shook his head, smiled. “OK,” he said. “Bar mitzvah time. Count it off, Jocko.”

  “. . . two, three, four,” said Jock, and the band, once again, launched into “Moondance.” Drifting up from the stairway came the electronic boop-boop-boop that the slot machines made incessantly, and the clank of quarters landing in the tray, signifying that somebody had won something. The crowd, including the divorce party, headed toward the stairs, leaving Johnny and the Contusions playing for an audience of two: Conrad Conch, who resumed making his gingerly way toward the buffet; and Strom Thurmond, who got back onto his feet and resumed dancing the Funky Chicken, more aromatically now.

  Seven

  ON THE BRIDGE OF THE EXTRAVAGANZA OF THE Seas, Hank Wilde, looking snappy in his first-officer whites, sipped Jack Daniel’s from a foam cup. At the helm, Captain Eddie Smith studied the navigation and radar displays. Eddie usually stayed at the helm for the entire trip. He never let Wilde run the ship,
not for a second, even if Wilde hadn’t been drinking.

  Wilde didn’t care. He had no interest in the operation of the ship. All he cared about was making sure Eddie did what he was told, and occasionally cell-phoning reports to Tarant. The rest of the time, Wilde drank and looked for ways to amuse himself. One of these ways was to hang around the bridge, trying to goad Eddie into having a conversation, which he could usually do, because it was pretty boring on the bridge.

  “Hey, Captain,” said Wilde.

  “What,” said Eddie, still watching the displays.

  “You know that roulette croupier?”

  “Which one?”

  “Like you don’t know,” said Wilde. “Like when I say ‘roulette croupier,’ what comes to your mind is the fifty-year-old bald guy with the potbelly. Like you’re not immediately thinking about the six-foot blonde with the bazooms that’re a hazard to navigation.”

  “Oh, her,” said Eddie.

  “Yeah, oh her.”

  “She is hard to miss,” said Eddie.

  “She makes me hard, tell you that,” said Wilde. “But here’s the thing. You ever spend any time around her?”

  “No,” said Eddie. “I’m up here, running the ship. Maybe you noticed.”

  “Well, as first officer, I feel like I got to check out the ship from time to time, make sure it’s shipshape, you know?”

  “It’s a load off my mind,” said Eddie.

  “So anyway, one of the shapes I like to check is Tina’s, which is not easy because there’s always like fifty guys around her table, waiting for her to bend over. And here’s the thing. I think she’s a farter.”

  “A what?”

  “A farter. I think she farts.”

  “Everybody farts. I fart.”

  “Right. I fart also. But she farts a lot.”

  “How do you know it’s her? It’s probably one of the customers.”

  “That’s what I thought, the first few times. I’d be over there by the roulette wheel, and I’d be like, whoa, somebody cut a major chunk of cheese here, and I’m looking around at all these guys, because you figure it’s a guy. You don’t figure a woman for a farter.”

  “No,” agreed Eddie. He was in his twenties before he was even sure women could fart.

  “You can live with a woman for years and never hear her let one rip,” said Wilde. “You live with a woman, right?”

  “A year now,” said Eddie.

  “You ever hear her fart?”

  Eddie said nothing, not sure he wanted to be having this conversation.

  “Come on,” said Wilde. “I’m not asking you to say she farts. I’m asking you to confirm you never heard her fart, which I bet you didn’t. She’d be happy to know you were sticking up for her.”

  “OK,” said Eddie. “I never heard her fart.”

  “Exactly. She’s whooshing on you.”

  “She’s what?”

  “Whooshing. Women have some kind of technique where they do something with their butt muscles, and they just whoosh ’em out.”

  “Whooshing?”

  “That’s what they call it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “This woman I lived with once, up in Jersey, she told me about it. She said they all do it.”

  “How do they know how?”

  “That she didn’t say. Could be instinct. Could be it was on Oprah. All’s I know is, that’s the secret. Whooshing.”

  “Huh,” said Eddie.

  “So anyway,” said Wilde, “I’m smelling this smell, and I’m figuring it has to be one of the customers, right? Some guy ate a bad burrito or whatever. But next time I’m there, whoa, there it is again. Next time, same thing. Different nights, different guys, same smell. And finally I realize it has to be Tina. The woman is like permanently surrounded by a green cloud.”

  “But she still draws a crowd?”

  “Oh, hell, yes. A woman looks like that, she’s gonna have guys around no matter what she smells like. She could be dead, worms coming out her nose, and there’d still be guys asking her what is she doing later. Plus which, the customers all probably think it’s some other customer doing it.”

  “True,” said Eddie. Then: “Why’re you telling me this?”

  “Just in case,” said Wilde. “I mean, one of these days, somebody’s gonna light a match around that woman, and the whole goddamn ship could blow up, like that blimp, whaddyacallit, the Hindenburn. I figure you should know, being the captain.”

  “I appreciate the information,” said Eddie.

  “Just doing my job as first officer,” said Wilde, taking another sip of Jack Daniel’s.

  The ship lurched, just a little, but a little is a lot on a ship the size of the Extravaganza.

  “What was that?” said Wilde.

  “Wave,” said Eddie. “Big one. Case you didn’t notice, this is a storm, which we shouldn’t be out in.”

  “We already talked about that,” said Wilde. “That’s a closed subject.”

  They were quiet for a minute.

  “The boat we’re meeting,” said Eddie. “It’s the same one as usual?”

  “Yeah, same boat, same guys, same everything. Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t want to be them,” said Eddie, looking at his radar. “Can’t be comfortable, a boat like that, out in this.”

  “They’re fine,” said Wilde. “They’re professionals.”

  IN THE MAIN CABIN OF THE SHIP OF PUKE, Frank, gagging, struggled to a sitting position, his back against the counter. He looked around for Juan’s gun, which he’d dropped when he fell, but he didn’t immediately see it. He still had his own Glock in his right hand.

  Directly in front of him, Kaz was on his hands and knees in the repulsive spew, moaning. Rebar and Holman were still at the table, both retching loudly. Juan was slumped over the sink, not moving.

  Frank reached his left hand up, grabbed the edge of the counter, pulled himself upright. His plan was to get back up to the bridge, away from this reeking hell. He saw Juan’s Glock now, on the floor next to Kaz, covered in vomit. He couldn’t leave it there. He still hadn’t made up his mind about the three new guys, and he wasn’t going to let them have a gun. With great reluctance, moving slowly to keep his balance in the pitching boat, he stepped forward and leaned down to pick up the Glock.

  That’s when Kaz came up under him, very fast, pushing off the floor with his hands and driving his left shoulder into Frank’s chin, snapping Frank’s head back, Frank feeling his teeth biting deep into his tongue, going black for an instant, dropping his gun. He staggered backward, catching himself on the counter. His brain cleared a little, and he saw Kaz leaning over to pick up Juan’s gun. Frank kicked him, aiming for his face but slipping a little on the wet floor and catching just the top of his forehead, the kick causing both men to fall again. Kaz recovered fast and scrambled toward Juan’s gun, but Frank lunged forward and met him, the two of them grappling on the floor now, each unable to grip the other firmly because they were both hideously slick with digestive juices. Kaz tried to put a knee into Frank’s balls, but Frank got his leg in the way. Kaz drew back his right fist to try to throw a punch, which gave Frank, who was usually quicker than guys his own size, an opening to sink a left deep into Kaz’s gut, then a hard right into his face, sending him back and down, not moving after his head hit the floor.

  Frank spat blood from his mouth, and felt more leaking from his lacerated tongue. He found Juan’s gun by the counter, reluctantly picked it up, stuck it into his pocket, retrieved his own gun, and looked around the cabin. Kaz looked to be out. Rebar and Holman looked too sick to be a problem. Juan was still sagged motionless over the sink. Frank thought about trying to get Juan out of there but decided that it was more urgent to get back to Tark.

  He staggered to the ladderway and started up, holding the railing with his left hand, keeping his gun in his right. As he neared the top, his shoulders level with the bridge floor, he saw that Tark wasn’t at the wheel, and he yanke
d his head back, which is why the two-foot metal bar, coming from his left, missed him. It clanged into the ladder, and before Tark could pull it up again, Frank got his hand around Tark’s wrist and yanked hard, the two of them falling down the ladderway, Tark on top, Frank losing his gun again on the way down. As they hit the bottom, Frank felt Tark struggling to pull something from his belt. Frank rolled sideways and shoved himself back just as the knife came up, intended for his gut, just missing. Frank slapped Tark’s knife hand sideways and drove his forearm into Tark’s windpipe. From the feel of it, he knew Tark would have trouble catching his breath for a while. If he ever did.

  As Tark writhed on the floor, clutching at his neck, making a sound like uck uck uck, Frank rolled to his hands and knees, spat out another mouthful of tongue blood, and started struggling upright, trying to clear his head, to figure out how he was going to get the boat to the rendezvous, or anywhere, without Tark to drive it.

  He was halfway to his feet when his peripheral vision registered that Kaz was no longer lying on the floor. He started to move, but as quick as he was, he was too late to get out of the way of the eight-pound marine fire extinguisher coming down on the back of his head.

  FAY STOOD AT THE WAITRESS STATION OF THE bar, waiting for Joe Sarmino to finish her drink orders. Joe was a 67-year-old Cuban who, before he became a bartender, raised a family and put four kids through college by cleaning pools in the expensive homes of Coral Gables and Pinecrest, going house to house in his pickup with jugs of chemicals in the back, dawn to dusk, six days a week, 34 years.

  “I think sometimes I pee chlorine,” is how he described it to Fay.

  Once, when the bar was slow, he told her about things he’d found in his clients’ pools. Alligators, for example; he’d encountered at least a dozen. Also the occasional snake. Hundreds of frogs. These were to be expected in South Florida, which as far as the native wildlife was concerned was still a swamp, no matter how many houses got built on it. But Joe had also found numerous non-wildlife things in pools, the most memorable being a naked human corpse; natural causes, the coroner said. Joe had also found a bowling ball, a trombone, a wide variety of cellular telephones, dozens of car keys, and a riding lawnmower, whose owner had decided at 5 A.M., after a night of alcohol and cocaine consumption, that it would be a good idea to spruce up his backyard. Joe had found a rifle, at least ten brassieres, a laptop computer, and three television sets, all of which had been deep-sixed following fourth-quarter-collapse losses by the Miami Dolphins. (“That prevent defense,” Joe said. “It don’t prevent nothing.”)