He threw some water on his face, slicked back what was left of his hair, pulled on his red satin bathrobe, and met the visitors at the door. “Luis,” he said, “What brings you—“
“I’m very unhappy,” Benavides said, rudely pushing past Ponte’s arm as though it were a turnstile and striding straight into the living room. Close behind him was a huge man in a silver jacket. “Extremely unhappy.”
Ponte wasn’t totally awake yet. He blinked then tried to focus on his visitor. The odd part was that the young boss looked no more unhappy than he always looked, the same sallow and dyspeptic cast to his skin, the same joyless smirk on his handsome yet unpleasant face. It was mainly his voice that was different today; a few syllables were enough to make that clear. His voice had shed the facetiousness that somewhat leavened its bad intent, lost the wry tone that tempered the nastiness. Playing for time to gather his wits, Ponte said, “Would you like some coffee?”
“What I’d like is some answers.”
Ponte’s slippers scuffed along the floor as he shuffled over to a sofa and sat down. “Luis,” he said, “I’m not a morning person and I have no idea what you’re upset about.”
“You have no idea?”
The question was rancid with implied accusation, and Ponte didn’t like that at all. His own tone hardened in reply. “No, I have no idea. So tell me. Then I will.”
“The boat,” said Benavides. “It didn’t get seized. It isn’t at Customs.”
Ponte stared up through his eyebrows at the younger man. “And you think that’s my fault?”
“It was your guy who was supposed to deliver it.”
“Right. And you were the one who was supposed to have it grabbed, who came up with this brilliant plan that couldn’t fail.”
“Couldn’t fail,” said Benavides with a quiet fury, “if everybody kept their word, if everybody honored their commitments.”
That really pissed off Ponte. Adrenaline had made him wide awake by now. He sprang up from the sofa and started pacing rather Napoleonically, hands crossed behind his back, torso leaning forward, the folds of his extravagant robe shushing as he moved. “Listen, Luis, you’re a bright young guy but you have a lot to learn. You want to last in this business, you don’t just turn around and start accusing your partners when something goes wrong. You sit down like gentlemen and you try to think things through.”
“I have thought them through,” said Benavides. “And what I think is that your guy, this Nicky, fucked me. I think he took off with the boat.”
“Why would he do that?” reasoned Ponte. “He thought he was smuggling cigars. He had forty grand coming at the end of the job. Which would he rather have, forty grand in cash or a few boxes of stogies and a crappy old boat?”
“A crappy old boat with something very valuable on it,” said Benavides.
“He didn’t know about that part,” said Ponte. “Remember? Top secret. That was your plan.”
The Cuban boss tilted his concave face a little to one side and said very slowly, “But you knew.”
“You son of a bitch.”
Hearing his employer cursed, the huge man in the silver jacket took a menacing step toward Ponte; but one thing you had to say for the old Italian boss was that he was stubbornly fearless when his particular sort of honor was impugned, and he didn’t flinch at all as the looming figure leaned closer. To Benavides he said, “Tell this gorilla to keep away from me. And tell him that in this country we usually put on a shirt before a jacket. And as for you, you’re a fucking asshole if you think I cheated on this deal. I’ll listen when you’re ready to apologize.”
“I’ll apologize,” said Benavides, “when I hear a better explanation.”
There was a standoff that lasted for some seconds, the two bosses standing with their fists pegged to their hips, the unmistakable musk of aggression wafting through the small space between them. Then, like rutting animals deciding that a full-out battle was not worth the risk of humiliation or defeat, they both seemed to tip-toe back from the brink. Ponte relaxed his bunched-up shoulders and went back to the sofa. He put his elbows on his knees and started tapping a foot in its brown leather slipper. “Explanations,” he said. “Okay, here’s one. Your boat was lost at sea.”
“Possible,” admitted Benavides. “Not likely. The weather was calm last night. People have made that passage on rafts, on windsurfers. Practically no chance the boat went down.”
“Then what about your inside guy?”
The young boss shrugged dismissively. “He never got to do his job. His job didn’t start until the boat was brought to the impound.”
“Right,” said Ponte. “So maybe it suited him better if the boat never quite got there.”
“Go on.”
“Look, I’m just thinking out loud, okay? But if a boat gets hauled in to Customs, it’s in the paper, it’s public. Guy can’t very well turn around and tell you sorry, there’s no boat. So how about if he finds a way to scotch the mission?”
Skeptically but not altogether dismissively, Benavides said, “How’s he going to scotch the mission? He’s just a dumb slob who works on the dock.”
Ponte shrugged. “Every now and then a dumb slob turns out to be a little bit less dumb than we think he is. But look, it’s just a theory. Say he somehow works it out that the boat doesn’t get grabbed. He gets hold of it himself—“
“Which could only happen,” Benavides interrupted, “if he was in cahoots with your guy who was running the boat.”
“Or if he hijacked my guy,” Ponte shot back. “Or killed him.” He paused a moment to gather his thoughts. “But you know what, Luis? I’ll grant you it’s not impossible they’re in cahoots. Don’t know how they would’ve partnered up, but stranger things have happened. Maybe they stashed the boat somewhere to grab the goods at leisure.”
“If that’s what happened,” Benavides said, “they both die.”
“I got no problem with that,” said Ponte.
At that the huge man in the silver jacket licked his lips.
For a moment Benavides stood stone still, the heightening light from the east windows giving his concave face the melancholy luster of a waning moon. Finally he said, “But this is just talk. We need to get to Key West and find that fucking boat.”
Ponte nodded sagely. “You definitely should. That’s the way to go.”
“Go get ready,” said the Cuban boss.
“Get ready? No, I’d just be in the way. Think I’ll stay here.”
“No you won’t.”
“But—“
“It’s better that we stay together, Charlie. Nice and close. In plain sight of one another. Until we figure out who’s been doing what to who. I’m sure you understand that. Don’t you, Charlie?”
32.
“Marrone,” said Bert the Shirt. “You must really care about this guy.”
Phoebe sidestepped the allegation. “Come on,” she said. “Once I knew what I knew, I couldn’t leave him out there all alone. Could you do that to a friend?”
Bert stroked his dog and considered. “No,” he said, “I guess I couldn’t. But Jesus, Phoebe, now you’re in it up to your eyeballs.”
It was 11 a.m. and they were sitting under a poolside umbrella at the Paradiso condo, where Phoebe had found Bert just sitting down to a game of gin rummy, wearing a shirt with a pattern of spades and hearts and diamonds and clubs. The other players had grumbled when Bert excused himself from the table for a chat, but Nacho seemed relieved. The chihuahua hated gin games; the snap and squeak of cards being shuffled made him jumpy.
After a thoughtful pause, the old man went on, “So now you’ve got Nicky hidden?”
She nodded.
“I hope you’ve got him hidden good—“
“We do.”
“—‘cause Ponte or whoever he’s in business with will definitely come looking.”
“I don’t think they’ll find him,” Phoebe said in that soft and even tone of hers. “And I don’t think they�
�ll find their boat, even though it’s sitting there in plain sight. Problem is, how do we make them give up and go away?”
“They won’t give up,” the old man said with quiet certainty. “And the only way to make them go away is to give them what they want.”
“But we don’t know what they want.”
“That’s a problem,” Bert conceded. “That’s a fairly serious, basic or one might even say a fundamental problem.”
Phoebe, discouraged, lowered her eyes and glanced off across the shimmering condo pool. The skimmer pump was running with a purr and the tang of chlorine made it smell like a carefree childhood summer. She had a sudden fleeting daydream of herself and Nicky living in a place like this someday, in a real building with windows, proper walls and ceilings, cheery red umbrellas outside throwing little ovals of shade. Then she heard Bert say, “Maybe I should call Ponte, see what’s what.”
“Bert, hey, I just came by for some advice. I’m not asking you to—“
“Didn’t you just get finished telling me that if a friend’s in trouble, you can’t just sit there?”
He reached up with the crinkly hand that held his dog and stood the little creature on the table. Its paws clicked on the enameled metal surface as he fished around in his pockets for his phone.
Benavides’ Jaguar was conveniently equipped with back-door locks controlled by Gato, the driver, and Charlie Ponte, physically comfortable though he was against the creamy leather upholstery and with a battery of A/C vents pointed toward his face and torso, was distinctly uneasy with his status as essentially a hostage. True, he’d managed to strap on his compact .25 before being rushed out of his apartment, but the weapon that nestled now against his calf was of little solace, since there were two of them and one of him and he never doubted for an instant that they were armed as well. So he sat rather glumly as the weird and watery spectacle of the Lower Keys rolled past—another bridge whose guano-crusted rails were lined with pelicans, another dusty islet with not much on it except a dive bar and a turquoise motel, another blue-green channel studded with purple coral heads and streaming with seaweed that stretched in the current like the hair of the drowned.
They were just north of Big Coppit when his phone rang.
He glanced down at the screen and saw that it was Bert and decided that it would be easier and safer to ignore the call.
“Who is it?” Benavides asked.
“Nobody,” said Ponte, as the phone kept ringing.
“Answer it,” the young boss ordered. “And put it on speaker.”
“Nah, it’s just some bullshit.”
“Let’s see what kind of bullshit. We have no secrets, do we, Charlie?”
Trying not to grimace, Ponte took the call and said a casual hello.
“Cholly? Bert. How ya doin’?” The gruff Brooklyn accent filled up the car.
“Fine.”
“Good. Good. I was a little bit concerned.”
“Nah, everything’s fine.”
“Glad to hear it. I checked the paper this morning like ya told me. Didn’t see anything about your cigars. I was, ya know, a little bit concerned.”
“Nah, it’s all good,” Ponte said, though in fact it was not all good, because when he looked up from the phone he saw that Benavides had produced a 9 mm from the glove box and was pointing it at his face.
“Was worried,” Bert went on, “that maybe something went wrong with the bust or something.”
Ponte was sweating now and the A/C blasting on his damp skin made him feel clammy and suddenly unwell. “No. All fine. Just, ya know, a little glitch, had to change things up a little bit. You know how it is.”
Bert said, “Sure, I know how it is,” though the truth was that in the present circumstance he didn’t know how it was at all. “Well, anything I can do for ya, Cholly, just lemme know.”
“Thanks, Bert, but I think you’ve done enough. See ya.”
In the Jaguar, Benavides wagged his gun rudely close to Ponte’s nose and said, “Who the fuck was that?”
“Nobody. Some washed-up old has-been in Key West.”
With a mixture of incredulity and rage, the young boss said, “And you told him? You told him about the cigars? You told him about the bust?”
Sheepishly, Ponte said, “Yeah, I told him just a little bit. Look, it doesn’t matter. The guy’s like ninety, he’s out of it.”
Benavides was still wonderstruck at his colleague’s lack of discretion. “Why the fuck did you do that, Charlie? Why the fuck did you blab?”
Even with the muzzle of a gun dangling obscenely close to his mouth, Ponte could not bring himself to make the simple admission that as usual he’d been bragging. Instead, he said, “Look, I had to tell him something.”
“Why? Why’d you have to tell him anything?”
“How d’ya think I found the guy to run the boat? I found him through this old man Bert. Had to tell him a little what the job was.”
That gave the Cuban boss enough of a pause that he pulled the gun back a few inches and partly swiveled forward once again. Then he said, “So wait a second. This old has-been Bert. He knows about the cigars. He knows the guy that ran the boat. I wonder what else he knows.”
Ponte said, “What else?”
“Yeah, like where the fuck the guy is now and where’s my fucking boat.”
“Luis, forget about it. This old guy, he can’t remember what he had for breakfast. He won’t know any—“
“We’ll see what he knows. Tell me where he lives.”
“Big mistake,” said Ponte, almost pleading. “The guy’s dazed and confused. All you’ll get from him is—“
Benavides pivoted backward and waggled the gun so close to Ponte’s face that he could smell the oil it was cleaned with. “Just tell me where the fuck he lives.”
Bert and Phoebe were still chatting in the shade of the umbrella when three men who were not dressed for the pool came barging in from the parking lot. Thanks to his lifelong habit of always facing out toward entrances, toward danger, never showing his back if he could help it, the old man noticed Charlie Ponte before he’d been seen himself.
Suddenly, a propos of nothing but with a herky-jerky urgency, he said in a hoarse whisper to Phoebe, “Jump in the water.”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Huh?”
“Right this second. Jump, dive, whatever.”
Bewildered, Phoebe sat there until Bert tugged her elbow as though to throw her in.
“Swim!” he ordered. “Keep your face down. Ya need to breathe, don’t look up.”
The adrenalin kicked in then, and in one slinky motion she leaned out of the chair and did a shallow dive into the pool. Her narrow body made little more splash than an anchovy and her cutoffs and tank-top came close enough to passing muster as a bathing suit.
Casually, Bert the Shirt lifted up his dog and began strolling back toward his gin game. He was just about to pick up his cards when a huge man in a silver jacket hooked him underneath the arms and silently led him away.
Phoebe was on her second lap by then. Somewhat like a crocodile, she lifted nothing but her eyeballs above the surface of the water and looked on as her frail old friend was being taken prisoner. Her eyes burned from the chlorine as she wondered if that was her fault, too.
33.
At first, Benavides and Gato were almost gentle with Bert, deferring to his years in the usual rather patronizing way. Gato held the old man only lightly by the arm as he led him to the waiting Jag. The engine had been left running with the A/C on full blast. When the giant man opened the door to the back seat, cold air came pouring out as if it were a cascade of viscous liquid. He settled Bert in, then, far less tenderly, shoved Ponte in the other side before clicking the door locks behind them.
Swiveling in the front seat, Luis Benavides, working to keep his tone friendly or at least devoid of threat, said, “So, I understand you know some things about our little caper.”
Bert had been an old man for quit
e a few years now, and he’d developed the knack of recognizing almost immediately when he was being talked down to. He knew the tell-tale signs: the slight raising of the voice on the assumption that he must be deaf; the soothing, sing-song cadence like something from a kindergarten; the choice of simple words as though he were a foreigner or an idiot. Far from being offended by the condescension in this instance, Bert saw in it an opportunity to play for time and gather information. He blinked, put a confused look on his face, and said, “Caper?”
Ponte said, “See, Luis? I told you he don’t remember—“
“Shut up, Charlie.” To Bert, he said, “You know. With the boat. The cigars.”
Bert put a hand to his ear and said, “No, I don’t care for a cigar, thank you.”
Stifling exasperation, Benavides said, “Your friend Nicky. You introduced him to Charlie here.”
Bert pointed to his fellow captive. “Yes, this is Charlie. We’ve known each other a very long time.”
“Forget Charlie. I’m asking you about Nicky.”
Bert stroked his dog and made it look like he was digging deep into a messy trove of memories. While he was faking he peered past Benavides, through the windshield, and across the parking lot to where Phoebe, soaking wet, legs streaming, was climbing onto her bicycle. He stalled until she’d pedaled down the driveway and out onto the road, then he said, “Nicky? Oh, Nicky, right. Haven’t seen him for a while. How is he?”
Ponte said, “This is getting us nowhere, Luis.”
Benavides told him to shut up. “Listen, Bert. Your friend Nicky, he has my boat. I need to find it. Can you tell me where my boat is?”
Bert stalled a moment more then he started giggling.
“What’s so fucking funny?”
“Can you tell me where my boat is?” Bert mimicked in a lilting rhythm. “Can you help me find my lost boat, Mr. Squirrel? Sounds like a children’s book. Do you write books for children?”
Benavides swiveled forward and slapped the dashboard as hard as he could.
Ponte said, “Now do you believe we’re wasting time? Let’s lose the old fart and I’ll take you to where Nicky lives.”
Key West Luck Page 14