Florida Straits (6 page)

But what Joey wanted was for people to hand
him large amounts of cash. This didn't happen by making nice. It
happened by. .. well, Joey was close to admitting he didn't know
how it happened. And in the meantime here he was, snuggled up in
the sack, helplessly going broke. In the meantime he was feeling
more guilty every day that Sandra was earning and he was not. No,
he had to keep pushing.

But why? Where was the justice in it, the
sense? Joey thought about Steve.
He
didn't push. All he did
was stand bare-assed in the pool all day. And, unlikely as it
seemed, Steve was in his quiet way a big shot. He owned the
compound. He was a landlord in a town where rents were through the
roof. How had it happened? Did he start off rich, or once do
something very smart? Joey had to admit he didn't have a clue how
most people made their livings, couldn't figure the logic that made
the legitimate world keep turning. If he could figure it out. . .
well, hell, he had his own angles to worry about.

And there were plenty of them he hadn't
looked into yet. There was bed linen for the hotels and table linen
for the restaurants. There was construction, union or otherwise.
There was garbage. He just had to keep up his initiative. He'd get
some sleep, drink some coffee, catch some sun; then, when he was
feeling rested and looking prosperous, he'd drag his desperate ass
downtown and try again.

—

Cliff, the daytime bartender at the Eclipse
Saloon, smiled weakly and stifled a yawn. This was the sleepy time,
coming up on four
p.m
. The lunch rush was
over, the waitresses were smoking and yakking across the empty
dining room as they filled the ketchup bottles and topped off the
saltshakers for dinner. The bar was vacant except for a couple of
lushes who'd been there since breakfast and the occasional regular
who stopped by for one pop and some air-conditioning. Late
afternoon was also when the dullest strangers wandered in, baffled
tourists traveling alone, salesmen who needed a quick belt before
opening the swatch book one more time. They always wanted to talk,
these solitary ones. They talked about ex-wives, their time in the
navy, the clogs in their fuel injectors. They talked about autumn
in New England, winter in the Rockies, springtime in Amarillo,
about everyplace they ever remembered being happy, but not happy
enough to stay there. Now here was a guy who wanted to talk about
garbage.

"So how does it work down here?" Joey asked,
nursing his tequila. "Is it city, or private, or what?"

"You pay the city," said Cliff, "and the
city contracts it out."

"Ah," said Joey. Cliff didn't want to sound
bored, and Joey didn't want to sound disappointed. But if garbage
money went right to the town, hell, that was like socialism. How
could you slam if the cheeks got mailed straight to city hall, if
there were no private carters to squeeze? It killed initiative.
"And there's no one who's, like, independent?"

The bartender caught himself yawning and
pretended instead to be swallowing a sneeze. "I think the problem
is using the dump. We've got this huge land-fill here. People call
it Mount Trashmore . .."

Across the U-shaped bar, a white-haired gent
was gesturing for a cocktail, and Cliff took the opportunity to
escape.

In a moment he returned, and his manner
toward Joey had become just slightly deferential. "Bert would like
to buy you a drink," he said, nodding toward the old man. "And if
you have a minute, he'd like to talk with you."

Now, the Eclipse Saloon was a serious
drinking establishment, the edge of whose bar was heavily padded
with vinyl-covered foam rubber so customers could rest their elbows
or their heads for long periods of time. Joey suddenly felt his
arms sinking helplessly deeper into the upholstery, and he realized
that his strength was being sapped by an idiotic gratitude that had
put a lump in his throat. For weeks he'd been pushing, pushing,
pushing. He'd thrust himself on people, taken the lead in every
encounter. Everybody had either shied away or been ready to fight.
This—O.K., it was a tiny thing, a free drink, but except for the
occasional cup of herb tea, it was absolutely the first time in
Florida that anyone had done anything for him.

He nodded a thank-you and the old gent waved
him over.

He had white hair that in recent years had
taken on a tinge of bronzy yellow, yellow like the color of
nicotine. He was lean and tall, but with the stretched-out droop of
someone who used to be taller. His eyes were black, deep-set, and
just a little too close together around a bent and monumental
nose.

"Hello, Joey," he said. "Siddown."

The recognition should have made him very
edgy, but Joey was so hard up for company that he barely let
himself be bothered. "How you know my name?"

"This is a small town, Joey. Guy shows up,
drives around in an El D with a New York tag, starts asking about
bolita
, starts talking to truckers, it gets noticed, people
talk. And me, I'm a guy people talk to. No particular reason.
Except I'm around, I'm available, I listen."

There was something strange about Bert's
voice, something that Joey could not immediately place. Then he
realized what it was. Bert sounded normal to him. "You from New
York?"

"Yeah. Brooklyn. President Street."

"Whaddya know. Me, I'm from—"

"Astoria," Bert put in. "Right around
Crescent Street."

Joey gave an uneasy little laugh. "You
tryin' to make me, like, paranoid?"

"Joey," said the old man. He leaned back on
his stool to give his young companion a chance to see him whole.
"You really don't remember me? I guess I've really fucking
aged."

Joey scanned the old man's long and
loose-skinned face, and meanwhile Bert went on. "And if ya don't
mind my saying so as an old family friend"—he pointed to the
earpiece of Joey's sunglasses looped over his shirt
pocket—"carrying your glasses that way, it makes you look like a
pimp."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," said Bert. "And speaking of which,
if you're gonna pimp, try females. You might do better."

"You know about that." It wasn't a question,
and Joey no longer sounded surprised.

"Small town, Joey. Very small town. But hey,
that goes for every town. New York's the same. Joey, your father's
a friend a mine, a business friend. And I knew your mother. A
lovely woman. Plus which, I knew you, Joey, when you were a little
kid. Four, five years old. Too little to remember, I guess. I useta
see you inna park. You had the curliest hair of any kid there. You
don't remember?"

The old man's lips were full and always
moving, as if his teeth didn't set too comfortably in his gums. His
ears were close to his head but big and soft, with fleshy lobes.
His shirt was immaculate, with a pattern of white diamonds embossed
on a white background, the starched wings of the collar as straight
and even as the tail fins of a plane. "Bert," said Joey. "Bert." He
screwed his face into deep-memory mode; then it unwound into a
tentative smile. "Bert the Shirt?"

The old man give a quick and furtive glance
around the virtually empty bar. "
Piano, piano
, Joey. That's
not a name I'm known by anymore. It's just Bert d'Ambrosia,
retiree."

"Bert," Joey repeated, like the name tasted
good in his mouth. "Sure I remember. My mother liked you. Said you
were a gentleman. And you always had hard candies in your pocket."
Then Joey's face darkened and by primitive reflex he recoiled. "But
hey, I thought you were dead."

"I was," said the old man casually, pulling
the cherry out of his whiskey sour and nuzzling the fruit off its
stem. Taking his time, he licked the froth from his lips and
smiled.

Old people took a grim delight in talking
about their ailments and operations, about their arteries hardening
and their brains softening, their ankles swelling and their field
of vision shrinking. In Florida these small epics of collapse and
decay had become both an art form and a competitive sport, and Bert
the Shirt d'Ambrosia had polished his delivery to the point where
he was seldom beaten in the ghoulish contests. He had the best
material, after all. Arthritis, phlebitis, prostate trouble, even
cancer—these things couldn't hold a candle to a guy who'd actually
died.

"Yeah, Joey, I was fucking dead.
Scientifically, electronically dead.
Morto, capeesh?
Yeah.
This was about eight years ago.

"You remember what the papers called the
I-Beam Trial? Big-ass fucking trial. RICO. Construction
racketeering, shit like that? They pulled in everybody. All the
families. Some guys they booked, some guys they just subpoenaed.
Big publicity splash. Well, a few guys didn't wanna go to court,
remember? They faked angina, fainting spells, whatever.

"Me," Bert went on, "I went. I wasn't
indicted. They were just yankin' my chain. I figured fuck 'em, they
wanna put me on the stand, I can take the heat. Big mistake, Joey.
I get to court, there's a million reporters on the steps, the
prosecutors are in their best suits, cameras are in my face. I
start not feeling good. I get clammy, my arms start to tingle. I
get this tightness in my chest, and all I can think of is that it's
like a fucking meatball rolling toward my heart. I'm thinking,
Shirt, you asshole, all those big-ass steaks, all that booze, all
those cigarettes, all that tension—now you're gonna die right here
on the six o'clock news.

"I can hardly talk. I whisper to my lawyer,
'Hey, Bruce, I think I'm havin' a heart attack.' He laughs. He
thinks I'm fuckin' around. 'Hey, that wasn't the plan,' he says.
"You wanted to appear.' Then he notices I'm turning blue.

"So now I'm on a stretcher, they're carrying
me back down the courthouse steps. My eyes are closed, and I can
still see flashbulbs going off. And it dawns on me, the one good
thing about dying. I went to court to play the big man, show
everybody I wasn't afraid. Now I couldn't give a fuck what anybody
thought. They wanna think I'm a common criminal, they wanna think
I'm a coward, fuck does it matter? You live, you die. I should care
what these assholes thinka me?

"By the time they get me to the ambulance,
I'm pretty out of it. I hear the siren, but it seems like really
far away. I know I'm movin', but it's like bein' on a boat more
than drivin' downa street. They stick this oxygen mask over my
face, and the oxygen has like a blue smell, an electric smell. It
makes me think of when I was a little kid and went to Rockaway and
there was a big-ass summer thunderstorm. The air smelled like that
after lotsa lightning. I thinka that, my mother onna beach with me,
and I start to cry.

"They told me after, I was unconscious by
the time we got to St. Vincent's. They put me on a whaddyacallit, a
monitor, were rolling me through the hall, and that was that."

"That was what?" Joey asked, his elbows deep
in the padded bar, his drink getting watery in front of him.

"It," said Bert. "That was it. I died."

"Unbefuckinglievable," said Joey.

"Yup. They told me after, I was dead for
like forty seconds. They jump-started me with this cattle prod
kinda thing. I twitched like a goddamn spastic, then I started
breathing again.

"So anyway, I stood inna hospital three
weeks. They hadda check for brain damage, shit like that. When ya
die, ya know, it affects the mind sometimes. And I'll tell ya
something weird. The only parta my brain that was affected? I can't
carry a tune no more. I can't even sing Happy fucking Birthday. And
I useta love to sing.

"So I did some thinking. I decided I wanted
out. Yeah, outta the family. I mean, enough was enough. My nerves
were shot. So when I got home, I went right to the top, right to
Scalera. Joey, that man was a prince. He invited me to his house. I
took a copy of my EKG with me.

"So he gives me a glass of anisette, and he
says, 'Shirt, what's on your mind?'

"So I unroll the paper on his dining room
table and I say, 'Frankie, you know what this is?'

"He looks at it, it's like a graph, ya know,
and he says, 'Looks like the fuckin' stock market.'

"I say, 'No, Frank, it's my life. And you
see this flat part over here? This is where I died.'

"And he says, 'Jeez, Bert, I'm sorry.'

"So I says, 'Don't be sorry, I'm O.K. now.
But Frank, the way I look at it, I've given my life for this thing
of ours. I was solid and loyal to the end.'

" 'I knew you would be, Bert,' he says. 'But
what are you getting at?'

" 'Frank,' I say, 'I feel like I deserve
something for dying.'

"Now, this makes Scalera a little nervous
because, as fine a human being as he was, he didn't like to part
with money. He was a little, ya know, cheap, let's face it. So he
says, "Whaddya want, Bert?' but his voice isn't quite as friendly
as before.

" 'All I want is to be allowed to walk
away,' I tell him. 'I want your blessing to retire.'

"So now he's relieved that I'm not asking
for cash. But he's still nervous because what if it gets around
that it's O.K. to quit, and good earners start walking away? 'Jeez,
Bert,' he says, 'I'd like to say yes, but it'd be, like, a
precedent. I mean, O.K., you're a special case, you died. But what
if the next guy says to me, Hey, I got shot, or, Hey, I got my
knees smashed in. I mean, where would I draw the line?'

"Well," Bert continued, "to me it's pretty
obvious where he should draw the line: death. When a guy dies, he
can quit. How much clearer could it be? But hey, he's the Boss. I'm
not gonna argue. I just wait."

"So he asks me, 'Where you wanna retire
to?'

" 'The Florida Keys,' I tell him right away.
I mean, I been thinkin' about it the whole time I was inna
hospital."

" 'Hm,' he says, 'that sounds nice,' and it
was almost like the Godfather was envious of me. You know why,
Joey? 'Cause I was ready to walk away, ready to leave everything
behind. That's the only thing people really envy. Remember that,
kid. 'Well, Bert, I'll tell you what,' he says. "We can't call it
retirement. But you go to Florida with my blessing, and we'll say
you're my eyes and ears down there. We need information, contacts,
we'll call on you. How's that?'