Marine Park: Stories (5 page)

He was good but the two of them were different, like the Canada trip had shown. A half century of marriage, and they'd traveled out of the country once. He spent the whole time on a motorboat they had rented, going from one side of the lake to the other, ferrying back and forth. He'd come back, be happy, having been outside all day, feeling refreshed. She didn't call the phone number like she usually did for that one. She had thought they might get away from it. She had thought they were on vacation.

Why did she do it? How does it feel to make dinner every day and three courses on Sunday? How many times did she actually work the polls? Five, six times a year? And she'd always loved the gangster stories—Diamond Jim out in Chicago, who owned all the brothels, and how the government took him down. It's the type of thing that you keep doing, out there in the white house by the water and the highway. Sometimes she hated that house. Nothing going on. So much he didn't know. The amount of money you make for poll work. He'd never voted in his life.

She got up in the morning and cleaned up the bedroom, came downstairs around ten. Vincent was already sitting at the kitchen counter with his coffee. She scrubbed each dish twice, her back to his.

Nice day, he said. Thinking about going to get the oil changed on the Toyota.

Aurora patted him on the back of his neck, got the orange juice out of the refrigerator.

Nice day for a drive, he said. Or a boat ride. Haven't taken her out in a bit.

Sure, she said, and then she knew.

Just really one of those days, no? Nice morning days?

Like out on the lake in Canada.

Sort of, he said. But it's nicer here. Everything is clearer.

True. She poured him some more juice.

 • • • 

When Vincent got to the candy store at two the next afternoon, the
CLOSED
sign was already swinging on the door to the shop. He went in and there was Benducci, sitting behind the cash register.

You lost a little hair, Vincent said.

It's the insurance payments, said Benducci as he came around the counter to say hello. They embraced, Vincent's palm on Benducci's back. He could feel the skin over his bones.

They used to do them together, the jobs. Benducci was younger, and they always sent him with Vincent because Benducci was the muscle, on the off chance that something went wrong. Benducci had this Italian surname, but his family had been in America for generations, uncles of his always telling stories about the way it was before the guineas got here. They were a southern family. Benducci had a southern belle sister that everyone in the neighborhood knew: her name was Everleigh, a family tradition. An aunt far back on a plantation used to sign her letters, Everly Yours.

They sat on the stools. Vincent spread his arms and laughed.

Look at me, he said. I'm too old for this garbage. He pointed at Benducci. You too.

Come on, sixty-five is basically sixty, and then you're in your fifties, he said. And that's just middle-aged.

That's the optimist talking.

Honestly, I haven't done a job in years, and I got excited. He opened his hands. Who else would I call?

Vincent walked around to the Coke machine and took a can. Benducci eyed him. You gonna pay for that?

Vincent put a quarter on the counter.

They're a little more now.

So. Under the Parkway Bridge, seven thirty?

Just offshore, right where people fish.

They'll be no one on the bridge?

I'm heading over right now to put up some signs and talk to people.

Anyway, no one ever notices.

Benducci didn't answer.

Anything I should know?

Should be fine. The boat's a twenty-footer, they'll have two handlers too. No cops. Any cruisers, we split. Supposed to be important that the drop point doesn't get found, it's the last warehouse in Red Hook that the cops don't know about. But if it stays clear tonight it won't be a problem, we can see all the way to Breezy Point.

Vincent rubbed his knee and drank his Coke and kept his head nodding while Benducci was talking.

 • • • 

She followed him out to the candy store. She took the Chevy, gray and easy to miss. Parked it two blocks up on the opposite side of the street, watched the entrance from her side-view mirror. Then she drove to Good Shepherd church to go to confession.

When was your last confession, my child?

Jimmy? It's me.

Rory?

The booth was dark, and there was a piece of pink gum stuck on the underside of the seat. It was always Monsignor Jim at this hour of the day, and he'd been doing it for years, since back when the pews were full every Sunday. Jim's brother was a police lieutenant, and he'd been working with Aurora since the beginning.

How do you know it's a boat job?

He was talking with Benducci, that's all they'd ever do. They always leave after dinner.

Aren't you guys a little old for this?

Isn't that what you tell the kids when they punch their brothers?

No, I tell them to read the smutty magazines.

That's not even funny, Monsignor.

They were quiet for a moment, and the church was quiet the way it is on Tuesday afternoons. Aurora could hear people walking by outside the stained-glass windows.

I'll tell my brother, he said. Don't worry, they'll stay far back and just figure out where they're going. His side of the box was silent for a moment. Strange, he said.

Aurora looked at her watch. There had been one time when she almost told Vin, after a job one cold December right after Salvy was born. They sat together on the porch when he got back (she had been in the kitchen; he came in from the “groceries,” said he needed a little fresh air) and they watched the gray clouds on the water. It wasn't pretty that time of year, but it was powerful. The sky always so heavy. She had her hand around his arm and she almost confessed everything. They could have found a way to make it right. But the words were wrong, and the two of them so recently parents. So she made him a sandwich, and then Tommy was born, and they grew up, and Vincent went out on the boat less and less, until he didn't go out at all. And when it was all over, what was the point of telling stories?

Did I do the right thing coming? she said.

The Monsignor breathed into the screen.

Do you feel that you've done wrong?

Sometimes.

Do you regret lying to your husband?

Of course.

I can't imagine what it was like.

Aurora didn't answer.

When it's over, make Vin a cup of coffee. And then tell him five times that you love him.

The Monsignor opened the screen. She looked at his face, bulbous and sweaty, and she realized suddenly how old he'd become. It was easier to think of him only as a voice. She opened the door. That's ridiculous, she said as she left.

 • • • 

It was one of those evenings after a hot summer day, where you could be sitting in the living room, the windows open, and all of a sudden the sound of the rain on the concrete. Outside, the streetlights blinking with the force of the rain. What could you expect in the morning but the trains all stopped, flooding the tracks—the abovegrounds, this far out in the borough? Cars stuck in the middle of Kings Highway, or under the F train high-rises, the Gowanus seeping onto dry land.

Dinner, Vincent doing the dishes, excusing himself to Aurora watching television to say that he was taking the
Napoli
out for a quick fish. Him on the boat, kicking it away from the wood dock, his fishing pole on his right, which he moves to the back once he's out of sight of the house, when he picks up Benducci in a blue sweatshirt.

She is sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee. This rain, she thought. He'll get soaked.

She's wearing a leopard-print blouse and tight black slacks, because that's what she likes to wear around the house.

He's feeling the cold now in his bones, but Benducci tosses him another coat and gives him a thumbs-up, says be careful of the swells.

She's sitting in bed with a book. She can hear the gutter flooding on the roof, and the window is that color of purple with the sun going down and the clouds and thunder. She is beginning to feel worried about Vincent seeing the police cruiser.

He's out past Deep Creek now, Dead Horse Bay, where there had been a glue factory once and they say you can still find the scraped-out hooves of horses buried in the dirt. You can just see the lights of the few cars by the Belt Parkway and, up ahead, the bridge, then thin Rockaway and the Atlantic.

The storm has become tremendous. She puts on a windbreaker and bangs the door shut. She forgets her wallet. She runs back in to get it. She walks quickly down the street, starts dragging her legs because it's not quick enough, to the Chevy, to drive to the open water. She gets in, fumbles with her keys, her hand on the passenger headrest while she backs up. Floors forward. She is moving now, and no one is out, the rain's too heavy—she can hardly see even with the wipers. She's on Flatbush Avenue, hitting all the lights. She is flying past Floyd Bennett Field, where Charles Lindbergh landed when he got back to America. The batting cages, the football fields, here the bridge coming up in front.

He's unloading, Benducci is passing him cardboard boxes. One rips at the top as they transfer, and he sees stacked packages of white powder. Bendy, he says, what the fuck is this? Benducci is looking out into the bay for boats. He looks at Vincent like he's crazy. It's for the clients, not money, he says. He takes a packet, slips it in his back pocket. On top of their bonuses. Vincent is staring at the boxes. He claws at the rip, looks at the piece of paper above the packages.
WATER STREET, NEW YORK, NY,
it says. And Vincent knows that he has broken his cardinal rule.
Don't look, don't care
.

Aurora parks next to the E-ZPass and starts running up the bike path, up the bridge, pulling her hood over her head. She's cold and she has that sick feeling in her chest that means she shouldn't be doing this right now, her lungs pumping, her feet on the pavement. She's not sure why she's here. She wants to tell him to leave it all alone. She's at the top and she sees the
Napoli
all the way below, pulling up next to a bigger boat, and she sees Vincent. And the police cruiser, too close, trying to stay within eyesight. She has the irrational idea that Vincent will know it's her if they see the cruiser. She almost feels his eyes staring through her. Vin! she yells. But he can't hear her. The rain is getting in her mouth.

She sees the cop boat coming around the bend, and then she comes down back off the bridge. On the shore she's waving her hands, her hat, and she can tell that Vin sees somebody, sees her; feels like she can feel his breath collapse as he heads to shore. She's waving and the cop cruiser is getting closer so you can see the blue markings on the side and they must have seen it by now and the
Napoli
pulls onto the sand and she runs to the bow.

Vin—, she says, but he cuts her off.

The hell are you doing here? he yells. He reaches out a hand to help her get in. He's no longer breathing right. Benducci pulls out a mobile and presses a button, yells into the phone, New location. Vinny's. Blues. Then he hangs up. She doesn't have time to remember that trip in Canada when Vincent used to pick her up by the crook of her knees and the meat of her back and throw her in the canoe they rented, before they pull away. Benducci is in the back, and under his arm he has a handgun. He pulls his hood over his head, and Aurora shivers down next to Vincent. The cop cruiser is getting closer, an NYPD SWAT team in black and blue. One of them is extending a finger and pointing at the
Napoli
.

At first Benducci doesn't mean it. He's holding the gun out in the rain and inspecting it when it discharges, and then he looks out to the cruiser. There are warning shots from them, and then Benducci is heaving side to side, gasping every time he pulls the trigger. He's shooting more than the cops, who look like they're just trying to get closer, but this is the
Napoli
, and she's a fine motorboat. Vincent hears the wind of a bullet as it passes by over their stern. They spit over open water to hug the islet next to the bay, and it's too close for the cops, who veer offshore. At some point Benducci has stopped heaving. Vincent makes a cut around the land barrier and the cruiser looks motionless, uncertain, so far behind.

At the dock, behind their white house, Aurora climbs up onto the wood. But Vincent is looking at Benducci, with his hands over the side next to the motor, one eye open and no longer breathing, his bloody mouth on the mounting bracket. Hell, he says. Shit, shit. He's crouching in the middle of the boat, and he slams a fist on the plastic siding. Bendy, goddamn. Aurora stands on the dock, her hands on opposite shoulders. The blood is all down Benducci's neck, and it has soaked his sweatshirt, though it's hard to tell from the rain. In death already his face has set, and there is an ugly, wet smell.

They turn when the motion-sensor light goes on. Out of the alleyway comes Tommy, who's holding a mobile in his hand. But then he stops.

Mom? he says.

And then they see the searchlights from the police cruiser getting closer, a quarter mile away, and Tommy says, Get inside, and then he runs to the
Napoli
and jams the powerhead back. The blood that dripped from Benducci's neck is washed away by the wake of the
Napoli
leaving, and Vincent can see Benducci's gruesome dead hand, hanging over the side of the white boat where he had left it, in his last moments.

As the
Napoli
pulls away and the drone dies down, Vincent and Aurora watch in the rain, before they go into the house. Vincent keeps opening and closing his fists, to feel them still numb. They watch from the back porch as the
Napoli
flees into the salt marsh, where the Lenni Lenape hunting grounds used to be, where their bones were buried and the boys used to catch tadpoles off the back of the boat, on family excursions. They can tell from the way the searchlights are flitting around and around that the cruiser is stationary, looking for the
Napoli
in the tall reeds and the stormy dark. But they do not know the salt marsh, and they do not enter its depths. Then the cruiser turns around and heads for Rockaway, Beach Channel, where everyone knows the Mob holes up today, at the edge of civilization. And Tommy, perhaps Tommy knows this.