Sunburn (19 page)

"I never said ya should touch my ol' man." He sounded quite convinced of it by now, a little wounded, indignant even, that he could have been so misunderstood. " 'Course ya can't, I saw dat. What I'm sayin', ya send 'im a message."

The captive reached out desperately for Messina's hooded eyes. The somber boss met his gaze, looked almost curious, and Gino felt a surge of reckless confidence.

"My father, listen, he don't write things down. He's got a guy he's workin' with, a whaddyacallit, a ghostwriter. I seen 'em workin' together wit' my own eyes. Writes everything down in a blue notebook. He's a nobody, this guy. A nothin'. Some skinny Yid, works for the paper down there. I'm tellin' ya, ya wanna kill this book wit'out ya got any headaches,
that's
the guy ya clip."

The space heater switched on with an electric hum. Messina put his slender hands in front of the red coils. Pretty Boy, pacing, said, "I still say he's bullshitting."

But now Gino was feeling cocky. "I'm bullshitting, ya t'row me inna river, ya cut my fuckin' head off, I don't care. I'm givin' ya straight goods, ya lemme go. What's it cost ya ta check it out? Ya find da guy, his name is Ahty. Ahty Magnus. Tall guy, frizzy hair. Ya see what's what, ya do what ya gotta do. No more Ahty, no more book."

Aldo Messina looked down at his coffee. His dry and worried skin pulled a little tighter as he fretted and planned, calculated and decided. Forklifts droned. A blast of north wind hit the warehouse like a mallet on a gong. Finally, without lifting his melancholy face, the doleful boss rasped out his orders. "Pretty Boy, Bo," he said. "Go home, go to sleep again. This afternoon you're going back to Florida."

After breakfast and a shower, Bert d'Ambrosia changed into a loosely woven coral colored pullover, gathered up his hoary dog, and took a slow stroll down the beach, then two blocks inland to Joey Goldman's house. Joey and Sandra were both at work by then; Sandra had taken Debbi along to help out in the office, keep her occupied. For form's sake, the family friend knocked on the front door. Then he crunched across the gravel driveway, skirted the carport, slipped between a rainspout and a row of oleanders, and went into the backyard.

He found the Godfather sitting in the garden: not gardening, just sitting. His chair was in the shade; his unraveling straw hat threw yet a darker shadow on his face. Either he was unsurprised to see Bert or he just wasn't reacting very much. "Pull up a chair," was all he said.

Bert put down the chihuahua and with some effort dragged over one of the lounges from the pool. He perched on the edge of it and didn't speak.

Vincente looked off past the tops of the aralia hedge, watched an osprey circle in the distance. Then he said, "Bert, you're amazing. Somethin's wrong, you always know." He said it with fondness and admiration and a kind of intimate mockery aimed at both of them, as if he were saying,
You know; I know; what good does it do to know?

"Ya wanna talk ta me, Vincente?"

The Godfather pursed his loose lips, let out a hissing grunt. His fingers were linked across his wizened tummy. "Before you came, Bert, ya know what I was thinkin'? I was sittin' heah thinkin' it ain't right, it ain't fair, that somethin' goes sour right at de end. It goes sour inna middle, maybe ya got time, strength, ya can fix it. Or maybe you're lucky, ya can walk away. It goes sour right at de end, fuck can ya do? Can't do shit. Ya die wit' a bitter taste in your mouth."

Bert's dog was lying at his feet. He reached down and petted it, took solace from the feel of its veiny ears. A scrap of breeze moved across the yard, brought with it a smell of limestone dust and seaweed.

After a moment Vincente went on. "Gino fucked up bad. He mighta got himself killed."

"Mighta?"

The Godfather looked away, swallowed hard, fought a little battle with himself, and decided at last to confide in his old friend. He told Bert as much as he himself knew of Gino's subterfuge, Gino's fiasco. Bert listened with his chin on his fist; now and then he nodded. At the end, he said, "
Marrone
."

"So what the fuck do I do?" Vincente resumed.

"I gotta figure, if he ain't already dead he's wit' Messina. And, Messina, there's no way I can go ta him."

Bert absently petted his dog; white hairs the length of eyelashes came off between his fingers. "Vincente, due respect, maybe this ain't the time for—"

"Pride?" the Godfather interrupted. He was shaking his head, as at a hopeless position in chess. "Pride's got nothin' to do wit' it, Bert. I'd go on my fuckin' knees ta save my son. But it's this crazy bind Gino put me in. He tol' Ponte
I'm
the one who's takin' back that union. So Messina thinks he's got a beef wit' me. He's gonna make nice while he thinks I'm fuckin' 'im? Or say I try ta set 'im straight, tell 'im it was Gino on his own—wha' does that accomplish? He thinks Gino's that ambitious, that much of a cowboy, he'll take 'im out for sure."

The Shirt looked at the ground and silently thanked God he had no children, thanked Him as well for the massive coronary that had cut the thread of his former life, freed him from its vicious logic and infernal circles of ambush and revenge. Without much conviction, he said, "There's gotta be some way."

"Bert." Vincente sighed. "I been thinkin' nonstop since yesterday. I ain't slept. I'm thinkin'
So we make concessions, we give 'em back that union.
Then I realize
Shit, that does nothin', it's their union ta begin with.
So then I figure,
OK, we give up somethin' more
. But wha' more do I have ta give away? On'y turf I can give away is Gino's—and the Fabrettis'd get alla that by clippin' 'im. The other capos—I can't give away what's theirs; sad truth, I don't have that kinda power. So then I tell myself
Fuck it, get tough, fight
. But Messina just stared down everybody by takin' out Carbone—he's gonna back down now?"

"Ya need a go-between," Bert blurted. "A peacemaker."

Vincente pulled up short at the suggestion. He'd expected a sympathetic ear but not advice. It took him a moment to disengage from his own tangled net of thought; then he said, "Yeah, Bert, that ain't a bad idea, but who the fuck is there? Looka my lieutenants. Sal Barzini: solid guy, but married to a niece of Emilio Carbone. Tony Matera: a hothead. Benny Spadino: I don't trust his loyalty—"

A small cloud crossed the sun; its shadow slipped over the yard and evened out the shade. The smell of chlorine seemed to grow sharper in the brief coolness. The old men looked away from each other. The same thought was pushing them both toward the same undodgeable conclusion, and neither wanted to presume to give it voice.

The cloud dragged its wispy tail behind it; full sunshine returned. Bert swiveled in his chair, cocked his head, and presented to Vincente a face that for all its ravages—the sagging chin, the wrinkled jowls, the droopy eyes—was full of readiness.

Bert shushed him with a raised hand. The Godfather pushed some air out past his gums, then he reached up, removed his unraveling straw hat, and dropped it gently to the ground. Slowly he rose from his chair and held his arms out to his friend. Bert rose just as slowly; they brought their slack and skinny chests together and kissed each other on the cheek. "Bert," Vincente said, "I don't know how ta thank ya."

"Don't try," the old friend said.

He bent down gingerly, gathered up his brittle dog, and turned to go. There were certain imperatives that went with the decorum of the moment, and Bert and Vincente both knew what they were: There could be no further talk, no hesitation, no looking back.

The retired mobster walked resolutely around the swimming pool and across the yard, maintaining his dignity as best he could while slipping between the rainspout and the oleanders. It was not until he was crunching across the driveway that he realized he was terrified.

His fear did not have primarily to do with confronting Aldo Messina, though he knew that could be dangerous. People had tempers; you never knew when they might take offense. The rules, even back when the rules were obeyed, had been hazy when it came to messengers, ambassadors.

But Bert was frightened mainly because of something else. He was frightened with an old man's quiet panic at the thought of leaving home, venturing out of his routine, sallying through bustling and unfriendly places. Terminals with baffling signs and corridors long as the stroll between the ocean and the Gulf. Devious escalators with oily treads, trampling crowds moving murderously as tidal waves, felonious cabbies and traffic lights that didn't give you time enough to cross the icy street.

He was seventy-six years old, and he hadn't been to New York in a decade. Now that he thought of it, he hadn't been anywhere. He hadn't packed a suitcase, hadn't even looked at his ancient winter clothes hanging in their dusty and forgotten garment bags. Somewhere at the bottom of his closet, buried amid his late wife's undiscarded shoes, was a carpeted carrier for Don Giovanni; the thought of the befuddled dog cooped up inside it, whimpering and cold, caused the old man anguish.

But he'd as much as promised he was going, and he would go. He nestled his chihuahua more closely against his nervous stomach and walked slowly home to begin the daunting chore of making his arrangements.

In the windowless bathroom of number 308 at Key West's Gulfside Inn, Mark Sutton's ankle weights dangled from the shower-curtain rod like salamis in a deli window, his hand squeezers lay on a shelf beneath the medicine chest, and two of his extra-support jockstraps were draped over the faucet in the tub. A mildewed towel had been crumpled up to seal the crack below the door, and by a dim red light the avid young agent was printing the film he'd shot that morning. Exacting with his wooden tongs, he placed an eight-by-ten of Debbi Martini—on roller blades in the company of a known mafioso—in the basin of developer; the image congealed like cooling Jello. He washed it in fixer, then clipped it onto a wire to dry with the others.

When he emerged from his portable darkroom, he saw Ben Hawkins standing at the window in his jockey shorts, smoking a cigar and sourly contemplating the vista: a parking lot; a dreary procession of rented cars on U.S. 1; then, behind a sparse row of yellowing and scraggly palms, the shallow rocky water of the Gulf. "So wha'dya get?" he asked without much interest.

"Some good shots of the girl talking with d'Ambrosia," Sutton said. "Nice and sharp, even with the sun behind them."

Hawkins said nothing for a moment, just puffed on his cigar. He was bored. He had no stomach for grabbing Delgatto on RICO. Murder one, sure—but he would have bet his pension that the break in the Carbone case would come from somewhere else, that his time in Key West was being totally wasted because of politics and bureaucratic waffling. And meanwhile he was partnered with this hyperactive righteous tyro.

"Mark," he said at last, "let me ask you something about those pictures. Is there such a thing as a card you wouldn't play—in the name, say, of mercy, or gallantry, or just wanting to see someone have a second chance?"

The agent with muscles didn't seem to understand the question. He came up on the balls of his feet and said, "Look, if she's violating her probation—"

"You an agent or a parole officer?" Hawkins asked.

"The information's there to be used," said Sutton. "It's in the computer. I don't see any reason not to—"

"Come on, Mark. She made a mistake. What's it got to do with Delgatto? With the Mob? What's it have to do with anything?"

"It's about leverage."

"Straight from the textbook, Agent Sutton. Very good."

Stung, the younger man flexed his fists and thought ungenerous thoughts about his partner's attitude. Was it the age thing or the black thing that made him so unambitious? "Look, we have a job to—"

"You think that girl's a menace to society?"

"Ben, she has a drug charge on her record. She's Gino Delgatto's girlfriend. She's a guest in the same house as the Godfather, for chrissake. She's supposed to have no contact with criminals, and she's with criminals all the time. If there's a way for us to use that—"

"Use it to what purpose?"

Mark Sutton, girded with the armor of blithe and youthful certainty, was sure he had an answer for that, but when he opened his mouth no words came out. He blamed it on Ben Hawkins's cigar smoke, which, he suddenly realized, was choking him. He longed for fresh air and for the unquestioning simplicities of his jockstraps and his ankle weights. "Ben," he said, "I don't see what you're on the rag about. I'm going for a run."

———

On the Verrazano Bridge, yesterday's snow was mixed with sand and coated with car exhaust. It had been plowed off toward the edges of the roadway, and it stood there in its gray crags and yellow valleys like a tiny range of sulfur hills.

At two-thirty the traffic on the outbound side was thickening up but still moving briskly, and Bo, taking his turn at the wheel of the dark blue Lincoln, was very pleased with himself.