Florida Straits (14 page)

—

"Did I ask you if they were worth fixing? I
mean, did I come in here and ask your expert opinion, or did I just
say I'd like 'em fixed?"

The young woman behind the optician's
counter was wearing tinted contacts in a startling shade of copper.
She leaned back slightly in the face of Joey's vehemence, but held
on to her pleasant and relentlessly helpful tone. "It's just that,
with the cheaper frames—"

"Did I ask if they were cheap frames? Did I
ask what any of this costs?"

Zack Davidson, his sandy hair falling in a
perfect arc across his forehead, his pink shirt immaculately
draped, intervened. "He's a little upset. The glasses have
sentimental value. So if you could just fit them with new lenses
..."

The woman behind the counter lifted the
frames, wiggled the loosened hinges of the earpieces, and said,
"Sure. O.K. What color?"

"Blue," said Joey. He said it like a little
boy who's fallen down, is being bribed into feeling comforted, but
owes it to himself not to come around too soon.

"O.K.," said the woman behind the counter.
"Blue. They'll be ready by five."

On the short walk back to the Parrot Beach
office, Zack regarded Joey from under his reddish eyebrows. "You
wanna tell me what that was all about?"

"Nothing," said Joey. "It was about nothing.
These two guys thought I was needling them, I guess."

Zack frowned. From his office window, he'd
noticed the Lincoln pull up and the two men approach. He didn't
hear what was said, but the two beefy fellows hadn't waited to be
needled, that much was clear. "You in trouble, Joey?"

"No."

"Debts?"

"No."

"Drugs?"

"No."

"You want me to call the police?"

"No."

For a minute they walked in silence among
the characters of Duval Street. A fellow in a torn undershirt with
a green parrot on his shoulder. A woman with a small monkey in a
diaper. Then Zack said, "You know, Claire and Sandra, they're
getting to be good friends."

The remark seemed to connect with nothing,
and Joey turned it this way and that in his mind, trying to see
where it fit. It didn't at first dawn on him that maybe it was a
backdoor kind of offer, an offer of confidence, of alliance. Joey
wasn't used to offers like that. He was isolated, and isolation
made people suspicious, and suspicion kept them isolated. "That's
nice," said Joey. "I been hoping Sandra would make some
friends."

Zack looked as if he might speak again, but
didn't. He turned up the pathway to the Parrot Beach office, and
Joey resumed his patrol on the corner. But he made no more
commissions that day. His stride had been broken, his timing was
off. And the calm place where he was alone with his salesman's
skill seemed farther away than Astoria.

—
19 —

Gino Delgatto, whatever else he was or was
not, was a true sport as a host.

When Joey and Sandra arrived in the grand
columned dining room of the Flagler House, a magnum of Dom Perignon
had already been placed tableside in a silver bucket, canapés of
caviar and salmon had been arrayed on triangles of toast, and the
staff had fallen into the somewhat ironic deference that accrues to
the big spender. On the presentation plates of the expected guests
lay pink hibiscus flowers. Gino had moved his to his
bread-and-butter plate, and Vicki had placed hers between her
alpine breasts, where its pistil had at first quivered then begun
to droop from the excessive heat.

Gino, on best behavior, stood up as the
maitre d' ushered Joey and Sandra to the table. He gave Sandra a
quick hug, deciding in the first glance that, in her cream-colored
slacks and cardigan, she was, as usual, not dressed up enough. Gino
had known Sandra for over three years now, and had never yet
managed to pin down what he thought of her. He supposed she was
pretty in her way, but her way was so unshowy, so unglamorous, that
Gino really couldn't tell. Sandra was practically flat-chested. Her
nails were short and she didn't do much with her hair. She wore
makeup but, as Gino saw it, not enough. As to her personality, she
seemed to have some brains, give her that. Now and then she could
be pretty funny, in a dry kind of way. But fun-loving she was not.
Had Gino ever seen her have more than two, three drinks? Had he
ever seen her really drop her guard and laugh? He didn't think so.
In fact, she usually seemed to be the one who decided when the
party was over. Probably she was good for Joey, who, after all,
didn't have much going for him and wasn't likely to attract the
really super babes, but still, she was a little bland, a little
dull.

It did not occur to Gino that Sandra was
subdued around him because she loathed him to the marrow of her
bones.

But he was family, and so she returned his
hug and answered his kiss on the cheek with one of her own. She
shook the red-taloned hand that Vicki presented with the weirdly
arched wrist of a great lady from some previous century. Then
everyone sat down and started sipping champagne.

"Cheers," said Gino.

"Cheers," said Joey.

"You having a good time here?" Sandra asked
Vicki.

Vicki reached toward her cleavage on the
pretext of toying with the flower that was wilting there, and
twisted her thin mouth into an expression of mixed feelings.
"Pretty good. Weather's great. But the shopping—" She made a
dismissive sound that was something like dyukh, then leaned close
to Sandra as though sharing a deep and shameful secret. "It's like
junky stuff. Homemade. No brand names. No designers. It's not like,
ya know, elegant."

Gino emptied his glass and gave his head an
indulgent shake. Like sugar daddies everywhere, he felt truly
secure only when his mistress was either spending his money or
talking about it. "Vicki thinks 'elegant' is a whaddyacallit, a
pseudonym for 'expensive.' "

"Synonym," said Sandra.

"What the hell," said Gino. "Anyway, she
don't like cheap stuff. Do ya, baby?"

Vicki shrugged her shoulders with an effect
that was seismic. "Who does? I mean, if people liked it, it
wouldn't be cheap no more."

"Hey, that's good," said Gino. He said it
looking at Joey and pointing a thick finger at Vicki. "Well, hey,
anybody hungry?"

They looked at menus and decided to order
lobsters from Maine.

"Seems crazy," Vicki said, when the waiter
had re-filled the champagne glasses and vanished. "I mean, here we
are right by this ocean just full of a zillion kinds of fish, and
we have lobsters flown in from Maine."

"There's nothing like Maine lobster," said
Gino with finality, and Joey realized, in spite of himself,
something he admired or at least envied about his half brother.
Gino knew what he liked. He enjoyed things. For him, everything
fell into a list, and you went for the things at the top. Drinks,
that was champagne. Champagne, that was Dom Perignon. Food, it was
lobster. Women, big tits and high hair. Shoes, suits, cars,
watches, hair tonic, olive oil, whatever. There was always
something that was the best, and if you could have that thing, you
knew you were doing good.

Then, too, lobster was a great equalizer.
Everybody was a slob eating lobster, and so Gino, who was a slob
eating almost anything, didn't especially stand out. Or rather, he
stood out unmistakably as the leader in a ritual of gusto. Too
strong, with not enough grace, he crushed shells so that juice went
squirting out of every crevice, hitting his waxed bib with a sound
like soft rain on a tin roof. Vicki, hampered by her long nails,
plucked at her lobster with the patient murderousness of a gull.
Sandra was, as ever, methodical, her small neat hands coaxing out
the flesh as efficiently as if she were counting out twenties at
the bank. And Joey, who was perhaps too tentative at many things,
was tentative as well in his attack on his dinner. He didn't get
all the meat out, for fear of twanging a sinew and having it fly
off, for fear of flicking a speck of lobster at a tablemate—for
fear of being like Gino.

"More champagne?" the older brother
asked.

"Not for me," said Sandra.

"Maybe one glass," said Joey.

Gino summoned the captain with a wave of a
hand covered in lobster slime and ordered up another magnum.

"So Gino," Sandra said, "all the time I've
known you, I've never once heard of you taking a vacation. How come
all of a sudden you are?"

Did Gino flinch at the question, or was he
just yanking off a stubborn lobster leg? "Just due for a break,
that's all. Besides, Vicki here, she's been such a good kid, I
thought it would be nice to take a trip with her."

"I wanted to go to Aruba," Vicki said. "Ya
know, where there's duty-free. But no. Gino says he's got some
business down here anyway."

"Shut up, Vicki. What she means is I wanted
to visit you guys."

Sandra dabbed her mouth on her napkin.
Around the dining room, plates clattered and corks popped.

They finished the lobsters, had mango ice
cream and coffee, and the captain brought the check nestled in a
leather sleeve on a silver tray. "I trust everything was
satisfactory, Dr. Greenbaum?"

"Yeah, terrific," said Gino, signing.
"Here's a little something for you." The captain retreated, backing
and bobbing, and Gino dropped his napkin onto the table. "Walk onna
beach?"

Outside, a yellow half-moon was perched over
the Florida Straits, and a light south breeze that smelled of dry
shells and seaweed was just barely rustling the palms. Underfoot,
the trucked-in sand felt cakey with the moisture of the evening.
Gino handed Joey a cigar and unwrapped one for himself. The gesture
was enough to make Sandra and Vicki fall in side by side, leaving
the men to trail behind, wreathed in their blue and nasty
smoke.

For a couple of minutes they walked in
silence, and Joey, to his own surprise, found himself slipping into
a state of mysterious contentment. To walk next to a bigger, older,
stronger brother was a comfort. It almost didn't matter what you
thought of him, it only mattered that he was there, like a roof,
like a wall, like anything big and solid that protected you or
surrounded you.

"I'm sorry I didn't come see ya before I
left," said Joey. "I shoulda."

"Don't matter," said Gino, waving the
apology away with a red flash of his cigar. "But kid, ya shoulda
gone to see Pop. I think ya hurt his feelings."

"Maybe I wanted to."

"Hey, ya wanted to, ya wanted to. But that
don't make it right."

And they walked. Gino's shoes plowed over
the sand with the heavy assurance of wide tires. His thick chest
blacked out a broad swath of the Atlantic. The women, walking with
the grim purpose of after-dinner exercise, had gotten almost out of
sight.

"Ya know," said Joey, gesturing back toward
the twinkling bulk of the Flagler House, "I been wanting to see
this place since the first day I got here."

Gino exhaled some smoke and said
nothing.

"I think Pop used to come here with my
mother."

Gino stiffened and bit down on his cigar,
but Joey didn't notice. The younger brother was drifting into
memory and into trust, two places he didn't often visit.

"Yeah," he went on, "I'm pretty sure this is
the place. I don't remember the name, but my mother useta describe
it to me. Said it had the big dining room with the hanging-over
porch. Said it had its own beach, private from the others—"

Gino stopped walking and stood with the
yellow moonlight on his shiny dark hair. "Joey, I don't really
wanna hear where my father went to catch some pussy."

Joey did not know he was about to hit his
brother. He didn't notice that the cigar had dropped out of his
hand and was glowing dull red on the beach, and he didn't feel his
arm draw back, coiling to throw a punch. He was about as surprised
as Gino when his fist slammed into the stronger man's gut, finding
the soft triangle at the bottom of the ribs.

The air came out of Gino as from a ruptured
football, a popping whoosh followed by a long wheeze. Helplessly,
he doubled up and stayed that way for the endless moment of
wondering if his lungs would ever again remember how to breathe. He
struggled to lift his head, and strained his eyeballs upward to
look at Joey with the befuddlement of a bystander who finds himself
winged.

Joey stared down at him and felt no remorse,
only fear. Gino could beat the hell out of him, easily. He'd seen
Gino fight, with his fists and his feet and his elbows, he'd seen
him use the top of his head to knock out other men's teeth, and the
thought of it gave Joey a sickening awareness of cigar smoke
turning to brown juice at the back of his throat.

But Gino didn't go for him. He straightened
up slowly, arched his back, and threw his arms behind him to
stretch his chest. "Fuck you do that for?"

"You don't talk about my mother that
way."

"Talk about your mother? What is this, Joey,
the fucking schoolyard? Talk about my mother. What are you, a
fucking baby?"

Joey locked onto Gino's hard narrow eyes,
and Gino was the first to quit the stare. "Awright," he said.
"Awright. I shouldn'ta said it. But Joey, let's you and me decide
on something right now. We don't talk about my father and your
mother, O.K.? We just don't talk about it."

Joey shifted his feet in the caked sand and
nodded. He couldn't have said why he'd raised the subject anyway.
He didn't need Gino to tell him never to raise it again.

"Now where's my fucking cigar?" said Gino.
He scanned the moonlit beach and found his corona smoldering a
couple of yards away, where it had blown out of his mouth. He went
to retrieve the smoke, and as he dusted the sand off it, his face
took on an expression that was almost like genuine approval.
"Joey," he said, "you're a crazy little fucker. I mean, to hit me,
man, you gotta be fucking nuts. I mean, crazy."