Sunburn (26 page)

The younger man gestured him into it and yelled for another espresso. Once they were seated, Bert leaned confidentially across the table and whispered, "I got a dog under my coat. OK I take him out heah?"

"Bert, hey, you're wit' me. Ya do whatever da fuck ya like."

The Shirt nodded, freed the chihuahua. The brittle animal blinked its milky eyes, then patrolled the upholstered bench, sniffed the unspeakable crumb-laden seam where the back joined the seat, and sneezed.

"
Salud
," Sal said. "So Bert, what's the story?"

"It's Gino."

Sal's wry face became a roadmap of disapproval. "He fuckin' up again? He makin' trouble for Joey?"

"Not for Joey dis time," said Bert. "For himself. He got himself in a bad beef wit' the Fabrettis. Don't ask me more."

The young soldier raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "OK," he said. "More I don't gotta know."

Bert lowered his voice another notch. "But there's somethin' I'm hopin' ya can do for me. I gotta go ta da top, gotta get wit' Messina. Can ya set dat up for me?"

Sal's head snapped back. At least that's what the tiny flinch seemed like to Bert. Bert was studying him hard now, doing what he used to do best, which was reading faces, figuring out what drove guys. Sal was good people, a guy who really wanted to help; at the same time, he didn't want to admit his limits or his fears. If you could get him right at the cusp of his bravado, just at the edge of how far he could go, he'd really push to save face and do you a solid.

While Bert was thinking this, a strange thing happened. His self-consciousness fell away. He forgot about the grippy tightness inside his ribs. He didn't feel young; it just stopped mattering that he was old. It stopped mattering that the world had changed. He was still himself, and if he took on an obligation to a friend, he would find a way to see it through. He reached up and toyed with the silver collar pin of his pale-blue monogrammed shirt.

"Jeez, Bert," Sal Giordano said. "Wit' the way things are, the edginess, like, about what happened ta Carbone—"

Bert remembered another of the things he used to be very good at: pausing. He could put a lot of weight, a lot of nuance, into a pause. Now he poured sugar into his espresso, stirred it slowly with a tiny spoon. His pause was saying, I ain't worried, Sal. I know y'aren't wimping out on me.

After a moment the young man said, "Sit tight, lemme see what I can do." He went to the pay phone at the back of the store.

Bert, suddenly hungry, signaled for the waiter and ordered up a
sfaglatella
. He fed pieces of the hard crust to his dog.

Ten minutes later, Sal came lumbering back. "Here's the deal," he said. "I'll take ya to Brooklyn, leave ya wit' a friend a mine. He'll drive ya ta Staten Island, get ya together wit' a friend a his. That guy'll get ya inta the San Pietro. After dat, you're on your own."

Bert grabbed a napkin from the steel dispenser and dabbed the powdered sugar from his lips. "When'a we staht?" he said.

"Whenever you're ready," said Sal Giordano.

"I'm ready now," the old man told him, and he slid his skinny haunches across the vinyl booth.

It had been many years since Arty Magnus gave someone a ride on the crosspiece of his bike, and doing so now pulled him back to the heartbreaking sensuality of the endless days of boyhood summers: the feel of a girl leaning fearlessly against his arm, the smell of her hair blowing in his face and tickling his nose, a smudge of dirt at the back of her knee, the sticky taste of a Creamsicle at the corners of her mouth.

"Debbi," he said, his long legs pumping, "this is great."

She swiveled as well as she could on the hard metal tubing and smiled at him. Her red hair and her green eyes looked so nice that Arty's breath caught. A woman you really liked looked prettier after you'd been to bed with her; a woman you didn't, did not. This was one of the ways a man knew if he might be falling in love.

They rode under rustling palms and leafless poincianas, skirted the cemetery, and dodged the skulking, furtive cats, the flat dogs sunning themselves next to the tires of parked cars. When they got to Joey Goldman's house, Arty regretfully put on the brakes. The bike slowed, leaned, and Debbi hopped off onto the sidewalk. Arty regarded her in her black tights and purple leotard.

She bit her lower lip, looked up the gravel driveway at the airy house. "I don't know," she said. "I'm still a guest and all."

"Then wangle me a dinner invitation. I want to look at you."

She kissed him on the cheek and headed up the lawn. He turned his bike around and pointed it toward work.

He rode off slowly and with dignity; then, when he was safely out of sight, he popped a wheelie, cut some swooping slaloms, and reached as high as he could reach to knock wood against the overhanging boughs of banyan trees and frangipani.

———

The sky above lower Manhattan was the swirly, smeary white of paint that needed mixing. Somewhere in the glary clouds, sleet was waiting to happen, but for now the air was dry, though sharp with the blue smells of ice and invisible winter lightning.

Bert d'Ambrosia, his dog nestled in his solar plexus, sat in the vast cabin of the Staten Island ferry, in the sullen company of the friend of a friend who was serving as his escort. The guy had a mousy chin and a twitch that pulled his left eye down like a window-shade; he didn't want to talk, seemed deeply put out at being asked to do someone a favor. So Bert looked through the dirty Plexiglas at the surging gray water of the harbor. He'd spent the last three hours being driven from Mafia enclave to Mafia enclave around the boroughs of the city. He'd been to Bensonhurst, he'd been to Todd Hill. He'd been through tunnels, over bridges; now he was on a ship that stank of cheap hotdogs, thin burned coffee, and the caustic stuff they use to mop up floors when someone pukes. All this to go eight blocks from where he'd started. A helluva way to do business, he thought.

The boat neared the towering shore, and without a word the escort got up to go back to his car.

The ferry docked, the pilings groaned. Bert was driven in moody silence past Wall Street, up through Chinatown, into the shrinking precinct of Little Italy. They passed Umberto's Clam House, where Crazy Joey Gallo ended face down in the linguine. They passed Salvatore's Neapolitan, favored by Nino Carti for its air-dried braciole. Bert's heart was pounding. It had been a long time since the ancient muscle pumped like this around its bypassed valves. It wasn't fear that did it, it was the promise of action, the coming alive of memory. He looked around. Fire escapes. Big cheeses hung in storefronts in harnesses of rope. These things seemed suddenly uncanny, surreal. Bert licked his lips, ran a hand through his white hair with its glints of pink and bronze. He felt jumpy as a wire with its insulation freshly snipped.

His escort pulled up in front of an unmarked building with closed steel shutters and a metal door that was blank as a dead man's mind save for a peephole the size of a lentil. Bert stood close to his mousy companion as he approached the door and knocked. He knocked two times loud, two times soft, paused, then three times loud again.

After a moment the peephole slid open and a voice like a saw said, "Yeah?"

"Dis is Bert the Shirt," said the mousy man. "He's OK. Says he got business wit' the boss."

Some seconds passed. A cold wind poured down Broome Street, carrying sheets of filthy newspaper. The guy behind the peephole didn't like where Bert's right hand was. "Why the fuck you got your hand inside your coat?" he asked.

Three, four locks clicked open quickly. The metal door fell back a quarter of the way. A huge hand grabbed Bert's arm, pulled him in. The door slammed shut and in the same instant Bert was twirled, face to the wall, to be frisked. It had been a long time since he'd been patted down; the feel of it was distant and naughty as the recollection of illicit sex. Don Gioivanni whimpered softly at the invasion of his master's lap and tummy. The doorkeeper stepped away and said, "OK. I'll take ya back."

The big man led the way past the pool table where no one ever shot pool, toward the sitting areas under the skimpy lights at the rear. Beyond the doorman's meaty shoulder, Bert saw mismatched chairs, cockeyed pictures of lounge acts. Then he saw four guys sitting at a green felt card table meant for six. He saw Aldo Messina in a topcoat. He saw a handsome punk and an ugly punk. And he saw Gino Delgatto, very much alive.

The four of them were deep in muffled conversation, huddled low, their heads turned in like the petals of a carnivorous plant converging on a bug. Bert had a few seconds to study Gino. His hair looked damp, like he'd just had a shower. He was freshly shaved, but his skin looked more yellow than pink. His clothes were clean but maybe they didn't fit exactly right. Something was wrong about his nose, though there weren't any marks.

The doorkeeper cleared his throat and everyone looked up. "The Twitch brought this guy in," he said. "Says he got business wit' youse."

Bert slowly raised the hand that wasn't holding the chihuahua and pointed a finger at Gino. "This guy," he said. "This guy's the business." He paused long enough to find out if anyone had anything to say about that, if anyone would flinch. No one did, and so the Shirt turned full face toward Gino. "Your father's been very worried about you. The way ya just disappeared and all."

Gino looked halfway up the old man's chest, couldn't seem to crank his eyes any higher. In a clenched monotone, he said, "Tell my father he don't have nothin' ta worry about. Everything's just fine."

Bert petted his dog. White hairs the length of eyelashes fluttered to the floor of the social club. "I'm glad ta hear it. I thought maybe there was a beef."

Bert nodded understandingly, then reached up and spread a hand across his chest. "I'm sorry, I'm not feelin' very well." He lowered himself into a chair.

Messina rubbed his slender hands together. The other punk, the ugly one with a crescent scar, said, "Ya wanna glass a water, somethin'?"

Bert squeezed out a yes and Bo went to the bar.

The old man made a dismissive gesture, like they should just forget about him and carry on. They didn't. Messina looked down at his cuticles. Gino kept his eyes on the felt trough at the edge of the table.

Bo brought Bert some water. The old man raised the glass and said "
Salud
. Ta gettin' everything settled."

Pretty Boy gave a speedy little laugh. "Settled like two birds wit' one—"

Messina shot him a look. "Take a walk," he said. "Now."

The handsome thug seemed unsurprised to be exiled from the group. He stood up jumpily, went to the pool table, started rolling the cue ball off the cushions.

Bert drank his water. "So gents," he said, "I'll go back ta Florida, I'll tell Vincente Gino's fine, everything is settled. 'Zat correct?"

Messina considered. Before he could speak, Gino blurted out, "Wait a second. I don't want 'im in Key West right now."

Bert listened hard to Gino's tone. It was a whine, but a strong whine, the pushy whine of a person whose desperation gave him the right to ask for things. The old man said casually, almost jokingly, "Hey, Key West is where I live. Whatsa difference—?"

Gino talked right over him. "I don't want him talkin' ta my father. I don't want 'im seein' nobody."

"But Gino," said Bert, "the whole reason I'm heah—"

"Stay outa my face, old man," said Gino. He said it with his teeth together; the voice gurgled through his throat like lava through a crater. "You're a dried-up old pain innee ass, you're just makin' everything more complicated."

Don Giovanni whimpered. Pretty Boy manically rolled the cue ball. Then Bert said, "Wha", Gino? What am I makin' more complicated?"

The closest thing to an answer was a manic snort from Pretty Boy. A moment passed. Then Aldo Messina softly said, "Gino's right."

Messina cut him off, unruffled and implacable. "Bert, the questions you're asking, they're unhealthy questions. Stop it, please."

Bert sat back, licked his dry lips, petted his feverish dog. He tried to lock onto Gino's eyes but they slid away like some wet thing in a swamp. The old man recoiled in his soul from what he saw in his friend's son's shallow face—an emptiness beyond shame and the particular hate reserved for a would-be savior by a person who knew that he could not be saved.