“Ey! Youse guys. Get outta here. Go to the front. I don't want to see none of youse here no more. You hear? Now beat it.”
When the decks were cleared of outsiders, Mr. Muscamente cleared his throat. He sat on a slightly higher chair near the rear railing. He wore his yachtsman's double-breasted blue blazer and white slacks with Top-Siders. Mr. Muscamente had seen others wear this uniform, and he had ordered it by having two of his men muscle a fellow yachtsman into a clothing store and find out what the clothes were called by saying:
“What's dis guy wearing?”
Then he ordered it for himself. And so from his high seat on his yacht
“You see in me a new person,” said Mr. Muscamente.
Everyone agreed.
“But it is not new. Not new at all,” said Mr. Muscamente. He waited for everyone to agree with his contradiction.
“Now, how can this be, you may ask yourselves.”
“Good question, boss,” said Santino “Big Jelly” Jellino.
“There is within all of us a positive power we fight against.”
“We'll beat the shit out of it, boss,” said Big Jelly.
“Shut up,” said Mr. Muscamente kindly.
“Right, boss. Everyone shut up,” said Big Jelly.
“Mostly you, Big Jelly,” said Mr. Muscamente. “Now, how can there be another good person locked inside a struggling negative person?”
Only the sound of the engine purring belowdecks could be heard. No one was going to answer the question. Everyone avoided the eyes of everyone else. No one wanted it to be known that he didn't have the slightest idea what the boss was talking about.
Mr. Muscamente talked of the forces of the universe being good. He talked of astral power. He talked of a far distant planet that all mankind came from, which was what made them different from animals. They all waited for the pitch. When Joey “Fingers” Phalange heard the name Poweressence mentioned, he suddenly thought he understood what it was all about.
“Yeah. I could have bought one of those franchises from the Dolomos back in seventy-eight, real cheap. I know a guy that got stuck with one, though. What with all the bad publicity, alligators in swimming pools and everything, those franchises ain't gonna be worth salt in a year or two. I say we stay out of them.”
“That alligator was attracted to that columnist's pool because alligators are negative astral creatures that respond to negative astral forces. That columnist drew the alligator to himself. No one put it in his pool,” said Mr. Muscamente.
“No, boss. They got the guy that bought Exhibit A for the Dolomos. They got him in court. He nailed 'em. That appeal they got won't do business. The Dolomos are goin' to the slammer.”
“Not if we can help it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We are going to do a hit on that turncoat traitor.”
“Because we're takin' over Poweressence. We buy in on the franchise low now, remove the witness, then we got somethin' that's worth somethin'. I see,” said Big Jelly. Everyone nodded. Mr. Muscamente ruled almost as much through his brains as he did through terror.
“We are not touching one positive center. We are protecting it,” said Mr. Muscamente.
“We sell the Dolomos protection,” said Fingers.
“We sell nothing. We buy. I am entering you all at Level One. I don't want no negative consciousness around me. You are going to release your blocks. You are going to function with the forces of good, namely us. Anyone against us is evil. Got it?”
There were many yesses. The only thing they didn't understand was why Mr. Muscamente needed Poweressence to think everyone against them was evil. They had thought like that since childhood.
On the bridge, the captain noticed something moving toward the
Finally he asked the first mate to verify what he saw.
“Are my eyes going?” he asked.
The first mate focused, then he too refocused.
“I don't know what it is either. It looks like a man in a dark T-shirt and gray pants, swimming toward us.”
“At twenty knots? Fourteen miles out in the Pacific?”
“It must be a small boat,” said the first mate.
The captain took back the binoculars. He looked out toward the object.
“Right— a boat. With arms and legs that move. How can he swim that fast?”
The first mate got his own set of binoculars.
“You're right. He is swimming fast, and he hardly seems to be making an effort. Not like any swimmers I've seen. They splash a lot. Boy, is he smooth. Do you think we should tell Mr. Muscamente?”
“Those animals back there would tear us apart. He's having one of his meetings.”
“Then what should we do?”
“Maybe that guy isn't heading toward us.”
“Looks like it to me.”
“If he's a man overboard, we have to pick him up,” said the captain.
“Doesn't look like a man overboard to me,” said the first mate.
“We'll all find out pretty soon.”
One of Mr. Muscamente's guests spotted the man overboard soon after. The captain knew this because the guest fired a small pistol at the figure. The figure disappeared under the water. The figure came up at the rear of the yacht and began talking to Mr. Muscamente.
The first thing he did was to convince Fingers to let go of his gun. He did this by separating Fingers from the wrist that held the gun. Big Jelly went overboard like a bucket of chum. Then everyone sat back down quietly, including Mr. Muscamente.
It was a day that would be remembered forever in the annals of the California mob. It was a day that brought tears to the eyes of Mr. Muscamente. These tears came when he could not explain why the witness, “Drums” Drumola, failed to remember testimony.
Mr. Muscamente explained it as forces of the universe, while his underbosses listened politely. The guest who swam aboard had a strong tendency to respond with slaps and twists of arms.
Within a few minutes Mr. Muscamente was a helpless ball of flesh, his double-breasted blue blazer in shreds, his Top-Sider deck shoes kicking helplessly in the air. At that point, the guest who had swum aboard threw Mr. Muscamente over the stern. Every time Mr. Muscamente came up for breath, the guest asked how Mr. Muscamente made Drums forget his testimony. On the third and last time Mr. Muscamente surfaced, everyone on board realized he was telling the truth. He believed he had unlocked the forces of good on his side.
Everyone on board agreed on something else. They certainly didn't want to tamper with government witnesses if this man was protecting them, because they believed, as Mr. Muscamente had shouted, that indeed this man was the supreme force of negativity. And if that were the case, none of them wanted to be on the side of the positive.
Remo sailed back sullenly with the remnants of the California mob and a very impressed captain and first mate. He was quiet, even as his clothes dried. He had failed again.
Several of the underbosses wanted to know who he worked for, not that they were curious, Remo should understand. But they would be totally delighted to employ him. They saw in him the sort of person who shared their most basic convictions. They saw in him someone who would fit perfectly into the California rackets.
“No,” said Remo. “I happen to be the good guy.”
And since he said this as he threw someone overboard, there wasn't a soul to disagree with him as the
