Outside, thunder rolled across the Everglades, and the stilted house shook. No one said a word. I could hear the soft, creaking sounds of the house groaning in the wind. I seemed to have stopped breathing.
“Of course, there is repentance,” Florio said, “and there is absolution. So, Jake, do the right thing and tell me about it.”
“Tell you about what?”
Stalling.
Thinking.
Sweating.
What’s worse, I wondered, the shame of being caught or the fear of inflicted pain? Perspiration tracked down my back, chilling me. I counted my options. They kept coming down to Diaz with a gun and Tiger with a machete. “Look, Nicky. I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve known Gina a long time.”
“I know all about that. I know what’s bullshit and what’s not. Just answer my questions. What’d Gina tell you about me?”
“Nothing really. That she loves you, but she’s not in love with you, whatever that means. That you’re good to her, that she and I could have had something, but our timing was always off.”
“And what’d she tell you about the Everglades project?”
“Cypress Estates? Nothing I remember.”
“Not Cypress Estates. The other one…”
“The other? Look, Nicky, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He studied me. “If you’re a liar, Jake, you’re a good one, and judging from the way you play poker, you couldn’t bluff your way out of a speeding ticket.”
He was smiling now, if that’s what it’s called when a shark shows its teeth. “I’m going to deal with you later.” Then he turned toward Gondolier. “At least the shyster tells the truth, which is more than I can say for you.”
Gondolier’s handsome face lost two shades of its suntan. He shot a look at Diaz, who sat motionless, his hand still inside his nylon jacket. “Whaddaya mean?” Gondolier asked, his voice straining to sound casual.
Diaz looked toward Nicky. “You want I should do him, Mr. Florio?”
Whoa. A changing of the guard.
Gondolier’s eyes shot back and forth between the two men. Florio shook his head sadly. “Rick, Rick, Rick. We could have made each other very wealthy. All the pussy in this town, but you gotta come sniffing after my wife.”
“No. It’s not true, Nicky. I swear on the life of my mother.”
“Your mother’s a guinea whore, and you’re a greaseball with a phony name.”
“Nicky, please. C’mon. You need me. We’ve got our plans.”
“Need you? I could replace you with a gold-plated croupier in a rented tux. I could buy and sell a hundred of you.”
Florio’s mouth curled into a sneer. He reached over and grabbed Gondolier’s dimpled cheek and twisted. “Now why don’t you do like the lawyer and fess up? Maybe you’ll be forgiven.” Florio let go. “Why’d you fuck my wife?”
Gondolier sobbed, his shoulders heaving.
“Gondo, you’re lower than gator shit, which you just might be by morning. Tell me, you want to be a turd at the bottom of the swamp?”
Tears streamed down Gondolier’s face. Nicky kept talking. “Now the mouthpiece has an excuse. He’s known her a long time. He’s got seniority.” Florio allowed himself a bitter laugh. “What the fuck’s your excuse? You couldn’t skim enough money from the bingo, you thieving scumbag? You had to humiliate me at home, too, you two-bit, pretty-boy dickhead. What the fuck’s your excuse?”
“I don’t know,” Rick Gondolier whimpered. “She was…just…there.”
“That ain’t good enough. That’s not a lawful excuse, right, Jake?”
I didn’t make a sound.
“That’s not justifiable screwing,” Florio added, answering his own question. “Goddamn you, Gondo, it’s a capital offense, fucking your partner’s wife.”
Florio turned to me. “Hey, Jake, what are the odds that hard-on here is gonna live long enough to take a morning piss?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“C’mon, Jake, you’re good at beating the odds. I’m giving you a chance to set ’em. You know me, and you know Gina. You know what Gondo has done with my Gina.” Again, his smile bared his teeth. “ Our Gina.”
“Six-to-five,” I said.
“How’s that?”
“Some writer once said all life is six-to-five against, just enough of a chance to make it interesting.”
Florio leaned back in his chair, thinking it over. “I like that. The lawyer called it. Anybody want a piece of the action, six-to-five against Gondo making it through the night?”
Gondolier was whimpering. A vein was throbbing in Florio’s forehead, and he was breathing hard in short, raspy breaths. “No takers, Jake. Even Gondo recognizes a sucker bet, and tonight, he’s the biggest sucker in the swamp.”
Florio nodded to Jim Tiger. Suddenly, there was movement all around, Gondolier trying to back away from the table, the shadow of Tiger behind me, moving to my left, Diaz pulling his gun, pointing it at a startled Rick Gondolier, who froze to his chair.
It might have been in slow motion, my mind snapping dozens of stills, the cards still on the table, a king of hearts-the same one Nicky used to win the first pot-staring at me, piles of blue and red chips stacked against the green felt background, the ice cubes melting into the caramel liquid of Florio’s scotch glass.
The machete made a whoosh as Tiger swung, two-handed, like a baseball bat. He was a lefty, and the swing had a slight uppercut, like Willie McCovey going for the fence in Candlestick Park. The blade caught Gondolier in the back of the neck, chopping off the ends of his long blond hair. The machete bit through skin and muscles, through blood vessels and spinal canal, and stopped dead with a sickening crack as it lodged in Gondolier’s cervical vertebrae. The impact jolted his body forward, his face stopping just a few inches from the table. Tiger yanked back on the machete, straightening Gondolier, trying to pull the machete free, but it was stuck there. Gondolier’s mouth was open, frozen in disbelief. His eyes screamed with horror.
Tiger yanked again, but bone and blade seemed fused. He lifted his left leg from the floor and planted a snakeskin cowboy boot in the middle of Gondolier’s back. Pushing away with his foot, Tiger used the leverage to wiggle backward on the machete handle, finally yanking the blade free. Gondolier teetered in his chair, his hands still holding the tabletop. Tiger went into his backswing, this time grunting with effort as he brought the machete forward, keeping his head down and motionless like a major leaguer, squarely hitting the same mark, crunching cleanly through tissue and bone with an explosive pop.
Blood gushed straight into the air, and Gondolier’s head plopped onto the green felt table, rolling into Diaz’s chips, where it came to rest, straight up, mouth and eyes still open. A series of trembles shook Gondolier’s body, but it stayed in the chair, headless, his hands gripping the table. The blood spurted in two distinct streams. Gondolier’s vertebral and carotid arteries were cleanly severed, but the heart was still pumping, and the stream of blood now splashed against the ceiling and drizzled down on the table. I looked up and was splattered, a red sticky shower closing my eyes, a warm, sweet mist covering my lips. In front of Florio, blood puddled on the king of hearts. Diaz shifted the gun to me.
I hate a gun just as much as a blade.
My eyes were on Diaz. The room was silent except for the dripping of blood, from ceiling onto table, from table onto floor. Then I heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor.
“Rule number three, Jake,” Florio said evenly, sliding away from the table as blood made islands of his towers of chips. “Never fuck another man’s wife, unless you got a real good excuse.”
Chapter 15
