'No, Joey, of course not. It's just-'
'Just what?'
'Joey, listen. I don't mind that you're not bringing in any money right now. I really don't.'
'I think you do,' he said.
'Maybe I do,' she admitted. 'To tell you the truth, I'm not sure if I do or if I don't. But Joey, that's not the point. It's not like you're a freeloader. It's not like you're lazy. I know you're not. You're out there putting in time, putting in trouble. I know that. But Joey, here's the thing. You don't wanna tell me the details of what you're trying to do, fair enough, I don't need to know. But isn't it getting pretty obvious that it isn't any easier to do things your way than it is to make an honest living? So why not use that energy-'
'Oh Christ, Sandra, we're gonna start in on this again?'
'Yeah, Joey, we are.' Sandra crossed her arms and pressed them against her midriff. Her face, already flushed from the shower, turned a shade pinker under the unsteady fluorescent light. 'Joey, I'm not sure I really understand why you came down here, but I'll tell you why I did. I came down here because I love you. That's the only reason. Not to get a tan. Not to wear sunglasses. Not because I was unhappy in Queens. To be with you. I thought you really wanted to change things around and you had to go far away to do it.'
Joey examined his shoes. Sandra went on.
'The things you were doing in New York-look, I'm not stupid, Joey. But O.K., that was New York. That was your family, those were our friends. Fine. No one ever seemed to get in trouble, and if people got hurt, they weren't the people we knew. I'm not saying I liked it, but I could live with it.'
Joey looked at the linoleum floor, at the ancient oily dust that stuck to the base of the refrigerator and hung down like a filthy beard. 'So live with it and stop bitching.'
Sandra undid her turban and draped the towel over the back of a chair. 'Joey, that's what I'm saying. I'm not sure I can live with it down here. Down here I can't make excuses for you. I can't say you were born into it, I can't say it's what all your buddies do. Down here you got a choice, Joey, don'tcha see that? And as far as I can tell, you're choosing the exact same stuff you were doing in Queens.'
'Oh yeah?' said Joey. He put his hands on his hips and tried to muster a tone of righteous indignation. 'And just how sure are you about that?'
Sandra picked up the cutting board and spilled off some gray water that had come out of the fish. 'I'm not sure,' she admitted. 'How should I be sure? You don't talk to me. And I'd love to be wrong, believe me. But Joey, how does it look? Does it look like you're joining the Florida work force? No, it looks like you're hanging around waiting to win the lottery. And now you tell me you meet a guy from New York. He knows your father.
We know what that means. It's just like the old neighborhood-'
'But Sandra,' Joey cut in, 'you're missing the whole point, which you woulda got if you let me talk insteada jumping down my throat before I'm even inside the goddamn door. The guy's from New York, yeah. And if you must know, he's family, that's true. But the point is that even he says you can't run a New York-style business down here, ya gotta go with the local style. Now, coming from him, I believe it. I mean, the man is a professional. So that's why I'm happy, Sandra. It's like a new idea, like a light bulb lighting up. And I have this feeling that this guy Bert and I are gonna do some things together.'
'Legal things, Joey?'
Joey widened his dark blue eyes. 'Now it's gotta be legal? A minute ago it just had to be different from New York. For Chrissake, Sandra, quit while you're ahead.'
She looked at the fillets on the cutting board. They were still oozing gray water and had taken on the glazed translucence of someone's eyeballs when they have a cold. 'That fish looks lousy.'
'Yeah, it does,' said Joey. He approached it as though it might be carrying a grave disease and gave it a clinical poke with his index finger. 'Feels all mushy.' He sniffed at his hand. 'Doesn't smell terrific either. Could be like spoiled.'
He went to the sink and started washing up with dish soap. He was fastidious about his hands, Joey was, aside from being finicky about his food.
Sandra sighed and ran her fingers through her short blond hair. 'What's gonna be with you, Joey? Well, come on, let's go out. I get paid tomorrow.
— 9 -
Bert the Shirt d'Ambrosia did not look terrific in his Bermuda shorts. Loose skin gathered around his knobby knees as at the neck of a Chinese dog, and on his right thigh, clearly visible through the sparse white hair, was the scooped-out pink scar of an old gunshot wound. His dark nylon socks ended three inches above his ankles, and the brown mesh shoes made his feet look bigger than they really were. But the old mobster was saved from dowdiness by the splendor of his blue silk shirt. It had horn buttons and the shimmer of the tall sky just after sunset. There was navy piping around the collar and a monogram on the chest pocket.
'Boo,' said Joey Goldman.
Bert looked up in no great hurry. He was sitting at a poolside table at the Paradiso condominium, playing solitaire under a steel umbrella. 'Was a time,' he said, 'you couldn'ta got the jump on me like that. Now? What the fuck. I'm just an old guy playing cards.'
'You got a watchdog,' Joey said. Don Giovanni, his wet nose twitching, cowered beneath the old man's chair.
'Fucking dog isn't worth shit. But siddown, Joey. I'm glad you came by.'
The younger man pulled up a white wrought-iron chair and eased himself into it. 'Nice place.' The Paradiso had three pink towers that bristled with balconies and framed a big pool and a pair of tennis courts; the Atlantic Ocean was across the street. Through Joey's tinted lenses, the water was a milky green not much darker than the color of celery.
'It's not too bad,' Bert said. 'They don't have bocce, that's the only thing.'
'Well,' said Joey, and he left it at that. The old man turned up an ace, waved it in the air, and kissed it. 'Bert, I was thinking about what you said the other day.'
Bert cocked his head but said nothing. He was at the age when things he'd said forty years before left a more reliable track than things he said five minutes ago. Fortunately, he'd developed the knack of looking sage while waiting to be reminded what he'd been so wise about.
'Ya know,' Joey went on, 'about how ya gotta come up with, like, a Florida caper, something that makes sense for where we're at.'
'Not where we're at. Where you're at.' The Shirt put a black seven on a red eight.
'Whatever,' Joey said. 'Anyway, it makes a lotta sense. Except.. except. Except, Bert, I can't for the life a me figure out what the angle oughta be. The last two nights, I couldn't sleep. I got outta bed and went outside. It's like three inna morning, and I'm sitting under a palm tree like a fucking lunatic, telling myself, Think Florida, think Florida. But I just come up with stupid fucking things. Suntan lotion. Baby alligators. This kid I knew in like second grade-he had a pencil sharpener that looked like an orange. Said Florida on it. So how the fuck am I supposed to make a living off of baby alligators and stupid-ass souvenirs? Bert, I'll be honest with ya. I'm balancing neatly onna ballsa my ass down here. I ain't made a nickel. My girlfriend's getting fed up and I can't say I blame 'er. I gotta get something started or I'm in deep shit.'
Bert reached out and placed a cool hand on top of the younger man's. 'Joey,' he said. 'Joey. Listen to yourself. You're saying, Think Florida, but listen how nervous you sound, how wound up. That's not Florida. That's not tropical. To be that worried, that's still New York.'
'O.K., Bert, I know it is. But what can I say. I am that worried. I ain't slept. Coupla days ago I hadda pay the February rent. I reach into the drawer to get the cash, I count up what I got, and I say, Where the fuck is my money going? It's not like I'm being a big shot. It just goes.' He yanked off his sunglasses and showed Bert his eyes. They were owlish to begin with, because he left his shades on when he sat in the sun. But now the pale circles had turned a nubbly yellow, and the bloodshot whites made his deep blue irises look almost grapy.
'Awright, Joey, you're under some strain. I can see that. So let's go back to basics. Look over that way, past the gates. Whaddya see?'
