'And how do you like it down here?'
Sandra barely heard the question. 'Me? Oh, I like it fine. The weather's great, the girls at the bank are nice.'
She stopped talking, but Bert just looked at her. It was a simple trick he'd developed decades before to get people to go a little farther.
'But ya know,' Sandra obliged, 'for me, it's not that big a change. A bank's a bank. Money's money. I mean, if you think about it, money's the least interesting thing there is. There's no variety about it, you know what I mean? Seen one dollar, you've seen 'em all.'
'Yeah,' said Bert, 'but until you've seen a helluva lot of 'em, it doesn't really seem that way.'
'I guess,' she said. 'But people. That's what's interesting. Now, with Joey's job…'
Joey looked down at the wooden table and gave his head a modest shake. This job. It was confusing, this job. He couldn't decide whether to be proud of it or embarrassed. It was like the time he painted some autumn trees and won an art contest in grade school. He was happy to win, happy to see his mother flush with satisfaction, but at the same time felt that making pictures was for girls. Of course, with the job, it had a lot to do with who was asking. With Sandra, yeah, he was proud, he could tell it made her happy. Around Bert, well, it wasn't like Bert was putting it down, it was just that, let's face it, Bert had a different sense of what a man should be. Joey wondered if he'd ever have a more firmly held opinion of his own. He had to believe that life would be easier if he did.
'Anybody hungry?' he said. 'If I can figure out how to work the stupid grill, we can eat sometime tonight.'
The hiss and pop of propane being lit reminded Joey how quiet the compound had become. The women from the antique store had abandoned the hot tub and gone inside; Luke and Lucy had disappeared into the thickening dark; Steve, under his towel, seemed down for the count. Joey looked at the blue flame of the grill, felt, rather to his own surprise, the prideful contentment of being the host, then went inside to get the steaks. Walking past the wooden table, he saw that Bert the Shirt was now holding Don Giovanni on his lap. All that was visible of the tiny dog was the thin silver spikes of its whiskers and a morbid gleam from its oversized eyes.
'You really love that little dog, don't you?' Sandra was saying.
'The dog? I hate the dog. The dog is like a rock I can't get outta my shoe. You ever heard of a dog being, whaddyacallit, not a kleptomaniac, a hypochondriac?'
Joey slapped the steaks onto the grill, then poured himself another glass of wine. Standing there above his hard-earned dinner, holding a giant fork in a fire-proof mitt, he had to laugh at himself: a citizen having a cookout. What would come next in this groping toward respectability, a goddamn sing-along?
The filets were delicious.
They had moved into the Florida room to eat them, at a table covered with a plastic cloth, knives and forks of random pattern, and unmatched plates whose stripes and borders had been scratched and nicked by many hungry renters.
'Joey,' said Bert the Shirt as the younger man re-filled his glass, 'this is more like it, huh? This is what I been tellin' ya. Come to Florida, take it easy, enjoy what there is to be enjoyed. Look at him, Sandra- nice and relaxed. Joey, the other week when we talked, jeez-'
'I'm more relaxed 'cause I'm makin' some money,' Joey said, gesturing with his fork. 'But it hasn't been that easy, Bert. I mean, my feet hurt. Besides, the little I'm making-'
'It's not bad money,' said Sandra. 'Especially for right at the beginning.'
'It's O.K.,' Joey said with a shrug. 'But it's all according to how ya measure. Bert, you know what I mean. Our friends in New York, one night out, they spread around in tips what I make in a week.'
Sandra dabbed her lips. 'So they're big shots,' she could not resist saying. 'Real sports. I'm impressed. But Joey, let's keep things in proportion. It's not like you were in that league when we were up there anyway.'
Joey started to protest, then chewed some steak instead and realized he had nothing to protest about. 'It just makes ya wonder. That's all I'm saying. Am I better off doing what I'm doing, or am I better off doing what I was tryin' to do before?'
'There's no comparison, Joey,' Sandra said.
'Excuse me, Sandra,' said Bert the Shirt, putting down his wineglass. 'I'm a guest in your house, I don't wanna get in the middle of a disagreement or anything. But I think there is a comparison. The comparison is called money. Legit, not legit, that's not the point. Results is the point. Lookit the guys I play gin with.' He counted them off on his long yellowish fingers. 'A retired judge. A guy who ran a big Buick dealership. A doctor. Why are we all of a sudden inna same club? Not becausa what we did. Because we all got the same kinda results. We all ended up to where we could buy condos onna beach. That makes us equals, friends almost. Legit, not legit, that isn't how people add it up. You wanna end up respected, you gotta go where your best shot is.'
'But that's just it,' said Joey. 'I don't know where my best shot is.'
Bert neatly laid his knife and fork across his plate as Joey poured more wine. 'Well, kid, there's nobody that can tell you that. That you hafta decide for yourself.'
Sandra had her hands in her lap and was making a point of looking past Joey, through the louvered windows at the empty night. 'Well, I've had enough,' she said, referring to her dinner. 'Bert, how 'bout some steak for the dog?'
'No, Sandra, no thanks. Dog's a vegetarian.'
'A dog vegetarian?' said Joey. 'This I never heard of, a dog vegetarian.'
'Not by choice. Meat don't agree with 'im. Kinda clogs 'im up. You don't wanna hear about it, believe me.'
Then the telephone rang.
This was a rather rare event, as the only people who ever called were tellers from the bank who wanted Sandra to take a shift for them, or avid young men looking for a former tenant named Pippy. Joey got up. In his concern to be a gracious host, he'd been pouring wine at a brisk clip, and was a shade unsteady on his legs. The bedroom phone was on its fifth ring when he reached it.
By the time he returned to the Florida room, the table was cleared and coffee cups had been placed around a tray of pignolia nut cookies. 'That was my brother Gino,' Joey announced. 'He's here. In town.'
The news was sufficient to spoil the evening. Gino Delgatto had a gift for that kind of thing. Every face clouded over, although each for a somewhat different reason.
'Why's 'e here?' asked Bert, wondering how much, if anything, Joey had told Sandra of the family business that was, strictly speaking, none of her business at all.
'He says he's on vacation.' Joey had had just enough to drink so that he heard his own voice from the inside of his eardrums, and he didn't like the steely sound of it. 'Says he figured he might as well come down and pay a visit.'
'You believe that?' Sandra asked.
Joey took a heavy breath that had a tough time coming in and going out again around a bellyful of steak. 'Yeah, right. I believe it. He's here to fuck things up for me.'
'Joey, don't-'
He cut her off quick and hard. 'And don't tell me not to curse.'
'That isn't what I was gonna say,' she came right back. 'Don't fucking let him, Joey. That's what I was gonna say.'
Part II
— 16 -
The first thing Joey noticed about his half brother Gino Delgatto-noticed from thirty feet away-was that his new girlfriend had enormous breasts. They started about three inches below her shoulders, then billowed out and down but mostly out, tapering only slightly as they went, with the jolly, bouncy, cozy taper of small blimps. You could have run raft trips down her cleavage. Measured against these monumental bosoms, the girlfriend's features could only appear ungenerous and pinched, the eyes smallish in spite of all the tricks to make them bigger, the
