They go boating. They go snorkeling. They look at fish. Don't laugh, Joey, you might even like it.'
Joey squinted backward through the louvers. The palm fronds looked feathery against the sky. He still wasn't convinced, but he was willing to take Sandra's word that maybe making some local friends was worth the trouble. Only not right now. He reached across and put his hand on her knee. 'After Gino leaves.'
'After Gino leaves, what?'
'After Gino leaves, we'll see, maybe we'll decide to make some friends.'
— 22 -
That Wednesday evening, Gino, Vicki, and Bert were invited to the compound for dinner. Joey bought stone crab claws because they were the only thing he could find that was more expensive than lobster, and besides, he wanted to give his brother something he could crush. But when he got the claws home, Sandra pointed out a problem.
'Joey, ya need, ya know, those squeezie things to break the shells. The crackers.'
'We don't have any?'
'Joey, you know we don't.'
'Hm.' He put the white paper bag on the counter, sniffed his fingers, and washed his hands with dish soap. 'Well, we got a hammer and some pliers.'
Sandra put one hand on a hip and held the other out with the goofy grace of a charm school headmistress. 'Vicki won't find that very elegant.'
'You give a crap how Vicki finds it?'
'I don't if you don't.'
'And I don't if Gino doesn't. Which means that no one does. Wine inna fridge?'
At a few minutes after the appointed time of seven-thirty, Bert arrived, resplendent in a big shirt of nubbly lavender linen, monogrammed over the left breast pocket in navy-blue silk. Don Giovanni was twitching in his hand, and as soon as the old man put him down, the dog ran stiffly toward the shrubbery, lifted a leg as scrawny as a chicken wing, and deposited a few drops of urine on a coleus. 'Is that rude or what?' said Bert, but he could not quite disguise an expression of wonderment and admiration, as if life with the chihuahua were an unending discovery of the creature's profundity. 'Most places he won't do that. I guess he's really getting to feel at home here.'
'We're so flattered,' said Sandra. She approached Bert with a plate of olives in her hand, and kissed him on the cheek.
'Come on,' said Joey, 'we'll have a glassa wine.'
They sat by the pool and made chitchat amid the faint smell of chlorine and damp towels. Overhead, the leaves shook in the light breeze with a raspy sound like a broom on a sidewalk. After ten minutes or so, Joey got up and fetched more wine; after ten minutes more, the small talk was wearing thin, the way it does when people are afraid they'll use up all their stories before the party actually gets going. By eight o'clock, Bert was sneaking glances at his watch. By ten after, Sandra was wrestling with the impulse to point out that Gino was being extremely inconsiderate, and Joey was secretly depressed at the realization that lateness had long been one of his half brother's many ways of insulting him.
At eight twenty-five the telephone rang.
Joey jogged into the cottage, sat down on the edge of the bed, and took a deep breath to collect himself before he picked up the receiver. 'Hello.'
'Joey.'
'Gino. Where the hell are you?'
'I'm inna hospital.'
Joey's sweet and righteous irritation soured instantly to guilt and made the wine go rancid in his belly. 'Jesus, Gino, wha' happened? You O.K.?'
'Me?' He sounded surprised at the question. 'I'm fine. It's Vicki.'
Joey knew it was a lousy thing to feel, but he felt relief. 'Wha' happened to Vicki?'
Gino blew some air into the telephone, and Joey could picture him shaking his head and puffing out his heavy purplish lips. 'Crazy fuckin' thing, Joey. Just before we're gonna come to your place, she goes out for a walk, ya know, to do some window-shopping. She's standin' there, lookin' inna window, fuckin' moped goes outta control, clips 'er behind the knees, knocks 'er right tru the fuckin' glass.'
'Holy shit. How bad is it?'
'Bad enough. Not that bad. I mean, she's kinda cut up, took a lotta stitches. And she got a little hysterical, ya know, worryin' about her looks and all. So they give 'er a sedative, put her out for a while. But listen, kid, I gotta ask a favor.'
'Name it,' said Joey.
'Well, I rode out here inna cop car,' Gino said.
'So you want me to come get you? No problem.'
'Nah, I think I oughta be here when she comes around. But I need ya to bring my car out here for me. I got some extra clothes in it so, like, if I spend the night, ya know.'
Joey paused. He was touched that Gino would give up the comforts of the Flagler House to be at the bedside of a girl like Vicki. Now and then, not often, his half brother surprised him. 'Sure, Gino, sure. I'll work it out. I'll be there right away.'
'Thanks, kid,' said Gino. 'Listen, I'm sorry to fuck up your dinner.'
'Hey,' said Joey.
'And remember, tell the valet the car's for Dr. Greenbaum.'
'Goddamn mopeds,' said Bert the Shirt. 'I wish they'd ban 'em.'
'Treacherous,' said Sandra. 'And the noise.'
'Hey,' said Joey, 'I don't even know where the hospital is.'
'It's out on Stock Island,' said the Shirt. 'By the dump.' He gathered up Don Giovanni and rose. The kind of guy Bert was, he didn't wait to be asked to help. 'Come on.'
Sandra glanced through the sliding doors into the cottage, where the table had been set for five. It looked pretty festive, with a big mound of crab claws, a large hammer, a small hammer, two pairs of pliers, and an ice pick. 'Come back for dinner, Bert,' she said. 'At least there's nothing to get cold.'
— 23 -
Bert d'Ambrosia gently placed his dog in the passenger-side bucket of Gino's rented T-Bird, then snapped on his seat belt and fussed with the mirrors and the tilt on the steering wheel. Joey Goldman looked on through the smashed window of his rusting Cadillac and squirmed. Usually he didn't think of Bert as old. But now, when Joey was in a hurry, he noticed the fidgetiness, the excessive caution, the extra thought and care that went into an old man's preparation for almost any action. Now he tested the emergency brake. Now he clicked the car into gear, and double- checked that the shifter was firmly set in drive. Finally he inched forward through the parking lot of the Flagler House.
Joey followed him through the narrow streets of Old Town. Bert came to a dead halt at every stop sign and waited a full five seconds before crawling on again. Joey looked out through the top of his roofless car, squeezed his steering wheel, and tried to talk himself out of his antsiness. There was no real reason to hurry. Vicki was asleep; Gino was probably watching television in a waiting room. Was his brother going to be impressed if he got there thirty seconds sooner? Besides, hadn't Joey had enough of the eager-beaver errand-boy routine, wasn't he a little tired of being the guy who arrives panting and sweaty so maybe he'll get a pat on the cheek for trying so hard? Screw it.
At White Street, Bert turned onto U.S. 1, and Key West instantly stopped being a place and rejoined America.
