nothin' I can do but what I'm doin'. So do me a favor. If Gino's dumb enough to show his face up there, tell him to hide it again. Can ya do that for me?'
'Sure, kid, sure.' Joey didn't like the flat way he said it.
'And if he starts tellin' ya how brave and clever he was down here, don't believe a fucking word.'
Sal laughed over the roar of an ancient Pontiac without a muffler. 'I haven't for years,' he screamed.
'Well, you're smarter than I am, Sal. Me, I only caught on inna last coupla weeks. How's my old man doing?'
There was a pause, and Joey could picture Sal shrugging, the way some of the flesh of his thick neck crinkled up and almost touched his earlobes. 'Doin' O.K. He's under some strain, but hey, he's used to that.'
'Tell him I said hello.'
'O.K.'
'Ya know, Sal, I been thinking. The way I left without seeing him, that was wrong. It was, like, small. You can tell him I said that if you want to. Or I'll talk to him myself one a these days.'
Joey's friend said nothing. A cement mixer came galumphing into Queens. At the Key West lunch counter, a cook dropped a scoopful of shrimp salad into the hollow of an avocado.
'And what about you, Sal?' Joey resumed. 'When you gonna get your pale ass down here?'
'One a these days,' Sal said. It was that flat tone again, the tone that neighborhood guys used with people they couldn't protect, and Joey tried not to notice that it scared him.
'Those sunglasses ya gave me, Sal, I wear 'em every day.'
'Every day?' shouted Sal. He sounded skeptical. 'How' bout when it rains?'
'It don't, Sal. This is what I'm tellin' ya. It's fucking unbelievable down here.'
— 39 -
Saturday evening was particularly warm, with a yellow sky smeared with wisps of unmoving purple cloud. Steve the naked landlord, his ashtrays and his beers in front of him, his shriveled genitals nested under the cliff of his belly, lingered especially late in the pool. He was standing there bare-assed when Zack and Claire arrived, and Joey had no choice but to introduce him.
'Hi, Steve,' Zack said. 'Whatcha reading?'
Steve turned the damp paperback over and looked at the cover to remind himself. The cover showed a large city breaking in half. 'Earthquake,' he said. 'Los Angeles.' Then he smiled.
Joey steered his guests toward a big bowl of raw vegetables on the outdoor table, and as he did so he studied Claire. Claire did not look like Joey expected. She was pretty enough, with tightly curled brown hair and hazel eyes, but she didn't have Zack's knack of looking just so without seeming to be trying. She appeared to be the type for whom blouses would not stay tucked in, for whom tabs on zippers would not lie flat. When she dressed up, the effort showed, kind of like a painting that had looked better as a sketch.
She plunged a celery stalk into a bowl of dip, and Joey watched with interest because he'd voted against the vegetables. 'Sandra,' he'd said, 'isn't it a little much? I mean, we're gonna have that gigantic salad and all.'
'Joey,' she'd said, 'women like that stuff. Just pour the drinks, grill the steaks, and let me plan the rest, O.K.?'
He'd shrugged. Giving a dinner party, like having a job, like reading a nautical chart, had its own rules, its own logic. If women liked raw vegetables on top of raw salad on top of cooked broccoli on top of melon balls for dessert, so be it.
Sandra had also lobbied for some dishes and some silverware that matched.
'It's a waste, Sandra. We're moving soon.'
That was the first she'd heard about moving, and Joey let it slip as casually as if he'd said he was going out to gas up the car. Sandra didn't believe it, and besides, she hadn't had time to make it a discussion just then. 'So we'll take them with us,' she said. Practical, precise, and forward-looking as always, she added, 'I'll save the boxes.'
Again Joey had shrugged, and Sandra bought a set of plain white plates and some stainless with blue plastic handles. The matching stuff did make the table look better. Joey had to admit it.
Now he was asking Zack and Claire what they wanted to drink. They both said wine, and Joey wondered why he'd bothered buying all those different-shaped bottles of liquor.
When Bert the Shirt arrived, the two couples were sitting on the edges of lounge chairs, Claire with her feet dangling in the pool. The sky had faded, the palm fronds were drooping limp as flags. From halfway down the gravel path, Bert was motioning to Joey that he shouldn't bother getting up.
He looked splendid, Bert did. His white hair was combed back tight, and aside from the nicotine-bronze tinge in it, there was almost, in the dimming light, a suggestion of pink. His shirt was the purplish black of ripe olives, with bone buttons and pale blue piping the same color as the monogram. He held his chihuahua in the crook of his arm, and gave a stately little nod of his head when Joey introduced him.
Claire, a lover of all small animals, reached up to pet the pooch. 'What a cute little dog,' she said.
'He's not cute,' said Bert the Shirt. 'He looks ridiculous, he's a hypochondriac, and he's got a lousy-'
'Don Giovanni?' came a caressing voice from the far side of the pool. 'He's very cute.' The voice was Claude's. He and Peter had just emerged from their cottage. It was Dress-Up Night at Cheeks, and the bartenders wore lame. Peter's was silver, Claude's was gold.
'Oh, hi, fellas,' said Bert. 'Youse look terrific.' Then he turned his attention back to Claire and back to the subject of the chihuahua. 'This dog,' he said, 'this dog is the bane a my life, a stone around my neck. Joey, I tell ya the latest about this dog? The latest aggravation? Dog needs sunglasses.'
'Come on,' said Joey.
'Yeah,' said Bert. He held the chihuahua forward like a loaf of bread. 'His eyes heah? The whaddyacallit, the pupils, they don't close right. See all that black? That shouldn't be. The light shoots straight inta his brain. He needs shades, I'm tellin' ya.'
'Maybe a visor?' offered Zack.
Bert shrugged. 'What the hell, I just keep him dim places. He don't like the heat anyway. Heat like dehydrates him, gives him kidney stones. The way he whimpers when he passes one…' Bert shuddered. 'But hey, enough about the stupid dog. Joey, you gonna gimme a glassa wine or what?'
Joey stalled an extra few seconds getting the Shirt his drink. He wasn't used to parties, to so many people at once, so much to figure out. It made him a little dizzy.
When he came back, he noticed something different about Sandra. She was smiling a more thorough smile than he usually saw. Her green eyes crinkled at the corners, it was like enjoyment was seeping in everywhere. It seemed to Joey that she had never looked prettier or happier. She had friends, vegetables, plates that matched; the man she loved was not off doing something shady or dangerous; she was at ease.
Joey studied. He wanted to see how people acted at a dinner party, what they talked about, if there was a code for what you did or didn't say. The women talked about the bank, about some new system for closing out the cash count at the end of the day. Zack asked Bert about the Paradiso; he was interested in the real estate angle.
There was a sound of cascading water as Steve the naked landlord got out of the pool. People tried not to notice the flash of crotch before he wrapped his towel around him and said goodnight. Joey went inside to fetch more drinks.
When he returned, Bert was holding forth about the old days in New York. 'Fifty-second Street,' he was saying. 'The jazz clubs. Beautiful. Three, four inna morning you could walk downa street. There was no drugs, no crime. It was perfectly safe.'
As if conjured up by the mention of music, Luke the reggae player at that moment stepped out of his front door. He'd put his hair in dreadlocks, and his guitar was strapped across his back. Lucy the beautiful Fed followed him out. She'd done her eyes up big and looked like Cleopatra.
After they had passed, Claire said, 'Jeez, you guys live, like, an interesting lifestyle here.'
Joey hadn't thought about it quite that way before, but now that she mentioned it, he supposed they did.
