thing.'
'Pop,' said Joey.
The old man gave the smallest nod, the smallest lift to his thick brows, whose tangled black and silver strands gave a look of stark realism to his deep but filmy eyes.
'Awright, awright. I ain't got all day,' said Charlie Ponte. 'I'm givin' the kid a chance t'explain things. So go 'head, let 'im explain.'
Joey was still standing numbly in the archway. He looked down and saw that Sandra, silent, alert, practical Sandra, had slid a kitchen chair in next to him. He sat.
But Charlie Ponte, having ordered Joey to speak, now decided he wasn't quite ready to give up the floor. He ignored Joey, ignored Gino, ignored Bert, and spoke only to the patriarch. 'But Vincent, remember, you and me, we got an agreement. We can sit here and make nice, but if I don't get satisfaction from this meeting-'
Ponte stopped talking because it was one of those statements that could not be finished. But then the Miami Boss made the mistake of thinking back over the whole story of the heisted emeralds, the irritating trips down the Keys, the waiting, the disappointments, the manpower wasted, the putrid and futile evening with the garbage, and he launched into a slow burn.
'Because I'm tellin' you, Vincent, the aggravation I been getting, the bullshit I been putting up with, and for what? From who? From this nobody, this jerk, this little faggot with a pink shirt on, this fucking clown-'
'Cholly, he's my son.'
The short and simple words, the way the old man said them, stopped Charlie Ponte cold. Acknowledging the bastard, proclaiming the tie. This changed things. Kinship. It was in the blood, sure, but that was only half of it. It also hinged on what people said to each other, or didn't say, what they were proud of and what they kept buried. All of a sudden Ponte was less sure he knew who he was dealing with.
'The agreement,' Delgatto senior went on, in a voice that was low but carried, that seemed to be everywhere at once, like a rumble underground, 'it stands. Ya don't get satisfaction, ya do what ya gotta do. No retaliation. I shouldn't've agreed, but I did. I didn't know. My son Gino, he fucked up bad. Didn't ya, Gino?'
Gino nodded miserably. His fat chin was down on his chest, and his shirt was stretching open between the buttons.
'Only thing I ask,' the patriarch concluded, 'is ya give Joey a fair shot at workin' things out.'
Ponte pursed his lips and nodded Joey swallowed, looked at his father. The old man met his gaze and Joey took away from the exchange a hit of that undaunted readiness, the anyplace, anytime preparedness he'd felt that first time alone in a boat, alone on the ocean, alone in the night. His head cleared, the situation was clean as a razor. Either he would save himself or he would not.
'O.K.,' he began. 'O.K.'
But immediately he stopped. He swiveled on the plastic seat of his kitchen chair and looked back over is shoulder. 'Sandra. Where's Sandra? I want you here, baby.'
In the Florida room there was a shuffling of feet, a disapproving rearrangement of limbs. You didn't invite broads to a sit-down. But it was Joey's meeting now, it made his hair itch to realize he could do what he wanted. Bruno carried a chair for Sandra. She made no sound as she sat. Her hands were motionless in her lap and her posture was breathtaking.
'Right,' said Joey. 'O.K. Yeah… Now, Mr. Ponte, your emeralds are gone, you saw that for yourself. They're inna vault by now, there's nothing to be done.' It was a dicey opening, it already cast the Miami Boss in the role of the guy who'd lost. Ponte looked down between his knees and tugged at a thumbnail. 'So let's like go over how it got to that.
'The two guys that ain't around no more,' Joey went on, 'Vinnie Fish and Frankie Bread-they grabbed the stones from Coconut Grove, and my brother Gino was in with them. Weren't ya, Gino?'
Gino looked down and nodded, his fat chin coming up like a high collar as he did so.
'So the deal was this,' Joey said. 'Vinnie and Frankie, they stashed the stones on a junky old fishing boat, then they took the boat out and sank it. The idea, ya know, was to let some time pass, let things cool off some, then the three of them would salvage the wreck and walk away with the money. Ain't that right, Gino?'
The older brother looked at Joey from under the fat pads of his eyebrows. Gino didn't mind lying to Ponte, not at all, but he wanted to be in control of the story. His bastard kid brother was now asking him to drive blind, let go, bend over and leave it all to him. The idea rankled almost as much as it terrified. But Gino had no plan of his own and it seemed he had finally realized he had nothing more to lose. He nodded.
Vincente Delgatto moved forward an inch in his chair and folded his lean and papery hands.
'So O.K.,' Joey resumed. 'Frankie and Vinnie disappear. For Gino, this is good news, bad news. He's got nobody to split the money with. That's good. He's got no one to help him salvage the boat. That's bad. So the night your boys grabbed me and Bert and took us to the gahbidge-Gino set that up so he could run up the Keys to scope things out. Bert knows that too. Don'tcha, Bert?'
The Shirt petted his chihuahua, scratched it behind the ears. 'He used us. As decoys. No hard feelings, Gino, but that wasn't right. Someone coulda gotten hurt. Sandra here, she coulda been with us.'
Joey's fiancee gave a small nod of gratitude for Bert's concern. The nod stretched but did not violate her crisp outline.
Then a low rumble seemed to ripple the striped dimness of the Florida room. It was Joey and Gino's father starting to speak. The voice was very sad. 'To your own brother you do this, Gino?'
'Pop, hey, it's history,' said Joey. 'Besides, Gino and me, we forgive each other, don't we, Gino? Life, ya can't get through it without ya forgive people, ya drown in bullshit otherwise. I mean, forgiveness, that's really what this meeting is about.'
'Bullshit,' put in Charlie Ponte. 'This fucking meeting is about what happened to my fucking emeralds.'
'Right, Mr. Ponte. You're right. But forgiveness, the stones, it all comes together. 'Cause here's what happens. Gino realizes there's no way he can salvage the wreck alone. So he goes to a pro-that's Clem Sanders, the salvage guy. He reaches him through me, 'cause, hey, this is my town now, I know who to go to. This much, Mr. Ponte, I'm involved'-he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender-'and this is why, me too, I'm asking your forgiveness.
'But this Sanders, he's a businessman, he's legit, he's got a certain way he does things. An expedition, he sells shares. He keeps a third, he keeps the right to sell a third, the third third he sells to the guy who proposes the search. So now Gino is back to being a one-third partner. You follow?'
Charlie Ponte propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his crisscrossed fingers. 'So you're telling me that Gino owns a one-third share a my fucking emeralds?'
'This is exactly what I'm telling you, Mr. Ponte. It's in the public papers, you can check for-'
'Now wait a-' Gino interrupted.
His father cut him off in turn. 'You done enough, Gino. Your brother's talkin' now.'
Joey hesitated. He glanced at Bert, pulled in a chestful of air, and continued. 'Now here's where the forgiveness comes in. The shares that Gino bought, they cost ten thousand dollars. Bert fronted the cash for 'em, didn't ya, Bert?'
The old mobster nodded, his chihuahua twitched.
'So Gino is gonna pay that money, outta pocket, that's gonna be, like, his cost for forgiveness, his penalty for fucking with you.'
For an instant Gino froze like a skunk in headlights. Then he pitched thickly forward on the settee. 'Joey, hey-'
His father raised a single gnarled finger. 'Zippuh your fucking mouth shut, Gino. You'll pay the money.'
'And of course,' Joey resumed, 'his third of the emeralds, that goes right to you.'
He fell silent, as though his pitch was over. Outside, the pool pump switched on and hummed, the palm fronds rustled dryly. Don Giovanni stood up and did an impatient pirouette in his master's lap. Sandra smoothed her cream-colored skirt across her thighs. Joey glanced at her pink neck and wondered how many years in Florida it would take for her to get a tan.
Charlie Ponte's mouth was moving as he worked out some arithmetic, but the numbers didn't solve his problem. When he finally spoke, it was not to Joey but to Vincente Delgatto, and his tone was oddly calm. It was the tone of a general who'd endured the charade of diplomacy and could now move joyously into war.
'Vincent,' he said, 'outta respect for you I'm sittin' heah quiet, I'm listening, I'm giving these boysa yours
