Welcome to Paradise Read online

  “Shames can be as absurd and hilarious as Carl Hiaasen at his most uproarious…[The] mayhem would not disgrace the Marx Brothers. A scream of a read.”—The Guardian (London)

  “The author sets up the inevitable comedy of errors like a dealer laying out a winning hand of cards…The Key West locale was so real I felt my hair frizz.”—The Los Angeles Times

  “Laurence Shames mixes sun and fun, wise guys and dumb guys, smart gals and bad gals with such wit and style it makes you want to head straight to Key West and join the party.”—The Orlando Sentinel

  Welcome to Paradise

  By

  Laurence Shames

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright ©1999 Laurence Shames

  http://www.LaurenceShames.com

  Originally published by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  To Marilyn,

  who laughs

  with love

  PART ONE

  PROLOGUE

  "Was the, clams," said Nicky Scotto.

  "Ya sure?" said Donnie Falcone. Skeptically, he tugged on a long and fleshy earlobe. "Ya sure it was the clams?"

  "Hadda be the clams." Nicky sipped anisette and looked vaguely toward the window of Nono's Pasticceria. Nono's was on Carmine Street, two steps below the sidewalk. Half a century of exhaust fumes had tinted its front window a restful bluish gray. People talked softly in Nono's. Never loud enough to be heard above the steaming of the milk. Nicky put his glass down, said, "Fuck else could it'a been?"

  Carefully, fastidiously, Donnie broke a biscotto, herded up crumbs with the flat of his thumb. He hated when crumbs got stuck in the fibers of his big black overcoat. "How should I know? What else j'eat?"

  Nicky winced just slightly and softly belched at the recollection of the catastrophic meal. He pictured the breadsticks, the drops of wine on the tablecloth. His fist still pressed against his lips, he said, "Minestrone."

  "Minestrone," echoed Donnie. "Ya don't puke off minestrone."

  "Hadda be the clams," Nicky said once more. He leaned back in the booth, smoothed the creamy mohair of his jacket. Dark and thickly built, he was handsome until you looked a little closer. The jaw was square but just a little heavy, the black eyes too close to the thick and slightly piggish nose.

  Donnie kept his eyes down on his pastry plate. "Ya sure you're not just lookin' for a reason to get mad at Al?"

  When Nicky was agitated, his voice got softer instead of louder. His throat squeezed down like a crimped hose and words came out with the razzing purr of a muted trumpet. "I don't need another fuckin' reason to be mad at Al."

  Donnie thought it best to leave it right there. "Okay. What else j'eat?"

  Nicky absently ran fingertips against the wall. The wall was covered with small white tiles, broken up with ranks of gold and black at shoulder level. "Broccoli rabe," he said. "Scallopini veal, lemon sauce. Some pasta shit, little hats, like."

  Donnie said, "Orecchiette?"

  "Fuck knows?" said Nicky. "Look, I didn't come here to discuss macaroni shapes, okay? I come here to tell ya what that fuck Al did to me."

  "A few bad clams," said Donnie. "Happens."

  "Look, when I had the fish market, I did the right thing. I didn't give bad clams to places where friends of ours was gonna eat."

  "Nicky. How is Al supposed to know you're gonna be eatin' in some hotel up inna Catskills?"

  The question slowed Nicky down. His fingernails tickled the grout between the tiles.

  Donnie went on. "Truth, Nicky, I don't see you inna fuckin' Catskills either. It's a Jew place."

  "Used ta be," said Nicky. "Now it's everything. Hotels for queers. For Puerto Ricans. Couple good Italian places, you know that."

  "Okay, okay. But whaddya do up there? Play shuffle- board?"

  Embarrassed, Nicky said, "Ya look at leaves."

  "Leaves?"

  "I tol' ya, Donnie," Nicky said. "My mother-in-law, it was her seventieth. My wife says, 'She loves the autumn. Let's take her to the leaves.' So I say okay. The old broad wantsta look at leaves, I'm tryin' to be nice. Wha' could I tell ya—this is who I am."

  Donnie drained his espresso, motioned for another. From behind his arm, he said, "It ain't the clams. You're mad 'cause Tony Eggs took the fish away from you and gave it to Big Al."

  Nicky tugged at the collar of his turtleneck, twisted his head around in a circle. "'Course I'm mad," he finally admitted. "Fuck wit' a man's livelihood, who ain't gonna be mad?" There was a silence, and when the stocky man spoke again he could not quite hide a real sorrow and bewilderment. "Why'd he do it, Donnie?"

  Donnie shrugged. He had a long thin face and a long thin neck, and when he shrugged, his shoulders had a lot of ground to cover. His skin had a grayish-yellow cast and his usual expression was distantly amused yet mournful. "I ain't got a clue."

  "Come on—the man's your uncle."

  "Great-uncle," corrected Donnie, and came close to revealing some pique of his own. "An' ya see how close we are. Me, I'm still hustling window-cleaning contracts inna fuckin' garment district."

  Nicky made a vague and universal griping sound.

  Donnie sipped coffee and quietly went on. "Look, the market's Big Al's now. Ya gotta let it go."

  "This ain't about the market."

  "I wish I could believe that."

  "What this is about is that he poisoned me. Poisoned alla us."

  Donnie's flat lips stretched out and came close to smiling. He wiped his mouth instead. "The t'ree a you in that hotel room—"

  "Suite. It was a suite. Two bedrooms. Two bat'rooms. I thought two would be enough."

  There was a pause. Outside on Carmine Street, taxis went by, the clatter of trucks filtered in from Seventh Avenue. The milk steamer hissed and Nicky got madder. Revolted. Humiliated. "Well," he went on, "two bat'rooms wasn't enough. The wife, the old lady—disgusting. Dignity? Tell me about dignity when you're leakin' both ends, hoppin' to the toilet wit' your pj's down your ankles. When your wife has to crawl over ya to get to the bowl."

  "Nicky, it was just bad luck. Coulda happened to any—"

  But Nicky was not to be hushed. Air wheezed through his pinched windpipe. "Ol' lady ends up whaddyacallit, intravenous. Happy birt'day, Ma. Camille, skinny marink to begin wit', she drops six pounds. Me, I ain't right for a week. A week, Donnie! Cramps, runs, white shit on my tongue. Taste in my mouth like somethin' died. I tell ya, Donnie, a week a hell."

  Donnie had settled back in the booth, all but disappearing into his coat. When Nicky finished, he leaned forward, folded his long neat hands in front of him, and said very softly, "But, Nicky, why stay mad? I mean, where we goin' wit' this? Ya gonna ice a guy over some funky seafood?"

  Nicky sipped his anisette. His face went innocent. "Who said anything about icin' anyone? You said that. Not me."

  "I only said—"

  "Look, I'm a guy that does the right thing—"

  "You keep sayin' that," Donnie pointed out.

  "—and all I want is that that fuckin' guy should suffer like I suffered. A week a total misery. Justice. That's all I want. Zat too fuckin' much t'ask?"

  "Justice? Yeah," said Donnie. He blotted up some crumbs. "So whaddya want from me?"

  "Help. Advice. Like, ways to ruin his lif
e."

  "Nicky, I don't want no part a this. Besides, it's gonna have to wait."

  "What has to wait? Wait for what?"

  "Big Al's goin' outa town I heard. Goin' on vacation."

  Nicky rubbed his chin. "Hey, I was on vacation, too. A guy can't be mizzable on vacation?" He paused. He brightened slightly and his small black eyes squeezed down. "Where's he goin' on vacation?"

  "Flahda," Donnie said reluctantly. "Key West is what I heard."

  "Flahda," Nicky intoned. He drained his anisette, wrapped hot hands around the glass. He lifted up one curly eyebrow. "Flahda. Far away. That's nice. That's like the best advice you coulda gimme."

  "Hey—"

  "Flahda. Vacation. Far away from everything."

  "You never heard it from me," said Donnie.

  Nicky said, "So happens I got friends in Flahda."

  ONE

  1

  "Why we gotta, drive?" said Katy Sansone, who was twenty-nine years old and Big Al Marracotta's girlfriend.

  She was bustling around the pink apartment that Big A1 kept for her in Murray Hill. It was not a great apartment, but Katy, though she had her good points, was not that great a girlfriend. She complained a lot. She went right to the edge of seeming ungrateful. She had opinions and didn't seem to understand that if she refreshed her lipstick more, and answered back less, she might have had the one-bedroom with the courtyard view rather than the noisy, streetside studio with the munchkin-sized appliances. Now she was packing, roughly, showing a certain disrespect for the tiny bathing suits and thong panties and G-strings and underwire bras that Big A1 had bought her for the trip.

  "We have to drive," he said, "because the style in which I travel, airports have signs calling it an act of terrorism."

  "Always with the guns," she pouted. "Even on vacation?"

  "Several," said Big Al. "A small one for the glove compartment. A big one under the driver's seat. A fuckin' bazooka inna trunk." He smiled. "Oh, yeah—and don't forget the big knife inna sock." He was almost cute when he smiled. He had a small gap between his two front teeth, and the waxy crinkles at the corners of his eyes suggested a boyish zest. When he smiled his forehead shifted and moved the short salt-and-pepper hair that other times looked painted on. Big A1 was five foot two and weighed one hundred sixteen pounds. "Besides," he added, "I wanna bring the dog."

  "The daw-awg!" moaned Katy.

  Big A1 raised a warning finger, but even before he did so, Katy understood that she should go no further. Certain things were sacred, and she could not complain about the dog. Its name was Ripper. It was a champion rottweiler and a total coward. It had coy brown eyebrows and a brown blaze on its square black head, and it dribbled constantly through the flubbery pink lips that imperfectly covered its mock-ferocious teeth. A stub of amputated tail stuck out above its brown-splashed butt, and its testicles, the right one always lower than the left, hung down and bounced as though they were on bungees. It was those showy and ridiculous nuts, she secretly believed, that made A1 dote so on the dog.

  She kept packing. High-heeled sandals. Open-toed pumps. Making chitchat, trying to sound neutral, she said, "So the dog's already in the car?"

  Big A1 nodded. "Guarding it." Again he smiled. Say this for him: he knew what gave him pleasure. He had a huge dog gnawing on a huge bone in the backseat of his huge gray Lincoln. He had a young girlfriend packing slinky things for a weeklong Florida vacation—a week of sun, sweat, sex, and lack of aggravation. For the moment he was a happy guy.

  Katy snapped her suitcase closed and straightened out her back. She was five foot eleven, and A1 had told her never to insult him by wearing flats. Standing there in heels and peg-leg pants, she looked a little like a missile taking off. Long lean shanks and narrow hips provided thrust that seemed to lift the dual-coned payload of chest, which tapered in turn to a pretty though small-featured face capped by a pouf of raven hair.

  For a moment she just stood there by her suitcase, waiting to see if A1 would pick it up. Then she picked it up herself and they headed for the door.

  His face was on her bosom the whole elevator ride down to the garage. Vacation had begun.

  *

  Across the river in suburban New Jersey, on the vast and cluttered selling floor of Kleiman Brothers Furniture on Route 22 in Springfield, a ceremony was in progress.

  Moe Kleiman, the last survivor of the founding brothers, had taken off his shoes and was standing, somewhat shakily, on an ottoman. He stroked his pencil mustache, fiddled with the opal tie tack that, every day for many years, he'd painstakingly poked through the selfsame holes in the selfsame ties, and gestured for quiet. Benignly, he looked out across the group that he proudly referred to as the finest sales staff in the Tri-State area. For a moment he gazed beyond them to the store he loved: lamps with orange price tags hanging from their covered shades; ghostly conversation nooks in which a rocker seemed to be conferring with a La-Z-Boy; ranks of mattresses close-packed as cots in a battlefield hospital.

  Then he said, "Friends, we are gathered today to announce the winner of the semi-annual bonus giveaway for top sales in dinettes."

  He gestured for quiet as though there'd been applause. But the fact was that, for all of Moe Kleiman's attempts to bring some pomp to the moment, there was no suspense. Everybody knew who'd won. Who won was who almost always won. It was a regular routine already.

  Nevertheless, Moe Kleiman soldiered on. "The prize this time around is the best ever. It better be. We got a fancy new travel agent and we're paying through the nose."

  At this, people could not help flicking their eyes toward Alan Tuschman, the guy who always won. Twenty years before, he'd been a big-deal high school athlete—split end on the Cranford football team, power forward on a hoops squad that made it to the state semis—and, in a circumscribed, suburban way, he'd been winning ever since, sort of. Got a scholarship to Rutgers. Married a cheerleader with blond hair and amazing calves, cut and sculpted from years of leaping. The marriage didn't last; the scholarship evaporated when the coaches realized that Al Tuschman's talents wouldn't carry him beyond JV. Still, a few semesters of college and matrimony felt right while they endured, lived on in memory like bonus chapters appended to the high school yearbook.

  Those temporary victories had helped to keep alive in Al the mysterious habit of winning, and he still got pumped and rallied at almost anything that could be called a game. Sales contests, for starters. Already this year he'd won the giant television set, for bedding; the trip by train to Montreal, for living rooms. His colleagues, of course, were sick of him winning, but they couldn't really find it in their hearts to resent him. He was a nice guy. Friendly. Fair. He didn't hog the floor, he didn't show off, and he didn't try too hard. People just liked to buy from him.

  "The prize this time," Moe Kleiman went on, "is nothing short of Paradise.... Paradise—that's the name of the hotel. In Key West, Florida. Seven days, six nights. Airfare included. And the winner is—"

  The old ham paused, of course. And in the pause, Alan Tuschman's fellow salesmen tried to figure out, for the thousandth time, the key to his success. Some people thought it was his height, pure and simple. At six-three and change, he was by far the tallest guy on the floor, and people felt good dealing with a tall guy. Others thought it was his looks. Not that he was model material. His cheeks were slightly pitted, his lips thick and loose; but his eyes were big and dark, the features widely spaced: it was a face that gave you room to breathe. Then there was the way he dressed—a strange amalgam of old-time collegiate jock and working-man suburban slick. Cotton cardigans over open-collared patterned shirts; pegged and shiny pants leading down to desert boots; a pinky ring that clattered up against a chunky school memento, class of '77. In its careless inconsistency, Al's style gave almost everyone something to hang on to.

  "And the winner is," Moe Kleiman said again, "Alan Tuschman."

  Amid thin and brief applause that was swallowed up by mattresses and chair backs, someone said, "
Surprise!"

  "Alan Tuschman," Moe went on, "who in the past six months, in dinettes alone, wrote a hundred twenty-eight thousand dollars' worth of business. Ladies and gentleman, that is selling! .. . Al, have a well-earned rest in Paradise!"

  The boss shook Al Tuschman's hand, discreetly used the clasp as an aid in stepping off the ottoman.

  A couple of colleagues slapped Al's back, and then the group dispersed, spread out through the beds and the imaginary living rooms to the four corners of the premises. It was nine fifty-five and the store opened at ten. Every day. No matter what.

  By a quarter of eleven, thinking of vacation, A1 had sold a French provincial love seat and a wall unit made to look like rosewood. But then he grew troubled, and stepped around the low wall of frosted glass that separated the sales floor from the offices. He poked his head into Moe Kleiman's tidy cubicle. "Mr. Kleiman," he said, "I have a problem with this prize."

  The boss lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. When he did that he looked a great deal like the old guy from Monopoly.

  "If it's all the same to you," said Al, "I'm not gonna use the plane ticket."

  "All of a sudden you don't fly?" Moe Kleiman said.

  Al Tuschman looked a little bit sheepish. "Truth is, it's the dog."

  "The dog?"

  "Remember last year, I won that package to New Orleans?"

  "I remember, I remember."

  "The dog was, like, traumatic. Put her in the carrier, she looked at me like I was sending her to the gas chamber. Then the tranquilizers made her sick. Woke up shaking. Laid down on my shoe so I wouldn't go anywhere. Two days I stayed in the hotel, looking out the window with this shell-shocked dog on my foot. I couldn't put her through that again. I'll drive. That okay with you?"

  "Sure, Al. Sure. Only, the reservation starts tomorrow."

  "You don't mind, I could leave today."

  Moe Kleiman stood up, took a token glance out toward the selling floor. A Tuesday in the first half of November. Very quiet. He said, "No problem, Al. If it makes things easier for the dog."