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  Big Al Marracotta burned rubber as he pulled away. Big Al Tuschman sat down to rest where Katy had been sitting, used his balled-up shirt to dry his chest, and tried not to think about the long, stiff-jointed walk back to his hotel.

  *

  "Come on, Donnie, what else could he of meant?"

  They were sitting in the fish market office. It was cold and it smelled of clamshells and the blue tang of slowly melting ice. Donnie Falcone kept his big funereal topcoat on; its lapels flapped as he gestured. "Coulda meant a lotta things," he said. "Up the take. Expand the territory. Increase the tribute. Ya know, do somethin' t'impress 'im. He didn't tell ya start a war."

  Nicky Scotto drummed his fingers on his metal desk. Ambition was keeping him warm; he was still wearing the cashmere turtleneck alone. "What war?" he said. "I'm talkin' 'bout takin' out one guy."

  "Lunatic!" said Donnie, pulling on his long and pliant face. "Listen ta yourself! You ain't takin' out nobody. Fuhget about it."

  Nicky leaned back in his chair. It was a crappy chair, the cheap springs creaked as he leaned back, but, boy, did it feel comfortable. His face went dreamy, piggy black eyes losing focus.

  Donnie leaned far across the scratched-up desk, grabbing for his friend's attention like he was reaching for a grip on someone halfway out a window. "Nicky, listena me. This wanting the market back. It's like a whaddyacallit, an obsession already. It's makin' you crazy."

  "Crazy?" Nicky said placidly. "No. It's business, Donnie. Tony needs ta see how much I want the job. This is what he said."

  Donnie closed his eyes a second, seemed to be praying for more patience. It didn't come. He sprang up from his chair, did a pirouette on the scuffed and damp floor, and pointed an accusing finger at his friend. "Goddamit! This is what I tol' you from the start!"

  "What is what you tol' me from the start?"

  "This crazy bullshit wit' the clams, the puking. It was never about that. Right from the start you were lookin' for a way to get the market back."

  Nicky Scotto didn't bother to deny it. He folded his hands and smiled. He looked around the office. Minute by minute it was feeling more like his again. Pretty soon he could throw away the pictures of Big Al's wife and kids. Throw them in a Dumpster with the fish guts and the slime.

  "For the love a Christ," his friend implored, "don't go any further wit' this, Nicky. The man has friends. Allies. You don't know the shit you're steppin' into."

  Nicky Scotto pursed his lips, cocked an ear toward the shouts and laughs that now and then filtered in from the market, sounds full of vigor and comradeship and profit.

  Then he said, "Hey, Donnie, ya know where I can get some cheap but decent suits? Right off the rack like?"

  21

  When the call came from New York, Squid Berman was at the aquarium, doing research.

  He studied up on barracuda, with their steam-shovel jaws and beveled pins for teeth; on manta rays, whose three-foot tails were barbed like those of ancient devils; on giant octopi, whose suction-cup legs could reduce a man to a polka-dotted cushion of suppurating hickeys. He spent an entertaining hour and took away a couple good ideas.

  He got back to the motel to find Chop all excited, rubbing the top of his head and not stopping till his hand had stroked his stump of neck and was reaching toward his shoulders.

  "Talked ta Nicky," the car specialist reported.

  "Didja tell 'im about the lobsters?" Berman asked with pride. "Didja tell 'im about—?"

  "He wants ta change the job."

  "Change the job? But I just been thinking—"

  "He wants we clip the guy."

  Squid's face fell and he sat down on the bed. His bony hands fretted in his narrow lap and his knees would not stay still. "Clip the guy? Ah fuck. I don't wanna clip the guy."

  Chop was pacing the length of the dresser. His face was changing, too, getting into character for the new assignment. Skin tightened at the edges of his eyes, his lips flattened out and pulled in against his teeth. "Squid," he said, "don't tell me you're goin' tenderhearted on me."

  "It isn't that," said Berman. "Guy dies, doesn't die, who gives a shit? It's just that..." His tongue probed around inside his cheeks, he gave a series of spasmodic little shrugs.

  "Just what?"

  Squid threw his hands up in the air. "Just that this has been, like, a really one-of-a-kind job so far, and now the motherfucker's makin' it bourgeois."

  "Boozh-wah?"

  "Ya know. Ordinary. Obvious. I hate that shit."

  Chop said, "We get an extra fifty grand. It's gonna be a piece a cake."

  Disgusted, Squid turned his back, looked at a dead fly snagged and hollowed out in a spiderweb at a corner of the room.

  Chop continued anyway. Without seeming to notice he was doing it, he tugged at his wrist like he was pulling on a glove. "We grab the piece a shit outside his hotel. Take 'im up the Keys, ice 'im, dump 'im inna mangroves. Boom, it's over. T'ree hours later we're home, checkin' out titties on South Beach. Beautiful."

  Petulantly, still looking away, Squid said, "I'm not doin' it."

  Chop pivoted around the bed, wedged his way into the other man's field of vision. "Whaddya mean, you're not doin' it? Come on now, don't embarrass me. I tol' Nicky no problem, we'd do it."

  Berman sulked and salivated. He swallowed hard, his hands fluttered like contending birds. He shook his head.

  Chop Parilla pawed the carpet, breathed hard through his mouth. In desperation he said, "I never knew Sid Berman to go half-ass on a job."

  This got to Squid, hit him where he lived. He blinked, he squirmed, he moved his tongue to a mouth corner and left it there awhile. Finally he said, "Okay, okay, we'll take him out. On one condition."

  Chop's eyes rolled up toward his low and deeply furrowed forehead. "What's the condition?"

  Squid gave a determined sideways tilt to his head. "We finish the job the way we started it."

  "And fuck is that supposed to mean?"

  "We take 'im out by seafood."

  Chop roughly spanked his thighs as he sprang out of his crouch. "Fuckin' seafood? Squid, Jesus Christ! Why ya gotta make everything so difficult?"

  Calmer now, more settled in his mind, Squid folded his bandy arms across his chest. It wasn't about difficulty. It was about unity, integrity. Did you begin a statue with a hammer and chisel and suddenly switch to a chain saw? No, you were true to the tools you started with. That was a basic rule of craft. Fundamental.

  Chop hadn't dropped his protest. Fists balled, knees bent in a simian slouch, he was working off frustration in great bounds around the narrow, mildewed room. "Ya take guys out wit' guns," he said. "Ya take guys out wit' knives. Baseball bats. Piana wire. What kinda horseshit is ya take a guy out wit' seafood?"

  Knowing that he'd won, Squid spoke very softly. "Death by seafood, Chop," he said. "Either that, or you get yourself a different partner."

  *

  Alan Tuschman leaned forward at his tiny table at an outdoor restaurant that overlooked the harbor, and bit deep and lustily into his grouper sandwich.

  The thin crust of the Cuban roll caved in beneath the clamping of his teeth; mayo squished against his gums; the crunch of onion lit a small fire on his tongue; and the fish's charbroiled surface blended the tastes of ocean and woods. He savored the bite a good long moment, then washed it down with beer.

  He couldn't remember when he'd tasted food so vividly, and vaguely wondered why it seemed so new and marvelous. Perhaps his recent sufferings, coupled with the humid vacancy of his days, made him more appreciative of simple things, the mundane pleasures too often shouted down by busyness, routine. Maybe it was just that his long run had quieted his mind and opened up his body, lulled him back to basics.

  In any case, he thoroughly enjoyed his lunch and was in calmly buoyant spirits as, led by Fifi, he strolled back to his hotel. Everything was oddly perfect on that stroll. A brilliant sun warmed him, but seemed to duck behind a scrap of cloud whenever he grew too hot. Locals with gr
oceries in their bike baskets smiled at him as if he'd suddenly come to belong. Papery bougainvillea petals came unstuck in soft breezes and fluttered down russet and fuchsia in his path, and he decided that today was the day he'd get naked at the pool.

  He strolled through the gate of Paradise, and the desk clerk called to him.

  Al's posture drooped, his euphoria imploded. By now it was Pavlovian. What next? The desk clerk had bad news only, and delivered it always with a smarmy and malicious smile. On legs suddenly grown heavy, Al walked into the office.

  The clerk looked at him from between the ruby studs above his eyebrow and the purplish bags beneath his eyes. His mouth was sardonic, his tone as irritating as ever, but shockingly, his news today was good. "There's someone waiting for you at the pool," he said. "A woman."

  Al took in the information as though his ears were in his pants. "A woman," he punchily echoed. "Waiting for me."

  "You're the tall guy named Al."

  "This is true." He swallowed. He knew who it was, of course. His near-lover, the woman with the wonderful thick hair. The woman whose unclothed torso he'd briefly held against his own. She'd come to realize he wasn't kinky after all, that the lobsters in the sheets were some grotesque but blameless accident. She'd returned in the sober light of day to finish what they'd started. It would be even sweeter for the long delay.

  Alan Tuschman pulled down smartly on his shirtfront, wished he hadn't had the onion on his sandwich. He turned with almost military crispness and walked out toward the pool.

  He scanned the helter-skelter ranks of lounges for that mass of springy hair, the fleshy shoulders and heavy breasts that he remembered.

  Then he spotted Katy, the woman with the nasty boyfriend. She was laid out long and thin and ill at ease, save for Al the only person in the place with clothes on.

  22

  "Hi," she said as he sat down on a lounge beside her. She said it sheepishly, but packed into the single syllable, as well, was a suggestion of bent humor and a head-shaking acceptance of the fact that things seldom went as planned.

  Al fumbled through a greeting in return.

  "Surprised to see me," she said. It was not a question. She patted Fifi's knobby head. The dog licked her hand.

  "How'd you know where—?"

  "You told me," she reminded him. "On the road to the beach."

  "Ah."

  She glanced furtively around the courtyard at the European threesome, the fuzzy lesbians, the basted gay men with their bronzed and dimpled buns. "Kind of an amusing place."

  "Kind of is," said Al. He had no idea why she was there, but could not help suspecting some sick game with himself as beard. His gaze wandered over to the courtyard gate. He half expected to see the sneering jealous boyfriend come barging through it, shaking his fists and sticking out his feisty chin and making an appalling scene.

  Katy followed his eyes, understood his thoughts. The playfulness fell out of her voice, and suddenly she sounded very young and very lost. "I just walked out on him," she said. "I didn't know where else to go. I'm sorry."

  Al looked at her more closely then. The sun was in his eyes, and it wasn't until he shaded them with his hand that he saw the red place on her jawbone, just below the ear.

  She saw him looking at it, and was horrified and ashamed. She hadn't known there was a mark. Her composure let go and she cried for half a second. A tiny whimper escaped. A tear swelled at the corner of her eye, then vanished, as though by sheer act of will she could suck it back.

  "Are you okay?" Al Tuschman asked her.

  She nodded that she was, and looked away. It was all so stupid, she was thinking. So pointless. The second they'd sped off from the promenade, Big Al had started cursing at her, calling her names. She was a tramp, a slut, an ingrate. She'd crossed her arms and rolled her eyes and slunk against her door. He drove a little ways up the Keys, then stopped and had a couple drinks while she sipped lemonade. For a while he calmed down; then, as they were getting back to town he started in again. Ugly words, ugly accusations. Finally she stood up for herself. She'd done nothing wrong. All she'd done was talk to someone for three minutes, and if he couldn't handle that, then he was really pathetic.

  That's when he hit her. They were stopped at a red light, heavy traffic. He yanked a hand off the steering wheel and slapped her. It was a weak and awkward smack. It didn't hurt, and what made it yet sadder was that even Katy could see that he was trying to hold himself back. But he hadn't managed; he'd hit her. She stared at him a second. He stared back with what might have been remorse. But it was too late. She got out of the Lincoln and on milky knees she stormed away. She'd heard horns honking but didn't look back.

  Now, at poolside, she took a deep breath and started sitting up. "Look," she said, "we don't even know each other. I shouldn't be bothering you like this."

  "Are you bothering me?" Al Tuschman said. Mainly he was asking himself. "Hey, I'm on vacation. I'm bored out of my mind. Let's talk."

  She hovered halfway out of her lounge a moment, studied Alan Tuschman's face. There was kindness, she felt, in the spacing of the features. Big eyes, wide apart. A full and candid mouth. Fleshy olive cheeks with here and there a small and unembarrassed crater. She liked his face, yet found herself searching for the things that she was more accustomed to—suspicion, guile, temper. When she couldn't find them, she grew briefly confused. Her practiced toughness let go a little bit, and her back eased down again onto the chaise. "Oh, God," she said. "This is a helluva vacation."

  Al pursed his lips, folded his hands. "Look," he said, "maybe you'll give things a little while to calm down—"

  "Then what?" she interrupted. "Go crawling back? Look, I'm done with him about twenty seconds before he's done with me. And he's the wrong guy anyway. It was a stupid thing to be involved in the first place."

  "Why?" asked Al.

  She gave a mirthless laugh. "Too many reasons to go into. Why feel even worse?"

  "Okay," he said. "So what'll you do?"

  She twisted up her mouth and shrugged. "Get a flight back home, I guess."

  "What about your things, your luggage?"

  Her face went briefly sour as she thought about the thongs, the garters, the underwire bras Big Al had bought her. "There's nothing there I care about," she said.

  "You have a ticket?"

  Katy shook her head. "We drove. The car. Remember?"

  At this Al gave a rueful snort. "I drove, too. I had a car back then. Same license plate. Isn't that a pisser?"

  "Same license plate?" said Katy.

  "I mean, Jersey, not New York, but, yeah, same plate."

  Katy's mouth stretched into a cockeyed smile. "Christ, I wish you had a different name."

  Al had no response for that, so he said, "You really sure you wanna leave?"

  She didn't answer quite as fast as she meant to. But she sighed and said, "Yeah, I'm going. I'll try to find a friend up in the city, see if she can wire down some money."

  "Wire money?" said Al Tuschman. It seemed like such a quaint idea, he smiled.

  Katy took offense, her eyes unblinking beneath the spiky hair. "Look," she said, "I'm twenty-nine. Sometimes I work as a waitress. Cocktails, mostly. Lately I made the idiot mistake of letting a rich boyfriend pay my way. I happen not to have a credit card. That shock you?"

  Blindsided by her sudden vehemence, Al Tuschman leaned back a little way. Why was she daring him to look down on her? "Hey," he said, "I'm not judging you."

  She dropped her eyes, her hands fidgeted on her tummy. "Ah, shit. I'm judging myself. Nothing to do with you. I'm sorry."

  Al said, "Three minutes, that's like the fourteenth time you've apologized."

  There was a silence broken only by the ceaseless tittering of the Europeans and the soft splash of a naked man stepping gingerly into the pool. After a moment Al heard himself say, "Listen, if it's really what you wanna do, I'll lend you the money for a ticket home."

  Katy looked at him, still fidgeting. With wo
nderment and not without mistrust, she said, "Why? Why would you do that for me?"

  Al blew a little air between his lips, softly rubbed his hands together. "Why?" he said, and for a moment he wasn't the least bit sure himself. Then he leaned down, and in a conspiratorial whisper he continued. "I'll tell you why. 'Cause you and me, we're the only people in this town who will admit that vacation's going lousy." He reached a hand across the narrow space between their lounges. "Come on. Let's see about getting you a flight."

  *

  Chop Parilla should have known better, but he still imagined that maybe he could talk Sid Berman into doing the job his way. Over a late lunch at a dim and dusty place called the Half Moon Tavern, he said, "Jesus, Squid, this job could get done so much faster wit', say, a thirty-eight."

  "Right," said Berman, eating french fries the long way. "And the Sistine fuckin' Chapel coulda got done so much faster wit' a roller. Zere somethin' that you're drivin' at?"

  "I'd like to get back home sometime," said Chop.

  Squid Berman frowned. Such thinking was beneath him. You didn't think of home when you were on a job. You didn't think of anything except the job. That was concentration. That was purity.

  Chop gnawed the paltry meat off a chicken wing. "Sistine Chapel? Zat in Little Havana?"

  To avoid laughing in his partner's coarse, uncultured face, Berman looked away. As he did so, in one of those serendipitous opportunities that only the concentrated mind is quick enough to seize, something caught his eye.

  It was a stuffed fish nailed onto the cheap, fake paneling of the wall. The fish's back was an electric blue, its belly a metallic silver. From its gorgeously arched spine protruded a large webbed fin as graceful as a Japanese fan; extending from the tapering head was a nose that stretched and stretched, Pinocchio-like, into a two-foot spike.

  Transfixed, Squid stared at the creature a long moment, then gestured for the waiter. "That fish," he said. "Zata . . . whaddyacallit?"

  "Sailfish," said the waiter.

  "It's beautiful," said Squid.

  The waiter nodded in wistful agreement. He was a burly guy who liked to fish. He wished that he was fishing now. "People catch 'em just beyond the reef," he said. "Usually release 'em nowadays. People don't make real trophies anymore."