Tropical Depression Page 17

  Tommy took off the rubber bands that held the envelope to the missile. The two friends went to the sofa with the nautical stripe, sat down side by side. Tommy fumbled with the clasp, removed a single sheet of paper. It was a ransom note, but not the old-fashioned kind pieced together of words of different sizes in jarring typefaces, snipped from magazines. No, this note came from a computer printer. It was neat and grammatical and seemed to have been written by a lawyer. It said:

  Gentlemen:

  Thank you for reconsidering your position in regard to our partnership. We may now consummate the arrangement as follows.

  You will meet us at 5:45, on the morning of 21 March, on Rickenbacker Beach, on Key Biscayne. The two of you, unaccompanied, will arrive in a single car, park in plain sight of the northernmost lifeguard stand, and proceed on foot to the water's edge. There Mr. Tommy Tarpon will execute a contract setting forth his mutual obligations with First Keys Casinos, Inc., said contract to be witnessed by Mr. Murray Zemelman and Ms. Franny Rudin.

  It is of the utmost importance that our business be concluded when and as described herein. We look forward to seeing you on the 21st.

  Yours truly,

  "No signature," said Tommy.

  "There's limits to their chutzpah after all," said Murray.

  The Indian leaned back on the sofa, let the note rest on his knee. "Murray, when's the twenty-first?"

  The Bra King had to think about it, the days had gotten hazy. "This day just coming up, I think this is the twentieth."

  Tommy nodded as though the date required his agreement. He rubbed his chin, then said, "I'll sign—you know that, right?"

  "Thanks for saying it."

  "I'll sign," the Indian said quite calmly, "and then I'll kill LaRue, and then I'll take a shot at killing Ponte, and then I'll either be dead or go to the electric chair."

  Murray's elbows were on his knees, he was tugging at his hair. "No you won't," he said. "I'll think of something."

  Tommy didn't believe it for a second. His old pessimism had woken up big and grouchy as a bear, he took a bleak satisfaction from the bleakness of how things were turning out. Sovereign of the Matalatchee, flunkey of the Mob, assassin. "You ready for some coffee?"

  "Hm?" said Murray. "Sure."

  "We'll have some coffee, maybe we'll go fishing, watch the sun come up."

  "Fishing?" Murray said. "I can't go fishing now."

  "Do you good," said Tommy.

  Murray didn't answer, he couldn't get his face to work. He got up from the sofa, wrapped his towel more snugly around his slack and hairy waist, then knelt down like a mantis and began to clear away the spears and icicles of broken glass.

  32

  After a long time Franny Rudin fell asleep.

  But her sleep was haunted by slicked-haired demons and spiders in suits, leering insects that held cigars in sawtooth jaws, filthy cackling birds flying over her with scaly yellow talons dangling down.

  She willed herself awake, struggled up from the gargoyle dreams as from a deep and muddy ditch. Her heart was swollen inside her ribs, she felt her pulse dammed up by the metal rings that held her wrist and ankle.

  She lay perfectly still, blinked up toward the ceiling; it was invisible in the utter darkness but even so its nearness had a smothering weight. She lay there and she wondered why this was happening to her. But her conscience was clean, she knew there was no reason, and so she turned her thoughts away; to wonder too much why awful things befell the undeserving was worse than futile, it led to corrosive grudges against life itself, provoked a rage beyond repair.

  She tried to think about pleasant things instead. She thought about her garden. She pictured a glass full of paintbrushes, the water turning a milky lavender as the washed-off tints blended and swirled. To her surprise she thought about Murray, about how they used to be. They laughed a lot; they probed; they wrapped in wisecracks their little scraps of understanding, and together they figured out a small piece of the world. Murray—a romantic klutz is what he'd always been. Shooting out light fixtures with errant champagne corks. Getting cramps in his feet at moments of passion. He'd proposed on his knees, let slip an inadvertent fart as he stood up. And always with his schemes, his big ideas— undaunted, untrammeled, and usually nuts. He gave you a headache, Murray did. And yet... No, she wouldn't think about it. She was done with Murray. This hell she was going through now—if she survived it, it would serve as a sign, a vivid warning: Go back to Sarasota, a healthy place, a reasonable place, a place free of gangsters and ex- husbands.

  She heard Squeak breathing. He didn't snore, he wheezed, it was a bent, tormented sound, pinched air following the curves and cave-ins of a nose that had been often smashed. She wondered what time it was, wondered what would happen in the morning. Her thoughts came back to Murray. She banished them, but not before smiling secretly at an image of him falling out of a hammock on their first Caribbean vacation, back when they were young and strapped for cash and working hard to make a life— a life, Franny fended off admitting, that had been the most full of juice and closest to the bone of all the several lives that she had lived so far.

  *****

  It was just after four when Tommy and Murray got on their bikes and rode to White Street Pier.

  The predawn air was calm and damp and salty. Pinkish halos puffed like dandelions around the street lamps; palms stood still as pictures, darker black against the flat black sky. Unfamiliar stars twinkled overhead, the water was so flat that it reflected them, showed points of starlight intermixed with the glowing trails of phosphorescent creatures scudding on unimaginable missions through the nighttime ocean.

  A bum was sleeping on the pier, nestled on a tarp. Feral cats stalked and slunk, searching out fish heads left behind, the chambered bodies of broken crabs. A pelican stood on the railing, blinking out to sea.

  Tommy Tarpon got out his casting net, spread the mesh like pizza dough across his fists, made a single perfect throw. The net landed softly, dim green streamers flashed as the weighted edges sank through the living water.

  The captured pinfish, spilled out on the pavement, seemed to glow from within themselves, shone a more urgent silver color than they could have borrowed from the sky.

  The two friends baited their hooks and fished. They fished in silence, tracked the maneuvers of their doomed minnows, let useless voltage escape from their overheated brains and run down their arms to be doused in the twinkling sea. Time went neither slow nor fast; after awhile they started catching fish, small yellowtails and mangrove snappers. They weren't fishing for dinner, they threw them back. Tommy was trying not to think but now and then he thought about the endless ingenuity of God's dark humor—so many ways to bring dead hopes to life, so many ways to murder them again.

  Now and then Murray checked his watch. He wanted to know how the world looked at 5:45 a.m., what they would be surrounded by when Tommy signed his life away to ransom Franny. If, that is, the other side kept to the agreement. But now that he thought of it, why should he suppose they would? A deserted beach at dawn—they could as easily kill him, kill Franny, get Tommy's signature at gunpoint and bully him into a petrified silence. No, the Bra King reflected, that part of it was wrong: They couldn't bully Tommy. Tommy would be a hero, Tommy would win revenge or go down trying. Of course, what the hell good would that do anybody?

  Around five-thirty Murray stopped fishing. He leaned his rod against the rail and watched the sky, scanned the universe for answers, stratagems. Chinese checkers, Bert had said. He should think, he should scheme, even though he'd come up one jump short. But what made Bert so sure, goddammit? The Mafia—okay, they were tough, they were practiced, but were they really all that smart? Were they smarter than him, Murray Zemelman, a big executive, the Bra King?

  He looked down at his watch. It was exactly 5:45. On the beach, the unmoving palms still looked black, though the spaces between them were taking on some color now, a murky purplish gray. On the horizon, the sky was just barely flo
ating free of the ocean; the morning's first breeze wrinkled the water like the soft breath of an old woman blowing on a cup of tea. Quite suddenly Murray had an idea. It was a lunatic idea, excessive, extravagant, exorbitant. He didn't trust it but he had it, and it was the only one he had.

  The idea made him itch, he scratched himself, walked around in a circle, felt the idea all over, squeezed it like you squeeze a melon. He sat on the rail, stared at the beach, turned the idea around some more, stood up. "I got it," he said.

  Tommy had been watching him in silence and with some concern. Now he said, "Got what?"

  "Timing," said the Bra King. "The light. The beach. The water. How much ya can see."

  "Fuck you talkin' about?" said Tommy.

  Murray didn't answer. He was already gathering up his gear, heading for his bike. "I gotta go lay down," he said. "I gotta count the jumps, I gotta make some calls."

  "Ya wanna tell me?" Tommy said.

  But Murray didn't hear him. Wobbling, weaving, carrying his fishing rod like a blunt and fragile lance, he was already riding up the pier in the mild unpeopled dawn.

  33

  Someone pounded on the metal door. The whole chamber clanged like a beaten garbage can.

  Squeak was still lying on his cot. The place was dark, though faint scraps of light lined the edges of the strange closed shutters. Franny's captor took a moment, then piped, "Yeah?"

  "It's Bruno."

  Squeak stood up, fumbled for the bolts. The door fell open, a wedge of dusty brightness tumbled in.

  "Christ," said Bruno, "ya still asleep? It's almost nine awready."

  "Fuck I got to do but sleep?"

  "I brought coffee, donuts."

  Squeak turned on the light. The bare bulb threw a rude glare that discovered Franny, stiff, chafed and red-eyed, lying on her back.

  "How's the Mouth this morning?" Bruno said in her direction.

  Franny said nothing.

  "No smart answers today?" the big thug taunted. "Get up, Mouth, have a donut."

  Franny detested donuts. Fat-soaked flour spiked with the slow poison called sugar. But she liked the idea of getting up, moving her rigid limbs. She almost didn't mind when Squeak, stale-smelling and hawkish, leaned across her to undo the rings.

  She sat up gingerly, rubbed her wrist and ankle. "Any juice, fruit'" she ventured. "Anything like that?"

  Bruno shook his head. "Jewish broads," he said. "Wit' them everything is room service. Where's she think she is, the fuckin' Biltmore?"

  "She don't know where she is," chirped Squeak.

  This struck the two thugs funny; they tittered like baboons.

  "Can I have some coffee?" Franny asked.

  Bruno handed her a container, she clutched it with both hands. The coffee was milky and sweet, she sipped it slowly, blinking toward the bundled wires that dangled from the ceiling.

  "We're here till four tomorra morning," Bruno said to Squeak.

  The skinny thug said, "Shit. Then?"

  Bruno looked at Franny, bit into a jelly donut before he answered. An ooze of thick red jam appeared at the corner of his mouth, he licked it with a bovine tongue. "Then we take her for a ride."

  Franny twitched at that, spilled a little coffee.

  Bruno seemed very pleased with himself. "Look," he said. "I think she's scared today, I think we scared the smart-ass comments right outa her. Didn't we, Mouth?"

  Franny said nothing, she sat very still at the edge of her cot and tried to keep her coffee cup from shaking.

  "Yup," said Bruno, like he'd just proven something deep and satisfying. "The idea a goin' for a ride, she don't like that at all. I think from here on in she's gonna keep that smart mouth zippuhed."

  Gratified, he wiped his greasy hands on his trouser legs and reached into the oil-spotted bag for another donut.

  *****

  Murray showered, lay down on his bed, closed his pulsing eyes and impatiently waited for the rest of the world to catch up with him, to join him in this brave decisive day.

  Around nine he ate two Prozac, washed them down with orange juice. He paced the living room, threw open the curtain that gave onto the balcony. Slender triangles of sundered glass hung precariously in the frame of the sliding door, gave evidence of his enemies' boldness and their violence.

  But Murray was no longer rattled, no longer awed, in fact he held their crude and blustering tactics in contempt. He had become nearly certain that everything would soon be under control, that his own gambit, elegant and deft, would surely triumph. This new unflinching confidence—his shrink might have called it a symptom, a side effect, even a delusion—Murray knew was a passage and a transformation.

  Walking on tiptoe, he poked his head into Tommy's room; Tommy was asleep with his mouth open, softly snoring.

  He moved to the doorframe of Franny's empty chamber, made a silent vow to her suitcase and her clothes: He would bring her back, he would have her back.

  He went to his own room, softly closed the door behind him, plumped his rumpled pillows, and began to work the phone.

  *****

  For Franny time was thick and empty.

  Bruno left. Squeak sat. He didn't talk. He didn't pace. He didn't read the paper. He only sat, and Franny knew from his vacant concave face that he wasn't even thinking. There was something terrifyingly doltish, inhumanly blank, in the way he could sit there for uncounted hours doing nothing whatsoever.

  The day grew hot, the metal room got airless as a locked car in the sun.

  At some point Franny became aware of things happening outside—whatever outside meant. She didn't hear things, exactly, not at first. She felt a thrum, a change in density, a gathering busyness in the air. Gradually, the thrum became a buzz, resolved itself into something that seemed almost familiar, the pulverized and blended voices of a distant crowd. The buzz rose and fell, sometimes grated and sometimes hit chance harmonies, as when an orchestra tunes up.

  Squeak looked at his watch. It was the most enterprising thing he'd done in quite a while. "Won't be long now," he cheeped.

  The buzz droned on in a slow crescendo. Then there was a tapering off, a hush.

  Squeak stood up from his cot He walked to the wall of strange closed shutters and opened one a crack.

  Franny made bold to follow him across the tiny room, and when he didn't object, she opened a shutter too.

  At first she saw nothing but a blinding slash of sun; then she saw a flamingo. It was standing on one leg in a shallow pool and it was drinking water upside down. Around the pool, the grass was very green. It went on for awhile then ended at a low white fence. Beyond it was a swath of rich brown dirt, then there was a grandstand full of loud shirts and polyester jackets, a vast unbroken mat of them that might have been a quilt made in a madhouse.

  Franny rubbed her head. She hadn't gotten to wash her hair and she didn't like the feel of it. "Hialeah?"

  "Very good," said Squeak. Suddenly expansive, he jerked a thumb toward the bundled wires. "All electric now," he brayed. "Used to be guys would work in here, run the numbers up by hand."

  Franny nodded numbly. A bland unmoored acceptance came into her voice, and she said, "I'm a hostage in a tote board."

  Her eyes adjusted, she looked across the track, at the prancing thoroughbreds warming up, the tiny jockeys in their screaming silks. She looked out at the thousands of people who could not help her.

  "Good view a the finish line from here," Squeak chirped.

  When the horses ran, they shook the earth.

  34

  It was just after two the next morning when Murray and Tommy got into the scratched-up Lexus and headed up the Keys.

  At their backs, a red and gibbous moon was setting, the glare of Key West was first muffled, then swallowed up by the humidity. Ahead, the thin ribbon of U.S. 1 lifted over bridges and trestles as it wound from rock to rock; a sparse stream of tourists and refugees was flowing up and down the road even at that bleary hour, people still looking for a place to sleep
or drink or find some desperate amusement. Pelicans flew above the power lines, their dipping flight the shape of pendant cable.

  "I wish you'd tell me what the plan is," Tommy said, when they were fifteen, twenty miles out of town.

  The Bra King shook his head. "Superstition. Like you not wanting me to say the name of our casino."

  "Tell me what you want from me, at least."

  "I told you. Just stall." Murray's elbow was propped on his window frame, his skin smarted pleasantly from the salt in the air. "Stall," he repeated. "And if it doesn't go well, help me get between the goons and Franny."

  The sovereign of the Matalatchee nodded solemnly. That much he could certainly do, would do without being asked. He saw himself running, diving, berserk across the beach, his teeth bared and his arms outstretched, absorbing in a kind of ecstasy the blows and blades and bullets intended for his friends. So much for his triumphant foray into the white man's world.

  *****

  The races had ended very long ago. The crowd had dispersed, silence returned, Squeak had subsided once again into stunning insensate dormancy.

  Hours dragged. Bruno appeared with Chinese food in greasy white containers. Franny ate two bites with a plastic fork and got a headache from the MSG. She lay down on her cot, the whole place stank of soy sauce.

  The two goons shot the breeze. They didn't bother binding her. Her body told her it was getting deep into the night.

  At some point Bruno said, "Almost four. We oughta go."

  They led Franny out of the metal chamber, walked her down the spiral stairs. Outside, they put the blindfold on, and this had come to seem obscenely normal: You went somewhere, someone tied a sash around your eyes, you were blind until you reached the next abomination.

  They drove awhile; they stopped.

  A door opened, closed, the car filled up with the smell of aftershave.

  "Hello, Franny Rudin."

  She recognized the voice of Charlie Ponte. She didn't answer.