Tropical Depression Page 21

  "Find out anything about First Keys Casinos?" the Indian asked him.

  "Registered in the Cayman Islands," Arty said. "Officers include a lawyer who once defended Trafficante, and an accountant who was questioned but never indicted on a charge concerning a loan from the Teamsters' pension fund. The Teamsters, it so happened, were big donors to LaRue's campaign that year."

  "Convinced?" said Tommy.

  "Intrigued," said Magnus.

  Flaco interrupted. "The pendejo senatore," he said. "I go back for heem now?"

  *****

  Cow Key Bridge was part of the only road that linked Key West to North America, and at five p.m. it carried heavy traffic. Rented convertibles and hand-buffed Harleys and hollowed trucks sped by, making I-beams tremble and rivets sing. Beneath the modest span, timeless currents spilled between the ocean and the Gulf; pelicans and egrets, oblivious to the clamor and the stink, fished the fertile shallows in the slanting sun. Flaco leaned across a gunwale and staked his boat at the base of the embankment that sloped down from the roadway, and waited for Barney LaRue.

  Soon a car pulled onto the shoulder, and the politician—tall, annoyingly handsome, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase—appeared above the guardrail. Unexpectedly, he was sandwiched between two other men, nasty men, men that Flaco recognized from the big dark Lincoln parked outside the Paradiso. The boatman, with a subtle shifting of his weight, leaned in against his push-pole, said, "One man only goes."

  Squeak said, "Don't tell us, ya fuckin' spick."

  "Then no one go," said Flaco.

  Bruno, half-lunging, half-sliding down the gravel incline, made a move for him. With an astonishing lack of hurry, Flaco poled away from shore, just far enough to be unreachable. "We waste time," he said to LaRue.

  The politician looked sour and disgusted. On the flight from Tallahassee to Miami, he'd been assailed by misgivings that put a bad taste in his mouth, a taste of blood and chalk. In Coconut Grove, he hadn't liked the look on Charlie Ponte's face when the gangster handed over the briefcase full of cash, hadn't liked the way his upper lip twitched back from his teeth. Nor did he like the sprawl and smell of Ponte's thugs camped out in his apartment. Now LaRue was abashed and weary; that was as close as he would come to admitting he was scared. "He's right," he said to Squeak and Bruno.

  "Don't fuckin' tell us who's right," said Squeak. "You got that briefcase, we're supposed ta go along."

  Discomfort put a snide edge on the politician's arrogance. Recklessly he said, "Look, you tried it your way, you fell on your face. Now back off and let me settle this."

  The two goons, balancing with difficulty against the slope, looked at each other, unable to think themselves beyond the stalemate. Slow but resolute, Flaco poled back to the shore. As traffic whined and herons flicked their snakelike necks for fish, Barney LaRue angled down the gravel in his expensive shoes and stepped alone into the skiff.

  Bruno sat on the embankment, balled his right fist, nestled it in the vastness of his left palm. "Don't tell Ponte," he said to Squeak, beneath the roar and ring of traffic, "but I almost hope that fucker fucks it up."

  41

  On Kilicumba, they heard the little boat approaching across the still and echoing flats. They heard the motor cough and die, heard the soft scratch of fiberglass on marl.

  Arty Magnus tied his helmet of mosquito-netting securely over his head and face, and buried himself in the dense light-blotting mangroves that edged the clearing.

  Murray and Franny and Max looked to Tommy for instructions. But he had nothing to say to them. He stood there in his crusty clothes, he inhaled concentration and exhaled silence. He crossed his arms against his chest, spread his feet out shoulder-wide, set his mouth and turned down his eyes in an expression that was solemn, judging. Very Indian. Except now it was no pose put on for the tourists, but the stubborn core of something desperate, undaunted and unyielding.

  Flaco led LaRue to the middens.

  It was just after six. The light was soft and golden, shadows were long, distorted, with fainter shadows stretching from their edges. Under his poplin suit LaRue was wearing a blue oxford shirt and a yellow silk tie, he looked like what he was—an ambassador in time of war, dispatched under deep duress from a very different nation.

  He glanced quickly at the island exiles caked in mud, made no effort to mask his civilized contempt. Briefly he stared at Max Lowenstein, smoking his pipe in his unspeakable boxers. "And who the hell are you?"

  The shrink said, "I'm visiting from New York."

  "Crazy goddam Yankees," said the senator. He handed over the briefcase that held the contracts and the cash, said, "All right, let's get this over with."

  Tommy put the satchel on the ground beside him. "Why?" he said. "You in a hurry?"

  Bugs, waking up hungry as pygmy bears, were beginning to swarm into their sunset orgy. Mosquitoes flocked to the senator's unprotected neck, wakita malti tapped into the faint blue veins of his slender wrists and elegant hands.

  "This is sordid," he hissed.

  "You don't like being Ponte's errand boy?" said the Indian.

  LaRue felt tiny punctures in his flesh, tried very hard to hold on to his self-possession, to resist the urge to swat and shimmy. "I don't like being used," he said.

  "No one does," said Tommy. "Funny you never noticed that before."

  The politician said, "Take out the contracts, please. Two copies. You sign, I witness."

  Tommy picked up the briefcase, opened it. In the silence the snap of the clasps was very loud. He looked with no great pleasure at the bundled fifties, then removed a manila envelope that lay on top of them. Setting the briefcase down again, he slid out the contracts and started to read.

  "For God's sake," said LaRue, "you know what's in them."

  The Indian said nothing, kept reading. Moths and beetles streamed in and out of shadow. LaRue gave in and swatted and slapped.

  "Calamine works pretty good for that," said Murray.

  "Tea tree oil's better," Franny said. "Organic."

  Tommy finished reading. Still clutching the papers, he started stomping softly on the ground, sending forth a high and reedy humming as he did so.

  "Just sign the goddam contracts," said LaRue.

  Tommy stood still and stared at him. "You're in my country now," he said. "Here we have respect for certain ceremonies."

  He went back to his stomping and his rocking and his humming, to Murray he looked like an old Jew dahvenning on Yom Kippur. His voice rose gradually, mysterious syllables passed his lips, his feet began to cover ground, to trace out the perimeter of the clearing. Loudly now, his voice no longer a private moan but a keening to the heavens, he sang out ancient chants as he bowed and swooped and wove his way between the middens. Deep in secret communion, he disappeared behind them for a time, the haunting vibrato of his voice poured down like chilly rain from unseen clouds.

  Very softly, Franny said, "I think he's asking his ancestors to forgive him. I think I read that somewhere."

  "Jung," said the psychiatrist. "Reconciling the forebears. An archetypal impulse."

  LaRue twitched and scratched and felt his rising welts.

  Tommy danced back into view, his priestly movements tracked by a red and eerie shaft of light that trickled weakly through the mangroves. His tempo slowed, his volume fell, his fluid movements grew sporadic, jerky, as when a wind-up toy has nearly spent its tension. His face somber and serene and drained, he finally came to rest in front of Barney LaRue, stood closer than LaRue wanted him to be, and said, "Now we sign."

  The senator pulled his face away, quickly produced a pen from the pocket of his shirt.

  Tommy flicked back his muddy cuff and signed the documents. The politician witnessed them, brusquely gave the Indian a copy.

  "Isn't it traditional to shake hands now?" Tommy said.

  Barney LaRue had no intention of shaking hands.

  Instead, he took two quick steps back, flicked his eyes to the left and to the
right, set his feet at marksman's width. A travesty of a smile grabbed at the corners of his mouth. He said, "And now you're going to give the money back."

  Bugs buzzed. A gull cackled. Franny couldn't quite hold back a sharp indignant sound. Tommy looked at the senator, at his right hand that was buried in the hip pocket of his jacket.

  Flaco was standing at the edge of the clearing, his stringy form was slightly stooped. The Indian said to him, "You didn't pat him down?"

  The old Cuban, shamefaced, shook his head and said, "Oy."

  LaRue said calmly, "I'll take the money. Our Spanish friend will bring me home."

  Moment by moment the light was fading. Shadows lost their edges, colors went dry and curled like dying flowers. Tommy stalled, said, "There's too many of us."

  With his left hand LaRue waved bugs from before his eyes. "There'll be fewer if you don't do as I say. Back off from that goddam case."

  Tommy thought that over. He held his ground a moment, then grudgingly fell back.

  LaRue smirked. "The lady," he said. He pointed at his feet. "The lady puts the briefcase over here."

  Franny couldn't get her legs to move. The middens gave off a salty smell, the mangroves threw a rude whiff of generation and decay.

  The politician's hand was twitchy in his pocket. He said, "Don't try my patience, people."

  Murray stared at him. In the dim illusive light he studied the place where the jawbone tucked beneath the ear. Begging his eyes to speak to him truly, the Bra King focused on the tiny spot where LaRue's last shred of honesty resided. He wanted to believe he saw a tinge of pink. He made his lunge.

  The attack was slow and unathletic, it took Murray much too long to close the small space between his adversary and himself. Franny had time to shout; Max had time to reach for her. Tommy joined in Murray's charge, the world went dead and waited for the crack and whine of the gun, the air itself seemed to flee the path of the imminent bullet.

  Like a fat old linebacker dreaming, Murray threw himself at the politician's knees, closed his eyes and wondered if he was about to be shot in the back of the head. But the explosion didn't happen, and in the next instant Tommy finished off the tackle, brought LaRue down with a grunting thump against his ribs and a long groan on the hard and nubbly ground.

  Pinning the senator's flailing arms, the Indian said through hard-clenched teeth, "Take the gun away."

  Murray, kneeling on the limestone, was breathing with great effort, wheezing. "You crazy? You think I would've done that if he had a gun?"

  Tommy stared down, solemn, judging, at the blandly handsome face of his defeated enemy, and briefly understood the appeal of taking scalps. But the bitterness and the violence had somehow all drained out of him, he looked at LaRue less with hate than sorrow, said, "You're pathetic, errand boy. Now straighten out your suit and go deliver the papers."

  The Bra King stood, nonchalantly dusted off his hands, and bragged, "I can always tell a bullshitter."

  42

  His suit no longer perfect, Barney LaRue followed Flaco to the skiff. He was too depressed to swat at bugs, they swarmed around him like he was a piece of rotting meat.

  Arty Magnus freed himself from the shrubbery. Tommy walked between the middens, returned with some papers and a manila envelope and handed them to the reporter. Then he started gathering twigs and branches to make a fire, to have a little light and cheer until Flaco returned to bring them home.

  Sitting with her back against a midden, Franny said, "That chant, Tommy—were you summoning the spirits of your ancestors?"

  The Indian poked the fire with a stick, gave a short and rueful laugh. "I don't know the words to summon them," he said.

  "But what you were singing—?" began Max Lowenstein.

  "I have no idea what I was singing. It might as well have been a Chinese menu."

  When they heard the sound of Flaco's motor, they left the clearing without ever looking back.

  By the time they reached Key West, a crescent moon was slouching toward the horizon, the sphere's dim bulk nested in the bright arc like a pocked gigantic egg. At the foot of White Street Pier, wet and tangy seaweed lay in rippling silver mounds. Flaco's skiff, heavy-freighted now, lumbered over the pillowed vegetation until the weed had swallowed up both sound and forward progress.

  Arty and Tommy stepped overboard, hauled the craft ashore. The others stepped out on the beach, savored a breeze that was as damp and sweet as the steam from fresh-baked pastries. It was miraculous: There were no bugs, no encroaching mangroves. Palm fronds swayed. There were flowers on the air, the scents of spice and powder brought a feeling of oasis, an unspeakable gratitude that here was a place of comfort and refreshment.

  "I wanna kiss the ground," the Bra King said.

  "Who's stopping you?" said Franny.

  Murray looked down at the beach, thought about the taste of sand. "I was speaking figurative." Then another thought tweaked him. "You sure it's safe to go back?"

  "No," the Indian said blandly. "But I think we have a little window. I think it's safe as it's gonna get."

  "The fatalism of the tropics," said Max Lowenstein.

  "Easy for you to say," said Murray.

  Tommy was carrying his stash of money in an oily rumpled paper bag. He reached in, pulled out ten thousand dollars, handed it to Flaco. "For everything you've done."

  The gift called forth from the old Cuban a burst of loquacity. "Too much," he said.

  Tommy pressed the money into his reluctant hands. "Get a new boat, Flaco. That thing's a goddam deathtrap."

  Murray glanced back at the craft that had just carried them across five miles of water. "Now ya tell us."

  Arty Magnus, gangly and itchy in his camouflage fatigues, was eager to be gone. "They'll hold the presses till midnight," he said. "I'm going to the office."

  He headed downtown. Murray and Franny and Tommy and Max walked the other way, along the street that flanked the ocean, toward the Paradiso.

  For awhile they strolled in reverent silence. The street was lined with casuarinas, wispy, droopy trees that threw shadows like no others, crosshatched shadows that seemed made of satin net. Tree frogs croaked. Lights switched off and on in houses.

  After a time Tommy said, "Our casino, Murray. Now you can tell me what it would've been called."

  "Would've been?" said the Bra King.

  Tommy exhaled, ran a hand through his hair, dried muck crumbled off it. He said nothing.

  The Bra King held a silence like a drumroll, gestured like he was sweeping huge letters across a bright marquee. "Lost Tribes Casino."

  They took a few more steps. He went on.

  "Get it? A place for all the exiles. Always open, never closed. Free drinks for the bitter. Bottomless coffee for the depressed. A place for Indians. Cubans. Jews. The unhappy. The slaphappy. Anybody who's a refugee."

  "For people who've been dumped," said Franny.

  "Or lost their mates," said Murray.

  "Or forgot the words," Tommy said, "to talk with their ancestors."

  "You'd have the whole wide world in there," said Max.

  They walked. Dogs barked, renewing their claims to home. Cats slunk around the warm tires of parked cars.

  "So there isn't going to be a casino?" Franny said.

  "Did you ever think there would be?" said the sovereign of the Matalatchee.

  No one answered because no one knew who, if anybody, was really being asked.

  A moment passed, the returning foursome shed crumbs of limestone as they walked. Then Tommy said, "Max, I have a job for you."

  The psychiatrist coughed, dust shook off his undershirt. "What kind of job?"

  "We'll have to talk to Bert."

  *****

  "Put the briefcase onna fuckin' desk," said Charlie Ponte.

  There was something in the way he said it, something dismissive, bored almost, that instantly shattered the confidence LaRue had struggled so hard to regain. Sitting in the Lincoln with Bruno and Squeak, he'd h
ad a couple of silent hours to erase his humiliation on Kilicumba, to reinflate his arrogance. He would come out on top. Of course he would: he always had before. They'd called his bluff—so what? His own name was on the contracts now, and that could be a trifle awkward. But even in the face of a full-fledged scandal, what did he have to lose? His honor? Drummed out of office, he'd live in heinous luxury on Bimini, Eleuthera. Some punishment! But now he looked at Charlie Ponte's sallow face and the cockiness leaked right out of him. He understood he was no longer needed. The Indian was sovereign. The papers had been executed. What was LaRue now but a guy cut in for five percent, a liability? He put the briefcase on the desk.

  "Now siddown," the mobster told him.

  Squeak brought a chair. LaRue perched on the edge of it.

  Ponte said, "There's something I been wanting to tell you for a long time, Bahney." He was pacing in back of his desk, on his short legs it took several steps to walk the width of it. "Know what it is?... I hate your fuckin' guts."

  He said it like he was spitting in the other man's face, and the politician flinched as though he had in fact been spat on.

  "Other guys," the boss continued, "ya do business with them, okay, it's unnerstood that everybody's tryin' to make a buck, but there are limits to how much ya grab, certain rules for how ya do it. You, you're a sneak, a creep—"

  "I didn't come here to listen to—"

  "Shut up," said Ponte. "I'm just starting. You're a whore, Bahney. But you're too small t'unnerstand the importance of giving away a freebie now and then. The goodwill, y'unnerstand. You don't have the character for that. With you, it's gotta be grabbing every second, God forbid ya miss an opportunity. It's ugly, Bahney. Really ugly."

  He broke off, stopped pacing, leaned in toward the briefcase on his desk. He snapped open the clasps, they rang like a whining ricochet. He lifted the top, saw nothing inside but a manila envelope.

  Without hurry, he came around his desk, walked right up to Bruno, and backhanded him hard across the cheek. "Fuck ya give 'im time to stash the other fifty?"

  Bruno didn't budge, didn't rub his face. "He had ta stash it 'fore he got to us," he said. "Once he's wit' us, I don't see 'im having time ta stash the fifty."