Sunburn Read online

  Not, Vincente thought, that this Key West stuff could really be called dirt. Key West had no dirt, only coral limestone, nubbly gray rock that didn't weigh much and had holes in it. You wanted dirt, you went to the store and bought it in a bag. Imported. A luxury item. Hell, even in Queens there was dirt. . . . Gently, the Godfather turned over a cluster of blood-red flowers and squeezed them out of their tiny plastic pot. He placed them in the hole he had dug, snugged them in with the flat of his hand. Then he took stock. He had about a dozen pots of impatiens to go, maybe eight more feet of border, and only a quarter bag of topsoil.

  Still on his knees, he looked back over his shoulder and yelled across the pool. "Dirt, Joey. We're gonna need more dirt."

  His son was sitting under the patio umbrella, eating cantaloupe and looking at the Sunday Sentinel, making sure the Paradise Properties listings had not been garbled beyond all recognition. "Have some breakfast, Pop," he said. "Dirt, later on, we'll get more dirt."

  Vincente considered. He didn't like to stop in the middle of a job, it went against him. But the prospect of resting let him realize that his knees were hurting from the gravel, the hinge at the bottom of his back was complaining. So OK, he would take a break. He started to stand up, then realized with shame and some surprise that it wasn't going to be a simple or a graceful process. He pretended to be puttering, stacking up the empty pots; he didn't want his son to realize that his head was swimming or to see how long it took him to regain his feet. He stalled; at length he rose. Then he dusted himself off and strolled around the pool to have a cup of coffee.

  ———

  At first glance, the Godfather was unimpressed with the Key West nursery.

  "Up north," he said, "the nurseries up north, they have more stuff. Ornaments like, trellises. Fountains, ya know, like comin' outa fishes' mouths, angels peeing, that kinda thing."

  "Here it's mostly plants," said Joey. "Baby trees, sometimes ya see 'em comin' right outa the coconut. And flamingoes maybe. Ya know, their feet are metal rods, ya stick 'em inna ground."

  "Flamingoes?" said the Godfather. "Sandra want flamingoes?"

  Joey thought it best to let the question slide, he just led his father through the ranks of encroaching palms and ferns. Hibiscus flowers tickled their forearms as they passed; miniature oranges scented the air with citrus. There was no roof at the nursery, just a fine black netting that kept the birds away and muffled the ferocious sunshine. Nor was there a floor. The bare ground was covered with chips of wood and bark that felt moist and cozy underfoot, it made you realize why bugs and mice and lice liked to live in rotted logs.

  At the end of the aisle, between the palm food and the snail bait, they ran into Arty Magnus.

  He was wearing olive-drab shorts and torn sneakers with no socks. His legs were long and bandy, a little bit like frogs' legs; his knees turned out just slightly and were rubbed red from kneeling in his yard. He had pieces of leaf in his frizzy hair.

  "Joey," he said. He tried to put some heartiness in it, but he was thoroughly distracted. Something was eating his jasmine leaves, and he was in the grip of that dismay known to every gardener, less an anxiety than a fatalistic dread, the sure knowledge that at that very moment one's beloved exotics were being reduced to naked scaly twigs by malicious vermin of infinite appetite and implacable will.

  "Arty, how ya doin'?" Joey said.

  The editor was going to say something breezy and move on, but then he noticed the old man half hidden by Joey's shoulders. The Godfather. The Reluctant Godfather. Standing in a Florida nursery on a Sunday morning like any other alte cocker, a little stooped, a little bored maybe, surrounded by tagged foliage and big bags of things that would rupture him if he tried to lift them. Arty Magnus suddenly felt that he was staring. He tried to pull his gaze away, he turned his head but his eyes stayed steady like the needle on a compass. It was getting uncomfortable, then Joey shuffled his feet in the mulch and said, "Arty, I'd like you to meet my father. Pop, this is Arty Magnus."

  No mention of a name, the editor noted. Incognito. Even in Key West, where in theory there was no Mafia and in fact no one read the papers. He extended his hand, and now it was Vincente who was looking harder and longer than might be thought polite. He was examining Arty's hand before he shook it, noticing the fine dark lines of embedded soil that marked out creases and wrinkles the way ink marked out fingerprints.

  "Nice ta meet ya," Vincente said.

  "Nice to meet you, sir," said Arty.

  Feet wriggled in the tree bark.

  "We're here for dirt," said the Godfather. "How 'bout you?"

  "Poison," said the editor.

  The old man stood with his back to a ficus. He folded his hands as at a funeral and nodded sadly. "Sometimes ya gotta kill the little bastuhds. Sometimes there's just no other answer."

  On the way back to Joey's, Vincente said, "Your friend, his hands—he digs inna dirt."

  " 'Course he does, he works for the paper."

  "Nah, I'm serious," said the Godfather. "A man who gardens, I like that. Life, death, ya take responsibility. What ta take away, what ta leave. He knows somethin'. . . . What's he do for the paper?"

  "City editor, his title is," said Joey. "Assigns things to the reporters. Covers some things himself. City commission, politics."

  "Ah."

  In Joey's neighborhood the blocks were short and there were stop signs on every corner. It was hard to get going more than fifteen miles an hour, and on those lazy streets Joey's refurbished 1973 El Dorado convertible got about eight blocks to the gallon. But nice light filtered through the mahogany trees; there was time to check the progress of the poincianas and time to mull things over.

  "But ya know what he really wants ta do," said Joey, two blocks later.

  "Who?"

  "Arty. The gardener. . . . What he really wants ta do is write books."

  The Godfather looked out the open passenger-side window.

  "Yeah," Joey went on. "And I bet he'd be good at it. Not afraid ta dig in wit' his hands, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

  Some people were playing badminton on one of Key West's rare large lawns. Vincente watched the slow and idiotic flight of the shuttlecock against the flawless sky.

  'Tell ya what," said Joey. "Why don't we have him to the house for dinner? Shoot the shit, talk about gardening. How would that be, Pop?"

  There is a moment when an idea either puts on flesh or is forgotten, squirms into possibility with the red stretch of any birth or vanishes without a trace. Vincente propped his wizened elbow on the hot frame of his window. A deep breath whistled in his nose as he slowly turned toward his bastard son. In his face was relief and a tentative capitulation, a half acceptance that maybe he had reached the age when sometimes, on certain things, maybe certain other people knew better than himself. "OK," he said. "That'd be OK."

  8

  It was just noon when Gino rolled off of the bimbo.

  He blinked up at the ceiling of his deluxe room at the Flagler House, mopped his damp chest on the sheet, then turned his hairy back to her as he reached for the phone to call room service. "Whaddya want for breakfast?" he asked.

  "You're so romantic," Debbi said. "So tender."

  "Eggs, omelet, wha'?"

  She didn't answer right away. Her body felt numb, her head was heavy on the pillow, she was faintly nauseous. It had started to dawn on her that maybe she shouldn't have come to Florida, that maybe she was less blithe than she thought she was, that Gino in small doses was OK, a nice dinner, an evening out, but traveling with Gino was much too much and much too little.

  "Come on," he said. "They're onna line." Into the phone he added, "Hol' on a minute, the duchess can't make up her mind."

  Debbi was looking at the bright wand of sunshine that squeezed through the place where the blackout curtains overlapped. It was spectacular, that slash of light, it hurt the eyes. She imagined the grainy heat of the beach, the green sparkle of the water, the sudden coolness of a passing cloud. I
t should have been a day of clean enjoyment.

  "I'll have the family cocktail," she said.

  Her last name was Martini. Family cocktail was her little joke.

  "Little early, ain't it?" Gino said.

  "And a bran muffin," Debbi said. It was hard to make bran muffin sound defiant, but she tried.

  Over breakfast, Gino announced that they were driving to Miami.

  "But we just got here," said Debbi.

  "Right," said Gino, puncturing an egg yolk. "And now we're goin' there. What of it?"

  Debbi had put on a hotel bathrobe. The neckline of it showed some pretty freckles at her throat. Her red hair was flat on one side and wild on the other. "I thought we came here so you could visit with your father."

  Gino chomped a triangle of toast. When he talked, the melted butter put a greasy yellow shine at the corners of his mouth. "We're comin' right back. But I gotta see a guy. I'll leave ya at a mall, you'll like it."

  Debbi sipped her drink. The gin tasted weird but it was more the toothpaste than the hour of the day. "I don't wanna go to a mall. A mall I can go ta anytime. I'll stay here, I'll go ta the beach."

  "The beach, you'll get sunburn."

  "I like sunburn. I came here for sunburn. Sunburn, Gino—not ta go to a freakin' mall."

  "Nah, I want y along."

  "Wha' for?" she said. She toyed with her bran muffin; brown crumbs spilled off it like tiny dislodged rocks bouncing down a hillside. "Ya don't talk ta me. Ya don't talk t'anyone."

  "Shut up, Debbi. Half a drink, you're soused already."

  But she wasn't soused and she stuck to her opinion. Gino didn't talk to people, he just made noises with his face. Even last night, at the big-shot fancy dinner he'd hosted for his family, was there anything that might be called a conversation? How's the shrimp, Pop? More champagne? Was there anything about Joey, about Sandra, about their life here in this town? Was there anything, one word of fond remembrance, about the dear departed mother? No. Nothing. She, Debbi, hardly got to talk; Gino always cut her off. Sandra was nice, showed some interest, asked her if she worked. Debbi had barely mentioned the pet salon when Gino barged in to call for more wine. That was classic Gino. With him a dinner was all grunts and sucking noises and grand gestures to the waiter. Everyone was uncomfortable and only Gino didn't seem to notice. Gino, you put a lobster bib on him, he was happy. The strange part, the only thing she could hang on to to persuade herself she wasn't shacked up with a total heartless louse, was that Gino meant it in his way when he said he wanted people around. He just didn't know how to be with them when they were.

  She nibbled some bran muffin, washed it down with gin, and spoke without really meaning to. "Gino," she said, "I just don't understand you."

  He was mopping up the last of his egg yolk with the last of his toast. His face was turned up to catch the runny orange paste before it dripped in his chest hair; it wasn't a moment to try to explain things to a half-soused broad. "There's nothin' t'understand," he said.

  Debbi Martini smiled for the first time that day. It was not a happy smile, but there was in it the quiet pleasure of bedrock comprehension. Gino saw the smile and mistrusted it, understood somehow that it came at his expense, though it didn't dawn on him that, against all habit and inclination, he'd just said something wise and true.

  9

  "Arty, more pasta?" Joey Goldman asked.

  He held forth the huge ceramic bowl, the last of the steam wafted upward and was sliced by the slowly spinning blades of the ceiling fan. After a moment's hesitation, Arty Magnus took up the challenge, seized the dish in his big dirt-digging hands.

  "Good eater," Vincente murmured approvingly. "Guy's a good eater."

  "Don't look like he is," said Gino grudgingly. "But OK, give credit. These skinny guys, sometimes—"

  "He isn't skinny," Debbi said. "He's lean."

  "Let 'im eat," said Sandra. "Joey, fill his glass."

  The editor said nothing, but as he dug into the unending mound of linguine and clams, it vaguely struck him that here he was, in a houseful of strangers, never mind Mafia, who were analyzing his dining habits and his physique, talking about him as if he weren't there—and it didn't even see especially odd. With the first forkful of his third helping, he realized why. It reminded him of his own family, his Jewish family, who, when they paused long enough in their devouring to talk at table, generally restricted their remarks to observations on the stomach capacity and metabolism of the others present. Jews and Italians: the world's referees of intake, the arbiters of appetites.

  The guest stabbed a clam, raveled it in pasta, and sucked it down with a somewhat theatrical zest. On the issue of food, at least, he knew what was expected of him at this table.

  In other ways, he had no idea what was expected.

  He understood there were a lot of things he shouldn't ask, he shouldn't say. But what should he say? And why had he really been invited in the first place? To talk about gardening, Joey had said when he'd called. To let the old man hear about the real Key West. Reasonable enough. But in the meantime there'd been antipasto, there'd been grilled eggplant, there'd been several bottles of Valpolicella, and so far gardening had not been talked about, the town mentioned only in passing. Now the main course dishes were being cleared, Joey and Sandra working their way around the table, clattering and clinking. Arty made a move to rise and help; Joey pushed him by the shoulders back into his chair.

  So he sat and sipped his wine. He took the liberty of pouring more for Debbi, whose glass did not seem to stay full for long. Gino unwrapped a cigar, put it in his mouth unlit; he leaned back in his chair so that his shirt stretched open between the buttons and revealed little ovals of belly hair. The Godfather slowly and grandly wiped his lips on a corner of his napkin, reached up to straighten a tie he wasn't wearing. Then he said to Arty, "Newspaper business—ya like it?"

  After the small talk and the mumbling, the editor was a little nonplussed to be asked a real question, and a touchy one. "Not much," he fumbled. "No."

  The Godfather nodded, considered. At his back was a sweep of bare white wall broken up by louvered windows. Early moonlight filtered in, threw dim stripes on the floor. "Why ya do it then?"

  Arty could not hold back a quick nervous laugh. He heard it from the wrong side of his ears and realized he was a little drunker than he'd thought. He realized something else as well: He was looking at Vincente, past the folds and wrinkles that, depending on how hard you dared to look, either hid his eyes or lured you farther into them, and all at once he understood that the man's power, his leadership, lay in the fact that he could not be fibbed to, or not for long; he would draw out truth like salt drew water out of fruit. Arty felt fear and reassurance together, a sort of jumpy freedom. "It's my living," he said.

  "You're educated," said Vincente. "Bright. Ya don't like it, ya could do other things."

  Arty drank some wine. He hazily remembered being told as a child that he had to tell the truth, and as long as he did so he would not be punished. This was one of the disastrous childhood lessons that adults had to unlearn, and in unlearning it grow sad and dead at heart; in the Godfather's rumbling voice and unflinching tunnel eyes was a brutal reassertion of that lesson, a defiant claim that in his small world the rule still held. "Yeah," the guest admitted. "I could."

  "It's not that easy to switch," Debbi Martini put in. "Even with my job—"

  "Your job." Gino cut her off. "Dogs' toenails. Besides, you ain't educated."

  She reddened. It was hard to tell if it was pique, or alcoholic flush, or sunburn growing ripe.

  "Secrets," Vincente said to Arty. "Newspaper business, I'd think you'd have ta keep a lotta secrets."

  "Sometimes," Arty said.

  "Like someone tells ya somethin', confidential like. It's a whaddyacallit, an ethical thing, ya can't tell nobody, right?"

  "That's right," said the editor.

  The Godfather nodded, considered. Slowly he leaned forward, picked up the wine bott
le, and refilled Arty's glass. He poured a splash into his own and raised it in a silent toast. It took him a long time to settle back against his seat, and when he'd done so he fixed the guest from under the ledge of his eyebrows. "So Ahty," he rumbled. "Y'ever tell?"

  The editor felt pinned in his chair, felt as though leather straps had suddenly bound his wrists and ankles. He stared down the chute of the Godfather's eyes. He knew absolutely that he was being judged, and yet he had no difficulty with his answer. "No," he said. "Never."

  Vincente held the stare a moment longer, seemed to be harboring Arty's words in the deep whorls of his old man's ears, testing them for an echo that might yet prove false. Satisfied, he did not relax his vigilance but redoubled it. There then came one of those dizzying moments that changes everything, that cleaves time once and for all into before and after. The Godfather had been introduced only as Vincente, Gino only as Gino; the weighty name Delgatto had never yet been spoken. The evening had been a charade of innocence, of not saying what was known. Now the Godfather was calling off the farce, bestowing on Arty the flattering and perilous gift of candor.

  "My business too," he rasped. "Lotta secrets. All secrets, my business. Lotta things ya don't wanna tell. Lotta things ya wanna tell and can't."

  "Must be difficult," Arty said.

  Vincente looked at him hard, decided that he understood.

  "Me, I can't keep a secret worth beans," said Debbi.

  "Which is why nobody tells you nothin'," Gino said.

  Joey and Sandra came out of the kitchen. Joey carried a tray with an espresso pot and cups and a plate of pignolia cookies. Sandra held an enormous bowl of fruit salad: pineapple, papaya, mango, tangerine. But the little dinner party had got away from them somehow, words and glances had been rerouted; their own dining room seemed strange, as if in their brief absence someone had rearranged the furniture. Coffee was sipped, dessert nibbled, but conversation sputtered, chairs no longer felt comfortable, and it came as a relief when Gino slapped down his cup and said abruptly, "Who wants a cigar?"