What he did believe, with his jock attitude, he could swim every evening, jog a mile now and then and drink all the beer he wanted, it was okay, and nip at stronger stuff. Tommy would say, “Look at Paul Newman, he drinks beer all the time.” He would say, “I might not look it but I’m in shape, guy my age,” and slap his belly with both hands. “Go on, hit me as hard as you can,” arms extended, offering himself. “Sock it to me.” Tommy was easy to cast. Vincent Mora . . .
She saw Vincent as an artist, a sculptor who worked with scrap iron. Or painted murals on barrio walls. Or the wrong man, with his sinister look, falsely accused. But in close shots you know he’s innocent. Look at those eyes. She asked what happened and he said, “I got shot.” Not giving it much, a nice sense of timing. He could be an actor. She liked his smile, his sorta-wild dark look with the jacket and tie. “I got shot.” Where? “In Miami Beach.” That was all right, he could get away with it. Fifteen years a policeman, playing cops and robbers. She asked him if he was good at it and he nodded, yes. She asked him if he was afraid now that’d been shot and knew it could happen to him and he nodded again and said yes, it was different now. She asked him if he had ever entrapped anyone and he said, “Not that you’d notice.”
She asked questions easily and got answers. She had gone from her home in Narberth, Pennsylvania, to Emerson College in Boston to become an actress, but couldn’t get out of her head long enough to manufacture emotions. Since she rarely if ever cried, even in movies, it wasn’t something she could do on cue. She joined a casting service in New York and worked with film actors and got them good parts. She liked actors, thought she enjoyed the work—but wait a minute. She was putting all her energy into pushing their careers. What about her own? . . . She was home for Christmas when she met a tweedy martini drinker named Kip Burkette at the Merion Cricket Club. Sweet guy, prematurely gray, properly good looking, major shareholder of Burkette Investments, Philadephia. She married Kip and moved to Bryn Mawr, became rich and was used to it long before Tommy arrived . . .
Tommy coming up the steps now to the deck, dripping on the blue tile . . .
At the wrong time, too soon after, she had compared Donovan the deal-maker, the closer, to Kip, the ivy-covered gentleman, listened to Donovan’s breezy style after ten years of Kip’s monotone, his Main Line lockjaw . . .
Tommy coming into candlelight with his can of beer, towel stretched low about his hips.
“We gonna eat in or go out?”
“I heard a scream,” Nancy said, “I think Dominga saw you coming out of the pool and ran.”
“ ‘Aiii, that Señor Donovan,’ “ Tommy said, “telling her girlfriends all about it. ‘Ees hong like a caballo.”
“Dominga say that, or was it Iris?”
“Iris? Who in the hell’s Iris?”
“You’re sending her to Atlantic City.”
“Is that right? Iris, huh?”
“Is she for you or customers? Or maybe Jackie.”
“Come on—I don’t know any Iris. Wouldn’t I remember a broad named Iris?”
“Especially this one,” Nancy said. “I hear she’s a knockout. Twenty years old, gorgeous.”
“You mean Eer-es? Yeah, that’s Iris. I didn’t know who you were talking about. Yeah, she isn’t bad looking at all. Blond hair with the dark skin.”
“Where’re you going to use her?”
“I don’t know, the lounge. Cocktail waitress maybe. Who told you about her?”
“Her boyfriend. He came to see you, wanted to know what a hostess does.”
“Jesus, gonna defend her honor. Those guys kill me, get very dramatic about it.”
“He’s a cop,” Nancy said.
“You serious? That’s what I need, a hot-blooded, pissed-off Puerto Rican cop. With a gun.”
He said this was the kind of thing, another example, it wasn’t Gaming Enforcement or the Casino Control Commission causing him problems. It was always little guys with fucked-up personalities. Guys like this cop could turn out to be. They had loose wiring or some fucking thing, like they weren’t plugged into the real world. Guys at the top, Tommy said, you didn’t have any trouble with. You could always deal with guys at the top. But little guys with wild hairs up their ass, there was no book on guys like that.
There were times when Nancy listened to him, fascinated.
She thought of clarifying one point. The cop was from Miami Beach, not Puerto Rico. But Tommy kept talking and later, when she thought of it again, she decided why bother? Two weeks from now she would remember, she had not prepared her husband for Vincent Mora.
5
* * *
TEDDY PLAYED WITH VINCENT the next day. That was his plan, the way it started out.
He parked the Datsun at the beach so Vincent would be sure to see him. Not too close but sitting by itself in the shade of Australian pines. What a day—bright and fair as usual at the postcard beach. If Vincent came over he would take off: he didn’t want to talk to him, he wanted to worry him, get him worked up. But Vincent didn’t come over. He was alone sitting in his chair. Some of the girls would stop by and talk to him, but they didn’t stay long.
Next, later that afternoon, Teddy parked near the old Normandie Hotel and watched Vincent walk past with his cane and his chair on the other side of the street, not limping as much as he had the day before. Vincent looked over, was all he did. Teddy felt like yelling at him, “ ‘Ey, where’s your girlfriend? You go for that PR pussy, ‘ey? So do I, man, so do I.” But he didn’t.
Next, he trailed Vincent to the Carmen Apartments and parked across the street, near the entrance to the Hilton. He could sit out here as long as it might take, easy, after living in a Florida cellblock with the heat and smell of that place, the smell of cons. Different cons smelled different. The ones that put cologne on over their smell were the worst. Jesus, enough to make you gag. There were others smelled pretty good. He saw Vincent appear and go in the liquor store. He would’ve had trouble recognizing him from that time before, over seven years ago, with the beard he wore now. Though once he’d studied the pictures he took he knew he had his man. He’d learned at Raiford, just before he got his release, that Vincent had been shot. There were some happy boys in the yard that day, feeling they should have ice cream and cake. Cons at Raiford knew everything and liked to gossip. They said he got capped by a junkie; shit, but didn’t die. Teddy got out and learned on the streets of Miami Beach where Vincent lived, that he had once been married—a guy who sold dope out of the hospital saw Vincent there when his wife died—and so on. It was no problem to call the Detective Bureau and say he’d checked Vincent’s apartment, he wasn’t home; ask after him, how was he doing?, sounding like a friend of Vincent’s, sincere. Cops were dumb.
When Vincent came out of the liquor store he looked over and Teddy was ready to get out of there. But Vincent didn’t come over, he went back up to his apartment.
Next, Teddy thought he might have a refreshment himself. So he went over to the liquor store, bought a pint of light rum, a few cans of Fresca and some paper cups. When he got back to the car two PRs were standing there. Skinny guys, taller than most, taller than Teddy, with little thin mustaches. They looked like twin PRs, both wearing those PR shirts with pleats and pockets that hung outside the pants. They looked familiar.
One of them opened his wallet to show his I.D. and said, “Policia.” They were cops. They looked familiar because Teddy believed, from his observations, all PR cops looked alike. Skinny guys with little mustaches.
He said, “Officer, I parked in the wrong spot, ‘ey? I’ll move it right out.”
But one of the cops opened the door on the passenger side, pulled the seat up and motioned for him to get in, in back, while the other one went around to the driver’s side. As that one got in Teddy saw the bulge and the tip of the black holster sticking out from under his shirt. He said, “ ‘Ey, wait a minute. Where we going?” The one behind the wheel motioned for the key, asking for it, Teddy believed, in S
panish. “The hell you guys doing? I parked in the wrong spot, gimme a ticket, ‘ey? Christ, you take people in for illegal parking? Listen, why don’t I just pay the fine right now? Save us some time.” He pulled his shirt up to show his money belt, but they weren’t looking, both of them in the car now, in front. He tapped one of them on the shoulder and the guy looked around. “Officer, how about I give you guys some dollares? How much you need?”
No dice. They drove off and didn’t look back at him again, though the two chattered at each other in that machine-gun PR Spanish, clickety-clicking away as they drove through traffic east out of San Juan, Teddy thinking, Jesus Christ, thinking of that cab driver dead up in the rain forest. Had somebody found him? Except—wait a minute—it sure as hell didn’t look like they were going to a police station. And then he began to think, Are these birds really cops?
They drove along a beach road with no other cars in sight, empty beaches and the ocean seen through palm trees off to the left, beautiful, though the road was a bitch, full of potholes that had Teddy’s head bouncing off the roof. “Take it easy, asshole!” The driver looked hard at the rearview mirror. He knew what asshole meant. They drove, it must have been twenty miles out of San Juan, the light getting flat, dusk approaching, when they came to the end of the road.
Teddy looked through the windshield at the rear end of a gray car waiting. Beyond it was an inlet or the mouth of a river, mangrove along the banks, about a hundred yards across. All he could see over there was vegetation and a few shacks. They could be in Africa.
The gray car in front of them moved ahead and now Teddy saw the metal barge at the end of the road: a dirty flatbed raft, handrails on two sides, rusting out. The gray car eased aboard and they followed, creeping, bumping over the metal ramp and onto the barge that might hold six cars, but only the two today. A black guy stood on the outside of the rail holding onto a pair of thin ropes. Another black guy appeared from behind Teddy’s car to join the first black guy. The barge was moving now, drifting, Teddy could feel it, pushing through the mangrove leaves thick in the water. Now the two black guys began to pull on the pair of ropes and this jungle ferryboat eased out into clear water at about a half mile an hour. Jesus. He could see that not far upstream the river or inlet took a bend out of sight . . . toward those cloudy mountains where a cab driver lay dead.
The two PRs got out; the one pulled his seat forward and Teddy got out. He stood by the side of the car watching the two black guys pulling on the ropes, in unison, in no hurry—shit, not going anywhere. He watched them because he couldn’t believe it, these guys actually pulling on ropes, hauling cars that could roll off this thing and go close to a hundred miles an hour. When they were out in the middle of the stream the two rope pullers quit and lit up cigarettes, though they held onto the ropes. Teddy believed they were taking their break. Sure, they had been working at least ten minutes. The ferry began to drift a little toward the ocean. It was quiet out here. One of the PRs came over then and began talking to him.
Teddy squinted, watching the guy’s mouth, looking for a familiar word in that clickety-click Spanish, trying at least to catch the guy’s tone. Was he pissed off or what? Teddy looked over at one of the rope pullers. “You know what he’s saying?” The rope puller didn’t answer him.
Now the other PR started on him, sounding like he was asking questions. Teddy had forgot about the gray car ahead of them on the barge, some kind of Chevy. Until he noticed, looking past the PR talking to him, the door open.
Vincent Mora got out.
Teddy said, “Jesus Christ!” Experiencing a revelation. He saw Vincent look at him a moment, then come around to stand between the two cars. “Mr. Magic,” Vincent said to him. “How you doing, Teddy?” Then looked off, taking in the sights. Pretending to.
What were they pulling here? So he’d been made. Okay. The guy had finally remembered him or somehow had him checked out. Cops had all kinds of computer shit they used now . . . One of the PRs started talking to him again, asking a question, but Teddy kept his sunglasses on the bearded American English-speaking son of a bitch who had once put him away.
“You mind telling me what you’re doing?”
“I’m not doing anything.” Vincent motioned with his cane. “Looks like you’re in the hands of the Puerto Rican Police.”
“Okay.” Patient. “You mind telling me what they’re doing?”
“They’re harassing you. They’re giving you a hard time. What’d you think they were doing?”
“What for? I haven’t done nothing.”
“Yeah, well, they know about you. They want to ask you something.”
“Get me all the way out here, uh-huh, and what’re you, the interpreter?”
“That’s right.”
“Bullshit.”
One of the Puerto Rican cops said something to Teddy.
He saw Vincent listen, then begin to nod. “He says you should be careful where you go. Come out to a place like this . . .”
“Cut the shit, ‘ey? You think I asked to come here?”
The Puerto Rican cop spoke again, no expression on his face, reciting something.
Now Vincent said to him, “They want to know if you’ve ever been to Caguas.”
“The hell’s Caguas?”
“Take the freeway south out of San Juan through Hato Rey, it goes to Caguas.”
“Yeah? So?”
The Puerto Rican cop spoke again.
Vincent said to Teddy, “He says, on the way to Caguas you see Oso Blanco.”
“Is that right?” Teddy said. “The fuck’s Oso Blanco?”
“The joint,” Vincent said to him. “They call it the White Bear. You see it off to the left when you’re on Number One. It isn’t white, it’s sorta tan. Big place, twenty-foot double fences with barbed wire on top, gun towers all the way around. You can’t miss it.”
The Puerto Rican cop spoke again.
Vincent said to Teddy, “He says, you do time in Oso Blanco, it would make Raiford seem like Disneyworld.”
“Bullshit,” Teddy said. Guy was putting him on and he knew it.
“That’s what he said,” Vincent said to him.
“You bring me all the way out here to give me this shit?”
“They want you on a plane tomorrow.”
“Come on, ‘ey?”
“They know all about you and they don’t like you.” Vincent walked up to him now to stand face to face, less than a couple of feet separating them. “I don’t like you either. I can’t stand to look at you. They say they don’t want to see you again after four-thirty tomorrow.”
Teddy felt restless, wanting to hit him, give him a shove. He said, “Bullshit. I can stay here long as I want.”
“They say if you’re still here they’ll find some smack in your bag and you’ll stay ten to twenty. That long enough?”
“You guys, you cop assholes,” Teddy said, “you’re all alike, aren’t you?”
“No,” Vincent said to him, “we’re not. These guys see you again they’ll bring you up on something, dope, assault with intent, and throw you in the can. I see you again, well, that’s a different story.”
Teddy had to squint at that bearded face, stare hard through his sunglasses to read the guy’s cop eyes. He said, “Bullshit.” Because the guy’s eyes didn’t look mean, they looked sad, or tired. They were not the eyes he remembered from seven and a half years ago.
Vincent said to him, “Teddy, I know where you’ve been, what you learned in there, how to make a shiv, how you settle your differences. I know what a sly little back-sticking motherfucker you are and I know what you feel like doing.”
“You know everything, ‘ey?”
“I know I’m not gonna walk backwards the rest of my life,” Vincent said to him, “worry about a freak who wants to get even. You understand what I’m saying? Nod your head, I don’t want to hear any more from you.”
Teddy was about to speak, but the curved end of the cop’s cane came up to rest agains
t the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t say it,” Vincent said to him.
Teddy didn’t move. Those eyes were different now. They still weren’t mean, they were calm. But they stared into him the way they had stared once before—when he had opened his own eyes to see the gun in his face in the hotel room in South Beach and the cop’s eyes staring. He wanted to say, Jesus, loud as he could, You don’t know anything! Yell it out. You don’t know shit! Scream it in that cop face.
But he clenched his jaw shut to keep from making even a sound and when the cop told him to nod his head, yes, he was leaving and would never come back, he nodded his head down and up, once. Because the cop’s eyes told him the cop was ready to kill him if he didn’t.
6
* * *
IRIS SAT IN THE EASTERN BOARDING LOUNGE waiting for the flight to someplace in Florida where she would get on another flight to Atlantic City. “Follow me,” Tommy Donovan had said, “when we change in Tampa-St. Pete,” and winked at her and said he didn’t want to lose her. “But don’t talk to me. You understand? I’m going to be with someone.”
Sure, he was with his wife. His wife was attractive, beautifully dressed—sitting over there by herself reading a magazine—but she was old. She was perhaps forty, or close to it. Sitting with her legs crossed, nothing to worry about. Not with her money. Tommy was standing in line at the Duty Free counter. He had said to her, “Have you got a coat? It’s going to be cold up there for a while.”
She had a pink sweater with sequins in her shopping bag and a black raincoat like rubber across her lap for the weather. She had a Mademoiselle magazine also in the shopping bag to read on the plane, select a wardrobe to buy in Atlantic City. She could hardly wait now. She didn’t care if it was cold up there, she’d buy a fur coat, a long white one. Wear a green silk scarf with it, look nice. Tommy would buy her whatever she wanted.
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