* * *
Vincent didn’t mention Miami Beach, that it was time for him to go home, past time; he would set it aside for a while. They were together now, closer because they had been apart. They sat in the sun at Escambron beneath that clean sky and talked about things as they thought of them, Teddy already out of the way as a topic, done to death.
“I can’t play with him anymore.”
“Good. But it makes you mad.”
“More than that.”
“You have to forget about him.”
He was trying. They watched the sleek young bodies in skimpy stringy bathing suits, the vendors cooking, selling, the families on blankets, and looked out at the low barrier of rock a hundred yards offshore and imagined it, squinting, a rusting snip’s hull, a long brown submarine . . . And a red Chevette behind them. Parked back in the shade of Australian pines. He didn’t imagine the car, it was there, and felt someone inside it watching them—trying to forget Teddy but feeling his presence.
Linda had said, “I missed you, Vincent. Boy, did I miss you.” And it was true, he believed it. But then learned another truth. An executive at Bally’s had forced a keyboard player on Linda. “A guy who used to arrange for Jerry Vale—I’m not kidding, he actually did, and he brought his charts, very tight with the exec, you understand, had worked for him before and I was supposed to play his music, this high romantic drama or cute little happy Italian numbers . . .”
“So you didn’t leave there—” Vincent began.
“Wait. I had to get out, Vincent, it’s true, I won’t lie to you. But I missed you—I mean I really missed you, and that’s truer. I could’ve gone to Orlando, I had an offer . . .”
“You got a ride with Jackie . . .”
“I went to see Tommy about a job and ran into Jackie as he was getting ready to leave. He said the building was starting to shake and things were coming loose. He said he needed somebody to talk to, preferably a woman.”
“He sounds different.”
“Don’t you know why? Wait. First I find out Miss Congeniality left him.”
“She didn’t.”
“LaDonna went back to Tulsa. Jackie said after all he did for her. Could’ve made her a star. Then, I find out, he had a long session with the cops, I guess about Ricky and the guy Ricky shot.”
Vincent said, “That was it,” with a grin. Jackie had got out before they connected him with the bad guys; no other reason. “He’s the same Jackie but he sounds different.”
“That’s it exactly. He was more nervous than usual—I mean when I went to see him. But he came onto me without wasting a minute. ‘You want to work, kid? You’re just what I need down at Isla Verde, make you a star within eight weeks, guaranteed.’ The hotshot from Vegas. On the plane he starts telling me about all the celebrities he knows, his very dear friends, all the personally signed photographs in his office and how he makes a bet with everybody who comes in . . .”
Vincent nodding, “I know.”
“. . . he’ll give ’em a hundred bucks if they can name a major fucking entertainer who isn’t on that wall. Well, I bet him a hundred bucks he couldn’t go the whole trip, from wherever we were at the time all the way to San Juan without saying ‘fuck’ in one form or another at least once.”
“He lost.”
“He could barely speak. He’d start to say something and there’d be a long pause, like he was learning a foreign language. Finally he said, ‘Fuck it,’ and handed me a hundred-dollar bill and said he was going to do it on his own.”
“That’s what it was,” Vincent said, “I noticed in the lounge. It isn’t that he listens any more than he ever did. But he didn’t use the word, I don’t think even once.”
“He did use it once, I remember,” Linda said, “but for Jackie that’s fucking remarkable.”
* * *
As they dressed to go to dinner Linda watched Vincent slip the blue-steel automatic in the waist of his trousers, at the small of his back, and glance at his profile in the dresser mirror, his linen sportcoat hanging open, limp.
“You saw him,” Linda said.
“I think so.”
“He knows where we are?”
“I think so.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re shutting me out,” Linda said.
No, he was detached; he was a policeman, he knew how to get outside of himself, look at something without letting his feelings get in the way. Teddy might be back but he was not between them. He told her that at dinner in the Spanish restaurant, Torreblanca. He told her Teddy would have to wait, and maybe he would get tired of it and go home. He told her he wasn’t worried about Teddy, as long as he sat facing the door. Linda said, “I’ve never even seen him.”
Vincent said, “Would you like to?”
They came out of the restaurant, waited as the parking attendant brought them the white Chevette, backing it up the entrance drive from the street. “He’s about halfway down the block,” Vincent said, “to the left.”
Ready to tail them. Magdalena one-way east and Vincent would have to turn to the right leaving the drive.
But he didn’t. He turned left, no cars coming in the moments it took to coast quietly toward the red Chevette, head on, to hear tree frogs shrilling and see Teddy raise his hand in the headlight beam—there he was. Linda saying, “That’s Teddy?” as Vincent cut around the car and picked up speed. He turned off Magdalena at the end of the block.
“That’s Teddy.”
In the night traffic on Ashford Avenue, the young Puerto Ricans cruising the Condado section, he appeared behind them again. Vincent kept track of him in his mirror. Linda turned in her seat to look back.
“He waved. Did you see him?”
Vincent didn’t answer.
The red Chevette’s headlights moved out of the rearview mirror. Vincent glanced over. Teddy was coming up gradually on their right. They stopped at a light and Teddy pulled up next to them, close.
Linda said it again. “That’s Teddy?”
Vincent watched him, Teddy looking straight ahead, drumming lightly on the steering wheel to the music coming from the car radio. The light changed. Teddy looked over and gave them his smirky grin.
Linda said, “You haven’t even laid a hand on him? I don’t believe it.”
“If I started,” Vincent said, “I don’t think I could stop.”
“Why would you want to?” Linda said.
The white Chevette and the red Chevette crept along in traffic side by side, came to a stop at the light in front of the Holiday Inn.
Teddy looked over. He said, “This your new girlfriend? . . . Nice-looking babe.” He waited, staring, Linda staring back at him. “ ‘Ey, arn’cha talking to me no more?”
Vincent kept quiet; he believed he’d better.
Linda turned to him. She said, “Vincent?” But didn’t say anything after that.
Teddy said, “She as good as our PR pussy was?”
The light changed.
Vincent was watching it and the white Chevette moved off the light ahead of the red Chevette, coming to the end of Condado Beach now, out of the rows of hotels and shops, to cross the low bridge that was like a section of causeway over the inlet and pointed one-way in the direction of Old San Juan.
Vincent pushed the white Chevette to forty-five watching the mirror to see the red Chevette gaining, coming up again in the lane on Linda’s side. He eased back slightly on the accelerator. The red Chevette came up, pulled even, close to them, Vincent thinking, Give him a nudge, just enough. Teddy was yelling in the wind, through his open window and into their car, “ ‘Ey, stupid! Catch me if you can!”
Now, Vincent was thinking, ready to crank the wheel, when Linda beat him to it—Jesus, with the same thought, the same urge—grabbed the top of the steering wheel with both hands, gave it a quick hard yank to the right as she yelled, “Fuck you, Ted!” Even the proper name he would have used, amazing. And saw the
guy’s eyes go wild in the moment the white Chevette tore into the side of the red Chevette, metal scraping ripping metal, forcing the red one to veer off and jump the sidewalk, out of control. The white one slowed down, Vincent and Linda looking back at the sounds of horns and brakes; the red one last seen, a glimpse of it, plowing along the guardrail, metal scraping cement till it ground to a stop.
He told her in the night he wasn’t going to lose her. Not now, after all this. She told him he couldn’t lose her if he tried.
They could tell each other in different ways they were in love and couldn’t live without each other and become analytical and say it wasn’t just physical either, the hots. Was it? It was physical, you bet it was, not able to get enough of each other, but it was even more than that. Wasn’t it? Yes, of course, it was. It was real. They could talk in the night about love, with feeling, using familiar words, and it sounded wonderful, natural, no other way to say it.
But he had to go home.
Tomorrow they’d go to Mayaguez and the day after that, in the afternoon, he’d leave for Miami.
She understood. She had an eight-week engagement and would do part of it, a couple of weeks, then follow him to Miami and find work.
She said, “You can’t follow me around, doing what you do, and you’re more important to me than playing a piano, Vincent. But I wish I could make you stay a while. I wish you had just come here on your leave and I had just started playing . . . I play better when I know you’re close by . . . And we’d have all day together and almost all night and nothing to think about but us. Wouldn’t that be neat?”
“That would be neat,” Vincent said.
Later on in the night, waking up, he walked to the balcony and stood for several minutes looking down at the empty street.
Teddy got up during the night to go to the bathroom. “Go potty,” his mom called it; woman her age. She’d even say to Buddy, poop all over his stand, “Buddy go potty?” Tub a lard trying to be cute. He had actually been inside her and almost killed her, she said, coming out at birth. Well, excuuuse me. It could still be arranged. She’s sleeping, hold a pillow over her face so as not to have to look at her. Lay on top of it till she finally quit bucking and breathing and he would never have to hear her say “Kisser mom” or “Buddy go potty” again. He shouldn’t think things like that. He said to the bathroom mirror, “Would you do that to your mom?” Then had to grin at himself, turning his head to look at the grin from different angles.
“Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.”
“Haven’t I seen you someplace before?”
“Now you do, now you don’t.”
“Wait.”
He stared at himself in silence, not grinning now.
“When you gonna do it?”
“What?”
“You know what.”
He stared at himself in silence.
“Tomorrow. Didn’t I tell you?”
28
* * *
IN MAYAGUEZ, in a barrio called Dulces Labios, they found Iris’s grandmother living in a house made of scrap lumber painted light blue. The grandmother sent for relatives to come and Vincent and Linda waited, standing by the white Chevette with red scrape marks on its side. They were tired from the drive. It had rained on the way here from San Juan. They didn’t look forward to the hours it would take them to drive back, or the road or the leisurely traffic. At least they were together; they had been together in this from the beginning and it was part of the feeling between them. When the women came Vincent presented the stainless steel urn to the grandmother. She hesitated before taking it and passed it on quickly as she saw her reflection in the polished metal. Each woman in turn looked away to avoid seeing herself in the urn, passing it on and making the sign of the cross. Vincent told them Iris’s death was an accident; one night she fell from the balcony of an apartment. He said he was very sorry to have to tell them this; he said Iris’s friends loved her and would miss her. The women nodded. None of them asked him how it happened that she fell. She fell; they accepted it or didn’t wish to know how or why or if anyone was with her.
It was done. They were relieved but remained silent until they were out of the barrio called Sweet Lips, past the docks of the port and finally in the country, out in the island. They let the wind blow into their open windows, the sun fading behind them.
“You’ve done this before,” Linda said.
“I’ve never delivered ashes.”
“I mean told people someone was dead, the relatives.”
“Too many times.”
“You do it so well. You show you care.”
He turned the radio on to static and turned it off.
“I’m glad I didn’t say anything at the funeral home. Remember?”
“To young Mr. Bertoia?”
“It would’ve been dumb.”
“There was no need to.”
“You have a nice calming effect on me, Vincent.” After a moment she said, “Except when we’re in bed.”
It was full dark by the time they got back to the Carmen Apartments and pulled into the parking area, the courtyard by the liquor store.
* * *
Teddy said out loud, “Well, it’s about time. Where’n the hell you been, sightseeing? Shit, keeping me waiting.”
He watched them from across the street, sitting in the dark-gray Dodge Aries he’d got when he turned the Chevette in as defective. He’d watched the two PRs that worked for Hertz walk around the car running their hands over it, waiting for them to ask what happened. Was he in a wreck? Was it reported to the police? He told them he’d left the car parked on the street and this was how he found it. Somebody must a sideswiped it. They said, on both sides at once? On this side, yes. See, white paint? But on the other side—what did it, a building? Getting smart with him. He didn’t have to explain nothing. He told them to get another car for him, fast, or he wouldn’t give them any more of his business. They had sure taken their time about it.
Vincent and his girlfriend Linda were out of the white Chevette, walking away from it arm in arm. Wasn’t that sweet? They stopped like they were going to go into the liquor store. Nope, decided not to, kept going and went in the apartment entrance.
Teddy slid down some in his seat so he could look up at their balcony now, second floor, directly above the liquor store. He waited for lights to come on . . . There.
“Now make yourselves a couple of drinks,” Teddy said. He told them they were thirsty from all that sightseeing. He told them to get comfortable and bring their drinks out on the balcony, get some fresh air. Sitting down or standing up, it didn’t matter to him. Or whether he looked in the cop’s eyes or not. The hell with it. Teddy had made up his mind he was going to get it done. Soon as they appeared—walk out into the street like he was crossing, stop, aim his .38 up there and give ’em each three rounds, Vincent first and foremost, Vincent more than three if it was necessary. A woman you could go up there and kill all different ways. Have some fun.
It looked like only one light was on up there. What were they doing? Teddy said, “ ‘Ey, you can screw her anytime. Come on out on the balcony.” He waited. Shit.
A figure appeared, moving the curtain aside.
There was nothing attractive about the street in daylight, a turnoff to the Caribe Hilton at the end of the block. In darkness now the street showed moments of life, cars occasionally moving past, reflecting the liquor store’s lights on painted metal. The ocean, a long block away, lay hidden, with only a faint trace of its scent in the night air. Linda breathed it in and out: Linda on the balcony in the short light wrap LaDonna had worn, Linda seeing the Hilton lights and thinking of LaDonna, who had walked away from the noise, the neon dazzle. No, LaDonna had backed away, still bewildered . . . soon to appear at shopping-mall openings and say or sing whatever she was told. It would happen because LaDonna wanted to be seen and LaDonna would strike a glamor pose and shine in the glitter of commercial lighting. You had to have talent and style
to turn on your own lights and perform for an audience that listened and knew what you were doing and if they didn’t, okay, you played for yourself, and your husband, your lover. How about in a beachhouse on Key Largo? Linda sipped chablis from a water glass, let the curtains fall in place as she heard Vincent.
“It’s all yours.”
Vincent stood in the living room in his white briefs, buttoning his shirt.
“You have great legs.”
“So do you.”
“As good as LaDonna’s?”
“Who’s LaDonna?”
She held up the glass. “We could use some more of this.”
“It’s on the list. You think of anything else?”
“Bread?”
“We’ve got the rolls. Empanadillas for appetizers, a mixed salad, alcapurrias, what else? DeLeon’s friend’s bringing the piononos. Wine, coffee, I’ll get some booze . . .”
“Vincent? Am I going to have to learn to cook Puerto Rican?”
“You’ll love it.”
He was going back into the bedroom and she raised her voice. “That’s not an answer.”
She heard him say, “You need cigarettes?”
“Yes. Please.”
“What else?”
“That’s all. What time are they coming?”
“I have to give the Moose a call.” There was a silence. She finished the wine in her glass. Vincent appeared in the living room again, dressed now in his blue shirt and faded khakis. “I didn’t know what time we’d be back.”
“Don’t forget to call the hotel.”
“I won’t. I’ll tell them you’ve got the trots. Puerto Rican food will do it to you.”
“Vincent?”
“What?”
“This is our last night.”
“Our last one here.” He walked to the door and opened it. “We can do a lot better than this. Be right back.”
Glitz Page 26
