Tropical Depression

by Laurence Shames

  "I know that," Tommy said.

  "Of course you do," said LaRue. "I'm sure you're very smart about these things. So you'll see the advantage of having a professional like Mr. Ponte on your side."

  "I already have a partner, thank you."

  LaRue ignored the comment.

  "You'll be building a casino," he announced. "Once it's open, you'll get twenty thousand a month, no strings. You'll sign papers, you'll be around for ceremonies. That's all you have to do."

  "I'm not interested," said Tommy.

  "Listen, Chief—" said Ponte.

  "And please don't call me that."

  The mobster took a moment to collect himself. He pulled down on the waistband of his silver- zippered jacket, he put on a ghastly smile that stretched the liver-colored sacs beneath his eyes. "All right then," he said pleasantly. "Not Chief. Fuckstick. Listen, Fuckstick, the deal we're offering, the partnership—"

  "I have a partner. I told you that."

  Ponte stubbed out the cigar on the senator's desk blotter. Bruno sidled closer to Tommy, it was as if a tree had lifted its roots and walked. Tommy smelled B.O. and aftershave.

  The mobster pulled his eyes away from the stubborn Indian and asked LaRue: "This partner—'zit the crazy Yid ya tol' me about?"

  The senator nodded that it was. Then he looked vengefully at Tommy. "The one who witnessed the treaty. Meddlesome type. Always underfoot. A nuisance."

  Ponte rocked in his seat in some ghoulish parody of mirth. "Ya know," he said, "I almost gotta laugh."

  Bruno took this as a cue, he came forth with a constipated high-pitched titter that set Tommy's hair on end and started perspiration trickling down his spine.

  "A fuckin' nobody," the Boss continued. "A kike amateur. But okay, okay. Ya got a lot on your mind just now. I unnerstand. So take a little time, think things over—"

  "There's nothing to think over," said Tommy.

  Ponte glanced at Bruno. Bruno leaned down toward the stocky Indian and threw an arm around him, the gesture was almost lovey except that Tommy's collarbones were bending in like the ends of an overdrawn bow.

  "I think there is," the mobster said.

  Bruno gave a final squeeze then slacked his grip. The Indian felt his skeleton rearranging.

  LaRue smiled, never raised his voice. "Tommy," he said, "we realize this is all very new for you, a period of adjustment. But a lot of things will be much easier once you understand we own your red ass now."

  Tommy pursed his lips, thought that over. He'd had a lot to drink. He was scared but not as scared as he should have been. He'd come around to being in that bar-brawl frame of mind where there was something sickly fine about being threatened, hit, because it gave you a cherished opportunity to hit back. "You own my ass," he mulled, "you can kiss it anytime you like."

  He spun like a halfback, got free of Bruno's grip. The big man made a move toward him, but Ponte, with a lifted eyebrow, called him off. Tommy yanked open the study door and skittered through it, falling prey to the comforting but dangerous illusion that he'd won the skirmish, that the first round was his, that maybe his opponents would retreat.

  He wanted badly to believe that, but still, outrage and a seeping dread overtook him in the hallway, caught up suddenly like the panic of realizing you are choking on a piece of steak. All at once his temples were pounding, the bones in his legs felt fused. He lumbered through the maze of hallways, across the crowded smoky living room; he recognized no one, bodies looked warped and wavy, faces were masks with black absences for eyes and smeared red gashes for mouths.

  He could barely breathe, he struggled toward the balcony for air, trying vainly to calm himself as he went. He saw Murray standing very close to Franny, whispering to her, their faces silhouetted in the dusk, and instantly he knew what he and his partner had to do: They had to meet this enemy together, stare him down, show him their resolve, and do it now, before the will of the adversary had time to gather and to crest.

  The Bra King watched his friend approaching, saw the wild eyes and sweat-darkened blue shirt. "Tommy, what's goin'—"

  "Murray, come with me a minute."

  "Wha—?"

  "Just come with me. Right now."

  Murray pulled his brows together, handed his empty glass to Franny.

  He followed Tommy in his headlong ramble through the thinning party, down the lighted hallway, past the bathroom, around the bend to where the corridor was dark. Without knocking, with only the briefest hesitation for a gulp of air, the Indian threw open the study door.

  The room was dim, and, standing by an open window, drawing deeply on a glowing joint, was Pascal the houseboy. Mingled with the smell of hemp was the memory of a good cigar and the lingering feral stink of Bruno, but no one else was in the room.

  The affronted young man in the bowtie put a hand on a hip and fixed the intruders with a petulant glare. "Do you mind'"' he said.

  "Tommy, talk ta me," said Murray.

  The Indian said nothing for a moment, his face was twisted with rage and confusion and fear and relief. "Never mind," he said, in what he took for triumph. "The chickenshits are gone already."

  They gathered up Franny and were out the door without saying their goodbyes.

  20

  That evening they had a romantic candlelit dinner for three.

  They sat in a quiet garden under an enormous breadfruit tree. Bougainvillea flowers, thin and dry as tracing paper, chattered softly against a latticework fence. Overhead, a tired Orion was laboring up the steep late-winter sky, his brilliance dimmed by an eggshell-white half-moon.

  They got their drinks, and after they'd clinked glasses, Murray said, "So Tommy, ya wanna tell me what went on in there?"

  The Indian didn't want to. With great difficulty he'd composed himself, he didn't want to get riled again. He'd persuaded himself he'd handled the confrontation very well; but that belief was fragile, he didn't want to mess with it.

  "I probably made more of it than it deserves," he said.

  "Made more of what?" asked Murray.

  Tommy sipped bourbon, said nothing. It wasn't the time, the place, he didn't want to go into it in front of Franny.

  "What was it you made too much of?" Murray pressed. "This is what I'm asking."

  "I just had to talk to one person too many. Let's leave it at that."

  "So who was the one person?"

  Tommy shook his head and blubbered his lips like he was under a too-cold shower, then turned to Murray's ex. "Franny, can I ask you something? When you were married to this guy, was he always in your face like this?"

  "Constantly," she said.

  "Always yammering?"

  "Except when he was sulking."

  "Always pushing, pushing into things the other person doesn't wanna talk about?"

  "That's Murray," Franny said.

  The Bra King, drinking wine now, was just slightly juiced; he heard, or thought he heard, or longed to hear a note of unquenchable fondness, of acceptance, in Franny's voice. It put a lump in his throat and he hid behind his menu.

  Tommy and Franny, on terms now, Murray's relentlessness a bond between them, carried on just fine without him.

  "Your necklace," said the Indian. He was suddenly voluble, happy to talk about anything except LaRue and Ponte and Bruno. "Amber. The Matalatchee word for that is tabtukahti."

  Franny tried to say it.

  "No," said Tommy. "More bite in the ts." He leaned forward, pressed his tongue between his slightly parted teeth, then squeezed a little burst of air out of his throat. He made a sound that was more than just a consonant but wasn't quite a syllable. "Ttuh."

  "Ttuh," said Franny, but hers wasn't quite as hard-edged as the Indian's, it didn't really pop.

  Tommy demonstrated again. This time he used his hand to show how the air climbed up his neck and blurted with a small explosion from his face. "Ttuh."

  "Ttuh," said Franny.

  Now Murray could no longer resist joining in.

&n
bsp; "Ttuh," he said. But he had too much moisture in his mouth and his puff of air was too diffuse, he made a soggy sound, a little like a fart.

  "Watch," said Tommy. Both hands now pantomimed crisp, dry, and percussive air. "Ttuh."

  "Ttuh."

  "Ttuh."

  "Are you ready to order?" the waiter said. He'd been standing near their table for quite some time.

  By the time the mango cobbler arrived for dessert, the tension had mostly drained from Tommy. He and Franny felt that they had known each other for awhile, and Murray had moved even closer to forgetting he had ever been divorced, as if the last six years had been nothing more than some numb extended business trip, an emotionless sleepwalk to strange hotels in vague cities. Now he felt the wordless relief of the end of roaming, the bone- deep ease of the return.

  "Murray," Tommy said, pulling him out of his thoughts, "ever been to the Everglades?"

  "Hm? No," the Bra King said.

  "Amazing place. Flattest place on earth. Slopes one inch per mile."

  "Really?" Franny said. She looked at him with wide eyes, an interested forehead.

  He sipped the port that Murray had ordered all around. "But that tiny slope," he heard himself continuing, "is enough to make the whole bottom half of the peninsula a huge slow river. Grasses, sedges, swamps that seem stagnant but aren't. A gigantic spongy filter. Roots sucking in minerals, caterpillars getting minerals from leaves, the minerals make the colors for the butterflies. Same with flamingoes. Need certain plankton from certain alkaline waters to make them pink. Amazing place."

  "Jesus, Tommy," Murray said, "you know a lot about it."

  The Indian got shy, couldn't remember how he'd started on the Everglades in the first place. He hid behind his glass a moment, then amazed himself by saying, "I was gonna be a biologist."

  "Gonna be?" said Franny.

  "Three years at Gainesville. Scholarship."

  "You never told me," Murray said.

  "Bad for my image," said the Indian. "Don't let it get around."

  "How come you didn't finish?" Franny asked.

  Tommy shrugged, waited for the accustomed bitterness to grab him by the throat, was surprised to find its grip was not so suffocating now. "Something happened. Not interesting. Something happened and I quit." He tossed his napkin on the table, leaned back in his chair.

  "So what happened?" Murray asked.

  "I said it isn't interesting."

  'Yeah, but if it made you quit—"

  "There he goes again," Tommy said to Franny.

  *****

  On the sidewalk Murray said, "Lift home?"

  Tommy said he'd like to walk. He went to shake hands with Franny. Franny hugged him, then he wobbled off into the mild night.

  Driving back to the Paradiso, Murray said, "The way you draw people out, Franny, it's amazing. I'm like the guy's best friend, me he tells nothing. The way you do it, it's really great."

  "Don't butter me up," she said. "I'm sleeping in a guest room."

  The Bra King let that pass. "It's your face," he said. "The way there's a lot of open space between your features, places where a person's eyes can rest. To look at you is very restful."

  "Great," she said. "Some women are exciting, stunning, sensual. Me, I'm restful."

  "Restful lasts longer," Murray said. "Besides, you're all those other things too."

  Franny started to laugh but the laugh caught in her throat. Her face flushed, her eyes burned, she squirmed in her bucket seat. Then she said, "Damn you, Murray. You've still got this, this doglike charm. Droopy eyes. You always miss someplace when you shave, you know that, Murray? And you say these crazy things, these lunatic attempts at compliments ... You're like this big sloppy, shedding, drooling dog."

  They were riding up A-1A by now. The moon was high above the Florida Straits, its light on the water was a silver arrow that tracked them as they drove. Murray whimpered ingratiatingly like a retriever pup, gave a softly growling little bark.

  "Cute," said his former wife. "Adorable. I'm still sleeping in a guest room."

  *****

  Tommy Tarpon made his way through quiet streets, saw cats skulking under porches, their haunches higher than their heads, heard tree toads murmuring, contentedly nested in people's orchid boxes. The air was moist enough to put a pearly coating on windshields, an opal smear of halo around the streetlamps. The Matalatchee sovereign was tired beyond thought, his brain hummed with edgeless impressions of ceremonies and hypocrites and enemies and friends.

  He reached Caroline Street, absently ran his hand along the chain-link fence that corralled the parking lot. He crossed toward Toxic Triangle, did not take special notice of the dark Lincoln parked against a crumbling stretch of curb on the far side of the road. He walked the rocky path to the dock, kicking pocked pieces of limestone. Chickens squawked as a raccoon sneaked through the weeds. Music from downtown rolled around the harbor, arrived sounding cottony and baleful.

  He strolled to the end of the pier, peed in the ocean; his stream called forth little sparks of phosphorescence. Then he stepped onto his half-sunk houseboat, climbed along its tilted deck, went down the companionway ladder to the dark funhouse of a cabin. He climbed into his hammock, almost serene or at least exhausted, and was asleep before his bed of net had stopped its swinging.

  21

  The Bra King, still hoping that things might turn out otherwise, dropped his ex-wife's heavy luggage in the bedroom next to his, while she poked around the penthouse with the cool eye of a realtor.

  He found her in the kitchen, peeking into cupboards. "Nice place," she said, with no particular enthusiasm. "For a rental unit. Heavy Scotchguard, dishes that bounce. But pretty nicely done. Too big, really. Of course, you always had to have a bigger place than you really needed."

  The Bra King didn't take offense, he was too pleased to have his wife within his own four walls. With pride he swept open the mostly empty refrigerator. "I shopped today," he bragged. "I got some fruit, wouldya like some fruit?"

  "We just had dinner," Franny said.

  "You like fruit," Murray informed her.

  "Do I have to like it right this second?"

  Undaunted, Murray led the way to the living room, parted the curtains that gave onto the balcony and the ocean view. "Sit on the couch?"

  She eyed him like he was selling Turkish rugs, then moved sideways toward the sofa with the nautical stripe. Murray followed, they sat down at the same moment. They weren't kids, their buttocks had gone a little soft, and flesh spread when they sat, the spreading made their hips touch. Murray put his arm not quite around her but behind her on the back of the settee.

  "Franny," he said, "I'm so glad to see you, I'm so glad you came."

  Grudgingly, she said, "It's nice to see you too, Murray."

  They took a couple breaths, listened vaguely to duct noise from the hallway. Then Murray said, "Let's neck."

  "Don't be ridiculous," said his former wife.

  "Why is that ridiculous?"

  "Because everything you say is ridiculous, Murray."

  But, to his amazement, she tucked her head against his chest, rested her face in the soft place between his shoulder and his ribs. Her earring traced an imprint in his skin, he felt her warm breath through his shirt. Cautiously, tentatively, he reached toward her short brown hair, stroked it, smelled rosemary and peaches. He closed his eyes, absorbed her nearness, and almost all of him would have been perfectly content, ecstatic, to go no further, to leave things just exactly where they were, to sit there clothed and on the couch, forever.

  *****

  Hanging plumb in his hammock, snoring softly, Tommy barely felt the boat rock. Very faintly he heard the squeak of stretching dock lines. The dangling mirror clattered softly on its peg, disturbed water gurgled briefly at the stern. A woozy puzzled moment passed; the Indian shifted slightly and fell back into a deeper sleep.

  In the next instant, a splintering crash, an intimate explosion, brought him wide awake.r />
  Something had gone very wrong, his boat was caving in on top of him. The pilothouse seemed to have been lifted off its shims as if by a tornado; glass shattered in its one remaining window, sun- peeled timbers came raining down the companionway. By the time Tommy had spun out of his hammock and found his footing on the sloping floor, the bulk of the ruined structure had tumbled down and wedged itself tight in the hatch, blocking off the only exit. Tommy shouted; there was no one near enough to hear him, no one who could have heard him above the sudden orgy of demolition on the deck. Sledgehammers rang off metal fittings, the sound was like the bells of hell. Rotting boards, soft and spongy as decayed teeth, were stove in by murderous iron.

  The doomed craft listed now to starboard, Tommy struggled for balance. In the tumultuous gloom of the cabin, he saw a faint and sickening gleam as an ax-blade bit through the bruised skin of the hull, just below the waterline. The weapon was withdrawn and instantly the ocean started sluicing in, gushing crazily, as from a ruptured hydrant. More blows fell; lewd gashes scarred the houseboat's sides, an infernal hiss of water drowned out even the hard smack of the axes. Tommy felt warm but clammy liquid lapping at his feet, covering his ankles, crawling up his calves. The intruding sea floated the table with the two short legs and two long ones; Tommy's gas ring became a weird memento, a piece of flotsam, his old chipped basin bobbed madly on the monstrously displaced tide.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, the attack was over. Tommy felt adrift, understood that the dock-lines had been chopped, the sinking boat set free to wallow some yards out.

  In the cabin, clamor gave way to deathly silence, the airless silence of the ocean floor, as the subsiding craft settled down below the level of its gashes. There was no more hissing now, but rather an inexorable ooze—less the boat sinking than the ocean rising, less the ocean rising than the ceiling coming down, heavy and relentless as an apple press. Choking back panic, Tommy floundered through water climbing quickly past his groin, up his torso, rib by rib. He waded to the ladder that, mockingly, led upward to the dead-end passage of the blocked companionway. While ocean flowed through glassless portholes, he dragged his sodden body up the rungs, his few possessions floating past and his hammock lolling like a bank of seaweed. Pressing his back against the heavy snaggled boards that glutted the hatch, he strained upward with all his might, bent nails and bits of glass clawing at his skin. He stared down at the black water coming up to meet his face, and savored bitterly the insanity of drowning in your living room, ten feet out to sea, in a sea that wasn't even ten feet deep.