Tropical Depression

by Laurence Shames

  The old man was sitting in the bow of Flaco's skiff, his ancient chihuahua nestled in his lap. Behind him stood tall thin Arty Magnus, a cheap pen and spiral notebook clutched in his hand, and behind both of them was a lowering sun that sent a weirdly even copper sheen across the water.

  "The bugs," said Murray. "You'll join us, you'll see."

  "Nuh-uh," the old man said, as Flaco dragged the little craft toward shore and the blood-feeders began to swarm. "Dignity, my friend. There has to be a line. I haven't met the lady. Charmed, I'm sure." From a trouser pocket he produced a huge silk handkerchief, the same soft lavender as his shirt; almost daintily, he wrapped the cloth around his hair, tied it underneath his chin. "And who's the gentleman in his underwear?"

  "This is my psychiatrist," the Bra King said. "His name is Max."

  Max nodded graciously from behind his smoking pipe.

  "Psychiatrist," said Bert. "Y'opening a casino or a nuthouse?" The skiff scraped bottom, and slowly, carefully, he stepped over the low gunwale. He was holding his dog the way some people hold a prayer book, all he needed was the square black shoes to look like a Sicilian grandmother on her way to church.

  Arty Magnus, wearing shorts and sandals, climbed nimbly overboard, waded calf-deep and coated his bare legs with marl. He slapped some on his neck and looked around at the unbroken shoreline, the strangling vegetation. "S'gonna be quite a feat opening anything here," he said.

  The others followed his eyes, saw beauty or impediments, challenge or futility, according to their dispositions.

  When Bert was securely up on land, he said, "So Murray, ya come up one jump short. Ya save the missus and now you're stuck out here. This is what I call one jump short."

  No one disagreed.

  Tommy led the way past gator holes and severed vines back to the clearing, where low sun threw blockish and ominous monoliths of shade on one side of the middens. They sat. Bert's dog smelled nature or history and began to tremble.

  Murray told the new arrivals the details of Franny's captivity and rescue and the flight to Kilicumba.

  Bert sadly shook his kerchiefed head. "Ponte," he said. "He wants to think he's a businessman, but he's still a thug at heart."

  "A selfish child," Max Lowenstein put in, "justifying his pathology."

  "LaRue's just as bad," said Arty Magnus.

  "How'd you like the pleasure," Tommy Tarpon said, "of announcing that to the whole wide world?"

  The journalist said nothing. Unconsciously, he licked his chops.

  "Ever hear of a company called First Keys Casinos?" the Indian went on.

  Magnus shook his head, waved bugs away from his ears.

  "It's Ponte's front. Mentioned in what I guess you'd call the ransom note. A little digging, I'll bet you find the link."

  "What's it got to do with LaRue?" the reporter asked.

  "He was supposed to pressure me into signing on with them."

  "Got proof?" said the reporter.

  "There he goes again," said Murray.

  "He's conscientious," said the shrink, blue whorls escaping from his mouth. "Too much, it's obsessive."

  Tommy said, "If LaRue handed me a large cash payment to get the contract signed, would that persuade you he's involved?"

  "LaRue himself?" said Magnus. "Never happen."

  "If you saw it with your own eyes?" pressed Tommy Tarpon. "Senator as bagman. If you had an exclusive on the story?"

  "He'd never risk that kind of exposure," said the journalist.

  Tommy paused. Some pelicans flew past just above the level of the mangroves, you could hear the soft whistle of their wings. "I think he might," the sovereign said, "if the choice was even greater risk."

  "Aha," said Lowenstein, "the classic double bind."

  "Ponte wants that contract signed," said Tommy. "We've seen how far he'll go to get it signed."

  "Go on," the reporter said.

  "My position is this. I'm ready to sign now, but only if LaRue himself is witness. I want him implicated. I want him to have a stake in making sure nothing bad happens to my friends or me."

  Now Bert the Shirt spoke up, there was something grimly oracular in the way the voice issued forth from shadowed features underneath the silk babushka. "Guy like Ponte, don't kid yourself someone's name on a piece a paper is gonna protect ya."

  "Did I say I believed it?" Tommy said. "I said that's my position."

  The psychiatrist shifted on the lumpy ground, swiftly checked that the fly of his shorts had not gapped open. "A construct," he said. "A situational construct."

  Bert hugged his nervous chihuahua, leaned back against the midden. The slowly cooling shells gave off a smell of salt and iron. "And how does Ponte find out what your position is?"

  Tommy just looked at him.

  Murray said, "Never hurts to have a friend in the business."

  "Now wait a second—" the old man began.

  Franny said, "They kept me locked up in a tote board, Bert. You have to help us."

  "I'm asking you to have two conversations," Tommy said.

  Bert waved bugs from in front of his silk-framed face. "Two? Now it's two?"

  "Someone's gotta call Ponte," Tommy said, "and someone's gotta talk to LaRue. He's probably still in Tallahassee."

  "Ponte'll call LaRue," said Arty Magnus.

  The Indian stood, paced the shady trough between the middens. "Exactly. And that conversation will be a lot more interesting if the two of them have different information."

  Max Lowenstein sucked his pipe. "Cognitive dissonance," he murmured.

  "And then some," Tommy said.

  "I don't think I understand," said Bert the Shirt.

  Striding between the shell heaps, slipping from red light to purple shadow and back again, the sovereign of the Matalatchee spun out the details of his stratagem. Bert listened hard, stroking his dog like the dog was his own chin, and when Tommy finished, the old man's face was neutral as a saucer. "I'll talk to them," he said.

  After a silence, Arty Magnus said, "Ponte's headquarters, it's at this lobsters-and-mobsters kinda place—"

  "I know where it is," said Bert, a little testily. "It's supposed to be a secret."

  "It isn't," said the journalist.

  A gull screamed in the distance. There was a damp and furtive rustling in the shrubs.

  Tommy asked Magnus for the loan of some paper and a pen. "You want your exclusive," he said, "be ready for Flaco at one tomorrow. Come prepared to spend a while in the mangroves." Then, almost as an afterthought, he said to the psychiatrist, "You can leave, Max, if you want. You can go back home."

  Lowenstein shifted on the hard warm ground, flecks of muck dropped off him like tiles from a ruined mosaic. "Actually," he surprised himself by saying, "I'd like to stay."

  The sun hit the horizon, bugs and birds and frogs saluted it with a sudden rasping crescendo. "Good," said the Indian, masterful on his ancestral lands. "Maybe we'll find a little job for you."

  39

  It was Bruno who opened the door of Barney LaRue's penthouse, and now Bert was confused. Briefly speechless on the threshold, he stared at the gigantic goon, saw that he was barefoot, that his feet were heavily powdered, that the powder had left ursine footprints as he'd trudged across the living room to the entryway. A whirring whine revved up, and in a moment the old man saw Pascal, crab- walking in Bruno's wake, expunging his traces with a handheld vacuum cleaner.

  " 'Lo, Bert," said the big man, with a grudging cordiality. They were slightly acquainted, comrades in theory but seldom allies of late.

  "I'm lookin' for Bahney," the old man said, as the little vacuum was switched off.

  "What about?" said Bruno.

  There was a whiff of threat in how he said it, just enough for Bert to know he ought to lie. But his reflexes weren't what they once had been, a heartbeat passed before he said, "Gin rummy game."

  "He's still in Tallahassee," Pascal told him. He was dressed in red tights and seemed very put out by company.


  "Ah," said Bert, holding his dog tight against his wizened stomach. "Ya got a number for him there?"

  A reedy voice piped forth from the living room. "Ya don't play gin rummy by telephone. You're not fuckin' wit' us, are ya, Bert?"

  "Squeak, now why would I do that''"

  "We're lookin' for a neighbor a yours," said Bruno. "Guy wit' the penthouse across the way. Seen 'im?"

  Bert scratched his cheek, tugged an earlobe. "Not since ya took his wife to Hialeah."

  "Fuck you know about that?" said Bruno.

  Bert spoke calmly to Pascal. "Gimme a number for Bahney. Write it down, my memory's shot."

  "You know where they are, don'tcha Bert?" said Squeak.

  Bert didn't answer.

  Bruno said, "Where are they?"

  "Like I said, my memory's shot."

  The big thug leaned closer to him, his powdered toes curled for purchase in the rug. "We got ways t'improve an old man's memory."

  "An' I'm sure they're very clever ways," Bert said, as Pascal reached in and handed him the number. "But me, I'm goin' home now. I'm gonna call LaRue about a gin game. Then I'm gonna call Cholly, 'cause his number I remember. Then I'm gettin' inta my pajamas. Ya wanna come torture me, murder me, whatever, come right in, the door is open."

  *****

  "Why me, Don Giovanni?" said Bert the Shirt, as he labored across the pee-stained carpet to his BarcaLounger, half-consciously sidestepping rawhide bones and rubber burgers. "Why do I always get put inna middle?"

  He put the chihuahua on its unspeakable dog bed, the creature looked up through milky eyes, gave a sympathetic twitch to its whiskers.

  "One a these times," the old man rambled, "someone's gonna end up gettin' really mad at me. I'm too old for havin' people mad at me. It wears ya down, Giovanni."

  The dog put its chin on a paw as scrawny as a chicken wing. Bert sighed, settled back in the cradling chair. He picked up the phone and dialed.

  "Hello, Martinelli's," said an oily voice.

  "This is Bert the Shirt. Put Cholly on."

  "There's no one here named Cholly," said the maitre d'.

  "Cut the shit. Everybody knows."

  There was an affronted silence on the line.

  "Awright, awright," said Bert. "Ya want passwords? Calf head. Gnocchi. Stringozzi. Now ya happy? Gimme Cholly."

  The line went dead. In a moment Charlie Ponte picked it up.

  "Same old Bert," said the Miami boss. "Always fuckin' wit' guys' heads."

  "I'm doin' you a favor," said the Shirt. "Your headquarters, you might as well hang a sign."

  "You call to tell me that?" said Ponte.

  "I call with a message from your Indian."

  Ponte's silence turned interested. Then he said, "How you know about my Indian?"

  "Your Indian is about as secret as your password, Cholly."

  "Where is he?" demanded Ponte.

  "Your boys already asked me that," said Bert. "I wouldn't tell them either."

  "Whose side you on?"

  "Right now I'm onna side a no one gettin' hurt. Here's the message: The Indian's ready to sign."

  In his large bare office, Ponte tugged at the zipper of his silver jacket and almost smiled. "He's finally wising up."

  "He's got a coupla conditions," said Bert.

  "He ain't in a position to have conditions."

  "He has them anyway. Up front he wants fifty grand to replace his houseboat."

  "Fuck his houseboat," Ponte said.

  "Come on, Cholly. What's fifty grand? You'll give 'im the money, you'll let 'im save face."

  "And that's it? Fifty and he signs?"

  "He wants one other thing. He wants LaRue to bring the contract and to witness it."

  There was a pause.

  Bert explained. "He thinks his friend, the Jewish guy, would be safe if LaRue's name was on the paper. Ya know, implicated, like."

  The little mobster found this droll. "Like I'd hold off doin' what I gotta do for the sake a that douchebag politician?"

  "What could I tell ya?" said the Shirt. "The Indian, he's got this sense a loyalty, he thinks that other people have it too."

  "Asshole," Ponte said.

  "So it's a go, or what?" pressed Bert.

  Ponte thought it over, not for long. "Yeah. Okay."

  "I'll call LaRue," said Bert. "I'll tell 'im what he's gotta do. He isn't gonna like it, Cholly."

  "Fuck what he likes," Ponte said. "I'll make sure he does it."

  *****

  "I have no idea what you're talking about," said State Senator Barney LaRue, speaking from his apartment in the capital. It was a discreet one-bedroom where he behaved discreedy, as was demanded in that part of the state.

  "Look," said the Shirt, "Ya helped Tommy get this island, ya wanna make a couple bucks off it yourself. Waya the world. I unnerstand. But inna meantime, the only way the deal is gonna happen—"

  "The deal has nothing to do with me," the senator insisted.

  "If that's your story," Bert said, "you stick to it. But Tommy Tarpon will only sign if you are there to witness, and if you bring a hundred thousand dollars to replace his houseboat, which got sunk to the bottom a the ocean during a period when negotiations weren't going well."

  "Bert, listen," said LaRue, his mellifluous baritone getting slightly pinched, "I couldn't possibly lend my name—"

  "Bahney, I'm not here to convince you. I'm delivering a message, this is all. There's a gentleman I'm sure you've never met, even though his colleagues are camped out in your penthouse. His name is Cholly Ponte. He feels very strongly that this contract should be signed."

  The senator sat up straighter in his chair, tried to muster a stentorian tone. "I will not be put in a position—"

  "I'm sure you won't," said Bert. "But Mr. Ponte has the papers and the cash, and I think it would be best for everybody if you could bring them to the Cow Key Bridge tomorrow at five."

  "There is no way," the politician began. But he was interrupted by a soft click on the line. "Shit," he said, "I've got another call coming in."

  "I'm sure it isn't Cholly Ponte," said the Shirt, "because I know you do not know the man. But just in case it is, explain the conditions, ask him to front the hundred grand, and give him my regards."

  40

  Next morning on Kilicumba, four badly rested people waded, washed, and wallowed in the muck. Above them, frigate birds wheeled with the tiniest adjustments of their long forked tails, flocks of ibis commuted from the secret precincts of their rookeries to their daily business of finding food.

  Back in the clearing, Tommy took himself to the far side of the middens and scrawled on the notebook pages borrowed from Arty Magnus. Max Lowenstein discreetly withdrew into the mangroves to attempt to move his bowels.

  Murray Zemelman tried to start a fire. He'd seen Tommy do it, he didn't understand why he was having so much trouble. He made a teepee of sticks; the sticks fell down. He got some twigs to light, they gave off soft puffs like someone smoking a cigar and then they died.

  Franny was measuring water and coffee into a dented can. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Tommy was out of earshot, then whispered, "Murray, d'you think he knows what he's doing?"

  Blithely the Bra King said, "I have no idea."

  Franny shook her head, mud cracked into facets on her neck. "That goddam casino."

  Murray tried to strike another match, it made a soggy squeak against the phosphorous. "Franny," he said, "if it wasn't for the casino and everything that's happened, you and me, we wouldn't have gotten together again."

  She blinked silt from her eyelashes. "And what a tragedy that would be."

  A fast and deep emotion knifed through Murray, filled him like a flash flood in a canyon. "It would be," he said. "A tragedy is exactly what it would be. Fighting fate. That's tragedy, right?"

  His former wife started to say something, then bit her lip and went back to her coffee grounds and water.

  Murray said, "At l
east give me the satisfaction of saying you're glad you came to see me."

  She put the can down on the ground, stood there with her hands on her hips. She looked at her ex, this man no longer young, hardly handsome, covered in limestone. He looked like an animate boulder, a rock formation come to life. Except rock formations weren't needy, whiny, grandiose, hypochondriacal lunatics. "I am glad," she said. "That's the sick part."

  "Did someone say sick?" Max Lowenstein asked, emerging from the foliage in his underwear, an unrelieved look on his face and a blur of flies around his matted beard.

  *****

  Flaco appeared around nine. He brought real coffee in a thermos, and salty Cuban bread still warm from the oven. He took the pages Tommy Tarpon had written on, and he shuttled back across the flats to town.

  The sun moved up the sky. Birds and bugs and gators eased into a breathless stillness, hoarded their strength against the heat of the day. The island captives hunkered down and chatted in shrinking scraps of shade.

  At some point Max Lowenstein said, "So level with me, Murray—how many pills you taking?"

  "Two a day," the Bra King said. "Sometimes, I feel stressed, exhausted, three."

  The psychiatrist said, "Oy. Murray, three is not for a human being. Three is for a catatonic horse."

  "What could I tell ya? I take the pills, I feel better, this is all I know."

  "Shnockered, used to be all I knew," Tommy volunteered.

  "Used to be?" Lowenstein said smoothly. He lit his pipe. "You used to drink and stopped?"

  Tommy didn't meet his eye. "For now."

  "There," said Franny. "You see?"

  "See what?" Murray said. "Now wait a second. You can't compare—"

  "Of course you can," said the psychiatrist.

  "Why is everyone ganging up on me?" the Bra King said, and he went into a sulk that no one had the energy to pull him out of.

  He was still pouting when, shortly after two, the skiff returned, bringing Arty Magnus.

  The gangly reporter had a paramilitary look about him. He was wearing stout black boots and camouflage fatigues; in a small pack he carried a helmet of mosquito netting, his spiral notebook, a miniature cassette recorder held together with duct tape, and a manila envelope, which he handed over to Tommy.