You Get What You Pay For (The Tony Cassella Mysteries)

by Beinhart, Larry

  He understood. “Certainly better than Citibank will give you,” he said. “No bank closing costs and handling fees and all the other things they stick on. Maybe even a half a point, a point, lower.”

  I promised to give it serious consideration. I didn’t have a chance to mention it to Glenda before I left.

  When I arrived at La Guardia Airport, I didn’t recognize Guido. He was wearing a straw hat. A purple bougainvillea print wound down from the collar of his mostly orange shirt. To have said he looked like a caricature of a Puerto Rican grandfather on his way home to Mayagüez would have been an ethnic slur, however accurate.

  It was because I didn’t recognize him and was looking around so hard to find him that I saw Vernon Muggles. Muggles was very busy pretending not to look at me. There were the two agents with him, a salt and pepper team. They were also pretending not to look at me. Another black man, I was certain, was staring at me from the other side of the terminal.

  I thought life would be a lot simpler if they didn’t follow us. Wherever we were going. I thought of a scenario to lose them. It depended on not letting them connect me with Guido.

  “Hey, Tony!” Guido yelled, waving a skinny arm, the orange shirt flapping like a flag. We all turned to look, me and the FBI.

  “That’s strike one,” I said.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll make a new plan. We’ll let them follow us to Miami and then we’ll lose them. Where are we going from Miami?”

  “Them? Who?” His straw-hatted head swiveled all around in circles.

  “Never mind,” I said. As we walked through security, I looked back. Salt and Pepper were behind us. When we checked in at the boarding gate, Salt stayed, while Pepper ran back to get their tickets.

  Boarding was announced. Guido was eager to get on. I told him to wait. I watched while the gate attendant got a phone call. “Don’t worry,” I said to Guido. “They’re getting instructions to hold the flight for a special passenger.”

  “Really? How do you know? Who?”

  “The people traveling with us are VIPs. And probably, if you weren’t with me, I’d be able to dump them.”

  “We’re being followed!” the priest said. Thrilled beyond belief.

  I got up, Guido behind me. I looked back, and sure enough, Pepper was dashing up the corridor like O. J. Simpson.

  When we stepped into the DC-10, I asked the stewardess if we could upgrade to first class. Salt and Pepper would panic for a while, marching up and down the plane looking for us. But they’d figure it out. So it was mostly spite, knowing that they were in steerage while we of the private sector wallowed in first class. The stewardess brought complimentary preflight champagne. “I don’t know how I’m going to cover this one when I put in my expenses,” I said.

  “Don’t think small,” Guido said.

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t have to answer for it, which is always the way in your profession, I would guess.”

  “The problem with you,” Guido said, done with his first glass and signaling for a second, “is that you’re still fighting your father’s battles.”

  “I hope you have some different clothes,” I said. “Though it’d be better to change your age or get rid of you entirely. I wish you’d believe me when I tell you this may turn out dangerous for you.”

  “Anticlericalism may have been a worthy position,” he said, “a century ago. But today it seems oddly dated. The Church is withering on the vine.”

  “Fasten your seat belts,” the stewardess said, coming by to look at our laps.

  “An organized religion is dangerous and stifling,” I said. “With secular power, it’s oppressive and murderous.”

  “I don’t think it’s because we went to the vernacular mass,” he said. “I spend a certain amount of time lecturing at seminary. On Aquinas. I’m not terribly good at it anymore, since I lack the faith. However, I find the level of the contemporary seminarian appalling.”

  “Just because your crowd is slipping,” I said, “doesn’t mean the principle doesn’t apply. So this year the inquisition is Islamic. It’s just a question of opportunity. You’d bring back the auto-da-fé if you could.”

  “In my day, at least the seminarians were masculine. And occasionally there was one with a brain. But that was in another country, and another time as well.”

  “Do you have some other clothes?” I asked him, still thinking of escape.

  “Anthony, I am disappointed that you don’t like my shirt. Your mother thought it very youthful.”

  “That’s my mother’s way of insulting you when she wants to be polite. What’s between the two of you anyway?”

  “I’m really not your enemy,” he said. “I doubt that I believe any more than you do.”

  The engines throttled back, the jumbo jet shivering in its boots, feeling its own gravity-hugging heaviness and champing at the bit at once. The pilot released the brake and we lumbered up the runway, pouring a flood of fuel into the fires, desperate to have enough speed to rise before the end. Just as thousands of planes do every day.

  Guido reached a fingertip to his breast. He saw me watching. Whether he had intended to make the sign of the cross or not, he didn’t. He took out a pack of Camels.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

  “From time to time,” he said. “Losing my faith was a long and painful process. I thought it was a failure in myself. A fault of character. Like someone who likes sex too much or not enough. ‘Father, what’s wrong with me?’ ” he mimicked a thousand unnamed parishioners. “ ‘I have these de-zires.’ ‘Father, am I supposed to like it?’ ‘Well, my child,’ I would say, ‘it’s a great deal more pleasant than pestilence, war, and famine.’ At least it was in my very limited experience.”

  “Just how limited is your experience?”

  “Are you speaking here as your mother’s son?”

  “I’m making conversation, which is probably a mistake. You know they show movies on this flight. We get free headsets because we’re spending an extra one hundred eighteen dollars each, give or take.”

  The No Smoking light went off. Matches were struck all around the cabin, including Guido’s. He lit one of his short, stubby cigarettes and inhaled. “Watching movies,” he said, with a reflective puff of smoke. “That’s what it’s been like. Or the television. Which is worse. The same thing over and over. The same troubles, tragedies, whimpers, and whines. All other people’s, a curtain between themselves and myself,” he said.

  “Can I have a set of earphones?” I said to the stewardess.

  “A voyeur’s life,” Guido said. “But no more. I’m quite fit, you know: all that abstinence. Except for my knees; prayer takes its toll. I feel ready for whatever may befall.”

  I plugged in the headset and started flipping through the music channels. I waved at the stewardess.

  “This headset doesn’t work,” I told her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. The sound system is broken in this seat.”

  “In first class!” I said, aghast. “An extra hundred dollars and I can’t watch a truncated four-dollar movie.”

  “That’s deregulation,” she said. “You can blame Jimmy Carter. Things will get better now. You’ll see. Let me get you a drink.”

  “Your mother is a remarkable woman. A woman of strength and character,” Guido said.

  “That was my father’s influence,” I said. “She’ll tell you as much.”

  “She has. I would like to have known him. He sounds a most interesting man.”

  “My father treated my mother as a person. Which I’m beginning to understand was a rare and unusual thing.”

  “Indeed it is,” Guido said agreeably.

  “Maybe,” I said, “that’s what the hell’s wrong with my relationships. Every other guy I know, they have a wife stuck out in Queens, with the kids. Which they don’t go home to, not too much anyway. And they got the regular girlfriend in Manhattan and the occasional lay
out in Brooklyn. They can do that because they’re all Catholics and don’t eat fish on Friday. So why can’t I live like that? It sounds a lot simpler, doesn’t it?”

  “To have had a wife,” he sighed, looking at his drifting smoke, “and children. I may have a son. But I think that’s mere romantic yearning.”

  “So I’m involved with a woman in a goddamn modern relationship. Or one that’s supposed to be like my parents’, but it isn’t, because it’s half-assed. So as good as what my parents’ thing was, and right, being right is fucking me up.”

  “Sounds like fun,” the priest said.

  We could see the clouds hugging the Florida shore as we began our descent. They had an ugly look, and the PA system commanded us to strap down for turbulence. When we started bouncing through the clouds—that sickening rise and drop—I looked at Guido. “Tell me,” I said, “in case we crash, you die and I live, where to look for Felacco and Ventana.”

  “Anthony, I know you would like nothing better than to be rid of me. … ”

  “Then why do you persist in tagging along?”

  “Naturally, I am reluctant to lose my only hold over the situation.”

  “At some point, Guido, you have to trust somebody. At some point, we wanna lose Salt and Pepper, our federal escort. Now until I know where we’re going and what we have to do to get there, I don’t know how to do that. Are we traveling by car? By plane? Domestic? International? North? South? come on, Father, gimme a break.”

  “Will you give me your word,” Guido said, “that you’ll let me see this through with you?”

  “Insofar as that’s possible, absolutely,” I swore. A nice flexible, Jesuitical turn of phrase, I thought, that could mean anything I wanted it to.

  “My boy, I was trained by Jesuits. Possible absolutes and absolute possibles are the phrases we used to betray entire populations. Do you think I’m weak-minded enough to fall for that?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said. “You can see it through.”

  “Your word?”

  “Don’t you want me to swear to God or something?”

  “Your word will do,” Guido said.

  “You have my word.”

  “Freeport, in the Bahamas,” he said, as the jumbo jet dropped six feet like a stone.

  Someone shrieked.

  “Shit,” I said. “We gotta do something about passports. And we should lose those assholes as soon as we can. And do you have anything else to wear?”

  “Well … ”

  “Well, what?” I asked.

  “I am cognizant of your feelings, and I respect them. But I actually don’t have a very wide wardrobe. And you’d be amazed at how useful those things are.”

  “You brought your collars?”

  “Yes, I brought my collars.”

  “How many collars?”

  “Two. I always take two. For when the other one is being cleaned, you understand.”

  The wheels dropped through the cloud shroud and collided with an invisible runway. We bounced, the way lead does. Then we were rolling comfortably into the terminal. It was one of those flights where the passengers break out in spontaneous applause at touchdown.

  Rank hath its privileges. For one hundred eighteen dollars, you too can have a free drink and a five-dollar lunch and get off the plane first. We deplaned at Gate 12. I grabbed Guido and dragged him down behind the unused boarding attendant’s podium at Gate 8. I took off my sweatshirt and shoved it over his head, hiding the orange abomination. “Go, get a cab,” I told him while I started pawing through his bag. “Go to Monty’s in Coconut Grove. I’ll meet you there.”

  He hesitated. “I gave you my word. Now move it,” I said, shoving him out. “But slowly,” I hissed after him. “Speed is conspicuous.”

  Then I did what I had to do. I put on one of his shirts. The kind with a stiff white collar.

  I forced myself to wait, peeking out from behind the pedestal until I saw Salt and Pepper dashing down the corridor looking for an old man in an orange shirt with a young one in a sweatshirt. I stood up and strolled out behind them. I stopped at the newsstand and bought a pair of sunglasses.

  The last time I’d been out of the country had taught me to bring either my own Vaseline or a false passport. Pete Palmeri was a high-school buddy. A paisan from the neighborhood. We’d hung together because we were white people whose first language was English. In Fort Greene, those are distinguishing characteristics. Pete went to Brooklyn College, studied numbers, and became an accountant.

  He discovered cocaine a couple of years ahead of me. He also discovered, trying desperately to hide, disguise, bury, and shelter income for several dealer clients, how lucrative it was, as a business. While I felt guilty and out of control, he felt it was time to move on up, from grams, to zees, to keys, and finally he moved to Miami, where he could tap the main vein.

  I still had his address and phone number. I dialed from a pay phone. When I heard his voice answer, I hung up. I wanted to know that he was home. I didn’t want to tell the DEA that I was dropping by.

  I ambled away from the phone booth. I spotted Salt upstairs and then Pepper downstairs, looking for me. Pepper looked right at me, and through me. I stepped outside in the thick, hot air, rain thudding down beyond the concrete canopy, and found a cab.

  By the time we reached Monty’s, out by Sailboat Bay, the storm was over, the clouds had fled, and a tropical sun was making the puddles steam. The fare was twenty-four dollars. I asked for the clerical discount.

  I found Guido, then phoned for another cab.

  Pete had done well for himself. A big house on a substantial piece of property. The security system alone—cameras, infrared, sound detectors—was in the 75K range. I rang the bell and smiled into the camera above the door. A voice came through an external speaker: “Sorry. We gave at the office.”

  “Hey, Palmeri, you asshole. It’s me, Cassella.”

  “Holy fucking Jesus,” Pete said through the speaker. “What happened to you?”

  “You gonna let me in?” I said to the door.

  I heard beeps and clicks. “Door’s open. Come in, we’re out back. … Holy fucking Jesus, Cassella a priest.”

  We passed through a central room two stories high, Mexican tile on the floor, white pine walls, Casablanca fans turning lazily overhead. Pete was by the pool, looking cool in his tan, shades, and shorts. The pool was surrounded by lush tropical growth, trees, vines, flowers. It was just like a TV show. Including the three girls. There was a progression there, of sorts. The first one was fully dressed. She wore a bikini. The second was topless, the third topless and bottomless and painting her toenails.

  “I can’t get over this,” Pete said. “Come on, sit down, let me get you a drink. You a priest! What’re you drinking?” He had a couple of chairs around him and a table beside him. The table had a phone and a TV.

  “Piña colada,” Guido said.

  “Rita, get a piña colada,” Pete yelled. The topless one put her feet into high-heeled sandals and swayed toward the house. Guido watched her, goggle-eyed. “What you havin’, Tony? Hey, one thing I know about priests—they drink.”

  “Club soda,” I said.

  “Wow,” Pete said. “Something must’ve really happened to you. Strange-o … Rita,” he yelled, “and a club soda.”

  “Nothing happened to me,” I said.

  “Uh huh,” he said. “Long time no see. How you like the spread? … Hey, girls, say hello to my paisan from the old neighborhood,” he yelled. They more or less looked up. “That’s Annette, my Mouseketeer, and Caroline, her friend. … Girls, this is Tony, but you can call him Father. … Oh, man. The last person in the world. Who’s your buddy?”

  “This is Guido,” I said. “And, Pete … ”

  “Hi there,” Rita said, coming up with two tits and two drinks on a tray.

  “I’m enjoying the trip, Tony,” Guido said. He reached forward. Rita put his piña colada where his hand was going. He blinked.

  Ri
ta came over to me. Close enough that I knew her breasts had neither stretch marks nor implants, her areolas were a little browner than her tan, her nipples small, with tiny nubbles. I took my drink. She came even closer.

  “I’ve never done it with a priest before,” she said.

  “Uhh … really,” Guido said.

  “I have to be honest, my child,” I said, patting her lightly on top of a tit. “This is just a disguise.”

  “Oh,” she said. What little animation there was in her face left.

  “A disguise, a disguise,” Pete said, laughing. “That’s my man, Tony. That’s my paisan. Oh, shit, I thought you’d really gone weird on me.”

  “Uhh … I’m actually a priest,” Guido said to Rita.

  “Oh,” she said, and wandered off. Several emotions rippled over Guido’s face.

  Pete looked at Guido, then at me, asking.

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “Don’t ask me to explain.”

  “You don’t want to explain,” he said, a coke dealer’s flash of paranoia about any unanswered question.

  “If you want me to, I will,” I said. “Just to give you an idea of how weird it is: to start with, he’s going out with my mother. I think.”

  “Oh,” Pete said.

  “Yeah, oh,” I agreed. “You still … ”

  Pete looked at Guido again.

  “Guido, could you give us a little space here,” I said.

  “Take a walk around the grounds, Father,” Pete said. “We got some dynamite landscaping here. All kinds of tropical shit you won’t see nowheres else.” He pointed off to the right, “Star fruit, key lime, all kinda horticulture stuff. Probably in’erest a man of the cloth.”

  Guido looked down at his drink, which he had finished.

  “You wan’ another?” Pete said. “Just go in the kitchen, help yourself, or get one of the girls to help you.”

  “So what’s been happening?” I said, as Guido went inside.

  “Hey, I made my pile,” he said, “and got out. I got pizza parlors now. New York Pizza and Ray’s Real Brooklyn Pizza, five o’ the first and franchising the second.”