—
He pulled up in the Eldorado and saw three men sitting on mesh beach chairs under an awning, playing dominoes on a cardboard box. "I'm looking for Carlos."
The men stood up, and the one in the middle, who was a head shorter and fifty pounds lighter than either of the other two, said, "I'm Carlos." He was clean-shaven and very wiry, with black hair swept straight back. He'd been born in Florida, went to college for a year, and had no accent except when he wanted one. He wore frameless glasses that gave him the nervously studious look of an early Bolshevik. "Nice car." He lifted his chin toward the smashed windshield.
"Coconut," said Joey.
"Happens a lot down here," said Carlos. "Makes you look like a local."
Joey was duly flattered. Newcomers to Key West always liked to be taken for locals. This changed after they'd met a few.
"Come on," said Carlos, "we'll talk in the back."
He led the way through the laundromat. It was full of old Cuban ladies in black dresses and had the yeasty smell of warm lint. A girl in tight jeans seemed to be having a nervous breakdown on the pay phone. Carlos's men filed behind Joey, giving him the uneasy feeling that someone was about to step on his heel. He felt his shoulders hunching up as if in preparation for the blow.
At the back of the laundromat, a vacant doorframe gave onto a garden. A big four-sided picnic table had been built around a lime tree, and on this table was a basket, a basket big as a tire, filled with unidentifiable fruits. Carlos motioned Joey into a chair, and he himself sat on a picnic bench. His two huge and hairy men perched on the table on either side of the gigantic fruit bowl; the effect was of a still life by a painter who had lost his mind.
"So, Mr. . . ."
"Goldman. Joey Goldman."
"Yes. Mr. Goldman. What can I do for you?"
"I admire your operation," Joey said.
Carlos looked utterly bored by the compliment and made no answer. One of his men picked up a fruit that resembled Sputnik and started peeling it with a knife considerably larger than was strictly necessary for the job.
"I'd like to work with you," Joey continued.
Carlos frowned. "You Jewish?"
"Half. You got a problem with that?" Vague memories of disastrous Yom Kippur fistfights cropped up not in Joey's mind but in his stomach.
"Me?" said Carlos. "Not at all. You know what the Puerto Ricans call the Cubans? Los judiós del Caribe. They call us that because they're jealous. Because we work hard. We know how to do business. Whadda they know how to do? Cook beans and talk about pussy. Me, I have no problem with Jews. I just like to know who I'm dealing with."
"I'm also half Sicilian," Joey said.
"Ah," said Carlos. He balanced his chin on his knuckles; the pose made him look more than ever like an earnest, aging student. "Half Sicilian. Friends in New York. Cadillac. Goes around flashing hundred- dollar bills. So what are you trying to tell me, Mr. Goldman? Are you telling me things are so bad up north that the Mafia has to send a guy all the way down here to fuck with my little bolita game?"
Carlos's goon had finished peeling his fruit and was sucking out the flesh. It had slimy seeds in it, and the goon started spitting them out closer to Joey's black loafers than seemed respectful.
"Did I say anybody sent me?" Joey said. "All I said is I got friends up there."
"Well, good for you," said Carlos, and without raising his voice a single decibel he managed a crescendo of irritation. "I got friends too. I got friends in Miami and I got friends in Havana and I got friends in city hall. And in case you haven't looked at a road map lately, those places are all a lot closer to where you're sitting than fucking New York is."
The spray of slimy seeds came closer to Joey's feet, so close that he couldn't help examining them. They consisted of tiny black pits surrounded by globes of yellowish ooze. He slid his shoes back a couple of inches and didn't realize until later that by that small retreat he had in effect surrendered.
"Carlos, I been looking at road maps plenty. But listen, I'm coming to you like a gentleman, to see if we can work together. You got no reason to get mad."
"That's where you're wrong. I do have a reason. You cost me a hundred twenty dollars already. Fredo, give the man his hundred twenty dollars."
The goon who was not sucking fruit lumbered down from the picnic table and approached Joey. He reached deep into his pants pocket, seemed to be scratching his gonads, then produced a pair of bills.
Joey waved them away. "Hey look, I don't want that money back. That was an investment."
"You don't understand," said Carlos. He shook his head sadly at the ignorance of outsiders. "It's a cultural thing. You don't give my people money. To give people money, that's an honor. You haven't earned that honor, Mr. Goldman. I give them money. And I never take anything away from my people. Never. So you know what that means? It means that money you spread around so you could look like a big shot, with your fucking Cadillac, your New York plates, that was my money. And now I got a reason to be mad at you."