"Fuck does that mean?" shouted Sal Giordano.
"That's what I gotta figure out before I try again," said Joey. "And inna meantime I'm hooking tourists for forty bucks a couple. How are things up there?"
Sal hesitated as a plane screamed past. "Up here it's like eighteen degrees, old ladies are falling down onnee ice, and I'm freezing my nuts off."
"I'm not asking for the weather report, Sal. How're things?"
Sal hesitated again, though this time there was no airplane. "Not great, Joey. It's a very tense time up here. Very tense."
"The cops?"
"Nah, not the cops. Cops are pretty much leaving us alone. It's among our own people. There's a lotta mistrust, lotta bad feeling. Some guys have been disappearing. People are talking like maybe there's gonna be war."
" 'Zis about Charlie Ponte's emeralds?"
"Fuck you know about that?" Sal asked, and even though he was talking to his adopted kid brother, the former runt who never won a fight and was never entrusted with any but the dullest and most trivial errands, such was the mood of wariness among members of the Queens and Brooklyn Mafia families that he could not quite squelch a note of suspicion. "You know more than you did when you was up here."
"I got a friend down here," Joey said. It sounded like, and was, a boast. "You remember a guy named Bert the Shirt?"
"Sure I do," said Sal, above the jet noise. "Good man. But wait, ain't he the guy that dropped dead onna courthouse steps?"
"Yup. He kicked the bucket. But they brought him back, and the Pope let him retire. People still look to him on Florida business, though."
"Joey," said Sal, "do yourself a favor—don't get curious about this. It's bad, I'm telling you. Your old man, they finally made him consigliere, but it's not like they're doing him a favor, the way things are. Everyone's like getting ready for a siege. Practically every day there's sit-downs, everybody plotting, trying to figure out who's with who. Your brother Gino, he's tryin' so hard to look brave it's ridiculous. It's a fucking mess."
"So Sal, get away, take a vacation. Come down here and relax awhile. You'll love it. You're like the only person I miss from the whole fucking city."
"Marrone, Joey. Think. With what's going on, it would only be like the stupidest thing in the world to suddenly show up in Florida. Besides, it wouldn't be doing you any favor to show these guys you're buddy- buddy with the family. That's just asking for trouble."
Joey frowned at the coin box and tugged at the collar of his pink shirt. "You're right, Sal, I guess you're right. Maybe not now. It's just that I'd like to see ya sometime."
"Sometime. I'll get down there sometime." Sal said it like he didn't believe it would ever happen. A jet seemed to be revving up next to the phone booth. "So listen," he screamed, "you stay outta trouble down there. You got any messages you want me to take to anyone? Your old man? Your brother?"
Joey looked out the window of his phone booth, at the life of a Key West deli. A guy with a shaved head was making conch salad sandwiches. A girl with her boobs hanging out of an undershirt was sucking mango juice through a straw. Outside, it was eighty- two degrees, people were not worrying about tapped telephones or about being murdered by their colleagues, and Joey was suddenly very grateful to be right where he was, doing just what he was doing, nothing more and nothing less. "No, Sal," he said. "No messages. No messages for anybody."
— 14 —
"Hi, folks, how ya doin'? .. . Beautiful day, huh? ... Y' enjoying Fantasy Island?.. . Great. Where ya from? . . . Minnesota, whaddya know. Me, I never been to Minnesota, but hey, there's lotsa places I never been. Minnesota, that's where the Packers play, right? Nah, wait a minute, what's wrong with me, that's Wisconsin, that's the other side of the lake or whatever it is they got up there. Minnesota, that's the Vikings.... Whassat, you hate football? Me too, to tell ya the truth. Silly game, ain't it? Buncha big galunks breakin' each other's legs. Hey, who wantsta wear helmets and shoulder pads and get flattened by three-hundred- pound galunks when you can wear practically nothing, lay under a palm tree, and get flattened by a pitcherful of margaritas, eh? Speakin' of margaritas, how'd ya like to take a look at the most beautiful resort in Key West? Sand beach, pool, balconies, the works. Tour takes about ninety minutes. . . . Whassat? You're meeting friends in an hour? Great. Bring 'em along. Come back here with 'em, take the tour, and you'll all go out for dinner on me.. . . That's right. Forty-dollar meal voucher. Per couple. Good at twenty-five of Key West's finest restaurants. Conch chowder, key lime pie. So you'll come back?. . . Great, I'll be here. You see this little square of sidewalk? You'll recognize it? It's got a crack over here, a curb over there? Awright. This is where I'll be. . . ."