So Joey backpedaled. "Nah, forget about it. It's not that inneresting, and besides, you hafta qualify."
"Whaddya mean, qualify? What kinda bullshit is qualify?" As a great sprinter comes to full speed in a single stride, so Gino Delgatto had the knack of coming to full belligerence in a single word. He was always ready to take umbrage at the merest suggestion that he might not be good enough for something.
"Like, for one thing," Joey said, "you need a credit card. You got a credit card, Gino?"
"Course I got a credit card. What kinda jerk travels these days widdout a credit card? I got a Gold Card. Dr. somebody. From Westchester, I think." And Gino smiled, not the stiff, forced grin but an easy smile of true delight. He was stealing. He was happy.
"And a license," Joey said.
"I got Bald Benny's old license," Gino said. "You know that."
Joey sipped his club soda. He was almost enjoying the conversation now. Should he point out that it might be awkward when Gino was asked to show both IDs, or should he leave his big brother with the mental challenge of figuring it out for himself? In the meantime he glanced at Vicki. Not much of a vacation for her, he figured. No shopping, no condo tour, no casinos with big-name entertainment. Did she withhold sexual favors when she was ticked off? Joey hoped so.
Gino at length came to the end of his analysis. "Yeah, I guess it would look, like, strange."
"Too bad," said Joey. "I coulda made forty bucks offa you guys."
"Hey, you strapped?" said Gino, and predictably, he reached into his pants pocket. Joey had seen him do it hundreds of times. He did it as naturally as other guys took their dicks out to pee. A single motion, the fat, spiraled wad of bills appeared, and Gino was once more master of the situation.
But this time Joey waved him off. "No, thanks, Gino. I'm not strapped. Besides, it wouldn't be the same, taking the money from you. It's a game, getting people to take the tour. The kick, that comes from figuring the game out, playing it good, and winning. Winning—you can understand that, can't ya, Gino?"
— 17 —
After work that day Joey drove the Cadillac to the Paradiso condominium and went looking for Bert the Shirt. He wasn't in his apartment. He wasn't under the steel umbrella by the pool. He wasn't in the screened gazebo where four old guys were playing gin.
"Anybody know where Bert is?" Joey asked the group.
One of the card players slowly lifted his left arm, held his wrist as far away as possible, and squinted at his watch. "Probably on the beach by now. His dog likes to watch the sun go down."
So Joey picked his way through the traffic on A1A, slipped through the ranks of bicycles and scooters streaming along the broad promenade that flanked the road, found a gap between two joggers, and stepped onto Smathers Beach.
An odd beach Smathers was, not like Jones Beach, Rockaway, or Coney Island. It was made of old coral, the bigger pieces resembling knucklebones, the smaller ones looking like shards and ribs from a well- picked chicken. Over the coral was a layer of imported sand that the town fathers had decided would be good for tourism. Where did it come from, this yellow-brown sand that looked like nothing else in the lower Keys? Or, for that matter, where did it go? Joey had no idea. But from day to day, and even from hour to hour, the sand seemed to sift downward through the coral, gradually disappearing into the bowels of the earth. What didn't fall through the cracks in the limestone blew unpredictably on every changing wind. One day it seemed that every grain of sand had decided to congregate up near the airport; next day the yellow-brown mass had migrated three quarters of a mile and was leaning against the fence that enclosed the private beach of the Flagler House hotel. There was only one thing you could count on about this sand: it would not be where your next footstep fell. No, your next footstep would carry you to an exposed and upturned knuckle of coral, a piece of ancient Florida history that would stab you in the arch.
But for Joey, wearing new tennis shoes purchased with his own earned money, the torturing surface of Smathers Beach was no more a problem than the hot sidewalks of Duval Street. His feet were comfy. His feet had adapted to where he was. Too bad it wasn't as easy for the rest of him.
He scanned the beach, looking for his friend. The sun was low, and the western horizon had taken on that perfectly neutral color where you can no longer tell if it's cloudy or clear, whether the sun will douse itself in the ocean or vanish in mid-sky, slipping into haze as modestly as a letter slides into an envelope. Joey saw no one except one guy with a metal detector and another flying a kite.
Then, finally, he spotted Bert. Bert was sitting in a beach chair, far out on a finger of crumbly gray rock that jutted into the green ocean. His back was to the land, and he was recognizable only by his bronze- white hair; that, and the canary-yellow polka-dotted silk of his shirt.