Florida Straits(59)

"What kinda split you looking for, Joey?"

"Split? Split? You think this is about a split? Jesus Christ, Gino, you really are a putz." Joey looked at his watch on its arrogantly inexpensive plastic band. "Look, it's late. I don't need this shit. Either you tell me what I need to know in the next thirty seconds, or I'm outta here and you're on your own."

Gino stared at the carpet but found no answers there. Vicki's foot moved under the sheet and kicked him in the kidney. "Awright, awright. Supposedly the stones are stashed at this place called Sand Key Marina. It's about ten, twelve miles up, and that's all I know about it. Drove me bullshit tryin' to find it. There's no signs, no streetlights, you like go down these tiny roads that turn into gravel and then dead-end at these swamps. Over and over again, fucking swamps. Mosquitoes. Fire-flies. Things croaking. Anyway, there's an old wreck of a fishing boat at this marina. Just, like, tied up there, ya know, it can't be used no more. It's called the Osprey. So Vinnie and Frank, they scoped it out, and they put the stones in this wreck, under a plank inside with like a little X marked on it. And that's as much as I know, I swear to God."

Joey nibbled a thumbnail and glanced at the dirty dinner dishes. "You got cash?"

Gino nodded.

"Gimme a thousand."

"Wha' for?"

"I don't know yet," Joey said. "I gotta think."

Gino leaned over, put die Jack Daniel's on a night table, took a wad of bills out of a drawer, and gave his kid brother some money.

"Tomorrow at midnight," Joey said, "go down to the basement, up the service ramp, around the pool, and out to the dock. No luggage, no nothing."

"What about my stuff?" said Vicki.

"Shut up," said Gino.

And Joey left. He saw no one in the elevator or in the basement kitchen, and when he encountered a security guard on the private beach, he just walked past him like he owned the joint and went out to his boat.





— 31 —

There is a kind of preoccupation that makes people muddled, absentminded, out of rhythm, but there is also a kind that hones them, makes them as taut yet supple as a child gymnast. The next day Joey was riding the crest of this second kind of preoccupation. He had a golden day at work. No one could say no to him. He patrolled his corner of Duval Street with the loose-limbed confidence of a great outfielder, and with similarly uncanny anticipation. He just knew what people needed to hear. One couple he won over with a winged spiel about award-winning resort design. Another couple—how could he tell they were starving?—signed on at the promise of a meal voucher for an oyster brunch. Then there was the older gent with the gold chains, the silver belt buckle, and the pebbled ring. This was a man who liked shiny things, an easy mark for the free passes to the Treasure Museum. By noon Joey had made half as much money as he had the entire week before.

Yet never for a moment was the Gino situation off his mind. It kept nagging at him like a bad but catchy tune replayed in a dozen different versions, and every time Joey ushered customers into the Parrot Beach office, he took the opportunity to pick Zack Davidson's brain.

"Hey, Zack," he asked at around nine-thirty, "they got this thing, right, like a mappa the water?"

Zack looked up from some papers on his desk. "Yeah, Joey, it's called a chart."

"Like, whadda they put on it?"

Zack shrugged. "Depths, buoys, lighthouses, landmarks—"

"Marinas?"

"Not usually. Not unless there's a big tower or water tank or something. Why?" Zack laughed at himself for asking this. He seemed to know by now that Joey wasn't going to tell him why.

"Just curious," said Joey. He put his sunglasses back on, let the earpieces slide through his hair with a feeling smooth as sex, and returned to his post on the sidewalk.

At around ten-fifteen he shepherded in another couple, deposited them in the waiting room, and was ready to resume the conversation exactly where he'd left off. Time was running on two tracks for Joey. There was the thick, slow time of his salesman's skill, then there was the urgent yet strangely serene count-down toward his midnight date with Gino. At moments the two times ran parallel, but then one would stop, freeze, wait for the other to have its say. "So, like, if you're looking for a marina and it ain't onna map—"

"Chart," corrected Zack.

"Whatever. How d'ya find it?"

Zack ran a hand through his sandy hair. "Well, there's gotta be a channel to get to the marina. So if you know roughly where it is—"

"Ah," said Joey, and hit the street again.

At midday he jogged to the Habaneras Marine Supply store and bought a nautical chart of the lower Keys. He brought it back to the office, unfurled it on top of the Plexiglas case of the Parrot Beach scale model, examined it with frank befuddlement, and experienced an emotion he couldn't quite place. It was humility. Bafflement, helplessness, littleness, shame —all of those he'd felt before. But this was different, rounder. Humility required a certain amount of confidence, a little bit of knowledge and pride, to give it a place to nest, and these parts of the mix were new. "Marrone," he said, "what is all this shit?"