Florida Straits(60)

Zack Davidson leaned over the chart and pointed with a pencil. "Latitude. Longitude. Loran lines. Compass rose. Shoaling. Harbor ranges . . ."

Joey scanned the paper for an easy place where his eyes could rest. "And what's this blank part over here?"

Zack was momentarily thrown by the question and shook his wrist to rearrange his watch. "That? That's the land."

For some reason this struck Joey funny: a map where all the important stuff was in the water and the nothing part was the land. This he'd never heard of in Queens. The idea pried open his imagination, turned everything superbly upside down. He scratched his head, dashed outside, and within an hour had chalked up two more commissions.

"Reefs?" he said when he came back into the office. "They put reefs onna chart?"

"Sure," said Zack. "This parta the world, that's like the most important thing on there."

"Right," said Joey. "And onna land part, they show where the bridges are, right?"

"Yeah," said Zack. "With the clearances."

"Right."

He returned to his post and realized for the first time that it was an extremely hot afternoon. The breeze had stalled and the palms, so lazily efficient at husbanding their strength, let their fronds hang as limp and seemingly weightless as flags. The yogurt eaters bent their necks to lick drippings from their cones, and young women in undershirts had beads of sweat at their hairlines. Joey sold one last tour with a heartfelt pitch about the gorgeous pool at Parrot Beach.

"Hey Zack," he said, " 'zere an airport between here and Miami?"

'Yeah," he said, "at Marathon. Fifty miles up."

"Great. And what's a rowboat cost?"

Zack Davidson folded his hands on top of his blotter, unfolded them, tugged an ear, and yawned. The heat and his younger colleague were making him tired. "Joey, you're awful hyper today."

"Yeah, I guess I am. Sorry."

"Hey," said Zack, gesturing toward the stack of tour chits Joey had amassed, "don't be sorry. It works. But Joey, man, aren't you getting exhausted?"

He let the question slide. "Zack, listen. I need your boat again tonight. I gotta keep it overnight, and I need tomorrow off. I know it's a lot to ask, but after this, I'm through with this craziness, I swear to God."

Zack shrugged. If Joey didn't wreck his boat the first time, odds were he wouldn't wreck it the second. Besides, the kid was on a salesman's roll, in that zone where no one could say no to him. Far be it from his boss to break the trance. "O.K.," he said, "you got it."

"And there's one other thing," Joey said. He leaned across Zack's desk and wagged a finger under his chin. "You gotta promise you're gonna lemme make this up to you sometime."

"Joey, hey, it's no big deal."

"It is to me. Come on, Zack, I'm serious. Don't insult me."

Zack looked at the younger man and blinked his sandy eyelashes. Skeptical crinkles bunched up at the comers of his hazel eyes, as if he had a tough time imagining Joey in a strong enough position to do much of anything for anybody else. "Whatever, Joey. When you can. If you can. No pressure."

"Soon," said Joey. "It's gonna be soon. And if things go right, Zack, you're gonna see that I'm a guy who knows how to return a favor."





— 32 —

In the screened gazebo at the Paradiso condominium, the late afternoon gin game was just breaking up, the players about to go their separate ways for the rituals of cocktail hour and sunset. When Joey arrived, Bert d'Ambrosia was gesturing through a final kibitz with the retired judge, his colleague in age, assets, and the respect accorded to each. Bert wore a pale yellow shirt whose weave was almost as thin and open as cheesecloth; the fabric nearly disappeared against his bronze, stretched skin. Don Giovanni perched on his forearm like an acrobat, seeming to use his whiskers as a kind of balance pole.

"Hi, Bert. Got a minute?"

The old man flashed him a wry look that said that was exactly what he had. Minutes. Hours. Days. Maybe even a few years yet.

Joey motioned him outside, and the two men sat down under one of the steel umbrellas by the pool.

Bert put his dog on the table, and although Joey didn't say a word about it, the old gangster seemed to feel called upon to explain. "The other owners don't like it," he said, "and I don't blame 'em. A dog onna table—it ain't, like, whatchacallit, sanitary. But this dog, ever since the night with the gahbidge, he don't like to be out of my sight. Like, under the chair, that's too far away now. Fucking dog's a royal pain innee ass. Ain't you a pain innee ass, Giovanni? I shoulda let that little scar-faced fucker blow your brains out."