Mangrove Squeeze(2)

And now he was smiling at practically the only guests in his tumble- down guest house. He sneaked a look at the brief reservation list beneath the counter. "Ah," he said, "you must be the Karrs. From Michigan."

The tourists nodded eagerly, extravagantly grateful at being recognized, confirmed.

Aaron started reaching out a hand, then pulled it back when he remembered it was filthy. He was forty-one years old and the clean-hands, clean-shirt part of his working life was over. He was doing something on his own. He said, "Welcome to the Mangrove Arms. I'll show you to your room."





Six miles north, in the big glassed-in dining room of a modern waterfront house on Key Haven, Gennady Petrovich Markov crammed a hunk of rare roast beef into his broad and floppy mouth, bit down with enough gusto to shake the arc of blubber beneath his chin, and said with appreciation, "Keppitalism. Is werry good seestem."

His friend and business partner, Ivan Fyodorovich Cherkassky, visiting from a somewhat less grand dwelling on the next canal, sipped his Clos de Vougeot and agreed enthusiastically. "With brain," he said, "with nerve, you can improve your seetooation."

Markov put down his knife and fork just long enough to emphasize a point with the raising of a fat and dimpled finger. "Not improve it only, but control it. To control it—is key to everything."

He turned to a young man sitting on his right, a handsome fellow in blue jeans and with a hairdo from the fifties, a little bit Elvis, a little bit James Dean. He stroked the young man's wrist and said, "Remember this, Lazslo. Control. Is key."

Lazslo Kalynin stared briefly out the window at moonlight on the waters of the Gulf, then gave a bored and noncommittal nod. He was Markov's nephew and his ward; he owed his uncle his very existence in America. He owed him his job; all his jobs. He owed him his classic Cadillac convertible, Fleetwood '59, red with white interior. He owed him his Old Town bachelor pad, decorated with posters of gangster movies and Harley-Davidsons; the half-dozen Gibson guitars that he could barely play; the large amounts of folding cash he always carried in his cowboy-style wallet.

But gratitude was not in his nature—he'd never learned it, didn't see the point—and he hated giving up an evening of his downtown life for the shut-in, suburban dullness of Key Haven. He had even less patience for the endless and obsessive political musings of these old men with their embarrassing accents, their stretched-out vowels and phlegmy hs and rs with too much tongue.

Communism. Capitalism. Who cared? Why couldn't they just forget about Russia? Why couldn't they just grab and squeeze the promise of America like he had—without looking back, without comparing it to something else?

Markov had paused in his eating, expecting a reply; Lazslo had to say something. He glanced at his uncle's monumental stomach, which had been stuffed and prosperous for as long as anyone could remember. He said, "You controlled things pretty well in the old days."

His uncle, flattered, smiled but disagreed. "Enjoyed, yes," he said, as the housekeeper silently refilled their glasses. "Controlled, no. For scientist in Soviet union  , life was comfortable, true. Caviar. Trips to Asia, trips to Cuba. Women. Good. But problem? Any time they can take away. Why? Because never is it really yours, never you really own it. In America, you own. You pay money and you own."

Happy in his certainty, he went back to his red and bleeding roast beef. Juice glistened on his chin.

Lazslo, drawn despite himself into the discussion, said, "But even here, plenty of people, the money runs out, they lose everything, just as easy."

Ivan Cherkassky, the family friend, leaned forward in his chair, propped himself on sharp skinny elbows. He had a doleful scooped-out face, pockmarked and lumpy, like what was left when a wedge of melon had been spooned, with scrunched-together features arrayed between a pointy chin and a high but narrow forehead. He wagged a finger and said, "Is not the same. Here, when people they are losing things, is because they have been stupid."

"Exectly," Markov concurred. "Stupid. Which is why," he added gravely, "we must always plen."

Lazslo could not quite stifle a cockeyed smile nor keep a needling tone out of his voice. "Plan?" he said. "That's a tactful way of putting it."

The comment worried Ivan Cherkassky. Everything did. His slippery eyes flashed left and right, he glanced behind himself. He chided in a whisper, "Lazslo, please, be careful how you say."

"The KGB is listening? The commissars, the generals? They come with Geiger counters maybe? Still looking for certain missing state property when there isn't even a state?"