The word brought forth a snort from Fred. "Luck? What about it?"
"Like for starters, whether it exists."
Fred thought about the people he dug holes for—people with big houses, swimming pools. He thought about people he met in bars—fat bankrolls, nicely dressed. Some of these people, he admitted, seemed a lot smarter than himself. Others really didn't. He said, "Damn straight, it exists."
Pineapple looked across the shallows where unlikely shoots of mangrove were colonizing the sea, buying back land for North America one sand grain at a time." Ya think it changes? Luck, I mean?"
"Ours hasn't," said Fred. He sucked his beer.
"Finding the hot dog, that was lucky."
It was true but Fred had staked out the bitter position and now he didn't want to change. He said, "Piney, is there some point you're aiming at?"
"Not really," acknowledged the man with the medieval face. "It's just that, well, ya hear different things."
Fred left that alone, rested his beer on the seawall and lit a cigarette.
"Like ya hear people say," Pineapple went on, "don't push your luck, like you only have a limited supply, and once it's gone, that's it."
Fred said, "And you're shit outa luck from there."
"But then," said Piney, "other people, they make it sound the opposite, like exercise, like the more you push your luck the more you have."
"I don't see the point of exercise," said Fred.
"Like, in battles," said Pineapple, "the guy that leads the charge hardly ever gets shot. Not in movies at least."
"Exercise," said Fred, "I get enough fuckin' exercise digging holes and riding my bike for beer. What kinda bullshit is more exercise?"
Pineapple looked down at his long thin legs as they dangled over the seawall, his bare feet just a few inches above the flat water that held the dying colors of the sky. "Fred," he said, "we weren't talking about exercise."
"Ya think I don't know that? We were talking about war movies."
Piney gave up on conversation and looked down at the ocean.
Lazslo wished that she would drink more.
He kept topping up her Chardonnay. He topped it up when they were sitting at the table, eating steak; he topped it up now that they had moved onto the sofa. Every time he drank some beer, he went to replenish her wine, finding each time that the level of her glass had barely budged. As if to compensate, he drank more beer himself.
He couldn't decide how the evening was going. Suki was keeping her distance—that was bad. But conversation was very lively—that was good. Except there was a tension in the talk, a constant tugging—and he couldn't tell if that was playful or just difficult. Lazslo spoke of Caribbean islands, exotic travel—sensuous things that cost money, that Suki was supposed to believe they might do together if she became his lover. But she followed up on none of that. She talked about rents and business and politics and crime.
"The diving off Cozumel," Lazslo was saying now. "Fantastic. And Yucatecan food—great fish with lime and orange sauces, none of that rice and beans garbage."
Suki had an ankle folded under her against the velvet of the couch. She leaned back just outside of Lazslo's reach. She said, "And how about the food in Russia?"
Lazslo made a gesture of distaste. He didn't want to speak of Russia. He was an American now, with flame red underpants and Bruce Springsteen on the stereo. He said, "Russia, no big fat juicy steaks. No asparagus in January."
Suki said, "Amazing, what's happened to that country."
"Forget that country," Lazslo said. "Dreary, cold. When, so close, we have the Grenadines, the Cayman Islands..."
He moved to touch her hair, her ear. He had to slink, almost grovel to reach her. She had time to seize his wrist and fend it off. She said, "Caribbean, that's just vacation. Russia, that's history. Fascinating."
She released his wrist, and Lazslo found himself lying at an uncomfortable and undignified diagonal. His lunge had sent a throb up to his head, and he very vaguely realized he'd gotten one Budweiser ahead of himself. He said, "Fascinating?"
"The way authority just collapsed," said Suki. "The way a Mafia seemed to spring up practically overnight, good Soviets suddenly becoming master criminals."
Lazslo straightened up, regrouped. He put his hands on the cool glass coffee table and studied her a moment. Her eyes were bright and wide, her throat a little flushed. Her fingers were splayed out on her knees and for the first time all evening she was leaning toward him. A shrewd, sophisticated thought occurred to him. He didn't recognize it as a desperate stratagem whispered by his gonads. He topped up her Chardonnay, and said with a worldly lift of his eyebrows, "This Mafia stuff—I think it excites you."