"Buried already."
"Buried already, why'd he still be walking farther back?"
"Fuck you ask me my opinion then?"
"'Cause you're the expert digging holes," said Piney. "He was walking toward the shelter."
"Nothin' in the shelter but rat shit," said Fred.
"Useta be stuff in the shelter."
"Useta be stuff lotsa places. What's your point?"
"I don't know," admitted Piney. "But a guy with nice clothes with a shovel..."
"My guys," Fred conceded, "we dig holes, we don't dress that nice."
"A wagon. It's a little off is all I'm saying."
"It's kind of strange," said Fred. "I grant you that."
Chapter 42
Tarzan Abramowitz was pacing, but the energy he burned with each deep flex of his thickly muscled knees was insufficient to work off the anger that was building in him every moment. He was being scolded.
Ivan Cherkassky, sitting at his desk in his dim and narrow office, was giving him a dressing-down. The criticism was calm, even polite, but the young thug resented it bitterly. In the old country he would have taken it better, would have felt he had to take it; but this was America, South Florida, and there was something in the air that defeated hierarchy and encouraged insubordination, that fostered a scrappy independence whose first premise was that you shouldn't have to take any shit from anybody, ever.
"Going in person," Ivan Cherkassky was saying. "This I did not want. Draws attention."
Abramowitz paced, stretched the wide suspenders that bit into the ropy sinews between his bare shoulders and his neck. His pacing was mostly turning, he was like a fish in a too-small tank.
There was a knock at the front door.
Cherkassky would not have been inclined to answer it, but Abramowitz heard in the knock an opportunity of escape. He said, "Is probably Gennady," and bounded into the hallway.
He sprinted down the corridor, lunged across the living room, undid the locks and yanked open the door. To his bafflement, he saw, framed by a brilliant rectangle of sunlight, two old men, perspiring and flushed, one of them wearing a lime-green pullover and holding a half-dead dog with cataracts.
For a moment no one spoke. Sam Katz, looking for he knew not what, tried to peek around the young man's hairy chest. Abramowitz shifted just slightly this way and that, guarding empty air. Then Bert said, "Hi. We live around the corner."
Abramowitz said, "So?"
Sam said, "Neighbors."
Abramowitz said nothing.
"We've met your father," Bert took a guess.
"My father's dead," the young man said.
"So's mine," said Sam. "I'm sorry."
Bert said, "The dog. I was wondering if the dog could have a little water."
Abramowitz was shifting foot to foot, his long arms bobbing from their sockets. "If only you live around corner—"
Bert held up the limp chihuahua. It sagged in his hand like an under-stuffed sausage. "Long way for a little dog like this. Little dog like this could drop dead 'tween here and there."
There was a brief standoff. Then Sam saw a waferish form slip around a corner from the hallway. "What is it, who's there?" Cherkassky said.
The young man turned. Sam saw an opportunity and leaned in through the doorway. "It's us. Sam Katz, remember?"
"Ah," Cherkassky said resignedly.
"Want water for dog," Abramowitz sourly explained.
"Dried out from the sun," said Bert. "Eyelids stuck. Nose all cracked."
Cherkassky looked at the ghostly pet. Then he said to Abramowitz, "Yes, of course, of course, you see this dog, bring bowl of water."
Tarzan, feeling scolded once again, clenched his fists and bounded off.
Sam and Bert stood, trying to look friendly, in the doorway that had lost its sentinel.
Ivan Cherkassky made a token attempt at a smile. His mouth corners twitched and there was a flick at the edges of his eyes. "Forgive me I cannot invite you in," he said. He pointed at the dog. "Allergic."
Making conversation, Bert said, "Same allergies in Russia?"
"You think we are that different?" said Cherkassky.
Tarzan Abramowitz came back from the kitchen. He carried a shallow bowl of water and he had to walk slowly so it wouldn't spill. Walking slowly stymied his athleticism, made him strangely awkward but gave him unaccustomed time to think. Tentatively, he stepped across the front door threshold, then bent to put the bowl down on the welcome mat. Straightening up, he said to Sam, "Did you say your name was Katz?"
"Katz. Sam Katz. And yours?"
Abramowitz stepped inside and closed the door.
Aaron leaned back against a stack of propped-up pillows and watched Suki brush her thick black hair. Her shoulder dimpled when she raised her arm. Her scalp moved ever so slightly under the tug of the brush. There was breathtaking privilege in being allowed to lie there, watching her. Love meant looking closely: being invited to, daring to. He watched her and felt a patient excitement that came full circle and melded with serenity. It was the primitive, solemn, and arousing peace of having taken a mate.