Marine Park(11)

            He walked over to the kitchen where the family phone was attached to the wall, flicked the kitchen light on, and picked up the receiver. When he did, he heard in the background the oddly amplified sound of waves lapping. Along with the static of the connection, it was strangely familiar, reminiscent of something that made Vincent’s fingers start tapping on the counter.

            Use the other phone, Vin, the voice said. Three minutes.

            Vincent hung the phone back up on the wall and sat down slowly on one of the kitchen stools. He looked at the scratches made on the table from the bottom of the coffeemaker that they used every morning. He traced the scratches with his nails. Then he walked over to the refrigerator and poured himself orange juice.

            When he finished every drop in the glass, the light coating of pulp still on the upper half, he went back into the living room and sat in his recliner, his corner of the room where Aurora never cleaned. He turned the volume on the television up. Then he reached under the seat cushion and pulled out a mobile.

            Before the news went to commercial the mobile began to beep, and he pressed a button with his thumb and held the phone up to his ear.

            What if Rory had picked up? he said quietly.

            It’s been a long time, Vin, said Benducci.

            Call like that again without letting me know and I’ll give you a what-for.

            It’s been a long time, Benducci said again.

            You’re telling me.

            What was it, the Maria?

            Not the Calabrese? I thought that was the summer before.

            Good to hear your voice, Vin.

            Upstairs Vincent heard the radio turn off, and he banged his elbow on the chair arm rushing to hide the phone, but brought it back up to his ear when the bedroom door didn’t open.

            OK? asked Benducci.

            I could be talking to anyone, Vincent said. I don’t talk to anyone much from before anymore.

            Benducci let that rest and then said, Nice and quiet.

            Not too bad.

            You could use a little excitement.

            Vincent laughed from his lungs and wiped the corner of his mouth. Not really, he said.

            You could use a little extra money with the roof needing a fix. Vincent kept laughing. It never surprised him what type of research the capos in charge of guys like Benducci did. Or had access to, he supposed. It was the way they had liked to work. The roof had been leaking enough that even Vincent cleaning out the gutter hadn’t helped. Benducci laughed too.

            Listen, Bendy, what do you need? I think the roof’ll be just fine, but if it’s not a big job maybe I can help you out.

            It’s another boat job.

            Like I know anything else? Why me?

            Nobody does these anymore. The money’s from Wall Street now. Nobody knows Brooklyn.

            What’s the bag?

            Silver dollars.

            As in from the infomercials?

            They’re twenty per.

            Sounds fair.

            And we bring it down to Red Hook.

            While they went over the details Vincent’s mind wandered. He was excited. Not excited, but a something-to-wake-up-for-in-the-morning feeling. He’d been running numbers with his little brothers since his uncle was the numbers man for South Brooklyn. Put money down on the last digit of the winnings that day at the racetrack, and adolescent Vincent would come to your house and give you your purse, or just a shake of the head. It was a living then, a way to make something on the side, and he’d always liked spending it in the candy store, chocolate or soda here and there. Eventually he started driving, and Idlewild Airport had just been finished, before it was JFK, and you could make real money driving cars and trucks parked on those lonely watery roads, heavy with cargo that disappeared from the belly of planes, down the LIE and the BQE to the warehouse sections of the borough, as long as you weren’t curious enough to ask any questions. He made enough to buy the candy store. He made enough to buy the Napoli, and when the truck jobs became too common he was right in place to put the boat to service, hauling boxes of watches, designer jewelry, sometimes plain money, from the empty junkyards right where the runways hit the water. He never knew too much. Sometimes they didn’t land, just pulled up alongside unmarked, unnamed boats, Coast Guard cruisers conspicuously absent. Once he saw a man get shot in the leg, and it was the smell of it that unnerved him. Once when he made a wise comment someone hit him in the face, and when he acted surprised, he remembered the strange look Benducci gave him, as if there was something about Vincent he couldn’t understand. The black eye turned blue, then green. But he knew how to put those things out of his head. He had done fine, better than his father, who trimmed off the garbage scows leaving the Navy Yard for a dollar a day.