Gino held a lighter in his fat cupped hands. There was something ancient in the act of sharing the offered flame.
Through the kitchen window, Sandra saw four red points shining through the silver moonlight, the cigar tips of the Godfather, his two unmatching sons, and the nice new fellow who was being drawn into their circle.
10
"Dog's constipated," said Bert the Shirt.
"Who isn't?" said the Godfather.
They were standing on Smathers Beach in the half hour before the sun went down. Vincente's black shoes and Bert's white sneakers scratched against the nubbly limestone that passed for sand. In the green water, three or four miles from shore, a couple of sailboats were scudding by; farther out, beyond the reef, a shadowy freighter was riding up the Gulf Stream.
But Bert wasn't looking at the water, he was watching his straining chihuahua squatting in the knobby coral. The dog was hunkered down on its hind legs, its back was arched, it was trying so hard to pass a stool that it was quivering all over. Its little white rat's tail was pumping hopefully, the tiny pink button of its asshole was pressing outward like a flower about to open. But nothing happened, and the clogged dog stared up through its milky eyes at its master, seemed to implore an assistance that no mortal being could provide.
"Fuckin' age," said Bert the Shirt. He gave his head a slow shake; his white hair with its glints of bronze and pink caught the sunlight different ways. "Poor dog don't even jerk off no more. Used to be he'd lick 'is balls. Once, twice a week he'd hump a table leg, try ta fuck a squeak toy. Ya know, he showed some zip. Now? Two fuckin' bites a dog food, a heart pill, drops in 'is eyes. His big thrill? He can pee onna rug, I don't yell at him no more. Some fuckin' life, huh?"
Vincente didn't answer. He was looking out at the ghostly freighter, at the tired sun suspended in its slow plunge to the sea. "Omerta, Bert," he said. "The honorable silence. Ya think it counts for anything? Ya think it means shit anymore?"
Bert didn't miss a beat. Since his brief death he had trouble staying on track, but making transitions had never been easier for him. "Since that mizzable fuck Valachi spilled his guts? On TV no less? Remember those little black and white sets, big box, little picture, by the time they warmed up the show was over? Ya think about it, what's left to be silent about? Like there's someone out there, he's been in a coma forty years, he don't know there's a Mafia? The movies, the books. Now I read where they're sayin' Edgar Hoover was some kinda nutcase Nazi faggot. Liked ta put a helmet on, have people tie 'im up and call 'im Edna. So who ya gonna believe?"
"Ain't a question a who ya believe," the Godfather said. "It's a question a doin' the right thing."
"Who's arguin'? But Vincente, can we talk heah? You and me, we're old, I mean, speakin' whaddyacallit, figurative, the dog can't shit and we can't lick our balls no more. Least I can't. But hey, one good thing about gettin' old, ya don't have to pretend no more; there's no reason ya can't just lay things out, say, Here it is, take it or leave it, kiss my ass. So like even with this code of honor bullshit—hey, I believed in it, you believe in it, but how many guys really believed in it? It just gave them an excuse—"
"It don't matter," said Vincente, "what the other guys believe."
Bert fell silent. Don Giovanni gave up on a bowel movement. The dog lifted slowly out of its arthritic crouch, kicked weakly at the coral knobs, and was again defeated, failing now to cover a mess it had failed to make. Its pale whiskers hung dejected, its expression was chagrined. "Nah," the Shirt said finally, "I guess it don't."
The sun hit the horizon; its reflection joined with it and gave it the shape of a stubby candle, a squat pillar of flame. The air was the same temperature as skin, if it wasn't for light salty puffs coming off the water, you could forget that it was there. " 'S'pleasant here, ain't it?" said the Godfather. He said it as though he'd just that moment noticed.
"Very."
"Peaceful like. Simple. Makes ya feel like, hey, what's the big deal if an old man says some things, eases his mind?"
Bert the Shirt said nothing, just watched the sun slip into the Straits, savored the small victory of being alive and in that place to see it.
The Godfather said, "So why can't I do it? Why do I feel like there's some nasty fuck out there"— he paused and tapped his scrawny chest—"or maybe inside here, that isn't gonna let me?"
———
The next morning Arty Magnus was sitting at his desk, his back to the dribbling, droning air conditioner, his feet propped comfortably between his telephone and his computer terminal. He was reading that day's Sentinel, counting typos, mismatched pronouns, yawning in his soul at the flat gray dullness of the merely factual, the smothering monotony of what was called the news. How was it possible that, in a world so full of nuance, nuance in the paper was as rare as cats that swam, that in a town so full of humor, the paper's occasional attempts at levity fell flat as pounded veal?