Now, three days after the Godfather's return, the two of them were back as well. They'd come by way of Miami, where Gino went once again to see a guy. He'd dropped Debbi off at a cafe in South Beach. She'd sipped a Negroni and watched the models, crossed and uncrossed her skinny legs and tried out different positions for her hands, and pretended she was a model, while the real ones slunk past with their be-ribboned shih tzus, their sheepdogs buzz-cut for the tropics.
Arrived in Key West, they checked into the Flagler House just before sunset, had a shower, a room-service cocktail on the oceanfront balcony, and went unannounced to Joey Goldman's house.
Joey was watching the evening news. The news was that the economy was a little up and a little down. As if he didn't know it: Real estate sputtered, his listings ran week after week in the paper, everybody looked and nobody bought. It was really Sandra's end of the business, the housecleaning and rentals side, that kept the steady money coming in. Short hair, simple clothes, a soft voice, down-to-earth ideas that worked; thank God his wife was practical.
Joey was surprised to hear the bell ring. He swung his bare feet off the wicker hassock and went to answer it. In the dim light his half-brother was glutting the doorframe like a feedlot steer, Debbi squeezed off to the side like a cat that had wandered into the stall.
"Gino," Joey said. "I didn't know you were in town."
"Yeah," said Gino, by way of explanation. "I'm heah. Pop around?" He leaned close. Joey smelled aftershave, bourbon, and cheese spread.
"He's onna patio, talkin' with a guy."
"Yeah? What guy?"
"Guy you met," said Joey, standing aside as Gino barged into the living room, Debbi following. "Arty. The editor guy."
But Gino was not much interested in the editor guy. "Ah," he said. "I gotta talk to Pop."
"Pop wants ta talk ta us," said Joey.
"What about?" said Gino.
"I think I know, but I'm gonna let him tell it, he wants ta tell us both together. Hello, Debbi."
"Hi, Joey," said the bim. The traveling had knocked her hair down, it lay flat this time, was parted in the middle, and framed her face the way girls' hair used to frame their faces, following the lines of their jaw, in high school. The tan from her last visit was already gone, the only remnants some pink spots where she had peeled. Hoping for some company, some talk, she asked, "Is Sandra here?"
"Nah," said Joey, "she's at a benefit. Guy who works for us. Got burned, needs skin, more operations. "
Gino wasn't much interested in the guy who got burned. He pointed his stomach toward the patio and charged off after it, Joey and Debbi trailed behind because they didn't know what else to do.
Outside, seated at the metal table softly lit by floodlights tucked tastefully into shrubbery, the Godfather was talking to his ghostwriter.
"So Ahty," he was saying, "I'm depending on you ta say this nice, make it elegant like, polished, ya know, so it moves people, but the first thing we gotta get across is tha' Sicily, the people, the whole island—what we gotta tell 'em is tha' Sicily, from the beginning a time, has been fucked right up dee ass."
Arty was dutifully scrawling in his notebook Sicily fucked in ass when Gino burst through the vacant doorway like a fat sprinter straining toward the finish line. "Hi, Pop," he said. "I gotta talk ta ya."
Vincente paused, blinked, reached toward the low metal table as if to ground himself, and raked his hand slowly across its cool top. He had been, if not serene, at least crawling toward serenity, beginning to skim grievances from his stuffed heart, starting to excise rancid memories from his cluttered brain. And now here was Gino, blustery, urgent, loud, insistent on reversing the flow, cramming more crap through his father's eyes and ears. The old man could not keep a sudden weariness out of his voice.
"Gino," he said. "When ja get back?"
"Just a while ago. Can I see ya, Pop?"
"Say hello t'Ahty," Vincente said. It shamed him that he still had to coach his thirty-six-year-old son in manners.
Gino said a grudging hello, then stood there leaning forward, damp under the arms, shifting weight from foot to foot. Joey and Debbi were standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, as if to steady themselves in the turbulence left by Gino's passage. "I'll talk ta you and your brother," the Godfather announced.
"But Pop," said Gino, "what I gotta talk about, it's important, maybe just the two of us—"
Vincente had begun the slow and stately process of rising from his chair. Halfway up, he said, "Gino, he's your brother. We're guests in his house. Ya don't leave 'im out. Besides, I got somethin' to tell yuhs." He straightened gradually, and only standing could he see around his bulky firstborn. "Oh, hullo, Debbi," he said.