"The FBI's in town," Bert said when they were seated.
The Godfather said nothing.
"Hawkins and some new boy wonder," Bert informed him.
Vincente nodded. He'd never met Ben Hawkins but he knew who he was. His roving circle of cops and robbers—at the more select levels it was a very small club.
Bert petted his chihuahua, plucked a ghostly dog hair from his yellow shirt. "They know you're here. They were askin' me 'bout the Carbone thing."
Still the Godfather said nothing. He put a hand under his nose, smelled soil and sap; the smell pulled him back to ancient summers and memories of greater strength.
Bert paused, then cleared his throat. "Vincente, I know better than t'ask—"
"Then don't," said the Godfather, not unkindly. "It's simpler that way."
Bert looked down at his lap. Vincente glanced over at the bougainvillea. The papery flowers were fluttering in the breeze, the leaves were a lush green but the sound they made was brown and dry.
"The Feds," the Godfather went on, "they can set me up, arrest me any time. I knew that when I took the job, Bert. The power they have, it's unbelievable."
"Big power," his friend agreed. "Like the whole fuckin' world's their neighborhood."
"But I don't want 'em in my face down here," Vincente said. "I don't want 'em botherin' my family. 'Zat too fuckin' much t'ask?"
Bert stroked his dog reflectively, like the dog was his own chin. "Nah," he said, "it ain't too much. They should at least be whaddyacallit, discreet."
" 'Course," the Godfather mused, "wit' the Feds, it's tough ta know how much decency t'expect."
"Hawkins is OK," said Bert the Shirt. "He won't bust your balls wit'out he's got a reason."
The Godfather toyed with some loose strands of his unraveling straw hat. "And the new guy?"
Bert smoothed the placket of his shirt. "The trut'? Him I didn't like. He's two things that worry me: young and short. Tries too hard, double. I'm just not sure he'd give a guy an even break."
"An even break from the Feds?" Vincente said. "Bert, you always were a dreamer."
20
Arty Magnus raised his right arm high and let the thin and tortured spray of lukewarm water chase the soap out of his armpit and down his flank.
His showerhead had annoyed him every day for just over six years now. It was a small, cheap, fake-chrome job to begin with, and over time many of its holes had silted up with minerals. Water squeezed through it painfully, it was like a man with kidney stones. Instead of forceful parallel streams, it hissed out dribs and jets at random angles, a lot of the water missed his body altogether and clattered uselessly against the aluminum stall, which was painted a lumpy, ugly shade of tan, a sort of nuthouse beige. Some years before, something had gone wrong with the floor of the shower; the drain was no longer at its lowest point. Water pooled in a corner, and tropical algae, mold, and fungi often grew there. Sometimes the growths were green, sometimes black—it just depended what spores were in the air. Once the stagnant puddle had turned golden and begun to foam like beer.
Rinsed now, drying off, Arty looked around and wondered for the thousandth time why he'd stayed so long in the rented four-room transient-looking cottage on Nassau Lane. When he'd first come to Key West, he'd been reluctant to take a more expensive place—the job at the Sentinel was brand-new; what if it didn't pan out? As he became more entrenched in the town, he'd wrestled with the question of buying something. But at first the prices seemed too high, and so he'd hesitated. He'd been tempted when values began to decline, but stalled, waiting for the bottom of the market. Two years into the slump, he was no longer convinced that a house was necessarily such a great investment. Besides, did he really think he'd stay in Key West that much longer? He was reluctant to commit to it.
And anyway, in the main he was comfortable where he was. OK, the shower sucked. The frying pans were dented, the coffee cups were chipped, the tines of the forks were snaggled. The maroon Formica dinette had been in appalling taste thirty years ago and time had not redeemed it. But so what? The bedroom got a nice breeze, the garden was open to the southern light, and besides, Arty didn't need luxury. He didn't even like luxury, or, more precisely, luxury had been soured for him because it somehow put him in mind of a goad he had heard too often and never really been able to refute: that he lacked direction, was short on drive, deficient in ambition. He would never find success because he didn't want it bad enough.
That had been a heavy charge, a terrible accusation, when he'd lived up north. The attitude behind it was almost as good a reason as the weather not to live there anymore.