The compliment was insincere but still it cost him. Paul Amaro could remember being on the wrong side of the discussion about Tommy Lucca's prospects in Florida. Like most of the New York goombahs who didn't have the vision or the guts to make a move themselves, he thought Lucca was headed to a backwater, the minor leagues. Now they were all near the ends of their careers, and Tommy Lucca was rich, was tan, was one of the few who had never been to jail. He'd proved them all wrong, though he'd yet to prove nearly enough to be content.
He plucked imaginary lint from his shirtfront, said, "I'm getting by. Come in, come in."
Amaro stepped farther into the room, saw a sad- eyed, handsome man rising from his chair, a Panama hat in his left hand as he reached out his right to shake. Lucca made the introductions. The handsome man's name was Carlos Mendez, and his host described him as an important businessman with many friends in Cuba.
". . . where great and long overdue changes are about to happen," Mendez said.
"He wants Castro's balls," Lucca explained. "Democracy. It gives Carlos here a hard-on, he thinks it's coming any day. People are getting ready for it, buying guns. Siddown, siddown."
Amaro settled into a chair, said skeptically, "Ya read the paper, ya'd think the Cubans had no money. Not for guns. Not for nothin'."
The handsome man tried and failed to keep a certain smugness out of his smile. "The money is no problem," he said. "America is still good to those of us who strive."
"Yeah, swell," said Paul Amaro. "So what kinda pieces ya want?"
"Two thousand handguns," said Mendez. "Preferably 9 millimeter. Five hundred assault weapons, Chinese is acceptable. You can do?"
Paul Amaro crossed his arms. He'd promised himself to be bored and distant, but the deal adrenaline was starting to flow. He said, "What about payments, transfers?"
Tommy Lucca hadn't sat. He was pacing, raking the hair on his forearms. "You get the merchandise far as Hialeah. When it gets there, I move it to Key West, where another guy—"
"Another guy?" Amaro interrupted. "Who's the other guy?"
"A Key West guy," Lucca said impatiently. "A local."
"Of Cuban heritage," Mendez added, furling and unfurling the brim of his hat.
Amaro burrowed deeper into the negotiation, knew the fugitive peace of forgetting about his life. "I don't like it there's another guy," he said. "Why's there have to be another guy?"
"Geography," said Lucca. "Right here, we're like two hundred miles from Havana, the Gulf Stream in our face. Key West, it's only ninety miles."
Paulie chewed his lip, looked out the window at spiky plants with giant leaves. "When do I get my money?"
The handsome man said, "Everyone gets paid when the merchandise reaches Havana."
"Bullshit," Paulie said. "My part's done when the goods get to Florida."
Mendez smiled. His eyes got sadder. "Guns in Hialeah don't do my friends in Cuba any good."
Amaro ground his foot against the carpet. "This is why I don't like it there's another guy. I'm waitin' on my money while my merch is with some yokel?"
Lucca didn't like the word; his loose mouth quaked and burbled.
Mendez, diplomatic, said, "Perhaps we could pay half at Hialeah."
"And the other half before the shipment heads for Cuba," pressed Amaro.
"But if there's a problem—" Lucca said.
"A problem," said Amaro. "Exactly. This is why I don't like it there's another guy."
"Paulie," Lucca said, "the water near Cuba, the Straits, that's the hairy part. Cutters. Helicopters. The boat don't get through, someone's fucked. Who'd'ya wanna see get fucked—us, or the other guy?"
"I don't like dealin' wit' guys I don't know," insisted Paul.
Tommy Lucca's ears were getting red, lines of white were tracing out his mismatched nostrils. "I know him. That's not good enough for you?"
"No offense, Tommy, but no, it isn't."
Lucca stalled in his pacing, drummed stubby fingers on his rosewood desk. "No offense, Tommy? No offense to you, pal, but after all this time, you still got this fuckin' New York thing, like no one else knows how—"
"I didn't say that," Paulie said, though secretly he was pleased that he could sit in the enormous house of this successful man and so easily find a nerve where he could still be tweaked. "All I said—"
"All you said is that for you it don't mean beans that I picked this guy, that I trust him."
"Now don't get touchy, Tommy," said Amaro.
Carlos Mendez was working on his hat. His tragic eyes flicked back and forth, and he wondered if these two bullheaded gringos would scotch his deal before it started. At last he said, "Gentlemen, let's not quarrel."