He soaped himself, sought refuge in the practical. If Angelina was here, how would he find her? Who did he know that knew the town, who did he know that would help? Only Carmen Salazar. An arrogant pissant, but ambitious and not without intelligence, a man who understood the value of favors owed—as long as they were owed by people more important and more powerful than himself. Which meant that Paul Amaro would, as usual, have to hide his grief and his confusion, have to bend on the stiff mask of the formidable boss.
He rinsed, watched dirty suds go down the drain. For a long time he stood beneath the water, coaxing his mind to rest. He forgot about guns for Cuba. He forgot about calling Funzie Gallo. Or maybe he didn't forget. Maybe it was some dim defiance, some penitential courting of trouble that led him not to call. Maybe he just didn't dare distract himself. Like a weary actor mustering conviction to go out and reprise an ancient role, he needed to be empty of everything except the craft that might allow him to keep persuading others of what he himself had an ever harder time believing—that he was still a big shot, and that any of it mattered half a damn.
* * *
Less happened in the summer, but what happened was more strange. Ziggy had noticed it for years, but it had never been like this.
He stood now in the courtyard at Coral Shores, Angelina at his side, and he saw things that, in his staunch blue-collar prudishness, he was simply not prepared to see. At one end of the pool, two pairs of men, young, frisky, and innocent of bathing suits, were sitting on each other's shoulders, staging chicken fights. On the lip of the hot tub, a white man and a black man, bare-assed both, were sipping wine and exchanging enraptured stares. Buttocks gazed up from lounges, scrotums half-floated in clear water, diffuse as poaching eggs. Ziggy said, "Christ, Angelina, this is naked city."
"Don't say I never take you anywhere."
"I mean, I can't believe you sit around and look at dicks all day."
"Don't be crude, Ziggy. You feeling insecure? Listen, you get used to it. You practically stop noticing."
"I'm not getting used to it," he said. "I'm leaving."
Angelina surprised herself. Out of Ziggy's bed, she felt less sentimental. Back on her own turf, clothed, she felt more in control. She said, "Okay. So leave."
The baldness of it, the lack of protest, caught Ziggy off guard. He had nothing to add but his feet were planted in hot gravel, they weren't in a position to carry him away.
Then they both heard Angelina's name.
It came from a patch of shade at the far side of the pool, where a dressed man and a naked man were playing backgammon. Angelina looked toward the voice, said, "Jeez, it's Uncle Louie."
"Uncle Louie?" Ziggy said. "Zis a family fuckin' reunion ?"
But in the next heartbeat his thoughts curdled and he realized he was trapped. Angelina, after all, had set him up, brought him to this sealed-off courtyard, this place of no escape. This was Paulie's brother. If Paulie's brother knew, that meant Paulie knew. That meant there were killers lurking. He wished he had his gun, which was taped beneath the dashboard of his car. All he was carrying was a good- sized pocketknife. Should he grab a hostage? His head swam. The hostage should be Angelina. Could he do it, could he point a knife at her, wrap his arm around her throat?
All this transited his mind in a second. He didn't move. Uncle Louie was walking quickly toward them, agitated, jerky. The knife was in Ziggy's right pants pocket and for now he left it there. The sun was on the back of his neck and there was splashing in the pool.
Angelina said, "Uncle Louie, what are you—"
"We have to talk," he whispered breathlessly. He barely glanced at Ziggy; in that moment he seemed too full of his own momentous news to recognize the bartender from Raul's.
"Okay," she said, "let's talk."
Her uncle's eyes flicked nervously toward the stranger, whose hand was in his pocket. Angelina's gaze told him he should go ahead. "Your father's here," he told her.
Wearily, Angelina said, "I know."
"You know?" said Louie, deflated as usual. He blinked down at the damp apron of the pool. "How d'you know?"
"How do you know?" she asked right back.
"I just saw him," Louie said. "At Flagler House. He took a room."
"Shit," said Ziggy.
"How do you know?" Louie asked.
"It's a long story," Angelina said.
Louie stood there. He had time.
His niece said, "I don't really know where to start."
A team of naked chicken-fighters went down with a plunk like a depth charge, water lapped over the edges of the pool. Uncle Louie said, "The beginning might be good."