Virgin Heat(52)

They'd moved back from the pool to a shady little grouping of chairs around a stone table, and now there was an embarrassed silence. Louie was of the school that preferred to consign to genteel oblivion any discussion of the sex lives of unmarried female relatives. As for Ziggy, though he hadn't had much leisure to think about it, he'd been quietly assuming that he and Angelina would shack up. Behind his terror and his plotting, he'd retained an image of her lying in his bed; burned on the backs of his eyeballs was a picture of the roundness of her breasts beneath the sheet, the canyon where the cloth banked down between her thighs. His scruples about deflowering her had been eroding, as scruples do.

His testicles had framed a new logic: if he was a dead man anyway, why deprive them both of a little joy? And if there was the remotest chance of making things right with Paul Amaro, being his daughter's lover might help his case as easily as hurt it.

The only problem was that Angelina no longer felt like making love with him.

Not then. Not there. Not holed up like fugitives, with Uncle Louie practically next door. Her nerves had fired to exhaustion; she felt both spent and spared. Unkissed, untouched, she yet felt that she had gone to the very brink, and now she was pulling back again, moving away from the dizzying edge of the diving board.

The silent stalemate carried on, and she caught a fast and ill-hid glimpse of something in Ziggy's face. She'd never seen it quite so bare before but she recognized it instantly. Desire. Desire quickened by frustration. She almost smiled at the wicked pleasure of being, at long last, the one withholding union   rather than the one from whom it was withheld. Sweetly, she said, "I guess you two are roommates."

"Not a chance," said Ziggy.

A pause. Then he frowned as Angelina glanced briefly toward the picket gate that led on to the wider world with all its many perils, its blithe murderers in trench coats, its ice picks and piano wires. He shot a sour look at Louie. "How many beds in that goddam room?"

Uncle Louie raised an index finger.

"Jesus Christ. King, at least?"

"Queen."

"Figures."

Angelina smiled, said, "I'll leave you two to settle in." She looked full on at Ziggy. "I feel a little soiled. Think I'll have a warm bath and a nap."

* * *

Tommy Lucca, eager to finalize the details of the smuggling operation, tried to reach Funzie Gallo as soon as he and Carlos Mendez had returned to Coral Gables.

It took four phone calls and several go-betweens, and by the time he spoke to his New York colleague, Lucca was more irritable than usual. This should have been a simple business, and it was turning out to be nothing but delays and aggravation. "You New York guys," he groused to Funzie. "Still so fucking paranoid about the phone."

Funzie, who in fact was paranoid enough that he only took calls on a pay phone in a bakery across the street from the Gatto Bianco Social Club, was too cautious to respond to that.

"Ya heard from Paul?" asked Tommy.

"Was I s'posed to?" Funzie said, noncommittal.

"Yeah, you were supposed to," Lucca said. He jerked back in his study chair and plucked at the crease of his trousers. " Ya should've heard from him hours ago."

They were baking cookies in a huge black oven near the phone that Funzie used. A batch was taken out on an enormous wooden peel and a smell of anisette and almond filled the air. "Well, I haven't."

Lucca choked back exasperation, said, "Our arrangement, it's a go."

Funzie motioned to the baker. He wanted some cookies while they were good and hot, the pignolias soft and chewy. He said into the phone, "I gotta hear that from Paul. You know that, Tommy."

Lucca knew it but he didn't like it. He snarled. He smacked his thigh. Carlos Mendez gestured to him, be nice, go easy. Lucca said, "But fucking Paul isn't exactly on the fucking case."

On that Funzie offered no opinion. His mouth was watering at the thought of the warm cookies.

A moment passed, and the Florida mobster said, "You call me soon's you hear from Paul. Soon. You got that, Funzie?" Then he slammed the phone down, the futile momentum of his arm seemed to propel him from his chair and start him pacing.

Carlos Mendez tracked him with his eyes, rolled his hat brim in his lap, said mildly, "It's only been four, five hours, Tommy."

"How long's it take to make a fuckin' phone call?" Lucca said.

"Maybe he had other things to do."

"Like what?" said Lucca, and threw himself back into his unhappy twitching march.

He paced and scowled until an ugly thought assailed him. Then he said, "Like stay in Key West and find a way to cut me out of this?"

"Tommy," said Mendez, "the money comes from me, remember?"