Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (33 page)

At Lake Worth they got a traffic ticket for using the horn and Gnossos took up an hour collecting as many stubs as he could find on the windshields of other cars. He mailed them all to the local fuzz, in a large manila envelope with no return address.

In Fort Lauderdale the stomach pain grew worse. It spread, in fact, into his groin and he pretended it didn’t exist.

In Miami there was an ecstatically painful burning sensation when he went to the bathroom, and he had to lean against the wall to steady himself. But by the time they drove down Collins Avenue it was not so bad. They dug the ankleless women in pink straw hats, the faces dripping of Coppertone and cacao butter, the men in Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the off-duty busboys playing Aga Khan. Judy and Juan Carlos had been given the back seat to themselves and seemed, incredibly, to have found true love.

On the P and O pier they parked the Impala, bought tickets with the magic credit card, were given Series B tourist cards, drank a pitcher of ice-cold
piña colada
, and boarded the S.S.
Florida
. In the quayside world of salt air and quick expectancy, Gnossos was neither Here nor There. Pelicans stood on poles, cormorants dove, black-backed gulls waited for swill.
Oil slick, leather, rope, squeaking timbers, the Caribbean. Water eddied in translucent pools, blue and pale green. The color of her spring stockings. Found the note by now, doing what, I wonder? Too late to douche, wait and see is all, count the days. Gnossos seed too tenacious and single-minded. Old ovum doesn’t have a chance.

“But why, Paps? Holy shit, man, there must have been other ways.”

“It was going a little sour on me, right? Not exactly rancid, but a little buttermilk odor.”

“So what? It goes bad, it goes bad, man. Then it’s over, bang.”

They were standing with the other tourists at the rail, watching the ship ease past the narrow peninsula of quarantine huts toward the open water. The sun had set and the sky was turquoise and saffron. The girls were taking showers and Juan Carlos was looking for plots.

“I’m not up to the bang is all.”

“
You?
Come on.”

“I’m just not up to it, baby. I’ve been down too long, dig, all those asphalt seas behind me, all I want is to go like home to the hill. Maybe she turns me on.”

“She’s starting to smell like buttermilk, and she turns you on? Tell me about it.”

“Nothing’s simple.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Yeah, well it was true before I started. Look at you and Jack anyway, man. You catch her practically in Lumpers’ pants and five hundred miles later you’re back in the vibrating sack, ready to go looking for Castro.”

“That’s different.”

“I guess it is.”

“I mean, she’s a little bit sick, so it’s different.”

“Yeah, and you’re a little bit boogie, and I’m a little bit Greek. And Kristin, man, is a little bit American, but if she thinks she’s gonna use me for some doublethink university politics, her head is twisted!”

“
Her
head is twisted?”

“I will not be done up, sport, it cuts my Exemption. And that shitty letter warning me she might be out fooling around. Man.”

“So you knock her up?”

“Check.”

“To teach her a lesson, I suppose?”

“To bring her full circle, man, to have her nearby.”

“That’s where you lose me, right there, that circular stuff. I mean, why the hell do you want to keep anybody who’s going to hate you, man?”

“She won’t hate me is all, the kid will turn her on.”

“Oh wow, you
do
need a vacation.”

“The American mother-syndrome takes over, just like changing gears. Overdrive, dig?”

“I also don’t see why she wanted you to meet her old man.”

“She didn’t, baby, she knew goddamned good and well I’d say no. She only brought it up to cover all that scheming in the infirmary. I’ve been
used
by the bitch.”

Heff watched one of the heavy pelicans pause in its lazy flight, fold its wings, and drop like a bag of stones into the water. “Listen, Paps, dig what I have to say. For the first time since I’ve been hanging out with you I think maybe you’re in trouble. Usually you can talk your way around a hangup and I end up seeing a little where you’re at and it’s mostly pretty cool, see; but right now you’re into something very private and from here it looks spooky. I’ve got no rational insight for you, man, but the spooky feeling is there just the same and you ought to know.”

The steam whistle sounded as they passed a winking lighthouse, and Gnossos turned to watch the line of pink and white hotels beginning to fade on the Miami horizon. “You’re not into the monkey is why,” he said wearily.

“What monkey?”

“Back in Athené.”

“Wow, man, you’ve been shooting up horse?”

“No, baby, it’s a different breed. Or maybe not, I don’t have it all figured out. Blacknesse is looking for a picture, dig?”

“You feel all right?”

“Beth says he won’t find it, and Kristin’s afraid she’s going to see it again.”

“O man—”

“It was trying to kill her, right?”

“Let’s go have a drink.”

“It smelled like ammonia.”

“Little Johnny Walker, just the thing for your head, white Bacardi, maybe.”

“It wouldn’t come to Kim’s room, though. Smell of Innocence there. She caught me with a boner, dammit, bound to stick in her memory, get her all screwed up.”

“Little birdbath martini?”

They drank the martinis from a wicker table in the small ballroom amidships. A four-piece band played mambos and cha-chas, passengers in paper hats waddled around the floor, lights from the Keys glowed occasionally through the portholes. There was a pleasing vibration from the
engine throughout the hull, and the fragrance of the warm Caribbean. Heff waited impatiently for his business connection to show, and Gnossos, soothed after the potent alcohol, watched him with a growing feeling of nostalgia.

“What are you going to do with Jack, anyway?”

“I’m not sure. Tell me more about your monkey.”

“To hell with the monkey.”

“Listen, man, you don’t go around digging demons and tell me to forget it. What am I, just a passive ear or something?”

Gnossos tossed him a cigarette and smiled, “It’s only your frame I’m worried about. You might get it bent, running around those mountains.”

“My frame stays straight, you can tell just by looking at it.”

“Those cats don’t use water pistols is all, they can shoot through trees.”

“I know about guns, man, I went to school in Harlem.”

“Don’t get racial, baby, all’s I want to know is whether Jack is really going with you.”

“We’ll know in Havana, there are people we have to see, get the firsthand word.”

“The Buddha? Pick up a little bread?”

“Maybe. I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“The Scarlet Heffalump.”

“Shove it.”

“They play finders-keepers, baby.”

“I know all that, so what? I’m fed up with hanging around, everybody jawing, nobody doing anything. This cat in the Sierra is stepping out, so now’s no time for you to bring him down.”

“He’s high in my eyes, baby, he swings, I dig him.”

“He has class, man, he’s on his own. Whole Batista army looking for him and he makes it anyway.”

“If he makes it alone, then learn a lesson.” Gnossos streaking the moisture on his glass. “Jack is better off out of it.”

“She can handle herself.”

“Maybe. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t step away clean. Just split, zippo-bang, you don’t need fans along for the ride. You especially don’t need anybody to send reports back to Athené.”

“That isn’t fair, man—”

“You know what I’m laying down.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s something else too, important, are you listening?”

But before he could tell him, their attention was distracted by a small commotion on the dance floor. A figure like a Zeppelin was cutting a path through the waddling couples, pushing everyone out of his way. He wore a silk double-breasted suit, a maroon fedora, brown and white shoes, and smoked a black Italian cigar.

“I think that’s my man,” from Heff, shifting weight.

He apparently was making his way to their small table, walking flat-footed like an elephant. One of his teeth was missing and a lethal-looking bump protruded beneath his jacket. He smiled broadly when he saw them, ignoring the whispering tourists. Gnossos checked Heflalump’s slackening jaw and said: “Aquavitus.”

“Gnossos,” from the man, quite loudly, extending jeweled fingers. “An’ you mus’ be Hippalump?”

Heff’s cigarette fell clumsily out of his mouth into his martini.

“I join you, yes?” asked Aquavitus. “We talk business.” He sat down just as the violinist detached himself from the bandstand and began wandering around the tables. A waiter came over and smiled cautiously. “For me,” he continued, “Brolio Chianti, ’47, cool, not too cold, if you follow. These guys, what they got?”

“Birdbath martinis,” said Gnossos. “No olive, wipe the rim with lemon peel.”

“Don’t take all day, either.” The waiter gathered up the glasses and ran away to the bar. Aquavitus noticed the approaching violinist and cursed under his breath. He whispered perilously to Gnossos and Heffalump, “He will stay away from here. He come near to our table I have him killed, okay?”

Heff put a handful of peanuts in his mouth all at once.

The man’s cigar had gone out and he fumbled in his pockets for a match. A waiter appeared with a candle. Aquavitus took it away, blew out the flame, broke the wax in two and dropped the pieces on the table. “You gotta keep them jumpin’ alla time,” he explained to Gnossos with a wink. “They ain’t jumpin’, they don’t come through. How you doin’, Hippalump, pleasure to make you acquaintance, you ready to make the run all right?”

Heff coughed on his peanuts but Gnossos smiled. “This guy working for you, Giacomo? Little bread on the side?”

“Shoo,” said Aquavitus. “Everybody work for me. Giacomo, he espreading out, goin’ worldwide, if you follow. How you doin’ anyway youself, Gnossos, take a little vacation? Those guys come to see you in Atheené, those Heap guys?”

Heff’s eyes widened and he ate another handful of nuts. The first waiter arrived with the drinks and the bottle of Brolio. Aquavitus tested it against his cheek, pointed a thumb and said, “Maybe I put out my cigar in you eye?”

The waiter jerked up but managed to ask, “Too cold?”

“You,
Farabutto!
” came the hiss. “What you mean ‘too cold,’ he’s too hot. You want to be a lampshade? Cool him.”

“Sí, señor.”

“Drink you drink, Hippalump, little martini, anh? Strong estuff.” Then to Gnossos, “He drink pretty strong estuff, this Hippalump, you know him pretty good, he do nice work?”

“He’s all right, Giacomo, spiritual Italian.”

“Oh yeah, he that way?” In a sudden intimate whisper, leaning over the table, breathing garlic and eggplant fumes: “I got him going into new territory. He breaking ground, this kid. Heap, he recommend him.”

Heff and Gnossos looked at each other. “Heap did, man?”

“Heap, he say Hippalump go to Cuba anyway, ha ha, maybe use some bread on the side like you say, make a little run, ha ha.”

“Heap,” said Heff, amazed. “That spooky little ghoul.”

“Conspiracies, man. It’s all getting pretty zany.”

The waiter brought back a new bottle of Brolio and stood trembling until Giacomo savored the bouquet and nodded condescending approval.

“Maybe we make a toast to Palermo, okay?”

“How much you paying him, Giacomo?”

“What do you want to talk money alla time? Drink up.”

“How much?”

“Come on, Paps,” from Heff, slightly embarrassed.

“He make what you used to get, fixed rate a kilo, little shit fo’ private use.”

“Uncut?”

“Shoo uncut, you think I’m in olive oil?”

“Double it, then.”

Aquavitus rolled his head back in laughter, blubbery jowls shaking; his hat, held by a complex of rubberbands, failing to fall off. Phony old Capo, came the thought, never been closer to Cosa Nostra than the New York
Daily News
.

“I look like a Christmas tree, Gnossos?”

“He’s my buddy, man, you don’t want him bending his frame for coins. Who’s your connection anyway, Heff?”

“I don’t know, some spook, big cat with an opal in his forehead.”

“Meester Boodah. He okay.”

“Buddha, man, are you serious?”

“He open up a whole new territory.”

“Hey, man, nobody’s ever seen the cat, let alone do business with him. Heff, no fooling, you’re better off getting your ass straight into the mountains, what do you want to fool around with maniacs for?”

“I don’t have any bread, man, this whole trip’s on credit already.”

“Shoo, okay, I give some more money. But no double, double’s not in the question. We gotta have a little profit showing.”

“Who laid out the credit?” from Gnossos, again suspicious.

“But suppose I really can’t get in touch with this opal cat. Mojo and Pamela seem to feel he’s very unpredictable.”

“
Pamela?
What the hell has she got to do with any of this?”

“This man Boodah, he unpredictable like Meester Mojup describe. But in Palermo if he has function, then we make him exploit, if you follow. He don’ wanna be exploit, we tie anvils to his feet and go swimming in the beach. You understan’ how I intend.”

“Pamela paid the bill, man,” from Heff, sideways.

Gnossos stopped the drink halfway to his mouth. “No, man. Don’t say that.”

“Anybody work for Mafia,” continued Aquavitus, straining off his chair, “got something to offa. They remove the offa, we remove them. Very simple arrangement. Gnossos, you excuse me an’ Hippalump. Or maybe you wanna make a little run youself, pick up a couple dolla?”

Gnossos shook his head.

“Then you excuse us fo’ a little while, okay? Here, have a guinea stinker. Special tobacco, cured in Torino.”

Gnossos took the cigar, clamped the acrid tip in his molars, and stormed across the dance floor. He stormed back a moment later, finished his martini, and stormed out again, nearly colliding with a whirling Juan Carlos and Judy Lumpers. They seemed oblivious in their
paso doble
world.