Gone Bamboo (7 page)

10

W
ith one hand, Tommy expertly cracked four eggs into a copper mixing bowl. It was seven-thirty in the morning, and bright sunlight was already streaming through the overhead skylight into the well-appointed kitchen. Rick and Burt, coming off their guard shifts, waved to Tommy as they passed through on the way to the back bedroom. They would sleep much of the day, rising around three in the afternoon for some free time before resuming duty at nine. Woody and Robbie, fresh from their morning jog, fifty laps in the pool, and an outdoor shower, moved about in the breakfast area to the rear of the kitchen, interspersing hurried mouthfuls of bran flakes with the serious business of cleaning and loading their automatic weapons.

The kitchen smelled of cloves and gun oil. Tommy sprinkled ground nutmeg into the copper bowl, added some cinnamon, a shot of Cointreau, and a few ounces of heavy cream, then whipped the mixture together with a balloon whisk. He unwrapped a loaf of panettone from the bread box and with a sharp, carbon steel knife sliced off three thick hunks from one end. Rick, the youngest of the six marshals living on the grounds, wandered into the room, doing neck rolls, a boogie board under one arm.

"Whatchya makin', man?" he inquired good-naturedly, watching as Tommy heated up a saute pan on the eight-burner Garland range.

"French toast," said Tommy. "You goin' to the beach?"

"Roger that," said Rick. "Got the whole day for R and R. Gonna go check out that Guana Bay. They say in the guidebook they got surf there."

"You stand up on that thing like a surfboard or what?"

"Negative," said Rick. "You lay on it. Ride it like you're body-surfing."

"Yeah?" said Tommy. "Well, have fun." He dropped the slices of batter-soaked panettone into the hot pan. "You get something to eat? I got some bacon, eggs around . . . I can scramble some, you want."

"Nah," said Rick. "I had some cereal. Thanks anyway, man."

"Disgusting," muttered Tommy.

Charlie Wagons sat at a small, round table near the pool. There was a tall glass pitcher of fresh squeezed orange juice and a silver espresso pot already there. When Charlie heard the screen door slam shut, he put down his demitasse and looked up from his newspaper. "Tommy, sweetheart. Whaddya got for me today?" he said.

"French toast," said Tommy, resting a corner of the tray on the table and starting to transfer the plate and condiments to Charlie's place setting.

"I got it, I got it," said Charlie, grabbing the plate from him. "Jeez, I'm not helpless. Gimme that. You ain't a fuckin' waiter. Siddown an' watch me eat. Have some yourself, for chrissakes."

Tommy leaned the empty tray against a table leg, pulled a deck chair over, and sat down across from Charlie.

Charlie had lost a lot of weight since his last operation. The skin on his face hung loosely, giving him the appearance of a starving basset hound. He wore chunky, black horn-rimmed sunglasses, white sun hat, pink dress shirt cuffed at the wrists, and a pair of long, baggy Bermuda shorts, waist pulled up high over his stomach. Below his knobby knees and blue-veined, hairless legs, he wore brown socks and sandals. An as yet unlit morning cigar sat at the ready in a heavy ashtray in the center of the table. The ashtray had a small figure of a woman's ass in the center, and the caption PARK YOUR BUTT HERE; a souvenir of Florida.

"So?" said Charlie, through bites of French toast. "You sleep okay?"

Tommy nodded.

"Feds bother you at all? Make any noise? They did, I can say somethin' . . . "

"No, they creep around like mice. No problem. You?"

Charlie shrugged and took a gulp of espresso. "I'm old. Old people don't sleep. I hear every fuckin' word. They can whisper all they fuckin' want, I'm gonna hear it. They can tippy-toe aroun' in their fuckin' socks . . . don't make no fuckin' difference. I know they there." He sighed dramatically. "Whaddya gonna do, right?"

"Cheryl's still sleeping," said Tommy. "She could sleep through anything."

"That broad sleeps too much. Whaddya doin' that girl, Tommy? Too much workin' or too much bangin'. I don't know what it is."

Tommy just smiled indulgently at the old man.

"She's nice," said Charlie. "A nice lady you got there. Don't fuck it up. That's my advice." He paused to consider something, then admitted, "You know the other night we was playin' gin? She beat the fuckin' pants offa me. Twice."

"I know. She was braggin' about it."

"Oh yeah? She was, was she?" Charlie started wheezing and had to catch his breath, his face turning red momentarily. "You gonna have to arrange a rematch."

"You can arrange it yourself," said Tommy as the screen door banged shut. "Here she is now."

"It's Sleeping Beauty!" howled Charlie, startling Don, the marshal watching them in the gazebo. Cheryl came over and groggily planted a kiss on Charlie's cheek. She was wearing a short bed jacket and a pair of white panties.

"Marrone!"
exclaimed Charlie. "What are you doin' to me, walkin' aroun' like that? What's with you? They didn't shoot my pecker off for love a'—"

"All talk, no action, Charlie," said Cheryl, dragging a chair over to the table and sitting down. She reached for one of Tommy's cigarettes, and Charlie put a spotted white hand over hers and gave it an affectionate pat.

"I was just tellin' yer boyfrien' here how beautyful you are. Look at her! First thing inna morning and she looks like an actress. Like whatsername." He fumbled for the name of a forties film star, faltered, and gave up. "Look at her! No makeup, no nothing. She just rolls outta bed and she looks like that. Mosta the broads I known in my life . . . takes 'em two hours inna bathroom and six pounds a' fuckin' makeup before they let you even look at 'em. And still, they look like shit."

"Thank you, kind sir," said Cheryl.

"I tell ya, I tell ya, Tommy. I was forty years younger . . . I was forty years younger, they'd fuckin' find you inna trunk of a car somewhere out there by Idlewild. Just so's I could have a shot at yer old lady. That's how I feel about her. No shit."

"Thanks. I think," said Tommy.

"He's just buttering me up for a rematch," said Cheryl. "He's a sneaky, perverted old man. And I'm gonna whip his wrinkled ass so bad next time we play he's gonna want to switch to shuffleboard or Parcheesi. Maybe you should play a game you stand a remote chance of winning, Charlie, sweetheart. 'Cause cards, you can forget about."

Charlie exploded in laughter, his face growing red again before he trailed off into a rasping cough. He took a sip of orange juice and held up a hand in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay," he managed to say. "I know I been whipped."

"Anything for me to eat, or did Don Corleone over here wipe us out again?" asked Cheryl.

"There's plenty . . . plenty. I didn't eat nothin'. A little fuckin' French toast!" protested Charlie.

"I got some fresh croissants, some brioches, eggs if you want. I can make you somethin'," said Tommy.

"No. I . . . I've got a hangover . . . That's good. Some croissant's good." She padded off to the kitchen.

"You make anything for the feds?" asked Charlie. "I don't want them eatin' all the food. An' I don't want you waitin' on them. Let 'em get their own."

"Nah. All they eat for breakfast is like bran flakes and skim milk. They bring it in themselves."

"For big boys, they eat like fuckin' squirrels those guys." Charlie sneered. "You should just throw that shit inna crapper, throw it right inna fuckin' toilet. Save everybody a step. A person that size should eat somethin' . . . Bacon. A nice steak, that ain't illegal."

"Not yet," said Tommy.

"I don't like that guys supposedta be lookin' out for my life eatin' nuts an' berries. I mean, that's no good for the strength. What if they gotta do somethin'?"

Cheryl returned, nibbling the end of a chocolate croissant and carrying an empty water glass, which she promptly filled with espresso from the pot on the table.

"Nice day," she said, peering out over the patio at the view of the Oyster Pond and the reef and the sea beyond. "You know," she said to Charlie, "you should come down to the beach one of these days. See the place. Stop being such a shut-in. We could make you a nice lunch . . . I mean, what's the problem? You could have a couple a' your gladiators escort you."

"Youse two are workin' again today? Every day with you," said Charlie, scornfully. "Every day. I didn't get you that place so youse could fuckin' work yourselves to death. Relax. Have some fuckin' fun."

"Sailing!" yelled Cheryl, and, remembering, suddenly slammed her hand down. "We're going sailing today!"

"I forgot," said Tommy, not happy.

"We made some friends," said Cheryl. "They're taking us sailing." To Tommy, she warned, "You promised."

"That's good," said Charlie. "You makin' friends."

"They're Americans. A couple," said Cheryl. "They're like a little older than us, but they're pretty cool. They live over there at the yacht club. You see it? That's where they live. And they're going to get us a generator!"

"We'll see," said Tommy. "I'll see it when I believe it."

"That's good you makin' friends," said Charlie, happy with himself. "You should have people yer own age youse can go bouncin' around with. It's no good workin' alia time. Have fun. Fun. That's when you go to parties, get drunk, act stupid." He paused for a cautionary note. "As long you stay away from the drugs. That's poison. Doobies is one thing. You smokin' doobies, who am I gonna talk? But the other shit. Poison."

"You gonna be okay without us? I'll leave some sandwiches in the fridge," said Tommy.

"Get the fuck outta here. I ain't fuckin' helpless, you know," said Charlie. "I'll take a nice swim inna pool. . . maybe play some cards with the Osmond brothers over there." He winked at Cheryl. "At least with them I gotta chance a' winning, right?" He sat back in his chair looking pleased with himself. "That broad, Lucy? The housekeeper? I think she's got hot pants for me. She's been lookin' at me funny. Maybe I'll give her a bang."

"She was probably just checking to see if you were still breathing," said Cheryl, getting up to go dress.

11

J
immy Pazz explained what he needed.

"I want fuckin' Godzilla," he said. "I want the meanest, murdering fucking donkey sonofabitch you got. I need somebody to go straight in, do the fuckin' job, and keep his mouth shut after. You know somebody like that?"

Brian Meehan, a sixtyish man in a pin-striped politician's suit, with snowy white hair and a genial expression, was happy to help. "I know what you're wantin', Jimma," he said, examining his fingernails. "And I have a tough old boy who's just right for you." He looked up and straight at Jimmy, his eyes electric blue, bottomless pools of bonhomie and friendly concern. "You know me, always willin' to help a friend."

Jimmy, in his caftanlike dress shirt and voluminous gray slacks, looked like Jabba the Hut next to the smaller, elegantly dressed Meehan. "You probably got a pretty good idea who it is, you been readin' the papers."

"Ahhhh," said Meehan, pressing his palms together, his fingertips touching his chin. "Yesss . . . That's a big job. The biggest."

"You got a guy?" asked Jimmy Pazz. "'Cause it can't wait. I gotta pack this character on a fuckin' plane like immediately."

For the briefest moment, Brian Meehan's face took on an expression of uncertainty. "Jeez . . . I don't know . . . This fella, I was gonna have him do a favor for some other friends . . . but . . . " Meehan's face cleared up as a solution presented itself. "But that's alright . . . I'll work something out."

"I'd appreciate it. I got a real fuckin' labor shortage lately, and you wouldn't believe some a' the retards you got workin' today. Crackheads. Dope fiends. Kids with fuckin' skateboards."

"Don' worry yourself, Jimma," said Meehan. "This person is strictly old school. He'll do right by you."

12

T
he man known as Kevin sat nursing a pint of Guinness at the end of the bar. He was pale, somewhat overweight, in his early fifties, and like the other men in the Shandon Green Tavern, dressed in jeans, heavy work boots, and a denim work shirt worn over a T-shirt. He wore a New York Mets baseball cap, and his face, as he had been sitting there drinking since nine that morning, was lit with alcohol and pink around the nose and cheeks.

It was like this between jobs; dreamland, a half-life of slurred voices, stooped old men, barely remembered good intentions. Kevin, for the ninth or tenth time that day, started a list in his head - "Things to Do Today" - and again he could think of nothing.

The Jets were going down to another defeat on the silent, overhead TV screen, attracting little interest from the patrons at the bar. The man sitting two stools down from Kevin was slumped forward, his face nearly touching a half-finished plate of mashed potatoes, cabbage, and gravy in front of him. A bleary-eyed harridan, with missing teeth and makeup on sideways, loudly bemoaned her stolen welfare check on Kevin's other side, her drinking companion, a wiry old man reading a racing form, ignoring her. The stools next to Kevin were vacant. Even drunk, the customers at the Shandon Green knew enough about him to be afraid.

People drank whiskey and beer. There wasn't a screwdriver, a sea breeze, a margarita, or a mixed drink of any kind to be seen. Shots and beer - serious drinks for serious drinkers.

Kevin let his eyes pass over the familiar row of framed portraits of Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, and other notable Irishmen behind the bar; the dusty commemorative bottles of single malt, the obligatory shillelagh, the clovers and maps of Ireland, the placards with clever sayings like YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE AN ASSHOLE TO WORK HERE, BUT IT HELPS.

The place stank of stale beer. The wooden bar sucked up spills like a sponge, year after year. Whiskey breath, the cigarettes that burned in every ashtray and dangled from the lips of the other customers, the pungent odors of pastrami, cabbage, turkey, and roast beef wafting from the long steam table near the front door - it all mixed into the particular hell-broth you found only on the West Side of Manhattan.

Kevin signaled for another pint, and in a moment his glass was refilled, the bartender fishing two wet singles and a quarter out of the pile next to Kevin's ashtray without comment. One didn't make conversation with Kevin when he was drinking. The baby-faced psychopaths who came by once a week to collect the envelope, even they were respectful of the big man. That told you all you needed to know.

Somebody in the rear dining area dropped some quarters into the jukebox - a large group of stagehands were doing some midafternoon drinking - and Van Morrison came over the speakers, drowning out the ambient sound of street noise and disappointment.

The pay phone rang by the front door, and Tom, the bowlegged sandwich man, picked it up. He listened for a second, left the receiver hanging, and walked down to Kevin's stool, where he leaned in close. "It's a parson wantin' ta speak with you, Kev'," he whispered.

Kevin slid carefully off his stool and picked his way, one foot after the other, down to the phone. He put the receiver to his ear and said, "Yeah."

"This Kevin?" asked the voice on the other end.

"Himself."

"A man wants to talk wit' you," said the voice.

"What man would that be?" asked Kevin. It wasn't Brian Meehan on the phone - the accent was all Brooklyn, and Kevin was feeling bilious and ill humored.

"You know the one," said the voice. "The man from the place . . . the place across the river there. The fat one. You know who I'm talkin' about?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"He wants to talk to you."

"Okay. Okay. So he wants to talk to me. I got that," said Kevin, the Guinness fogging his brain and a growing pressure on his bladder making it difficult to think.

"You know that place Rudy's over there? The one on Ninth?" said the voice.

"The place with the free hot dogs?"

"That's the place. That one. Okay? Be out front there at ten-thirty tonight. Somebody gonna come by in a car and pick you up."

"Yeah? And just where am I goin' in this car?"

"Lissen," said the voice, "you want the work or not? The man talked to some people said you was available to work. You want it or not? There's other people he can call."

"He talk with my friend?"

"He talked with your friend."

"Alright then."

"Ten-thirty. In front a' Rudy's."

"Right."

Kevin had a good piss in the men's room, retrieved his CPO jacket, his change, and his cigarettes, and lurched unsteadily out onto Ninth Avenue, leaving his latest Guinness untouched at the bar.

In his single room at the Globe Hotel on Eighth Avenue, Kevin took a long, cold shower and emerged from the mildewy stall looking for a towel. Unable to find one, he dried himself off with a T-shirt. He brushed his teeth and shaved, using the disposable razor the hooker he'd brought home the night before had used on her legs. He made a mess of his face, stanching the bleeding with bits of toilet paper, so many of them that the little red and white dots swam around in front of his rheumy eyes like stars when he tried to count them in the mirror.

He had something for his Things to Do list now, and he combed his thinning, straw-colored hair, scrutinizing his reflection with new purpose. It was not a terribly impressive sight, he knew. His swollen gut billowed out over his waist, pale and fish-belly white. The skin under his bloodshot eyes was pouchy and sallow. A yellowish bruise on his right temple marked where he'd stumbled into a door the week previous. But the arms - the arms still looked good. Big, veiny forearms, wide shoulders, hands with swollen knuckles and heavy calluses that resembled the claws of some giant crustacean. There were teethmarks around the second and third knuckles of the right hand, and Kevin vaguely recalled a confrontation at a bar and trying to push some mouthy nigger's teeth out the back of his head, and he wondered, momentarily, if he'd killed him.

Feeling ill now from lack of food and too much drink, Kevin opened a can of split-pea soup and placed it on the hot plate next to his unmade bed, stirring the contents with the handle of the can opener. He found a relatively clean pair of boxer shorts under an overflowing ashtray, shook them vigorously to rid them of any butts or cockroaches that might be hanging out inside. When he slipped them on, he almost lost his balance. He sat down on the edge of the bed and ate his soup, using a plastic spoon he found in a carton of calcifying Chinese takeout in the tiny refrigerator.

When he was feeling better, he pried up the floorboards behind the toilet and got out his .38 detective special and five hundred dollars of emergency money. Then he lay on the bed for a while, running his fingers over the revolver's stubby barrel, the contact with the weapon like a battery charge.

All business now, in his one suit, clean shirt, and a pair of cracked brogans, the .38 tucked snug and comfortable in his waistband, Kevin took a cab to the Tenth Street Baths.

He sat on the highest bench in the steam room, where it was hottest. Below him, shriveled old Ukrainian men, retired Jewish gangsters, a few spiky-haired punks on the nod sweated silently, occasionally pouring buckets of icy water over their heads, which they refilled from a rusty spigot. Kevin lay there on the worn, wooden bench a long time, his white skin turning pink in the atrocious heat, oozing out months of accumulated poisons. After an hour, he could take no more. He heaved himself out the door, trotted gingerly the few steps to the black and uninviting pool, and flopped into the water with a loud splash. The temperature punched the air right out of his lungs. It was cold; so cold he didn't know whether he could make it the few feet to the ladder before he went into shock and sank like a stone. He just made it, clambering up the metal rungs, his skin burning.

A wizened Uzbek with a broom of soapy oak leaves rubbed him down with mentholated lather, Kevin thinking about the job the whole time. He wouldn't take any shit this time, he resolved. If he had to go out to Jersey for this one, or up to Providence again, they were gonna pay expenses.

He had a half-hour massage from a bored-looking blond woman with a Mohawk and a nose ring. She asked him his astrological sign, and he had to say he didn't know, irritated with her for disturbing his thoughts. He was worried about his hands. They shook a little from lack of alcohol. It had been four hours since his last drink. He'd have a short one just before the meeting. Just in case he had to use the gun. Just in case they gave him any shit. He felt no loyalty to these greaseballs. This was a money job, no more. He'd ask for ten, no, twelve thousand dollars this time. Not a nickel less. He wasn't some street punk looking to make a reputation for himself. He had experience. He'd killed twenty-four men. He'd have one drink, no more. Then it was stricly maintenance until the job was over, and how long could that be?

When he went into the ancient, white-tiled shower room, only one other person was there, a tall, Nordic-looking man with one of those pumped-up bodies you got working out eight hours a day. Kevin had seen a lot of that in prison, guys who lifted weights until their bodies were so inflated they could barely touch their sides. Useless muscleheads, in love with the mirror.

"You should try the new machines," said the man.

"What?" said Kevin, annoyed that a stranger, especially a naked stranger, would talk to him.

"The machines . . . the weight machines," the man said, making lifting motions with both arms to demonstrate what he meant, and to show off an upper body he was clearly proud of. "They put in a weight room. They got everything. StairMaster, Exercycle, everything. Good for that stomach."

Kevin stepped out an inch from under the showerhead and stared stone faced at the chiseled giant.

"You should lose that belly," the man said, oblivious to Kevin's increasing irritation. He looked up and down at the older man, appraising his physique. "The rest of you is good, for your age, very good. The arms, legs . . . excellent. Pecs are good. Wasn't for that gut, you'd be in tremendous shape."

The man smiled at him, so filled with self-love he didn't see the loathing in Kevin's eyes, missed the rage and resentment that Kevin felt rushing up into his head like an electric charge. The giant Teuton moved closer, smiling idiotically, a hand extended, as if expecting to be asked for an autograph. It occurred to Kevin that maybe he should know this steroid-juiced moron, maybe he'd seen his picture somewhere, modeling underwear on a billboard, on television, wrestling maybe. He didn't know. Didn't care either. The man had pissed him off, as good as challenged him with his witless babble.

Kevin extended his hand now too. Without changing his expression, he reached down, grabbed the man's testicles, and twisted, hard. The man made a funny, sucking noise through his teeth, and Kevin brought his head forward and crashed his temple into the bridge of the muscle man's nose. As he doubled over in pain, Kevin brought his knee up to catch his head on the way down. There was a loud crack, like a bat knocking fungoes into an outfield. Then there was a wet thud as the man collapsed in a heap on the tile floor, blood running freely across his face from a flattened nose. He lay there, naked and wheezing, while Kevin looked around to see if anybody was watching. Then he looked down over his belly at the man and pissed on his head.