Paul Levine - Mortal Sin

I nearly squirted him with about a hundred bucks’ of the stuff. When I finished coughing, he was pouring more wine. We sipped along with each other for a while, running through a Lafite, which I agreed was delicate, a powerful Pichon-Lalande, and a sturdy, somewhat acidic Figeac. Over yet another bottle, we debated whether a Montrose was drying from age, but we agreed that some of the wines from Saint-Julien were past their peaks.

And so was I.

In the last sixty hours, I had watched a man decapitated, then helped dispose of the evidence. I got hooked into a bribery scheme and was framed for a million-dollar heist. I had been punched by two cops, one of them apparently honest, which is about the average in these parts. I had been zapped twice by a stun gun and shanghaied aboard an airboat. I’d read my own suicide note, insulted the guy who wanted to kill me, then drunk enough wine to drown a cat. I wanted to ponder the cosmic significance of these events, but at the moment my head was throbbing, my temples were in a vise, and my eyes were pressed shut. Somebody was saying something, but I wasn’t interested.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me. Apparently, I had found a comfortable spot to sleep, my face resting on the tabletop. I jolted to attention.

“Up and at ’em, Jake. We’ve got business to discuss.”

I pried my eyes open and ran my tongue across my teeth. I don’t care how much the wine cost. My mouth tasted like it had been stuffed with rags soaked in 10W-40 Quaker State. Nicky Florio still had his hand on my shoulder. Jim Tiger stood at the railing, watching us both, a pistol on his hip, the stun gun in his hand. “More vino,” I said. “Bring on the grapes.”

“I didn’t know you had an appreciation of the finer things in life,” Florio said.

“Oh, but I do. Wine, women, and…”

“Song,” Florio helped out.

With that, I broke into “Fight On, State,” giving the arms-up touchdown sign when I got to the part about rolling up the score, fighting on to victory ever-more.

“Have you enjoyed our little tasting?” Nicky Florio asked.

“Sure have. Now where are the women?”

“There are wine experts who would have killed to taste the 1961 French Bordeaux you’ve been guzzling.”

“But not you, Nicky. You wouldn’t kill for wine. Or for a woman, for that matter. You didn’t murder Gondolier because of Gina. If you had, I’d be dead, too. You kill for money. Maybe Gondolier cheated you, or maybe you didn’t want to share the casino with him. Either way, it was just for the dollars. Peter Tupton was going to cost you a bundle, so you aced him. And now, there’s me…”

My little speech had made me thirsty. I picked up a bottle of Chateaux Latour and put it to my lips. Hey, it tasted good this way, too. “Powerful yet still youthful,” I said, licking my lips. “And red. Red as blood.”

“Why do you think I invited you to join me in this special event?” He gestured across the table at the half-empty bottles. My gaze followed his hand, but my eyes were unfocused. My head was swimming in an ocean of wine.

“You’re trying to impress me, but I’m not impressed. Next, you’re going to tell me about some trip to France where you bought all the wine from Chateau LaDouche at double what it’s worth. That’s your style. You married Gina because she looks good on your arm, so people would say, ‘Oh, that Nicky Florio’s got great taste.’ But what Nicky Florio’s got is a major case of self-deception. Or do you really know? Maybe deep inside, you know that you’re a chickenshit small-timer who hasn’t done anything straight since the sixth grade.”

“I see that wine loosens your tongue.”

Actually, it was my brain that seemed loose. I looked at Nicky Florio, and there were two of him.

“Sure, Lassiter, I bought the wine in France. But I didn’t pay double. I paid next to nothing, because I recognized early just how-special the 1961 Bordeaux was. I have always been able to recognize quality. It is why I am where I am today, and why you are…”

He held up both hands as if to indicate the utter insignificance of me. I took a healthy swig of the Latour.

“At any rate, it is time to discuss our business,” Nicky Florio said. “We have a matter to conclude.”

“I’m not shining any note,” I slurred. “Wait a she-cond.” I tested my numb lips with my tongue. Was that wine or Novocain?

“You probably wonder why I haven’t had you killed already,” Nicky Florio said, matter-of-factly.

From somewhere in the darkened swamp, a bird cawed, and another one ca-cawed right back. I looked at my watch. The big hand was on the nine, and the little hand was spinning around. “Yesh. You’ve been tardy, naughty boy. And what kind of a host are you, anyway? Wine, wine, wine, but no munchies. Where are the chips and onion dip?”

I grabbed another bottle. Something from Saint-Julien.

“Like it says in the Bible, Lassiter, it all comes around. Ashes to ashes…”

I took a gulp from the bottle.

“…dust to dust,” he said.

I gagged. “Wine to vinegar!”

Nicky Florio tugged the bottle from my hand and sniffed. He-wrinkled his nose with displeasure. “It happens,” he said, almost apologetically. “A defect in the cork, improper storage. Pity.”

“Ah, what one has to put up with,” I said sympathetically.

“All right, that’s enough.” Florio’s mood had changed. “I want to know some things.”

“Me, too. What really happened to the dinosaurs? Charlie Riggs says it was a big asteroid, but some people think it was a bunch of volcanoes. And how does Dan Marino release the ball so quickly?”

“Who have you told?”

“Told what?”

“What you know.”

I squinted at him. “I don’t know. What you know?”

“No, what you know!”

“I know plenty. What you know?”

He tilted his head and looked at me, trying to figure out if I was drunk or just jerking him around. Even I wasn’t sure. My eyelids were as heavy as theater curtains.

“Look, Lassiter, I know you told Socolow, and I know you told Osceola. Who else did you tell about the casino?”

“Mike Wal-lash. That is, Mike Wallace. There’ll be a camera crew here soon.”

“Did you tell Doc Riggs?”

“If I say yes, are you going to give him some of the vino, too?”

“You did, didn’t you?”

“It isn’t just the casino, though, is it Nicky? The casino’s secondary. That’s what Osceola said. There’s something even bigger, right?”

“What would that be?”

“I know, but I’m not telling. I’ve got a secret.”

He looked skeptical. “Osceola says you don’t know anything about it.”

I sang it out. “That’s because it’s my seeeeee-cret! And I told only people I trust.”

“You’re trying too hard, Jake. It isn’t going to work. You don’t know shit. There’s no way you could know.”

In the slough, the blackness began to fade to gray, and pink slivers of light appeared at the eastern horizon. Florio stood and headed toward the front door of the cabin. With a shrug of his head, he motioned to Jim Tiger, who was leaning against the rail.

“Gina told me,” I said. “Gina knows a seeeeee-cret.”

Nicky Florio stopped in his tracks. He turned to face me. “Either you’re lying, or you’re trying to get her killed. Which is it?”

He had pushed the right button. I looked at his face, dark with concern. He was dead serious. I had underestimated Florio. He knew me better than I knew me. He knew I cared more about Gina than he did.

“I was lying,” I said.

“Were you, or are you lying now to protect her?” He thought about it a moment. “Either way, you’re through.” Florio turned back to Tiger. “Close the transaction.”