Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

Al said, ‘I spoke to Jimmy Figaro.’

‘That putz.’

‘We arranged for him to bring Dave Delano here at eleven o’clock this morning.’

There was a clock on the wall behind Tony but he didn’t feel like looking around. He was a little tired after his swimming lesson. ‘Time’s it now?’

Al glanced up at the clock.

‘Ten-thirty.’

‘Whaddya think?’

‘You and he are still friends. That’s what Delano said, according to Willy. Wants to reassure you. Reassurance sounds good to me.’

Nudelli nodded thoughtfully.

‘Sensible guy.’

‘Comin’ here with Jimmy, it’s the smart move. It shows he doesn’t bear you any malice on account of what happened. The guy’s got balls, you have to give him credit for that.’

‘He proved that when he became Willy’s fuckin’ ophthalmologist.’

‘Willy must be losing his touch.’

‘Either he lost it or Delano learned some when he was in jail.’

‘Could be.’

Nudelli said, ‘This business proposition of his.’

‘A big score, Willy said.’

‘He goes in the joint a numbers man, and figures to come out a major-league thief, is that it?’

‘Hear him out. Maybe he learned something when he was doing time. Worked out a play. Five years is long enough for anyone to get some constructive thinking done.’

‘Suppose I don’t like his set-up? Is he holding a gun to my head about this, or what? Suppose I don’t help set this thing up? Is he then going to go to the Feds and tell them it was me who popped Benny Cecchino? Suppose on that for a while, will ya?’

‘Jesus, Tony, you got more suppose in there than Stephen fuckin’ King. He kept his mouth shut all these years, didn’t he? Done his time, like he was told. If you’d wanted him popped you could have done it five years ago and saved yourself the two hundred grand. What’s changed? I don’t understand.’

‘You wanna know?’

‘I wanna know.’

‘Okay I’ll tell you. Five years ago, I didn’t know that Delano was not the guy’s real name. I thought he was Italian-American, like you and me. Turns out his daddy was Russian. Well you know what my fucking low opinion is of those backward barbarians. But worse than that, he’s a fucking kike to boot.’

‘What, we never done business with the Jews before? This is Miami, Tony. An open city. It was the Jews who helped to develop this place for business. Meyer Lansky. People like that. Besides, as I understand it, he’s only half-Jewish. His mother’s Irish.’

‘Never underestimate a Jew, Al. Even one that’s not the whole candlestick. Take my advice, and you’ll stay alive a lot longer. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not anti-Semitic. Let me tell you, almost fifty years ago, when I was back in Jersey City? I met this little Jewish broad and fell in love with her. Best lay of my life, and you’ve seen Sindy. I’d have done anything for that little broad. Including marry her. Wanted to. Asked her often enough. Gave her a ring, the whole Tiffany deal. But it was always the same story. She couldn’t do it to her parents, she said. I’m not asking you to do it to your parents, I told her, I’m askin’ that you do it to me. But no, she couldn’t marry out, she said. What? I said. You think my parents’ll be blowing up balloons when I tell them I don’t wanna marry a Catholic? You think a Christ-killer is some kind of honor for them? No way. But still she wouldn’t have me. She was in love with me all right, but she wouldn’t get married. To hell with Shakespeare. To hell with Romeo and Juliet and that stuff. It was like I meant nuthin’ to her. Now I ask you Al: what kind of people can do that? I’ll tell you what kind. The Jewish kind. There is nothing they won’t put ahead of being Jewish. I know what I’m talking about. Shakespeare made Romeo and Juliet Italians because he understood what love means to an Italian. There ain’t anythin’ more important than how your heart feels. But it would have challenged him as a writer a lot more if Juliet had been a Jewish princess, let me tell you. Now that would have been a fuckin’ play. That’s a play I’d like to have seen.’

Al said, ‘I dunno Tony. Delano doesn’t want to fuck you. He wants to do business with you.’

‘For a Jew, they’re the same thing. And don’t forget the Ivans. Delano shared a cell with one of them redfellas for four years. Learned to speak pretty good Russkie from what I hear. You see what I’m sayin’, Al? It wasn’t Italian he learned to speak, it was fucking Russkie. Which means I gotta wonder where he’s comin’ from. If he’s in bed with these meathead slobs or what? I got enough trouble with bums like Rocky Envigado and those Colombian bastards without takin’ on the Ivans as well. That’s the trouble with this country. Too many damned immigrants.’

‘Willy Four Breakfasts seemed to think that Delano was more inclined to believe Willy was carrying out a contract for the Ivans than he was to think you wanted him to take a beating.’ Al shrugged. ‘Doesn’t sound like someone who’s in bed with the Ivans.’

Nudelli puffed his cigar thoughtfully.

‘There is that,’ he allowed.

Al said, ‘Hear the guy out. After all, business is business and personal shouldn’t ever get in the way of that, right?’

‘You’re right, of course.’ Nudelli leaned forward and took hold of Al by the cheek and then slapped him gently.

‘Just taking care of business, Tony.’

Nudelli regarded his cigar’s wet end and nodded thoughtfully.

Al said, ‘I didn’t know you were from Jersey City.’

‘It was me or some other poor bastard.’

‘What happened to the Jewish broad? The one you were in love with.’

‘How the fuck should I know?’

Jimmy Figaro drove the big BMW across the Rickenbacker Causeway, just south of where his offices were located. The road soared high over Biscayne Bay and provided Figaro’s uninterested passenger with an unparalleled view of the Brickell Avenue skyline. The first island was Virginia Key, once set aside for Miami’s black community and a large sewage plant. The next island was Key Biscayne. Steering the car with one finger now, because everything was more laid back on Key Biscayne, Figaro came down Crandon Boulevard, heading south toward Cape Florida before turning west onto Harbor Drive.

Figaro glanced over at Dave and said, ‘Tony’s place is just down the road from where Richard Nixon used to live.’

‘Tricky Dicky. Yeah, that figures.’

‘You a Democrat?’

‘What’s the difference to a bad guy like me?’

‘Haven’t you ever voted for someone?’

‘Sure. I voted for the prisoners’ representative in Homestead. Choice was between a murderer and a rapist. I chose the murderer.’

‘Who won?’

‘The murderer.’

‘What about on the outside?’

‘On the outside it doesn’t matter who represents you. The murderer or the rapist.’

‘That’s not much of a political philosophy.’

‘After you’ve been in prison there’s only one political philosophy that matters a damn and that’s keeping your ass out of prison.’

The car was now gliding smoothly through an immaculately manicured community fringed with Australian pines and coconut palms and one white palace after another, like so many wedding cakes.

Figaro changed the subject and said, ‘Harbor Bayfront Villas is one of Miami’s most exclusive addresses. Tony’s villa is right on the bay.’

‘No kidding.’

Figaro slowed and turned down a private road, pulling up at a gatehouse where he gave both their names to the guard. The guard checked them on a clipboard list and then waved them on through the elevating barrier.

‘Round here is the last word in European splendor,’ Figaro enthused.