Leonard Michaels - The Collected Stories

“Yes. What if you’re not there? It isn’t even 6:00 a.m. I’ll be alone, Mr. Halpert. Wouldn’t it be advisable to wait a few hours until there are people in the streets? Ha, ha.”

“Am I here?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there.”

“But wouldn’t it be advisable …”

“I gave you the best advice you’ll ever get.” He hung up.

Another outrage. Zev had told Sam Halpert to expect my call. He’d known this would happen. I wasn’t living my own life. Walking, talking, laughing, but it wasn’t me. There was no trouble getting a cab. Maybe Zev had arranged that, too. I was driving through Miami followed by a creep.

Minutes later, I dragged my shoulder bag out of the backseat of the taxi, paid the driver. He abandoned me in the tremendous and brilliant emptiness of a business center, tall new buildings amid older ones alongside the park and Bayside, a mall built at the edge of Biscayne Bay. The aisle of flags marked a wide bleak walk into the mall. I was entering it when I heard a car door slam. I turned, saw a taxi and the blue-and-white shirt moving free of it. I thought to drop my bag and run, but I wasn’t supposed to know I was being followed. It wasn’t advisable.

The water lay before me, black but for the lights of slow-moving boats way out and city lights skimming the surface, defining the shore. Where concrete ended and became a ledge, I saw the parapet, wide enough for two men walking side by side. A stairway took me down. I walked right, doing everything right. Below, water slapped listlessly at the wall. It didn’t give a damn about me. There was nobody in sight along the parapet, but after a few yards I saw a man up ahead descending a stair toward a small dock, taller than the blond, wearing a Windbreaker, jeans, and tennis shoes. He stopped to light a cigar, all very casual. A local yachtsman. He started toward me along the wall to my right. I had to keep to the water side, which unnerved me, though there was room to pass each other easily. He walked in a loose, loping, athletic way, slightly tipped forward. I assumed he was Sam Halpert, but maybe he wasn’t Sam Halpert. As we drew close, he looked for my eyes and said, “Good morning, kid,” and passed me. Then I heard a cry, and turned. The blond in the Hawaiian shirt, kicking and flailing, sailed off the parapet through the air.

The tall man, his arm thrust out with the shove he’d given the blond, flicked his cigar into the water. The flying blond, having hit with a great splash, thrashed toward the wall, slapping at its slimy face, seeking a finger-hold. There was none. He couldn’t drag himself out. Halpert came toward me. “Forget him. Let’s go.”

The blond thrashed in the water, mouth a black O closing, going under, then bobbing up, opening to an O again, as if swallowing a pipe, his eyes wild with lights of fear.

“He’s drowning,” I said.

“You kidding? This is Miami. Everybody here is a fish. Let’s go.” He began tugging at my arm. I pulled it away.

“That man is drowning, Mr. Halpert.”

“Call me Sam.”

“You and Zev have your ways and I have mine, Sam.”

That instant, a chunk of concrete broke from the wall above my head, leaving a hole big as a grapefruit, and I heard the gunshot — much louder than I’d have expected — and I saw the blond go under again, black booming steel in hand.

Sam said, “I’ll hold your bag, kid. Jump in after him.”

We took off along the parapet as I yelled back at the water, “Drown, fucker. I hope you drown.”

Sam drove, sometimes stopping at stop signs, sometimes not. I wasn’t concerned. Little concerned me. The shot missed my head and left me with a sense of my potential for instant nothingness. The blond face lingered in memory, mouth and eyes wide open, begging life to enter, aware it was drowning, but I couldn’t feel for his terror, too much awed by myself being alive, strangely humiliated, but alive.

We cut through residential areas heavy with the sweetness of flowers. I lay back against the seat. A dark sensuous weight of air and silence lingered before morning, neither dark really nor yet morning, and I took in solemn banyan trees beginning to emerge, hulking, elephantine, streaming tendrils, and I saw white houses set back from the road.

“I could go Dixie Highway,” said Sam, “but I figured you’d want to look at the neighborhoods. Ever been to Miami?”

“No.”

“You’d never guess how little it costs me to live here.”

“Probably not.”

“I don’t live like the dancing man. Never stops, that guy. I told him I play tennis on the local courts. He says, ‘You don’t own a court?’”

“That’s Zev.”

“Not in the mood to talk? You can’t believe Sam is blabbing.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“We’ll talk later. No hurry. It’s beginning the way Zev figured. Fidel made his move. Now we make ours, and play it through to the end. Fidel never quits. Blood of the conquistadors.”

“What if he drowned?”

“Fidel is a great swimmer.”

“I mean White Trash.”

“What I’m about to say is not an insult, but you’re an asshole.”

“Do you carry a gun, Sam?”

“Am I an American?”

“I keep seeing his face go under.”

“A face like that should go under. You told him to drown. Don’t you say what you mean?”

“You sound like my girlfriend Sonny. She expects to see me tomorrow, but I’ll be in Miami. She’ll say, ‘If you wanted to be here, you’d be here. Don’t you say what you mean?’”

“She talks like that to you? Let me ask you a question, man to man. Is the screwing you get worth the screwing you get?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. “We have different needs.”

“What do I smell?”

“Mango. We’re passing an orchard.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Most of the trees have been cut down. Beautiful trees. I love mango. Very good for your digestion. Do you know the death rate in Florida is higher than the birthrate, but the population is growing. Five thousand new residents a week. They need houses. Goodbye mangos. There’s money around to build a lot of houses.”

“ Drogas? ”

“I don’t know from drogas . Ask your uncle. He owns a bank in Miami. I’m just his lawyer.”

“I’m dying to sleep, but I’m afraid I’ll dream. That guy’s face. I’m still watching it.”

“It could have been him watching you. You never saw a man die. Don’t worry. You came to the right city.”

“I’m flying out of here.”

“I know what you mean. It’s a rude introduction to the life, but Zev needs you. There’s my house. You sleep. Later, we’ll talk. Work things out.”

“Why does Zev need me?”

“There’s a hundred guys who would kill for Zev.”

“Like you?”

“Like me.”

“So why me?”

“You’re family, people he trusts.”

“He’s got a son.”

“Zev wouldn’t want Chester to do it. The kid is too eager to please. He’s a crook. He’ll see chances for himself, lose sight of the goal. Anyhow, Zev doesn’t want to owe him anything. We talked about you for a long time before you got that call. You’re not a crook. There’s nothing you want. You’re perfect.”

“For what?”

“We’ll talk later.”

We were in the driveway to Sam’s house, parked beside a wood fence about seven feet high.

“I want to go home.”

“You want to be with your girlfriend, what’s her name. I know how you feel. Hungry?”

“I couldn’t eat. I haven’t slept for two or three nights, partying in Havana. Then this. I expected to sleep on the flight to San Francisco, but look where I am. Where the hell am I?”

“South Miami, at the edge of Dade County. It’s good you’re sleepy. That’s an animal feeling. You’re going to like it here. Hey, do you like mud wrestling? We got that in Miami Beach. We’ll go tonight. What do you say? Twenty-five naked girls wrestling in the mud. It’ll take your mind off your problems. Tell me, kid, what’s not to like in Miami?”