Mario Puzo - Fools die

Darkness was beginning to fall, and tiny drops of rain pitted the surface of the pond. He went back to his rooms in the inn.

He loved the Japanese style of living. No furniture. Just mats. The sliding wood-frame paper doors that cut off rooms and turned a living room into a sleeping room. It seemed to him so reasonable and so clever.

Far away he could hear a tiny bell ringing with silvery claps and a few minutes after that the paper doors slid apart and two young girls came in, carrying a huge oval platter almost five feet long, it could be the top of a table. The platter was filled with every kind of fish the sea could provide.

There was the black squid and the yellow-tailed fish, pearly oysters, gray-black crabs, speckled chunks of fish showing vivid pink flesh underneath. It was a rainbow of color, and there was more food there than any five men could eat. The women set the platter on a low table and arranged cushions for him to sit on. Then they sat down on either side and fed him morsels of fish.

Another girl came in carrying a tray of sake wine and glasses. She poured the wine and put the glass to his mouth so that he could drink.

It was all delicious. When he finished, Cully stood looking through the window at the valley of pines and the sea beyond. Behind him he could hear the women take away the dinner and the paper wooden doors closing. He was alone in the room, staring at the sea.

Again he went over everything in his mind, counting down the shoe of circumstance and chance. Monday morning he would get the money from Fummiro and he would board the plane to Hong Kong and in Hong Kong he would have to get to the bank. He tried to think of where the danger would lie, if there were a danger. He thought of Gronevelt. That Gronevelt might betray him, or Santadio or even Fummiro. Why had Judge Brianca betrayed him? Could Gronevelt have engineered that? And then he remembered one night having dinner with Fummiro and Gronevelt. They had been just a little uneasy with him. Was there something there? An unknown card in the shoe? But Gronevelt was an old sick man and Santadio’s long arm did not reach into the Far East. And Fummiro was an old friend.

But there was always bad luck. In any case it would be his final risk. And at least now he would have another day of peace here in Yogawara.

He heard the paper wooden doors slide behind him opening up. It was the two tiny girls leading him back to the redwood tub.

Again they washed him. Again they plunged him into the vast fragrant waters of the tub.

He soaked, and again they raised him out and laid him on the mat and put the futaba pillow beneath his head. Again they massaged him finger by finger. And now, completely rested, he felt the surge of sexual desire. He reached out for one of the young girls, but very prettily she denied him with her face and her hands. Then she pantomimed she would send another girl up. That it was not their function.

And then Cully held up two fingers to tell them he wanted two girls. They both giggled at that, and he wondered if Japanese girls thrashed each other.

He watched them disappear and close the frame doors behind them. His head sank on the small square pillow. His body lustfully relaxed. He dozed into a light sleep. Far away he heard the sliding of the paper doors. Ah, he thought, they’re coming. And curious to see what they looked like, whether they were pretty, how they were dressed, he raised his head and to his astonishment he saw two men with surgeon’s gauze masks over their faces coming toward him.

At first he thought the girls misunderstood him. That comically inept, he had asked for a heavier massage. And then the gauze masks struck him with terror. The realization flashed through his mind that these masks were never worn in the country. And then his mind jumped to the truth, but he screamed out, “I haven’t got the money. I haven’t got the money!” He tried to rise from the mat, and the two men were upon him.

It was not painful or horrible. He seemed to sink again beneath the sea, the fragrant waters of the redwood tub. His eyes glazed over. And then he was quiet on the mat, the futaba pillow beneath his head.

The two men wrapped his body in towels and silently carried it out of the room.

– -

Far across the ocean, Gronevelt in his suite worked the controls to pump pure oxygen into his casino.

I got to Vegas late at night and Gronevelt asked me to have dinner in his suite. We had some drinks and the waiters brought up a table with the dinner we had ordered. I noticed that Gronevelt’s dish had very small portions. He looked older and faded. Cully had told me about his stroke, but I could see no evidence of it other than perhaps he moved more slowly and took more time to answer me when he spoke.

I glanced at the control panel behind his desk which Gronevelt used to pump pure oxygen into the casino. Gronevelt said, “Cully told you about that? He wasn’t supposed to.”

“Some things are too good not to tell,” I said, “and besides, Cully knew I wouldn’t spread it around.”

Gronevelt smiled. “Believe it or not, I use it as an act of kindness. It gives all those losers a little hope and a last shot before they go to bed. I hate to think of losers trying to go to sleep. I don’t mind winners,” Gronevelt said. “I can live with luck, it’s skill I can’t abide. Look, they can never beat the percentage and I have the percentage. That’s true in life as well as gambling. The percentage will grind you into dust.”

Gronevelt was rambling, thinking of his own approaching death. “You have to get rich in the dark,” he said, “you have to live with percentages. Forget about luck, that’s a very treacherous magic.” I nodded my head in agreement. After we had finished eating and were having brandy, Gronevelt said, “I don’t want you to worry about Cully, so I’ll tell you what happened to him. Remember that trip you made with him to Tokyo and Hong Kong to bring out that money? Well, for reasons of his own Cully decided to take another crack at it. I warned him against it. I told him the percentages were bad, that he had been lucky that first trip. But for reasons of his own which I can’t tell you, but which were important and valid at least to him, he decided to go.”

“You had to give the OK,” I said.

“Yes,” Gronevelt said. “It was to my benefit that he go there.”

“So what happened to him?” I asked Gronevelt.

“We don’t know,” Gronevelt said. “He picked up the money in his fancy suitcases, and then he just disappeared. Fummiro thinks he’s in Brazil or Costa Rica living like a king. But you and I know Cully better. He couldn’t live in any place but Vegas.”

“So what do you guess happened?” I asked Gronevelt again.

Gronevelt smiled at me. “Do you know Yeats’s poem? It begins, I think, ‘Many a soldier and sailor lies, far from customary skies,’ and that’s what happened to Cully. I think of him maybe in one of those beautiful ponds behind a geisha house in Japan lying on the bottom. And how he would have hated it. He wanted to die in Vegas.”

“Have you done anything about it?” I said. “Have you notified the police or the Japanese authorities?”

“No,” Gronevelt said. “That’s not possible and I don’t think that you should.”

“Whatever you say is good enough for me,” I said. “Maybe Cully will show up someday. Maybe he’ll walk into the casino with your money as if nothing ever happened.”

“That can’t be,” Gronevelt said. “Please don’t think like that. I would hate it that I left you with any hope. Just accept it. Think of him as another gambler that the percentage ground to dust.” He paused and then said softly, “He made a mistake counting down the shoe.” He smiled.