Gino Delgatto, whatever else he was or was not, was a true sport as a host.
When Joey and Sandra arrived in the grand columned dining room of the Flagler House, a magnum of Dom Perignon had already been placed tableside in a silver bucket, canapes of caviar and salmon had been arrayed on triangles of toast, and the staff had fallen into the somewhat ironic deference that accrues to the big spender. On the presentation plates of the expected guests lay pink hibiscus flowers. Gino had moved his to his bread-and-butter plate, and Vicki had placed hers between her alpine breasts, where its pistil had at first quivered then begun to droop from the excessive heat.
Gino, on best behavior, stood up as the maitre d' ushered Joey and Sandra to the table. He gave Sandra a quick hug, deciding in the first glance that, in her cream-colored slacks and cardigan, she was, as usual, not dressed up enough. Gino had known Sandra for over three years now, and had never yet managed to pin down what he thought of her. He supposed she was pretty in her way, but her way was so unshowy, so unglamorous, that Gino really couldn't tell. Sandra was practically flat-chested. Her nails were short and she didn't do much with her hair. She wore makeup but, as Gino saw it, not enough. As to her personality, she seemed to have some brains, give her that. Now and then she could be pretty funny, in a dry kind of way. But fun-loving she was not. Had Gino ever seen her have more than two, three drinks? Had he ever seen her really drop her guard and laugh? He didn't think so. In fact, she usually seemed to be the one who decided when the party was over. Probably she was good for Joey, who, after all, didn't have much going for him and wasn't likely to attract the really super babes, but still, she was a little bland, a little dull.
It did not occur to Gino that Sandra was subdued around him because she loathed him to the marrow of her bones.
But he was family, and so she returned his hug and answered his kiss on the cheek with one of her own. She shook the red-taloned hand that Vicki presented with the weirdly arched wrist of a great lady from some previous century. Then everyone sat down and started sipping champagne.
"Cheers," said Gino.
"Cheers," said Joey.
"You having a good time here?" Sandra asked Vicki.
Vicki reached toward her cleavage on the pretext of toying with the flower that was wilting there, and twisted her thin mouth into an expression of mixed feelings. "Pretty good. Weather's great. But the shopping-" She made a dismissive sound that was something like dyukh, then leaned close to Sandra as though sharing a deep and shameful secret. "It's like junky stuff. Homemade. No brand names. No designers. It's not like, ya know, elegant."
Gino emptied his glass and gave his head an indulgent shake. Like sugar daddies everywhere, he felt truly secure only when his mistress was either spending his money or talking about it. "Vicki thinks 'elegant' is a whaddyacallit, a pseudonym for 'expensive.' "
"Synonym," said Sandra.
"What the hell," said Gino. "Anyway, she don't like cheap stuff. Do ya, baby?"
Vicki shrugged her shoulders with an effect that was seismic. "Who does? I mean, if people liked it, it wouldn't be cheap no more."
"Hey, that's good," said Gino. He said it looking at Joey and pointing a thick finger at Vicki. "Well, hey, anybody hungry?"
They looked at menus and decided to order lobsters from Maine.
"Seems crazy," Vicki said, when the waiter had re-filled the champagne glasses and vanished. "I mean, here we are right by this ocean just full of a zillion kinds of fish, and we have lobsters flown in from Maine."
"There's nothing like Maine lobster," said Gino with finality, and Joey realized, in spite of himself, something he admired or at least envied about his half brother. Gino knew what he liked. He enjoyed things. For him, everything fell into a list, and you went for the things at the top. Drinks, that was champagne. Champagne, that was Dom Perignon. Food, it was lobster. Women, big tits and high hair. Shoes, suits, cars, watches, hair tonic, olive oil, whatever. There was always something that was the best, and if you could have that thing, you knew you were doing good.
Then, too, lobster was a great equalizer. Everybody was a slob eating lobster, and so Gino, who was a slob eating almost anything, didn't especially stand out. Or rather, he stood out unmistakably as the leader in a ritual of gusto. Too strong, with not enough grace, he crushed shells so that juice went squirting out of every crevice, hitting his waxed bib with a sound like soft rain on a tin roof. Vicki, hampered by her long nails, plucked at her lobster with the patient murderousness of a gull. Sandra was, as ever, methodical, her small neat hands coaxing out the flesh as efficiently as if she were counting out twenties at the bank. And Joey, who was perhaps too tentative at many things, was tentative as well in his attack on his dinner. He didn't get all the meat out, for fear of twanging a sinew and having it fly off, for fear of flicking a speck of lobster at a tablemate-for fear of being like Gino.
"More champagne?" the older brother asked.
"Not for me," said Sandra.
"Maybe one glass," said Joey.
Gino summoned the captain with a wave of a hand covered in lobster slime and ordered up another magnum.
"So Gino," Sandra said, "all the time I've known you, I've never once heard of you taking a vacation. How come all of a sudden you are?"
Did Gino flinch at the question, or was he just yanking off a stubborn lobster leg? "Just due for a break, that's all. Besides, Vicki here, she's been such a good kid, I thought it would be nice to take a trip with her."
"I wanted to go to Aruba," Vicki said. "Ya know, where there's duty-free. But no. Gino says he's got some business down here anyway."
"Shut up, Vicki. What she means is I wanted to visit you guys."
Sandra dabbed her mouth on her napkin. Around the dining room, plates clattered and corks popped.
They finished the lobsters, had mango ice cream and coffee, and the captain brought the check nestled in a leather sleeve on a silver tray. "I trust everything was satisfactory, Dr. Greenbaum?"
"Yeah, terrific," said Gino, signing. "Here's a little something for you." The captain retreated, backing and bobbing, and Gino dropped his napkin onto the table. "Walk onna beach?"
Outside, a yellow half-moon was perched over the Florida Straits, and a light south breeze that smelled of dry shells and seaweed was just barely rustling the palms. Underfoot, the trucked-in sand felt cakey with the moisture of the evening. Gino handed Joey a cigar and unwrapped one for himself. The gesture was enough to make Sandra and Vicki fall in side by side, leaving the men to trail behind, wreathed in their blue and nasty smoke.
For a couple of minutes they walked in silence, and Joey, to his own surprise, found himself slipping into a state of mysterious contentment. To walk next to a bigger, older, stronger brother was a comfort. It almost didn't matter what you thought of him, it only mattered that he was there, like a roof, like a wall, like anything big and solid that protected you or surrounded you.
"I'm sorry I didn't come see ya before I left," said Joey. "I shoulda."
"Don't matter," said Gino, waving the apology away with a red flash of his cigar. "But kid, ya shoulda gone to see Pop. I think ya hurt his feelings."
"Maybe I wanted to."
"Hey, ya wanted to, ya wanted to. But that don't make it right."
And they walked. Gino's shoes plowed over the sand with the heavy assurance of wide tires. His thick chest blacked out a broad swath of the Atlantic. The women, walking with the grim purpose of after-dinner exercise, had gotten almost out of sight.
"Ya know," said Joey, gesturing back toward the twinkling bulk of the Flagler House, "I been wanting to see this place since the first day I got here."
Gino exhaled some smoke and said nothing.
"I think Pop used to come here with my mother."
Gino stiffened and bit down on his cigar, but Joey didn't notice. The younger brother was drifting into memory and into trust, two places he didn't often visit.
"Yeah," he went on, "I'm pretty sure this is the place. I don't remember the name, but my mother useta describe it to me. Said it had the big dining room with the hanging-over porch. Said it had its own beach, private from the others-"
Gino stopped walking and stood with the yellow moonlight on his shiny dark hair. "Joey, I don't really wanna hear where my father went to catch some pussy."
Joey did not know he was about to hit his brother. He didn't notice that the cigar had dropped out of his hand and was glowing dull red on the beach, and he didn't feel his arm draw back, coiling to throw a punch. He was about as surprised as Gino when his fist slammed into the stronger man's gut, finding the soft triangle at the bottom of the ribs.
The air came out of Gino as from a ruptured football, a popping whoosh followed by a long wheeze. Helplessly, he doubled up and stayed that way for the endless moment of wondering if his lungs would ever again remember how to breathe. He struggled to lift his head, and strained his eyeballs upward to look at Joey with the befuddlement of a bystander who finds himself winged.
Joey stared down at him and felt no remorse, only fear. Gino could beat the hell out of him, easily. He'd seen Gino fight, with his fists and his feet and his elbows, he'd seen him use the top of his head to knock out other men's teeth, and the thought of it gave Joey a sickening awareness of cigar smoke turning to brown juice at the back of his throat.
But Gino didn't go for him. He straightened up slowly, arched his back, and threw his arms behind him to stretch his chest. "Fuck you do that for?"
"You don't talk about my mother that way."
"Talk about your mother? What is this, Joey, the fucking schoolyard? Talk about my mother. What are you, a fucking baby?"
Joey locked onto Gino's hard narrow eyes, and Gino was the first to quit the stare. "Awright," he said. "Awright. I shouldn'ta said it. But Joey, let's you and me decide on something right now. We don't talk about my father and your mother, O.K.? We just don't talk about it."
Joey shifted his feet in the caked sand and nodded. He couldn't have said why he'd raised the subject anyway. He didn't need Gino to tell him never to raise it again.
"Now where's my fucking cigar?" said Gino. He scanned the moonlit beach and found his corona smoldering a couple of yards away, where it had blown out of his mouth. He went to retrieve the smoke, and as he dusted the sand off it, his face took on an expression that was almost like genuine approval. "Joey," he said, "you're a crazy little fucker. I mean, to hit me, man, you gotta be fucking nuts. I mean, crazy."