The equipment shed did not smell like garbage, exactly. It smelled worse than that. It smelled like what garbage is on its way to becoming as it rots, as the brown bags soak through with the ooze of putrefying vegetables, as gristle falls off meat bones and turns to a yellowish paste, as bacteria eat through the membranes that have been holding the stink inside of things, letting the foulness into the air like a filthy secret. Added to the humid fumes of decay were the bitter tang of gull shit and the chicken coop reek that came from the riled and oily feathers of the carrion birds. Joey glanced around the room and tried to figure out if anyone else was on the verge of gagging.
They were seven altogether: Joey and Bert; the two toughs from Duval Street and two of their sturdy colleagues, all of whom, like players in a second-rate orchestra, had suits that almost matched, but not quite; and a small neat man who was clearly the guy in charge. He sat on a scratched metal desk in the middle of the shed. Above him was a single yellow bulb tucked into a dented metal cone, and at his back a frame without a door outlined part of the slope of Mount Trashmore. He wore a pale gray suit over a white silk turtleneck, and even in the feeble light his patent leather pumps could be seen to gleam. His feet were very small, and the shoes' tall heels made his arches look impossibly dainty and high, like the arches of a leprechaun. His black hair was swept straight back on the sides and stood in ridges like the gunwales of a boat; on top his hair was thinner and less perfectly trained. His face was unlined but his eyes looked tired; under them, there were sacs the color of raw liver and the texture of poultry skin.
" 'Lo, Bert," he said. He said it almost fondly but distractedly, like someone running into an old acquaintance at the racetrack.
"Charlie," said Bert the Shirt, "where's my dog?"
"Your dog? Your fucking dog?" Charlie Ponte glanced at his crew as if to say, Didn't I tell ya? "Jesus Christ, Bert, you really have become a fucking old lady."
"You're right, Charlie. I'm a fucking old lady. But please, do me a favor, have my dog brought in."
Ponte shrugged and nodded to one of his flunkies, who vanished through the doorless frame. "And you're Joey Delgatto."
"Joey Goldman."
Ponte shrugged again. It was his most characteristic gesture, but it didn't mean for him what it meant for most people. For most people, a shrug suggested a kind of helplessness, a lack of knowledge or clarity that stymied them. For Ponte, the shrug meant simply that he didn't know, he didn't care, it made no difference, he would do what he felt like. "I know who you are," he said.
The flunky returned, carrying Don Giovanni at arm's length, as though he feared some exotic Mexican disease. At a nod from Ponte, he passed the quivering dog to Bert, and Joey could see that the old man's fingers were trembling. He hugged the animal to his belly, and the chihuahua flicked out a white- coated tongue and lapped at his wrist. Now that he had his dog back, Bert was bolder. "Charlie, what the fuck is this all about?"
Ponte, the only one sitting, settled himself more comfortably on the metal desk, crossed his ankles, and said, "Bert, I called the meeting, I'll ask the fucking questions. For starters, Joey whatever the fuck your name is, whyn't you tell me what the fuck you're doin' out heah, with your brother's car, going to the dump when the fucking dump ain't even open?"
Joey took a deep breath. He shouldn't have. The smell of rotting garbage became as solid as a piece of half-chewed steak sitting on top of his windpipe. "I wasn't going to the dump," he managed to say. "I was going to the hospital."
"The hospital," said Charlie Ponte. He mugged toward his crew. "O.K., let's try that one. Why were you going to the hospital?"
"Because my brother's there. His girlfriend got knocked through a window."
Ponte folded his arms across his chest and turned a perfect deadpan toward his boys. They grinned on cue, four white Rochesters to his Jack Benny. "Come on, kid, you're Vinnie Delgatto's son, you can do better than that."
"Charlie, listen," said Bert the Shirt. "I was there when Gino called."
"So now the old lady's chimin' in," said Ponte. "Shut up, Bert. And stop insultin' my intelligence, the both of ya. Gino's been in his hotel room all fucking day, that much I know. You think he's glued to the Weather Channel? I think he's hosing that top-heavy bim he's with. Either way, he ain't inna fucking hospital, and as for her, she's probably been gettin' knocked around all right, but not tru any windows. So cut the bullshit before I get annoyed."
Joey gazed blankly at the dim yellow light bulb and tried to ignore the way the stench of garbage was poisoning his saliva. He tried to find a way to believe that his brother hadn't set him up. He couldn't.
Ponte drummed his fingers on the metal desk. The only other sound was the deranged laugh of a gull at the top of the pyramid of trash. "Gino came outside exactly once today," the Boss resumed. "Around sixthirty. Just when it was getting dark. He comes out with a little suitcase. He looks around. He puts the bag inna trunk. He looks around again, and goes back inna hotel. Coupla hours later, you guys show up. Ya take the car, come riding out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. I mean, really, gents, how does it look?"
The neat little man sprang down from the desk and his dainty shoes clicked dryly on the cement floor. He walked to the empty rectangle of the doorframe and motioned for Joey and Bert to follow. They stood close together and looked out at the alp of garbage. It had weird floodlights on it and gleamed an un-earthly pinkish orange. At half a dozen random places along the slope, parked bulldozers looked like yellow toys. Most of the mountain was not exposed but had been covered over with a heavy plastic seal. Here and there, the seal was slit by long obscene gashes oozing rot.
"Ain't it amazing," Charlie Ponte said, "the advances that have been made in gahbidge? Ya see the way they cram it in those seams there? It's like stuffing a quilt. Deep, those slits. Fresh gahbidge, it gets squeezed in there and that's the end of it."
Joey did not like the way Charlie Ponte looked at him while saying this. He could handle being called fresh garbage. But he didn't relish the thought of spending eternity with other people's coffee grounds in his ears, the rank oil from other people's tuna fish sliming through his hair. "Hey, Charlie," he croaked, "we ain't involved in this."
Ponte turned toward him, in no particular hurry and without even a hint of malice on his face, and slapped him hard across the cheek. "You don't call me Charlie. Only my old friends call me Charlie, and kid, I got my doubts about whether you and me are gonna know each other that long." He gestured toward the largest of his goons. "Bruno, bring that fucking bag in heah."
In a moment Bruno was back, carrying a small, square case covered in turquoise vinyl. He put it on the desk under the cone of yellow light.
Charlie Ponte approached it slowly and critically. "Lookit this piece a shit," he said, flicking the case's plastic handle. "No class, your brother. It don't even lock. This fucking guy don't care how he treats my stuff."
He undid the two brass clasps and opened the case. It was lined with fake turquoise silk and had a small mirror built into the top. Slowly, with the salacious care of a man nibbling his way around a piece of wedding cake but saving the flower for last, Ponte started removing items from the bag. Lipsticks. Powder. A bottle of Nair. A box of tampons. An atomizer of perfume. He even took time to have a whiff of it. "Chanel number sixty-nine," he pronounced, and his goons obediently chuckled. Then he removed deodorant, tweezers, an eyelash curler. Mascara, eyeshadow, a disposable douche. "I love messin' around a woman's things," he said. " 'Zis givin' anybody a hard-on?"
Joey, had he been able to speak, would have answered an emphatic no. His knees were weak and he was tasting garbage-tainted snot from when Ponte's slap had set his sinuses running. Bert the Shirt had turned gray as his dog but seemed oddly at ease with the idea of being dead. He'd been there, after all; for him it wasn't that big a deal.
Ponte looked happy. Even as he got near the bottom of Vicki's cosmetics kit, he seemed to have no doubt that his emeralds were inside. Finally things were falling right for him. He'd get his stones back, kill Joey and Bert, bulldoze their corpses through a gash in the mountain of garbage, then bump off Gino when the occasion offered. Only when the turquoise case was totally empty did he begin to show some slight concern. But only slight. He took a penknife from his suit pocket, slit the take silk lining, and pried off the little mirror. Finding nothing underneath, he became just one small notch more agitated. "Bruno," he said, "smash the fucking thing."
In a single motion, Bruno crossed the reeking shed, turned the empty case upside down, and clobbered it with his gun butt. The vinyl tore, and underneath it were thin layers of Styrofoam, cardboard, and Chinese newspaper. The goon dug his fingers between the layers and tore them apart, but there were no hollow places and no emeralds. Then he splintered the plastic handle, but it contained nothing. Having reduced the case to a heap of rubble, he dropped his hands and looked at his boss as if to ask, What do I rip apart next?
Charlie Ponte crossed his arms and seemed to be considering. Then, for the first time all evening, he looked angry. The skin moved on his forehead, his black eyes seemed to pull in closer toward his nose, and one side of his upper lip lifted as if he were sucking something out of his teeth. He put his forearm on the desk and brushed it clean with a vicious sweep. Vicki's jars and bottles smashed against the cinderblock wall, and far from masking the vile stink of garbage, her scents blended in to make it still more foul, adding the cloy of carnal cheapness to the general corruption and making the shed smell like a whore-house on the lowest rung of hell. "Fucking shit," said Charlie Ponte. "Enough cockin' around. Now I want some fucking answers."
He slapped the desk, walked up close to Joey, and spit in his face. The warm saliva trickled down his cheek and Joey was sure he would vomit if he didn't wipe it off before it reached the corner of his mouth. He started to lift his hand. "Touch your face and I'll break your fucking arm," said Ponte. "Now talk. What the fuck you doin' with your brother's car, and where's my fucking emeralds?"
Joey tried to speak but couldn't, and Ponte nodded at Bruno. Bruno grabbed Joey by the hair and pulled back as if to yank off his scalp. Then he put the muzzle of his gun in the soft hollow behind Joey's ear.
Joey tried desperately to say something, and when he heard a voice he thought he had succeeded, but in fact it was Bert who was talking.
"Come on, Charlie, the kid don't know shit. He don't know nothin'. He's a loser. He's a nobody."
"Yeah?" said Ponte. "Well then, what about you, old lady? You ain't a nobody. A fucking limp-dick has-been maybe, but not a nobody. You got connections. So what the fuck is what?"
Bert cradled his dog and shook his head. "Charlie, I swear on my mother, we ain't involved. I don't know any more than what we already told ya."
"I think ya do," said Ponte. "And I ain't got all fucking night." He glanced over at his troops. "Tony, take his fucking dog."
"No," said Bert.
"Shut up, old woman. Tony, take his fucking dog, put it onna desk, and get ready to blow its fucking rains out. Enougha this shit."
Almost apologetically, the thug with the scarred lip and bad toupee approached Bert and held his hands out to take the dog. The Shirt held his ground. "I'll fucking kill ya, Charlie. I swear I'll fucking kill ya."
Ponte snorted. "That's good, Bert. Very brave. But you're still an old lady, so shut the fuck up and give 'im the dog."
Bert stood there. Ponte nodded for reinforcements. Another goon came up behind the old man and jerked back hard on his arms.
The tiny dog flew out of his hands and seemed to hover in the dimness, its legs splayed out like the limbs of a defrosting chicken, its paws kicking as though trying to climb the empty air. Tony caught the animal and put it on the desk. Quivering and all alone in the circle of yellow light, the chihuahua looked like it was about to be the victim of some unspeakable experiment in a Nazi operating room. It whined and its whiskers twitched like the antennae of a dying insect. Tony cocked his gun and pointed it between the animal's bulging glassy eyes.
"Charlie, for Christ's sake," said Bert, and he started to cry. Two hot tears, no more, squeezed out of his rheumy eyes and ran down his gray cheeks.
"Look at 'im," said Charlie Ponte, pointing at Bert with his chin. "Look at 'im. Bert, you look like a fucking fool. If I wasn't so pissed off, I'd be embarrassed for you."
"Be embarrassed for yourself, ya stupid dago. Be embarrassed that a fuckin' idiot like Gino Delgatto is less of an idiot than you are."
"Ah," said Ponte, "you trying to insult me? A pathetic old fuck like you, trying to insult me? Well, you know what, Bert, I ain't insulted. At least now you're saying something. Tony, get ready to splatter the dog. Dog brains all over the place, then he goes inna gahbidge. So come on, old lady, insult me some more. Come on."
Tony's trigger hand poked obscenely into the cone of yellow light, and Don Giovanni looked up curiously at the muzzle of the gun. Joey had gone limp in Bruno's murderous embrace. The fumes from Vicki's toiletries were winding through the air in almost visible curls of sickening sweetness.
"Charlie," Bert said, "ain't it fucking obvious? He decoyed you, man. He's makin' you look stupid. You're out here fuckin' around with a nobody, an old man, and a dog, and he's getting away with your emeralds."
Ponte put his hands into the pockets of his pale gray suit jacket, and considered. Then he took them out again and tugged an earlobe. The thug called Tony took the opportunity to turn a queasy glance on his employer. "Boss, I ain't never shot a dog before. A dog, it's, like, different. I kinda like dogs."
"Fucking stinks in here," said Ponte, as if he'd just now noticed.
"Charlie, lissena me," Bert pressed. "I don't give a fuck if you get your stones back or not. But if I was you, I'd be wondering where Gino is right now."
Ponte shuffled his dainty shoes on the cement floor, then absently kicked at a scrap of the cosmetics case. Chinese newspaper came out.
"So really, boss," said Tony, "I gotta shoot the fucking dog, or what? Come on, it's making me, like, uncomfortable."