Sunburn by Laurence Shames Read Free Book Online Page B

All secrets, my business. Lotta things ya don't wanna tell. Lotta things ya wanna tell and can't."
    "Must be difficult," Arty said.
    Vincente looked at him hard, decided that he understood.
    "Me, I can't keep a secret worth beans," said Debbi.
    "Which is why nobody tells you nothin'," Gino said.
    Joey and Sandra came out of the kitchen. Joey carried a tray with an espresso pot and cups and a plate of pignolia cookies. Sandra held an enormous bowl of fruit salad: pineapple, papaya, mango, tangerine. But the little dinner party had got away from them somehow, words and glances had been rerouted; their own dining room seemed strange, as if in their brief absence someone had rearranged the furniture. Coffee was sipped, dessert nibbled, but conversation sputtered, chairs no longer felt comfortable, and it came as a relief when Gino slapped down his cup and said abruptly, "Who wants a cigar?"
    Arty Magnus had not smoked a cigar since college. The last one had inflamed his sinuses and given him a two-day case of heartburn. But now he bravely rose with the other men and passed through the wide unadorned doorway to the patio. The moon was bright, you couldn't quite see colors but you could tell the red impatiens from the pink; the air was still, a second moon was floating in the pool.
    Gino held a lighter in his fat cupped hands. There was something ancient in the act of sharing the offered flame.
    Through the kitchen window, Sandra saw four red points shining through the silver moonlight, the cigar tips of the Godfather, his two unmatching sons, and the nice new fellow who was being drawn into their circle.

10
    "Dog's constipated," said Bert the Shirt.
    "Who isn't?" said the Godfather.
    They were standing on Smathers Beach in the half hour before the sun went down. Vincente's black shoes and Bert's white sneakers scratched against the nubbly limestone that passed for sand. In the green water, three or four miles from shore, a couple of sailboats were scudding by; farther out, beyond the reef, a shadowy freighter was riding up the Gulf Stream.
    But Bert wasn't looking at the water, he was watching his straining chihuahua squatting in the knobby coral. The dog was hunkered down on its hind legs, its back was arched, it was trying so hard to pass a stool that it was quivering all over. Its little white rat's tail was pumping hopefully, the tiny pink button of its asshole was pressing outward like a flower about to open. But nothing happened, and the clogged dog stared up through its milky eyes at its master, seemed to implore an assistance that no mortal being could provide.
    "Fuckin' age," said Bert the Shirt. He gave his head a slow shake; his white hair with its glints of bronze and pink caught the sunlight different ways. "Poor dog don't even jerk off no more. Used to be he'd lick 'is balls. Once, twice a week he'd hump a table leg, try ta fuck a squeak toy. Ya know, he showed some zip. Now? Two fuckin' bites a dog food, a heart pill, drops in 'is eyes. His big thrill? He can pee onna rug, I don't yell at him no more. Some fuckin' life, huh?"
    Vincente didn't answer. He was looking out at the ghostly freighter, at the tired sun suspended in its slow plunge to the sea. " Omerta , Bert," he said. "The honorable silence. Ya think it counts for anything? Ya think it means shit anymore?"
    Bert didn't miss a beat. Since his brief death he had trouble staying on track, but making transitions had never been easier for him. "Since that mizzable fuck Valachi spilled his guts? On TV no less? Remember those little black and white sets, big box, little picture, by the time they warmed up the show was over? Ya think about it, what's left to be silent about? Like there's someone out there, he's been in a coma forty years, he don't know there's a Mafia? The movies, the books. Now I read where they're sayin' Edgar Hoover was some kinda nutcase Nazi faggot. Liked ta put a helmet on, have people tie 'im up and call 'im Edna. So who ya gonna