Island of Divine Music (19 page)

Seven hours later the young man waited for Walker and Sinclair at a donut shop on San Pablo Avenue near the flophouse he now lived in on the west end of Berkeley. Olivera and Uncle Lu opened the warehouse door but didn’t turn the lights on. The men groped around for the heavy barrels, carried them to Walker’s truck, and secured them with rope. It took three minutes to load, five times that to drive to some garage in a Mexican neighborhood on the south end of Oakland, where, under Olivera’s supervision, they unloaded. Lu himself did more lifting than anybody else, even though the boys’ combined ages were shy of his by seventeen years. They moved the cargo until the barrels were gone, and on the last trip Paulie fell asleep in the little guy’s Buick while the driver bragged to Paulie’s uncle about the hard labor he used to perform when he was Paulie’s age. What we’re doing is saving a lot of money in taxes, he said. He slapped Lu’s knee and made a sharp turn which jarred
Paulie awake. Otherwise I might as well dump this shit in the bay like it was the Boston Tea Party, right? Taxation without reputation or something, right?

Right, Lu said as he massaged his neck. Something like that.

T
heir ship was coming in. Tuesday night, Olivera said, and it really was a ship. In fact, it would take Ciso’s boat to make the catch. When Lu looked at him askance, the little guy reassured him that he’d done this kind of thing many times, down in Florida. Piece of cake. But we’ll need the team, too.

Paulie and Sinclair were lying in the shade of an old cistern filled with acid wash when Lu and Ciso found them. Shovels, potato-chip bags, and crushed beer cans lay at their feet. A Bic lighter and a slim box of rolling papers rested near Paulie’s stomach. The boys were shirtless, sweaty, and with their faces covered by hard hats and their jeans and torsos dusted with dry mud they looked nearly identical, the same taut musculature and sunken bellies, the same long arms and fingers. Couple of hoboes, Ciso said.

Mutt and Jeff, Lu added. I wonder where the hell Walker is?

A mixer truck pulled up to use the acid, and Lu asked the driver about Jimmy Walker and these boys. The driver had no idea. Sinclair lifted his shell at the noise of the truck and struggled to his feet, but Paulie slept on. The boy picked up a shovel and tossed some gravel into a wheelbarrow. The South Bay was in the middle of a heat wave, and new traces of sweat streaked Sinclair’s back as
he worked. Soon Walker’s pickup appeared. The old pitcher was careful to cover a brown sack full of bottles with a sweatshirt before he went up to Lu.

Lu was surprised to hear the older man turn down his offer. I’m trying to keep this young one out of trouble, Mr. Verbicaro. Please don’t think I don’t appreciate it.

They sat together on the fender, a couple of old ballplayers in the dugout, chewing grass stems and spitting. Lu listened and nodded his head. That little guy. I don’t mean any disrespect. I just don’t want my nephew tied up in something illegal. Promised my little sister about that.

Lu pointed with his chin at the cistern and mentioned that he wanted the same for his own nephew. He told Walker that he didn’t think what they were doing was seriously illegal, exactly. More like a way to beat customs taxes. Not like smuggling dope or something.

Huh, Walker said. They were silent a moment, and Lu felt foolish. That little guy, I wouldn’t turn my back on him, Mr. Verbicaro. Keeps a few extra cards in his coat, I expect.

There were things you did that were a little bit illegal, Lu said, but didn’t really hurt anybody. Driving too fast. Getting a tip on the horses. And he thought, but didn’t say it, that it was similar to the way a man might enjoy another woman but not actually full-out cheat on his wife. He was thinking of Narciso. A little kissing and petting with some gal in a casino, maybe even a quickie some afternoon without actually taking all of your clothes off or lying in bed with a woman you didn’t even particularly like or even know. He was thinking of a married woman he’d met at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

Walker massaged the elbow of his pitching arm. His breath was rapid and ripe with fumes. Thanks, but no thanks.

T
he sun was falling toward the Marin Mountains, and the bay glimmered like a playground littered with bottle shards. Ciso smiled behind the wheel of the motorboat while Olivera poured champagne into paper cups, splashing the golden liquid onto his sleeve. Lu declined. He wanted to remain sharp and was reminded of his need for vigilance when Jimmy told Ciso to turn on the navigation lights and the driver sounded the Klaxon by mistake.

Paulie sat facing backward, fishing pole and champagne cup in his hands. The last joint of the day was coming on, and in the shimmering peaks of the water he saw faces, strangers who looked at him with ugly smiles. His line had no bait; it was a piece of theater devised by the little wise guy, who also wore a skipper’s cap as part of the ruse. Olivera yelled over the motor’s growl, some bullshit about finding pirate’s treasure on an island in the Florida Keys and having to throw it overboard when the Coast Guard came to search his boat. Paulie slumped over his pole and giggled at the way his uncles ate it up. It had been a scorcher in the South Bay, but here it was much cooler. They drifted some time with the motor off, and the sky grew darker and fuzzy with a few stars and peachy clouds, and the city of San Francisco glimmered against a scarf of fog. When ships aimed their way Ciso flashed the headlight a few times as if he knew some code of the sea and laid into the Klaxon, which always made Lu jump and curse. All four of them had lines in the water
now, and Olivera called out to a couple of party boats that came near, and when people asked how they were biting the little guy made up some wacky fish story, each time increasing the size of the catch.

They ate some prosciutto and sourdough and checked their watches. Once a Coast Guard or shore police boat pulled up and blinded them with their spotlight. Olivera hammed it up about fishing and asked the cops for advice. You’re getting a little too close to the gate, one of the officers said on the bullhorn, for such a small craft. I’d keep her east a ways. Tide’s moving out, and if it takes you out there, you’ll capsize.

Thanks, guys! Olivera said. We’ll start back.

P
aulie fell asleep against his fishing pole and dreamed about May. She leaned over him in the apartment, which was now in San Francisco, and asked him to tell her what time she was in. I am always make the wrong time, she said. The problem, Paulie told her, had to do with their being in two different zones. He woke in the dark and heard his uncle’s voice. Lu was squatting beside him, talking about starting life all over again. He was saying something about getting up after you’ve been dusted by a beanball, getting the courage to swing away at the next pitch because there’s always another pitch. You understand what I’m saying?

Paulie grunted yes.

We’re not beat. This life’s not going to beat us. Your Uncle
Ciso, he’s got Lady Luck in his goddamned pocket. The two of us, we got to hustle, but we ain’t beat.

That’s it, Olivera said. He was pointing his binoculars at a huge ship that had just crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge from the high seas. Goddamn it, that is it.

Ciso drove the boat, with its boxy cathedral hull, straight for the towering ship until Olivera told him to veer right. He veered and honked and flashed a couple of times, and kept going long after Olivera and Lu told him to stop. The ship passed them not more than thirty feet away, like a city block of small windows and massive walls sliding past along the San Andreas Fault, carving the black liquid surface between them. It hid the hills and the city and the moon for a while, and it took their breath away with its size and speed. The men gaped in silence until it passed.

The wake hit them, and their little boat bucked and nearly tipped over. Water slapped and sprayed them. Olivera screamed for Paulie to grab the bucket and bail, and Lu yelled at Ciso to keep it straight as the next wave charged them.

They yelled and floundered, they were soaked and shivering. Son of a bitch, Lu cried. You can’t see a damned thing, Jimmy! He swung the little spotlight across the bow. You see anything, Ciso? Did anybody see anything fall off the ship?

They cruised in circles for fifteen minutes, cursing, pointing at anything visible, shivering. Then Ciso said he thought he saw something.

They crept up on the barrel. Olivera raged about how they
were all supposed to be lashed together. He had Paulie reach over the side and grab it with a fisherman’s gaff. Should have a little fucking crown painted on the side, he said. Paulie and Lu strained and managed to get it aboard, and as they did Lu saw the delicate painting of a golden crown placed atop tobacco leaves. He hooted with joy.

The other five were close to each other, and Paulie and Lu nearly fell in the drink getting them aboard. Now there was no room for passengers, so the three older men crowded onto Ciso’s seat and a barrel, and Paulie lay across the bow, holding on to the cleats in front of the windshield. They headed east, with Alcatraz Island looming before them.

A few minutes later the engine quit. Olivera said it was probably just out of gas, and the spare was next to the motor, but the gas can had disappeared, probably when they’d been swamped. Lu climbed over the barrels and hunted for it. All of the men cursed, and Olivera found a length of rope and secured the barrels to the boat while Lu straddled the motor and checked the carburetor and plugs. They drifted in silence.

Paulie looked at the bridge. Cars and trucks were crossing a thousand feet above the water. They were floating toward the Golden Gate now, toward the ocean, and the boat was rocking more and more as it drifted west. We got paddles? Ciso asked.

Paddles, Olivera said. Son of a bitch.

Lu gave up on the motor and climbed over the barrels. The swells were pitching them up and down.

We’re heading for the fucking potato patch, Olivera shouted.

What’s the fucking potato patch? Lu asked through clacking teeth.

We get out there, we capsize, like the man said. It’s almost to the point of our money or our lives, we gotta signal for help and hope it’s some Japanese who don’t ask questions.

How do you signal for help? Lu asked.

Ain’t you got no flares on this, Ciso? I thought I had a fucking flare gun on this!

This is my first time out, Ciso said. I don’t know nothin’, Jimmy.

Then we flash the lights and make a lot of racket.

They flashed the little headlight. The boat dipped and lifted over the black waves, and at the crest of each they yelled at distant boat lights. A whirring sound started near Paulie’s foot, and he heard Uncle Narciso whoop.

Hey, Ciso said, I got a bite!

Lu wanted to know what the hell he was talking about. In the darkness the men could barely see a mounted reel spinning out. I put a chunk of meat on the hook, he said.

Ciso, you think we give a rat’s ass about a fish right now? The boat rocked violently.

I put a hunk of prosciutto on it, Ciso said. The reel whirred and stopped. Ciso tried to crank it. Lu, I got something big, he said.

We’re going to drown in the ocean, and you’re thinking about a fish?

This is a huge guy, Lu. It won’t budge. He strained on the handle. The boat dipped on the side where Ciso’s reel was mounted,
and the men leaned the other way instinctively. It dipped further and changed directions, and Lu and Jimmy had to climb the barrels, and Paulie had to hang over the other side of the bow, to keep it from flipping over.

Holy Mary Fucking Mother of God, Olivera said. Ciso caught Moby Dick!

Lu peered at his brother, who sat sideways at the helm with one hand on the wheel and the other lighting a damp cigarette with his Zippo. Old Lucky Pants. Sitting there as if this were the most natural thing in the world, to steer an overloaded boat tipped on its side that was being towed by a whale or a goddamned sea monster or a fucking nuclear submarine, in exactly the right direction. They were creeping back toward Alcatraz.

Ciso exhaled a cloud of smoke. I wonder what the hell we got? he said.

The waves became smaller, and the boat moved slowly, towed by some underwater leviathan. Olivera and Lu started laughing hysterically, like children. The son of a bitch is taking us to the Rock, Lu said. Your fish gonna take us home or turn us in to the warden, Ciso?

Hell if I know, Lu. Hell if I know.

Slowly the men and barrels neared Alcatraz Island, which had been recently occupied by American Indians in opposition to the American government. The lighthouse was dark, but the center of the island flickered with dim waves of light. Lu felt a deep pounding in his chest and his head. His heart pounded so hard his head and feet resonated, and it seemed the entire ocean and the sky beat to
the same rhythm. And then he heard the voices, faintly at first. Strange, otherworldly voices warbled with his heart’s beat. All four men listened as they neared the island. For a moment the drumming and chanting held them transfixed. Then the boat listed a measure lower, and Ludovico’s dream of cigars and money was over.

The boat turned itself upside down slowly, like a sleeper turning over on a bed, and they were swallowed by the utter black and cold of the ocean. At first Lu kept a grip on one of the barrels in the black water, but soon he knew the game was up. He didn’t know that five of the barrels lashed to the boat and sinking in the bay were filled with cigars and the sixth with a small bale of marijuana packed around a hundred thousand dollars and fifty pounds of cocaine. He didn’t know that a month from then Jimmy Olivera would be found floating near the Bay Bridge in a drum like the ones that had held the narcotics and cigars, his head, legs, and arms placed beside his torso in the little tub like parts for assembling.

Lu lost up from down in the dark water, but he didn’t struggle. The die was cast, and he would be taken one way or the other, he thought, soon as God or what-the-fuck-ever made up its celestial mind.
What-the-fuck-ever:
this made him laugh and nearly drown. He thought of saying this to the priests of his childhood, and after some time of stasis he felt himself drawn upward, laughing underwater. He rose slowly with aching lungs and gained the surface spluttering, then turned and floated on his back, exhausted, so body-weary he felt unable to ever move his arms again. He heard distant voices come and go. He was aware of his brother and nephew and Olivera swimming to the island, no more than fifty yards away, and he knew
he should join them, but he wanted to rest a while first. The ocean held him, his head cupped in its hands.
What-the-fuck-ever, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.
A few wet stars burned in the limitless night above him, and he thought he might be falling into a kind of sleep, and he thought that would be all right.