"Possibly not, but it is a mortal sin."
"Why? They don't say in the Bible don't do it."
"Not clearly, but it's implied," Monsignor Easton said. "Are you involved in the sale of drugs or other illegal activities?"
"No, I hardly touch it. I smoke weed, you know, but only a few times a week to relax my mind. The illegal activities? I'm not sure of this. Some funds have been used to pay prison guards, but it wasn't for me, so I don't see I was committing a sin. It was for my boss when he was an inmate in Florida."
There was a silence, one long enough that Little Jimmy wondered if the monsignor had fallen asleep, bored from hearing the same old thing; though some of the confessions he heard in Venice, man, might be hard to believe.
"Can you tell me," the monsignor said, "why it's been twenty-seven years since you've been to confession?"
"The last time before this," Little Jimmy said, "I was in prison in Cuba for a crime that didn't hurt no one. I was afraid I would die at the hands of prisoners desiring to make love to me in an excessive manner. But I was save by my boss, also in that prison, Combinado, before it could happen."
The monsignor said, "And this time, why are you confessing?"
"I want to be on the safe side, confess to missing Mass fourteen hundred times," Little Jimmy said, "because I'm going to dinner in honor of my boss. There is a possibility he could have the fortuneteller, who's preparing the food, poison me."
Again there was a silence.
"This is the same boss who saved your life the time before, when you were in prison?"
"Yes, I don't think in my heart he'll have her poison me. He would be more likely to have someone shoot me. But there are times, since he's with this fortune-teller woman again, he acts crazy. Is why I don't want to take a chance. You know, if I have sins on my soul."
Again he waited.
This time the monsignor said, "Do you remember how to say the Act of Contrition?"
"Yes, of course," Little Jimmy said. "Oh my God I'm heart'ly sorry for having offended Thee-"
"Wait," Monsignor Easton said. "Let me give you your penance first."
Little Jimmy came out of St. Mark's making a sign of the cross with the hand he'd dipped in the holy water font and approached his Bentley standing at the curb. His driver Zorro, resting against the front fender with his arms folded, took his time turning to open the door.
"You confess your sins? Tell the priest everything you been doing?"
"Everything."
"Some sins he never heard of before?" "Nothing outrageous."
"What do you do for penance, flagellate yourself?"
"Don't be disgusting. I say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys," Little Jimmy said, "and anything I did to get God pissed at me is forgiven."
By six Tico was sitting in the kitchen of Cundo's home drinking red wine with Dawn who wasn't drinking, quiet for a change, not bothering Tico with situations from his past life, Tico talking, asking why Cundo bought fifteen-dollar wine-the price sticker still on the bottle-when he could afford to pay fifty, a hundred dollars a bottle and serve his guests a vintage they could swirl in their big fishbowl wineglasses and smack their lips over. "Is the man cheap? Let me start over. Is the man a cheap motherfucker? I'm forgetting my heritage, my sweet mama getting out of Arkansas soon as she hears big-city niggas talking, they visiting Tunica, Mississippi, to lay money on the gaming tables. Soon as she understood what they saying she's gone. My mama say to me I'm high-yella with a Costa Rica tan. What I have to do, talk to some of these stone-ass hip-hoppers, get me the latest nigga expressions, so I ain't going around saying, 'How you doing, my man?' stead of 'Sup, bro?' Walk away I say, 'Have a good one.' Foley I bet could teach me how to talk and his speech is mostly pure white. Tha's where you learn the expressions, among the bad boys, the jive-ass gangbangers showing off, dying to get out and shoot some dude, anybody, it don't matter."
They sat at the kitchen table, two ashtrays and the bottle of red on the clean round surface.
"You're rambling," Dawn said. "Is it the wine or your nerves?"
"I'm a ramblin' man," Tico said, wearing a white shirt mostly unbuttoned and a lavender scarf over his black curls. "You hear me ramblin' means I feel good."
"But no rambling at dinner," Dawn said, "when I'm talking to Cundo. I have very specific things I want to tell him."
"This man with the temper, stings you with his talk and slugs you in the belly."
"Slaps my face when he feels like it."
"Be the revenge of the fortune-teller. You see it working?"
"Sweetie, all you have to do is serve, exactly the way I told you, leaving the top on the silver platter you place at Cundo's end of the table. You don't remove the cover."
"Want to keep the food hot."
"That's right. I give you a nod and you take it off."
"I never been a waiter, but I can do it with style," Tico said. "What's Cundo up to?"
"Sleeping off lunch. He had a few La Yumas, what he calls straight rum over ice."
Tico grinned. "He's having a good time being out of prison. What about Little Jimmy?"
"He'll be here."
"You say he scared to death of Cundo. You sure he's coming?" "I told him not to worry about Cundo, I'll see he behaves himself. Jimmy's in love with me. You know I'm his first woman."
"What about Foley?"
"He's in love with me too, but it's giving him problems."
"No, what I ask, is he coming?"
"I'm afraid Dr. Jack's gonna miss the party."
"He don't want to be here, you cooking dinner?"
"He's trying his luck with Danny Karmanos. If he can't play the ghost expert," Dawn said, "he'll try to dazzle her with close-call situations from his life in crime. Like he's about to leave a bank just as the police pull up in front. Danny can't wait to hear how he gets away."
"How does he?"
"You have to hear him tell it," Dawn said, "lets you know how clever he is. One of his tricks, he says something funny and closes in while you're laughing."
"Takes you by surprise," Tico said.
"With Danny, I can see him trying to kiss her and she stops him cold. Who does this phony baloney think he is? Dr. Jack is not in her league and she lets him know it. Danny's a movie star and he's what, a fucking bank robber."
"She say that to him?"
"In a nice way," Dawn said.
The way Foley told it to Danny:
"The time I almost got caught I was lucky. It was the rainy season out here. I pulled the job in a raincoat and stuffed the money in an umbrella I kept closed. I'm almost out of the bank and there's a black-and-white Crown Vic in front, the two uniforms out of the car stopping people from entering the bank, telling them a robbery's in progress. They waved to us, just inside the door, to come out, and that's how I managed to slip past the cops, with the rain people. As soon as the police stepped inside, I took off. Remember
Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain? That was me splashing along Hollywood Boulevard with an umbrella full of money."
This was earlier, Foley telling true-crime tales on Danny's patio, the two sipping vodkas with lime juice, Danny grinning, shining her eyes at Foley, though Peter was still around somewhere.
Time for a swim. The best time, Danny said, dusk settling in.
Foley now in his low-rise briefs rather than a pair of Peter's trunks-even the ones Danny said Peter had never worn-Foley preferring to look like a Calvin Klein ad in the low-rise grabbers. Danny had a towel around the skimpy bottom of her two-piece, reminding Foley of Sports Illustrated, the one with all the chicks in their swimsuits. He always referred to those bits of cloth the girls wore, ones you could ball up in one hand, as swimsuits. His favorite was the chick standing with her thumb hooked in the waist of her panties. They hadn't been in yet but stood holding or wearing towels, Foley hanging his in front, then after a while over his shoulder. Hey, let's go if we're going.