Read Online Paradise Man by Jerome Charyn - Free Book Online Page B

the small, baffling eyes of a dreamer. He was an enormous man. Holden assumed he was writing dialogue in his skull while he held cards at the table.
    It was Infante who looked up first. “Ah,” he said, “our man is back ... Holden, I think Rex wants to shake your hand. You remember Rex. Fay Abruzzi’s husband.”
    Rex stood up. He was six-five, and Holden felt like a bear cub in his presence. The playwright squeezed Holden’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
    “Lend him your wife,” Infante said, and Abruzzi laughed. He had yellow teeth. The laughter traveled through him like a gigantic pipe. Holden tried to conjure up that naked woman he’d collected from Red Mike. She had big shoulders and a round face. But he couldn’t remember if she was pretty.
    “Holden’s good at escorting wives,” Infante said. “He takes Florinda to lunch. But he’s getting a little too popular, right Edmundo?”
    “Right,” Edmundo said, winking at his bodyguard, who was a Batista baby, like him. Edmundo had been a jeweler in Havana. He fled to Miami after Fidel came down from the hills. He disappeared into the Florida Everglades for six months and surfaced again after the Bay of Pigs. He arrived in Manhattan with his own Familia. Didn’t bemoan Castro any more. He established betting parlors, dabbled in cocaine. Holden had killed the Parrot essentially for him, because the Parrot had been ripping off Edmundo and his people. But Edmundo’s bodyguard didn’t appreciate the attention Holden got. The bodyguard despised Holden, fancied himself as Edmundo’s enforcer. But he was frightened of the Bandidos, frightened of moon, sun, and sky. He’d come out of the Everglades with Edmundo, married Edmundo’s niece, could fire a machine gun, drive a car. But the bodyguard had never bumped a man in his life. He was Edmundo’s little wax soldier, the family clown.
    “Jeremías,” Edmundo said, “be kind to Holden ... he sends people to paradise.”
    “He’s okay for punching women,” the bodyguard said. “Edmundo, I’m not interested in your paradise man.”
    The bodyguard yawned into his cards. He knew Holden wouldn’t slap him in front of Edmundo and start a war with La Familia. The Bandidos had kidnapped him twice, and twice Edmundo had ransomed him for much more than Jeremías was worth. Edmundo was such a king, he could afford to keep a fool and advertise him as his bodyguard. But he did have soldiers in the hallway and on the roof. Because the Bandidos were crazy enough to kidnap Don Edmundo himself, and who would negotiate ransom money for a king?
    “Holden,” Edmundo said, “the boy is rude. Forgive him, please.”
    The bodyguard crumpled a card in his fist. “I’m not a boy, Edmundo. I’m fifty-seven. I fought Fidel ... I’m not a boy.”
    “But you behave like one.”
    “Because you dishonor me, Edmundo. You let this assassin do my work.”
    “Shut your mouth, Jeremías. We have a guest.” And Don Edmundo smiled at the playwright and then turned to his bodyguard. “Go up to the roof and look for Huevo, eh?”
    “If he decides to bother us, Edmundo, can I have him for myself?”
    “Of course.”
    The bodyguard got up from the table, tried to uncrumple the card, bowed to Muriel, excused himself, and left for the roof as if he were on the journey of his life.
    “He finished high school, but he has no manners,” Don Edmundo told the playwright. “He couldn’t find a career in the United States. Holden has a career. Holden is important to my family, so Jeremías suffers a lot.”
    “Who’s Huevo?” the playwright asked.
    “Nothing,” Don Edmundo said. “A boogeyman for us. He haunts my family. You should write about Huevo ... Big Balls. That’s his religious name. He’s one of the boat people. I adopted Huevo, fed him, and now he makes war on me.”
    “Edmundo, when can I meet him?”
    “I told you. He’s the boogeyman. Huevo has such big balls, he never goes out on the street. He