I Will Find You(70)
I tell him I don’t.
“Margaritaville. Like the song. You know it?”
“The song? Yes.”
“Wasting away again in Margaritaville. Or wasted away. I don’t know. But right, that’s the name of the place. Ridiculous, right? Jimmy Buffett has his own goddamn retirement community. Communities, I should say. They got three Margaritavilles now. This one, another in South Carolina, and I forget where the third is. Maybe Georgia. It’s like someone took one of those crappy chain restaurants and made it into a place to live. Who’d want that?”
I don’t reply because that’s exactly what this place looks like to me.
“Anyway, it gave me an idea. I mean, I don’t know from getting wasted on Margaritas and hanging out on the beach. That’s not my fantasy place, if you know what I mean. So we did something different here at Boardwalks. Follow me, I want to show you something.”
We are on a sidewalk lined with palm trees. There is a sign with bright arrows pointing in various directions. One says POOL. One says FINE DINING. The one pointing left says BOARDWALK. We follow it. Nicky Fisher grows quiet. I can feel his eyes on me. When we break into the clearing, I can see why. He wants to gauge my reaction.
There, spanning as far as I can see in both directions, is a giant boardwalk.
The boardwalk is expansive. It’s also trying hard to feel vintage, but it’s far too neat and clean. Another Disney-like reproduction that may look nice but feels like something out of an old Twilight Zone episode. There are rides and arcades and soda fountains and chintzy shops and a merry-go-round. The rides are moving, but no one is on any of them, adding to the place’s unreal ghostlike feel. A man sporting a bow tie and handlebar mustache is selling cotton candy. Someone is dressed up like Mr. Peanut from the Planters peanut commercials. A sign advertises SKEEBALL-PINBALL-MINIGOLF.
“Boardwalks,” Nicky Fisher says to me. “With an S. We mostly based this place on the Revere Beach one, but we got stuff from Coney Island, Atlantic City, even Venice Beach out in California. And the rides, well, you can see we got coasters and Ferris wheels, but they’re a little gentler than in the old days for our older bones.” Nicky hits my arm, friendly-like, and smiles. “It’s fantastic, right? It’s like living on vacation every single day—and why the hell not? We earned it.”
He looks at me for affirmation, I guess. I try to nod through it, but I’m not sure he’s getting enough enthusiasm from me.
“Oh, and let me show you the main draw, David. Right over here. Man, I wish I could bring your old man down here and see it. I know, I know. We were enemies all our lives, Lenny and me, but come on—tell me your old man wouldn’t love this.”
He gestures to a white booth with a sign reading PIZZERIA NAPOLITANA on top. There are three men behind the counter wearing white aprons. Underneath them, another sign reads “Specializing In Italian Food” and some drink called “C.B. Coate’s Tonic.”
I look a question at him.
“It’s the old Revere Beach pizza stand that became Sal’s Pizzeria!” he exclaims. “Can you believe it? It’s an exact reproduction of what it looked like in 1940. Sit. I ordered us a couple of pies. You like pizza, right?” Nicky Fisher winks at me then, and it’s as creepy as you can imagine. “If you don’t like Sal’s pizza, I’m going to have Joey here put a bullet in your brain just to take you out of your misery.”
Nicky Fisher laughs at his own joke and slaps me on the back.
We sit under an umbrella. Two fans spit cold air at us. One of the aproned men brings each of us a personal-size pizza. We are then left alone.
“How’s your old man?” Nicky Fisher asks me.
“He’s dying.”
“Yeah, I heard that. Sorry.”
“Why am I here, Mr. Fisher?”
“Call me Nicky. Uncle Nicky.”
I don’t reply, but I’m not going to call him uncle.
“You’re here,” he continues, “because you and I need to have a little chat.”
Nicky Fisher talks like a movie gangster. I know a lot of tough guys now. None really talk like this. A hit man serving life at Briggs told me that real-life gangsters started talking like the gangsters in movies after those movies became popular, not the other way around. Life imitated art.
“I’m listening,” I say.
He leans forward and turns his eyes up at me. We are getting to it now. It is quiet. Even the piped-in music has stopped. “Your father and me, we have some bad history.”
“He was a cop,” I say. “You ran a crime syndicate.”
“A crime syndicate,” Nicky replies with a small chuckle. “Fancy words. Your father wasn’t pure either. You know that, right?”
I choose not to reply. He stares at me some more, and even in this humid hellhole, I feel a chill.
“You love your old man?” he asks me.
“Very much.”
“He was a good father?”
“The best,” I say. Then: “With all due respect, uh Nicky, why am I here?”
“Because I have sons too.” There is a small snarl in his voice now. “Do you know that?”
I do—and now I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like where we are going.
“Three of them. Or I had three. You know about my Mikey?”