Florida Straits

A comedy of Mafia manners as brash and shiny as a sharkskin suit struts its way across these pages. Young mafioso Joey Goldman, the illegitimate son of a New York don, gets fed up with his lot as a goombata gofer and takes his bank-teller girfriend Sandra to Key West, where he's ``gonna, like, take over.'' Sandra lands a new job right away, but Joey is stymied by his first foray out of New York mob territory. Rebuffed by the seamiest of local racketeers, Joey is counseled by retired gunsel Bert ``the Shirt'' to go native; he falls in love with laid-back Key West, where ``the air is the temperature of lips,'' and takes a job pitching time-shares. All is well until big brother Gino drops in from New York--up to his size-17 neck in trouble with the Miami mob over uncut emeralds and misplaced drugs. Joey's former troubles are back in his face as Gino sets him up; death looms before Joey finally outscams the pros to become a self-made man. The plot line flows like a strong ocean current, and Shames's ( The Big Time ) quirky Key West denizens clash wonderfully with the insulated and seamy lives of the mobsters. Film rights to Lee Rich Productions. (June)