by SL Huang
Shit, I couldn’t blame her. “Well, make them go. Whatever it takes.”
“Where you gonna be?”
“Dealing with some other crap. Arthur, will you promise me something?”
“Depends what it is.”
“If you don’t hear from me within a couple hours or so, make Checker go with them.”
“Don’t know that I could ever make that boy do anything,” said Arthur with some affection. “’Specially if they ain’t named him in the warrants yet—”
“Arthur,” I said. “This is important. Make him go.”
The fond expression faded from Arthur’s face, leaving the penetrating stare of a very intelligent PI. “Russell. What’s going on? What happens in two hours?”
“Just do it. Promise me.”
“What’s going on? Where you going?”
“It’s not important,” I said.
“Oh Lord,” he said. “Is Checker in some sort of trouble outside of this?”
I had no idea how he’d made that leap. I wasn’t that bad a liar. But now the slack-jawed confirmation showed on my face for sure.
“You tell me what’s going on right now,” said Arthur, crowding forward and looming above me, his face pinching inward, closed and terrified and panicking—except Arthur didn’t panic. “You tell me what—!”
“Ask him!” I snapped. “Now I have to go—I’m not just saying that; I honestly and truly have to go right now or things could be very bad—”
“Then I’m coming—”
“Arthur, listen to me! There is nothing you can do, okay? I don’t need backup on this.” I’m not going to get you killed, too. “The one thing you can do is make sure Checker leaves if things go sideways. Do you hear me? Make sure he leaves. Now I have to go.”
Arthur reached out to stop me but hesitated, remembering my injuries; I ducked out of his reach and back toward the courtyard. “Russell!” he called after me, frustrated and helpless.
“Thanks, Arthur.” My voice caught. “For everything. Thanks.”
I turned away and ran. Behind me, what sounded suspiciously like a fist slamming into a wall echoed down the hallway.
♦ ♦ ♦
I arrived at La Café Bijet at 7:40. It was one of those fancy places nestled in the mountains, just far back enough from the road to make it feel like it was on acres of lush woodlands well outside LA. Well, as long as it was Sunday, and there wasn’t traffic noise to destroy the illusion.
Still, it was private, and perfect for a clandestine meeting between the head of the Los Angeles Mafia and a two-timing cop. If that had been what this was.
I crept down through the woods, keeping my senses alert for a double-cross. If Benito had warned his stepmother, this would be the best time for someone to hit, from a distance with none of their own in danger. But the woods stayed quiet. Miracle of miracles, Benito seemed to have come through.
I sidled up to the back of the restaurant and peeked in the windows to see a few people in crisp white aprons active in the kitchen. I debated moving then, spiking a teacup or a water glass, but it wasn’t certain enough. If I screwed this up I’d get another innocent person killed, and I’d had enough of that this week.
Mama Lorenzo arrived at 7:55. She glided in and sat down at a table in the corner, her back to the wall. The wait staff immediately materialized, served her some tea and pastries, and disappeared back into the kitchens.
Oh. This would be easy. Mama Lorenzo couldn’t look everywhere at once, no matter how she’d positioned herself. I’d slip in the front door and toss a little tablet into her drink at the exact moment her eyes strayed away and wouldn’t see me. The mathematics played out the edges of her field of vision, blanking out what her eyes could see, highlighting the blind spots, drawing the arc of a parabola for me to target her cup.
I crept down to the front entrance and put an eye to the decorative, slightly distorted panes set in the double doors. Mama Lorenzo glanced down at her pastries to take a delicate bite, and I slipped inside. I crouched against the wall below her normal line of sight and slid my left hand into my pocket.
The doors burst open.
Before they had banged back halfway, through the glass I’d recognized the tall, lean form of the sniper who had shot me, with a really, really big gun silhouetted in his hands.
I cursed Benito in my head—she was supposed to be alone!—as I sprang into the air, kicking out with both feet to slam one of the doors against him so he fell into the room and dropped his weapon. The blow was weaker than I’d meant it to be, and he was still conscious. I plunged after him but he managed to roll away, lashing out with a kick; I saw it coming but my body wasn’t responding fast enough and my leg went out from under me. I managed to twist so I only landed half on my bad shoulder—
The world whited out in pain, every nerve ending shrieking, my senses kaleidoscoping.
I kicked out blindly. My muscle memory worked even when the rest of me wasn’t, automatically aiming where I knew my enemy would be, and my boot impacted something hard. I regained my equilibrium in time to see him collapse back to the floor, out cold this time. I rolled onto my feet.
Only to find Mama Lorenzo pointing a sleek little chrome .32 at me.
Mama Lorenzo wasn’t one to waste time talking to someone she wanted dead. Her finger tightened on the trigger, but her gaze slipped down to her sniper buddy for a split second, making sure he was out of her line of fire, and in that split second I kicked a table at her.
She fired as she dove away, but the shot went wild, and the table caught her on the shoulder and spun her into the wall before smashing through her breakfast with a terrific crash. I ran laterally, toward the back of the restaurant, my left hand digging for the Browning. Mama Lorenzo fired twice more, but she couldn’t track me fast enough; I got the gun in my hand and spun to bring it across her before she could target me again, but in that moment something in one of my legs gave out and…I stumbled.
Some moments are crucial. I stumbled, and knew that I was about to die, that in this tiny fraction of an instant, Mama Lorenzo had the opportunity—if her aim was good enough, if her reaction time was fast enough, she had the window.
Instead of my life flashing before my eyes, or thoughts of friends, or any final revelation, my mind entirely blanked out. The math converged around me and couldn’t save me, and time seemed to slow…
“Stop!”
A girl’s voice rang through the room, and Mama Lorenzo’s finger hesitated on the trigger.
The world sped back up and I reacted immediately, recovering, finishing my spin, bringing the Browning up to center her in my sights—
“Cas! Stop!” came Checker’s voice.
My finger eased up a millisecond before I would have fired. For a long instant, I thought I had fired.
“Put the guns down!” Checker yelled at us, his voice going high and uncomfortable.
Mama Lorenzo hadn’t lowered her weapon, and I didn’t want to lower mine either.
“Now!” snapped the girl, and Mama Lorenzo shocked me then by letting her gun hand drop, letting the little chrome .32 dangle at her side.
I hesitated a moment longer, then did the same with the Browning. Keeping Mama Lorenzo in my peripheral vision, I took a shaking breath and glanced over toward the door.
Checker had materialized just inside, and with him was a young woman who appeared to be about twenty or twenty-one. She was built athletically, like a swimmer maybe, and was extremely Italian-looking, with dark olive skin and black hair that she had pulled back into a ponytail. She wore jeans and no makeup and exactly fit the image of a normal American college student, except that she was staring daggers at Mama Lorenzo, and I didn’t know anybody who did that.
She crossed her arms. “We need to talk, Auntie.”
Holy crap. The niece.
“This is not your concern, Isabella,” said Mama Lorenzo, drawing herself up.
Isabella’s mouth dropped open. “Not my—of course it�
��s my concern! It’s my life! You need to stop meddling!”
Meddling?
Mama Lorenzo picked her way through the restaurant toward her niece, reaching out a supplicating hand. “My child. You are still too young to be aware of this, but when a man takes advantage of his position—”
“‘Takes advantage?’ No, Auntie—we took advantage of each other, okay?” Isabella’s cheeks darkened. “We had a good time. And now you’re swooping in and interfering in my love life? Again? You agreed you wouldn’t do this!”
“I’ve seen the error of my ways,” Checker spoke up. “I should’ve quit tutoring her first, message received—”
“Shut up!” snapped both Mama Lorenzo and her niece, neither of them looking at him. Checker wisely shut up.
Isabella’s tough veneer was cracking; her arms had gone from being crossed in anger to hugging herself. “Auntie. I know you want to protect me, but…” Her voice trembled. “I got to be able to make my own decisions, right? And my own mistakes? I got to be able to go out with a guy without being afraid you’ll go all vengeance on his family if he doesn’t call me the next day.” She paused, then tried to smile. “If he cheats on me though, he’s totally fair game.”
“Oh, my child,” said Mama Lorenzo. She put down the gun on a nearby table and stepped forward the rest of the way, reaching out to touch Isabella’s cheek. “Oh, my dear. This world will take such advantage of a young woman. I only want to protect you—when you are older you will understand—”
Isabella jerked back from her aunt’s hand. “No! I’m telling you, you can’t do this, okay? I’m an adult. You’re trying to go out and—and what, avenge my honor or something? Without even talking to me about it first? Do you even hear how ridiculous that sounds?”
Mama Lorenzo stood very straight and very stiff. “Our world is not equal. You may think it is now, but the way people will treat you just because of your sex—”
“Exactly like you’re doing right now?” said Isabella bitterly.
Mama Lorenzo flinched as if her niece had hit her. The slightest flush rose up into her white neck and sculpted cheekbones.
It was the first time I had seen her perfect serenity slip.
“I can’t do this,” said Isabella. “I can’t have—this—in my life. I love you, Auntie, but…” She sniffed hard and swiped impatiently at her face with her sleeve. “You got to respect what I want, or else we…I just can’t.”
The heat in Mama Lorenzo’s face had deepened, and when she spoke, it was barely audible. “Perhaps I erred.”
Holy shit.
Isabella’s face came up, teary and hopeful.
“Isabella, please believe—I only ever wanted the best for you…”
“I know,” Isabella said. “But look what you did.”
Mama Lorenzo lowered her eyes, and her chin dropped in a fractional nod. I took a cautious breath, wondering if we might be out of the woods—
I’m stupidly optimistic sometimes.
Mama Lorenzo straightened back up and reached out tentatively again. “I—I am sorry, Isabella, and I promise in the future I will not—but in this case the question has become much larger. It involves family honor. Politics. I cannot simply end this. Our family must be seen to be strong—can you understand that?”
Isabella stepped back, still avoiding her touch. “So you can’t ever admit you’re wrong, then. Is that what you’re saying?”
Mama Lorenzo lowered her hand and folded it in her other one. The gesture might have been meant to look demure, but her fingers gripped each other too tightly. “You will learn—sometimes—it is true. The appearance of strength can be more important than anything, because no matter what I might have done differently, or—or better, in the end all we have is family, and the strength and unity we have in each other. Beside that any other consideration pales. It must, no matter what we want for ourselves.”
Isabella took a breath. Shifted. Blinked at the ground. Then she said, “I know, Auntie. I do know that.”
Oh, Jesus. She had drunk the Kool-Aid.
I let my hand twitch closer to retrieving the Browning.
Then Isabella swallowed and looked back up at her aunt, and her eyes flashed fire again. “What if I marry him?”
“What?” yelped Checker.
“My dear—!” cried Mama Lorenzo.
“Honor would be satisfied, wouldn’t it?” challenged Isabella, ignoring her potential fiancé, whose face currently looked like a good impersonation of a blowfish. “It’s the old-school kind of thing. You can tell everyone he stepped up and is doing the honorable thing, that he truly loves me, blah blah blah—you can spin it, Auntie, I know you can. You satisfy the political crap, the family’s safe, you’re covered. And nobody has to die.”
“Isabella, don’t take this the wrong way, but—” started Checker.
“Oh, shut up, I don’t want to marry you either,” said Isabella. “What of it, Auntie, would it work?”
Mama Lorenzo drew herself up, resettling composure across her body like a cloak. She tilted her head at her niece. “You would do this. To protect him.”
“If it’s the only way to save the family from a total mess, then—yeah, I would. We can get an amicable divorce in a few years or something. It’s what you said a minute ago, right? It doesn’t matter what we want for ourselves.”
Mama Lorenzo took a slow breath. Then she turned toward Checker, who quailed under the weight of her scrutiny. “Young man, are you Catholic?”
“No,” Checker got out in a strangled voice.
“You have never been baptized?”
“He’s Jewish,” said Isabella.
Ethnically if not religiously, but Checker did not seem inclined to be pedantic. He licked his lips. “Would I—need to convert…?”
Mama Lorenzo shuddered. “Good heavens, no, it’s much better if you do not. Isabella marrying an unbaptized man would not be counted as a legitimate marriage in the Church, so could easily be considered null and void later on. An indiscretion of her youth.”
Checker was starting to look a little green.
“You would, of course, have to live together for appearances’ sake,” said Mama Lorenzo, her mouth pinching inward. “And young man, if I hear one word of you taking advantage of your position to pressure my niece into anything untoward—”
“Celibate marriage, I got it,” said Checker, so fast the words ran together.
Mama Lorenzo refocused on her niece. “Isabella, I do not think this a prudent sacrifice on your part. I am unsure of the wisdom of allowing it.”
“I have responsibilities to our family too, Auntie. You taught me that.”
“You cannot let this go?”
Isabella lifted her chin. “I cannot let you ruin a man’s life for the crime of being with me. You taught me about honor, too.”
Mama Lorenzo’s expression crumpled, half anguish and half fierce pride. “Oh, my child,” she said, holding out her arms. Isabella’s lip trembled, and this time she threw herself into her aunt’s embrace. They buried their faces against each other and didn’t let go.
Holy crap. It was over.
I couldn’t believe it was over.
The adrenaline rushed out of me, leaving my legs like jelly. I leaned one hip against a table to keep from falling over while I stuck the Browning back into my belt.
“So, we’re, uh, we’re doing this, then, huh?” Checker was shifting a lot in his chair, his expression twitching. He threw me a look I could only describe as begging for help.
I sidled up next to him, stepping around the still-embracing-slash-weeping aunt and niece. Now that we were in the clear, I thought it was more than my due to take the mickey out of him a bit. “I think you’re getting off easy,” I said, sotto voce. “Isabella seems like a nice girl.”
He grabbed at my sleeve. “I’ll be living with a college student,” he moaned. “College students throw parties. With frat boys. I hate frat boys. And I’ll be under the Mafia’s microscope, for
years. I’ll be living with a wife I’m too afraid to flirt with and won’t be able to date anyone else because they’d kill me. For years! Help me!”
I thought this might be a fine time to reveal I’d almost bit the big one for his little screw-up at least three times now, but I didn’t have the heart. “She’s giving up a lot, too,” I pointed out instead. “It’s awfully nice of her to stick her neck out for you.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know. I’ll buy her very expensive gifts on our anniversaries.”
“In all seriousness, you are getting off easy.”
“I know. I know.”
I stood with him and contemplated Mama Lorenzo and her niece for a moment. Something tickled the back of my brain, the germ of a thought—she might not go for it, but maybe it was worth asking? And a different conclusion here would make both Checker and Isabella—and, by extension, Mama Lorenzo—a lot happier about the way this turned out…
“As a matter of fact,” I said to Checker. “I might have another idea.”
He sat up spastically, grabbing at my arm again. “Seriously, I will owe you forever if you—”
I shook him off. “You already owe me forever. Just think about who you’re sleeping with next time, okay?”
“I promise, seriously, lesson learned, I’m already a better person.”
“Madame Lorenzo,” I called. “It’s possible I have a preferable solution.”
Chapter 33
I stood on Mama Lorenzo’s right hand in a room at her estate, slightly behind her. She’d changed into a very severe black dress, its harsh lines emphasizing the angles of her body, and wore her usual stiletto heels, meaning my eye line was at the back of her upper arm. It didn’t matter: the men in the room still shifted and avoided making eye contact with me. I’d achieved the status of a legend.
The sniper was the only one to glance at me, the ghost of a grin twitching his lips. He lounged on the arm of a chair, an ice pack held to his head where I’d kicked him. I’d learned his name was Malcolm; once Mama Lorenzo had pulled away from comforting her niece, she’d been quite concerned with making sure he was all right.
I was glad I hadn’t killed him. This wouldn’t really have worked if I had.
