“Well, what the hell is going on?” Jack leans toward her, as far as he possibly can over the table. “And you’d better hold the cue cards pretty high for me because I just don’t come across this kind of situation every day, you know, dead people and accusations of impersonating dead people! None of this looks good.”
Before she can speak, Melinda knocks again, enters with the water and sets two bottles upon the table between them. Finally, she leaves.
“And that Iraqi man who was coming to see you? Who is he, really? What is your relationship to him? And that woman in the other room who looks like she’s been run through the fucking dishwasher! Who is she and what is she telling them in there that I should know? What the hell is going on here?”
38
Friday, August 10, 1979
Suburban Detroit
Horses calmed Annie, the twitch of their ears and tails, the steam from their nostrils, their velvety noses, their long, slanting eyelashes. On mild mornings when she was a girl, her grandmother had brought her to Hazel Park Raceway to watch the horses exercise. They came here often, with apple cores and carrot ends, whatever was left over from their own meals. Grandma Annie had shown little Annie how to hold her palm as flat as a plate, stacking fingers tightly together to leave no nibbly bits for horse teeth.
Large or small, any animal was an animal that Annie could love. Her grandmother had had a schnauzer called Mona—a little soldier, erect at attention and bossy. She marched around the house and led the parade when Grandma Annie and little Annie took her out for a walk. Mona was never invited on their outings to the racetrack, though, because Grandma Annie said she might frighten the horses.
After Annie moved away, Mona lived a few years more. Early on, she would hop on Annie’s bed when she slept at her grandmother’s house. In time, she lost her agility. Annie carried her around until her grandmother made her set the dog down. “You’ll make her queasy if you hold her too much,” she had said. Annie would then lie on the kitchen floor next to Mona’s bed, and try to synchronize her breathing with the dog’s. Her grandmother didn’t force her to get up in the way that her mother would have.
Grandma Annie couldn’t see her way clear to have another dog after Mona. Too much work for an old lady, she had said. Annie had offered to do all of the work but, of course, Annie wasn’t always around.
So here Annie was, on a summer morning, back at the track, visiting the horses. Looking for peace in all the wrong places. As she stood at the rail, watching the exercises, a slick black 1969 Mustang pulled up behind her. It continued a slow roll in her direction, before it stopped and a familiar-looking man with olive skin and floppy black hair emerged.
“Hi,” he said, offering his right hand for shaking. “Sammy Fakhouri. I’ve seen you at Frankie’s.”
“Did Frankie send you here?” Annie did not take his hand.
“What? I’m sorry, I don’t quite know what you mean.”
“Did Frankie send you looking for me?” She fluttered a hand to her face, conscious of her smudged mascara and drawn features. She saw him size her up, recognizing that this was the end of her night, instead of the start of a new day.
“Uh, no, Frankie didn’t send me. I don’t really know Frankie all that well. I just come here sometimes in the mornings. I live nearby, and I like it here.”
With this, Annie relaxed. “I like it here too,” she said as she turned away from him to face the horses. “My grandmother used to bring me here when I was little.”
“It’s Annie, right? Like I said, my name is Sammy.”
“Look at this.” She couldn’t concentrate and skittered around subjects. “Frankie gave me this last night. It’s a gold question mark. With a ruby! Well, I think it’s gold. Do you think it’s gold?” Annie fished the chain from between her breasts and thrust it his way.
Electing not to take the item into his hands, Sammy stood looking down at it with his arms firmly folded across his chest.
“Well.” He seemed to be thinking deeply. “It does appear to be gold. And the stone does seem to be a ruby. Not that I’m an expert or anything. But I’m sure if Frankie Castiglione gave it to you, it must be real.”
Annie’s relief was palpable. “I knew that. Frankie wouldn’t give me anything that wasn’t real.”
On that, Sammy made no comment. So, they stood side by side watching the horses.
“What’s your name?” She couldn’t remember if he’d said it already.
“Like I said, Sammy Fakhouri.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“I’m from the Middle East. Iraq. I’m a Chaldean.”
“A what?”
“A Chaldean. We’re Catholics from Iraq. Well, actually, there are a lot of us here in Detroit, now.”
“Hmm.” She was having trouble following the train of this conversation. She needed to get some sleep. “I don’t know why you’d want to come here.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Hmm,” she said again, then lost interest. “I’ve seen you talking to Susan.”
“Yes. I like talking to Susan. She’s a nice girl.”
“Really? That’s the word you’d use? God, I’d hate for a man to describe me as nice!”
He laughed. “I guess you’re right. ‘Damned by faint praise.’ Who said that?”
“Who said what?”
“That expression, ‘Damned by faint praise’? Do you know who said that?”
“I have no idea.”
They lapsed into silence again. Annie reached into her purse and pulled out a vial of cocaine. She scooped some of it with the underside of her pinkie nail and quickly sucked it up her nose. Then she ran her finger over her gums.
“Wow. Breakfast of champions.”
At this, she actually startled and swung around to face him. “What the fuck are you doing here? Did Frankie send you?”
“Mademoiselle, I beg your leave. The hour of departure is upon me,” Sammy delivered with his most flowery flourish. “I need to get to work,” he concluded, but she was hardly listening. “Have a lovely day,” he offered to the air.
Sammy started up his Mustang, which roared to life, and rolled it away from Annie. Annie, in turn, went back to watching the horses.
She almost forgot about him, but her mind had seized on a pesky grain of paranoia. What if Frankie had sent him? What if there was some greater meaning to this early morning exchange? What if she just couldn’t catch hold of the thread? Sammy’s appearance had dislodged any toehold she had established in equanimity.
Annie slowly sank on the grass. Something was radically wrong. Frankie must have sent him to find her. It did not add up that he would just waltz into this racetrack by coincidence. And she had seen him talking with Susan. She wasn’t sure what Frankie and Susan were up to, but this guy was obviously in on it.
Annie knew she needed rest, but it eluded her. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night or the night before. Had she slept the night before that? She couldn’t recall. She had to get back to her grandmother’s house a few short blocks away.
That was the place she should go—the only place she felt safe. She could close the blinds and crawl into bed and stare at the unchanging ceiling in the way that she had as a little girl. She had memorized the map of its cracks and bumps, the slope of the frosted glass lamp, the faintness of the light bulbs shining through it. She had fallen asleep, mentally wandering that ceiling so many times in her childhood that she knew now, if she were to lie down and look at it for long enough, all would be well.
She remembered what her grandmother said when she was small, quoting Saint Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”
If she could just sleep, all would be well.
39
Friday, August 17, 1979
Nothing lasted, she knew. But, less than a week seemed grossly unfair. A week ago, Frankie had given her the necklace. Tonight, he had given her a smack. He had nev
er hit her before. But she knew from living with Joe that once it happened for the first time, it became easier. Easier to justify. Easier to do. Easier for a man to forgive himself.
When she was little, she perceived that Joe felt bad afterward. He would buy her little toys: coloring books, Silly Putty, a Slinky. “I’m sorry,” he would say, “but you just don’t listen, Annie. You just go off and do what you want, and you never consider the consequences. You need to learn to control yourself.” An apology peppered with blame: If she could only straightjacket her own vitality, he wouldn’t be forced to strike her. Over the years, his apologies lessened but the blame and shame remained.
Annie sat in her silent Corvette in front of Johnny Buscemi’s building. She squinted to see her face in the rearview mirror. It was so dark on Johnny’s street that her image was a mass of shifting shadows, geometric shapes—a triangle, a circle, a square—overlapping in shades of grey, moving apart, coming together, fusing into a single black blob. And that about summed up Annie’s state of mind.
Tonight, when she had asked Frankie a simple question—one question to get at the truth of his philandering—what did she get? A slug on the face that would surely leave a scar.
Damn him for slapping her—and in front of sanctimonious Susan. Damn Johnny, that Pied Piper of illegal drugs, who had seduced her into her current state of obsession. Damn Joe, the man who was supposed to be like a father to her, who never showed a speck of tenderness in her entire life. Damn them all.
Annie reached up to the spot where Frankie had hit her and felt a bump. The cut on the surface of it stung to her touch. She pressed harder and felt the bruise underneath. Well, if she could feel, she was alive. The bastards hadn’t killed her yet.
She could have turned around right then, gone home to her grandmother’s, crawled into bed, and stayed there until the desire for cocaine went away. She had read about it. She was not an idiot, despite what some people thought. Cocaine was not supposed to be physically addictive. Psychologically? Well, she wouldn’t examine that too closely. Freud had thought it was a wonder drug.
“How about that, Miss Susan?” Annie asked of the mirror. “I bet you didn’t think I even knew who Freud was, did you?”
In fact, she abruptly decided, she would leave. She had a handle on this whole cocaine thing. She would get out of this mess and go to her grandma’s right after she put Johnny Buscemi in his place. She would march up those steps, tell him off and turn right around. Piece of cake.
Annie opened the car door and put out a foot. Then she stopped herself from exiting. She turned back and unlatched the gold question mark from around her neck, dropping it into the ashtray. As low as she had admittedly sunk, she couldn’t quite bring herself to wear her boyfriend’s gift while visiting another man.
Annie walked up the path to Johnny’s townhouse and rapped two times on the door, just as he had instructed her.
“Hello, little girl.” He swung the door wide and beckoned her in.
“Hi, Johnny,” she said as she strode into the middle of his living room right next to his black leather sectional. She turned to face him head on. “So actually, I just came to tell you that this is over. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Look. I’m just here to be polite. I’m finished with drugs—no more cocaine for me. I don’t need to continue in this transactional relationship.”
“This transactional relationship? Has someone been consulting a dictionary?”
“That’s just mean, Johnny.”
“Come here, little girl.”
“I’m serious. I don’t need drugs. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.” Annie punctuated this declaration by stalking back in the direction of the door.
The trouble was, this move required her to pass right by Johnny Buscemi.
Just as she did so, he grabbed her by the hair—her long, swinging, dark ponytail. He didn’t hurt her. It was a gentle grab, if such a thing existed. And maybe, if she were to be honest, it was ever so slightly erotic.
“Johnny, let go of me.”
“You’re nervous, little girl. I have something different for you tonight. Something that’ll make you feel soft and warm all over.”
Annie paused in Johnny’s apartment with her hair in the grip of his fist. He loosened his grasp on her pony tail and ran his hand down the length of it, slipping it around her neck. Then, with his other hand, he pulled her face up by the chin and forced it around to face him. “Aren’t you tired, little girl? Wouldn’t you like a rest?”
Annie felt the seduction of it—the voluptuary lure of sleep.
“I’m fine,” she claimed without conviction.
Johnny held up a small silver box, engraved with his initials. He gave it a little shake. She shouldn’t react. She wouldn’t. She would continue on her way and seal up this chapter behind her. Johnny pried the box open to reveal a Pandora’s chest of white pills.
“What are those?” she asked, and she could see that he knew that he had her.
He poured two glasses of champagne.
“Bottoms up,” Johnny said, and Annie did not disappoint.
He filled her glass again as he rummaged around in the box.
“What are they?” Annie was feeling better already.
“These, little girl, are tranquility and bliss. Take one. I promise you’ll feel better.”
How could she go wrong with bliss? She’d been looking for it all her life. She reached into the box and took two for good measure.
* * *
Annie came to in Johnny’s bed, naked and uncovered. He was standing at the foot of it, in what looked like a silk dressing gown, tied at the waist with a tasseled belt, like an actor in a black and white movie.
“I’m cold,” she said. Her throat felt dry and itchy.
“Just a minute,” he responded.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Don’t move,” he said, without moving himself. She did not know why he just stood there.
“Johnny?” she said more forcefully. She was beginning to feel alarmed.
“This is gorgeous, little girl. Really gorgeous.”
It was then that she saw the Polaroid. He was actually taking her picture!
“Johnny, don’t!” Annie tried to move, to cover herself, but she discovered she was tied to the bed. “Untie me now, Johnny. I mean it.” She wrestled some more until a wooziness scrambled her head. “Shit. What did you give me?”
“What did I give you? You mean, what did you take? Because, as I recall it, you took them pretty willingly. Quaaludes, little girl. Rorers. Seven fourteens.”
Click.
The noise of it startled her as Johnny took another photo. The print slid out the front of the camera and he stood for a second shaking it.
“I mean it, Johnny. That’s enough.”
“Hang on, baby. You look so nice. Just a couple more and you can go.”
Click. He did it again.
“Johnny, stop it! I don’t want to do this.”
Click.
“Come on, Johnny. What about Frankie?”
“You want to talk to me about Frankie? Go ahead. I’d like to hear what you have to say on that subject.”
“Okay. I hear you. I’ve behaved badly. Just untie me. C’mon, Johnny. Come on!”
Click.
“Johnny, let me go!”
Click.
A sickening clarity dawned on her that she had gotten in over her head. She had seen him as a kindred spirit, but he wasn’t like her at all. There was a cruelty to him that only now she recognized. “Please, Johnny. I’m saying please.”
“Oh, I like that, little girl. I like a girl who begs.”
Click. He did it again.
Annie thrashed around in the bed until her nausea got the best of her.
“Imagine you’re a butterfly,” he said chillingly. “And I’ve pinned you to the board. You’d best settle down or you might rip your
wings.”
Awareness of her own impotence grew. She had never had any real power at all. Not now, not then, not ever. What was the point in fighting it? There was nothing to do but surrender.
Johnny took her picture over and over again. Ten in all, until the Polaroid ran out of film. She watched him as he studied the photos under the lamp on the desk.
“You’re photogenic, little girl.”
“Fuck you, Johnny.”
“No more tonight, baby. I’m tired.”
Johnny collected the pictures and placed them into a clean white envelope. He sealed it and opened the drawer of his desk. He placed the envelope inside and shut it firmly, with a little snap.
“Now, come on, little girl,” he said as he untied her. “Go home. I need some sleep.”
Annie reached up and slapped Johnny as hard as she possibly could. He laughed a little, touched his cheek, then he hauled off and slapped her back. “Get out of my house,” he said. “The sight of you makes me sick.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly to stop any semblance of tears. She would not cry in front of him. Tentatively, she rose from the bed. But, she was at a loss for how to proceed. She scanned the room for her clothes. Surely, she would not need to ask for Johnny’s help.
Finally, she saw her pile of clothing discarded on the floor. She grabbed what she could and ran, the front door slamming behind her.
She stood naked in the early dawn on Johnny’s front porch, scrambling to get into her dress. She hadn’t even collected her shoes.
A bilious rage rose up Annie’s legs, then saturated her middle, seeping from her abdomen to suffuse her chest, and blew out the top of her head. She was so mad right now that she could do anything. Truly anything.
She hated Johnny Buscemi more than she hated anyone she had ever met.
With the exception of herself.
40
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Boston
“Mrs. Ford. Mr. Ford.” DelVecchio is at the door of the little room. “Follow me, please.”
Down the hall they all troop to the original room in which they had met earlier. Provenzano sits waiting, but Sherry has disappeared.
Finding Mrs. Ford Page 17
