by Mary Leo
“Okay already,” Jade said, then tumbled out of the backseat with a flurry of grunts and moans, as if the very idea of disrupting her plans was more than she should have to put up with. “Like, can I help it if I don’t have an iron stomach for this stuff like you guys do?”
“Believe me, it’s an acquired trait,” I told her, but she already looked a little pasty. “It’s enough that you’re out of the car. That says a lot. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome . . . I guess,” Jade said, as she held back a visible gag.
I took the lead and we slowly made our way to the mysterious man lying mostly on the paved part of the road, with his head resting on the dirt shoulder, sunglasses cocked in a strange angle across his forehead. As we approached, there was something familiar about this guy, despite his unusually white hair which he wore combed straight back off his face . . . his young, perfectly handsome face. I was expecting to see an older man, but this guy was anything but old. He couldn’t have been more than thirty, if that. Plus his suit was more than just tailor-made; it fit his body perfectly.
My throat tightened the closer we came. Then, in a great gush of apprehension, confusion and gut-wrenching grief, I knew without a doubt the identity of our silver-haired, obviously-trying-to-disguise-himself, Wise Guy.
“Oh God, it’s Giuseppe!”
I hurried over to him and squatted down, hoping and praying he wasn’t dead. Lisa and Jade joined me.
“It can’t be,” Jade said. “He’s on his way to Italy. And besides, Giuseppe has brown hair.”
“Apparently, he was going for a new look, a disguise, maybe? Unfortunately, it didn’t work. He never made it off the orchard,” I said as I carefully turned his head to the side so that if he was still alive he could breathe more easily. Then I desperately tried to find that artery Lisa had told me about on his neck. I didn’t feel anything but cool flesh. My hands were shaking now.
Okay, so he was a real imported gangster and God only knew how many people he might have whacked, but he had the face of Adonis and had always treated my family with the utmost respect. And besides, he might have possibly saved my life when I fell off my ladder while picking olives, not to mention the terrible crush I had on him.
“I can't find a . . . pulse,” I said, my voice cracking.
“Let's not panic,” Lisa warned. She always kept a level head in these types of situations. Nothing ever riled her. “I’ll try resuscitation.”
“But we waited so long,” Jade reminded us. “He can't still be alive.”
“Never give up until you’ve tried all available avenues,” Lisa said, sounding as if there was a real chance we could save him.
“I'll do it,” I said.
“Oh, so now that you know it’s Giuseppe you have no problem touching the body,” Lisa teased.
“Now that I know who it is, he can't be dead. He just can’t be,” I said trying to hold back my bubbling emotions.
I knew how to do CPR from the class Aunt Babe had given us about two years ago when Aunt Hetty stumbled over a basket of just picked olives and had the wind knocked out of her. My mom had to give her CPR and didn't know what she was doing. When Aunt Hetty could finally speak again she wanted to know if my mother had always had an attraction to her. The whole thing freaked everybody out, especially my mother, so, Aunt Babe, our resident nurse, decided to give us all a class. Uncle Benny volunteered to be the victim but when he started sticking his tongue down every woman’s throat it was unanimously decided to pitch in and by a plastic doll.
Once I got into position, I could see that blood had pooled under him that seemed to be coming from his right shoulder. His beautiful face was battered and bruised, maybe from the fall, and his lip was cut and swollen. He was either dead or rapping on death’s door, and neither condition was acceptable.
A wave of nausea swept over me as raw fear gripped all reason.
“Breathe air into his mouth,” Lisa told me.
“I know what to do,” I told her, trying to remain calm.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” she said, slipping her phone out of her pants pocket.
But before she could tap one number, Giuseppe reached up, grabbed Lisa's phone, tossed it on the ground, whipped out his handgun, and shot it . . . twice.
Apparently, Giuseppe wasn’t dead after all.
THREE
All That Glitters Isn’t Gold
“Was that really necessary?” Lisa asked while looking down at Giuseppe who now had lain back down on the road, panting from the exertion. His normally beautiful face was blackened with dirt and twisted in pain. He had my sympathies . . . despite my having just been shocked by the sound of gunshots. My poor little heart was still beating itself up against my ribcage in the aftermath of such an outburst of explosive power, and my ears were ringing from the sound.
“You gave me no choice,” he mumbled, barely audible.
“Why is it always my phone?” Lisa quipped as she stared down at her now totally obliterated rose-colored iPhone. My sympathies went out to her. I knew what a hassle it was to replace a phone, especially if he’d destroyed her SIM card. That would be unimaginable. Yeah, a lot of her data was probably in a cloud, but it was still a hassle. I secretly slid my own phone deeper into my front pocket, not wanting the same brutal ending.
We squatted and knelt around him in collective shock, Jade’s mouth agape, Lisa’s forehead a map of sinuous lines, and my insides quivering from the sudden eruption of mobster skill he’d so swiftly and expertly exhibited. My ears were still ringing from the shots when this new white-haired Giuseppe said, “No polizia. No hospitals.”
“But you’re bleeding,” I told him as a wave of guilt swept over me for having waited so long to check on him. The entire right side of his suit coat was soaked in deep, red blood. The stench of blood soaked clothing only added to my molten insides.
“Some lousy bastard shot me,” he groused. His face looked pale, and his voice reverberated in a course whisper. “But I will not be forced to do something I no longer wish to do. Now, you must take me somewhere and remove the bullet.”
“Remove the bullet? And who’s going to do that? This is an olive grove, not an emergency room,” I told him, trying to sound firm. There had to be limits on what we could do on the property, and removing a bullet from someone’s body was where I drew the line.
“I can no go to a hospital. Too many questions for your family. You must consider your family, Mia.”
Okay, so I loved the way my name rolled off his tongue, loved that he was still alive, but I did not love that he made sense. I knew with absolute certainty that our family business would not withstand another scandal so soon after the last one, especially one that concerned a bullet. My thoughts raced with the pros and cons of the situation. I truly didn’t know what to do. I thought about calling Uncle Benny, our local lawyer. He’d know what to do, but then thought better about showing Giuseppe another phone. In his state, he might not react well.
“What’s with the silver hair? Who are you hiding from? And is that the person who shot you?”
“I no can answer these questions now. I will answer later, once this bullet it out of my shoulder,” he mumbled, looking as if he might pass out. His focus kept shifting, and he kept swallowing.
I stood and began to pace, a habit I’d developed as a kid when crap began happening around me and I had no control over any of it. I had to calmly think this thing through while my instincts were telling me to run as far away from the situation as possible. Or at the very least, sob like my Zia Yolanda who cried at even the slightest hint of a problem.
Then there was the curious statement he’d made about his not wanting to be forced into something he didn’t want to do. What was that all about? My mind had glossed over it, but now that I could pace I focused in on the statement like a laser beam on a perfectly ripe olive, ready to be picked.
“What did you mean that you won’t be forced into doing something you don’t want to do?” I asked
while glaring down at him. “You work for a boss. You take orders or you die. Is that what this is all about? You didn’t follow orders and someone tried to convince you otherwise?” I asked while glaring down at him.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Lisa interrupted. “We have to do something to stop the bleeding,” she warned as she leaned over him, opening his suit coat, and carefully slipping it off of his wounded shoulder. Then she removed her lovely scarf, bunched it in her hands and placed it over his wound. “This is going to hurt,” she told him, “but I have to apply some pressure to stop the bleeding.” She leaned into him with both her hands on his shoulder, trying to stop the blood flow. Giuseppe winced as his blood mixed with the fine details of her colorful scarf, turning it a bright red.
“Any idea who shot you?” Jade asked, sounding official, as if this was an interrogation of some sort.
He shook his head. “No, but when I find the piece of merda, he’ll regret he didn’t finish me off.”
“We thought you were dead,” I said, while I continued to pace, looking down at the road as I walked. “The shooter probably thought you were dead as well.”
“No. You interrupt the hit or I would be gone for sure,” Giuseppe told us, his face getting tighter, his skin taking on a sheen from his sweat. He now wore a permanent grimace.
“You mean you were shot when we started down the road?” Lisa asked, as his blood stained the edges of her sweater sleeves.
“I don’t know, but I remember I heard your car not too long after I fell. That’s all I remember . . . until I shot your phone.”
“Well, at least you didn’t shoot one of us,” Jade teased, but I could tell she was serious. The shots had given all of us a genuine scare.
“Ah, but that could never happen. I no shoot a woman.”
“That’s comforting,” Lisa said, but then she gazed up at me. “We have to get that bullet out. Now!”
I was about to argue with her when something shiny caught my eye lying in the rough on the side of the road a few feet from Giuseppe’s head.
“Let’s at least get him in the car,” Jade ordered. “We can decide from there.”
“Good idea,” I agreed as I took off for the shiny bauble first.
While the girls tried to get Giuseppe in an upright position, I quickly dashed over to the side of the road, and scooped up a red rhinestone or ruby or diamond for all I knew. It wasn’t very big . . . maybe a half-carat, but it sure sparkled when the sun hit it. I immediately slipped the tiny jewel into my back pocket wondering who dropped it and when? And better still, did it have anything to do with the shooter? But what would a gangster be doing with a ruby . . . if it was a ruby. Did it fall from his ring or a necklace maybe? I didn’t know for sure, but I intended to find out. I also noticed a deep tire track in the dirt on the shoulder, almost as if a car had tried to speed away but couldn’t get traction because the tires weren’t even. Two tires were on the road and two were in the dirt.
“Let me help,” I said as I pitched in to help get Giuseppe up off the ground. He moved in low gear, until we heard a noise . . . a loud noise.
“That’s an engine turning over,” Lisa warned as she accelerated her pace. “Should there be anyone else on this road?”
“Not so that they’re parked anywhere near to us,” I told her as intense fear crept up my ever constricting throat. “This road has a lot of offshoots, and they all end too far away for us to hear an engine starting up.”
“We need to go,” Giuseppe warned, suddenly gaining strength enough to stand on his own two feet despite his wounds.
“Like now!” Jade said over the sound of the roaring engine.
Within the next few seconds, we had Giuseppe tucked into the front seat of the BMW, the doors locked and Lisa had turned over our own engine.
“Where to?” Lisa asked putting the car in gear.
“Anywhere but here,” I yelled from the backseat. “My mom’s house! Take us to my mom’s.”
It was at that moment when a souped-up, white vintage Mustang came speeding up the service road aiming right for us.
Jade let out a yelp, but I had complete trust in Lisa’s ability to avoid disaster. The woman could drive as good as Jimmie Johnson if she had to . . . maybe better.
“Tighten those seatbelts. This could get ugly,” Lisa shouted as she spun our car out of the way. Then, in what seemed like only a heartbeat, our car was headed in the opposite direction, and the Mustang was once again headed right for us, the throaty growl of the engine sounding almost threatening. We sailed down the road, Giuseppe muttering what sounded like an Italian prayer, but with plenty of swear words added for emphasis. Jade moaned and yelped at every near miss of us hitting an olive tree, while I held onto the handle above the door, eyes locked on the white Mustang coming up fast behind us. I tried to make out the driver, and despite the dark tint, I thought I saw the flash of a shiny earring.
A ruby earring, perhaps?
“Try to see who’s driving,” I told everyone in the car as we were being pushed closer to the trees by the sedan that now ran right next to us.
“The windows are too dark,” Jade yelled, obviously scared by the perilous situation. “I can’t see inside.”
We were headed straight for a group of trees that bore Mission olives. If we hit those trees, which were some of the oldest on our grove, not only would we be in a world of hurt, but we might do irreparable damage to the trees.
“I’ve got this,” Lisa said, with her hands perfectly placed in the three and nine o’clock position. She swerved our car closer to the sedan, which caused the Mustang to lunge sideways, scraping the newer Kalamata trees on the other side of the narrow road. The Mustang then took off in front of us, exiting the service road near my mother’s house.
I spotted my cousin Audrey walking along the side of the road, and I wondered how she could look so calm and cool after hearing two cars burning rubber on the road behind her. But then I spotted the ear buds and realized that she probably hadn’t heard a thing. Audrey was my Uncle Ray and Aunt Val’s nineteen-year-old daughter. Until recently, she’d been off in culinary school in Italy somewhere. But now she studied over in Napa at the Culinary Institute of America. I found it a little odd that she was headed towards my mom’s house at this time of day, but then no one who lived on this orchard could ever be accused of doing anything normal.
A few moments later, Lisa rolled our car into one of the many parking spots at the side of my mom’s house, and turned off the ignition. Interestingly enough, a few of the spots were already taken by other cars. Normally, at this time of day, all the spots would be empty. I wondered what was going on at my mom’s . . . a secret meeting perhaps? Obviously, it was something she’d planned, but hadn’t told me about, but then my mom did a lot of stuff in secret. It seemed to be part of her ex-wife of a mobster DNA.
Before I could give the subject any further thought or relax for a moment before going inside, my mom rapped on my side window scaring the crap out of all of us.
Lisa and I let out a collective yelp.
“Are you all right, my dears?” she asked as I powered down my window. “What happened? You have a big dent and scratch on your pretty new car, Lisa!” She glanced in the front seat. “Who’s that?”
“Giuseppe.”
“His hair is white.”
“It’s a disguise.”
She peeked in again, then shrugged. “Not bad, but what’s he doing here?”
“He’s been shot.
“Is he dead? she asked without hesitation.
“No.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Mom!”
“Just sayin’. This family knows how to hide a dead guy. It’s the wounded ones we have a problem with.”
“We have to get the bullet out of him. It’s lodged in his shoulder,” Lisa said, talking over me.
“It’s an emergency, Mom,” I told her, trying to get her to understand the urgency of the situation.
&nbs
p; “Then we should call your Uncle Ray. He’s a doctor,” Mom said.
“Since when? I thought he was a plumber,” I told her, thinking that perhaps she’d forgotten what Uncle Ray did before he came to live on the orchard.
“That was his cover, dear. He was your dad’s private doctor. He’s removed more metal from more Made Men than Louis Prima had number one hits.”
Not that I should know who Louis Prima was considering he was way before my time, and even before my mom’s time, but in our family, once popular Italian singers and actors were revered. Nowadays, according to my family, heritage no longer meant anything, so it didn’t matter if an actor or a singer was Italian. Therefore, all the talent from the fifties, sixties and seventies still rang current on our orchard. Once you stepped onto our land, a sort of time warp occurred and the Rat Pack or any of those Italian crooners were as alive today as they were in their heyday. Even Sammy Davis Jr. was revered as an honorary Italian for having hung out with Frank and Dean.
And speaking of honorary, Uncle Ray, the Plumber/Doctor was my honorary uncle on my mom’s side, and acted as our little town’s mayor. He had done time in Soledad for a whole litany of crimes he’d perpetrated in Los Angeles, hobnobbed with the likes of Charlie Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. I knew his lucrative plumbing business in New York City had only been a front, but I had no idea he’d also been the family doctor. Then again what I didn’t know about my family could fill a small library with books.
“Then I’ll call Uncle Ray,” I said.
“Let me, darling. He’ll answer if he knows it’s me. He’s in the city for the weekend attending a conference for small town mayors.”
“They actually have those?”
“Apparently so.”
“Aunt Babe can do it then,” I reminded her. My aunt was our local nurse.
“I don’t know if she’s up to the task.”
“What does that mean?”
“We need to get Giuseppe inside,” Lisa said, interrupting. She stepped out of the car, then went around and opened the passenger door for Giuseppe. “He’s losing too much blood.”
