The Company She Keeps

by Georgia Durante

  “He’ll be here in ten minutes,” I said to myself.

  He arrived in five. When the doorbell rang, Al took his position behind the door.

  “Are you ready?” Al whispered, eyeing me for signs of weakness.

  I was more than ready.

  “Go away, Steve!” I shouted through the door.

  “Open the door!” he demanded.

  I opened the door as far as the chain lock would allow. He wore a suit and an absurd-looking tie. Guess he thought I’d be impressed.

  “What do you want with me, Steve?” I screamed.

  “Let me in. I just want to talk to you.”

  “I don’t ever want to see your face again. Now leave.”

  He pushed his weight against the door and broke the chain lock. The force knocked me to the floor. He was on top of me, his hands around my neck.

  Al reacted quickly, kicking him in the head. Steve fell to the floor and reached for the gun tucked under his jacket. Al kicked it from his hand. I grabbed the gun and aimed it at him. My hand shook. Dear Jesus! Could I kill him if I had to?

  Silently, I wrestled with Georgia Black.

  “How can you do this to me, George? I love you!” Steve screeched, clutching his knee.

  “I wouldn’t want to see what you’d do if you hated me, Steve,” I shot back.

  He got to his feet and lunged at Al, pushing him into the wall. My finger, slick with sweat, tightened on the trigger. I didn’t want this to end in death, but I mentally prepared myself to pull the trigger. Al quickly regained control, thank God. He smashed Steve’s head against the wall several times. Blood was smeared all over the broken plaster. Dazed, Steve kept coming back for more.

  The fight covered every inch of the room. Steve fell onto the coffee table and cut his head on the broken glass. Bleeding profusely, he rose again. Al punched him in the face, then in the stomach. Steve doubled over and Al kneed him in his face. I heard the faint crunch of Steve’s bones breaking. Before, that sound would have sickened me. But Georgia Black had taken charge.

  Steve went down for the last time. When he made an attempt to get up, Al kicked him. Every time he moved—another kick to the head. Al reached down and grabbed him by the hair, their faces inches apart. “This one’s from Joe, motherfucker!” he snarled. He stood and kicked him in the head with all the force he could muster.

  Steve lay still, his face a smashed-in mess. There was a moment of brooding calm. I felt as if I were standing outside of myself, watching. I slowly walked over to him, my adrenaline surging. Straddling his upper body, I bent down and pulled his head up by his ugly tie. I had no concern as the weight of his head dangled lifelessly beneath me. His eyes were open but he might not have been conscious enough to hear the ferocious vulgarity which came out of my mouth. When I was through, I let go of his tie and his head dropped to the floor in a puddle of blood.

  Al stood a few feet away, casually smoking a cigarette, a slight smile on his lips. With admiration, he awaited the entertainment of my next move. To my own astonishment, I reached out, took the lit cigarette from Al’s hand, bent down, and extinguished it in Steve’s mouth. Looking back at Al, I was greeted with a conspirator’s smile, stopping just short of a wink.

  I thought about that moment for years after—the horror of how cold and demented I had been. To realize I was capable of such hatred, such brutality, was terrifying to me. Had I become so immune to this kind of violence that I was just like them? This man had pushed me to that point, but still . . . What I had done had been previously unthinkable to me.

  “Let me end it for this fucking piece of shit!” Al said, holding a silencer to Steve’s head.

  Is this a game? Some kind of a fear tactic he wants me to play along with? If I play along, and he’s serious—Steve’s dead.

  “No . . . let him live,” I said. “I want him to remember the price of loving me.”

  Steve couldn’t move, but deep moans emerged from his throat. He was conscious enough to know that his life was hanging by a thread. If he could speak, death may have been his choice.

  “Okay,” Al said. “Back the car into the carport and we’ll drag him down the back steps.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll take it from there.”

  He handed me a piece of paper with instructions to go to a hotel on Sunset Boulevard. I was to stay there until he called. I pulled Al into the kitchen. Keeping my voice low I whispered, “Al, you’re not going to kill him, are you?”

  “My instructions are to do whatever you want me to do. It doesn’t make any difference to me if he lives or dies. It’s your call.”

  “I don’t want him to die.”

  “Okay, then he lives.”

  We dragged him down to the car. I ran back up the stairs, got some rags and a bucket of water, and washed down the steps. I thought about cleaning the blood from the carpet, but there was too much of it. I gave the walls a quick wipe, grabbed my bags, and headed for the hotel in Hollywood.

  In that shoddy place, I had lots of time to think. This was all like some scene from a movie. It seemed so unreal. What had I done? Surely I hadn’t done any of that. Who was this person? Confusion and trepidation clouded my mind.

  Steve is going to die.

  How could you be so stupid? Of course he can’t live. If he lives and he talks, Al will come after you. He deserves to die, after what he’s done to you.

  Why am I in this sleazy hotel anyway? Maybe Al is coming back for me. Joe set me up, of course! It’s always the one closest to you—the one you can trust with your life. How could I forget that?

  Take it easy, White. You know I’m not going to let that happen. Have I ever let you down before?

  My head swirled. Afraid to close my eyes, I paced while Joe’s threats replayed in my mind:

  If anyone is going to kill you, Georgia, it’s going to be me. How do you get yourself into these messes?

  Who is he, Georgia?

  If you’re lying to me, I swear, I’ll kill you. . . . I’ll kill anyone that touches you. You belong to me.

  I trusted you, Georgia.

  Don’t do this to me, Georgia. I’m giving you fair warning. Don’t do this. . . .

  You’re gonna die, and so is the motherfucker you’ve been seeing.

  Gotta get rid of that rug. No, I can’t go home; he’ll find me there. Call Joe! No, no—he’s the enemy.

  You’re getting paranoid, White. If you’d just let him pull the trigger in the first place, you wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Take a Valium, go to sleep—I’ll take care of you.

  Okay . . .

  Chapter Ten

  The muffled sound of the telephone ringing could be heard as I turned my key in the door lock of my apartment. Dropping my bag, I ran to answer the phone.

  The voice on the other end was too faint to hear. I pressed my ear tightly against the receiver and said hello again. Steve was calling from a hospital bed, lying in traction with several broken bones and a broken nose and jaw.

  “I still love you,” the barely audible voice said. “I understand why you did what you did. It’s okay. I still love you—I’ll always love you. . . .” Dial tone.

  My God, it’s not over.

  You will never get rid of him. He’ll never go away. You should have let him die!

  My stomach turned as I observed the dark brown spots on my carpet and tried to think of a solution to my problem. What was the answer? Steve’s obsession was going to be the death of someone, and by the looks of it, that someone was going to be me. My prior attempts for protection by the police had not worked. Seems that I would have to be pretty close to dead, or actually dead, before they could do anything.

  Joe had allowed me to do it my way. The repercussion of this episode backfiring was my problem now. Any future involvement on Joe’s part would only bring me back to another situation that was just as intolerable. If I had done things his way to begin with, I wouldn’t be facing this dilemma now. Joe was playing the good g
uy, hoping this approach would work to his benefit. It was best to leave him out of it at this point.

  I had no choice. I started to carry a gun, and, this time, I had no hesitations about using it.

  A few weeks had passed since Steve’s brutal beating. The aggravating hang-ups had started again, but other than that it was pretty quiet. I knew what the silence meant. I thought of calling Sammy G, but he was dodging his own bullets—from the Mob and the law. Unnerved, I called Frankie. I could always rely on him without a price attached.

  “Of course I can fly out there, baby. I’ll catch the red-eye tonight.”

  “How long can you stay, Frankie?”

  “As long as you need me.”

  I picked him up at the airport the next morning and filled him in.

  “Why didn’t Joe just kill the motherfucker? You’ve got a bunch of fuckin’ lightweights around you, baby. You should’ve just called me in the first place.”

  “I wouldn’t let him, Frankie.”

  He rested his hands on my shoulders, and all my worries seemed to fall away. “Georgie Girl, you gotta wake up. You have to harden your heart, baby,” he said softly.

  “Frankie, I’m so glad you’re here. I feel so much safer now. This has been a nightmare.”

  “First thing we gotta do is find you another place to live.”

  “I found a place just around the corner from the school, but they want first, last, and security. I don’t have it right now.”

  “Baby, I’ll pay for it; don’t worry about that. You gotta stop being so damn proud, too. You know anything I got is yours. All you have to do is ask.”

  I laughed. “Sure, that’s easy to say when you haven’t got anything.”

  “You haven’t lost your sense of humor, I see,” he replied with a wide smile.

  “Is that a gray hair?” I asked, running my hand over his head, inspecting more closely.

  “Yeah, baby. There’s a lot of ’em. So we’re goin’ for the new place, right?”

  “I suppose it’s the wise thing to do. Thanks, Frankie. I’ll pay you back.”

  “You even try an’ I’ll break your skinny legs. How’s Toni Lee dealin’ with all this?”

  “She’s in Rochester right now, but she’s amazingly resilient. This is nothing new to her, Frankie. She hasn’t had a very happy childhood. One day I’ll make it up to her.”

  “Funny how life is,” he said. “I let you go to protect you from the kind of life you wound up having anyway. I should’ve married you, baby. I’ve kicked myself more than once for being such a fool. There’s never been anyone else like you. I keep searching for even a glimpse of you in other women, but it’s never there. You’re a cut above the rest, Georgie Girl. You deserve a lot more from life than what you’ve gotten so far. You’re a winner, baby—and don’t you ever forget that.”

  “Thank you for saying that, Frankie. I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s really nice to hear.”

  “You don’t know if you believe it? You don’t know? My God, Georgie Girl, what has that man done to you over the years?” he said with genuine sadness as he held me close, stroking my hair.

  “I don’t know which one I’d like to blow away more,” he said almost to himself. We stood that way for several minutes without saying another word.

  Frankie accompanied me wherever I went. To the bank, my auditions, even grocery shopping. Wherever my daily life took me, my temporary bodyguard followed.

  Frankie and I became lovers again while he was in L.A., but I would not allow myself to think about a future with him. I was trying to get away from that old life. Too much time had passed. Too much of my innocence had been lost. Nevertheless, the comfort of our friendship would be there forever.

  I liked having Frankie around. It had been long time since I had acted silly. Life had become so damned serious in recent years. The little girl inside me had not come out to play in a long time, and she was taking full advantage of it.

  Even while we laughed and did crazy things, Frankie never lost sight of why he was there. He spotted Steve following us a few times during our outings, but he kept it to himself, careful not to alarm me. Steve was quietly moving into position, and Frankie was ready for him.

  Finally, the silence was broken. Ring, ring, ring, ring. That old familiar sound.

  “George, don’t hang up! Listen, I’m leaving; I’m getting out of your life for good. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Why are you calling me, Steve? What part don’t you understand?”

  “George, I’m getting out. I can’t take any more. You made your point. I’m not mad at you. I’ve destroyed a lot of your things, and I feel bad about it. I know you don’t have the money to replace them. I want to pay you for what I’ve destroyed. That’s the only way I can leave without feeling like a total jerk.”

  “Okay, Steve. Bring the money over. Just put it by the door and leave.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not falling for that again. Meet me at the bank. There’s people all around. I can’t hurt you there—I don’t want to hurt you. Bring your friend with you for protection if you don’t believe me.”

  “What friend?”

  “The guy who’s staying with you.”

  “How do you know anyone’s staying with me?” I asked, peeking out the window, feeling his eyes out there somewhere in the dark, haunting me. It gave him some kind of a perverse thrill to know he could follow my every move without my knowledge of it.

  “I know everything you do, George, but I don’t want to know anymore. I’m getting out of here—for good. Take the money. Let’s part friends. What do you say?”

  “Okay, Steve, I’ll meet you at the bank at one o’clock tomorrow, but if you pull anything—consider yourself a dead man.” I hung up at the same time Frankie hung up the extension.

  “Georgie Girl, are you nuts? I can’t pop him at a bank—in broad daylight!”

  “Frankie, I don’t expect you to. If he’s serious about leaving and this will satisfy him, I’d much rather see it end this way.”

  Frankie and I drove to the bank an hour before the designated time. Steve was already there. We obviously had the same amount of trust in each other.

  “This stinks, baby. I don’t have a good feelin’ about this.”

  “What can happen with all these people around, Frankie? You’re here, and besides, I have the gun if I need it. Don’t worry—I’ll be all right.”

  “Somethin’ ain’t right,” he said, scanning the bank with a trained eye.

  Steve walked toward us with a cocky swagger, looking confident under the fading bruises. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, similar to the one that had been drenched with blood. He smiled as he extended his hand to Frankie and introduced himself. He acted as though he were giving a party and greeting his guests.

  This infuriated Frankie. Veins bulged under his skin, throbbing as he spoke. “Give the girl her money, you fuckin’ puke, and get the fuck out of this state if you know what’s good for you.”

  At that moment I understood why Frankie never talked about the secret part of his life. He was two different people, and I did not want to acquaint myself with this Frankie. Steve didn’t either. He quickly turned and walked toward the banker sitting behind the desk. We proceeded into the vault. Frankie waited outside, watching for anyone who looked the least bit suspicious.

  The banker carried the box into a private room and left us alone. I suddenly didn’t feel safe.

  Steve proudly opened the box and displayed the stacks of cash, all $100 bills. “There’s $250,000 here, George.”

  “Great, Steve, count out $3,000 and we’re even.”

  “It’s all yours. Come to Europe with me. We can be happy there.”

  “Steve, I want the $3,000 you owe me, and I want you to keep your promise about leaving,” I said with the dreaded feeling that this was not going to end well.

  “I know we can be happy,” he said with desperation.

  “Let me just take you ther
e until the money’s gone. I’ll show you the time of your life. Then if you’re still not happy, you can come back. At least I’ll be able to say I had the chance to try.”

  “Steve, look at me. Listen to what I’m telling you! If you persist with this fucking fantasy of yours, you are not going to live to see your next birthday. Do you understand what I’m telling you? You are not messing around with amateurs. Do not call me anymore, don’t try to see me, just get on a plane and get the hell out of here. If you don’t . . . Well, just take my advice, Steve.”

  “Will you just—”

  I left him standing there and walked out of the bank, no richer than when I had walked in. No safer, either.

  “Did you get the money?” Frankie asked when we got in the car.

  “No.”

  “No! What happened?”

  “He tried to bribe me with $250,000 if I’d go to Europe with him.”

  “And you said no?”

  “Of course I said no! Are you nuts?” I answered, irritated that he might be serious.

  “Hey, two hundred and fifty grand is a lot of dough.”

  “Knowing Steve, he either lied about the amount or it was counterfeit money. Frankie, he’s not going anywhere. I should’ve known that by now.”

  “The fuckin’ guy’s got a death wish. We can make it come true,” Frankie stated matter-of-factly.

  “Let’s stop by that apartment and see if I can get in there a little sooner. Maybe if we give the landlord some money he’ll hurry it up.”

  I felt as if I were in a never-ending nightmare. I was so tired of moving and running and hiding. Frankie hired a moving company, and I was out of my apartment by that weekend. The new place was just around the block, but he made the trucker drive in circles for three hours to be sure we weren’t being followed. He paid him well for his time and gas.

  “I gotta teach you about living on the lam, baby,” Frankie said, out of breath, as he helped carry a heavy ceramic pot up to the second floor. “Having all this stuff is cumbersome when you gotta move fast.”

  “I know, Frankie, but feeling like I have a home gives me an anchor. I need that.” He cocked an eyebrow and gave me a patronizing smile as he continued up the steps.