Take Me

by Anna Zaires, Pepper Winters, Skye Warren, Lynda Chance, Pam Godwin, Amber Lin

  Two steps in, I heard wet, arrhythmic breathing. Then the door closed, and the box went dark.

  “You said you were leaving the door open,” I said.

  “Oops.”

  The light flicked on, drowning the tunnel in flat, industrial illumination. A man was curled against the wall, his ankle chained to a hook on the side of the container. I’d thought I was nervous and scared before. But when the door opened again, I understood what it felt like to jump out of my own skin.

  Paulie laughed. He leaned on the wall casually tapping his phone.

  Zo stuck his head in. “There you are.”

  “Come on in,” Paulie said.

  “Hi, Miss Drazen,” Zo said. “How you doing?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Zo glanced at Paulie then the guy.

  “She’s cool,” Paulie said. “Let’s see him.”

  Snapping the door shut, Zo crossed the length of the shipping container in about four steps. He kicked the guy to semi-consciousness. “Hey, asshole.”

  He picked up the man by the back of his collar. His face was beaten bloody, but I still recognized Scott Mabat. Zo plucked a bottle of soda from his jacket pocket and shook it before tossing it to Paulie. Paulie nodded as he passed me, tapping the bottle cap to his forehead as if tipping his cap to me. It left a dot of condensation. The soda must be ice cold.

  “Time to get up, Scotty.” Paulie opened the bottle into Mabat’s face.

  “Fuck!” Scott yelped.

  “Welcome back.”

  “Fuck you!” He spat blood.

  “I know it’s been a rough night. So I brought you something pretty to look at.” Paulie yanked Scott’s face around until I was in his line of sight.

  Shit. I had to decide what to do quickly, and I decided to do what I always did. Show nothing. Give nothing. Own it.

  “Where’s Antonio?” I asked.

  “Taking care of business. He’s on his way.”

  “Fucking frigid bitch,” Scott said.

  “Same wonderful sense of humor, I see.” I said.

  Zo laughed long and loud then petered.

  Paulie capped the soda bottle and turned to me. “So I have a problem, and I think you can help me solve it. Scotty here is the victim of my partner’s protective streak. I didn’t know he had one. But it’s there.”

  Scott coughed and sputtered. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.” He stared at me then coughed again.

  “You’re being paid, Mister Mabat. I have the money ready to be wired.” I clipped every word, keeping it business despite the piss I smelled on him. I refused to be sick. I refused to even have a feeling about what was happening. Now wasn’t the time for feelings, only thoughts. Cold ones. I couldn’t get muddied.

  “Fuck the money,” Scott said. “I’m getting your friend’s tits.”

  “See,” Paulie continued, before I could snap back at Scott. “I have this trust thing with you, like we talked about. So I looked into you, your whole family. You’re clean, but a couple of you got your fingers in shady pies. Your father could teach me something about the business.”

  “And you could teach Scott something about the importance of research.”

  Paulie’s mouth tightened, and I knew he was holding back a smile. “You hear that, Scotty? You taking notes?”

  “I’m gonna put my fist up her little Viet-cong ass,” Scott growled at me.

  “Yeah,” Paulie said. “Scotty over here is touching on something I’m getting to.”

  “Make her suck my fingers after.”

  “Shut up, douche.” Zo slapped Scott, sending a splash of blood to the wall.

  I noticed then that there was no blood on the walls or floor. A gruesome observation, but it told me that he’d been beaten and moved there.

  “Personally,” Paulie continued, “I like you. I think I mighta fucked you if Spin wasn’t already whipped. But here you are, hanging around the neighborhood, DA’s girlfriend, looking for shit. So I’m nervous. Then there you are, being introduced, and I can’t say shit. Even if it’s common sense, I gotta button it because those are the rules. Everyone’s got rules but the women.”

  “I got pulled in. You forget.”

  “No. I didn’t forget, and I don’t care what you do on purpose,” Paulie said. “This whole thing with Vito? Spin was already pissed he had a valet thing on the side. A straight job, no less. But then he beat his ass over some bullshit about a girl he didn’t even know. And why? Because he’s pussy whipped. Then Bruno partners up with Vito, and I got two guys Spin’s after, guns blazing. He’s beating on their friends trying to find them. Four days, my partner didn’t make no sense. Four days he forgot the rules, and everyone runs to Donna Maria looking for help. It gets so bad he’s gotta ask permission from another family to do what’s his right to do. Now I’m dragged in, thinking you must have a magic cunt.”

  Scott scooted around on his knees. His hands were tied behind his back, and one shoulder looked dislocated. He needed a hospital stay.

  “Here’s what I told our boy here,” Paulie continued. “I told him I’m not gonna kill him. I told him you were an accessory to all this. And I told him he couldn’t touch you. You are protected, by us, indefinitely. This will keep my partner happy, and you alive, because this guy’s pissed.” He pushed Scott down with his foot. “Right, you Armenian fuck? You’re pissed, right?”

  Scott tried to spit on him, but gravity put the spit back on his face. Paulie leaned closer, in spit range, but Scott didn’t appear to have a drop of saliva left.

  “You’re gonna take it out on someone, aren’t you?” Paulie asked.

  Scott smiled through a bloody mouth.

  “You sold him Katrina,” I whispered.

  “Maybe. That’s up to you.”

  He stepped back and let Scott and me look at each other. Worry and fear crept through my skin. Resist them though I might, I wasn’t calloused to this. I was a nice girl with a beach house and perfect grades.

  “Well then, Mister Patalano, it looks like I’m going to have to figure something out.” I turned to leave, but Paulie held me back with a hand to my shoulder.

  “I’m not done.”

  “I disagree.”

  “You can run to the DA. You can run to daddy. But I know your father better than you do, even if I never met him. Our families aren’t strangers, if you know what I mean. And the DA? Don’t get me started. Your girlfriend has a couple of family here in Orange County. A few friends. She disappears, it’s in the news this week, and next week London Westin’s worn-out pussy’s in the papers.”

  He reached in his jacket. He was going for his gun. I think my panic must have been visible then, because he held out his hand to calm me. He slowly pulled the firearm.

  “I have a solution for you,” Paulie said. “You want to earn my trust? If you earn that, you and your girlfriend will be under my protection. This guy won’t touch either of you.” He handed me the gun.

  Zo spoke up, “Paulie, whoa! The fuck?”

  “Shut up, Zo.” It sat in the flat of his hand like an offering. “Take him out. Problem solved.”

  Scott laughed, lightly at first. Maybe a smarter person than I am would have deduced another solution. Maybe a more naturally manipulative person would have stalled long enough to change the course of events. But I was empty. I took the gun. It was lighter than I expected. Easier to pick up. Maybe I thought it should weigh some more supernatural amount, equal to the death inside it.

  “Take him out, and you’re going to solve all kinds of problems,” Paulie said.

  “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  “I’m hedging a bet. It’s a million to one you have the spine for it. And I gotta be honest, I want you out of the picture.”

  “Paulie, come on,” Zo said.

  “Shut the fuck up, Zo.” The man with the bow lips stood close to me, engaging in a staring contest I had no intention of losing.

  “She can’t get made, no ways,” Zo pleaded.


  I said softly, “This is a very risky proposition.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Shit.” Zo was freaking out. “Pauls, what if she misses and hits me?”

  “Pick him up,” Paulie said without releasing me from his gaze. “Let her get a good shot.”

  “I’m not killing anyone,” I said.

  “My money’s on you not even pulling the trigger.”

  “Does Antonio know about this little bet with yourself?”

  As if in answer, Paulie’s phone buzzed. He ignored it. “He’s not here right now, is he? He’s busy taking out two perfectly good guys he alienated because of you. I’m here cleaning up this mess he made because of who? Yeah. You.”

  Scott had stopped laughing, the blood on his lips crusting over. Paulie squeezed my hand with the gun in it. He looked at it, and I followed his gaze. The gun was hard and black with flat surfaces and squared edges. A cop gun, not a cowboy gun.

  I slipped my finger in the metal loop around the trigger, cupping the handle in my palm. “You misread me, Mister Patalano. You think I’m some sheltered little girl who never had to fight for myself. But I’ve spent my whole life fighting for myself. Just not the way you think.”

  “Prove it.” His phone buzzed again.

  Was it Antonio? Could I stall long enough to get a bye in this little game?

  “She can’t earn no bones anyway, Paulie, come on!” Zo was near hysteria.

  “Aw, the little girl has a gun?” Scotty said.

  I didn’t know what was wrong with him, why he didn’t just roll over or shut up. I didn’t know what had to happen to make him continue taunting his attackers until they killed him, but whatever it was, Scott Mabat was in self-destruct mode.

  So I pointed the gun at him. “I could shoot you right now.”

  “You don’t have the balls. My dogs will rip that girl in the middle.”

  He didn’t threaten me. He’d never threatened me, only Kat. As if he thought that in self-preservation, I’d just let her get pulled into a basement by him and his cronies. And he’d leave me unharmed at the door. Paulie’s word must really mean something.

  “I’m going to shoot you, Mister Mabat, unless you allow a prepayment and keep your hands off Katrina,” I said.

  “You’re not shooting anyone.”

  “Keep making me angry.”

  “I bet she tastes like soy sauce when she cries.”

  My hand tightened to the point of no return. I pulled the trigger. Tight. Tighter, until the tension in the thing released, and the trigger bounced back.

  Nothing happened.

  Scott broke into hysteria.

  Zo’s eyes went wide. He chanted “Holy shit holy mother of Jesus,” over and over.

  I let the gun swing from the trigger loop, finger extended. Paulie looked both impressed and pensive as he held out his hand for it. We didn’t have a chance to exchange a word because the door opened with a creak.

  Antonio stood in the rectangle of light. “Paulie.” The word was a statement with a serious undercurrent of darkness, violence, and unspoken threats. “What is she doing here?”

  “Nice to see you, too. What took you so long?”

  Antonio stepped inside, taking in everything, his hands, knuckles already bloodied and bruised, coiled for something. Zo shut up as if someone had stapled his mouth shut, and Scott, for once, was reduced to silence.

  “You said you were in the trailer,” he said.

  “I moved him.”

  Antonio reached me and took the gun then put his other hand in mine. I realized that with everything we’d done together, we’d never held hands. Not until I was afraid to hurt him or get blood on my cuffs did I feel his fingers laced in mine.

  “What the fuck are you doing, Paulie?” Antonio asked.

  “Good luck with this one,” he said.

  Antonio pulled me through the door, and I followed because I had no choice. Though the container had been lit, the afternoon sunlight made me squint. I held my hand up to block the sun as Antonio pulled me toward his Mas.

  He opened the door for me. “Get in, and do not make me put you in.”

  I got in. He came around the front of the car. We watched the open door of the red shipping container. No one came out. Antonio backed out of the parking lot in a spray of gravel.

  “What the fuck—”

  “He picked me up from work,” I said.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing. Then we went in there, and Scott looked like that. Did you do that to him?”

  “I didn’t want you to see that. It was supposed to be that I finished getting his guys to understand my position, then we worked on Scott. Then you gave him his money back, and you were done.”

  “Well, I did see it. You hurt him. One of his eyes was sealed shut.”

  “I woulda done worse if Zo hadn’t pulled me off him.” Antonio drove in a rage, pulling onto the freeway as if he wanted the car to eat it. “He just wouldn’t stop fucking talking. This is what I was telling you. This is who I am. This is what you do to me. And Paulie? He doesn’t trust you. He showed you so you’d run away from me, right?”

  “He wanted me to shoot Mabat in exchange for Katrina’s immunity.”

  “And what happened when you wouldn’t?” he asked.

  “I did.”

  “You what?”

  “I pulled the trigger.”

  I saw that he was confused. He was probably thinking: Had Scott been quiet when he got there? Did he look dead? Who was the woman sitting next to him? Was there a whole new set of problems to solve?

  “You think you’re the only one, Antonio. You think you’re the only one with a little murder in him,” I said. “A little temper? Well, I knew there were no bullets in the gun, because it was so light. I knew it would just click, but I was sorry it was empty. I wanted to spray his brains all over the wall. He’s a waste of a man.”

  Antonio pulled the wheel hard right at eighty miles an hour and screeched to a stop at the shoulder. If that was what it was to be mercurial and impulsive, I understood the appeal. Every moment felt like living at the height of awareness, every sense sharpened to a fine edge.

  “God help me,” he said. “I’ve ruined you.”

  I touched his arm, but he pulled away.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Antonio,” I said.

  He didn’t answer, just kept his wrist on the top of the steering wheel.

  “Capo.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  My face got hot, and my loins tingled as if I’d been dropped off the first hill of a roller coaster. I wanted to look at him, but I couldn’t. I wanted to check his hands for bruises and accuse him of worse violence than I’d wanted to commit. I wanted to make excuses and demands. I looked at my own hands, free of blood or bruise, but they were shaking.

  “Antonio, what’s wrong?”

  He got off the freeway downtown. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does.”

  “We’ll still protect you.”

  “What? Wait. I don’t understand. What happened to everything?”

  “It’s just done, Theresa. Over.” He shook his head, eyes on the road and avoiding my gaze.

  I blinked, and a tear fell. What had I done? How could I have done differently? How could he shut me out? “This was Paulie’s plan? That you’d hate me?”

  He didn’t answer. He’d turned to stone right in front of me.

  “Brilliant,” I muttered. “He’s a fucking genius.”

  “Nice mouth.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I hit him on the arm.

  He yanked the car over, screeching to the curb a few blocks from the loft. He drew his finger like a rod, rigid and forceful, as if he could kill me with it. “Do not hit me again.”

  “What happened?”

  “This is not what I want. I’m in the life. I’m damned, I know this. I cannot come home to a woman I’ll share hell with.” He slapped the car
in park and turned away from me again, as if seeking answers in the half distance.

  “You would have done the same to protect someone you cared about,” I said.

  “I would have beaten him to death with the empty gun. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not understanding the point.”

  “Please just go. I don’t want to see you again.”

  His words tightened in my gut, twisting my insides to jelly. “Antonio, please. Let’s talk—”

  He sped the car forward and around a turn, barely stopping to drop me in front of my house. “Get out.”

  I waited for him to change his mind. Maybe if I reached out to touch him, he would relent, but he seemed so radioactive that I couldn’t. I took the phone he’d given me from my bag and handed it to him.

  “I don’t want it,” he said, still not looking at me. “Give it to the poor. Just go.”

  I was a coward. I couldn’t fight for him. I didn’t know how. I got out, and though I didn’t look back, I didn’t hear him pull away until I was safely inside.

  * * *

  My house was empty. Every surface gleamed. The dishes were put away. The broken swans were gone.

  I stepped out of my shoes and looked around for any sign of Katrina. She’d left a few old-style bobby pins, but everything else was gone. She’d always kept most of her stuff at her parents’, I reminded myself. I had a family. I could call any of them. And what would I say? They’d walked me through Daniel. Would they walk me through another man? One I couldn’t talk about?

  I put the phone he’d given me by the charger, and it blooped with an auto update to the music library. Tapping and scrolling, I found he’d left me music ages ago, before I’d squeezed a trigger. Puccini, Verdi, Rossini. Antonio liked opera, and it didn’t matter that I liked it too.

  I put on Ave Maria and shuffled the rest. Went to the refrigerator, didn’t open it. The sink, empty. Back around the kitchen.

  I made a third and fourth circuit around the island, as if spooling my pain around it. Antonio, my beautiful, brutal capo. He wanted me to be clean, and I’d sullied myself, debased myself, not with sex but violence. I was supposed to be his escape, and I’d walked into a trap where I was empowered to commit murder. For all intents and purposes, I had.