by C. D. Reiss
“Sorry, Tee,” Katrina said.
“It’s fine. I have this.”
This was how a poor kid from Carthay Circle became an award-winning director. First, she did what other people wanted, as long as they stayed out of her way. She understood the hierarchies of power as they related to her singular goal. She understood personalities and could make judgment calls about how to play them for and against each other. She apologized for it, and she never pushed far enough to make enemies, but she knew how precarious her situation was, and she protected the twelve inches of upper-floor ledge she stood on, because one wrong move, and she would have been in midair, calculating the hardness of her skull against the acceleration of gravity. And since she’d already fallen, and had to climb the building again, she was especially careful of her footing.
What kind of person can love two people like that?
The kind of person who could love a killer, I decided, as I sat in front of Daniel, and Katrina closed the door behind me. I was the kind of person who was rotten inside, whose very core was drawn to the ambitions of others, no matter its form.
“The last time you came to me, at WDE, you said it was my last chance,” I said.
“I did. And nice to see you, too.”
“I said I’d ruin you, Daniel, and I meant it.”
He smiled. I found myself disarmed by it. It wasn’t a political smile but something more genuine that I remembered from the very beginning of our relationship, when he was starting as a prosecutor. That was before he’d been beaten down and had to be built back up.
“No, actually, you didn’t mean it,” he said. “You and I, see, we’re in this tension. You got me in the palm of your hand, but I have you in my pocket.”
“Really? Interesting. Tell me.” I settled into the chair, swinging it so the back was to the computer screens. I betrayed nothing.
He said nothing immediately but looked me up and down as if considering something he hadn’t seen before. “You look good.”
“Thank you.”
“Different.” He put his hand out, cupping me in space. “I noticed it last time, but I was so thrown by you showing up I couldn’t pin it down.”
“I’m the same. Maybe the eyes that see me are different.”
“No, not that, but maybe something else. You were always… I don’t know the word.”
“Do try,” I said. “We spent so much time talking about how you looked and how you came across, so now it’s my turn. I’m curious.”
“By outward appearance, you’re the same. Aloof. Ladylike. Perfect.”
“And inside?”
“Feral,” he said.
“If you’d known that earlier, things would have been a lot different.”
He shrugged. “No way to tell. But, things have changed. And I’m not looking forward to this conversation the way you looked forward to the one you brought to me at the club.”
“Oh, just get to it Daniel. Katrina needs her editing bay.”
He nodded decisively as if changing gears. “I was thrown by our last conversation; I admit it. But I know you, and even if you’ve changed, well, I don’t think you’ve changed that much. You’re very protective. I know exactly what you have on me and how much it will hurt me. But if you send me down the river, I have enough on your little sleazebag to put him away. And you don’t want that. I know he’s got you around his finger. How he did it, I don’t know. I thought you were with him to spite me, but I think I was wrong. He really has you.”
“You have nothing on him, or you would have charged him already.”
“I may. His accountant is running with Patalano now. If I catch Patalano, I have the accountant. Then I can get Spinelli. And guess what? He’ll tell me whatever I want about whatever I want, in order to save you.”
“Me?” I said.
“You.”
“What—?”
“The attempted murder of Scott Mabat. Did you forget that? Scott hasn’t. Because I traced the financing of this little picture right here.” He indicated the room, the computer, all Katrina’s work. “Big chunk led to him. So after we saw Katrina, we went to him. He didn’t look too good. And I have to say, once I heard him tell his story, I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t even want to think about it.”
I swallowed. I’d known the gun wasn’t loaded, but who would believe it? My face tingled, and I tightened my grip on the arms of the chair. I wasn’t going to react. I knew how to do that. I knew how to present whatever emotion I needed to, and in this case, I needed to project confidence. I knew Daniel. If I showed him a crack, he’d wedge himself into it. “You have the testimony of a known loan shark against mine?”
“By the time this is done, I’ll have Patalano and Niccolò Ucci telling the same story.”
“I dare you.” I leveled my gaze at him, consciously relaxing my jaw muscles as if whatever strength I had took no effort whatsoever.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “Inside. Where is Tink? Where’s the woman who wanted to do the right thing, the good thing?”
This was how an heiress became a criminal. First, she didn’t want for money. She wanted only to be normal and good. She flew under the radar her whole life, making sure there was always someone next to her who shone brighter, talked faster, and laughed louder. Then the sun she circled shifted, and she became disoriented and dizzy from being thrown out of orbit. She bumped into a dark planet and broke, from the force of the impact, into millions of white-hot pieces, blasting apart into a firestorm of euphoria, a soundless roar of exultation in the vacuum of space.
Daniel, as if reading my thoughts, continued. “I don’t even know you.”
“You never did. But in all fairness, I didn’t either.”
“This exciting for you? Running with this crowd?”
“Was it exciting for you calling your mistress a dirty little slut? I’m going to assume it’s a yes, for the sake of my point. It all comes from the same place. We can only pretend we’re clean inside for so long before we crack, and the darkness starts spilling out. You fucked her because you had to, to stay sane. I’m with Antonio because it’s the only sane choice. I’d go crazy if I had to go back to who I was.”
He leaned back, fixed his tie, and crossed his legs again. “I don’t want to send you to jail. I know you think I don’t care, but it would break my heart to hurt you. I have to try one last time.”
“Try what?”
“To save you.”
The screensavers on the computers went out, bathing us in a false daytime darkness. Feathers of light fell beneath the room-blackening shades.
“In a few weeks, there’s a wedding,” he said. “It’s at the Downtown Gate Club. Is he taking you?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie, Tink.”
“He’s not.”
“Make sure he does. I want you to be there on time. Wear your best gun-moll dress. During the cocktail hour, I want you to pass something to the bathroom attendant.” He put a small manila envelope on the desk.
“You’re a damn member, Daniel. Can’t you give it to her yourself?” I said.
“They’re going to sweep it before the place settings are laid out. IDs checked. Everyone’s frisked for wires. And there’s a mole on my team. I can’t let it leak.”
“What makes you think I won’t tell Antonio?”
“I expect you to, and I expect him to stay quiet to protect you. Everyone’s walking out in one piece. You’re going to put an object in the tip tray, and you and your lover will ride into the sunset, for whatever that’s worth. If you don’t pass it, I’m having both of you prosecuted. And there will be no witness protection for you. You don’t know enough to be worth it to the Fed.”
I rocked in the chair, my eyes getting accustomed to the lack of light. I was in a terrible position, and I knew that. I had internalized my situation quite nicely in less than thirty seconds, because I knew Daniel. I knew when he was serious and when he was bluffing. It had been my job to kno
w for too long, and it was a job I had a hard time quitting.
“I think I always knew you were like this,” I said. “When we were together, I had a feeling that once I stopped being useful to you, I’d lose you. I think that’s why I always tried to be a part of what was most important to you. I told myself I did it because I enjoyed it, and to a large extent, that was true.”
“You never lost me. This is business.”
“I never had you. I made myself a part of your career because I knew that if I didn’t, you’d find a woman who would. So I’m going to tell you something about Antonio. I’m not useful to him. He wants me as far away from his business as possible. Maybe I enrich his life. Maybe I drag him down. I don’t know, because I don’t know what love is anymore. I only know that no man has ever loved me like he does. If love is part of our better natures, he’s a saint. And if it’s part of our basest instincts, he’s an animal.”
He sat still in his chair, hands on the arms, as the hard drives behind me wound down with a whirr. Then he smirked.
“You his Madonna ? Or his whore?”
I smirked back. The question didn’t offend me, which was why I could answer honestly.
“Yes.”
twenty-seven.
antonio
arnsdall Park was a perfect private place. It was an outdoor setting yet private in its expansiveness, with crannies of bushes and low walls and a sheer drop onto Hollywood Boulevard. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to casually listen to my call. I sat on the ledge overlooking the city as the sunrise bled red over the hills.
“Antonio,” said my father, “Come stai?” In the background was the sound of Neapolitan traffic. He must have been in the city.
“Good, Pop. How are you?” I spoke in Italian, but my mind had always been elastic with language, and I knew I’d stumbled on my native tongue.
“You have an American accent,” he said. To him, I sounded American. To Americans, I sounded pure dago. I was a citizen of that in-between place where no one would accept me as one of their own anymore.
“It’s been a long time,” I said.
“You sounded American in the first five minutes.” He went behind a door, or closed the window, because the white noise stopped as if cut off at the knees.
“It’s an efficient language. Easy to learn. You should try it.”
“Sounds too German. All this chop chop chop.”
“Well, it’s good for fast decisions,” I said.
“And bad for small talk, son. You didn’t call to chat about phonetics. Not at this hour of the morning. What time is it over there?”
“Almost seven.”
“Did you leave her in the bed alone?”
That made me smile. “It’s almost like we’re related. You and I.”
We sat inside a pause. I watched the light traffic on Hollywood Boulevard, and he let me.
“I heard Donna Maria won’t have Paulie Patalano in her family,” I said. “She doesn’t think he’d be strong enough.”
“News travels fast when there are women involved.”
“And she’s looking for another match for Irene, because she knows the Bortolusis will crush her.”
“There’s only one match, son,” he said.
“With Valentina, you took care of all of it. You brought me in. I said I’d give my life to the camorra. I let you make my decisions for me in exchange for vengeance.”
“You said there would never be another woman. I believed you. I figured, he’s my son. I know how he is.” Regret coiled around his voice. “If I don’t make this match, we’re going to be crushed.”
“I want out,” I said.
“If anyone else questioned me, they’d be in the hospital asking forgiveness.”
“I won’t do it.”
“They all say that. Your sister said it, then she fell in love with him.”
“Then she was raped to prevent the marriage. Do you think any of this makes sense? Do you think we should maybe stop this?” I couldn’t sit still. I jumped off the concrete wall and paced the jogging track, keeping my eyes off the horizon and focused on my feet.
“There’s more American in you than the accent,” he admonished. “This is not your choice. Not after the first one.”
“These decisions were mine. And this one is mine, too. I’ll do it with you or without you. With you is simpler.”
“It’s too late, Tonio. You gave up your life.” He was angry, growling at me in a way he’d had no chance to do when I was a kid. “I told you this when you were my consigliere. I warned you it was the worst decision you’d make. And when you left my side to go over there, chasing them, I told you then, too.”
“I’ll sell the businesses. Peel off territory. Stop taking tributes. Just tell me what I have to do to get out.”
“Nothing. You don’t get to go back; that’s the end of it. If you don’t care about your own life, at least think about the woman. The one you’re fucking. They’ll kill her same as the last one who got in the way of business.”
Stupido. God, that poor kid. Donna Maria killed his girlfriend, without a word of remorse for it.
“I know you think you can protect her,” Benito said. “But know this. They’ll kill you first then her. There’s no message if she lives. And don’t make a mistake. There are a lot of them. If they want you dead, you will die.”
“How, then? How do I do it?”
“Don’t let them smell weakness, son. If you want to out, you have to find your way. Don’t whisper a word, even to me. I will try and stop you.”
I watched the blood of the sun pour onto the city and knew that, years before, I’d sold my hopes in the name of vengeance.
“Capito,” I said.
“Bene,” he replied. “After the Bortolusi wedding, you and I will discuss your courtship. It will be very traditional. You’re lucky. She’s a nice-looking girl. It could have gone much worse for you.”
I rubbed my face. I’d never been less attracted to a woman in my life. I hung up without telling him that.
I drove up the mountain and through the flatness of the valley, up into the freeway split of the Angeles National Forest, where a man could be alone with his thoughts.
I didn’t blame my father for what he was doing. I’d taken a camorrista vow to be at the service of the family. The camorra worked the way it worked because marriage was a business deal. My father was the result of such a marriage, so why should it have been different for me? The fact that he’d never been forced to marry was the result of luck. There had been neither necessity nor opportunity.
I drove faster. I had no business doing it. I was endangering everyone else on the road, but the faster I drove, the faster I thought. The other cars, and the mountains on either side, faded into a blur.
Benito Racossi, my father, counted me lucky with Valentina. I’d married the woman I wanted to marry. She had been outside the life, and I was finishing law school. My father was proud and grateful. My mother had even spoken to him for fifteen minutes without a fight.
I pulled onto an exit that wasn’t an exit. It was no more than a bastard turnoff onto a dirt road. No gas stations, no fast food, just the potential for a city. It was a space set aside for something, someday. The freeway turned pencil thin in my rear view, and up ahead, the mountains went from shapes against the sky to solid masses of green and brown. I’d hoped to drive into a wall, but it didn’t work that way. I knew that from home. The roads to Vesuvio twisted and rose gently until ears popped and the car slowed, but in increments. Halfway up the mountain, I’d realize I’d made a choice to go there.
And Nella, sweet Nella, my sister. Raised outside the camorra, she was promised to a man against her will then fell in love with him anyway. Like animals, a rival family gang-raped her to prevent the marriage.
I thought about what might happen to Theresa if I refused to marry Irene. That stupid man and his girlfriend had washed up on the sand because they’d refused.
&n
bsp; But he’d been weak. What if I wasn’t? What if I started with Donna Maria and killed every single son of a whore beneath her until I had what I wanted?
No. Even if I was successful, I’d be more deeply trapped in the life than ever, and Theresa might not survive it. I had to do better.
I pulled the car over and looked east. Indeed, I’d gone halfway up the Angeles mountains without feeling it. I looked out over the washed-out colors of civilization, the gas stations and fast food joints, and the stucco houses and dots of cars. They looked like plastic debris caught on a slowly heaving sea of dirt and dry grass.
I felt as if the world reorganized around the camorristi, spinning up and away. We nailed our feet to the ground with spikes of tradition while the whipping winds of modernity threatened to rip our bodies off at the ankles. And if it succeeded? If we let ourselves be yanked into the air? We’d fly and fly and be unable to walk when we came down, crippled by our fear of change.
I couldn’t murder my way out of it.
I couldn’t walk away. I was hobbled.
But maybe, just maybe, I could run.
twenty-eight.
theresa
aniel’s envelope had a set of seven flaccid wire lengths with plastic nodules on top, and it took me a second to identify them as earpieces. I was about to call Antonio. I wasn’t going to keep a word Daniel said secret. I owed him nothing, and I owed my Capo everything.
I went to the Spanish house on the hill. The door was locked, and the Mas was parked out front. I went around to the side, where I could hear Puccini through the leaded glass windows. I called his name over and over but got no reply. Finally, the obvious occurred to me, and I texted.
—Capo? I’m outside—
The music went off. I waited, but he didn’t come out. I went to the front of the house and found him by my car, driver’s side open. A plume of smoke curled from his perfect lips.
He was smoking. That never boded well. He never lit a cigarette when everything was all right.
“You need to go,” he said when I was within earshot.
“I have things to tell you.” Did he hear I’d been in the same room with Daniel again? That wasn’t my fault, and if that was the source of his anger, he was going to get an earful about waiting to talk to me before making assumptions.
