by C. D. Reiss
He continued as if I hadn’t said a thing. “This is the day she’ll remember. The day her brother’s heart was healed, and she and her husband made peace with the Sicilians. The day they went to live in the olive orchards. When you close your eyes for the last time, it will be this day you remember as the first day of the long happiness of your life. You will smile your whole journey to heaven.”
I didn’t know if he said anything else. My thoughts started to go pre-dream, and I was far away from the heat and smell of the truck, held down only by Antonio’s touch on my cheek and the thrumming of the wheels on the road.
I woke with a mouth full of white school glue when the truck jerked to a stop and went backward, beeping. The light through the tiny windows in the door was daylight bright, then grey, as if we’d glided indoors.
Antonio’s head rested on the side of the truck, but his eyes were open. “Buongiorno.”
“Hi. You look good for a guy who slept sitting up.” I rubbed my eyes. He couldn’t possibly look that good on no sleep, but he did. Unshaven. A little rough around the edges, but still perfect.
He cupped my chin. “I want you to be ready for anything.” He gently pulled me up so he could stand. “I don’t know what we’re going to see when those doors open.”
“As long as you stay with me, I’m ready.”
The windows in the rear bay doors were set so high, Antonio had to stretch himself to see through them.
I heard a conversation outside the truck. It sounded like English, but I couldn’t string two words together. Contentious, sharp, businesslike. Antonio rubbed his eyes and sighed and motioned me to him.
“What is it?” I tried to get tall enough to see through the wire-meshed windows, but I couldn’t.
He didn’t answer, just looked at me for a few seconds, then took my hands. “Listen to me, this is not negotiable. This is the rule. Whatever I do, you stick to the story we agreed on.”
His tone was so sure, so confident, as if I were an employee and he were the head of operations for Theresa and Antonio Inc., I got a little ruffled.
“I’m not agreeing to anything until you tell me what you’ve got on your mind.”
He put his finger up. Tightening his voice like a rubber band wrapped twice around something just a little too big, he got his tone down to a low, tight-jawed growl. “We don’t have time for this. Just do what I say.”
I put my hands on my hips, more to give my body a message from my mind, because my physical self wanted to do whatever he said, almost as a reaction. But my mind was infuriated. “Tell me first.”
The clack of the lock echoed in the empty space, and he let go of me.
“Do not defy me,” he said.
I didn’t have a second to tell him I didn’t want to defy him, only know what he had planned.
The back door lifted, clattering open as it slid up.
There wasn’t much like the squawk of a police bandwidth, both urgent and incomprehensible. Like the scrawl on a prescription pad, it was only clear to the initiated. I tingled from between my shoulders to my fingertips, as if my central nervous system demanded I do something violent.
We were supposed to be dropped by Sequoia in a building Antonio’s company owned. Had the cops infiltrated it? This was bad. So bad. My skin got tight around me, cutting my ability to breathe, to think, to see a foot in front of me.
The muscles of my hand tightened and the skin…
No. That was Antonio. He was holding my hand. I took a short breath, all my lungs would hold, and looked at him. He oozed a type of awareness and alertness that made me feel safe next to him.
I exhaled, and my chest opened. It would be all right. Whatever it was, I could handle it.
Half a second later, with my every nerve ending on fire, the front cab doors slammed shut, and the man pulling up the truck door was revealed.
It was Daniel. The squawk was from two cops passing behind him.
“What the—?” I gasped, realizing we were in a loading dock in the First Street police precinct.
“I knew it!” Daniel cried, pumping his fist. “God! You!” He pointed at me. “You’re just… sight for sore eyes doesn’t even begin.”
He took two steps into the truck and put his arms around me, invoking God and Jesus in a litany of gratitude I didn’t feel I deserved. He rocked back and forth, squeezing me until I thought I’d suffocate. I turned my head just enough to see Antonio. His face was impassive, but the clenched fists at his side told me how he was reacting to the hug.
“Dan, I can’t breathe.”
Daniel pulled away but held my shoulders. “Are you hurt?”
“She’s fine,” Antonio said, putting his hand on my shoulder.
Daniel didn’t seem the least bit threatened. He was so close to me, I could see the white rings around his blue eyes. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“We thought you were dead.”
“I know. I… we escaped. They were after him. They had Paulie lure him into the Carriage House and—”
“Slow down, Theresa,” Antonio said. We’d gone over the story and who would tell it.
“No! I won’t!” Was I being too petulant? Did the lady protest too much? To hell with that. I had to sell it and sell it fast. “It was the Bortolusis. They were afraid Antonio was going to make a marriage that would compete with them, so they planted a car bomb at the shop then tried to do the same at their own wedding. Those people are nuts, Dan. They won’t leave him alone. He needs protection.”
“And you ran,” Daniel said, crossing his arms.
“Damn right we did,” I said.
Daniel looked over my shoulder at Antonio, who held up his hands. He’d slept sitting up and had a day and a half of growth on his face, but the sparkle in his eyes made him look as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.
“I make no accusations,” he said, “and for my own protection, I don’t argue with her. But we’re back.”
“And the shooting of Mister Patalano?” Daniel asked.
I swallowed a bucket of ice.
“Shooting?” Antonio said casually, as if talking about the weather. “So he’s not dead?”
“Not entirely.”
“I was there when he shot himself,” Antonio said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “He always had this problem. He couldn’t hit the side of a garage.”
“We’ll see what forensics comes back with on that. In the meantime, come with me. I have something to show you.”
six.
SIX WEEKS EARLIER[→8]
antonio
he day I killed the last man who’d raped Nella, I forgot my own name.
I did it four days after Daniel came to me with his name in exchange for turning my back on Theresa. Four days after I kicked her out of the shop because I suspected she was partnering with him, even while I didn’t believe it. Four days of making sure Daniel’s man was really the culprit. Knowing I might be getting set up, I killed him anyway.
At the time, I’d been confused. Confused about my purpose in life, which was vengeance for my sister. Confused about how to proceed now that I’d killed the last of them, and confused about this woman who wasn’t supposed to mean anything to me.
I felt a curious emptiness when I stood over his body. Brower had given me his name, and despite the fact that the DA thought I was an animal who would kill anyone, I had to check his facts.
It all lined up.
Four days of forcing myself across the town, asking questions that would only be answered when accompanied by gunshots or a beating so deep inside Griffith Park, the threat of starvation on broken legs was real.
Four days of petitioning old Italians to let me finish my business.
Half a day of chasing him, because he knew I was coming. When I finally stood over the rapist fuck after the light had gone out of his eyes, a piece of myself went with him.
That was it. I was done. I had no more vengeance to wreak. I
had no more debts to pay.
I dialed my mother’s number to tell her Nella was safe, that the men who’d raped her were gone forever. Down to the last one, they were wiped from the earth. But I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t make it real. I had to figure out what it meant for me first. I drove to the mountains and took a dead dirt road up, up always up, and walked past a yellow-and-black gate until I could see California in front of me.
What would I do now?
That empty space filled itself with an ache I couldn’t control. I even felt it happening and pushed it away. Denied it. But the anger-shaped space inside me changed into a vacuity designed for her sweet smell and her cinnamon hair, the sound of her laugh, her tone when she was haughty, and the silk of her skin in my hand. She took up residence, kicked off her shoes, and sprawled out inside my soul.
I couldn’t have her. It was crazy. But the place where the want for vengeance had resided was filled with the want for her, as if I had a proscribed amount of space for desire in my heart and it had to be occupied.
I felt the warmth from my chest to my fingertips as she infected my blood. Every part of me vibrated. I had agreed to stay away from her. I’d made a trade. Vengeance in exchange for erasing her from my life.
But in exacting the vengeance, she became impossible to erase, and when I got a call that Bruno was going to grab her because he was ambitious and stupid, I had to nip it in the bud. Not to protect myself, but because I needed to send a message. Theresa Drazen was not to be touched.
I couldn’t be with her. My world would break her, and hers would never accept me. I was fine with that. Just fine. Up to the point where she was hurt. Then the space in me where vengeance was, that was now filled with thoughts of her, widened a little, and the old rage seeped in.
At exactly the right time, I found out she was being chased up Mulholland Drive. We found her wielding a stick against a man who had made his bones at twelve.
“Make no mistake,” I said after closing her car door. Her eyes were cast in shadow from the car roof, until she moved, and I saw her broken. “I will hurt you to protect you.”
Her lips parted another millimeter. I had to bite my tongue to keep from kissing her. I was trying to scare her, but I hadn’t. I’d excited her. It was in the curve of her lips and the growing tension between my legs.
“Now go.” I turned my back to her. I heard her back up, and the glare from her headlights swung against the trees and disappeared.
Lorenzo got off Bruno when I approached. Bruno’s hand was shot up, and he had one foot in nothing but a black sock like old men wore. Paulie kept a foot on Bruno’s shot up hand and a shoe in his mouth to muffle his screams. I stood over Bruno, considered the flame at the tip of my cigarette, then looked at him again, stretched before me.
“Bruno,” I said, flicking the ash on him. “How are you?”
Paulie removed the shoe. Bruno spit defiantly, but gravity sent it back in his face. Paulie put his foot on the man’s throat. I’d had that done to me once. It was very uncomfortable, and the next day I’d looked as if I’d danced with a noose.
“What did you think you were doing?” I asked.
He grunted. I didn’t know if he could even pay attention to me with the fear of death clouding his vision. I retrieved the shoe that had been pulled from his mouth and tapped it on his forehead.
“Don’t you know nothing, stupido?” Paulie mangled even the simplest Italian words. “You can’t get to us through a woman.”
I crouched until I took up all of the frame of Bruno’s vision. “He’s got a point. Now, you have my attention. Did you have something you wanted to tell me?”
He snorted, choking on his own snot, eyes blood red and narrowed.
“I can’t hear you.” I put my hand behind my ear. “Was it my number you wanted? Maybe call me and ask me on a date?”
He shook his head. Snorted.
“Liar.” I pinched his cheeks until his mouth opened, then I jammed the shoe back in, sole-side down. “Did you want to say hello? Join my crew? I need someone to clean the floors. They’re filthy. People walk in with dirty shoes. It’s disgusting. No? You’re shaking your head, so all right, if you didn’t want to ask me on a date and you don’t want to work for me, then I’m going to assume you didn’t want to send me a message. I’m going to assume you wanted to fuck Theresa Drazen. Is that correct?”
He shook his head as much as he could.
“Now you’re lying. Everyone wants to fuck her. I want you to lie to my face, you piece of shit.” I pulled the shoe out of his mouth. A trail of saliva followed. “You were going to do what, once you caught her?”
How he had the energy to spit in my face, I’ll never know, but I respected his nerve.
Paulie did not. He took his foot off Bruno long enough to kick him in the cheek.
I yanked Bruno up by the collar and pinned him to the side of the car, then got in his face, daring him to spit again. “You have no manners, Bruno. This a Sicilian thing?”
“Kill me. I dare you.”
“Tell me what you thought you were doing.”
“I was going to teach you a lesson,” he choked out. “Give her a little of what those Neapolitans gave Nella. In honor of the last one you killed.”
He said it through his teeth, biting back tears. He wanted to beg for his life. I could smell it on him, yet he was pushing me.
I was ready to be pushed. I’d killed a man the day before, and there was an inertia to violence. Once set in motion, it tended to stay in motion.
But vengeance didn’t have the same inertia. I was filled. I should have been enraged by what he said. Insulted. Offended to the core. But I felt none of that. As I squeezed my fingers tighter around his neck, what I felt was fear that by staying away from Theresa, I was creating a vacuum where other men would go, and they would use her to take action on their own vendettas. She wasn’t one of us, so they wouldn’t suffer any consequences. I was leaving her wide open, and the thought of something happening to her drove me insane.
Nothing seemed more natural and right than standing over Bruno Uvoli and taking his life. Because he was an animal, an affront, and mostly because he’d tried to hurt her.
In that moment, I decided to have her. To protect her. To satisfy the longing in my heart. For my own salvation. Once that was decided, I couldn’t kill the man. I had to earn her.
I pushed him against the car. “Get in.”
Paulie flicked his cigarette to the ground. “Where we going?”
“Sequoia,” I said. “I know a doctor who can take care of this little shit’s hand.”
“What the fuck?” Paulie exclaimed.
Bruno looked at me suspiciously.
“He’s going to send a message back to his people.” I dropped my cigarette and stamped it. “This vendetta is done. And unless you want to see more blood shed, stay away from Theresa Drazen.”
seven.
FIRST STREET PRECINCT
theresa
aniel put his key into the service elevator. I hadn’t been in it before, as it was used to transport suspects and convicts from the precinct offices to the prisons and courts.
Antonio looked at our escape route, at me, at the elevator, then back at me.
Daniel held the door open.
“If I didn’t know you better,” Antonio said, “I’d think you were setting us up.”
“You, I’d set up,” he replied. “If I could figure out how to bring you down without taking her with you.” He tilted his head toward me.
There seemed to be a sort of brutal honesty I hadn’t been aware of between the two men. As if they had a shared history.
“She stays here,” Antonio said. “I’ll come up with you. I’ll answer any question you have. But she goes to see her brother.”
Daniel appeared to consider something. He made all the right signs, gave all the right clues. A pause. A breath. Eyes slightly elsewhere but still present. A tap of the finger. As if he was checking things
off a list I’d provided him, years ago.
I had no idea if he was faking or not. He’d gotten that good.
“Fine,” he said.
“No, absolutely not.” I walked up to Daniel until I was practically in the elevator. “You have nothing on him, or you’d have a rear flank of police and he’d be Mirandized already.”
“I never said I was arresting anyone. I said I wanted to ask questions. And his confession’s inadmissible considering the evidence hasn’t even been gathered yet and, thanks to him, my reputation in this town is shot to hell. So you can come, or I can force you. And I’m at the point where I’ve got fuckall to lose, so if I were you, I’d just come along for the ride.”
“She goes,” Antonio said, stepping past Daniel into the elevator.
Daniel held the doors open. “He’s right. You should go.”
Antonio leaned against the back wall and folded his hands in front of him. He knew the law. He’d let Daniel spin while I saw Jonathan. It was the smartest thing to do. But with Daniel between us and my lover boxed in, a little empty spot opened up. A spot that told me I was alone, adrift, not enough.
“No,” I whispered.
“You need to see Jonathan. You don’t have time for this,” Daniel said.
My sinuses suddenly pinched and tingled. “Is he all right?”
“No…” He drifted off as if trying to formulate the right way to say what needed saying, and unless he’d taken serious acting lessons, he wasn’t faking the distress in his voice. “He’s really fucked up. Bad. You have to see him by tonight, or it might be too late.”
“Too late? What kind of too late?”
He shook his head, and my chest tightened. “The worst kind. I’m sorry.”
“It was routine stuff when I saw him,” I protested.
“It happened fast. Look, I’m going to question you, I promise you that, but I like Jonathan, and you need to see him.”
“Go, Contessa,” Antonio said from behind Daniel. “I have this.”
I couldn’t save Antonio, but maybe I could. I wasn’t powerless. But if I told the truth, that I’d shot Paulie, I wouldn’t see my brother. I could admit to the murder at any time. Tomorrow. The next day. No amount of time would change the facts, but in that time, Jonathan could be dead.
