by Evelyn Glass
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” Giovanni says. “I’m trying to help you, girl.”
“Help me?” I snap. “Fucking help me? By what, killing the father of my child, the man I love?” I turn on Dad. “Lower that gun, please. I love him, Dad. And I’m pregnant. I’ve been hiding it from you—”
“I know.”
“Then what are you doing?” I demand. “I love Chance, Dad. I love him more than anything. He didn’t kidnap me. You know that. You must know that. You were the one who moved Julian’s body for him!”
“That’s enough!” Giovanni snaps. “Will somebody please get this girl out of here?”
Two men appear at my shoulders, making to grab at me.
“If you throw me out now, you’ll never know the truth about your Boss! If you throw me out now, you’ll just be pawns and he’ll be the player, moving you all around! Look, look at Chance sitting in that chair. Maybe Chance scares some of you, maybe he’s a killer, but he’s also a hitter for the family. Just think, what if it’s you in that chair one day? Won’t you want to know the truth then?” I’m talking so fast and so loud that my voice is hoarse. I stop, gasping.
The men at my shoulders hesitate.
“Well?” Giovanni says. “Get her out. I gave you a goddamn order.”
“It’s just…” This comes from an old man, sitting on an upturned box, elbows resting on his knees and gold-ringed hands dangling. “I’m sorry, Boss, obviously we don’t think anythin’s goin’ on. But don’t you think we oughtta hear her out at least? I’ve been at this a long time. I knew your father. And he once said to me, ‘You’ve always gotta make sure that the men see you as someone to be feared.’ What if the troops learn that you were so scared of a girl you had her thrown out ’cause you were scared of what she had to say?” The old man speaks slowly, respectfully, which takes some of the bite out of his words. And then he adds the final, beautiful closing line, “I mean, you ain’t scared, are you?”
Giovanni looks like he wants to throttle the man, but the men around him are nodding, waiting for him to speak. The men around him are waiting for him to show that he isn’t scared, that he won’t let himself be intimidated by a woman. It looks like the Family’s bullshit way of seeing women as weak is finally working in my favor. He clears his throat. “Scared of a little girl like this?” He laughs loudly. “I just didn’t wanna get in the way of Mikey’s business. It’s a happy day, a day of celebration. Once this shit with Chance is outta the way, we’ll get some hookers and some whisky. But if you really wanna stand around and listen to some little girl’s lies, go ahead. It don’t mean nothing to me.” He shrugs. “I’ve been Boss of this family for decades, have paid for your lives for decades, have led us against gangs and cops for decades, but if the babbling of a child is more important to you, have at it.”
Before the men can think twice, I leap in. “I know the truth,” I say. I make sure to keep one hand in my pocket.
“The truth?” Giovanni snorts. “She’s wild, fellas. Wild because this man raped her. You’ve got to—”
“Your Boss is framing Chance!” I blurt out, before he can start his spiel. “Your Boss is the one who killed Julian. Your Boss is the one who had me kidnapped! Your Boss is the one who’s been playing us off against each other this whole time! He wanted away with Julian because he was scared he was going to try and replace him! And he wanted to make Chance be more careful because he was scared of him, too!” I talk quickly, explaining everything Nate explained to me, looking around the room of men and waiting for something to happen. The more I speak, the more I understand that I don’t have any definite plan. I suppose I thought I would walk in, reveal the truth, and everything would sort itself out. But as I stand here, I realize that it’s not going to work like that.
I stop, once everything has been explained. The men look interested, but not convinced like I need them to be. I wheel on Dad. “Tell them!” I plead. “Tell them what you did with Julian’s body!”
Dad swallows, gun pointing at the floor, looking as though he’s wishing he was anywhere but here. His eyes don’t settle. His free hands twitches. His knees bob up and down like a restless child. “You can’t talk to the Boss like that, Becky. You just can’t. That’s not how it’s done.”
“Dad!” I go to him, placing my hands on his shoulders. “Dad, please, just tell them the truth.”
“You have to take it back,” he whispers.
Maybe I would take it back if it were not for Chance sitting there, bloody and ballooned. Maybe I would take it back if it were not for the father of my child dripping blood onto the floor. But I can’t take it back, not now.
“Dad,” I say, my tone softer. “Mom tells me you were a good, happy man once. Mom tells me you weren’t scared, or lonely, or depressed. You can be that again. But this is the moment. You have to tell these men the truth.”
I see something click on in his eyes, as though a man who has been buried for a decade is rising within him, pushing away the gambler, the deal-maker. He swallows, turning to the men. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Chance methodically working his hand out of one of the zip-ties, blood beading around the skin on his wrist. He uses the blood to slip his knuckles and then his fingers out. I shake my head at him, meaning, Let me work.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says, facing the men. “I know Julian was a made man, just like you, but the Boss killed him—did it himself, he told me—and forced me to move him into the warehouse so that Chance would be framed for his murder. It was all the Boss.”
“Stupid little slut!” Giovanni roars.
I turn on him and see that he’s got a gun in his hand, pointing it straight at me. Chance is working his feet out of the zip-ties frantically. One foot’s free, and now he works on the other. I press send in my pocket. Giovanni turns in a swift circle as the men bristle, waving the gun at them. “Stay back!” he snaps. “All of you, you ungrateful pieces of shit, stay the fuck away from me! Are you really going to listen to this—to this drunk and his little whore? Do you know how many times this cunt took those kidnappers of hers? She fuckin’ passed herself around like a slut!”
“You killed a made man.” It’s the old guy who persuaded Giovanni to let me speak in the first place. He’s on his feet now. “That isn’t how it works, even for the Boss.”
“Fuck this,” Giovanni mutters, lengthening his arm, picking his spot…right at my heart.
He pulls the trigger.
The sound makes my ears ring in the small room, deafening me, the ringing moving around my head like a high-pitched echo. The flare of the muzzle blinds me, making me close my eyes on instinct, the light of the flash imprinted on my eyelids like sunlight on a bright day. And the smell of flesh, my flesh, rises into the air, flesh and fabric, blood and flesh and fabric, all mixing together in a stink. I slide to the ground, clawing at my chest, panting, panicking. I’m dead, I think, again and again. I’m dead, I’m dead.
“You ain’t hit, girl.” The old man’s voice, coming from very far away. “You ain’t hit. You’re okay. It’s your daddy.”
Slowly, I open my eyes, the light making the movement painful. But then I see that he’s right. Dad lies on the floor, clutching his shoulder, mouth hanging open. Blood dampens his shirt. I can’t see anything else, hear anything else. I’m too woozy, too out of it. I just manage to move to Dad and hold him, vaguely aware that things are happening around me. But all I can stare at is Dad’s blood-wet shoulder, his face, his eyes which look as though they’re fading.
I stayed in New York to try and save my father. Now I’ve gotten him shot.
I’m sure there would be some grim sense of comedy in there if I didn’t feel like weeping.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chance
I’m using all my strength to get my goddamn feet free from these zip-ties when Giovanni pulls his gun. Anger like I’ve never felt before gets inside me when I see someone pointin’ a gun at my woman, anger like fuckin’ lava, like al
l the anger in the world has been concentrated inside of me. He’s pointin’ a gun at my woman and my baby. That psychotic old fuck…it’s one thing if you wanna try to kill me. Fine. I’ve lived the life. Some’d say I had it comin’. But to point at my woman and child? My hands are bleedin’ from yanking on the zip-ties, but I manage to get both my feet free, fingers throbbing and bloody and biting from where the ties have bitten into me. I’m about to start on my other hand—I did the legs first just in case I needed to move—when, bang.
You can be the most seasoned bastard in the world and when a gun goes off in a little room like this and if you ain’t ready for it, it’s gonna fuck with you a little. But I was ready for it. Always gotta be ready when someone’s pulled one. I’m only dazed a bit, my eyes hurtin’, but still able to see. The anger, which was already damned vicious, explodes when he shoots at Becky. I don’t think, can’t think. I drag the chair behind me as I leap across the room, usin’ the zip-tie to swing the chair around and slam Giovanni in the head with it. The fat sack of shit falls like a ton of bricks, and then I fall on him like another ton of bricks, gripping the chair like it’s a knuckle-duster and layin’ into his face, seein’ red, just blood-red, thinkin’ of Becky and my kid and how this asshole might’ve killed ’em, but that’s a far-back thought, ’cause really there’s nothin’ but this rage. It’s like one of those time-lapse videos, what happens to his face. First there’s a face and then the chair crunches his teeth and eyes and nose and cheeks and the face turns into somethin’ else, somethin’ messy, until there ain’t a face at all, just a caved-in piece of meat, and then even the meat turns to mulch, spreadin’ out like a watermelon dropped from twenty stories. Only once it’s done, and the Boss in the suit is just a red splat with a suit next to it, I fall back, pantin’, and turn around lookin’ frantically for Becky.
“Becky!” I roar. I’m still seein’ red. A red mask has been pulled over my face. “Becky! Where the fuck is Becky? Where the fuck is she?”
Someone’s hands’re on my shoulders. I turn on ’em, grab whoever it is and lift him off his feet, chair and all.
“Wait.” It’s the old guy, I see, as the red begins to clear. Tapping my hands ’cause he can hardly breathe. I lower him to the ground. A thought hits me: Where did all this blood come from? Then I remember. I stumble. Can’t hardly fuckin’ move. “She’s there.” He points to the floor.
The floor…But when I turn I see that she’s alright. Her old man took the bullet for her, a flesh wound in the shoulder. Might turn fatal if he don’t get help, but I think I’d plug him again if I’d done the first. Not likely to do much all on its own, but a good warning shot.
“Becky.” I kneel down next to her. “Goddamn, Becky.” It shocks me like fuck when I feel it, tears creepin’ up my throat. Becky’s cryin’ like mad and her old man is mumbling sleepily like folks do when they take a bullet. I look around and see that the men are goin’ into the bar area, most likely tryin’ to get help, one of the Family doctors. I cough back the tears, can’t let ’em slide up my throat like this, can’t let ’em cripple me. “Becky,” I repeat. Then a single tear slides down my bloody, throbbing cheek. I growl, wiping it away.
“He got shot, shot for me and now he’s bleeding and—he’s bleeding and he’s shot and—Chance, you’re safe—you’re safe. I love you, I love you, I love you. Tell me you love me, Chance. Tell me it’s true.”
I’m afraid she’ll flinch away from me when I take her face in my hands, since I’m slick with murder, but she doesn’t. She smiles shakily and leans into me, kissing my hands, and then brings her bloody lips to my face and kisses my wounds tenderly. “Is it true, Chance?”
I feel like I’m standin’ at a crossroads. One of the roads leads back to my old self, where I can be cold and mean and not let feelings get in the way of bein’ the man I’ve always been. The other leads into the land where feelings can’t be ignored. ’Cause if I tell her this, I’ll never be able to ignore them. But I can’t lie to her, neither.
“You know it’s true. You know I do. I—” But saying the actual word is too damned hard. “I’ll never let anybody hurt you. I want you safe so bad I’ll cave in a hundred more Boss’s heads.”
She glances at the chair, the zip-tie twisted around my skin. “Come here.” She helps my hand free just as one of the men shouts.
“The fuck?” someone roars. “The fucking police’re on their way!”
“How’d you know?”
“One of our boys just texted me. They’ll be here in two. Fuck.”
Becky looks at me, soft-eyed. “It was me,” she says. “I made Nate promise to call them if I texted him. It was back-up, you know. I’m sorry, Chance…”
“Hush,” I say. “Don’t be sorry. But I’ve gotta go now. You understand that. I’ve gotta go otherwise I’m goin’ down for a long damned time.”
From the bar, I can hear the men filing out, sprinting onto the street to their cars before the police arrive. I make to stand up, but Becky holds onto me, staring into my eyes. “Please come back to me. Please.”
I swallow. Police sniffin’ around. Who knows if I’ll ever be able to? The old Chance would just laugh it off or shrug her hands away and tell her not to be such a weak bitch. The old Chance would think nothin’ of leavin’ her. After all, she’s just a sweet piece of ass, ain’t she, just a piece of ass to be felt up durin’ a shower?
“I’ll come back to you when I can,” I say.
To myself I add: I’ll try, at least.
I wanna stay and kiss her goodbye—damned strange, that desire, even now—but I can’t, ’cause if I do that I won’t be able to leave. So I stand up as quick as I can, spraying drops of blood all around me, and look down at her for a couple of seconds. “I should take him with me,” I say. “Even if he’s shot, the police’ll try and get him on somethin’.”
“Let them,” Mikey says, eyes fluttering open and closed. “I’m done with this.”
I shrug. “Alright. I don’t reckon any of us’ll be back workin’ for too long, anyhow. Becky…”
“You have to go,” Becky says. “But you’ll come back.”
I turn away from her, feelin’ like another tear might slide down my cheek but managing to fight it off, and sprint from The Italian. I reckon for other Family men this might be a big moment, leavin’ the Family compound after havin’ caved the Boss’s head in. Maybe killin’ the Boss is a big moment. Maybe that’ll change me. But leavin’ this place don’t mean shit to me. This was never my home. These people were never my brothers. I’ve always just been a fuckin’ tool to them. I’ve never had a family. The only family I have is sittin’ in the back room, holdin’ onto her daddy.
I’m limpin’ by the time I get to the end of the street, but I can’t stop ’cause now I hear sirens. I duck down an alleyway, head low, blood sprayin’ all around me with every step I take. I’ve been tooled over before, it’s true, but I haven’t had it this bad since I was a kid and my dad went at me with a trashcan lid. That’s funny that thought comin’ into my head now, almost like my brain needs to let me know that even when I had a family, I never really had a family. I think of Becky back there, probably talkin’ to the police now, and I want nothin’ more but to go back and be with her. I remember thinkin’ she should go with some artist type’a man, and for the first time in my life I wish I was a civilian, some borin’ fuck, ’cause at least borin’ fucks ain’t forced to leave their family when shit goes down.
I end up in some back alley between a strip club and some abandoned apartment buildings, sat on my ass on the dirty concrete tryin’ not to think about what I might be sittin’ in. I’ve been runnin’ for around an hour, but even so every time I hear a siren I flinch and get ready for more runnin’. My throat is burnin’, my body aching. All I wanna do is collapse into bed with Becky and get some rest. Two feral cats are fightin’ off to my right at the end of an alleyway, underneath some graffiti with the latest political protest signs. One of the cats is ginger with a scar
down its eye. The other is black with no scars, quick, fast, and makes short work of the ginger cat. I get to thinkin’ that maybe I was the black cat for most of my life, but the only way I was able to be the black cat was by blockin’ out anythin’ that makes a person a person. No love, no affection, no friendship, no family, no life. Just a black cat roamin’ the alleyways doin’ bloody work.
And then I get to thinkin’ how fuckin’ strange it is that I don’t want that anymore. ’Cause that’s who I am, who I’ve always been. All my life, I’ve been the black cat, ever since I was a kid and I went into that room with Becky’s dad and he told me the look in my eyes was too bloody, too mean. Since then I thought it was a cruel joke that I’d ever not be the black cat.
“And now I’ve found her,” I whisper to myself.
I think back to when I first met Becky, thinkin’ of the man I was back then, how I groped her in the shower and drilled her into that bed. I just saw her as a fuck-hole, somethin’ to be used and thrown away, and yet somehow she broke through all my bullshit so that now I know I would never be able to just see her as a fuck toy again. No damn way.
