Property of / the Drowning Season / Fortune's Daughter / at Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  “I know,” I said.

  “It’s fucking a lot of gin,” McKay said.

  “You tell me what you want,” Monty said.

  “What I want?” I said. I laughed. Well, I wanted to quit, and I wanted to stay, and I didn’t believe doing either one would make a damn bit of difference. “Take the money,” I said. McKay removed his hand from the counter; the green bills fluttered like wings.

  “I believe,” Monty said as he picked the money gently off the countertop and placed it in the cabinet under a metal sink, “you are making the grandest mistake yet, McKay.”

  McKay did not answer.

  “I believe …” Monty began.

  “Oh, who gives a damn what you believe, you goddamn rummy,” McKay said softly. He turned to me. “Call Starry,” he said.

  “What if I don’t?” I said. McKay laughed quietly. “What if I say no?” I asked.

  “What if?” he said. “What if doesn’t matter, because you will.”

  He was right. I would do what he told me to do and no ifs existed. I walked to the telephone booth and sat down. “What do you want me to say?” I asked.

  McKay came over to the door of the booth. “That’s the way,” he said, smiling. “Now you’re my girl!”

  I looked up at McKay and waited for his instructions.

  “She won’t talk to me,” McKay said, “unless you let her know how really important it is to her.”

  “What is? What is important to her?”

  “The deal I can make her.” McKay smiled.

  I was going to betray her. I was going to betray Starry, and I could not stop myself.

  “You tell her,” McKay said, “that I’m going to get her an abortion, and she’s going to get me a fish.”

  Starry feared the Dolphin more than not being able to cop a fix. Once she had told me she would never go against him. Now, she would probably have no choice. I had told McKay of her troubles, and in doing so, I had betrayed her.

  “You’re a bastard,” I said softly. I was too tired to shout or even to care.

  “That’s right,” McKay said.

  When Starry answered I told her what McKay wanted me to tell her: that he had a deal to offer her; that if she could make excuses to Flash and get away from Manhattan for one night McKay would arrange an abortion. More than that: he would pay.

  “You told him?” Starry said.

  “That’s the deal,” I said.

  “What I got to do, sell my soul? What’s his angle?”

  “The Dolphin,” I said.

  “Let me talk to her,” McKay said. He stood in the doorway of the booth so that I sat in darkness, covered by his shadow.

  “Wait,” I said. “Wait a minute.”

  McKay grabbed the receiver from my hand.

  “Starry, I need you,” he said. “And what’s more, you need me.”

  The Avenue was worthless. And McKay knew it. But he wanted it anyway. Once he had it, he would gain nothing, have nothing.

  “Arrange to meet the Dolphin at Monty’s. Tell him you’re setting me up with the help of the inside connection who’s dying to get rid of me so she can go off with Jose.” McKay looked at me. “And tell him all you want is two spoons of smack in return. You’ll trade me for heroin, because the Dolphin would never believe you were handing him a free gift. Even a gift you despised as much as you do me.” McKay laughed.

  When I heard him laugh, when I saw that his head was thrown back in laughter and that his lips had curled back over his white teeth, I felt as though the telephone booth was too small and dark for me to stay in any longer.

  “Let me by,” I said. I stood and tried to move past McKay, but he stood in my way. I had done what he wanted, had done what he willed, but he would not move an inch. He stood with eyes dark as night skies and blocked my way. I tried to push past him, but he held one arm around my waist.

  “McKay,” I whispered.

  He continued to talk to Starry, but I no longer listened. I felt weak, and my forehead burned.

  Finally I heard McKay tell Starry to find a pencil with which to write something down. “I’ll wait,” he said into the receiver, which he then moved into the crook of his neck. He moved one hand gently across my face; his other arm was tight around my waist. I felt terribly weak; I imagined fainting.

  “Don’t fight me,” McKay said very softly. His arm held me tighter, and I felt weaker still. We stood very close together in the phone booth. There seemed nowhere to move. And while Starry hunted through the kitchen drawers of her apartment for a pencil and paper, I moved my arms around McKay’s neck and I rested my face close to his.

  ELEVEN

  REUNIONS

  1

  I was dressed in a counter apron of white. Through the plate-glass window the night was dark and full of ice. The radio had predicted snow, weather reports warned of treacherous driving, of accidents and hidden patches of ice. I drank a cup of sugarless coffee and watched the hands of the clock hanging above the doorway that led to the back room of the candy store.

  I counted seconds. I unbuttoned the two top buttons of my white silk blouse and then I rebuttoned it to the collar. I watched the movement of the veins in my wrists. I drank more coffee. Monty had left the store at nine-thirty without saying a word. There had not even been a look of reproach. He had simply and quietly left the store carrying the hundred seventy-five dollars and a bottle of gin. Traffic on the Avenue was slow and no customers had entered for almost an hour. A wind was rising; signs and neon shook with the air. I walked to the door. Outside Tony crouched motionless in the doorway. I opened the door very slightly; cold air rushed into the store.

  “Don’t do that,” Tony said. His voice broke. He was jittery. He lit a cigarette against the wind and stood, looking into the darkness of the Avenue.

  “It’s quiet,” I said.

  “Not for long,” said Tony.

  “You’re gonna freeze, standing out here.”

  “I do what I’m told,” he said.

  He had been ordered to watch for the Orphans and for the police, and he would do so, no matter what the thermometer said. I too followed orders, and so I closed the door and retreated behind the counter. I drank more coffee and watched the guard at the door warily eye the shadows of the Avenue.

  Finally, just before closing time, Tony opened the door, and Starry entered the store. I looked down at the floor, then faced her as she walked toward me. I did not know what lie she had used to escape from Flash’s guarding eyes, and I did not want to know. Starry was covered by an ancient raccoon coat whose shoulders padded her own. Her face was pale; the skin shone white with cold, but her eyes glowed bright and blue.

  She reached behind the counter for a pack of Tareytons. “Starry,” I said. I wasn’t sure she would speak to me. I didn’t even want to speak to myself.

  “Back on the Avenue,” she mused.

  “I talk too much,” I apologized. “I didn’t know he would involve you.”

  “Well,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “I always was one for a good fight. This particular fight, I don’t much care who wins. But what the hell, I’ll watch.”

  “So the Dolphin believes I’m betraying McKay?”

  “Why shouldn’t he?” Starry said. “If you were smart, you would.”

  I shook my head.

  “I got to say,” Starry continued, “that if McKay don’t make good tonight we’re all screwed. I don’t mind going against the Dolphin if McKay’s going to finish him off. But one fuck-up, and we got the Dolphin after us.”

  “I’m not worried,” I said. I bit my thumb. “McKay has got it all together.”

  “Maybe.”

  I poured some coffee for Starry. Then I said, “Murder. Will it be murder?”

  “Well, I pray to Christ it’ll be murder,” Starry said. “Then all this will be finished.”

  I couldn’t imagine the Avenue without war. The hour was ten. I turned off the current that spelled out Monty’s name in neon. Crosses a
nd double crosses. I held the silver charm between my fingers. The Dolphin believed Starry and I were setting up McKay; Starry for heroin and revenge, and I out of desire of Jose, the babbling peace officer. When McKay arrived to pick me up after work, the Dolphin would be waiting for him; murder would be waiting in the candy store.

  A green truck pulled up at the curb before Monty’s. “What the hell,” I said, “a Sears truck?” Perhaps Monty had decided to disrupt McKay’s plan, I thought, by reporting a malfunctioning freezer.

  “Unlock the outside door of the back room,” Starry ordered me. “Go on,” she said.

  I walked through the dust, newspapers, and empty liquor bottles that littered Monty’s haven. A mouse darted away from my step. I unlocked the back door. When I returned to the counter, Starry sat calmly drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, turning the pages of Glamour.

  “We’ll see action tonight,” she said. Minutes more passed, and the hairs on my arm stood as if charged with electricity, but Starry only sipped coffee and cream. I tapped my fingernails on the countertop in a wild beat. “Relax,” Starry said to me. I could not, but I bit my thumb and was silent. I was lighting a cigarette with a safety match when the door opened. The wind of the Avenue entered the candy store, and the match was blown out before my cigarette was lit.

  Tosh walked in first. He wore McKay’s black leather jacket. Then followed Martin the Marine, dressed in denims, his long loose arms shaking as if he were trying to dispel a cramp. Behind these two Orphans came the Dolphin. In the doorway stood the owner of the Avenue. Snow had begun to fall and the Dolphin’s painted hands brushed snowflakes off the tattoos that covered his arms and neck.

  “Ladies,” the Dolphin greeted us.

  For a moment I felt, as we greeted the Dolphin with nods, that we really were about to betray McKay. My skin crawled. Why had I agreed to become a part of the setup, to play the role of traitoress? Had there been a way to refuse him, to say no to McKay?

  The Dolphin tossed a plastic bag of white powder onto the counter before Starry. Her eyes became saucers. There were enough fixes within that half load so that Starry’s hands shook, and her tongue licked lightly at her bottom lip. She reached out.

  “Not yet,” the Dolphin warned.

  Her hand stopped in mid-air.

  “You got nearly two spoons there, honey, and when I get McKay,” the Dolphin said, “then you get the junk.” He smiled, then turned to me. I was afraid I would blurt out a warning. I did not want to speak. “And you,” the Dolphin said to me, “you get to be with your new lover-man.”

  I was silent. If I even attempted to say Jose’s name I might burst into hysterical laughter.

  “What time is McKay meeting you?” the Dolphin asked.

  “He’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” Starry answered.

  “The girl can’t speak for herself?”

  “What do you think?” Starry said. “You think this is easy for her, betraying McKay?”

  I looked admiringly at Starry; she could lie smooth as skin. The Dolphin shrugged. I poured coffee for the three Orphans. We waited in silence. The coffee remained untouched, grew cold. Outside the wind grew wilder.

  “Storm,” I said to Starry.

  “What’s she mean by that?” Tosh said nervously.

  “She means there’s bad weather,” said Starry.

  “What you mean, bad weather?” Tosh insisted. The President of the Orphans was searching for a code of treachery.

  “Shut up,” the Dolphin said softly.

  Tosh tapped his shoes on the tile floor. Each gust of wind on the Avenue sent his eyes to the doorway. Outside Tony crouched in the snow.

  “What’s that kid doing out there?” Tosh demanded.

  “Yeah, what about the kid?” the usually silent Marine asked.

  “Oh, Christ,” said Starry. “It’s only that punk corner kid. Ain’t he got a crush on you, honey?” she said to me.

  I nodded. If Tony had a crush on anyone, it was, most certainly, not on me.

  Starry laughed. “He follows her everywhere.”

  “I don’t like that kid out there,” Tosh said.

  “Shut up,” the Dolphin said.

  There was silence once more. I removed my white apron and began to count the change in the cash register as I did every night at closing. And then headlights shone through the plate glass. McKay’s Chevy stopped under a single blue street lamp. Around the headlights snow floated coldly in circles. We listened to the engine coughing to a stop, saw the headlights grow dim and then dark. The Dolphin remained motionless.

  A shadow fell across the moon-bright snow outside the doorway, then McKay opened the door of Monty’s, sounding the bells that hung above the molding.

  “Brother,” the Dolphin said softly.

  McKay and the Dolphin were face to face once more. I walked behind McKay and locked the door. Each was thinking I locked the other in.

  Tosh and the Marine edged forward. Tosh was holding a gun.

  “Ah,” McKay said. “The President of the Orphans needs the protection of a Saturday-night special.”

  Tosh stammered. “Who you saying needs protection?” he said finally.

  McKay dismissed Tosh with a wave of his hand. He turned his attention to the Dolphin. “My brother,” he said softly.

  Sitting very still, Starry slowly reached out her hand and deftly concealed the half load of heroin in her purse.

  “You, McKay,” the Dolphin said, “are a coward.”

  McKay threw back his head and began to laugh. Four of the Pack now stood unobserved at the rear of the store.

  “Behind you,” McKay said quickly.

  Tosh and the Marine jumped. The Saturday-night special fell loudly upon the tile. The Dolphin only turned his head very slightly so that the feathers of the peacock at his neck seemed to rise.

  “And I’ll say it again,” the Dolphin said. “McKay, you are a coward.”

  “Coward?” McKay said. He walked over to Tosh and ripped the jacket off him. With quick movements of his knife McKay stripped the word “Orphans” from the black leather. “Coward?” he said again, and cloaked himself in the jacket that had for so long been his.

  The Dolphin smiled at Starry and then at me. “Of course,” he said. “Who could trust you two whores?”

  Starry shrugged. I silently agreed with the Dolphin’s words.

  “First you shoot Kid Harris in the back,” the Dolphin said, and there was no reaction from the Pack; “and then you betray a brother. McKay.”

  There was silence.

  “Where’s your honor, man?” the Dolphin asked.

  The Dolphin’s reference was nothing to the rest of us. But as McKay heard the Dolphin’s words, he shuddered. As if fighting those words, McKay picked a stack of comics off the floor and threw them across the counter, spilling a row of sugar bowls.

  “We’ll call a peace,” Tosh stammered. “You know, we’ll call a truce and then have a council between us all.”

  McKay laughed. He pulled at the cuffs of the leather jacket, which was already molding itself to the shape of his body. “No,” he said. “No, we won’t. Because the Avenue now belongs to the Pack. I give the Avenue to them.”

  “The Avenue is mine,” the Dolphin said. “It always was; it always is.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tosh said to the Dolphin.

  “Shut up,” the Dolphin said.

  “I got a flash for you,” McKay said. “It ain’t yours no more.”

  “Don’t you know,” the Dolphin whispered with words meant only for McKay, “you are fighting for nothing.”

  McKay’s smile was ice. “Oh, I know,” he said. “Oh, how I know, brother.” McKay handed me a brown paper bag. “Open that,” he said to me. I felt the outlines of a bottle. It was indeed a small green bottle that I handed to McKay. The liquid inside moved like a small sea.

  “What the hell?” Tosh said. We had all of us expected the stiletto or the .22.

  Tosh and the Marine shifted th
eir weight from one foot to the other. The Pack was tense and waiting.

  “McKay,” the Dolphin said. He stood still as iron, and yet the paintings on his skin seemed to move. The butterfly shuddered and curled its wings around the Dolphin’s cold eye.

  McKay raised the green bottle as if in a toast. “For teaching me everything I know,” he said to the Dolphin. The bottle was raised in the air. The laughter that sounded from McKay’s throat was deep and seemed not to come from him at all. I did not think his laughter could be such a dark sound.

  “It’s acid,” someone said. “It’s lye.”

  I stood close enough to McKay to feel his breathing deepen. I knew, without touching him, that he was shaking. McKay moved his hand quick as light. The lye was in the air. Like dreamers, we in the candy store watched McKay; like dreamers, we listened to the Dolphin cry out. Then he clawed at his eyes. McKay winced and touched one hand to the left side of his own face and smiled. He signaled the Pack, and then there were shouts and the sound of knuckles and boots. In the dim fluorescent light, the Dolphin knelt before McKay on the tile floor. I stood by McKay and watched the Dolphin’s tattooed hands tear at his burning eyes.

  “McKay,” I heard Starry say. “My God, why didn’t you just shoot him through the head?”

  Tosh and the Marine lay motionless on the floor; arms had been broken, skin cut, shouts and protest had been beaten into silence. The Pack began to carry the two half-conscious Orphans into the stolen Sears truck; they would be driven to the Brooklyn marshlands where they would wake with the taste of blood in their mouths and the knowledge that the Avenue was lost.

  Starry sat on a counter stool. She raised her small thin legs so that the Dolphin would not touch her as he crawled blindly on the tile floor. He moaned and pawed gently at his eyes. He had been blinded by the lye, and now even the tattoos he had painted on his skin to disguise scars were disfigured.

  I held my arm around McKay, but McKay only stared. He held one hand to his face. I kissed him then, I kissed him for a long time. I wanted to kiss him for so long that when I moved my lips away from his I would again see an empty candy store. But when I moved away from him, Starry still sat at the counter, the Dolphin still lay upon the floor.