by JJ Knight
Tonight is Thursday, so Parker will get to talk to Lily. I plan to let her do the dialing and the talking. I won’t even get on the line. I’ve gone so far as to pick up one of those cheap cell phones you buy minutes for. That way the call can’t be traced to me if anyone is watching Parker. I’ll text him on it first so he’ll know it’s her.
I avoid the MMA sites. I don’t want to know what he’s doing. But I ran into Amanda’s father, Barry, at the grocery store yesterday and he asked if Parker had set a date for the big challenge match for the league.
I told him I didn’t know. But his question probably means Parker’s career is still going forward. If he wins, he’ll be fighting all the time, and it will be harder not to notice him.
But I will try.
Lily is so excited at dinner that she barely eats. Every few minutes, she says, “Can I call him now?”
I’ve made up excuses the other days as to why she shouldn’t call. He’s working. Or on an airplane. It hasn’t been easy.
“Take your plate to the sink,” Delores tells Lily. When she’s gone, she says to me, “Are you ever going to explain what happened in Vegas?”
I shake my head. “It just didn’t work out. That’s all.”
Delores sets her napkin on the table. “Well, I won’t say I’m not relieved. But you sure are moping about.”
Lily comes back. “Now? Now? Is it time yet?”
I push back from the table. “Yes, sugar pea. Let me get your special Lily phone.”
I showed her the phone yesterday when she threatened to have a meltdown over calling Parker. The burner phone is pink, which got her excited.
I send a quick text to Parker from it, asking if he’s ready to talk to Lily. I explain that this is her number.
He replies that yes, he’s home.
I hand the phone to Lily. “He’s ready,” I say.
But when she takes the phone in her hand, she frowns. “There’s no video button,” she says.
Crap, I didn’t think of that. “Just talk to him today, okay?”
Her face crumples into disappointment, but she says, “Okay.”
“I made a daddy button,” I say. “Just push the tic-tac-toe.” I show her the pound sign. “And then number one.”
She pushes the combination. “It’s ringing!” she says.
After a second, she says, “HI, DADDY!” like she needs to shout it all the way to LA.
I put my finger to my lips and then I walk away. I don’t even want to hear the conversation. Everything related to Parker is painful right now. It’s all too raw and fresh.
My room is quiet and dark. I sit on the bed to wait out the end of the call. Lily’s voice still echoes through the house, but it’s too far to make out the words.
My makeup vanity glows white in the low light from the hall. I remember turning around in front of it with the sponge to take the clown paint off Parker. When he put his hands on me. When everything started again.
My body flushes with the memory of him. It’s not the old feelings anymore, the ones from when we were young. But all the last weeks. In this bed that weekend he stayed over. In his hotel. In the window in Vegas. In the shower, our last time.
Just acknowledging that, the finality of it, threatens to tear me in two. I bite hard on my lip, refusing to cry. I can’t help what happened, that people hate him, that he’s involved with a dangerous crowd. It’s not just me I have to think about. It’s Lily.
I hug myself, wrapping my arms across my belly. For the first time I think about another baby, a brother or sister for Lily. She’s already four. There will be such a gap soon that it won’t even be like having a sibling. I could have had that. If Parker and I had gotten married in Vegas, I could have had another baby whenever I wanted.
But I can’t. Not with everything that is happening.
Grief at the situation courses through me. It isn’t fair. Not right. I should never have gotten mixed up with him when we were young. None of this would have happened.
But then I wouldn’t have Lily either.
Her small silhouette appears in the doorway. “Daddy wants to talk to you,” she says.
“Tell him I don’t feel well,” I say and lie down on the bed. “I can’t do it right now.”
Lily comes into the room. “Mama is sick,” she says into the phone.
She’s right beside me now, and I can hear Parker’s low voice in the receiver. He’s so close. Close enough that I could just take the phone and say, “Come back. I didn’t mean it.”
But I don’t. I won’t. I can’t.
“Yes, Daddy,” Lily says. “Come to Newwork, okay? Bye.”
She holds the phone in front of her face, making it glow. “I don’t know how to turn it off,” she says.
“You always know those things,” I say.
“Is it the green one?”
“Give it to me,” I say.
I take the phone. The call is still ticking away the seconds. Parker’s still on the other end, waiting for her to hang up. I could talk to him. It would be so easy. Just lift the phone and speak. “It’s this button,” I say and show her the red one that says “Talk.”
And I punch it.
The seconds stop rolling and the screen fades to black.
Lily crawls up on the bed beside me. “I’m sorry you hurt,” she says. She curls up on my chest. “You want me to sing you a song?”
“That would be nice,” I say.
And she does. “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I am soothed. I am keeping her safe. And that’s what I will always have to do.
Chapter 7: Parker
The girls don’t think I’m listening from the cage.
Sammy and Cam sit together on the bench, watching me spar with Jo’s brother, Hudson. Hudson has a long way to go in training, and he’s bent over, trying to breathe. I’ve accidentally knocked the wind out of him. Hudson needs to toughen up.
The girls keep talking. They must think I can’t hear up here.
“I think he’s better,” Cam says to Sammy, her voice low. “He’s not hitting the bags like he wants to kill them anymore.” She’s talking about me.
“Agreed. He lost total focus there for a while,” Sammy says.
I don’t look at them. And they’re wrong. I’m not any better. I’m just getting good at not showing it. It’s been two weeks since Vegas. Two phone calls to Lily where Maddie refuses to talk to me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be better.
Cam has taken to showing up whenever I’m at the gym. I don’t know how to put her off. Everybody seems to think we’ll get together, but I don’t see it. I’ll probably be hung up on Maddie for the rest of my damn life.
“You all right?” I ask Hudson.
He stands up. “Yeah.”
“Let’s just do targets.” I head over to the wall of the cage and pick up a pair of punching pads.
Sammy and Cam go quiet when I get close. Cam smiles up at me, hopeful. I decide it’s best to not even acknowledge her.
Nobody can really help the situation now. Lani has disappeared completely. Colt asked me again if I wanted Jax to step in, but I said no. She’ll crawl out of the woodwork like the rat she is, eventually. I can’t believe how she’s changed since we were kids. Maybe I just never saw it.
I have no idea if she or anyone else is still threatening Maddie. Maddie won’t talk. It’s just hopeless. All of it.
I steady the pads so Hudson can aim. He’s quick even though he hasn’t filled out. Once he’s got some heft to him, he’ll be a real force to deal with. Already his punches on the pads make my arms burn as I brace against the blows.
I circle the cage, moving the pads, forcing Hudson to follow and recalibrate. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jo come into the room and make Sammy and Cam head to the kettlebells.
We keep going until Hudson is too winded to get a clean shot. “Take five,” I tell him. “Get some water.”
When I come down, Jo is leaning against the platform to the cage. “What
are you doing for Thanksgiving?” she asks. “Do you get to see your daughter?”
“No. I don’t have holidays in my agreement,” I tell her.
“You want Colt’s lawyer to take a look at it?”
I yank at the Velcro of the pads and toss them in a storage box. “Might eventually.”
“You’re still hoping Maddie will come around?”
“Yeah.” I pick up a towel and dry my hands, damp from holding the pads.
“But you’re spending the holiday with somebody, right?” she persists. “You have family?”
“Yeah. My parents live in LA.”
She relaxes. “Good. I just wanted to make sure.”
“I’m cool. You guys sticking around?”
Jo glances over at Hudson, who is running a towel over his head. “I think we’re going to Hawaii to see my mom.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say.
“Family is important,” she says. “I’m glad you’ll get to be with yours.”
The clang of a kettlebell hitting the concrete floor draws our attention to the back. One of the new girls has tumbled with a weight that’s too heavy for her. Jo hurries over to check on her.
But Jo’s got me thinking. Maddie is probably planning to stay in New York for the holiday. But maybe I could get her to come to LA. Her mother’s here, although that’s probably not a big draw for her. They never got along.
But then there’s her dad. I wonder where he is. Still wandering the streets? At a shelter? If he was around, would she come see him?
And I decide right then and there, I have to find him.
* * *
The afternoon is bitterly cold for LA. I bundle up in a jacket and gloves to head out and search for Maddie’s father. I called all the nearby shelters, but most don’t allow people in until after five and nobody would tell me if he’s been there before. I figure I’ll just show up at them later and look around.
Until then I will go to some of the likely spots he’d hang out at, looking for booze. I wonder briefly if Jax’s crew keeps tabs on homeless people too. Maybe I’m being foolish for not asking for their help. But they didn’t solve my problem in Vegas.
The bar Maddie and I used to go to when she was underage has changed hands twice since then. I don’t bother to walk through, but go around to the back from the outside.
There’s a man in a ragged coat with a hood pulled up over his head. I’m hoping the world is finally going my way as I approach him.
“Tony?” I ask. “Tony Greco, is that you?”
The figure turns to me, exposing a red grizzled face surrounded with fluff from the old coat. “Who wants to know?” the man growls.
I can see it’s not Maddie’s dad.
“I do. Do you know him?”
“Ain’t seen him in a few weeks,” he says.
“Where does he hang out?”
The man turns back to the dumpster and lifts a bottle to examine it. “Dead soldier,” he says and chucks it back in.
I see why this bar is a popular spot for vagrants. The dumpster has a low opening where you can access the trash instead of having to crawl up on it. The man digs out another bottle.
I’m trying not to get impatient. I know if he finds something with booze in it, he’ll be happier. Or money will do it. I pull out my wallet.
This gets his attention.
I remove a twenty. “You got any idea where I could find Tony?” I hold the folded bill between my fingers.
The man licks his lips. “He got in a turf war with Big John. He has to stay south of Cesar Chavez now.”
“Where does he sleep?”
“Cemetery, mostly.”
“Evergreen?”
The man nods.
“He doesn’t go to the shelters when it’s cold like this?”
“He likes sleeping with the dead.”
I hand him the twenty. He opens the bill wide and stares at it like it’s a treasure map.
There’s plenty of bars near the cemetery. I’ll poke around those and think about whether or not I want to try wandering through the tombstones.
* * *
It’s fully dark by the time I give up on looking behind bars. I’ve already encountered two gangs of boys looking for a fight. The first I walked away from. The second had a boy who recognized me from the Vegas match. He wanted to hang out. It took ten minutes to shake them off.
I approach the walls of Evergreen Cemetery with trepidation. The front gates are closed by now, but along Cesar Chavez, a low chain-link fence is easy enough to scale. Probably there are gaps that people like Tony know about where they can squeeze in and find their spots inside. I wonder where they sleep. Inside the mausoleums with their concrete crypts? I shudder.
I’m not afraid of ghosts or dead people. Getting arrested for trespassing, though, that could be a pain in the neck with the match coming up. The league frowns on bad press, although they have plenty of it. My fight with Viper is all set up now, just two weeks away. I can’t jeopardize it with a high-profile arrest.
I don’t go in right away. I’m still hoping to find someone else who knows Tony. No doubt anybody inside the gates is bedded down and well hidden.
At the corner, there’s an Italian restaurant known for its meatballs. I have a hunch that Tony would find that place comforting. Maddie’s mother was always cooking her grandmother’s Italian food. I think about heading inside, but then I circle around to the back of the building.
A man in a white apron is sitting on the back step, smoking a cigarette. He tenses up as I approach, but I hold up my hands. “I’m just looking for somebody,” I say.
He’s got glossy black hair and olive skin. He squints up at me. “Somebody who works here?” His accent is definitely Italian. Might be a family business.
“Nah. Homeless guy. Probably hangs out by the dumpster.”
The guy tosses his cigarette on the ground. “Ain’t nothing good in there. But we feed a couple guys.” He thumbs at a metal table and a pair of chairs rusting by the wall. “Pops knows a couple of them.”
“Any of them Tony Greco?”
“I don’t know any of their names.”
“He’s not very tall.” I try to think of anything about Maddie’s dad that would stand out. “Bushy eyebrows. Real sad eyes.”
The guy shrugs. “That’s about all of ’em,” he says.
“This one sleeps at the cemetery,” I say.
“Huh,” he says. “One of ’em does mention that. Sleeps with the angels, he tells me most every time he comes by.” He opens the back door. “Yo, Pops, you seen that dude who sleeps at Evergreen?”
An older version of the man comes up to the door, drying his hands on a dish towel. “You mean Tones?”
“Tony?” I ask, feeling hopeful. “Tony Greco?”
“Maybe,” he says.
“Has he been around?” I ask. “I’m looking for him for his daughter. She wants to find him.”
“He mentioned a daughter,” the man says. “But he mighta died.”
“What?” I take a step forward. “Another guy just saw him a couple weeks ago.”
“Tones, he comes ’round every single Tuesday for potato gnocchi,” the man says. “Like clockwork. That man loves his gnocchi. I always save him a plate.”
It’s Wednesday.
“So he didn’t come yesterday?” I ask.
“Nope,” the man says. He looks over at his son. “Check on the ravioli, will you?” The young man heads inside. “Not last week either.”
“Why would that mean he died?”
“That man loves his gnocchi,” he says. “But he was looking pretty poorly.”
“Where would he go if he was sick?”
The man shrugs. “I guess White’s Hospital. It’s close. But if an ambulance comes, no telling.”
“Can I come by next Tuesday, see if he comes?” I ask.
“Sure. ’Round about five, I’d say. Before dark.”
“Thank you,” I tell him. “We’r
e hoping to find him before Thanksgiving.”
“That’s comin’ fast,” he says. “Maybe he’ll be here Tuesday, just in time.” But he looks doubtful.
The man goes back inside. I turn around. I’m not sure which way to take this. Go to the cemetery? Or call the hospitals?
A man bundled in a blanket shuffles toward the table. I watch him sit painfully in the chair. Damn. So much suffering in the world. I figure I might as well talk to him before I head out. I sit opposite him. “You know Tony Greco?” I ask.
“Who’s asking?” he says, his voice a growl.
Funny they all ask the same thing. I wonder what bullshit they have to go through day to day with people hassling them.
“My wife is his daughter,” I say. “She wants to find him for Thanksgiving.”
“Huh.” The guy huddles down in his blanket. “I think he’s probably dead.”
My throat gets tight. “You know what happened?”
“Just heard about it. He keeled over in front of Luceros.”
“The bakery?”
“Yeah. They would give him bread. They give us all bread.”
“Did they call an ambulance?”
“Lucero himself drove him somewhere.”
I jump from the chair. “Thank you.” I’m about to run off, then I remember who I’m talking to. I pull out another twenty and lay it on the table. “Take care of yourself.”
A hand snakes out from the blanket. His arm is bare. Shit, he doesn’t even have a coat. I strip mine off. “Here,” I say. “I got others.”
He lets the blanket fall and takes the coat. He’s just got a T-shirt on beneath.
I walk away, not even feeling the cold. Damn this shit world. Not a thing I could really do about it. Not enough shelters could be built to help everybody. Guys like that probably don’t trust shelters anyway. Sounds like Tony doesn’t.
I take off in a light jog toward Luceros. It might already be locked up by now. I feel close to finding out what happened, and I hope for Maddie’s sake that Tony hasn’t died on the streets.
