Declan's Demand

by M. C. Cerny

I’m running down the remaining steps of the church and practically the next block down the street. It’s Sunday mid-morning and foot traffic is light, but it doesn’t matter. I’m humiliated.

  I contemplate going back to my apartment or back to my father’s house, where I promised to cook Sunday dinner the way Mom used to do it. I’m so caught up in the painful memories, I don’t realize I’ve taken a bus back and I’m already down the first aisle of the grocery store, filling my basket with what I need.

  I’m futzing with a casserole pan when a knock on the door distracts me from what I’m doing. I set the timer and peek out the peephole. Dad is back, and with him three of his drunken buddies. They prop each other up and I wave them inside the house.

  “Syd, my baby girl.” He reeks of alcohol and failure.

  I push him off from hugging me. It’s hard enough trying to shower the stench off.

  “Can you bring him into the living room to sleep it off?”

  They help him inside and dump him on the faded couch cushions. My mother is rolling in her grave at the sight of her once-handsome husband wearing a cheap suit, stained tie, and rolled onto her floral couch with a sad lethargy. There’s nothing left between the two of us without her vibrant energy keeping us together.

  “Wish we could stay, Sydney, but the Mrs. has dinner waiting.”

  I nod to his sergeant. It’s the same old story: Dad is fun to hang around and even better when he’s buying drinks, but when the fun’s over I’m the lucky one they bring him back to. Otherwise he’d probably close the place down drinking and playing cards all night long.

  I stay long enough for Dad to sober up, eat some casserole, and roll himself into his chair in front of the television. We don’t speak about what happened and I don’t bring it up. Another day down, another hopeless situation where I’m nothing but a bystander to his destruction. He’ll be too hungover to cook for himself and he won’t have the cash for takeout. I doubt the stove is used unless I’m here, and I don’t dare leave Dad money because he will use it for the next card game.

  I clean up the kitchen and make him containers to take to work for the next few days. They match the untouched ones still in the fridge from the Sunday before and the Sunday before that one. In my pain and rage I pull them all out and toss them with a vengeance into the garbage can. He mumbles from the living room for me to keep it down in the kitchen. I bang things louder and throw the containers harder into the trash bin. By the time I’m done the fridge is as empty as my heart. My feelings remain as bruised as the overripe bananas on the counter. I throw those out too.

  “Dad, I’m leaving.” I peek into the living room and see him sound asleep. I cover him with the throw blanket knitted by Aunt Shirley in a chevron pattern to match the team colors of the Red Sox. My borrowed navy heels go into my purse and I slip on flats for the walk home. I guess going home to an empty apartment to cry is like making a sound in the forest. If only the trees are there, will anyone hear me? I lock up the house and say a little prayer that his bookie is as drunk as he is and doesn’t come knocking on the door.

  “Syd?”

  I slam the door back and brace my hand against my pounding heart.

  “Jesus, Sergeant Puthe.” My hands start to feel clammy with sweat at being startled and confused.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, but I don’t feel the apology behind his words.

  “Can I help you?” I have enough going on in my life without having this added to it.

  Sargent Puthe is someone my dad went to the academy with. His wife babysat me a few times growing up, when my mother died and Dad had to work overnight shifts. Luckily Puthe and my dad shared the same work rotation, so I was never alone with him. The way he is looking at me has me wishing I’d decided to stay inside with Dad, even though he’s blissfully passed out at the moment.

  “You know we all care about your dad.” He steps closer to me, getting in my personal space. He smells like heavy cologne and ham hoagies with far too much vinegar.

  My stomach continues to churn and I scan the street for any escape. Puthe’s partner Patrolman Farrow is sitting inside their squad car. He looks like he’s engrossed in the paper. I doubt he will hear me if I scream, and that worries me. Will they all turn a blind eye to what’s going on?

  I smile tightly and lick my dry lips. I regret that instantly when Puthe focuses on my face, presumably my lips. His hand moves and rests by my head and left shoulder near the doorjamb, blocking my escape down the front step. I release a breath being held in my chest and look him directly in the eye as I straighten my back, attempting to stand taller.

  “If you guys cared about my dad so much, you would encourage him to stop. In fact, you wouldn’t offer to bring him to the bar and you certainly wouldn’t spot him money for bets he has no right to make.”

  “Aw, Syd, come on. When you see the shit we do, you need to blow off steam.”

  “No. What my father needs is rehab, not a one-way ticket to an early funeral.”

  “Now that’s an exaggeration, kiddo.”

  My gaze follows his as he looks back at Farrow in the car. He turns back to lean in, and I scrunch myself up against the door as far as I can go, scratching my back against brick. I don’t have enough room to lift my knee and get him in the balls like I want to. My mind is telling my throat to scream, but the sound gets choked between my lips.

  “Why won’t you help him instead of hurting him?” I ask, attempting to appeal to his humanity.

  Puthe sneers and spittle hits my face. The urge to vomit makes me gag.

  “Maybe you need to think of him as a lost cause and start thinking about how you’re going to protect yourself when this all goes down.”

  “What?” I don’t know what Puthe is referring to, but it sounds like there is more than one crooked cop working this end of the city. I doubt my dad, for all his faults, would stand up for this, and maybe that’s what this is about. He’s already in over his head and a sinking ship. Keep Dad drunk enough that he can’t catch on to what’s going on right under his nose and obliterated senses.

  Dirty cops, Declan’s club, and the usual underbelly of crime seem to be at war, and somehow I step into the shitstorm of it all.

  “You better watch yourself, Sydney. Daddy won’t be around to protect you forever.”

  The threat is clear and I push Puthe back as a screech of tires sounds down the street. I recognize the big black SUV as the one Stevens and Rhodes use.

  “Go fuck yourself,” I scoff at Puthe, pushing against him with all my force and making him stumble back down a step. I hurry down past him.

  “Natas won’t help you either, Sydney,” Puthe yells as Farrow finally unearths his head from the paper, looking between Puthe and me.

  The SUV stops and I run past as Declan’s thugs getting out of the car—for what, I don’t know. For a change, I’m too quick for them to stop me. I’m not safe anywhere and I have no allies here. The one man who should have been protecting me is drunk and useless. I never thought of myself as an orphan, but here I am truly and completely alone. I push my pace racing down the block, dodging old neighbors and kids playing ball in the street, innocent of what is happening here. I hope they stay that way.

  I don’t stop until I reach my apartment and slam the door shut. Instinctively I grab for the folding chair at my cracked Formica table for two and throw it under the knob of the door, but I know that wouldn’t hold a good kick of the doorframe. I dash to locate my phone in my purse and scan for bus and train schedules, thinking maybe if I run away and leave, I’ll be able to escape. A smart person would flee, but I know I won’t. I couldn’t leave my dad here anymore than I could try finishing a puzzle with missing pieces.

  I toss my phone onto the full bed that takes up all the space in my room. I could try hiding under the covers, but I’m not that girl. I need a new plan. It’s not long before the sun sets and a solid knock on my door jars me from the daze I’ve let myself slip into.


  I see him in the peephole, so I open the door. “Hi, what are you doing here? Is Selma okay?” I step back to let him inside but he stops to put his arms up as he leans on the doorjamb.

  “You need to stop asking about my boss, Sydney.”

  “Y-your boss?” The guy who spent his time at the coffee shop flirting with me is hard and different standing there with his body blocking out the light from the hallway. My head tries to logically process what he’s saying and connect the dots.

  “Yeah, because now he’s asking about you. Says he wants to meet you, get a good look at the girl that’s got Natas acting like a fool. Let’s go.”

  “I-I don’t think—”

  “That’s the problem. You didn’t think.” He jerks my arm, pulling me down the hall. I don’t even get the chance to shut my apartment door, and he doesn’t care.

  Chapter Seven

  Declan

  There’s nothing worse than temptation when you’re trying to go legit. It can be as subtle as the penny you find on the ground—a little tarnished, maybe nicked on the edges. You pick it up and examine it; it’s not yours, but it’s there. It’s free. No one wants just a penny. No one will miss it, so you take it thinking it’s only this one time—and then one time repeats itself with the next bad penny and the next until you’ve collected more than you know what to do with. Business is an awful lot like that. At least my father’s business had been. A little here, a little there until you had to launder it all to make it shiny new and untraceable. Dad left me with a pile of shit pennies to clean up somewhere in the millions, and even if I wanted to give it back I couldn’t without incriminating everyone in the outfit, and that’s not how we work here. I’m trying to build the Mob 2.0, but if I’m not careful the sins of the father and my own demons will drag this whole thing down.

  When my phone rings, I pick it up knowing the voice on the other end is a bad penny—a loose tie I should have taken care of but didn’t when I had the chance. What did Sydney call me? Ah yes, merciful. How wrong she is about me. I’m exactly like my father. I’m a bad apple not far from the tree, picking up bad pennies like Sydney and LeHavre along the way.

  The voice on the line laughs. “Did you get my present?”

  I sigh. “You know it’s not my birthday, Andre.”

  “I know, but we used to share everything.” He’s laughing out loud now, an obnoxious sound that makes the phone vibrate, and I hold it away from my ear, grimacing.

  “I’m not interested in sharing.” I hang up the phone.

  He’s implying women. Obviously I had my wild days. I still do, but I haven’t shared a woman in a decade. Knowing Andre LeHavre’s peculiarities made sharing impossible.

  LeHavre is a complication I don’t need, and one of the many things I’m cleaning up from the days my father let his boys run around like lawless thugs. Last thing I need is the FBI—or worse, another street war to rival the one my dad created in the seventies. And to think I went to college and studied business for this bullshit. So many other ways I could have used that business degree from Dartmouth.

  Now I have the luxury of sitting on the stone steps watching a limp Chinese carpet wiggle in the rain. Heavy droplets bounce off the wool of my dark suit, adding misery to my mood. With my elbows on my knees and my hands folded under my chin, I contemplate my next move. I’ve been holding in a deep breath until now, wondering what the fuck I’m going to do with said carpet.

  It shouldn’t be here.

  She shouldn’t be here—if my suspicions are correct—because anything that crosses the threshold of this house becomes mine and my sole responsibility. That rule and that one alone is the only holdover from my father’s era as Boss. Consider it an extension of protection once I’ve brought something into my domain. There’s no going back from here.

  The carpet is easily six feet in length and a mottled red-and-navy pattern through the reverse side of the weave. It’s not a cheap carpet. Damn thing probably cost twenty grand directly from China. Unfortunately I recognize it and the study from which it came.

  I remember kneeling on the carpet shoulder to shoulder, my joints aching in fear with my best friend as we took an oath to our fathers—and again when his shot mine.

  LeHavre is fucking with me.

  The asshole has been my rival since grammar school. We competed in everything—booze, school, girls—and now that we’ve both taken over our father’s rival businesses, the rivalry continues. This gesture, this trussed-up carpet, is a complication I tried to rid myself of several times already.

  Sydney Meadows simply will not go away. The girl is unable to take a strong hint. She has this steely and admirable if not pain-in-the-ass resolve. Maybe next time I need to work out a deal, I’ll call her to negotiate—because I’m wrapped around her little finger by her wet pussy, blue eyes, and sweet lips.

  Who am I kidding? She’s been mine since the moment she walked into my club and the second I finger-fucked her into subspace before cruelly kicking her to the curb unwanted. In hindsight, I might have taken back the kicking her out part and just fucked her to my devilish heart’s content. She’s been in my system like a virus. This rolled-up carpet is a Trojan horse and I know I’m going to regret ignoring my gut instinct. LeHavre doesn’t do anything without a cross purpose, and the fucker is sicker than I am, with a certifiable diagnosis.

  “You can’t take it back?” Turning to my second in command, the question falls on deaf ears and rain picks up its tempo on the concrete. I exhale the burdens sitting heavy on my shoulders, looking at Neil, who shrugs. The water from an overflowing puddle rushes into the end of the carpet. I can’t imagine it’s at all comfortable, especially if she’s conscious inside there. If the water collects much more, she’ll drown inside the damn thing or have hypothermia.

  Neil kneels down into the puddle, pushing at the rolled-up body. It doesn’t move and it doesn’t make a sound.

  “It was a gift. The boys found it at the warehouse gate and brought it up here thinking you’d want to check it out before tossing it back.”

  My curiosity gets the better of me. Does she hate me for what I did? Does she hate that I rejected her? I guess there is only one way to find out.

  If I give back whatever is inside, I’m giving her a death sentence. Rejected gifts go to the broken toy pile, no longer worthy of consideration. LeHavre doesn’t play well with others. Whatever this little present did to end up on my doorstep in a final act of mercy, its fate now rests on me.

  “All right, let’s unwrap this thing and get it over with.” I pull the gun out from my holster and cock it. I don’t need any more strays begging for leniency they don’t deserve, but I also don’t need surprises or loose ends.

  “Seriously, Dec?” Neil motions to my gun and I shrug.

  “Hurry up,” I tell him.

  Neil kicks the ends of the carpet hard, and it rolls out several feet with the inner tube getting thinner and thinner. It stops with a thwap-thwap-thwap sound in the rain, revealing Sydney.

  The cop’s daughter.

  His very naked and unconscious daughter.

  “Shit.” Neil leans down, checking Sidney’s pulse.

  Whatever happened between us, she didn’t deserve this. It’s one thing for me to strip away her dignity in a crude lesson, but for Andre to do this infuriates me. He has no right to her, even if he holds her father’s debts.

  “Is she…?” If it’s bad, it’s my fault, but really how much worse could it be?

  “Steady pulse, could be drugs.” He continues brushing hair off her neck, exposing more delicate skin marred with bruises. The girl needed more vitamins or a bloody steak the way she bruised so easily.

  “Could be?”

  “A doctor would have to confirm it.”

  I nod. “All right, we’ll call one.” I haven’t moved from the stoop. Her stillness keeps me frozen in place as the rain begins to fall harder, slapping her bare skin.

  “Jesus Christ, Dec.”

  Neil g
ives her body a cursory check, running his hands down her limbs, and I’m about to jump down and tackle my brother to stop him from touching her. The only thing that stops me from giving into the overprotective wave of irrational emotions is that I can’t be seen giving in to the impulse. I don’t know who is watching us, and I will not have some slip of a girl suddenly becoming my Achilles’ heel, no matter how I feel about her.

  “Her skin is cold to the touch.”

  I grumble, “No shit Sherlock.”

  Her pale, luminescent, wet, and nearly blue skin begs to be rubbed pink with warmth. A war within me rages. I want to spank her, caress her. Most of all I want her blue eyes to look at me with defiance, to give me a reason to keep going.

  Neil shakes his head and continues his unnecessary appraisal of Sydney.

  “Stop touching her, asshole.”

  Stupidly he smiles at me, as if he knows the reaction his movements will cause within me. My patience is thin and my jaw hurts from grinding teeth on teeth.

  “And do what? Bring her inside? Leave her? It’s your call, boss.” I don’t like the way he addresses me, but there isn’t time right now to take him to task for it.

  “Don’t be obtuse. Bring her inside before the neighbors see.” I look around and watch a curtain shuffle. Mrs. O’Malley is a nosey one, but old school. She won’t call the police. I know this because she used to babysit my father, and later me and my siblings before our criminal enterprises. That woman is old enough to be my elderly grandmother. I heard stories that she slapped his hand a time or two with her wooden spoon for being a little devil. Too bad none of that encouraged him to be a better adult. She benefited more than most being on Damien Natas’ good side, and often joined our family dinners once a week. I have a good idea that she’ll be over with stew and fresh bread, conniving us to get her fill of gossip, before the evening is out.

  Fuck me.

  I let Neil carry Sydney inside. He’s walking up the steps to the second floor bedrooms when the front doorbell rings again. Groaning, I can’t take much more of this bullshit today.