Rule

by CD Reiss

  “Bullshit. She wasn’t threatened before. There was no Bortolusi union. You know how people act when they’re cornered.”

  “I am not taking you to a den of snakes!” he shouted. “End. No more. You brought this on yourself by insisting you can do things you shouldn’t. Otto’s gonna knock first. If anyone else comes in here, shoot them in the fucking head. If I’m not back in two hours”—he dropped a phone and gun on the counter—“call somebody.”

  “I’m calling someone as soon as you turn your back,” I spit out.

  “That’s enough of a head start.” He strode out.

  Zo gave me an apologetic look before following. I yanked the drawer hard. It didn’t budge. By the time I figured out how to get it out of the counter, Antonio would be long gone into the den of snakes.

  twenty.

  antonio

  hen she’d lain on top of me and fallen asleep, I stayed awake for hours. Her chest rising and falling, her legs on mine, her breath on my neck, the blossom smell of her—I was trapped inside her. In the lack of movement, the absence of logistical puzzles, the only thing I heard in my head was:

  A quarter million.

  The amount was serious, and it floated over her head and under her feet, weightless because of her ignorance of it. She knew she was in danger but didn’t seem to understand what the price tag meant. The Carlonis were not messing around. Word would get out in less than a week, less than another day even, and she would be hunted worse than me, because she was a woman, and vulnerable, and if I was out of the picture, they’d get her. As ferocious as she was, they’d get her. I’d be too dead to stand in front of it.

  My first thought was to attack. Go into the Carloni compound guns blazing. But the odds of winning that battle were small, and Theresa would be left alone. She had a vengeful heart and would get herself killed trying to get to the Carlonis.

  She was the priority. Her long life. Her health. The price on my head was manageable. As soon as I’d started making money in Los Angeles, I became more valuable dead than alive, as my business would transfer to my murderer.

  I had to extricate her.

  Meet Donna Maria in a neutral place. Tell her about Valentina and trade my territory for Theresa’s safety. I would be free, Theresa would be safe, and maybe I’d be out of the business. Maybe if they let me live, I’d walk. More likely, she’d make up a debt. A term to serve as her consigliere again. Which I’d do, if I could just have Theresa.

  It seemed so easy. But with the list of things that could go wrong as long as a man’s arm, I had to leave Theresa behind. By promise or force, she couldn’t join me.

  When it became force, I decided I was at peace with it. I’d make it up to her. I walked out of Margie Drazen’s safe house relieved.

  “I need to get Donna on the phone,” I said to Zo. “I need a neutral place.”

  “Got it, boss.” He plucked his phone out of his pocket.

  “We’re ending this without blood.”

  I heard the gunshots as I was about to get into the car. If I’d just gotten in and driven away, she would have been safer, but she was fast. She came out of the door with a wrecked kitchen drawer in her left hand and a smoking gun in her right. She put the gun in her waistband and yanked the handle off the drawer front. It clanked to the ground, and she looked at me expectantly.

  “We should take the 210 to the 5. Should be clear at this hour. You can unlock the bracelets on the way.” She got into the backseat.

  Zo stood by the driver’s door with his phone in his hand. “What should I do?”

  I was supposed to know. I was supposed to control my woman. I was supposed to be the boss and bark orders that were obeyed. “Don’t call yet. Take us to Zia’s and have the crew meet us there.”

  I’d have the whole car ride to think about how to do this as painlessly as possible.

  twenty-one.

  theresa

  had a sense that something would happen, some idea that the culmination of my life was upon me. Anticipation overtook me on the way to San Pedro. My heart fluttered, and my skin felt the touch of my clothing. My fingertips felt kindled, as if I could touch inanimate objects and set them afire.

  I looked at them to make sure they weren’t reddened from heat or crackling with the future, but I found that though they looked the same, my way of seeing them had changed. They were no longer just fingers but kinetic devices designed for a fate they leapt to fulfill. They wanted to quicken finally. They wanted to lock into the network of life and vitality they’d only gingerly caressed. Use me, they said. Take me. Make me an instrument for your heart’s purpose.

  I was distant from the city around me. The lights of South Central, Compton, Torrance were a projected screen showing a fairy-tale reality of hell-on-earth that I was distanced from, yet intrinsically a part of. There was no middle ground, only the peaceful coexistence of extremes.

  I was here. And not here. I was the breakneck pace between who I was and who I was to become. I couldn’t breathe from the force of my own velocity.

  Even when we stopped in front of Zia’s, I was a vibrating buzz of connection and purpose, still in my seat, moving toward a new version of myself. Antonio opened the door for me, and I stepped out of the car as a new thing. An as-yet-unseen and undefined creature.

  I felt, as I stepped into the parking lot, that the ground was fitted to me and carried me. When he held my hand, I gathered the power of all the stars in heaven and let him pull me to the earth.

  Nothing could touch me. Not death, not hurt, not a fear that I was incomplete. Only he could get near me.

  I was a wave form of potential, vibrating upward to suffocation and dissolution. I held his hand as tightly as I dared, because I didn’t want him to catch fire.

  twenty-two.

  antonio

  rode in the front because I didn’t want to be next to her. I didn’t want to touch her or hear her. Not even her breathing. I didn’t want to catch her olive blossom scent. I wanted to be as far away from her as possible. Mostly because I wanted to fuck her and protect her, and she wanted neither.

  Well, no. The fucking she wanted but refused. The protection, she needed.

  I got angrier and angrier in that front seat. Up. Down. Sideways. I couldn’t move in any direction because of her. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t attack. She was being impossible and unrealistic. A fool of a woman. Chaos. She was fucking chaos. From the minute she walked into my life with toilet paper on her shoe, she had been a wrecking ball.

  I got out of the car intending to tell her to stop this. I needed to say it in a way she could hear. I needed to be more clear. I opened her door, thinking I’d get in and explain it in the backseat, maybe get my fingers inside her to make the point.

  Yes. That was the way.

  But when I opened the door, I knew I had to rethink my strategy. Beautiful and strong. The weight of life on her. Every muscle meant for survival. An instrument of death and life. She was a bird who’d molted into a deadly carrion, sleek and lethal. How then? Had it happened when she chose to shoot a kitchen apart rather than be left behind? Was it her commitment to me even though she thought I was unavailable? Was that it? What had changed except for the way she fit into the world?

  The puzzle of the air and space around her had always clicked to meet the way she walked and spoke. But when she got out of that car, the world changed to meet her on her terms.

  I got in front of her, stopping her. She would be impossible to control. She scared the hell out of me. Since the day I met her, she had been frightening, and it had only gotten worse. My life was spinning out of control, and it was her, all her.

  She stood on the curb, chin up, with a face that asked what could possibly be the problem? What on earth was unusual about her demanding a part in a negotiation with a Sicilian family to get the quarter million death-price off her head?

  “What’s here?” she asked. “This isn’t some mob boss’s compound.”

  “It’s a restau
rant. I’m meeting with my crew.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m handcuffing you to something you can’t shoot, and I’m taking care of business.”

  “Handcuff me to you.”

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” I said.

  “Feeling’s mutual.”

  I felt the shake of rage. I had to hold it back. What did I want to say? I wanted to explain the rules and expectations, because if she was going to be by my side, we had to be of one mind. Yet that was crazy. It wasn’t allowed, and it could get her hurt.

  “You insist on this course. Repeatedly,” I said. “We should be in bed right now. My only problem should be how many times I can get my dick in you in a day.”

  “Grieve for that dream,” she said. “Because it died.”

  twenty-three.

  theresa

  nce I said the words, the juices started twirling in my own heart. Our dream of a quiet little life was dead. Deal with it.

  Behind me, Zo took off to get the crew, and it was just Antonio and me on the sidewalk.

  The little chained sign in the glass door of Zia’s was flipped to the CLOSED side even though, behind the print curtains, the lights were on. I tried to walk toward it, but Antonio blocked the way.

  “Listen. They won’t want to accept you. Do I need to tell you the reasons?” he asked.

  “I’m a woman, and I’m from the right side of the tracks. That cover it?”

  “Yes. But I ask only that you hide what you’re made of for now. Until you need to show it.”

  “What am I made of?” I asked.

  Antonio put his thumb and forefinger on either side of my chin. It would be hard to remember he was married. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “Bene,” I said.

  Antonio backed up and let me in, then followed. The door slapped closed behind us.

  The restaurant smelled of bleach and tomato sauce, and it sounded like the buzz of fluorescent lights and tension. The lunch crowd hadn’t shown up yet; neither had the waitstaff. Only the smell of food drifting from the kitchen gave any indication that the captain was at the helm.

  Antonio reached back and drew the bolt on the door. As if summoned by the clack, Zia came to the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands with a white towel. The space between her and Antonio was tight with strain.

  “Tonio,” she said.

  “Aunt.”

  Zia’s chin wrinkled then straightened. “Mea culpa. Per Tina. Per Antonin.” Her voice cracked, and fat tears dropped down her cheek. “Per tutti.”

  Antonio didn’t move. No one moved. Forgiveness hung in the air, refusing to touch down. People couldn’t die from tension in a room, but if they could, we would have at least passed out from the toxins.

  “I’m sorry too,” Antonio said finally, in a tone that had no room for apology, only an accusation.

  Zia snapped her towel and draped it over her arm. “Tina è per strada. Stu venedo qui.” She sniffed once then spun on her heel and walked back into the kitchen.

  Antonio looked stricken.

  “What did she say?”

  “I’ll take you home,” he replied, taking my arm.

  “Wait, where’s home?” I shook him off. “And in what car? What did she say?”

  He was still trying to guide me out. “Let’s just go.”

  “Stop it!” I folded my arms. “What did she say?”

  He looked at the ceiling as if asking God for help, just for once, a little help.

  Outside, a car door slammed. Zia’s was on a short block, adjacent to a real estate agent and an optometrist, so there wasn’t much street traffic. The car door got Antonio’s attention.

  “Let’s go out the back,” he said.

  “What’s happening? You’re scaring me.” I followed his gaze outside. Through the curtains, I saw a man in a suit open the passenger door of a new Honda and a woman got out.

  Not just a woman. Valentina Spinelli.

  And the man in the suit turned around. Daniel.

  Antonio took my hand and pulled me toward the kitchen. I yanked him back.

  “Do you see?” he said, indicating the two people coming toward the door as if the situation were obvious. To him, they were a speeding tornado and we had to seek shelter.

  “You’re as white as a sheet,” I said, tugging him back. “You’re not afraid of death or torture… but your wife and me in the same room terrifies you. What do you think is going to happen? We’re all adults.” I brushed by him and took three big steps toward the front door.

  “You can’t be here,” he said.

  “You have to deal with this. It won’t go away by denial.”

  He went rigid and lowered his head so he looked me in the eye. “We. Are. Leaving.”

  My eyes locked on his. I reached behind me, stretching, and turned the bolt on the front door. Clack.

  A whoosh of cool air blew in as Daniel opened the door, and there was Valentina, in the same room as me. Breathing the same air. Haughty and righteous, wearing her skin as if it were a suit of armor, straight where I curved, long where I was short, she clutched a little bag in front of her and tilted her chin up.

  “Antonio,” she said.

  “Valentina,” he said.

  “You won’t call me Tina, all of a sudden?”

  “Come stai, Tina?”

  “I learned a little English.”

  “Fantastico. Mi dai il cappotto?”

  “Don’t make your girlfriend feel left out,” she crooned.

  “Can I take your coat?”

  “I have it,” Daniel interjected.

  Was I wrong to find the whole thing delicious? All of the emotional upheaval of the last few days had inured me to the threat of his wife. I’d already surrendered to her. I’d already accepted what her existence meant. I was already crushed under the weight of it. Her presence in the same room as us couldn’t hurt me.

  Daniel slipped off her coat, and I felt not an ounce of jealousy for that either. I doubted Valentina Spinelli would let Daniel get one over on her.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Valentina asked, one eyebrow raised. She didn’t move but comported herself perfectly. She reminded me of me.

  So that was it.

  That had been the initial attraction. She and I couldn’t have been more physically opposite, but Antonio had seen both deeper than that and less deep. Because her comportment wasn’t courteous. She attacked by staying still and asking a question designed to make her husband feel ill-mannered and to draw attention to discomfort.

  I didn’t like it, but I understood it.

  “My name is Theresa,” I said, holding out my hand.

  She waited a half a beat then shook gently. “I am Valentina. Valentina Spinelli.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  She was far away, taking her own counsel. She had no intention of giving an inch. I’d seen that look in press agents and lobbyists who knew they had the upper hand and had no intention of budging.

  “Zia!” Antonio called. “Let’s get something to eat out here!”

  Zia came out and, seeing Valentina, said a greeting in Italian and kissed her on both cheeks, twice. They chattered in Italian for a minute while Daniel fidgeted. Poor guy.

  “Si, del vin rosso per favore,” Valentina said.

  “No,” Antonio cut in as if putting his foot down for the benefit of a defiant child. “No wine.”

  I thought he would get his way, as strange as it was.

  “You are still bossy,” Valentina said in choppy but quick English before addressing Zia. “A chianti.”

  “No! And that is the final word.”

  Zia looked from Valentina to Antonio, not knowing what to do. I didn’t know what his objection was about. Did he find it unbecoming? Was it too early in the day? I’d had a drink or two in front of him, and it had never warranted this level of protest.

  “I could use a glass myself,” I said.

  I went to the sideboard. I
t was lined in clean white cloth napkins. The grey tray was loaded with silverware, and the empty water pitchers were stacked neatly. Above, wine glasses hung. I snapped up five, wedging the stems between my fingers.

  I put the glasses on the counter then flipped up the end of the bar and walked behind it. The floor was coated in a black rubber honeycomb mesh half an inch high. My feet bounced when I walked. I’d never been behind a bar before, and everything seemed neat and compartmentalized. I located the fridge immediately.

  I stared at it. I was nuts. I couldn’t diffuse the tension in the room with a little wine. I was an outsider.

  To hell with it. I opened the fridge door and resolved to choose a damned bottle and do what I was supposed to do. Serve wine and celebrate the continued and uninterrupted life of Antonio Spinelli.

  As if I’d called him forth with my mind, his scent filled me. The knowledge that he was close melted the skin right off me.

  “You’ll never make a good Italian wife unless you learn to obey,” he said in my ear.

  He said it in good humor, trying to relieve his own part of the tension, but it was a stupid, hurtful, wicked thing to say, especially with a fuckable growl that acted as a whisk for my arousal and anger. I didn’t know whether to spread my legs or spit in his eye.

  I put a random bottle on the bar with a smack, trying to look casual. As if I didn’t want to kill him for saying that stupid thing. Though I wanted to eviscerate Antonio with a steak knife right then, I didn’t want to undermine him. I didn’t want any of them to think he’d shown poor judgment in being with me. I didn’t want them to think I was a liability or that his wife was more refined and mature. I wanted to leave, walk out the front door as if it just happened to be what I was doing at the moment. No more, no less.

  I didn’t know where I was going. I just had to get out of that cramped restaurant. The December air hit me full in the face, and I wished for a jacket. But more than that, when I got outside, I immediately calculated the width of the street, the movement of the cars, the foot traffic, the rooftops. I was completely exposed. I’d never felt that while walking across the street before. But every window was a gun perch, and every car was a moving crime scene.