Red, White & Dead

by Laura Caldwell

  My father looked at Ransom, then back at her. “And you aren’t?” His voice was incredulous again.

  She shook her head. “I enjoy my life. Most of it. And the parts I don’t enjoy?” A glance at Ransom. “Well…” Another shrug. “Like most people I manage those parts. I do what needs to be done.”

  “What about Maurizio? Did he know of your position?”

  A wave of pain seemed to ripple through her features. She gave a single nod. “Sí. Of course. He and Paulo. But they didn’t know about you being alive. No one did. Twenty-two years ago, I used the secret of you being an FBI agent to rise to the top of the System. But then I helped you plan your demise-your fake demise-and I kept your existence secret all these years. But Maurizio must have heard me talking to Isabel in Ischia about you.”

  “I thought I’d convinced you to talk,” I said. “I actually thought I’d cross-examined you into telling me.”

  She looked at me, her eyes keen and clear. They were the same eyes, I suppose, that I had seen before, but they appeared different coming from this body, this version of Elena. “You did convince me, Isabel.” Her eyes slid from me to my dad. “And Maurizio died thinking I had betrayed him because I hadn’t told him that my brother was living. I would have told him about you as soon as Isabel found you, because I knew once that happened you would be leaving this life.”

  My dad’s face grew sad. “You wanted that for me.”

  A solitary nod from Elena. “Of course.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I had pulled a string a few weeks ago when I started looking for my father, after that night in the parking garage, and now so much had unraveled.

  My father held out his hand, as if to stop me from falling. “No, I’m sorry. I wanted to get caught, to be found. Otherwise I wouldn’t have spoken to you that night in the stairwell. Elena is right. I was done with that life.”

  My mother barked a disbelieving sound. We all looked at her. She rubbed her forehead as if too many realizations were flooding in.

  My mother took a step. “Enough,” she said forcefully. “I am taking my son-” she gestured for Charlie to stand “-and my daughter out of here. Away from the two of you.”

  Elena nodded. “You should. Immediately. Dez Romano has rigged this building with a gas leak. It hasn’t been activated, but if he-”

  A distant clanging sounded in the building, and then thudding, as if someone were climbing stairs. And then Dez Romano staggered past the room, clutching his head.

  “Romano!” my aunt said, her voice like a drill sergeant. “Stop.”

  He kept moving, his feet shuffling down the hallway.

  Elena spun and sprinted out of the room, her feet and her body moving like those of a woman years younger.

  In the hallway, she kicked Dez Romano behind the knees, causing him to pitch forward, his face slamming the concrete hallway. An animalistic moan arose from his throat and he clutched his head again.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I said. “Is it exposure to the gas?”

  “No,” my father said, “he’s suffering from vertigo.”

  “Your father’s trademark move,” my aunt said. “But Romano might still have been able to activate the gas.” She kicked him in the stomach, pointing the gun at his head. “Romano,” she yelled. “Did you start the leak?”

  Still lying on his back, he clutched his head, his eyes swinging wildly at the five of us standing over him, his gaze landing on Elena. “Who the fuck are you, bitch? How do you know…”

  Another well-placed kick to Romano’s gut caused him to yelp and move his hands from his head to his stomach and roll onto it.

  “I own you,” Elena said. There was no mistaking the pride in her voice, and something else. Pleasure. She clearly enjoyed this role, being this Elena, much more than she did the weak, sad wife role I’d seen in Italy.

  She looked over her shoulder at us before returning her gaze to Dez. “Go,” she said. A direct order. “I want to have a little chat with my friend here, and there is time. If he did activate the leak, it will take at least fifteen to twenty minutes before it ignites the flame. Isn’t that right? That is what you told the duke, right, il diavolo?” She scoffed. “He gave himself that nickname. Pathetic.”

  With the heel of her foot, my aunt kicked Dez in the side, forcing him to roll over onto his back. She pointed the gun at him, releasing the safety. “Isn’t that right, diavolo?” she yelled.

  He tried to sit up, failed, nodded.

  “Now, go,” Elena said to us.

  “Come with us,” my father said.

  “No. I will handle this. You all must leave. Go somewhere where there are many people. You must be seen by many people. All of you together.”

  “That sounds like an alibi,” I said.

  My aunt nodded, although she was still staring down the barrel of her gun at Dez Romano.

  “What do we need an alibi for?” my mother said. “We haven’t done anything wrong. We need the police.”

  My aunt shot her a glance. “There will be questions after this. Many, many questions, and it could mean trouble for all of you.” She pointed her head in the direction of my father. “Christopher faked his own death and hasn’t paid taxes for twenty-two years. And you-” she nodded at my mother “-collected life insurance benefits because of it. That is fraud, a felony.”

  “I didn’t know he was alive.”

  I spoke up. “And the statute of limitations would have run on some of that.”

  My aunt scoffed. “That’s the least of your problems,” my aunt said dismissively. She stared at my dad. “You have killed, Christopher. You killed my husband. And your daughter, knowing that, helped you to escape to the United States. You could both go down. Hard.” She nodded in the direction of the room we’d been in. “And don’t forget the body in there.” She shook her head. “Get out. Now. Be seen together by many people.”

  “But what are we supposed to tell the police?” my mother said. “The superintendent has officers everywhere looking for Charlie.”

  “Does anyone know you are here? At this address?”

  My mother shook her head no.

  “And you, Isabel and Christopher,” she said. “Does anyone know you are here?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No,” my father said.

  “Then it was a prank,” my aunt said. “Charlie has no drug problems. No one will say he did. A friend, someone, was playing a prank. You can think of something. It will be easier than trying to explain the rest of it.”

  “What about his face?” my father said.

  “Make something up,” she said fiercely. “You’ve always been good at that, Christopher.”

  “What are you going to do?” my father said.

  His sister gave him a small smile but it faded fast. “This is where we part ways, brother.”

  Dez tried to sit up. “Gotta get out of here,” he said, raising his hands to his head again.

  My aunt looked at her watch, a large white circular face with a black band. “Now. Go.”

  “Goodbye, Elena,” I said.

  She smiled a sweet smile that made me remember the woman I’d spent time with in Italy. “Goodbye, cara.”

  75

  We pushed the door open, all of us shooting outside. We hurried up the street, running over the bridge suspended above the Kennedy Expressway. When we got to the other side, my father stopped us. We tried to catch our breaths, tried to focus our minds on what was happening.

  “Where can we go?” my dad said.

  I thought of Theo and his text from that morning. “Saint Pat’s Block Party.”

  My father looked completely confused.

  “It’s lots of people,” Charlie said. “About ten blocks long.”

  “Let’s go.”

  We turned and took off jogging down Lake Street, cutting over to Madison and then continuing west.

  We got to the entrance of the block party.

  Behind the gates, people were pack
ed on the street, the crowd stretching back block after block after block. Beer and food tents lined the sides of the streets. A huge music stage stood on the right, and a band was going through sound check. Everyone was in a giddy mood, laughing and drinking and milling around in the sun.

  I reached in my skirt pockets and found them empty. “I don’t have any money.”

  My mother whipped out her purse and paid for all of us to get in. I wondered why Dez hadn’t taken it. He’d underestimated her and that had been a mistake.

  The ticket taker frowned at us before she let us through the gate. “Do you need security?” she asked.

  For a second, we all stopped and looked at each other. Charlie’s face was swollen, his blood was on my mother’s shirt, and my father’s shirt was torn so that a flap hung down from the shoulder, exposing his chest. I looked down at my own shirt and recoiled. A few drops of Ransom’s blood were clearly visible.

  Make something up, Izzy.

  “We’re fine,” I said. “We drove four hours just for this street fair. We got into a little car accident, but we’ve been treated and we just want to go in and enjoy ourselves.”

  The ticket taker didn’t move, frowned more. A badge on the chest of her green T-shirt read Volunteer.

  I looked around, pointed at a T-shirt stand. “We’re going to get T-shirts.” I gestured at the volunteer. “Just like that one.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw my mother raise an eyebrow. She was never one for uniforms or group dressing.

  At last, the ticket taker shrugged and stood back for us to enter.

  Once inside, we pushed past people to the stand and purchased four green T-shirts that screamed World’s Largest Block Party!

  My father accepted the T-shirt silently, his head swiveling around, appearing like a lost fish dumped into a big foreign pond. An intoxicated couple, walking while making out and sloshing beer at the same time, bumped into him and he glared at them.

  Meanwhile, my mother was glaring at her T-shirt with a look of distaste. But gamely she said, “Now, where should we change?”

  “The Porta-Johns.” Charlie pointed.

  My mother frowned.

  “Mom,” I said, “have you ever been in a Porta Potti?”

  She looked at me blandly. “What do you think?” She turned to the bathrooms. “There’s a first time for everything.” My mother marched toward the Porta Potti, her T-shirt in hand.

  The lines for the women’s bathrooms were at least ten feet deep with women holding beers or talking to their friends behind them.

  “Hurry if you can,” my dad said to us. “And when we’re done, we need to pick a spot to meet.”

  “How about the back entrance to the stage?” Charlie pointed to the area where the band was still sound-checking.

  “Great,” my dad said. “Let’s go.”

  I turned and followed my mother to the ladies’ lines, but instead of getting in one, my mother marched toward the front.

  “Mom,” I said, “no one is going to let you in. People get downright territorial with these lines.”

  “They’ll let me in.” She walked up to the very first person. “Hello. Is there any possible way I could utilize the restroom ahead of you?”

  The woman was already wearing an irritated look that said she’d been in that line for a while. She opened her mouth, clearly about to reject my mother’s suggestion.

  But my mother opened her mouth faster. “I’m having a terrible hot flash. Menopause, you know. I need to give myself an anti-hormone shot.” She gestured at me. “And I need my daughter to help me.”

  The woman blinked and held up her hand in front of her face as if to say, That was more information than I needed, and then she pointed at the door, which opened right at that minute.

  My mother and I went inside.

  “My God,” she said. “It’s truly horrible in here. This is why I’ve never been in one of these.” She smashed her back against the locked door to give me room. “You change first.”

  I took off my shirt and pulled the green T-shirt over my head. “How did you know that woman would let us in? Are you really having a hot flash?”

  My mother tsked and unbuttoned her blouse. “Of course not. And if I was, I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone. But the thing is, you young women are so afraid of menopause. You don’t even want to be around someone having a hot flash.”

  My mother pulled the green T-shirt over her head.

  I started to laugh.

  “What?” she said.

  “I’ve never seen you wearing anything like that.”

  “Well, like I said, there’s a first time for everything.” She tucked the ends into her slacks. “Izzy, I have to tell you something, but let’s get out of here first.”

  A few seconds later, we spilled from the Porta Potti, gasping in the relatively fresh air of the block party.

  My mother pulled me over to the side of a beer tent. “Izzy,” she said, looking me in the eyes, her hand on my shoulder. “Before we find them, I just want to tell you that I’m proud of you.”

  “Really? Thanks.”

  “Today, I feared losing both you and Charlie, and I realized that I never tell you enough how much you mean to me.”

  “Sure you do.” I got jostled from behind by a pack of guys walking by. But then I thought about it. My mother was right. She rarely said anything about us or her attachment to us. “Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a hug. She hugged me back tighter than I ever remember her doing before.

  I pulled back. “How are you about this…this whole thing?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll think about it later.” Now, this was the mom I knew.

  I glanced at the stage. No sign of Charlie or my dad yet. Then I glanced around some more. The place was packed. “There are almost too many people here to help us with an alibi,” I said to my mom. “We need to make sure we talk to people who will remember later if we need them to.”

  I thought about it for a second. Theo was here. I pulled out my phone and sent him a text. Then I thought, Who else might be here?

  “I got it!” I said. Grady, my friend, always went to Old St. Pat’s. I texted him, too, telling him where we were standing.

  Not even a minute went by before I heard, “Iz!”

  I turned around.

  “Grady!”

  Grady Fisher and I had been raised as a brother and sister at the law firm of Baltimore & Brown. After Sam disappeared, we dated for a while, and I’d been the one to end it. Since I didn’t have the job any longer, I rarely saw Grady. And I missed him.

  A happy smile spread across his face now. “I’m so glad you texted. I haven’t seen you forever.”

  “I know.” I gestured toward my mother. “You know my mom, Victoria.”

  “Sure, sure.” Grady gave my mom a happy shake of his hand.

  “How are you, Grady?” She had always liked him.

  “Great!” Grady went on to talk about the law firm, how things were going well for him. He was getting clients on his own now, he said. He was finally getting the hang of work. He seemed happy and lighthearted and at ease in his professional life, which made me realize it was something I sorely lacked.

  He seemed to sense my unease. He looked at me. “How are you doing, Iz?”

  I raised my hands, and in the grand tradition of Italy and my aunt Elena, I gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t even know.”

  Grady gave me a glance, then he looked at my mom and I wearing the same T-shirts and his expression grew confused. He knew my mother and I weren’t the type to wear matching clothes.

  “I’ll explain some other time,” I said, but then I realized I would never explain. Not entirely. I wouldn’t tell him that my father had killed someone, that my aunt had, too. It made me feel heavy, as if I’d literally added weights to my body along with the secrets.

  One of Grady’s buddies called from behind him, raising a beer. “You want one?” the buddy yelled.

  “Yeah, yeah,�
� Grady said, raising his almost-empty beer in response. He looked back at me. “I guess we’re going to see a band on the other side.”

  I felt envious of Grady then, of his happy afternoon filled with decisions like what bands to see, whether to have another beer. He stepped forward and gave me a quick hug, patting me on the back. It was a buddies’ pat. We were back to that. I patted him back exactly the same way.

  “See you,” he said.

  “See you,” I answered.

  I glanced at my phone. Nothing from Theo yet.

  My mom and I made our way through the crowd to the side of the stage. Charlie was there, talking to a friend, gesturing at his swollen face. “Yeah, dude, I just got jacked. Came out of nowhere.” He made it sound as if the punch had just happened, inside the street fair.

  “Dude, you gotta get that looked at,” his friend said.

  “Yeah, I will,” Charlie said. He glanced at my father, who stood next to him, uncomfortably shifting back and forth, his eyes scanning the crowds.

  Charlie looked back at his friend, a weak smile on his face, and I saw in that instant that Charlie had been weighted, too. Carefree Charlie would walk around with secrets now, too, and I didn’t know how he would handle them.

  My mother and I exchanged concerned glances, then I saw someone familiar out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head and saw him behind the stage, staring at me. Theo.

  I broke into a smile. So did he. He gestured me toward him.

  I met him where the bouncers were taking backstage passes.

  “Can you let her in?” Theo pointed to me and the rest of my green T-shirt crew. “And her friends.”

  The bouncer looked annoyed, but after a second, he did as Theo asked.

  “Who’s the band?” Charlie said when we were in, gesturing toward the stage.

  “Poi Dog Pondering,” Theo answered.

  “That’s the name of a band?” my mother said.

  “Sweet,” Charlie said. “I love these guys.” He started telling my mom about the band, leaving me standing with Theo and my father.

  Theo glanced at me as if to say, Is this who I think it is?

  I nodded. “Theo, this is-”