by James Lepore
“Do you know what to expect? It’s not pretty.”
“My brother... my brother’s a junkie,” Chris replied. “I’ve heard him talk about it. He went through it a dozen times. It’s not complicated.”
“Not for you.”
Chris shook his head. “I’ve had enough of heroin. I don’t even know what it looks like, but I’ve had enough of it for ten lifetimes. It won’t kill her to go through withdrawal. I’m not letting her out to get fixed, but you have to leave. You’ve done enough. If I need you, I’ll call you.”
“Who is she to you?”
“I just met her a week ago.”
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you. I can tell you this: being around me can be dangerous to your health. You need to keep that in mind.”
“I see. And act accordingly.”
“Yes.”
“When I finally sobered up,” Farrell said, “I stopped running away from my friends. You know about pride and such, Chris. You wouldn’t insult me now, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t. But it was an accident we were in that night, that’s all it was. You don’t owe me your life.”
“I’ll decide what I owe, and to whom.”
“I’m sorry, Brother,” said Chris said, seeing the grim line of the old man’s mouth and the set of his jaw. “It hasn’t been a good day.”
Farrell took a breath and stared at Chris. He let the breath out, and, to Chris’ relief, the moment pass.
“Can you get your hands on some Valium?” Farrell asked. “It’ll help a bit. If you can get it down her.”
“Probably.”
“Don’t overdo it. She’ll only have to withdraw from the Valium, which could be worse.”
“Anything else?’
“No,” Farrell replied. “Like you said, it’s not complicated. No heroin, and in three or four days, the worst will be over. Of course, they’ll be long days. Call me if you need me. I’m not going anyplace.”
Chris nodded.
“One more thing,” Farrell said.
“I’m listening.”
“You can pray. Pray that this poor girl doesn’t suffer too badly, and that what suffering she does have will mean something, will redeem her of her sins, heal her broken spirit; otherwise, why are we here? What does all this mean, otherwise?”
2.
“You notice I haven’t asked any questions. Like, who is this woman, and what are you doing here?”
“I noticed.”
“Well? What the fuck is going on?”
After John Farrell left, Chris called Vinnie Rosamelia and asked him to bring over Valium, food to last three or four days, a hammer, some nails and clothesline rope. Vinnie arrived two hours later to find Michele twitching and sweating, begging Chris to let her go out on the street. They had persuaded her – with a promise that Vinnie would score her heroin – to swallow some Valium, twenty milligrams, a huge dose, but she had been threatening to throw herself into walls, and they were afraid she would open the wounds on her face.
As they spoke, sitting at the kitchen table, they could see her, lying on the sofa in the living room, an arm crooked over her forehead, twitching less, sweating less, the Valium beginning to dull her central nervous system.“Have you spoken to Lou Falco?” Chris asked, ignoring Vinnie’s question for the moment.
“No. I was in the Hamptons,” Vinnie answered. “I was walking in the door when you called.”
“Joseph’s dead.”
Vincent, never at a loss for words, sat quietly as Chris related the events of the morning.
“Are you sure?” he asked, when Chris finished. “Maybe they’re holding him someplace.”
“You know better than that, Vin,” Chris said. “Junior Boy would never let him live under those circumstances.”
“I’m glad your mother’s not alive.”
“Me, too.”
“With a junkie,” Vinnie said, “you’re always thinking about them dying.”
“I know.”
“But not like this, of course.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” Chris said. “Better than finding him cyanotic, with a needle in his arm.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m coping.”
Chris was both coping and watching himself coping at the same time. Shock, he thought, early grief, assessing himself, aware that he was living in a world parallel to but slightly behind the world of others, staying close to his dead brother for a while, until he could finally let him go.
“What now?” Vincent asked. “Who’s this broad?”
“She’s a friend of Allison McRae’s,” Chris said. “Labrutto was lining her up to star in his next snuff film. He sent the albino over here to terrorize her. I’m staying here until I can figure out what to do.”
“She’ll have the jones of all time when she comes down off of that Valium.”
“I know.”
“I can get her some dope.”
“No, I’m cleaning her up.”
“Come on.”
“I can use your help.”
“Chris, are you kidding? She’s a junkie and a whore. She’ll be sticking a needle in her arm within a week.”
“That’s up to her.”
“She’ll probably be dead of AIDS in six months. Let’s buy her a couple bags of smack and get the fuck out of here.”
“I’m doing this, Vin,” Chris said. “Are you helping me or not?”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why? Give me a reason.”
“I never tried to save Joseph.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, not really. There was a part of me that said, let him die.”
“So this girl’s a replacement junkie?”
“You could say that.”
“It won’t work, Chris.”
Chris did not answer. He had no illusions about saving Michele, or the therapeutic value – for either of them – of forcing her through withdrawal. Watching himself again, it occurred to him that he was pushing his bad luck, a strange and inexplicable thing to do.
“What do you want me to do?” Vincent said.
Chris took an envelope from his pants pocket and slid it across the table.
“It’s Allison’s’ rent notice,” he said. “This is her apartment. Someone slipped it under the door this morning. Go next door and pay it, and also pay for apartment six; that’s Michele’s place. There’s a check in there for twenty grand. Cash it. After you pay the rent, I want you to get me three or four cell phones registered to phony names.”
“Anything else?”
“I need a Saturday night special, untraceable, and half a dozen porn videos featuring violence. A faux snuff film or two would be nice. Bring me the rest of the cash in fifties and hundreds.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it for now.”
“Whatever you’re planning on doing, you better not be doing it alone.”
Chris did not answer. He was looking over at Michele, who had turned onto her side. The features of her face were beginning to re-emerge as her bruises healed: straight nose, wide mouth, a strong brow softened by blonde eyebrows, a hint of freckles across her high cheekbones. Remembering her blue eyes, he thought it a face that might once have been pretty, even beautiful. Not now, though. She was snoring raspily, and her nose was running.
“I think her nose is broken,” he said.
“That’s not all that’s broken on that girl.”
“Are you staying around the city?”
“Yes.”
“What about the weekend?”
“I’ll stick around.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s on your mind, Chris, exactly?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You’re not thinking of going after Junior Boy, are you?”
“It’s Ed Dolan I want. I’ve had enough of him.”
“Can I talk you out of this?”
/>
“No.”
“You’ll have the whole justice department up your ass.”
“Maybe. Will you help me?”
“Sure, I hate that motherfucker.”
“I do too, Vincent. I do, too.”
When Vinnie left, Chris picked up Michele and carried her into the tiny, ten-by-ten foot, windowless bedroom and laid her on the bed. No more than ninety pounds, she was like a frail, gangly child in his arms, her rib cage protruding and the bones of her back pressing hard against his hands.
He then brewed coffee. Sitting with it in the kitchen, he replayed the tape of Joseph’s meeting with Dolan. He rewound it, then, using his cell phone, dialed the number of the U.S. Attorney in Foley Square, telling the receptionist and then a secretary that he was calling to give Mr. Dolan an anonymous tip in the Scarpa-McRae murder case. When Dolan picked up, he put the phone down on the table, placed Lou Falco’s mini-cassette player next to it and pushed the play button. When it was finished, about twelve minutes later, he clicked the phone off. Then he called Teresa and asked her to arrange for a meeting between him and her father sometime over the coming weekend, giving her Vinnie Rosamelia’s number, and asking her to call him with the time and place. When she reminded him that he was scheduled to see the kids on Saturday, he canceled, knowing that if Dolan was looking for him, his ex-wife’s house would be an obvious place to stake out. Then, after nailing the front door shut, he pushed the sofa over against it and stretched out on it, hoping to sleep while Michele slept, knowing that once she woke up she would not sleep again until she was clean. Two hours later, he was awakened from a fitful sleep by Michele clawing at his shirt, screaming:
“Who the fuck are you?!”
“I’m Chris.”
“What are you doing here? Get up. Let me out. Where’s the priest?”
“He had to leave.”
“Did you give me those pills?”
“Yes.”
“I want more.”
“Maybe later.”
“Maybe later? Are you fucking crazy? Get up. I’m going out.”
She circled the small apartment, found her bag in the kitchen and strode over to stand before Chris, who had sat up on the sofa. Her makeup had been washed off, probably by John Farrell. Taking out a small mirror, she began to apply lipstick, botching the job as both hands shook, out of control. A sheen of sweat covered her face, which was still discolored and lopsided from her bruises, under which her skin was a pale, almost translucent white. The roots of her once spiky but now perspiration-matted, white hair, Chris noticed, were not brown but a darker shade of blonde.
“Calm down,” he said. “I’ll give you some Valium later, but you’re not going out. You’re going through withdrawal.”
Michele dropped her lipstick into her bag without drawing in the tip or replacing the top. Then she threw the bag at Chris’ face and leaped at him, tearing at his hair and dragging her nails across his face, screaming, “Let me out of here, you fuck, you cocksucker. Let me out of here!”
Chris pinned her arms to her sides, and, rising, lifting her with him, carried her – kicking and screaming, trying to bite his face and neck – into the bedroom, throwing her in and slamming the door shut. Instantly, she was banging at the door, but he held his body against it until she collapsed to the floor inside, where he could hear her sobbing. Then he nailed the door shut, leaving the nail heads exposed so he could tear them out quickly, if necessary. He had put a jug of bottled water in there earlier and a basin she could use as a bedpan. If she started to get selfdestructive, he would go in and tie her to the bed, but her sobs turned to whimpers, and then there was silence. He looked at his watch. It was two p.m., ten hours since Michele’s last fix, a hit that was probably more sugar or powdered milk than heroin.
Fifteen minutes later, while he was reading one of Allison’s screenplays – the adaptation of Steinbeck’s East of Eden – he heard Michele retching in the bedroom. Afraid she would asphyxiate on her own vomit, he pulled the nails out of the door and went in. She was lying on her back on the bed, sweating profusely, her shirt covered in a viscous, greenish puke. When he approached her, she pulled her legs up and curled into the fetal position, holding her stomach with both hands.
“Where’s the priest?” she asked, her face shiny with sweat, grimacing from the cramps in her stomach.
“I told you, he left.”
“I need a fix. You have to help me. I’ll die.”
“No, you won’t. People don’t die from this. Have you been through it before?”
“No.”
“How long have you been using?”
“I don’t know. A year.”
“I’m sure people have talked about it.”
“I didn’t listen.”
“The most important thing is this: you may wish you were dead, but you won’t die from withdrawal.”
“How the fuck do you know?”
“My brother was a junkie.”
Michele balled up even more, touching her forehead to her knees and groaning, then releasing a little.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“I’ll help you.”
He took her by the shoulders and rolled her onto her back. She resisted at first, but he was much stronger. Tears were mixing with the perspiration on her face, which was now a ghastly pale green, her bruises like the marks of some unspeakable disease. In her once pretty blue eyes, now dilated to twice their size, Chris saw fear, fear and a despair so deep that it chilled him and filled his own eyes with tears.
“I shit myself,” she said.
Scooping her up, he carried her into the bathroom, where he pulled off her clothes – soggy with puke and liquid feces – and put her in the shower, where he propped her up with one hand while soaping her with the other. He did this twice, then shampooed and rinsed her hair. He wrapped her in two towels, put her on the couch, then went and showered quickly himself, afterward pulling on fresh jeans and a tee shirt. When he returned to her, she was in a ball again, trembling, saying she was cold. He pulled the blanket off of the bed and put it over her, then lay down next to her and put his arms around her to try to warm her.
“How old are you, Michele?”
“Thirty.”
“What’s your last name?”
“Mathias.”
“Do you want to get dressed?”
“Yes. I have to go out.”
“I’m not letting you out.”
“I can’t believe this. Who are you?”
“I told you, Chris Massi, Allison’s cousin.”
“That albino freak killed her.”
“He’ll kill you, too. That’s another reason why you can’t go out. That’s why we’re in this apartment. It’s safer.”
This was probably not true. Rodriguez could have killed Michele, but didn’t, a sign perhaps that Labrutto was acting without Junior Boy’s or Jimmy Barson’s knowledge or consent. Labrutto would want to be careful not to commit another unauthorized killing. If it was Mafia people who had hunted down Michele, they surely would have killed her. Also, Rodriguez had a chance to kill Chris on the day he pummeled Michele, but he didn’t take it: more evidence that Labrutto was off the reservation. It seemed likely that Labrutto, Barsonetti and DiGiglio were acting, if not at cross purposes, with agendas hidden from each other. This was bad for Labrutto, who had no power, and good for Chris to know. Although he was certain that the stolen snuff film put him in a dangerous position, he felt he had some room to maneuver on the Labrutto/DiGiglio /Barsonetti front.
“You go out,” Michele said. “I’ll pay you. I’ll do anything you want. You can be my pimp.”
“Do you have money?”
“ No.”
“It’s three o’clock. I’ll give you some Valium tonight. There’s nothing else I can do for you.”
Michele’s head had been covered by the blanket, which she now pulled away as she turned to face Chris. She was sweating again, and mucous was beginning to run from her e
yes, which looked both empty and panicked at the same time.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m planning on killing some people, and while I’m doing that, I’m seeing you through withdrawal. Forcing you would be more accurate. You’re free to start shooting up again as soon as it’s over.”
He had not planned on telling her this, but, when it came to expressing his thoughts of the last few hours, he could not see the point of lying. Michele continued to stare at Chris, the confusion in her eyes giving way for a mournful second to a bitter realism: this man, this stranger, was actually going to force her to withdraw cold turkey from heroin. Chris knew, from his many experiences with Joseph, that junkies hated reality. They pictured themselves withdrawing in a beautiful clinic in the mountains, sleeping through it while miracle drugs cleansed them intravenously. Michele’s stomach would be cramping violently, all of her joints aching, even her fingers, the dim light in the apartment blinding her, and every nerve in her body was crying heroin, heroin, heroin. If she had the strength, she would, he knew, have killed him with pleasure, then gone out and mugged the first old lady or bum she came across for money to score. She could see the needle entering her arm or, better yet, a fresh vein in her groin.
“Why me?” she asked.
“You were available.”
“You fuck.”
“You’re almost through the first day. Two more and the worst will be over.”
“I can’t do it. I can’t.”
“You have no choice,” Chris said. “When you’re clean, I’ll walk out of here, and you can score and get high, do whatever you want.”
“Don’t fucking worry, I will.”
Michele turned her head to the side and fell silent. Chris covered her with the blanket and began kneading her shoulders with his hands, wondering, as he did, what Ed Dolan was doing and thinking and feeling at this very moment, and how Anthony DiGiglio would react to the idea of a meeting. If Chris was right, knowing his adversaries, his boyhood friend would over-react, unwittingly letting his guard down as he did. His former father-in-law’s guard would go up, he would be cautious, but intrigued, and the stage would be set for Chris to do what he had to do.
