The Trouble Girls

by E. R. Fallon

  They took Johnny’s car and watched Max over a couple of days and became familiar with his routine. Max had a similar routine every night. He’d leave the basement after the shop had closed for the evening and the streets were still, and he’d walk home alone.

  One night they waited until Max left the shop then they quietly exited the car, taking care to shut the doors carefully, and approached him from the opposite direction, where he couldn’t see them coming. They walked the hot, quiet street with their guns at the ready and Camille’s forehead damp with sweat. She’d convinced Danny and Pat that it had to be done, that there was no other way.

  “Max,” she called out, and he stopped walking and turned around, slowly. There was nobody else out on the street, as far as she could tell, and even if someone had seen them, most people who lived in the neighborhood wouldn’t ring the police, especially if they knew who she was.

  The streetlamp illuminated Max’s fear when he faced them. He stared at them with their guns pointing at him and his hand placed over what Camille assumed was his gun.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Johnny told him.

  Max removed his hand from his side but never took his eyes off them.

  “Put your hands up,” Camille told him.

  For a moment it seemed he wouldn’t then she shouted at him and he put his hands in the air. Then Johnny approached him while Camille kept her gun pointed on him and Johnny took Max’s gun from him. Johnny tucked the gun into his back pocket then retreated to Camille.

  “Walk,” Camille ordered Max, directing him to Johnny’s parked car.

  “I’m not going to beg for my life,” Max told them as he walked. “I’m not scared of you,” he said when they ignored him, but his voice wavered. “I knew this time would come, but you’ll never get away with it. Violet will know it was you, and she’ll kill you for it.” He raised his voice when they continued to ignore him. “Do you hear me?”

  “Be quiet,” Johnny said calmly. He glanced at Camille, and, despite her trembling, she imagined that if they could have held hands then they would have, so bonded were they by this moment.

  If Max made a run for it then both knew they would have to shoot him right there—they had discussed that possibility beforehand—and when they reached the car without incident, Camille felt relieved. Johnny opened the car trunk and ordered Max to crawl in.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Max said, backing away from the car.

  “No,” Camille said. “Get in.” She motioned at him with her gun.

  Max grumbled then approached the car again and raised one leg over the other and got inside, kneeling, and she ordered him to lie down.

  “What are you going to do with me?” Max asked. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you, because of what I did to your father?”

  “No,” Camille said, because she didn’t want him to panic. “But you could cause trouble for us and we need you to go away.”

  “So, you’re going to, what, drive me somewhere and drop me off?”

  “Yeah,” Johnny said. “And you can’t return, we want you to stay away.”

  “But I don’t have anything with me, clothes, money,” Max pleaded, surprising her.

  “We’ll give you some money when we drop you off,” Camille told him.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You’re going to kill me; I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Lie down,” she instructed, but her voice shook.

  “Not until you’re honest with me.”

  “This is taking too long,” Johnny whispered to her in a panicked tone and Camille looked around nervously.

  “Lie down!” she yelled at Max in fear, shaking her gun at him.

  “I don’t believe you,” Max told them both then he complied.

  Johnny went around to the backseat to get the rope and tape they had brought and bound Max’s hands and feet, and put a piece of tape on his mouth.

  “Where are you taking me?” Max asked before Johnny placed the tape over his mouth.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Johnny told him. “Be quiet while you’re in there, okay?”

  Max nodded. Johnny shut the car trunk and they got inside the car, with Johnny driving. The streets were quiet given the late hour, with the occasional car or taxi speeding past them. Johnny drove at a normal speed, so as not to attract attention from the police. A few minutes later, they arrived at the abandoned pier where Johnny had taught her to shoot and Johnny turned off the headlights so they wouldn’t be seen. He parked close by the river, dark and shining in the moonlight, and they exited.

  They’d discussed their plans beforehand and had decided to get the grisly task over with quickly, and Johnny opened the car trunk and Max’s eyes bulged with fear and his body shaking as he protested behind the tape, his screams muffled, as Johnny shot a single bullet into his forehead. Camille flinched and turned away. Max’s end was not pleasant, of course, as death never was, but it was fast, and more humane than her father’s had been, as she’d heard that he’d died slowly.

  Beforehand, Camille had offered to complete the unpleasant task, but Johnny had insisted it be him, as he hadn’t wanted her to ‘have to live with that burden.’ Which meant that Johnny loved her enough to kill for her, which meant that he loved her more than anyone had before, except for her mother and father, of course.

  Johnny turned to her with the task completed. “See those big rocks over there?” he asked, gesturing. He seemed calm.

  Camille looked at the rocks by the waterfront. Then she felt like she would vomit and clutched her stomach. The reality of hurting someone was very different than planning to do it. Johnny rubbed her back until she calmed herself.

  “We’ll gather those rocks and put them inside here,” he said, rummaging around the car trunk and pulling out an empty duffel bag. “Then we’ll tie the bag to his feet with some of the same rope I bound him with and put him in the river and the rocks will weigh him down. It’ll be months before he’s found, if ever.”

  Camille wondered if they should think more far ahead, such as, what would happen after those months past and the body was found? Would they come under suspicion? But she knew, as any gangster did, that you could only think so far ahead. Sometimes you had to take a risk, even if it was very big.

  She helped Johnny pull Max’s body out of the car and he landed on the ground with a thud. Some of Max’s blood had trickled onto her arm and Camille used her spit to clean it. They rolled Max’s body over to the old wooden pier and the slats creaked from his weight. Then Johnny ran back to the car and got the bag and the ropes, and they filled the bag with rocks and used the rope to tie it around Max’s legs, so that he would float upright down in the water. She and Johnny heaved him off the pier face-forward, into the river, with a loud splash, which sprinkled water into her eyes and Camille blinked to dry them. Bubbles rose to the surface as Max’s body submerged.

  “Do you think anybody saw us?” she asked Johnny on the walk back to the car.

  “No one really comes down here, that’s why me and my crew like it.”

  But what if, Camille wondered in dread, someone had seen them?

  But she saw new opportunity in Max’s demise, and she started her own bookmaking operation in the neighborhood, to replace Max’s, and used some of the money she made to buy a car, a brand-new black Cadillac.

  29

  Max never reappeared, and Violet knew that Camille had something to do with it, but she couldn’t prove that. In her business, sometimes people just disappeared and you never found them. She had an extra set of keys and had found Max’s car parked near his office, so she inherited it, since he didn’t have any family that she knew of. She contemplated filing a missing person’s report but refrained from doing so since she felt that the police would look at her even more closely if she did. With Tommy away, and with her mother in prison and Max vanished, she started to drink more.

  “She bought her own pub,” Violet complained to Sam when he ca
me by her apartment after work to check on her. “That bitch is copying me.”

  “I’m worried about you,” Sam said, “that’s why I’m here. I haven’t seen you in days, and you aren’t answering your phone. I know Max doesn’t seem to be around these days, and I know that’s devastating for you, but you need to leave the apartment once in a while to get some fresh air.”

  She’d been cooped up for days afterwards, grieving over Max, and missing Tommy, blaming and resenting Camille for causing all of it, and drinking to help her cope with her grief and anger.

  “I’m worried something could happen to you,” Sam told her. He’d made her tea and he sat on the couch, close by her, as she pretended to drink it.

  “You think she could hurt me?” Violet asked. “I’ll never let her.”

  “I’m worried that something could happen to you like what happened to your mother.”

  “You’re worried I’ll kill Camille and end up in jail?”

  Sam furrowed his brow and nodded in silence. “Why does she dislike you so much?” he asked her after a moment.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Camille said, looking away.

  “I want to be with you,” Sam told her, “but it’s hard for me to be with you when you’re like this, and when you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  Sam handed her a tissue from a box on the table and she took it from him. “The truth is,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It has to do with our families, there’s a history. I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “You can tell me,” Sam said, and she wanted to confide in him. “I’m here to listen, I want to help you.”

  “Thanks, Sam, but there’s no way you could help me with my situation with Camille.”

  “Why not?” Sam asked thoughtfully.

  “Because I’m a gangster, that’s why. You wouldn’t understand how to help me, and I don’t want you to get involved with this, I don’t want to put you at risk.”

  “What is the story between you two?” he asked, moving closer to her, as if to embrace her.

  “My family was involved in her father’s death, in his murder,” she told him when it became clear he wouldn’t stop talking about it.

  Sam’s eyes widened and he pulled slightly away from her. “You know this? How?”

  “She told me, and then I confirmed it. She wants revenge, and she thinks that everything I have should be hers. She hated Max especially, because he was directly involved,” Violet said, unwilling to divulge the entire truth about Max. “She’s not going away.”

  “If she’s threatening you, then you should go to the police,” Sam suggested, touching her arm.

  “That’s not how it works for people like me, we don’t go to the police. There’s a street code, there are certain rules, and one of them is you don’t rat to the cops.”

  “Right,” Sam said, seeming at a loss for words. “Have you tried talking to her? Maybe I can talk to her?”

  “Absolutely not,” Violet told him, sitting up straight and looking at him. “You’re not going near her. So far, you’ve managed to stay off her radar, and I don’t want you putting yourself at risk.”

  “She’s not going to do anything to me,” Sam said confidently.

  “I wouldn’t be sure of that. I think she killed Max.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Max wouldn’t just leave without telling me, he’s always been there.”

  “Maybe he had a family emergency.”

  “Max doesn’t have any family, he only has us. Anyway, I’ve already tried talking to her and she’s not interested.”

  “When was that?”

  “Before Max disappeared.”

  “Maybe she’ll act differently now that he’s gone.”

  “No,” Violet said firmly. “If she killed Max, I want nothing to do with her. I don’t trust her, that’s one of the reasons I’m staying home.” Sam knew she had a gun, but even with a gun she feared Camille’s wrath.

  “Then what are you going to do?” Sam asked her. “You can’t just stay inside here all the time, hiding from her. Nobody could live like that.”

  “I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’ll think of something.”

  Violet did leave her apartment eventually, when she decided to use Max’s car to watch Camille as Camille made her ‘rounds’ in the neighborhood, picking up protection money from the local businesses with Danny and Pat, and sometimes Johnny Garcia, in tow. Violet knew the police could be observing her, but she’d gotten to a point in her life where she no longer cared.

  One day Camille was alone, and Violet decided to take things a step further by following Camille in Max’s car when she drove away. Rock music quietly played on the radio and Violet had the windows open as she drove. She was a car behind Camille then when the other car made a turn, she was directly behind her. She didn’t care if Camille saw her, and she knew that Camille would recognize Max’s car. Camille stopped at a light and Violet braked behind her. She could see Camille watching her in the rearview mirror. She had noticed her. Violet revved the engine and planned to smash into the back of Camille’s car when the light turned green again. Then she looked in her own rearview mirror at the car behind her, she hadn’t been paying attention to it before, and she noticed a man who looked a lot like Detective Seale driving the car. The light turned green, and before Violet could get a chance to react, Camille had driven off.

  Afterwards, with Seale continuing to follow her, she parked Max’s car near her apartment and went upstairs. She went inside and called Sam at work before doing anything else.

  “They’re following me,” she told him when his secretary connected her to him.

  “Who is?” Sam sounded concerned.

  “The police, because of my mother, they’re trying to get me too.”

  “Violet, what are you saying? Are you okay?” Sam didn’t understand, and why should he have? He was a normal guy, and she was a gangster.

  “I followed her, I followed Camille. I almost hit her car.”

  “Violet, what did you do? Is everything okay? I can’t come there right now. I have a very important meeting. Maybe I can stop by later, but I’m not sure.”

  But from the tone of his voice she knew she’d never see him again. Sam cared about her, but even he had his limits. She tried to comfort herself with the logic that Tommy hadn’t liked him, and so maybe she’d be better off. Part of her had known all along that their different worlds would tear them apart.

  That same day, she decided she would eliminate Camille. She needed to ensure Tommy’s future. It would be her first killing, and she considered that once Camille ended up dead, Sam could go to the police and tell them what he knew and she’d be a suspect, and she thought that maybe she would have to eliminate Sam as well, if it came to that. But she loved Sam, and couldn’t harm him herself, and she wasn’t like her grandfather in that respect. But if she got sent to jail, she would need someone to look after Tommy, and with Max gone, she couldn’t ask Sam to do that, so she rang her grandmother from a payphone.

  “How’s Tommy?” she asked her.

  “Tommy misses his friends, and you, but he’s fine. School’s been hard for him, but I expect he’ll adjust soon.”

  “Grandma, I need you to promise me something.”

  “Sure, what is it, honey?”

  “I need you to promise me you’ll look after Tommy no matter what happens,” Violet said, because she was going after Camille, and she didn’t care if she got caught.

  There was silence.

  “Gran?” Violet said.

  “Why are you talking like that, sweetheart? I’m worried.”

  “Because I don’t know what will happen, and I need to know that you will do this for me.”

  “So, it’s come to that, then?”

  “Possibly,” she replied, without elaborating.

  Her grandmother breathed out, then she said, “You can count on me, honey.”

  Next, Violet rang Derrick and her other only
remaining man, and asked them to seek out Camille and tell her that Violet wanted to surrender, and to summon her to a meeting at an old warehouse on the waterfront that she and her mother still owned, and which had very little property value given it’s undesirable location, but they kept it to use in certain circumstances. She told Derrick to tell Camille that they would negotiate the transition of power at the meeting, and she asked that Camille meet her alone, no associates. She knew Camille would have a gun on her, but Violet was a better shot, and she was counting on that.

  Max’s murder put Camille on edge and made her look behind her shoulder outside to see if she was being watched by the police, and it made her think that maybe she wasn’t cut out for the harsher side of the gangster business, but her mother assured her that her father had to get used to the nastier side of things as well, and he had.

  She had recognized Max’s car, and for a moment it had alarmed her, then she saw Violet driving. She could have confronted her about the incident afterwards, but she hadn’t, because she almost felt sorry for Violet, whose life was such a wreck. And now Violet had sent what was left of her men to ask Camille to meet her alone at a warehouse. What exactly was Violet up to? Camille was suspicious and hesitant to agree, but she had said yes.

  Violet had asked to meet alone, but Johnny didn’t trust Violet, so he and Pat came with Camille, and Valeria had sent Anton and the Alfonsis sent Billy. They gathered in front of Camille’s apartment early that night and squeezed into Johnny’s car for the drive to the warehouse. Camille planned to go in unaccompanied to meet Violet and the men would wait outside as backup in case something went wrong.

  When they arrived at the address Derrick had given them, in a remote, industrial part of the city that appeared very dark, almost as if untouched by moonlight, Camille noticed Derrick and another man waiting across the street and figured Violet had the same idea as her.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come inside with you?” Johnny asked her as he parked outside, eyeing Derrick and the other man.