by Rusty Barnes
“Rosie, you think you could take these bandages off?”
“You sure you want to?” Rosie said, drying her hands.
“Yeah, I think they need air if they’re going to scab off eventually.”
“OK. You’re gonna look like Rocky at the end of the movie.”
“What can I do?” I said.
“Plastic surgery?” Rosie said.
“Nah, fuck that,” I said. Rosie sat down in front of me with a small pair of scissors from the house first aid kit. She carefully cut the ones next to my eyes. The slight ripping sound of my skin coming off did not thrill me, but the various wounds didn’t start bleeding immediately.
“I feel bad about this, Irish,” she said. “Some of this isn’t going to heal well no matter what you do.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not going to be pretty anymore.”
“You keep the body up like you do and you’ll never have trouble getting laid.” Rosie giggled.
“Sure,” I said. We locked the cabin behind us, and a slight wind stirred the cattails by our canoe on the gravel beach. Nice day to be traveling. Rosie and I paddled over and beached the canoe. Linda met us at the front door to take our keys, we said our goodbyes and thank-yous, and headed to the car. I took a look around the parking lot. The Escalade was still there, and several other couples were seated at the breakfast tables inside. I drew some attention, looking the way I did. I’d have to get used to this. Rosie just gave them the finger as I pulled out.
“That was fun,” I said. “Up until the point they couldn’t take their eyes off me.”
“Fuck them,” Rosie said. “Let’s listen to some tunes.” She fiddled with the dial until she got a signal out of Salem NH, playing the latest in hip-hop. It wasn’t my style, but I needed time to think anyway. I knew from past experience that I’d be visiting Diovisalvo in Orient Heights again, because he’d sent people after me. Neither Otis nor I could let that rest. I needed to stay intimidating, and Otis needed the protection money. I needed to settle this thing with Nina too. It made no sense. I never made an overt gesture to her. I couldn’t imagine having gotten out of Revere if I had. But the thing was, I was attracted to her. I didn’t know if it was because she was different than Rosie, lighter in skin tone, smaller around the waist, or what. Here I’d been fucking Rosie for years and the thought of throwing her over for my boss’s wife was the fucking apex of stupidity. I couldn’t help it, though.
“What are you thinking about?” Rosie said. The car smelled of nail polish remover. She’d finished taking the color out, and had a bottle of blood-red paint sitting open in the drink holder.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “I don’t know what Otis has in store. I make good money, but I don’t know. Maybe joining a union somewhere, Teamsters or the electrical union, maybe become a journeyman or something.”
“You wouldn’t have to beat up anybody anymore,” Rosie said, blowing on her fingertips.
“Ha. That’s not necessarily true,” I said. “You know about the teamsters.”
“It’s a chance at something else,” she said. “You could move south or west. Lots of people do it. I know this guy who’s making a hundred grand a year moving cargo from ships in Seattle.”
“No shit?” I said. “That’s not a bad gig. I could do that looking ugly like this.”
“You’re not ugly, you’re just beat up a little,” she laughed.
We’d made it back to Boston in pretty good time, and I asked Rosie if she wanted to eat somewhere fancy.
“Nah, let’s go to your place and get some pizza,” she said. “Maybe Luigi’s.”
I called ahead and got us two pies with extra cheese and pepperoni, one for us to eat and the other to save in the fridge and eat cold tomorrow. Once I’d parked the car, I left Rosie in the house and walked the half a block to the restaurant, stopping at State Street Liquors to get a twelve-pack of Budweiser. I was not a discerning beer drinker.
By the time I got back Rosie had cranked the AC up and it was slowly cooling down in my place.
“You going to stay here tonight?” I said.
“That’s not much incentive,” Rosie pouted.
“Will you stay here tonight, Rosario?”
“That’s a little better,” Rosie said. “I expect I could stay tonight.”
“Good,” I said, folding another piece of pizza in half. “We get finished we can walk some of this off down on the beach.”
It was then I remembered to check the phone. It had been a while. Two messages: the first one was Nina.
“Candy. Call me at this number as soon as you can.” I deleted it. The second number was Otis.
“You back? I need to get you some new info. Hit up X or Manuel at the playground.” I pressed the phone off.
“Anything important?” Rosie said.
“Nah. Otis wanting me to meet up with some guys.”
“You can’t use your left hand. What can you do for Otis?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t want to pay me for nothing,” I said. “I have to call and find out. But later.”
“You can call now. I don’t want to mess up your work.” She folded her arms and drew her legs underneath her.
“No, it’ll be fine.” Rosie wasn’t eating. “What’s going on?” I said.
“I just don’t want to worry about you.”
“You don’t have to. That’s the thing. You can forget about me for a couple days after this. No commitment, right?”
“Yeah. Maybe I have a problem with that now. We had such a nice weekend in the middle of the week.”
“We did,” I said. This couldn’t go anywhere good.
“Never mind,” Rosie said. “Let’s watch some TV. I’m kind of tired from the sun.”
I sat down and she curled her body into me while we watched some hip-hop on demand. I was tired too, had to admit it. I couldn’t get over the second phone call from Nina. What the fuck had she been thinking? If Otis checked her phone, the jealous fuck, he’d find everything he needed to fuck my shit up but good. I didn’t want to hear about it, not while I was in the shape I was in. The TV played on in the background, some shit with a slurred backbeat that I didn’t recognize. I would have to risk talking to Nina one more time. As much as I was attracted to her it just wouldn’t work as long as I was working for Otis and probably not if I wasn’t. And now I apparently had Rosie to think about. I hadn’t had to add her into a romantic equation yet, and now I did.
I slipped her body out from underneath my arm and went back into my bedroom. Underneath the unmatched socks in my bottom drawer I took an old gun my uncle had given to me when I was a kid. “Something to keep with you in the ghet-to,” he’d said. I wasn’t in a ghetto but the song remained the same. It was a S&W model 28 .357 magnum with a short barrel. I had a pancake holster for it that sat snug at the small of my back. I checked the load and reminded myself to get one or two of those little moon clips, so I could reload more quickly. I had to think more and more about what Rosie had said about getting out. One of the reasons I had taken the job with Otis is that he didn’t require me to carry a gun. You carry, someone eventually is going to force you to use it. I didn’t want to carry, but I didn’t want to die for lack of something so simple in my repertoire of responses.
I carried it out to the couch in holster and before Rosie had realized I was gone slipped in beside her. I tucked the gun in between the cushion and arm. This was my particular seat, so it would be right at hand if I needed it. The night had turned to white noise by then. I heard an argument going on outdoors in high-velocity Spanish, but before my mind could try to translate I was asleep.
CHAPTER 14
MAYBE 3 A.M., I was woken up by the sound of gunshots. Rosie slept right through the first two, and stirred a little by the third. “Stay here, baby,” I said. Then I took my .357 out and looked out the front window. Some guy, white, had been laid out on the hood of a Lexus. By the way his back seemed bent I didn’t think he had made it. I called 9-
1-1 and reported the shooting, and within five minutes the front of the house was alive in uniforms, courtesy of the Revere police station being less than half a mile away. I replaced the .357 in the couch cushion and woke up Rosie long enough to lead her back to the bedroom. She collapsed on the sheets without even asking me who had been shot. I laid down beside her and tried to recapture sleep, but no dice. I lay awake until reasonably early and went into my second bedroom, which served as my gym, free weights and a couple mats I’d rescued from the gym plus a stationary bike. I normally rode the bike for twenty miles and then did my workout, but today I wouldn’t have time for that. I beat the toxins from my system with some heavy work on my right arm. By the time I’d finished the cuts on my face stung from the sweat I’d produced. I hit the shower just in time for Rosie to wake up and join me.
“How about that thing last night?” Rosie said.
“Yeah, that was something,” I said. “I don’t think the poor fucker is going to make it.”
“You saw him?”
“I was the one who called nine-one-one—somebody must have been extra sleepy last night.”
“Fuck off,” she said.
“Remember you said that,” I said, turning on the cold water and shooting it her way.”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Rosie said. “Omigod that’s cold.”
“It’s good for you,” I said, and got out of the shower.
I pulled the pizza from last night’s dinner and put a couple pieces each on plates. When Rosie came out she sniffed. “I’m not eating that.”
“That was the whole point of ordering two,” I said. Just then a knock came to the door. I went to answer it.
“Jason Stahl?” a voice asked.
“Speaking,” I said.
“This is the Revere police. You made a nine-one-one call last night reporting a shooting?”
“Yes I did,” I said. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem. Can we ask you a few questions?”
“Sure,” I said, and opened the door.
“What did you see, exactly?” Officer Reid stood about five and a half feet tall and most of that was attitude.
“I couldn’t sleep, and I heard two shots, then another one. I looked out the window and there was a guy lying on the hood of a silver car. I called nine-one-one. That’s it.”
“Did you notice anyone else on the scene?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Did you see the driver of the silver Lexus?”
“I didn’t know it was a Lexus, and no.”
“Ma’am, did you witness this as well?”
“No,” Rosie said. “I slept through it all.” She turned and walked back to the bedroom. Officer Reid looked at me. I shrugged.
“I see. If you remember anything, Mr. Stahl, please give me a call.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and wrote a number on the back. “This is my mobile phone.”
“Will do,” I said.
“Have a good day,” he said, and turned around to leave.
“You too,” I said. Rosie came back out with a toothbrush in her mouth.
“Fucking pig,” she said.
“Girl, don’t you know any better? Don’t give them a chance to think you’re dirty. Say please thank you and sir.”
“Bullshit,” Rosie said. “You don’t like cops any more than I do.”
“I don’t,” I said, “but I sure as hell don’t tell them that by walking away as they’re talking.”
“Your pizza is getting colder,” she said, and made a jerkoff motion at me.
“That’s great, Rosario.” I shook my head and sat down to eat my pizza, then, thinking about it more, I ate hers too.
“Do you have anything that isn’t going to kill me in twenty years?”
“There may be eggs in there.”
“Good God.”
“You could put wheat germ in some oatmeal,” I said.
“Who are you again?”
“You want to go to the beach? It’s still vacation for me.”
“Sure, I don’t have to be back at work till tonight.”
“I want Otis to see I’m not scared, so I want to go local.”
Rosie tied her hair back with a scrunchie. “Why would he think he scared you?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Look at my fucking face.”
“I’m sorry, Irish. I didn’t think.”
“So get your suit on,” I said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” I went back to the bedroom and with some difficulty, got into a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt. My left hand cramped in all the places it wasn’t broken, it felt like. The ribs felt much better today, though. I grabbed a hat and my sunglasses and towel. By the time I got out to the living room, Rosie had filled the cooler with water and soda and a bag of ice from the freezer. I never had any food in there, so there was always room for a couple bags of ice.
“You’re going to have to take one end of the cooler,” I said.
“What, broken fingers?” Rosie said, smiling.
“You better take one of my t-shirts, too, or every horny kid and most of their dads will be stalking you.”
“You like it and you know it,” Rosie said. “All those men out there, and I’m with you.” I let that go. I didn’t want to complicate things any farther, as chances were I might get a long-distance look at Nina if she still had the kid Miguel with her. Otherwise, I knew word might get back to Otis. I half-expected him to show up anyway, trying to intimidate me in front of Rosario. The blessing of being big meant you had to work at it to intimidate me. I intended him to have a hard as hell time of it.
CHAPTER 15
WE PARKED ON THE opposite side of the street from the Shipwreck Bar, the part of the beach that went unused due to all the kelp deposits and broken bottles. I preferred it that way. Less foot traffic, less bodies, which would be better, especially considering the attention that Rosie drew wherever we went out in public. Rosie grabbed the collapsible chairs with one hand and I took one end of the cooler. The lifeguards were on duty today, so they would keep the kids from running around and the assholes from trying to shake the women down.
The sun beat down on us already, and it was only ten in the morning. I planned for us to catch some rays early and have the afternoon free for whatever else came out. Rosie went out for a short walk in the shallows, wearing one of my t-shirts. The wahoos hadn’t hit the beach yet, just the old leathery men who’d been walking the beach for fifty years. They spoke softly about women among themselves, but never made an issue of it like younger men would. I put my hat and sunglasses on and leaned back with my feet buried in the sand. Had it not been for being beaten the last few days, I’d be feeling pretty good about life. My left hand concerned me. Most of the time broken fingers don’t require or wouldn’t be helped by splints, but nurse Dottie seemed to think it’d be worthwhile this time around. If I couldn’t hit people, I wasn’t going to be much good. Thank God it was my off hand.
When Rosie came back, I could see she’d already sweated through my shirt. She shrugged it off to reveal the black bikini underneath. If you weren’t close enough to her, you’d have sworn she walked around naked. She plopped down in the other chair and opened a bottle of water. “Water’s a little warm today,” she said.
“Probably got hotter just by you walking in it.”
“Ain’t you sweet,” she said. I don’t know why she slipped into that kind of language. She had a degree in English from Tufts, and talked like it when she needed to be professional, but otherwise sounded as street as I did, who had no education beyond high school.
“You ever wonder if this is it, Irish?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is this all were going to do? It’s nice being at the beach and getting some sun, but what do we do for the rest of our lives?”
“That’s too much for a beach day.”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“I want to get this shit straight with Otis.” An
d Nina, my forebrain answered for me. “Beyond that, I want to get healed up. I don’t have goals like that. If I can see what’s coming next week I’m happy.”
“See, I understand that, but I want to know what goes on in the next year. I don’t want to work at the Cask ’n’ Flagon forever.”
“I’d like to have a house by a lake. But I don’t think about that much, because it doesn’t seem like something like that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?” She tipped her glasses down over her nose.
“I’m just not geared for a life with middle-class goals.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Rosie said, half-turning her body toward me. God I loved to watch her sweat,
“I mean I’m not meant for that. I’m a street guy. I mean, I can paddle a canoe, but I’m never gonna own the lake,” I said.
“That is so ass-backward I can’t believe you said it,” Rosie said. “It’s not a class thing. You make a ton of money.”
“I blow a ton of money.”
“You could save.”
“For what?” I said, twisting off a bottle cap and throwing it into the cooler.
“For anything,” Rosie said. “Someday you’re going to want kids and a steady woman.” Oh shit.
“How do you figure?”
“I just know,” she said, getting up again. “I’m going to cool off in the water. I can’t believe you.”
“Believe it!” I yelled after her.
I took the opportunity to take off my glasses and give my sun-splashed eyes a look around the beach to see what I could see. A lot of action farther up the sand. A few weeks ago some of Otis’s homies at the bandstand got twitchy with each other, somebody said they saw a knife, and before they knew it, a hundred drunken morons were fighting. Nothing like that right now, but as I expected, Tito strolled down the beach toward me, his shirt off and his guns blotched with shitty tattoos. Impressing the homies, I guess. No chicks down for that.
