by Norman Green
The car was still sitting there when he got back to the doorway. He set his bottle off to one side and got the green blanket down off the nail. Sitting down in the doorway, he wrapped the blanket around himself, ignoring the smell. There was very little of him to see, that way, just his head sticking out of the top, and that was covered by his wig and Mrs. Clark’s hat. Beneath the blanket he eased his pistol out of the ankle holster, clicked the safety off, and settled in to wait.
There were four of them, Ivan Bonifacio and three other guys, and they were all in the storefront office of the car service he’d been using. They spilled out onto the sidewalk, the four of them plus the guy who ran the car service. Ivan was the only one he recognized, two of the other guys were in suits, and the fourth guy looked like California, muscular and tanned, jeans, T-shirt, sneakers, long blond hair, shades. Hired help.
The car service guy was shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head, speaking Spanish, telling them he didn’t know anything. One of the suits grabbed him by the elbows from behind, held him steady while Ivan backhanded him, stepping into it, putting some steam behind the blow. A cut opened up on the guy’s cheekbone and blood began to run down his face. He looked over Ivan’s shoulder and made eye contact with Silvano for just the briefest of moments, then looked back at Ivan, shaking his head violently, his voice going higher and quicker, still denying. Ivan drew his hand back again, big muscles flexing across his shoulders, loading up. The suit holding the car service guy was laughing, and the car service guy braced himself, but just before he did his eyes flicked Silvano’s way again, just before he squeezed them shut. Ivan stopped, half-turned, looking over his shoulder, just a guy in a hat, rolled up in a blanket, but then his eyes went wide and he spun, reaching inside his coat, coming out with a big Colt Python, bringing it down, victory shining in his eyes. Car service guy took a punch for you, didn’t rat you out, Silvano thought, you gotta give him a chance to get away. He flipped the blanket aside and put two rounds into the face of the suit holding the car service guy’s elbows. The two of them went down, tangled up in Ivan’s legs, and he went down with them. The other suit was reaching for something in his armpit and Silvano hit him next, two rounds in the center of the chest. The guy in the jeans had a Ruger .22 automatic in his hand, and he had Silvano all lined up, and Silvano’s heart seemed to stop, but then the Python boomed, throwing the guy off. Ivan had fired from a prone position and his shot went high, recoil pushing the Python’s barrel skyward. Silvano used the eye-blink of time to fire twice more, and California went spinning down in the middle of the street.
The car service guy leaped to his feet and vanished inside his office. Ivan rolled over behind the car. Silvano looked down under, watching Ivan’s feet, and sent a couple of rounds punching through the sheet metal, but it was too late, Ivan had gotten in on the passenger side and slid over behind the wheel. The car engine roared, the back wheels smoked, the car fishtailed wildly, and then it was gone. The suits were both motionless, dead or dying where they’d landed. California still lay on his back in the center of the street, arching his back, kicking his feet, the Ruger still in his hand. Struggling for his next breath.
He’d never get it.
Silvano stuck the pistol back in his ankle holster, turned and looked around. No one had come out to look yet but they would soon, stupidly curious. The car service guy lurched out and slammed his front door, hastily locking it with an unsteady hand, shaking his head, looking down, avoiding eye contact. He yanked his keys out of the door and took off. He don’t know nothing, Silvano thought, ain’t seen nothing. Tough guy, but careful. He’ll probably go back wherever he came from, visit his family for six months or so.
The street was still empty, and quiet. Silvano retrieved his shopping bag and his bottle of Mad Dog, wrapped the green blanket around himself, and walked away. In the distance, faint, he could hear sirens.
THEY WERE GHETTO OREOS, some other brand he was not familiar with, but they looked the same, black cookies with white stuff between. The dogs liked them fine, though. Silvano sat in the weeds in Henry’s vacant lot, it was a pretty good spot because he was out of sight but he could still see what was going on down the street. The dog with half a tail came over and flopped down beside him in the bushes, resting his head on Silvano’s thigh. He held out a cookie in his shaking hand, and the dog took it carefully, licking his palm afterward. “You love me, don’cha,” he said to the dog. “You don’t care whether I got something for you or not. You’re still happy to see me, either way . . . I’m happy to see you, too.” He patted the dog on the head. The other one sat under a bush about eight feet away, watching him. That didn’t bother him. He had two more in his locker at the St. Felix.
The cops had half the street closed in front of the car service joint. The guy who ran the place had not returned, and neither had any of the drivers. They would all see the yellow crime scene tape and decide that it wasn’t worth the risk, take the prudent course, go cruise for fares somewhere else. The three bodies were still where they had fallen. The cops were in no hurry, they went around taking measurements and locating spent brass. Won’t do them any good, Silvano thought. His Beretta was already sinking into the mud at the bottom of Buttermilk Channel.
He’d gone over the thing a hundred times in his head, trying to think it out of having happened, but no matter how many times he turned it over in his mind, those three guys in the street stayed where they were. He couldn’t see their faces from where he sat, but his memory provided him with the images whether he wanted them or not.
He ate one of the cookies himself and then fed a couple more to the dogs. The clear plastic wrapper made a hell of a racket, he’d had a bitch of a time getting the thing open to begin with, his hands had been shaking so badly. He was much calmer now, but he was beginning to get that familiar feeling, and that internal chorus was starting up. You were lucky, he told himself, all the breaks went your way this time. One of these days the ball is going to bounce into the other guy’s hand, and what are you gonna do then?
He got to his feet and went inside, looking for Henry, who was not home. He changed out of his wino clothes and left by the side door, the one that opened out onto Visitation Place.
THE STORE WAS A RIOT of exotic sights and smells. Most of the grocer’s wares lay in open boxes, on countertops or in burlap bags on the floor, and they all competed for Silvano’s attention. There were two aisles in the store, and he made his slow way down the one, up the other, admiring a knee-high sack of red lentils, a row of small wooden kegs full of dried beans, red ones, black ones, green, beige, spotted, striped. A cardboard box with a plastic liner was filled with wrinkled little green and red peppercorns. There were bags and bags of rice, and not the Americanized kind, either, not the homogenized, bleached, presorted, cleaned, processed kind that comes in a cardboard box with instructions printed on the side, petrified little maggots of starch with all nutritional value removed, boil for three minutes and you’re done. The rice that leaked out of these bags onto the wooden floor came in various shades of brown, the color of tree bark, the color of old leaves, the color of coffee with cream in it. From the back of the store he watched a woman arguing with the grocer over every purchase she made. She was buying a paper bag of dried chickpeas, some spices Silvano didn’t recognize, and a tin of olive oil. Before his eyes she was transformed, changing from a plump middle-aged woman with dark skin and a faint mustache into a round and sensuous alchemist who could change such unlikely makings into a delicacy whose dusky aroma could pull men in off the streets. An alchemist, he thought. Lead into gold, boys into men.
He compared her favorably, and, he knew, unfairly, to his second mother, the woman his father brought home when Silvano was six years old. She had been tall and thin, with phony blond hair and big tits with impossibly large, saucer-shaped nipples. (He’d seen them twice by accident and was still repulsed by the memory.) No alchemist, she, her efforts at cooking had been limited to removing from the package a
nd boiling, opening the can and heating on the stove, defrosting in the sink and sticking in the oven, dumping into a bowl and pouring milk on.
After the woman left he looked at his watch and made his way to the front of the store. He looked out through the big plate-glass window, watching the sidewalk outside. He glanced at the grocer, then at his watch again. Any minute now, he thought. The grocer watched him from behind his cash register.
“You had to buy something from this store to give a woman,” Silvano asked him, still watching through the glass, “some little present, what would you buy?”
“Ah,” the grocer said. “You sound like a wise man. Something sweet, candied almonds, perhaps, or some dried flowers . . .”
“Yeah,” Silvano said, interrupting him. “Dried flowers, gimme what you got, quick, here she comes.”
The grocer leaned forward to see, and seconds later he was chuckling, shaking his head, wrapping the flowers in white paper. He wouldn’t take any money. “Go, and good luck.”
He caught up to her on the corner where Court crosses Atlantic. He was wearing his Police Athletic League sweatshirt and all the other stuff that went with it, shades, hat, sneakers, and all that. His face lit up when he saw her, and he handed her the flowers, checked the street while she opened the parcel.
“Hey,” she said. “I know you?”
He raised his eyebrows behind the shades, cocked his head. “You forget me already?”
She grinned at him, just a little bit, offered him her arm. “You wanna walk me home?”
“That would be nice,” he said gravely, checking the street one more time before he moved.
“What’s the matter? You looking for somebody?”
“I usually watch the street. It’s just an old habit.”
“Yeah, I noticed that, but this is twice in like thirty seconds.” He turned to go, and she fell in step beside him. She squeezed his arm. “So?” she asked, after a few steps. “Who are you looking for?”
“Other than you?” he said. She doesn’t miss a damn thing, he thought. Might as well just tell her. “I need to be sure nobody is looking for me. They tried for me again, about an hour ago.”
“What? Are you hurt? Are you all right?”
His steady pressure on her arm kept them walking. “I’m fine,” he said. “Keep walking, pretend to be normal. I’m fine.”
“Ooh,” she said, “that was a shot.” She punched him in the ribs with her right hand. “Where did this happen?”
“Down by Henry’s.”
“They were waiting for you at Henry’s?”
“Just up the street. Couple of blocks.”
“Is Henry okay? Do you think they knew you were staying there?”
“I didn’t see Henry, but I think he’s probably out doing his thing. Making his rounds.” He walked on in silence for a few paces. “I think they picked me up at a car service joint I was using. It’s my fault, I used the same guy too many times. Fall into a pattern, you become predictable.”
“I see.” Now it was her turn to think it over. “Am I part of the pattern, too?”
“I’d like you to be,” he said, not looking at her. “But maybe not just yet. Not until this is all over with.”
“Why?” she said, and left it there, waiting to see which part of it he would answer.
He inhaled, held it for a couple of steps, blew it out.
She shook her head. “This can’t be that hard to do.”
He looked at her. “Maybe not for you,” he said.
“Gimme what you got.”
“All right.” He stared down at the sidewalk as they went on, working at it. “I never met anybody like you before.” He took another breath, blew it out. “Whew. I never, ever, felt before, what I feel when I’m with you.”
“That’s a good start.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what to do about you. And I’m afraid.”
“Of me?” “Ahh . . .”
“Tell it,” she demanded. “Just tell it, and tell the truth, goddammit, don’t tell me half now and save half for some other time. Just spit it out.”
He stopped and looked at her. “I’m afraid if you find out who I really am you’ll run away. You’ll hate me.”
She was mystified. “Why? Are you such a horrible person? I think I would know, if you were. I’m good at this, Silvano, I can always tell who the creeps are from a mile off. I don’t think you’re a creep.”
He took a few steps in silence. “Guy told me, earlier today, nobody wants to be what they are. Everybody wants to be something different. I never thought I had a problem with that, until I met you.”
She stopped, and he looked up. “We’re here.”
“Yeah,” she said. “You wanna come up?”
“I would,” he said. She was already climbing the stairs, her key in her hand, and he went on up behind her. He was focused on Elia, watching her go through the door, and he failed to notice the red Alfa Romeo that came down the street, or the grim-faced man behind the wheel who peered at the building on his way by, leaning over to catch the number.
INSIDE, HE SAT ON the same pillow on the floor as last time. He took off the hat and the sunglasses, and she could see more of his face. He sat there looking out of the window. He doesn’t know how to pick it up again, she thought. He’s probably never in his life spoken to another human being like this before. She sat down across from him. “Scare me, Silvano. Get it over with.”
“You don’t fool around, do you?”
“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me what you’re afraid I’m gonna find out, okay, and I’ll tell you what I’m afraid you’re gonna find out. How about that?” She waited. “I’ll even go first if you want.”
“No,” he said.
“I’ll even do better than that,” she said, her voice rising. “What if I told you I already know what you’re so afraid of telling me? What would you think of that?” He watched her, silent. “You’re no fucking carpenter,” she said.
“I never said I was. I said I was working with . . .”
“Don’t start that shit, not with me. I am not a goddam lawyer, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to start thinking like one.” She let him think that over for a heartbeat. “That guy in the bakery was twice your size. Easily. You didn’t know who he was, he could have been anybody. Or anything. What if he’d had a gun?”
“He didn’t. I’d have seen it.”
“What about the ones that tried for you today? What happened to them?”
“One got away. Three of them didn’t.” He looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I really wanted to be a carpenter. Once I spent—”
“That’s not the issue, Silvano.”
He felt like he was in the ring with Ali, and he just couldn’t react fast enough to cover up. “What—”
“This is what your father did, all his life. Am I right? He hurt people, and he didn’t feel it. So you ran away. But all these years later, you’re afraid you’re just like him. Right?”
Even the thought of that pissed him off. “I am nothing like . . .”
“It’s Viet Nam, isn’t it?” She sighed, turned away as though she didn’t want to hear his answer. “Is that why you think I’ll hate you? Why don’t you just tell me? Why do I have to drag it out of you? Start with why you joined. What made you want to be in the Army?”
This is it, he knew it, this was that inevitable crossroad, this was why Nam became such a dirty secret when you got back, some dark thing you carried around in your heart and never talked about, not to anyone. She already knew, though, she knew he’d been there and she was going to have to decide how she felt about it. Was he really a murderer, rapist, baby-killer? That was the popular opinion. He remembered the flight back to L.A. You had to fly in uniform to get the military rate, and he was returning the same way he’d left, alone, his haircut and his clothes branding him, setting him apart. It felt like the whole world was wearing love beads and long hair, and there you sat with blood dripping off your fingers
. The first thing you did when you got back, you got out of those fatigues as fast as you could. There was no pride in having gone, no pride in survival.
She glanced at him. “Listen,” she said. “If you’re not ready for this—”
“No,” he said, “it’s all right. I just got lost there for a minute.” He inhaled, seeing her walk away, in his mind’s eye, leaving him by himself again. Fuck it, he thought, fuck trying to justify yourself, it’s too hard. Just tell it, let her do what she wants.
“I was so young,” he said, and he shook his head. “All of my life, up until then, I had been . . .” He wondered how to say it. “On the inside. In the middle. I was another Italian from Brooklyn, I lived most of my life surrounded by people who looked the way I looked, talked the way I talked, all of it. They knew what I was just by looking, and I understood them. I belonged to the tribe. I knew what to do and what not to do. Then, the next day, I’m in Chicago. I don’t know anybody, everybody there talks funny, I’m always getting lost.” He shrugged. “I took it for a while, but it was no good. I guess I was just too young, you know? Too young to handle being on the outside. There was a recruiting office not far from the boardinghouse where I was staying. One day I went in and talked to the guy. Next thing I knew, I was in boot camp.” He knew she was watching him but he was afraid to look at her. He was jonesing for a cigarette, but he didn’t have any. He looked at the two fingers where he would have held it.
“That’s how I got in. It was a few years before Nam got going big. I guess I didn’t think about it all that much. In sixty-eight, I volunteered to go. The strange thing about Nam, one of them, anyway, they didn’t ship you over in your unit. You went by yourself. So I finally get over there, I’m in a tent with five other guys. They’d all been there different lengths of time, one guy had eight days to go, another guy had two months, and so on, down to me, I was the FNG.”
