The Angel of Montague Street

by Norman Green

  “You taking in the sights?” Domenic said. He was enjoying himself.

  “Yeah,” Silvano said. He noticed some small puncture marks in Dominic’s forearm, three rows of four holes. Special Ed must have gotten a couple of licks in with his dinner fork. “Nice night. You ever wonder what this place must have looked like when Henry Hudson sailed in here for the first time? Just trees, just water, animals? It must have been beautiful.” He turned to face them, one elbow on the railing. “Sometimes I wonder,” he said, “if the human race is just some kind of skin disease that the Earth caught, you know, like a planetary psoriasis. She’ll feel better after she’s gotten cured of us, go back to the way she was.”

  “Oh, that’s deep,” Domenic said, mocking him. “That’s heavy, man, I can dig it. You tune in and turn on after you dropped out? You need to see the shotgun?”

  “Probably should, just to make it official.”

  “Step out around us. Way out around, then come up on the other side. Okay, stop there. Reach out, take one hand, just pull back the shawl and look under. That’s it, that’s enough, now drop it and step away. Step away.”

  It was an old double barrel, the kind you had to break open to reload. Looked like a Mossberg. Domenic didn’t have his hand anywhere near the triggers, though, he was cradling the thing in his hand, had his trigger finger indexed up on the stock, like they teach you in shooting school. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It might buy him a half second. “I wanna go back over in the corner where I was,” he said.

  “Fine,” Domenic said. “Turn your back to us, go way out around.”

  “Don’t get nervous,” Silvano told him. He put his back to them and did his slow half circle. There was a tall, long-haired woman straggling down the walkway from Montague Street in the shadows. Doesn’t matter, he told himself. Pay attention.

  “You see enough? You satisfied?” Domenic couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face.

  “Yeah.” He leaned both elbows on the railing and sighed.

  “There is no way out of this for you. You do exactly what I tell you, I might let your girlfriend go. This whole thing is all your fault, you know.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He turned to face the two of them again. He thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but he focused completely on Domenic. “I keep promising myself,” he said. “I keep promising the Great Beyond that things are gonna be different, I’m gonna change, I’m gonna be a guy that builds things instead of a guy that blows them up. It never seems to work out, though, no matter what I do, I’m always back in the same old shit.”

  Domenic’s voice was low and vicious. “How does it feel? You’re finally gonna get to pay up for what you did to my father and my sister. Too bad for your woman, but she’s gonna pay, too.”

  Silvano shrugged. “You might get away with it,” he said. “Your grandfather ever tell you why he killed your old man?”

  “What!?” Domenic turned toward him, his hand drifting a few inches down from where it had been. Not far enough, Silvano thought. “What did you say?”

  “Yeah,” Silvano said, not moving. “He made me drive the car that night. Big old tank, I don’t remember what kind it was, but it didn’t have power steering, had a steering wheel the size of a manhole cover just to give you enough leverage to turn the thing. Your father was up front, he was gone already, the old man was in the backseat behind him, holding a .357 in his lap.” He glanced over at Domenic, trying to gauge the position of his arm just using his peripheral vision, but he couldn’t tell for sure if he had enough space.

  “You are making this shit up.” Domenic spat the words.

  “Angelo was already dead. Old Dom made me help him, the two of us carried your father down onto this boat some friend of his kept at a marina down in Sheepshead Bay. The guy had a machete on the boat, when the old man found it he lost his mind all over again, he hacked your father’s head off, then he dumped both pieces in the water.” He looked at Domenic again. “He’s standing there on the boat, right, he’s got this big fucking knife in his hand, his whole body is shaking . . . I thought he was gonna kill me, too.”

  Domenic was transfixed, his face a mask of horror and fascination. He came out of it momentarily, long enough to slide his hand back up on the shotgun. Silvano cursed inwardly, turned away. God, he thought, the guy’s hand has got to be getting tired. He looked over the railing at the traffic just below him.

  “He didn’t, though. Kill me, I mean. I guess that much is obvious. He thought about it, though, for a good two minutes it could have gone either way. Finally he washes the knife off in the bay, puts it back.” Silvano shook his head. “‘You shoulda come to me first,’ he tells me. ‘You see what you made me do? You came to me first, none of this woulda happened.’ He put me on a bus that night, gave me a couple grand. ‘You can call me if you need money,’ he tells me, ‘but you can’t come back. And you gotta swear to me, swear on your father’s life, you never say a word about what you seen tonight. You ever talk, I’ll kill your father first, then I come for you. You understand?’ That was the last time I saw him.” He could see the vein throbbing in Domenic’s neck.

  “Why?”

  Silvano turned to face him again. He sighed, weary of the story. “Your father had this female he was seeing . . .”

  “You are a fucking liar. I will kill this bitch . . .”

  “Don’t be hasty.” Silvano shook his head. “Look, let me tell Elia the story, you just listen in. Okay? Otherwise we’ll never get through it. Elia, you with me?”

  She nodded her head, just barely.

  “Domenic’s father, Angelo, he had this chippy he saw on the side. Maybe it’s an old country thing, I don’t know, but nobody bothered to hide it, nobody made an issue out of it. She was no spring chicken, either, she had to be in her thirties, but she was beautiful, man, she was a knockout. Anyway, Angelo has it bad for this woman. Him and his father, old Domenic, they used to fight about it a lot. I mean, they fought about everything, they were all the time screaming at each other. What they called each other, you wouldn’t believe. You went over their house, it was a three-ring circus. It was never calm there, always emotional, emotional. You walk in, it’s never ‘hello,’ you’re always coming in at the middle of some big thing.

  “So anyhow, Angelo’s girlfriend is pushing him, she wants him to get a divorce and marry her. This is the fifties, remember, we’re Italians, we don’t do that. You kidding? Old Dom is having a fit, which he was good at, he’s making all kind of threats. Angelo’s wife finally catches on, now she’s mad, she stops putting out, she won’t talk to him except to yell ‘Fuck you!’ and lock herself in her bedroom.

  “So Angelo’s not getting any at home, meanwhile things go south with the girlfriend. Somewhere along the line, she gets into horse.” He pantomimed shooting up. “It takes Angelo a while to find out, he’s got his mind on his own problems, but when he sees the tracks, he pops a gasket, he threatens to kill her, he’s gonna have her locked up, she’s crying, she promises to quit, she’ll never do it again, she’s gonna go to the doctor, please give her one more chance, you know, all the usual shit. But you know how it goes, right, she goes away, gets cleaned up, she comes back, she does okay for a while, then she starts getting high again. He finds out, they replay the scene all over. I don’t know how many times they go through this.

  “Finally, what happens, Angelo figures out she’s whoring for it, right, she’s putting out to her connection to get her shit. So he figures, he’s over it, but he decides to get the guy first, all the trouble the guy caused, he’s going to find out who the guy is and whack him, then maybe she can get her act together. Call it a going-away present. So he rents the apartment across the hall from hers, he puts a guy in there to watch, see who shows up. Long story short, it’s old Dom, right, he’s ruining her so that his son Angelo will wake up and do what the fuck he’s supposed to do.” Silvano could hear strangled noises coming from deep in Domenic’s thr
oat, but he ignored them, kept his attention on Elia.

  “One little detail I left out. The whole neighborhood has been following this story, right, it’s like Days of Our Fucking Lives or something. So Angelo can’t put one of his regular crew up in the building to watch for whoever’s been selling smack to his girl, he’s already taken enough heat for this, but he needs someone who can keep his mouth shut. So who can he use? He uses me.” He looked into Domenic’s eyes. “I was seventeen years old. I promised your father I would do what he told me to do, I promised him I would keep watch. I was just a kid, I thought a promise meant something. My instructions were, you know who it is, you call this number. So I call the number, some Guido answers the phone, I tell him I have to see Angelo. ‘Sit tight,’ he tells me. Couple hours later, Angelo shows up.” He looked back at Elia. “Now Angelo might have been my uncle, but he was a scary motherfucker, and he was madder than a wet cat. I was in too far to get out, I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat him down and I told him my story. When I finish, he sits there, he’s looking at me, I ain’t saying another word. After a while he picks up the phone, he dials, someone answers. ‘Put him on,’ he says. He waits. A minute later Angelo starts screaming into the phone. I mean, screaming, just calling names. Then he slams the phone down. He looks at me. ‘This has been coming for a long time,’ he tells me. ‘Let’s go, you’re coming with me.’ He grabs me by the arm, and we take off.

  “Old Domenic was in the basement of his house when we found him. He has a bar down there, he’s sitting by himself, drinking. Angelo starts in on him, just like a thousand times before, except when the old man gets up to say something, Angelo pops him, slaps him in the face, I mean, he really let the old man have it. Domenic goes down, right, he can’t believe it, Angelo goes off on him, this time the old man keeps his mouth shut and listens. Angelo says his piece, finally he’s done, he sits down at the bar, but his mistake was, he still trusts his father. He sits with his back to him. Domenic picks a bottle of scotch off the bar, he swings it as hard as he can, he catches Angelo just above the ear with it. I don’t know if he meant to do it or not, I guess it doesn’t matter, but he caved Angelo’s skull in.” He shook his head. “After he hit the floor, he never made another sound. Domenic goes down on his knees next to Angelo, he grabs him by the hair, he’s still screaming at him, he’s punching him in the face. I always knew he was nuts, but that night I thought he’d lost it, I thought he’d gone all the way around the bend, I was trying to think of a way to get out of there, but the old man came out of it. He stood up, he’s got blood all over his hands, he looks at me. ‘This is all your fault,’ he says.” He looked out into the night, there were a million lights piercing the darkness. New York City, he thought, how much shit have you seen? He turned back to Little Dom. “You know the rest of it,” he said. “Maybe you think like the old man, maybe you think it was my fault. Hell, maybe it was, I don’t know.” He watched Domenic carefully, never letting his eyes leave Dom’s face, because Mrs. Clark was creeping up the rail behind him. He could see her clearly, it took everything he had to keep his eyes focused on Domenic, but he did, even when she leaned over and pulled the knife out of her shopping bag. She held it out, the blade gleaming in the glow of the streetlight. She grinned then, showing those rotten teeth of hers. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t think of any way to come out of it with Elia alive.

  “I don’t believe a fucking thing you say.” Domenic’s face twisted into a sneer. “Domenic told me you were fucking Jeannette, she joined the order to get away from you. He said my father found out, you knew what he was gonna do to you so you killed him. He said you were family, Jeannette made him promise not to hurt you, that’s why he let you run.”

  Silvano shook his head. “Dom, you gotta know I’m telling the truth. Jeannette was all ready to go in, you know she was, it’s all she ever talked about. The old man just used her, like he used everyone else. You don’t believe me, you can go ask her, she’s cloistered but they’ll let her talk to you. Let it go, Dom. Don’t make the same mistakes the old man made. Be different, make a new one. At least let Elia go, she’s got no part in this.” Despite his best efforts, Silvano’s attention wandered, because Mrs. Clark was right up behind Domenic, crouched down low. Domenic sensed her, then, and he turned to look. “Crazy bitch!” he yelled, and he turned a little farther, and for a fraction of a second he only had the shotgun with the tips of his fingers. Silvano drove his shoulder into the tiny space between Domenic and Elia, separating the two of them, he had her by the shoulders and began twisting her away, but his back was to Domenic and he could feel Domenic grappling with something at his belt. There’s no way, Silvano thought, there’s no way Elia can get far enough away in time, that has to be a pistol he’s reaching for, and if he’s any kind of a shot at all he’ll get all three of us. He tried to shove Elia away from him but he was afraid to push her too hard with that gun hanging there, he just wanted to get her going, and he turned in Dominic’s direction, Domenic had Mrs. Clark by the shirtfront but he had to let her go when she hacked at him with her knife. Elia wasn’t running and it was too late, Domenic had the gun out . . .

  Domenic leaned back away from the knife, his gun in the hand that flailed for balance. Silvano let go of Elia and grabbed Little Dom by the shoulders, bending him backward, over the railing. A half second later he was hanging there, dangling over the roadway. Silvano had him by one hand, the one without the gun in it.

  “Let it go!” Silvano shouted at him. Domenic turned his head away slowly, looking at the gun in his other hand, pointed at the roadway below. “Domenic, let it go!” Silvano could almost sense Domenic making up his mind, he felt Domenic squeezing his hand harder, saw him turning back, his face a mask of hate. The gun hand came around, it seemed to move as slowly and evenly as the second hand on a clock, Silvano waited as long as he could, but Domenic was not going to let anything go, he wanted to kill them both. With a convulsive twist Silvano shook his hand free and spun away. He could feel the shot before he heard it, it went past his ear and up into the night sky. He reached for Elia, who was still standing right there, a stick woman. He gathered her up into his arms, looked over her shoulder, down at the BQE where Domenic had landed not fifty feet in front of an oncoming semi, he was on his knees right in the truck’s path. The driver tried to stop, smoking black tire tracks streamed out behind the tractor while the brakes shrieked. The trailer jackknifed, it came out around into the center lane like God’s own flyswatter, Domenic was on his feet then, crazy as old John Brown himself, he had his head back, you could see him howling but you couldn’t hear him over the terrible sound of the truck coming apart . . .

  Silvano had to look away because he felt Mrs. Clark’s hands reaching for the shotgun, he got loose from Elia’s grip and broke it open, pulled the shells out with a shaking hand.

  “Hold still, doll,” she was saying. “Hold very still while we cut this thing off you.” With a surgeon’s precision she sliced through the duct tape with her knife, peeled the tape away from the skin, trimming Elia’s hair on the side where it had gotten stuck. Silvano wound up standing there with the shotgun in his hand, tape hanging off the end. Mrs. Clark looked over the railing, down at the carnage unfolding on the roadway below. She shook her head. “Seen it before,” she said. “Devil always claims what’s his. Wrap that thing up in the cape. Cops be here soon, we got to go.”

  TEN

  “BLANCHE SAYS YOU’RE not a bad person. just misguided.”

  “Blanche?” Who would listen to her?

  She looked at him with distaste. “Mrs. Clark.”

  “I knew who you meant.” They were walking slowly, making their way through the crowd of people on the Promenade, next to one another but not touching, a clear space between them. He’d been conscious of it, but every time he tried to close the gap she would move away, just slightly. It was causing him more hurt than he thought he could feel. “Sounds like the two of you have become good friends
.”

  She looked into his face then, searching. “I hate it when you do this.”

  “Do what?” He was mystified.

  “You put up this wall, and you don’t let me in. It’s like one of those metal grates they close down over the storefronts in bad neighborhoods, you shut me out and I can’t even see inside.”

  He’d heard the argument before, and a million just like it. It had been one of his stepmother’s favorite complaints, and it never failed to irk his father. “I’m not closing you out,” he said. “Really, I’m not. What you see is what I’ve got. There’s no ‘in.’”

  “Yes, there is.” She looked over at him, and then away, out over the bay. “Anyway, that’s not why I wanted to see you. I need to apologize.”

  “Elia, you don’t have to—”

  “Yes I do, be quiet.” She stopped then and went to lean against the rail. He followed her, respecting her distance, keeping that painful little space between them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry for staying away from you. Sorry for not explaining. I just needed to hole up for a while.”

  “I didn’t blame you. I know I been a lot of trouble. Cost you your job . . .” He trailed off, looking at her.

  She was having trouble with it. “What have you been doing with yourself.”

  “Carpentering,” he said, looking at the swollen back of his left hand. “I caught on with those guys who were putting up the building, down at Black and White.”

  She glanced up, smiled just slightly, just a twitch. “They weren’t mad at you, because of what you did?”

  “I didn’t tell them what I did.”

  She thought about that for a minute. “Is that what you’re going to be? A carpenter?”