The Angel of Montague Street
Page 28
He shrugged. “For now.”
She turned and faced him then. “Do you remember, back when you were afraid I was going to run away?”
“I do.”
“Do you remember, I said I’d tell you the thing I was afraid you were going to find out about me?”
“Yeah. Listen, I’m not—”
“Be quiet.” She looked down at the ground. He noticed her hands trembling, and it was killing him to just stand there, but he did it.
“I was coming home from school one night, about a year and a half ago. I must have fallen asleep on the subway because I came to and I had missed my stop and gone by. I got off at the next station to turn around and come back, there was nobody there but me and this guy. He dragged me into a bathroom and raped me.”
He could feel his heart thumping right underneath his chin. “For a long time after that I hated men. All of you. I didn’t think I could ever feel any desire, or, or . . . or anything for a man, ever again. Until you. Until that one night we had . . .” She laid her hand on his arm, then, cold and unsteady, and he could feel how afraid she really was.
“But then,” she said, letting go of him and looking away, “then Domenic, when he got me, he kept talking about it, he kept telling me he was going to do it, after he killed you. But you got him first.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry all of this had to happen, Domenic and all that. I’m sorry about the first guy, too.”
“Well, they got the first guy,” she said. “At least he’s in jail.”
“No shit! How’d they catch him?”
She looked up at him, and a little bit of that fire came back into her eyes. “I bit off his thumb,” she said. “He had to go to the hospital, and they matched him up.”
“You what?! Bit off—”
“His thumb.” She grinned, then, side to side and full on, the one he thought he’d never see again. “Just the bottom half of it, like from the first joint.”
“Jesus Christ.” He thought back, remembering those arguments, the fear his stepmother had that she’d be left outside in the cold. Maybe I’m more like my old man than I thought, maybe she thinks I don’t feel anything, maybe she thinks I don’t care. It dawned on him then, this stuff was not from Viet Nam, it was not from the violence in his childhood, it wasn’t karma or anything else. It was just normal shit. They could handle this . . .
“Elia Taskent,” he said, taking her up in his arms, “I really think I love you.”
“Oh, God,” she said, “Oh, Christ. Is it all right if I’m still a little shaky?”
“Baby,” he said, holding on, “we’re all a little shaky.”
About the Author
NORMAN GREEN is the author of five crime novels, most recently The Last Gig. Born in Massachusetts, he now lives in New Jersey with his wife.
www.normgreenwriter.com
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Also by Norman Green
SICK LIKE THAT
THE LAST GIG
DEAD CAT BOUNCE
WAY PAST LEGAL
THE ANGEL OF MONTAGUE STREET
SHOOTING DR. JACK
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE ANGEL OF MONTAGUE STREET. Copyright © 2003 by Norman Green. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MAY 2016 ISBN: 9780061732584
Print Edition ISBN: 9780060934118
WITNESS™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
HarperCollins® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
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