The candlelight glowed orange in the gloom, casting strange reflections on the tabletop and walls that fluttered along with the movement of the air. Dancing beams of light.
“Sorry to make a big production,” Anette said. “Birthdays were always a big deal in my family. For family, friends, guests. Everyone. Even into my 40’s, my parents did the whole cake and candles thing for me. I hated it back then, but now I guess I can’t resist carrying on the tradition.”
“That’s how life works, I think,” Jonas said, still standing near the light switch. “You do something long enough, and it starts to feel right.”
Jaworski smiled. Nodded. He felt a strange fluttering in his chest, a lightness somehow totally foreign to him. He didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t worry. They won’t sing,” Urszula said. “I made them promise that. No singing.”
Now Anette leaned forward, scooted the cake toward Jaworski, the crystal cake stand scraping over the wood.
That orange glow advanced for him, its orb of light now cast upward onto his chin and cheeks. The flames wavered and spit a little from the bumpy ride.
He snapped into something of an out-of-body experience at this point. Totally unable to process the emotions flooding through him. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Not to people like him. And so something pulled him outside of it, detached him from his physical self, left him to observe this person going through the motions of all of this.
His body leaned forward and blew the candles out, the wind hissing a little in the hollow of his throat, the bright smell of melting wax shifting to the chemical stench of smoke and ash.
And he retracted further. Not all the way here. The heat in his cheeks was the only thing that made him sure that this was happening, that he was awake. Alive.
They gave him a present, and then they gave each other presents. Nice things. Warm. Heartfelt. Sincere.
But he was only vaguely conscious of these events, even if his mouth smiled and thanked them for the gift.
His chest felt like it was imploding, like all of this was caving his heart in, sucking it into nothing, a black hole, a collapsing star that would suck everything into the darkness.
And he was standing now. Placing the cloth napkin on his plate. Excusing himself before he really realized what he was doing.
He picked his way through the front rooms of the house. Stumbling. Disoriented. Scanning for the path to the front door which now escaped his memory, looking for the exit.
He needed to get out of here, out of this room, out of this place, before the tears arrived.
Chapter 32
The heat swelled in the car, but Darger didn’t dare suggest starting it up to run the AC. Too noisy. Too stimulating.
“You think they really don’t know? What he does for a living, I mean?” Luck said.
He didn’t look at her when he spoke, nor did she look at him. All eyes focused on the house.
“It’s not like he’s handing out business cards offering his murder services.”
“Yeah. True. But still… He’s not from the right background for a girl like this, is he?”
“What does that even mean? The right background? Kinda snobby don’t you think?”
“Violet, he’s a professional murderer. For the mob.”
“But if they don’t know that…”
“Don’t you think — if it was you — that you’d get a vibe from him? A cold feeling or something?”
“That’s what everyone outside a situation thinks. When it’s not your life, it’s easy to decide what should and shouldn’t be obvious. And until there’s proof that someone is somehow sinister or whatever, it’s easy to pass it off as nothing. You saw that with Clegg.”
James Joseph Clegg had been the perp in the case that brought the two of them together, of course. The murderer walked unnoticed among everyone in his life, stayed hidden right up until the end.
“That’s true. I think about that a lot, actually. How even when we were asking Clegg’s boss for his personnel file, the guy totally bought it when we lied and told him Clegg wasn’t directly involved. Here a guy that worked with a brutal serial killer every day, and even when he gets a hint that something’s up, he’s more than willing to accept even the smallest reassurance that everything is fine.”
They went quiet for a while.
Luck fiddled with the ends of his mustache.
“You were teasing me about the mustache, right?”
Darger snorts out a laugh.
“No. I mean, I’m sorry, but I really do hate it.”
He winced a little, shoulders hunching and chest bucking as though he’d been shot point-blank in the heart.
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s a mustache.”
“OK, thanks. That’s very helpful. Very constructive.”
“I’m an equal-opportunity mustache-hater, buddy. It is hair. It is on your top lip. And it looks stupid. I can’t really get more specific than that.”
He stared out the window, lips pressed together in a tight line.
“But who cares what I think anyway?”
His eyes flicked back to meet hers, a suspicious glint in them.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I didn’t ask if you like my hair parted like this, did I? Because who cares?”
He couldn’t help but study her head now, which made her self-conscious.
“Besides, I don’t really have a choice how I part my hair these days. The scars kind of decide that for me.”
They fell quiet for a beat.
“So you hate every mustache? Just indiscriminate hatred of all facial hair so long as it is isolated on the top lip.”
Darger thought about it for a second, ran through a mental montage of famous ‘staches. Historical figures and celebrities flashed through her head: Mark Twain, Gene Shalit, Adolph Hitler, Burt Reynolds, Salvador Dali, Dr. Phil, Hulk Hogan.
“What about Tom Selleck?” Luck said, a little excitement creeping into his voice. “In his prime, I mean. Magnum PI era. Come on.”
Darger licked her lips, found it a little difficult to organize her thoughts in the heat that had built up in the car.
“First of all, let me say right up front that beards are different,” Darger said. “I have no quarrel with beards.”
Luck nodded in slow motion.
“Second of all, I’m well aware of Tom Selleck-”
Movement at the house caught her eye, cut her off.
The door swung open, and a man emerged. It was him. Jaworski.
The car fell dead silent as the big guy lumbered out onto the porch, leaned on the rail for a second, brought a hand to his eyes. His body language suggested vulnerability, Darger thought. This didn’t seem a vicious killer for hire so much as a wounded puppy.
And the quiet in the car suddenly felt a little awkward, like maybe they were seeing something they shouldn’t see.
Jaworski didn’t just bring a hand to his eyes, Darger realized — he was wiping them.
When Luck spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Is he… is he crying?”
Chapter 33
Jaworski leaned his elbows on the rail running along the edge of the deck. He wasn’t crying — not really — but he couldn’t stop wiping his eyes, fingers coming away moist each time.
Water. Water leaking from his eyes.
But he wasn’t crying.
Yeah.
He didn’t possess words for the emotions erupting inside of him. Soggy feelings. Mushy ones. They were utterly foreign to him. He’d heard tell of this kind of sorrow, of this kind of longing to be part of something, but he’d never quite experienced these things personally. Not like this.
Did people really live this way? Kind and generous with one another? Giving gifts. Caring for each other. Expressing affection. All the time? Every day for their whole lives? He couldn’t fathom it.
He buckled a little at the waist, let his forehead
descend to the rail, the wood cold against the flushed skin of his face. He closed his eyes. Took deep breaths to try to get himself under control.
It smelled like the country out here. Clean and bright. Various plant odors mingled in the air: lilies, grass, oak and maple trees, the blend congealing into some fresh smell that was wholly unlike the smog and car exhaust stench of the city.
It was hard, bordering on impossible, to believe that Detroit was just a short drive south of this place. A distance that could practically be measured in blocks. It felt like he had traveled to a different planet, that the city he’d been born and raised in was in a galaxy far, far away.
And he didn’t belong here, did he? Among these kind people, surrounded by this clean smell?
He belonged in the gutter. In the stink. Among the hungry animals. Where he was raised, and where he would die.
The door clicked behind him, and he lifted his head from the rail.
It was Urszula. A small smile curled the corners of her lips, but her eyes looked wide and sad.
“Everything OK?” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.”
She moved close now. Hugged him.
“And you?” she said. “You’re OK?”
Her voice trilled out in a low, soothing tone just next to his ear, a delicate sound that threatened to trigger a fresh wave of sadness within him, but he fought it, managed to stifle it somehow.
“I’m fine. It’s just… I’m not used to this. All of this. I almost can’t believe it.”
“All of what?”
He chewed his lip. Thought about how to express it.
“This kindness, I guess. That people, a family, can be so good to each other. I think… I mean, I think I’ve always wanted that, to be part of that, but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the reality of it when I see it up close. Kind of overwhelming.”
She turned her head sideways now, nuzzled her temple into his chest. He thought he saw a confused look on her face, some flash of negativity, so he tried to clarify.
“Family is everything, you know. That’s what I want. A real family. I want to be part of that. But I guess I’ve always worried that maybe I can’t. Like it’s a door that’s not open to me somehow. A path that’s blocked. But I want what your family has, a version of my own, of our own.”
Again, she did not answer.
He pulled her closer, planted a series of kisses on the top of her head, felt that strange hum of energy he always felt when she was near, electric current flowing between them, life sparking and surging all through them.
Her head swiveled to face him again in slow motion, and when it finally rotated enough for him to see her face, he found a frown puckering her lip and nose.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
She swallowed.
“What you’re seeing is the surface of my family,” she said. “The shine on top that makes everything appear a certain way. Attractive and warm. All the negative stuff is still there, believe me. It’s just hidden from view.”
A strand of hair fell over her eyes as she shook her head.
“We’re all blinded by the sheen on the surface, I guess. Even my parents. I think they can’t see it clearly. Can’t really separate the way they shape the appearance from the way things really are. Like they’re selling themselves the same story they’re selling everyone else.”
Now it was Jaworski’s turn to frown. He thought back on the cake, the gifts, the smiles and kind words.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it’s nice. Maybe it’s not perfect, but there’s more good than bad, isn’t there?”
She brought her hand to her brow, squeezed the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.
“Shit,” she said, her voice smaller still. “My dad has… I didn’t want to get into this, but I think I have to. My dad has made some comments….”
She trailed off, staring out at nothing.
“Comments?”
“He’s said some things. Indirect things. About your background.”
For a split second, a wave of panic crashed through Jaworski’s head. Raw anxiety. And his fear opened up like a fresh wound. The fear of being found out. The fear that maybe they already knew who he really was, what h did for a living, the blood on his hands.
But no. That was impossible.
He pushed the terror down. Found anger in its place. Indignation.
“My background. What the hell does that mean?”
Memories of Polack jokes played in his head, bleating school kid voices picking at him over being poor, over being awkward, endlessly picking at him until he snapped. And that red feeling came over him, the heat of hatred flooding his skull, and he saw Crampton’s smashed face in his mind, the boy’s temple all caved in from the hammer’s blow, blood and brain seeping from the cracked place. And he watched the floppy body disappear among the bags in the dumpster. Sinking down into the blood and meat scraps from the butcher.
She wrapped her arms around him, disrupted the images in his head. Pulled herself close to his big frame, a soft thing pressing into him, and she buried her face in his chest once more, nose first this time. Now she was the one on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry. My dad… he’s… he’s from a different time, from a different world than we’re living in now. He thinks status matters, I guess. Thinks money matters. Thinks we’re all measured on some spectrum from peasant to royalty, and the noble people like the Jorgensens shouldn’t… you know. Mix, I guess. Anyway, what he thinks of you means nothing to me. You know that, don’t you?”
She didn’t look up at him. Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to do it, he thought.
He kissed the top of her head, made a noise like he agreed, a low guttural affirmation he knew she would accept.
But even here, he was left out, wasn’t he? Just like his exclusion from the mafia, he would be excluded from this family he idealized, this domestic warmth that had moved him to tears. It was another path not open to him, no matter what she said.
Because one way or another, it always came back to blood, to class, to identity. And he forever remained an outsider, a dirty thing.
An other.
His dad had been right all those years ago on his death bed, but only to a point. He told him that he could take everything. And discarding the rules, he could take much from this world — by force, by guile, by whatever means necessary. If you were hard enough, you could rise up out of the gutter and take plenty.
But there remained some things out of reach, he thought. No matter what lengths he went to, there were still some things he could never have.
Chapter 34
No one who knew Jaworski as the big Polack hitman would ever believe the scene outside the Jorgensen home. The big killer brought to tears by mushy feelings? No way.
He drove around Detroit, trying to understand it himself. Trying to figure out how the hell any of this made sense. Feeling empty as hell. Confused. Distracted.
He barely noticed the concrete rolling by outside his windows, nor the pedestrians bobbing along it, always in a hurry, faces hard. He just followed the black slits of asphalt that sliced through the city like a series of canals, flowed along with the traffic, steered his ship to keep up. Awash in a sea of urban bustle. Aimless.
How could he hold those opposing values in his head? Be both the guy who desperately desired familial connection and the guy who ruthlessly murdered for cash.
Maybe everyone had a bit of that contradiction spiraled into them, though. A less dramatic version than his but not so different.
All business was cold, wasn’t it? A heartless machine that cared not for human beings, cared only for calculating numbers. The banks might not kill people for money, but they foreclosed on thousands every year, evicted them from their homes. The logging companies would happily kill off every species of owl to get their lumber. Sweatshops around the world violated human rights laws, and the goods still flooded into Wal-Marts a
nd Targets for soccer moms to buy in bulk. It went on and on.
And yet all of those businessmen, no matter how callous, had families of their own. Somehow balanced these forces of nature and commerce in their lives.
America was more a business than ever, Jaworski thought — inside the mafia and out. These days, though, it was turning more and more unfair. It used to be that if you worked hard, you could advance your rank in life, make a better life for your kids. You didn’t need advanced degrees. You didn’t need cutting-edge skills. If you were willing to work hard, dedicate your life to labor, the opportunity for a better life existed.
And the potential for advancement was generational — working hard didn’t merely improve the individual’s lot in life. Their hard work produced enough wealth to put their kids through college, give their children a better life still, advance the entire family another rung up the ladder for good.
Back when the auto factories were booming, Detroit was a shining example of the old way of things — the version of the world where the American Dream remained accessible to anyone willing to work for it. At one point, Detroit led the country in percentage of homeowners. The opportunity was there, and droves of people improved their lot in life, migrating in from all over the country to take up in the factories and own a little piece of the city, a little piece of the dream.
Now thousands of those same homes were empty. Foreclosed. Abandoned. Rotting away in the rain and snow.
Jaworski took in the devastation as he rolled through the empty places. Block after block of houses falling apart. Caving in.
Shingles peeled off roofs. Mushy plywood peeking out of the bald spots. Stained dark from the wet.
Many of the windows had been boarded up. Sealed off like tombs.
The unboarded frames held jagged remnants of glass. Pointed shards like fangs somehow still held in place. Broken bits of glass dusted the porches and front yards, the little shards twinkling like glitter when the light hit them just right.
Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood Page 18
