by Evelyn Glass
He slams the phone onto the coffee table, where it sounds like it breaks.
My heart is thumping like crazy now. They have him there, now. That could be Chance. They could have Chance at the compound. They could be doing anything to him. And why would they want Dad to go there? Maybe because they want Dad to be the one to…I can’t even think about that. Dad stomps from the apartment. I leave my bedroom, throw on some sneakers, and leave soon after him.
Climbing behind the wheel of my beat-up old car, the once-green paint now chipped grey, I watch as Dad walks down the street, moving slowly. Maybe he’s walking because he doesn’t want to get there, I reflect. Maybe he knows there’s something bad waiting for him at the end of that long walk. Or maybe he knows he’s too drunk to drive. I watch him as he moves toward the bus stop, pats his pockets down, throws his hands up, and then debates whether or not to come back to the apartment. So he doesn’t have any money. In the end—with a few of the people at the bus stop inching away from him since he looks like a crazy homeless guy—he shrugs his shoulders and keeps walking.
Knowing that he’ll take a while to get there, I get an idea. I could be walking into anything at the compound. And even if I know that Dad and Chance would never kill a woman, I don’t know the same of Giovanni or any of the other guys who hang out there. Maybe it’d be better if I had some information backing me up when I went in there. And anyway, what’s my plan at the moment, just storm in there, pregnant, and somehow get Chance out?
I start the car and drive as quickly as I can toward Hell’s Kitchen, toward Nate’s place.
I ignore the looks of the men hanging around outside the door to the apartment building, leaning against it, smoking, and run up the stairs, past the graffiti and the condoms and the filth, to the thick metal door. When I bang on it, my fist hurts. I think back to when Chance banged on it, how it must’ve hurt him but he didn’t even realize. A small thing, and yet one that makes me wish those strong hands were holding mine now. Ignoring the pain, I keep going.
“Yes? Yes?” It’s Nate’s childlike voice. “What is it? Yes? Hello? Who’s there? No cold callers, please, thank you. Thank you!”
“It’s me,” I say. “Becky. We met when—”
“What do you want?” he says, suddenly suspicious. “Are you alone? Who’s out there with you? This is some kind of plan, isn’t it? What’s the angle? Tell me that, huh? What’s this angle you’re going for? What’s going on? I think you’ve got some scheme you’re hatching and you’re out there like the—what’d’ya call it—the honeypot trying to tempt me but I’m not—”
“Nate! Stop, please. Listen.”
“Why should I listen?” he asks. “I’m done and dusted with all this. I don’t want any part in it anymore. Maybe I’ll go to the Maldives. I saw that place in a screensaver once, you know, and I thought it looked pretty cool, pretty magical, somewhere you could just disappear.”
I sigh. My temples are pulsing, my head aching. Rubbing them, I say, “Let me in, Nate. I need to talk to you. It’s about Chance. Chance might be in danger. I’m going to the compound, Giovanni’s compound, but I don’t want to go there with nothing. I need you to talk to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Nate says, raising his voice. “I don’t know anybody by that name, and I certainly don’t know you. I’m afraid you might have the wrong apartment. Maybe the floor below?”
“Nate!” I hiss, banging on the door so hard my knuckles feel like they might pop out of place. I wince, but this is important. “Chance might be dying, right now. Do you understand? He might be tortured or killed and you won’t even talk to me! I’m pregnant with his child, Nate. Chance is the father of my baby and in six months I’m going to give birth and what do you want me to tell our child, huh? What do you expect me to say? You might be scared of the Family, but let me tell you something. If you don’t open this door and talk to me, I’ll give you reason to be scared of me. Don’t underestimate me, Nate. People have been doing that their entire lives and I won’t take it anymore.”
By the end of the speech, I’m talking in a low, threatening tone which sounds nothing like my own. I’m shocked by it, but I don’t stop. I need to get this door open; Nate’s intel might be the difference between life and death.
“I promise you, Nate, that if you don’t open this door and something happens to Chance, I’ll never forget it. Never!”
There’s a pause. I listen closely and hear Nate muttering to himself, but it’s too quiet for me to make out any words.
Then, the beep-beep of the keypad sounds and the door begins to crank open.
“Chance is really in danger?” Nate asks.
“I think so,” I say. “I’m not sure, but—”
Nate interrupts to tell me that Chance went to our motel room. “Maybe they got him there,” Nate says. “Maybe they were playing me, knew I was listening…I’m screwed either way, then, so that’s great!”
“Chance could help you,” I say. “But first you need to tell me everything you know.”
Nate tugs at his yellow striped polo-shirt as he walks into the living room, where there’s a laptop open showing security footage of a nondescript street.
“I never should’ve gotten involved with the Family,” Nate says, dropping onto the couch. “It was a big, big mistake. I thought, I’ll earn some extra cash. But I was earning enough cash hacking bank accounts, so maybe I just thought it would be fun, tasting a little danger! But danger is the opposite of fun, lemme tell you. Danger is—”
“Nate, please. Time is a factor here.”
“I know what’s going on,” Nate says. “I’ve got my finger on the pulse, ma’am, firmly on it and I can feel it beating and I can taste the nastiness in the air and—and I know it all. I’m a know-it-all but not in a negative sense, no way. Okay, so you really want to know what’s going on?”
“Yes!” I feel like I’m talking to a master of riddles whose sole desire is to make it impossible for me to get a straight answer. I stay standing, leaning over him, back aching from where my belly’s getting heavier. But my heart is aching more than my back, so it doesn’t matter. “Please, just tell me everything quickly and clearly.”
“Okay!” Nate waves his hands like I’m a fly buzzing around his head. “Here’s the scoop then—and know I’m only telling you this because Chance is the only one of them I sort of like—here’s what’s going on. I learnt much of this later, when it was too late to change anything. But maybe…I don’t know, maybe I should’ve told Chance. Maybe I was—”
“Nate!” I scream so loud my throat makes a tearing noise. “Seriously, now.”
“Okay, okay. Right, so basically it’s like this: Giovanni is the puppeteer and all of you are his puppets, every single one of you. He’s been playing everyone the entire time like some grand orchestrator. The Big G was the one who suggested to your father that you might be offered to Julian in lieu of payment in the first place, the Big G was the one who told Julian that it’d be a good idea. Believe it or not, Julian didn’t want to marry you at first. He was against the idea. He was in love with some upstate high-class hooker, some sexy lady with sexy eyes and—alright, alright.” He lifts his hands when I feign as though to hit him. “The Big G orchestrated your ‘marriage’ and then went one step forward and suggested to Julian that he arrange for you to be kidnapped by some men that Giovanni hired, all the while knowing that his hired goons would abuse you and then kill you.”
“But why?” I ask. I feel like my head is spinning. “Why do all this?”
“Family reasons,” Nate says. “The Big G wanted an excuse to be done with Julian. They had some beef going back to the eighties and the Big G was certain that Julian was planning to try and take his place. It didn’t matter if Julian was going to. All that mattered was that the Big G thought he was going to. So this is what his original plan was: make it known that Julian was the one who gave you to those men, let the men kill you, and then offer Julian up to Michael as a sort of payment. This way
the Big G kills two birds with one stone. He solidifies your father’s loyalty while getting rid of a rival.”
“But what about Chance? Why was Chance there that night?”
“They’re all scared of him,” Nate says simply, looking into my eyes with a strange expression. “I don’t know how much you know about Chance, but—”
“I know he’s dangerous. I’ve seen him work. And he told me about how he worked his way up in the club.”
“Then you know he makes them wary. He doesn’t drink with them, doesn’t hang with them. He just kills. He’s efficient, deadly. The Big G had to get rid of this police officer anyway. Usually, they’d dump him somewhere, hide him, but he decided that it would be better to get Chance investigated for it. Here’s the tricky thing. He didn’t want Chance to go down, or get killed. He only wanted to scare him, to remind him that he needed the Big G if he ever needed help with the law. He only decided to go against him when he saved you. That’s when the whole kidnapping angle came into play; the Big G was the one who informed the police.”
“So he’s been scheming this whole time. The man in charge has been playing his troops off against each other.”
“Yes,” Nate says. “That isn’t very Boss-like, is it?”
“No.” I make to leave, then an idea strikes me. “Nate, have you got a phone?” He nods. “Give me your number. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?”
I explain my idea to him quickly.
He nods. “Okay, okay. But just in case.”
“Thank you,” I call over my shoulder, as I pace from the apartment. “I have to get to the compound. Before they hurt him…” As I run down the stairs, I whisper under my breath, “Hurt the father of my child.”
A shiver crawls down my spine.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chance
I’ve had the shit kicked outta me before, more times than I like to think about. Knuckle-dusters and barbed wire and blades and a couple’a bullets here and there. But that’s always been on the job, where I can hit back, where it’s me or the bastard who’s hittin’ me. This is the first time I’ve ever been trussed up like a goddamn Christmas turkey with some brave assholes hittin’ me when I can’t hit back. I’m tied to a chair in the back room of the compound, which is a bar called The Italian on a rundown corner of a rundown street. Everyone everywhere knows to avoid The Italian unless you got an invite. Everyone everywhere knows that The Italian ain’t a place you wanna be caught in. The backroom is full of boxes and bottles of whisky and illegal cigarettes and shit like that, Family shit, some of it spilling onto the floor. The only light is a dim electric bulb danglin’ from a wire. Which is good, ’cause it means I can’t see all the blood drippin’ from me onto the floor.
“Where is he?” Giovanni mutters, taking his pocket-watch from his breast pocket and glancing at it. He does all this with a flourish. Mr. Fuckin’ Gentleman.
There are around ten goons crammed in, two of ’em laying into me and the other eight just watchin’. There are one or two who look like they’re enjoying it, maybe Giovanni’s pets, but the rest just look uncomfortable, maybe even a bit scared. Perhaps they think the famous Chance is somehow gonna bust outta these zip-ties and take vengeance on ’em. Ten men, dressed in sharp suits, slicked-back hair, some of ’em with gold chains and watches, all of ’em made men most likely. Maybe this is a show the Boss is puttin’ on. I think: Look, fellas, we caught ourselves a Rainbow Chance. When I laugh, I flash bloody teeth.
The two men beatin’ me stop for a second. One is taller’n the other, with a steep nose and low eyebrows and a mouth which can’t decide if it wants to smirk or frown. The other is short’n fat with a big silver chain hangin’ down from his waistband. The silver-chain bastard stops ’cause he looks freaked out. The smirky-frowny bastard stops ’cause he looks like he’s pitying me. Might think I’ve gone mad.
Giovanni has been looking at his pocket-watch pretty much nonstop. When the sound of his goons’ fists hittin’ my face stop, he snaps, “What’s the problem?”
He marches forward, leaning down close to me, and growls into my face, “You stole that girl from a Capo, boy, stole his prize, and killed an undercover cop. What the fuck’s the matter with you? Do you think you can insult the Family like that and get away with it?” Giovanni turns to Frown Smirk. “Well, what’d’you think? Can he insult the Family like that and get away with it?”
Licking his lips, Frown Smirk says, “No, Boss. That ain’t right, is it?”
“Then carry on.”
They do as he says, laying into me, but they don’t hit me as hard as they were before. Their hits are half-hearted, show hits so that the Boss don’t get angry. It takes a certain amount of coldness to be able to do a man, over and over, when he’s tied to a chair. I’m sure these men have it, when it comes to their day-to-day jobs, ’cause at least then they’re beatin’ a man for some reason. At least then they’re doin’ it ’cause they’re trying to get information or trying to persuade him to do somethin’ the Boss’s way. Now it’s just like I’m a punching-bag made of flesh and they’re just takin’ their pound, over and over, tryin’ to make me nothin’ but a mess of blood’n bone. And they can’t even say to each other when it’s all done, “At least he’ll work with us now,” or, “We showed him.” A few of the men’s hands twitch for their waistbands. They wanna put a bullet in my head and be done with it.
“Okay, okay.” Giovanni cuts his hand through the air, stoppin’ the men.
They step back, the goons formin’ a ring around me, and me just trying to figure out which part of me hurts the most. My face feels like it’s ballooned to twice its normal size, my cheeks all puffy, my lips all puffy, everythin’ all puffy. My hand is throbbing like a sonofabitch from where one of ’em slammed it with his fist, right into the wooden arm of the chair. One of my feet feels like hell, too, but pain is not really somethin’ that’s ever bothered me much. Pain is just somethin’ you have to account for when you wanna make a move. You need to know if your hand is workin’ if you wanna punch a guy, if you’re feet are workin’ if you wanna cave someone’s head in with a curb-stomp. Pain by itself is a fuckin’ joke.
“Why are you smiling?” Giovanni says, sounding annoyed. Good.
“Just thought of somethin’ funny, Boss, is all.”
“I don’t see how disrespecting the Family is funny.”
“It’s just funny ’cause we both know I had nothin’ to do with that undercover cop, and everyone here knows I didn’t kidnap Becky just by lookin’ at the news. Where’re the interviews with her, eh? Where’s the footage of her cryin’ about how awful I was to her—”
“Enough!” Giovanni growls. “I won’t listen to this.” He wheels on one of his men. “Go and find him. I want to get this done.”
The man nods. But I notice it again. A little uncertainty.
Giovanni grins at me, but it’s shaky, like a man unhinged. I’m tryin’ to figure this out, why he hates me so much, what’s got under his skin. I know they’re scared of me, even if they won’t admit it. But surely it’s more than that. And then an idea occurs to me. It’s fuckin’ ridiculous, considerin’ that this man must be almost sixty, but it’s the only thing that makes any kinda sense.
“Did you want her for yourself, Boss?” I ask. “Was that the last step of—of whatever this shit is? You were gonna take Becky for yourself. You were gonna marry her, rape her, what? Maybe that wasn’t your plan at first, right? But when she got outta that warehouse alive, it started playin’ on your mind, maybe?”
Giovanni flinches and I know I’m right.
“You saw her with Julian and you thought to yourself, yeah, that’s a piece of ass I wouldn’t mind havin’ all for myself. And then maybe you got it into your head to arrange a whole fuckin’ show around the thing and—”
Giovanni’s ring catches me just above the eye, openin’ up a line of blood which starts drippin’ down my face. That’s the worst of all, so bad when
I try and blink away the blurriness I see nothin’ but a shield of red. He says: “Keep wagging that asshole tongue and I’ll blind your other eye. We won’t listen to your horseshit, Chance. You took that girl and raped her when she was promised to a Capo. You killed Julian and you killed an undercover cop. You’re a damn fool. And I know something else, too. I’ve got connections in the medical world. I know something about your little rape victim.”
He turns to the door. “Where is he!”
“Here, Boss.” Michael shuffles in, face all red, cheeks quivering, hands clawing at his jeans like a nervous kid who would much rather be anywhere but here. He don’t look at me, most likely ’cause he’s only an enforcer and he’s never dealt in real blood before, real murder. He looks at Giovanni or the ceiling. I ain’t been this close to the man since I was a kid, since he told me I was no good and turned me away. It’s strange to think he was once this giant in my mind. Now he’s just some old drunk man. But not a killer. I can see that right away. Not one of my breed. “What do you need?” he asks, voice shaking.
