by Evelyn Glass
“What do I need?” Giovanni laughs. “I’ve brought you here to give you a couple of presents, Mikey. First, I wanna give you the man who took your daughter hostage and held onto her for damn near two months.” He waves a hand at me. I watch Mikey’s expression, remembering what Nate told me about him being the one who moved Julian into the warehouse. So he must know something’s goin’ on, some lies are being told. But even when he opens his mouth in shock, he closes it a second later. He’s surrounded by Family men, trapped. He ain’t got a choice. I reckon this is the shit goin’ through his head. “Secondly, I want to make you a Capo. After this man unfairly acted against a made man, I knew I’d need a replacement, and who better than you, Mikey? But you must understand that you can’t have one without the other. Kill Chance, and you’re a made man.”
Mikey nods, taking a deep breath, steelin’ himself up. I wonder if he’s got it in him. I don’t reckon he has. He ain’t a killer—
“If you’re unsure,” Giovanni says, “it might help you to know that this man, Chance fuckin’ Baylor, raped your daughter, taking her virginity, and something else, too.” He pauses, and leans in close to Mikey, but speaks loud enough so that we can all hear. “Hasn’t you daughter told you? Poor girl, she must be scared. She’s pregnant, Mikey, pregnant with this man’s rape-child. Look at him. Look closely at him. This is the man who raped your daughter and got her pregnant. This is the man who spoiled your daughter.”
He looks at me and I see a change in him. A second ago he wasn’t a killer. Now, he could be.
Giovanni reaches into his jacket pocket and hands Mikey a pistol. I reckon I’m the only one who sees the second pistol in there. Don’t know which gun makes me more nervous. “Do what needs to be done. End this bastard. He’s the fuckin’ threat. He’s been the fuckin’ threat all along. And don’t worry.” Now the prick looks at me with a sly smile that makes me wish I was the Hulk so I could break outta these ties and tear his goddamn head from his shoulders. “I’ll help take care of your daughter and her child. They’ll want for nothing.”
Mikey takes the gun. The man who once told me he didn’t like the look in my eyes gets the same look in his eyes now. A look of death. He walks across the room and points the gun at my head, laying the barrel against my skin.
“You got my daughter pregnant,” Mikey says, voice shakin’ crazier’n ever. “You raped my daughter and got her pregnant. You’re an animal and I’m gonna put you down.”
“Do it,” I say, voice steady, staring into his eyes without fear. “Just know that if you do, that fat, ugly, sweatin’, cowardly bastard is gonna take your daughter for himself and make you watch the whole damned thing. He’s fuckin’ insane, sick in the head. Everyone can fuckin’ see it. Half my vision’s blood-red and I can see clearer than that psycho. So do it, if you want your daughter at the prey of some old man, instead of protected by the man that saved her life.”
“Enough talk,” Giovanni says, standing at Mikey’s shoulder. “Just pull the trigger. It’s simple. It’s easy. Just pull the trigger and you’ll be a real member of the Family. Just pull the trigger and your life will never be the same again.”
“He’s right,” I say. “Your life’ll never be the same again. And neither will your daughter’s.”
Mikey takes a deep breath, finger stroking the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Becky
I’ve only ever been inside The Italian once, when I was a girl and Dad was forced to take me in to talk to one of his colleagues. I remembered it for a long time afterwards as a smoky, sickly-smelling place full of scary-looking men. When I walk through the door, I’m met with a smoky, sickly-looking place, but the scary men have been replaced with empty seats and voices from a room in the back. I pass photos on the walls as I walk toward the room, some of them in black and white, going back as far as the 1920s when the Family first started up. In the next room, I hear men talking. And Chance’s voice! “…your daughter’s.”
However careful I meant to be on my way here, once I hear Chance’s voice I can’t help but crash through the door, causing around ten or fifteen men to swing around and look at me. Men are all around the room, standing in the shadows, ringed around like a crowd at a circular stage. The production is Dad, a gun in his hand, pointing it at Chance, who looks like a boxer after a tough fight, all swollen and bruised. I want to go to him, untie those zip-ties which are digging into his flesh, but Dad is still holding the gun to his head.
“Dad,” I say. “What are you doing? Lower the gun. Lower it, now!”
Dad tilts his head at me. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You should be at home.”
Giovanni makes as if to approach me, hands outstretched, almost like he means to put them on my shoulders. The idea makes my skin crawl. I shout at him, “Don’t you dare fucking touch me you evil old fuck!”
Everybody gasps, even Chance, though his is more of a bloody gargling than a gasp. Giovanni pauses in his tracks, staring at me as though noticing me as a presence in the room for the first time. I suppose when I first came in he just saw me as the vulnerable, scared girl. Hell, maybe when I came in that’s what I was. But I can’t afford to be like that now, not with Chance’s life at stake. Chance…I have to save him. I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I don’t.
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” Giovanni says. “I’m trying to help you, girl.”
“Help me?” I snap. “Fucking help me? By what, killing the father of my child, the man I love?” I turn on Dad. “Lower that gun, please. I love him, Dad. And I’m pregnant. I’ve been hiding it from you—”
“I know.”
“Then what are you doing?” I demand. “I love Chance, Dad. I love him more than anything. He didn’t kidnap me. You know that. You must know that. You were the one who moved Julian’s body for him!”
“That’s enough!” Giovanni snaps. “Will somebody please get this girl out of here?”
Two men appear at my shoulders, making to grab at me.
“If you throw me out now, you’ll never know the truth about your Boss! If you throw me out now, you’ll just be pawns and he’ll be the player, moving you all around! Look, look at Chance sitting in that chair. Maybe Chance scares some of you, maybe he’s a killer, but he’s also a hitter for the family. Just think, what if it’s you in that chair one day? Won’t you want to know the truth then?” I’m talking so fast and so loud that my voice is hoarse. I stop, gasping.
The men at my shoulders hesitate.
“Well?” Giovanni says. “Get her out. I gave you a goddamn order.”
“It’s just…” This comes from an old man, sitting on an upturned box, elbows resting on his knees and gold-ringed hands dangling. “I’m sorry, Boss, obviously we don’t think anythin’s goin’ on. But don’t you think we oughtta hear her out at least? I’ve been at this a long time. I knew your father. And he once said to me, ‘You’ve always gotta make sure that the men see you as someone to be feared.’ What if the troops learn that you were so scared of a girl you had her thrown out ’cause you were scared of what she had to say?” The old man speaks slowly, respectfully, which takes some of the bite out of his words. And then he adds the final, beautiful closing line, “I mean, you ain’t scared, are you?”
Giovanni looks like he wants to throttle the man, but the men around him are nodding, waiting for him to speak. The men around him are waiting for him to show that he isn’t scared, that he won’t let himself be intimidated by a woman. It looks like the Family’s bullshit way of seeing women as weak is finally working in my favor. He clears his throat. “Scared of a little girl like this?” He laughs loudly. “I just didn’t wanna get in the way of Mikey’s business. It’s a happy day, a day of celebration. Once this shit with Chance is outta the way, we’ll get some hookers and some whisky. But if you really wanna stand around and listen to some little girl’s lies, go ahead. It don’t mean nothing to me.” He shrugs. “I’ve been Boss of this
family for decades, have paid for your lives for decades, have led us against gangs and cops for decades, but if the babbling of a child is more important to you, have at it.”
Before the men can think twice, I leap in. “I know the truth,” I say. I make sure to keep one hand in my pocket.
“The truth?” Giovanni snorts. “She’s wild, fellas. Wild because this man raped her. You’ve got to—”
“Your Boss is framing Chance!” I blurt out, before he can start his spiel. “Your Boss is the one who killed Julian. Your Boss is the one who had me kidnapped! Your Boss is the one who’s been playing us off against each other this whole time! He wanted away with Julian because he was scared he was going to try and replace him! And he wanted to make Chance be more careful because he was scared of him, too!” I talk quickly, explaining everything Nate explained to me, looking around the room of men and waiting for something to happen. The more I speak, the more I understand that I don’t have any definite plan. I suppose I thought I would walk in, reveal the truth, and everything would sort itself out. But as I stand here, I realize that it’s not going to work like that.
I stop, once everything has been explained. The men look interested, but not convinced like I need them to be. I wheel on Dad. “Tell them!” I plead. “Tell them what you did with Julian’s body!”
Dad swallows, gun pointing at the floor, looking as though he’s wishing he was anywhere but here. His eyes don’t settle. His free hands twitches. His knees bob up and down like a restless child. “You can’t talk to the Boss like that, Becky. You just can’t. That’s not how it’s done.”
“Dad!” I go to him, placing my hands on his shoulders. “Dad, please, just tell them the truth.”
“You have to take it back,” he whispers.
Maybe I would take it back if it were not for Chance sitting there, bloody and ballooned. Maybe I would take it back if it were not for the father of my child dripping blood onto the floor. But I can’t take it back, not now.
“Dad,” I say, my tone softer. “Mom tells me you were a good, happy man once. Mom tells me you weren’t scared, or lonely, or depressed. You can be that again. But this is the moment. You have to tell these men the truth.”
I see something click on in his eyes, as though a man who has been buried for a decade is rising within him, pushing away the gambler, the deal-maker. He swallows, turning to the men. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Chance methodically working his hand out of one of the zip-ties, blood beading around the skin on his wrist. He uses the blood to slip his knuckles and then his fingers out. I shake my head at him, meaning, Let me work.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says, facing the men. “I know Julian was a made man, just like you, but the Boss killed him—did it himself, he told me—and forced me to move him into the warehouse so that Chance would be framed for his murder. It was all the Boss.”
“Stupid little slut!” Giovanni roars.
I turn on him and see that he’s got a gun in his hand, pointing it straight at me. Chance is working his feet out of the zip-ties frantically. One foot’s free, and now he works on the other. I press send in my pocket. Giovanni turns in a swift circle as the men bristle, waving the gun at them. “Stay back!” he snaps. “All of you, you ungrateful pieces of shit, stay the fuck away from me! Are you really going to listen to this—to this drunk and his little whore? Do you know how many times this cunt took those kidnappers of hers? She fuckin’ passed herself around like a slut!”
“You killed a made man.” It’s the old guy who persuaded Giovanni to let me speak in the first place. He’s on his feet now. “That isn’t how it works, even for the Boss.”
“Fuck this,” Giovanni mutters, lengthening his arm, picking his spot…right at my heart.
He pulls the trigger.
The sound makes my ears ring in the small room, deafening me, the ringing moving around my head like a high-pitched echo. The flare of the muzzle blinds me, making me close my eyes on instinct, the light of the flash imprinted on my eyelids like sunlight on a bright day. And the smell of flesh, my flesh, rises into the air, flesh and fabric, blood and flesh and fabric, all mixing together in a stink. I slide to the ground, clawing at my chest, panting, panicking. I’m dead, I think, again and again. I’m dead, I’m dead.
“You ain’t hit, girl.” The old man’s voice, coming from very far away. “You ain’t hit. You’re okay. It’s your daddy.”
Slowly, I open my eyes, the light making the movement painful. But then I see that he’s right. Dad lies on the floor, clutching his shoulder, mouth hanging open. Blood dampens his shirt. I can’t see anything else, hear anything else. I’m too woozy, too out of it. I just manage to move to Dad and hold him, vaguely aware that things are happening around me. But all I can stare at is Dad’s blood-wet shoulder, his face, his eyes which look as though they’re fading.
I stayed in New York to try and save my father. Now I’ve gotten him shot.
I’m sure there would be some grim sense of comedy in there if I didn’t feel like weeping.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chance
I’m using all my strength to get my goddamn feet free from these zip-ties when Giovanni pulls his gun. Anger like I’ve never felt before gets inside me when I see someone pointin’ a gun at my woman, anger like fuckin’ lava, like all the anger in the world has been concentrated inside of me. He’s pointin’ a gun at my woman and my baby. That psychotic old fuck…it’s one thing if you wanna try to kill me. Fine. I’ve lived the life. Some’d say I had it comin’. But to point at my woman and child? My hands are bleedin’ from yanking on the zip-ties, but I manage to get both my feet free, fingers throbbing and bloody and biting from where the ties have bitten into me. I’m about to start on my other hand—I did the legs first just in case I needed to move—when, bang.
You can be the most seasoned bastard in the world and when a gun goes off in a little room like this and if you ain’t ready for it, it’s gonna fuck with you a little. But I was ready for it. Always gotta be ready when someone’s pulled one. I’m only dazed a bit, my eyes hurtin’, but still able to see. The anger, which was already damned vicious, explodes when he shoots at Becky. I don’t think, can’t think. I drag the chair behind me as I leap across the room, usin’ the zip-tie to swing the chair around and slam Giovanni in the head with it. The fat sack of shit falls like a ton of bricks, and then I fall on him like another ton of bricks, gripping the chair like it’s a knuckle-duster and layin’ into his face, seein’ red, just blood-red, thinkin’ of Becky and my kid and how this asshole might’ve killed ’em, but that’s a far-back thought, ’cause really there’s nothin’ but this rage. It’s like one of those time-lapse videos, what happens to his face. First there’s a face and then the chair crunches his teeth and eyes and nose and cheeks and the face turns into somethin’ else, somethin’ messy, until there ain’t a face at all, just a caved-in piece of meat, and then even the meat turns to mulch, spreadin’ out like a watermelon dropped from twenty stories. Only once it’s done, and the Boss in the suit is just a red splat with a suit next to it, I fall back, pantin’, and turn around lookin’ frantically for Becky.
“Becky!” I roar. I’m still seein’ red. A red mask has been pulled over my face. “Becky! Where the fuck is Becky? Where the fuck is she?”
Someone’s hands’re on my shoulders. I turn on ’em, grab whoever it is and lift him off his feet, chair and all.
“Wait.” It’s the old guy, I see, as the red begins to clear. Tapping my hands ’cause he can hardly breathe. I lower him to the ground. A thought hits me: Where did all this blood come from? Then I remember. I stumble. Can’t hardly fuckin’ move. “She’s there.” He points to the floor.
The floor…But when I turn I see that she’s alright. Her old man took the bullet for her, a flesh wound in the shoulder. Might turn fatal if he don’t get help, but I think I’d plug him again if I’d done the first. Not likely to do much all on its own, but a good warning shot.
“
Becky.” I kneel down next to her. “Goddamn, Becky.” It shocks me like fuck when I feel it, tears creepin’ up my throat. Becky’s cryin’ like mad and her old man is mumbling sleepily like folks do when they take a bullet. I look around and see that the men are goin’ into the bar area, most likely tryin’ to get help, one of the Family doctors. I cough back the tears, can’t let ’em slide up my throat like this, can’t let ’em cripple me. “Becky,” I repeat. Then a single tear slides down my bloody, throbbing cheek. I growl, wiping it away.
“He got shot, shot for me and now he’s bleeding and—he’s bleeding and he’s shot and—Chance, you’re safe—you’re safe. I love you, I love you, I love you. Tell me you love me, Chance. Tell me it’s true.”
I’m afraid she’ll flinch away from me when I take her face in my hands, since I’m slick with murder, but she doesn’t. She smiles shakily and leans into me, kissing my hands, and then brings her bloody lips to my face and kisses my wounds tenderly. “Is it true, Chance?”
