by Alan Hruska
“It sounds so simple,” she says.
“It is, which is probably why it took me so long to think of it.”
“So now you can take it easy, right?”
“Well—” he starts, cut off by her laugh, and she says, “I know, Alec. Just come to bed. I have news for you too.”
“Is Sarah home?” he asks.
“At Tino’s. Doing homework.”
“Homework?”
“So she said. He’ll bring her home.”
“This is what?” Alec says. “Every night now?”
“His mom’s been away. I’ve told you about that. She’s returning tomorrow.”
Alec sits on the edge of the bed. Jesse puts her book down. He says, “Your news?”
“I have a job.”
“Hey! Great!”
“It doesn’t pay much,” she says.
“Not necessarily a stopper,” he says. “World of film?”
“Indie. It’s a new project. They say they have financing, which is always the question. I’ll be assistant director.”
“What you’ve wanted.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s a pretty big project, so a start for me here. A good credit. And though, as I say, they pay almost nothing, they’ll feed me and put me up.”
“Put you up?”
“Yeah. That’s the bad part. We’re shooting in Italy and Greece. The rest of the crew will be hired there.”
“Low-budget indie?” he says. “Shooting abroad?”
“They say that’s where the money is, such as it is. And it’s where the cast is. Though it’s an English-language film.” At Alec’s skeptical look, Jesse adds quickly, “These people—the producer, director—are known. They’ve done other films. Festival quality.”
“How’d they find you?”
“Through Ardmore. The studio I worked for in Ireland. They had my contact info.”
“Why would a production in Italy be looking for crew in Ireland?”
“It’s the film business, Alec. It’s its own world. People know people all over. There are no borders!”
Still dubious, he holds his tongue. “How long will you be gone?” he asks.
“Yeah, right, more of the bad part. About a month.”
“About?” he says.
“Well, a little more than.”
“How much more than?”
“Portal to portal… hmm… six and a half weeks?”
He says nothing, starts getting undressed. This conversation is already skidding on ice, yet he lets himself skate toward the crack in it. “Y’know,” he says, “thing sounds a bit fishy.”
“Fishy?” she says. “There’s nothing fishy. I’m known for the work I’ve done. I got recommended. They found me.”
“Okay,” he says, not convinced.
“Honestly, Alec… you’re kind of raining on my parade here.”
“Right, sorry.” He goes into the bathroom, then after a while, calls out from inside. “Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll negotiate your contract for you.”
He returns to a look. “Contract?” she says. “As in written contract? I mean, what the fuck, Alec? They don’t give me a ticket, I won’t go. They don’t feed me, I’ll leave. I don’t think anyone’s suing anyone here.”
“Okay. What are the names?”
“So you can—” she toggles her head in a mimicry of aggression—“check them out? Call some of your important friends?”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m happy about this, Alec. I think it’s okay, and I don’t want you queering it.”
“I’ll call Harvey Grand. Tell him no footprints.”
“Alec, no!”
“All right,” he says, sitting back on the bed. “I’ll leave it alone. When do you take off?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Jesus!”
“Yeah, sorry. Another part of the bad part.”
“Okay, look,” he says. “I know why you want this. And I want it to be good for you, no matter how long it takes. So I’m not saying anything beyond this: I’d like to know where you are when you get there, and how I can reach you. I’d like you to call me collect at least every other day, even if it’s just to say hello. Will you promise me that?”
“Yes.”
“Now you can pull the covers off.”
“I’m not wearing anything,” she says.
“I know you’re not wearing anything.”
“How did you know?”
“For that I don’t need an investigation.”
She smiles and throws off the covers. “Investigate as much as you like.”
Sarah and Tino, having made love every night since his mother left town, are now, in their own estimation, exceedingly adept at “doing it.” Sarah especially is quite pleased with herself, having gone from inexperienced to proficient almost overnight. All those whispered exchanges of hokum and guilty glimpses at books, when it all turns out to have been so simple.
Sarah comes off the bed, no longer shy being looked at or looking. “So Mom’s back tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, tomorrow,” Tino says, sinking back in the pillows.
“I wonder whether her trip—off working for Sal—had anything to do with Sal calling his men off of me.”
“Why would it?”
“I dunno,” she says. “Gratitude?”
Tino sits up with a bitter laugh. “My mom is his sister-in-law. He’s head of the family. Who else would she work for? He tells you where to go, that’s where you go. He tells you what to do, you do it. That’s the way he thinks.”
“And you?”
“Me? I think anyone who puts women in cages is a hateful person.”
“Women in cages?” she exclaims. “Who told you that?”
He shrugs.
“Y’know,” Sarah says, “I listen to you, to Harvey. I’m having trouble with this whole thing, believing that this man is so evil. You make him seem like one of those villains in a James Bond movie.”
“You’ve never met him, you wouldn’t know.”
“You used to like him,” she points out.
“Now I’m afraid of him.”
“Because he’s having me watched?”
“Because I don’t want to think of you stashed in a cage somewhere.”
She sits hard on the one chair in his room. “You actually know this?” she says. “He really does this to people?”
He shakes his head, more in distress than denial.
“You do know!” she says. “Actual women he’s done this to? How long have you known?”
“A few days.”
“Did he tell you about this? Sal?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“What difference does it make?” Tino says. “I know.”
“Your mother told you,” she says, wrapping herself in her arms. “She knows this and she still works for the man.”
“It’s bookkeeping,” he says unconvincingly.
“For a man who puts women in cages?”
“She comes from a different time, Sarah. A different place.”
“And can shut her eyes to it?”
“She can. I can’t. I’ve woken up, Sarah. You should too. We’ve both had fathers killed.”
Sarah stays silent. Then, “Where does he live, this uncle of ours?”
“Central Park West, why?”
“What’s the address?”
“Why would you need his address?” he says slowly. “You thinking of dropping in?”
“Dropping in, yes, that’s a good way to put it. I want to introduce myself. And tell him to bugger off.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s not meant to be,” she says. “I want the man out of my life.”
Tino twists the blankets around him with a tug. “Sarah, listen to me. Do not go near this man. Ever. He’s not like someone you can just talk to.”
“He doesn’t talk?”
“Yes he talks,” Tino says
. “And you listen. He’s not interested in what you have to say, unless it’s ‘Yes sir, I will do exactly what you ask.’ Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes, Tino. I understand. I know you’re afraid of him. I’m sure for good reason. But if he wants to hurt me, I want him to see who he’s doing it to. I want him to know who I am. I want him to know how I feel about it.”
“I’m afraid he won’t care.”
“Then I’ll just kick him in the balls and get out of there,” she says.
THIRTY-TWO
Sal Angiapello knows peace only on the island that bears his name. Although the island is not large—about eight miles by five—and it’s shaped like a centipede, with rocky shores and few beaches, he owns every inch of it, rules it, and uses it as the base of his main businesses. The power to rule comes with the ownership, since the island of Angiapello is, in effect, a sovereign state. This status is less of an anomaly than the phenomena that produced it.
Very early in the island’s history, these roughly forty square miles in the Ionian Sea became the site of an enormous hemp plantation. Naturally a factory was built, and through the years it was often renovated, to transform the seed of Cannabis sativa into its more popular forms. Greece originally owned the island and called it Cannarouna, but decided ultimately that it wanted neither to destroy this crop nor be associated with it. The problem was solved by allowing the landowner, Sal’s ancestor, to continue to farm and manufacture, and ceding to him, at an enormous price, the right to rule. Later, Italy seized the island but eventually recognized the same problem. The Italian government solved it the way the Greeks did, but, being cannier, much closer, and therefore more threatening, they charged the Angiapellos an even higher price.
Nonetheless, the investment proved rewarding for the Angiapello line, especially the current head of the family. With a steady crop and an expanding world population, revenues from the “farming” business annually expanded. Sal added warehouses at the northern and southern tips of the island, where the armaments and munitions are still stored. And that line of business dwarfs everything. The island’s sovereignty, useful in the drug trade, is indispensable for arms dealing, which most countries surveil more effectively and punish more severely.
So Sal’s sleep is peaceful here, and his roaming among the small populace is quite serene. To them he is a monarch and virtually a god. He does exactly what he wants, without interference or question from anyone. His power elsewhere among his fellows is prodigious; but on Angiapello Island, it is absolute.
His favorite time here is breakfast. He has it alone on the bedroom terrace of his villa, overlooking the harbor from the island’s highest elevation. If, the night before, he’d had a woman in his bed, she will have been removed by others before breakfast is served. This morning, he has had his walk and is enjoying his breakfast, but the meal is disturbed by the arrival of a plane attempting to land on the airstrip a mile away. His house manager, Nicoli Gura, appears on the terrace, his leathery face wreathed in a question.
“It’s the Englishman,” Sal says. “Vivian Kniseley.”
“Who was to arrive yesterday,” Nicoli says. He has a way of expressing disdain with a twitch in the nostrils of a very large hawk nose.
“So get word to him to stay at the airport. I’ll see him there.”
Sal’s luggage is already packed and waiting for him in the front hall. He checks it quickly, then gives the sign for it to be loaded into the Bentley parked in the driveway. At the airport, he finds the Englishman standing on the apron in front of his twinjet plane.
Kniseley is a loud, boastful man with a moon face, straggly hair, and a Midland accent that seems deliberately impenetrable. He’s younger than Sal, though not by much, and always greets him, as now, with a booming semblance of good cheer, as if he has failed to notice Sal’s distaste of him. “So sorry, old man, being tardy to the party, so to speak. Unavoidable delays. But I do have quite a bevy for you.” Kniseley points to the plane. “I thought I might bring them to the house, clean them up a bit, do a catwalk in the usual way.”
“So sorry,” Sal mimics the Englishman’s cadence. “I’m due in New York.” He glances at his watch. “A quick look here is what I have time for.” Sal makes a move toward the steps.
“Not in the plane, surely,” says Kniseley.
Sal stops and looks back at him. “You might come another day, then. On schedule.”
“You won’t be seeing them to their best advantage, Sal.”
“Or at all,” Sal says. “Your choice.”
Kniseley’s sweat has darkened his neck silk, and his voice comes out strained. “They’re manacled to the seats. The cabin smells of urine.”
“Well, next time, then.”
“No, no,” Kniseley says, unhappily leading the way. The cabin door is open, but the fan turned off. One look is enough for Sal. Four women of different races, barely clothed, barely living, chained to seats. The stench is overwhelming. He turns away and descends the stairs. Kniseley clambers down after him. “As I said, Sal, if I could just—”
Sal interrupts impatiently. “What are you playing at, Kniseley?”
“How do you mean?”
“Are you a child? You’re new to this business?”
“You don’t like those girls?”
“They’re not girls,” Sal says with annoyance. “And I don’t deal in women of that age. That’s a market I don’t trade in. For good reason.”
“They’re at their prime, Sal! If you’d see them cleaned up….”
“I’m leaving. You can pay to refuel at the pumps.”
Kniseley grabs Sal’s shoulder, and the capo stops abruptly. “With respect, Don Salvatore,” says the Englishman, removing his hand as if from a flame. “I’ve incurred great expense. Collecting these women, bringing them here. Each one of them is worth, wholesale, a half-million pounds sterling at the very least. And they’ve been promised good situations, under your protection. If you reject them—”
“You think you had the right to make such a promise?”
“No,” Kniseley says quickly. “I assumed, shouldn’t have. A thousand pardons, Don Salvatore.”
Sal brings his hand to his mouth as if he were reconsidering. “Tell you what. You and your people take them up to the house. Rest, stay here maybe a day. I’ll be back. I’ll think about it.”
“Oh, thank you, Sal, thank you. If you see them prettied up, maybe use them, I’m sure—”
“No more. Just do what I said.”
“Absolutely, Sal. Thank you again. Thank you so much.”
In his own plane, before takeoff, Sal radiophones his house manager. “Nicoli, I’m sending up Kniseley. He’ll be with his crew and four women. Please have them disposed of before I return.”
“All of them?”
“Well, there’s a Japanese woman.”
“Hold her until you get back?”
“Yes,” Sal says.
“And the plane?”
“Check it out. Put it in the hangar, change the colors. It might be of use.”
“Regarding the women, Don Salvatore… before disposing of them…”
“Yes, all right, if you have favors to dispense, you can choose some of the men. Just one night, though.”
“But not the Japanese one.”
“Correct,” Sal says and turns off the phone.
Alec, about to take off for the office, goes back to the bedroom and finds Jesse packing her suitcase. She looks up, surprised. “Didn’t you leave ten minutes ago?”
“Came back,” he says. “Forgot something on my desk. Then I made a call.” He points to her suitcase. “Thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow?”
“I’m leaving the country tomorrow,” she says, folding a sweater. Her hands jerk unnecessarily at the final fold.
“So we have tonight,” he says, pretending not to notice.
She lays the sweater into the suitcase. “I thought, since my flight’s very early in the morning
….” And she looks at him rather hopelessly.
He says, “So we don’t have tonight?”
“I’d just wake you when I left.” She pulls some blouses from the dresser. “I thought it better—”
“That you just leave without saying goodbye?”
“I’d planned on writing a letter.”
Alec drops his briefcase to the floor. “What’s happening, Jess?”
She drops the blouses on the bed. Then sits on it and looks away from him. “What was always going to happen, Alec. It’s just happening sooner.”
“Like this? Out of the blue?”
“It’s not out of the blue. I’ve said.”
“You’re back to that?”
“I never left it.”
“Fooled me,” he says.
“This is better,” she says, eyes now on him, trying to engage. “Really. Having to go now, because of that job, it’s just better timing.”
“Better than what?” He’s now raising his voice. “A kick in the stomach?”
“I’m sorry you’re angry.”
“Angry? That doesn’t quite describe it. How do you feel?”
“I feel awful,” she says, now suddenly crying. “What the fuck do you think?”
“Then why the hell are you doing it?”
She looks away again. “I know what a breakup after a long affair feels like.”
“We weren’t starting an affair,” he says, moving to sit next to her on the bed. “I wouldn’t have left you. No matter what.”
“I know,” she says. “But I would have left you.”
“Jesse, look at me,” he says. “You can’t possibly believe that. Not now.”
“I’ve never not believed it.”
“Just because I was once in love with your sister?”
“You’re still in love with her.”
“This is crazy,” he says. “Your sister is dead. We both loved her, now we love each other.”
“It’s not the same,” she says. “That’s what I feel.”
“A sibling rivalry with your dead sister?”
She dries her eyes with the heels of her hands and starts packing again. “This is why I didn’t want to have this conversation.”
He gets to his feet as well. “What we have, Jess….” He stops, his throat tightening. “Carrie and I went through….” He stops again, trying to calm himself. “Very, very bad times. I ended up killing a man. And she was very sick. Which ended up killing her. I did not enjoy any part of that.”
