by Hamel, B. B.
“I know that,” he said, drifting after me, and leaned up against the doorframe again. “But you look like you’ve been through something. I want to help, Irene.”
I stopped cleaning and dropped the plates. They clattered into the bottom of the sink. I gripped the edge of the counter and took several deep breaths—slowly in through my nose, then out through my mouth, trying to keep a steady head.
“If you wanted to help me, you never would’ve left,” I said through my teeth.
He flinched when I looked over again. “I didn’t leave,” he said. “I joined the Valentino family, and you didn’t like it.”
“I told you what would happen.” I shook my head, pissed off that he was making me do this. I didn’t want to go down this path again, not after so long, but the pain felt fresh all over again and I wished I could get the hell out of there.
“You didn’t have to disappear,” he said softly. “I can understand if you couldn’t handle being close anymore, I get that. But disappearing? I don’t understand, Irene.”
“You know what it was like living with them,” I said, facing him with my arms crossed over my chest. I craved another shower just to feel as clean as possible and some clean clothes, but I doubted he’d have anything for me, and my little hiding hole wouldn’t be safe, not anymore. All my stuff was forfeit, basically burned to ash, all gone.
“I know,” he said. “I wanted to help.”
“Instead, you became a gangster. Look at you, big man.” I pushed past him and stormed into the living room. I hated myself for doing this and wished I could stop, but I felt it all bubbling up again.
“I wanted more for myself,” he said. “You know the family was the only way.”
“And are you happy?” I asked, spreading my hands wide. “Look at the palace you live in.”
He snorted. “I could have better if I wanted better.”
“That’s not the point.”
“But it is,” he said, coming closer. “The Valentino family takes care of me. I do hard work for them, you’re right. I get my hands dirty. I stain myself in blood for them. But they take care of me.” He nodded his chin at me. “Looks like you’ve gotten plenty dirty too. Does anyone take care of you?”
I balled my hands into fists and wanted to scream in his face. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” I said.
“You’re right, I don’t,” he said. “So why don’t you tell me where you’ve been these last two years?”
“You really want to know?” I turned my back, unable to face him, unwilling to show him the shame that turned my cheeks bright red. “Homeless shelters mostly. Stash houses, crack dens, abandoned buildings. There’s a place in Kensington that’s half demolished but still somehow gets power and I live in a room that’s almost entirely open on the one side. I’ve slept on couches, in a bathtub, one time I slept in a stranger’s car because it was so cold I thought I might die. I’ve been all over the goddamn city. You happy now?”
I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself, but my hands trembled and my legs felt unsteady. My life had been struggle and failure and one messed-up situation after the other ever since I left my parents.
I had nothing more than a high school diploma, and even that wasn’t enough. I took a couple fast food jobs, but they never worked out. The schedule wasn’t flexible enough, especially when I was never sure when I’d have a bed and a shower. I’d miss a shift or two and end up fired before I could pick up enough cash to find a room to rent. I drifted through the city, met a bunch of fucked-up people that wanted to use me up and leave me broken, that wanted to get me strung out on heroin or worse, that wanted to sell my body, that wanted me to sell their crack.
But I never gave myself to them. Instead, I fought. I lost more than once, but I always fought. I learned to steal, how to survive. I got scarred and hardened, and Cam was never there, not that I could blame him. I chose to run and chose to stay gone. Living rough was better than staying in that house with my father and my mother. At least on the streets, I had a chance to keep myself alive. With my parents, I knew that at least once or twice a week I’d get my ass beat within an inch of my life while my mother watched, her head nodding forward, a needle stuck up her arm.
Cam didn’t speak for a while. He stared at me with a strange mix of disbelief and anger. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t throw me out or yell at me. I couldn’t blame him. I was a thief, a street urchin, a loser living in alleys, sleeping rough in abandoned houses. I wasn’t a junkie, wasn’t addicted, wasn’t selling myself, but I was still broken.
“Well, shit,” he said finally. “I guess that explains a lot.”
I glared at him and nearly screamed in his face. That was classic Cam, all freaking understatement.
“I just told you I’ve been homeless for two years,” I said. “And that’s all you say?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “What else do you want?” he asked. “You want me to say, don’t worry, Irene, I’m here to save you? Because I would, if you asked. But you don’t want that, do you?”
I took a few steps closer, planning in hitting him or clawing his eyes out—but stopped and slowly sank down onto the couch. I leaned forward, head between my knees, and squeezed my eyes shit.
“I never wanted this,” I whispered. “But what other choice did I have?”
“You could’ve stayed,” he said.
“And risk my dad killing me?” I looked up at him. “You know how bad it was.”
“You could’ve come and stayed with me.”
I laughed sharply. “You were a big mafia man.” I remembered it so clearly, the hurt and the anger when he told me that he joined the Valentino family. I saw the mafia guys around town, strutting like they owned the streets, and I hated them for it. They were a bunch of thugs, a bunch of narcissistic violent psychopaths, and Cam wanted to stoop low enough to join them. I hated him for it, and hated myself for how angry and alone I felt. I ran away not long after and lost myself for a while.
He opened his mouth, but a knock at the door made him stop.
“Expecting someone?” I asked.
He shook his head and walked into the kitchen. He took a gun down from the top left cabinet and hesitated before he pulled open the front door.
A handsome man stood out there, dark hair, big smile, slim suit that looked like it cost a fortune. “Morning,” he said. “Nice piece. Can I play with it?”
Cam grunted and shoved the gun into his waistband. “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.
“What can I say, I’m a very hands-on Don.” The man moved past Cam and stopped when he spotted me. I didn’t know him, but I knew his type: slick and expensive and arrogant. He was Valentino all the way. “I didn’t know you had company.”
“Don Valentino, this is an old friend,” Cam said. “Her name’s Irene.”
Don Valentino. My heart stuttered and jumped into my stomach. He was Dean Valentino, the new young Don, the violent bastard that was ripping the city apart in his quest to destroy the Healy family. Thanks to him, half the street was on high alert, and life had been even rougher for me the past few weeks.
I didn’t say that, even though I wanted to. Probably should’ve.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“You too,” he said, and laughed. “I can’t remember the last time I saw Cam with a girl.” Don Valentino nudged Cam’s shoulder. “I was starting to think you were celibate.”
“Not celibate,” Cam said, shutting the door, and glanced at me. “Just waiting for the right girl.”
“How noble.” Don Valentino sat down at the kitchen table and crossed his legs. I caught sight of a gun in a holster beneath his jacket. “You got some of that coffee? Smells good.”
“Sure.” Cam poured him some and slid the mug over before sitting down. “What can I do for you?”
Don Valentino glanced over at me then tugged at his jacket. “I heard there was some action last night,” he said.
“Th
at’s right,” Cam said, and nodded toward me. “Pulled her from Ronan’s safe house.”
I grimaced and wished he hadn’t said that, but I knew he couldn’t keep it from the Don. He was a Valentino man, after all.
“Come sit over here,” Don Valentino said, waving at me. “Come on, it’s fine. How’d you end up in a Healy safe house?”
“Stole from them,” I said, taking the chair next to Cam.
Don Valentino’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit?”
“No shit,” I said, shrugging.
Cam laughed and put a hand on my leg underneath the table. I brushed him off, but he only smiled more. “She’s from the old neighborhood,” he said. “I guess we were raised better back then.”
Don Valentino laughed. “Must’ve been, if she’s got the balls to try to rip off Ronan Healy.” He whistled and shook his head. “Lucky Cam showed up then.”
“Lucky me,” I said, glancing at him.
“I hear he got away,” Don Valentino said, turning his attention back to Cam.
“Killed half his crew,” Cam said casually. The way he talked about murder sent my spine tingling.
I’d seen things. Watched one junkie stab another over some cash. Saw a girl no more than a couple years older than me frozen on a bad winter night with a syringe between her teeth. Watched two men in torn wool clothes fight over a fire out near the river. Saw worse: murder, theft, pain and violence. I’d been scared, been terrified.
But the way Cam talked about killing was on a different level. I saw the desperate actions of society’s castoffs, the most marginalized and forgotten people in the world.
Cam wasn’t any of that.
He didn’t look different, but he’d changed, that was for sure.
“Good man,” Don Valentino said, “but we need Ronan.”
“I’ll find him,” Cam said, leaning forward. “I promise you that, Don.”
Don Valentino watched Cam with his eyebrows knit forward, a shrewd frown on his lips, before nodding once. He stood and stared down at him.
“That’s your job then,” Don Valentino said. “I’ll handle Colm, and you’ll handle Ronan. Find him and end him for me. Help me win this war.”
“I will, Don Valentino,” Cam said, and the fervor in his voice took the wind from my throat. I’d never heard him talk like that before, not in all the years we knew each other back then.
“Good.” Don Valentino glanced at me and nodded. “Always nice to meet a thief willing to rip off the Healy family,” he said, and walked to the door.
He was gone a moment later.
I sat in silence as Cam stared after the Don. I wanted to know what he was thinking—he just got orders to find and murder a man, though killing didn’t seem to bother him.
I saw a lot of things on the street. I did things I wasn’t proud of: broke into homes and stole, lied and cheated, even pushed a girl out a first-floor window once to keep her from stabbing me with a broken bottle.
But I never killed. I never got so jaded that murder became okay.
Cam went down that road, and it scared me.
“You need new clothes,” he said suddenly, still staring at the door.
“Cam—”
“I’ll get you some stuff,” he said and stood. “I know you want to run away again, Irene, but I don’t want you dead out there. Ronan’s going to look for you.”
“I know,” I said.
He drifted over to the couch and grabbed the shirt he had on the night before. The bloodstain was a copper brown color, almost like paint. He pulled the shirt on over his head and grabbed his wallet from the coffee table.
“Stay here,” he said. “I want you to live long enough to run away again, you hear me?”
“I don’t plan on going anywhere,” I said, staring down at my hands.
I couldn’t meet his eyes with that shirt on.
“Good,” he said. “I’ll be back later. Stay here.” He left without another word.
Alone in his apartment, I finally let myself break.
The tears that refused to come ripped from my throat.
I came so close. Ronan was inches from killing me, the closest I’d come so far to dying.
And now I knew that my future hung in the balance.
But I couldn’t give up my freedom to Cam.
Not completely at least.
I waited twenty minutes before I looked through his stuff and found some money, a bundle of twenties in his sock drawer. It was almost like he wanted me to find it.
I peeled off enough for a cab ride out and back then snuck out of his apartment into the gorgeous morning sunlight.
4
Cam
It took her longer to leave than I expected. I thought as soon as I walked out that door, she’d be gone.
Instead, she was smart. Took her time. Almost waited me out.
But when I was finally about to head out to buy her clothes and toiletries, there she was, stepping down my stoop. I sighed and shook my head as she walked to the corner and flagged a cab.
I followed in my truck. It wasn’t hard, since the cabbie didn’t care if I kept right behind him, and Irene wasn’t looking for tails.
Her story was like a knife in my throat. I never wanted any of that for her, never wanted her to end up on the street fighting for her life every day, never wanted her struggling to survive. I saw that hard edge in her now, the sharpness that came from spending too much time on the run.
She assessed her surroundings for danger constantly, because in her world everything was deadly.
God damn, it broke my heart.
I wanted her to stay, but back then, I had to make a choice. I didn’t think she’d really disappear—I figured maybe we wouldn’t talk for a while, or she’d be angry, but I never once thought she’d go live on the streets.
I knew her life at home was tough. That was part of why I wanted to join the Valentinos. If I could make enough money to get my own place, she could come live with me and never have to see her parents again.
Instead, she vanished before I ever had the chance to try and help her.
God damn Irene. The cab drove her north and east, toward Old City. I didn’t know what she had to do there—street people stayed the hell away from the nicer areas. More cops, more ways to get picked up and thrown in jail for the night, though sometimes that was a good thing. Better to be in jail than frozen in the gutter.
The cab dropped her off near some little park. Kids swarmed the swings. I parked and followed on foot, though I lost her in the crowds of young couples and screaming brats. I never wanted kids, not really, always figured kids would get in the way of things. But maybe it would be nice to have a family.
Stability, a good foundation. All that shit.
Though it probably wasn’t in the cards for me. Not for a killer from the Valentino family.
As I moved around the perimeter, ready to give up, I spotted her moving toward the street through a bunch of big fluffy bushes. I hurried after her, and barely saw her slip down a small side alley.
I crept up close and stared as she knelt down next to some big drainpipe. It was huge and iron, probably an original feature. She shoved her arm in there, reaching in deep, and my mouth fell open as she pulled out a bunch of cash—
And a handful of something else.
I didn’t know what the hell they were. A bunch of small, square things. She looked around then and I had to duck away, but when I looked back, she was shifting a brick in the wall opposite and shoving her stash inside.
I waited around long enough to make sure she got in a cab again and hoped she’d be smart enough to head back to my place. When she was down the block and out of sight, I walked to her hiding spot and pulled the brick away.
Inside was a wad of cash and a bunch of USB sticks.
“What the fuck?” I said softly, but put the brick back and walked away.
I didn’t know what the hell that stuff was, but I had a feeling they were somehow related to Ronan. Wh
atever she stole must’ve been pretty bad if he was willing to take her to a private safe house and threaten to kill her. I thought about taking the USB sticks back to my place, but decided against it.
I couldn’t scare her off, not when I only just got her back into my life.
Instead, I called up Linc and had him meet me in the park. It was a nice afternoon so I found a bench in the shade and hung around watching old people walk their dogs and a bunch of guys throw a frisbee around in a small grassy patch.
Linc showed up ten minutes later. Typical Linc, punctual to a fault. He sat down next to me and stretched out his legs.
“Now your typical spot, boss,” he said, smirking slightly. I spotted a few young girls pushing strollers give him a strange look and was tempted to tell them to fuck off. Linc had some interesting scars on his face, and the skin was pink around his jaw and cheeks.
He told me how he got all that shit once when he was too drunk to stand. His mother was a junkie, and one night he flushed her pills down the toilet when he was six years old, thinking she’d be better if she didn’t have any. She’d been coking pasta when she realized the pills were gone, and decided to throw the boiling water in little Linc’s face.
Fucked him up for life.
“I like parks,” I said. “Full of life. And anyway, it’s a nice day.”
“But what the hell are you doing out in this part of the city?”
I laughed and crossed my legs. “I’m trying to see how the other half live.”
“If this is it, I’m not interested.” He made a face at the kids on the playground. “Look at all those devil spawn.”
“You don’t want kids?”
“No way in hell,” he said, shaking his head. “Though I’d have to find someone to put up with my pretty face first.”
“Fortunately, you’ve developed such a fun and sparkling personality to compensate,” I said.
He laughed and cracked his knuckles. “You want an update, or did you call me out here to shoot the shit?”
“Update me,” I said.
