by Suzanne Hart
“Do it, Michael. Squeeze. And then we can go home, as father and son. I can know you will be…”
“What if I shoot you instead, huh?” I’d spun around, pulling back the hammer and pointed the gun into my father’s right eye; I’d started walking slowly toward him. No shaking hands this time, no fear.
I saw the same look I had seen so many years before. Papa’s shoulders sunk, and his head shook. He turned away.
“Finish it, Slade, then bring the money to the house. No loose ends.” Slade nodded in silence. They were both ignoring the raised weapon I had held. I let off a round, missing my father’s head by inches. He kept walking.
“What if I do myself instead!” I screamed, turning the barrel to my own temple, feeling my finger tightening, wanting to squeeze it all the way.
I noticed Slade’s eyes widen a little, more in surprise at the cracking of my voice I think, rather than anything else.
My father kept walking. “Do it then, you’re no Leone. Maybe you’re better off dead. Slade!”
Slade was on me in a second, he’d twisted my arm painfully as he snatched the gun and emptied three rounds into that poor man’s twisted face. The echo of the shots left my ears ringing for days. It didn’t matter, because there was nothing to hear. Nobody at the house would speak to me. I was un vigliacco, a coward.
I wasn’t fit to breathe the air in the Leone household. And yet, I was the only son. I couldn’t be exiled until there was a new heir, a new king for the Leone throne.
The soft light of a high-end, designer-fitted bathroom, that’s the place for self-examination. Not in the full sunlight. Everybody looked terrible in full sunlight. Nature, the world looked so wonderful bathed in its own light, but people looked awful.
I bared my perfect white teeth in the huge, backlit, oval mirror, they’re natural, unlike the porcelain veneers other rich people have to get. I rubbed my fingertips into the hard whiteness, making tiny circles, tracing where the cocaine had been painted the day or night before. Was it day or night now? The soft light didn’t hurt, so it didn’t matter. I think its day though.
Widening my eyes, stretching my lids until they ached, I could see the brightness of my blue eyes, like silver glass as they shone with a light that lasted long after the coke was gone. They were bloodshot now, but nobody’s eyes shine like mine. This is how I imagined the first blue eyes ever to have looked like.
I ran my long fingers through my soft black curls, tasting some of the coke that was still in my nose as I inhaled deeply. My dad used to tease me, saying that my hair was so soft, that it was like a girl’s, like my sister’s. But he loved to run his hands through both our heads of hair. He’d kiss our heads; absolving us of every sin he himself was responsible for, telling us we were his angels. That he loved us more than anything, as much as he loved our dear mother.
I can still catch strains of the laughter, the music in the house when Mama was still alive. I found myself humming the last few bars of the aria the choir boys had sung at her funeral. It was so beautiful, with so much sadness at the same time. I caught it though, and I felt the tears coming.
Twisting myself around, my eyes were darting back to the bedroom as I strained to focus through the dim light. No, she didn’t see. She was out to it. She didn’t hear it either. That clockwork ticking in my brain, turning over the plan. The one thing I had to get me free of all the Leone bullshit. My way out.
The only does I bagged back then, were the two-legged variety, and I shot them with something so good, something they’ve never had before. I couldn’t kill a man, didn’t even want to, but I could slay any woman I met with a flash of my blues, and later, a lick of my tongue.
That one was lying like the rest of them, all curled up and purring in her sleep, like the cat who got the cream. She sure did. Four, or was it five times? I couldn’t remember. It was always that way. If there was one thing I was good at, better than anything I had ever tried, it was satisfying a woman to the point of tears through sex. Every woman. Every time.
I ran the shower, feeling its cold needles pound on my smooth skin, like heavy spines on canvas. A tent I’d pulled back into, watching the rain after the violence of the storm.
Running my hands over myself to get clean with the soap, I tried to imagine what it felt like for them, all those does, all those girls and women, left utterly spent, gasping in my wake. Me, I felt nothing. Not much, anyway, not like how people might think I would. It was all about them. I could reach into their mind with my eyes, like the deer had done to me, so long ago.
I could feel how they wanted to be touched, hear the words they wanted me to say, their bodies told me how to hold them, in what position --and for how long. It made me glad to hear them coming, to see the thrill and amazed look of disbelief as their climax went on and on.
But, like anything that’s free, it’s fleeting. I didn’t want to talk over coffee the next morning. I’m the memory; the ache and longing you feel deep inside you for weeks afterward. But that’s all I am. I’m no killer.
Two
Natalia
A twelfth-century monastery, dismantled, transported and rebuilt piece by piece in North Miami. That was the Bernardi family history in a sentence. It was also the real history of the family estate. The main buildings, anyway. Kind of fitting, a monastery. I felt like a nun sometimes, holed up in an impenetrable fortress, praying for something I knew deep down didn’t exist, even though it made me feel better.
I was too young to remember, but I’ve been told that Papa shot three people before everybody started going along with his story that the place was Italian, not Spanish. Spanish cost you an eye. Italian got you a glass of wine and a tour of the old place.
It was a wedding gift from my great grandfather to my great grandmother, reluctant migrants from the very successful Bernardi clan, who immigrated after the threat of war and when rival gangs forced them to rethink business plans. The expansion of fishing fleets into Florida spawned a large seafood business for the family, which was now second fiddle to the real business my father ran. Drugs and guns across three continents.
Walking the cool stone steps up to the towering arms that hold the vaulted stonework ceiling without effort, I preferred to think of my own imaginary history, both ancient and recent; for the house, and for myself.
The ancient monastic reliefs of the original religious order had been replaced with Bernardi sconces, carvings and shields, but shared space with many original and added religious objects, with stained glass and motifs. Signs of a devout warrior race, a man’s spiritual home as well as his castle.
I could have been anywhere in the world, and there was one place I would have rather been for that world itself. But the pull, I should say the strain of the family, my father on me, was why I stayed here most of the time.
“I need you safe, Natalia. We are a great family, but we have many enemies. How they would delight at taking you from me, how it would kill me inside. No! Here is where you belong!”
He would tap his broad and heavy chest firmly with his index finger, the heavy sound of his strong body resounding in agreement. I was favorite and only daughter to one of the biggest crime bosses in the country. I was all that was dear to him, even more than his own wife, my own mother. The one thing we shared in common was an intense dislike for the space that the woman took up. So, there in that ancient place I would stay as much and for as long as he would insist upon it.
Oh, I could come and go as I pleased, but there was usually a not-so-discreet guard or two within earshot, following every move I made. I learned to become too quick and too clever for them to keep up. They prayed I didn’t get into any real trouble, in case they had to go back and tell my father they had lost the jewel in his crown.
It was a firm family rule that no Bernardi was to set foot in any of the Leone clubs or businesses in the city, or in the country. The Leone’s had a huge chunk of the nightclub action in Florida, with Bernardi’s choosing to fuel the clientele with
powdered entertainment, before they got to the clubs. That’s the way it had been for as long as anyone could remember. Neither family liked the other for what and who they were, but it was tradition. You had to have something to hate so you could justify and love what you did yourself.
Much like Mother, I had no dealings with the actual goings on of the family business. I was like an honored guest in the company of my father, and a tolerated sibling by my three brothers, who were all aspiring gangsters, dying to outdo each other. My mother often told me; with shame in her voice that she hardly believed those three boys were her own sons sometimes, the same of her arranged marriage to my father all those years ago.
I have a vague memory of being caught, after almost being shot until recognized after sneaking into a deal my father had arranged. I remember the smell of grease and old lumber, shavings, and old straw which was used to stuff cargo crates. The smell of cigar and cigarette smoke hanging in a haze over a veneer of sweat and testosterone, fear and probably a good dose of whatever was inside those crates. The atmosphere was electric, I was mesmerized and, like half those men, I was hooked on the buzz of the experience.
Since those days, it had been homeschooling by live-in tutors, nannies and music teachers. All relatives at some point along the family tree, and no cause for the curious Natalia to venture too far out on her own.
Needless to say, once I was old enough, I relished in the excitement, the reliving of that youthful charge of experiencing the forbidden. The deals, the guns and drugs. The terribly unattractive men who smelled so bad it was good, good to feel the thrill of breaking all the rules… the golden rules set by my father. 1: Natalia doesn’t go to deals or do any business. 2: Natalia doesn’t go anywhere unsupervised.
To their credit, my father and family were pretty nice about the whole thing. I had no want for anything inside the family estate, or when I was older, because I had a place of my own. A pretend place of my own, a downtown condo, which was so heavily bugged and full of cameras, I was too embarrassed to pee, let alone enjoy myself.
No, my leisure and pleasures outside the luxuries of casa de Bernardi were top secret and always full of risk. I loved to break all the rules, especially the rules of engagement when it came to that dumbest of all rituals, the mating game.
I’d been hurt once, I’ll be honest about that. I’d been so happy, feeling what I guessed everybody else calls true love. He was the one, our future was set, in my mind anyways. I guess it was the Bernardi in me coming out, but hurt me once and it’s the only time. Try again and you probably won’t live to get a third chance.
Fortunately for Mr. Right, he bailed. It probably did save his life. Seriously, I was going to get one of the guys to feed him to the sharks, literally. And yes, they actually do that. It’s gross, but quick and cheap, apparently.
I thought I would die from hurt, the gaping hole left in my heart and soul after opening myself up to the one who I thought was for me forever. Papa wanted to know what had happened, and why I was so sad. If I’d wanted that piece of shit dead, all I had to do was give Papa a name. But I didn’t. I moped for months, then went and stayed with Papa’s half-sister, Aunty Pippa, in L.A. for a time. By the time I came back, I was a new woman. My own woman.
The biggest lesson for me from all that was to never let your true feelings show. If somebody sees your weaknesses, it’s like putting a gun in their hand.
The second thing I learned, which took some figuring out and much sneaking around behind my family’s back, was that all men are deeply insecure about one thing, their dicks. You can make a guy or break him, not even with a word, but just a look in that general direction. Eyes light up, gasp a little, then purr it’s the biggest thing you’ve ever seen. After that, this guy’s gonna sell his granny to have you tell him that again. Squint your eyes, bend down and then reel back, covering your nose or tell him he should get that checked out, I know a good doctor, does he want the number? He’ll probably die of embarrassment or just go home and hang himself right after he cuts his own dick off and flushes it down the toilet.
For me, the thrill of men is the games they play, trying so hard to be men that nobody wants. Who wants a drug addicted, smelly gun-slinger who smokes? But going to a deal, especially uninvited, and pulling out as much bluff as you can, competing with all the testosterone and dick measuring in the room… that’s exciting. Especially knowing it could all be fatal if one of them finds out who you really are.
Nothing quickens my blood more than the risk of being found out, discovered for who I really am. I’m not so stupid as to let that happen though, that would spoil the fun.
The Leone clubs were my favorite hangouts. Getting in was always a challenge. I needed a peerless disguise and phony ids, credit cards, the whole bit. If it was even suspected I was anything to do with the Bernardi’s, well, it never came to that. Sometimes I almost wish it did, just to see what would have happened, but a girl can’t have her way all the time. I damn well made sure I had it most of the time though.
I’m not an ugly girl, far from it. Nor am I a snob. I didn’t go to a posh finishing school, or learn to balance a book on my head without my ass wobbling as I walked for three hundred steps. I grew up with three brothers for Christ’s sake.
My eyes were a giveaway though. I had to wear colored contacts if I went to Leone clubs. My features, too. Without wanting to sound up myself, I have quite an unforgettable figure. The face, well that can be all sorts of this and that with makeup. But legs, tits and ass. To a man’s eye, is unmistakable.
I have the holy trinity of all three in perfect proportion. Okay, now I’m sounding up myself, but you get the idea. I never let it go to my head though, I always left the head-fucking and stupidity come from the men. They’re so good at it.
Whoever I would pretend to be for the night would always have to look like someone else they’d met if they thought they recognized me. I was always from out of town and usually just broken up with my boyfriend, or lost my purse and phone. A classic way of not being identified, but also a great way to play damsel in distress, one of my favorites.
Once in a club, I’d usually need a drink to take the edge off the nerves that went along with walking tightropes. I’d pick my mark, the biggest or best looking of the herd, and signal him with my eyes. That was easy enough. I’d always look straight at them, then look away with a little smile, then retreat and wait for them to come to me. Works every time.
Mr. Big, or Mr. Strong, or something like that, would always follow me, listen to my story while trying hard not to be obvious about staring at my chest. He’d buy me a drink, and I’d pretend to cry and he’d ask me back to his place.
Don’t get me wrong, I like men. I like the idea of men. Okay, I hate men. Getting Mr. Big Stuff back to his apartment, playing hard to get, then telling him he should get his pride and joy checked out, and what’s that smell? Or just happening to have an asthma attack just before he comes in my hand? Well, it’s petty and immature revenge, but I enjoy it. At least I’m no killer.
Three
Mikey
Once it became clear I wasn’t into killing people or beating them within an inch of their life in the name of Leone, my father, by his own doing, saw me less and less. I was ignored by him completely, with his men around him and his doors every second of every day, he was always too busy for Mikey anymore.
“Sorry, Mikey, your father has important business right now,” or “He’s taking a nap, Mikey, can I help you with something?” It was always friendly enough, but after weeks, then months, it was pretty clear that Papa didn’t want to have a son called Mikey anymore.
The Leone estate was a vast area of land and buildings, but soon became a prison for me. The luxury of food and surrounds that most people only dreamt of took on a bitter, hard to digest quality, knowing it was all the result of my father and his business operations. I wanted out and I didn’t have to wait long.
As if sensing my restlessness, or probably just to get me
out of the house altogether, I was set up in a house of my own in the suburbs, not too far from the docks. A place where I was given the new title of warehouse manager for one of the receiving warehouses the family owned. I agreed readily, because anything to get out of that house and away from my father had to be better.
It seemed that every time I saw Slade, it was a good luck/bad luck scenario. This guy was the angel of death. Most people who ever met him, met him for the last time. “How do you do, I’m Jack Slade and I’m here to kill you. P.S., Don Leone says you should’ve done as you were told.” BLAM!!!
I only ever saw him when my father wanted to communicate anything to me, and the news of a place of my own sounded too good to be true; because it was.
Slade resented the menial tasks of being messenger boy, but I also felt he had a soft spot for me, if it was possible this guy could have a soft anything for anybody. I had always had a positive effect on most people, even when I was screwing things up or off my head on something. Usually, they’d always forgive me once I flashed my baby blues and my rows of pearly whites. It was like people couldn’t stay mad at me for very long. Except my dad. He was different. And Slade, he seemed to tolerate me in his world, like a kid shaking a stick insect inside a jar, just to see what would happen.
“Now, Mikey,” he started, already sounding like a warning bell. “You get your own place, car, the works.”
I felt myself beaming uncontrollably. Slade’s shoulders slumped a little and he half sighed, half growled as his eyes narrowed. He hated being interrupted and I was stopping him before he’d even gotten started.