by Suzanne Hart
Felix had gone in for his tests and I waited, with some anxiety, out in a comfortable enough waiting room in the private clinic. There was another man opposite me, he seemed vaguely familiar, but I thought nothing of it as I picked up a magazine to kid myself I was reading it.
I could feel the man’s eyes on me. After an uncomfortable amount of time still feeling his stare, I looked up. It was the guy from the deal. Claridge.
My heart felt like it had stopped.
His eyes were calm, but thoughtful. Clear and cunning. The grayness of them in the light made it look like he had no eyes at all if he moved his head a certain way, as if there were just two tiny mirrors where his eyes should be.
“You have a beautiful son, Natalia.”
He said it so casually, so matter of fact, that it sent a chill up my spine. Stunned, I didn’t know what to say, but he obviously had a lot to tell me.
“My cousin, she had kidney trouble. Terrible business, they had to keep her on dialysis; even after the transplant. She died.”
I could feel a bitterness rising in my throat, my eyes narrowed and I felt myself about to get up out of my chair and let this guy have it, but he seemed to read my mind. Holding his hand up, not in protest, but silent command.
“You’ll sit there and you’ll hear what I have to say, Natalia Bernardi. Felix will be a while yet and I have a lot to talk to you about.”
His voice was commanding, but low and calm. I couldn’t help but be held captive by his voice, his look, but most of all, his knowledge about my son and our situation.
Claridge cleared his throat, with a slight muffled cough before he began again. “Your boyfriend, Mikey Leone, will find out soon enough, and it really makes no difference me telling you because you can’t tell anyone without incriminating yourself.” My look gave him what he wanted. A small smile of appreciation crept across his tight little mouth. “It was I who told both your father and Antonio Leone about you and Mikey. Well, not me personally; that would be impractical. I have means. I saw you both at the deal. The deal I actually set up, hoping you would make an appearance, which you did. I can always count on the habits of desperate people.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but his hand was already half raised, which silenced me somehow. Claridge was more than dangerous, he was powerful. It showed in his voice, his attitude. But worst of all, its effect worked on me, which was terrifying.
“I figured you and Michael would hit it off, he’s quite the… ah… one might say, quite the Casanova with the ladies. Your dalliance with him was all I needed to cement the next stage of my little drama, to tell both fathers what their child had done… and in a roundabout way suggesting a practical and peaceful way to resolve it. Your father was to offer Michael money to disappear, in return for his cocaine haul. His father was advised to…”
A doctor suddenly appeared in the waiting room; he was clearly in a rush and didn’t excuse the interruption. Claridge held both his hands out, wide open, giving the doctor the floor. He smiled at me shrewdly, making me feel ill with his smug look from across the room.
The doctor barely acknowledged Claridge, addressing me urgently. “Ms. Diamond? We need to speak with you, right now!”
Fourteen
Mikey
I often wondered if Slade, Papa’s right-hand man really did hate me or not. The look I got on the way out of the house put that query to rest. All the men were down on me, more than usual. I don’t think they knew the details, but they were each on the receiving end of my father’s fury, so they must have figured how bad it was.
I was taken back to the house I’d been given to stay at, surprised I was even allowed to leave my father’s place at all. Gray was gone, with nobody offering more than a shrug when I asked. I was assigned two minders this time, Mr. White and Mr. Black. Black was a relatively new face in the household, there was something doubly odd about that guy, but nobody could seem to see it.
They were both a lot harder than Gray, as my babysitters. They didn’t want me to even speak as I was escorted to a car, flanked by both of them in the back seat, the plan being to take me back home. I had no idea if I was expected to go to work the next day or what would happen next. I assumed the worst, but that turned out to be nothing compared to what was to come.
I was so tired, the pills to pep me up that Gray had given me had worn off and I had the hangover from hell, coupled with the jitters of a three-day coke party, now playing a sledgehammer two-step with my brain and my nerves.
I had managed a decent shower, some food from the ever-replenishing refrigerator, and I was ready to sleep for a year. My mind had just gone into a decent space between wakefulness and sleep when the bedroom door was flung open with furious force. White picked me up straight out of bed and threw me at the wall, Black was ready with a black bag and I was hogtied with cable ties like an enemy of the state.
I’d never been scared in my life until then, not really scared. My nerves had given way completely, to hysteria. I was crying out and screaming once the bag had been on my head for less than a minute. I felt that both men had picked me up and felt them carrying me outside, right toward the sound of a running engine. I cried out again.
“Jesus fucking Christ, shut him up, will ya, Black!” was the last thing I heard for a time. A jarring blow to the side of my face made me see red, a strong yellow and then black. How ironic.
The taste of my own blood in my mouth was my wakeup taste. I had no idea how long I’d been out. My hands were free and I chanced to let one of them gently touch the side of my face. I was shocked by two things: the sound that came out of me when I touched my swollen face, and the size and painfulness of the mass that now occupied what used to be the left side of my jaw. I wanted to weep, to cry out in pain, but the sight of the surroundings in my father’s office made me bite down on the pain, on all my feelings.
You’re going to pay for this, you asshole. This is the last time…
His desk was empty, but the approaching footfall from behind me from the vast corridor was unmistakable. It must’ve been late; he always liked to roam around the whole place by himself, very late at night, sometimes all night.
The guards were to remain out of sight as he made his rounds. I jumped in my chair, against my will. The sudden sound of the huge oak doors startled me. My father stepped up slowly, stopping behind me. I could hear his breathing, it was slow and labored.
I jumped again as one of his large hands patted me affectionately on the shoulder from behind, right before he let it rest there for a time. I could see his face in my mind, as he would have been starting to reflect again, on how things used to be. Baby Mikey, what went wrong? And why couldn’t he have been more like Mia? The son he should have had. I’d seen the look, the movie he was playing in his mind a thousand times. He sighed loudly, announcing an intermission from the show inside his own mind.
This time, there was no long silences, no waiting for me to spill my guts. He knew, because of the way I’d been treated that I wouldn’t tell him shit. He was right. I don’t think he knew how much his actions affected me though. Instead of being fearful of being exiled as a Leone, it was the opposite. I was done. I wanted out of that house, and that family, for good.
“You know, Mikey,” he began, with his usual, friendly-to-begin-with tone, always happening during our little interrogations. “I spoke to your Uncle Lucias tonight…” He paused, waiting for a reaction I didn’t have. “It seems that a container, a whole shipping container of pure, A- grade, uncut cocaine, guns, and some other items was sent to your warehouse by mistake, just last week. A whole shipping container!” His voice was jolly, lively.
He’d come around to the front of me, resting his behind on the corner of his huge desk, propping himself there as he smiled to himself, folding his hands across his belly; like Santa explaining to a workshop elf that he really didn’t exist after all. It was as if it was the most curious notion he had ever considered, and his eyes invited me to share the mystery, b
y telling him everything I knew.
I’d done two unspeakable things that week. I’d robbed the family and I’d slept with the enemy. What I did next was, I figured, my suicide capsule; the easy way out. I just felt done and wanted nothing more, not anymore.
I spat right into his left eye.
The metallic rush of red, the splintering of pain and bone into my own eye socket was the soundtrack to the very short film of me flying backward in the chair before striking the back of my head against another low table.
I was barely conscious as my father raised the seat up again, forcing me upright in it like a rag doll. He adjusted the ring on his finger as he continued his little speech, wheezing. Pausing only to wipe my spit from his eye and force it down my throat with three of his fingers until I threw up.
I saw the room horizontal again, and this time, felt the full force of his boot in my solar plexus. I strained to breathe, but nothing came. I was out again, but not for long.
I was in a nice, black void. Somewhere near the dream and sleep I’d been chasing a few hours, or was it days before? That damned cigar smoke brought me back. I felt myself heaving again. I didn’t want to open my eyes, but a thick set of fingers had forced them open, blowing the putrid blue and purple reek into them, stinging me and forcing a stream of hot burning tears from them.
“You can spit and cry all you like, boy. I’m almost done with you completely. You’re almost through here. I just want to know a few little things before I let you go.”
His tone was still quite cheerful, happily business like. As if he was holding a customer back for just one minute before closing time, because, boy… did he have a special deal for them.
“I just want to know why? Why would you steal from your own family? Is it because I never gave you anything?” He was asking rhetorical questions out loud, putting a finger to his lips in a sign of wonder as he spoke aloud. “Is it because I never said I love you enough? God knows! Your mother, rest her soul, it’s all she ever did, was say how much she loved you!”
He had hopped off from his perch, pacing in front of me, almost looking like a sinister Groucho Marx, twitching his cigar while pacing, delivering brilliantly-original one-liners. The difference being, none of it was funny.
“…Or maybe, just maybe… it’s because you never really loved us! Maybe you were an evil little boy all along and we just never saw it, because evil is so good at putting on an innocent face!”
“You should know,” I murmured. He inhaled, ready to explode again, but caught himself. Choosing to keep up the jolly Santa routine instead.
“My second problem,” he mused loudly, passing me a second or third time, “is why would you choose Bernardi as a customer for your ill- gotten gains?”
He spun around, rapidly putting his face so close to mine our noses almost touched. His eyes showed their first signs of betrayal, he was hurt inside and it was all because of me.
“Bernardi!” he exclaimed, turning away just as quickly, trying to hide the emotion in his voice, but it was too late. His own tears had come, his back was to me, but I could see his whole body shake with grief, with shame and humiliation.
I felt my own hate, my own rage soften at the edges, Family is, after all, family. I realized my own emotional state as I heard my cracked, croaking and sniveling voice crying out to my father’s back.
“I would have made double on the deal, Papa! I would have doubled our money! I thought I could make you proud, I thought if I did one thing, just one fucking thing right, you would see that I can do something! I know I’m not Mia; nobody else is Mia, Papa! I’m Mikey fucking Leone and I’m your son! Can’t you just love me for who I am!? Can’t you just… fucking… love… me!”
I shook until the tears wouldn’t come anymore. I felt a lifetime’s worth of rage, regret and neglect pour out of me. I could see my father’s body shaking and bobbing from behind, he with his own grief. When we were both done, I thought he might have bought it; that he might have been convinced I was actually trying to do something right for a change. Hell, maybe I had been. Maybe that’s really why I was trying to do it all in the first place, so Daddy could see how high I could go on the swing. So, for once in my life, my daddy would look at me instead of Mia, and that he might even be proud of his only son.
I heard the familiar honking of his own nose in his big white handkerchief, right before he stuffed it back into his pocket. He took a wide arc around his desk, keeping his eyes from me, and his back turned. I felt his hand pat me again on the shoulder from behind, very gently. Slowly and softly he patted, before his steps were soft echoes from far away, right down that huge, marble corridor.
I slumped in agony in the chair, too spent to move or try to make sense of anything anymore. I must have dozed off, my head painfully jerking upright again, with the guy in the white coat coming at me, a tray of bandages and a huge needle with Mikey written on it.
When I came to again, I was in a familiar-looking room, but not one I’d spent any time in. The whole Leone estate was enormous. There was no real way to tell which building I was in, what time of day it was, or if it was daytime at all. Moving was agony and the doctor’s visits with more Mikey shots were too few and far between to dull the pain.
Why didn’t he just kill me?
Fifteen
Natalia
The mother in me was with the doctor, I needed to know about my son, right then. The other hemisphere was maddened to find out more about what Claridge was up to. Hell! About who the fuck he even was, and how he knew so much about everybody all of a sudden. Getting in direct contact with a crime boss wasn’t an easy thing to do. In fact, it was impossible. My mind reeled at how this guy had managed to communicate with my father and Leone. I believed every word he said too. Nobody, not even my father, knew about Felix. I knew that for sure.
The doctor was around the same age as Claridge, but he had better intentions. I was guided out of the waiting room, into an annexed room, off of the examination area where Felix had done his scans. A nurse was helping him get dressed and gave him a coloring book for being a good patient.
“Miss Diamond, I’m sorry if I alarmed you, but the situation really is more serious than we first thought.”
He turned to some screens behind him and began pointing at the 3D images of what I assumed were Felix’s kidneys and internal organs.
“This is really quite rare, we’re seeing degradation of the tissues here and here, there’s also a generalized decrease in kidney function with our worst fears being confirmed by Felix’s latest blood work. It’s not good. He’ll have to return tomorrow for a dialysis session, it’ll take around four hours and we’d like to keep him in overnight for observation.”
I was standing in the darkened booth, riveted to the screens, with the image of my son playing out on the window to the next room. He looked perfectly fine; there must have been a mistake.
The doctor frowned. “There’s no mistake, I’m afraid. If anything, I’m disappointed we didn’t pick it up earlier. It’s a very serious problem. I won’t lie to you Miss Diamond, there’s every chance Felix will need a kidney transplant if he doesn’t respond to drug therapy or dialysis. At the moment his kidneys simply aren’t working properly.”
I felt like I was being sawn in half, lengthways. One half of me wanted to run in to be with Felix, to work a mother’s magic and make him better, whole again; so we could get on with our lives. A life I imagined again, where Mikey would be father and I could be mother. The other half of me was still in the waiting room, wanting to interrogate Claridge, to hold him to account as to why and how he knew so much. The doctor read my confusion easily, helping me into a seat.
“It’s a lot to take in, I know. Felix is otherwise, extremely healthy, there’s every chance he should improve. If it does come down to a transplant scenario, the only real issue is his blood type, it’s quite rare. Are you yourself B negative?” I felt my head shaking.
“No, I think Sha--, Mr. Diamond was a rar
e blood group. He died before Felix was born,” I lied. It was easier to think of Shane as dead, even though I saw him every time I looked at Felix.
“I see, well, it’s something you will need to consider. If you or your family or friends know anyone who is B Negative blood type, give them my card, we’ll need to talk. I understand that finances aren’t a barrier for you?” I looked puzzled. “I don’t mean to pry, but, well, sometimes advertising for someone to donate is an option if there are no available donors. People will donate an organ, as a gift of course; for not too much money these days. People are desperate.”
I looked and felt horrified, standing to leave.
“Just consider it, is all,” the doctor said, reddening slightly, realizing his social faux pas.
I was shown out again by a nurse, Felix hugging me cheerfully once we were reunited. The nurse was telling me all about the next day’s appointment and procedure, but my mind strayed again to Claridge, to Mikey, and to all that was wrong with my family and this world. Felix was the only one who seemed unconcerned; he took it all so well. It made me proud to be his mother. I could tell he was more his father’s son than a Bernardi, and that made me breathe a sigh of relief again, knowing there was hope for him, for humanity maybe. Just maybe yet.
I had looked around, half-hoping Claridge might still be lurking about, but he was long gone. Wishing he was just a figment of my imagination, like my feelings for Mikey which seemed to be swinging like a pendulum on a giant clock. I was dreading something I could feel but couldn’t yet place in my mind. There was something terrible about to happen and I had no idea what it was.
Felix kept things light for me on the drive home. We stopped for some ice cream and got takeout to share with Aunt Pippa. All the things he probably shouldn’t have had, but I couldn’t help but spoil him. To see him happy. My biggest fear was to see him sad or fearful of anything in this world, because I knew how much there was to be afraid of.