by Suzanne Hart
I watched myself, as if from above or behind. I mopped my burning eyes with my sleeves, and straightened my hair in the rearview mirror of the car. I looked and felt like hell. I was emotionally liberated, but physically exhausted. I had cried twenty years of tears but felt only twenty years older. The same, unidentified hurt was there, like a scar; faded but still snarling. I could hide it from the world, but knew I always carried it. Even showing it, sharing it with someone like Natalia wouldn’t change it. It would always be there. The past. My history. A family line I couldn’t break.
I saw my hands moving, my arms ached and my back sung with cramps and a tightness that made me wince. The bag was opening; I could feel the mystery of the powder in the bag between my fingers. I held a massive pinch of the cocaine between my thumb and forefinger, snorting it loudly through each nostril.
The burning, stinging, metallic stab turned into a cooling white light. I felt myself grow, the pain and tears shriveled like leaves in the glow of the brilliance that was my high.
I saw myself grinning in the reflection of the glass of the car, my teeth were chattering. It was the grimace of the insane, the deluded; the high.
Holy fuckin’ shit. I’m a fuckin’ millionaire!
Twenty-Six
Natalia
“Aaaaaand just a final signature here, Ms. Diamond. That’s us done! Congratulations on your new accounts and thank you for choosing our bank. Your cards will take around ten working days to arrive, we can issue you a checkbook straight away and any cash you might…”
“I’ll take the checkbook and one hundred thousand dollars in traveler’s checks, thank you.” I smiled, trying not to show the internal meltdown I was experiencing.
The manager was friendly enough, but raised an eyebrow at the sum, then smiled reassuringly; eyeballing the rocks on my fingers. He knew instinctively, that I was good for it. I wanted two fifty, but knew better than that. I couldn’t draw attention to myself.
“A holiday, perhaps?” the manager continued, looking a little less than easy even still.
“Yes!” I beamed. “For my aunt. She’s going home to Italy for a few weeks, my treat.”
The aunt to Italy story sounded like something straight out of a fairytale, right up there with death in the family or some other similar bullshit story. The appearance of Pippa at the manager’s glass door, waving excitedly to me was perfect timing.
“Here’s the intrepid traveler herself!” I said, gloating a little as my story began to stick, along with the six-figure fake documents I had used to get the accounts.
I amazed myself. Able to keep it together at the bank, the travel agent, shopping, then lunch with Pippa. I had twisted her arm to be adventurous, to just do it, to go. It had worked well. After some wine at lunch, she was primed, paid and prepared for her flight to Italy later that afternoon. I wished I could have been genuine in wishing her a happy holiday. I mean, I was. I really was. I just wanted her out of town for a variety of reasons.
I shuddered to think I would wish my son to stay in that hospital one more day than he had to either, but I needed time to think and act. In truth, preparing Pippa for her holiday had wasted precious hours.
Speaking of wasted, I finally got calls from Mikey. He was high, I could tell. He was talking at a million miles a minute, sounding paranoid about something, but pretending everything was great. He said a lot about his feelings for me, but it didn’t sound the same when he was on something. He was different. It felt like everything was tearing apart at the seams.
I’d managed to put Mikey off until Pippa’s check-in. She was okay with me leaving, and not waiting around for her plane to take off.
“Just do what’s right,” she whispered in my ear before squeezing me extra tightly.
She turned and went through the turnstile without looking back. I felt transparent, alone. I thought of my mother and what she had said. Pippa seemed to sense, to know something big was up as well. Something about mafia women, they seemed to know a hell of a lot more than I did.
I thought of asking Mikey to pick me up from the airport, to drive us both home so we could spend some time together. I cringed at the thought of babysitting a wind-up Mikey doll, chattering and sniffing while he was high like that. I hated it. I’d seen the drugs do terrible things to people; I thought Mikey was smarter than that.
Maybe he wasn’t high; maybe he’s just excited about something…
I groaned, smacking my palm to my forehead.
Can I please just pick an emotion, a thought or idea, and just stay with it for five minutes!? Please!?
I wanted to get on a plane myself, to just go. I had Felix though, I couldn’t run anymore. I had left him alone for so long without any explanations and he had never demanded one. And he was the sweetest boy a mother could wish for. I knew every mother would say that, but he really was amazing in what he put up with without saying a bad word.
I deliberated which way to go, getting home again. My cell pulsed. I figured it was Mikey again and answered it absently.
“Natalia. You need to come home now. It’s your brother Nathan, they tried to kill him in the hospital, those dogs! They shot a nurse. That bastard Leone kid shot a nurse right in the head as she ran away!”
It was my father. I felt like getting sick. The floor pitched away from me and I held out my free hand for a support that wasn’t there.
“Papa? What are you talking about? Slow down.” I instinctively tried to buy seconds, to give myself time to think of what to tell this man.
He never called anybody directly. If he ever did, it was the most serious sign he would give you. If he was calling in a debt, it was repaid within the hour, if he was done with you; you’d be dead within a minute. I had no idea where the conversation would go.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. I had to hold the phone away from my ear as he yelled at me. “Don’t play deaf, you little bitch. Get your ass home, right now. Now! Your family needs you. Don’t make me call you again!” There was a crashing sound and the line went dead. I felt the hardness of the lump in my throat dry, like plaster without nearly enough water to make it set.
I stood in the airport, trembling. I swooned again, lurching forward and joining the sway of people on their way to a moving escalator. I had to do something, and fast. If I went back home, I would lose Felix. If I stayed… I didn’t even want to think what would happen.
I’d never seen or heard my father so enraged, not toward me anyway. I’d heard the men talking, and of course, the stories from the street. I figured it was just that though, street talk. I tried gulping again as I realized that the talk was based on fact, not fiction, and I was in terrible danger from not only Claridge, but my own family; the one thing I had felt I needed earlier that morning.
Could I have gone to my father, with at least just some of the facts? I knew Claridge wasn’t the type to leave loose ends. I had the gut feeling I had been told just enough to play into one or more of a series of calculated responses already designed by Claridge himself. I wanted to talk to somebody who knew how I felt; I wanted someone I could trust.
Pippa was gone now, I couldn’t have dragged her in any deeper anyhow, even though I knew she would’ve done all she could to help. I didn’t want to go to Mikey either. Shit! He was the root cause of all of this anyway.
I blended into the crowd, pretending my concerns were those of the rest of the people I saw. Worrying about their job, about money; about shit that just didn’t matter to me and never had.
That bastard Leone kid shot a nurse right in the head as she ran away!
I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. Mikey would never hurt anybody. Would he?
I had a head full of doubt, fear and a loathing of my own indecision. I willed myself to come up with a plan, but getting a cab back to the house was my major achievement. On the ride home, I read, then reread Claridge’s letter. It was pretty self-explanatory. I didn’t have to guess what would happen if I did what he wante
d, or what would happen if I didn’t.
My primary thinking, as a parent, was to do what I had to do just to get Claridge off my back. And take Felix and the money I already had and run. Problem was, I’d already been running his whole life, just from a standstill at home with my father. The thought of taking him out of school, away from his friends and the life he knew and loved was more than I could take myself. It felt like every way I looked for a solution, there was a bigger problem or consequence facing me down or threatening to chase me down, to the death.
I paced the house alone, looking for inspiration in rooms and places that were so alien to me, yet so familiar with the evidence, the energy from the life of my son. I stood in his room, holding one of his shirts, smelling him. I began to cry again, a deep and painful sound that had been lying dormant for over a decade which seemed to crawl out of me.
Slumping to the floor, I wailed and punched at the air, his bed and pillows, anything I could reach. I saw my father’s face, the men in the house, everything that had kept me from my son and his life, for fear of his safety and for my own. I desperately wanted to share my feelings with someone who could understand how I felt, someone who could offer me proper advice.
The phone was ringing again, checking it this time, it was Mikey again. I hesitated to answer, wishing he had never laid eyes on me, but then I recalled how it had felt to be with him, having him inside me, how the whole world disappeared.
I answered. There was a bit of mutual sniffing going on, mine from crying, his from the remains of whatever he was or had been taking. I was surprised by his tenderness, his honesty. It didn’t take long to feel better about picking up the phone. I wanted to interrupt him, but I let him finish. He had a fair bit to say.
“Natalia, I need to apologize. I was up all night with something else… and I messed up. I did a little coke to stay awake. I wanted to come get you from the hospital, spend the day together; now I just feel lousy. I let you down and I’m sorry.”
I could feel my tears coming on again, this time they were happy tears. I felt a wave of relief and a little annoyance at myself, for once again doubting someone who was only trying their best.
“Are you alright?” he asked, genuinely concerned.
“I’m okay, I guess. It’s just all this stuff with Felix, with us; it’s a crazy ride some days.” It was alright to let him hear me cry, but I needed to let him know it was a good thing.
“I want to see you, Natalia. But you might want to be alone right now. I feel awkward, with your car and stuff…” I was so glad he brought it up.
“It’s alright, about the car. Use it as long as you need to. What are you doing anyway? Should I even ask?” I ventured, unsure about my own feelings about what my father had said. Mikey went quiet.
“You probably know, or will find out soon enough…” My heart rose up into my throat. I held my breath.
“What is it?” I asked, after an agonizing few seconds of silence. I was sure he was going to mention Claridge for some reason, but then figured it had to be the shooting. I heard him exhale loudly, his breath was shaky.
“Ahhhh shit. It’s messed up. Natalia, the Leone’s ordered a hit on your brother. I was sent along. I swear; I had no idea what it was or who they were doing until the last minute. A gun was in my hand, there was smoke… and then…” I heard him break down, sobbing and sniffing, trying to get the words out.
“I never shot her! I swear on my life, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone… Jesus Christ, Natalia… What have I done!?”
Twenty-Seven
Mikey
The coke high was alright for a while, hell, it was great. I was flying and there was no stopping me. Gradually though, as it wore off, my own fatigue and the chain of events that had led to it made me scared. Paranoid. I became suddenly terrified to be out in a public place, driving around in someone else’s car, with a gun and a bag of coke. I had been involved in a mob shooting the day before; a woman was dead, maybe more for all I knew. In a moment of panic, I got off the road and checked into the first hotel I could find that would take a few hundreds and ask no questions.
I stowed Natalia’s car in back, collapsing onto the rotting mattress from sheer exhaustion. If it wasn’t for the little taste I’d had before checking in, I would’ve flaked it for sure.
My mind began to swim, halfway between waking and sleep. I saw and heard Claridge laughing, my mother doting on my father and me; he was sick for some reason, terribly ill. He was in a bed with an oxygen mask, with Slade and the other men taking directions from him between fits of gasping and a shot from the doctor who never left his side.
The fan on the ceiling in the room rattled in time to the fractured nature of my thoughts, the waking dream I had. I could see the nurse, pitching backwards, the dark pool of blood around her head. Claridge’s laughter rang in my ears as my tears stung me in to being fully awake again. I had a terrifying rising level of guilt. I couldn’t handle the idea that I had taken a life.
I felt myself starting to spin, in time with the fan, with the whole room as it became unglued and was a whirlwind of my own thoughts, my emotions and fears too. I wished for sleep so badly. It must’ve finally come.
A while later, there was a pounding on the door at one of the other rooms, startling me awake again. The short rest I had was a relief. The room was still, hot and dirty.
I recoiled at the two sides of my thinking. I had one part, eager to do whatever was required to get the money; at any cost. People were not scarce, it was pointless getting attached. There were a million Natalia’s out there.
The other part of me was crippled with guilt, paranoid, and craving Natalia’s warmth and affection. I figured that with her help, we could make a break from the families that had held sway over us both for so long, and make a clean start.
Fuck Claridge and fuck the mob! We’ve come this far and we can make it further without those murdering bastards.
And there it was again. I was one of them now. I had done what my father had wanted me to do, all those years ago. Except it had been the wrong person and completely botched. I could practically hear his disappointment in my mind. The stale air of the room was suffocating me, I had to get up and get out of there.
The passing sounds of police sirens had me in the grip of terror for a good fifteen minutes. I was paralyzed, frozen to that shitty bed in that even shittier hotel.
I was jolted again by the dialogue I’d had with Claridge. He had firsthand knowledge, intimate details of my mother’s financial and family background. He was able to tell me things nobody else could have known, things I didn’t know for sure either, but he was so convincing. I had believed every word.
“Your mother, she was from a well to do, legitimately successful family. They were in orchard farming and landowners. Very rich. Old money,” Claridge had said, hypnotizing me with the combination of his muted speech and the promise of hidden knowledge, more than I could have ever known about my mother.
I had loved her so much, but she was taken when I was so young. One minute there was an angel in my life, the next; it was a brooding homicidal maniac of a father taking control of everything.
“Maria Galletti, before she was a Leone; was the most beautiful girl in the region, so they say,” Claridge had said. He seemed to have a genuine nostalgia, not a romantic inclination toward my mother. “Your father’s father had decided it was just the thing the Leone family needed, a strong blood link to a well off and respected, legitimate family. So, he did what Leone men did best back in the day; he threatened the Galletti’s fortune with violence and ruin unless they arranged a marriage between Maria and his son, your father, Antonio.
“Old man Galletti, also called Antonio, was enraged at the gall of the Leone’s. Their menace was well known at the time, with almost every businessman or landholder being bullied by them at some point for money. He told Leone, your grandfather Don Carlo Leone, in no uncertain terms, to go and impregnate a sow with his tiny sardine dick. Well! It w
asn’t long before the violence started. Stores and farms were looted and burned, there were attacks on the Galletti workers in their homes, and it was a real mess. The law, well-financed by the Leone enterprises, and also on the take, did very little other than encourage an end to the violence by Galletti agreeing to the marriage, which he did.”
I’d never heard the story of my grandfather told like that before; it was always a romantic story of the Galletti’s and Leone’s being friendly neighbors, with Mama being the girl next door. The story always went that once Mama saw Papa, they were an instant match and the parents couldn’t stop them being together and arranged their union as soon as they were of age. Hearing this version of events from Claridge also explained why Mama always left the room whenever Father would start to talk about it with his chest out.
Lying back on the filthy hotel bed, it was like watching the movie in my mind. Claridge’s account had registered at the time he’d told it, the night before, but reflecting on it later, I was drawn further into its appeal. I closed my eyes and could sense the sights and sounds of rural Italy. I had seen dozens of photos of my mother as a youngster, she was truly beautiful and so it wasn’t hard to imagine the setting.
The romance my father had narrated was a far cry from Claridge’s account. He hadn’t been there, but he had claimed he had met in secret with my mother, years later after my parents had moved to the States. She had sought out someone who could hide large sums of money. Not for the mob, but for her children; a trust fund of sorts, should anything happen to her before they grew up.
“Your mother,” Claridge continued, “was a very clever woman, but she was also very fearful. Fearful of your father. He never mistreated her, much. Rather, he would detail to her ways in which things might become… difficult for her, should she try to leave or to involve herself in family business.”