“Oh my God, Susan!” Annie spun around, holding a black bra up to her chest. “What do you think went on in here?”
“Maybe it just fell out of somebody’s bag.”
“Or maybe someone was fooling around in the cloakroom?”
“I can’t imagine that anyone would be doing that right here.”
“Well, I can.”
“You, my friend”—Susan took the bra from Annie and deposited it in the garbage—“have a very active imagination.”
“What’s going on in that little imagination of yours?” A deep and velvety male voice came from the doorway. Annie and Susan pivoted in unison to face the large shadow that was blocking light from the lobby. There stood Johnny Buscemi, in all his majesty, backlit and glowing around the edges. “What can you imagine, little girl?”
Susan was frozen mute by such a question but not Annie. “I can imagine a lot of things,” she replied.
“Imagination can be a dangerous thing,” Johnny said, not budging one centimeter from the doorway, leaving no escape for either of them. Though escape was not on Annie’s mind. She studied him. In her assessment of him right now, Annie recognized a man who was her equal—in physical beauty, in carnal attraction, in his ability to bend others to his will. She was hard pressed to resist that.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Johnny continued. “Or haven’t you heard that one?”
“I’ve heard plenty.” Annie laughed at her own retort and looked to Susan for backup. Susan’s silence irritated her and emboldened her to continue. “Maybe you can tell me something I haven’t heard?”
Susan’s head snapped back in Annie’s direction on that one. Annie knew she was playing with fire, being Frankie’s girlfriend, but she certainly didn’t want Susan to judge her. Who did Susan think she was, after all? Annie knew a thing or two about her friend’s defects.
“Annie, we need to go back to the storeroom to do some work there.” Susan offered her a way out.
Annie did not want her rescue and shot back tersely, “I think I’m supposed to stay here and you’re supposed to go back there, Susan.”
Susan gaped open-mouthed. This made her resemble a fish, which made Annie, in turn, strike out more aggressively.
Annie was not proud of this aspect of her own character. Or she would not have been proud of it, had she actually taken any time for self-analysis. Maybe it was all of the years that she had lived under the thumb of Joe Nelson. Maybe she just had a more reactive nature than most people. But she was always one to rise to the bait, whatever that bait might be. Her grandmother could gentle her out of being so easily provoked, but she was the only person alive who could do so. And, at this moment, in the cloakroom, Annie was being baited on two fronts—one, by Johnny Buscemi, with his silky voice and raw sexuality and, two, by Susan, with her damned prudishness.
“Susan, did you hear me?” Annie repeated. “You’re supposed to go back to the storeroom and I’m supposed to stay here.”
Susan hesitated, as though she did not quite understand. She continued to stare at Annie. Then she turned to look at Johnny Buscemi in the doorway. Her regard served as the cue for Johnny to move. Slowly, he removed his arms from the doorjamb. He folded them over his chest and stepped aside, opening a narrow path for Susan’s exit.
He then turned his full attention to Annie, whose focus was riveted on him. “You think you know a lot,” he said, in his most mellifluous voice, as he slowly walked in her direction.
What Annie certainly knew was that she had gone too far and was now entering into perilous terrain. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know so much.”
He moved closer, backing her up until she stood with her head between the coat hangers, which jingled in her ears, creating an otherworldly soundtrack to the proceedings.
“Listen. I think Susan was right. I made a mistake. I need to go back to the storeroom.” She sidestepped quickly to the left to dart around Johnny Buscemi’s approaching form.
Not quickly enough. Johnny grabbed both of Annie’s arms in a firm grip and held her up close to his face.
“You think you’re something, don’t you? You’re Frankie’s girlfriend and you think you can flirt with me? Little girl,” he used that phrase again. “You don’t know shit from Shinola. I can’t tell if you’re really stupid or smart like a fox.”
“You’re hurting me.” Annie lowered the register of her voice to add authority. “Let me go.”
This was probably the right move because it made Johnny laugh. “Smart like a fox, I think,” he said as he released her arms.
It was then that Annie made her big mistake, seducing herself into thinking that she was in charge of the situation. She did not follow through on her original impulse to flee. She stood there, in front of Johnny Buscemi, holding his gaze, gloating in what she perceived to be her own triumph.
Johnny remained uncowed. “Close your eyes,” he commanded.
Annie hesitated and then she did so—though she kept them open just the tiniest bit beneath her eyelashes. She was no fool.
“Open your mouth.” He gave his second order and, once again, she complied.
Johnny took a small vial from his pocket, unscrewed the lid, licked the tip of his index finger, held it to the top and tipped it over. He took that finger, with white powder sticking to it, and he inserted it into Annie’s mouth. He rubbed his finger around her mouth and gums, side to side and up and down and Annie stood still while he did it. He touched her in no other way. When he stopped, he told her to close her mouth. Again, she followed instructions.
“Do you like that, little girl?”
“I don’t know.” Annie felt the bitter taste all the way in the back of her throat, sliding down to her stomach. Then, an indiscernible second later, she felt a rush moving up to her head. The two sensations passed each other, top speed, inside of Annie.
“Try it like this.” He used a little spoon to scoop up the drug. “Hold one nostril closed and breathe it up the other side.” Again, Annie obeyed. This time, a sense of elation overtook her as she glimpsed her brokenness repaired.
“I’ve got more of this. All you want.”
And that was really all it took—nothing more than a little snort in the dark with a tall, dark stranger.
36
Thursday, August 9, 1979
As in a fairy tale, a single gift was bestowed upon Annie and she remained forever uncertain that she had been its intended recipient. It was an enigmatic gift, given in an offhand way, and it didn’t even come in a box.
By the night of Thursday, August ninth, Annie’s grasp on time was loosening. It had been a month since Frankie had chastised her in front of the staff, two weeks since her encounter with Johnny Buscemi in the cloakroom, only twenty-four hours since her fight with Susan in the car—but it felt like she had been here forever. She could not call to mind her life before Frankie’s Disco. This place and who she had become in it were unspooling in a continual now.
Despite the brevity of her life at Frankie’s, Annie occasionally succumbed to the illusion that she sat in a seat of importance. She was the boss’s girlfriend, after all. Tonight, she looked with benevolence on the usual suspects doing their usual things. The dancers were dancing; the drinkers were drinking. Johnny Buscemi sat in the corner with Vito and Danny, the three of them radiating tanned and smiling self-confidence. Vito, as always, surveyed his empire from the sidelines and Frankie, in turn, moved hither and yon, conferring with his brother and doing his bidding. The roles of Johnny Buscemi and Danny the Cop were, as ever, unclear.
This table and a few others near it were now Annie’s exclusive domain. The fact that Sherry had been displaced to wait on a lesser section had not increased her affection for Annie.
A little after two, the last of the patrons were dispersing. Annie was bending over Vito’s vacated table, wiping up the sticky spots. Frankie, unable to control his enthusiasm for his new girlfriend’s fanny, bumped up into her and held onto her hips. It wa
s a brief moment, but a glowering Sherry watched them. Annie paused, looked straight at Sherry, and held the position a beat or two longer than the actual task required.
“Baby, let’s go,” Frankie whispered, pushing against Annie’s behind another second before he noticed Sherry’s sour countenance. At this, he playfully stuck out his tongue at her, which heightened Sherry’s outrage. She dropped her tray of dirty glasses onto the table and stomped off toward the kitchen.
“Frankie,” Annie giggled. “I’m not finished. I don’t want to get in trouble with the boss.” She turned to face him and towered over him in her heels.
“I’ll give you trouble,” he said as he slapped her on the ass. This seemed to be a go-to gesture for Frankie, the right response in a myriad of settings: anger, titillation, jolly good will.
“Frankie!” Annie laughed. Her boyfriend was a mercurial figure and she never quite knew if she was in favor or out of it with him. Cocaine did not aid her powers of perception, but clearly Frankie wanted her, and he wanted her now. “I told my Grandma that I’d be home right after work. She gets worried that I drive all the way home in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, Little Red Riding Hood,” Frankie breathed in her ear. “Take a walk with me in the woods.”
Annie could play that game if he wanted. She slid her hand up Frankie’s leg, ignoring the rest of the staff and the few remaining clients. “What a big, bad wolf you are,” she cooed.
“Annie!” Sherry was back and standing right next to the two of them, beaming hostility their way. “Move your car. You’re blocking me in.”
Annie rotated slowly to face the older waitress. “Sure, Sherry.” She could easily grant this pittance to a peon and she spoke with what she hoped was the right tone of magnanimity.
“Sherry, don’t be a pain in the ass,” snapped Frankie, his fun and games interrupted.
“I need to go home to my kid, Frankie, and your girlfriend is in my way.”
“Fine. Annie, move your car. Meet me at the boat.” And off he strode, leaving Annie to drive herself, alone, to the marina in the middle of the night. Sir Galahad, he was not.
Annie managed to restrain herself from snorting any more cocaine on her way to St. Clair Shores. Well, she had a little bump, to keep herself from freefalling, but that was just basic maintenance. Strangely enough, she reflected, Frankie demonstrated no curiosity as to the identity of her supplier. Similarly, he did not seem to wonder how she paid for her drugs, cocaine being notoriously expensive, even for a girl with the best tables at the disco.
Annie alternated steering the wheel with applying makeup. Wanting to look her best for Frankie, she had changed from her work outfit into a wrap dress and had decided to wear nothing at all underneath. He would like that little surprise.
Parking haphazardly, Annie hopped out and tottered down the dark dock in her Candies. A soft wind lifted the front flap of her dress and excited her. As she climbed the ladder, she felt the breeze rise all the way up between her legs. Frankie always asked her to take off her shoes when she came aboard, but she had no intention of doing that tonight. When she removed her dress, she wanted Frankie to gasp at the length of her legs.
Frankie sat in the saloon, drinking Courvoisier and fiddling with something in his hands. Annie knew he prided himself on his self-control. One brandy after work was his sole indulgence of the day. She paused until he looked up. Then, with all the lights blazing, she slowly took off her dress until she stood naked, but for her shoes. Frankie sat, fully clothed, watching. He said nothing.
Annie waited.
Frankie continued to sit, unstirred. Perhaps she had miscalculated.
Finally, he spoke. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Uh…” She searched for the direction of this conversation. “Frankie?”
“Do you know who my family is?”
“What do you mean?” Annie reached down for her dress and put the damned thing back on. She had definitely misplayed her hand. “Papa Vito’s?”
“That is not who we are. We are not a pizzeria, Annie. We’re Sicilian! We may even be descended of kings.” Frankie stared in the direction of the boat’s windows, though Annie figured he couldn’t really see out of them in the dark. She waited for some sort of signal of what was supposed to happen next. At last, he continued. “Do you know that, for one day, our town—Salemi—was the capital of Italy? The very first capital! Did you know that?”
“No, Frankie, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“And here I am, in this shitty place and I get no respect. People think I’m just a gofer for my brother and Johnny! Just little Frankie, the baby, he cleans up everybody’s mess. Nobody gives a shit how dirty that mess might be! Well, that’ll change one day, you mark my word!”
Annie knew better than to respond. Frankie pursed his lips as he studied her.
“Come here,” he said, and Annie obeyed.
When she got to him, he did not touch her. Annie felt him retaking control. As if remembering, he looked down at his hands, where he held something shiny. He studied it for a while, then he scrutinized Annie’s face.
“Bend over,” he said. She started to turn around to face away from him, to lean over the nearby table.
“No, this way,” he said, turning her manually back to face him. Annie awkwardly inclined toward Frankie as he reached up to clasp something around her neck. She excitedly touched it and looked down to see that it was a gold necklace, a long, thick chain with a pendant. She moved closer to the light to examine it. It was a question mark—a chunky gold question mark with a ruby as its point.
“What’s this, Frankie?” Annie couldn’t really believe her eyes, never having owned anything made of real gold before. At least, she hoped it was real gold.
“Don’t say I never gave you anything. Now take that dress off again,” he said as he pushed her over the chair and took what he wanted in return.
37
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Boston
It takes the receptionist’s return to the waiting room to break the spell that has come over everyone. She enters upon a tableau vivant composed of the five key players, frozen as though they had been staged. The scene stops her short at the doorway. “Hello?” she queries.
Provenzano and DelVecchio are bent over Sherry. Jack Jr. sits next to his inert stepmother, who has been lifted to a chair. The receptionist’s voice causes four of the five to look up at her. Mrs. Ford keeps her eyes tightly shut, working to maintain her oblivion for a few minutes more. Not one of them responds.
Jack returns to his texting, his thumbs moving furiously on his mobile device. She opens her eyes to watch him.
“Jack?” Her voice comes out hoarse.
“Just listen to me,” he says. “You have fainted. Please refrain from speaking for the moment. Do not say a word.”
Turning to Sherry, he adds, “Madam, I must ask you to remain silent, as well.”
“How dare you ask me any such thing?” Sherry gears up for battle, which spurs DelVecchio and Provenzano into action.
“Ms. Hopkins.” Provenzano is ever the gentleman. “Are you able to accompany me into my office? I can offer you a glass of water in there.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” Sherry stands and explodes in a cough, which momentarily gets the better of her. “I can accompany you wherever you want to go.”
“Fine then. Agent DelVecchio will help you down the hall and get you whatever you’d like to drink.”
“A scotch is what I’d like to drink right about now,” Sherry says as she departs on the arm of DelVecchio.
Provenzano turns to face Mrs. Ford. She stares at her hands in her lap and does not meet his gaze. Her legs are uncrossed, and she is not sitting up with her normal, erect posture. She is half slumped, as she was in her faint, a ragdoll tossed aside.
“Mrs. Ford.” His tone is sharper than usual. “Don’t leave the building. We need to speak with you again today. We’ll call you in short
ly. In fact, don’t leave our offices at all.”
He turns to follow his partner and Sherry. She and Jack are left alone.
Jack gets up and walks over to the receptionist. “Is there someplace we might talk more privately? I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Melinda.” She rises and opens the door to the hallway. “Sure. Follow me.”
Jack turns back to his stepmother and gruffly says, “Let’s go.”
She gets to her feet and tries to smooth her rumpled dress. Linen had been a poor choice for the day this has turned out to be.
Mutely, they traipse down the hall. Melinda ushers them into a carbon copy of the room they so recently left. They both watch her form retreat through its little window.
Jack turns to her and erupts. “Why don’t you start by telling me exactly what is going on here?”
“I…”
“Is there any merit to the preposterous accusation that woman just made?”
“I…it’s just…I’ll tell you everything. I’ve actually wanted to tell you. I’ve always cared so much for you.”
“Let’s really not go there.”
“Do you mind if I sit?”
“You can lie down on the floor for all I care! I just want to know what’s going on here. I feel like a two-year-old at the circus and I can’t follow a fucking thing.” Jack drops into a chair opposite her and rubs his forehead with one hand. “Look, I’m still hanging onto the thread that you’re going to inject some sense into all this and reel us back off of the ledge.”
“Yes, I will try to do that.”
At that moment, Melinda knocks on the door, making them both jump. “Agents Provenzano and DelVecchio will see you in half an hour. Would you like some water? Coffee?”
“Water would be fine,” says Jack. “Thank you, Melinda.”
“Of course.” Melinda departs, closing the door softly behind her.
Finding Mrs. Ford Page 16