Crow’s Row

by Julie Hockley

  But Griff wasn’t at his station near the bottom of the property.

  I ought to have known that with the bosses gone, Griff would start slacking off—immediately. I considered going to drag him out of bed but decided against it—one of the line guards was watching me, with persistence. Making a scene on the first day Cameron was away was probably a bad idea. After talking myself out of it, I bitterly went back into the house and tiptoed past the snoring night guards on my way to the gym.

  I was never one for running on a treadmill. Something about running for miles and never getting anywhere used to make me feel uneasy—I had forgotten about that, but the memory was resurfacing; running in a room, a house void of people, staring at the unmoving water of the pool, the large windows … I was feeling claustrophobic, like a mouse stuck in a cage, getting nowhere fast on a spin wheel.

  With significant effort, I managed to run a few miles, then made it back upstairs to shower and dress.

  I had given Griff enough time to sleep in. If he wasn’t up, I was going to go wake him up—no matter what. I opened the front door just as the guard who was staring at me earlier was coming in.

  The guard followed my gaze with delight as I looked for Griff outside.

  “You’re wasting your time,” he sneered. “Griff already left.”

  I saw another guard standing at Griff’s usual post. “Where did he go?”

  “Don’t know. He left with the rest of the crew this morning.”

  “What? Why?” I asked with slight panic.

  “For some reason, the chief all of a sudden decided that he couldn’t leave without Griff going with them. Griff got woken up late last night and told to get ready to leave this morning.”

  We stood facing each other for a moment, and I immediately regretted finding myself alone with him. All of a sudden, I was very afraid and felt very alone. The guard reached for the door, and Meatball flew in before the door could close on him.

  Meatball stood between us while the guard kicked off his shoes and made his way downstairs, mumbling to himself, “Go figure. The guy that screws off the most gets promoted first.”

  I breathed hard and kept my hand on Meatball’s head, but neither of us moved for a little while. And then my mind started working again, and I started thinking. Cameron’s sudden interest in Griff … a coincidence? The sick feeling at the pit of my stomach told me otherwise. Then another reality set in: Cameron and Rocco and Griff were gone; I had absolutely no human refuge until they all came back. I looked down at Meatball and decided to stay very close to him from now on.

  When Meatball and I had taken a few deep breaths and our limbs had uncrystallized, we went into the kitchen. I started with a load of laundry and fed the hungry dog. I crisped some bacon and fed that to him too. I got whatever I could find out of the fridge and cupboards and started measuring and mixing and frying and baking. I labored away until the kitchen table and counter were stacked with pancakes, French toasts, muffins, cookies and a couple loaves of bread. I knew I was done when I ran out of room and supplies.

  I brought all of the food downstairs to the guards’ kitchen with Meatball closely guarding my heels. No one was there thankfully. I left the food out and sped back up the stairs, hoping that maybe feeding the guards would keep me in their good books. At least no one would starve while I was still alive.

  Within minutes, I could hear cheering from the night guards who had either been awaken by the smell of food, or by the clamoring of pots and pans from my cooking session. Either way, happy jostling sounds filled the house—in many ways, a small relief. But when I looked at the clock, horror struck again because I had only managed to kill a few hours.

  Taking the box of dog biscuits out of the food pantry, I tried to lure Meatball to me so that I could entertain myself by teaching a guard dog to roll over. But Meatball had stationed himself by the threshold and did not move from there, no matter how much I begged.

  So I threw the wash in the dryer and a new load in the washer and waited, walking without aim from the kitchen to the living room windows. I turned the TV on and then paced down the hall. I paused in front of Rocco’s chaotic room. For a second, I thought I might have been hopeless enough to clean his room; that is until manifold, nauseating images of what I could uncover in a teenage boy’s room suddenly popped into my head. I gently kicked the clothes out of the way so that I could close his door and creep away like the thought had never crossed my mind.

  I eventually reached the end of the hallway and of the house, and wandered into the library. My roving eye was drawn to the piano. Bill had been a natural at everything he touched, music was no exception. Anything I produced in his shadow was a failure in comparison to what my brother could do. Sooner or later, with Bill’s help, like always, I had been able to memorize sequences of keys, enough to fool my parents into thinking that I could play, enough for them to stop cycling piano teachers through the house.

  Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one in the house to deride my triumphant musical comeback, I sat at the piano and started punching the ivories. As I brutally attempted and reattempted to recall the theme song from Cheers, I almost fell backward off the bench when something moved from the corner.

  “That sounds really awful,” Carly said, pointing out the obvious, standing by the couch.

  I was never happier to see her. “I thought you were gone with the rest of them?”

  “I decided to take a few days off and stay here instead.” She approached and sat next to me on the bench.

  “You mean you were told to stay back to babysit me,” I corrected.

  “Something like that,” she said, smiling, gliding her fingers over the piano keys. “I don’t think anyone has played this thing since Bill died. He was a really good musician.”

  It had surprised me to hear Carly talk about my brother in that way. “Don’t you hate my brother for what he did?” Still, I wasn’t sure how Carly would react to my question, and whether I should seek shelter behind a couch or just curl up into the fetal position right away to avoid pummeling damage to any vital organs.

  But Carly was quite calm. “No. I don’t. I know I should and it would probably be a lot easier if I did, but I don’t.”

  “Do you hate me then?” I said, practically whispering.

  “No, I don’t hate you either,” she said, laughing. “But it’s definitely a shock to see you, here, after so many years.” She lifted her eyes. “When you first got here, it was almost like having Bill here again. Seeing you, it just brought back a lot of the anger that I had when Bill died. I couldn’t believe that Cameron would have brought you here, that he would do that to me. I understand why now.”

  “What do you mean you understand why?” I pressed.

  Carly smiled wider. “That’s something you need to talk to Cameron about, not me.”

  I made a mental note to remember to ask Cameron.

  “Why do you think he did that to you? I mean Bill, and the whole Frances thing. I know that he would have loved you very much. Given my family’s history, how angry he was, it doesn’t make any sense to me that he would have ever done that.”

  Carly sighed and paused, her face slightly tensing. “I don’t know. I never saw it coming, to tell you the truth. Even when Bill started getting weird and secretive, I never once thought he would do that. Of all the things that I imagined, that was never an alternative.”

  “Did you know he was taking drugs?” I asked, aware that I was looking to make excuses now.

  “No … I don’t know … Maybe,” Carly said shaking her head. “If you would have asked me this question a year before he died, I would have said absolutely not. Bill hated drugs, which was pretty funny given our line of business. But then he started to change.”

  She glanced down while sadness passed over her porcelain face. “A few months before he died, he started waking up in the middle of the night, in cold sweats, screaming, not making any sense. He was losing so much weight, and the way he
was handling the business … he was going to get all of us killed.” Her eyes came back to me, and she held them there. “Emmy, this life that we lead, it’s not for everyone. Most people can’t handle it. Your brother was too sensitive … he just couldn’t handle it all anymore, it was killing him. I think that he wanted to get out before it killed him. The drugs, Frances, they were his way to escape it all.” She dragged breath. “When he died, the business had been falling apart for a long time. Cameron brought it all back. If it wasn’t for him … we might not … we definitely wouldn’t have survived.”

  She took another breath. I couldn’t take my eyes and ears off her.

  Then her lips crept up. I realized it was for my benefit. “You know, Cameron’s really brilliant. He got into MIT after he graduated from high school.”

  I wasn’t really shocked. I already knew of his brilliance. “Why didn’t he go?”

  “Your brother called him with a better offer.”

  I wondered if he ever regretted that decision—and then realized I already knew the answer. “What were Cameron and my brother like when they were together?”

  “I guess they were a lot like Cameron and Rocco, except that your brother was like the kid brother, even if he was older than Cameron. It was funny to watch sometimes. Your brother coming up with the quick moneymakers, as he called them, and Cameron the voice of reason, the one who brought him back to reality. I guess Cameron hasn’t changed much in that way. I think if it wasn’t for Cameron, your brother would have gotten arrested a thousand times.”

  “What about Spider and Bill? What were they like together?”

  “Exact opposites. Fire and water. Bill was charming and outgoing. Spider is, well, much more quiet. They fought constantly, sometimes in front of customers. It was embarrassing.”

  “Spider hated my brother for what he did to you,” I mused.

  “Spider did hate Bill for cheating on me, but he had his own reasons for hating Bill too,” she agreed, eyeing me. “You know, no matter how cool some guys think they are, when it comes to some girls, it’s like they lose their mind. They start saying and doing really stupid stuff.”

  I knew that this observation was directed at me. “I don’t like to be ordered around, and I definitely don’t like to be told who I can and can’t talk to. What if Spider told you that you couldn’t talk to someone, for no good reason?” I demanded.

  “He did … so I started dating Bill just out of spite,” she said smiling. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be so hard on Cameron. He’s got a lot on his shoulders right now. This life isn’t easy for any of us. Some days it feels like it sucks all the life out of you—whatever’s left feels inhuman sometimes.”

  “Was my brother ever happy?”

  Carly wasn’t smiling anymore and hesitated before answering. “Yes, at some point, he was really happy. We all were in the beginning. It was hard not to be.”

  “Was Bill ever suicidal? Do you think he wanted to overdose?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, he wasn’t the same person in the end.” Carly looked at me searchingly, and then exhaled and chuckled. “Cameron was right. You are exhausting.”

  My heart leapt, a large smile split my face, and a few red blotches popped up. “What else does he say about me?”

  Carly smiled, put a hand on my shoulder, and suggested we go downstairs before the food was all gone. We picked up our guard dog on the way down, but we were already too late—not a morsel was left from the spread I had prepared. Two of the night guards were sugar-crashed on the couch, vacantly staring at the ceiling with their hands on their full bellies, stuck in a gluttonous daze. The scary guard wasn’t there.

  “Animals,” Carly grumbled as we strolled past them. She motioned for me to follow her into the small pool house.

  Inside, Carly’s hideaway was cozy, distinctly feminine—and very festive. Bright red and orange and yellow and deep blue colors were splashed everywhere from the walls to the curtains to the assorted furniture. Wooden dividers of painted purple and yellow flowers separated the small apartment into three rooms: the bedroom, the living room, and the kitchenette. It all hurt my eyes a little bit.

  While Carly fixed us some food, I asked her about her bold choice in décor.

  “It reminds me of home,” she explained warmly.

  She told me about her mother, who had emigrated from Mexico as a young girl. She told me about her five sisters and about the house that she grew up in—a house that had been decorated in a similar bright fashion, and had been almost as small as Carly’s cottage. She laughed and told me about some of the trials of living in a one-bedroom house, and sharing one tiny bathroom with six other women. She told me about all of these things with a constant smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. She never mentioned her father. I didn’t bring it up.

  “Do you see them very much?” I wondered.

  “Not anymore,” she answered, a tear almost breaking surface. “It’s just too dangerous. I don’t want them to get caught up in all of this. My sisters have kids. I don’t know what I would do if one of them ever got hurt because of me.”

  She looked at me, and her eyes lit up, a bit. She dashed into her bedroom. After searching through the dresser drawers, she rushed back.

  “Spider had to go steal this from my mom’s house for me last Christmas,” she told me, handing me a picture of her family. They were standing in front of a bright and ornate Christmas tree—a cluster of happy, smiling faces, young and old. “It’s all of them—my family. The holidays are always the hardest for me.”

  “Do you ever regret choosing this life?”

  Carly looked at me strangely, like I had just asked her if she regretted breathing.

  “I didn’t have any choice, Emmy. People like Spider, Cameron, and I are lucky just to survive for this long. If we weren’t doing this here, we would be doing it from the street, where things are even more dangerous. We’ve all had to make big sacrifices in order to get here, but at least we have some control over our lives now. I send money back to my family. I can keep them safe from here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you shouldn’t be doing this.”

  Carly conceded a sigh. “I know. It’s hard to understand when you don’t come from the streets, when you’ve always had everything you’ve ever wanted. Your brother always had that problem too.”

  I could sense that Carly was getting upset by our conversation. I decided to not push my luck any further.

  We spent the rest of the day together, Carly and I. I found that I liked her more and more. In some ways, she was very reserved—but her temperament seemed to flare up easily. I thought that we were very similar in this way; yet it was clear to me that, in her eyes, we were very different.

  In the evening, we popped some popcorn and settled in for a girls-only movie night—though our chick-flick choice probably had more explosions and gunfight than a movie that most “normal” girls would have picked.

  Carly even brought out a bottle of wine.

  “I was able to sneak this past Spider last time we got back from the city,” she told me a little shamefacedly.

  “Why would you have to sneak it in?” Dating the head of security should come with some perks.

  “Spider doesn’t allow booze anywhere on the property,” she explained.

  “That’s … unorthodox,” I mentioned, though “control freak” came to mind.

  She was slightly dubious. “Would you want these boys carrying machine guns after they’ve been drinking?”

  Touché.

  Two bags of popcorn later, with plastic goblets and an almost empty bottle of wine … Carly and I were thoroughly on our way to having a great time. But when the male lead got hit by a bus, Carly suddenly turned the volume down. The slamming of a car door confirmed her suspicions that she had heard something.

  I turned to Carly with question. Her face had blanched. “Oh God,” she gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. “They’re early. Somet
hing’s happened.”

  As she pounced off the couch, the front door slammed opened. What we heard next stunned both of us.

  “Is someone singing?” we asked simultaneously.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  Flying High

  Cameron and Spider slumped in together and were followed by Griff and Tiny, who were dragging Rocco in by the waist. Rocco’s foot was heavily bandaged, but he was otherwise very happy.

  Carly was as shocked as I was. But Spider meaningfully shook his head at her; now was not the time to ask questions.

  Rocco was still singing like a drunken sailor as Griff and Tiny helped him to the couch. Griff was ashen. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and then he glanced at Cameron. He looked like he was about to say something to Cameron, but Tiny grabbed him by the arm and led him back out.

  While Carly and I wondered about Rocco’s concerto, Spider caught sight of the almost empty bottle of wine on the coffee table. He picked it up and accusingly glimpsed at Carly and me. Our cheeks burned wine red. Carly smiled, guiltily, while she examined her fingernails; I immediately went searching for the remote control, to turn the movie off.

  Cameron smiled, but his eyes were lined. “Did we interrupt your party?”

  I found the remote too quickly and changed the subject. “What’s wrong with Rocco?”

  “He’s heavily sedated,” Cameron told me.

  Rocco suddenly took interest.

  “I’m not sayne-dated. Dr. Lorne just gave me some happy pills,” he squeaked, shaking a sandwiched-sized, clear plastic bag of multicolored pills. And then he ravenously grabbed the nearly empty popcorn bowl, and we all watched him try to bite through the unpopped kernels.

  Carly piped up in the inflating pressure. “So, are we supposed to guess what happened?”

  There was a tense moment of silence between Cameron and Spider, between Rocco’s teeth-splitting crunches.

  “Rocco shot himself in the foot,” Spider finally spilled, keeping his eye on Cameron.