Loreena's Gift

by Colleen M. Story

  Fear shot through Loreena’s body. “Where will they take me?”

  Mrs. Markos walked back across the room, slippers swishing on the rug. She stopped in front of Loreena. “Do what he tells you. He’ll bring you back here when you’re done.” Cold, bony hands cradled Loreena’s cheeks, alcohol and tomato sauce a foul mix on the woman’s breath. “Do you hear me? Do what he tells you.”

  Loreena’s eyes filled with tears. “You don’t know what they’re going to ask me to do.”

  “You’ll get through it. Just stay alive. That’s what’s important. Stay alive. And come back.”

  Someone knocked on the door, three heavy thumps.

  “Hurry.” Mrs. Markos pulled Loreena out of her chair. “Can you make it up the stairs?”

  Loreena paused, her hand on the edge of the table, and then walked. Fourteen steps from her chair to the stairs. When she reached them, her gloves were wet from sweat, and she had no others to replace them.

  10

  They took her in the van again. Three men, but Shawn wasn’t one of them.

  Loreena sat in the backseat, shoulder pressed against the the vehicle, cuffed hands in her lap. Everything smelled like cigarette smoke. Her feet had to fight for space among a pile of glass bottles on the floor. The van hurtled down the road at what felt like dangerously high speed, the engine whining. This new driver was nothing like Shawn, and she realized with a start that things could actually get worse. Her heart in her mouth, she envisioned brutal car wrecks that would scatter her body across the road in pieces. She saw again her mother’s hair fallen out of its bun, lying haphazardly on her neck.

  They called the driver “Cab.” He seemed to be of medium build, with a drawl to his voice. But he didn’t say much. Most of his sentences consisted of one to two words, like “Yeah” and “Shut up.”

  She didn’t hear the names of the other two, but their voices were familiar. The one in the passenger seat had the deep baritone. He was also overweight and smelled like dirty sweat, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thought they had called him “Bert” before. The one in the seat behind her huffed through his nose all the time. He seemed tall but skinny, his scent more like that of a wet dog. These were some of the men that had held her down the first day.

  Shifting in her seat, she pulled the polyester collar off her neck. Mrs. Markos had loaned her the short-sleeved shirt, along with a pair of cotton pants, old clothes she said had belonged to Raymond’s ex-wife. They were dusty and wrinkled, probably kept in the stacked boxes she’d found in the spare bedroom upstairs.

  “It’s tough, divorcing one of these boys,” Mrs. Markos had told her. “You disappear afterwards, if you know what’s good for you.”

  The clothes were far too big for her. The pants stayed above her hipbones only with the help of a tight leather belt. The shirt hung below the hem of her jacket and scratched her skin. But they were better than something too tight—better to disguise her body in layers of fabric. Only her pumps, gloves, and jacket were her own.

  They rode in silence for about half an hour. Loreena lost track of the twists and turns along the way. At first she sought to make a map in her mind, but she couldn’t concentrate. Every time the man behind her shifted his weight, she jumped. He responded only with more whistling exhales, as if he were laughing at her. Cab drove the van too fast, screeching the tires around every turn. She had to hold onto the armrest to keep from sliding. The wind seemed harder than in days past, as if a storm were coming on. When the van stopped and Bert opened the door, the scent of the coming rain was a welcome one, and Loreena inhaled deeply. Music reached her ears. A country band. And voices. They were at another bar. The skinny man crawled over the seat and exited out the back doors. Cab remained inside.

  “Come on,” Bert said. “You gotta go in there.” His body odor drifted toward her in a putrid cloud. “I’d rather not drag you.”

  If she didn’t go, the other one would be back to manhandle her. At least this one was giving her a choice. She slid across the seat and stepped out. “Let me take your arm.”

  “No way,” he said. “I ain’t falling for that.”

  “What, then?”

  “Follow me.” He started walking, a strange sound to his steps. Was he facing backward?

  She started after him, wishing for her cane. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Bert.”

  So it was Bert. One of the men who had been there, in that room. One of those who had made her take Dominic’s hand. “Why are you working for Frank?”

  “Part of the club, babe. You’ll get it soon enough.”

  He reminded her of one of the church members—Dave, the one who managed the pizza restaurant in town. Even the way he talked was similar, his words accompanied by quick inhales and exhales, as if it were hard to breathe while speaking. “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  “Meeting with Bill McCracken, though I doubt he’ll show.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “President of the White Moose.”

  “White Moose?”

  “The enemy. We got steps here.”

  She paused, feeling them out with her toe. Just two. Inside the bar, smoke covered her face, the scent of beer thick in the air. Country music pounded the walls, vibrating the floor under her feet and drowning out the voices around her. The lead singer was a woman, crying a melody about her cheating husband.

  “This way,” Bert said.

  They crossed to the left, clinging to the wall of the building. There didn’t seem to be as many people this time, as Loreena actually had space to walk, the tables positioned to keep the perimeter clear. With each step, she grew more nervous. Mrs. Markos’ words kept ringing in her ears. Whatever he wants you to do, just do it.

  “Come on,” Bert said. “Almost there.” He opened a door. Ten steps later, another door, and then another, before they finally entered a smaller space that had a distant scent of ammonia. Light came from above, a single bulb in the ceiling, Loreena guessed. Other people were present. She could hear them breathing, moving, their feet on the floor.

  Bert shut the door behind them.

  “He’s not here.”

  Frank’s voice.

  “Mr. Hellmer, you must understand.” Another man, younger. He had a Spanish accent. His voice came from a lower place, as if he were sitting down. There must be a table there, a few feet from where she stood. “Mr. McCracken, he wants proof of your intentions.”

  “Proof,” Frank said.

  “We hear things, you see. Things that make us want reassurance.”

  “Hmm.”

  The door was just behind her. Loreena longed to slip out, run back into the rain-soaked air. Bert was still there, his large belly inches from the small of her back.

  “This peace you’ve proposed,” the man said. “Mr. McCracken wants to be sure you are…sincere.”

  “Look, Javier.”

  Loreena turned toward the new voice. Shawn. A strange relief came over her.

  “You promised us a meeting with Bill here, tonight, a real face-to-face. We all arranged our busy schedules. Now you’re telling us he’s not coming because he’s testing us?”

  “Testing, no. No testing. No.” Javier chuckled. “You would do the same, yes? The offer is…attractive, but Mr. McCracken, he’s a suspicious man, you know. He tells me to meet with you, gives me the authority to relay messages from you to him. You can speak to me just as you would to him, you see.”

  “And what the hell are we supposed to say?” Frank asked. He and Shawn both stood on Loreena’s left, at angles to one another.

  “The nature of this deal you wish to strike,” Javier said. “We need more details, more assurances. It’s been a long time we’ve been fighting, yes?”

  The room fell silent, the tension rising. There was only one reason why they’d brought her here, Loreena thought, and she couldn’t do it. No matter what Mrs. Markos had said, Loreena couldn’t do it. And why should she? They were go
ing to kill her anyway—if not today, another day, sometime in the future. She knew their names now. She knew their meeting places. Even if she couldn’t see them, she could describe them. They were never going to let her go.

  “Mr. Hellmer is the president of the Grizzly Riders,” Shawn said. “He’s here, at this table, ready to deal. Your illustrious leader thought he was too good to come. What does that say to us?”

  “If it were you, Mr. Daly, and Mr. McCracken invited you to discuss an end to years of rivalry, would you not be a little bit suspicious?”

  “I would be man enough to go to the damn meeting,” Shawn said.

  “Fuck this.” Frank came toward Bert and Loreena. Headed for the door? Loreena took a step back, but Bert moved up to prevent her escape. “We’ll send a message back to Bill. If a message is what he wants, that’s what we’ll give him.”

  Loreena felt his gaze on her. She imagined he must have very dark eyes.

  “Get those cuffs off her. Introduce her to our guy over there.” Frank pushed by Bert and opened the door.

  “Wait.” Shawn stepped toward them.

  Frank paused. Loreena could smell the dry cleaning on his suit.

  “It’s early,” Shawn said. “You’ll…tip your hand.”

  “Maybe it’s time it was tipped. Send him the message. I’m tired of playing around.”

  “You wanted to see him, face to face,” Shawn said. “He’ll never come if…you turn down this opportunity.”

  Frank paused in the hallway. “This one’s a pissant. He’s not going to get us anywhere. There’s only one way to get a message to McCracken. Besides.” Loreena sensed him looking at her. “We need to do a test run. This is as good a time as any.”

  He left, footsteps clacking away until they all heard him pass through another door and close it behind him.

  Bert stepped up, removed the handcuffs from Loreena’s wrists, and quickly stepped back. She rubbed the raw skin and moved her arms up and down, trying to restore the blood flow to her fingers.

  Shawn sighed and approached. “Get out of here, Bert.”

  Bert needed no more encouragement. When the door closed behind him, Shawn stepped up and took Loreena’s arm, securing her next to him. There were only three of them left. Javier. Shawn. And someone else. Someone in the far corner.

  “Don’t make me,” she whispered, hoping the nice one would listen. “Please.”

  “Take your gloves off,” the other one said. “Introduce yourself to the young man.”

  Raymond. Loreena’s mouth went dry.

  “Gentlemen, again, I apologize.” Javier’s voice took on a nervous edge. “We had high hopes for this meeting. I will tell Mr. McCracken you were disappointed.” He shut what sounded like a briefcase.

  “In such a rush?” Raymond stepped forward from the other side of the room. “Meet the young lady first. Frank’s…niece. Loreena.”

  Saliva hung in ropes on Loreena’s tongue.

  “She has a brother,” Raymond said. “You might know him. Saul?”

  It was a threat, a reminder they had something over her. Javier moved on her right, trying to make his way out.

  “Not sure he’s going to work out yet, though,” Ray said.

  This man’s life, or Saul’s. The choice was clear. Shawn moved behind her to block Javier’s exit. Nobody was going anywhere. The walls closed in around Loreena and she thought of Saul’s face, one of the last times she remembered seeing it, when she was eight and he was twelve, his hazel eyes focused on her as he waited for her to throw the ball, and when she threw and he swung and the ball went sailing over the alleyway into another yard, he thrust his fist into the air and whooped, twirling around on sneakered feet.

  Javier came up to her. “Miss.” He smelled like onions.

  “Don’t be rude.” Ray stepped up and placed a meaty paw on the man’s shoulder. “Shake the lady’s hand.”

  Loreena held her breath. Javier was in front of her now, and she sensed he was shorter than she, and slight, maybe five foot five. Shawn was still behind her, blocking the exit. There had to be something she could do. There had to be some way out of this.

  “Rude to shake a man’s hand with gloves on,” Raymond said.

  Loreena’s eyes burned. The room was dry and dusty, the light sharp. She couldn’t do this. But Saul’s life was on the line. She pulled off her gloves. Raymond would make the next move. That much she was sure of, and though she cringed at the idea of him touching her again, he would have to, as she wasn’t doing this on her own.

  “More like it,” he said. “Let’s shake hands and be friends.”

  Javier extended his hand toward her, but she didn’t respond.

  “Shit.” Ray went to grab her arm and she moved, trying to get his other hand, but Shawn reacted too quickly, pulling her back by her shoulders. She lost her balance, nearly falling, but he caught her under the arms and stood her back up. He was too strong, and as he pushed her forward, Raymond brought Javier to meet her, the little man screaming to be let loose while Frank’s two minions moved together like the walls of a garbage compacter.

  Javier’s palm touched hers. Loreena pulled back, but his hand went with her, as if the two were sealed together, and then everything went dark.

  Blackness morphed into a kaleidoscope of bright red, yellow, and orange. Loreena saw Javier almost immediately, barefaced, gray eyes wide in fear, black hair slicked to his head as if he had used an entire bottle of gel. He wore a silver suit, white collared shirt and red striped tie. His gaze connected with hers and he frowned, thin black eyebrows coming down over his eyes.

  “What—?”

  The colors thinned into ribbons above them and they fell, down toward a desert-like expanse dotted with large red rock formations. Right when she thought they might be flattened against one of them, a black hole opened up between two and swallowed them, boulders parting like a mouth until they were inside a tunnel again, this time twisting and turning as if in an avalanche, stones and pebbles falling with them, the air growing steadily colder until they landed on what felt like a padded surface, rolling to a stop in a dark space.

  Jumping to her feet, Loreena checked herself over. She wasn’t hurt. Her shoes sank into the padding, her skin chilled by the cool air. Turning a few times, she looked for any clue as to where they were, but everything was black. Only when Javier stood up did the light around them seem to brighten, at least to the point where she could see him standing across from her.

  He looked different, his silver suit replaced with ragged clothes, as if he had lived in the slum for the last three months. A threadbare button-down shirt hung from his neck, torn up the side to reveal honey-colored skin underneath, sweat pants clinging to his waist with a string. He wore no shoes, only socks with holes, his toes protruding onto the red-carpeted floor.

  Raising his head, he looked at her, his face taut with horror. “What are we doing here? What is this?”

  She couldn’t answer him, couldn’t gather the courage to tell him he was dead, and this was where he would have to stay.

  The lights came up with a thud, as if they were in a theater and someone had thrown a heavy switch. Above them stretched rows of red velvet seats placed in a perfect expanding circle about a round center stage. In the seats were people, more and more people extending up and up, all of them sitting erect on blood-red cushions, arms touching until they seemed to form one towering maelstrom of faces and eyes and ears and teeth, all of them wearing red suits and red dresses and red hats and red ties, dressed as if attending a big-city concert yet sitting with stoic, judgmental faces and all of them, all of them, staring at Javier.

  Blinking, Loreena wondered if this was a place she could stay, as returning to the bar and Frank’s twisted world wasn’t something she wanted to face anymore. Javier’s cries interrupted her thoughts.

  “Please—I tried.” His knees buckled, his belly quivering behind the thin fabric of his shirt. He stumbled toward the edge of the stage, hands out to th
e audience. “I was making it. I was making more money. I was climbing up.”

  “Yet here you are.” The voice boomed over their heads from somewhere in the black sky.

  Javier looked at Loreena. “I wasn’t ready yet. She did it! She brought me here—”

  “Always blaming your mistakes on someone else.” Another voice, from stage right this time, a female, still booming through invisible speakers.

  “The same pitiful excuse you always were.” A third voice, from the left.

  Javier extended his palms. “You don’t understand. I was working for the boss.”

  “Scum!”

  “Pitiful excuse!”

  The voices gathered momentum, the entire audience getting into it, stoic faces breaking into catcalls and shouts, some leaning forward in their seats to shake their red-gloved fists. Javier moved his gaze to his ragged shirt, and even as he looked the thread unraveled until the entire garment lay in a pile of string at his bare feet. Red-faced, he stood half-naked in front of them while they laughed, their voices bouncing off the walls around them until it seemed the laughter was everywhere, all pointed at Javier in a barrage of accusation and ridicule.

  Gazing back and forth, Javier’s face twisted in agony. He turned and ran to one side of the stage, but was met only with more stern faces in the front row. They stood and shouted at him, driving him back. He crossed the stage, casting a frightened gaze at Loreena, but was met with more of the same, a rising throng of people.

  Loreena could do nothing but watch as he came to realize there was no escape. She saw his face fall and his eyes sink back into his head as he stopped in the center of the stage, swaying.

  “Failure!” they shouted.

  “Flop!”

  “Never amounted to anything!”

  “Just like your father said.”

  The catcalls flowed out of the dark and Javier flinched as if physically hit by each one, until finally he dropped to his knees and hung his head, sobbing.

  Loreena covered her ears. With the voices muffled, she looked more carefully around the stage, and found a narrow flight of stairs going down to her left. They led to an aisle between the red seats, and the aisle went somewhere off into the darkness between the red people.