by J. Palma
He turned over in his bed, pulling the covers to his shoulders. With her arms wrapped around him beneath his sheets, she squeezed him tight, aware of the love she felt for the child. She kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye. She turned the lights off and closed the door.
For the last time, she went to her room. She collected her belongings and packed her suitcase. The sepia photo of her parents was the last item she placed in her suitcase. She rested on the corner of the bed, watching a sailboat pass, powering forward with an outboard motor. There was no wind. The blue water as smooth as sheet glass. She went to the bathroom and washed her face with a clean face cloth. She stepped on the scale and noticed the floor was tiled with hexagonal tiles. Why did she notice such a detail now? She didn't care that she’d lost ten pounds since she first arrived.
Standing before the mirror, she took a stark self-appraisal of herself and her life. Somewhere between Bear Mountain and the cabin, she gained affection for the boy. But now she must leave him. Downstairs, she called 9-1-1 from a kitchen phone and said simply that Charles Howell was home safe.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE ADDRESS FOR the Domestic Resource Procurement Agency was for a strip mall housing an auto body shop and a dry cleaner with a pulsing neon sign that read "Next Day Express." Each shared a view of a small fenced-in parking lot crammed with a various cars in different states of disrepair. Lucina was ready to move on when she glimpsed a white van parked alongside the building. On the side of the van were the familiar words: Long Island Electric.
She drove around Queens until she found a prostitute willing to entertain an unusual proposition.
The prostitute said, "Honey, you want what?"
"Your wig."
"Shit. Beauty like this don't come cheap. What you think you can get this at the motherfuckin’ Kmart or somethin'? This is custom."
"How about a hundred dollars?"
"It's a start. Now we talkin'. How about two hunned?"
Lucina eyes lingered in the rearview mirror then pulled out two Benjamins from the center console.
The woman shucked off her platinum wig, revealing a nearly shaved head with the remaining clumps of hair pushed into swirls from the weight of the wig. "Shit. I shoulda asked for three hunned."
Nearly dark, Lucina parked the Audi a few blocks away from the laundromat. She pulled the wig on, a platinum blonde get-up that reached her waist, perfumed with lavender and whore sweat. Lucina exited the car and left the keys in the ignition. She retrieved a black duffle bag from the trunk and threw it over her shoulder. Previously, the bag contained Vincenzo and Nino’s neatly folded clothes and toiletries. She barely winced as a double dose of firecracker pain exploded from her bruised ribs and her gunshot wound. After she adjusted her wig, she crossed the street and entered the dry cleaners. The auto body shop next door was closed.
She recognized the man seated in the waiting area as the van driver from her first day in America. He didn't look up from his phone until she dropped her duffle bag on the low-slung table beside the cash register. In broken English he said, "We're no open." He pushed up off his knees and got to his feet, half-looking at her, his hands corralling her toward the door.
Lucina started piling the bloodstained motel towels as though sorting her clothes for a wash-n-fold.
"Please, please." The man finally saw the stained towels but it was too late. She unsheathed the SPAS combat shotgun as though pulling a sword from a scabbard. She let the black duffle bag fall to the ground.
In crude Italian she ordered him to sit.
"Where is she?" Lucina demanded.
He gestured to an office behind the counter.
She pressed a finger across her lips in the international signal to shut the fuck up.
She knocked on the office door with the heavy gun barrel.
A voice from behind the door told her to come in.
Maria sat behind her battleship-gray desk, watching a TV opposite her that hung from the ceiling. Maria didn't get up. Lucina kicked the door shut behind her and leveled the shotgun on Maria. After a long moment, Lucina glanced around the wood-paneled office, her eyes always returning dead center to Maria. A bank of surveillance monitors on the far side of the desk had announced Lucina's arrival.
"You're famous. On all the news stations. Look." Maria pointed at the TV.
"Is this what you meant when you said I was lucky? That's what you said. That I was lucky."
"Have you come to return my dress?" She laughed. "I knew you'd come."
With one hand on the pistol grip, Lucina reached into her scalp and yanked off the wig.
"I liked the wig better. What did you do to your hair?" Maria tented her fingers and said, "What do you want? Money? Is that it? Is that why you're here?"
"Did you know?"
"Did I know what?"
"What was going to happen to me? With the Howells and the kid."
"I knew enough. I knew that I wasn't bringing in a nanny. I knew it was different with you. What exactly, I couldn't say. Usually I have to set up fake papers, counterfeit passports. This takes money and time. And there is always the risk of getting caught. But not with you. We used your real name. It was all part of their plan. To create a trail." She tapped a fingernail against the desktop. "See, with your real name, they could track down your family history. Prove that you come from a family with a history of mental issues."
"So, you did know?"
"I knew the intention."
"Who is the 'they' who would track me down?"
"Depends. Maybe the police. Or the media. Take your pick. Your mother was institutionalized. Your own father committed suicide. You have no family. No one. How could you not snap? And then the faked CV would further support a story of deceit and desperation. Good blood doesn't lie."
"Do you know Livio? Gennaro Livio?"
"I met him once, years ago. The Nose. That's what he's called. Did you know that?"
Lucina shook her head.
"I hear they call him that because he can smell ways to make money. He runs the counterfeit rackets, among other things."
"Did he know?"
"Maybe. Maybe not." She laughed. "Like a cloud, it's all around you but nowhere. They make a living from knowing enough."
Lucina wondered just how much Livio knew. After a long pause, she said, "If he was in on it from the start, everything that man said to me was a lie. Papa never had a last wish to send me here. He would have told me."
Maria shrugged, pursed her lips. "You'll have to ask him."
"Maybe I will."
An angry look crossed Maria's face. She said, "I don't think you know the people you're dealing with."
"I've lived amongst them my entire life."
"What do you think you're going to do? You have a free pass out of here. You play your cards right—Americans love that expression—and the clans, they don't give a shit about you, about this. Even Rizzo's people will forget this one. But if you go after the clans and start putting your nose where it shouldn't be, they'll chase you until the ends of the earth. Right now, you're a gnat. A piece of dirt. Just another terrone. And you're just not worth the trouble. So tell me, what are you going to do? You think you're Clint Eastwood? You think I'm the only one that does what I do? You think by killing me you'll get your life back? And what life was that?" She lit a cigarette and eased back in her chair. She pushed out her bottom lip and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling.
Maria discussed supply and demand, saying there were a hundred other shops like this. Lucina found her attention drifting to the TV where live footage from the town of Andes showed the Howell cabin had burned nearly to the ground. Smoke still rose from the charred carcass of the building. The steepness of Skyline Ridge Road, she learned, had prevented a fully loaded fire truck from reaching the cabin. There was no chance of extinguishing the fire.
Now thoughtful, Lucina lowered her gun. It no longer made sense to pull the trigger. She put the gun on the desk and let her fingerti
ps trace the lines etched in the metal. She knew that violence and history did not own her. Her attention lingered there for a moment and then finally she turned toward the door, ready to leave this behind. The door burst open, two men appeared in black leather jackets, pistols drawn.
Maria said, "Let her be. Let her be." Lucina exited the office, leaving Maria and her minions. When Lucina reappeared in the reception area, the van driver jumped from his seat. Lucina told him she needed a lift to her motel across the river. Maria's cackle followed her out until the door swung shut behind her.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
NO ONE LOOKED twice at a young woman dressed in leggings, a leather jacket, and a stained white t-shirt carrying a Louis Vuitton briefcase strutting through the San Diego train terminal. Lucina had tied a paisley print silk scarf around her head as a sort of broad headband. Black roots were starting to show. She wore bright red lipstick and black boots. She looked like a punk rocker that had found a briefcase. Or killed someone for it. Over a week had passed since she left Charles in Larchmont.
She told herself her luck was changing. After the motel in Newburgh, she bought a one-way Amtrak fare to San Diego and never looked back. Along the way she picked up newspapers and read articles with headlines like: “Missing Heir Found.” “Body Count in Catskills Mounts.” “Mob War in the Mountains.” But after just a few days, the story was no longer headline worthy. A school shooting somewhere in Missouri, killing seventeen, had hijacked the major media outlets and everyone's attention.
She had cried when she read about Charles. The authorities, for some reason, didn't entirely believe his account of what happened and were asking for witnesses to corroborate his testimony. Will Howell, the boy's only surviving legal custodian, was in a coma from smoke inhalation. Medical experts were uncertain if Will would ever recover to corroborate the events that transpired on that hot and steamy summer night at the Howell family cabin. In the meantime, Charles was placed in the protective custody of a distant uncle in Rhode Island. Upon Charles' eighteenth birthday, he would be the sole heir of a forty-one-billion-dollar empire.
The automatic doors hissed open and Lucina stepped into the hospital-bright Southern California sun. She stopped and placed the briefcase between her feet. She half-expected to be arrested, surrounded by Federal agents in black suits and dark sunglasses. Suddenly, a man in a dark suit approached. She gritted her teeth and her jaw muscles tensed. Nearly brushing her shoulder as he passed, he entered the terminal in a hurry. She relaxed when she realized she stood directly in the path of the station entrance.
At the curb, she reached into her shoulder bag and found a pack of smokes. She tapped out a Marlboro Red, lit it, and returned to her bag for her sunglasses. She pulled them on with one hand, the other held the briefcase.
She glimpsed a boy holding a woman's hand pass before her. About Charles' age, height and weight—with a messy crop of sun streaked brown hair. She heard herself call out for Charles. The boy didn't answer. Lucina followed, calling after him, confused. Still he didn't respond.
Now she was only a few paces from the young boy. She shouted for Charles. Both boy and mother spun around, startled. The mother pulled the boy closer to herself, a look of concern on her face.
"Whad'you want?"
"Sorry." Clearly, the boy was not Charles. Lucina, mystified, stared at the small child, coping with her mistake. Too thin to be Charles, this boy had freckles smeared across his nose and cheeks. "Thought you were someone else." Cruelly, this happened a few times during her cross-country trip. She'd see Charles as she pulled in to a terminal, waiting on a platform. Only it was never him.
The mother dragged the child away, glancing over her shoulder at Lucina before crossing the street. Soon they disappeared into the pedestrian foot traffic and Lucina was left disappointed. In this way, Charles had become hers, and she suffered for this cruel phenomenon.
During her week-long journey, she had plenty of time to decide where starting over would begin. California sounded grand. But it was a tremendous place. She wanted some place warm and near the ocean, which she narrowed down to San Diego. She had studied a map of the city, memorizing the different neighborhoods and communities and decided she would start there. She hailed a cab and told him to take her some place nice and quiet, maybe Pacific Beach.
"If you want some place nice and quiet, you don't go to PB. You go to La Jolla."
"La Jolla it is then."
AFTERWORD
DON'T MISS THE next J. Palma novel.
Defiance
Coming soon from Punch Press LLC.
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