by B. B. Hamel
I ran my fingers over the wooden table, feeling the cracks in the wood. I hadn’t thought about it, not really. I’d just been reacting, just venting my feelings, but he was right, it was strange that I kissed him, that I let him touch me, that I let him get me off.
It was strange that I even could get off in that moment.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with me,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’re just made of harder stuff than you realize.”
I looked up at him and shook my head.
“I used to think this was what I wanted,” I said. “You know, hunt down danger, find the real story.”
“I know what you mean,” he said with a distant little smile. “I used to want it too. Wanted the fighting, the blood, the glory, back when I was young and stupid.”
“But it’s not fun or good, is it?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not the sort of thing you can just keep doing without it changing you.”
“That’s right,” he said. “It always changes you.”
“So how do you deal with it? What do you become?”
He stared at his glass, sipped it, looked at me. I felt a chill run down my spine at the distance in his eyes, like he wasn’t really seeing me, but looking deep inside of himself.
“Someone better,” he said and leaned closer, blinking a little, his eyes focusing on me. “If you need to find someone to talk to, then you go and you talk. If you need to bottle it all up, then that’s what you do. But you find a way to survive, to cope, to become stronger. If you let them come at you and break you, then you’ve lost, then next time you’ll freeze up and you’re dead. That’s what I’ve learned over the years, those that survive in this game learn to push aside the fear, the guilt, all that fucking regret. They learn to be better.”
“You think that’s what I have to do?” I asked, my lip trembling just a little bit.
“Maybe,” he said and shook his head. “I don’t really know. What’s the difference between a journalist in a war zone and a soldier fighting the war? They’re both getting shot at.”
“The soldier’s shooting back,” I said.
“Good point. But the journalist is doing her job too.” He cocked his head, swirled his drink. “I think if you want to keep being a part of this, you’re going to have to learn how to cope. Maybe you’ll have to become a little bit like me.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Maybe.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not so bad. I’m not as much of a monster as you think I am.”
“But you are a monster,” I said. “Just a little bit, at least.”
He shrugged a little, let out a breath. He slumped forward a bit and looked like exhaustion hit him over the head with a shovel.
“You have to be,” he said. “Because your enemies are monsters too, except they’re worse, they’re the kind of monsters that don’t care who you are or what you are, they’ll pull you under the bed and devour you whole.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to change,” I said.
“You’ll have to be,” he said. “Or else maybe you need to get the hell out of here before you don’t have an option anymore.”
I nodded a little, staring into his eyes. He almost looked sad, but there was a hardness to him, like he couldn’t let that sadness get under his skin. For just a brief moment, I saw the Vincent he used to be, before the mob took everything from him and molded him into what he is now.
I saw the little kid, the innocent kid behind it all.
But that kid was dead and gone, and Vincent was the man before me, ice water in his veins, steel in his spine.
“I’m going to bed,” I said, and pushed away from the table.
“Sure,” he said. “You go do that.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
He nodded and smiled. “I’m fine, little journalist,” he said. “I’m always fine.”
“If you ever need to talk—”
“I don’t,” he said and threw back the rest of his drink. “I never do.”
I nodded a little and turned away.
I could feel his eyes on me as I walked to the steps. I looked back, just for a brief moment, as I started up. He smirked a little, his head tilted to one side, and the mask was back up, the walls put back into place. I wondered if I’d ever see that side of him again, tired and battered, angry and guilty and sad all at once.
Probably not, or at least I hoped I never did.
Because that part of him probably only came out after he’d killed a bunch of men, after he’d nearly gotten me killed in the process.
I headed upstairs and into my room. I shut the door behind me, walked to my phone, and picked it up.
I typed out a single text, chewed on my lip, and hit send before crawling under the covers and closing my eyes.
16
Mona
The sun was bright as I sat on the familiar bench in Clark Park. Kids played on the swing sets, their parents laughing and talking with each other nearby. Teens on roller skates rolled past, nudging at each other, grinning like the world was just fine and nothing bad could ever happen.
My ears rang from the gunshots the day before.
I stretched my legs out and tried to keep myself centered. It wasn’t easy, not with the images still running through my brain. I barely slept the night before and even after I’d gone back up to my room, I couldn’t seem to shut down. I heard Vincent head up to bed not long after me, stumbling in the dark, stomping on the steps like he didn’t have a care in the world.
In the morning, before I left, he was up and already making coffee. I poured some in a to-go mug and told him I was running some errands.
He only smiled and told me to have fun.
I wondered if I was making a mistake. Thomas was a mentor to me, an important person in my life, but what happened yesterday went way beyond anything we’d ever talked about. I witnessed multiple murders, even if they were in self-defense. I saw an attempted mob hit go down right before my eyes.
That wasn’t the sort of thing you could just talk about with anyone.
But before I could decide this was all a horrible mistake and run back to Vince’s house, I saw Thomas ambling down the path toward me. He wore dark khaki pants with a navy shirt tucked into them. He had on a Phillies baseball cap, pulled down low over his eyes, and a newspaper was tucked under one arm.
He sat down on the bench next to me with a sigh.
“Nice day,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Really nice.”
“I have to admit, I didn’t expect your text,” he said. “You were up late last night.”
“I had a lot of thinking to do.”
He grunted and nodded. “I bet. How’s the story?”
“It’s coming along,” I said.
“And the subject?”
“He’s… good,” I said. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with him.” I tried to look at him, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I stared straight ahead at the asphalt and tried to take deep, calming breaths.
“Good,” Thomas said. There was a short silence, then he said, “but you’re okay?”
“I don’t know.” I let that hang in the air, adjusted my position, gripped the seat and dug my nails into the wood. “I saw something yesterday. I was… a part of something. It was really bad.”
He took a breath and let it out. “Huh,” he said.
“I don’t know what to do now,” I said. “I haven’t gotten enough for this story. But now I’m in this so deep, and I’m starting to question if I’m doing the right thing.”
“You think you want to walk away?” Thomas asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “If you walk away, will anyone tell this story?”
I shook my head. “No, definitely not.”
“And is it a story worth telling?”
“I think so,” I said.
“So maybe you need
to stay, then,” he said. “Sometimes this job isn’t good or nice or fun. Sometimes you’re stuck witnessing horrible things, and you feel powerless and angry and broken. But the witnessing is important, Mona. Even if you can’t change anything, someone needs to witness it.”
I nodded a little. “He’s not so bad, you know,” I said, not sure why the words tumbled from my mouth.
“They never are,” Thomas said. “I don’t think anyone’s truly evil. Even Hitler loved his dogs.”
I let a breath out through my nose. “I don’t mean it that way,” I said. “I don’t mean he’s evil but has some good qualities. I’m saying I think he’s a fundamentally good person.”
“Interesting,” Thomas said. “Can a person be in that line of work and still be good?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Probably not,” Thomas said. “What does he think?”
“He thinks he’s a monster,” I said, then finally managed to turn and look at him, my eyes wide and shining with tears. I hated myself for those tears, but I couldn’t make them go away. “I saw him do something horrible yesterday, something so horrible that I hope I never see it again, but he had to do it. That’s the really messed-up thing. He saved me, kept me safe, and if he hadn’t done it…” I trailed off.
“What did he do?” Thomas asked, his voice soft. He leaned toward me, his eyes hard, his tongue licking his lips.
For a second, I felt a jolt of panic run through my gut. He looked at me like a hungry lizard, like all he wanted was a piece of information. I was a story to him all of a sudden, and if I spoke, if I told him the truth, he could take it from me and do whatever he wanted with it.
But then the look was gone and the feeling passed. His hunger turned into real concern, and I thought maybe I had imagined it to begin with.
I looked away, back down at the ground.
“We were attacked,” I said. “Men with guns. There’s a war starting up, Thomas.”
“You witnessed a shooting?” he asked.
“I witnessed multiple murders,” I said. “Murders in self-defense, but… still murder.”
He was quiet for a long time and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. The teens rollerbladed past again and I watched them go, wondering if I could ever feel that free and easy again in my life, deciding I probably couldn’t.
“You should call the police,” he said.
“I can’t do that.” I shook my head and let a mad laugh bubble up from my throat. “I really, really can’t.”
“I didn’t think so.” He let out a breath. “Are you in danger, Mona? Be honest with me.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, I am, but not in any more danger than I was before.”
“Because you think he’s going to protect you.”
“He did once. He’ll do it again.”
Thomas sighed and I heard him slap the paper down onto his knees. I looked over and saw that it was the Inquirer.
“You need to be careful,” he said. “Can I tell you a story?”
I nodded and kept my eyes on the newspaper in his lap.
“When I was a young reporter, I was sent to interview this woman in jail, her name was Bethany. She was this pretty young woman, maybe in her mid-twenties, just a couple years older than I was. She’d been tried and convicted of killing her children, and since she’d admitted it in court, there were no real doubts about her guilt.
“That wasn’t the problem. Turns out, she was pretty and charming. When I went to speak with her, she made me laugh, she kept my attention. I’m not ashamed to admit that I really, really liked her. We had long conversations after that first brief interview where she talked about her children, about killing them, about how she’d lost her mind, had a psychotic break. She convinced me that it was her illness that made her do it, and that she didn’t belong in prison. She said she was on drugs that made her stable, and you know what? I bought that, I believed it, and I wrote about it.
“Two weeks after the story ran, she stabbed her cellmate to death with a shank she made from the handle of a toothbrush.”
I looked up from the Inquirer and met his gaze. He was frowning and shook his head slowly, lips curled inwards, eyebrows pulled down.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I vowed never to get so close to a subject again, and I never did. She fooled me, Mona, because I was lonely and she was pretty. I was a stupid young man, and I let her trick me.”
“But maybe she didn’t trick you,” I said. “I mean, maybe she was wrong about being stable, but that doesn’t mean she lied.”
He smiled, just the barest hint of it. “I guess not. But, Mona, you sound like you’re getting close to this guy, and you need to be careful. He’s dangerous, he’s a killer, and you can’t let yourself forget that.”
“I know,” I said. “I know you’re right.”
“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said. “I can’t tell you to stay or to go to the police. I think no matter what you do, you need to be careful, because this man isn’t the sort of man you can just walk away from, in more ways than one.”
“You’re right,” I said, my voice flat and dull.
I suddenly wanted to get away from him, get away from the old man that was so far past his prime, that had made one mistake as a youth and thought everyone must be making that same mistake.
“Just be careful,” he said. “That’s all. If you can get out safely, do it. If you can’t, go to the police for help. I know people I can put you in contact with if you need it, and you can come stay with me if you have to hide out. Whatever you need, I’ll help you.”
I smiled at him and nodded. “I appreciate the offer,” I said. “But I’m going to see this thing through.”
He smiled back and put the paper back under his arm. “I had a feeling you would.”
He stood with a grunt and stretched his back. I watched him for a second, not sure what to think. I just told him that I witnessed a mob hit, that I saw men get murdered, and he wasn’t freaking out. If anything, he was much too calm.
“Thanks for talking to me,” I said. “I know this is a lot. I’m barely keeping it together.”
He nodded and looked straight ahead, out over the park, toward the kids playing on the swing sets, toward the couples sitting on blankets in the sun.
“You’re in the real shit now, Mona,” he said. “You have to decide what you want to be.”
I smiled a little. “That’s what he said, too,” I said.
Thomas looked at me and shook his head. “Then he’s smarter than I gave him credit for. At any rate, good luck. I’m just a phone call away if you need help.”
He turned and left without another word, one hand in his pocket, the other holding onto the paper tucked under his armpit.
I watched him go until he reached the path that led from the park. He disappeared around the corner, behind a grouping of trees, and I felt a strange, deep loss inside my chest.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. But the longer I sat there and watched the world around me, watched the wind ripple the trees, watched a couple guys kick a soccer ball back and forth, watched a dad ride by on a bike with his young son on training wheels just behind him, I realized that I was mourning normalcy. I mourned a sense of being a part of the world as just a regular person, as a person that didn’t witness murders and still stick around, as a person that wasn’t attracted to a monster, as a person that wasn’t in the process of becoming something else, something harder, something darker.
But there I was, changing despite myself.
I stood and turned back toward the city, away from the park. I walked to the entrance at the far side and stepped back out onto the sidewalk, lingering in the shade of a tree. I could make a choice, I could go back to my old life and stay there. I knew Vince would let me go, even if the rest of his family wouldn’t be happy about it. I knew he wouldn’t let them touch me, even if they wanted to.
&
nbsp; Or I could keep changing. I could embrace what I was.
I took a deep breath and headed down the block, back toward Vince’s house.
It took me a while to walk there. I took my time, watched a family move an old couch down to the curbside, watched a couple sit on a stoop and share a bottle of water, watched the city buzz around me with life.
I reached Vince’s door and knocked. I wasn’t sure why, I figured it wouldn’t be locked. But a few seconds later, it opened and he stood there staring out at me.
He looked surprised. He wore a light gray t-shirt over a pair of tight jeans, his muscles bulging, his hair pushed back.
“I’m back,” I said.
“Didn’t think you would be,” he said.
“Yeah, well, I decided I couldn’t just walk away from this.”
He smirked a little, tilted his head. “I got under your skin, huh?”
“No,” I said. “I just decided I have to follow through.”
“Yeah, all right. You tell yourself that.” He stepped aside. “Welcome home, little journalist.”
I bit my lip then stepped up and crossed the threshold.
17
Vince
That afternoon after my Mona came back, I piled her into a black SUV and drove over to my father’s place.
“Where’d you get the car?” she asked as I parked out front.
“I’ve got guys all over this city,” I said.
“Yeah, okay, but seriously.”
I laughed. “Had Dino drive it over,” I said.
“That’s what I figured.” She sighed and chewed her lip. “Why are we here?”
“Got to talk about what happened,” I said.
“And you’re bringing me?”
“You’re in the shit now,” I said. “Might as well embrace it. Come on, let’s go see what the old man thinks.”
I got out of the car and she followed. Roberto answered the door a moment after I knocked, which meant he’d been standing there waiting for us like a goddamn creep. We stepped into the entrance hall, into that absurd grandeur beneath the glittering chandelier nobody ever lit and walked down the hallway over plush carpeting and past heavy, expensive wood paneling. We reached my father’s study, Roberto knocked, and we were ushered inside.