by C. D. Reiss
“What’s with you?”
I held out my hand. “Ambient noise.”
He stretched, reached into his pocket, and came out with a handful of change. I plucked out four quarters.
“You’re a wild card, Daniel.” I put fifty cents in the jukebox and played some random ballad from the seventies. I rubbed the other two coins together. I liked the way they scraped and slipped at the same time. “One minute I think you’re going to do right by me—”
“I told you I’d keep LAPD off you yesterday so you could find Valentina. And I did, but you didn’t get her.”
“We found her, but no. We didn’t get her. Not yet.”
“I can only go so far. I have a job and a department full of people with their own minds.”
“Right now, he’s stuck. If he can’t move, he can’t get Valentina. And if you think you can get her, forget it. She won’t tell you crap, and you know it. She’ll swear whoever’s holding her are her cousins. You know it’s true. He’s the best chance she has and the only chance I have. So make it go away.”
He leaned forward to make his point and to keep his voice low. “I can’t hold back my entire staff. I actually kind of like the guy, but the entire Los Angeles justice system knows Antonio Spinelli shot Paulie Patalano.”
“He didn’t.”
“Well, who did?”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t breathe. I just looked the district attorney in the eye until he leaned back.
“Jesus Christ, Theresa.” He knew. I didn’t have to say it, and he knew. “Jesus, Jesus… why?”
“You understand what’ll happen if you allow this to continue. All roads lead to Rome. If you’re all right with that, then I have to be.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I just slid out of the booth. It wasn’t until I reached for the keys to the Porsche that I realized I still had those two quarters between my fingers. I slipped them into my front pocket and drove back to Antonio.
I was a killer. For real and for sure. I couldn’t hang on Paulie’s working lungs and heart anymore. It was homicide because his death was inevitable. And still, I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would.
Maybe I had been born for this. Maybe it was in my blood. Which gave me an idea. A disturbing idea, but one that might work. I pulled up to the safe house convinced it was our only option.
Antonio met me on the porch.
“You’re supposed to stay inside,” I said as I stepped up.
“It’s too nice a day,” he lied. It was clammy and cold.
“Do we know if Valentina’s still at the hospital?”
“She is.”
“I thought of something,” I said. “Remember what you told me about my family? Our history? Who we are?”
“Yes?”
“I think I can get us in. But I don’t know if it’ll come with a way out.”
thirty-nine.
theresa
o radio,” Antonio said, snapping it off. I’d heard his name and turned up the car stereo. It had started pouring on the way to Sequoia, and the pat pat pat on the roof and puh puh puh on the windows was going to drive me nuts. It was dusk already.
“They might be saying something we can use,” I objected but didn’t try to turn the radio back on.
What was it like to have your name all over the media in connection with something as evil as murder? I didn’t know. I only knew what it was like to be the actual murderer. I put my back to the passenger door and slipped out of my shoes. Antonio had driven, even though it was Otto’s car. We’d parked in the outdoor lot across the street from Sequoia and were waiting for Antonio’s only loyal friend to appear with the one person who could help us get in.
“Trust me,” he said, “I’ve done this before. Those reports aren’t doing anything but worrying you. Half of what they’re saying is lies, and the other half are things we already know.”
He was right. I’d been intimate with the media and what they fed to the public.
He took out his pack of cigarettes and shook out the last one. I reached for it, slipping it out before his lips got on it. He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Light me up, Capo.”
He clacked open his lighter and I dragged on it until it was lit. I handed the cigarette back to him while blew out the smoke. I hadn’t smoked since high school, when I wanted to impress Rachel, who was so cool she seemed other worldly.
Antonio took the cigarette, regarding me before putting it in his lips. I liked everything about the way he did it. The placement of the cigarette between his fingers, the shape of his lips as he pulled on it, and the snap as he removed it.
“How can you look so relaxed?” I asked, taking the smoke from him.
“I can ask you the same.”
“I’m worried about Otto.” I flicked the ashes in the tray.
“He can do more with eight fingers than most men can do with twelve.”
I cocked my head at him. He just looked out the window, touching his lower lip before it stretched into a grin. I jabbed his knee with my foot.
“You’re better than that joke.”
He put his hand on my foot and ran it up as far as my pants would allow. “No, I’m not. Do you think you can live with a man who makes jokes like that for the rest of your life?”
“I think there’s a regular comedian in there.” I handed him the cigarette, flame side up. “We just have to draw him out.”
“I wish I could laugh.” He shook his head a little, still smiling slightly. “I met your father a long time ago, while I was consigliere for Donna Maria. He was building something in our territory. There were union issues. He might remember me.”
“This should be a fun get-together then.” I wasn’t surprised my father had worked with the mob. I was pretty sure that wasn’t his first business deal with them, or his last.
“I’m wondering, should I ask him for your hand tonight? Or wait until we’re both in jail?”
I took the cigarette from him. It had gotten short and hot, like my temper.
“I don’t think you can ask while you’re legally married to someone else.”
He smiled ruefully and rubbed his eyes. “What a mess.”
“They’re here,” I said. I rolled down the window a crack, as if I was still in high school getting caught being a bad girl.
Antonio looked up, hand reaching for the key. Otto and Declan Drazen, each carrying an umbrella, walked out the sliding doors. Dad looked no worse for the wear in a sport jacket and sweater. He barely looked both ways when crossing, as if a car wouldn’t dare try to occupy the same space as him because he was entitled to the world at large.
Or at least that was how I saw it. We all saw him differently, and we were all correct. He was an exacting judge, a paymaster, evil incarnate, a master controller, a father whose only concern was the ten people in his family and their legacy. Only Jonathan had failed to disappoint him, and he was the child who hated him the most.
The back door clicked open, and my father slipped in. Otto closed the door behind him, staying outside to watch.
“Hi, Dad,” I said.
“Theresa. Mister Spinelli. Good to see you again.”
Antonio reached over the front seat, and they shook hands. “Sorry about the circumstances.”
“My daughter explained it.” He was talking about Margie, who I’d called first. “Quite involved, this whole situation.” In the window behind my father, Otto’s cigarette smoke drifted by, unaffected by the rain. “Theresa was always the one who caused no trouble at all.” He looked at me. “Guess you were saving it up.”
“How’s Jonathan?” I asked.
“Near death. You might want to stop by.”
“I wish I could.”
“Indeed. Now.” He jerked his head toward where Otto stood outside. “The gentleman tells me you wanted something?”
“There’s a woman inside this hospital,” I said. “She’s probably being discharged right now. She’s being watched by a group
of people—”
“The Carloni family?” Dad said.
Antonio twisted around to face my father a little more. Was he regarding him more seriously? That was wise.
“How many?” Antonio asked.
“I haven’t had cause to count, but if you put them together with the family of Paulie Patalano, it’s like an underworld reunion.”
“Dad, this is important. I know you have some pull in this hospital. If you could just put her in a room alone for ten minutes, Antonio and I could go in and walk her out. No problem.”
“How is it you can do that?”
“She and I have the same name,” Antonio said.
I tensed up. We would have to explain.
Antonio, as if sensing that I needed to get it over with, finished the thought. “I’m her husband. They’ll let me take her.”
Why had that felt like a knife in my heart? As if I didn’t know it already. Was it because my father was sitting right there, and my shame was so great, the pain became fresh and raw all over again? Dad seemed to consider all the implications, letting the pause hang.
“They’re going to kill her,” I said.
“So they brought her to the hospital? Please, Theresa, you’ve never been one for dramatics. This is disconcerting. Disheartening, even. Mister Spinelli, I am sure you’re a man of values, but they’re not my family’s. And it seems like in addition to losing my son in the next few days, I’ve already lost my daughter. My goal in life has been keeping this family together, and it’s blown apart.”
“It hasn’t,” I said. “I’m here, and this is a bump in the road.”
I didn’t even believe it, and neither did he.
“Prove it,” he said. “If this is a bump, when it’s done, you stay. You don’t do a Carrie and move away.”
I glanced at Antonio, whose eyes stayed on my father.
“I can’t promise that,” I said.
“Then I can’t promise anything either.”
“I promise it,” Antonio said. “We’ll stay within reach.”
I wanted to kick him. Was he giving up his dream of going back home, or his dream of being with me? Or was he failing to take my father seriously?
“Hardly something you can promise, Mister Spinelli, seeing as you’re already married.”
That should have hurt. Should have cut me to the bone, but it didn’t. The initial shock of my father knowing I was sleeping with a married man was bad, but once that was done, I felt nothing either way about it. Antonio had promised. That was good enough for me.
“You told me to make one good choice,” I said. “One good choice, and you’d release the funds to keep Zia’s afloat when Antonio was gone. Well, I made a good choice—I came back to LA to see Jonathan. Here I am. And I don’t need the money anymore. So this is the trade I want.”
“You’re pushing it.”
“I could still be gone.”
He leaned forward in his seat. I turned.
“You will never leave,” he said. “Not for any man. Not for any money. Not for any reason. You belong here. Your blood runs beach water and backwash.” He opened the back door. “If there’s a woman being held against her will, you need to call the police.”
He was out the door before I could formulate an answer. We watched in silence as he strode across the street.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll figure something out. He was a long shot anyway.”
Antonio was too quiet, tapping the steering wheel and watching my father cross the street, his umbrella straight. Not a drop got on him.
“We’ll go in the hard way.” Did I sound desperate?
“We shouldn’t go in. I’ll take care of it. I’ll do the trade. I’ll let them take me and figure it out, or not. I’m not afraid to die.”
“If they hurt you, Capo, I’ll kill them.”
He turned to the windshield and took a deep breath, like a man falling under the weight of his burdens.
I took his hand. I hadn’t meant to worry him, but I’d said the wrong thing. The same words that made me feel confident when they came from his lips ripped the world out from under him when they came from mine. I was about to take it back, lie and say I’d do nothing. But he gave my hand a quick squeeze and ran out into the night, dodging a car. The car door slammed behind him, and I lost him in the wash of rain on the window. I rolled it down. Antonio caught up to my father on the other side of the street. Otto watched, smoke rising from under his umbrella.
They were talking, and I couldn’t hear a word. I saw Antonio’s gyrating hands and the bend of his back. He wasn’t flinching from the rain; he was imploring my father for something, arm stretched toward the car, where I was. Jesus. What was he saying? What was he trading? Discomfort spiraled from my gut to my throat. Dad wasn’t even talking, just Antonio, out in the cold and wet. Supplicating. Begging for what? I didn’t even know. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out and was pelted with rain. Otto tried to cross around the car to give me his umbrella, but I pushed it away and started across the street.
My father nodded.
They shook hands.
No.
No no no.
“Antonio!”
He came to me, hair flattened and face studded with raindrops, lips dripping before he even spoke.
“What did you say to him?”
“Get in the car.” His clothes stuck to him, leaving veiny ridges up his arms. I saw the flex in his forearms when he grabbed my biceps and tried to turn me around.
“Capo.”
“Get in the fucking car.”
“We’re in this together. Together. Did you forget?”
He shook his head, eyes dark in the night, with only a glint from the streetlights to tell me confusion and pain swirled in them. He put his lips to mine so hard it hurt, and it wasn’t until I yielded to his arms and his mouth that they softened on me.
“Trust me,” he said between kisses, cradling my head. “Just trust me.”
And I did. Through the raindrops and thunder, the groans building in my throat, the warmed space between our bodies, I trusted him, his judgment, his intentions, his actions.
But I didn’t.
forty.
theresa
e passed Margie’s car on the way to the elevator. It was still parked in the spot reserved for the neurology guy she’d helped with a “thing.” When this was over, I was going to sit Margie down and ask her what she really did for a living.
Otto stayed in the car while Antonio and I stepped into the elevator.
“What’s the plan?” I asked, watching the numbers change. The secure lot was four levels down.
“Cardiac wing is on four.” He didn’t look at me. He looked at the numbers. “There’ll be a distraction in fifteen minutes. We will be on two.”
“This sounds pretty vague.”
“I’m using what I have.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open into a back hallway painted a particularly diarrhea shade of mustard.
Antonio walked out, and I followed. He was closed to me, and I didn’t know why. No. Forget that. I did know why. The price for whatever this distraction was must have been sky-high if he would rather shut me out than talk to me.
I’d mastered my impulses long ago, covering them with implacable smiles and social maneuvering, but I almost grabbed Antonio and yanked him back to demand an answer because he’d stripped away all my practiced refinement. But did we even have time for that? Did he have a moment to tell me what we were doing? Or were there too many components to explain as we walked down a hall lined with laundry bins and broken gurneys?
I had to trust him, and when he turned to an open door, stopped himself midway, and looked at me with full engagement, I was glad I’d waited. He gestured at the empty staff lunch room. Two vending machines. A wall of lockers. A coffee maker with a crust of sludge. A round tabletop on a single center pedestal and three red chairs with chrome legs.
I stepped inside, and he pus
hed me through to the “Pump Room,” which was no bigger than the smallest of my mother’s closets. Meaning, it had room enough for a glider and footrest, a cabinet, and a little table with a half-full paper coffee cup.
He snapped the door closed behind him.
“What’s the problem?” I asked. “What’s happening?”
He crashed his lips onto mine.
I pushed him away with force. “There couldn’t possibly be a worse time for this.”
He took my hands, holding them between us. “Please, just do this for me. Don’t ask questions.” He turned my hands over and kissed my palms. “Don’t ask to be hurt. Don’t fight. Just love me.”
His voice was soft enough to turn stone to putty, and all desire to defy him left me.
“Okay,” I said, “but I—”
He pressed his fingers to my lips. “Hush. Trust me. I’ve worked it out. All you have to do is follow along.”
“The bouncing ball.”
“Follow the ball.” He picked up my shirt and ran his hands over my nipples until they were as hard as stones. “That’s it. I need you by my side, and right now, I need you to love me. No more.”
“You’re scaring me.”
He unbuttoned my pants and slid them down my legs. “You wouldn’t be scared if you loved me.”
“That’s not true.”
It was hard to concentrate on everything that was happening when he stroked my thighs, kissing them as I stepped out of my clothes.
“It is. There’s no fear if there’s love.”
He guided me to the wooden slider and sat me in it.
“Open your legs,” he whispered, gently parting my knees until I was exposed to him. His eyes alone sent shockwaves through me, and he kept them on me when he kissed inside my thigh slowly, from knee up. He brushed his lips against my folds, flicking his tongue.
“Oh!” I cried. I couldn’t help it.
“Shh. Quietly.”
He opened me with his thumbs, exposing my clit to his tongue. He was good, so good. Skilled, yes, but he loved it. Loved every inch of my body. Loved every place we joined and touched. No one could do what he did without love.