by Zoey Parker
Maybe there’s something to that. I mean, take Toni for instance. The excitement flares in her eyes like no other when she doesn’t know what I’m going to do next.
“You’re fucking crazy, man,” Jaws says, still laughing, “Probably right. But definitely fucking crazy.”
Smirking like a smug son-of-a-bitch, Pulse puts his snake-skin fingers around his cup and, lifting it in a toast, says, “To women.”
“To women,” Jaws and I chorus, and then I add, “To Hannah. I’m going to find her and put those Piccolo fuckers down. They messed with the wrong family.”
After we drink, Jaws slams his glass down on the table and, eyes glinting with excitement, asks, “So plan on?”
I slam my own glass down, nod.
“Plan on. Plan more than on. We’re going to blow the Piccolos and their house back to hell where they belong. We’re not just going to cut them off at the legs, we’re going to gut them inside-out.”
A passing pigtailed girl ogles me with saucer eyes, while her mother pulling her along shoots me a glare.
Now it’s Jaws’ and Pulse’s turn to laugh at me.
Then, in an impressed whisper, Pulse says, “Seriously Boss, you have a way with words. I’ve got chills.”
Jaws is still smiling like he won the lottery.
I shovel some of the beans in my mouth, and he says, “So what exactly is the plan though?”
I shovel another spoonful in my mouth, swallow, then say, “Plan is, we intercept their shipment, just to throw them off track. We get at that Carlos bastard, find out where Hannah is and get her out of there. Then we demolish them so they can’t cause any more trouble ever again.”
I thought Jaws’ smile couldn’t get any bigger, but at my words, it takes over his whole face.
“Something tells me, this next month is going to be the best month of my life.”
I shovel another spoonful of beans in my mouth, then another.
It’s going to be okay. Now, I have a plan. We’re going to find Hannah and we’re going to punish the Piccolos for what they’ve done.
At some point, Jaws’ bowl of beans is set in front of him, while Pulse continues seducing our ginger waitress. I glance at my beans.
I’ve mashed them into a paste.
I scoop it up and eat it anyway.
The Piccolos aren’t sorry now, but they will be.
Chapter 16
Toni
Getting home is easy: a phone call, a slip into old crumpled clothes, a fling of my things into my purse.
It’s being home that’s hard. As soon as I walk in the door, the last person I want to see strides down the steps to greet me.
“Another mystery overnight,” Carlos says, sitting down on the bottom step.
Jane trots up to engulf my hand in licks. I pat her, ignore him.
“Are you planning on telling me where you keep going?” he asks.
I slip out of one shoe, then the other.
I say, “No.”
He strides in front of me, gets up in my face.
“You’ve got to be careful, you know. We’ve been intercepting some of the Rebel Saints’ merchandise and they’re pissed. They’re a ticking time bomb.”
I turn away.
Yup, that’s what those women are to Carlos. That’s all they are, “merchandise.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I say, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice, “Is Papa up?”
His brows ripple with suspicion.
“Why?”
“I have to talk to him about something.”
Carlos’ hand goes to my shoulder.
I flinch, but don’t move.
I won’t let him intimidate me.
Yet his words are soft, soothing.
“Hey, everyone knows you didn’t want this. I know you’re trying your best.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I examine his hand. The fingers are long and smooth, not clenched. Maybe, just maybe, Carlos is telling the truth. Actually cares.
I close my eyes.
I see the boy I built sandcastles beside, the one who rolled around in the snow with me, creating twisted snow arch-angels. I see my brother.
I open my eyes, glance back at his hand and, on his middle finger, see it.
The ring his mother gave him, the gold one with the green stone.
No, I can’t trust him.
“There’s something you might want to know,” he says, still in that soft tone.
“I have to see father now. Tell me after,” I say, breaking free, striding away and up the stairs.
I ascend at an even pace, don’t look back.
If I let it, that soft tone will slide me to my grave.
Carlos’ angry tone follows me up the stairs, “I really think you’d be interested in what I have to say!”
But I’m already on the next flight of stairs, entering the stifling silence of the third floor. My father’s floor and now, what feels like death’s.
Everything is sculpted mahogany and lush navy velvet. All glints well-cleaned and well-cared for. This is a floor of elegance, luxuriousness and, yet, unmistakably, death.
The air is stuffy, stuffy with my father’s covetous old hands. We were never let up here. Not me, not Carlos, not even my mother. Just Maria Fernanda to clean and my father to do whatever it was he did here. Now, to die.
I shake my head to shake free the thoughts.
No, Papa is going to be fine. He has to be.
I inhale slowly, then exhale.
I need a clear head for talking to Papa.
I knock on the door. Then again.
Nothing.
I knock a few more times, then finally grasp the snarling lion door handle and twist it round. One step into the room I stop, shocked at the sight before me.
The waxy ghost of my father is slumped amidst satin sheets covered with rosy apples. Its eyes are closed, its mouth agape. Its rising and falling with soundless snores. It’s only been three days since my last visit, and already, my father is nearly unrecognizable.
“Papa?” I say softly, then louder, “Papa?”
The ghost shifts, opens one eye. “Ah, what’s that?” Its other eye flutters open, and the whole ghost jerks upright. “Who are ya?”
I shrink back, into the enclaves of the closed door behind me.
“Papa it’s me – Toni.”
He sinks back down, nods, and gestures me over. “Of course it’s you. Get over here.”
I oblige, go over beside him.
He shoots me a sidelong look. “It’s been a while, ah?”
“I’m sorry Papa, I….”
Unlikely excuses swirl up and down my throat.
I look down at the broken old man before me, and I go silent.
I can’t bear to lie to him like this.
And yet, I can’t tell him the truth either. That this whole place unnerves me, him most of all. That I didn’t come because I feared what I would find.
My gaze sweeps around the room, from the snarling tiger rug I’m stand on, to the bull head mounted on the wall over his bed, to the coil of a cobra on his bedside table.
“You don’t like my decision,” he says and, with a chuckle, adds, “No one likes my decision.”
He sits up straighter, waves his boney hand around.
“Carlos, your brother, he wasn’t ready. Now, after my decision, he’s smartened up, cut down on all the drinking and partying, but before… ah no, he wasn’t ready.”
He turns his head to look at me, says, “Now, however…”
I avoid his gaze, keep mine on the cobra on its erect head, showcasing fangs that are ready to strike. Looks like it will strike if I shift my gaze even for a second.
“But you’re getting better Papa,” I say, my tone so unconvincing it sends him into a painful-sounding bout of raspy laughter.
He waves his hand again, then lets it flop to his lap.
“If this is getting better, I hate to see what getting worse is,” he says, jig
gling his hairy caterpillar eyebrows at me.
We laugh together, mine ending in something of a sob.
He pats me.
“There, there. Don’t be sad for a dying old sinner.”
“But Papa,” I say, his kindly face illuminated by my tears, “We don’t have to be. The Piccolos – our family business, our success doesn’t have to be based on… crime – or… sex trafficking at least.”
His hand falls, his face darkens.
“Didn’t take you long to find out.”
Now I take his hand, grasp it.
“Yes Papa, I found out, I found out and I think we should end it.”
He pulls his hand away.
“You don’t understand business. Politics. Money-making. What success really takes. The dirty truth Toni is: our entire empire was built on sex trafficking.”
“I understand more than you think. And I know about other families, other groups who found other ways. Online gambling, real estate, wind power – there’s other options, Papa. Our empire may have been built on sex trafficking, but it doesn’t have to be sustained by it.”
He shakes his hand, his bald patch glinting in the light, his mustache drooping.
“You make it sound so easy, but if you knew, if you’d had to rough it out there yourself, then you wouldn’t think it was so easy.”
He shoots me another glance, then shrugs.
“And the men’ll never agree.”
I shake my head, try to make my voice sound more confident than I feel.
“Don’t be so sure. They said they’ll look into it.”
He doesn’t even bother to respond to that, only shrugs, scratches at a patch of beard that wasn’t there before.
“Papa,” I say softly.
“I don’t think you’re cut out for this, Toni my dear,” he says slowly, his gaze on something behind me.
“Papa,” I say, louder this time.
I turn, follow his gaze to the door.
“But you’re not going to listen to me, are you?” he says, his gaze not shifting, almost as if he’s talking to the door instead.
“No,” I say softly.
I put my hand on his shoulder, and he shrugs me off.
“Papa, I’ve been thinking about Mama. About what happened to her. About her death.”
He jerks, as if I’ve struck him.
“I think you should go.”
His voice is hard and cold.
I stare at him. It doesn’t seem possible that words so crisp with hate could have come from the disheveled old crumple of a man before me.
“What happened?” I say, my own voice growing cold, “Do you know what happened?”
Next thing I know his icy grip is around my hand, and his crackled lips are twisted in a snarl, “Why don’t you wait until I’m dead before you hate me, Toni darling?”
I wrench my hand free, and he sneers, “You won’t have to wait long.”
I stand there for a minute, staring at him, at the man I’ve known all my life, at the stranger I still hardly know now. He glares on back at me, as if I’m the enemy.
“Don’t say that,” I say.
He shrugs, directs his glare back over my shoulder to the door, addresses it, “You should go now.”
I stand there, uncertain: not wanting to go, yet not wanting to stay.
A hundred questions rise to my lips, yet all fall in the open air of his stare.
“You’re going to try to change things, aren’t you?” he asks finally.
“I’m sorry Papa, but I have to. It isn’t right.”
He stares ahead at the door, as if he hadn’t heard me.
“It isn’t right, Papa, and you know it.”
He doesn’t answer for another minute, keeps staring at the door. When he finally does speak, his words are a condemnation, “I think you should go now.”
I leave.
Outside the room, Carlos is waiting for me.
I stare at him for a second. It’s strange seeing him here, on the forbidden floor like this. After what just happened with Papa, seeing him feels like an extension of the nightmare.
“How much did you hear?” I ask him.
His eyes are glittering like the cobra inside.
“You know it’s not going to work,” he snarls.
“What’s not going to work?”
“Changing things. The business. It’s nice and noble for you to go all Superwoman and try to save everyone and “do the right thing,” but it’s not realistic.”
“Other people have done it,” I say.
Carlos shakes his head, his mouth still twisted into a snarl.
“It’s not going to work. You’re not going to be able to pull it off. All you’re going to do is let the Rebel Saints topple us, not to mention alienate most of our lieutenants.”
He steps in front of me, repeats, “You’re not going to be able to pull it off.”
I stride around him, to the stairs.
At the top step, I turn and, our glares boring into each other, say, “Just watch me, Carlos. Just watch me.”
###
I head straight to the basement, to the little den that’s always been my own.
As I approach my usual armchair, Jane jumps down eagerly, grinning at me.
Yes, she would approve of what I’m trying to do.
I sigh as I pat her.
That still doesn’t mean it’s going to work for sure. Though whether it’s a sure thing or not, I still have to try.
My laptop’s already on the side table; I pick it up and get to work.
All I need is Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol 3. playing and Google and I’m good to go.
I search “wind power mafia” and scan through pages about using wind farms for laundering money, threatening landowners into wind farms that destroy the land, wind farms that aren’t even real.
I lean over to pet Jane, who’s settled at my feet. She looks up at me with grateful happy eyes.
As I pet her, I try to get her enthusiasm for myself. But it’s no use. Jane is good and my family is bad. Even my friends are bad; that’s why I haven’t contacted any of them since Papa got sick and I had to take over and hide out here.
I think of them: Anna, Siobhan, Lucy – all family friends. Have they known all this time too?
And this whole wind power thing looks like it’s no good either, at least not for my kind of people.
Mid-pet, my hand freezes on Jane’s soft gray head.
That’s exactly it – the problem. Not what we do, but how we do it.
We can do wind power right, the proper, legal way. There are other people doing it, so why not us?
I search “how to make money wind power Canada,” and I hit gold. I read about how farmers in Ontario earn more per wind turbine than those in Quebec. I read about how you can earn $5,000-$10,000 per turbine. I read about how we could do it, how we have a chance.
My phone beeps with a message from Gabriel, but I get up without looking at it.
I throw on my coat and glasses, race out to my car.
Gabriel can wait. But this? I have to do this now.
I drive straight to the office, let the boy take my car and stride into the building without breaking pace, without even glancing at Nelson Mandela. I don’t take Jane.
I’m being driven on by an urge, a need, and I can’t stop. I can’t even slow down. Not until I’ve done what I have to.
Lila isn’t at the front desk, but it doesn’t matter.
I knock on Clarence’s door. It responds with giggles.
I barge in.
Lila’s sitting on Clarence’s desk, her fuchsia lips smirking as he pokes her rouged cheeks with his pen.
Both turn to me, irritation flaring in their faces.
“Meeting time,” I tell Clarence, “Now.”
And then I stride out of the room before either of them can reply.