by Paula Cox
“No, Quinn. It’s not.” The car door slams shut with a sound like thunder. Maya takes a few steps up towards the enormous porch, stops, faces me again, and comes back to the car, planting her elbows on the frame of the open window. “Kirill’t you ever talk to me about this ever again. We’ve never had this conversation, you understand?”
She turns around before I’ve got a chance to say anything and whisks up to the porch. Then the door of the black BMW opens and a man gets out, tall and lanky, with a long blue coat that goes down to his knees and a sweep of feathery-light, blonde hair combed all to one side. He doesn’t turn around when he climbs the steps, and I don’t have a chance to see his face. Then, Maya embraces him for a second, and they walk up the steps together and disappear into the house like two happy newlyweds.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and open the door. Then I close it right back again. It’s obvious enough she knows the guy. There isn’t any need to go chasing after them. And some of her spiel has sunk in, enough that I can understand if she wants a few moments privacy. Hell, I couldn’t imagine what it’d be like to have a mobster watching over me all the time.
The man already keeps all his birds cooped up in his house like he’s running his own private zoo. He’s probably got Maya stuck right in the middle of all that, like she’s his prize pig or something. It doesn’t help either that she’s short as a runt and helpless as a newborn.
More cloud mash overhead. Thunder is rolling in, heavy but in the wet, thick sense of thunder. The rain patters a few times against my windshield, but these are just the scouts. A few seconds later the clouds open up, and the next thing I know, the Mercedes and I are swimming in a hail-fire of cold rain pellets. That’s a thing about these New England storms. They come down hard and heavy for about ten minutes, throwing nothing but punches, but any more time than that and the only reminder of a storm you’ll have is the smell in the air and the wet smear near the gutters.
Early Talking Heads are on the radio, but I turn it down so that I can hear the storm better. Maya’s on my mind, but weird as it is to say it, not the same Maya I started out the day with. Ditzy, small, and Barbie-like, sure. But not just that. The more I think about it, the more I see that image being replaced by another. Not the spoilt brat that I met the first day or the one I was towing around the whole morning buying a whole new wardrobe she’d probably never have enough events to wear to. Not just the spoilt brat. Daddy’s trophy. His pride and joy. His property. Christ. She’s practically a grown woman, and here she is sneaking around like a freshman scared stiff she’s gonna get caught and grounded by her parents. That was no kind of situation for a girl her age to be in.
Something else I’m thinking, too. All those guys that surrounded her at the shopping malls… What the hell kind of guy problems is she experiencing in that she needs to surround herself with an army to keep them away? Plus me to protect her as well?
The rain goes on pounding for another ten-twenty minutes. Then, it just stops. Like someone shut off the power. Simple and quick. The clouds unstick themselves and from over the gable of one of these Old Dutch houses the sun peeks through with heavy, late afternoon light the color of pages from old books, burnt, and dense.
I spend so much time watching the sun I don’t even hear the tap on the window. “You gonna let me in?” Maya is holding her designer coat in both arms instead of wearing it for some reason. There are goosebumps all over her shoulders.
I start the engine and crank the heater and get out to open her door. She slides in without a word, keeping her eyes locked in front of her like she’s watching a tiny, private T.V.
“Where to?”
“Home.” It’s like a worm has edged down her throat and sucked all the power out of her voice. She sounds lifeless, weak and tired. What the hell went on inside that apartment?
I consider asking her, but common sense tells me that’d be a terrible idea and I shut my mouth. We pull out of the Sunrise Apartments Complex, swing a left and chase the shore of the gray-slate bay, away from the sun. Maya makes a quiet, choking sound and begins to breathe harder. I think I hear a sob, but I don’t break eye contact with the road.
There’s no mistaking the second sob. Maya doesn’t even try to hide it, just scrubs away at her eyes like she has shards of glass in them. She doesn’t say she’s fine, like every other girl who has ever cried in front of me. She’s the kind of girl who’ll deceive everyone else, but not herself. Finally. Something about Maya Butler that seems genuine.
Chapter 6
“Hello?’
“Mr. Tolliver. I’ve woken you?”
“No,” I lie, throwing off the covers and looking at the alarm. Who the hell makes business calls at six in the morning?
“There’s an old friend of mine here at the estate I’d like you to meet. How soon can you be here? I understand of course if it’s an inconvenience.”
“None at all. Give me twenty.” I cup the phone against my shoulder blade and buckle on my jeans before sliding my feet into the boots by the bed. Then, I take the glock from the bedside table and tuck it into my belt before throwing on my coat.
“Take your time,” says the old mobster, his voice husky and dry. I hear another voice in the background, talking over a few strains of what sounds like Italian opera. Then the squawk of a parrot. “We’ll be here awhile, Mr. Tolliver. Feel no need to rush on our account.”
“Okay.”
The line goes dead. I slip my phone back into my pocket and stow away my hotel key card—Astoria room 237. Theo’s rigged me up at this place as it’s not far from his estate, so I don’t have to beat it across town from the docks every time he shouts my name. Which means I’m on call 24/7. There are worse things, though. I’d sooner live this way than in the dung heaps where most of the other guys are staying.
***
Eighteen minutes later and I find myself in a scene a whole lot like the one from before, down to the position Andrei and Ikov stand in when I walk inside the estate.
“How’s business?” I give them a nod, which is not returned. Andrei knuckles Theo’s door a couple of times, leans in and whispers something to his partner I don’t catch. Ikov nods, crosses his arms and makes a ‘harumph’ of a laugh I’m not sure what to do with.
Theo and whoever he’s with in the office are laughing like devils, and I’m made to wait outside again, which truth be told I don’t really mind. The butler comes up, and when I tell him I’ll have an orange juice, he scoffs. A real, pretentious and exaggerated scoff, with the eyes turning up and the mouth opening just a little.
Kit Holcomb—the shaky, thin kid—he’s here too and talking in whispers to another guy I’ve never seen before. The guy is a tall type with pale skin, thin arms, and an expensive coat. He shoots me a glare but says nothing.
Ten minutes I wait, and I’m on my second orange juice when Theo calls me in. The butler directs me to the same stunted wooden dwarf chair I sat in before.
As usual the room’s baking. Not a minute after I step inside the place I can feel the sweat spots forming themselves on my back. I unzip my coat but don’t take it off—I don’t want Theo to see the gun even if chances are he probably doesn’t give a damn I’ve brought it with me. A guy like that knows no one would be stupid enough to try and make a move on him in his own home.
The top layer of the room is covered in expensive-smelling clouds of cigar smoke, but I can see through it, to all the empty birdcages. I can just imagine a $100,000 worth of foreign parakeets turning tail and choking on the clouds.
“So good of you to come, Mr. Tolliver.” Theo’s eyes go all grandfatherly wrinkly as he smiles up at me. “Would have been a shame to miss you while my friends are still in town.”
I’ve got the feeling I’m still not supposed to say anything yet and that there are still introductions he wants to make, so I stay silent and take the rickety seat. The butler whisks out and reappears seconds later with three new glasses filled with an eyeball of ice and three fingers of Sco
tch. It’s not even seven a.m., and this is how we’re starting the day.
“You haven’t made Mr. Kroll’s acquaintance yet, have you?”
“No.” I take a sip. It’s only then I turn away from Theo and look at the other guy in the room with us. He’s sitting immediately to Theo’s left—an ancient type with a shriveled granny face, hair like lint, a stuffy gray three-piece, and a cane set neatly across his lap. Looks like a regular cane to me but part of me can’t help but think that if the man were to give the end a twist, a sword would pop out.
“Mattias, my associate,” Theo says. Mattias Kroll turns his trembling face to mine and raises his scotch in salute, conveying whatever words of introduction he’d say with the spell of his eyes.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, a little confused. I’ve definitely heard this name before, even if I can’t remember where it was.
“We’ve been friends since childhood-” Theo relights his cigar. “-in New York City. My father was a tailor. Mattias’s father worked as a shoe shiner. You couldn’t imagine two men more dissimilar. The elder Kroll was very genteel. He played the violin and never touched a drop of alcohol. My father died when I was fourteen from cirrhosis of the liver. He was forty-three. I was amazed he made it that far. They never met, but I can imagine they would have carved each other up if they had. The Irish and the Italians were neck-deep in territory wars. Of course, this was no surprise, not in in 1952, or was it ‘53?” He shrugs helplessly at Mattias. “It all seems so long ago. And still so recent. That’s the strange part about getting old. I still haven’t decided if everything changes, or nothing at all.”
“I know you,” I say to Mattias Kroll. “I know your name. You’re the head of the Ceallaighs.”
Mattias raises his glass again, again saluting me. “Kee-lay,” he corrects my pronunciation. “We’ve made our mark in these parts.” There’s a trace of brogue in his accent. Probably something he picked up from his father that has stuck around for all these years.
“So you guys aren’t kidding around when you say everything’s changed.”
“You’d have come here fifteen years ago you wouldn’t have recognized the place. Every week or so another man was found tangled up in the nets. No fingers. Toes chewed off. Teeth decayed. I’m sure most of us still sleep with a gun beneath the pillow.” He laughs.
“And you lost the spark and decided to call it a day?”
“We were doubling our losses,” Mattias says. “And then there was the competition. Sicilians. Greeks. Russians. Other Irish. Everyone trying to show how much tougher he is than the other guy. It was anarchy. We were all desperate for allies, but no one wanted to partner up. Afraid of looking weak. In some ways, it was stronger than being afraid of dying. Then it all changed.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that,” Mattias repeats.
“Families merge all the time,” Theo adds, a little testy. “No one got tired.”
I drink a finger’s worth of Scotch. It slips down into the pit of my stomach and sits there like a ball of lead. Believe it or not but it’s tough sitting in a room with a couple of grandpas and listening as they go on about the good old days of killing each other. You’d think just from hearing them talk and seeing them joke around with each other they might just as easily come from the same family.
So I sit here for a while and suck down the scotch and listen to the two mobsters going on about the older days when the door is thrown open and Maya bursts inside. She’s wearing this pink dress with a jumpy skirt on it that makes her look like she’s the petal-half of a spring tulip, and has little, twisting rings of hair she probably spent an hour on earlier that morning.
“My dear.” Theo holds his arms out and embraces her hug. She rotates, giving one to Mattias, and then waves at me. Weird how Theo was only just talking about how things change. Comparing the girl in the room with us today to the one I drove along the coastline yesterday is like comparing salad to beef. And then I’m thinking, how in the hell could I have thought of her as a ‘young woman’ when now she doesn’t look any older than fifteen?
“Did you sleep well?’
“Par-fait.” She smiles, with glittering white teeth. “Can I feed Michelangelo? I promise he won’t bite my fingers off.”
“Not too much, now.” Theo smiles. Maya beams again, indiscriminately tuning her teeth on her father, Mattias, and me. A second later she’s out the door, leaving the whole room smelling like her. Like juicy flowers.
“What a dear she is,” Mattias says admiringly. “What a charming child!”
Just the kind of thing a grandpa would say. The people in Maya’s life were comprised solely of the very old and the very young, which included herself.
“She is,” Theo says, putting his cigar down in the ashtray. “An absolute dear.”
Both men go quiet. Then, Mattias leans in towards me like he’s sharing a secret.
“That is a relationship to be envied,” he says. “Of course, she loves him more than life itself. Theo has done nothing but care for that child with everything he possessed, all her life. It’s no wonder at all she feels so affectionately towards him. My son, alas, does not feel the least bit of warmth towards me.”
“My dear friend,” Theo interrupts. “I don’t think it’s right at all to say that. Not right at all.”
“No?” Mattias cocks an eyebrow at Theo and then turns back to me. “But I would. I most certainly would. See, the boy has everything he’s ever wanted. Never had to work a day in his life. Never had to experience what his father or grandfather experienced. And I’ve loved that boy as well as I could, since the day he was born. He’s ungrateful, you see. And I’ve spoiled him.” Mattias has the tone of someone who has just admitted to breaking a diet and doesn’t give a damn what you think about it. “He’s spoiled,” he says again, “that’s my fault. Completely my fault. But what can be done now? The boy’s twenty-seven, or twenty-eight: I’ve forgotten which. He ought to be taking care of himself. He ought to be married. Now I loan him some sums of money each week, and if I don’t, I fear I’ll wake up one morning and find him in the obituaries. He’s here now, in the hall.” Mattias finishes the Scotch-soaked water rolling around in his tumbler. I recall the tall, thin guy in the expensive coat. He did look an awful lot like his father—the same thin hair, jawline, and sharp blue eyes as cold as two hunks of ice.
“Oren’s a fine young man,” Theo says with a note of finality and the same false ring of praise that came with his first remark. “My dear friend Mattias’s a crabby old grandfather. Precisely like myself—the reason we’ve managed to get along so merrily with one another these past few years. Kirill’t trust him to breathe a word of truth if he’s got a breath left in him. My Maya and he used to know each other very well. But that was ages ago. Everything that seems worth remembering happened ages ago I feel.”
Theo wheels himself out from behind the desk, and I get the idea that we’re all supposed to exit with him, like Mattias’s doing already. He’s still got that towel wrapped on his lap, and I try my best not to consider the fact that if he’s concealing a twelve gauge shotgun beneath the fabric, at the angle he’s sitting in, it wouldn’t take more than a quarter of a second for him to blow my brains out.
“I’m going to take a slight rest before my breakfast,” Theo announces. “You’re welcome to share my table if you wish, although I believe, at some point, my daughter has plans for you. No doubt you’ve noticed she’s something of a social butterfly—one of the many skills that I lack.”
“You don’t like talking with people?”
“No,” Theo says frankly. “I leave that to my daughter. And to my associates.”
“Sounds like everyone has their work cut out for them.”
“People management—person management—Mr. Tolliver is the single most valuable skill in the world. Get to live as long as I have, and you’ll learn it thoroughly.”
“I certainly hope so,” I say and follow the two out, back in
to the main hall.
Chapter 7
So here we go. Days start to pass and those days turn into weeks, and before long it’s been a month since I first set eyes on Maya Butler. Since I first started chaperoning her around Portsmouth. Since I had my first drink in Theo Butler’s boiling office. Since I first set eyes on his collection of prized pigeons and his posse of don’t-fuck-with-us bodyguards. A month full of firsts and no end to them in sight.
Theo had mentioned that my job would be something along the lines of glorified taxi driver and he was right about that. The only problem is that he forgot to mention that glorified taxi driver was just one of the jobs. He might just as well have said glorified elementary school teacher or therapist or bouncer or policeman. So, the guy’s tight-lipped. That’s nothing new for a mobster.
Kirill’t know how I could have thought before I started this job that a lot of it would be just me sitting around reading back orders of popular magazines and sizing up coats to see if they concealed weapons. Trailing behind Maya Butler is like trailing behind a prisoner who hasn’t seen the light of day in twenty years.