Tia Marta moves around in the kitchen, close enough to hear your words, but you can’t stop crying and the boy won’t stop crying and you can’t stop saying, “Rodolpho! His name was Rodolpho! My father’s name was Marco and my mother’s was Maritza and I am Jesus Salvador Umberto Luis Diaz! I am here, Rodolpho! I am Jesus Salvador Umberto Luis Diaz! I am Jesus Salvador Umberto Luis Diaz!”
The lights blaze on. Tia Marta clacks down the stairs carrying the silver tray. The door swings, slams and clicks behind her. The boy is a slight kid with a bowl haircut. He looks surprised at your naked body, or maybe it’s the criss-crossed scars that shock him more.
“Boys, boys, boys! There has been a fracture of decorum in the Sir’s house.”
Tia Marta puts the tray of food on the little table and, with an expansive gesture and a cunning smile, she invites the little boy to eat the food. Then she turns to you and her smile fades to a thin, hard line. “A fracture deserves a fracture, don’t you agree, boy?”
“I am Jesus Salvador Umberto Luiz Diaz.”
“I heard those words. I thought we’d beaten them out of you. I thought you were grateful.”
You test the forbidden word: “No.”
“What did you say to me? Aren’t you still my little boy?”
“No.”
She comes at you, nails slashing for your eyes, clawing for your throat.
You leap back in fear and try to run. The first strike isn’t the cut of her nails or a blazing slap but a hard thrust to your jaw with the heel of her hand that sends you reeling.
“Don’t worry, Jesus! I’m going to beat that name out of you and you will be grateful again. I’ll squeeze you like a pimple. I put you down so hard you won’t even remember your name.” She swings at you again and you feel the wind of her dangerous arc past your eyes. “And I’m doing it all for love. Of all the playthings the Sir has given me, you have survived the longest and I’m not done with you yet! You aren’t a man yet. You’ve got a few miles left in you. I want more! Only when I decide you’ve earned it, do you get plastic for the last time.”
You duck under her next swing, infuriating her.
“Remember, this isn’t a beating, little boy! I’m training you!”
The little kid cowers in a corner, covering his face with his hands. His cheeks are wet. He’s praying, but you’ve already tried that so many times, any hope and power your prayers might have had is drained.
You need a weapon. The plastic cups and the paper plate Tia Marta brought down here are useless, but the silver tray has weight. She follows your gaze and lunges to stop you. You avoid her, but not for long. Her arms come around your neck from behind and you know what comes next. Black spots. Later you’ll wake up, naked and staked down. The torture will begin.
She’s choking you out, but your left hand fumbles for the tray. You fumble. You reach. You miss. She’s taller and stronger and outweighs you by at least forty pounds. Your hands reach for her arms but she’s wrapped around your throat, tightening and squeezing like a python. Her hands are fists so you can’t grab at her fingers to try to pry her off. You’ve imagined gouging out her eyes a thousand times, but now you’re flailing and failing.
You’re out of air.
You kick at the tray table, hoping to pop the silver tray up into your hands. Instead, you only succeed in kicking the tray away from you farther. You’ve risked everything and lost.
Tia Marta is laughing in your ear. It’s a cruel sound, like there’s metal in her throat. Despite all the anatomical similarities with which you’re familiar from the vast amount of sadistic pornography she’s shown you, you suspect Tia Marta is not human.
“I’m going to make it last, boy!”
You’re losing the world. The black curtain is coming down and when the curtain comes up again and you reluctantly surface into the light, the physics of the world will end. The earth will rotate slower, almost to a stop, as Tia Marta explores the nerves of your skin in exquisite detail. “Nociceptors,” she calls them. “The pain nerves. Even more fun than the nerves we use for pleasure.”
Time will slow as the torture begins. She might take so long, all the clocks on the planet will stop.
“Tómelo!” Take it!
The little boy slides the cool silver tray into your sweating palms. You’re so weak without air you almost drop it, but something more is still left. Your hands are rigid claws. You slam the tray behind your head in blind desperation.
The edge of the heavy tray slams into Tia Marta’s face. She won’t let go, not yet. And surprise! That is a good thing. You twist your chin to try to pry under the blade of her forearm. You slam the heavy tray into her face again and you suck in air through your nose even as you sink your teeth into the meat of her arm.
She shrieks, lets go, stumbles back, but not without a ripping sound. Her eyes go huge as she stares at the gash pumping blood from her wounded arm. You spit the meat to the ground in front of her and she looks at you with…is that…glee? She is not human. Shaking, bleeding, smiling, Tia Marta reaches up with the arm that is whole and draws out one of the long, sharp pins that holds her hair up and points it at your eyes. “This will be a fine demonstration for my new playmate!”
She lunges at your eyes and you use the tray as a shield, deflecting her thrust up while you kick out as hard as you can, nailing her in the belly and doubling her over. The hairpin spins away as you knock her arm to to the side. You bring the edge of the heavy, silver tray down on her neck. It’s as if God has wished away all her bones. She is a heap on the floor. But you keep hammering at her head with the tray, punctuating each savage blow with your newfound words: “I! Am! Jesus! Salvador! Umberto! Luis! Diaz!”
You’re crying as you grab the chain around her exposed neck and strangle her to make sure she has nothing left. You can’t be sure. Tia Marta only looks human. You open your eyes when you feel the little boy’s cool, shaking hands on yours, gently pulling you away from the thing on the cold concrete.
The Bug Man was out of the house, away on business. His clothes are too big for you, but you’ll grow into them some day and when you do, fine suits by Armani will conceal your scars.
You and the boy head north and you don’t stop running until you get to Havana on the Hudson. The boy thought he’d find his parents there but he never did. Instead, the little boy becomes your new brother, Little Denny De Molina. When he gets to be Big Denny De Molina, he’ll save you. He’ll get you into The Machine after you come back from Iraq with a dishonourable discharge.
You’ve been telling yourself the man you pushed to his death in a construction pit was just a friend. You are such a good liar, you lied to yourself the most and the best. Big Denny was always more than a friend. But he’s alive and you’re afraid you’re going to have to kill him again, if he doesn’t murder you first, of course.
THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH
When you walk in, Lily’s in bed but still in her dress, the bed covers pulled up to her breasts. Lily’s drinking rum and Coke, sort of. She tips back the rum, gulping straight from the bottle and, once she’s made room, adds some soda and gives it a gentle swirl. She’ll be plastered long before it’s all Coca-Cola.
You close the door, peer out through a gap in the curtains and watch to make sure you haven’t been followed.
“You pick up a tail? You got a shadow? You worried you’re going to get whacked?”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Why? Does it sound dumb when I say it?”
You turn from the window. “I just don’t want you to jinx us.”
“Why not? I’m a moll now, aren’t I? I killed one of Jimmy Lima’s soldiers. That’s something. Lily in the library with a candlestick! Lily in the conservatory with the lead pipe! Lily in the living room with a big ol’ frying pan! Lily swings for the fences! I thought I’d never get sucked into Dad’s world. I had plans. I was going to go to Paris and study art. I was going to be one of those girls. Berets and books and Euro passes for the trai
ns and backpacking.”
You sag. “I guess you shouldn’t have gone slumming with the help then, huh?”
“Don’t be petulant, Jesus. It’s not sexy.”
You reach for the bottle but she frowns and holds it to her chest. “Mine.”
You retrieve a little plastic cup from the bathroom and unwrap it from its paper sheath. You hold out the glass and Lily pours you a couple of fingers. Your drink tastes stiff. You sit on the bed and watch her throat as she tilts her head back and swallows.
“How did you find out Pete does what he does?”
Lily shrugs. “Lots of little girls and boys don’t know or care what their parents do for a living. For a long time, all anybody in the family said was that Dad was a businessman. You get that early enough, you don’t question it. The mob’s like religion. You get in early enough, the weird doesn’t feel weird.”
“And later?”
“I wasn’t a dumb kid. I had an inkling. One time, over Christmas dinner — maybe I was twelve — Dad toasted ‘the suckers’. I asked in front of everybody who the suckers were and the men laughed and the women got quiet. Mom told me Dad’s business was trading stocks. Mom wanted to keep me in the dark forever. She kept up the pretence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny long after I found out where Christmas presents and Easter eggs come from. Friends from school told me the truth about the Easter Bunny and Santa. I didn’t tell her I knew the truth because I liked the presents. If I said I didn’t believe, the presents would have stopped.”
“When did you know Pete was connected for sure?”
“I began to get it over time. I knew Dad was important, how other guys talked to him. When he met a client in the street, they were extra nice to him, like he was their boss or a kind of celebrity or something. I started to get it watching guys like Jake. The way those young guys defer to him, like they respect him, but they fear him, too. Fear is easy to spot. It’s everywhere.”
“What did Pete say when you figured it out?”
“I’d known for a while but I had the mob talk with him when I turned sixteen. I asked him to tell me about his business.”
“He said his business wasn’t any of my business because he put food on the table. Almost ruined that sweet sixteen party.” She takes another long swallow.
Lily’s hair is mussed and hangs over half her face. Her red lipstick is smeared and uneven. She looks sexier than ever.
“Mom took me aside and told me Dad was in the gambling business, that it was technically illegal, but it wasn’t bad. It was only illegal because the government doesn’t want competition for all its own gambling and lotto schemes.”
“So you didn’t make a scene at your sweet sixteen?”
“No, I did with Daddy what I did with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I chose the presents.”
“You chose your family. That’s not so bad. I wish I had that option.”
“Is this finally the moment where we open up to each other, bare our souls and you tell me why you never want to take your clothes off to have sex?”
“I like my clothes.”
“You do take them off, right? Like to shower, I mean.”
“Of course — !”
“Chillax, Jesus. I’m only picking at you. You’re an exotic scab, you are.”
You drink. You don’t like the taste, but it’s better than talking. Why does anyone have to talk at all?
“So why don’t you want to get naked with me? Are you covering up embarrassing tattoos? From what you’ve let me see, you don’t seem to have any tattoos. I was thinking you had an ex-girlfriend’s tattoo on you somewhere and you’re worried it will piss me off.”
“Would it piss you off?”
“No. Of course not.”
Not the answer you were hoping for. “What if I have dozens of tattoos all over from my exes?”
She laughs and takes a long drink. “You? I don’t think so, Jesus. The way you are, I don’t think there are a lot of girls in your history. You’re the kind of guy who thinks he has to be in love to have sex.”
It hurts you, how true this is. Your first sexual experience wasn’t just loveless. It was hate-filled. Love and Armani are insulation from those memories. “Staying in the suit hasn’t stopped us from doing anything,” you say.
“A girl gets skin hunger, Jesus. It’s not just about getting off. It’s about the closeness, too…at least when it’s good.”
You shrug and have another drink, waiting for a new conversation thread to pull. You can feel her eyes on your neck.
“Fear is easy to spot,” she says, slurring her words. “I said that before, right?”
“Yeah. How are you doing with fear, Lily? You killed Harv. You doing okay with that?”
She jiggles the bottle at you. “I’m dealing with it. What about you? Who was the first person you killed?”
“I’m not going to talk about that.” But the mere question raises the spectre of a scream cut short and pink water in whirling blades. You push that thought away with another. “I’m more worried about the last person I killed. I thought I got Denny, but he’s still around, and probably very angry with me.”
“Okay. You thought you killed Denny but he lived. Who was before that?”
You can’t tell her you threw Panama Bob off a ledge. He’s still Uncle Bobby to her. You hold out your cup and wait for her to pour. She does and you knock this one back.
“You’re afraid,” she says. “Why can’t you tell me anything? I took a frying pan to Harv’s head. I’ve earned my bones. Did a good job of it, too. The Machine should have an equal opportunity employment policy. I could be an enforcer.”
“Yeah,” you say. “You’ve got an air about you that’s definitely Kill Bill.”
“What is it with you and movies? Start with that. I just saved your life and we’re on the run and I don’t really know what the fuck is going on, so how about you tell me? We could have a real conversation. We’ve had fun. Then I killed a guy for you. We should really move on to the next step in our relationship and have a serious discussion, don’t you think?”
You tell her you’ll solve all the problems. You tell her you’ll take care of her and she doesn’t have to worry anymore and she’ll never get any blame for Harv’s death. You tell her it’s better if she doesn’t know. You say anything you can to placate her, to shut her up and to make her stop asking you questions. And her answer is to cry, dig under the covers and hand you a newspaper.
It’s on the front page of the City section. A bomb killed Derek “Cob” Cobzaru, a Romanian mobster from Washington Heights yesterday afternoon. His two children, a boy and girl aged six and eight, were also in the car when it blew up. “I caught some of what Harv said. He said Uncle Jimmy was making up that the Romanians killed Uncle Bob. He said something about how he was trying to throw blame. Did Jimmy really make the order for Bob to die?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? What does that mean, you guess so?”
“It means I want to tell you as much or as little as it takes to keep you calm.”
She sneers.
“And to keep you out of this as much as I can. The less you know, the better for you.”
“The Romanian guy. His kids were little, Jesus. Suffer the little children. You know what this means? It’s war. The Machine is supposed to be about making money. How is a gang war going to help that? And how am I supposed to keep calm? I’ve known where Dad’s money came from since that not-so-sweet sixteen, but I never thought about anybody getting killed.”
“Things get complicated.” You’re beginning to lose the thread. How much has Lily really heard? What does she suspect? How long was Harv in her apartment before you showed up? Did they have long to talk? Did Harv say anything that points Bob’s death straight at you instead of Big Denny? Could Lily forgive you if she knew? How much longer can you keep all the lies straight? And why did you drink so much before you got lost in the lies? Is it because the truth is too heavy to carry an
d you just need to lay it down?
She looks in your eyes. “What’s your part? What exactly do you do? Tell me.”
“Mostly? I threaten people to make sure they pay up.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad, but I don’t really know, do I? You ever kill a little kid? You won’t fuck me without one of your precious suits on. What else goes on behind your eyes? How deep does the sickness go?”
You close your eyes. “I don’t kill civilians. If I show up on somebody’s doorstep coming heavy, they’re already dirty and brought it on themselves. I don’t do car bombs. I am not an indiscriminate monster who kidnaps kids. I’ve killed people. You know that. But I’m not killing anybody who’s in danger of curing cancer. They’re all lowlifes. If I show up, they’re probably already rotten.”
“So you’ve got a code. Good for you. It’s better than none. What about Dad? Has he got a code?”
“Everybody’s got a code. Pete’s got a code of silence and loyalty. He’d die for Vincent, but he knows Jimmy isn’t worth that sacrifice. And Pete would rather stick a knife in his eye than be a rat. That’s pretty standard.”
“What’s his policy on hurting people?”
“The other night when you drove me over to your Dad’s place? Pete threatened to burn my balls with cigarettes and he would have if I didn’t tell him something he wanted to hear. That’s the kind of business your father’s in. That’s where your car and your apartment and everything else comes from. That’s where studying art in Paris and Spain was going to come from.”
Lily goes gray. She sits back and drinks some more. There’s not much left to drink. It’s quiet for a long time. When she speaks again, she sounds different. She sounds like a woman who has grown older. “Thank you for telling me the truth. All this time, I thought I was so smart. I thought it was just about taking bets, like Dad just really loved sports and that was as far as it went.”
You drain your cup and hold it out again but she’s shaking too much to pour and you take the bottle from her before she can drop it and drink the last. It’s all Coca-Cola now.
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