The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  I’m stopped on my way to the parking lot by Josh, who’s apparently hung around through the show. The back of the Shakespeare Theatre opens onto a narrow alley, which is flanked by tall buildings on either side. To get to the parking lot, I have to walk down the alley, which is usually pretty dark at night. So when Josh jumps out at me in the alley, he nearly gives me a heart attack.

  “Josh? What are you doing here?” I say.

  He gives me a roll of bills. “I’m not going to be able to come in tomorrow to turn in my take,” he says. “I thought I’d give it to you now.”

  Which is okay, I guess. I’m a little worried about what he’s going to be doing tomorrow, so I ask.

  He says it’s a dentist appointment.

  Seriously? A dentist appointment? But I tell myself I’m paranoid. If Josh is going to turn me in, then certainly, he wouldn’t bother to give me money right now. He’d just hold onto it, or give it to the cops. For evidence or something.

  I’m just tucking away the roll of bills and sending Josh on his way, when I hear my name. “Olivia Calabrese?”

  I turn in the direction of the sound.

  She’s coming down the alley from the opposite direction of the parking lot. The cop lady who showed up at my house earlier. I can tell it’s her because I see her ponytail and her badge swinging around her neck as she walks.

  In seconds, it all comes crashing down. I’ve just been set up by Josh. He handed me the money. The cops have observed that. Now I’m going down.

  I run.

  “Wait!” the police woman yells after me. “Olivia!”

  My feet pound against the pavement. It’s dark in the alley. I can hardly see where I’m going, but I’ve walked up and down it hundreds of times. I know there’s a dumpster from one of the buildings on the left side coming up, and so I swerve to miss it.

  Behind me, I can hear the sounds of footfalls. She is running after me.

  I try to run faster. The alley doesn’t last forever. If I can get to parking lot—

  Then what? I get in my car and drive off? They’ll be able to find me if I go home.

  This is bad. This is very bad.

  I’m so caught up in thinking about this that I forget to swerve back to the left to miss the next dumpster.

  I collide with it. It smells bad, and it scrapes up my arm.

  The footsteps behind me are closer.

  I shove away from the dumpster and start running again. But I’m out of breath now, and my arm is throbbing. I know I’m not going quite as fast.

  “Olivia, I just want to talk!” yells the police woman. She is right behind me.

  I push myself to go faster. Yeah right, she wants to talk. She wants to talk to me while she’s arresting me. I know how these things go.

  “Olivia!” Her hand brushes my back.

  It’s just enough pressure to make me stumble.

  I fight for balance, but I lose, and I go sprawling all over the pavement of the alley. I’ve got more scrapes now. My hands. My knee. They smart in pain.

  But it’s too late now. She’s standing over me. She caught me.

  She’s barely out of breath, but I’m gasping like a steam engine. I try to get to my feet. Maybe I can make a break for it.

  “I told you that you weren’t in trouble,” she says. “Why are you so skittish?”

  I stand up, brushing myself off. Between wheezes, I say, “You trying to say you’re not going to arrest me?”

  “For what?”

  I’m not such an idiot that I’m going to give that information to her. I plant my hands on my hips, trying to steady my breathing. “So what do you want then?”

  “My name’s Donna Fitzpatrick,” she says. “I want to talk to you about your mother.”

  I feel wary. I don’t know how to respond. Instead, I get insulting. I think I’m just trying to throw her off-balance so that we’re both on equal footing. “A mick, huh? Funny, you don’t look Irish.”

  “Yeah, well, my mother’s a wop,” she says. “We going to trade racial slurs all night?”

  She’s not trying to arrest me. If she were, she would have done it by now. Maybe she does just want to tell me about my mother. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “Let’s call it a personal stake, okay?” she says.

  I’m not sure I like that. It’s pretty vague.

  She keeps talking. “What I said before about things in your family staying in your family without police interference is just a fact. I realize that. So if I want anything done about it, I’ve got to find someone on the inside who might think it’s a problem. I don’t know a lot about you yet, Olivia. But when I started thinking about Gianna Calabrese last night, I did some digging. And you seem unconventional for a gangster.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Spare me. I don’t need to hear denials. None of this is on the record, okay? I’m not here. You’re not here. We’re not having this conversation. You can probably guess what might happen to me if my superiors found out I was doing this.”

  Wait. She’s taking risks to talk to me? Why? “What do you want to tell me?” I begin to grudgingly trust this woman. I’ve already respected her in a way, because I felt a kind of kinship between us. I’m ready to hear what she has to say.

  “Your mother knew things. There’s a file on her, but it’s disappeared.” She looks at me pointedly. She does know. How could she know? “That file, however, doesn’t tell everything that went on. That file leaves some things out. Your mother came to us because she knew something about the way your family was conducting business. Something that was different than the way other jettatori families do it.”

  All families are a little different, but for the most part, people do things the same. Except for what I’m doing with Brice, I guess, which is a little out of the ordinary. “What do you mean?”

  “It has to do with the berserker virus. Something in the way your family does things makes the virus behave differently.”

  “How?”

  She sighs. “I don’t know. And if your mother knew, she didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t have the chance.”

  “Because she died.”

  “Maybe,” says Fitzpatrick. “Maybe she did die. She fell off the face of the planet, that’s for sure. But where’s her death certificate? None of it makes sense.” She sighs. “I meant what I said about Joey Ercalono. Death was too good for him. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes I meet people in your line of work who are...moral. Who aren’t doing what they’re doing just to make money no matter who it hurts. I like to think those people are on the same side as I am, no matter what the law says.”

  Moral? Is she saying that she thinks I’m a moral person? I’m not sure if I am.

  “I’ve heard that the charms you sell don’t have the virus in them,” she says.

  “I’m not selling—”

  She holds up her hand. “Right, right. You may not know this, but a big reason that the selling of magic charms was outlawed in the first place was because of the berserker virus. If there’s no virus, there’s no crime. At least to my way of thinking.” She shrugs. “I might not be able to bust your family and stop them from selling that mutated strain of the berserker virus. Hell, we’ve got Lucio in jail, and it makes no difference, does it? But if you found out something was going on, something that might have hurt your mother... Well, let’s just say the important thing to me isn’t busting criminals, it’s stopping crime, okay? I’m hoping talking to you makes a difference.”

  And then she’s gone. But she’s left me with more questions than answers. I don’t know anything else more about my mother, except that she may still be alive. And what Fitzpatrick has said to me doesn’t settle well. She implied I’d stop my family from doing something wrong if I found out about it. Because she thinks I care about the right thing to do. But to me, the right thing to do has always been to protect my family. First and foremost, above all else, I’ve believed that. If she’s as
king me to betray my father—

  Like my mother did.

  Why? Because of a different berserker virus? None of this makes sense. The virus is an unfortunate side effect. A downside to the way we do business. It’s not a good thing. It’s the kind of thing that makes it hard to sell our product and makes our customers dwindle. There’s no solid reason for making the virus behave differently or for messing with the virus in any way shape or form. I can’t see why my family would do that. I’ve got to find out what’s different.

  But as I start back for my car, cradling my skinned up hands and still lost in thought, a dark figure streaks up the alley from the parking lot and tackles me.

   

  Chapter Seven

  I land on my back with someone’s heavy weight over me. My body feels painfully jolted. I don’t moan, even though I want to. I smell the breath of my attacker, a mix of alcohol and garlic. Then I recognize him. Vincent.

  Has he heard my conversation with the cop? Is that why he knocked me over? Because he thinks I’m betraying the family? “Were you listening to me?” I say.

  “Shut up, Olivia. I couldn’t care less what tricks you turn in this alley,” he says. His voice is a little slurred. He’s been drinking a good bit, I think. And it doesn’t sound like this is about my conversation with the cop. “I’m here to let you know that you’re no match for me.”

  Great. I push at him. He’s heavy, and he smells bad. “Get off me, Vincent.”

  He laughs. He seizes my ponytail, wrenching my head to the side, and pulls it so that my neck is strained. It hurts.

  I scrabble at his face, this time trying to hurt him back. This isn’t funny. “Let me go, Vincent.”

  “You think you can outsell me and take my position in the family, don’t you?” he says. “But you’re just a girl. You’re nothing but a weak little girl.” Abruptly, he shifts his hand from my ponytail so that it’s sprawled over the side of my face. Then he grinds the other side of my face into the pavement.

  The rough surface bites into my skin. I cry out.

  “Weak,” Vincent says again. His hand is on my ponytail again. He yanks on it once more, pulling me to my feet.

  I think he has pulled hairs out of my scalp. The pain is excruciating. “Stop it, Vincent. You’re my cousin.” It’s all I can think of to say.

  Vincent drives a fist into my stomach.

  I double over, my hands going to my belly. Inside, my guts and ribs are screaming in pain.

  He punches me again. This time he punches my face.

  I pull a hand away from my stomach to my cheekbone. God. It hurts.

  He shoves me, and I fall onto my backside, wincing.

  He kicks me. He’s wearing boots. The tread tears at my skin.

  I don’t know what to do. I curl into a ball, trying to protect the soft parts of myself, my breasts and belly, from his blows.

  He keeps kicking me. He kicks me and calls me names.

  I tuck my head inside my arms. I barely register the torrent of “bitches” and “cunts” that are flowing out of his mouth. I just try to hold on while his feet make impact over and over again.

  But I don’t cry. I refuse to cry.

  Eventually, he’s done. I hear him retreat down the alley. It’s quiet.

  I just lie there for a while. I’m too shocked to know what to do. Finally, I manage to get up. Everything hurts. My bones ache. My face is bleeding. So are my arms and legs. The cuts sting as I try move. It’s an effort just to stand. I spit, and there’s blood in my mouth. Vincent’s really done a number on me.

  I feel for the wall of a building behind me and sag against it.

  There are voices in the alley.

  “You should talk to him,” says a female voice. “I know he’s looking for someone about your type. Young handsome guy. You might be right for the role.” It’s probably one of the actresses from the play. I cut out pretty quick tonight. Sometimes people linger backstage before they leave.

  “Well, I’ve still got a few weeks of this play left,” says another voice. Male. “Would that interfere?” I recognize it then. It’s Brice. Brice talking to an actress who’s calling him handsome. Well, it is what I told him to do, isn’t it?

  I don’t want Brice to see me like this. But I don’t think I can move fast enough. I rest against the wall, hoping that I’ll just fade into the shadows. That he’ll just walk by me without noticing.

  “I don’t think the actual rehearsals start for a few weeks. He hasn’t even started official auditions. But you’ve got a headshot and resume, right?”

  “Yeah,” says Brice. “Nothing too impressive on it, though.” They sound closer.

  “I’ll talk to him. Give it to me and I’ll pass it along. You really are talented, you know. And you’ve got a face. Having a face is important. It’s a leg up in this business,” the actress says. I wonder if she’s the one who plays Lady Macbeth. Her name is Dana or something. She’s got a face. She’s absolutely gorgeous. But professional actors always are.

  I can see them materialize out of the darkness. It’s that Dana chick all right. Brice is shadowed, but I can see that he’s smiling at her. I wonder if he’s got that bright-eyed look he gets sometimes. When he’s excited. I like that look.

  They are paying attention to each other, so they probably won’t see me. I try not to move.

  But Brice says, “Hey, who is that?”

  I don’t say anything. I’m afraid if I try to speak, my voice will come out like an agonized scream.

  “Olivia?” Brice and Dana both stop and stare at me.

  Dana takes a step forward. “Sweetie, what happened?”

  I manage to shake my head. “I’m fine.” My voice does sound like I’m in pain. I curse it.

  Brice is beside me now. His arms are around me. He is helping me away from the wall. “Olivia, my God. You’re...”

  “Should we call the cops or something?” says Dana.

  “I’ll take care of it,” says Brice. “I’ve got her. You go ahead.”

  Dana already has her phone out. “I can’t leave her like this.”

  “I’m fine,” I insist. “No cops.”

  “She’s a Calabrese,” Brice says.

  A flicker of recognition goes across Dana’s face. She hesitates, phone in hand. Then she puts it back in her purse. “I don’t think it’s a great idea to get mixed up with this kind of thing, Brice.”

  “I’ve got her,” Brice says again. And it feels good to lean against him. To have him close, supporting me.