Skin Games

by Adam Pepper

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She reached out; her hand was white with thin green veins bulging out. When we touched, she was brittle and bone dry. It had only been one day, but the deterioration of her body was rapid; she was withering before my eyes. I wanted to break into tears but wouldn’t let myself.

  “Hello.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Right as rain.”

  “Sure.”

  “How’s that girlfriend of yours?”

  “Great.”

  “I wish there was more time. I’d like to get to know her better.”

  “There will be plenty of time. You just concentrate on getting yourself better so you can come home.”

  “Sean, we both know that isn’t possible.”

  Hearing her say it out loud was the clincher. It started slowly, just a lone tear that snuck out of my left eyeball and ran down my cheek, dropping quickly to the tiles on the floor. But it was soon followed by another, and like an army of ants charging a picnic my tears multiplied. I leaned onto the bed and buried my head in her chest.

  She didn’t cry along with me. It was amazing: her strength and courage. To hold in the pain she was surely feeling to simply comfort me. To this day I’m in awe of the strength she possessed even as her body failed her.

  I gathered myself together and said, “Nicole is here now. If you want to get to know her, now is the time.”

  “I’d like that.”

  It took all I had to peel myself from her chest and get my body upright. Once I did and I walked towards the hallway, a transformation took place. I didn’t want Nicole to see me that way. I couldn’t allow myself to look weak.

  I poked my head out into the hallway and said, “Hey.”

  She was leaning against the far wall talking with Mrs. Griffin. Mr. Griffin was reading a newspaper a few feet away.

  “Hi. Are you okay?” Nicole asked.

  “Yeah. Fine. Come on in. Mom wants to get to know you better.”

  “Okay. Of course.”

  We walked back inside, and I pulled the chair out and offered it to Nicole. “Sit.”

  “No, no. You.”

  “I insist.”

  The standoff lasted a couple of seconds, but Nicole could see I wasn’t giving in. So she took the seat. I stood just to the side of her.

  My mother did her best to sit up. Nicole and I both jumped to help her, but she pushed us off and wiggled herself into a sitting position.

  “So you’re the girl who holds my son’s heart.”

  Nicole smiled and her nose wrinkled, which not only made me melt, but I think even the thick frost that surrounded my mother thawed just a little.

  “He holds mine, too,” Nicole said.

  “I can see that. You two make a beautiful couple. I’ll bet you’ll make beautiful grandchildren one day.”

  “Mom, please.”

  “I’m sorry. I know. Can’t a mother have a fantasy?”

  “Sure, Ma.”

  “Even though I won’t live to see them, I can still dream.”

  “Of course you can.”

  I looked over at Nicole. She smiled at me. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she ran out of the room horrified. But she didn’t. She hung in there, trying to reassure my mother and give a dying woman a little something to smile about.

  “You two promise to be good to one another.”

  “Of course we will,” I said.

  Nicole agreed. “We will. Don’t you worry about a thing, Mrs. O’Donnell. Sean is in good hands.”

  “What you guys have right now, this is once in a lifetime. Some people go their entire lifetime without finding it. Look into each other’s eyes.”

  We looked at each other. It was an odd feeling, wanting to smile, laugh, giggle even, at a time of sorrow and in a place where morbidity hung in the air, but as we looked at each other, we smiled.

  “Yes,” my mother whispered. “That’s nice.”

  The thrill of gazing at each other held us for a moment, and when I turned to my mother, she was asleep. For just a second, I got scared. But I could hear her breathing, and knew she was okay, for the moment anyway. I gave Nicole a kiss.

  “You should probably go home.”

  “I can stay with you as long as you like.”

  “No. You go home. We’ll have lunch tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  She got up, and just as she reached the door, I called out. “Nicole.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled, and her nose wrinkled again. “Bye.”

  She walked away, and I sat in the chair and lay with my mother for awhile.

  * *

  I wish I could tell you the next two days were easy. I wish I could tell you my mother died peacefully in her sleep at night. I wish I could tell you that.

  Truth was the next two days were among the most horrible of my life. She was in constant pain. The nurses did what they could. The morphine doses were enough so that she could nap here and there, but the naps got shorter and shorter, the pain medication having less and less effect. It was an awful thing to watch.

  But watch I did. I stayed there by her side, breaking my lunch date with Nicole. Worse perhaps, breaking my date with Don Mario. I was still holding on to Wally McGee’s payoff money. I’d square that up. The money wasn’t going anywhere, and I guess that was okay because I didn’t hear from Vinny. Of course, neither did my mother.

  Her skin turned yellow at the end. She didn’t eat a morsel for those two days. She groaned a lot, although they got lower and lower in volume as her strength faded away.

  I don’t understand how it could have happened so fast. She was sick for a few weeks, and I guess she lost some weight, but I hardly noticed. I’m not a doctor. What do I know? From start to finish, it couldn’t have been more than a month, maybe two. They tell me pancreatic cancer is an aggressive form, and sometimes there aren’t many symptoms. Maybe the tumors were growing in her body for months or even years undetected.

  The final moments were somewhat anticlimactic. She was heavily sedated. There were tubes put in her airway to help her breathe. Technically, she died of pneumonia. I was by her side. I did the best I could for her. I wish I could have done more. Sitting by her bedside, I had a lot of time to think. Time to think about priorities, and about my life and how I’d live it. I was an adult and alone in the world. I owed it to my mother to live in a way she’d be proud. No matter what blows life was to deal me, I wouldn’t let her down.

  Chapter Seventeen

  * * *

  I pulled up to the Cucina in Nicole’s BMW. It felt a little weird to drive up to Mario’s restaurant in his daughter’s BMW. A car he surely paid for. It’d probably piss him off to see it, but he was downstairs in the private dining room stuffing his face anyway.

  Scrubby wasn’t, though. He was standing at the window, sipping a Bud, eyeballing me as I got out of the car. Griff was standing next to him.

  I walked into the restaurant and nodded to them but didn’t slow my pace. Griff nodded back.

  Scrubby didn’t want to let me go so easily. “Hey,” he called. I stopped and turned towards him. “What? You’re too good to have a drink with us now.”

  An awkward puff of air came out of my mouth, half laugh, half sigh. “Nah. I just have a meeting with Mario is all.”

  “Oh, a meeting with Mario. Excuse me.” He stepped up to the bar where a shot was waiting for him. He tilted back his neck and threw the gold tequila down his gullet. Then he shook it off.

  I stood still.

  Scrubby turned back and said, “You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re dismissed.” He waved at Kim behind the bar, “Refill.”

  I walked towards the staircase, then descended into the dimly lit hallway. The dining room was quiet, as usual. Mario was in his usual seat, a plate of cold antipasto in front of him. Gucci Mike sat across the table. When he saw me approaching, Gucci Mike said somethin
g quietly to Mario and then got up just as I got to the table. He didn’t say anything to me but grunted and gestured to the seat he was vacating.

  I sat down in the seat.

  Mario looked somber. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”

  I nodded and my lips kind of curled. I didn’t mean to mumble, but did anyway as I said, “Thank you.”

  “It’s tough losing a loved one. I’ve been there. I know.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sure you have.”

  “I’m not incapable of feeling, Shamrock.”

  “I’m sure you aren’t.” I reached into my pocket for Wally McGee’s cash, still rubber banded and neatly folded. I put it on the table. “I appreciate your patience on this. I’m sure you wanted this money sooner.”

  He nodded and his nostrils whistled. “Normally, that’d be true. I expect to be paid immediately. I don’t make many exceptions.”

  “I appreciate you making one here.”

  He didn’t reach for the money. He seemed to be deep in thought, his lungs continued to sing out as the room was silent.

  “You keep that money, Shamrock.”

  “Sir? Are you sure?”

  “Use that to bury your mother. Funerals aren’t cheap, you know. Trust me. I’ve paid for more than my share and they cost.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course they do. But I can’t accept.”

  “I insist. But you’ll earn it.”

  “How?”

  “First, let’s talk about McGee.”

  “Okay.”

  “You took Griff with you.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll pay him out of my end. You don’t have to worry about him.”

  “Money’s not the issue here. Griff works for my nephew now.”

  “Did Scrubby make a beef?”

  “Griff belongs to Mike now. If you want to use him for a job, you have to clear it with him first. You understand?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. It was my fault. I should have gone through the proper channels.”

  “It’s a disrespect to my nephew.”

  “My fault. Totally my fault.”

  “I know you won’t let it happen again.”

  “Of course not, sir. Never again.”

  “Good. I have another job for you. I see you’re a natural at this stuff. Got McGee to fess up without a hassle. No bloodshed. Not so much as a punch thrown. A ballbreaking hump like McGee. That’s impressive.”

  “Beginner’s luck.”

  “I need you to pay a visit to another late payer.”

  “Who?”

  “307 LaFayette Street, Apartment 1B. It’ll be a piece of cake. In and out in no time.”

  I knew the neighborhood. It was a supermarket for junkies, one-stop shopping. All you needed in a two-block radius. Dope, coke, weed, you name it.

  “Okay. I’ll get your money.”

  “Good.” Mario put his hand on mine. “You’re a good kid, Shamrock.”

  I took McGee’s money off the table, put it in my pocket, then I got up and headed upstairs.

  Vinny Macho and Tommy Guns had joined Scrubby and Griff at the bar, and the four of them were making quite a ruckus as I passed. Scrubby was pissed off that the Lakers didn’t cover last night, and Tommy Guns was saying only assholes lay wood with the Lakers.

  “Smart money is always on the underdog,” Tommy said as he laughed his ass off and slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. “I’ll get the drink, you broke ass bitch.”

  Scrubby shot me a sideways glare. Griff pretended not to see me. I could’ve used Griff to back me up on the job Mario had just given me, but Scrubby wasn’t gonna okay it. I kept walking on a straight line out of the Cucina and into the BMW.

  * *

  It was pitch dark by the time I got up to Lafayette Street. I slowed to a crawl as I looked out the window trying to find an address number on one of the apartments. They all looked about the same, four to five stories high, dilapidated but not abandoned. Finally, I saw the number 311, so I pulled to the side of the road and parallel parked.

  I had to be crazy, parking Nicole’s BMW there. Bright red, no less. It was sure to catch someone’s eye be it a scumbag looking to rob me or a cop figuring I was passing through from the suburbs looking to score some shit.

  The trick was to get in and out fast. The longer I stuck around, the higher the chances of getting spotted by an unfriendly.

  I got out of the car and walked quickly towards 307. I didn’t see a sign, but it had to be two doors down from 311. Wasn’t hard to figure out. I glanced both ways, and all seemed clear. I grabbed my piece from my waistline and discreetly clicked off the safety. While putting the gun underneath my belt in the front of my body and securing it tightly in place, I looked around again. There were a couple of kids on the stoop across the street, but they didn’t seem to be paying me any mind.

  There was a door to the lobby that was propped open with a crinkled soda can. I stepped through the door and let it go; the door fell back quickly as its hinges were busted. The hallway smelled like piss. There were metal mailboxes on the near wall, and the far wall was marked up with graffiti. The floor was a neutral, brown tile, but half of the tiles were missing, and the other half were cracked. As I stepped through the hallway, I saw a wet spot on the wall and a puddle below it on the floor and figured out where the piss smell was coming from.

  I walked up to 1B and put my ear to the door. It was quiet. I knocked twice.

  Someone spoke. It wasn’t quite clear what they said, so I didn’t respond. But when they spoke again it sounded like, “Who’s there.” The accent was heavy. English was not this guy’s first language, but I was pretty sure that’s what he said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  The door opened a crack and a round face peeked out between a chain. The man smiled and closed the door. I heard a rattle as he took off the chain, then opened the door.

  “Enter. Enter,” he said, while waving me in.

  I nodded and walked inside. The guy had on a collared shirt that once was probably expensive, but now it was faded, stretched and permanently stained under the armpits. He had pockmarks on his face and a receding hairline he was trying to hide by growing out his hair and combing it to the side.

  The room was dim; there was just one lamp on the far side of the room. The floor was just a sub-floor, as if there once was carpeting that now was removed. Or maybe the carpeting never got finished. Litter was strewn about; cigarette packs: Newport, Camels, Kools; empty bags of chips; a crushed carton of orange juice. Used drug paraphernalia, too: countless ripped and empty little plastic baggies and glassine envelopes covered the floor.

  A woman, middle-aged and just a slight bit overweight, sat on a couch next to the lamp. She was smoking a cigarette, and in front of her was a scale resting on a coffee table. There was a stuffed Hefty bag leaning on the wall next to the couch.

  “What can we get you?” the man asked.

  I heard shuffling to my right and looked over. There was a man kneeled down in the corner. It was dark, but I think he was shooting up dope.

  I wasn’t really into drugs, but I knew a thing or two about how operations were run. These guys were amateurs. When the cops came through on a sweep, something that happened at least once a week in this neighborhood, these guys were finished.

  The woman smiled. “What you need?” Her English was a little better than the man’s.

  “I’m here to collect,” I said.

  “Collect?” She acted surprised, but I wasn’t buying it. She wasn’t born yesterday, even if she probably did open up shop yesterday.

  “You know who this neighborhood belongs to, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Come on. Don’t make me spell it out for you.”

  Suddenly, her English got fuzzy. “No comprende.”

  I walked to the dead middle of the room, doing my best to keep all three people in my view. The man was standing about two feet from me, the woman about five feet in front of me, still sitting. The guy
in the corner seemed to have finished what he was doing; he was still on the ground, but now sitting up and looking at me.

  My gun was nuzzled against my gut. I moved my hand towards my belly, slowly as I said, “Listen, guys. You have a nice little business here. You probably made some nice money today. If you want to continue making nice money, you have to pay the piper. It’s the cost of doing business.”

  “Who you work for?” the man asked, while pushing his overgrown strand of hair to the side.

  “I think you know.”

  “No. You tell me.” He closed in and was now just a few inches from me.

  I didn’t like him in my personal space, and he was blocking my view of the junkie in the corner. I took a step back. He immediately took a step forward.

  “Listen. You know who I work for. You know why I’m here. You can play by the rules of the neighborhood, or you can...”

  He cut me off mid-sentence and said, “Or what?”

  I raised my arm up to keep him back, and he grabbed it. I thrust forward with force and shook him off which sent his arms flailing.

  He yelled something in Spanish as he stumbled, and a blast came from the corner and didn’t miss me by much; I felt a sharp, quick wind and smelled the smoke. I pulled out my pistol and returned three rounds at the junkie. Receding hairline-guy rushed at me and grabbed my arm. The lady on the couch fired several rounds, and receding hairline- guy crumbled in my arms. I let him go, and as he fell off me I was able to get off two shots at the lady. She slumped over in the couch, and her face fell flat onto the coffee table.

  No one was moving. I ran to the couch and opened the Hefty bag. It was full of cash. I threw the sack over my back like I was Santa Claus and hightailed it out of the room.

  Once out on the street, I made a beeline for the BMW. The kids on the stoop were still there, but now they were standing and definitely not ignoring me. They probably heard the shots. I fired up the engine and chirped the wheels of the car as I flew out of there.