by Taylor Hill
But despite all this, it was something else entirely that preoccupied his mind as he drove the final ten minutes or so towards the overpass. He could still smell her—even though she’d only been in his car for five minutes at most that day—and this fact both confused and excited him, for reasons that he couldn’t quite consciously understand. Who she was, what she’d come from and what she represented—her brother—her father for Christ’ sake—every logical synapse in his brain impelled him to forget about her, but he couldn’t. He knew that even for all that she’d been through, all the tragedy and hardship and basic injustice that had formed the lives around her as she grew, she was, just like him, a genuinely moral and caring person. And even though that was so rare (or perhaps because it was), he’d still seemed to recognize and resonate with her true personality on a level that was almost soul-deep, instantaneously. Even after only meeting her a couple of times, he knew exactly who she was. Because, just like her, he too had grown from an environment that had been tarnished and corrupted irreparably by the predatory tentacles of organized crime. Together, hundreds of miles apart, and not meeting until early adulthood, they had both somehow survived that darkness with their morals and their souls intact. They had never embraced the seedy promise of criminality that was everywhere around them in their separate worlds apart and in that sense they were the same. He had never met anybody else who could even begin to understand what that meant and felt like so deeply.
He thought of her pretty, sensible face, the soft brown hair and intelligent, hurried eyes hidden behind her glasses, of how curt she was with him, how deliberately cold she could be (something that he wasn’t much used to from any member of the fairer sex, no matter who they were), and even that coldness just made him want her more. After all, the kind of girl he would desire most above them all would never want anything to do with a man like “Romeo Mancini”. She would never want to get involved with a soldier of the Mafia, like he was supposed to be.
But worse than this aching desire to just reach out and caress her, to make her his own and show her who he truly was beneath all the lies and subterfuge, there was the burning and perilous compulsion to warn her, to call her up and just tell her to get away from all this, even to leave her brother behind (who was, in Romeo’s opinion, not a bad guy, even despite his bad choices). He longed to impel her to run from this world, before it sucked her in and blackened her pure soul with its disease, because in this tale there were no happy endings for the innocents caught in the sidelines. In this story, even the good guys had to pack heat and look over their shoulder at every turn and even then they still might end up at the bottom of the ocean with cement for shoes.
But now, even if he survived the perilous mission ahead, there would likely be no happy ending for him either. Not for as long as he couldn’t get the name of Sandra Guilianno off his lips.
He pulled off from the turnpike, down the slipway into the discreet darkness below. His face was grim and he could only hope that none of the Falcone goombas were on the scene tonight, but as he pulled his car out towards Lana’s gleaming white Cadillac (a car which, he noted with a disdainful shake of the head, just about screamed upper-echelon Law Enforcement) he couldn’t help but smile at the thought that if the Falcone guys actually were in the area tonight, then this of all places would probably have made a perfect place for them to do their own business too. Imagine that particular coincidence? Don’t mind us guys, just an FBI agent and an undercover New York cop shooting the shit. Oh, I look like Romeo Mancini? Never heard of him, sorry pal…
If something like that actually happened he hoped Lana would take a bullet in the ass. She deserved it for picking such a sketchy location.
He dimmed his lights as he slowed his car to a halt and the door of the Cadillac opened immediately as Lana stepped out. She was tall, thin and blonde, wearing a smart grey business suit above shiny, bright red heels that definitely weren’t company issue (who was she trying to impress out here anyway?) and a smug, self-satisfied smile on her smartass Barbie’s face that said: yes, I know I’m hot, educated, rich and beautiful, thank you very much, now why don’t you kiss my ass?
He turned the ignition and then got out of the car. “Lana,” he nodded.
“Hi Romeo,” Lana smiled, fluttering her eyelashes with an affectedly smitten girlishness.
He winced. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?” Lana asked, “It’s your name now isn’t it? I think it suits you.”
Smiling slightly, he shook his head in mild disbelief at her attitude.
Lana’s face turned serious and she looked him up and down with a cold, business-like appraisal. “Good, you’re smiling. That means the job’s not getting to you too much…”
That thing she did irritated him. Changing gears the moment someone got on the same page with her. It was like she wanted to be chased just so she could have someone to shoot down. He could care less. From the moment they’d met, there had always been something about the FBI agent that rubbed him the wrong way and when he’d been informed that she was going to be his handler in this job, his heart had sunk. He’d even considered asking for someone else, but had eventually decided against it—a decision that he now feared would be one he would soon come to regret.
“…aaand it’s gone!” Lana said, scrutinizing his face and the smile that had slowly disappeared from it. “You know Romeo, I had my doubts about you the minute you walked into HQ. I mean sure, you had balls—and hell maybe I’d even like to see em someday—but I could tell right away that you were just too moody for this game. You’re so fricking sensitive.”
The smile reappeared in an instant. “Sensitive?” he said, “You think I’m sensitive… that’s cute Lana, real cute. I knew you had a soft side.” He’d already let her get under his skin once tonight and he was going to make certain it was only once. The sexually-suggestive comment—the one he knew she would really want to see him react to—he ignored completely. It wasn’t even worth his consideration.
“You can call me whatever you want Lana,” he said. “I don’t care either way.”
“I know I can,” Lana smiled, “and I did. Who do you think it was assigned you that code-name in the first place?”
The wry grin on his lips faltered, but only slightly, before restoring itself to its full casual superciliousness.
“You read a lot of Shakespeare?” he asked.
“No, but I rent the movies.”
He laughed, for real this time. “Yeah, I bet you do. Ok, let’s do this.”
He told her about the meeting with Salvatore Falcone and his two rat-faced goons at the Eden nightclub, about their plan to move in hard on the CCU campus, using himself and Louis Guilianno as their on-ground representatives.
“Wow, I’m impressed, Romeo,” Lana said. “Really, you move fast. Maybe even too fast… you ever get that complaint from a gal before?”
He looked at her coolly, wry smile, and shook his head once. She’d have to do better than that.
“Um, ok,” Lana continued, “so talk to me about the Guiliannos, Louis and Sandra. I’ll tell you something, the guys at HQ were surprised to hear those names come up again.”
“Yeah, I bet they were,” he said. “Well there’s not really much to say. Lou’s little more than a two-bit hood, an alright kid who thinks he’s got something to prove. I think I could probably even get him to turn eventually, if it comes to it. His heart’s in the right place.”
“Yeah, well his prick’s not, is it?” Lana muttered. “Remember Romeo, these guys are the enemy.”
“He’s just a kid, Lana.”
Lana glanced at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. “He’s the same age as you are, Don.”
At the mention of his real name, his face softened. It had been a long time since anybody had addressed him that way and when he saw Lana’s expression, he sensed that that was probably the only reason she’d done so in the first place. She loved to get a
reaction out of him, no matter how she did it.
“What about the sister?” she asked, moving on from the moment.
“What about her? She’s a student, works part-time in a café for an elderly neighbor to support herself and her mom. She’s straight Lana, straight as they come, never mind who her father was.”
“She’s a Guilianno,” Lana said, “of course she’s not straight. What about university—where’s she getting the money for that?”
“Scholarship,” he answered, “I hear she’s a gifted student.”
“Yeah,” Lana scoffed, “I bet. And what, is she going to become an accountant like her father was, too? Who’s she going to work for then?”
“I said she’s clean. Trust me on this one.”
Lana Smith shrugged her perfect shoulders and flipped through her notepad. “Ok, just one more thing. Tell me about this accident today, this Gino Morelli guy?”
Romeo swallowed. How had she heard about that? This was bad. Once the FBI got involved it was out of his hands and if Sandy accepted Lou’s offer of financial assistance then she would be making herself an accessory to criminal activity. Just another cog in the case they were building, and in fact she’d probably look like the perfect candidate for his FBI superiors to bully into turning informant. He couldn’t let that happen. Despite her background—despite everything that had happened to her—Sandy was an honest person and to him that was a miracle that he wouldn’t let anyone destroy.
“Not much to tell,” Romeo said, “the old guy fell down some stairs, he’s in hospital now.”
Lana cocked her head, looking him up and down with a predatory grin on her shiny apple-red lips. “And you were the knight in shining armor, come to the rescue, were you? Romeo, Romeo—wherefore art thou Romeo?”
“Give me a break.”
“Keep it together Romeo, remember who she is. If you want to blow off some steam with a woman I’m sure something could be arranged… Not this one though, Sandra Guilianno’s off limits.”
Romeo stared at her coolly. Yeah, he thought, I bet you’d like to “arrange” something like that Lana and guess what? It’s never going to happen.
In the distance the shift bell at the rubber factory screeched icily into the night and Romeo looked at the gold-plated gangster-style watch on his wrist. “I have to go,” he said, “Keep it real Lana, I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, you too cutie,” Lana called after him as he climbed back into his vehicle.
He started it up and drove away across the concrete wasteland, well aware that Lana was leaning against her own car in the background, watching him thoughtfully as he left.
The next morning I was there at the hospital bright and early to see Gino wake up and, just like Romeo had said, I was well-rested and thinking clearly enough to face the uncomfortable conversation that awaited me once the initial pleasantries were out of the way. (I had to hand it to Mancini, if I had stayed there all night like I’d wanted to I would have been a zombie by now, while Gino slept like a bonny Italian babe all through the night. I guess Lou’s new friend must have had a lot of experience hanging around hospitals at a time when all decent folk should be in bed and, truthfully, I couldn’t figure out why that alarming fact seemed almost attractive to me now, rather than repellant.)
“Ok Miss Guilianno, you can see him now,” the nurse said and opened the door to Gino’s room to allow me to enter.
“Thank you,” I smiled, rubbing the sleep out of my eyelids from behind my glasses as I stood up. “How is he?”
“See for yourself,” she smiled and I stepped tentatively into the room.
The room was lit by three big windows, through which the bright early-morning sun shone in a way that caused the clinically-white walls and floor to almost sparkle in reflection. Gino was in the second bed from the far wall, sitting up with a tray placed over him with his breakfast on it. In his gown he looked impossibly frail, but his face when he turned to greet me, thankfully, was as lively and animated as it ever was.
“Sandra, my girl!” he said, “my savior, no?”
Don’t get me wrong, I was delighted to see him smiling, but considering the gravity of the situation I couldn’t help but feel a little surprised at his good cheer. Sometimes it seemed like all the men in my life lived their own ones almost entirely free from responsibility, while I, with each new mistake they made, took on more and more every day.
“Well,” I smiled, “Romeo was the savior. I just found you. He was the one who saved us.”
“Romeo, eh?” Gino nodded, a crafty twinkle entering his eye, “Lou’s friend? The tough guy? Well I’ll have to thank him, but maybe you can do it for me—you’ll be seeing him first, no?”
“I don’t know Gino,” I said, trying to brush him off, “he’s Lou’s friend.” I knew exactly what the old coot was getting at and I wasn’t having any of it. It was bad enough not knowing how I felt inside myself, without other people pushing him on me on the outside too.
“Eh,” Gino shrugged, “you young ones act like you’ll have forever to make up your mind about these things. You never realize what you stand to miss by waiting too long. Trust me Sandra, I know…”
I stared at him closely, a mixture of love and frustration welling up in my chest. “Oh yeah? Is that what happened with the insurance then? You meant to get it organized but you just waited too long?”
Gino peered back at me, his rheumy old eyes watery with sadness. “No,” he said, “no, that was just plain old stupidity. You think I would have learned by now, eh?”
Neither of us said anything. I reached up to the bed and took his frail wrist in my hand.
“You know,” he said, “it used to be you no need insurance. Not where we’re from Sandra—the neighborhood would look out for you.”
Instinctively, my hand went limp and his wrist dropped softly back into his lap. Did he mean what I thought he meant by “neighborhood”? What would he say if he found out about Lou’s offer? What would he think if he knew that Lou himself was now fixing to get sucked into that “neighborhood”—the one that chewed up headstrong young men like him and spat them out again like they were nothing but fresh meat from the slaughterhouse? How very neighborly that was.
“Now though,” Gino shrugged, “now they don’t care no more about the little guy. Now, we’re on our own.”
“No,” I said, “we’re not on our own Gino. We have each other.”
Ok, even to me the words sounded a little empty in light of the overwhelming financial difficulties that now faced us, so I didn’t take it too harshly when Gino barely even pretended to be cheered by the statement at all.
“You are sweet to say Sandra,” he said, “such a special girl. This Romeo, eh? I only hope that he lives up to his name for you…”
Despite myself, I smiled. I was suddenly reminded of that old Johnny Cash song, “A Boy Named Sue”, about the cowboy who becomes the toughest son of a bitch in the west all because his daddy gave him a girl’s name knowing that he’d have to fight all the other cowboys who made fun of him for it growing up. I couldn’t help but wonder if Romeo’s early days had had a similar trajectory because of his romanticized name and I found myself laughing at the thought of it. I guess they call that irony.
“He’s Louie’s friend,” Gino said, “and yet you smile just when I say his name, eh?” The old man grinned at me, that crafty glint back in his eye.
“Come on Gino,” I said, “this is serious. What are we going to do?”
“We, Sandra?” Gino asked, “Me, you mean. You’ve done enough.”
I sighed. “Please Gino, quit fooling around. Whatever about the fact that you’re practically a father to me, I’m just as dependent on the café for my livelihood as you are…”
Gino frowned, emitting a slow, sad sigh from his wrinkled lips, and my heart sank in my chest. So it was true then, he was considering selling the café, the establishment that he had inherited from his father and
his father’s father, the one that had been a landmark of the Orange Grove for nearly a hundred years before us.
“Haven’t you got any money put aside for emergencies?” I asked him.
All he did was shake his head and he looked so desperately sad in that moment that I almost told him about Lou’s offer right there and then—I almost had to literally bite my tongue to remind myself of how stupid that would be. Gino, while fatherly, had now clearly proven himself once and for all to be totally irresponsible, and he would probably say yes in an instant to my brother’s dangerous offer. And what then? I wasn’t even sure that Lou actually could pay for it—without hitting up some Mafia loanshark or something—and then we’d all be totally screwed.
As if somehow reading all this on my face, Gino nodded slightly and then reached out and took my hand in both of his. “Whatever happens,” he said, “it will be ok. We will be ok.”
I smiled back at him, only with my mouth, and nodded. If only I could believe that Gino, I thought, if only I could believe that.
I had class that day and though I happily would have missed out to be with Gino, he insisted that I get my butt back to CCU and hit the books. Now of all times my studies would be important, he said, and I would have agreed if part of me didn’t have this sinking feeling deep inside that maybe my studies actually weren’t that important at all anymore—not now that they might be jeopardized entirely anyway.