by M. Roberts
Lane felt his gut churn. He was accustomed to dramatically overstated “situations” from his uncle, but this felt different. And the way his uncle looked at him, he felt he wasn’t going to get a truthful tone from him. Ezekiel looked as though he had seized upon something great, instead of something grave. Lane didn’t wait a breath’s length before asking, “What is it?”
In a quick stream of words, Ezekiel replied, “Titus kidnapped Rose in hopes of blaming the Imadas to score a quick ransom.” Ezekiel placed on the desk between himself and Lane the letter that had been left in their mailbox. In cliché style, it was fashioned out of magazine clippings, reading the point in brevity:
“Games are over. Give me one million or you’ll never see your daughter alive again. L.I.”
“The fool was seen by three of ours, who inform me, didn’t stop him because he’s been sneaking up to the house on a regular basis to see Rose. I can cast him out, but the rat finds his way back in. Rats appear harmless, I won’t chastise the men. But I’ve made them swear not to share the information with anyone.”
Lane’s eyes rolled, his head shook, and he groaned while his uncle spoke. “What a fuck up. I can’t believe—No I can. I can believe he would be this stupid. I can handle this.”
Ezekiel leaned back in his chair, face pulled back behind where the light of the lamp was cast. “It runs deeper than that, Lane.”
Lane glared into the shadow around his uncle’s face. “What do you mean?”
“Lane, this is our chance. It’s time to secure stability for this city’s underworld.”
The vague words still conveyed enough that Lane felt disgusted. “You’re going to play your own daughter to further the family business? With all due respect, Ezekiel, that’s ludicrous.”
Lane didn’t take the suggestion seriously until the silence lingered long enough for him to know Ezekiel meant it.
“How many times have you stopped what you were doing to solve the crises of your troubled cousin? How often have you sparred with an Imada for one reason or another?” He leaned forward back into the light and laid an unwavering stare upon his nephew and right hand. “How long before Lucius makes a desperate play like his foolish brother? How long until he grows tired enough that his grand delusions find our family and its wealth a way out for him and passage to freedom for both his brother and cousin?”
Lane felt his heart sink towards his stomach. It made sense to him. A desperate dreamer with any drive was dangerous, and it would mean peril to be entangled with that sort of chaos. He didn’t want to be bothered with Lucas and his foolish dreams, but he couldn’t deny that he in ways already was. A small part of him, a desperate plea that voiced itself in his mind for just a moment, almost wanted to give Lucius exactly what he wanted, to say fuck you to Ezekiel and the family and fuck all to the city he fought to secure for his uncle. But the plea was more in jest to lighten the seriousness of the moment.
“Lane, I need you with me on this. Rose is going to help us.”
Lane stood at the mention of Rose like a pawn. He turned his back on Ezekiel and reached his hand out to the door.
“Stop.” Lane’s fingers rested on the knob. “I know it doesn’t sound right, but I have great faith in you, son.” Lane grimaced. The son shtick never worked on him. He was never want for a father figure. “Rose will not be hurt. Titus is a coward. You’re a strong-minded businessman. You know what needs to be done. There’s a way we can remove Imadas from our trade and distance ourselves from Titus. Then we bring Rose home safely.”
Lane turned back to Ezekiel. It wasn’t that he was in agreement. He could see clearly that his uncle was an opportunist. He had known that for a while now. But he never knew the extent of it. He never would have guessed that the man would be so selfish to use his own daughter, for whom Lane thought all his uncle’s heart was given, for profit.
“Good boy.”
Lane gritted his teeth. “True colors, Uncle. You built this family by bringing in the children of your estranged siblings because you showed us respect we didn’t see from them. You replicated the façade for the men who work for you. Half are orphans. You preached family since I was a child. I knew you were business-minded. I understood limits. I didn’t question kicking out Titus, I thought it should have been done sooner. But this. You should feel ashamed. What does it look like at the end? I’m certain you don’t plan on really ostracizing Titus any more than you already have. And when Rose returns, will you tell her why her beloved cousin died? Will you invent a story for her that somehow makes you out to be the great father you pretend to be with all of us, including your foot soldiers? Do me a favor, don’t try selling that bullshit to me, I know the reality of it all. That’s why I’m going to help you, because dreamers and tweakers can only be dealt with pragmatically in this line of work. When it’s done, I want a retirement date. We sit down, I choose a time, and when it comes, I’m out.”
He had started his rant with no clear end, but by the time he reached it, it was clear in his mind. The work, the thankless errands, and now the disingenuous speech from Ezekiel all collected by the time he reached his last words. He was sick of the job. He was tired of its labor. It was time to move on.
“You ingrate. That’s how you would speak to the man that gave you purpose? You would be no better than one of those boys in the army for no reason but to have reason. Or worse, a barfly who projects his demons on other patrons and fights them in alley brawls, spending his nights in the drunk tank before waking to do it over again. No, I gave you life. I saw the great strength in you and the wriggling frustration beneath your skin that sought out use. I knew it was a matter of time before it got you into trouble, so I fostered your mind, son. I—”
“Save it. Enough, Ezekiel. I meant every word, and I won’t change my mind. I don’t want to argue about it. Let’s take care of this instead of wasting time.”
Ezekiel’s face was a shade redder than Lane had ever seen it. His eyes seemed a bit glossed over, perhaps tearing with embarrassment. He had never been disarmed that way, not that Lane was aware of, at least. Lane had no sympathy for it. His mind was of one way, now, and would not be swayed away from it.
“Alright,” Ezekiel nearly whispered. “Have a seat.”
11.
Sometime after Lane and Ezekiel held their secret meeting and had departed the Dicaro household, Malcolm snuck up to the back door wielding a six pack in one hand and his pouch containing bowl and bud in the other. He did so quietly, though it was likely any one of the Dicaros, including Ezekiel, would have allowed him entrance. Still, it felt more appropriate to him to sneak, considering the less than pure intentions of his visit. As he neared the glass door, coming through the courtyard, rounding its fountain, he caught glimpse of Joan’s back, slightly hunched as she curled herself on the couch. He grinned. He proceeded towards the door, tapping on the glass and startling Joan within, whose reaction of fear spoiled her facial features. It was the last reaction Malcolm expected from her. He felt something was awry while she stood, rushed to the door and quickly hurried Malcolm inside.
“Last night wasn’t enough,” he said. “I brought some gifts.” He raised the six pack and the pouch in front of her, but she paid them no attention and instead grabbed his wrist to bring him to the couch. He plopped down and she sat close beside him.
“Rose is gone.”
The last of Malcolm’s excitement had evaporated. “What do you mean Rose is gone?”
“I don’t know. She was taken. She was kidnapped. I guess. That’s what I’m hearing.”
“Kidnapped? What?” The idea seemed absurd to Malcolm.
“Lane and Ezekiel left a little while ago, they pushed me aside when I asked about her. I hadn’t seen her all day and when I said her name...,” Joan trailed. “Uncle had a look in his eye. Then hushed words to his men outside. The two of them took off. They wouldn’t say where. They wouldn’t tell me when they’d be back. They wouldn’t tell me anything. I had to overhear the guard
smen out front. Malcolm,” she leaned forward. “I heard them say Lucius.”
Malcolm recoiled.
“That’s impossible.”
Joan’s face didn’t shift, it seemed to stay inquisitorially on him.
“Joan, he didn’t do it. That’s ridiculous to even consider. You saw him this morning!”
“Shh!” she placed her finger against his lips. “Don’t be so loud.”
“You saw him this morning, Joan. And how could Ezekiel possibly believe such a story? He hates Lucius, true, but he knows him better than that. Joan,” Malcolm stopped short of his conclusion. He watched the realization form in her mind through her eyes. And suddenly they both felt in harm’s way for thinking it.
“Ezekiel would never use her that way,” Joan declared.
Malcolm raised his eyebrows in questioning. “No? What other answer is there? If it was someone else, he would be deadset on finding them and wouldn’t give two shits about the Imada beef, or anything else for that matter, until he put her kidnappers in the ground. But if he knows Lucius wouldn’t do it, but is going after him anyway. It’s foul. It stinks, Joan. You know it.”
She turned her head away from him, desperate to distract her thoughts for just a moment, to think of anything that wouldn’t make her cry and show weakness. She hated that she already showed fear. She couldn’t stop it now. Tears welled over. She felt alone. She turned back to face Malcolm, but he had stood and started towards the door already.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to call Lucius.”
“What is he going to do?”
“Hopefully get the hell out of Verón.”
“Malcolm.”
With his phone in one hand and the doorknob in the other, Malcolm paused and looked back to Joan, leaning over the edge of the couch. It was a genuine moment for the two of them, who spent the majority of their time with faces on, scripts and wit between themselves and the rest of the world. But suddenly, they lost all their tricks, their grins, and their evasive phrases for a stare that placed an icy coolness in their bones. It had not fully finished when Malcolm replied to Joan, “Yes?”
Seeing in his eyes that he had felt the same thing she had, she retracted herself from the edge of the couch and turned away from him. He went out from the house, closing softly the door behind him. He gave two quick glances, left and right, to ensure no guards were alerted. He retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and dialed seven familiar digits. He held the phone to his ear until he heard the voice of Lucius answer groggily on the other end. It was likely he was high, he usually was when he was swept away in his lofty thoughts of paradise. What he was about to hear would turn those thoughts to hell. Malcolm took a quick breath and spewed forth the entirely of the situation with what felt a single exhale. When a silence three times the length of his nervous ramble elapsed, he added a desperate sounding, “Leave, Lucius. Run away.” And then Malcolm ended the phone call. He looked out over the courtyard to the hedges that lined the expansive backyard. It was calm between them, silent, but for the sound of the water fountain’s constant, slightly comforting splashes.
Malcolm turned back to the door, opened it, and shut it quietly behind himself.
12.
Lucius sat alone in his living room the length of several hours, though they passed like he’d never experienced. At first, after Nathaniel had left, they were filled with long, stretched out fantasies, vague and in uncertain details. There were warm colors, pink and orange and sometimes verging on neon, and they emanated from a sunset that spanned the entirety of the sky above a beach that he occupied with Rose. While he was high and when he was with her in his mind, the minutes fell off the clock, its hands spinning until they drooped and collapsed, letting the clock itself decay and crumble to dust in the eternity of the moment’s beauty. Lucius kept smoking, to envision it, to entrench himself in its possibility, and to avoid the notion that it had not yet enveloped his reality. When he began to feel himself returning to sobriety, he would pry his naked back from the couch to swipe the bowl and lighter from the table to take off once more. He launched himself higher and higher, further and further into his fantasy, deeper and deeper into its imagery, and nearer to the imagined persona of the woman he had met less than twenty-four hours ago.
Then the phone call came.
Malcolm’s quick and exasperated sounding explanation of the goings on in the Dicaro household and the revelation that Rose was in danger and that he, too, may be in grave danger came at first like a joke. The extremity of its point, the insinuations it made about certain characters of Verón, the future death that it all implied seemed such a stark contrast from what Lucius had spent his entire day’s thoughts on that it at first felt like it could be none other than a joke. A rather hilarious one. And yet Lucius didn’t laugh. And sometime shortly after Malcolm had ended the phone call, Lucius felt himself returning again to sobriety and so took to his usual motion and lifted himself again. But the joke didn’t return. Instead, the dark and ominous tone of the situation joined him and he was now far from his mental paradise. He was somewhere nearer to its antithesis, though he refused to name it. It was a place he forever secretly feared, perhaps even secret from himself. He was there now. Though he hadn’t the capacity to fully comprehend the magnitude of the revelation’s effect on his life at the moment, he was aware it was there. He was aware that he was entering dark territory. This is what the following hours were filled with. A thick, enveloping darkness. Not empty, but thick and rich with sooty flavor. Lucius could feel his own grave around him and he couldn’t stop the cold from sinking into his bones. For a while, it was quiet in these thoughts. But as he floated down again towards sobriety, this time refusing the effects of weed, he recalled his lucid dreams of the morning. As the sun sank and spilled itself on the western sky, the encroaching night told Lucius he had killed the entire day sitting on the couch, getting high, dreaming. He felt dirty. He wanted to shake it off. He thought about walking, until he considered that he might be killed if spotted by a Dicaro. They were likely out to get him, pinning him with the crime of kidnapping. Then he thought of the actual Rose, the vulnerable living flesh and bone that comprised her, and where she might be held. If Ezekiel was coming after him, then he knew it was a charade. Which meant she was safe. Would she be complicit, though? The thought of Rose playing along plagued Lucius until he decided that she couldn’t possibly. But then, he reasoned, she would be kept against her will. A caged beauty, feathers ruffled and face tear drenched. The picture of the definition of tragedy in his mind. Or perhaps he focused on this tragedy to keep from thinking of his own. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the notion of running, placed there by Malcolm with his last words over the phone. Leave, Lucius. Run away. The thought faced an onslaught of ambitious idealism coupled with fear of the truth and bolstered by youthful naïveté. It was run over. In the wake, a vision. Of paradise, and a gulf of evil before it. Then a plan, to vanquish the gulf and arrive at his oft repeated end. Paradise.
Lucius stood from the couch with conviction. He threw on a thin button up, leaving his smooth chest open to the breeze that greeted it from the open window. He darted into his room to rummage through his closet. His fingers dove into piles of things, clothes, shoes, discs, searching for something uncommon to the touch. Heavy, cool, steel. He found it quickly, his fingers recalling its shape and wrapping themselves around it to pull it from the rubble. Before his eyes was the pistol his brother Vincent had purchased for him before they moved to the west coast. Lucius recalled receiving it, thinking it was a foolish thing to have, that he would never have a reason to use it. But more and more, as they got deeper and deeper into the drug trade, his mind drifted towards it, perhaps at first unknowingly. Now, it was unavoidable, the violence that hovered in the air, the night pregnant with it. Lucius never wanted to hurt anyone, even when he was beating Titus on Sixth street, it was more out of frustration than malice. He hadn’t felt an urge to strike back at the Dicaros,
who, on so many occasions, gave him reason to. He never wanted in all the time he spent in Verón. That was until now. Until their mask was fully torn from their hideous faces. Until the truth about their scoundrel ways and their complete moral lack to appreciate the first fundamental rule of family became blatantly apparent to Lucius. This despicable act now pushed him, urged him forward, no longer with empty hands. He aimed it at nothing in particular, at the wall, and stared down the silver barrel to align the sights. He envisioned Ezekiel at the other end of it, cowering, repenting his sins and pleading forgiveness. Lucius fantasized it just how he fantasized paradise for all the hours of sunshine, and he fantasized not giving Ezekiel the pleasure of last words. He lowered the pistol and the fantasy dissolved, a chill ran up his spine. Above all, Rose, he thought. I have to find her, I have to save her from the tyranny of her own family.
Lucius slammed shut the front door to his building and quickly stuffed the pistol into the back of his jeans, buttoning the first few buttons on his shirt whilst storming into the city night, passing blocks on his way to the nearest Dicaro man he knew to find. It was a corner, residential, quiet. It saw the least traffic and therefore had only one man posted, the dealer. Lucius would start with him, question him, work from the ground up. He would see what the foot soldiers knew about the situation and then craft his plan.
From a block down the road, Lucius watched the dealer. The man stood still, statuesque, and for a moment Lucius thought this might be easy. Then the man sneezed, his body lurching into motion, and Lucius’s confidence wavered. He looked behind him. He thought about just going home, sitting back into the couch and smoking weed until he passed out. Then he thought about being caught this way by Lane, or any of the Dicaro goons and getting shot in the head. Whether or not Lucius chose to put his heart into his new goal, his path led away from comfort and safety. He was exposed now, and he had to decide to embrace that truth. He took several deep breaths and charged the distance between himself and the dealer.