by B. B. Hamel
“Come on. You like the thrill. Maybe not the Gallos, but you like having me around. You like the tension.”
“Tension?” she asks, pretending to be innocent.
“That’s right. There’s a mountain of tension between us, and don’t pretend like you’re not feeling it.”
She pauses a second. “So what,” she says finally. “It doesn’t matter.’
“Of course it matters.” On impulse, I reach out and tip her chin toward me. “It always matters. You want me as much as I want you.”
“Maybe,” she says, and I lean in to kiss her.
Just as our lips touch, I feel something tug at my leg. In that moment, I want to kick it away and kiss Leah as deeply as I possibly can, taste every bit of her, luxuriate in her. Instead, I turn away and Ryan smiles up at me.
I slowly pull away from Leah. “Hi bud,” she says. “Are you done playing?”
He shrugs. The little girl got up and wandered over to her mom and is currently trying to climb into her mother’s lap.
“Come here,” Leah says, picking Ryan up and lifting him high into the air. Ryan laughs. “Want to swing?”
“Yes,” Ryan says.
We both stare at him. That’s the first time he’s said anything since.
“Come on then,” Leah says, and takes him over to the swings again.
This time, I watch, the coffee travel mug in my hand. I catch her looking at me, and I grin at her. I know what she’s thinking about now. She’s thinking about how that kiss would have felt, and how badly she wants more.
I feel a surge of impatience, but I push it down. I don’t need impatience right now. I have what I need. I just have to enjoy it.
“There you are.”
I start and half turn. I recognize that voice, but it’s the last thing I want to hear.
Piero and Enzo are leaning against the fence a few feet away, watching me.
“We were looking for you,” Enzo says.
“Why?” I ask. “I already told your brother to fuck off.”
Piero doesn’t react. Enzo laughs.
“The big boss wants to talk to you.”
I blink at him. “Your father?”
“That’s right,” he sneers. “Mario Gallo wants a word, and you better not fucking keep him waiting.”
I hesitate a second and look over at Leah. She’s staring at Enzo and Piero, fear clear in her expression. I nod at her and stand up.
“Let’s go,” I say to the men, and leave the peace of the park behind.
12
Connor
The car ride over with Enzo and Piero isn’t exactly comfortable.
The two men sit up front, and I’m in the back of a black SUV. It’s like a mobster cliché, the two big tough guys driving a car like this, but I don’t say anything about it. Enzo puts on a jazz radio station and turns the music up loud, which confuses the hell out of me. He doesn’t strike me as a jazz fan.
Enzo half turns in his seat. Piero’s driving, and his eyes are glued to the road.
“Harper ever tell you about dad?” he asks me.
I shrug. “A little.”
“I bet the bitch talked shit on him. Right? Bitched and moaned?”
I grimace. She didn’t bitch and moan, not at all. In fact, I had to pry details about the old man out of her, but the details were few and far between. Invariably though, they all included some aspect of violence, sex, or abuse. Usually all three.
“Something like that,” I say.
“He was hard on her,” Enzo says, still watching me. “Wasn’t nice to her, since she’s a fucking girl. Well, she was a fucking girl. Now she’s worm food. Right, Piero?”
Enzo laughs and Piero grunts. I feel like I want to puke or punch Enzo in the face, probably both at the same time.
“Better be careful though,” Enzo says. “The old man doesn’t take kindly to the word ‘no,’ and that seems like your favorite fucking word.”
“If he wants to buy my kid, I’ll tell him the same thing I told your brother: he can go fuck himself.”
For a second, I think Enzo’s about to have a fucking aneurysm. His face screws up in rage, but Piero puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls him back around.
“Be careful,” Piero says to me, his eyes on mine briefly in the rearview mirror, before looking back at the roar.
Enzo doesn’t talk the rest of the drive over. He stews up front, clearly pissed that I’m not trembling with fear right now. Frankly, I don’t think I have anything to fear, but I’d be insane if I said I wasn’t a little nervous.
What I know of Mario Gallo isn’t good. He’s violent, sadistic, twisted, and powerful. He controls Philadelphia, from the lowly street drug pushers up north to the union bosses down south, plus all the cops and the city hall assholes in the center. He owns guys on Penn’s campus and guys up and down Passyunk Ave. He owns the SEPTA workers and even the subway bums. And he’s not afraid to make someone like me go away.
I expect to be taken to some mysterious hideout in the back of a deli or some shit, but instead we drive out to the Schuylkill river. We don’t cross the bridge to west Philly though, and instead we end up parking alongside the river trail.
“Out,” Enzo says. I follow the two men, climbing from the back. We walk along the trail for a few minutes before finally, right up ahead, I spot the dog parks.
They’re inside large fences, like tennis courts, except they’re full of dogs. There must be at least ten dogs in there, all running around and playing, with their owners standing along the edges, chatting with each other and watching. Sometimes the dogs get a little aggressive and the people have to break it up, but mostly it seems peaceful.
Mario Gallo is sitting on a bench just outside of the park.
Piero and Enzo stop and step aside about ten feet away from Mario’s bench.
“Go ahead,” Piero says.
I hesitate and laugh a little, nervous energy overtaking me. “Are you serious?”
“He likes the dogs,” Enzo says, his face completely straight. “Go fucking sit with him.”
I pause one more second to drink in the absolute absurdity of the moment, but I slowly walk over. I’m actually happy that we’re in a public place as I slowly sit beside Mario Gallo, and I realize that this was done for my benefit. He wants me to feel at ease, or at least somewhat at ease. He probably doesn’t plan on murdering me yet, at least not in front of all these witnesses. There are at least twenty people milling about, and he can’t own them all.
Mario doesn’t say anything at first. He’s an older gentleman, dressed in plain gray windbreaker and dress slacks. His shoes are dark and orthotic. His white hair is close cropped and pressed back along his scalp. Slowly he looks at me, tucking the newspaper in his hands underneath his arm, and his startling blue eyes surprise me for a second. They’re like a Husky’s, clear and cold.
“Thank you for coming,” he says, and smiles a little bit. For a second, I think he’s someone’s kindly old grandpa, but I know that’s not really the case. “I hope my sons didn’t treat you poorly.”
“They didn’t,” I say, although part of me wants to tell him to teach Enzo some more manners. I suspect he already knows that, though.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” he says, looking out at the dogs again. “Sitting here talking in public like we’re afraid of each other. You’re not afraid of us, are you?”
I hesitate. “I’m afraid,” I say. “But not that afraid.”
He laughs a little. “Good, so you’re not stupid then.”
I grunt and follow his gaze. The dogs are moving in a big pack, some of them jumping and playing with each other, some of them just holding off. But he’s actually watching the people that are standing around, watching the dogs.
“They move like them, you know,” he says to me.
“Who does?” I ask.
“Their owners.” He clears his throat and I watch him as he speaks. “The dogs move in predictable patterns, falling into a b
ig pack, acting out their instinctual social hierarchies. We watch them and we think we’re so much better than they are.”
“But we’re not,” I suggest to him.
He laughs once. “Of course we fucking are,” he says. “But we’re still predictable. Look at the owners, the way they move into their own little social groups and cliques. If you sat here every day, you could easily predict their patterns and movements, even if they’re more complex.” He cocks his head and looks at me. “Even still, we’re better than the fucking dogs.”
I crack a little smile, and he seems to like that. He nods to himself and goes back to watching the dogs play.
“Why did you call me here?” I ask him.
“You have my grandson,” he says.
“And he’s not for sale,” I counter immediately.
He chuckles at that. “I didn’t really expect you to go for that little gambit, but it’s always worth a try. You never know what really motivates a man until you push him.”
“I’m not giving you my son,” I say. “There’s nothing you can do.”
He smiles again but doesn’t look at me. “There isn’t? Strange, and here I was thinking that the only reason you’re not dead yet is because I feel bad for the boy.”
I tense at that. “You can’t just make me and Leah disappear.”
“Maybe not,” he says with a sigh. “And if we did, I bet it would scar the boy fairly badly, don’t you think?”
“He’s been through enough.”
“He has been through a lot,” Mario Gallo agrees. “But is it enough?”
My blood runs cold at that and his smile becomes sadistic. I have to remind myself that this old man is the same man that abused Harper all those years, turned her into the wreck of a person she became, all because he has this strange, twisted sense of what family’s supposed to be for them. In his world, a Gallo has to be a part of his criminal organization, and he raised his children to become hardened. And if they didn’t harden, they broke, like Harper.
“I know what you did to her,” I say softly to him, anger rising inside of me. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
He sighs. “Of course you do. That girl… she was willful.”
“That girl was your daughter, and she’s dead now.”
“Do you think I killed her?”
“I think you played your role.”
He slowly shakes his head. “Harper always had her own view of reality. I was hard on her, I won’t pretend otherwise. I was equally hard on Enzo and Piero, but they didn’t turn into pathetic junky sluts like she did.”
I blink at the venom in his voice. “Why do you think she turned out that way?”
“Because she was weak,” he says to me, finally turning his head to meet my gaze. “And the weak are weeded out sooner or later.”
I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I am. I don’t know how a man can be so callous about his own daughter. I think back to Ryan, that shy, quiet boy that’s been through so much, and I can only imagine what Mario would do to him. They’d destroy that boy, warp him, change him into some monstrous version of himself, or else they’d snap him like a twig. He’d end up like Enzo and Piero, deranged caricatures of humans, or he’d end up like Harper, deeply scarred and shattered inside. Either way he’d be dead.
I clench my jaw, steeling myself. “You can’t have my son,” I say. “I’ll never let you take him.”
“I thought you’d say that,” Mario answers. “If we took the boy, we’d raise him. I’d teach him things, turn him into his own man in a way you never could. I’d give him a good life with real purpose, unlike anything you could ever hope to provide. With you, at best he can strive for mediocrity, another pathetic soul lost in the crush of humanity.” He sneers at me. “But with me, I can give him so much more.”
I don’t know how this man can be so delusional. It’s true that he has this town wrapped up tight. He’s almost a king in that regard. His family runs things, and he runs his family, which gives him a strange sense of power, but it’s completely out of proportion. Philadelphia is a big city, but it’s not that big, and it’s a tiny drop in the bucket when you look at the whole world.
And yet he’s talking like becoming a member of the Gallo crime family is some kind of honor. There’s nothing noble in what they do, even if all our television shows and movies and books all glorify these people. Violence, greed, avarice, it’s all just base functioning, nothing high or mighty.
He thinks people are better than dogs, but to me, anyone that obsesses about material gain and is willing to sacrifice children for money is much, much less than an animal.
I slowly stand up from the bench. “You can’t have him,” I say again. “And I won’t change my mind.”
“This conversation was a courtesy for you,” Mario says. “For the memory of my daughter. I believe she loved you, or at least as much as any junky can love something that isn’t her drug.”
“Which is why I won’t let you have her son,” I say to him. “She left him with Leah for a reason.”
“Yes, the cousin,” Mario drawls. “They’ve always been annoying.”
“Leave us alone. You’re wasting your time.”
“If you walk way without making a deal, Connor, things might get bad.”
“They’d get worse if I stooped low enough to let you raise my son.”
I turn and walk away, fury ringing through me. Mario doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t follow me. Piero and Enzo are standing nearby, but they don’t move to follow me. Their eyes are on me as I stalk away from the dog park, my heart hammering in my chest. I keep wondering if they’ll kill me now, but I guess I don’t care. I’ll never give in to what they want, no matter what they do.
I walk a few blocks, heading toward Leah’s apartment. Eventually I stop to gather myself together. Nobody’s following me, at least nobody that I can spot.
The conversation plays through my head again and it makes me sick. Mario Gallo is clearly a fucked up man, so fucked up that he can’t see how wrong his whole view of the world is. He thinks he can mold children into these violent psychopaths and somehow that’s giving them a gift, like everyone wants to be a mob boss.
I start walking again, looking for a cab. I feel like I have a little glimpse into Harper’s life, and I’m starting to understand her better. I’m not ready to forgive her for stealing away Ryan and putting him through whatever the fuck she put him through, but I can maybe understand where she’s coming from. Her whole life was dictated by the whims of a piece of shit like her father, and that left her with a gaping hole inside of her. I was never going to be able to fix her, I realize how. Any help I could offer was a temporary patch at best.
In the end, she was broken, but I won’t let them do the same to my son.
I finally find a cab and I have him take me back to Leah’s apartment. I’m sure she’s worried, but I’m going to tell her not to be.
I’m standing up to those fucking bastards, no matter what.
13
Leah
I get Ryan home and put him down for his nap, which takes surprisingly well. He’s starting to acclimate to this new way of life, and it makes me happy as hell to see him growing.
But I’m worried sick about Connor, so any joy at getting Ryan down easily is swallowed up by thoughts of what’s happening with the Gallos.
Connor could be dead right now. I pace around my living room, freaking out. He could be murdered, his body floating in the Schuylkill river right now, face down and riddled with bullets. The Gallos could do that to him, murder him right in the middle of the day and dump his body and still get away with it. I hate them so much but I don’t know what I can do.
They have the police in their pockets. My parents have been complaining about how much power our cousins have for so long now that it’s completely ingrained inside of me. I can’t think of Philadelphia without imagining the grubby hands of Mario Gallo strangling it to death.
And by e
xtension, strangling Connor.
That stupid, gorgeous man. He loves his son so much that he’s willing to stand up to the only people in the whole city that could easily kill him without a second thought. It’s so fucked up and tragic. He worked so hard to find Ryan, only to be blocked by me at first, forced to take a paternity test before I’d even let him see the boy. And when finally I’m starting to relax and trust him, the Gallos come and slit his throat.
And now he’s gone. I feel like there’s a wound inside of me.
It’s shocking how hurt I feel. I’d mourn anyone killed by the Gallos but I feel this extra deep desperation for Connor, a sort of feeling that I didn’t know I even had. I was beginning to trust him, beginning to want him, beginning to…
There’s a knock at the door, pulling me from my train of thought. My heart leaps into my throat. It’s the Gallos, here to finish the job and to take Ryan away.
Well fuck that. I won’t let them do it, at least not easily.
I go grab my biggest knife from the kitchen, my heart thumping. I’m so afraid, and my hand’s shaking, but I’m not going down without a fight.
I go to the door and pull it open, knife clutched, knuckles white.
Connor grins at me, head cocked. “You cooking?” he asks.
I drop the knife and throw my arms around him. He pulls me tight and hugs me close and I breathe his smell deep into my lungs.
“I thought you were dead,” I say. “I thought they took you, killed you… I thought they were coming for me.”
He nods against me. “It’s okay. Come on, let’s go inside.”
I let him take me into the apartment. He shuts the door and gathers up the knife, putting it away. He sits me down on the couch and sits close.
“They just wanted to talk,” he says. “I met with Mario.”
I blink. “Harper’s dad?”
“The old man himself.”
I let out a breath. “Wow. I haven’t seen him since I was a little girl.”
“Let’s hope we keep it that way.”