American Savage

by Matt Whyman

  19

  A rib restaurant. That was what Titus Savage had proposed when he called Lev and Kiril about his plan to take over the saloon bar premises. In hindsight, the pair hadn’t seemed at all concerned with the nature of the new venture. So long as they could continue feeding Nikolai Zolotov’s dollars through the cash register, Titus was free to open the doors on whatever he liked. In return, they had promised, his family would be safe from any threat of vengeance.

  ‘They talked Zolotov round,’ Titus assured Angelica, later that week. ‘The only condition is that we need to be open for business by the time the next shipment of money arrives. From then on, everyone can sleep easy again.’

  Titus was at the wheel of his pickup at the time. He glanced across at Angelica. She saw him, right there, but didn’t shift her gaze from the road ahead.

  ‘And this is your way of protecting us from a monster?’ she asked. ‘By going to work for him?’

  ‘When have I ever let you down?’ asked Titus, who had expected this line of questioning. ‘In all our years together, I have gone to hell and back to protect our family. If this is what it takes to keep Zolotov at bay, then why not? And if I can level with you for a moment, a rib joint is something I feel I can really sink my teeth into.’

  For once, Angelica didn’t come back at him with an objection. She just sat there in her sundress and shades, with one hand pressed to her collarbone.

  ‘It all sounds so illegal,’ she said quietly, and glanced over her shoulder.

  In the cab’s rear seats, Katya was strapped into her booster and looking out at the storefronts. Beside her, Ivan sat with his school bag on his lap, clutching it protectively. The red and puffy left eye he’d picked up at football practice was beginning to blacken. It looked suspiciously like he’d been punched, even if he denied it. Across from Ivan sat Amanda, the only one who appeared to be tuned in to the conversation.

  ‘I can’t afford to go to jail,’ she told them. ‘Prisoners don’t necessarily have a constitutional right to vegan food.’

  ‘Nobody is going to jail,’ Titus assured them. ‘Lev and Kiril handle the shady stuff, and we know nothing about that, right? What I’m proposing here is a family-run business selling the best ribs this town has ever tasted.’

  ‘These ribs.’ Finally, Angelica turned to face him. ‘What kind do you have in mind?’

  ‘The traditional kind,’ said Titus, surprised she’d even asked. ‘Pure beef.’

  ‘That’s a terrible idea,’ came a voice from the back. Titus glanced in his rear-view mirror to see his son gesture out of his window. ‘Look around you,’ he said, as they stopped at the lights. ‘There are more rib restaurants in this town than people.’

  ‘So, there’s a demand,’ his father reasoned, lifting his hands off the wheel for a moment.

  ‘Which would be exceeded by supply if we went into ribs.’ Amanda folded her arms. ‘Besides, there’s no way I’d set foot in a restaurant like that. It would be like going to work in an abattoir.’

  ‘Here we go again,’ Titus muttered to himself, before addressing Amanda in the mirror. ‘So, what do you suggest? The place has a fully fitted kitchen that’s just been gathering dust. Food is the future here. Trust me. This could even be the making of us.’

  The family were heading out to the former saloon bar at the time. Lev had handed Titus the keys and told him to just do whatever was required. Having dropped by to visit it himself, Titus had returned home to collect everyone else feeling as buoyant as the boats in Jupiter’s harbour. Now, as they approached the turn-off in a part of town that looked dusty and a little derelict, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed that his proposal had met with such a cool response.

  ‘Do you know what’s missing around here?’ said Amanda, though nobody replied. ‘Something I guarantee will bring customers in their droves.’

  ‘A titty bar?’ said Ivan, only for his mother to twist around in her seat and glare at him.

  ‘A vegan café.’ Amanda slapped her kneecap as she said this, and then looked around. ‘What?’ she asked, when nobody replied.

  Steering the pickup off the boulevard, Titus followed an uneven road that bordered the inlet. It was late afternoon. With the sun behind the waterside buildings, they drove through broken light.

  ‘Amanda, this isn’t a joke,’ he said, as the pickup bumped over potholes.

  ‘I’m deadly serious,’ she said. ‘It isn’t easy eating out for me, and there’s a growing number who share my tastes. Customers will come flocking.’

  ‘But I don’t want to work with carrots all day,’ Titus replied dismissively.

  ‘You can leave all that to me,’ replied Amanda, as if prepared for such resistance. ‘All you’d need to do is help me get the place up and running. After that, you guys could even take a step back and let me prove to you that people are hungry for something like this.’

  ‘But people into this kind of thing are always hungry,’ Titus countered, sounding flustered now. ‘Nobody ever feels full on a bowl of quinoa.’

  He glanced at Angelica, hoping she would back him up. To his surprise, she appeared deep in thought.

  ‘There are a lot of rib restaurants,’ she said after a moment.

  Titus looked at his wife in disbelief.

  ‘One vegan in the house is bad enough,’ he said. ‘Now you’re proposing that we feed a whole community of herbivores?’

  ‘It would certainly be a challenge – but it would also be the perfect cover,’ Angelica reasoned.

  ‘The last place anyone would associate with a family of cannibals,’ Amanda added.

  Titus was close to giving up asking her to quit with the ‘C’ word. As the old bar swung into view, however, he decided now was not an appropriate moment to get fractious. Instead, like everyone else, he considered the building before them. In daylight, with no neon to distract attention, there was little to admire. The paintwork was peeling and weeds had sprung up through cracks in the porch. Earlier, Titus had seen only the potential. With his experience as a property landlord, he could renovate the place with his eyes closed and transform it into a handsome establishment for meat connoisseurs. Looking at it now, however, with Amanda’s proposal in mind, he began to wonder whether he should’ve just taken his chances with Zolotov and called his bluff over the threats.

  ‘Whatever your personal tastes,’ Angelica said to him, ‘we should at least consider Amanda’s proposal as a business opportunity. If there’s a market for food free from meat and dairy then it does make sense.’

  ‘This is my idea of a dream job.’ Amanda unclipped her safety belt and climbed out of the car. ‘I’d work so hard to make it a success.’

  ‘A café full of vegans,’ said Ivan, and slid across to follow her out. ‘Think of the farts.’

  Angelica looked set to admonish him, but Titus caught her eye.

  ‘The boy has a point,’ he said.

  ‘If that’s your only argument against it,’ said Angelica, reaching for the door handle on her side, ‘I’d say this is a done deal.’

  In his short but successful career as a personal trainer, Joaquín was skilled in overcoming injury. He had helped many clients get back on their feet, while muscle strains were a hazard of his job. With ice and rest, the young man knew how to make a quick and full recovery, but this was different. Ever since Angelica Savage spelled out her commitments, which didn’t include him, Joaquín had been left with an ache that was proving unbearable.

  He’d thought of nothing else since she’d left him at the roadside. Back then, Joaquín had stared in disbelief at the hoarding on the development site that she’d used to illustrate the importance of her family. The young Argentinian had been so sure that she shared his affections. He’d risked everything in making his feelings known to her, and this was how she’d responded.

  ‘You can’t just leave me like this,’ he’d muttered to himself, glaring at the images of domestic bliss that advertised the proposed new homes. Standing behind
a buckled chain-link fence topped with razor wire, Joaquín could easily see himself with Angelica living that sort of lifestyle. Given his tender age, he’d have a close bond with her children, too. ‘You need me,’ he said, as the cars on the road behind him swished by at speed. ‘You just don’t realise it yet.’

  Like so many young men faced with heartbreak, Joaquín Mendez had thrown himself into his work. That same morning, in fact, he’d run back to the gym and taken several clients to the point of exhaustion in their workouts. Not once, over the days that followed, did Joaquín confide in anyone about what he was going through. His mother called each evening, as she always did, and yet he assured her that everything in his life was just fine.

  Had she been able to see her son in the flesh, she would’ve taken one look at his haunted expression and known that all was not well. Back in Buenos Aires, Joaquín had always been a passionate boy, intense at times when it came to achieving goals in fitness, and though he had little experience of love and relationships, she hoped one day he’d meet someone nice and settle down. Joaquín hadn’t intended to fall for a married woman. What’s more, Angelica had admitted to pursuing a dream when it came to family life, and so it stung all the more to think that she had rejected him. After several nights of disturbed sleep, the young man found he could no longer just lie there staring at the ceiling fan. He had to get out, despite the ungodly hour, and attempt to escape his torment in the only way he knew how. Slipping on a pair of running shorts and a vest, Joaquín Mendez crept out of his apartment and set off under the street lamps and the stars.

  With a water bottle in hand and his head in a mess, Joaquín simply went wherever his bare feet took him. Within half an hour he’d reached the beach, where the sand underfoot was damp but firm at low tide. Dawn was on the cusp of breaking by the time he cut back across the dunes. Unlike the skies, however, his mood was no brighter. He ran at a solid pace with light footfalls, and turned his focus from the way ahead only once. That moment occurred as he wound his way along Riverside Drive, a ribbon of a road that skirted the northern shore of the inlet. For it afforded a generous view of the communities across the water, one of which, he realised, housed the Savage residence. Joaquín had noted Angelica’s address in her gym membership details some time ago. Like most things concerning her, it had lodged in his memory with frightening ease. Having made the decision to take a closer look at where she lived, which he did without hesitation, Joaquín set off towards the bridge road. Not once did Joaquín consider that he was torturing himself, or acting on an impulse that bordered on obsession. In fact, when he finally reached the junction to the inlet community, it seemed to him like a small reward for all the miles he had covered. Even Angelica’s warning about her husband no longer registered with him. Turning onto the loop road that would take him past Angelica’s villa and back out again, the young fitness instructor half hoped she might be up early.

  ‘Angelica! What a nice surprise!’ he whispered to himself, playing out how he would respond should she happen to be out. ‘Breakfast? I think I’ve earned it!’

  She certainly lived in a nice part of town, he noted on passing all the carefully manicured lawns and water features. He even saw himself living in some of these places, which is when he caught sight of her car. There it was, outside a white stucco villa with a heavy wooden door, snuggled up next to a pickup with a double cab and chrome roll bar.

  Without taking his eyes off the vehicles, Joaquín slowed to a halt. Clearly the pickup belonged to Angelica’s husband. In his opinion, guys opted to drive these big macho vehicles to make up for their shortcomings.

  ‘You’re wasted on him,’ the young fitness instructor muttered to himself. He pictured Angelica rushing out to greet some weed of a husband who needed a flash motor to feel big and strong. ‘And you’re wrong about me.’

  Standing there with his hands on his waist and his vest drenched in sweat, he tried to imagine what this loser must be like. At the peak of fitness, and in the prime of his life, the smitten young instructor figured he could handle himself if things ever got rough. A moment later, however, as the front door swung open, Joaquín was forced to drastically revise his opinion.

  ‘You need to slow down,’ growled the imposing-looking brute with the shaved dome who appeared at the threshold. He wore a deep frown, almost glowering, and a towel dressing gown that did nothing to soften his presence. ‘Otherwise there’s going to be an accident.’

  Joaquín took a step backwards, still panting but shocked at the sight of the figure who had just emerged from the villa. This wasn’t the husband who had taken shape in his imagination. It was the focus of the man’s gaze that left him rooted to the spot. There was something so commanding and intense about it that Joaquín felt as though he had just shrunk by several feet. It took a moment for him to realise that the guy wasn’t in fact addressing him. This was down to a growing electric hum from behind, which gave him no chance to feel any relief. Joaquín spun around in alarm and promptly jumped sideways to avoid an elderly man on a mobility scooter.

  ‘Watch out!’ he snapped, but the old guy seemed to be as deaf as he was blind. Joaquín drew breath to point out that he could’ve caused him serious injury, only to drop into a thigh stretch instead as the big bear at the door turned his attention on him. Even though he’d barely slept, and had put dozens of miles behind him before dawn, the moment proved quite a wake-up call for the young man. Standing upright again, and with a quick hop from one foot to the other as if to demonstrate that he was just an innocent runner who had paused to loosen up, Joaquín Mendez continued around the loop road without once daring to look over his shoulder. The terrible ache in his heart remained, but now it also carried a note of wariness. For one glimpse into the eyes of Angelica’s husband had told Joaquín she had been right to ask him to steer clear. Maybe it was the way the man’s focus hardened, there at the front door to his villa, but it told the lovelorn personal trainer of one thing. He had just come face to face with an individual who would not let anyone come between him and his family.

  20

  Titus Savage watched the early-morning jogger and considered following in his footsteps. There was no way he would get into shape without getting out there and making an effort. One interrupted run to his father’s nursing home and back did not amount to a fitness regime, after all. It was more like a cry for help.

  ‘Know what I need?’ he said out loud as Oleg parked the scooter beside his pickup. ‘A personal trainer.’

  ‘It worked for Angelica.’ Oleg climbed off and took a moment to straighten his spine. ‘I hear she’s going it alone now.’

  ‘The guy clearly motivated her,’ said Titus, before breaking off to yawn into the back of his hand. ‘She’s become all fired up about working with fruit and vegetables in the kitchen at Amanda’s crackpot café. I can’t say I’m happy, but it seems the need for a fresh challenge is in the air in this household.’

  A smile flickered across Oleg’s face.

  ‘I heard about the plans for the saloon,’ he said. ‘My son: the Salad Bar Tsar.’

  Titus tightened his dressing-gown sash, the expression on his face in contrast to the bright and sunny start to the morning.

  ‘So, what’s with the need to speak to me this early?’ he asked his father. ‘We haven’t had breakfast yet.’

  Oleg had left several messages asking to discuss a pressing issue. As Titus had been faced with what felt like a mutiny from his family over his plan to open a rib joint, his time had been taken up pressing them to see reason. With his efforts come to nothing, and another call from his father at suppertime, this was the first opportunity Titus could give him.

  ‘Well, it’s delicate,’ said Oleg, who had gathered his stick from the clip behind his scooter seat.

  ‘Want to tell me at the table?’ Titus jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘We’re having bacon. The next best thing to a feast,’ he added, and rubbed his hands together. ‘As I’m sure you’d agree.’

&nb
sp; Oleg glanced into the villa. He flexed his nostrils, looking torn for a moment, before asking if they could speak in private. ‘You know, between Savages?’

  He raised his wiry eyebrows hopefully, supporting himself with both hands on his stick. Titus turned to check that nobody was behind him, before closing the door to the villa and inviting his father to follow him through the yard gate.

  Ivan Savage sat at the desk in his room with his eyes locked on the computer screen. The smell of bacon under the grill had reached him some time ago, but first he had some homework to complete. It was a personal project. The class stuff he had got out of the way the night before. As he typed in his search words, Tinky Dinks probed his way across the keyboard, sniffing out crumbs.

  ‘You’ve just eaten.’ Ivan planted the gerbil in front of the little pot of food he’d picked up from the pet store. Turning his attention back to the screen, he frowned at the handful of numbers the creature had added to his search for instructions on how to create a food poison. Not just a strain that caused a sick bug. The boy sought one that killed.

  Having deleted the gerbil’s digital paw prints, Ivan hit return and waited expectantly for the results. He did so with three boys in mind. A trio of tormentors who would get a taste of his sweet vengeance when the time was right. There would be no proof that he was behind it, but the right people would know. Briefly, he wondered what Crystal would make of his actions. It felt a little bit like she had taken him under her wing, in the same way that he cared for Tinky Dinks. If the gerbil did something unspeakable, Ivan thought, like chewing through the wires behind his videogames console, he would do his level best to forgive him. He couldn’t swear by it, of course, but a bond had formed between them that meant the little creature was safe in his care, for now.

  ‘Ivan, it’s going cold!’

  His mother’s voice prompted the boy to shut down the screen, but not before he had added a bookmark to several pages that showed potential. Before leaving his room, Ivan replaced the gerbil in the school bag he had effectively converted into a living space for the creature. Tinky Dinks had come to travel everywhere with Ivan, and grown used to his persistent muttering. He’d also learned to squeak when the cuddles turned into a squeeze, which happened a lot, whenever Ivan had payback on his mind. Even if the boy was a little absentminded sometimes, there was a natural kindness in the way he handled the creature. Carefully, Ivan closed his school bag and prepared to grab some breakfast before school. It felt weird, caring for something so vulnerable. He wondered whether Crystal felt the same way about him.