Wiseguys In Love

by C. Clark Criscuolo

  Ninety-eight fifty.

  “Lorenya, ve must flee, flee to America, I tell my wife. But she does not vant to go. She vants to stay in Poland. So I say—”

  Henry fell supine across the entire backseat and tried closing his eyes. If he could just get out there, he could go to his mother’s house and hide out till the wedding.

  * * *

  Tony walked down the ramp of the parking garage underneath Angela’s building. In his left hand, he swung a crowbar. There was a bulge from a sack of sugar in his jacket pocket. The sounds of his footsteps echoed and he watched his shadow stretch longer before him and then shorter as he walked under the wide slats of fluorescents. He’d made it here in thirty-eight minutes flat from his house. He could still taste the sauce in his mouth.

  He got to the lowest level and turned right, over to the G section, down two long rows. Across the floor, in the distance, he heard a motor start and rev up. He continued walking, not speeding up his pace but just walking like he belonged there. Behind him, he heard the car pull out and he watched the beams from the car headlights move along the white brick garage wall in front of him.

  Section One Hundred G. He stood, breathing deeply until he heard the car pull up the ramp. He stared at the car sitting in his old spot and listened until the sound of the car behind him faded away into nothing and only his deep, angry breathing could be heard.

  He stood in front of the black Porsche, parked in Angela’s spot, the spot he used to park in. He raised the crowbar like a baseball bat and swung as hard as he could, feeling the pull across his shoulders and then the shock back through his arms as the crowbar shattered the windshield. He walked around the car, swinging again and again, feeling the shock to his upper arms as, one by one, every window in the car was broken.

  He walked along to the gas tank’s top and opened it with ease. He took the sack of sugar out and neatly poured it into the tank, screwed the top back on, and slowly walked back up to the main aisle. He stood in front of the car, looked over what he’d down, and exhaled.

  He turned and walked back to the center, toward the ramp.

  He could eat now.

  He’d been reasonable about this. He felt light, as if he’d had a weight lifted off of him.

  Now he could microwave the meatballs.

  * * *

  “So that’s what happened,” Michael said as he poured the last drops of champagne into her glass. He spilled a small amount on the rug and bent down to wipe it up, then sat back up, realizing that he didn’t have a napkin. He was feeling pretty relaxed and he leaned back on the couch, slipped his shoes off, and looked over at her, sipping on her drink.

  She was lovely. Her high cheeks were flushed from the champagne, and her lips were wet, and the freckles dotting her nose gave her this clean, girl-next-door innocence. She reminded him of the girls in college—girls who would spend the evenings discussing classes and professors and politics, not hairdressers and hits. That’s what most of the women he’d come in contact with in the past two years seemed to talk about. She wouldn’t have fake-looking hair, teased three feet above her head, or wear several layers too many of makeup, he thought. She didn’t have large clawlike nails painted blood red or wear jeans two sizes too tight and sweatshirts that for some reason someone had spent hours embroidering with pearls and lace.

  His nose felt itchy. He rubbed it and sat farther up. He really had to get a grip. He’d already talked too much. It was the booze. The triple Glenlivet he’d poured at the apartment, and now the half a bottle of champagne he’d sucked back in the last twenty minutes.

  “And you couldn’t get her to tell the truth? Tha’s terrible. I think that’s the most terrible thing I’ve heard,” Lisa said, and finished off her glass.

  She leaned over unevenly and put her glass on the table. Then she sat back, curling her slim legs alongside of her on the couch.

  “You want me to get another bottle?” he asked.

  She sat still for a couple of moments, thinking about it.

  “No, I’m fine, but if you want some more,” she said, leaning over to him and placing her chin on his shoulder, “you can order more.”

  He found himself gazing at her for God knows how long, and he watched her look up at him, at his lips, his face, and he began to get lost somewhere, imagining taking her and kissing her all over slowly. He sat up suddenly and then got to his feet.

  “I think I’ll order another bottle,” he announced, and walked over to the phone.

  He picked up the receiver and watched her jump up unsteadily and walk over next to him. He began to shake slightly as she stood so close, he could feel her against his chest.

  “No,” she said, pulling the receiver out of his hand.

  “No?” he repeated, barely above a squeak.

  She dropped it back on the hook, looked up at him, and pressed herself against him.

  “I’m a real loser, Lisa.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re just doing this to get back at the guy you’re living with,” he said, and took a step away from her.

  “Would that make you feel better?”

  “No,” he said honestly.

  She took a step toward him and he backed away again. She stopped and her eyes dropped. “I’m sorry. This isn’t right. I just thought maybe. It’s just been so long since anyone … even seemed to look after me, you know? I mean, I’ve been here for four years. I don’t have any real friends. Andrew hasn’t introduced me to anyone, except for…” Her voice faded away as a flash of pain showed in her eyes, and Michael saw again the woman on the man’s lap in the club. He knew exactly what she was thinking.

  She came out of it, and their eyes met as she continued. “We haven’t gone to the clubs or out, and I just…” Her eyes began to turn red, and she looked away. “… sit at home each night, Michael, waiting for him to come in. This is the first night in a year I’ve been out to dinner, the first night I’ve had a glass of champagne or just sat and talked to someone. And look at me—this has been my life.” Her voice began to get stronger. “And if I’m crowding you, it’s because you, a guy who kidnapped me and tied me up, has shown me more compassion and respect than I’ve even shown myself in all this time.”

  She walked over to him and looked up.

  “And,” she said, staring at him as if something had gone off in her head, “I want you … to kiss me and … and hold me and look at me the way you’ve been looking at me, because I’m … lonely. Do you know what it’s like to be lonely?”

  God, it sounded like his life.

  He stood there for a moment and then grabbed her, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. She rubbed her hands up and down his back, pressing herself as close to him as she could. He stooped over her and began kissing her neck and face, quick and hard, then slowed down and pulled himself back, shaking a bit.

  “What?”

  He caught his breath.

  “I haven’t done this in awhile. I need to slow down,” he said.

  She nodded and backed away, and he watched her walk over to the light next to the couch and turn it off. She shut off the other one.

  “Do you have something?” she asked quickly.

  He looked over at her, puzzled for a brief second, and then quickly walked over to his wallet.

  He dug around inside and found one condom, which he had put in there almost a year ago. He stopped for a moment. The foil was still intact.

  He saw her outline walk over to the bedroom door. She stood there, leaning against the wall, staring at him, until he straightened up. He walked over and took her by the hand and walked into the bedroom and over to the bed. He lowered her down onto it, staring at her face in the light from the window.

  Outside, over the hum of the air conditioner, he could hear the pinging sounds of raindrops on the metal box as a light rain began to fall.

  He slowly began unbuttoning her blouse, feeling her loosen his tie and pull it off, then struggle with the top but
ton of his shirt. He kissed her slowly, working his way down her neck, pulling her shirt open gently and letting it fall to her sides on the bed.

  She pulled his shirt open as he continued to work his way down. He was kissing her breasts and she couldn’t reach his shirt anymore. He looked up at her for a moment.

  “I think you’re really beautiful, Lisa, and I have been looking at you like that all day and it’s been driving me crazy, ’cause … I’m lonely, too,” he whispered, then continued to caress her body.

  * * *

  It was noon. Tony Mac was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully shaving his wide, flat face, when he heard the phone ring in the living room. He rinsed off the spots that still had the cream on them, then opened up the medicine chest. His eyes roamed over the two shelves of after-shave.

  Every Christmas, all the women in the family gave him the same stuff—shaving lotions and after-shave. Normally, he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing perfume—he didn’t care what they called it, it was still perfume as far as he was concerned—but today was gonna be different. Today, he was going to ask Michigan for a date.

  It had come to him in a dream, in the middle of the night. They were in the union office and out of the corner of his eye he had just seen her struggle with the gun and Giuseppe, and right there, in his dream, she did him. There was a big stain of blood on her dress, but suddenly the blood lifted off the dress and turned into roses; Tony was giving her great big bunches of red roses. And then her little dress turned into a beautiful wedding gown and they were walking up the aisle in the chapel of Our Lady of Precious Poverty.

  He knew what that meant. Red roses are from the heart. She’d saved his life, for which he would always be grateful, and he’d always owe her, and here it was—God’s answer to how to pay her back.

  Marry her.

  She’d make him a good wife.

  She was a good shot.

  She cared what he did but understood it.

  His hand reached for the Old Spice, which he generously doused on his cheeks, then waited for the sting to subside.

  “Anthony!” he heard his mother call from the kitchen.

  “What, Ma?” he yelled back.

  “It’s your cousin Michael on the phone; he wants to talk wid you.”

  He opened the bathroom door, taking a small bottle of talcum powder with him, and walked down the hall to the living room. His eyes scanned the sofa for his gun.

  He picked up the holster, took the gun out, and lightly sprinkled some of the powder inside.

  That kept the holster from getting sticky in all this heat. He put the holster on.

  “Anthony! You gonna get the phone or what?” his mother screamed from the kitchen.

  “I’m coming! Fahcrissakes, let me put my gun on!” His voice roared through the walls and seemed to bounce around the entire house.

  He always felt undressed without his gun—vulnerable.

  He picked up the phone.

  “Mikey?”

  “Yeah, listen, I’m at the Plaza. Pick us up there.”

  He stood still for a moment, feeling his eyes begin to cross slightly.

  “You got Michigan at the Plaza?” he asked slowly.

  “Yeah,” Michael said, and heard Tony exhale on the other end. He waited for a moment.

  “Tony?”

  “Yeah,” he said more slowly. “Why you took Michigan to a hotel?”

  Michael rolled over in bed and put his hand over his eyes to shade them from the light.

  “She didn’t want to stay at her place. It wasn’t a good idea, anyway. What if the guy she lives with showed up?”

  “The guy she lives with? She married?”

  Oh Christ, Michael thought as he felt her move next to him, pulling the covers across him.

  “No, she’s not married. Just pick us up here. Then I want to stop at my mother’s house for a change of clothes. Okay?” He waited. “Tony, you there?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there at one.”

  Tony stood holding the receiver and felt his hand tighten around it.

  He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this one tiny bit.

  * * *

  Michael hung up and stared over at Lisa’s shoulder. Tony would come and get them at one. Hopefully, by the time he showed, Michael would have some plan. That’s all he needed to do—come up with some way to get them all off the hook.

  A lock of blond hair fell across her cheek and he just lay there, watching her breathe. He’d forgotten how nice it was to wake up with someone next to him. He’d frozen himself out for two years.

  His eyes shifted to the wall across from the bed. For a moment, he listened to the sound of the air conditioner and stared at a dusty slat of sunlight that had peeked through the blind of the window.

  He rolled over and put his arm around her and kissed her shoulder. She made a slight noise and he kissed her ear.

  “Lisa, we have to get up.”

  “Ummm,” he heard as he lifted himself off the bed.

  He walked over to the bathroom.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” he announced, looking back at her.

  He stood, staring at the bed for just a moment longer, and walked into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and watched, entertained by the silly sight of six shower heads going off behind the glass doors. She could get a couple more minutes sleep, he thought, stepping inside.

  * * *

  Lisa covered her head with the sheet and didn’t move a muscle until she heard him in the shower. She lay there, cringing.

  She should make a run for it. Lisa slowly sat up, and the room spun around. The taste in her mouth was awful—pasty champagne, mingled with whatever that other stuff was that she’d had.

  Tasted like cough syrup now.

  She felt slightly nauseous and her head felt fizzy. She sank back down.

  After all, they had kidnapped her, she thought. Well, Tony had kidnapped her; Michael was trapped in the situation from what he told her last night.

  No, she should just get on her clothes and run this second, right now.

  She stared at the bathroom door and the thought suddenly occurred to her that if she did make a run for it, what would happen to Michael? Would they hurt him? That would be awful. He didn’t deserve that. Last night, he’d been so nice and honest.… She cringed again.

  At least she’d asked about condoms, she thought, pulling the cover up over her head, embarrassed that she felt it was a point in her favor.

  What was she turning into? She still could not conceive that she had done this. She had never done this—met some guy and slept with him the same day.

  She heard the shower go off in the bathroom.

  Well, it was too late to make a run for it. She felt herself push down farther under the covers, as if disguising herself as an unmade bed would make him forget she was there entirely and he’d just go on his merry way with Tony.

  Her body tensed and she stopped breathing as she heard the door open again.

  “Lisa? We have to get going.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “If you want to take a shower, you have to get up now,” his voice said, closer now.

  In a second, the whiteness of the sheet was lifted, and she pasted a stiff smile on her face and looked up at him.

  He stood over her and she could see him reading her thoughts. His smile dropped and an embarrassed expression moved across him like a large cloud in the middle of a clear sky. He looked away and dropped the sheet.

  “I, uh … I’ll get coffee,” he stammered. “Tony’s going to be here at one.” His voice turned cold.

  She listened as he left the room. She sat straight up and grabbed her head as the room did a small jig. She stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the water. When it was lukewarm, she stepped under it.

  She spent a long time lying in the bottom of the tub, letting the water run over her.

  She heard a knock at the bathroom door, straightened up, yelled that
she would be out in a moment, and stood up. She let a blast of ice-cold water run on her, then got out.

  By the time she walked into the living room, Michael was sitting there, watching TV and sipping on a cup of coffee. His eyes darted to her and then away. She walked over to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. She sat next to him, and they both stared at the set in embarrassed silence.

  “I got some rolls if you want them,” Michael muttered into his cup.

  She choked back the nausea that came with the idea of a roll and nodded, then finally looked at him. He gave her a small smile, then looked back to the set.

  “Michael—”

  He stood up and put down his cup. “We have to get downstairs; it’s five to one,” he said stiffly.

  They left the room in the same uneasy silence. Michael felt himself brooding and tried to snap out of it. They rang for the elevator.

  Lisa stood still in the hallway, looking at Michael’s back. She felt silly at having pasted that smile on her face. His eyes had this hurt look to them, which had grown worse over coffee. It had been her idea, after all.… Well, that wasn’t true. It had been both of their ideas. She wanted to say something that would ease the situation. Just as she opened her mouth, the doors to the elevator slid open.

  There were several people in it, and they had to squeeze together slightly to get in. Michael stared up at the floor-indicator light as they stopped on every floor.

  God, what had he done? She really hated him, he could tell. And she’d go to the cops and tell them that he’d forced himself on her. He’d been drunk and lonely, he began thinking.

  Just as Michael felt he was going to burst if he didn’t say something before Tony showed up, he felt her slip her hand into his and give it a squeeze. He felt himself smiling as she stretched up and kissed him quickly on the side of the neck.

  “It’s okay,” Lisa said quietly. She looked at the smile on his face and felt herself relax. There was something about him looking embarrassed and hurt that she couldn’t stand. And, as odd as it was, it made her decide that it was okay. She also decided that if she did get an opportunity to run, she should take him with her.