Her stone-washed jeans were so tight that as she raised her back leg to kick Tony in the head, like you would kick a football for a touchdown, the material held her leg back, giving Tony time to sweep his arm around and pull her remaining leg out from under her.
He shook his head at Michael, who was running up onto the lawn as Angela went down. Lisa had gotten out of the car and was staring at what she could see in the light from the street lamp. The outline of Tony’s mother behind the screen door caught Michael’s eye.
Tony quickly fell on Angela, pinning her shoulders to the damp lawn as she struggled. He leaned down over her as she screamed and spit in his face, and Michael, who had been coming to his rescue, realized that there was a grin on Tony’s face.
He leaned over her, watching her blond hair get matted and seeing a leaf stick to it as she struggled underneath him.
“My father’s gonna get you, you rat-fuckin’ bastard.”
“You should watch your mouth, Angela. You father know you curse like this?” He chuckled at her, which made her struggle even harder.
“Now, what’s your problem?”
“I’m gonna make big trouble for you, Tony Macarelli.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“You know why, you sonofabitch!”
“No. Why don’t you tell me?”
“What you did last night.”
“I didn’t do nothin’ to you last night.”
“You fuckin’ liar! You did a number on Joey D.’s car parked in my garage.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“My father knows what you did—”
“Yeah, what the fuck was Joey D.’s car doin’ in your spot?”
“It ain’t none of your fuckin’ business.”
“Yeah? Your father know what kind of lowlife you been hangin’ out with? You wanna tell me that?”
“You don’t own me, Tony Mac. You broke up with me, remember? Huh?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about no car. Maybe it was one of Joey’s business problems. The guy’s scum.”
“Yeah, you wish. You’re so low and stupid, you wouldn’t know a real man if you fell over one—”
“Oh yeah, takes a real man to sell junk to kids—”
“He don’t do nothing like that, he’s a restaurateur,” she said, raising the tone of her voice as though she was referring to the Pope.
“Who’s being stupid now, Angela? I break up with youse and what do you do? You tell your father I was gonna marry you. I never said nothin’ about marriage. Then you go out with scum, and you come driving in here, saying I did a number on some lowlife’s car and wrecking my front lawn. I don’t know about you, Angela. You better straighten out here,” he said, staring down at her and lying on her with his full weight. He could feel her trying to squirm out from under him, the way she used to do when they’d just done it. She began to turn red from the pressure. He let her gasp once or twice and then slowly got off of her.
She got up, crying. She looked around for her purse and finally stomped off to the car. Her shirt and the rounded ass of her jeans were muddy and grass-stained, her hair was disheveled, and Lisa couldn’t take her eyes off her.
Angela teetered slightly as her heel sank down and stuck in the lawn. She tried to pull it out, then finally stepped out of the patent-leather pump, leaned down, and unevenly ripped it out of the lawn. She stood still for a moment, then whirled around, holding the shoe.
“I’m gonna get you for this, Tony Mac.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but I’m gonna make you pay for what you done.”
“I didn’t do nothin’.”
She stared up at him and a smirk came across her face as she held the shoe like a gun and bobbed up and down on one heel. She slowly began to walk toward him. He stood his ground, watching her look over his body almost hungrily, up and down. He felt a warm flush across his body as he looked over hers, and he licked his lips. He knew he’d won this round. There was one thing Angela could not resist, and that was muscles.
“I know what you think and when you think it, Tony Macaroni, and if you think this is it, you’re wrong. There ain’t too many women out there know what you do and how you do it. I waited a long time for you to come around to me. I had to watch you go through everyone else, and I waited, and then you shamed me.… I’m gonna get you for this.” She was so close to him that he could just feel her.
After all the wrestling, he could’ve fucked her on the spot.
She gave a sneer, watching his eyes roam over her body.
“So you just watch out.” She turned and bobbed up and down with as much dignity as she could muster, then got back in her car.
She pulled out quickly, leaving two tracks in the grass, backed noisily onto the street, and as she drove off she gave him the finger out of the car window.
Tony stood still, watching her go, then looked down at Michael.
“She’s crazy. The woman don’t know nothin’,” he said, and then walked into his house.
* * *
Henry walked into his apartment and collapsed on the bed. He’d managed to lose Morris somewhere out on the Island. His eyes hurt and he could barely see from lack of sleep. The room began to spin as he heard the phone ring in the living room. It rang three times and then the machine picked up.
“Henry, this is your mother. Your behavior today was unacceptable, and you taking your sister’s car was outrageous. You’ve finally pushed it to the limit. I’m calling to inform you that by Monday afternoon I intend to cut you off from this family … that includes the money. I certainly hope you’ll be able to get by on what you make.”
Click.
He lay there staring at the ceiling. That was all he needed, idle threats from his mother. She never appreciated how difficult his life really was. Tiffany was probably responsible for this. As he lay trying to figure out a way to get back at her for this, the phone rang again.
He stayed still and waited for the machine to pick up.
There was a deep man’s voice he didn’t recognize, asking whether he was there. After a moment or two, the man hung up.
He had to catch some sleep, he thought finally, and then rolled over and passed out.
* * *
The lights from the police cars lining the street bounced off of the dark brick buildings. Static, followed by voices over radios, echoed in the quiet as men moved about, ducking under the yellow crime-scene tape they’d used to mark off the building. Upstairs in the third-floor corner window, the light was on, the only one for blocks in the closed downtown Brooklyn business district.
Two detectives were leaning over the body as the duster dusted for prints. Rough chalk markings outlined the body. Officers and detectives milled about, poking into things, pulling open drawers, looking about in files.
Another two men were taking inventory of the safe behind the desk. One wrote down every item the other pulled out.
In the outer office sat the cleaning woman, shaking and sick from what she had stumbled and fallen over in the dark. A young officer handed her a cup of tea, and another officer sat with a tape recorder on, asking her the usual questions.
She’d been cleaning the building for twenty years.
No, she’d never seen anything like this.
Yes, she’d actually fallen over it.… Well, she’d run out of the office so fast, she might’ve moved the body a bit, but she wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t going back in there to check.
It took ten minutes before she could dial the phone. She felt another wave of nausea come over her as they asked more questions.
“It’s gotta be a hit, George—it’s too clean,” she heard one of the officers opine in the other room as someone handed her a pack of cigarettes. She lighted one shakily and informed the officer with the tape recorder that she was going to quit on Monday.
* * *
Rosa Morelli had been sitting in her kitchen when the bu
zzer rang. She’d quickly jumped to it, pushing it without asking who it was. She sat back down at the table and lighted a cigarette in anticipation of what she knew was going to be a nice fat check and the gory details of how Tony had done the number on Henry Foster Morgan.
The door swung open, and Rosa’s face dropped as Sophia Bonello stepped inside.
“Sophia—” she began as she watched her close the door behind her.
“Rosa Morelli, I come here about my son. I don’t know what you got him doing, but I want it to stop now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rosa screeched.
Sophia held on to her bag tightly and stepped toward the woman.
“You lower your mouth—I’m not Solly here. You can’t push me around. Now tell me what you got my son doing.”
“You get out—” Rosa began, and started to stand up.
Sophia pushed her back down in her chair.
“You gotta big mouth, Rosa, and you been driving everyone crazy since that stunadze you married got himself all shot up. Now you got Solly convinced he gotta look out for you—and that’s fine, but you’re dealing with me now.… Gina and I wanna know what’s going on here.”
Sophia stood very still, looking down at Rosa. She knew Solly’s mother would enjoy seeing this. Rosa was the biggest pain in the ass she’d ever met. She watched Rosa go slightly pale at the mention of Gina’s name.
“What’s going on with my son and Tony?”
Rosa sat still, then slowly drew in a breath.
“They fired me,” she began, and Sophia actually watched tears come to Rosa’s eyes for the first time since they’d buried her husband over thirty years ago.
* * *
They’d been sitting in front of Henry’s apartment on Grand Street for five hours; now it was after midnight. Every time a cab had come down the block, both Michael and Lisa had held their breath, waiting for Henry to appear and for Tony to go through with Rosa’s orders.
Lisa was stuck in the backseat the entire time and kept meeting Michael’s eyes in the mirror. They would look at each other for a brief moment until the memory of the night before flushed each of their faces and then they would automatically shift their vision before Tony could notice.
She had stretched out across the backseat after a while, but now she was staring at a restaurant and bar across the street. People walked in and out, oblivious of the car and of them, and she wished she was one of those people, blissfully going out to dinner and then to a club.…
The sight of the woman on Andrew’s lap flashed through her mind and she felt oddly numb to it now. She remembered the dinners she had sat through with both of them. How they must have been laughing at her. The naïve good little woman who never asked questions and never interfered. She tried to think back to the first night he had brought her over. She wondered whether he had been sleeping with her at that point or if it had started later. Cynthia was introduced as “someone who works with me.” After dinner, Andrew insisted on walking her home because, he had told Lisa, “New York was a dangerous place.”
Yeah, it was dangerous all right, dangerous for the trusting.
That was probably why Cynthia had never returned her phone calls about getting together, Lisa thought. For the longest time, she had thought Cynthia just didn’t like her. Now the whole thing made perfect sense. The woman was sleeping with Andrew. Of course she wouldn’t want to become friends with the woman he lived with, or maybe she had enough human compassion not to do that.
They must have laughed over it, watching her trying to make friends with Cynthia, trusting Andrew with her. Oddly enough, she felt hollow inside when she thought of Andrew. It was as if she were erasing him from existence. She would think back over all the times he hadn’t shown up or all the times he’d been inexplicably late, and then she would let them go. Michael was right about her having no self-respect.
Tony looked at his watch. He knew Joey D.’s hangout on the East Side. He wanted to cruise around there just to make sure Angela wasn’t with him. He stared in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t go looking for Angela with Lisa in the car. He stared over at his cousin. He knew it wasn’t fair, but he’d just have to stick Mikey with her for another night. He still wanted to get Michigan out on a date, but his mind kept wandering back to Angela.
She’d finally shown him a little respectability, trying to attack him on the lawn that way. And he liked the way her body had felt underneath him again. She’d dropped a couple of pounds, he could tell.
He stared up at the building and began to rationalize leaving his post. This fruitcake wasn’t coming home tonight, anyways. He’d called awhile ago and got one of those machines. And besides, his Aunt Rosa couldn’t cash a check in the middle of the night.
“Mikey, I got something to do,” he said, staring over at him. He watched Michael blink. “You want me to take youse back to the Plaza?”
* * *
Henry rolled over and opened his eyes to look at the clock. Andy Warhol’s head was on four, and his other head was on twelve. He yawned, debating whether or not he should get up. He could go to Downtown Beirut, a club in the East Village. He sat up and the room began to spin from lack of alcohol.
He lay back down. His mother must be joking about his trust, he thought, and began to pass out again.
* * *
The same bellhop who had been on duty the night before opened the door to the room.
“No luggage, sir?” he’d asked, knowing full well there was none. Michael didn’t even bother to answer. He shoved a single in his hand and closed the door behind him. He leaned against the door and gazed at Lisa.
She slowly walked over to him and ran her hands along the smooth, stiff lapel of his jacket. She slipped her hands inside and ran them up, lifting the coat off his shoulders. He felt it slide down his arms, and he let it drop to the floor next to his feet. She ran her hands across his chest—avoiding his holster—and up to his tie. She silently began to loosen it. He grabbed her hands for a moment, then pushed them away and undid his own tie.
He was going to be strong.
He pulled it off around his neck and she took it from him and dropped it on the floor, on top of his coat. He quickly unbuckled his holster and it dropped to the floor with a thud. He stared down at it as her hands went back to his chest, and he felt himself begin to tingle as she touched him. He let her hands wander down to his waist, and then he grabbed her wrists again. She stared up into his face.
“I am not going to touch you. Do you hear me, Lisa?”
She nodded.
“Last night was … a mistake. And I’m not going to touch you.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew in twenty minutes flat he was going to have his shirt and pants unbuttoned, and she was going to kiss him as she did it, going lower and lower, making him shake and tingle, and he was going to pull her up and undress her the same way, but slowly and carefully tonight. He was going to spend the night making love to her because he’d spent the whole day thinking about it, about why he shouldn’t, and how if he was stuck with her again tonight he’d be strong and not lead himself on, all the while imagining what it would be like to touch her again.
He was screwed.
“I am not going to touch you,” he added one last futile time as she wrapped her arms around his neck and began to kiss him.
* * *
Tony stared at the dance floor. He watched Angela lean over the bar, looking for something, as the music beat so loudly, Tony could feel the floorboards vibrate through his shoes. Smoky lights danced around, zooming up and down and changing colors every thirty seconds or so, it seemed to him.
It made him dizzy, watching them whirl. He stood silently, watching her through the crowd.
It wasn’t good she was there. He looked around and couldn’t see Joey D.
Scumbag was probably in the bathroom somewhere.
Angela was lighting herself a cigarette, when she turned and waved, and Tony watc
hed Joey D. slip his arm around her.
That was enough for Tony.
He’d missed dinner at his mother’s two nights in a row, for what? he thought, getting hungry.
He turned and walked out, down the dark back corridor, and out to the back lot, where the owners parked their cars. A bouncer walked over to him, asking him what he was doing.
“I’m looking for Joey D.’s car. Could youse point out which one it is?” he asked, staring down at this man who was supposed to be the new muscle at the club.
“I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information. Would you please leave now, sir?”
“Look, I just need to know which one it is—” Tony began as the usual security guy came down the corridor.
“Fred—” he began and then stopped as he caught sight of Tony. “Mr. Macarelli, what can I do for you?”
“I was wondering if you could point out Joey D.’s car for me.”
“Of course, anything you want,” he said, walking out the door and into the lot.
Tony was led to a rented town car, and with much apology the security guy backed off into the club.
“You know who that was?” Tony heard the regular bouncer explain. “Tony Macarelli.”
“Tony Mac? Aw jeez,” the second one said, and then they both were out of earshot.
Joey D. must be dumb, he thought. After what happened to his car last night, anyone else woulda gotten the hint. Tony turned his full attention to the car. He stared through the side door, and saw the keys, hanging in the ignition. He opened the door, got in, and drove it out of the lot. He drove it over to Ninth Avenue to the Westside Car Shop, and pulled it in back. He sat and honked the horn twice, until Gus, the night guy, came out.
Gus was in his usual mechanic suit and he gave Tony a big smile as he walked around the car, appraising it and chewing steadily on a fat cigar he always had in his mouth. He got back to the driver’s side as Tony rolled down the window.
“Tony, I ain’t seen you for how many years now?” his deep, raspy Louis Armstrong voice rumbled as he held out his hand.
“I dunno, Gus, five, maybe.”
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