by E. R. Fallon
“Max said people in the neighborhood offered to help me raise money to rebuild.”
“That’s great. Will you take them up on their offer? You should.”
Violet shrugged. “I don’t have time to think about that right now.”
“This Camille has really gotten to you, hasn’t she?”
Violet nodded. It had become where she couldn’t think of anything else. Every day, every hour, every minute, Camille’s encroachment plagued her.
26
That same evening, Camille left her apartment to meet Johnny at the movies. Things were going quite well for her, and Violet was quickly going down, so she was filled with ebullience as she walked and there was a little hop in her step. She and Johnny were set to see a romantic comedy and then go for a stroll afterwards and maybe get a cup of coffee. Johnny had joked that he ought to throw her a party, since she was doing do well, but Camille didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, because she felt that doing so could bring her bad luck.
Camille arrived at the theatre and waited for Johnny outside. The queue for the new, popular film started to grow and soon stretched around the street and Camille knew that if she didn’t get on queue soon enough that there would be no tickets left. As the time passed, and Johnny never showed up, Camille began to doubt he would come. She finally got on queue and waited, but when it was her turn there weren’t any tickets left. Johnny still wasn’t there. The queue began to dissipate as the news of the lack of tickets was announced. Camille stood on the sidewalk in the warm night, under the bright lights of the theatre, empty handed except for her purse, and realized Johnny wouldn’t be there.
Furious, Camille raced to his apartment, then halfway there she felt that there must have been some sort of explanation for why Johnny hadn’t shown up. Johnny wouldn’t do that to her unless he had a very good reason. Perhaps something had happened with his daughter. Camille calmed herself down and walked the rest of the way to Johnny’s building. She reached Johnny’s apartment and knocked on his door.
Johnny opened straight away, without asking who it was, and there seemed something off about him, but Camille couldn’t quite pinpoint what. Then she realized that he seemed drunk. His hair was disheveled, and his shirt unbuttoned, and he kept rocking back and forth on his heels as he stood in the doorway, staring at her with his red-lined eyes, drunken eyes.
“What do you want?” he asked in a way that was so cold she took a step back. This wasn’t the Johnny she knew. Something had happened.
“Johnny are you all right?” she asked, though still uncertain and from afar. His imposing, rigid posture frightened her, when she had never been alarmed by him before. Something had changed between when she last saw Johnny and now. But, what?
Johnny laughed, a drunken laugh, and she realized that he was a wreck over whatever it was that had happened. “Am I all right?” he said. “Am I all right?” The smell of booze drifted off him and reminded her of her past. “Why don’t you tell me, Camille?”
“Johnny, what are you talking about? You have me worried. What happened? You never came to the movies. I waited for you . . .” Then she grasped what was behind his behavior. The secret. Somehow, he had found out.
“I told my mother about us,” he said. “I was waiting until I knew you were the one because I didn’t want her to be disappointed. I finally tell my mother I’m dating this girl named Camille O’Brien and I’m in love with her, and she tells me that some guy named Colin O’Brien helped kill my father. She said he did it with his old gang he ran with before the McCarthys. Colin. That’s your father’s name, isn’t it?”
She debated how she should react. She could lie and act shocked and pretend she hadn’t known, or she could be honest. Either way, she grasped that she and Johnny were finished and that she would lose him. She knew she ought to act stunned, that was what he’d expect her to do, as though she hadn’t known and it was news to her. But she didn’t do any of those things. She nodded.
“My father was there when your father died, but he didn’t actually kill him,” she said.
“He didn’t try to stop it. It’s the same thing. You knew and you didn’t tell me?” Now Johnny retreated slightly back inside his apartment, as though he couldn’t bear being close to her. “I can’t believe you. How could you? You knew this whole time and never said anything? How could you have pursued me, knowing what you did? What kind of person are you?”
Camille kept shaking her head. “No, no, I didn’t know until this woman—she was a friend of my father’s—told me.”
“That happened while we were dating?”
Camille nodded and couldn’t look at him.
“And you never said anything?” Johnny asked.
“I didn’t want to lose you,” she said, reaching for him, but he pushed her away.
“I don’t know you,” he shouted, and she thought he might slam the door in her face.
“I’m so sorry, Johnny. I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you’d hate me.”
“I do hate you. Do you know what I planned to do when I found out the names of the guys who killed my father?” Johnny’s voice grew louder with emotion and his eyes turned fiery with passion. “I planned to kill a relative of each of the men involved in my father’s death. In your father’s case, that would mean you. But I can’t hurt you, Camille.”
Her spirits lifted with hope because she knew he still loved her. Then he said, “But I don’t want to see you ever again,” and it crushed her because she knew their fate was sealed. “My mother kept the details about my father’s death a secret to protect me, that’s what she said, because she knew I’d want justice. I knew it was Irishmen who killed him, but I didn’t know their names. I know one now, though.”
“I’m so sorry, Johnny, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, I really did, but I knew you’d hate me if you knew.”
Johnny wouldn’t accept her apology. “I can’t hurt you, Camille, but I can’t see you anymore. Please leave.”
He looked at her and he had the most miserable expression on his face then he closed the door and she stood there, alone, trembling.
Now she’d never get to meet his daughter. She’d never get to share her life with him. Everything they had was gone, and it only took a moment. She started crying and once she started, she couldn’t stop, still standing in front of his door. She thought Johnny might open the door and comfort her when he heard her, that he might even change his mind. But he never did, and she stood there, feeling very alone. Her body shook with the force of her sobbing. A minute or so passed and she stopped crying because she had nothing left inside her. He wasn’t coming out. Johnny’s neighbor opened her door and stared at Camille from the doorway for a moment, and their eyes met, briefly, then the woman shut the door.
It was getting late, and Camille knew it was time for her to leave even if she didn’t want to. Pull yourself together. She didn’t have a tissue or a handkerchief, so she used the corner of her shirt to dry her eyes, and then she left Johnny’s apartment building. She walked outside and the hot city summer air made her feel ill. She had a lot of things besides Johnny these days, but she wanted Johnny to have been a part of that.
She wanted to go home and curl up in bed with her cat and call her mother and cry her heart out some more, but her mother hadn’t wanted her dating Johnny in the first place and wouldn’t understand her mourning. Seeking to distract herself, and feeling numb, Camille decided to conduct some business instead of going home. Something had been on her mind a lot lately, and that was the fact that in order to gain complete control of the neighborhood, she would have to find a way to win over the men who worked for Violet and her mother, and that included Max, whom she despised with everything she had. Camille had contemplated eliminating Max, but the other men respected him, and she needed to win them over and wouldn’t do that by harming Max. At least not right away.
Ever since McBurney’s had burned down, Violet’s men had started spending time at ano
ther pub on the edge of the neighborhood, but Max wasn’t a regular there. On most days he could be found in the basement of his friend’s local butcher shop, where he now ran the bookmaking business. Camille decided she would visit Max in the morning and stop by the pub to see the other guys tonight.
She entered the crowded pub and pushed past people to get all the way inside. A few people looked at her as she walked by them, which didn’t surprise her, as she must have been in a state. The pub was filled with people who had lived in the neighborhood for all their lives. Most of them recognized Camille and acknowledged her with a nod of respect. Many had come to see her as the new leader of the neighborhood and had started to go to her, asking for favors and her assistance with matters like borrowing money and dealing with those who gave them trouble. Camille had started to look into getting a ‘office’ to run her operation out of and had her eye on an old pub that was for sale in the neighborhood.
She spotted three of Violet’s men, whom she recognized from around the neighborhood—everyone knew Violet and Catherine’s guys—Derrick, Pat, and the third man she didn’t know his name, at the pool table in the corner, drinking beers and laughing. What did they have to be so joyous about?
She didn’t want them to know that she’d come there just to talk with them, so she ordered a beer at the bar before approaching them.
They stopped laughing when they saw Camille walking towards them. Each nudged the other, and they stared at her with somber expressions on their faces.
Camille stopped in front of them with her beer in her hand. “Derrick. Pat.”
Derrick rested his beer on the side of the pool table. “What do you want?”
Camille drank some beer before speaking. “I have to want something to say hello?” She grinned. She didn’t know them very well, but she knew them well enough from working at McBurney’s, that it wasn’t unusual for her to approach them.
Neither of the men returned her friendly gesture. The third man hung in the background and watched her.
“I know you’ve been watching me for Violet,” Camille told them.
“We shouldn’t talk to you,” Pat said and resumed drinking.
“I think you should,” Camille told both. “You should hear me out.”
“Why should we?” Derrick asked her. She knew him and Max to be the most loyal to Violet and her mother of the group.
She could barely hear them over the music.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said to the third man, a tall young guy in a black t-shirt with bulging muscles, piercing blue eyes and a dark mustache, handsome in a classic way.
“Danny,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Right, Danny,” she said, remembering she had seen him around McBurney’s once or twice, and he was a newer member of Violet and Catherine’s crew. Of the four men, Pat, Derrick, Max, and Danny, she reasoned Danny would be the easiest to win over since he hadn’t had much time to become loyal to the McCarthys. Derrick would be the most difficult.
“What are you doing here, Camille?” Derrick asked her.
“Can we talk?” she said and gestured to the only vacant table in the place.
“Whatever you have to say, you can say it right here,” Derrick replied, standing firmly in his place by the pool table.
“Come on, let’s sit,” Pat told him. He looked at Danny, who nodded in agreement.
Derrick glared at the other men, then grunted and went over to the table and they followed, carrying their drinks. Camille sat next to Danny, across from Derrick and Pat. She set her beer bottle on the table and began her plan.
“Have you thought about what would happen if Violet goes to jail after her mother?” she asked them.
“She’s not going to jail,” Derrick said.
“It’s possible she could. I read about her mother’s case in the newspaper, and it makes sense that she is also involved. If she goes down, too, then you guys would be on your own.”
“Max would take over if that happened.”
“Maybe not,” Camille said.
“You want us to work for you,” Derrick said, seeing right through her. His intense stare made her shiver.
“We couldn’t do that to Violet,” Pat spoke up, and Danny remained quiet, taking it all in.
Once again, she had difficulty hearing them because of the music and other conversations at the tables surrounding them.
Camille entwined her hands on the table and looked at them calmly. “I know how you feel about Violet and her mother; I’ve seen you with them. But you need to start thinking about yourselves. Things could get messy, and you need to decide if you want to be on the winning side.”
Derrick scowled and sat up. “Are you threatening us?”
For a moment, Camille thought he would get up and leave, and that the other two would follow him.
“Not at all,” Camille said. “I’m making you an offer.”
“Too bad our friend Jake isn’t here,” Derrick said. “How’s your boyfriend Johnny doing?”
Camille figured that Derrick blamed Johnny and his gang for Jake’s demise.
“You guys beat up Rafael,” she told Derrick.
Derrick shrugged and gave her a smile. “What can I say? He was hanging on the wrong street corner.”
“They wouldn’t have torched the pub if you hadn’t done that, and perhaps Jake wouldn’t be gone if he hadn’t killed Pedro,” she told him coolly.
“You’re blaming Jake for his own death?” Derrick said, incensed. He rose a little in his seat.
“No. It was simply a chain of events that happened. I’m not blaming anyone,” she said, though she despised Jake for murdering Pedro. “We can put that all behind us,” she said after a while, “and talk business. Because that is what this is, business.”
“Violet’s not just business to us, she’s like a sister to us,” Derrick said, sitting down again, and Camille saw that he would be the spokesman of the group.
“I respect that, but this is a business decision. Come work with me. I’m winning, Violet’s losing, it’s as simple as that. She will lose everything in the end. You don’t want to be there when she does.”
“Maybe we don’t want to work for a woman anymore,” Derrick said, and she heard him loud and clear.
Camille smiled at him. “Yes, but us ladies seem to be doing most of the winning around here.”
To her surprise, Danny and Pat laughed at her joke.
“Maybe we should see what she has to say,” Pat told Derrick.
“Yeah, let’s hear the lady out,” Danny said.
Derrick raised his hand to silence them then he looked at Camille and drank his beer. “All right,” he said after a moment and gave her a cool gaze. “We’re listening.”
“They’ll be less rules when you work with me, like with drinking. You can drink as much as you want as long as you don’t mess anything up. But no drugs, because I like that rule,” Camille said.
Pat and Danny seemed satisfied at the idea and they nodded at each other. Derrick didn’t react.
“What else?” he said, and it dawned on her that her plan might actually happen.
“More money. More power.”
“What does your boyfriend think of all this?” Derrick asked her.
She’d forgotten about Johnny temporarily, and now he’d made her remember. “I’m my own woman. I’m not with him anymore, anyway.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Derrick said, but he didn’t sound genuine. “We know what Max did to your father. Violet told us you’d found out. I’m assuming you plan to eliminate him and that if we were to work with you, we’d have to be fine with that.”
“I have no plans like that,” Camille responded.
“I don’t believe you,” Derrick said. “You don’t just forget something like that.”
“I can,” Camille said firmly. “When it comes to business, I can do a lot of things.”
“So, you’re saying you’d work with Max after what he did to your fat
her?”
“I have to say I don’t believe you either,” Danny suddenly said.
“Yeah, I don’t see how you could do that,” Pat said.
“It’s simple,” Camille replied. “I don’t like what he did, of course, but I’m willing to move past it for the sake of my business.”
“That’s pretty cold,” Derrick said, but he said it in a way that was more of a compliment than a criticism. He seemed to look at her in a new light, and Camille thought that maybe she could win him over. Then he said, “I don’t know if I can work with someone who was sweet on Johnny Garcia. Jake was my friend.”
“I’m no longer with him,” she emphasized.
“Sorry to hear that,” Pat said.
“Pat,” Derrick scolded him.
She thought of Johnny, and her body ached from the weight of her grief. She was surrounded by people in the pub, but she felt entirely alone sitting among the sounds of their merriment, but when she’d had Johnny in her life, she’d always felt fulfilled, no matter where she was.
“That’s good to hear,” Derrick told her. “I still don’t believe you about Max, though. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.”
Camille calmly drank her beer then set it down. “I can assure you that won’t happen.” It was a lie and Camille knew that eventually she’d have to think of a way around it, but for now it would have to do. Perhaps she could convince them of the need when the time came and they knew her better. Max walking the streets so freely enraged her but if she eliminated him now, she would lose the opportunity to pull Violet’s other men over to her side.
“Good, because we like Max,” Pat said.
Camille looked to Derrick because, clearly, he oversaw the others.
“All right,” Derrick said. “Let’s say that maybe I’m willing to believe you—when you said more money and more power, what did you mean by that?” His eyes lightened with interest and Camille saw she had him right where she wanted.
She didn’t want to outspend herself but because of the men’s longstanding relationship with Violet and Catherine, and their loyalty to them, she needed to somehow convince them to join her. “I’ll pay you more than her, and I’ll give you more say in what we do.”