Child Not Found

by Ray Daniel

  “Anderson is a dick,” I said.

  Sal said nothing.

  “Who does this under a cross?”

  More nothing.

  We trudged down the street. A plow pushed past, forcing snow into parking spaces that had been shoveled out and reserved with garbage barrels. People were going to have to shovel again. Winter sucks.

  The cross was still too far away for us to see its base. The thing grew as we walked, black against the snow. Orient Ave would have driven straight off the hill and down onto 1A if it didn’t make a sharp U-turn before it reached the cross. Sal stopped walking before we reached the U-turn. Scrubby snow-laden trees lined the road. They hid us from anyone down there, while hiding them from us.

  Sal pulled out his gun and held it by his side, gripping it with a black Thinsulate glove. “Yours too.”

  I pulled the gun from my pocket, holding it in my puffy ski glove.

  Sal looked at my glove. “You can’t work it like that.”

  “If I hold it in my bare hand, I’ll freeze,” I said, holding it up. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Keep the fucking thing pointed that way.” He motioned away from him.

  We pushed on to the end of the narrow street, where small homes closed in on the U-turn. The neighborhood had that North End feel: intimate, working-class, forbidding to outsiders, including high-tech nerds wearing Tom Brady UGGs. I hunched my shoulders as if I were walking through these people’s living rooms rather than down their barely plowed street.

  We reached the U-turn. The cross loomed ahead. Plows had pushed a dike of snow against the U-turn’s curve. We’d have to climb over it.

  “Keep your head down,” said Sal. He bent and crab-walked up the snow, finding purchase for his rubber-covered shoes on chunks of gritty ice. I followed. At the top, we could see over the trees. A rolling field of snow bumped its way toward the edge of the hill.

  A fence framed a square at the edge of the hill, protecting the cross. Three figures stood in front of the fence, all adults.

  “No Maria,” I said.

  “Good,” whispered Sal.

  As Sal predicted, they were looking for us in the wrong place. We skidded down the snow pile and slogged through a foot of snow left over from the last storm, weaving between scrub trees until we were fifty feet from the cross. We’d be visible now. Sal stepped out from behind a shrub, gun raised. I followed, gun by my side.

  David Anderson, Jake Kane, and Angie Morielli turned. Saw us. Kane reached for his gun.

  “Don’t be fucking stupid, Kane!” Sal called. Kane raised his hands away from the gun.

  Anderson called across the snow, “Why the gun, Sal?”

  “You know why, asshole.”

  “Sure I know why. You want to kill me.”

  “You fucking stole from me.”

  “It was a management fee, Sal.”

  Sal and I moved toward the cross. Rocks, bushes, pits, and a metal retaining wall formed a hidden obstacle course under the snow. Sal dropped to his knee at a sudden drop off, his gun dipping into the snow. Kane reached for his gun. I raised mine, my finger outside the trigger guard. Sal was right. I couldn’t shove my finger in there without firing.

  Sal regained his footing. We progressed slowly, with Anderson, Kane, and Angie watching.

  Sal was ten feet away when Anderson said, “Unless you’re going to kiss me, that’s close enough.”

  I stood next to Sal, gun at my side. The huge black cross rose behind Anderson. It was an industrial-strength cross, built of

  I-beams with square white lights running up them. With its lights off, the cross looked like a dead Christmas tree.

  Sal pointed his gun at Anderson and his chin at Angie. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Fuck you too, Sal,” said Angie.

  “She insisted,” said Anderson.

  “Where’s Maria?” asked Sal.

  “Ask her.”

  “You brought me all the way out here and you don’t have Maria?”

  “She wouldn’t bring her.”

  “And you couldn’t make her?”

  “What am I going to do, torture her?”

  Sal turned to Angie. “Where’s Maria?”

  “No hello, no nothing, huh?” said Angie.

  “Yeah, cut the shit. Where’s Maria?”

  “She’s safe.”

  “Where?”

  “Safe.”

  Sal turned to me. “Do you fucking believe this?”

  I said to Angie, “You lied to me, at dinner. You had her then and didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t trust you,” said Angie. “And I was right.”

  “Right how?”

  “You killed Pistol the very next day. You’re just an animal like the rest of them.”

  “Pistol tried to—”

  David Anderson interrupted. “Can we get this done?”

  “What do you want?” asked Sal.

  “I want some consideration,” said Anderson. “I bring the woman who has Maria, you agree to call it even on the money.”

  “Consideration? You don’t even know if she has Maria.”

  Angie said, “I have Maria. I saved her for us, Sal.”

  “Us?” said Sal. “There is no us.”

  David Anderson said, “C’mon, Angie, just tell him. I’m freezing out here.”

  Angie ignored him. “Of course there’s an us, Sal. You’ve always wanted me.”

  “I didn’t always want you. I wanted to fuck you. See the difference?”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  Anderson grabbed Angie’s arm. “Just tell him, for Christ’s sake!”

  Angie pulled her arm loose. “Don’t touch me!”

  Disasters start with the little things. An O-ring freezes and a shuttle explodes. A cement tube fails and an oil rig floods the Gulf. A bad sensor light starts Three Mile Island. For want of a nail …

  My little thing was that I moved my foot, just a little step. I don’t know why I did it. Perhaps to get a better view of Angie, who was blocked by Anderson and Kane, perhaps to see Sal’s face? I don’t know why I stepped. But I did.

  The step took me into a hole, hidden by snow, its shadow invisible in the diffuse gray light of the snowstorm. I fell, my arms pinwheeling instinctively. My puffy glove caught the trigger, firing my gun. The gunshot blasted across Orient Heights, the bullet ricocheting off the iron cross and into the storm. That was all it took.

  Kane reached for his gun. An instinct? Pulled it out. Raised it.

  Sal shot him in the chest.

  Kane toppled backward, his gun flying free from his hand and landing at Angie’s feet, poofing into the snow.

  Angie reached into the snow, pulled out the gun, and pointed it toward Anderson.

  “I’m not your whore!” she yelled as she fired two shots.

  They missed.

  Behind Anderson, Sal took a step back, looked at his chest. Blood gushed from Sal’s shirt in a spurting flood. He sank to his knees. Steam rose off the blood spewing from Sal’s chest. He fell back to his heels. Kane stood; he’d been wearing a vest. He tackled Angie, taking his gun back.

  I flopped over to Sal just as he fell to his back, his legs bent beneath him. I pushed my hands into his chest, trying to stop the bleeding. Steaming blood rivered out of Sal’s back, melting its way through the snow.

  His eyes wandered up to me. His gloved hand rose, red with his blood, he patted my cheek. “Little cousin.” Sal looked over my shoulder. His eyes rested on the cross.

  I pulled off my glove, grabbed his hand. “Hold on. Just stay here.”

  Sal’s breath shuddered out. “Sophia,” he mouthed. His gaze moved beyond the cross, through it, and he was gone.

  Seventy-Three

  Snowflakes drifted onto Sal’s face,
stuck there. I brushed at them, looked up at the cross, obscured by blowing snow. Anderson, Kane and Angie had tugged at my arm, yelled at me to leave, then thrown up their hands and gone. I had stayed, sitting on my haunches staring out in the gray monochromatic blur of the storm, replaying events in my mind.

  It had been a slip, just a slip. I hadn’t even shot anyone.

  I looked down at Sal, brushed another bit of snow off him. “Why did you give me a gun?”

  Sal said nothing, staring up into the clouds, not blinking when snow caught itself in his eyelashes as it grew silently around me, piling on the cross’s arms. Still, I could hear him. I told you this would happen. Now you have to find Maria.

  What about Maria? Angie said she was safe, Anderson had said that she wasn’t safe, had said that she was with an unstable person. Someone who would kill her in a—

  “Tucker!” Bobby’s hand clamped down on my shoulder. I started.

  Bobby said, “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked down at Sal. “Jesus.”

  I stood and started to compose an edited series of events, concocting a plausible chain of lies that would explain what Bobby saw in front of him but would keep Sal—I grabbed Bobby, pulled him close. “He’s dead.”

  “What happened?” Bobby repeated.

  And the truth tumbled out. The whole unedited truth, nothing redacted, nothing polished, nothing sculpted—just the truth. I hugged Bobby and spewed truth into his ear. About the times that Sal had saved me, about the things I’d overheard, about the lies I’d told to protect my cousin. I told him about Sal’s gift of the Bialetti, about Christmas, about Angie’s apartment, about Sal’s being in Jael’s hospital room this morning while I slept.

  Bobby said nothing, just pulled me close.

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “I got him killed.”

  Bobby stepped back. “What?”

  “I slipped, my gun went off, all hell broke loose. Sal shot Kane, Angie took Kane’s gun, tried to shoot Anderson, shot Sal instead.”

  “Where’s Kane’s body?”

  “He was fine. He had a vest.”

  “And Angie and Anderson?”

  Aw, shit.

  “I missed it,” I said.

  “What?”

  “So stupid. I was so stupid.”

  “Stupid how?”

  “Stupid to think that Angie was trying to kill Anderson.”

  “What?”

  “Angie wasn’t shooting at Anderson.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Someone tries to kill you, do you offer them a lift back into the city?”

  “Well, no. That would be crazy.”

  “And Anderson isn’t crazy.”

  “He’s not that.”

  “Angie’s crazy.”

  “You think he wanted Angie to kill Sal?”

  “Oh my God. Angie is the unstable person.”

  “What unstable person?”

  “The one Anderson told me about.”

  “Today?”

  “It’s all a mess.”

  The temperature had dropped and the snow had shifted from large puffy flakes to small driving crystals. I looked down to where cars had been running just an hour or so ago. The traffic was gone. Probably a state of emergency.

  “You’re still tracking me, aren’t you?” I asked Bobby.

  “When your dot stopped moving, I thought I’d find you dead.”

  The snow had covered Sal. I crouched next to him and brushed snow off. “Why did he even trust me?” I asked.

  “Same reason that I trust you,” said Bobby.

  “Oh, you trust me now?”

  “I always trusted you. I just forgot sometimes.”

  “Yeah, well, you forgot pretty good.”

  “I never thought you were a crook, Tucker. I just thought you could use some backup.”

  “And lead you to Sal.”

  “If that’s where it led. But I still trusted you.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “You think I’d have come out to Revere Beach and let Frank take a shot at me if I didn’t trust you?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have, and Jael shouldn’t have trusted me either. I almost got her killed too.”

  Bobby squatted next to me, helped brush at the snow. “You never pulled a trigger, Tucker. You’ve never done anything but try to find Maria.”

  I stood. The wind fired ice crystals against my cheeks. “She’s an orphan now.”

  “She’s got family. Adriana Rizzo,” said Bobby. “Now that this is over, Angie will bring her back.”

  The thought of Angie returning Maria jammed in my head like a square peg grinding at a round hole. I turned it and examined it from all sides. I pictured Angie walking up to Adriana’s house, Maria in tow, knocking on the door, sad hugs all around. Maria the orphan, back with her aunt.

  I couldn’t see it. The scene wouldn’t resolve properly. What would Adriana say? She’d ask Angie why she had kept Maria for so long, and Angie would answer—she wouldn’t really have an answer. She’d say she was keeping Maria safe, but Maria would have been safer with her relatives. She would have been more comfortable in a house she knew.

  Adriana would ask Maria, “Where were you?” and Maria would answer—what? Where would she say she had hidden?

  I said to Bobby, “She’s not bringing her back.”

  “What?”

  “If Angie were going to return Maria, she would have brought her to this meeting. Hell, she drove out here with Anderson, and Anderson wanted to get Sal off his back. Anderson would have wanted to bring Maria to clean this up and let Sal see what a good guy he was.”

  “So why wasn’t Maria here?”

  “Aw, shit. We need to talk to Hugh.”

  Seventy-Four

  Mankind has yet to invent a hospital room that holds enough chairs. There’s always one big chair, then a bed, then—nothing. Next thing you know, you’re leaning on the beeping monitoring equipment, and that is generally frowned upon.

  The situation was worse in Jael’s room because she had taken the big chair, and none of the men wanted to sit on the hospital bed. Bobby, Hugh, and I formed a semicircle around Jael, who was looking surprisingly comfortable in her hospital pajamas.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “I am enjoying the pain medication,” said Jael.

  “Yeah, she’s a trouper,” said Hugh.

  My mind saw an escape route from thinking about Sal and took it, engaging in the calculations and permutations that would explain this relationship between Hugh and Jael in terms that I could understand. Mutual professional admiration? Mutual personal admiration? Mutual personal—

  “What happened at the meeting?” asked Jael, dragging me back.

  “Sal’s dead,” I said.

  “Aw, Jesus,” said Hugh. He sat on the bed. Clutched his face with his palm. “Aw, hell.”

  Jael said, “I am sorry to hear it.”

  “Thanks,” Hugh and I said in unison.

  “How did it happen?” Jael asked.

  I said, “Angie shot him.”

  “Angie?” asked Hugh. “Who the hell gave that crazy bitch a gun?”

  “Long story.”

  “Yeah, with you at the center of it, no doubt.”

  “Ease up on him,” said Bobby. “He just lost his cousin.”

  “And I just lost my friend, Miller. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Bobby drove me back from East Boston.”

  “The roads are closed to traffic,” said Bobby.

  Jael said, “I am sorry that I was not there to help.”

  “Didn’t you do enough?” asked Hugh. “He almost got you killed once.”

  “Hey, Hugh,” said Bobby, “that’s not what I mean by go easy on him.”


  Hugh stood. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  Bobby stepped close. “It looks like you’re gonna be all in my business, Hugh.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, don’t give me that shit. You’re the last one standing.”

  Hugh looked from Bobby to Jael to me. Sat back on the bed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m the sole survivor.”

  “I hear the espresso is excellent at Cafe Vittoria,” said Bobby.

  “You’ll never see me there,” said Hugh. “That was Sal’s spot.”

  “You mean I’ll never see you there again,” said Bobby. “It’s pretty clear you were there already.”

  “Do we have to do this now?” I asked.

  Jael said, “I do not understand why Anderson would kill Sal.”

  “He didn’t kill him,” Hugh said. “Angie did.”

  “Anderson brought Angie to the meeting?” asked Jael.

  “I still don’t see why he did that,” said Bobby. “If he wanted to make up with Sal, he should have just brought Maria.”

  I remembered why we were here. I asked Hugh, “Why did you call Angie a crazy bitch?”

  “Because she’s a crazy bitch.”

  “But what makes you say that?”

  “The fact that all the crazy in her head spills out sometimes.”

  “When did that happen last?”

  “You probably just saw when it happened last.”

  “She’s, like, murderous crazy?”

  “Ever since the abortion, something has been wrong with her.”

  “What abortion?”

  “Sal never told you this?”

  “He said something in passing once.”

  “He got Angie pregnant.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “He paid Angie off to get an abortion. Gave her an apartment.”

  “Up on Cleveland Place.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “That’s a hell of a payoff.”

  “But she’s never been quite right since. Even more desperate and needy than before. Started sleeping with everyone.”