by Evelyn Glass
“You want to go to college?” Eric spits. The saliva spatters against my face. I try to remember when this happened, but I draw a blank. It’s more of an amalgamation, I guess, all those confrontations with Eric coalescing here, now. “Why in the name of Christ would I let you do that, Anna? We’re married, we have a duty to each other. You need to work, not mess around with animals. Come on, really, do you think you’re ever going to be a vet? You have to be smart to be a vet, Anna, really smart. And let’s face it. You haven’t got the brains for it. It’s ridiculous. Am I clear? Nod, right? Nod but don’t speak. I don’t want to hear you speak.”
I almost nod, almost give up my life to this man. In reality, I did nod when he asked me this; I nodded countless times. I nodded and I hated myself but I nodded all the same.
But in the dream I look up into his face. “No,” I say. “I want to be a vet. I don’t care if it seems stupid to you—”
His fist crunches into the side of my head. I can’t fall back because my feet are welded, so my body flops violently back, and then springs forward, my bones cracking, breaking. I want to run, but my feet, my feet . . .
I turn to Dad, but he just sits there, grinning.
“Don’t look at me now,” he says, whisky dribbling down his chin. “You’ve always chosen men against my wishes, Anna. You’ve always been a whore. And now look at you, beaten and defeated and pathetic. A waitress at the beck and call of a monster. And you look to me for help? Stupid, pointless girl. Your mother’s death was your fault, you know.”
This is a ridiculous statement. Mom died of cancer. But still it wounds me. I see it in the man’s eyes. He believes it. On some level, he truly does blame me for Mom’s death.
“You’re useless,” Eric says. “You’re a useless whore. Dress like a whore, act like a whore. We’re married now, okay? Right? So I own you. The second you get that through your stupid whore head, this will get a hell of a lot easier.”
“I want to be a vet,” I say. It seems like the only retort I have. A dream which I can hold onto no matter what happens to me. Eric can hit me as much as he likes and Dad can insult me as much as he likes, but if I can somehow hold onto this one thing, something of me will survive.
But then my mouth opens again, against my will, and I say: “It’s okay. I suppose I don’t have to be a vet. I suppose . . .”
Eric smiles, rubs my head, moves his hand down . . . down . . . and I let him.
Dad nods. “Whore,” he sighs.
It’s too much. The past is too heavy. I tear my feet free from the floor and scream, scream as loud as I can, my neck straining with the effort, my throat sore. I scream and scream and scream—
“Woah, woah.” The voice is a man’s, New York accent, steady and strong. Arms grip me. Eric’s?
I struggle, and the man takes my hands and holds them in his.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, his breath tickling my ear. “It’s okay, Anna. You’re safe. Nothing will hurt you now. Nothing will ever hurt you again. I promise you that.”
“How can you promise that?” I murmur, once the light of the morning sun becomes clear to me, the clothes spread over the floor, the paperback novel on the side table. I’m not with Eric or Dad. I’m with Samson, and that’s infinitely better.
“Because if anyone tries to hurt you, I’ll kill them,” Samson says.
Chapter Eight
Samson
I hold Anna longer than I’ve held a woman before. I’m not a holder, a hugger, a close-and-personal type. The only time I get close is to kill, and the only time I get personal is for blood. But now, sitting on the bed with Anna in my arms, I feel something I haven’t felt since I was a young boy who knew nothing of the business, whose father was just a drunk and whose uncle was just a kind-faced man. It must be hope, I reflect. Hope for what, though? I’m not sure. But listening to her breathing, which gets slower and more calm as I hold her, I know it’s hope for something.
But beneath the hope I can’t get rid of the image of that fleeing man in black, the aches in my body from his goddamn Taser, and the shame of being outplayed.
“I have to check outside again,” I tell her.
She nods shortly, and leans away from me. “I’m okay now,” she says. “I’m fine.”
I don’t know if I believe that, but I’m not experienced enough with women to know what to say. I stand up and pull on my clothes, still dirty from the night before. Soon, I’ll have to change them. But there are more important things to worry about at this precise moment. Maybe the man from last night has gotten cocky; maybe he’s back here, watching.
“Samson,” Anna says, when I’m about to stand up.
“Yeah?” I turn and face her. Her face is red, but not bright red, and her lips no longer tremble. She looks at me and her almost-black eyes are holding more pain than I can imagine—waves of pain crashing against the blackness of her eyes.
“I want you to know. Last night. It wasn’t because I was drunk or scared or anything. It was because I wanted to.”
“Me, too,” I say. “And I want to again.”
My voice becomes thick, animal-like, but I can’t help it. Sitting there in her tight-fitting pajamas, her body outlined perfectly, I can’t fight the animal desire inside of me.
She smiles, shy and playful. “So do I. But don’t you have business to attend to?”
I groan, stand. “Lock the door behind me,” I say.
Anna follows me to the front door, I open it, and for a few moments we just stand there, looking at each other. I guess she’s thinking the same thing as me: how? How can we feel this way about each other after so little time? How can I feel so protective, and how can she feel so protected?
I smile at her, and she smiles back. “This is kind of an adventure, isn’t it?” she says.
“I suppose it is,” I say.
We hold gazes, but neither of us speaks, and after half a minute or so I leave.
###
I scout the street quickly with my eyes, taking it all in. The sky is clear, but the sun is pale and dim. Even so, the street is lit up with sunlight. It reflects just as the moon did on the wet sidewalk. The bar at the end of the street is closed and shattered glass covers the space around it. Cars drift by slowly. There are fewer cars parked on the street, people going to work or school. I scan the cars, listen, but I don’t see or hear anyone. I stand just outside the apartment door, unwilling to leave it again, just in case this Whoever Man decides to trick me again.
I take out my cellphone from my jacket pocket and dial Jack. Jack Weiss is one of those men the army often creates: disillusioned and generally angry at everything, but the world especially. He was in Iraq and now he’s an associate, a driver, and sometimes a killer for one of the biggest crime families in New York. It’s the same crime family I do a lot of work for, but I’m a free trader. So is Jack, when I want him to be. We’ve worked a few jobs together and he respects me in an oddly devout way, as though I am his officer.
He answers as he normally does, with a gruff: “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” I say.
“Oh.” His voice drops an octave. “Heard you went into hiding.”
“Not hiding. Working. Eddy, anything in the air about me? Any rumors?”
“No.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
“We all know about the NBA hit, but nobody knows who hired you, and hardly anyone even knows it was you, and they’re only guessing because of the poison. That’s your favorite method, after all.”
“Cleaner,” I grunt. “Is anyone taking credit for it?”
“The hit? No.”
“Not the hit itself. Putting the body in the car.”
“Oh.” He pauses, and I can almost hear him filing through his memories with methodic efficiency. “No, everyone thinks that was you. Seemed strange to me, actually, so I asked around, checked if there were any former players in the mix. You know, people who might want to hurt you.”
“Good man,” I say.
; He smiles; I hear it in his voice. “But there’s nothing, nobody. No former players, no enemies, nobody back on the scene. None of the families are taking credit for moving the body, which is strange, ‘cause they would if their objective was to make a point. You know, rattle you. Whoever’s doing this, they’re freelance. At least, that’s how it seems.”
“I met the fucker last night,” I say, and then quickly tell Jack about the chase.
He chuckles. “Bet that hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“You bet right,” I sigh. “So no leads at all?”
“Nada, but I’ll keep my ears pealed—or is it eyes?”
“Do both, and you’ll be doing be a favor.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
“Bite me, Jack,” I say, and then hang up the phone.
Nothing, nobody.
I lean against the wall near the main door to the apartment building, tossing my phone from one hand to the other and scanning the street—always scanning. That’s the killer’s life, in many ways, constantly spreading invisible hands into his surroundings, constantly questioning if there is someone close by who may do harm. But I see and hear nobody, and I’m forced to conclude that whoever was here last night is gone now. Maybe they’re gone forever; maybe they’ve learnt their lesson. I want to believe that, but it’s difficult. Whoever dragged a corpse—a heavy corpse—across a parking lot and stuffed it into the trunk of a car has something to say.
I think of Anna upstairs, the dancer, the veterinarian student, loving and kind and whose fault none of this is. First it was Eric, now it’s me, both of us bringing chaos into her life. The only solace I can take is that she seems to enjoy my particular brand of chaos. I vow to myself to not squander that enjoyment, to treat her well, to make sure she’s safe, always. Last night was a mistake, chasing the man like that. It was stupid. It will not happen again.
“What are you doing, mister?”
The boy is about five years old, wearing a blue overall with yellow stains down the front. His hair is fine and brown, combed close to his head, and his eyes are bright. He looks up at me with frank curiosity. Behind him, I see his mother, or who I guess is his mother. She waves her son over. The boy continues to look up at me, so that the mother is forced to lean down and take him by the elbow.
“Don’t bother the man,” she says.
“He’s just leaning there. Shouldn’t he be at work?”
“Maybe it’s his day off,” the mother sighs. She meets my eyes. She looks worn and haggard, and I notice that her belly is bulging with another child. “I’m sorry—”
“No apology needed, ma’am,” I say. She smiles her thanks and leaves.
I find myself asking where the father is. A stupid question. He’s most likely at work, earning money for the rent and the bills and the cot and the formula and whatever else it is a child needs. But then my mind moves way, way too forward, into a future where Anna is pregnant. And I try to imagine leaving her to roam the streets alone, and I can’t. I would protect her; I would always protect her.
‘You’re getting sentimental, nephew,’ Uncle Richard chuckles in my mind.
I can’t deny it.
I watch until the boy and his mother have walked the length of the street and turned at the bar. Still tossing my phone from hand to hand, I try to think of somebody else to call. There must be somebody, I think, anybody who might help. The thing is, if Jack hasn’t heard anything, it’s unlikely anybody else has. And the crime families are busy enough without me going to the bosses. And if I went to the bosses, they’d demand to know who my client is, just to be sure it wasn’t one of their competitors. No, I can’t have that. It would only draw Anna further into the fray.
Maybe I could do a larger scout of the neighborhood, but that would involve leaving the apartment—
Suddenly, my phone beeps. A short monotone note, so a text, not a call.
I flip my phone over. It’s an unknown number, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t somebody I don’t know. I have around ten burner cells back at my place, after all.
I go through to the texts. Just a photograph. I bring the phone to my eyes, covering the screen from the glare of the sun with my hand, and study the photograph. A drawing, no—a tattoo. On the back of somebody’s leg, or perhaps their knee; it’s a close-up and difficult to tell exactly. But then I focus properly on the photograph, and I know where the tattoo is without having to see more. And I know who the tattoo belongs to.
I collapse against the wall, my head pulsing, and my mouth dry. If it were not for years of training, conditioning myself, I’m sure I would be shaking right now, shaking like somebody who’s just seen a ghost. Which I have. Which I have, I think, stunned. The tattoo is of a Phoenix, expertly drawn, its fiery wings spread wide, its neck arched upward, its beak open. Ashes drop from its wings, and there is a pile of ashes beneath it. Her name is River Mendoza, and she’s my ex-girlfriend. But more than that. She’s my ex-partner. We worked jobs together.
But she’s dead, I think, letting my head fall back and rest against the wall. She died. How? How the hell?
My phone beeps again.
This time it’s a text: Remember the cabin; remember the five times.
I cringe at the words. The cabin where I sometimes took her to have sex, and five times, referring to the occasion where we once had sex five times in a row. I never told anyone about the cabin, and as far as I know neither did she.
But she’s dead! She died!
For a time, my mind repeats these statements over and over again, screaming them as though if I think it enough times, it will be true. But I can’t deny the text. I see now for the first time, too, that I can’t be sure she’s dead. I never saw the body.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “I never saw the body.”
I heave myself away from the wall, mind whirring. I look up and down the street. Is she watching me? But she’s not there.
My mind is cast back five years, when I was twenty-four and working a job with a young, slightly mad woman.
###
I was in one of the bars owned by the Italians, and I was drunk. Drunker than I normally allowed myself to get. I sat at the bar, knocking back whisky after whisky, still wearing the black suit I wore to Uncle Richard’s funeral. Black Knight was dead, and nobody was mourning. He’d stopped being a main player before I was eighteen, and he’d drifted out of the consciousness of the criminals and the gang bosses. A rare feat in itself, considering most careers in this business ended in blood. So I sat my vigil, drinking whisky after whisky for him, and then River, wearing jeans and a tank top, her pink hair messy, tousled, sat down beside me.
“Next one’s on me,” she said, and I grunted.
It continued like that all night, me thinking more and more about Richard, about the man who I thought of as my father, because my real father was a scumbag, even if he was a skilled killer. I thought of the way Richard had sat me on his knee, before I knew about the business when I was very young, and bobbed me up and down, tickled me, and played with me. Before I knew him as Black Knight, when he was just a kind man with a thick beard, he seemed like a big lovable lump to me. And even after I discovered what he was, who he was, that was difficult to shake. He was Black Knight, sure, but he was still the man who had tickled me for half an hour straight once, who had laughed like a jackal when I tickled him back. He was the man who had taught me bravery. Richard had told me to confront my father, and I had. I’d marched back to our house and I’d fought him like a dog, biting his ear and clawing at him. In the end, I’d ended up on my back, bleeding into the tiles of our kitchen. But that was my first lesson, the lesson that stuck with me more than anything else. You have to fight. If you do not fight, you are not a man. This kind-faced, bearded man had drummed this into me, and I believed him. I loved him.
And now he was dead.
I was one of three people at his funeral. Two, if you don’t count the priest. The other was an old man I’d never met who apparently knew Black Kni
ght back in the seventies, another remnant from a time gone by when the streets were nastier and the police were slower. But the other man didn’t talk, and soon I felt as though I was alone: alone mourning this man who, to my mind, was a legend and deserved a parade.
I drank, and drank, and drank, and I hardly cared who was buying the drinks. River? I asked myself drunkenly. Who’s that? It didn’t seem to matter. If she was giving me whisky, I didn’t care. I didn’t want to think.
I’d never been blackout drunk in my life but I came close to it then. I could walk, just. My steps swayed and I imagined that Richard was watching me from the corner. He was stroking his beard meditatively and his kind eyes were looking deep inside of me. Make as much money as you can and then get the hell out. I heard the words as though he was not dead, as though he had really said them.