Because It Is My Blood

by Gabrielle Zevin

  “I’m not sure. Sophia says he was the one who killed Leo in retaliation for what Leo did to Yuri. The truth is, she might have just been lying to get the heat off her for Leo’s death.”

  “And the easiest way to do that is to point the finger at her husband.” He paused to look at me. “Jesus, kid, what happened to your forehead?”

  “I got between a sinner and her Bible,” I explained. “I want to go confront Mickey, and I need you with me.”

  Fats nodded. “I’ll get my gun.”

  When we got to Mickey’s brownstone, a servant answered the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Balanchine just left. They said they were going to visit her relatives.”

  I said to Fats that we should go to the airport, but he shook his head. “We don’t even know which one. Maybe the best thing that could possibly happen is the two of them leaving town. Think of it, Anya—if the two of them stayed, we’d have an internecine war on our hands. With them out of the picture, it’s back to business as usual and that’s a very good thing.”

  “But I want to know for sure if Mickey killed my brother!”

  “I understand that, Annie. But what would knowing really matter? Sophia said he did. And Mickey is gone. You drove them out of town, so you got to take some comfort in that because that is all the truth you’re going to get for now.”

  This seemed incredibly naïve to me. Just because they had left town didn’t mean they’d be gone forever. “We need to go see Simon Green,” I told him.

  “The lawyer? Why?” Fats demanded.

  I told him that Sophia had said that he was involved in the poisoning. “Fats, have you ever heard a rumor that Simon Green might somehow be related to us?”

  Fats cocked his head and screwed his mouth into a skeptical ball. “Annie, there’s always rumors about us. And most of them you don’t got to bother paying no mind to.”

  But I wouldn’t be deterred.

  At Simon’s building, we walked up the six flights of stairs. My head was starting to pound and I was wishing I’d had the foresight to ask someone at the hospital for an aspirin before I’d run out.

  We found that the door was open, and Mr. Kipling was standing in the center of the room. He must not have been there too long, because he was still out of breath from the stairs. “He’s gone,” Mr. Kipling said. “Simon Green’s gone.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  Mr. Kipling nodded to Fats, then held out a slip of paper to me:

  Dear Mr. Kipling,

  I am about to be accused of a crime, and I must now leave in order that I may clear my good name.

  You have been like a father to me.

  Please forgive the short notice.

  Please also forgive me.

  Simon Green, Esq.

  “Do you have any idea what this is about?” Mr. Kipling asked me. “Anya, what happened to your head?”

  I answered him with a question of my own. “Mr. Kipling, why are you here?”

  “Simon Green told me to come, and I did. I should ask the same question of you, I suppose.”

  I told him what Sophia Balanchine had said about the poisoning and Simon Green hating my father and his children.

  Mr. Kipling looked at Fats. “Would you mind giving us a moment alone?”

  Fats nodded. “I’ll be in the hall if you want me.”

  Mr. Kipling shook his head. “No, Anya. She’s wrong. Simon Green loves you. And I love Simon.”

  I reminded him of the day of his heart attack. “Did you ever wonder if it was a setup?”

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t watch what I ate and I didn’t take care of myself.”

  “You should have heard Simon Green in court that day. What if he was being incompetent on purpose? What if he wanted to get me sent to Liberty?”

  Mr. Kipling said that I sounded paranoid, insane.

  “He knew the most intimate details of my business. He knew where all of us were. He knew everything, Mr. Kipling! If he was in partnership with Sophia Bitter the whole time…!”

  “No! He would never have partnered with Sophia Bitter.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He would never have partnered with her because of who he is.”

  “Who is he, then?” I demanded. “Mr. Kipling, who is Simon Green?”

  “My ward,” Mr. Kipling replied.

  “Who was Simon Green to my father?”

  “Before he was my ward, he was your father’s ward.”

  “Why was he my father’s ward?”

  “Anya, I promised,” Mr. Kipling said.

  “Is he my…” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Is he my half brother?”

  “It’s so long ago. What difference can dredging up any of this make?” Mr. Kipling said.

  “Tell the truth!” I shrieked.

  “I … You see, Anya, there’s a very good reason Simon Green could never have been involved in anything that would harm you.” Mr. Kipling took his mini-slate out of his wallet. He turned on the slate and showed me the screen. On it was a picture of my father standing next to a little boy. The boy was Simon Green. I recognized the eyes. Light blue like Leo’s and Daddy’s. “Your father … Well, you could say he adopted Simon. He took him under his wing.”

  “I don’t understand what ‘you could say’ means. He either adopted him or he didn’t. Why would he have adopted him and never told any of us about it?”

  “I … Maybe he planned to someday, but he didn’t live long enough. The story I was told was that Simon Green’s father had worked for your father. The father died on the job, and when the mother died, too, your father thought it was his responsibility to take care of him. He was a good man, your father.”

  “Why do you say ‘the story’? Stop being vague, Mr. Kipling.” I was covered in sweat and my head felt like it might explode. Something fierce and terrible was beginning to burn within me.

  Mr. Kipling walked over to the window. There was a distant look in his eyes. “The day you met Simon, he had been wanting to meet you for so long. But I always kept him from you.”

  “Why? Why did he want to meet me? Who was I to him?”

  “Have you never noticed the resemblance?” Mr. Kipling turned. “The eyes and the skin. Does he not look like your cousin Mickey, your cousin Jacks? Does he not look like your brother? Your father? Green was his mother’s name.”

  “Is he my father’s son?”

  “I don’t know for sure, Anya. But I have arranged everything for Simon. His schooling. This apartment. And I did these things because your father told me to.”

  I felt ill. “You had no right to keep this from me.” I’ve always thought it was preposterous in a story or a movie when someone throws up upon hearing dramatic news, but I really did feel like I might. (Of course, it might also have had something to do with the blow I’d taken to the head.)

  “Sophia Bitter says that Simon Green helped plan the poisoning last fall,” I said to Mr. Kipling.

  “Simon is a good boy,” Mr. Kipling said. “He would never do something like that. I’ve known him his whole life.”

  I looked at Mr. Kipling’s threadbare head. I loved that head. It had been one of the few constantly good things in my life. That is to say, what I needed to do next wasn’t easy for me. “I believe that you have made an inexcusable lapse in judgment, Mr. Kipling, and I can’t have you working for me anymore.”

  Mr. Kipling thought about what I had said. “I understand,” he said. “Anya, I do understand.”

  At that moment, Simon’s cat came into the room. “Here, Koshka,” Mr. Kipling called. The cat approached him warily, and Mr. Kipling lured her into a pet carrier that was sitting on Simon’s bed. “When he called, Simon asked me to take care of the cat,” Mr. Kipling explained.

  I left Simon Green’s apartment. Mr. Kipling did not try to stop me.

  * * *

  “So, what’s next?” Fats asked me on the trolley ride across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan.

  I
shook my head. The sun was going down on what had been a fruitless afternoon, and I was discouraged. I had wanted a big scene where I confronted Mickey and Simon, and maybe only one of us came out alive. Instead, they had both disappeared. “I’m surprised Mickey left,” I admitted.

  “We don’t know what Sophia told him,” Fats said. “And you haven’t been around to follow it, but the Balanchine distributors are pretty frustrated with him at this point.” Fats looked at me. “Kid, don’t be blue. As far as these things go, this is a pretty happy ending. You sniffed out the bad eggs, sent them packing, and everyone lived.”

  “Except Leo.”

  “God rest his soul.” Fats crossed himself. “I’m telling you, your dad would have been proud. He didn’t believe in violence.”

  I may have snorted.

  “Sometimes he had to use it, but it was only ever a last resort for him.”

  “Just because Mickey is gone, I don’t want Balanchine Chocolate to die. I don’t want Daddy’s company to die,” I said. I knew that Mickey and Sophia’s departure had made Balanchine Chocolate even more vulnerable.

  “The key thing now is to establish a new leadership as quickly as possible. We can’t have any appearance of dissent.”

  “Fats, do you think you’ll really be able to do a better job running Balanchine Chocolate than Mickey did?”

  “No one can say for sure, Annie. But, if you back me, I’ll do my best. I’m honest, and I know the tribulations of chocolate better than anyone.”

  It was true. Fats had run his speakeasy successfully for years, and he knew all the players. I realized now that Yuji Ono and Yuri and Mickey had probably just been flattering me to suggest that I should run Balanchine Chocolate. Because I was young and ignorant, they had been able to use me for their own ends. I had allowed myself to be flattered and had ended up being foolish yet again. “Why do you even care if I back you?”

  “You don’t know the chocolate business, but the rank and file still care what you think. They remember your daddy, and they’ve seen your face in the news, and I would appreciate your support.”

  “If I do back you, what happens to me?” I probably sounded childish or at least teenage-ish.

  We were just about over the Brooklyn Bridge and back into Manhattan. Fats put his hand on my shoulder. “Look, Annie. See that city. Anything can happen there.”

  “Not for me,” I said. “I’m Anya Balanchine. First Daughter of the chocolate mob. I have the name and the rap sheet to go with it.”

  Fats stroked his goatee. “It’s not as bad as all that. Finish school, kid. Then come back to me. I’ll set you up with a job if you still want one. You can learn the ropes. Maybe even find out what it is they do in Moscow.”

  At that point, I had to get off the trolley to switch to the bus that would take me back uptown. Fats said that there would be a meeting at the Pool the next day, and that he would really appreciate it if I would come.

  “I’m not sure I want to back you,” I said.

  “Yeah, I can see that. Here’s what I think you should do. Get a good night’s sleep, and when you wake up in the morning, ask yourself what it would be like to be free of Balanchine Chocolate forever. Your brother’s dead, and the players are gone. You back me tomorrow, and I’ll make sure that no one ever messes with you or your sister again.”

  I arrived at the apartment around ten o’ clock. Daisy Gogol and Natty and Win were waiting for me, and no one looked pleased.

  “We should take her immediately back to the hospital,” Natty said.

  “I’m fine,” I replied as I collapsed onto the couch. “Exhausted, but fine.”

  Daisy Gogol shot me an evil look. “I could have stopped you, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m not accustomed to being pushed by people I’m supposed to be protecting.”

  I apologized to Daisy.

  “At the hospital, they said someone was supposed to watch her to make sure she didn’t go to sleep.” Natty stood up from the couch and crossed her arms. “I’d watch her but I don’t even want to look at her.”

  “I’ll do it,” Win volunteered, though he didn’t sound particularly enthused about the task.

  “Listen, Natty, don’t be cross. I think I found out who tried to kill us.” And then I told them what I had learned that day.

  “You can’t keep going on like this,” Natty lectured me. “Running around and not telling anyone where you’re going or what happened. I’m tired of it. And, for the record, I don’t want to end up with no brother and no”—her voice broke a little—“sister either, Annie.” I stood to embrace her, but she pulled away, then ran down the hallway to her bedroom. A second later, I heard the door slam.

  I turned to Daisy. “You can go home now, if you want.”

  Daisy shook her head. “I can’t. Mr. Kipling called to tell me I should stay on guard overnight. He was extremely concerned about your safety.”

  “Fine, but you should know that I had to dismiss Mr. Kipling this afternoon.”

  “Yes,” Daisy replied, “he said that, too. He told me that he would be personally covering my salary.”

  Daisy went to the hallway to stand watch.

  I sat back down on the couch. Win went into the kitchen and came back with a bag of frozen peas for my head.

  “It’s probably too late for that,” I said.

  “It’s never too late for frozen peas,” Win said cheerfully.

  “Aren’t you angry at me, too?” I asked.

  “Why? Just because you put your life in danger and didn’t tell anyone what you were doing? Why should I care? I don’t worry about you at all.”

  He set the peas on my forehead as I had done so many times to Leo. I winced a bit at the cold. I stretched up to kiss him, but my head started to pound. I lay back down on the pillow. “Sorry,” I said.

  “Do you think I even want to be kissed by you? You’re pretty much horribly deformed at this point.” He leaned down to kiss me lightly, sweetly. “What am I going to do with you?” His voice was gentle and low.

  Because I still needed to make sense of it myself, I decided to describe for him the baffling events of the day, ending with Fats’s request that I abdicate any leadership position in Balanchine Chocolate.

  “Would it be so awful?” Win asked. “What he was essentially saying to you is that you could walk away.”

  “But what about Leo?” I asked. “What about Daddy?”

  “Nothing you do for Balanchine Chocolate will bring either of them back, Annie.”

  It was good advice. The truth was, the quickest way for me to destroy Balanchine Chocolate and my father’s legacy—such as it was—would be to get into a war with Fats over leadership. Besides, what did I know about running a chocolate business anyway?

  I moved the bag of peas so that it covered my eyes, too. Even my eyes were starting to hurt. It felt peaceful to be in the cold and in the dark.

  * * *

  I hadn’t been to the Pool since I’d made my speech before going to Liberty the prior year. Aside from Fats, so many of the people I had known were dead, gone, or in prison, and while everyone was vaguely and literally familiar, I didn’t really know any of them personally. That was the thing about organized-crime families—you shouldn’t bother getting too attached to anyone.

  Fats had asked me to explain about Mickey’s disappearance and Sophia’s involvement in the poisoning and in the hits on my family, which I did. Then I stated that I supported Fats in his desire to be the interim head of the Balanchine Family. Lukewarm applause followed this sentiment. Fats himself gave a brief speech regarding his vision for the Family. His vision didn’t seem to be markedly different from any of the previous heads of the Family: mainly things about ensuring the quality of the product and limiting supply delays, etc. Finally, Fats opened up the room to questions.

  A man with a curly mustache and round eyeglasses turned to me and said, “Anya, I’m Pip Balanchine. I wonder what your dealings with the new district attorney have been like.
Does she seem anti-chocolate?”

  “Not particularly,” I said. “The only things she cares about are money and advancement.”

  The men laughed at my assessment.

  A black man with reddish hair piped in, “You’re a good guy, Fats, but you run a restaurant. You really think you’re up to heading the Balanchine semya?”

  “Yes,” Fats said, “I do.”

  “’Cause personally I am tired of the unrest. It doesn’t make for good business and it certainly doesn’t make for good chocolate. I think we sell ourselves short. The poisoning should have been an opportunity to overhaul the business, not…”

  The meeting went on a while longer though my presence barely seemed necessary. Daisy Gogol stood behind me as was the convention at these meetings, and occasionally, she would nudge me. But what was I to say? The truth was, some part of me really was happy to let Fats run the company. Maybe I’d learned something about cacao but there were still so many other aspects of the business I didn’t know. And the endless garbage Yuji Ono had fed me about my being “a catalyst”—well, maybe I didn’t have it in me to be a catalyst. I had tried to call Yuji Ono the day before to confront him about everything that Sophia Bitter had said. I still had so many questions. Had he helped plot Leo’s murder out of love for Sophia or hate for me, or had there been other reasons entirely? Had he ever really believed anything he’d said or had he just preyed on me because I was young and susceptible to flattery? What had he known about Simon Green? But the number I had for Yuji Ono had been disconnected. He was as much a mystery to me as he had ever been.

  Sitting at the bottom of the empty pool, my mind drifted. I thought of Mexico. The water there had been so blue. I wondered how Theo was. I had been too embarrassed to contact him. Had I done it over the phone, I would have had to confront one of the mighty Marquez women. A letter seemed impossible—I wasn’t good with words.

  A man in a purple suit turned to me. “Anya, are you planning to consult with Fats? I like knowing that at least one of Leo Balanchine’s children is in on things.”

  I promised to keep tabs on my cousin. Then, out of respect, I bowed my head toward Fats.

  “Anya knows my door is always open to her,” Fats replied. “And when she’s a little older and knows more, I imagine her involvement in the business can be even greater, if that’s something she desires.”