A Little Piece of Light

by Donna Hylton

  “Well,” I say, joining her there, “I have to get a really good portfolio done. The thing is, that will cost more money than I’ve ever even seen.”

  “Let’s call my godfather now,” she says, reaching for the phone and dialing a number. “He’s going to help you—don’t worry about it.” When a voice answers on the other line, Maria makes small talk for a moment before she shifts into the conversation about me. “I’ve got this friend,” she tells the person on the line, and she relays everything I’ve just told her. “Sure,” she says, then holds out the phone. “My godfather wants to talk to you.”

  I push through my shyness to move from the sofa and take the phone. “Hello?”

  “Maria tells me a lot about you,” I hear, with a brash New York accent, a conviction in this man’s voice. “You treated her real nice at work, it sounds like. She likes you. Now. Tell me about this modeling.”

  Maria stands like a brick wall in front of me, her arms folded expectantly. My face grows hot under her stare as she observes my side of the conversation closely. “Yes,” I tell him. “Modeling is my dream, but the problem is, I need fifteen hundred dollars. I’ve been thinking about getting another job—”

  “Don’t worry,” the man says. “Anybody who’s nice to Maria is a friend of mine. I’m gonna help you out.”

  “You are?” An excitement spikes inside of me. Maria takes back the phone, and the two of them arrange for all of us to meet up. “It’s a done deal,” she says as she puts the phone in the cradle. “Next week. We’ll all meet at the Milford Plaza.”

  “This is my godfather,” she tells me a few days later in the hotel’s lobby. “His name’s Louis Miranda.”

  “But you don’t need to call me that,” he says. Then what should I call you? He’s a little man, but grandiose in his speech and gestures in a way that urges me to keep my questions to myself.

  I make eye contact with a tall Asian man who stands at Mr. Miranda’s side, but it’s as though Maria and Miranda pretend he’s not there. As we four exit the hotel to walk to a nearby diner, Mr. Miranda engages in what appears to be an intense conversation with Maria while the Asian man utters not a single word. Once we’re seated, Mr. Miranda launches into a series of stories using phrases like the old times, the good times, and names of people Maria appears to know. Then I hear a phrase that strikes me a little oddly: la cosa nostra.

  Did I hear that clearly?

  This is New York City in the mid-1980s, and there are stories in the news every day about mob-related killings. “Just look at Castellano!” Miranda says. The dealings of mob bosses like Paul Castellano, who is associated with the Gambinos and the Gotti family, appear in the headlines more and more. “Case in point. You see? Things get messy when you start to think you’re bigger than the family.”

  What is he talking about? I must look perplexed, because Maria turns to me. “Just let him go,” she laughs. “He just likes to talk.”

  “Anyways,” says Miranda, calming to turn his attention to me. “So you want to model? Don’t worry. I got people. I’ll help you. Here’s what we’re gonna do: Maria, I want you to get everybody back together in a few days.”

  She already has the place picked out, she assures him, and a few days later, in March 1985, we gather again at the donut shop near her apartment. “I’m going to help you with this modeling thing,” Miranda promises again inside the donut shop. “But I want you to do something for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, I have this partner, see. He wants to take me for my money, but that’s not gonna happen, see. I’m going to get my money back, and here’s what you’re gonna do for me—” I look at Maria, whose eyes are fixed directly on Miranda. He leans toward me, across the table. “I want you to say that you saw my partner in a sexual thing with Maria.”

  I look at Maria. Are you OK with this? I want to ask her. But now, she’s sitting back in her chair with a look on her face that’s unfazed… even amused.

  “He wants to play with me?” Miranda says. “Then I’m going to let his wife know the kind of guy he is. We don’t play like that in the family!” he says, shaking his forefinger at me.

  I listen, unsure of where this is going. “OK…”

  “So next Wednesday night, he’s gonna go on a date with my goddaughter”—he looks toward Maria—“and I want you to walk in. Then you’re going to say you walked in, and you caught them fooling around, see—that’s it!” I realize I must look confused when he says, “You don’t understand what I said? That’s all I want you to do. Do you think you could do that?”

  I say nothing. Pressure is building in the pit of my stomach, but the more doubtful I feel, the harder he pushes me to agree.

  “As a matter of fact,” he says, “that’s our deal. If you’ll do that for me, then I’ll give you the money you need for your modeling. Alright? That motherfucker. He thinks he’s gonna take my money? Nuh-unh. Nope. We don’t do like that in the family. OK?!” He yells this, as if I’m the one who’s crossed him. “Do you understand me?”

  “OK,” I tell him. Daphne’s instruction lives inside me: An intelligent girl doesn’t ask others questions, Donna Patricia.

  But, just like the questions in my childhood about how I could escape from Roy, this is a problem whose solution I won’t find in the pages of any book…

  And this is where it all goes wrong.

  Miranda sets Wednesday, March 20 for Maria’s date with his partner to take place. A few days before this, she calls me. “I need to see you one more time,” she says.

  Nerves rattle my insides as I travel from Boynton to Queens, where, again, I find Maria at the donut shop near her building. “Are we good?” she says as I take my seat. “You’re my friend—are you still going to do it? If I do this for my godfather, my father will be very proud. I’m going to be looked at like a son. He’s going to accept me.”

  “OK,” I tell her. I care about Maria, and I know what it’s like to crave the love and acceptance of a parent. “I’ll do it.” I replay my role as we’ve discussed it: all I have to do is walk in and see her on a date with Miranda’s business partner.

  “But we need more than one witness,” she says. “It can’t just be you walking in.”

  Again, not understanding this, I shrug. “OK.”

  “Who else do we know that could be a witness?” I stare at her, clueless as to what the role of this witness will even be. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Maria called tonight,” Rita tells me as I hang my coat inside her closet.

  “She did? But I just left her. Did she leave a message?”

  “No,” Rita says. “She wanted to talk to me. She asked if Theresa and I want to make some money.”

  “She did? What’d you say?”

  “I told her yeah. Theresa too.” Theresa recently had an ectopic pregnancy, and she’s been struggling with medical bills ever since.

  On Wednesday, March 20, my two roommates and I take the train from Boynton to Queens. First, this evening, we meet Miranda at the donut shop near Maria’s apartment. Again, there’s somebody with him—but it’s not the Asian man who accompanied him to the Milford Plaza. Tonight his companion is an enormous black man with scars on his face and rotting teeth. “I arranged for somebody to go with you,” Miranda tells us. “This is Woody. I want to make sure that nothing happens, and that the Bird knows that you witnessed him being with Maria in this encounter.”

  The Bird? I look at Woody, who stays quiet. There’s something about him that’s animalistic… not human. Miranda pulls out a set of keys from his pocket and hands them to Woody. “Come on,” Woody says. His voice is deep and demonic. “It’s time to go to the apartment.”

  Exiting the diner are Theresa, Rita, Woody, and me. When we reach Maria’s apartment building, Woody turns and passes me the keys. He stares at me until I accept the key ring and open the door to Maria’s apartment. Then I walk in, stepping to the side so that Rita, Theresa
, and Woody can also come in. I watch as Woody closes the door behind us. Then he puts out his hand as a clear instruction for me to return the keys to him, which I do.

  When we’re inside the apartment, we face Maria’s combined living and dining space. Suddenly, a small Asian man appears in the kitchenette, a different man than the one who we met at the Milford Plaza. Where did he come from? Then Maria also appears—she must have been hiding somewhere. Why are they all here?

  Woody and Maria start whispering with the Asian guy, while I look at Rita and Theresa. Something’s off, our gazes agree, and then we all spot movement on the sofa—a man lies on his side, with his back facing us. He’s stirring slightly, and when I get a good look, he’s handcuffed. Wearing nothing but a white, button-down shirt, a pair of boxers, and dark socks, he moans quietly.

  My senses are heightened in alarm. Rita, Theresa, and I hold each other’s eyes, all three of us panicked and confused. We haven’t walked in to find an intimate scene, like Miranda and Maria told us to anticipate.

  Woody turns toward us from the huddle of conversation with Maria and the Asian man. “Sit down,” he says to Theresa, Rita, and me. In quiet uncertainty, the three of us squeeze onto the love seat, Rita and Theresa on either side of me. We watch as the Asian guy exits, sliding out of Maria’s apartment door and closing it quietly behind him.

  Maria turns to Woody. “Did my godfather give you the thing?” she says. “Did he get it fixed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me have it.” Woody reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a brown paper bag, which he hands to Maria. She opens it, looks inside… and then her face breaks into a smile. Slowly, she pulls out the contents of the bag: it’s a nickel-plated pearl-handle revolver.

  My mind stops. My heart stops. Maria has a gun in her hand.

  Rita and Theresa are likewise still, both looking on in fear. There’s not a breath of motion among us three.

  “Plans have changed,” Woody announces. “This is what Boss Man wants.” His voice booms with depth as he continues… but as I stare into the black hole of the revolver, I don’t hear a word Woody says. All I can hear are Dalida’s words:

  I told you not to trust her!

  Maria aims the gun at my face. “Donna,” she says, “we know where you live.”

  No.

  “And we know about your daughter. What Woody said is right: my godfather changed plans. This is what’s going to happen…”

  I stare up at her, knowing my face can’t hide my fear.

  “You need to understand that if you don’t do exactly as we say, we’re going to kill your daughter—in fact, we’ll kill your whole family.”

  Because I’ve shared stories about my upbringing with Maria, she knows this threat will complicate my mind. I imagine Adrienne’s brown eyes, wide in uncertainty as Roy and Daphne—both tormented, scared, suffering—try to shield her from violence. No matter what happened to me inside their home, I don’t want them to be hurt.

  Maria turns the gun’s aim from me toward Rita, then to Theresa. If she keeps moving it around like that, one of us will end up shot! “We know you both have families, too,” she says. “Donna, you’re going to get the car. Woody’s going with you.”

  “You’re driving,” Woody tells me. I feel sweat break across my forehead. Like a hurricane tide crashing onto the shore, a sudden awareness comes rushing at me: Maria kept score of every detail of every story that I’ve shared about myself with her. Right now, there is no weighing of risks—when my eyes fell on the shiny end of her gun and she mentioned my daughter, I understood that the scale was tipped completely against me. I can’t try to escape, and I can’t pretend that I don’t know how to drive. She remembers my telling her that I parked cars in a garage when Alvin took me to Philadelphia. She used that information to plot this with Woody and Miranda, and who knows who else.

  I paid close attention to everything she revealed to me, too… but I’m so naïve! Instead of questioning her overconfidence as she told me her extravagant stories, I looked up to her. There were so many signs that something wasn’t right: the way her appearance had transformed outside the Sherry-Netherland hotel, the story about the Swiss banker who proposed to her, even though she’s still legally married. Did she meet the queen of England? I believed that Maria was going to show me the way to an easier life. Meanwhile, the whole time I’d been admiring her, she’d been sitting back, watching me, angling how she could use my trust to get what she wants: her father’s praise.

  I have to walk quickly to keep up with Woody’s Goliath steps, until we locate a white Cadillac with a burgundy roof. “Get in,” he says, again handing me keys. I take the driver’s seat, knowing I have no choice but to do what they say until I can manage some way out of this. If I go to Roy and Daphne, they’ll only dismiss me, chase me out, and probably accuse me of making this up. If I go to the police—

  No. I can’t go to the police alone ever again.

  “Drive back around to the apartment,” Woody says. I’ve never driven a car in the city, and I’m not experienced to navigate the one-way streets in this neighborhood in Queens. I work to appear as though I’m keeping my cool as he watches my hands closely. “Park here,” he says when we’ve reached Maria’s building. “Stay in the car. Keep the lights off.” Dusk sets in early on these first evenings of spring, but I sit quietly with all the car lights shut off. I know that any deviation I make from the instructions Woody’s given me could be the difference between life and death. I watch as the hulk of his figure reenters Maria’s building. He moves like the black version of Jaws from the James Bond movies: big, calculated, demented. My mind throbs with fear for Rita and Theresa. What are they about to experience inside? The only thing I can be sure of about Maria is that I can’t be sure of anything.

  Through the apartment doors, Woody and Theresa come fumbling out of the building on either side of the staggering man, whose dress slacks I can see under the trench coat they’ve draped over his head. Oh… my God. Maria opens the back door of the car. “If anybody asks, he’s drunk,” she says, shoving him into the backseat.

  “Don’t let him sit up,” Woody says. He and Maria maneuver the man so that he’s sitting on the backseat floor of his own car. Rita and Theresa slide into the car, followed by Woody and Maria. By the time we all pile in, six adults are packed into this Cadillac. “Go to Harlem,” Woody says.

  I turn the key in the ignition. “Alright but… I don’t know the way there.”

  Woody directs me toward I-278, across Randall’s Island and onto the FDR Drive, where he tells me to take the northbound ramp. Once we’re in Harlem, he tells me the way to a redbrick apartment building on the corner of 143rd Street and Seventh Avenue. “Stop the car,” Maria says. “Wait here.” It’s clear she’s the captain of this operation, having taken orders as direct communication from Miranda. Together, she and Woody wrangle the man’s body, still limp and lumbering, out of the backseat and begin to drag him upstairs.

  I stay in the car, still dumbstruck by all this, except for one thing: something’s not right. What’s happening is very different from walking in and witnessing an intimate scene between a man and a woman. I don’t know what to expect, what any of this means… or what lies ahead.

  It feels like years have passed in the course of a few hours as it nears midnight, when Woody and Maria send Rita, Theresa, and me to park the man’s Cadillac at a garage in the Bronx—specifically, where it will be out of sight but close to a bridge, Maria says. “You’ll take the train back here in the morning,” Maria says to us girls. “We’ll call you early—and if you don’t answer, remember: we’re coming for you.” If we do anything out of line, she says, or if she and Woody get the impression that we have any intentions to tell anyone about this, they will do exactly what they said they would do to our families. To my daughter. “And don’t even think about going to the police,” Maria says. “My godfather has friends in the police.”

  Remembering my own experience with
the police, I don’t breathe a word to Rita and Theresa about the possibility of contacting them. On the drive back to the Bronx, I say nothing at all—the three of us are silent with overwhelm, exhaustion… fear. For the first time, I feel separate from my two closest friends. We three occupy this car together, but there’s a sense that we’re all alone. We can’t save each other from this: not Theresa with her sweetness, not Rita with her wits, not me with my insistence to try to see the goodness in everyone. There is no bright side to any of this.

  Yet again, I trusted someone when I shouldn’t have. I thought Maria was lonely, different, that she just needed a friend who would give her a chance. But now I understand all that was a setup. Maria has two sides, and one is a completely different person than the innocent co-worker I thought I knew. This is all your fault, Donna. And this is what I get. Over and over, people in my life disappoint me. I don’t know why I can’t stop searching for someone I can believe in.

  That night, back at Rita’s apartment, there is no sleep. I can feel the other two lying awake, but the only movement happens when Rita jumps up and races to the kitchen when the phone rings before the sun has come up. “They want us to go,” she says when she returns to the bedroom, strung out with grogginess. Before 6 a.m., we’re on the train back to Harlem.

  As Maria instructed Rita, we enter an apartment building on 143rd Street, all of us walking lightly up the stairs until a door opens a slight crack and we find ourselves in the entry of what must be someone’s home… a term one can only use lightly. As we three inch down the hallway toward a main room, I have to subtly shield my nose to avoid getting sick from the thick smells of mildew and body odor. Early morning light tries to break through the windows and a couple of lamps are turned on, but it’s dark and dirty here in every sense. Inconspicuously, I go into survival mode and try to take in my surroundings. There’s the bathroom. There’s the kitchen—but it doesn’t look like any place I’d want to eat in. This is the living area, where we’re standing. It’s bare, just like Roy and Daphne’s home was. I spot one bedroom, then a second bedroom; and that’s where I spot him: the man they refer to as the Bird is spread-eagle, bound to the full-sized bed with a gag in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes. One of his wrists is fastened with handcuffs to a spindle of the wooden headboard, while the other wrist is bound with a cloth. His ankles are fixed to the footboard with the same type of cloth, and though his mouth is gagged, every now and again he tries to muster enough energy to try to say something. Unlike the rest of the apartment, there’s an overhead light lit. This room is the brightest space in the apartment, but from this, the main room, I can see that the curtains have been closed so that not a splinter of light can come through.