She wanted to run a bath but she cleaned instead. Found that it took her mind off the worry. There was something comforting in having busy hands. Busy hands that were engaged in the maintenance of life and love. She was cleaning their home. Her and Rocco’s living space. Sure, it wasn’t really their home, but for now it was where they lived.

She cleaned the pots in which she’d boiled and fried. She cleaned the plates from which they ate. She cleaned the glasses from which they’d shared much wine. She inhaled. She was smiling. Noticing her smile made it broader. She hummed. Order was restored to the kitchen. It was clean and spotless. Ready for them to do it all over again.

This was the life she wanted. She couldn’t wait to tell him. He would stop killing for her. He didn’t want that anyway. She would leave the Nero business to someone who could keep a lid on the violence using the threat of worse violence. That was how it was done, and while she would be a great and wonderful leader, she was leading men whose lives trudged away in archaic grooves worn deep by frequent travel. They weren’t interested in someone coming along and showing them a new and cleaner path. They liked their path. They liked their vice, they were okay with killing. They wouldn’t see the light she offered because to them it wasn’t. They were blind to doing things better, kinder. Promised profit wasn’t enough for them. They’d prefer to make less money and look strong and old-school over making more money and being progressive.

Rocco’s paints had brought her a breakthrough. Like she’d been lost in the woods and now she’d found the path she knew would take her to her home. Of course, for now, there were men hiding in the bushes along the path.

Before going into the garage to look for turpentine, she put Rocco’s flannel back on, knew the garage would be cold. At the front wall of the garage there were shelves that went to the ceiling. Done in pine 2x4s, they were mostly empty, but she needed to get the paint off her skin. She found a can, light but when shook made an interiorly splashing sound. Then in the cold empty garage a high and brittle sound came from the street. Not the one where the house faced, but out to the left, past the rooftops of the facing houses. It was a rising siren. Growing louder, more urgent. Getting close, peaking, then growing distant. But then it was followed by another. Then, quickly, another.

She went back in, hopping on her bare feet, trying to soak up some of the warmth from the heated floor, headed to the kitchen sink. She wiped her hands down with the turpentine, her arms, her chest, her legs...growing increasingly distracted, aware of the sound of more and more desperate sirens...

* * *

He was fading. Could sense it. A softness at the edges, like the frayed fluff of old denim around a tear. He was losing it. His wet hands gripped the truck’s steering wheel. Slick with blood. He knew where he was going now. He’d decided on his plan of action and it was a fucking good one.

He shot that truck like a rocket, blasted straight out of the area of action where he’d been ambushed. He was lucky those three weren’t better killers.

Maybe he wouldn’t make it, but Daniella would. He would see that she lived. He’d save her but he couldn’t go to her. That would draw them closer, he might bring them right to her—and he was in no shape to help anyone right now. He couldn't fight off a boy scout.

The truck rocketed to the border where the civilized metropolitan downtown met the northern outskirt. Dead ahead, like a sentinel, was the prow of a corner facing convenience store. He plowed diagonally across the intersection, squinting and snarling while tires screeched and someone slammed on their horn. The truck bounced the curb, metal crumpled as his grill bent over the green junction box just outside the store. It sparked and popped and then went dead.

The door of the truck groaned as he hoofed it open with his boot. Set his feet down, saw blood plopping and staining the sidewalk as he lurched out. His boots scuffed through the overgrown clover, now brown and frosted, spreading from the cracks and joints in the walk. His arm hung and bent against his body, protecting the side where he’d been shot that now throbbed like he’d been kicked by a horse. He lumbered, his gait even but enervated, his torso curled to one side. The windows of the store were plastered with lotto signs and cigarette decals. In the side panel next to the glass door hung a lopsided neon sign that said OPEN. Above the door, set in the convex green-brick face was a sign that read AJ’s CONVENIENT. Underneath that it said, American & Mexican Groceries, then below that in bold letters, FOOD-SODA-CIGARETTES-LOTTERY-PHONES.

They had what he was after.

He opened the door, saw his bloody hand smear a bloody print over the Kool’s cigarette logo. Inside the store, standing behind the counter that faced towards the exciting action movie he’d just performed for her, was a middle-aged Latina with greying hair pulled back from her soft face and tied in a low bun.

“Hey, how are you?” he coughed.

She kept her expression even but her eyebrows were raised high. She wasn't frightened but she was wary. He imagined she probably had a pearl handled twenty-two within her reach right now, maybe under the counter, maybe in the cash register, maybe tucked into her bra.

“Sorry ‘bout the...” he motioned to the floor, at the drops of blood he was leaving behind.

She was stoic.

He shrugged, gestured with an open hand to the display of cel pack phones on chrome peg hooks past her shoulder. “Phone, please.”

She sucked her teeth, her eyes not leaving him. “What kind?” she said.

“You decide,” he told her. Quickly, please.

Without taking her eyes off him she reached over her shoulder, pulled a clear plastic-packed phone off its hook and lay it on the counter on top of a Camel sponsored display filled with scratch-offs.

“Perfect,” he said, winced, his hand reaching for his wallet in his jacket, he pulled off two bills and tossed them on the counter. A freshet of blood spritzed his boots and the floor.

She took his bloody bills, a fifty and a twenty to pay for a ten-dollar burner and he snatched the phone from the counter. He lurched back to the door but she called after him.

“You okay? You need help?” she said now, feeling like she could trust him.

He leaned on the doorframe, held it open, a wintry blast hit his face. He wagged the phone package at her, grunted, “Thanks...I’m calling an ambulance.”

He stumbled out into the cold, a surge of adrenaline coursed through him anew and he was elated to have it. He strode the frost-heaved sidewalk, his fingers tearing at the package as he went. Turned, passed his truck, abandoned now, it was no use to him. The nose of it had lifted up onto the concrete base that supported the electric box, his front wheels weren’t even touching the ground. There was honking behind him, turned, saw the intersection had been clogged with impatient cars trying to negotiate the traffic without any lights. His truck had knocked out their power.

He stumbled along the sidewalk, picking up his pace. The adrenalin had washed the pain away again, the cold air on his face had narrowed his focus. His grayness was abated for now. His fingers still struggled with the plastic packaging around the phone.

The whoop of cop sirens picked up in the distance, over the spine of the low two-story buildings that lined this neglected road. He had to get off the street. He went along, under a Pit BBQ sign that hung overhead, past a Mexican grill, a plumbing and heating store... Everything closed up, too early in the day, and all the business butted up against each other, providing no spot for him to duck in off the street.

He passed an International House of Prayer, its storefront windows emblazoned in bright vinyl with GRACE AT WORK. Then, at last, just ahead he saw an opening, a break between the buildings. He stumbled to it. On the opposite side was Prestige Deli & Liquor, closed now, the front door shuttered with a rolling metal defender; the windows crossed with iron bars, behind that the dormant colorless neon of beer brands and a Chicago Bears emblem. He fell into the narrow alley and the phone scattered across the snowy grit. He crawled to it, clutched it, pressed his back against the brick wall of the Ministry, hid himself from the street behind a chipped green metal trash bin. He tried again to work the phone pack open.

His fingers struggled with the packaging. It was impossible to open and his wet grip had smudged blood all over the PVC. Now he wanted to take the whole thing and slam it to the ground, smash it and drive his boot heel into it. Fucking who makes these things so hard to open? ...He needed this phone now. Jesus fucking Christ, he could bench press more than four hundred pounds, he couldn’t open a fucking piece of shit plastic box?

His head came back and he closed his eyes, let the crown of his head rest on the cold brick. He breathed. His hand went in the pocket of his coat, took out his pen blade. Relax. Calm. He held the immensely durable plastic tri-fold standup, saw the incredible treasure inside. A small black disposable phone. He breathed. He calmed. He took the blade and carefully ran it around the heat-sealed edges and then he pried the two halves apart, snagged the phone with his big bloody fingers and in five seconds the phone was ringing.

* * *

Her hand slipped between the mattress and the boxspring. Searched around, blade of her hand bumping against the hard edge of what she was looking for. Pulled it out, looked at the black screen. Saw her nails curled around its edge, winced at her need for a manicure. The last few days had been murder on her hands. She smiled and laughed at her vain thought. Swiped the screen to life, sat her butt down on the bed.

The colorful icons beckoned her, begged her to use them, reach out to someone, check her social media. Call someone. Daniella, you have to call someone. Who would she call? The only one she could really think of was her mother. She just needed information.

Hey Mom, how’s it going? You haven’t...you know, uh, by any chance, um, heard from Rocco at all?

Rocco? Rocco’s dead honey.

Well, Mom, you might wanna hold onto your hat. Guess what? He’s not. He’s alive. Alive and he’s fucking fantastic. Mom, I’m in love.

No, honey. No Daniella, I mean he’s dead now...what do you think those sirens are for?

Shit, fuck, shit. She lowered her face to the phone, felt its screen touch her forehead. She just wanted information. Just wanted to know what was going on. What was the word on the street, player?

“Oh Rocco,” she groaned.

Shook the malaise off, got her act together then, sat up straight. Opened a browser and went to the NBC Chicago affiliate’s website. A headline read, Shootout In Printer’s Row Leaves One Dead.

“Oh no,” she gasped, rose without realizing. She read the story. Two dumb paragraphs, not much more information than what was in the headline. She mounted the stairs, went up to a bedroom, her feet moving on their own. A shooting on the street left one man dead this morning. Police are investigating. Call yourself a news site? No, oh no, no. Rocco, Rocco.

She parted the curtain, looked out over the snowy rooftops. She could hear more sirens now. Undulating wails, one voice beckoning another, one siren becoming two, two becoming three… She saw the flash of lights on the low gray sky as some unseen emergency vehicle raced behind the row of houses across the street from her.

The phone jumped in her hand, buzzed angrily, vibrating in her grip. She jumped like she’d been electrocuted. Yelped audibly, both her feet coming right up off the floor before the phone slipped out of her hand and she juggled it, bouncing it from hand to hand, lower and lower to the floor until she finally knocked it to the ground and it cartwheeled across the empty room until it hit the bare metal bed frame. She stumbled after it on her hands and knees. Gripped it and held it so she could read the screen. Unknown Number. It buzzed again and the sizzle it put up through her arms was threatening, yet somehow wonderful. This could be something, this could be news. It could be Rocco. Of course, it could be her killer too. Heard her voice and then the next thing she’d have the door kicked down and...

Fuck it. She touched the green circle with the white image of a phone receiver, pressed it to her ear.

She didn’t say anything, afraid for someone to hear her voice. She listened. Heard breathing, heard muffled scrapes against the microphone. She listened more intently. Could tell someone was also listening intently. She screamed in her head, Say something, asshole! She opened her mouth to speak then heard a weak tinny and distant voice. So different to the baritone boom it was usually delivered with. Daniella?

“Rocco? Rocco?” she yelled. He sounded lost. Like a little kid in those woods.

Then he was suddenly strong, shouting, “Daniella!”

“Rocco,” she yelled and her eyes welled up with tears.

“Daniella, get out!”

“You’re okay, Rocco...God, Rocco, you’re alive!”

“Daniella, get out of the house, now!”

“What?” she said, his words suddenly coming into jarring sharp focus. “What did you say?”

“Listen to me, Daniella. Take the phone—which you should not have answered—and walk out of the house... Don’t stop. If you’re naked, I don’t care. Walk right out of the house and don’t look back, keep walking...” he coughed then, a ragged wet sound aimed away from the phone

“Rocco, are you okay? Wait...are you okay?”

“Go to...” he coughed again. She heard him spit. “Don’t say where, but go to where we came out of the subway...don’t say it...you remember?” He coughed again.

“Rocco, please tell me you’re okay...please, Rocco, are you okay?”

“Right as fucking rain, baby. You remember? You remember when we came outta the tunnel?”

“I remember,” she cried. He was lying, he was fucking lying. He wasn’t okay. “Rocco, please...”

“Are you leaving right now? ...Are you walking?” he wheezed.

“What? ...No, please, Rocco... Where are you?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, his voice distant like the phone was held far from his mouth.

Her feet were moving now. She pressed the phone to her head so hard it hurt and she didn’t realize it until she started working her mouth around to relieve a sudden tension. She forced her hand to relax, paused at the top of the stairs, her movement stilling so she could hear if he was still there.

“Rocco?” she said loudly into the phone. “Rocco? ...”

An icy dread shot through her. Her heart stopped, her breath was clutched.

A sound in the house.

Downstairs, near the kitchen. The sound of glass breaking, a shard falling to the floor and cracking to smaller pieces.

She held the phone to her face again, her eyes wide and glued down the stairs. “Rocco? Someone’s in the house, Rocco. I hear them,” she whispered.

“Get out, Daniella, run...”

“I can’t...I’m upstairs...they’re downstairs...”

“Hide,” he said, his voice racked with tension, but lowered in a rough whisper. She heard a boot crunch glass on tile. Her hands went to her pockets, but she didn’t have any. She left the call open but slipped the phone into her shirt pocket. A flannel shirt and black panties were all she wore. Her feet were bare.

A panic rose within her, rumbling from the distance—a terrifying rumble—growing louder, getting closer. Her legs started to shake and her bladder wanted to let loose again. Where was her gun? Where did she leave it? ...The kitchen? She’d put it in the sink when she wiped the counter down…

Of all the gifts her lover could have brought her he never thought to buy her a fucking holster?