Becky
I’ve only ever been inside The Italian once, when I was a girl and Dad was forced to take me in to talk to one of his colleagues. I remembered it for a long time afterwards as a smoky, sickly-smelling place full of scary-looking men. When I walk through the door, I’m met with a smoky, sickly-looking place, but the scary men have been replaced with empty seats and voices from a room in the back. I pass photos on the walls as I walk toward the room, some of them in black and white, going back as far as the 1920s when the Family first started up. In the next room, I hear men talking. And Chance’s voice! “…your daughter’s.”
However careful I meant to be on my way here, once I hear Chance’s voice I can’t help but crash through the door, causing around ten or fifteen men to swing around and look at me. Men are all around the room, standing in the shadows, ringed around like a crowd at a circular stage. The production is Dad, a gun in his hand, pointing it at Chance, who looks like a boxer after a tough fight, all swollen and bruised. I want to go to him, untie those zip-ties which are digging into his flesh, but Dad is still holding the gun to his head.
“Dad,” I say. “What are you doing? Lower the gun. Lower it, now!”
Dad tilts his head at me. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. You should be at home.”
Giovanni makes as if to approach me, hands outstretched, almost like he means to put them on my shoulders. The idea makes my skin crawl. I shout at him, “Don’t you dare fucking touch me you evil old fuck!”
Everybody gasps, even Chance, though his is more of a bloody gargling than a gasp. Giovanni pauses in his tracks, staring at me as though noticing me as a presence in the room for the first time. I suppose when I first came in he just saw me as the vulnerable, scared girl. Hell, maybe when I came in that’s what I was. But I can’t afford to be like that now, not with Chance’s life at stake. Chance…I have to save him. I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I don’t.
“I don’t think you know what you’re saying,” Giovanni says. “I’m trying to help you, girl.”
“Help me?” I snap. “Fucking help me? By what, killing the father of my child, the man I love?” I turn on Dad. “Lower that gun, please. I love him, Dad. And I’m pregnant. I’ve been hiding it from you—”
“I know.”
“Then what are you doing?” I demand. “I love Chance, Dad. I love him more than anything. He didn’t kidnap me. You know that. You must know that. You were the one who moved Julian’s body for him!”
“That’s enough!” Giovanni snaps. “Will somebody please get this girl out of here?”
Two men appear at my shoulders, making to grab at me.
“If you throw me out now, you’ll never know the truth about your Boss! If you throw me out now, you’ll just be pawns and he’ll be the player, moving you all around! Look, look at Chance sitting in that chair. Maybe Chance scares some of you, maybe he’s a killer, but he’s also a hitter for the family. Just think, what if it’s you in that chair one day? Won’t you want to know the truth then?” I’m talking so fast and so loud that my voice is hoarse. I stop, gasping.
The men at my shoulders hesitate.
“Well?” Giovanni says. “Get her out. I gave you a goddamn order.”
“It’s just…” This comes from an old man, sitting on an upturned box, elbows resting on his knees and gold-ringed hands dangling. “I’m sorry, Boss, obviously we don’t think anythin’s goin’ on. But don’t you think we oughtta hear her out at least? I’ve been at this a long time. I knew your father. And he once said to me, ‘You’ve always gotta make sure that the men see you as someone to be feared.’ What if the troops learn that you were so scared of a girl you had her thrown out ’cause you were scared of what she had to say?” The old man speaks slowly, respectfully, which takes some of the bite out of his words. And then he adds the final, beautiful closing line, “I mean, you ain’t scared, are you?”
Giovanni looks like he wants to throttle the man, but the men around him are nodding, waiting for him to speak. The men around him are waiting for him to show that he isn’t scared, that he won’t let himself be intimidated by a woman. It looks like the Family’s bullshit way of seeing women as weak is finally working in my favor. He clears his throat. “Scared of a little girl like this?” He laughs loudly. “I just didn’t wanna get in the way of Mikey’s business. It’s a happy day, a day of celebration. Once this shit with Chance is outta the way, we’ll get some hookers and some whisky. But if you really wanna stand around and listen to some little girl’s lies, go ahead. It don’t mean nothing to me.” He shrugs. “I’ve been Boss of this family for decades, have paid for your lives for decades, have led us against gangs and cops for decades, but if the babbling of a child is more important to you, have at it.”
Before the men can think twice, I leap in. “I know the truth,” I say. I make sure to keep one hand in my pocket.
“The truth?” Giovanni snorts. “She’s wild, fellas. Wild because this man raped her. You’ve got to—”
“Your Boss is framing Chance!” I blurt out, before he can start his spiel. “Your Boss is the one who killed Julian. Your Boss is the one who had me kidnapped! Your Boss is the one who’s been playing us off against each other this whole time! He wanted away with Julian because he was scared he was going to try and replace him! And he wanted to make Chance be more careful because he was scared of him, too!” I talk quickly, explaining everything Nate explained to me, looking around the room of men and waiting for something to happen. The more I speak, the more I understand that I don’t have any definite plan. I suppose I thought I would walk in, reveal the truth, and everything would sort itself out. But as I stand here, I realize that it’s not going to work like that.
I stop, once everything has been explained. The men look interested, but not convinced like I need them to be. I wheel on Dad. “Tell them!” I plead. “Tell them what you did with Julian’s body!”
Dad swallows, gun pointing at the floor, looking as though he’s wishing he was anywhere but here. His eyes don’t settle. His free hands twitches. His knees bob up and down like a restless child. “You can’t talk to the Boss like that, Becky. You just can’t. That’s not how it’s done.”
“Dad!” I go to him, placing my hands on his shoulders. “Dad, please, just tell them the truth.”
“You have to take it back,” he whispers.
Maybe I would take it back if it were not for Chance sitting there, bloody and ballooned. Maybe I would take it back if it were not for the father of my child dripping blood onto the floor. But I can’t take it back, not now.
“Dad,” I say, my tone softer. “Mom tells me you were a good, happy man once. Mom tells me you weren’t scared, or lonely, or depressed. You can be that again. But this is the moment. You have to tell these men the truth.”
I see something click on in his eyes, as though a man who has been buried for a decade is rising within him, pushing away the gambler, the deal-maker. He swallows, turning to the men. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Chance methodically working his hand out of one of the zip-ties, blood beading around the skin on his wrist. He uses the blood to slip his knuckles and then his fingers out. I shake my head at him, meaning, Let me work.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says, facing the men. “I know Julian was a made man, just like you, but the Boss killed him—did it himself, he told me—and forced me to move him into the warehouse so that Chance would be framed for his murder. It was all the Boss.”
“Stupid little slut!” Giovanni roars.
I turn on him and see that he’s got a gun in his hand, pointing it straight at me. Chance is working his feet out of the zip-ties frantically. One foot’s free, and now he works on the other. I press send in my pocket. Giovanni turns in a swift circle as the men bristle, waving the gun at them. “Stay back!” he snaps. “All of you, you ungrateful pieces of shit, stay the fuck away from me! Are you really going to listen to this—to this drunk and his little whore? Do you know how many times this cunt took those kidnappers of hers? She fuckin’ passed herself around like a slut!”
“You killed a made man.” It’s the old guy who persuaded Giovanni to let me speak in the first place. He’s on his feet now. “That isn’t how it works, even for the Boss.”
“Fuck this,” Giovanni mutters, lengthening his arm, picking his spot…right at my heart.
He pulls the trigger.
The sound makes my ears ring in the small room, deafening me, the ringing moving around my head like a high-pitched echo. The flare of the muzzle blinds me, making me close my eyes on instinct, the light of the flash imprinted on my eyelids like sunlight on a bright day. And the smell of flesh, my flesh, rises into the air, flesh and fabric, blood and flesh and fabric, all mixing together in a stink. I slide to the ground, clawing at my chest, panting, panicking. I’m dead, I think, again and again. I’m dead, I’m dead.
“You ain’t hit, girl.” The old man’s voice, coming from very far away. “You ain’t hit. You’re okay. It’s your daddy.”
Slowly, I open my eyes, the light making the movement painful. But then I see that he’s right. Dad lies on the floor, clutching his shoulder, mouth hanging open. Blood dampens his shirt. I can’t see anything else, hear anything else. I’m too woozy, too out of it. I just manage to move to Dad and hold him, vaguely aware that things are happening around me. But all I can stare at is Dad’s blood-wet shoulder, his face, his eyes which look as though they’re fading.
I stayed in New York to try and save my father. Now I’ve gotten him shot.
I’m sure there would be some grim sense of comedy in there if I didn’t feel like weeping.