I tried to get away from the violence and forge a new life for myself, and now look at me. I’m still on the run, still up to my elbows in blood. Still missing her.
I pull open the car door and Angelo tosses me a rag.
“On your neck,” he says.
I check the rearview and see a light dusting of blood. I’ve gotten better about placing the bullet just right to avoid splatter, but he flinched. I pour water from a bottle and scrub the blood from my skin. I look at my hands and see the dark crusted red under my fingernails that never seems to fully wash out. No matter how much I seem to try, there’s always blood on my hands.
“We good?” asks Carlito. “I need to stop by Lakewood and grab something from a friend.”
Angelo and I exchange a wary look. A while back I would’ve said something. I would’ve put my foot down and told him to stop being so stupid with the drugs, but now I can’t bring myself to care. We live our lives at night and sleep when the sun is out. We move in the shadows and we have to kill or be killed. All that’s left is the violence and the desire to make them suffer more than they make us suffer, to take from them more than they can take from us. But haven’t they already taken everything from me? Haven’t they taken Julia?
Not everything. I punch Angelo on the shoulder and he smirks back at me. My little bro. He may be a fuckup and he may have a temper like a Chihuahua, but I’d kill for him. History can attest to that.
Still, she has never left my mind. At first, I thought I’d be past her in a few weeks, then it was a few months, then it was next year. I think about her every day. When women throw themselves at me now, I can’t bring myself to care. I brush them off because I can’t be bothered. I know without even trying that they won’t be like her. They won’t be like my Julia. No one ever will, and I don’t want to dilute the memory of fucking her by being with anyone else, even if I have to die celibate. I don’t care.
I drive past the place we’re staying to Lakewood, where shitty, crumbling apartments line the road, leaning ominously like they could fall over at any moment. Carlito must really not give a shit anymore if he’s asking us to drive him to a place like this. At least before he had the courtesy to be sneaky about it. He directs me to a place near the end of a street with no lights and asks me to park. I raise my eyebrows at him and he frowns.
“It’s cool man. Don’t worry about it. I know these guys.”
We wait as Carlito shuffles out of the car and heads into the building. One of the windows turns yellow with light. What the fuck were the people in there doing, sitting in the dark? Carlito is out of sight just long enough to make me wonder if Angelo and I are going to have to go kill some junkies, and then he emerges, shoving something into his jacket. I notice dark shapes moving around the car as Carlito approaches. I nudge Angelo and he nods back at me, hand already on his pistol.
Carlito sits in the car, hugging the drugs inside his jacket to his body and twirling his other finger. “Let’s go, man.”
Metal clicks on my window. A sickly thin man with tattoos is pointing a .22 caliber at me. I see another on Angelo’s side of the car as well. Without needing to give each other any kind of sign, we both slam our doors open at the same time. The junkies are knocked back, guns pushed aside long enough for us to squeeze off two or three rounds in them.
Gunshots tear through the silent street, making my ears ring and my hand tingle from the recoil. The scent of hot smoke and blood reaches my nose, smells I wish weren’t so familiar to me.
It’s over in seconds. Lives ended as easily and carelessly as if we had just stomped on a few ants.
I look at the body, feeling disgusted. Killing the Moretti guys who come after us is one thing. Those are professionals, guys who know what they signed up for and are out to get us first. This feels lower, cheaper. I wonder, not for the first time, what the end-game is for me now.
I holster my gun, glancing toward the house to make sure no one is planning to take pot shots at us from the windows. I doubt it though. People like this don’t rob because they are violent or capable, they do it because they are desperate and they don’t expect resistance. Whoever’s inside is probably just hoping these dead fuckers have some drugs on them to steal. I get in the car, gripping the steering wheel and twisting.
“You happy?” I ask Carlito without looking to the back seat.
“S-shit, man. I didn’t know they would try that. But you guys handled it, so no big deal, right?”
“No big deal,” says Angelo as he settles back in his seat.
Yeah, I think, starting the car up and driving away from the two fucking bodies on the street that wouldn’t be there if Carlito didn’t need drugs. No big fucking deal.
39
Julia
Callie smiles at me over her wine glass. She’s beautiful, as always. I still remember the first time I saw her walk into The Spot where I used to bartend. I thought she was beautiful then and now that I know the personality underneath, I know she’s even more amazing than she looks.
“It has been way too long,” says Callie. Her smile shows no hint of accusation, even though we both know the reason it has been so long is me. I’ve been dodging her invitations for years now. I call her every once in awhile, but it has been years since we met in person.
I finish chewing my bite of caesar salad, taking my time to pick the right words. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Callie frowns, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. “Hey. Don’t apologize. You’ve been busy as hell. I just wish you’d let me—”
I hold up a hand, stopping her because I already know what she’s going to say. “I can’t take any money from you.” Callie is sweet, and she means well, but she doesn’t understand how hard it would be to live with myself if I took her handouts. I know I’m a terrible person for it because I’m letting my pride get in the way of good sense, but I just can’t do it. Before my dad passed away, he always pushed me to be a strong woman, to break the stereotypes and to find success on my own. I’ve tried to live by that as much as I can, and anything else feels like it would be a betrayal.
She purses her lips. “Will you at least tell me what’s going on? I promise I won’t offer to give you money again. But let me in at least. You can’t just keep bottling all these things up.”
I feel my lips quiver and my eyes grow heavy. I really am holding in so much. Way more than I should. If anyone knows how much I should talk, it’s me. But I’ve built a sort of mental dam, and I’m worried even opening a small crack to let some of the pressure through would bring the whole thing down, and I don’t know if I would survive that. “I’m fine, really.” I say. I can hear the strain in my own words, the lack of inflection.
The level gaze she gives me says she sees straight through my lie. “Julia. I say this as your friend...you have a son to look out for. You can’t take care of a child if you don’t take care of yourself first.”
I love her, but her implication that I’m doing anything less than the best for Roman rubs me the wrong way, even if I know there’s truth in it. “I’m doing all I can. Talking about any of my problems isn’t going to make them better. Do you know how it feels to spend all day sitting in my chair, trying to get people to talk through their problems and help them heal, knowing I’m always the most fucked up one in the room?