I crouch in front of him to look up at his popping eyes as he spits blood, making ka-ka-ka sounds, as if he wants to tell me something. His arms flail, the left hitting his right breast repeatedly.
“She was a gift to you.” I put the heel of my hand on the base of the knife handle. “And now she’s my partner. If you’d valued her even a little bit, she wouldn’t be with me, making my shitty life worthwhile.” I place my second heel behind the first. Peter keeps tapping his right chest. “Thank you, Pop.”
With the power of my legs, I push forward and up. He makes a hunh.
“Thank you.” I push again, burying the blade in his heart.
I step away so he won’t knock me over when his ass slides forward on the toilet. His jacket opens, revealing a taut rectangle in his jacket lining. He was tapping the phone in his pocket.
“Come on!” Connor barks.
I remove my knife, then take the phone.
When we get outside, the rain has stopped.
And that is that.
I thought it would be sweeter.
Our car trudges uptown, tires splashing water from curb to pedestrians. In the back seat, I listen to Connor and Danny joking about the difference between guts being emptied into the toilet and onto the toilet. I try to hide the fact that I’m shaking. It could be the complexity of the job, the identity of the man my knife cut into, the end of an era, or the beginning of a new one.
Whichever it is, something inside me rattles for attention. I need to talk to her. She’s already called me, and I put it out of my mind to execute this plan in time. I called Benny before we started the job and he said everything was fine. How long has passed?
We’re still in the city. A good forty minutes from privacy, maybe more if there’s any flooding on the east side. I don’t have that long to make sure she’s all right.
She answers. Thank God.
“Prima.” I try to keep it down, but my guys stop joking. It’s now too quiet. “You called me.”
I was so relieved to hear her voice I didn’t notice she’s sobbing. I slap Danny in the back of the head and point to the side. He pulls up to a space in front of a hydrant.
“What’s going on, prima?” I get out of the car and jump a puddle to the nearest storefront—a smoke shop lit up in purple and red.
“I’m so happy.”
She didn’t just call me, tonight of all nights, to tell me she ate a cookie or saw a good movie.
“Why?” Leaning against the glass, I turn my face away from the street to the display of pipes and hookahs.
“You’re alive.” In the mirror behind a two-foot-tall glass bong, a wild-eyed man stares back at me. He has a smear of blood across his neck and a thick drop above his left eyebrow.
“Of course I’m alive. Did you think I wasn’t?”
“I knew.” She breaks down into sobs of joy, broken only by bursts of laughter. She’s hysterical, and I don’t have time for it. Not now.
“Prima! Please.” When I lift my hand to rub away the drop of blood, I see the reflection of darkened fingernails. It’s not dirt under them.
“Denise called.”
“Finally.”
“They’re all saying Massimo threw you under a train. She said you were dead, and I should come home.”
Never. She’s never going back there. Denise misses her friend, or the Colonia planted the call.
“And I knew.” She makes her last straggling sniffles. “I just knew.”
“Did you tell her where you are?”
“No. But Dario. Before we leave, we have to go get her. Marco’s—”
“No. Sarah. Listen to me. I’m moving Benny to the house. You… just…” I don’t know what to instruct her. There’s nothing concrete to command. “Please. Just hold it together. I’m coming. Soon. Okay? Just hold steady.”
“Okay.” She swallows her panic.
“Don’t pick up the phone unless you know who it is.”
“Got it.”
“I love you.” I say that to her after I made sure her father knew it. With his blood under my nails, I said that, and I have more to say. “I love you and we’re going to be swimming with sharks together really soon. Okay?”
“I love you too.”
“Hang up so I can send Benny over.”
She hangs up. The center cannot hold. She’s not ready to be in my life, and I’ll never be ready to be separated from her. I have to get the both of us out of here.
Once in the car, I text Benny a quick note to go to the house and keep his eyes on my wife until the new guys arrive. He gives me a thumbs-up. I put Oliver in charge of sending anyone he can spare from Dasano’s, which is closer to where she is.
Good. Done. Secured.
We’re going. For sure. There are sharks waiting.
Sarah will meet Nico. See what Oria’s like when she’s not panicked and stricken. Sarah can take a job in our operation, or work with Willa, or spend the days and nights getting fucked.
Something in my pocket make a sharp, electronic sound I don’t recognize.
“Which one of you left fucking sounds on?” Connor barks.
“Peter Colonia.” I take out the dead man’s phone.
“Amateur,” Connor grumbles. “That’s what happens when you have it too good.”
It’s not a call. It’s an invitation to a live feed. I have the sense to be alarmed.
I just spoke to Sarah. It was really her and she was really all right. She wasn’t faking it.
I accept the feed.
“What’s that gutted fucker’s kink?” Connor turns to ask me from the front seat.
“Underground garage porn.” I hold up the phone to show him the video feed of a generic concrete lot. Two spaces—boundaried by worn-out white lines—are taken up with black Mercedes sedans. Connor squints at the screen.
“The tow away sign.” He stretches to get closer. “Monument Towing. That’s ours.”
The towing of illegally parked cars in my buildings is managed by Monument, which is owned by—once you get through the Russian doll structure—me.
I turn the screen back to me, and the sign, right there, promises that if you park illegally, and your car is gone, you should call Monument. Then I recognize the scribble of graffiti on one of the pillars. And the way the number two painted in front of one spot has a smeared top hook.
“It’s the lot on 116th and Lex,” I say as a truck pulls into frame, knocking the clearance beam.
“The sound’s on? How the fuck—?”
“Danny,” I call. “Get us there.”
“Got it, boss.”
There’s only one reason this would be on Peter’s phone. Bad things are about to happen.
Connor doesn’t need to be told this is serious. He unbuckles and climbs in the back seat.
The truck rumbles hard, brakes squeaking when it turns right. It’s going to hit the low crossbeam if it goes too far.
“Call Oliver. Everyone who isn’t with Sarah needs to head over there right now.”
“Done.”
Big letters are printed on the side of the truck.
KING PENGUIN
COLD SOLUTIONS