Jack knew, somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, that it was only a matter of time before he was found out by that girl. He chose not to think about what would happen when that time came, telling himself firmly that she would invariably be left in the dark for as long as he so chose her to be. This was a dash of egoism on his part, thinking he could suppress the knowledge from her. After all, she wasn't stupid. And she was far too nosey and stubborn for her own good.
Still, how the big reveal came about was surprising to him. He would sometimes wonder about what her reaction might be, if she were to find out about him. Furious, impassioned anger, perhaps? Or maybe she would break down and cry for him, for his soul. Or maybe she would cut all ties, call him a monster, and turn her back on him forever . . . It became almost imperative, after he thought this latter option, that all traces of his involvement with the mob be hidden.
But nothing stays hidden forever.
He'd spent a night over at Angelo's place, playing poker late into the night and trying his best to work the idea of an overthrow into the mobsters' heads, so slowly that even if they looked back to reflect upon it they would have no idea how the idea first blossomed up in their brains. At least, that was Jack's aim. Insofar he'd had only minimal success. Even Angelo, when the topic was broached, refused to speak much about the subject.
Angelo, who Jack oftentimes had to haul into his bed, he was so inebriated, would merely laugh drunkenly whenever Jack brought up the idea that perhaps Cousin This-Or-That might be a better fit to run the family business. Angelo did not respond to the hints of more money that a takeover could bring, nor an increase in power, influence, nor the acquirement of good drugs and company. Nothing Jack could come up with was able to turn forgetful and unthreatening Angelo Sabatino, the laughing stock of the mob, from his loyalties. Jack had only had one positive indication that Angelo even listened to these tiny implications, and he still had no idea what to make of it.
"You worry too much, y'know that, Jay?" Angelo had slurred at him one night in early March, reaching out to grip Jack's shoulder, his dark eyes filmy and unfocused. "Always frownin'. You ever smile? Huh? I'm gonna find'a way to make you smile . . ."
"I'm just trying to look at the best interest of the mob. As a whole." Jack had responded shortly, uninterested in the meaningless mumbling of a drunk man who didn't want to discuss what Jack wanted to discuss.
"Ah! The mob! Fuck the goddamn mob . . . It ain't . . . nothin'." Jack had darted forward just in time to keep Angelo from rolling straight off of his mattress again. "Whoa . . . Thanks. See, this . . . this is all a man really needs."
Angelo had gestured around his cramped but comfortable little room with a dramatic sweep of his long arms, smacking Jack across the chest and then choking back a laugh.
"Booze and a bedroom?" Jack had replied drily, to which Angelo had snorted and twisted himself up in his bed sheets, trying to sit upright.
"Nooo. A friend. Like me 'n you. You ain't need nothin' but a loyal friend 'n a good lady. Everythin' else . . ." Angelo had reached up and punched Jack lightly on his cheek, and then, as if all the energy had been sucked from his limbs in that single motion, dropped limply against his pillows and fairly disappeared underneath of his blankets. From beneath of the thick layer of fabric Jack had just been able to distinguish Angelo muttering something. "Men like John don't got that. . . . 'n they destroy themselves with no help needed . . . searchin' for things . . . they don't even know they need."
And with that last bit of frustratingly philosophical rambling, Angelo had drifted into a sleep so heavy not even repeated shaking could wake him.
That had been at least a week ago, and Angelo had said nothing more about Johnny Sabatino. He hardly spoke of his cousin, the man who trusted him more than any of his other family members, at all. Jack figured that it was a baffling display of family loyalty, though Jack had no idea why Angelo even bothered keeping that imbecile's secrets. Sometimes Jack got the feeling, from the slightest shifting of eyes or the twitch of a finger, that Angelo didn't necessarily even like Johnny. Yet he was still truehearted. Still tight-lipped. If it wasn't so damn frustrating it might have been admirable.
Jack was musing on this problem with a furrowed brow and a distinctive frown lining his face the Sunday morning he let himself back into his apartment. He explained his absences to that girl in a number of ways, mostly by telling her that he'd taken up an extra graveyard shift for the butcher's shop, staying out late and picking up the shipments of meat from the docks and making sure it got back all right. It also explained any mysterious, unexplained bloodstains found on his person.
That girl had always scowled when he told her this, mumbled something about 'working to death', and then went back to speaking in hushed tones with Lola, leaving Jack well enough alone. He liked this; even thought himself pretty clever for managing to pull the wool over her eyes for so long. He was ready this morning with a fresh story about some meat catastrophe he'd had to deal with which had kept him out all night.
What he was met with was a completely empty apartment. This in and of itself was irregular and alarming, considering the previous night had been a Saturday and that girl always slept over with Lola that day. She oftentimes snuck into Jack's room after his sister had passed out and slid into bed with him, pressing her body against his and encouraging his hands to explore, though never too far. That was how it always was, and Lola, whose feeble constitution usually had her sleeping well into the afternoon, should be in her bed. But she wasn't.
After trekking over to that girl's apartment and fishing a key out from the grimy lighting fixture just outside of the door and letting himself in, he quickly discovered that the only person in that girl's apartment on the early Sunday morning was her mother, laid out indolently on the couch with a needle still stuck in the soft flesh of her inner arm and a scarf tied like a tourniquet just above. She was still breathing, but seemed to be in that state of complete lethargy that overcame a person who shot up; she didn't even respond when Jack stood next to her, or when he carefully removed the needle and crushed it beneath of his foot.
Feeling more and more frantic about the whereabouts of both that girl and his sister, Jack went back to his apartment and sat, with his cell phone turned off so that no call could be made to disturb him, and waited. His mood fluctuated violently, and he was caught between extreme annoyance and even anger at the two of them for taking off without leaving any sort of indication as to where; and an anxiety so strong Jack felt almost breathless with it, and pulled at his hair until his scalp was raw.
He heard his sister's voice first, chirruping brightly but breathlessly as she made her way down the hallway, and then the slightly lower response that belonged to that girl. In a minute he was off of the couch he'd been alternately sitting on and pacing past and had whipped the door open, all anxiety gone. The two girls took a simultaneous step back, their smiles fading at the sight of his thunderous expression. They were both dressed nicely, that girl's hair done up with a pretty little bow and Lola in a muted purple scarf that unfortunately accented the sickly tone of her skin and left her looking like a large bruise.
"Where have you been?" Jack demanded furiously, stepping back and glaring until they both entered the apartment, that girl with a decided tread and a defiant shake of her head and Lola with a faltering step.
"I'm . . . . gonna go ta bed," Lola said as soon as she got inside, tearing off her scarf and scurrying to her room. As soon as her door slammed shut that girl ripped her bow out of her hair and threw it at his feet, fists clenching.
"Where have I been? Where have I been?" Before Jack could open his mouth to retort, her hand shot out and slapped him hard across the face, the force enough to leave him stunned. He blinked twice and faced her again, and he knew in that one glance that she finally knew. Her lips were pressed in a thin white line, her eyes burning with the sort of fire that could rival the scorching glare of Peyton Riley. So it was anger, then.
"How was picking up meat at the dock's last night, Jack?" she asked tightly. Her body shook where she stood, as if her frame was too delicate and slight to contain the anger that she felt. Like at any moment it'd burst out of her, shattering her body and anything it came in contact with. "Have some . . . little anecdote that you wanna share? Another lie that you want to lay on me?"
Still uncertain as to where he stood, how much she knew, Jack stood back and waited for her next words, or maybe the next blow. When she didn't answer she just shook her head, her lip curling up into an expression of contempt. It was a look that he could hardly stand to see directed at him, coming from her.
"Yeah . . . no answer, huh? Because I think we all know that you weren't at the docks. You don't even work at the butcher's shop." She licked her lips and then stared up at him with an inscrutable expression. "You know, it's funny. Because yesterday afternoon I decided to go on down to the butcher's shop and pay you a little visit. I thought it'd be a sweet gesture. Going to see my guy at work. You can't imagine how surprised I was when I walked in the store and came face to face with Frankie Yatz. And I bet you can guess what Frankie told me, can't you Jack?"
Still Jack said nothing, but he knew she didn't need him to. His words were unwelcome to her at this moment.
"He told me that you don't work down at that butcher's shop. He told me that you haven't worked there for months and months. That you haven't worked there since that week and a half that you went missing straight off the map. And you know what else? He told me that you haven't been to school since then, either." She laughed, running hands through her hair. He noted that the nails on her hands were almost bloody, they were so torn up. "God! God, how stupid can you be, huh? To believe a stupid – bastard – like you!"
With every word she swung at him, but the words were beginning to lose their shaking fury, their biting coldness; they were taking on a more tremulous bent, and with every unguarded blow to his chest and arms and face Jack heard her breath come harsher, until she was almost sobbing.
"And I believed you, I believed you because I love you. Because I thought that after everything you've seen, after my mom, after the way your dad died . . . I thought that you had more sense. Even after Frankie told me that I still didn't want to believe it." She shook her head, wiping at her eyes. "No, even then I told myself that you'd never do something so stupid. I told myself that you were way too smart, had way too much going for you . . . And then I came back here and I waited up for you, and I started thinking of all those nights you didn't come home. And the more I thought about it, the more it all made sense."
She dug into the pocket of the sweater she had on and pulled out a crumpled envelope that she thrust at Jack. A hospital bill for Lola's treatment, one he hadn't had the chance to open yet. One that was ripped open carelessly nonetheless.
"Fifteen thousand dollars, huh?" she was shaking so severely now that she had to wrap her arms around her body to keep herself from pulling apart at the seams. Her frenzied voice dipped low, until it was nothing more than a hush of rapid, bitter words. "Fifteen thousand dollars away from her hospital bills since you disappeared. I was so impressed that you were working hard enough to keep the rent paid . . . to pay Wheeler what he needed, even. But now it all makes sense. You're no better than the rest of the trash in this place."
Her words hurt him. More than any blow she could deliver to his body, any blow anyone could ever deliver to him. His hand clenched around the envelope clutched in his hand, the anger that had been stewing inside of his blood since the minute he'd come home to find her and his sister gone coming to a boiling point.
"No better?" He thrust the hospital bill out in front of him, a wrinkled mass of white paper. "I'm like your mother, huh? My father?"
His harsh laugh that followed that sentence made her flinch, but only for a moment. "When I went looking for you this morning, I found your mom completely out of it, a needle still sticking out of her arm. Why d'you think she does what she does? For a sick little girl? For you? Or for those drugs? For herself?"
The sneer that twisted his features was drastic, ugly; he knew it and yet he couldn't repress it any more than he could keep himself from aching at the expression of disgust on her face.
"And my father. You know what he did with the money he made? Put it to Lola, maybe? Paid off fifteen thousand dollars? No. No, as I remember it, he got himself so much booze that he drunk himself to death fifty feet away from our front door, and blew the rest of it on special services from your mother and whatever other gutter slut he stumbled across."
That girl looked away, her eyes red-rimmed and shining, though no tears streaked down across the pale expanse of her cheek. She looked too angry to speak; to make a retort that he knew she wished she could.
He spoke deliberately, the tenor of his voice trembling with emotion he didn't even know he felt. "I do what I have to do to make sure that my sister keeps on breathing. And if you weren't such a self-righteous hypocrite –"
"A self-righteous –!"
"Oh yeah, yeah, little Miss I'll-Get-On-My-Back-For-Money. You think that what you're so quick to suggest doing is any better than what I'm doing, huh? You think that just because I kept you from spreading your legs to the highest bidder, that makes you better than me? Because I actually went through with my unthinkable solution and you didn't get your chance to?"
Jack dragged his hand over the back of his neck and took to pacing again, the furious energy inside of him demanding some sort of outlet. What she said was too true, too emotionally weighted, for him to want to hurt her, and yet it was still so unjustly and passionately stated that he felt nearly sick from the mingled shame and wrath he felt.
"You think turning tricks for a couple of city slickers even comes close to selling drugs to these people, Jack?" he faltered in his pacing, the meaning of her words reaching his brain very slowly. She didn't know. She didn't know. Not all of it, anyway. Not the most important parts, the parts that were chill her to the bone, if she found out. That just the other night he'd helped pull a dead body to the edge of the waterfront and dump the lifeless corpse over. She didn't know it all. He turned to look at her, as if to verify this for himself with keen observation. The first glance of her stricken and anxious face told him that it was so – she really didn't know he was involved in the mob. She thought he was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill drug dealer. "God, do you know what happens to those dealers every day? Five of them get fished out of the river a week! If you really cared about . . . about Lola . . . you would know better than to go off and get yourself killed! How will that help anyone? How will it help us when it's you they're fishing out next? When the last family she has doesn't come home?"
"Nothing is going to happen to me," Jack stated falsely. It wasn't something he could assure; he knew, had known the minute Peyton Riley locked eyes with him and asked him to work for her, that he might not get out of this alive. And yet he had gone along with it anyway. For his sister. For the girl standing in front of him with disappointed anguish in her eyes. There was no backing out now. "I do what I have to do for Lola. And you really have no say over this. I'm the only person she has left, I'm her guardian. So whatever I say is best for her, is."
Such an underhanded move to use, and yet there was no other definite way to end the conversation, or to strike her harder than to point out the fact that, despite appearances, she was not a part of the family she loved more than her own.
She paled, absorbing the finality of his words and the deliberate pain he'd inflicted upon her. For a moment Jack just watched her, down to the minutest flutter of her eyelashes against her cheekbones. Each line of despair and hurt that lined her face seemed to cut into his skin, tracing patterns of all the ways he'd disappointed her, would disappoint her still. If he was Dorian Grey, living his life full of sin and touched by no consequences, then she was his portrait, a thing of absolute beauty, marred irreversibly by his every indiscretion.
"Fine," she whispered tremulously, her voice rising in volume with every subsequent word. "Fine, since I mean so . . . little . . . to you, do what you want. Get yourself killed. See if I care when they're hauling your body out of the river! I won't shed one tear. I won't."
With one last defiant shake of her head she spun around and stormed out of his apartment, slamming her door behind her and leaving the framework of Jack's entire life shaking in her wake.
The answer to his problems, or perhaps the beginning of his downfall, came just as March entered its second week.
Jack and Angelo were situated at one long table in Johnny's warehouse, back from a night at the docks and with two hundred crates stacked and ready to be opened and examined. There were twenty other men working that night, at different tables than them. Two men would haul boxes to the ends of tables and then take a crowbar to the top of them, wrenching it off and tossing it to the side. It was then that the others unpacked the crates, most of them full of children's toys, and slit open whatever doll or teddy bear it was that held the drugs or ammunition being shipped in. After that there were men ready to take the drugs and deliver them, discreetly as possible, to dealers all of the Narrows and the City. Jack's specified load was to be delivered, coincidentally, on the edges of the Narrows, less than a block away from St. Katherine's.
He and Angelo were sorting out the drugs, counting and weighing the pellets and packages that almost single-handedly decayed the Narrows from the inside out. Johnny stood behind them, strolling leisurely between the tables and shouting at anybody who looked like they weren't moving fast enough, or who miscounted and had to go back and redo a crate. His voice was grating, raw, and Jack was beginning to hate it. Not quite to the point where he wished to take out his gun and whip it across Johnny's temple, but there was always time, and he was sure he'd get there eventually. It was clear that most of the people sitting at the tables already were.
The tension of the room was nearly at its breaking point, and Jack had his eye on one thug, a new boy, who looked just about ready to snap. He'd be killed immediately, of course. But at least the pressure hanging in the air would dissipate, replaced by morbid fascination and boiling anger. Things were always so much better when they broke; got past that troublesome crest and crashed violently to the shore.
It was then that a warehouse door was flung open, smashing against a wall with a metallic clanging that rung throughout the warehouse with blaring sharpness. Jack saw Angelo wince out of the corner of his eye, and the olive hand reached up to touch his scarred temple. Jack's heart skipped a beat when he saw Peyton Riley come storming into view, her blonde hair whipping out behind her as she strode into the room, her face a mask of absolute fury. Trailing behind her was another girl, much smaller than Peyton and in fishnets and a cheap Lycra mini-dress.
"Johnny!"
At the first sound of her voice, cracking like a whip through the warehouse, Angelo's hands shook so violently he slipped in the midst of cutting open a teddy bear, the pale glint of his knife flashing before slicing across the back of his hand. At the same time, Johnny turned around and grimaced in disgust at the approaching figure of his wife, oblivious to his cousin's misfortune.
"What the fuck d'you think you're doin' here?" Johnny demanded, and then gestured at the woman trailing behind. "And who the hell –"
"Fuck you!" Riley strode up to Johnny, standing almost directly in front of the table at which Jack and Angelo sat. "You know damn well what this is about . . ."
Angelo swore, crimson blood dripping down his fingers, shaking so severely the drops were splattering out across the tabletop, some of them landing on Jack's jeans. Jack stared at Angelo from the corner of his eye. His eyes were wide, glossy, and though his blood was streaming in steady rivulets down his hands they were focused not on his wound, but on Johnny and Peyton squaring off in front of him.
"How dare you bring this slut back to our place, Johnny." Riley was fuming, her thinly boned hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at her side.
Jack, a design forming in his mind even as his limbs began to act, reached out and grabbed a cloth from down the table, wrapping it around Angelo's bleeding hand. The man's riveted eyes flickered down to where Jack bound up his wound, and as he gripped Angelo's wrist to wrap the cloth tight his fingertips pressed against Angelo's pulse – it was racing, the blood pumping furiously through his veins. A biological reaction that spoke for itself. Jack dropped Angelo's hand and the man looked away immediately, casting his guilty eyes to the ground, though the tension in his neck and shoulders indicated how very much he would like to feast them on the scene in front of him.
"I'm done," Riley breathed heavily, "with coming home and finding dirty whores in my house. Done with watching you go fuck around but slicing me across the chin if I even think . . ."
Johnny's hand shot out, and the smack was so on-point and heavy-handed that the blow echoed. Angelo twitched violently beside Jack; he was only just in time to push the Italian man back into his seat, mercifully unnoticed by anybody else. He was the only one who wasn't completely engrossed by the scene playing out in front of him. This development was shocking, unexpected. The dark eyes Jack had come to know so well were full of furious energy, anger, a bloodthirsty fire that Jack had never seen before. Jack was momentarily stymied; uncertain as to how to proceed.
"You don't got no place to tell me what to do," Johnny growled viciously. "I do what I want, when I want. You gotta problem? Take it up with your God. Ain't nobody else gonna listen to your bitchin'."
She struck out violently, clawing at Johnny's face, neck, arms, anything she could reach on him. Her screams were almost inhuman, bursting out of her mouth like the attack call of some fearsome bird of prey. The men sitting around all sucked in a collective breath together, their eyes alight with interest, sparkling malevolently with a sort of untamed fascination. That look was timeless – Jack was certain it held the same glint so long ago, when thousands of spectators crowded into the Colosseum to watch a golden maned lion tear apart a couple of gladiators, or even hundreds of innocent Christians.
So taken aback was Jack by this shocking lack of control on Riley's part, he didn't notice Angelo leaving his chair until it was far too late to reach out and pull him back. The lean Italian had already thrown himself across the table, scattering drug pellets and the gutted skins of formerly stuffed animals onto the floor. Jack reached into his jacket almost reflexively, wrapping his hand around the butt of his gun as if to pull it out and aim it – but what was he doing? Protecting Angelo was not his goal. That was not why he was here. It was for Lola. For his girl. For himself. Nobody else.
With considerably reluctance, Jack removed his hand from his jacket and laid both palms flat on the table in front of him, as if to keep an eye on his limbs – make sure they didn't make such a dangerous move when somebody could see it and make him pay.
Angelo had his arms wrapped around Peyton Riley's waist and was hauling her away, her arms still flailing, still reaching out to claw the eyes out of the man in front of her, shrieking, sobbing, screaming hoarsely over and over, "I hate you, I hate you, you bastard, you fucking bastard", until each word was raw. It almost seemed as if her hate had scorched her throat.
Johnny reached into his own jacket and pulled out his revolver, cocking it and pointing it directly at Angelo's back.
"Put her down, Angelo! That rabid bitch has insulted me for the last time!"
Angelo dropped Peyton rather unceremoniously, and the blonde hurtled herself at his back, trying desperately to push her way past his rigid and immovable form to get to the man who had a weapon out and ready to fire.
"Do it, Johnny! Do it! Kill me! Put a bullet in my head and prove to everyone that you're just as fucking worthless as they all thought! Poor Johnny, can't do nothing right, can't even manage to keep his wife in check, huh? But you won't ever be able to do that, because I won't ever give in to you, not ever!"
"Get the fuck outta my way, Angelo!" Johnny shouted, spit flying from his mouth, chest heaving. His face was red with mortification.
"Just calm down, huh? Why you wanna go shootin' each other anyway?" Angelo demanded breathlessly, still restraining Riley, blood leaking through the cloth wrapped around his hand and smearing across her bare arms as she tried to claw her way past him. "You know what Sean Riley would do to ya if he found his baby girl shot in the head, John? You know? He'd get every fuckin' Irish in this city to come burn us alive in our beds. I dunno about you gents, but I kinda like living. I wanna keep on doin' it."
There was a murmur of assent, worried glances exchanged between neighbors, and Jack felt the tension in his body relax. Angelo was doing what he did best – speaking calmly, rationally, despite the anger that Jack knew filled him currently, despite the fact that he was so close to Riley, who was the cause of every tremble Jack had ever seen pass through him.
Because the reaction Jack had observed in Angelo – his racing pulse, the dilated eyes, the trembling – told him everything he'd never known until this day. It filled in every gap so perfectly that Jack was amazed he'd never guessed at it sooner, and yet at the same time he couldn't believe it was true, even after the obviousness of it was staring him in the face.
Angelo Sabatino was in love with Peyton Riley.
All at once, Jack saw his path laid out flat in front of him, a golden brick road ending in a magnificent emerald city, his for the pillaging. Here was his answer, the one he'd been searching for.
After working his jaw furiously in agitation, the veins and tendons standing out starkly in his neck, Johnny finally dropped his gun and turned to spit viciously on the ground, as if ridding himself of the longing for the kill he felt. His coal-black eyes fell immediately upon Jack.
"You! Take this bitch and get her the fuck outta my warehouse." He jabbed a finger in Jack's direction and then motioned for Angelo to release Riley, which he did, reluctantly.
"I can take her, Johnny . . ." Angelo began, casting his shifting, excited eyes back to the heavily breathing blonde.
"No. No, you and me are gonna have a little talk, Angelo." The silence that settled over the men was deafening, and once again Jack itched to reach for his gun. Nobody who Johnny had requested a "talk" with had come out of it alive. Even Riley sensed the shadow hanging over Angelo, and she ceased in her struggles completely, backing away from him and leaving him facing Johnny quite alone.
But Angelo's eyes held no fear, and he merely shrugged. "All right, then."
Riley, uninterested in the fate of any Sabatino, turned and swept past Jack without so much as looking at him. As loath as he was to leave Angelo awaiting near certain death, there was very little he could do. Unless he wanted to pull out his revolver and shoot him now . . . Jack faltered in his retreat, staring at Johnny's rigid back. It would be so easy . . . he wouldn't even suspect it.
From over Johnny's shoulder, Jack's eyes met with Angelo's. There was the smallest shifting of the head in either direction, the tightening of his lips, and in that instant Jack knew that Angelo had seen right through him. Without faltering for another instant, Jack turned and left.
Riley was waiting for him in the alley out behind the warehouse, leaning up against the side of a grimy building, heedless of the expensive silk blouse she wore. The lines of her face were taut with an emotion Jack had never seen on her face before, her eyes lined with the sort of mad grief that only the emotionally fortified could possess. Anybody less resilient than she would have crumpled with such emotion coursing through their bodies. It was painfully apparent that whatever had happened that night had been a breaking point for Peyton Riley – perhaps it was seeing the slut in her home, as she said, or maybe it was more than that. He didn't necessarily care. He only knew that she had jeopardized their entire plan with her temper tantrum, and that Angelo Sabatino, who could very well be of immense use to them, was unlikely to be breathing for much longer.
"What is your problem?" Riley looked away and then shook her head sulkily. "You realize that you almost just got yourself killed, don't you? Where would that leave me, huh?"
"Working for my spineless bastard of a husband. Probably become his best friend, right Jay? I mean, you've already gotten chummy with all the other big hands. Angelo, Beppe, Gino . . . it goes on and on, doesn't it?" She threw back her head and laughed loudly, the shrillness of it jarring Jack's nerves to the point where he had to reach out and cover her mouth with his hand.
"You listen to me," he hissed into her ear, "I haven't sold my soul to this organization to have it all ruined by some spoiled rich girl's time of the month . . ."
Riley made a sound of indignant anger but Jack pushed her hard against the building she'd been leaning against. He heard the fabric of her slacks scraping against the rough bricks and hoped that she could feel it tearing at her skin, as well.
"Shut up. I have way too much on the line, here. My girl can't even look at me anymore because of what I'm doing. And she might not know everything, but it's close enough. The only thing keeping me from strangling you with my bare hands and then making a run for it is the money – you know I need it. I need it more than you need your petty, pointless revenge. And that means I need you, because without your two thousand a month . . . . So either you shape up and keep that fat mouth closed –" his fingernails bit into the flesh of her cheek to emphasize this point, "or I go straight to Johnny and hand him a real reason to kill off his ultimate pain in the ass. You think he'll shoot me, too, if I turned you in? I bet I've got enough sway to get out of it, by now."
Riley's hot breath streamed out of her nostrils and across the back of Jack's hand, still covered with Angelo's blood from where the man had cut himself. He wondered if he was still alive. He had heard no gunshot, but that meant very little where Johnny Sabatino was concerned. It could very well be that he was just biding his time. Perhaps he'd used a knife, instead, to keep things quiet.
Taking advantage of the preoccupation of his thoughts, Riley knocked his hand away from her mouth and stared up at him with hellfire in her eyes, working her jaw. He felt pleased at having caused her even a small amount of discomfort or pain. She deserved it, after such a display.
"That's enough. I don't need some boy from the slums lecturing me about my attitude, all right? I lost it. It won't happen again."
"It –"
From behind, somewhere in the darkness of the alley, there was a crunch of gravel and the rustling of fabric against fabric that indicated an approach. Riley tensed and stepped behind Jack, her breath coming out in a low hiss, "Your gun, get out your fucking gun!"
Without allowing himself time to think, Jack reached into his jacket and pulled out his weapon, aiming it into the darkness and waiting for the approach with a racing pulse. He was determined that he would not die tonight – if he had to kill fifteen people to get back home, he would. He had more to do, yet. He couldn't leave Lola so sick, couldn't leave the bills with so little paid off, couldn't let things between him and that girl end on such a bad note . . . And they had never . . . His hands tightened around his gun and his aim steadied, his whole body leaning into the shot he knew he would have to make.
From the darkness a tall, familiar shape came into view, his hands hanging at his side. The ghostly light streaming from one highly perched and shrouded window fell across Angelo, illuminating the right side of his face. His scar made him look even more disfigured, barely human.
"You gonna shoot me, Jay?" Angelo asked softly, but he didn't need to seek reassurance. At the first sight of his friend, Jack had lowered his weapon. The relief washed through him and left him rather breathless and lightheaded.
"Nah, of course I'm not." Jack chuckled, swearing to himself that as soon as he got home he would make things right with that girl, tell her he was sorry, kiss her, hold her. She should know what she meant to him, and he was so horrible at letting her see it, feel it . . . "You just . . . You . . . You feeling all right, Angelo?"
From behind him, Riley reached out and gripped at his arm, her nails pinching into his skin. Her display of uneasiness was warranted. Jack wasn't accustomed to the look of jealousy on another man's face, but he was so well-versed with it on himself that he recognized the acidic gaze immediately. All at once Angelo was no longer his friend; he was Johnny Sabatino's cousin, his confidante, and he was, above all, a dangerous mobster who thought that Jack was fooling around with the girl he was in love with.
The smile that spread across Angelo's face was twisted, more like a snarl than a grin. "Sure . . . yeah, sure. 'Course. I didn't know I was interruptin' somethin'. My 'pologies . . ."
With the quickness and composure that she possessed in amazing quantities, Riley let out a derisive snort and pushed at Jack, striding past him with her head held high and her posture haughty.
"Please! This asshole was just wasting my time. I thought you might be my husband, come back to finish me off, so I ordered him to get out his gun. My car should be out front still."
She strode away, flinging one last glance back at Jack. It spoke for itself: Watch your back.
The echoes of her footsteps had only just faded when Angelo hurled himself at Jack, catching him completely off guard. They went flying backwards, Jack sliding against cracked concrete, his head hitting the pavement with a sickening snap. The world swam around him, and he was only just aware of Angelo straddling him, his fist raised, and then –
The world went dark, spinning, and Jack was aware of a staggering pain in his jaw and lip. There was no time for him to blink reality back into focus before the next fist hit him, this blow falling on his nose. And another, just as the blood started dripping from his nostrils, and this one got him right in the eye. Another, another, another, following up the first few. The beating was hard, unexpected, and yet familiar. It had been a long time since Jack had been knocked around like this, an eternity since his father had held him to the ground in just this way and let the blows rain down on him, but Jack supposed that you never did lose the hang of it. He was more than ready to take more, and to even regain his focus and throw the man off of him to get some punches of his own in, when suddenly they stopped.
Angelo's hands gripped at the front of his shirt and pulled his face up close to his own, his lips twisted furiously. Jack's head was swimming, eyesight unfocused to the point where the scar on Angelo's face distorted and stretched until it looked as though it went across the entire expanse of his forehead, and then dipped back down low across his cheek. The hands gripping his shirtfront clenched spasmodically and he felt himself being shaken, until even the world shook itself straight, and Jack could see again.
"How long?" Angelo was demanding in a strangled voice. "How long have you been fuckin' her?"
His voice was like liquid in his mouth. But no, that was just his blood. He coughed and it spilled out over his lips, and for a moment he was stunned by it, by the nostalgic feeling that the salty warmth that flowed down his chin produced. How many days had passed since he'd seen this same sight on Lola? He wasn't certain. It all blurred together.
"Never," Jack said, shaking his head. "I'm not –"
The next punch caught him on the temple and lit a fire along his skull, all the way back to that aching collision point at the back of his head. Black spots danced across his vision.
"You're lying!" Angelo half-sobbed, shaking Jack back into focus yet again. "I saw you . . . saw you pressed up against her like . . . like . . ."
Before Angelo could finish his sentence, Jack took the opportunity to swing out and strike the man across the scarred side of his face. Angelo crumpled to the side immediately, and Jack, with a feeling of absolute self-loathing rising up inside of him for carrying out such a move, stumbled his way up into a standing position, his head still swimming. Angelo clutched at his head and Jack felt another rush of pity – that side of his skull was tender from where the rudder had split his head wide open during his boating accident. It was why he'd aimed for it.
"Heard you whisperin'," Angelo went on, still cradling his head in his hands, and Jack was horrified to see that actual tears were streaking their way down the man's cheeks. "And when I came you jumped apart. 'Cuz you were afraid of gettin' caught, huh? How long?"
"Calm down, Angelo," Jack told him, dabbing at his streaming nose with the tail of his shirt. His voice was nasally and unlike his own, but after a brief examination he was willing to bet that his nose wasn't broken.
"You shut the fuck up!" The force of his words made the man tip over in the midst of standing, and Jack had to rush forward to catch him before he toppled. He got a savage punch to the gut for his troubles, and he doubled over immediately, gasping for breath. Blood and spit dangled from his lips in long strands. "Years and years I've been in love with her and she ain't never even looked my way. At first it was 'cuz she didn't know me, and then I thought that maybe it was just 'cuz she was a married woman 'n she was too good for that. But now . . . she chooses you . . ."
"She hasn't chosen anyone!" Jack shouted, wiping at his mouth. Even his voice was bloody. "There's nothing going on between us!"
"Liar . . ."
"I have my own girl, Angelo. You know that, huh?" His head hurt and he was agitated, too tired to deal with the jealous beatings of a hopeless romantic. "I don't need anyone else but her. You come at me again and I swear I'll shoot you. I don't feel like dying tonight."
He bent down and retrieved his gun from where it had slid. Angelo spun on the spot, his hand still pressed against the side of his face and his eyes wide and glossy. He looked lost, wilted, the anger drained from him, and once again Jack felt the sort of pity he'd never felt for anybody else, except for perhaps his sick baby sister.
"Aw shit . . . shit . . ." Angelo murmured, pressing his palm against the right side of his face and wincing. "I ain't gonna kill you, Jay . . . I lost my head."
"Obviously."
"I just . . . it's not your fault if you're sleepin' with her. I would too, if she offered. I was just jealous . . ."
"I'm not."
"But why'd you have to go hit me on the bad side of my head, huh? I think I just lost two years of my life that I ain't never gonna get back . . . Can't even remember my sixth birthday, now."
"Neither do I, get over it." After a few seconds' worth of haggard breathing and silence, Jack rolled his eyes and lowered his gun. "Fine. I'm sorry I hit you in your head, Angelo. You're sorry you remodeled my face. Let's just both go home."
Jack turned and made his way unsteadily down the alley, his head spinning with each step. He heard Angelo's faltering but nimble steps approach from behind him.
"I can't remember where I live," Angelo confessed sullenly.
The moonlight hit Jack's face and stung his aching eyes, foreshadowing a whole mess of pain for the morning light he could expect in a couple of hours. He winced in annoyance, and the first thing that came to mind was the oath he heard so often, more often than not directed at him.
"Jesus Christ, Angelo . . ."
But Jack helped him home anyway, for reasons he could not understand, but still despised.
That night when he let himself into his apartment he found that girl curled up in his bed. It was clear from the first soothing touch she laid against his swollen cheek that she'd been doing some thinking, too. He wasn't the only one who had determined to set things right.
A/N: Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me . . . . In honor of another year of my life I give you another chapter! Originally I would have posted this tomorrow, but all the official birthday shenanigans are going down on that day, so I'll be too busy to post.
Not particularly happy with this one. I dunno. I felt like scrapping it and starting over again about eighty times, but decided to get feedback from you guys before I did that. So tell me – is it as "ick" as I believe it to be? What do you guys think about this development concerning Angelo – any new theories forming?
There'll be about . . . five or six more chapters to the first part of this story, so we're wearing down. I know it's taking FOREVER. Part two, as you all know, brings in the Joker as we know him from the movie. Or, as close to it as I can possibly get, anyway. : )
Once again you guys blow my mind. I'll be posting a list recognizing all my reviewers next chapter, probably. I love you all!
Xx
~B