Greenmantle (39 page)

“You don’t mind my talking to him first?” Ali asked.

“Mind?” Mally shook her head. “I
like
Lewis, Ali. He’s my friend. Just like you are, though I’ve known him longer.”

“But…”

“Friends don’t always have to be right,” Mally said with a grin. “C’mon, now. I’ll race you to that birch tree.”

“No fair. You’re quicker than me.”

“I’ll just hop then, on one leg.”

Before Ali could answer, the wild girl lifted a leg behind her, caught its ankle and started hopping madly for the tree. Laughing, Ali set off in pursuit, but even with the handicap, Mally got there first.

* * *

Valenti was just hanging up when Frankie came downstairs. Her hair was all tousled and she had a sleepy look in her eyes, but she still found a smile for him. She was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of loose cotton tie pants. To Valenti, she looked like a million dollars.

“Is there any coffee left?” she asked. “I could smell it in my sleep.”

“Plenty,” Valenti assured her. “How’re you feeling?”

She thought about that for a moment. “Good,” she said finally. “Surprisingly good, all things considered. Is Ali up yet?”

“Yeah. She just went for a walk in the woods back of the house.”

“Will she be safe?”

“Oh, sure. She’s a smart kid—she’ll keep her eyes open. If something comes up, she’ll come running back.”

“I wish she hadn’t gone.”

“She’ll be fine.”

Frankie nodded. “Well, I’m glad we’ve got a few moments. I wanted to ask you a favor, Tony.”

“What’s that?”

“I want you to give me that gun you took from the man who shot Tom last night. I want you to teach me how to use it.”

Valenti hadn’t known what to expect from her, but this hadn’t been it. “You want a gun?”

“Is that so surprising after all I’ve been through?”

“But you can’t use it—you’re not licensed to carry one. If you’d shot that guy who attacked you last night, you’d be up shit creek right now.”

“Look at me,” Frankie said. “I’m not a physical match for either Earl or that man. But I am
not
going to be a victim anymore. What other choice do I have?”

“Yeah, but the law—”

“Don’t tell me about the law, Tony. I wasn’t so out of it last night that I didn’t see what you were carrying. That was some kind of machine gun, wasn’t it? I suppose you’ve got a license to carry it?”

“Well, now…”

“So what’s the difference, Tony?”

Valenti thought about how he’d considered giving Ali a gun earlier in the morning. The same rules applied here, but when he thought of what Frankie’d already been through…

“Okay,” he said finally. “But I’ll tell you straight off that a gun’s not going to solve anything. It’s just a tool. Don’t think you’re going to be a different, or tougher, or better person just because you’ve got one in your hand. If you pull it out, you got to be prepared to use it. If you use it, you got to be prepared to hit somebody—you know what I’m saying? And you can’t let yourself get cocky because—especially when we’re dealing with your ex—he’s going to be carrying a piece, too. You got to be prepared for the fact that whoever you’re shooting at is going to be shooting back.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Frankie said. “Believe me. I’ve gone over and over it. This isn’t something I’m looking forward to. I don’t want to be some gun-toting moll like you used to investigate. But I’ve got to do something. I won’t be a victim anymore. And I’ve got Ali to think of. I can’t expect you to stand guard over us twenty-four hours a day. I don’t want somebody doing that. I appreciate the help you’ve been so far, Tony, but I
have
to be able to stand up for myself.”

“Yeah,” Valenti said. “That’s what you moved back here for.”

“As soon as this is over—one way or another—I’ll get rid of that gun so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“I believe you.” He hesitated for a long moment, fiddling with his coffee mug before he looked at her again. “Listen, I got to tell you something. I was never investigating organized crime. I want to be straight with you. I respect you and I don’t want to have lies and bullshit lying between us. I never told Ali that stuff she told you. That’s just something she came up with because she…I don’t know. Wanted to protect you, maybe. I think she was afraid maybe you wouldn’t let us be friends if you knew the truth.”

Frankie’s fingers tightened around the handle of her own mug. “What…what are you trying to say, Tony?”

“I used to be one of those guys—part of the families, you know? But I never made no war on women or kids, and we didn’t deal in dope or prostitution, neither. Not when the old Don was
padrone
. But I was in the business all the same.”

Frankie didn’t say anything immediately. She just sat there looking at him, wondering why this revelation wasn’t bothering her more than it should. Was it because she’d already known Tony, and for all that he seemed very capable when it came to guns and trouble, he just didn’t strike her as a gangster?

“What happened?” she asked finally.

Valenti give her a quick rundown of the events that had led to the
fratellanza
putting out a contract on him. He talked about Mario and the fumbled hit in Malta, about how he’d finally made it back here to Lanark and just wanted to disappear but her ex-husband had identified him and called down the cousins on him.

“See,” he finished, “things were already different for me. Living here, I didn’t feel like I was in exile. It was like I never had anything to do with the families in the first place. When I think of who I was, it’s like I was a different guy. I was really starting to put it all behind me, but then all this shit came down on us. Now I don’t know. It’s all coming back to me and I don’t like it, but I can’t run away this time. Just like you.”

He glanced at her. “It’s a funny thing, you know. I was all set to run again, but it was Ali who talked me out of it. She told me I had to make a stand.” He shook his head. “Christ, she’s really some kid.”

The coffee pot was empty. Not trusting herself to speak yet, Frankie got up and put some more water on. She stood by the stove, warming her hands by the burner, though it wasn’t cold in the kitchen. The chill she had was inside her.

What do I feel? she asked herself. This man’s just like Earl, only he’s the big time. Then she shook her head. No, Tony wasn’t like Earl. Not by a long shot. From what he’d told her, he’d basically grown up in a family business. He’d just never known any better. If all your role models, your father and uncles and grandfathers, if they were all gangsters, how could a growing boy think that was wrong? It was a way of life.

She turned to look at him. God, a person could rationalize anything. What she had to figure out was, did she
really
understand him, or was she being forgiving because she needed him right now, needed the skills and abilities he’d acquired in that life?

“I guess this changes things,” Valenti said finally.

“It changes them,” she agreed, “but I’m not sure how.”

He regarded her with a puzzled frown and she found herself smiling.

“I liked you right off,” Frankie said. “More importantly, Ali liked you right off, and I’ve learned from experience that she’s a damn good judge of character. There’s been a lot of times when I’d come home with some guy and she’d never say a thing, but I’d know she didn’t think much of him. Unfortunately, she was usually right. I’ve never had much luck with the men in my life—not as lovers, at any rate. So now I meet someone that both Ali and I like and…”

“Hey, I’m not, you know—”

“Coming on to me,” Frankie said. “I know that. But I do like you, Tony. Only right now my feelings are all confused. I’m still coming down from last night, I’ve got Earl to worry about… I need you right now, for what you know, for what you are. It’s your past that makes me feel safe, makes me feel that things are going to work out—that Earl won’t be able to just walk all over me again. And that other guy, if he comes back, won’t be able to…hurt me again.”

She combed her hair with her fingers, nervously pulling at a knot. “I don’t want to be dependent on anybody,” she said. “I told you that. But there’s something good—something
healthy
, I think—about having a friend that you
can
depend on.”

“I can be a friend,” Valenti said. “I know the kind of guy I was. Things won’t go no further, and when this shit’s over we can just go our separate ways.”

“I’m not saying that, Tony.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“God, I don’t know. It’s in my head, but I can’t put it into words.”

The kettle began to boil and she turned, grateful for the interruption it offered. But once the water was poured and the coffee dripping through the filter, she came and sat across from him again.

“I got a call from Mario,” Valenti said. “Just before you woke.”

Frankie looked relieved for the change in topic. “Did he say how your friend was?”

“He’s doing okay. He’s in intensive care, but the doctors are pretty sure he’ll pull through. I’d like to know what kind of a song and dance Mario pulled to stop them from calling in the police—I mean, it was a gunshot wound—but he says everything’s cool. He was calling me from Ottawa.”

“He’s not coming back?”

“I don’t think so. He said he was going to take care of some business in New York.”

Frankie didn’t ask him what
that
was supposed to mean—she didn’t want to know. The coffee had finished dripping through, so she got up again to refill both their mugs.

“What do you think of me?” she asked when she sat down once more. “What do you see when you look at me?”

She didn’t seem to be able to stop the conversation from returning to them. But the terror she’d felt last night was never far from her thoughts. Coupled with it was the old fear that all men just regarded her as an object, as something they could use however they wanted. The attempted rape was just an exaggeration of what usually went down in her other relationships. The men might take her out to dinner or to a movie or something, but it all boiled down to getting into her pants and getting
their
rocks off. Too many times she just didn’t hear from them again.

So why did she attract that kind of a man? What was there about her that brought them to her? Or was there something more deeply wrong with her, some Freudian explanation that centered around the way her father had treated her mother—and even Frankie herself—so that she’d go out looking for men like him? It wasn’t the first time she’d worried about this and it never ceased to confuse her.

“I got to tell you,” Valenti said. “I’ve never been that good with women. I was never rough or anything, but I just never wanted anything long term, you know what I’m saying? But last night I got to thinking about Ali…. I’d give up everything to have a kid like her. And I was thinking of you, too….” He paused to clear his throat. “I know I said I wasn’t going to come on to you or anything, but I got to tell you, I was thinking about you and wishing I’d been a different kind of person so that I’d have a chance to be with someone like you—permanently, you know?”

“But why? There’s nothing special about me, Tony. I’m just—”

“Bullshit, there’s nothing special about you.” It was like talking to Ali, he thought. “It’s not just the way you look—which is sensational, I’ve got to tell you that, too—it’s the way you carry yourself. It’s what you got inside. And I’ll tell you something else: You can tell a lot about a person by their kids. You raised Ali by yourself and you did one helluva job, Frankie. A person who can do something like that, she’s special to me, let me tell you.”

Frankie reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He looked down at her hand on his, then back up to meet her gaze.

“I needed to hear that, Tony. I go through life needing a lot, it seems.”

“I think we’re all like that—needing reassurance. There’s nothing wrong with it. The only thing wrong is when there’s no one there to give it to you.”

Frankie nodded. She squeezed his hand, then let go and reached for her coffee mug. Her hand was trembling slightly and she hoped Tony didn’t see it.

“You and me,” he said suddenly. “We’re like hearts and flowers for two mornings in a row now. It’s getting to be a habit.”

“I’m glad we had a chance to talk.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Valenti ached to see her sitting there across from him. There was a look in her eyes that promised him something, but there was no way he was going for it. Not now. Not today. Not so close on the heels of what she’d gone through and with everything that was coming up. But when it was over, when she didn’t need him for what he’d been, then maybe he’d see if she’d take him for what he was now. He pushed aside their mugs and fetched Bannon’s automatic and a cleaning kit.

“Okay,” he said. “Before we start shooting up a tree trunk, you’re going to learn how this little beauty works. Now this little thing—”