Romeo of the Streets (21 page)

I felt like crying, I could even feel the tears at the back of my eyes, but somehow I fought them back, sitting up a little straighter, drawing deeper into my own personal wellspring of strength.

“They would have killed you this time,” I said, finally.

I could tell that it was painful for him too. His lower lip shook and his downturned eyes moved from left to right as he searched for the right words. “I know,” he said eventually, simply, “I know.”

“Then you know what that would have done to us,” I said.

Sighing, he nodded slowly, a vastly different man than the one who had greeted me moments earlier. I reached out and took his hand. I wasn’t doing this to punish him, if nothing else he had to know that much.

“I need some time Gino, we both do. You need to recognize what Lou and Romeo have done for you, what we’ve all done, and how much they’ve risked to help you. I won’t be coming back here to work during that time, maybe not at all, and you need to understand why that’s something I had to decide to do.”

“Yes,” he sighed, eyes still downward, “I understand. I would understand if you didn’t want to see me at all, but you have come here and that makes me think that your parents, myself, that maybe we had a good impression on you after all—even despite all our own mistakes.”

“Gino,” I said, gripping his hand a little tighter, “you had a good impression on us. You just need to make wiser choices in your own life. I think you need some time by yourself to reflect on that…”

He lifted his eyes to look at me now and my heart almost broke at the sadness that I saw there. “I’m sorry Sandy,” he said, “I’m sorry how we let you down. Me, your father, we had a responsibility to show you the right ways in life and instead we continued down our own mistaken paths. It is a wonder you have turned into such a wise and capable young woman.”

Something in his voice struck me as odd—daddy had made mistakes but he had, in his own misguided way, made them to provide for us—so why was Gino bringing that up now? “Gino,” I said, “what do you mean?”

Gino sighed. “Your father… he only wanted what was best for you, but he should have known that he would not get it the way he was going. He never wanted you to know who he really was, but how could you not eventually find out? He had affected too many lives to ever truly remain in the shadows.”

I didn’t understand. This had already been dealt with and it bore too many painful memories for me to ever let the subject of my father easily surface. It was something that I avoided even thinking about, let alone discussing in conversation. “It’s alright,” I said, “daddy, all that stuff, that’s in the past now.”

Gino shook his head, adamant. “No,” he said, “there was more, more than you knew. I never said because he wanted you both to be sheltered from that, but there was more. Talk to Lou—he knows, I’m sure.”

I was confused now. What was he talking about? More secrets, more lies? I didn’t have the energy to deal with it right then so I just said: “Ok, I’ll talk to Lou.”

“Good girl,” Gino said, “and I hope you can forgive me. We should have been better role models for you. Louis, joining that lifestyle now—that was never what your father wanted…”

I smiled. “Well maybe he could have stopped him,” I said, “but I wouldn’t count on it. Have you ever tried persuading Lou to do anything that he didn’t already want to do? My brother is a bull.”

Gino ignored me, now it was his turn to impart the seriousness of his words through his composure and, as I watched his grave face, the smile vanished from my own.

“Sandra,” he said, “listen to me. That Romeo boy is not what he seems, he’s not like the others. Not even Lou.”

For a moment, I said nothing, surprised to hear him mention Romeo now too. “Gino,” I began, “me and Romeo, it’s not like that with us…”

“You must protect him,” Gino continued, his eyes hollow and portentous now, like a soothsayer channeling some future tragedy. “I have seen something like this before but that boy, he is a good person through and through, no matter what he is. If you want him you mustn’t wait. You may never again get the chance…”

“Gino, what are you talking about?”

“Sometimes there is only one chance at love Sandy,” Gino answered, “and if you don’t take it you might live your whole life alone. Please—don’t do what you think is right. Do what you
know
is right.”

I didn’t answer—I didn’t have to—I understood what he meant with perfect clarity, whether I wanted to or not, and I was beginning to realize that I had understood all along. It was time to stop pretending that I wasn’t well aware of what I should have done from the start.

It wasn’t just a crush with Romeo. It wasn’t attraction or lust (although it was that too, it would be foolish to deny), no, it was something much more—something far deeper—and it was time to admit to myself that I had always known it, no matter how inexperienced I might have been. For better or for worse I had to go to him, I had to tell him how I felt and only hope that this thing with his ex wasn’t as serious as it sounded. Maybe in life there is no perfect situation, no perfect time to tell the person that you love how you truly feel about them. There will always be risks, always downsides and shortcomings both in that special someone and in yourself as well. Perhaps that’s what makes us human, what makes us worth loving in the first place.

I left Gino’s with a tingling mixture of fear and excitement fluttering through my belly. What if it was too late? What if he said no? Or worse, what if he said yes and later it turned out that I’d been wrong to go to him, as his criminality took over the man I knew he was deep down? No, these were fears that could never be truly dispelled and because of that I had to act in the face of them regardless. Courage in the face of fear would be the cost of having what I truly wanted—the man I longed to spend the rest of my life with.

And as for what Gino had said about him, those strange, ominous cryptic words? Well, I’d always kind of felt the same way about Romeo too—that he was different to the others, not really suited to the criminal life at all—and that much at least gave me hope. And yet the
extent to which the man inside the persona of Romeo Mancini (the man who despite his best efforts to conceal himself I had fallen in love with) was
truly
different from the others, was something that I was not yet aware of and was about to learn in the most heartbreaking and terrifying way imaginable. And there was me thinking all I had to worry about was a bitchy ex-girlfriend.

I tried calling him from the bus back to my apartment but there was no answer and when I tried to call Lou and found that his phone was off as well, I presumed that the two of them were out just doing what they did—something that I would, for the present moment at least, simply have to get used to. If Romeo truly was who I believed him to be then I had faith that he could eventually be persuaded to leave his criminal life behind him, but we could cross that bridge when we came to it.

I couldn’t settle for the whole way back and when I got home and tried Romeo again without success I decided to clean the entire apartment just to have something to expend some of my over-boiling nervous energy on. If I didn’t hear from him soon I would call Lisa, I decided, hoping that maybe she could give me some clues to their whereabouts, or at the very least some helpful updates on the situation with Romeo’s ex. Suffering Lisa’s delighted shouts of “I told you so” when I finally admitted my true feelings to her would be something that I’d just have to deal with. After all, I guess I did have it coming.

As it happened though, before I had a chance to even call Lisa, she called me first, and when she did it was clear that gloating was the last thing on her mind.

“Lisa babe,” I said, answering the phone with one hand, the vacuum cleaner gripped in the other, “I was just about to call you.”

“Sandy, listen to me… Oh my God.”

She was crying, frantic, and immediately I knew something was seriously, seriously wrong here.

“What is it?” I said, “Is it Lou? Is he ok?”

“Yes,” Lisa huffed, “no. Sandy, it’s Romeo.”

My heart seemed to clamp in on itself with instantaneous, icy dread. No, I thought. Not now. Please…

“What is it Lisa?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Romeo… he’s not who he said he was. Oh god Sandy, Romeo is a cop and now they’re going to kill him!”

I knew, just instinctively, I knew that it was true—the clues had been there all along, right in front of my eyes—and I didn’t even think to question her on it.

“No,” I said instead, firmly, as if the final decision were somehow up to me. “No, they can’t. Where’s Lou?”

“He’s gone to meet them,” Lisa sobbed, “he was so mad, he wouldn’t listen to reason—he was already so angry with him.”

I placed my palm over my forehead. Think, I told myself, think. There would be time to break down later, for now I needed to stay in control. Romeo’s life itself may have been depending on me choosing the right course of action here.

“Did he say where they were going?” I asked her.

“No,” Lisa replied, and it was clear that she, at least, was losing the battle with hysteria.

“Ok,” I said, “if you think of anything let me know, ok?”

I hung up the phone to the sound of Lisa crying and stared around myself at the spotless apartment, the gentle wisps of incense floating up from the stick I’d lighted earlier. Suddenly I felt like I was standing on Mars, without a space-shuttle to take me home again.

I had no idea what to do and even less time to make up my mind about it. If I called the cops (and surely I had to) then I would be condemning my brother to years in prison and if that happened then I knew that he could never grow to be anything more than a lowlife criminal. For as long as he lived, his fate would be sealed and I didn’t know if I could live with myself if it turned out that I had been the one to curse him to that destiny. But what was the alternative? I was hardly equipped to take on the Mafia myself, no matter how much I loved the man they’d stolen from me, so what could I do?

Then it dawned on me that Lisa had said that they were
going
to kill him, she’d never said that they already had him in their sights. Maybe they were still out there looking for him somewhere. And if she’d called me the moment Lou left, then maybe Romeo himself was still unaware what was about to take place. Maybe I could still warn him…

I whipped out my phone and wrote a frantic text message. “
Romeo
,
they know you’re a cop. You have to stay away from them!
”

Jesus, I thought, what would he think when he saw it? What would he think to be receiving the news that his cover was blown, from me of all people? And what if it was already too late?

I decided that I’d wait five minutes for an answer—and even that seemed like a dangerously long time when the stakes were this high—and if I didn’t hear back from him by then I would call the police. Four minutes and forty five seconds passed before I got my answer and I could have collapsed with relief when I did. I opened the message from Romeo.

“
I know.
” it read.
“
Thank you Sandra. I’m safe but you have to lay low for now, is there somewhere you can go to hide out?
”

“Oh Jesus,” I whispered, “thank God, thank God.”

Frantically, I tapped out my reply.

“
Lisa’s apartment I guess. Are you really ok? What’s going on?
”

I hit send and then paced around the living room waiting for the answer. This one came much faster.

“
Good, go there and don’t answer your phone to ANYBODY ok? Everything will be alright but you have to wait for me there
.”

“Ok,” I said, speaking the words out loud in my panic. “Ok, I’ll wait for you there.”

I grabbed my coat and left the apartment, dialing for a cab that would take me the short distance to Lisa’s apartment. But before I did I thought it best to send him one last text to make sure he knew where to find me.

“
Ok
,” I said, “
I’ll see you there
.”

When he opened his eyes his face felt numb—that was the first sensation, before the pain came flooding back to remind him of the terrible disaster that awaited him—just cold, freezing numbness. First the numbness and
then
the pain…

It was like taking the beating all over again except this time he was waking up instead of passing out and so the agony grew as his consciousness did, instead of mercifully diminishing as it had done before. And just like that, he was awake again—his agony given voice by the low guttural moan that emitted as his body rebelled against the ropes that bound him tight to the chair. Across from him he heard the dumb, cruel laughter of his captives. Sal, Ferret and Eyeball—the three ugly goons who might, between them, be the last rotten thing he saw in his life. But before that, he knew, there would be pain. These animals would want to get their money’s worth after all he’d cost them. They would make it
hurt
.