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That guy in the trunk might be a bad person too.

March was a bad—just kidding, that had already been thoroughly established.

I tried the left rear door, but the handle moved in vain. I shook my head and cast a desperate look to the man. “He’s locked the car—”

“I’ll tell you what to do. Get behind the wheel!”

Call me the Stockholm syndrome poster girl: for a second or so, I hesitated. March had after all agreed to keep me alive, and our deal might lead me to learn more about my mother. Not to mention that betraying him meant losing whatever protection he could offer me from Creepy-hat. Did I really want to do this? What would happen once I was alone with that tattooed guy in the trunk? Weighing my options, I stared at my co-hostage. Tattoos or not, he didn’t look like he had benefitted from the same type of arrangement I had.

“What are you waiting for?”

His urgent voice startled me back into reality. If I wasn’t going to do this for me, I had to do it for this guy. Nodding fearfully, I crawled into the driver’s seat. Dammit, the seat adjustment was all wrong. I could barely reach the pedals!

It’s a pity March chose that moment to come back with the fat man, because otherwise, with a little help from my new friend, I would
have unveiled the second biggest mystery in the world after the Voynich manuscript’s code: How to steal a Lexus with your bare hands.

The fat veneers guy scratched his black beard and cracked up, roaring with an Italian Brooklyn accent. “Fuck me! The lil’ countess is trying to jack your car!”

March, however, wasn’t cracking up much as he took in the scene before him. He fished for a small key fob in his pocket and unlocked the driver’s door, eyes narrowed in a menacing glare. When he opened the door, I first shrank away, not daring to look up at him. I could understand his perspective: I had enthusiastically promised not to stab him in the back lest I wanted to die a painful death, and there I was, sitting in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, ready to steal his car and elope with the gangster he kept in his trunk. Said guy was now silent, perhaps wondering which of us would die first.

March handed me the Lexus’s keys, nostrils flaring. “I believe you will need
this
.”

Of course. Very funny.

“It’s . . . it’s okay. I wasn’t actually going anywhere,” I blurted.

“Indeed. Get out of the car.”

I complied, peeking up at his face through my lashes.

“March, I—”

He stared down at me and placed his index finger on the tip of my nose, tapping it delicately twice. “Don’t talk; don’t move.”

I gritted my teeth, expecting the worst, but he walked away from me and toward the rear of the car to open the trunk. A string of curses flew out of the cramped space.

“Chinga tu madre!”

My accomplice clearly had unresolved issues with March, because he was encouraging him to satisfy his own mother. (Just so you know, I practice Spanish watching
Dora the Explorer
and playing
GTA
, so I know how to say backpack, whore, and weed. I hope you’re impressed.)
I had no idea if March understood Spanish and whether that played a role in his decision to pull out his gun and aim it at the guy’s head.

A vision of the way Creepy-hat had coldly executed his men flashed before my eyes, and I lunged at him. “Wait! Don’t shoot him!”

“Island, he’s my client.”

“So am I, and you didn’t kill me!”

God, I didn’t like his voice. I would have preferred anger to this calm determination, not to mention that the guy in the trunk wasn’t helping.

“Antonio is afraid of no one! I shit on your grave,
pinche cabrón
!”

I grazed March’s arm with a trembling hand. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it! Let’s try to solve this in a civil manner.”

“I
am
being civil. Please step aside.”

He had waved my hand away and avoided my eyes, so I switched to plan B and jumped in front of the open trunk, shielding Antonio with my body. I had seen this in a ton of movies; it always worked. “You’ll have to kill me first!”

March’s bluffing skills far outweighed mine: I hadn’t expected him to merely shrug and point the gun at me instead. “As you wish.”

My breathing faltered. My eyes traveled up the gun’s suppressor, the long black barrel, and to the wooden grip partially concealed by a leather glove: the shortcomings of my plan were becoming obvious.

The fat guy, who had been watching the entire scene with wide eyes, stepped in and tried to reason with March in his turn. “Whoa, whoa . . . Let’s all cool down! March, man . . . seriously?”

I backed my new supporter with urgency. “Please, March!”

He took one step closer, and the suppressor pressed against my chest. Part of me was still terrified, but my body and mind reacted as if this were some strange intimacy. It’s hard to explain, but I was now certain he wouldn’t kill me. I didn’t even think he would hurt me. I locked my eyes with his, and I saw the conflict in them. He didn’t want to shoot me, and he probably didn’t want to kill Antonio in front of me either. I guess he didn’t like seeing himself in my eyes, and rightly so.

“Island, you have no idea who this man is.”

“No, it’s true, but I know who you are . . . Oh screw that, I’m not gonna bullshit you and say you’re better than this. Just don’t kill him, please. He’s defenseless! Everybody deserves”—My gaze fell on the tattoos covering Antonio’s cheeks. Wasn’t it one teardrop for each person killed or something? ’Cause he had a shitload of these all the way down to his jawline!—“yet another chance. Antonio will
change
!”

The culprit seemed to have finally figured that calling March’s mom a slut would get him nowhere, whereas helping me weigh in on this unexpected moral dilemma might prolong his life to some extent. He shouted from behind me, “She’s right! That thing with Somoza’s sister, it’s in the past already!”

March took a deep breath, perhaps battling his inner douche, and slowly lowered the gun. Once the weapon was safely back in its holster, he took out a phone from one of his jacket’s pockets, and all three of us held our breath as he made a call.

“Good evening, Phyllis. Can I ask you to call Mr. Somoza and tell him that . . . personal circumstances are forcing me to cancel our agreement. Yes . . . Exactly . . . Wire everything back and send his mother a box of chocolates with my regards . . . No . . . It’s going fine. I simply prefer to concentrate on one thing at a time. Have a pleasant weekend. I’ll be back in a few days.”

The fat guy scratched his head. “So, do we just let him go?”

“Yes.” As he said this, March bent down to untie the straps restraining Antonio, and I could almost have hugged him. Almost. Once he was done, the newly freed Antonio exited the car and stretched lengthily before smoothing out the wrinkles from what looked like a tux. Our ex-hostage flashed me a bright smile, and his right hand moved to reach inside his jacket, causing March and his host to do the same with hostile expressions.

No one got hurt. All Antonio took out was a red business card. He handed it to me. It bore a single phone number, embossed in the paper.

“
Querida
, if you need anything, you call . . . Antonio.”

I liked the way he struck a little pose with his index finger and thumb, forming a gun as he said his name: maybe March should have considered coming up with a pose of his own. We watched him walk away on the tarmac with calm, confident strides, headed for God knew where, and after he was out of sight, March spoke. “Island.”

“What?”

“Please don’t interfere with my work again.” Ouch, the cold killer voice.

Undeterred, I pointed at the car accusingly. “Why was he even in that trunk? Aren’t you supposed to be dealing with me?”

“I have occasional schedule conflicts just like anyone else.”

“No, you don’t.” The fat man seemed to know a lot about March’s working habits.

Ignoring his colleague’s accusing tone, March fished for a tube of mints in his pocket and munched on a couple of them without even bothering to let the sugar melt in his mouth like you’re supposed to. His teeth ground the sweets with sinister cracking sounds, and I thought it was a super hardcore way to do mints, kinda like he was an addict. Once he had his fix, he cast me a brief glare and closed the incident with a gruff warning. “All right, there’s room in the trunk now, if you’re interested.”

SEVEN

The Veneers

“Malcolm flashed her a seductive smile, revealing a row of teeth so white that she felt engulfed by their light, as if she had been hit by a supernova.”

—Livia Torrente,
The Billionaire’s Beautiful Waitress

The fat man and I appraised each other silently under March’s gaze.

He spoke first. “Still cute as a button . . . March, you dog!”

I was about to open my mouth to ask why that guy acted like he knew me already, but March placed his finger on my nose again, and the words died in my throat. I wondered if there was some valid scientific explanation behind this technique, like a neurological reflex that would short-circuit the speech center of the brain when someone touched your nose. That or he kept doing it because he thought it worked, and I kept shutting up because it’s plain weird when someone does that to you.

Placing a friendly but somewhat invasive hand on my back, the fat man walked me to the aerodrome’s hangar. March tagged along, his posture relaxed, a sign that our host could be trusted, I assumed. He led us to a small office located in a corner of the building and made some
coffee. I was grateful for this, even if I wasn’t a fan of the beverage. My stomach had been singing the sad complaint of a burgerless gut for the past hour, and I feared I might start hallucinating soon if I didn’t get something to cheat my hunger.

Settling into an office chair, I offered our host my nicest smile as I warmed my fingers against a mug stating that everybody loved a Jersey girl. “Are we flying to Paris from here?”

“Nope, you’re going to Le Havre,” he said, opening a thin laptop.

I grimaced, thinking of the large port city about a hundred miles northwest of Paris. It had essentially been wiped out during World War II, only to be rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Soviet era’s best architectural efforts. He ignored my blatant disappointment and resumed his typing. “Now, make yourself at home . . . Need to make some arrangements to get you guys a passport for the countess and preclearances. Paulie Airlines got it all under control!”

So it was Paulie. Well, I did find Paulie pretty reassuring, much nicer than March, despite the fact that his excessive veneers made his mouth look a little strange. He noticed I was staring and, fortunately, took it as a silent compliment.

Pointing to his blindingly white teeth, he turned to March. “Waddya think o’ these, man? Care to get the same? Can give ya my dentist’s name. That man . . . he’s an artist. Know what Jackie says?”

March shook his head, allowing him to go on, and Paulie proceeded to ask me the same. “Know what my girl says?”

I shook my head in the same fashion.

“She says, ‘Paulie, you still got your goddamn salami breath, but these look so hot I could kiss you!’”

He nodded for good measure. I thought he must definitely be a nice mobster if his girlfriend could get away with saying he had “salami breath” without getting shot. I was starting to really like him.

“So she kisses you a lot?” I asked.

“Nah . . . You know women, all talk, no balls,” he said, raising his head from the computer with a long-suffering sigh. “Stand up and get to that wall, will ya?”

I complied, and he grabbed a reflex camera from a shelf. Getting the idea, I tamed my short hair into something that looked less like an alpaca’s haircut and more like a decent bob, plastered a neutral expression on my face, and let him take a few pictures.

I watched in awe as he transferred them to his laptop. In the evenly lit office, the white wall produced a great effect, quite similar to a photo booth. I thought third-degree forgery was pretty cool . . . for a felony, that is. He took my hand and helped me press my fingertips on the surface of a small scanner.

Once he was done, Paulie clasped his hands together. “There you go! By the time you guys land, our good pal Ilan will have everything ready for you!”

I forced a smile on my lips. I was going on an adventure, and in an itsy-bitsy tiny private jet no less! I get that this distorted take on reality was merely a way to distance myself from what was truly going on here: I was being smuggled outside the US by a professional killer and a mobster with bad veneers.