Through Black Spruce (31 page)

The sound of boots across the kitchen. I fight the urge to turn to him. Let him touch me first. I feel him now, his warmth a couple feet behind me, as I stare out at the sun lighting the skyscrapers from behind, the smoke, the pollution of the city rising in sharp grey lines up to the sky.

I shiver. I speak to try and cover it. “I’m surprised you came over before dark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in the daylight in New York City.” I take a deep drink of wine.

Silence, and then the voice.

“I guess you missed me, eh?” he says.

I want to scream.

“Why can’t your sister be easy like you?” I spin around to face him. He swells in front of me, blocking the door.

“Why you—” are the only words to come out of my mouth. I drop my eyes from his. They’re so nutty I think they spin in his head. He’s gone absolutely nuts. “What are you doing here?” I ask, looking at my glass.

He doesn’t answer.

I drain the rest of it and try to walk by him. “Care for a drink?”

He grabs my hand so hard the pop and shatter of the glass on the balcony’s floor makes me stop breathing.

He’s holding my hand, his face in mine so that I forget the pain of how hard he squeezes. “Enough is enough, Annie, no?” he says, the hot breath, the spittle hitting my face. “It’s gone too far. It’s all gone too far.” Anger makes his French accent stronger.

I focus on this. Grasp at it. “Danny?
Quoi?
What has?” I widen my eyes in innocence. He reaches behind me, pulls my hair with his other hand so that I feel something in my neck pop. He takes me to the ground. I can’t stop the fall, and his landing on top of me with his full weight forces out my breath in a humph.

Cold concrete on my back. Gasping. I’m gasping. I think I feel a piece of glass in my back. I try to talk, try to answer him, try for some air, for some breath. He picks me up and holds me from behind, lifting me from the waist and bending me over the railing.

The sensation of falling washes over me, and I see the street swinging below me. I see tiny cars, tiny people. If he drops me, please move out of the way. I need a breath, something. My hair whips into my face and stings my eyes and this bastard Danny is going to drop me. Who are you to drop me? I need air. Please, God, just one gulp of air. The blood rushes into my head so it feels like a bubble.

He yanks me inside the apartment. Danny doesn’t give me long before he straddles me again and places his hands on my throat. I won’t look at him. Instead, I focus on the billowing white curtains, the darkening sky outside pierced by the twinkle of a million lights.

“Nothing left for me now,” he says. “Nothing left for you unless you tell me where she is.” He squeezes to remind me that breath isn’t an option. “Nothing left for me, do you understand?” He takes one hand from my neck and slaps me hard across the mouth.

I run my tongue over my tinfoil teeth.

“If I’m dead, you’re dead.” He raises his hand again and I flinch. “I know you know where your sister is.”

I shake my head. I don’t. I really don’t.

His palm flashes, slapping my face so hard the lights above me blacken.

“I don’t.” My mouth is numb. He’s so heavy on me. A block of concrete. The heat of his thighs burns me. I’m going to suffocate.

“Stupid wagon-burning bitch.” It’s a whisper. Then the crack of his hand, and I feel it in my neck past the burn of my face.

“South Carolina.” I spit blood, feeling the heat of it splash on my cheeks. I see his fist raised directly above my nose, ready to drive down. “Postcard said South Carolina.” Why are these men so cruel?

He swings down, and I cry out. He stops his fist, covering my nose and mouth instead. My eyes widen with the attempt to inhale. “Off!” I scream into his tightened palm. “Off!” My chest heaves, then spasms. Hand off me now or I will die. I am drowning in his white palm. I feel my eyeballs slip up into the back of my head, my body kicking then shivering. He is going to kill me. I am going to die now.

My eyes roll back and into light. I see the ceiling above me. White ceiling. Far away. Danny’s somewhere close. I can feel his boots pacing on the hardwood floor. I can hear him mumbling to himself. The floor’s hard. I cough and spit blood, draw in a great breath, sucking more blood and spit into my lungs. I roll over, coughing in heaves. Jesus, please. He is on top of me again. The weight of him crushes me.

“One more chance,” he says, staring down at me. “I have nothing to lose. And,” he leans down close enough to kiss, “I
will
kill you.” His eyes smile. “Annie. Be rational. Gus? I shot him in the temple. Close enough to be sprayed in his blood. I had to burn my best shirt. Your sister? She’s probably lucky she wasn’t with him. I’d have killed her, too.”

“Let me up,” I say. I don’t recognize my own voice. He drags me to the couch and throws me on it. Steroid motherfucker is strong.

He sits beside me. “Want a glass of wine?”

“Water. Please. Water.”

He gets up. “If you even try, I will fling you off the balcony. Another tragic model gone bad.” My face throbs. My ribs feel broken. I can’t get a full breath.

We sit silently beside one another for minutes like a couple with nothing to say anymore. I drink more water. “Danny,” I say. “Please. Listen to me.” I glance at him. I don’t want to hold his eyes. “I don’t know where my sister is. You have to believe me. Christ, Danny.” I’m whining now. “I’m trying to find her, too.” Please make that sound like the truth. A few days ago it was.

He watches me. I think I catch a flash of understanding in his eyes. “Annie. Darling.” He breathes calmly. “You don’t understand. I need to find your sister.” He smiles at me, then lifts his hand and swipes me across the face.

I clench my jaw so that my teeth grind. I spit blood onto Soleil’s white couch and dribble it onto the floor as I lean over. The thought of her makes me want to laugh. I sit back up. “Why?” I ask. “Gus messed up, and he’s dead.” I’m spitting blood as I talk. “Your two buddies messed up and they’re dead. What did Suzanne ever do to you?”

I think Danny’s taken aback by my words. I see from the corner of my eye that he stares at me.

“Annie, there’s nothing complicated about my world,” he says. “Annie,” he says. “Annie, look at me.” I do. Small round glasses glinting above his straining, thick neck. “My world is a simple one. Get in. Do what you gotta. Be loyal.
Be loyal
. Take your cut but not more. Do you hear me, Annie?” Danny grabs my face in his paw and turns my face to his.

I nod my head.

“Did I say be loyal?”

I nod.

“Sell your product. Keep your little cut. Give the rest to the boss. Simple.” He looks at me.

I nod again, not knowing what else to do.

“If you’re ever busted, be loyal. Don’t ever snitch. Rats are worse than death. Be a good boy and aim one day to be one of the filthy few.”

“Danny,” I say, trying to choose the words that won’t infuriate him. “What does this have to do with Suzanne?”

“Be loyal. Don’t be a snitch. Don’t be a pretty rat. And give back what your boyfriend owes.”

So this is what it’s all about. Finally, with the blood and snot running from my nose, it all clicks into place. My sister holds some secret, and some money, that will kill Danny. That has already killed his friends. Those up above him will kill him too, and soon. But Danny is going to kill me sooner. He leans to me as if to kiss my cheek. His hands are on my throat before I can twist away, and we are on the floor again, and he begins to squeeze my throat until the black dots in my eyes come.

“Tell me,” Danny says, his cracked face brushing my cheek. “Tell me.” I see a shadow behind him, rising up. Is this death? I can’t breathe anymore, and the shadow grows taller. If it is, come now, please. I can no longer breathe.

“Moosonee,” I croak.

The shadow drops onto us and, slowly, I am allowed to breathe again. My sister. I have forsaken you.

Shadows wrestle in this large white room, the wind still billowing the curtains. The floor shakes with the weight of men fighting.

Two bodies slamming into the walls, locked in a death grip, framed pictures popping onto the tile, the smashing of a glass table, the splintering of a door frame. The thin shadow wraps around Danny, and the two slap and gasp like huge fish. Danny struggles hard against it despite his being twice as big. But the other is longer, taller, twining his thin arms around Danny like a snake until he is the one now gasping for air.

They struggle on the floor a few feet away, grunting. Gordon is behind Danny, his arms around Danny’s throat. His eyes bulge, his glasses broken and lying beside me, his cheeks smeared red. I stare into his eyes, bulbous like a frog’s. He stares back at me. I try to sit, and when I can’t, I roll away from them, the smell of Danny about to die stinking from his mouth.

I push myself up onto my hands and watch crouched like a dog, spitting blood as Gordon, on top of Danny now, his hands wrapped about Danny’s throat, arches and strains his arms to break something.

Danny’s face is near my own. His eyes are half-closed. The whites show, lightning-shot with red. He’s unconscious. I crawl away from him, my knees, my whole body aching.

“Enough,” I say. He’s close to death. “Enough.” I look at Gordon, look into his eyes. They shatter something weak in me. He is no street person. Gordon is no rubby. He keeps squeezing. His eyes shimmer, his lips thin with effort.

“Mona!”
I shout at him. “Enough!”

Gordon turns to me. His face is puffed, his mouth bloody.
“Mona,”
I say to him again. “It is enough. It’s over.”

I try to stand but can’t. I crawl to the couch, to the glass of water. I gulp it down. When I am able to stand, I see Gordon dragging Danny out onto the balcony, Danny’s feet disappearing behind the white curtain.

My legs feel wonky as I stumble to him. To them. Gordon heaves the weight of Danny up onto the railing, Danny’s arms flopping as if he’s waving to the street hundreds of feet below. The simplicity of it. Gordon is right. This is the way it needs to end. My protector turns to me. You’re right. No one will know the difference. Hunted biker flings himself from Manhattan skyrise. Celebutante suspected.

Gordon looks at me. Waits. The world waits. My world waits.

My protector has his arms wrapped about Danny’s legs, ready.

“No,” I say. The word surprises me. It sounds hollow in the cold wind whipping the deck. “Just leave him there. Exactly like that.”

Gordon stares at me. He tenses.

“His own people will finish him. It’s not for you to do.” Gordon breathes heavily and holds his side.

“Leave him like that. Let him decide his own fate,” I say. “If he falls, he falls.” My protector is no murderer. And neither am I.

Gordon does as I say.

“We’ve got to get out of this goddamn place. Now.”

And so my goodbye to New York comes more abruptly than I had planned. Two beaten and bloodied Indians on a midnight train to Upstate New York. I call Butterfoot from Grand Central Station. I try my bank card once more, and the slip of paper the ATM spits out tells me that my account’s dead. Instead of screaming at Soleil’s brutality, I laugh. She’ll need all that money for a really good cleaning service. I still have almost two grand stuffed away. More than enough to get us home to Moosonee. I’ll be back to NYC, Soleil. And I’ll come on my own terms.

Butterfoot asks to come meet us at the station, but I lie and tell him our train’s about to board. I warn him about Danny at Soleil’s, tell him to call 911 anonymously and report a disturbance. Butterfoot gets off the phone promising he’ll make the call as well as the call to his cousin who’ll meet us at the river.

It’s better this way, not seeing him. I am with the one I should be with, the two of us slipping into the night like red thieves.

I hold my protector’s hand as the train finally carries us from the lights of the city. The train rumbles all night into the snowy fields and small towns closer to home. I whisper to Gordon that we’ll make a stop for a few days in Toronto and see Inini Misko. It will be good.

Gordon smiles.

In the middle of the night, I lean to him and whisper, “I’ll take you to my home to meet my family. I’ll introduce you to the sister that is the cause of all this trouble.” I smile at the thought. “I’ll introduce you to my mum, but we better clean you up first. And I know you’re going to like my uncle.”