Gate Bridge. Cass was in the hospital for eight days, I stayed with her, sleeping on a cot at her side. She woke crying at night and I would hush her back to sleep. Gregor did three days in the I.C.U. and was still laid up with tubes running in and out of him, but he was recovering quicker than any of his doctors expected.
Cass lifted the Marilyn Monroe cookie jar onto the railing, tears filling her eyes. “She always loved this city,” she said.
“It was you Cass, the whole time, Kelly didn’t do any of those things,” I said in a soft voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about baby, Kelly…” she drifted off looking out to sea.
“Hell Cass, Kell didn’t even like stripping. You talked her into it. You slept with Gino and then Sabatini. You saw the murder go down. You, not Kelly. She was the soft one, in LA she chose to be a waitress instead of stripping. You chose hooking. She wasn’t hard like you. The girl in the porn, the girl with the fairy tattoo, that wasn’t Kelly, was it?”
“Fuck you Moses. How dare you, here, now? You choose now to pull this?”
“Has to be now, Kelly deserves the truth.” She slapped my face hard, but it didn’t hurt, nothing hurt anymore. I had been through hell and I had finally found Kelly. I couldn’t bring her back, but I had found her. She was the girl I had known, our friendship wasn’t an act or a manipulation. She hadn’t played me, but I had been played. “You ready for the funny part Cass? Your big dark secret is out, and I don’t care.”
“But it’s not true, Mo,” she pleaded.
“You didn’t have to play me… I’d have laid down my life for you, all you had to do was ask.” I pulled her to me kissing her forehead. I let her cry against my chest. When she was done we opened the cookie jar and let the ashes drift out over the bay. The sun was dropping down and city lights were winking on giving the skyline that magic wonderland Oz feeling.
Gregor spent three weeks in the hospital, they would have kept him longer but as soon as he could walk he disappeared from the ward. I left a new black great coat with $5,000 in the pocket for battle pay, on his apartment stoop. Ringing the bell, I walked away. I was proud to have gone to war with him and hoped I never had to do it again.
I combined what was left of the porno boy’s money with that from the Cow Palace parking lot and split it with Cass. Paid off my heartless ex-wife and my debt to the Pope, who on the word of a Chicago lieutenant decided to forgive and forget my fronting him. It might not ever be easy with him again but at least I didn’t have to worry about him clipping me. Eddy The Mechanic still had a place on his dance card reserved for me. Maybe old age would take him before he got to me. Stranger things have happened.
Cass and I loaded up Angel and went down to San Blas for a vacation. We lay on the beach and made love in the moonlight and we never talked about the lies she had told me. For the time it lasted she made me feel young and powerful and good. And on the rainy December night when she left, my little house felt empty and sad. You don’t really know what you’re missing until you’ve had it, like kisses and waking up next to a pretty girl who tells you you’re her man.
I’ve stopped putting guns in my mouth and whiskey in my gut. Somewhere on the road, I had traveled from suicidal to homicidal, not much, but it’s growth. All in all, I have a good life, a dog who adores me, a friend to drink coffee with and another day above ground. For children of the battle zone that’s called winning.
