him.
I was carrying the gun this time, but for a second I forgot what came next and Branko had to pull it out of my pocket and put it in my hand. I don’t remember the car we drove, but I remember the gun. It was a Ruger, a Rimfire .22. I remember because it had a ten-round magazine. And I was supposed to use all the bullets. And I did. Branko had drilled little holes down the length of the barrel to vent gases as the pistol was fired, an integral silencer. But the shots were still loud in the enclosed garage. Branko watched the first two bullets go in, then he started for our car as I pulled the trigger.
There was a hesitation between the fifth and sixth bullets. Branko paused halfway to our car when he heard it. If he had turned just then, he would have seen that I had raised the gun, bringing it up to point it at either the back of his head or the front of my own. I’m not sure which. But I lost my nerve, kept firing into The Rep, and Branko got into the car. I wiped the gun, dropped it, and Branko pulled the car up in front of me. I got in.
The new rep opened the book to a few Russians and David got his first toehold in the Culinary. And I went and saw my dealer the next day and told him I needed something new. He said Demerol. I said I’d take all he had.
–
This time the words aren’t addressed at me, but at the floor, as if she’s trying to put it together, make sense out of how
She looks up. Her brown, curly hair is shot with gray, her eyes are bloodshot and dark-ringed, a weary tension pulls at the corners of her mouth. She licks her dry lips.
– How?
She gets that one word out. I wait for another, but if there was anything more it’s caught inside her. I wonder if she really wants to know how I killed Mickey. How I pushed him from the top of a Mayan ruin and watched him tumble down, spilling blood on the steps. No, she must surely know. She must know how her own son died. I say nothing.
She finds the words in her throat.
– How could you…
She breathes.
– Do that?
She is breathing through her mouth now, her chest heaving, hyperventilating.
I don’t know what to tell her. I try to think of the answer that will keep me alive the longest, the one that will give me the most time to try to get out of this. I try to think. I think the top of my head feels cracked and itchy, like the sap split the skin and a scab has formed. I think my right shoulder hasn’t been seriously damaged, but it hurts like hell. I think the plastic handcuffs zipped tight around my wrists are cutting off the circulation to my hands. I think my face has had nails driven into it and I want something to make the pain go away.
– How?
There is more, but she can’t get it past all the air rushing in and out of her lungs.
I think I have something I want to say. It’s hard to speak. It hurts to say things. But I try.
– I don’t want to die.
Whatever was to come out of her mouth next doesn’t.
I say it again.
– I don’t want to die.
She shakes her head.
– Shut.
It is less a word this time than a gasp. Air shaped like a word, but carrying none of the weight of spoken language.
– Up.
But I won’t.
– I don’t want to die.
She starts to rise on trembling legs, strong dancer’s legs weak with rage.
– Shut. Up.
But I can’t.
– I don’t want to die.
She takes a step toward me. Her fists balled at her sides, arms shaking. Tears hot, spilling from her eyes.
– Shut up.
But it’s true. What I am saying is true.
– I don’t want to die.
She crosses the space between us, and her fist crashes down on the side of my head.
The nails in my face are driven deeper. But I don’t shut up.
– Please.
Her other fist slams into the back of my neck.
– Shut up.
No.
– I don’t want to die.
She swings her arms, pummeling me, hammering at my back and shoulders and head and neck. Sobbing.
– You shut up. Shut up, you. You. Shut. Shut. You don’t. No. Never. Shut up.
And me.
– Please. Let me live. I don’t want to. I can’t die yet. I want. Don’t want to die.
Both of us begging in whispers.
She’s falling to her knees, wheezing, her blows have no strength.
– You shut up. Shut up. Please shut up.
She’s on her knees next to the couch, her face a foot from mine, her hands clenched together, pounding on my back.
– Please shut up.
Spiky says something in Russian. She stops hitting me, says something in Russian. He walks to her and offers her something. She stays on her knees, takes it from his hand. I see what it is.
– Please. I don’t want to die.
She puts the gun below my chin, presses it into my throat.
– Shut up.
I open my mouth. Something comes out; a noise, the tail end of a years-long sob.
– Please.
She digs the gun into my flesh.
– Shut up. Please shut up. Please shut up. Please shut up.
They are whispers. Pleas.
I shut up.
She breathes.
She looks at my face, the face I was not born with.
She breathes.
The barrel of the gun is deep in the hollow beneath my chin, shivering.
She breathes.
Her mouth opens wide, mirroring my own, and a sound, a ragged wail like the one that escaped mine, comes from hers.
She slumps, the gun falls from her hand and thumps on the carpet. Spiky touches her shoulder.
– Tetka?
She looks at me, closes her eyes.
Whispers.
– No. It is all right. Everything is all right.
