installed as the head of the Balanchine Family.
When I got to the Pool, Mouse was waiting in the lobby. “Everyone’s downstairs.”
“Am I late?” I asked. “Your message said four.”
“No. You’re right on time,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The place seemed unnaturally quiet to me, and I began to wonder if I should have brought security. In the past, Mr. Kipling had usually accompanied me to important Family meetings. Maybe it had been foolhardy to go alone, and without telling anyone where I would be either. I stopped at the top of the flight of stairs.
“Mouse, I’m not about to be ambushed, am I?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Don’t you think I have your back?”
In the swimming pool, the Balanchines were seated around the table. I recognized perhaps half of them. There were always new faces, though. Turnover was high among the Balanchines—someone was always dying or going to prison.
Everyone stood when I walked in, and I noticed that the only place left was at the head of the table. I looked at the empty chair and wondered what was meant by it.
What else was there to do? I sat down.
A third or fourth cousin of mine named Pip Balanchine was designated the Family’s spokesperson. (I had many cousins, but I remembered Pip because he was the one with the mustache.) “Thank you for coming, Anya. Two years ago, you gave your approval to Fats Medovukha to run the Family. At that time, many of us felt you should be made head of the Family. As you may remember, I was one of those people.”
“Yes,” I said.
“We are deeply saddened by Fats’s passing. At the time of his death, he was having an argument with Ivan Balanchiadze. We believe this is why he was killed. The dispute involved the Dark Room.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Fats Medovukha believed in you and your cause, and he was willing to die for both. Since Fats’s murder, we’ve been discussing the situation. What we believe is that Ivan Balanchiadze and the Russian side of the Family is the past. You, Anya, are our future. We believe that nothing short of legalization is the key to our survival.”
A man in a purple suit spoke: “Many of us have wives and children, and we’re tired of having to look over our shoulders and of wondering when the law is going to catch up with us.”
Pip Balanchine continued. “We ask you today what we should have asked you two years ago. Anya, will you lead the Balanchine Family into the twenty-second century?”
I did not want to lead this Family.
And yet …
As I looked down the long stone table at the pasty complexions and light eyes that recalled my father’s, my brother’s, and my own, an unfamiliar feeling began to stir within me.
Obligation.
I felt an obligation to these men (and women, though mainly there were men). That I had been born a Balanchine had been the defining circumstance of my life. The name Balanchine had attached to me and defined me as violent, wild, bad, lazy, angry, and difficult. These Family men were as blameless as I had been in the face of this birthright. I knew I had to help them. If it was within my power to help them, I could not say no.
I looked over my shoulder at Mouse, who stood behind me like a loyal consigliere. Her eyes looked hopeful and expectant.
“I cannot officially run the Family and run my business,” I said. “I wish I could, but I can’t.
“However, I want to do everything I can to help you. Your words, Pip, have moved me, and I will not abandon you. I want to give even more Balanchines jobs, working for the clubs. I want to cut off our dependence on the Balanchiadze chocolate supply altogether. We can leave the black market chocolate business to some other family, and together, we can channel our efforts into legal revenue sources like cacao and medicinal chocolate.”
The Balanchines were nodding.
“But who will run the Family?” the man in the purple suit asked. “Who will ensure your plans are executed?”
“Perhaps one of you,” I began, but, as I was saying this, I had a better idea. Why not the slim-shouldered, resilient girl standing behind me? Mouse had been my only confidante at Liberty, and, at significant personal cost, she had even helped me escape. She had been mute, bullied, homeless, and cast out by her family. No one had overcome more or complained less than she had. No one had been more loyal to me. I trusted her like a sister. Of course it should be Mouse. I only had to convince the Family to my way of thinking. “Though I wonder if you would consider appointing Mouse to run the Family in my absence. I could consult with her on every decision. I know she isn’t a Balanchine, but she was Fats’s right hand and my loyal friend from prison, and I trust her to be my eyes and ears. Believe me when I say—no person has been a better listener or a more reliable friend to me than Mouse.”
I turned to look at Mouse. Her eyes were bright. “Is this all right?” I mouthed.
She reached for the notepad that used to hang around her neck. Back in the day, that notepad had been the only way she could communicate. “Yes,” she said.
“This
“I assumed as much,” I said. “But whatever the outcome, I will do what I can to help you. I am a Balanchine and my father’s daughter.”
I stood, and the Family stood with me.
The following day, Mouse came to the Manhattan club, trailed by Pip Balanchine and a woman I did not know. Mouse informed me that the vote had been unanimous. As improbable as it was, a once-mute girl from Long Island had become the head of the Balanchine crime family. She bowed her head when she entered my office. “I await your instruction,” she said.
Over the next two months, we reduced the amount of chocolate supply that came to America. We reassigned dealers to new positions driving trucks or working security. The ones who didn’t want these jobs were given retirement packages, which was pretty much unheard of in organized crime. (In the Family, death was usually the sole retirement option.) We used the existing Balanchine labor force to move cacao and other supplies around the country to new locations.
During this period, the Balanchiadze were silent. Perhaps they thought we were still reeling from Fats’s death. “We should not take their silence as acceptance,” Mouse advised. “They will strike when they are ready. And I will be vigilant.”
“Drink with me,” Mr. Delacroix said one night at the club. “You are never around these days, and I almost feel as if I’m having a sighting of the Loch Ness monster.”
I shrugged. I had not told him about my new responsibilities. I had thought my life was full when I’d just been running the club, but it had become ridiculously so now that I was shadow-running an organized-crime family.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but word on the street is that Kate Bonham has become the new head of the Balanchine crime family.”
“Oh?”
“Well, it’s an interesting choice on many levels. She’s not a Balanchine. She’s a girl. She’s only twenty years old, and she was at Liberty. Did you know her, Anya?”
I said nothing.
“I recognized her name, of course. I may be old, but my memory is long. And I kept very good tabs on you that summer of 2083. Kate Bonham went by the name Mouse back then, and I think she might even have been your bunk mate at Liberty. What an extraordinary coincidence that Anya Balanchine’s bunk mate should become the improbable head of the Balanchine crime family.”
I wasn’t fooling him. I never had.
“I assume you know what you’re doing. I assume you don’t require any help. I might renew my request that you hire security, but I suppose you’ll do exactly what you want to no matter what I say.”
“How’s Win?” I asked. I had not uttered my ex-boyfriend’s name in months, and that bantam proper noun felt strange on my tongue, as if I were speaking a foreign language. “It was his birthday a week or two ago,
