In less than twenty-four hours after my father’s incarceration, our first-class world turned into a third-world nightmare.
It turns out, Dad and his buddies were smuggling millions of dollars’ worth of drugs into the country, via Latin America, and the Fazio family distributed it right here in New Jersey.
But since Daddy’s little tap dance with the wire, that nightmare with the Fazios imploding and the Morettis stepping up to take their place led to my own aforementioned nightmare called Johnny Rizzo. And it was his bright idea to steal from the mob, which accidentally tipped off the feds to the Morettis’ felonious misgivings—that led me here, to my very own execution party sponsored by Clairol.
“Stella,” Uncle Vinnie barks my name out as if he were trying to wake me from a very bad dream, and how I wish he were. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m doing you a favor. The Morettis have already decided they want you quiet.” In the mob, quiet is code for dead. “Johnny took off last night or they’d have gotten him first.”
“He took off?” My eyes bulge at the thought. “And he left me here to fry?” Okay, confession: technically, Johnny isn’t my ex quite yet. As of yesterday, we were still together. I haven’t actually had the privilege of slapping him silly and telling him to take a hike just yet, only because we knew our lives were about to implode in far more dramatic ways than any mere breakup could bring on.
But on my way home from that fiasco, I had broken up with him a thousand times in my head. I came this close to texting him with the news but didn’t want to deny myself the pleasure of looking him in the eye when I did it—and I might have been looking forward to shoving my knee into his crotch as well.
Johnny Rizzo promised me a rose garden and instead wrapped me in thorns and threw me into a sewer.
“Yes, he took off.” Uncle Vinnie nods aggressively as if this should have been obvious. “You’re on your own, kid. And I’m not going to kill you.” His features soften. “I’m going to help you.” He hands me the box with a picture of a redhead on the front who could double as Ariel from The Little Mermaid. “I’ve got a car waiting around the corner. Sit in the back. You’ll find a large envelope filled with the paperwork you’re going to need. New driver’s license, Social Security card, passport, and car insurance. Everything you need to start a new life. My driver is taking you up to the New York border. I bought a car for you. It’s not much, but it’s yours. There’s some gas money in the glove compartment. You’ll have to be smart about how you spend it. Drive through New York, then up through Vermont until you get to Canada.” He swipes the phone out of my hand. “In the glove compartment you’ll also find a burner phone. I’ve got the number. I’ll be calling from a burner myself. You don’t call anybody else, you hear?”
“What? Give me that.” I dive for my phone, but he tosses it to the ground and quickly puts a bullet through it before putting his gun back into his pocket. “This is really happening?” Tears sting my eyes as I look to the man I’ve regarded as a second father for my entire life.
“It’s really happening.” His eyes grow glossy as well. “Goodbye, Stella. That’s the last time I will ever say your name, and the last time you’ll hear it. You got that?”
My head wobbles back and forth. “What’s my new name?” I swallow hard to keep from bawling like a baby.
“Bowie Binx, with an X.”
“Bowwow what?” I snip, highly annoyed that I had no say in this. “Are you kidding me? I’ve waited my whole life to crawl from under the name my parents gifted me and you did what to me now?”
“Bowie Binx.” He shrugs. “What can I say? I was working under a very tight time constraint. You have no idea how hard it was to put together a fictitious life in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Bowie Binx.” I try it on for size. “How in the heck did you come up with that whopper?”
“I happened to be listening to some good music. David Bowie was playing at the time, and I went with it. And as for Binx, I asked Minnie what she wanted to name her next kitten and it’s the first thing that flew from her lips.”
Minnie is Uncle Vinnie’s thee-year-old granddaughter who thinks she’s married to her stepfather because her mother, my cousin Jackie, thought it would be cute to have him put a ring on her finger, too, during their wedding ceremony.
“Great. I’m named after a legendary singer and an imaginary cat. I couldn’t have done better myself.”
“You keep up with the sharp tongue, little lady. You’re going to need it to survive. It’s a tough world out there. Even in Canada.” He wags a finger my way. “You’ll see how cold and unfeeling it is without the warm, strong arms of the family around you.”
“Yeah, well, the family wants me dead. I think I’ll take my chances with a bunch of cold, unfeeling Canadians.” I suck in my bottom lip as I look to my uncle for what feels like the very last time. “I love you.”
“I know.” He pulls me in and holds me for a small eternity, and I truly do feel the warm, strong arms of family around me. “If the burner phones don’t work out, we’ll find another way to communicate. The code word is meow.”
I make a face. “Another contribution from Minnie?”
He gives a somber nod.
And then, just like that, he turns me around and instructs me to run.
And run I do.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to Canada I go.
Let’s hope I don’t run into Johnny Rizzo there or I’ll kill him.
And that’s one prognostication I can
