Page 80 of Mafia Queen
It’s tempting to encourage her just for the chance to get out of this little room, but she can’t deliver on the promise. Damiano will attack Violetta before letting me out to convince her to give up a crown she doesn’t have. Gia may as well be suggesting Santa Claus can come through a silver vent the width of a tomato can, drop a hammer and chisel wrapped in a bow right in front of me, and ho-ho-ho his way back up to the fucking reindeer.
That same silver vent has a tiny slit in it, opening and closing like a mouth that doesn’t know what to say. The hot, dry smell is coming through there. Poor Santa would be cooked like a Christmas turkey.
“She has her own mind, Gia. Just like you.”
When I bend over to right the folding chair, my headache doesn’t protest. When I stand on the chair, the pain stays a dull throb. The Advil must be stronger than I ever gave it credit for.
“Tavie’s not answering his texts,” Gia says.
Damiano really isn’t telling her anything at all.
I touch one of the hissing pipes. It’s warm and vibrating as if something’s flowing through it. Water. “He’s dead, Gia.”
“No!”
“He was shot by one of your guys.”
“They’re not mine!” she protests loudly.
I don’t mind. On the other side of this wall, I would have imposed the correct version of the situation on her. But here, on the dark side of the wall, her delusions are her problem.
“If you say so.” I move the chair to reach another pipe. “He’s still dead.”
“Oh, my God, no…” She breaks down into sobs.
The second pipe is cool and still. If the rhythmic rattle of the floorboard is a washer spinning, then Santa’s silver vent hose is for dryer steam. There’s a way out.
All I have to do is be stronger than any man before me.
23
VIOLETTA
If I’m up in the cupola for meals, I take them as I watch the men at the gate and the town below. I crane my neck toward the line of rock above and downward to the edges of the lawn. I don’t look for his face or his body, but a sense of him, somewhere in the world with me. A direction. An arrow pointing to the center of the universe.
The stairs creak. Someone’s coming up.
“How’s Dario?” I ask, recognizing the pace and weight of the footsteps.
“Polite,” Loretta says.
“Should we let him up?”
She stands next to me and looks over the city, watching the streetlights go on. At the front gate, the floodlights drown the top of the road in blazing light.
“He’s like a rattlesnake,” she says. “He’s courteous. He’ll rattle his tail to let you know he’s going to strike, but you’ll die just the same.”
“We can’t keep him down there much longer.”
“Probably not.”
“By tomorrow”—I turn away from the valley to look at her—“we’re going to need to make him into a friend or shoot him.”
“Well,” she says with a shrug. A flash of light—fast as a blink—lights her cheek then disappears. “You can’t shake hands with a snake, so—”
We’re interrupted by a pop in the distance, then nothing. The sky is still glowing orange as a pillar of black smoke rises over the horizon, blooming into a gray mushroom cap at the top.
“The bridge,” I gasp. “They hit the bridge.”
