He pulled her by the hair and sent her sprawling into the water again. This time, she didn’t go under—thankfully.
“You fucking piece of shit.” He roared. “You took my eye. My fucking eye.” Placido was belligerent. Scratching at the air—fighting the rain. He screamed and bellowed like the bearded toddler he was. There were small holes all over his shirt. The pen knife had gone on a hell of a trip, but those wounds were nuisances. The eye was a major victory, though.
Fantine pulled herself up to her feet. Turned. She was tired. Tired of dealing with idiots like Placido and Aleksei. Tired of losing the idiots in her life like Pete and her mother. She loved them, sure, but had to admit they were more flawed than not. Just like her. All that time, she thought she was better—smarter. That wasn’t true. Fantine made the biggest mistakes. She doubted, never thought anything through. Life wasn’t a lock—there was no secret way to get things exactly how she wanted them to be.
“Fuck it,” she muttered. “Fine, asshole. You want someone to take this shit out on?” Fantine could barely see. The wind blew the rain into her eyes. It gusted and she felt like she’d be sent off like the rest of the New York City trash. Something bumped against her foot. She looked down—a jagged piece of metal. It was in her hand before she could even register. “Come on!” She gestured to Placido—an open challenge to the half-blind bull.
Placido charged forward, fist held high in the air. The distance between them closed in seconds. He met the rougher end of the metal in Fantine’s hand chest first and seemed to deflate. Fantine fell back and he came with her. She felt a pinch against her stomach, then a pain that lit the sky above them with fire. Placido pawed at her weakly. His breath rattled in her ears. She knew the instant he died because she could feel his entire weight settle against her, as if he would melt into her.
Fantine closed her eyes and concentrated on everything but the pain. The car alarms, the sirens, the way the rain played staccato on the filthy water she lay in compared to how it sounded against the back of Placido’s head. She concentrated on the stinging cold and on the musty smell surrounding her. The slosh of footsteps towards her, the relief when all that weight seemed to float away from her. That was when she felt her back pull away from the ground and she was lifted into the darkness above. Something warm engulfed her and she could hear heavy breathing. Fantine saw red and blue.
She was compelled to laugh, so she did—like a child. It didn’t hurt so bad.
17
The smell—that familiar hospital stench—made her stomach flip. Lemons again. Fantine sat up—bad idea—her midsection seized and the world went white. It felt like knives were twisting inside her from bellybutton to throat. The pain was so bad she went cross-eyed and struggled to find her breath again.
After slapping down on her wilted pillow and blinking her way back to the real world, she could breathe without needles riding up and down her midsection. “Fuck.” Even she was surprised at how hoarse and low her voice was.
“About time you woke up,” Jae said.
Fantine followed the sound of his voice to her left. When the pain started to fade, she could make him out. She reached a hand out to him and ignored the three different needles nested in her hand, wrist, and forearm. “Hey, old man.” She smiled. Her lips split from being dry, but that pain was welcome compared to the business in her gut.
Fantine looked around the room. There were flowers on a dresser right in front of her. Above that, a TV was playing the soap opera her father liked so much. She slowly pulled herself into a seated position and took a long breath. At her right, a plunger-style button. She’d seen that before—morphine. She snatched at it and pressed the button. There was an immediate tension in her neck, and then it went slack. Bliss rolled in. Like a million kittens giving her a hug.
“You don’t get much of that, so don’t go abusing it.” Jae took a sip from a coffee shop cup. “Looks like its Jell-O and soup for you. Doctors said your stomach was in pretty bad shape.”
Fantine nodded. “That bad?”
“That bad.”
“I notice I don’t have any handcuffs on me.”
Jae laughed. “Why would you? Between me and the stories from those boys you helped, you’re a hero. It all fell the right way.” He smirked. “I asked the media to please respect your privacy as you recuperated.”
“Aleksei?”
Jae shrugged. “Damned if I know.” He coughed—hard. Wiped his mouth when he was through. “You’re okay and I’m okay. That’s all that matters.” He placed a hand on hers. He looked grey—as if he’d been left out of the freezer for too long.
Fantine smiled. She noticed Jae felt hot. “Are you okay? That cough doesn’t sound too…”
He waved her off. “A cold. I’ve had worse.”
“We’re in a hospital, you know.”
“Exactly, if it was bad, they’d have me in a bed next to yours.”
They stayed silent for a while. The soap opera was engaging. Someone named Samantha was revealing to her twin in great detail how she’d murdered the twin’s boyfriend and kidnapped her adopted black baby. The villain’s monologue sealed her doom when the black baby—through some kind of superhuman feat—managed to push her off the balcony she conveniently stood near while talking.
“This is terrible, Dad.”
“But the girls are easy on the eyes.”
“I read the letter from Mom.” Fantine rubbed her eyes. Reached for a Styrofoam cup of ice chips on a tray set up in front of her. She dumped a few in her mouth and chewed.
“I hoped you did.”
“What did you owe?”
Jae smirked. “What else does a man owe but money, Fan? It’s always fucking money.” He leaned over to the side and brought a briefcase into view. Laid it on the night table next to Fantine.
“What’s that?” Fantine asked.
“I can’t open it.”
She laughed out loud. Her midsection revolted and she cut herself short.
Jae reached over and pressed a red button at Fan’s right side. “Free drugs.”
“Thanks.” The relief came in that same pleasant wave. Fan reached over and snatched the briefcase from the table. There was an echo of pain, but the morphine made it so very easy to ignore. “One last job?”
“One last job,” Jae said quietly.
Fantine eyed the case. It was one of the double latched number combination types that were so popular in the late-eighties. The way the numbers were set, it was obvious the combination hadn’t been changed yet. “Wow, it’s still on default.” She went through the standard default combinations she remembered most companies used—all zeroes or sequential numbers from one to nine. It was never very complicated, At worst; a company would use something like a product number or zip code if they were clever. This suitcase unlatched when she entered 1-2-3-4 on one latch and 6-7-8-9 on the other. Poor 5 sat that one out.
Fantine opened the case and gasped. Money. A lot of fucking money. “Holy balls.”
“That good?”
“Where the hell did you find this?”
“I went back downstairs when you and that idiot ran off. Thought maybe I would find another gun or a working phone.” He threw his hands in the air. “All I found were containers filled with you-know-what and that briefcase.”
“It must have been whatever Placido had on hand. That fucker lied about there being money.” Fantine wondered about Aleksei’s notebook—about the routing numbers. They were probably dragged into the floodwaters now, a potential goldmine to a lucky emergency responder or some random passerby with enough sense to know what those numbers were.