“You sure do know how to charm a girl.” Donna closed the scrapbook’s cover. She felt ridiculous now. Regretted she’d even thought to show it to him.
“I’m one of maybe a handful of people outside Palm Springs who even know your name, much less care about your story.”
“Why were you so hot to talk to me if no one cares?”
He nodded at the mic. “You tell me what really happened that night, and I’ll make people care. Really care. Not just a group of gay guys dragging out an elderly woman — a washed-up never-was — to tea dances. Presenting her as an amusing oddity. Laughing at you behind your back.”
His words stung. “They don’t. That’s not true.”
“Perhaps not, but you fear it is.”
Donna’s aging refrigerator hummed in agreement. She glanced back at it, wondering which of them would outlast the other.
“Annalisa Scarpa died twenty years ago. Cancer. Johnny Giancanna is gone. Why not clear your name? Get your story out there. Who knows? It might even get picked up for TV or a movie. You know that happens, don’t you? People will know who you are then.”
Donna snorted. “TV or a movie. Right. I was Joseph Fiato’s girlfriend. One of them anyway. I killed him. You’ve come up with quite the scenario, but none of it’s true.”
“All right,” the kid said, rising. “If you insist on sticking to this fabrication, I can’t help you. People would have listened to your story. They would have cared about it. They would have cared about you. You might have even become famous.” He stood and made to close his laptop. “Thank you for your time.”
The truth. It was supposed to set you free, right? She’d always envisioned lying on her deathbed, spilling her guts to a priest. Her eyes fell to the closed scrapbook. Not a goddamned thing in there worth anything to anybody. Maybe this way she could spare the padre’s ears and even gain something other than absolution for her trouble.
“Wait.” Donna reached out to him. He tilted his head and looked down at her, but remained silent. “Maybe you’re right. Who’s left to care anyway?”
“I’m listening.” He slid back into his chair. “In your own words. What happened?”
“Johnny promised me he’d take care of me. In and out of prison.” She snatched up her wine and took a deep sip. “See to it I was set up for life.”
“If you stepped in,” the kid prompted her when her silence went on too long for his liking, “and took the blame for the murder his cousin committed.” A moment passed. He raised an eyebrow and reached out to turn off the mic.
Donna caught his hand. “Yes.”
“He guaranteed you would receive a light sentence?”
“Yes.”
“How do you believe he arranged this?”
Sinatra stared bug-eyed at her from the Rat Pack photo. Never rat on a rat.
“That I will leave to your own conjecture. You know as much about it as I do.”
“But you trusted that Giancanna would deliver on his promises?”
The fly buzzed by her ear. Donna swung at it. “Yes. I trusted him. Somewhat. I also trusted things wouldn’t work out so well for me if I refused, if you get what I’m saying.”
“He threatened you.”
She shook her head. “Johnny never threatened. He made examples of the people who disappointed him. Made it clear to all that there were severe and lasting consequences for letting him down.” The heat was getting to her. She cast a glance at the thermostat. “He asked me to take the truth of what happened to my grave. I promised I would, but it’s been more than a minute.”
“Did Giancanna keep his promises?”
Johnny had kept his word, though not in the way Donna had thought he meant. She never laid eyes on him again, not after the night he pressed the pistol into her hand. “Yes. I came out of prison with a hundred and fifty thousand tax free in the bank. May not sound like much now, but it’d be like someone handing you a cool million today. I bought this house with it. Invested the rest. I did okay.”
The kid reached over and gripped her hand. “To be clear, you are saying Annalisa Scarpa murdered Joseph Fiato, and Johnny Giancanna offered you an easy sentence and what amounted to a fortune if you’d confess to the murder.”
Donna snatched her hand from his grasp. “Yes. Yes. Yes.” She glared at him. Angry with him. Ludicrous. Why should she be angry? “Yes,” she said again, concentrating on speaking in a calm voice, “for taking the rap for his precious cousin.” Donna broke out in a cold, oily sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature. She felt a sharp shock of nausea, like the time when a fall dislocated her shoulder and the ER doctor snapped it back into place.
The air around her grew thick, suffocating. She’d been lying so damn long. Until that moment she’d never realized the lie was like the boy in the old story, with his finger plugging a dike to hold back the ocean. The utterance of one truth ushered in a plague of others.
She was no goddamn actress. Never had been.
She would have never made it. Everyone had known it. Johnny had known it.
Deep down, she knew it too. That was the real reason she’d made the deal. And that was the reason she’d kept the secret. Not from fear — not this long, at least — or because of a promise made, but because without the lie, who was she? The lie made her somebody. Without it, she wasn’t dangerous, she wasn’t even interesting. She was just another goddamn never-was.
“How does it feel?” he said. “After all this time, finally speaking the truth?”
“How does it feel?” A jolt of remorse rocked her. She’d always expected to feel relief, but what she felt was nothing like truth’s promised freedom. What she felt felt a lot like loss. Like grief.
The kid watched her, seemingly unaware, or maybe just unconcerned. He got what he came for. She recognized the look in his eyes, it was the same she’d seen in Johnny’s when he realized she’d given in, that she’d agree to all he wanted. But Johnny, prick that he was, had given her something in exchange. More than a guarantee of a comfortable life, he’d offered her an identity. A mystique. All she’d ever had, all she’d ever been, was the story Johnny gave her, and in mere minutes, the kid had taken it away.
He took and only offered the flimsiest of maybes in return.
“It feels like I lost a part of myself.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing.” She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. She focused on the sparse gold stubble on his chin. Probably not even man enough to grow a full beard. “You at least owe me one thing. Who is this ‘source’ of yours?”
A beat of silence. “I apologize for misleading you,” he said. “I was going off my intuition more than anything else. News clippings. Old photos. Of you and Giancanna. Of Scarpa and Fiato. But none of you and Fiato. Something didn’t add up. When I started to dig... well, there really were rumors—”
“I don’t think I want you to use this.” She pushed up from the table, ready to up the air-conditioning. The room reeled around her. She grasped the edge of the table and closed her eyes, waiting for the sensation to pass.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She held up her hand. “I’m fine.” She opened her eyes, and realized it was true. She once again stood on solid ground. “I want you to stop recording.”
The kid watched her but didn’t move.
“I said stop recording!” she shouted at him.
He jolted, then tapped the computer screen. He stared up at her, his lips parted, the tiny line returning to his forehead. “Are you sure I shouldn’t call someone?”
“I’m fine. I just don’t want you to use me in your...” She waved at the mic.
“All right,” he said. “It’s clear you’ve had a change of heart, and I don’t want to upset you any further.” He turned off the mic and unplugged it from his laptop. “I need to get back to the city soon anyway.” He closed his computer. “Maybe I can call you in a couple days? See how you’re feeling then? Maybe you’ll change your mind after you’ve had time to relax. To reconsider.”