“Point four,” he said with his arms crossed. “Kat, would you like to read aloud to the class?”
She held out her hand for the pages. Was she insane? That docile girl couldn’t direct a movie.
I read point four myself. “‘Recipient has made no misrepresentation of their ability to repay the loan.’” I shrugged. “Okay, so?”
“So?” he said. “So!”
Throats cleared and chairs squeaked. A heightened intensity vibrated in the room.
Scott pointed his rigid finger at me as though he wanted to stab me. “This bitch didn’t tell me she was poison. I put up half a mill on an Oscar nominee, not a whining cunt no one wants to touch. Her fucking shit’s gonna be at the CineVention selling to Latvia for five G.”
“A little underwriting would have gone a long way, Mister Mabat.”
The guy whose knuckles were now fully bandaged snorted a laugh.
“That’s fucking funny?” Scott said.
Knuckles shrugged. Scott, a man who could not be rushed through a game of backgammon, picked up a dirty coffee mug and bashed Knuckles in the back of the head so hard his neck seemed to shake back and forth like a seizure. It happened so fast, Knuckles’s head had dropped to the table before either of the other guys could stand to aid him.
“This was easy money.” Scott pointed the cup at me. There was blood and a single black hair on it. “A no-fucking-brainer. Terms changed. There are no prepayments. There’s a thirty-year schedule she’s keeping.” He slapped the cup down. “We’ll be happy to take it out of her ass when she can’t shell out.”
I was scared finally, but I didn’t flinch. Knuckles was conscious and being tended by his two compatriots. Katrina sniffled behind me.
“Shush,” I said to her. I held my chin up to the loan shark. “You will take the prepayment, plus five thousand, and you will be happy with that.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
“Or what? You getting the mayor after me? I’m all grown now. He can’t do shit.”
I pressed my lips together in a smile. “He can’t. But if you knew my name, you’d know I have a family. And if you knew anything about how they settle debts, you’d back away slowly.” I pulled the envelope out of my jacket and plopped it on the desk. “I suggest you do your research before dismissing my offer out of hand.”
I dragged Katrina out by the forearm and didn’t look back. I pulled her up the stairs, through the club, and into the street. I walked with my shoulders straight, confident that I owned everything in my sight. My friend blooped the car and got in. I followed and got into the passenger seat as if I was being chauffeured. It wasn’t until Katrina stopped at a light on Temple that, in order to release the tension, I started crying.
Katrina rubbed my back. “Look, I’ll pay what I can, and he’ll get bored of me at some point. I mean, he can’t make it so bad that I go to the cops.” She laughed bitterly.
“Your memoir is going to be a blockbuster.”
“How To Ruin a Perfectly Good Career in Two Years.”
“The Girl With the Busted Kneecaps.”
“Maybe I’ll make him fall in love with me. I’ll be Katrina Mabat.”
“Oh God. no. You’d drive him to his ultimate death,” I said.
“I think you should back off. Self-preservation is honorable.”
“I’m paying him off and walking away. You’ll release your movie, and everything will be back to normal.”
She sighed and left the dead weight of it in the air. There was a shadow and a clack clack clack at the window that I recognized from my car breaking down in Mount Washington. Bald guy. Cigarette.
“Who’s that?” Katrina asked.
“My shadow.” I rolled down the window. “Hi. Can I help you?”
The smell of turned earth overwhelmed the air coming into the car. He handed me his phone. I hesitated.
“Spin,” Turkish Cigarette Man said. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Wow, Tee Dray. Wow, okay? Weird and possessive much?”
I took the phone. I had to stop myself from calling him Capo in front of Katrina.
He took the moment’s pause to demand my attention in a tight voice. “Contessa?”
“Hi.”
“You were in an Armenian nightclub? This somewhere you usually go?”
That was him asking me what I was doing without making assumptions. His tone was a coiled spring. He needed a flat truth, or he would wind himself tighter.
“I was seeing Scott Mabat.”
He was silent, but in the background, I heard the mumblings of men, as if he was in a crowded room.
“Antonio?” I said.
“Otto will take you to me.”
“No, I have—”
“He will pick you up and carry you.” He would have been shouting if his voice had been raised, but he kept all the power and tension while practically whispering.
I knew then why he was capo. I hung up on him. I wouldn’t disobey him, but I didn’t have to tolerate the tone either.
“Kat,” I said, “this guy’s driving me to see Antonio. We’re going to follow you home first and make sure you get in the door, okay?”
“Okay, Tee Dray.” Her voice was suspicious even as her words were compliant.
I turned to Otto. “Okay?”
He held up his hands in surrender and smiled. Both of his pinkies were missing. “It’s no problem.” He had a thick accent.
He opened my car door. I started to get out, but Katrina put her hand on my forearm.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It’s no problem,” I said in Otto’s accent.
She smiled. “You’re pretty badass. I didn’t know that about you.”
“Me neither.”
Otto had parked his incredibly nondescript silver Corolla two spaces down, and he opened the back door for me.
When he got in, I said, “The car smells nice.”
“Grazie. There’s no smoking in the car. Still smells new, no?”
“It does.”
“Okay, I take your friend home, then we go, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are we going?” I asked after we’d walked Katrina to the door.
Otto tapped on his phone from the front seat. “The office. But I confirm now.”
“How long have you been watching me, Otto?”
He shrugged and pulled out. “A week. I sleep in the car. But no smoking in it. My wife, she’s mad I’m not home, but I have a job to do until the boss tells me to stop doing it.”
“I hope you get to see her again soon.”
He waved the notion off with a flip of his four-fingered hand. “Spin, he save my life. She just make me crazy all the time. Watching you? Like a vacation.”
“How did he save your life?”
“That is a long story, I promise.”
“I have time.”
He made a motion of locking his lips and throwing away the key. “Let him tell you. But he won’t. He is too modesto.”
“Antonio Spinelli? Modest?”
“Like a priest.”
I bit back a laugh.
thirty-two.
We approached East Side Motors. The yellow and black sign faded orange in the dimming light. The parking lot was clearer, so we pulled in without much trouble. Antonio stood in the middle of the lot in a black suit, waiting. The security lights cast a sunburst of shadows around him.
Otto pulled up. “Buonasera, boss.”
“Thank you, Otto,” Antonio said as he opened my door. “Go on inside and get coffee, then go home and rest.”