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I pass him my handbag, looking from him to the gun and back again. Am I about to die for this? For the few dollars in my purse?
Somehow it seems fitting. One nobody taken out by another. I guess that’s the way of things in the world.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.
“There’s not much in my purse,” I say, wrapping the handle around my fingers, getting ready. “Take it all. Just don’t shoot me.”
He barks out a cold laugh. “I don’t want your fucking money. Come on, before I lose my patience.”
“If you don’t want my money, what do you want?”
“Don’t play dumb,” he says, spitting the words out. “Come on, you want to die or what?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” I plant my feet as I’m speaking, waiting for the right moment.
“The necklace,” he says, lunging toward me. “Give me the fucking necklace.”
As he lunges, I swing my handbag. It catches his face and sends him off balance. In the same instant, someone appears behind him, grabbing him by the throat and pulling him off his feet. He doesn’t get another word out.
I watch in stunned silence as I see who’s got hold of my assailant.
It’s Enzo.
He’s dragging the man backward, keeping a chokehold in place like it’s a wrestling match, only this is real. “Good evening, Dwayne,” he says to him. “Picked the wrong fucking girl to mess with, didn’t you?”
The guy is losing consciousness, his flailing arms growing slower and then stopping entirely.
Enzo lowers him to the ground, never relaxing his grip for an instant. He looks at me the whole time, his eyes cold and dead as a shark. There’s no emotion on his face at all.
I can’t move. I can’t do anything. I can only watch until, at long last, Enzo loosens his grip, letting the unconscious man slump to the ground, the gun on the ground next to him.
“Are you all right?” Enzo asks.
“I’m okay,” I reply, barely able to hear the words over the hammering of my heart. “Is he dead?”
“He’ll wish he was when I’m done with him. Get out of here.”
“What? Why? What are you going to do to him?”
He looks at me, his eyes as cold and hard as flint. “You keep asking questions you don’t want the answers to. Trust me, just go home and forget this happened. Don’t tell anyone, got it?”
“Enzo? What are you going to do to him?”
He grabs my hands in his, looking for all the world like he’s about to kiss me. When I look down, I see he’s slid a business card into my palm. “Anything like this happens again, even looks like it might be happening, you call this and ask for me. Got it? Say you’re connected to the Felici famiglia. You remember that?”
“The Felici famiglia,” I echo back, feeling lightning bolts shooting up my arms from where his hands have swallowed mine.
“Do as you’re told,” he says as the man between us starts to moan. “Go home.”
The way he says it, my feet are already moving before I even know I’ve obeyed him. I get to the end of the alleyway before I look back. When I do, both of them have vanished. I could almost tell myself I dreamed the whole thing.
If it wasn’t for the business card still gripped tightly in my right hand.
I look down at it.
Felici on one side. Heavy cream card stock. On the reverse, a cellphone number is written in by hand. Clearly the Felici, whoever they are, only exist by name unless they choose to add their number to the cards they give out.
I put it in my handbag and then I walk home, looking around at everyone who passes like someone else might pounce on me.
