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“She told you something?”
“She told me to talk to Shadow Man.”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Shit. You really are clueless when it comes to him. He intimidates me, that’s why. And only a few of them do. I can handle myself. We take care of us.”
We—Shawna and her sisters.
“So, you get his wife in your car by gun point and steal her?” I believed most of what she was saying, but not all of it added up. Why bring me into this when it had to do with Shadow Man and that life?
“Wife?” she barely breathed out. “You his wife?”
“That’s what I said.” My heart started beating faster, because I couldn’t tell how she meant it—like, You’re his wife, and now I’m screwed. Or…. You’re his wife? But he already has one of those! I wasn’t a violent person, but I’d fucking kill him.
“Listen,” she said. “I didn’t mean no harm by taking you. Seriously. We connected that night, remember? But you stopped coming around and things are bad for us. I’m desperate. Okay? I’m desperate! My sister—” Her voice broke on the word, and she made the sign of the cross. “I told her to stop messin’ with that guy. Lorna did, too. But Lorna has no room to talk because she’s always getting us in trouble. It just…clings to her. Follows her around. And she’s always in it. But Norma? She’s usually a good kid. She just got sucked into the life. You’ve met that guy. He’s the devil, and he’s charming. But not all that glitters is gold. Shit. This guy’s relentless.”
Aren was weaving in and out of traffic. Keeping up. But my entire body was jolted forward when Shawna hit the brakes and we got stuck in traffic.
“No! No! No!” She beat on the horn. Beep. Beep. Beep. It was manic. Panicked.
“Lorna’s in trouble?”
“They want what we have. Norma knew she’d fucked up by threatening him, after. She was hormonal and, honestly, in love with him. He made her all kinds of promises. Then he changed his mind. Or maybe he knew from the beginning he was going to throw her away like that. She’d gone too far, though. She knew it. She told me about the threats she’d been makin’ and how if something happened to her, I should get the proof of what he’d done to some Russian guy from The Cigar Bar. She fuckin’ taped him talking about it one night while he was drunk. Then she hid the thing at work! I got it, though. But they don’t know if we have it or not. Some guy took Lorna and then called me up. Told me if I wanted to see my sister alive again, I’d bring the proof to The Cigar Bar. When I asked what would happen if I didn’t have it, he said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ Then he hung up.”
She looked over at me. “That’s why I took you. I need you to help me. I need Shadow Man. I think he’s the only one who can at this point. What Norma has on that man is BIG. All the way up to Joe ‘The Big Boss’ Messina BIG. But there’s no getting to him without going through channels. I have to protect Lorna. And I don’t want us in that deep. Your sister said she’d talk to Shadow Man, but I haven’t heard anything. She seemed busy. Preoccupied, like. Maybe she forgot. This all happened so fast! There’s no time now. That’s why I waited at your house. I was going to knock, but you appeared out of nowhere. Do you think Shadow Man will kill me?”
The scene at Coney Island came rushing back to me. Lilo hitting the guy in the temple with the ball because he was leering at me. “Pick your prize, baby,” he’d said so casually after.
“He’s back at Sonn—my dad’s house,” I said. “Shadow Man.” I refused to call him Lilo in front of her, because she only knew him from that world. I wanted to keep Lilo in mine.
“The house we were just at?” Her head whipped to mine. “Shit! Shit! I don’t have time to turn back. That’s the entire point of this. I wanted him to come after you. So we could talk to him.”
“We?”
“Yeah.” She motioned between us. “Me and you. You could tell him what’s going on. Give him the proof.”
“You want him to save you and your sister,” I said. “If you get me to The Cigar Bar, you know he’ll follow, and with me involved…”
She breathed out. “Wasn’t sure if he would just take the proof and then ditch us if I got him alone. And managed to say a few words. I figured…maybe if I was worth something to you, I’d be worth something to him.”
Desperation rolled off her in waves like her flower-scented deodorant.
“Did you see the guys back at the house? Before we got there? They shoved my dad in the house. They have him.”
“Definitely not going back there then. Your old man’s in trouble with someone?”
“Yeah, with Mo. My dad made some bets he couldn’t pay back. I offered to work them off.”
“I knew it!” She said in an ah-ha! tone. “You don’t belong there.”
“Neither do you,” I said. “Or your sisters. I think the only women who belong there are the ones who want to be there.”
She looked over at me and gave me a smile that was so sad, my heart broke for her. Her eyes were still watery. “I didn’t see anyone shove anyone. And I’m fuckin’ paranoid right now, so I would have. But at one point I was looking down at my phone. I was trying to call your sister. Check my phone if you don’t believe me.” She pointed to a small open compartment on the dash where her cellphone was. “Mo is so loyal to that asshole. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all a setup to get you there so Shadow Man would do something stupid. This is a cruel life, but it has rules. One made man can’t just go around whacking another. Even I know that.”
“Paul Gallo—” I gave a little spit. She was truly paranoid, and I didn’t want her to feel worse by not doing it. “—is trying to set up my husband.”
She nodded. “The recording hints to that, too. ‘I’ll get that motherfucker! He’ll get his day.’ But that’s not why Shadow Man is after him. He’s after him because of the Russian situation. Because the Russian situation gives their boss a reason to whack Gallo.” She spit toward the window this time. “He fucked up, and he knows it. That’s why he went berserk-o when he found out what Norma had done. She tried to be smart about it. She dropped subtle hints, not painting the entire picture at first. Like, she served him a Russian drink when all he drinks is wine. She was egging him. But you can’t do that shit! He didn’t love her. I told her that. Walk away, I said. Walk away!”
