He shrugged. Somehow I’d been overruled.
I took her in my arms and held her. My damnation and salvation. My spark of change, dragging me into the light, kicking and screaming. She took my sins and made them her own. If only I could save her before she consigned herself to hell.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll make it out.”
I buried my nose in her hair and breathed her in. I didn’t have a plan or a crew. I had nothing. Yet I sat on a throne before a kingdom of possibilities.
thirty-eight.
theresa
called Dan from Antonio’s burner and got him to meet me in a corner booth at the Nickel. At eleven in the morning, most of the red vinyl booths were empty and the tabletop jukeboxes were silent. I slid in next to Daniel, who regarded the menu as if he didn’t know he was getting the same thing he always got. BLT. Lightly toasted. Extra mayo.
“Theresa, where have you been?”
I propped the big plastic menu in front of me as if I didn’t know what I was ordering. Nothing. I didn’t have an appetite. “How did you get the duct tape glue off your face?”
“Nail polish remover. Did you find Valentina?”
“Yes.”
“Is she safe?”
“No.” I put down the menu. I saw the TV behind the bar, and Antonio’s face on it. “We located her. We don’t have her.”
“Where is she?”
“Why do I see Antonio’s face on television?”
“We’d pressured his doctors to declare him dead under the Determination of Death Act, and to be honest, your family pushed it.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s got a functioning heart and the same rare blood type as your brother. This turned into homicide this morning, and my staff pushed through the indictment while I was busy hanging from a ceiling.”
I flipped the songs on the little jukebox, trying to separate my feelings from my strategy. The pink tabs flipped. I knew all the songs yet couldn’t place them. “Do you have change? I’m out.”
“What’s with you?”
I held out my hand. “Ambient noise.”
He stretched, reached into his pocket, and came out with a handful of change. I plucked out four quarters.
“You’re a wild card, Daniel.” I put fifty cents in the jukebox and played some random ballad from the seventies. I rubbed the other two coins together. I liked the way they scraped and slipped at the same time. “One minute I think you’re going to do right by me—”
“I told you I’d keep LAPD off you yesterday so you could find Valentina. And I did, but you didn’t get her.”
“We found her, but no. We didn’t get her. Not yet.”
“I can only go so far. I have a job and a department full of people with their own minds.”
“Right now, he’s stuck. If he can’t move, he can’t get Valentina. And if you think you can get her, forget it. She won’t tell you crap, and you know it. She’ll swear whoever’s holding her are her cousins. You know it’s true. He’s the best chance she has and the only chance I have. So make it go away.”
He leaned forward to make his point and to keep his voice low. “I can’t hold back my entire staff. I actually kind of like the guy, but the entire Los Angeles justice system knows Antonio Spinelli shot Paulie Patalano.”
“He didn’t.”
“Well, who did?”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t breathe. I just looked the district attorney in the eye until he leaned back.
“Jesus Christ, Theresa.” He knew. I didn’t have to say it, and he knew. “Jesus, Jesus… why?”
“You understand what’ll happen if you allow this to continue. All roads lead to Rome. If you’re all right with that, then I have to be.”