We bounced down the hall. Out the back door. Something hit my back. Pellets? Was Boom-Boom firing his air gun at me? Gabriella would be furious. No, idiota. Water. Water from the sky. Rain, rain, I made myself remember the word. Death dealers wear slickers, I get hit by rain.
Over Mulliner’s shoulder I saw the alley door to my building swinging loose. It opens from the inside only. How they got in, they blew out the lock. Noise, whole street full of noise. Sky noise, too. Thunder.
“I’m going home from here,” Lou said. “You don’t need me for anything else, and I need to get to a doctor; I’m bleeding all down my arm.”
“I always need you, Lou: I’m your client, and a good lawyer sticks with his client.”
Lou walked away. I wanted to cry; that was my only friend, he was leaving me with the death dealers. That wasn’t right, he was a killer, too.
“Everything all right here?” A male voice, sharp, concerned.
“It’s okay, buddy. We try to keep her out of the booze but she sneaked over here with a bottle.”
“Not drunk. Drugs, they drugged me, get a cop.” My mouth couldn’t shape words, nothing came out but my raspy breath.
Buddy was solicitous—did Fruity and Mulliner need help getting me to the car? Nope, not as long as I hadn’t thrown the damn keys away; I’d done that once and he’d had to call AAA in the middle of the night. I tried again to move my arms, but the punch I wanted to land drifted through the heavy night air like the tentacles on a jellyfish.
“We’re okay here,” Fruity said. “It’s embarrassing to have you watch—can you move along?”
“Buddy, don’t go.” My tongue had become thick and furry, a dog tongue that wouldn’t produce human speech.
Fruity opened a car door. Black SUV. Mulliner dumped me onto the backseat and I threw up again.
“Bitch threw up on my leather upholstery!” Fruity cried. “You should have warned me, damn it, Mulliner, I could have put some towels down.”
A whiner would complain if God poured gold from the sky onto his head, that’s what my mother said when our neighbor won a new Chevy in a contest at the mill and complained because he wanted a four-door. Oro dal cielo, of course, she said it in Italian and ever after that’s what Boom-Boom and I called him, Signor Oro, which made him mad because he knew we were making fun of him but he didn’t know what it meant.
“I’ll follow you in my car,” Mulliner said, slamming the door shut.
My head was spinning like a ride at the street fair. I begged and begged to go, all the other kids get to go, why can’t I? My mother said they weren’t safe, the company was unreliable, but Boom-Boom and I ducked under the fence and climbed onto the Spin Out and we both threw up the cotton candy we’d shared beforehand.
My eyes were still unfocused; I didn’t see my father standing by the gate, grabbing me as Boom-Boom and I staggered out.
“We never strike you, Tori,” my father said. “We think it’s brutal to hit a child, but what can we do to get you to listen? The companies that run these street fairs don’t bolt down their rides properly. If there’s an accident, do you know what that would do to your mother and me?”
He threw me down onto my bed. I was too big for it, maybe he was punishing me by making me sleep in my baby crib. He stuck his hand into my pants and took my keys, I couldn’t leave the house, but then he had pushed me onto the Spin Out and was whirling me around. “Stop, I’m sorry, stop, please,” but the bouncing and the whirling kept on and on.
I threw up again, but my mother didn’t wipe my face. She was too angry with me, I’d broken her heart for good and she was leaving me to rock and bounce in this horrible unsafe ride while the thunder rumbled and lightning bolted and a mean man with a voice from television laughed about me.
My head was filled with gravel. Signor Oro was so angry, he’d poured gravel into my ear. First he filled and filled my head with it. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move. I was asleep, in the middle of a terrible nightmare, but I couldn’t wake up.
The ride stopped but my head was still spinning, too many circles, too much gravel, we were at a gravel pit, mean Signor Oro was going to fill me to the bottom of my feet. Where was my papa, even if he was mad at me he should save me.
Signor Oro leaned into the Spin Out. “Now how am I going to get you out of here? Where’s Mulliner? He’s supposed to be behind me, and he fucking disappeared on me.”
He pulled me to a sitting position. “I need a fucking crowbar to move you. Should have put that in my commentary, bleeding hearts add thickness to the belly. Maybe I will tomorrow when they put out the sad news you drowned. Snooping around Ruhetal, talking to the retard. But you got the clipping for me, thank you very much indeed.”
Clipping. My brain moved feebly, as weak as my heavy arms and legs. The story about Tommy. Not Signor Oro leaning over me. Wade. Wade Lawlor. He’d killed his sister, and now he was going to kill me.
“Why? Why you kill Mag?”