Before My Life Began (45 page)

I said nothing. A hand was on the inside of my thigh and it squeezed so tightly and suddenly that my back arched, my rear end left the seat. Vincent told the guys to lay off, that I was a personal friend.

“He just became a father too, see, and he got this real cute little baby girl he loves, so we wouldn't want to do nothing we'd be sorry for later.” His lips touched my ear. “Be careful. Be real careful, Davey.” Then, louder: “Listen—my debt with your uncle that you were so worried about, remember? I want you to know it's all taken care of. Wiped out. I got the news just before I come to talk with you.”

I tried to calculate the distance, the turns—to figure out where we were going, but Vincent kept talking in my ear, telling me about his gambling problems, and by the third turn I was lost. I tried to imagine how Ellen calculated distances. I thought of myself with Gail and Emilie and Ellen, in the woods. We had talked about going camping together next summer. I imagined Abe coming with us, helping lead Ellen around the woods and the lake, Ellen telling him the names of trees and flowers. I wondered what he would feel. I counted backwards from a hundred the way I did when I was unable to sleep, when I tried to talk myself into drowsiness. Had we driven for two minutes, or twenty minutes? I'd lost track. The car stopped, somebody shoved me out onto the sidewalk, somebody else grabbed my arm, kept me from falling, pushed me through a doorway. I heard music, smelled beer.

Vincent removed my blindfold. “There you go, Davey. Sorry.”

I rubbed my eyes, looked up a steep staircase. There was no banister. The lobby was small and square, the ceiling low. There were no mailboxes, no name plates or buzzers. I could feel the heat our bodies gave off, as if we were packed upright in a wooden box. My eyes drew on the light from the street, sand-colored light seeping in through high, smudged door windows. I looked at the two men who were with us and tried to memorize their faces. Vincent told them to get lost, that he needed to talk to me privately.

They walked upstairs. The door opened. A fat man holding a rubycolored glass looked down at us, lifted his glass in a mock toast. His shirt was split open at the waist. He scratched his stomach. Vincent came closer, his shoulder touching mine. Upstairs the door closed, but not all the way. The light seemed heavy with yellow, as if there were tiny motes of pigment floating in it. Cigarette smoke hung on the upstairs landing like fog, then drifted toward us, and I thought of droplets of water sliding down our bathroom wall, my mother yelling at me to wipe the wall dry after I showered.

Was Abe upstairs? If he was already on his way to Cuba or Miami or Las Vegas, would he be safe? Had he planned—before I met Gail—to settle in one of those places, to leave the neighborhood to me? Gail suspected it, hated him more when he was away from Brooklyn. Vincent's back was against the front door and he had a gun aimed at my chest. Why? He seemed embarrassed. I was certain he did not intend to use the gun against me. If he'd intended that, he wouldn't have needed so many words, he wouldn't have had to bring me here where people, passing by, might hear the shot.

The truth, I wanted to tell him, imagining the questions about Abe, was that what I knew about Miami and Cuba and Vegas came pretty much from the newspapers and the TV hearings. Abe never talked to me about what he did when he traveled for Mr. Rothenberg. Had he kept things from me because he wanted to protect me, or because—the thought had occurred before—he didn't want me to see that, outside our neighborhood, he was small-time, nothing more than a delivery boy for Mr. Rothenberg? Abe always liked being a big fish in a little pond, my mother said. Couldn't I see that he needed me to worship him? Vincent put the gun back inside his coat, told me how smart I'd been not to fight. He laughed. Nobody wanted me to cry uncle, right?

I didn't smile. Maybe they were bluffing. Maybe what they planned to do was to tell me that Abe had said things about me. Maybe they planned to tell me that Abe was already dead so that I would fall apart and agree to help them, so that I would betray Abe. The oldest trick. I tried to anticipate all the things they might say to me. If they told me that they had taken Gail and Emilie and were holding them somewhere…

It seemed crazy to me that a few hours before I'd been kissing my wife and nuzzling my daughter—touching skin that was, in memory, like satin—and that now I was trapped in a dark space waiting to find out if I would live or die. I imagined Gail looking out our living room window, watching the street, waiting for me. Would she be nursing Emilie? The body didn't know how to lie, she said. When she was upset or worried, her milk was different, and Emilie would sputter, would draw her knees up in pain.

Gail would, at this moment, I told myself, be looking out the window, watching the street, hoping to see me, while I was here, watching Vincent's hands and eyes, measuring distances and gestures, calculating my chances. What made sense?

“Listen. This ain't easy for me, Davey. Believe me. Only since I'm the one that knows you best, they chose me to give you the message.”

He rubbed his hands together, light flashing at me from his pinky ring.

“If I try to leave?”

He shook his head sideways, like a bulldog shaking off water.

“Ah, you wouldn't be that stupid. You got a good brain, Davey. Everyone knows that. You can make something of yourself in this life. You ain't a bum like me. Now Rothenberg, he had a good brain too and he got to use it for more years than you would of expected, all the dirty deals he pulled. But in the end the chickens all come home to roost, right?”

“You're stalling.”

“Sure. You would too, if you had to deliver a message like the one they gave me for you.”

“Tell me.”

“No rush, kid. No rush. Bad news is never in a hurry. I mean, I figured you and me would want to be alone here for a few minutes when you got the news, away from what they got going on upstairs, see, where we got to go in a minute to get the other things straightened out.”

“Tell me.”

I thought of myself with Gail, heading west on a train, gazing out at low hills, at fields of Kentucky blue grass. Emilie had her nose pressed against the train window. She was pointing to the horses.

“Sure, kid. Only see what a friend I been to you—how I made sure to get you away from your mother and your kid so they ain't in trouble? Because, okay, since I don't mean to tease you or nothing, the news is that your uncle had a bad accident—the worst kind—and that Mr. Fasalino wants to express his condolences to you personally. He's waiting upstairs so—”

I moved for the door, but he was ready for me, his gun in my stomach. He talked softly, told me he knew I was upset, but that I should be careful so that we could both live longer. I felt the blood surge through me, crash against my chest, and even in my rage I knew enough to remind myself that he might not be telling the truth, that he might be trying to set me up, to use me. But for what?

“Accidents happen, right? I mean, kids can fall off sliding-ponds and break their necks, and pretty young mothers can slip in bathtubs and crack their skulls, and whole families can go up in flames because a piece of newspaper happens to float down over a gas range at the wrong time. Even the insurance companies tell you that most of the worst accidents happen at home.”

His gun was pushing my lips against my teeth, forcing my mouth open, making me back up against the wall. I tasted cold metal, smelled burnt gunpowder, listened to him give me advice: I couldn't be too careful. Did I understand? Accidents could happen, and if he were in my shoes he would think mostly about looking out for number one. Did I hear him?

“I hear.”

“That's a good boy, Davey. You said the right thing.”

His gun was gone. I wanted to spit, to get rid of the bitter taste. What good was anger, he wanted to know. He knew how much I loved my uncle, but what good would anger do for me now? What was gone was gone. I should calm down and let myself feel what lay beneath the anger. I should act on that.

Then, smiling warmly, he whacked me across the midsection with all his might. I was too startled to cry out, and I heard him cry too, as he swung, so that the breath burst from me as if a bag of it had exploded. I gagged, doubled over. I heard his voice tell me that I was to take his word that all they wanted was for things to be peaceful. They didn't hold me responsible for anything Abe or Mr. Rothenberg had done. I gasped for breath, my hands clutching at my stomach. The world went black. I let my head drop lower. Vincent pulled me up by one ear, so that I would look into his face. Now did I understand?

“Nobody wants blood,” he said. “Nobody likes accidents, Davey. Mr. Fasalino ain't interested in your wife or your kid or your mother. Mr. Fasalino don't want nothing from you but your good will, see. Like when somebody buys a candy store or a small business, they don't want the guy they buy it from to be going around bad-mouthing them, you know what I mean? They want goodwill in the community so they can keep the customers along with the fixtures.”

Somebody called down to us and Vincent yelled back that things were under control, that we would be up in a minute. Men seemed to be floating around in the smoke, drinking and laughing. I thought of Abe and his friends, naked, walking around Al Roon's Health Club, their bodies moving in and out of the clouds of steam like ghosts. Vincent said that Mr. Fasalino had children and grandchildren of his own, that he wanted me to have a good life. Mr. Fasalino was a generous man. I looked at Vincent and I imagined Gail, retching into the toilet. I saw my mother, in the kitchen, raking at her hair. I saw Abe, a gun in his hand, standing in the bathroom doorway, staring at Gail. She screamed. She flung herself at his face, screeching, clawing. Emilie was in the bathtub, and while Abe tried to get hold of Gail's wrists, Emilie slid slowly down the side of the tub until, inch by inch, her head disappeared under soap bubbles.

“You can't have everything in life,” Vincent said. “I mean, like with me and Sheila. We all got losses, Davey, and we gotta know when to cut.” His eyes were actually watering. He assured me that he'd spoken to Mr. Fasalino on my behalf. He rubbed his hand across his forehead. The handle of his gun was slick with sweat. The light was spilling down on us now, thick with smoke. Somebody yelled at him to haul his ass upstairs, that Mr. Fasalino was getting impatient.

“Sometimes when we get real sad we think we gotta act like we're angry, but ain't that crazy, Davey? My Momma used to say to me, ‘Vincent, if you're sad, you gotta let yourself be sad.' I mean, you think I asked for this job? So you just relax, okay? The worst is over.” He shook his head. “Jesus. If I had a mirror you could look into, you'd see how crazy you are with anger, what a face you got on.”

He gestured to me to start up the stairs with him, and as he did I saw that there were two rings on his left hand, the tiger's eye on his pinky, a second ring on his wedding finger. Had I lived through this scene before? Had I imagined it. He turned to me, eyes moist, a strange sick smile on his lips, and as he gestured to me again to follow him—while he said things about being sincere, about really being sweet on Sheila—I saw the stone from Abe's ring glow red through the smoke, and I wondered if I'd known all along that it would be there.
Abe!
The light seemed to tumble down the staircase now, brighter than ever, the smoke curling and turning in balls, and when Vincent raised his right hand, the gun in it, to shield his eyes from that light, I had him against the staircase wall, my right arm jammed against his windpipe.
Abe!
I slammed Vincent's wrist against the wall and the gun fell. The doorway upstairs was wide open, a high foreshortened rectangle of light and smoke. Vincent squirmed, kicked out at me, tried to call for help.
Abe!
Vincent's eyes blinked furiously with fright, with panic. I bent down, wiped along the step with my palm, found the gun, and even as the noises and voices descended from above, I felt calm and ready, so calm that I could not even hear the sound of my own heart.

The light on the staircase changed from yellow to white—brighter and brighter—and it was as if, inside my head, within that white light, I could suddenly see all the years of my life stretched out to the end of time like a series of empty rooms in a vacant apartment, all the doors open, all the rooms clean and white.
Abe!
And when I heard the shot and felt the gun slam backwards against my palm, and when I heard Vincent moan and slump against me, his hand on my shoulder, it was not at all as if I were dreaming, but more as if I were remembering a dream I'd once had. I was walking out of the apartment slowly, room by room, backwards, across waxed floors. Abe stood in the doorway behind me, gun in hand, looking down at the body. Gail and I sat on the bed, unable to make him see us. Vincent held his stomach, looked at me with pinched, bewildered eyes.

“Oh Jesus, kid, why'd you do a stupid thing like that? How you ever gonna fix a thing like this? Jesus Christ, kid…”

But I was already moving down the stairs, leaping the last four steps, flinging the door open, running for my life.

“Hey—! Hey you—”

I turned and fired in the direction of the voice. Then I ran again, between cars, across the street, around a corner, and I was astonished at how wonderful it felt simply to be running, to feel my legs stretching and pumping, to be sucking cool air into my lungs.
Abe!
I ran and I ran, the black street racing backwards beneath my feet, my toes skimming the concrete, and it was as if I were running across the grass at the Parade Grounds in full stride, going way out for a pass, knowing I could catch up to any ball that anybody could throw. I felt as if I could run forever.

I saw lights ahead, heard a subway train. I was streaking down deserted streets, past warehouses and small factories and abandoned buildings. I was moving too fast to make out street signs. I headed towards the lights and the noise, at a diagonal, between moving cars. Where had they come from? I heard screeching, horns. I kept running. I saw people in front of me, heard music. I slowed down, stopped, looked back. I smelled sea air. My chest heaved in and out, rasping. How far had I come? Was I in Sheepshead Bay or Canarsie or Red Hook? I remembered fishing with a dropline from a pier at Sheepshead Bay when I was a boy. My mother took me there on the Ocean Avenue trolley. We bought clams and I smashed them on the sidewalk, picked out the white flesh from among pieces of shell, pressed the flesh onto my hook.