BRUNO

The way to get respect is to treat people like dirt. It’s surprising how many people hold this view. I’m told this often. People say this to me; I say no. But I’m no professor. Many times I’m wrong. Often I’m wrong.

People surprise you. People disappoint you. Sure, you say to yourself, so-and-so was a disappointment, but this person, this person I know. And look what happens.

A more dispassionate man would have said, She doesn’t respect you. My friends said this.

You have to have the ability to see the facts without being sidetracked by the history. By your expectations. What are expectations? Rehearsing your own lack of imagination. Joanie’s not like that. Joanie’d never do that. Please. The Japs would never attack Pearl Harbor. John Hinckley was such a quiet boy.

Distance. What you need is distance.

What you do is you keep clear who your friends are. Who treated who like what.

Altruism is fine. Altruism is sweet. But you have to think of yourself. Because who else is going to?

And here’s something else nobody knows: the week before she got married, I sat in her mother’s kitchen three nights in a row until two in the morning, four in the morning, later than that. I wanted to know, out of curiosity, Did she think Gary was ready for something like this? Did she think she was? I was telling her over and over, He’s a good man. Fine. We know that. All’s I’m saying, Is he right for you? And she said, a little sad, but mostly smiling, Bruno, you haven’t given up, have you? I said, Forget me. Forget me. I’m talking about us. And she said, There is no us. There’s only you.

I kissed her good night that last night. She didn’t want to, but that was all there was to it. I had tears in my eyes. When I was up close to her, I whispered in her ear. I said, “You know this is wrong.” And when I let her go, she said, “Sometimes you gotta do the wrong thing.”

This is what she said to me after all our time together.

The morning of the wedding, I went over to see her again. This is how much pride I had. She was doing her hair in her mother’s bedroom. Her mother was thrilled I was there. I said I had an emergency message, coming through. All the way up the stairs, she’s trailing behind, tugging on my jacket flap. I had to hit her hand away. And I knock and peek into the room, with the mother standing behind me in the hall, and there she is, sitting there in her white already, three hours early, doing nothing, hands in her lap. And she goes, “What are you doing here?” What am I doing here. How many years, Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, I been coming over here? How many years I’d come over, I’d spring for something?

Tonight on the phone, Joey said, “That didn’t teach you, nothing’ll teach you.”

He said, “Now do you believe me?”

I feel bad sometimes. I know I haven’t lived the right way. I know sometimes people got hurt. They’ll always be people like me, people who’re glad to be the way they are but also think, now and then, that maybe a vaccination somewhere didn’t take. Maybe it’s that simple. I read once, I think it was Meyer Lansky, he said, Some people just never learn to be good.

Joanie spent the time Todd was gone poking through his room. The dog wandered in to check on her, shouldering the half-closed door open and unhurriedly nosing around before leaving. She waited until the dog was gone and then pulled out everything he had hidden. The box of letters under the board games in the closet (Phalanx!, Goal!, Storm at Dieppe), the little red spiral notebook, the round candy tin his father bought him on their one trip to the Caribbean (Zombies: Coconut Chocolate Clusters). She knew where everything was. She’d found everything cleaning at one time or another.

The candy tin was filled with photos. Bruno mugging for the camera with his hands curled like a movie monster’s. Gary with a new ten-speed and long hair, a photo she’d taken when they’d first met. Audrey on the sofa. Audrey under the willow, a tennis ball in her mouth. Gary pushing Audrey down a snow pile in some kind of king-of-the-hill game. A picture her mother took of the three of them at the beach, Gary holding Todd’s boogie board and looking off, Todd holding her hand and staring straight at the camera. Gary painting the garage.

Near the bottom of the tin she came across a Polaroid of the three of them and felt a lurch, like she’d stepped on a loose rug. One side of the image was smeared the way Polaroids sometimes got. The photo was three years old. Bruno had taken it, in their kitchen. She and Gary were at the kitchen table, and Todd was standing between them. The overhead light, a fake Tiffany thing, was prominent. Todd was holding a coffee-table book Bruno’d just given him on football called The Gladiators. He was looking directly at the camera. Gary was lifting the salt shaker with two fingers and a thumb, and watching her in a sidelong way. He looked unhappy. She had her eyes on the table. Minutes before the picture had been taken, she’d collided with Bruno in the darkened living room. He was coming from the upstairs toilet, she didn’t remember why; she’d been going to get something to win an argument. Gary and Todd had been in the kitchen. Bruno had stopped her with his arm after their bump. His fingers had pressed her neck forward. He’d kissed her, softly, like he was putting a daughter to bed, and she’d kissed him.

Now, with the photo on the rug in front of her, seeing after all these years that moment, Gary’s face, and Todd’s expression, she thought, Had they known?

The door opened downstairs. She shut the lid of the tin and put everything back and just got out of the room by the time Todd hit the bottom of the staircase.

He stood with a hand on the railing, and they looked at each other.

She came down the stairs. He started up them. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “I didn’t hear a car. Audrey didn’t bark.”

“She doesn’t bark for Bruno anymore,” he said, like she should know that.

She eased over to let him past. She said, “How was the game?”

He looked at her, and she saw he was near tears. He continued up to his room, and she followed. He climbed onto his bed, and she went over and knelt next to him and took his shoulders and asked him what was wrong.

He was looking past her arm, and his expression changed so much she turned to follow his line of sight. There was a slightly curled black-and-white photograph on the rug.

“Get outta my room,” he said.

“Todd,” she said.

“Get outta my room,” he howled. He burst into tears. She tried to hug him but he fought her off. Audrey peeked in the door. Joanie got up and held her hands at her sides like they were wet, and then backed out of the room and shut the door behind her.

She pitched into the upstairs bathroom and sat on the toilet and put her face in her hands. “Oh, God,” she said.

The phone rang. It kept ringing.

“Answer the phone,” he shouted. His voice scared her so much she jumped up.

“I’m getting it, I’m getting it,” she said.

She ran downstairs and snatched it up.

“I’ll tell you, my husband,” Nina said. “They’re gonna make a movie about him, called Lights On, Windows Open: The Sandro Mucherino Story. Oh, how he wastes energy.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Joanie said.

“How are you?” Nina said. “Todd back yet?”

“Ma, I got no time,” Joanie said.

“You got no time,” her mother said. “I say one sentence, you got no time?”

Joanie put her hand over her eyes while she stood there holding the phone, and pulled downward like she was trying to take off a mask. “Whaddaya want, Ma?”

“I’m tryin’ to find out how things went with Mr. Bacigalupe. That’s all.”

Todd came downstairs and stood next to her. His eyes were wet. His mouth was a straight line and the rest of his face scared her. He stood with his hands on his hips.

“Did you find an envelope there?” he said.

“Hold on a minute, Ma,” she said. “What?” she said to Todd. She had her hand over the receiver and felt a pain in her chest.

“When you went out to look at Tommy, after you hit him.”

She flinched at the way he put it, at the brutality of his intent. She said, to maintain her poise, “Hold on a minute, Ma. Todd’s asking me something here.”

She put the receiver against her chest. He had his hand on his hair and was raking his fingers downward, a self-calming strategy she’d seen him use before. “What envelope?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you find an envelope?” he asked.

“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He turned and left. She raised the phone to her ear again. “What’s goin’ on over there?” Nina asked. “He all right?”

“Ma,” Joanie said. She was stretching the phone cord around the kitchen wall to see where he went.

There was a faint buzzing on the line while her mother let the rudeness go.

“You gonna see him some more?” Nina finally asked. “Your friend?”

“I don’t know. Ma, it’s almost midnight.”

“Bacigalupe,” her mother said softly.

“Why do you call him that?” she asked, distracted and frantic. She heard something being dragged on the floor upstairs.

“He was the one started using it, not me,” Nina said. “You know, Bacigalupe. Bacigalupo. ‘Kiss of the wolf.’”

She had the sensation her chest was filling with gravel. She sat, putting a hand out to catch the chair arm.

Upstairs, there was the hollow, wooden, grating sound of a drawer being pulled out.

“I gotta go, Ma,” she said. “I’ll call tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother,” her mother said, and hung up.

She got hold of herself and hung up the phone. She stood and crossed to the living room and listened. More drawers were being pulled out. She took the stairs two at a time.

Todd was pulling out the drawers and dumping them on the floor. He’d gotten his father’s big suitcase out of the cubbyhole storage off his bedroom and was pitching clothes into it.

“What’s this? You’re running away?” she asked. She hadn’t succeeded in purging the mocking quality from her voice.

“I’m movin’ out,” he said.

There was a banging at the door downstairs. Todd stopped what he was doing, a sock hanging from his hand. She put her palm on her stomach and tried to breathe out.

The banging resumed: four big bangs. She could hear Audrey jumping and whining and scratching at the door in excitement, but no barking.

She hurried down the stairs. She turned on the outside light. She moved Audrey away from the back door, made sure it was locked, and peeked out.

Bruno was holding up a bottle of champagne. He gave her a grin that showed a lot of teeth.

She hesitated, with her hand on the doorknob. He turned his head, held both hands up, and arched his eyebrows, as if miming exaggeratedly, “It’s your move.”

“It’s late,” she said through the door.

“It’s early,” he called back.

She still had her hand on the knob. “What’s the champagne for?” she asked.

“Celebrate,” he said.

Audrey spun and leaped in place, whining. Bruno tipped the bottle to his mouth, miming a drink. He made a face like, Mighty good.

She turned the lock. He pushed the door into her and swept into the room. She staggered back a little into the coats and umbrellas hung opposite the door.

The dog leaped up on him, and he lifted a knee and deflected her into the cabinets by the sink. She came at him again, and he conked her on the head with the bottom of the bottle. It sounded like a hammer pounding in a stake. She gave a yelp and flattened.

“Don’t,” Joanie said.

“I need her all over me right now?” he said. “We love each other. Fine. We love each other. Great. That’s established. Time for her to get outta the way.”

“You coulda hurt her, “Joanie said. She could hear Todd on the stairs and then the creak of the risers as he climbed as quietly as he could back to his room.

Bruno shook the champagne hard a couple of times and set it on the counter. “I was gonna bring you a Slim Jim, too. They had ’em at the checkout, but a colored woman took the last two.”

She stood where she was, a few feet from him, frightened at what could come next. Audrey was trying to get to the bump on her head with her front paws, but all she could reach were her snout and ears.

“You see my Windbreaker?” he asked. “I mighta left it here this afternoon.”

She swallowed and shrugged. She said, “Well, you left it here, it’s here.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. He looked around the room like someone deciding if he wanted to buy something.

“Bruno,” she said. “It’s late.”

“Here’s what I was thinking,” he said. “I was thinking I could come over, we could have a little talk.” He sat in a kitchen chair. “You could open up to me.”

She stood there, staring at him. Audrey rolled on her back on the linoleum and finally sneezed.

He got up and wheeled into the hallway, through the living room, and up the stairs. She froze for a minute and then ran after him.

“Bruno, what are you doing?” she said, chasing him up the stairs. He wasn’t running. “Bruno, what are you doing?”

He leaned his weight into Todd’s door as he turned the knob, and boomed it open. Todd was sitting on his bed, surrounded by clothes. He scuttled back against the headboard.

“Bruno—” Joanie said, working up some real anger.

“What’s this?” Bruno said. “We’re goin’ on a trip? Club Med? South Seas? North Pole?”

Nobody answered.

“Atlantic City?”

“We’re havin’ a fight,” Joanie finally said.

“Ah, a family thing,” Bruno said. He sat on the bed and pulled a Vikings sweat shirt out from underneath him. “I certainly don’t want to get involved in a family thing.”

“Mom,” Todd said, like a plea.

“Here’s what your son told me,” Bruno said. “Your son told me you hit and killed Tommy Monteleone.”

She looked over at Todd. Their eyes met. She thought with complete clarity that this was the worst thing yet.

“Your son told me that you then got out of the car and went over to him. Your son told me that you probably took the envelope. Your son told me you been fucking me over all this time. Making me a jerk-off. Playing me like a fucking piccolo. That’s what your son told me.” His voice hadn’t gotten any louder, but there was so much rage in it she thought it could float him over the bed.

“No,” she said. She had to force air into her diaphragm to be heard.

“I didn’t say that,” Todd said.

Bruno shrugged. “This is what the kid told me. I didn’t necessarily believe it all. I thought, What do they know at that age? No offense. Maybe he made something up. Maybe he got something garbled.”

She put her hand out to the wall. It brushed the phone.

“The envelope thing he wasn’t sure about,” Bruno said.

Downstairs, Audrey shook herself hard, her collar jingling and her ears flopping.

“I think I know what your problem is here,” Joanie said.

“My problem,” Bruno said dangerously. He folded his hands before him like an altar boy. “You think you know what my problem is.”

He looked up at her. He contemplated her as if he meant to never forget her in that light.

“You gonna be teaching again in the fall?” he asked.

Her mouth fell open. She didn’t think she could endure much more of this. “Math and English,” she said.

“It’s nice there, huh?”

“Better than Blessed Sacrament,” she said.

He smiled. “It’s a tough racket, teaching.” It sounded like he was talking to himself.

“I could use some English myself,” he said, a little sadly. “I don’t express myself too good. Well. Too well. See what I mean?”

She took a deep, slow breath. She could hear Todd breathing, too.

“You know what you gotta have in this life?” he said. “You gotta have ability. You gotta have luck. You gotta have the balls to arrive at your own conclusions.”

“Bruno, what do you want?” she said. “C’mon.”

“C’mon?” Bruno said. “Come on?”

“I mean—”

“What am I gonna be, a headline? ‘Bruno Found in the River’? ‘Bruno Washes Up on the Beach’? Is that what’s gonna happen? Because you found some money and you want to hang onto it?”

“I didn’t find any money,” Joanie said.

“Did you kill Tommy Monteleone?” he asked.

She looked at his shoes. She looked at Todd, but he was looking away. “It was an accident,” she said.

“And you lied about that. All along,” he said. “All the things we talked about. You watched me go through this all along.”

The three of them were quiet. Bruno rubbed his nose slowly with both hands.

“What was I supposed to tell you?” Joanie said in a low voice.

“This was me,” Bruno said. “This wasn’t the cops, this wasn’t your fucking mother. This was me.”

She shrugged. She swallowed again.

“I sat there talking with you, thinking we were getting somewhere, and all along you were thinking, What a fucking jerk.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Joanie said.

“Get away from me,” he said, and she realized she had her hand out to him.

Todd had his arms crossed and was rubbing them with his hands. He cleared his throat. When Bruno looked at him, Joanie watched him try to make himself completely still.

Bruno turned back to her. She would not swallow again, no matter what. “And what about the new washer-dryer?” he said. “You saved your pennies in the piggy bank?”

She was stunned, flustered at having that dragged into it. “Sandro and Nina helped us out with that.”

“Sandro and Nina helped you out.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s the truth.”

He smiled again. “The truth.”

“The truth.”

“You never saw any money?”

“I never saw any money.”

He sat there nodding. Todd started breathing again. “Well,” Bruno said. He slapped his thigh. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”

She watched him closely. “Bruno—” she said skeptically.

“No,” he said. “That’s what you say, that’s what you say. I got no choice but to believe you.”

He stood up. He looked around the room at the mess. “Hey, listen,” he said. “You ever do decide to leave town, you let me know. I’ll help you run a tag sale for all this stuff. We’ll split the profits.”

“Bruno—” she said.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” he said. He headed to the door. He turned. “Todd,” he said, and pointed at him. “Be well.”

“Are you in trouble?” Joanie asked. She didn’t want to extend the conversation, but she had to know. “I mean, does this have to do with the people you work for?”

“Yeah,” Bruno said. “The people I work for. Long time ago.”

“You and Tommy and Joey Distefano?”

“It was a while ago,” Bruno said, almost dreamily. “And Mark Siegler. You remember Mark Siegler?”

She felt sick. “Mark Siegler?” she said. “What happened to Mark Siegler? I thought he had that heart thing.”

“He was killed,” Bruno said. “In a calamity.”

“A calamity?” Joanie whispered. “What kind of calamity?”

“Heart,” Bruno said. “Though I think a big pipe before that. Big steel pipe.” He left. She heard him going downstairs. She heard Audrey pad into the den in anticipation, getting out of his way.

The back door opened and shut, but she still didn’t hear his car. She listened a minute longer and then went to the top of the stairs. It was quiet. She tiptoed down and peered into the kitchen, tipping her body to see down the hall better. Everything was quiet. She crossed to the kitchen window and looked out through the curtains, but she couldn’t see anything. His bottle of champagne was on the table, where he’d left it.

She walked to the back door, thinking a horrible joke was about to be played on her. She found it locked. She tested it anyway, and looked out again, both hands on the knob.

Bruno swung into view from the side of the window, and she shrieked and fell back into the coats.

He looked in on her, then held up his hand in a wave and headed off down the driveway.

She slumped to the floor, kicking the shoes and sandals they’d piled there in various directions.

Todd was peeking into the kitchen.

“You all right?” he asked.

She closed her eyes and nodded. She swallowed, as if finally she could. “He scared me,” she said.

“Is the door locked?” Todd asked.

She nodded again. She opened her eyes.

“You okay?”

She stood up. She swiped at her rear and thighs, as if she’d been sitting in dirt.

“May be we should call somebody,” he said in a frightened voice.

She went to the phone and started dialing. When she finished, she looked at the clock. It was twelve-thirty.

Her father answered.

“Dad,” she said. She didn’t know what to say next.

“You all right?” he asked. She could hear him trying to get his voice back.

“I wake you up?” she said. She suddenly felt stupid.

“’S all right,” he said. “What’s up?”

“Mom there?” she asked.

“Hold on,” her father said.

They seemed to be fighting over the phone. Joanie couldn’t make out what they were saying. She heard a little of her mother’s voice.

“Your mother doesn’t want to talk to you,” her father said.

“Oh—We had a fight,” she said, trying to explain. She made a disappointed noise with her tongue.

“Call her back tomorrow. She’ll be all right,” he said.

She held the receiver near her chin. Her heel was bobbing and she was looking at Todd.

“You sure you’re all right?” her father said.

“Yeah. Go back to sleep,” she said. “Dad?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” she said. She hung up.

She stood looking at Todd in the light from the hallway.

“I’m scared,” Todd said.

“We’ll be all right,” she said. “What’s he gonna do?”

“I’m scared,” he said. “Let’s go over their house. Let’s go over there.”

She was going to tell him she’d have to call her father back again, but she saw his face, and her heart went out to him. “You wanna go over?” she said.

“Just for tonight,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “Brush your teeth and grab a shirt for tomorrow.”

He stood staring at her. He was starting to cry again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I told.”

Before she could hug him, he turned and ran from the room.

They’d be all right, she thought. Years from now, she meant. They loved each other too much to not be all right.

She got her toothbrush from the bathroom downstairs and underwear and a T-shirt from her bedroom dresser. She decided against hunting up a little bag, figuring it wasn’t that much to carry loose.

“Hurry up,” she called, and then regretted it: it probably scared him more.

He came thumping down the stairs two at a time. He had his little green knapsack over his shoulder. “Audrey’s comin’, right?” he said.

“Sure,” she said.

At the back door, she hesitated. Todd’s stomach made a noise. Audrey jumped up once, in impatience.

The garage light on the trees over the driveway reminded her of sitting in the car under the streetlight the night before. She peered close to the window on the side he’d surprised her from earlier.

“Ma,” Todd said. She looked at him. He had a claw hammer stuck in his Levi’s.

She unlocked the door. She opened it. Audrey bodied her way out past their calves and trotted around, making sweeps with her nose.

Joanie led Todd out and down the driveway. The garage was pretty well lighted. There was an intermittent wind.

She heard the jingle of Audrey’s collar stop, and when she looked over her shoulder, the dog had raised her head and was looking off down the street. Joanie pulled Todd into the garage, directing him with her hand around the passenger side. As she moved down the car she checked the backseat. She called once for Audrey, got in, checked the backseat again, and then, once Todd was in, locked all the doors and rolled up the windows. Her stomach unknotted a little.

Audrey trotted up and stood her front paws on the driver’s-side door. She unlocked it and opened it again, and the dog scrambled in over her and turned awkwardly around between them on the bench seat before settling down.

She turned the key in the ignition. It was like there was no front end to the car.

She sat there turning it.

“What’s wrong?” Todd finally said. The amount of fear in his voice was paralyzing.

She checked to see if it was in park. It was.

“He did something to it,” Todd said.

She opened the door. “I’m not gonna check it now,” she said. “Let’s go.”

At the front of the garage, Audrey gave a growl and took off around the house. Joanie grabbed Todd’s hand and ran for the back door. On the step she fumbled with the key. Todd called to Audrey. Joanie finally maneuvered it into the lock and got them inside and slammed the door and locked it. A second later, Audrey came trotting down the driveway and up to the door. Joanie looked around as much as she could and let the dog in.

“He did something to the car,” Todd said. He had his fist over the hammer in his pants, like someone with severe stomach pain. “He did something to the car to keep us here.”

“We don’t know that,” Joanie said.

“Call Grandpa,” Todd said. “Call Grandpa.”

“Hold it hold it hold it,” Joanie said. She was trying to get hold of herself. She turned on the overhead light in the kitchen and sat at the table. She pushed the bottle of champagne farther away from her. “What’re we gonna say?” she asked. “The car’s not working; we think Bruno’s coming to get us?”

She realized she was sweating and felt the dampness along her hairline and in front of her ear. “Anyway, Bruno was just here. And he left. Right?”

That seemed to calm Todd a little.

“And we got Audrey to protect us,” she said. “C’mon. We’ll check all the doors and windows.”

They checked them together, Todd holding his hammer out in front of them like the Olympic torch. He helped her with a sash that was jammed.

They left some lights on downstairs. She led him up to his room and helped him clear the clothes off his bed.

“I’m gonna sleep in my underwear,” he said.

He hung his Levi’s over the headboard.

“Where’s your hammer?” she asked.

“I musta left it downstairs,” he said with alarm.

“Don’t worry about it now.” She didn’t want to go downstairs for it alone.

He didn’t look much reassured.

“You know what?” she said. “I think I’ll snuggle here with you for a while. Is that okay?”

“That’s okay,” he said. He scooted over.

She hit the light and pulled off her own jeans and climbed under the covers in her T-shirt and underwear. She turned on her side to face him and folded her hands under her cheek. He was looking up at the ceiling.

“See? This isn’t bad. This is pretty good,” she said, but her voice had every quality of the end of the line.

Her thoughts rose in the dark like faint balloons.

She could hear water dripping into the big bowl she’d mixed tuna in, in the kitchen sink.

She lay there charged up and exhausted. She felt unexceptional and solitary, as tired as a mother who’d played all day with her kid and hadn’t tired the kid out yet.

Tommy Monteleone’s name stayed with her, like something she could experiment with to hurt herself.

She saw herself before she got married—sitting in the Milford library, with her shoes off and her legs folded under her—and her heart went out to herself in tenderness.

This whole life, she thought. All this pain: didn’t she make it herself?

She tried to calm down. She composed a letter to Todd. She composed a letter to Gary. She asked their forgiveness.

She thought of kissing Bruno. She thought of bats rushing out of their caves, sweeping past her and kissing the air over her skin.

She felt her soul opening up in the dark, unfolding sin after sin. In the gloom, she made out the Blessed Virgin statue on the dresser. Mary’s eyes regarded her with mild pity. Her own eyes were brimming with tears. A catechism line swam up from somewhere: God tries over and over again but the sinner will not hear.

She sang the lyrics to “Downtown.” Todd didn’t respond. She looked closer to see if he was asleep.

“Mom?” he said. “I still have to leave, I think. I don’t think I can stay here anymore.”

She closed her eyes and the tears broke down her cheeks. This, she thought. This was the worst moment.

It didn’t have to be so irreconcilable, she thought. Remember what we have.

There was a far-off whistling.

She controlled her breathing and focused on her hearing.

The whistling died off.

Audrey raised her head from the rug. Her license jingled: she was moving to hear better.

Something cracked outside, like someone snapping a good-sized stick. Joanie’s heart started going.

She heard a sound very near the window. It sounded like someone pouring liquid slowly out of a jar. It sounded like someone urinating against the side of the house.

“Ma,” Todd said.

“I hear it,” she said. “Shhh.”

There was a quick, faint popping sound, like someone had snapped a bicycle spoke.

They waited. Audrey woofed. She lowered her head to the rug again.

Joanie heard the whistling again. It was in the yard. She recognized it: “O Sordato Innamorato.”

She sat up in bed. “Call the police,” she said. “I’m going downstairs.” She got to her feet and turned on the little lamp on his bedside table. She climbed back into her jeans.

Todd was moving for the phone. He had a sober and alert expression, like a frightened general.

“I think he’s back,” she said. She felt as if she could throw up.

He nodded. Nothing seemed surprising now.

He picked up the phone and started dialing. She opened his door wider and hit the light in the hallway.

“Ma,” he said, and when she turned he was holding the phone out to her, his eyes large.

“Oh, God,” she said.

He let it drop. He scrambled into his Levi’s. At the base of the house there was a slow, metallic sound like the soft scrape of a snow shovel on ice.

“C’mon,” she whispered. She turned off the light. She had no plan. She thought she’d take him downstairs, try to locate what was going on, and push him out another window or door and run.

She led him down the stairs. She could hear her hand, sweaty, squeaking and skidding on the banister. Audrey stayed in the bedroom, watching them go.

“Audrey, who’s down here?” she whispered. The dog kept her chin on the rug.

They waited in the dark at the bottom of the stairs. Most of the blinds were closed, but she went cautiously around the living room, leading Todd, peeking out where she could see.

“My hammer’s around here,” Todd whispered. “I can’t find it.”

There was a sliding sound and a small clank from the kitchen. She felt a breeze at the back of her head and a familiar congested feeling of helplessness. “Stay here,” she said. She edged down the hall.

They’d left on the small light over the sink. She crept onto the linoleum. Everything was quiet. She headed for the back door. When she passed the spice cabinet, she sniffed vanilla extract. It always smelled to her like heart, like her love for Todd.

From where she was, it looked like the door was still locked. She slid along the cellar door, trying to get brave enough to get close enough to make sure.

She looked back at Todd. He’d gotten as far as the edge of the kitchen and was squatting all the way down to the floor, the way when he was sick he’d fold himself over on the toilet.

She looked into the sink. Drops of water were falling softly into the brimming bowl.

The cellar door crashed open, knocking her across the room and into the kitchen table. The table went over. She fell on her front on the linoleum. The champagne bottle bounced and rolled into the living room. Todd screamed.

Bruno was standing in the cellarway, holding up her underwear from the car.

“You forgot your things,” he said.

She turned on the floor and tried to tell Todd to run, but he was already running down the hallway. Bruno was over her in one long stride and after him. She got up and chased them. Bruno caught him on the stairs and dragged him down by the legs, Todd’s torso and head bouncing as he came down each riser. Audrey was up and barking in an uproar. Joanie punched and tried to kick, and Bruno let go of one leg and forearmed her across the head so that she pinwheeled over a low chair in the living room and landed on the rug. Something shot through her back.

She pulled herself up on an elbow, stunned. She heard a heavy thump and a high-pitched bark from Audrey. Bruno dragged Todd into the room by the feet and dumped him on the floor beside the coffee table. Then she heard him hustle the dog through the kitchen by the collar and pitch her down the stairs. There was a spectacular crash.

He came back into the living room and stood over them, breathing hard.

Audrey was barking and crying in the basement, and Joanie could hear her dragging herself around, but her voice was getting weaker. Bruno ran his hand over his hair. He flexed his shoulders to fix his shirt. He waited until there was only one solitary bark. Then he turned on the lamp and took a seat on the couch.

Todd was up on his elbows, too. His nose was bleeding. He was crying, but he wiped his face fiercely.

Bruno was looking into her eyes. “‘Sordo come una compana,’” he said. “‘My stone-deaf love.’”

There was a stabbing pain in her shoulder blade when she tried to put weight on her other elbow. She cried out.

“Pretty good tumble you took,” Bruno remarked.

“Fucker,” Todd said. It was the first time she’d heard him use the word.

“Fuckin’ Flyin’ Wallenda,” Bruno said.

“What’re you doing?” she said. “What do you want from us? We don’t have your money.”

He put his hand out flat toward her. “Forget the money. The money’s history. Did I ask about the money? The money’s over. Please. Let’s talk about you.

She went faint and cold and momentarily had the impression she couldn’t make out the color of the rug.

Todd was sniffling and got to his hands and knees. Bruno put a foot on his rear and pushed him over.

“Let me tell you a little secret,” Bruno said. “Tommy was coming to meet us that night. He parked a mile or so up the road. We were far away and had a bad angle on it, but we saw him get hit. It was pretty dark but we saw some of the car. We saw someone get out.”

Joanie remembered the darkened parked car right before the accident. She leaned more on one elbow and pulled her other arm closer to her body to lessen the pain. “Why didn’t you do something?” she asked.

“How did we know what was goin’ down?” Bruno said. “The people whose money we had were already a little upset.”

“You knew then?” Joanie said. “You knew then it was me?”

He shook his head. “Not until I saw you again. Saw the two a you again. You’re not exactly fuckin’ archcriminals.”

He stood up and leaned the brass floor lamp at a forty-five-degree angle between the sofa and the floor. The neck of the lamp assembly was on the arm of the sofa. He kicked through it and the lamp part snapped off. He picked up what was left, the rod and base, and wrapped the electric cord around it. Her insides seized up and then released. “Why didn’t you do something then?” she whispered.

“Fuck you,” Bruno said.

He unscrewed the base and yanked the cord out of the rod. What was left in his hands was about three feet long and hollow and an inch thick.

“Now, what Joey’s up to, I don’t know,” he said. “He was up in Hartford with us, I know that. This I took to be a bad sign. But I’m in deep shit. You understand me? I’m up to my fucking ears.”

“We don’t have the money,” she said.

“Nobody else can have it, Joanie,” he said matter-of-factly. “Where else could it fuckin’ go?”

“Maybe it blew away,” she said. “Maybe the cops took it.”

He snorted.

“Think of it like having a overdue book out of the library,” he said. “Having a real expensive book out of the library. And a real cranky librarian.” He stood up. He hefted the brass rod. “Where is it?”

“We don’t know,” she said.

He brought the rod down on Todd’s backside. Todd howled.

“You son of a bitch,” she screamed. He stepped across Todd and put a foot on her bad shoulder and pinned her. The pain spiraled through her, and she saw lights.

He stood back off her shoulder. When she opened her eyes, Todd was on his side, curled and holding himself.

“What am I gonna do with you?” Bruno asked, like he was talking to a dog that was resisting being house-trained. “What am I gonna do?”

“I can’t believe you hit him like that,” she said. She was whimpering from the pain and the shock.

“Deal with it,” he said.

Rage flooded her and she thought, I’m not sitting still for this, goddamit, and she rocked forward. The pain was blinding. She got more upright, though.

“You think maybe now I should be convinced of your sincerity and I should just go away, maybe with a heartfelt apology. Right?” Bruno said. “Is that what you’d like?”

She looked at him with hatred and nodded.

“That’s very nice,” he said. “That’s nice to know. Now here’s some news for you: I give a fuck.”

“You son of a—” she said, and he hit her again, a baseball swing, in the ribs. He hit Todd across the thigh.

She thought, I have to kill him. He’s going to kill us.

“Ask yourself,” Bruno said. “Why did you do this? Say: why did I do this?”

“I’ll kill you,” she managed to say.

“You did it because it was me, didn’t you, Joanie? Because you had me so far on the fuckin’ hook. ‘What’s Bruno gonna do about it? The sappy fuck.’”

He hit her again.

She shook. She crossed her arms. She tasted blood in her mouth.

“Ah, you’re gonna go all the way to the end, aren’t you, Joanie? You’re gonna go down with me, aren’t you?” he said.

Joanie opened her eyes and could see he was leaning closer.

“Joanie remembers from Blessed Sacrament: martyrs get the crown,” he said. “All those saints, Joanie, huh? All they had to do was die.”

“Maybe he never had it,” she said.

He leaned even closer. He was only inches from her face. “We searched his house,” he whispered. “We searched everything.”

She closed her eyes and ground the back of her head into the rug. He had her bad arm. The pain was like someone sawing a wire through her shoulder socket.

“All that time,” Bruno said. “You know what I was waiting for? I was waiting for you to tell me the truth.”

He got closer still.

“What did you want from me?” he whispered. “What did you ever want from me?”

“Oh, God, oh, God,” she said.

“What you did to me,” he whispered. “After all I felt about you.” She saw tears in his eyes through her own. Todd was on his knees behind him and swung the champagne bottle by the neck, and the sound it made on Bruno’s temple was new, was nothing she’d heard before. He made a guttural noise, like a fishbone was caught back in his throat, and he went over. And she had the brass rod in her hands, and Todd had the bottle, and in agony and together they pulled themselves over him and fell on him, as if their retribution were absolution. As if for now it was the only grace imaginable.