watch made me look down at my wrist which Angela was trying to duct-tape to my other wrist. We both zeroed in on the watch at the same time and Angela ripped it off my arm.
Last year, she said, this would have been mine. Buddy would have bought it for me, so I’ll just take it now.
I saw this as an opportunity and gave her an elbow to the lip and a slap on the side of her head, right on her ear. I had nothing to lose. I had read about serial killers. Once they get you tied up, you’re done for. If only . . . Angela pulled back and punched me so hard that if I’d been a cartoon, the whole strip would have been nothing but stars.
When I opened my eyes again, Angela had taped my wrists together and tied me up. The rope was around my neck and connected to my duct-taped wrists, kind of a semi-hog-tie. A disgusting concept. I was hating Angela, not to mention Joey who was waving what I noticed was a very beautiful Beretta in my face. I recognized it as Buddy’s gun. It was a pocket pistol—used, unfortunately. Buddy was going to give it to me—for protection, he said when he showed it to me. The only reason I didn’t have it was that Buddy was waiting for a holster. Buddy liked everything just so.
Angela, I said, this is really stupid. What’s going on? What do you want? For Chrissakes, I’m marrying your brother in six weeks. Take this shit off me!
She looked at her watch—I mean, my watch that seemed now to be hers. We’ve got a lot of time, she said to Joey. Buddy doesn’t get home for hours.
There she was right. Buddy had two jobs, one at a restaurant and the other at a mob-owned nightclub somewhere in the Seventies in Manhattan where the boss had signed a half-dead Judy Garland while she was nodding off on pills. I was supposed to meet him at the restaurant for dinner but he didn’t get off for the night until 4:00 A.M., which was hours and hours away.
Can I put down this goddamn gun, Angela? Joey said. And can we get moving? Would you quit yapping?
OK, OK. I thought you were ready. You mixed the cement, no?
It’s not just the cement. I gotta move the rocks. They gotta fit. I want it to look nice.
I could feel the blood in the back of my throat; she must have broken my nose, the crazy bitch. I imagined the mouse starting under my eye.
You know we’re in Great Kills, she said to me. Great Kills, get it? You’re gonna be great killed. Angela thought this was hilarious.
I wasn’t feeling so cocky right about then, I have to admit. I thought I was better than Angela. I mean, comparing us was like apples and pears, but if you want to know the truth, while I appreciated her finer qualities, ultimately I did feel she was a creature below.
Angela, talk to me. Let’s figure this thing out, I said.
It’s easy, she said. You’re a college girl; you figure it out. But let me give you a hint. Buddy’s got everything here. We take care of each other. We’re family. He needs you like he needs a hole in the head. What’s he got to go to Manhattan for? You wanna take the kids away from me? I love those kids. They call me Mama. They hug me so tight sometimes I can’t breathe.
We can work something out, I told her. Maybe Buddy and I could live here. Maybe find a house nearby . . .
Buddy had hinted at this very plan and I had kiboshed it unequivocally. I’d lived in Rome and Paris and Bombay. I was going to live in Staten Island next to his sister?
You’re full of shit, Angela said. Buddy told me he asked you and you said no.
I didn’t. I never said no.
Buddy’s a liar?
No, he just doesn’t listen. You know, Angela, how he doesn’t listen. Think about it. It could be great, all of us together.
She looked at me. I sensed that Joey was feeling bad for me. His hand wasn’t shaking so much anymore. I willed him to put down the gun but he didn’t. He just wasn’t gripping it so tight that his hand shook.
Angela smiled. She was a beautiful girl. Black hair, skin like pearls dipped in milk. The first time I met her, she had on a one-shoulder dress and I swear I wanted to put my tongue against her skin and lick, it was that luscious.
I fell for that once, Angela said, with that other rat bastard. We were like sisters. Then look what I had to do. She took everything, but at least we got the kids. Joey and I took care of her, didn’t we, Joey? But just my luck, we get rid of one son-of-a-bitch and Buddy finds another. He’s a real pain in my ass sometimes, my brother.
Angela, be honest, Buddy’s only here with you because—
Because what?
She didn’t look so beautiful right now. I shut my mouth.
Because he had nowhere else to go, I wanted to say.
Buddy’s mother always said she was sorry she gave up the tenement apartment on Spring Street. She didn’t call it a tenement, though. She called it her “nice apartment.” From Buddy I knew it was three rooms in the back, facing the alley, tub in the kitchen, and everyone waiting in the hallway when one of them took a bath on Saturdays. Tenements weren’t Buddy’s style and neither was Florence Street, from what I could see. There were more trees on Spring Street.
Joey had been “fixing up” the house on Florence Street ever since he’d gotten out. Joey was handy, he had what they called “hands of gold,” which he seemed to use for ripping things out and never putting them back in, the bathroom on the second floor, for instance. We’re getting a new bathroom, Angela had told me, but they’d been using the one in the basement for three years while Joey moved on to other projects, such as busting up the stairs so everyone had to walk up on a wooden ramp like the cart horses in the stable on Thompson Street.
And then there was Joey’s wall. The first time Buddy took me to Florence Street, Joey was in the front yard mixing cement. There were piles of boulders, different sizes, and Joey was using them to build a wall. The kids were carrying over the smaller ones and Joey was fitting them on top of one another and side by side and cementing them in place. The wall belonged on an English country estate. The wall belonged on meadows and hills and dales. The wall was beautiful and ridiculous. The house was small and ugly and sat on a small and ugly lot, and then all around it, not more than ten feet out, was this magnificent stone wall that each time I visited got higher and higher, until it was starting to look like a rampart. Buddy laughed about it. He called it Joey’s therapy. But I have to be honest, it gave me the creeps.
I’m tired of talking, Angela said to me. Get out of the car.
No, no. Leave her in the car until I’m ready, Joey said.
We can’t leave her in the car. We’ll put her in the basement while you set things up.
The basement? Did you ever carry dead weight up stairs? Joey said. I’m no Hercules and for sure, she ain’t no lightweight.
I let the insult pass. I’m always surprised when people say mean things about me. As I said, I was always thinking people liked me when they really didn’t give a shit. But all that aside, what the hell were they talking about?
I pulled at my wrists, but when I did, the rope tightened around my neck. I was afraid I would pee myself. I thought I’d bring up using the bathroom but I wanted to wait for the right time. Maybe I could get away then, make a noise, maybe I
