Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk Read online

  Often she had said to me, “What you listen to Monty’s bullshit stories for, anyways?” Gina was the Property of T.J.; constantly wondering and worrying over which part T.J. would lose next had created the permanent affectation of batting eyelids.

  “Hey, Gina,” I said—after all she had seen me at the counter of Monty’s often enough, so I thought I might attempt a conversation—“I don’t particularly want to be at a personal meeting of the Property. It ain’t got nothing to do with me.”

  Gina gazed at me as though for the first time. “So, don’t listen,” she said. That I could have told myself.

  Did I want to know the details of Irene’s abortion? Did I care about the Property of the Pack? The others, whose names I was learning—Black Susan, Marie, and Kind, the quietest of the Property who had a particular smile when she looked at McKay—did I want to overhear their personal conversations and give them just cause to later punch my heart out? So, I blocked it all out with pages and photographs from Rona Barrett’s Hollywood.

  After some time, I noticed that only a few of the Property remained in the basement. Even Leona was now gone, and Starry, Gina, Irene, and I were quiet, and waiting. Starry sat down on a cushion and listened to me rustle the columns of gossip.

  “I have to do that,” said Starry.

  “Do what?” I asked. I wasn’t about to make anything that sounded like an apology easy for her.

  “I’m really too short to be in charge of the Property,” Starry said. She opened a new bottle of tequila. “Hell, anyone in this room could take me, easy. So I put some meanness in my style. You understand, it’s nothing personal.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It all has to do with height.” She nodded.

  What good would it do me not to understand Starry’s words? “Sure,” I said. “Nothing personal.”

  “If you want to be with McKay, that’s cool with me. Even if you are a nobody.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Now, some will have you understand, seeing how I’m the Number One Property, that there’s something between McKay and me. Bullshit. It’s only that we’re both the best. When Cantinni was wasted, McKay was voted in. When Wanda split, I got voted in. Now, if you want to keep your eyes open,” Starry said, “you look out for Leona and Kind. They’re the bitches. And Kind’s got her eye on the Number One slot, no matter what she got to do to get it.”

  Starry needn’t have wasted her campaign speech on me: I wasn’t about to become involved in the politics of the Property. I had noticed Kind’s green eyes on McKay, but she had been a shadow to me then, and as long as McKay didn’t look back, she would remain a shadow.

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  “It ain’t really advice,” Starry said. “It’s more like a warning. See, McKay is gonna make you cry. But since somebody will, it might as well be McKay. At least he looks good.” Starry winked.

  “I’ll remember that,” I said. “And you remember that I’m not Leona, and I’m not Kind, and I’m not aiming to be the Number One Property. The truth is, I don’t give a shit about the Property.”

  “You’re only interested in McKay.”

  I believed I could see the beginnings of an understanding. “Only McKay,” I said, and Starry nodded.

  So we waited in the clubhouse and the hour grew later. The moon was falling, and the Night of the Wolf was outside the door. We knew this and we pretended not to know. I turned page after page of the magazine, Irene and Gina traded jokes, and Starry sat with her knees drawn up tightly, sipping tequila and staring into the air. Gina and I waited for particular Orphans, Irene for any Orphan. But Starry should have been out there in the Avenue. I could see from the white of her clenched fist that she waited to hear details of a battle she should have been a part of. She would fight to stay Number One Property, but she would have fought still harder out there on the street where she belonged.

  Outside we could hear the screeching of tires. Perhaps because of the whiskey I had drunk, perhaps because of the lateness of the hour, I had fallen into a restless sleep. I dreamed for a while, and somewhere in that dream I heard the door of the clubhouse open and clatter against the stone wall of the basement.

  “Get the door!” Starry screamed. But it was too late, as it always is by the time a forgotten lock is remembered. I awoke to see the Pack walking down the stairs of the Orphans’ clubhouse. I awoke cursing that fool, Danny the Sweet, for having brought me into the Night of the Wolf.

  “Get them out!” shouted Starry. But who was there to do that? Irene had sipped too many whiskey sours, eaten too many sandwiches to do anything but wail. Me? This was none of my business. Sure I was on the Orphans’ side, but I also had nothing against the Pack.

  There were only five of them. Although I had never before seen him, I could tell Kid Harris was among them. I hadn’t expected this. I lit a cigarette—what else was there to do? Starry rushed the Pack and was thrown against the wall easily by one of Kid Harris’s gloved hands. I decided to smoke my Marlboro and wait and see what happened. There’s a time to make a move, and there’s a time not to. Starry stood against the wall, hand on her hip, and she too lit a cigarette.

  One of the Pack shut the door of the clubhouse and we could hear the click as the lock was bolted.

  “Howdy,” said Kid Harris. The enemy of the Orphans stood before us in black leather and boots with his red hair long on the shoulders of a pink shirt. I agreed with Starry’s sentiment as she spat on the floor of the basement, inches away from the Kid’s boot. His black-and-pink wardrobe, his use of the friendly Western vernacular, and the sneer on his face were all repulsive.

  “Do that again and I’ll break your head,” Kid Harris told Starry. Now that I was completely awake, and as Starry sat down heavily on an orange crate, I could see blood on Kid Harris’s face and marks of battle on the others. Yes, surely the Pack and the Orphans had already met. The knife wound on Kid Harris’s face was fresh and he held a handkerchief to the gash. “See this?” he said to me.

  “How can I help but see it?” I said.

  Kid Harris raised his arm in the air. When he brought his hand down before my face, a knife had been clicked open.

  “See this?” Kid Harris grinned.

  I nodded.

  “The Dolphin’s gone and cut one too many tonight,” he said.

  I nodded. And I agreed.

  “Someone’s gonna have to pay for this.” Kid Harris touched his face. “I won’t take the blame for the death of Cantinni that happened years ago. I won’t be the target of the Dolphin’s vendetta. Someone will pay.”

  “Ah,” said Starry, “you was so pretty before, and now you is ruined.” She laughed loudly.

  Irene and Gina looked with widening eyes at Starry as she continued to laugh at Kid Harris. The girl was tough, but why bother? There was no defense against the Pack, and anyway, Harris was after the Dolphin. No need to protect the Dolphin; that was how I saw it. But I knew Starry saw it differently. She had a responsibility to the Orphans.

  “So that’s the way you want it,” Kid Harris said.

  “Man, I wouldn’t want it any way, not from you,” said Starry.

  Kid Harris walked to Starry, looked down at her, and hit her in the face with his fist. None of the Pack moved. I could hear something like a cry escape from Gina. Starry had known what would happen. She was ready, and had been quietly waiting for the force of Harris’s fist.

  I was not. I began to think—if she lost any teeth, who would pay? The Dolphin? McKay? X rays would be expensive, caps even more so. Starry only looked up at Kid Harris, the blood trickling from her mouth. She didn’t move. Maybe she swayed just a little, but she held herself straight and stared into the face of Kid Harris.

  I picked up the bottle of tequila and stood.

  “Bastard!” I cried and smashed the bottle on the wood of a chair. I was beside myself now. Look, I had never before seen anyone hit a girl as small as Starry. “How many more scars can fit on your fac
e?” I said. Where was I finding these words?

  “None that you’ll put there.” Kid Harris had turned to face me, and he laughed.

  “I’ll cut you,” I said as Kid Harris walked toward me.

  “You won’t,” said Kid Harris.

  Whether or not I would did not matter. I knew this when I looked down. The bottle was not the jagged and murderous weapon I had intended, for the glass had merely splintered, leaving me holding nothing but glass fragments and streaming blood on the palm of my hand.

  Now I began to laugh. My palm with blood running across the lifeline. Me, here in the clubhouse of the Orphans, avenging Starry because of her height, defending myself with splinters of glass. Me: the antagonist of Kid Harris. I couldn’t help it, I laughed in the Kid’s face.

  It was then that he hit me. I fell onto the floor, the cement was cold against my back. Looking up I could see only the smile on Kid Harris’s face as he raised his arm. And I wondered if the knife was in his hand, if he had tired of waiting for the Dolphin and had decided to substitute my face for the Dolphin’s.

  I was not afraid. If anything, I was curious. Would he cut me? Wouldn’t he? Would I cry out? What had the death of Alf Cantinni, a name whose face I had never known, to do with me? What had any of this to do with me?

  “Starry!” A voice called from outside the clubhouse door. Harris stopped his hand in mid-air; the Pack stood at attention.

  “Starry, honey, you in there?” said the voice.

  Kid Harris nodded at Starry. “Who is it?” he whispered.

  “Jose,” said Starry. “Only Jose. I was supposed to wait for him.” But the voice outside the door did not sound like the voice of Jose.

  One of the Pack walked to open the door on a signal from Harris. “Don’t,” said Starry. “Don’t open the door.”

  Harris only smiled and walked away from me to pick up an unopened bottle of liquor from the floor. “We’ll see one Orphan dance now,” he whispered.

  One of the Pack opened the door and cold air rushed into the clubhouse. I arched my back, leaned on my elbows, and realized, perhaps at the same time as Kid Harris, that Starry was never supposed to meet up with Jose. Starry was grinning and Kid Harris turned on his heel.

  “Keep the door locked,” he shouted. But it was too late. Jose would not be at that door alone. And it was too late.

  Not Jose, but McKay stood in the doorway.

  “So, we find the Wolf twice on one night,” said McKay.

  I tell you this was it. If I wasn’t sold on McKay before, I was now.

  The Dolphin now stood beside McKay, and never could I have imagined greeting the Dolphin’s presence with a smile, with a sigh. The Orphans, in full colors and in silence, waited behind the Dolphin and McKay. The Pack edged away and looked nervously toward Kid Harris for an order, any order. No, this was not their night.

  “It’s only fair,” said Kid Harris. “You know what’s honorable, McKay.”

  “Honor?” said McKay. “Is it honor I find when I walk into the Orphans’ clubhouse and find the Pack? When I find the Pack in my territory? Is it honor I find when I see that?”

  I turned to see where McKay pointed. But he pointed at me, and I remembered the cold of the floor and I rose to sit near Irene and Gina.

  “Why,” said McKay, “was she on the floor?”

  “You talk!” said Kid Harris. “The Orphans fight like rats in the sewer, come to our territory to do destruction, take down Ralph when he ain’t prepared—what do you expect? A thankyou card?” Kid Harris rubbed at his face. “And this,” he said, stroking his wounded face, and looking at the Dolphin, “this I won’t forget soon.”

  The Dolphin smiled. “You weren’t supposed to forget,” he said. “No, indeed. You were not supposed to forget.”

  I could see Danny the Sweet now, and Jose. Two or three of the Orphans were missing; it had been a hard Night of the Wolf. Outside, morning noises were beginning on the Avenue. The cover of darkness was lifting and the Night of the Wolf was almost yesterday. Almost.

  “Enough for one night,” said McKay. “For a man without honor we got pity.” McKay smiled.

  “Fuck your pity.” Kid Harris tried to smile as calmly as McKay did.

  “Pity for defeat,” whispered McKay. The Orphans laughed. “Pity for the Pack who are only good for fighting with the Property.”

  “I got mine tonight,” said the Dolphin. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into Harris’s face. “I can get the rest of him some other night. When he don’t expect it.”

  “I have no pity,” said Starry. And she walked toward the Dolphin and McKay. McKay nodded when he saw the blood on Starry’s face; one of her bottom teeth had been knocked out and her nose dripped blood. McKay removed his motorcycle goggles; he touched his hand to Starry’s cheek.

  “Yes,” he said. For an instant his eyes found mine. “Yes,” said McKay again.

  Tosh and another Orphan guided Harris to the wall of the clubhouse. Harris stood with legs apart and hands up against the stone of the wall.

  “The Night of the Wolf is over,” called out one of the Pack.

  “Not for me,” said Starry. She stood close to Harris and then she picked up a wooden footstool and handed it to McKay. McKay nodded, and waited for Starry to leave the basement. When she had shut the door behind her, McKay walked toward Harris.

  “Brother Wolf,” McKay said. “You’ll touch no one with those hands when I’m through.”

  McKay raised the stool and brought it down on Harris’s hand. Again. And again. Tosh held the hand against the cement and Harris cried out in anger and then in pain as the bones broke under McKay’s hammering. Now Tosh held Harris’s other hand against the wall. I had to look away.

  Danny the Sweet found me. He placed his arm around my shoulder and produced a Milky Way and a Kleenex.

  “Hey, Sweet,” I whispered; and I leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” said Danny.

  “I’m not,” I said, and I touched his face where it had been bruised under the eye. “I’m really not,” I told him. It was true, whatever I was, sorry wasn’t part of it.

  You see, I was waiting for McKay.

  TWO

  UNDER THE SPELL

  1

  I knew no chants, no charms, no words of love. So what could I do? There was the chance that McKay might not even remember my face. What then? I wasn’t one to take chances, to take risks. I knew only what words could often cast the most effective spell, but which words to work on McKay? I wasn’t sure.

  McKay drank coffee, and the window of the clubhouse had been unshuttered so that the morning light fell across him like bars. Few Orphans had left the clubhouse. Figures moved upon the mattress, and shadows talked quietly in the corners of the room. Danny the Sweet snored for a while, his head resting on my knee, and then he slept deeply and soundlessly. I had waited for that, and I slipped a cushion under the Sweet’s head before I stood and walked toward McKay.

  It was still early morning, not more than seven, yet it seemed hours ago that Kid Harris and his Pack had been escorted from the basement to be dropped off on some dawn-dark corner of the Avenue. After Irene had painted the cuts on my palms with iodine, I had slept, while the private council of McKay and his soldiers—the Dolphin, Tosh, and Jose—whispered in the darkness of the threat of retaliation. I found I cared less about sounds out there on the Avenue. Kid Harris’s slap had made me a quick convert to the Orphans’ regiment, and I cared for nothing that existed outside the walls of the clubhouse.

  But now I needed some words, some potion, some magic that would affect McKay. I walked to where McKay sat. He was alone and quiet and watching the dance of last night’s street in the air before him.

  “I know better now,” I said.

  My words brought McKay back from the streets of last night, and he smiled.

  “Meaning what?” he asked. His voice was softer than it had been last night, but the smile was the same.

  �
�Meaning, I know not to ask if you’re sure you’ll be back.”

  I had wanted those words to flatter McKay. But the grin on his face made it clear he thought I was stating the obvious, that I had merely wised up and seen the light of his truth.

  “I don’t exaggerate, if it can be helped,” he said.

  “I see.” I watched McKay as he watched me, grinning with enjoyment at seeing me wordless. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was McKay not telling me how wonderful I was to stand up to Kid Harris, more likely I was angry at not knowing the words I needed. Whatever it was, I had had it with the Orphans, with the smoke that filled the room, with McKay. I had had it with waiting for McKay.

  “To hell with you,” I told him.

  McKay sipped coffee. The lines of laughter were at the corners of his eyes.

  “Did you hear me?” I said.

  “I heard you all right,” McKay said, and he offered me a cigarette.

  “Did you know,” I said as I accepted a light for the cigarette, “that I was on the floor last night when you walked in because I was fucking Kid Harris?”

  The lines around McKay’s eyes deepened. I could tell he was hiding his grin within the coffee cup.

  “And that I liked it?” I said. “And that I told him he was much better than any Orphan could be?”

  “You told him that?” McKay smiled.

  I was silent. We stared at each other. “There is no way to get you angry, is there?” I said.

  “There is, darling,” said McKay.

  I doubted that. How could he, the President of the Orphans, let me talk such trash to him? Furthermore, what the hell did he care, anyway?

  “Really?” I said. “What? You tell me what would get you angry.”

  “Try leaving,” said McKay.

  I didn’t believe that one for a minute. “Leaving?” I said.

  “That’s right,” McKay said.

  All right, then. I walked to the door, and I didn’t hear McKay’s angry shouts. I opened the door, and there was no maddened rage. I walked out of the clubhouse and into the street.