Angel Colón: No Happy Endings

There was a knock on the door. Pete had a knack for knowing when to bother her. “Yeah?” she called out.

“You sober?”

“Mostly, why?” she figured that was true enough. Fantine could handle herself for at least four beers. Anything over that—or if shots got involved—and she was too far off the rails.

“Mind opening the door?”

Fantine stood. Stared at the door. “Is there a speech waiting for me?”

“You won’t find out until you actually open the door.” There was a smile in his voice.

That gave Fantine some hope that their discussion wouldn’t be too awkward. She walked over and unlocked the door. Turned and collapsed onto her bed. “Come on in.”

Pete walked in. “I called my dad.”

Fantine sat up. “Holy shit, Pete. He threatened my dad. Did you tell him I told you?”

Pete raised a hand up. “Look man, I had to know how he found you. It’s not fair to you or,”—he pointed at an empty beer can—“your general health. What he did was fucking uncalled for.” Pete sat on a chair and scooped up a lock. “Apparently the psycho has me watched from time to time.”

“What for?”

Pete shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe he thinks I hang out with cops or that my mom’s convinced me to start talking to the wrong people because the alimony checks aren’t big enough. Does it matter?”

“It matters when he starts going after my father.” Fantine sighed. “I thought this was done when they locked me up. All of it.”

“It was.”

“And now I’m getting sucked into it again. I haven’t done a B&E in how long now? Fuck’s sake, I got lucky with Empire. I can’t do serious time.” Fantine wanted to pout, to cross her arms over her chest and feel sorry. In the back of her mind, though, she knew her luck wouldn’t last long. Sooner or later, something was going to catch up to her. Her mother always told her the business of stealing had a single absolute: nobody got away with it forever. Even if they quit while they were ahead. “And beyond the sword over my father’s head, Aleksei knows enough to do as bad to me.”

Pete leaned over. Stared at the lock in his hand. “If that’s the case, I don’t know if there’s a choice here, Fan.”

She stared at him. Felt her jaw go loose. “I thought you said you spoke to him.”

Pete sighed. “I did. And there’s no convincing him. Apparently there’s too much money involved for him to think straight.” He shook his head. Dropped the lock back onto Fantine’s desk. “You know how he gets. Shit, he nearly killed your mom when she walked away from him.”

“Then we go to the cops” Fantine stood up. Scrambled to get her shoes on. “They’d understand that I’m fresh off parole. I’ve got something lose.”

Pete scoffed. “Be a fucking rat, dude? Then what? You get killed? Your father? Hell, my mother—even me?” Pete straightened up. “And don’t buy into anyone believing you’re redeemed, especially a cop. You’ve done time, you’re fucking trash to them, no matter how young and pretty.” He dragged a foot along the carpet. “Besides, it’s not like you have knowledge about my dad’s comings and goings.”

He had her there. Fantine frowned and let her arms drop to her sides. “You’re right. There’s nothing.” She snatched her jacket from the floor. “I need to take a walk. Think about all of this.”

“Are you gonna do it?” Pete watched her.

“I have no idea. I don’t even know for sure what Aleksei wants.” Fantine walked out of her room.

Pete followed. “You want some company?”

“Not really.” Fantine opened the apartment door and turned. “Maybe I’ll stay scarce for a while. Check into a motel while this all gets worked out.”

“Look, man, you can stay in your own home, I wasn’t trying to scare you or…”

“It’s not that,” Fantine cut him off, “I don’t know. I need to know that this whole thing isn’t omnipresent.” She threw her hands in the air. “Go on and give the asshole my number then. Tell him to call me when he has, you know, something real to talk about instead of shitting on my life.” She walked out.

Pete called after her, but she ignored him. Fantine didn’t have it in her to continue the talk. It would devolve. She would get mean—she always did—and then there would be even more drama. There was a time she didn’t mind that, but these days she didn’t have the stomach for it.

Three blocks away from her apartment, Fantine’s phone rang.

“I am glad you are agreeable.” Aleksei sounded pleased with himself—all cat that got the canary.

“When do we discuss logistics?” Fantine felt her cheeks flush. This turn around made her wonder how honest Pete was being with her. Who was she kidding? She got played—again. And here she was feeling bad for making Pete deal with her drama. He was conning her. She wondered how much of that had to do with hard feelings over wanting to remain only friends. Fantine wanted to think better of Pete, but for him to be working an angle with Aleksei, well, there’d be few ways for her to think worse of him.

Aleksei snorted. “Logistics, very professional. I will text you address, okay?”

“Yeah, fine—beautiful.” Fantine disconnected the call.

Pete was honest about one thing, there were no choices here. Fantine wanted to march back upstairs and break his nose, but that would be a small moment of happiness. No, she’d take care of business, get her cut, and then move on with Jae. Her father would fight against moving tooth and nail, but she was sure she could convince him to go someplace warmer. He’d been complaining about the weather all last winter either way. There was an opportunity here. She only needed to keep her mind on that and she could get past this mess quick and easy.

As for Aleksei, he would have her services—fine—but he sure as hell wasn’t going to have her full cooperation. The man wanted her mother? Then that’s exactly what he would get—a professional pain in the ass.

Fantine stared at the address on her phone. Then she looked up to the large sign in front of the building with the same address. EVENSIGHT STORAGE, it read. She turned around and tried to spot Aleksei or the twins. There were only milling commuters, cars, buses, and cabs going to their destinations. She could see the entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. There was no sign of her employer or any other sites that shared the address provided.

“Okay,” Fan told herself as she walked up the steps and through the revolving door. Maybe she was still too tired—it wasn’t even seven in the morning. She imagined Aleksei losing his temper because he intended she meet him at some unmarked shit-hole that served greasy pancakes or whatever the hell a man like him would eat. Blintzes , she thought to herself, Russians eat blintzes — maybe . She pondered whether she was racist to believe Aleksei gorged on blintzes regularly as she pushed the revolving door to enter the building.

Inside smelled the way an emergency room did. There were rows of yellow and orange chairs arranged in rows of five that stretched down the large space and petered out near a reception desk staffed by two male nurses. A linoleum floor that put no effort into looking like the marble it was intended to be a facsimile of. There were posters all over with smiling, variously ethnic faces with the company’s logo. Not a damn thing indicated what the exact purpose of Evensight Storage was. Nothing looked to be stored here. The place reminded her of the free clinic her mom would take her to whenever she had a late night fever. Sudden memories of painful penicillin shots filled her mind and she absent-mindedly rubbed her right bicep.