Tim Green - Exact Revenge

I put my hand on Andre’s shoulder.

“Come on,” I say, and before I can blink, his Colt.45 is cocked and in my face.

“You don’t touch me, you fucking bookworm,” he says. “Not ever.”

“Then come on,” I say, not letting go.

The girl wrestles free and scampers into the bedroom, where she slams the door shut. Andre gives me a twisted smile.

“You just get your ass outside and wait for me to finish up in here,” he says, “or Bert’s gonna be cleaning your brains up off that wall with a paper towel.”

My eyes don’t waver and I say, “Go ahead. You’ll be saving me and a lot of other people a whole hell of a lot of trouble. We got what we came for.”

“Bang!” Andre yells, jerking the gun.

I just stare, and he begins to laugh and pats me on the back. To Bert he says, “You got a real loon here, you know that? I hope you lock loon-man in his room at night.”

We leave together with the money and Andre’s arm around my shoulder. After that, Bonaparte starts sending Bert and me out alone. Andre seems to behave himself whenever we’re together, but I still don’t trust him and I can’t help the feeling that one day, when my guard is down, he’s going to do me some harm.

THE SUN HAD ALREADY GONE DOWN. Outside, the muffled sound of taxi horns and truck brakes moved along Park Avenue. Lexis stood in the darkness. Only the vaguest shapes of the painting in front of her could be discerned now. When she first went into her trance there was enough light to see. She heard her name being shouted from somewhere deep inside their apartment. She set her brush down on the palette and placed both on the small table where she kept her paints.

She finished off the half-empty glass of chardonnay before shedding her smock and brushing off the front of her sweater. In the front hall, Frank was waiting, holding open her three-quarter-length mink coat.

“Frank,” she said. “It’s a football game.”

“Will you hurry up?” he said, shaking the coat.

He smelled strongly of Cool Water cologne, and the milky soft black leather of his coat matched the color of his belt and shoes. His silk shirt and wool slacks were also black. On his wrist was a big gold Rolex studded with diamonds. On his pinky was a three-karat gold diamond ring.

“Where’s your wedding band?” Frank said with a scowl, lifting her hand as she pushed it through the fur sleeve.

“Here,” she said, spreading her fingers so he could see the thin platinum band.

“Go get your good one,” he said, pointing his finger. The heavy slabs of his cheeks were turning red. She could see the top of his head as he looked down at her feet, and a small bald spot beneath that curly black-and-white hair.

“Frank,” she said. “It’s a football game.”

“It’s our championship game and people will be there, goddamn it,” he said, still looking down, his lips pressed tight after the words were out. “I don’t buy you that stuff to sit in a drawer.”

Lexis turned and hurried down the long hallway. She walked through the broad double doors and into her closet. At the far end was her jewelry drawer. She found the ring quickly, and without bothering to lock the drawer, she hurried out of the bedroom and back down the hall, stopping in the kitchen for a quick glass of wine.

“Got it,” she said, splaying her fingers for Frank as she walked into the rotunda entryway of their apartment.

Frank only huffed and opened the door for her. The white-gloved elevator man was waiting. Outside, their long black limo was idling at the curb. Frank wedged his massive frame into the backseat and the doorman handed Lexis in after him. The glass partition was up. That’s the way Frank liked it, and he picked up the phone to tell Duvall to hurry up because Lexis had made them late.

“Again,” he said, frowning at her.

“Pour me one of those, would you, Frank?” she said. “You’d think you were playing tonight.”

Frank poured two fingers of bourbon from the crystal decanter and handed her the Baccarat glass.

“It is like I am playing,” he said, pouring himself a glass. “If he didn’t remind me so goddamn much of myself, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way. But shit, every scout from Syracuse to Alabama is going to be there.”

“He seemed calm enough,” Lexis said, feeling the warmth of the liquor spread through her. The car turned onto the West Side Highway. Ships moving up the river appeared in the dark. Lights from New Jersey twinkled on the other side. Ahead, the George Washington Bridge spanned the night, illuminated by hundreds of blue-white lights and pulsing with the flow of red taillights.

“He hides it,” he said. “Like I do. He’s nervous, though. I can see it. It’s a guy thing.”

Frank picked up the phone. “Pass that guy, goddamn it, Duvall. I told you to hurry.”

The limo surged ahead, swerving in and out of the traffic. Someone blared his horn. Lexis held out her empty glass. Frank pulled down the corners of his mouth.

“Afraid I’ll embarrass you?” Lexis said, shaking the glass.

Frank puckered his lips and poured another. “Embarrass” was a hot button. A word she would fire at him from time to time that reminded them both of the day she caught him cheating dead to rights. The day he promised to kill her if she ever tried to leave him and take his son.

Frank loved to pretend to the world that all was well in the Steffano household. He hated to be reminded that it was all a façade. She couldn’t always push that button, but on a night like tonight, this close to game time and all the people, she knew she had the upper hand.

She smiled to herself and backed into the corner of the car, sipping from her drink with both hands. Frank took out his cell phone and called one of his friends, confirming a business meeting for later.

Theirs wasn’t the only limo pulling up to the big game at Riverdale Country, but it was the only one Lexis saw with chrome tire rims that matched the grille. The air was crisp and a breeze wafted up from the Hudson River and across Bertino Field. The bleachers were already filled and buzzing under the lights. They walked across the grass and along the track. The team was warming up. Frank walked through a small opening in the fence and right up to the edge of the playing field where the referees were conferring.

“Allen Francis,” he yelled, cupping his hands. “Go kick their goddamn ass, son!”

Allen looked at his father, then dipped his face mask down to his knee, intent on his stretching. Frank strode back toward the track pumping his clenched fist, his face a beaming smile.

A man in a brown suede coat with his arm around his wife walked past looking. Under his breath, he said, “What an asshole.”

“That Allen’s such a good kid,” the wife said, shaking her head.

“Nothing like the old man,” said the husband.

Lexis jammed her hands into her coat pockets and turned her head.

Frank returned with a flushed face and said, “He’s ready now.”

He led Lexis up to the top row and told some older people to squeeze down for the quarterback’s parents.

“Frank,” Lexis said.

Too loud, he said, “What? These snooty old farts wouldn’t even be in the championship if it weren’t for my boy. They can slide their skinny asses right down.”

Lexis clamped her lips tight and angled her face away. Frank began to scour the crowd for college scouts with his binoculars. Lexis was thinking that at the quarter break she could get a quick one back at the car.

“There,” Frank said, still loud, grabbing her arm and pointing. “That’s the guy from Syracuse. There’s the one from Penn State over there.”