1
Stefano
It’s the voices of those we love that rise to the forefront of our thoughts when facing those questionable moments in life. You know, the kind when it’s all or nothing. The kind that would have you sinking to the bottom of the Hudson River with concrete bricks strapped to your ankles should you get caught. And although she’s just passed, rest her soul, I still feel my wife’s disappointment, miss it, even. She was good like that, my Sally—always knew how to guide me. When to slap me across the head or to hold my hand when things got bad. My daughter’s too, poor kid. God, we miss her. I just can’t do it anymore, not without my wife.
Watching the arrows continuously loop around the dollar sign on the computer screen, telling me that the near fortune I’m stealing from the Moretti family is in process, is either the scariest experience of my life or the most enthralling. I look around to my small office—to the books, pictures, and documents that I’ll be leaving behind. No need for them anymore. It was all bullshit, anyway. I should have known better. Of course, being an accountant in this neighborhood makes you an easy target for those thugs, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Before they muscled in, forced me to clean their books, I was doing good, honest work. It’s easy to go to bed at night knowing that you spent your day helping good people running decent businesses, like Sal down at the corner of 45th Street and 11th Ave. Before I offered to take a look at his finances, he was looking at a whole heap of shit with the IRS—hell, he was ready to close up shop. Now, after I got his paperwork in order, his sandwich shop is not only making a profit but offers the best meatball sub in the whole of Manhattan. Yeah, life was good for a while. When my daughter Mia came along, words couldn’t describe that kind of joy. Joy that would slowly be squeezed into a pulp when the Moretti’s boys paid me a visit. What was I supposed to do? Sally was already sick, Mia barely crawling. I couldn’t risk their safety. So, I let a few years pass. Let them think that they have me in their pocket, trusting me with all their books. Meanwhile, I knew that I had to get us out of the city.
I take the picture of Sally from my desk, that’s something I can take with us. When she finally lost her fight with cancer in the Autumn of last year, I knew there was no other way. Mia doesn’t deserve that kind of life. We always dreamed of living in a quiet town somewhere. Open a little bookshop, buy one of those houses with a wooden fence and a mailbox out the front. Yeah, it won’t be the same without her, but at least Mia can have a chance at a life we didn’t get to have.
My computer shoots out a sharp beep letting me know that the transaction has been completed. The account is registered to a shell company out of the Cayman Islands. By the time I get it back to a live account, it would have passed through so many fake businesses that it’ll take them years to sniff out any kind of trail. Hell, they won’t even see the money gone until a week from now. I leave my office untouched. In my apartment, however, I’ve already packed our bags—essentials only.
I close up as normal and head home. I give the nanny a big tip; she doesn’t know it’s the last time she’ll see me or Mia.
“She was an angel,” the nanny tells me. “After we colored her homework, she helped me to peel the potatoes and season the meat. She ate all her dinner. We played UNO for half an hour, then she went to bed.”
“Thank you,” I reply and wait until she puts on her coat before I hold the front door open for her.
“It’s always a pleasure, Mr. Gallo,” she smiles, then leaves the apartment for the last time.
Apart from the muffled sounds of traffic from the street outside, my apartment is dead quiet, so much so that I can hear my own heartbeat.
“I guess this is it,” I tell myself. Before I wake up Mia, I place our bags in the car then head to her room. I can’t help but pause at the doorway, watch as her chest moves up and down, her sweet breaths filling the room. Sally chose lilac as the color for the walls. Even the furniture choices were made by her. Yeah, the neighborhood may have gone to shit, but this place still has Sally’s essence running through it. I didn’t think it would be this hard, but there’s no going back now. For the new house, I guess I’ll have to do all the decorating.
I stroke Mia’s face. “Wake up baby girl. We’re going on a trip.”
She opens one eye, then slowly sits up. “Is it time for school?”
A feeling of guilt runs through my chest. “No, Mia, it’s not time for school. We’re going on a trip, but we have to leave now, otherwise, we’ll get caught up in traffic.”
“Trip?” Her eyes are puffy, her expression confused. I sit next to her on the edge of the bed.
“It’s a surprise,” I say, “we’re going on holiday.”
“We are?”
“Yes.” I pick up her stuffed elephant from the pillow next to hers and place it in her arms. “Take Ellie and put on your clothes. Look, I have them ready for you on the dresser.”
I watch as she takes her stuffed toy to the dresser and starts to get ready. I have to remind myself that it’s for the best, and it is. There’s no other way—I mean who else knows of an accountant for the family that’s managed to have a blissful retirement and die of old age? Not me. I know how things go, and the only direction my life is heading is one of being used until I’m no longer needed. Then they throw you out like a piece of trash, like all the other bodies. Mia’s already lost enough, and I can’t bear to see her suffer any more loss.
I place a pillow by Mia’s side in the back seat of the car.
“You can close your eyes if you want. By the time you wake up, we’ll almost be there,” I tell her. In the rear-view mirror, I watch her doze off, she’s holding Ellie the elephant tight. At least she’s young enough to still find comfort in her toys. If she was older there would be far more questions, a lot more persuading. And as she sleeps, I can admit to myself that I’m a nervous wreck—always checking the road behind, each set of new headlights convincing me that we’re being followed, and I’d be foolish to think that that wasn’t a possibility. Lorenzo Moretti, after all, is as clever as he is cruel. There’s a good reason why he’s the head of New York’s most feared family. It’s only as we exit the city and drive along the empty roads that lead to the less populated parts of the state that I start to believe that we have a chance at starting over again.
“Will Miss Sanderson be mad that I didn’t turn my homework in?” Mia asks me as we sit on one of the tables by the window of a truck stop. She takes a bite out of her bacon sandwich and then slurps from her coke. It’s morning and the sun’s starting to show itself from above the trees that line the road opposite.
“No,” I answer. I’m looking out to the car park, watching a man with a baseball cap and beer belly pull himself up and into the cabin of his truck in a way that seemed to cost him a great deal of effort. I’m not looking at my daughter because everything I’m saying to her is a lie. “I called Miss Sanderson and told her that we’re going on a trip.”
Mia shifts one of her eyebrows up. “You did?”
“Yeah, and she said that we shouldn’t worry. You can hand it in when we get back.” I sip my coffee, hoping that she doesn’t continue to ask questions.
“Okay,” she answers, then spends the next ten minutes telling me about how one of the boys in her class had started to tease all the other kids. He even spit his gum at Mia in class. Her best friend Anna told her it’s because the boy likes her. “If he likes me, then why can’t he just be nice? Why does he tease me, always shouting Mia, Mia’s pizzeria, giving everyone diarrhea?”
My first reaction is to tell her that all boys are assholes, that she should stay away from them as long as she can. Then I reconsider, figuring that a response like that—without the profanity, of course—would just cause her to ask more questions. Plus, it’s not how her mother would have handled things. In fact, Sally would have probably brought up a moment when I had done something just as stupid. We were high school sweethearts, so she had her fair share of dirt on me.
Or at least she used to.
“Boys do silly things,” I reply, “especially in front of girls they like.” To my relief, Mia just nodded her head in agreement and continued to eat her sandwich. It wasn’t long after that we arrived at our new house.
“Do I get to choose where I sleep?”
“Yeah,” I tell Mia, “we can treat the house as if it’s our own.” I had already placed some of my own money aside for the purchase of the house. It’s always better to buy outright and with cash. All that green tends to help dampen any suspicions the realtor would have, especially in a small town like this. It was also pretty close to the kind of house Sally and I had envisioned for ourselves when we were younger. White wood paneled exterior, picket fence, and even one of those post boxes we had used to talk about. I even went as far as putting in a bid for the run-down shop in the middle of town. If we’re going to start a new life, then we might as well do it properly.
“This is going to work,” I say to myself watching Mia running into the house full of enthusiasm. “It has to.”