Page 56 of College Town

“Yeah you do.”

“An explanation,” he finishes, with a warning look. “A real one. As much as I’ll probably regret this…” Another sigh. “Go ahead: ask me anything.”

Lawson lifts his brows. “And, what? You’ll actually answer?”

“Yes,” Tommy says, gravely.

“You’ll answertruthfully?”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Yes.”

Lawson sips at his wine more slowly and pretends to contemplate what he wants to ask. Makes a face up at the ceiling until Tommy huffs an impatient, “Law…”

“I never liked Twenty Questions. It’s all about stories for me.” He shoots him a wink and a false, winning smile.

“Shit,” Tommy mutters, but nods. “Fine. Storytime it is.”

~*~

“My bedroom growing up, before we moved to Eastman, overlooked Central Park. My dad was an account – he was a numbers genius. Mom used to say it, but when I got a little older, I realized she wasn’t just looking at him with rose-colored glasses. He really was a financial wizard. Before I was born, he got in good with the don of the Carrone family. The Carrones were in the red, and Frank used to drive Robert – that was the don – around. He introduced Robert to dad, and they got on great. Dad quit his job in the financial district and went to work fulltime for the family.

“Things were really good when Noah and I were little. We had a big apartment in the Village. Dad drove a BMW, and Mom always had all the latest dresses and shoes and hairstyles. You’d never know it speaking with her now, but she was like a socialite: tons of friends, tons of parties. She was always laughing, always had a cocktail in her hand. Her fulltime job was spending Dad’s money and dressing us up like dolls, and she seemed to love it.

“They were happy. Both of them.

“But I don’t think happiness is a permanent state, is it? I mean…it wasn’t forme. I–

“Anyway. There was a party. Another one. I tended to lose count. I just knew that at least one night a week, Mom took us to Blockbuster, and bought us all the popcorn and candy we could stomach, and let us watch movies in her and dad’s room. We’d spread out on the bed, and turn all the lights off, and leave the curtains open so the city lights gave enough light to see our way to the bathroom and back; we drank a liter of Coke a piece on those nights, I swear.

“I remember that night because Mom let us rentPoltergeist. She had no idea it was a horror movie. Remember the box? With Carol Anne and the TV? We convinced her it was a kid’s movie. We were right at the part where the tree pulls the kid out of the window when we heard glass break out in the living room. A woman screamed. It was…shit, I still get goosebumps thinking about it. It was anawfulsound.

“We ran out of the room, and the party had come to a screeching halt. Everyone had cleared to the edges of the room. The punch bowl had shattered on the floor, and the punch was soaking into the rug. It looked like blood. Uncle Frank was there, and he had real blood all over him. He was holding Mom by the elbows, and he wasallthat was holding her up. She was crying – not like she cried at a sad movie. She was scream-crying. She couldn’t breathe, and there was snot leaking out of her nose in front of all her friends. It was…for us, as kids, it was freaky as hell. We were terrified.

“Frank broke the party up, and gave her a pill, and sent her to bed. He was the one who sat us down after everything had quieted down and told us that Dad was dead. It was Dad’s blood all over his shirt. There was even some on his face. Dad had been with Robert Carrone at a meeting that went south. Guns were drawn. Dad and Robert were both caught in the crossfire.

“Robert had a son, but he was our age, and so there was a power vacuum. Frank threw his hat in the ring, and within a week, he’d come out on top. He was going to be a kind of regent, he said. Ha. That’s what everyone thought, or pretended, at least.

“Within two months, the Carrone crime family was the Cattaneo crime family. Mom took us, and ran.

“We ended up in Eastman by design. She did a lot of research, spent a lot of hours in the library before we left New York, researching safe towns with low crime rates and no record of mob activity. Eastman was small, unremarkable, and she liked that it had a university: she thought we could be self-contained, that way. Noah and I could go straight from high school to college, and then apply for jobs on the west coast and take her with us.

“I don’t think she was ever what you’d call a ‘strong’ woman. Sweet, but flighty, nervous, prone to highs and lows. She had no plans to meet a new man and remarry. She just wanted out. She took us as far as her funds would allow, and was counting on us taking care of her in a few years when we were old enough.

“It was really stressful at first. We didn’t bring most of our stuff. Mom had a suitcase of cash, and we were hiding from Frank; she was afraid if he found us, he’d try to drag us back to New York. Noah thought it was this big adventure, but I was…I waspetrified. I threw up my first morning here. Mom had to pull over on our way to school and I hurled on the shoulder. I almost fainted when I walked into the front office. My life wasn’t supposed tobelike this.

“But then I went into my first class. And I got to sit next to this really cute boy with these great big glasses who invited me to have lunch with him.

“And then we had lunch the next day, and the next, and every day, and…shit. I was happy. I was really happy. And then I finally worked up the guts to kiss him, and I was…I was where I was supposed to be. Everything wasright. I’ve never felt that wonderful in my life.

“I should have known that couldn’t last. The world isn’t that kind. Myfamilyisn’t that kind.

“Frank found us. Of course he did. And he had more money and more power than Robert Carrone ever had. He’d built a business out of doing the dirty work for other families. He was a fixer on a grand scale, and people had paid him dearly for it.

“He’d made some enemies. Some real nasty ones. And he made it very clear to my mother that he expected Noah and I to be his heirs. If anything happened to him, he wanted to ensure that the business stayed in the family.

“I told him no. I screamed in his face. I spit on him. When he wrestled me to the ground I bit and kicked and punched at him until one of his thugs slapped me so hard I blacked out.

“He said, ‘This is your family, boy, and you’ll step up for your mother. For your brother. For yourself – because my enemies know who you are, and where you are, and if you think they won’t come for you, you’re not as smart as I’d hoped.’

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