Elixir (9 page)

“If we did it...and that’s a big if...what will become of...Mary and Sean...here?”

“To assure Pine drops it completely, you’d need to be gone. Gone, gone. They’d say you two were killed in a car crash. On your way to a camping trip in Arizona. It’s all planned out.”

The thought of their real names associated with death makes her face turn an even lighter shade of pale. She takes a couple deep breaths and asks, “How would we support ourselves? Once we wind up in our new...home.”

“All the
Jeopardy!
money, and anything else you have, will be transferred into an overseas bank account. Not to mention, you can get any job you want.”

She lifts her glass to her lips and gulps, finishing it. She stands and starts pacing on the rug with her bare feet. “This whole thing sounds ridiculous,” she says in an anxious tone to nobody particular. “A new life? To just re-root like that? All because of a crime he didn’t even do?”

“It’s the only way to protect him without a doubt.”

For Sean the idea of avoiding Paul Pine’s allegations is comforting, but he sees a new identity as something with much larger potential, a shedding of the labels he’s had his whole life, an escape from the story of his dark past. A thrill courses through his chest. He picks up the envelope and tears it open.

Four years later Fabrizio’s dusty brown boots are banging against the cobblestones as he runs down an alleyway in Rome. “Stop,” a chasing police officer says in Italian, arms waving above his head.

Fabrizio, eighteen and in shape, widens his lead on the cop, fifty-something and overweight. Fabrizio jumps over a tin trashcan lid in his way and continues down the shadowy path. “Left,” he says to Sean, now eighteen too, about a dozen feet ahead in a full sprint. He’s taller and more muscular than he was at fourteen, with a beard-stubbled face. He veers toward a train station, its lights twinkling in the night sky. His buddy follows, the policeman lumbering behind.

Sean twists through a herd of travelers by the entrance and trots inside. Fabrizio glimpses over his shoulder, then says with excitement, “I think we ditched him.” They get a few weird glances from people passing, bright dabs of fresh paint on both their shirts. As they zigzag through the hundreds of passengers, Fabrizio pulls out his cell phone. “I know a girl in one of the apartment buildings not too faraway. We might be able to see it from her balcony. I’ll text her.”

“Yeah?”

“Let me check if she’s home. What is it like eight? She should be there.” As he flips through his contacts Sean shoulders an exit door and they step back into the chilly November air. They’re on the backside of the terminal by a gated loading dock, nobody else around, the drone of faceless voices far off in the distance, a brick wall to their right with thick weeds at the base. They wander away from the station on a gravel path bordering the tracks, the little rocks crunching under them, lights growing fainter behind.

Fabrizio removes a pack of cigarettes and matchbook from the front pocket of his jeans, sparks one, then stuffs them back. Sean jumps on a train rail. He moseys along it, arms to the side keeping balance. In a half-minute or so he goes up on one foot. He skips ahead, swaying but not falling, then switches to the other boot with a thud on the metal. Glancing back at the noise, Fabrizio takes a drag and says with sarcasm, “Look at you.”

“Hey,” Sean says, teetering.

“Yeah what?”

“I’m in kind of a mood.”

“What kind of mood?”

Sean doesn’t speak for a while. “Let’s go out tonight.”

“Yeah we’ll go out.” He puffs again. “Saturday night.” As he exhales, his phone vibrates. He slides it out, peering at the screen through a cloud of smoke. “I told you,” he says with enthusiasm. “She’s home.” Wind cuts across the tracks, Sean blowing in his hands, nothing on but a T-shirt, temperature high-forties at best. He hops down from the metal beam, soles digging into the gravel, then jogs toward his pal. They walk side by side as he texts her back.

About ten minutes later they’re inside an apartment complex on the eighth story, Fabrizio thumping the gold-plated knocker on one of the units. A pretty brunette opens up. She moves her lips to say something, but before she can get a sound out he grabs her waist and lifts her. “
Ciao bella
,” he says in a jovial tone, twirling her through the doorway as his wavy black hair bounces. She lets out a squeal as he carries her across the floor. Setting her down, he squeezes her cheeks and kisses her forehead.

“Hi to you too,” she says in Italian, adjusting her red sweater. She looks at Sean, still outside, half his body visible to her in the hallway. She motions him over. “Come in.” He enters, thumbs in his jean pockets. She surveys him, then turns to Fabrizio. “I don’t think I know your friend.”

“My apologies,” he says in Italian, gripping Sean’s shoulder, pulling him close. “Alegra, this is James. James, this is Alegra.”

“Hi,” Sean says in the same language, fluent. “Nice to meet you.” He shakes her hand. “James.”

“You too. Sorry for the mess.” She nods at the dining room table, filled with a heap of fabric samples and a couple textbooks from fashion school.

Grinning, he shrugs. “Whatever. It’s cool.”

A pause. “Are you American?”

“Originally. I live here now.”

“You look it. Where in America?”

“New York.”

“I always wanted to go,” she says, a longing to her voice. “Manhattan seems so cool. For shopping at least.”

“Not New York City. New York State.”

“Oh. What’s the difference?”

“New York City is just one city in a state also called New York. I’m from one of the other ones.”

“That’s kind of confusing.” She notices Fabrizio walking along the wall flustered, flipping every light switch he passes.

“Come on, come on,” he says. “How do you get the damn balcony ones on?”

She nudges back some drapes, another switch below. “Chill. Under here.” She presses it, a flood of light pouring onto the terrace.

Tugging the sliding glass door, he goes outside, wide view of the city square before him. He leans forward with his palms on the brass railing, analyzing the skyline, tapping his fingers. “Ah ha,” he says, pointing at a four-story brick building in the distance. Sean and the girl step to his side, eyes on a colorful piece of graffiti art on the front wall, a streetlamp shining by it. “It’s a beauty,” Fabrizio says, clapping.

Sean peers at the painting, a man in a suit with a kitten head, briefcase in one hand, Tommy gun the other. Fabrizio grabs his shoulders and shakes him, Sean smiling as he wobbles back and forth.

Fabrizio starts snapping pictures of their creation with his phone. “That’s one of your better ones,” the girl says to him. “I still can’t believe you’ve never been arrested.”

He circles his arm around her lower back. Humming a waltz song, he takes her hand in his and dances. She chuckles, going along with it. “Arrested?” he asks, spinning her. “Don’t ever doubt me. Don’t ever doubt James.”

As the other two dance around, Sean climbs on the ledge where the railing meets the complex wall and looks at the cityscape, first a few old Renaissance-era buildings, then the modern-styled office they spray-painted. He’s quite a ways up from the street but doesn’t seem scared at all, his leg dangling off the side. “The green worked,” he says, gaze on some streaks in their piece.

“Hell yeah, it did,” his graffiti partner says, dipping the girl. “Me and James are going out to celebrate another clean getaway,” he says to her. “Joining?”

“My parents are making me go to church with them tomorrow,” she says, dispirited. “Early. I can’t go hung over.”

He lowers her again, her long brown hair almost grazing the floor. “Your loss.” He hoists her up to him. “Things are about to get crazy.”

The headlights of Sean and Fabrizio’s motorcycles cut through the dark sky, Sean on a black Triumph, Fabrizio a red Ducati, T-shirts blowing behind them, engines howling. They hook a right into a busy nightlife district, weaving between honking cars, then coast to the side of the road and park. They get off, hang their helmets on their handlebars, and make their way up the sidewalk.

Veering left, Fabrizio trots to a fountain in front of a posh hotel and jumps on the ledge. Kneeling, he dips his fingers in the water and runs them through his wavy black hair, a couple pedestrians glancing over. He climbs down and heads back to the walkway. He pulls out his smokes and matches, lights one, and takes a drag. Pointing at an alley with one hand, he slaps Sean’s shoulder with the other and says, “Up there.”

“Cool.” Though Sean’s mastered the local way of speaking, he still prefers English and uses it around Fabrizio and others he’s close with.

Wandering ahead, they spot a line of at least a hundred people, high heels and small skirts on the girls, dress shoes and expensive shirts on the guys, excited voices going back and forth. Strolling parallel to the crowd, they approach a stone building that looks about a thousand years old, no windows, no signs, three large men in suits behind a velvet rope out front.

Fabrizio’s cigarette burns close to the filter. He sucks the rest of the life from it and tosses it to the cobblestones. “Caprice,” he says, signaling to an attractive woman in her late twenties with a clipboard. He locks his green eyes with her blues, holds up two fingers, and nods at Sean behind.

She taps the arm of one of the bouncers, about six foot eight, and whispers something to him on her tippy toes. As Fabrizio steps up, she says in Italian, “Hey love.”

Leaning over the red barrier, he kisses both her cheeks and asks in the same language, “I’ll see you inside huh?”

“Once it calms down out here.” She glimpses the swelling line. “Probably a while. Have fun.”

The security guard removes the blockade with his massive hand and the two guys saunter inside, the roar of the electro music hitting them. “Not bad right?” Fabrizio asks with a smirk, voice fighting the super-charged sound system. “Time to get drunk bitch,” he says, shouldering through the swarm of partiers as his graffiti partner trails him. Sean takes in the place, one dark pipe-shaped room extending from the entrance to a DJ stage against the back wall, soles of his boots rumbling as the bass thuds, beautiful young people dancing all over.

“Yo asshole,” a sarcastic male voice says in Italian somewhere to their left.

Fabrizio turns to a kid in a purple velour blazer standing on a booth, flailing his arms. “Hey man,” he says to the guy in the same language, surprised to see him. “What’s up?”

“I bought a table,” he says, motioning them toward him. “Come on.” Fabrizio smacks Sean’s chest and points at the private booth. They slide through the throng of people on the dance floor and climb a couple stairs to it. Two bottles of Grey Goose are perched in a frosty bucket, carafes of club soda and cranberry juice on the side. Fabrizio hops on the red gator-skin cushion, hugs his acquaintance, and starts talking to him like it’s been a while.

Sean situates himself in the corner. He scopes the others in their section, two guys and four girls moving to the fast-paced beat on top of the couch. Leaning forward, he clutches a glass and vodka bottle. He scoops the cup in the ice bucket, dumps some booze in, then some club soda. Swigging, he bounces his leg to the rhythm, the song an electronic remix of “A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours” by The Smiths.

Gazing at the dozens of faces in the place, he notices most are smiling. He wonders how many of them are happy and how many are just pretending to be to seem lively or inviting or whatever else to the opposite sex.

Based on what he knows of the world after eighteen years, he figures it’s impossible for all of them to be as happy as they appear. Swishing a cold ice cube around in his mouth, he contemplates whether he’s satisfied with life. He wouldn’t say yes but also wouldn’t say he’s depressed. Since he’s been in Italy he’s enjoyed shedding the Sean Malone identity and the labels that came with it but still feels adrift. Starting over in Rome didn’t have the magic effect he’d hoped. He’s not sure why.

The condensation from his drink dampens his palm. Wiping it on his jeans, he thinks of a dream he often has where he’s in blankness, white as far as he can see, a rope tied around his ankles stretching down to infinity, two others wrapped around his wrists going to endlessness on each side. The ropes don’t hurt. They’re just holding him in place and nothing more. In the dream, he has a sense he’s waiting for something. He’s doesn’t know what.

“Yo James,” Fabrizio says to him, Sean snapping from his daze. Fabrizio is pinching his apartment key at his hip, the groove stuffed with cocaine. “Want?” Sean sucks the crevice empty with his left nostril. Scanning for security, Fabrizio reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small clear baggie with more. He buries the brass key inside, raises it, and snorts. “Her tonight,” he says in a vivacious voice as the drug hits his bloodstream, nodding at a brunette on the dance floor in a shiny outfit. Rubbing his nose, he watches her gyrate.

Sean angles his head between the people at the table. “She’s cute bro.”

“Give me a little time. She’ll be coming home with me.” With a chuckle Sean has some more of his vodka club soda. His pal peers at the girl with determination for about five seconds, then maneuvers down and shuffles toward her.

In a bit Sean’s glass is empty. He shakes it, ice clanging, then goes for the Grey Goose. Refilling, he spots a cute girl at the booth grinning in his direction, toned legs, tiny black dress, straight hair the same color. He smirks back, then splashes more club soda in his cup. Dancing between two of her friends with an arm in the air, she keeps peeking at him. Their eyes catch. He sticks his tongue out at her, then sips his drink.

A couple hours later they’re under the sheets in his apartment. She’s asleep. He’s awake. Her back is to him, her dark locks fanning over the white pillow. Glancing at her head, he realizes he can’t remember what her face looks like. The details at least. The same thing’s happened to him with every other girl he’s spent the night with since he lost his virginity two years ago.