Nadia’s survival instincts sent a wave of fear through her body. There was something wrong about these two. They looked scared and out of place. More than that, they looked desperate.
Either something bad had happened, or was about to happen. And Nadia didn’t come to this conclusion based on the strangers’ faces.
It was the gun the man pulled from behind his back that told her this.
CHAPTER 5
Blood drained from my face. I realized my breathing had turned shallow.
I focused on extending my exhalations. Cursed at my self-delusion. I’d fooled myself into thinking I was managing a man who could not be managed. Then I cursed at myself for cursing at myself. I needed to relax. There was still a way out of this van with my life and body intact.
There is almost always a way out of trouble. The woman who keeps her emotions at bay can find the way.
Donnie looked down at me with a concerned look. I had no idea if it was mock or real. It was time to give up trying to read him, and buy time until a means of escape occurred to me.
“You okay?” he said.
“Yeah, I’m all right,” I said.
I closed my eyes and pictured myself walking through the local park, my brother at my side, both of us in our teens. Nothing could touch us. We were young, resilient, and most of all, a pair. We could rely on each other.
“You want a glass of water?” Donnie said.
“No. I don’t want any water. I don’t need anything. You want to ask me more questions? Let’s get on with it.”
He pointed a finger at me. “Hey. You don’t know how lucky you are. Be nice. I’ll get you some water.”
The biggest joke of all was that his first name wasn’t Donnie. It was Bohdan. Most Ukrainian-American kids were tolerant of their given Ukrainian names. Most grew to be proud of them over time. But those who couldn’t handle childhood abuse often adopted other English translations to assimilate into American society more easily. For instance, a Pavlo might become a Paul. But how a Bohdan became a Donnie was beyond my comprehension.
His last name wasn’t Angel, either. It was Angelovich. I liked shortening it. For obvious reasons.
“I don’t want any water, Donnie.”
He stopped near the refrigerator. Sighed as though I were being an uncooperative guest.
“Suit yourself.” He returned to the contraption. The stool was two feet off the ground. He towered over me. “So answer the question. What do you know about your godfather’s business?”
“He was known for his expertise in antiques all over the East Coast and beyond. Everyone in the Uke community knew who he was. And he had a good reputation. So whenever a Uke had an antique for sale, he got the call. Death in the family, house full of furniture for sale, he got the call. A farmer with a barn full of old stuff, he got the call.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
I looked up into Donnie’s eyes to make sure he could see mine. “Nothing.”
It was the truth. I didn’t know anything else about my godfather’s business, though now I knew there was something else to know. Which struck me as a potential problem, because it made me a liability to Donnie and his organization. Didn’t it?
“You’re lying to me again,” he said.
“I am not…” I infused some ferocity into my voice. It came easily under the circumstances. “I am not lying to you. Do you think I’m that careless? Am I in any position to be playing games with you? You ask the questions, I give you the truth. The truth. I don’t know anything else about my godfather’s business.”
He started nodding before I finished talking, in a mechanical way that suggested he didn’t believe a word I was saying. “The truth… right? You’re giving me the truth?” He grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and lifted me off the chair. “Then why were you asking people if his business was doing okay? If he’d had any disagreements with people at work?”
“Let go of me,” I said.
He didn’t.
“I’ll answer the question, if you let go of me and act like the boy my godfather said was good.”
My words might have sounded preposterous if it hadn’t been for the emotion that had flashed on his face when I made up the story about my godfather liking him. I knew it had left a mark. At least in this regard, Donnie was no different from any other person. No matter what our paths in life, we still remember moments from our childhood when we longed for a single word of praise.
His lips quivered, his eyes softened, and he lowered me gently back to the stool. Started fixing my collar but pulled his hands away before he could finish, as though he realized his touch was toxic.
I continued with my current strategy, telling him the absolute truth and looking him in the eyes as I did so. “I was asking if his business was okay because at the time I wasn’t certain his death was an accident.”
“Why not?”
“Because the story I heard at the wake was that it was raining hard and his cellar leaks. He went down to the cellar to check the flooding, slipped on the stairs, and hit his head.”
“What’s wrong with that story?”
“Nothing is wrong with it. Did you notice I used the past tense? I said ‘at the time I wasn’t certain his death was an accident.’ I’m certain now. I buy it. I’m a believer.”
“Why the change of heart?”
I glanced from Donnie to the machine and back to him again. “Because I understand the situation better now.”
“What situation?”
“My situation. I’m still thinking there’s a way for you to let me walk out of here in one piece.”
“You’re saying you asked questions then that you wouldn’t ask now.”
“Obviously.”
One of those questions was, what happened to you, Donnie Angel? Except that was a lie. I didn’t need to ask the question. Nothing Marko or I did was ever good enough for our parents, in school, at home, or in the community. I was sure Donnie had experienced the same single-minded pressure to excel. Only the exact details of what he had suffered were a mystery.
Donnie narrowed his eyes at me and then nodded. This time it was a slow nod, the kind that said he believed. He really believed. At least for the moment.
“You are going to walk out of here in one piece,” he said. “Answer me one more question, and you got my word on that.”
“Name it.”
“I get that you had a change of heart. Nothing will change a man’s mind faster than the sight of this here machine. But before you changed your mind, back at the wake, the funeral, the reception… why did you think the story of how your godfather died was bullshit? Didn’t his cellar flood when it rained?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t he drink?”
“Nightly.”
“So why don’t you believe it happened that way?”
“He was too careful.”
Donnie laughed. It sounded more like a condescending and derisive sneer. “What?”
“He was too careful to ever go down to his cellar once he started drinking.”
“That’s all? That’s the reason you were suspicious?”
“That’s all.”
Donnie screwed his face tight. “That can’t be all. What are you not telling me?”
“He suffered from bathmophobia.”
“Bathmo what? He was scared of bathrooms? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Bathmophobia isn’t a fear of bathrooms. It’s fear of steep slopes. For people who suffer from it, it’s very, very serious. It’s fear of stairs.”