Violent Dreams
Seven
There was yelling upstairs. How long had there been yelling for? Every night, for what felt like weeks and weeks... How long had they been there? Nicola had kept count at first, scratched marks into the mud to remind him. But he forgot days, and then gave up, and now all he or his brother knew was that it was a long time. An eternity.
"Goddamn well going to pay for the little fuckers, we went to all the goddamn trouble and I swear if he don't pay in the next fucking week—"
"Tom!" broke in the other voice. There were four or five faces the boys had come to recognize, but only two who seemed to have names. "Tom, calm down, this ain't going nowhere, don't you see? Christ, Tom, if we get caught—"
"We ain't gonna get caught!" the first voice roared. He was the one who was really in charge, the one who always threatened them.
"C'mon, Tony," Nicola said, and stood. He nodded towards the table; they'd been given a deck of cards to play with. "Let's play war."
"N-no," Anthony stuttered. "I don't wanna, I want... I want to go home..."
"I do, too," his older brother assured him. "C'mon, it'll be okay. Papa'll find us. Promise."
"You really promise?"
"I really promise."
The memory faded. Racetrack could feel himself shaking, but couldn't force his mind to break free of the images.
The door slammed open forcefully, and the guys playing poker in the basement all looked up. So did Nicola and Anthony, sitting in a corner, waiting for everyone to leave. They didn't dare talk or move around when other people were downstairs.
"—You can't do that, Tom!"
"Don't you dare tell me what I can and can't do!" Thomas Lerror shouted over his shoulder, thundering down the stairs, his brother at his heels. He had his gun out. Nicola reached over and grabbed Anthony's arm protectively as Lerror started yelling at everyone to get out of his way. He gestured with the gun, told the boys to stand up or else, and began to aim.
"Tom, we need them, you can't—"
"Shut up."
He turned to the boys.
"Your dad still ain't paid me," he said. "He don't think I'm serious. It's time to show him how serious I am."
He leveled the gun at Anthony, but Nicola pushed him out of the way, stood protectively in front of him. "Leave... Leave him alone," Nicola said, his voice shaking but still firm.
Lerror laughed.
"Get outta my way, kid, unless you wanna get shot."
"Leave him alone!" Nicola repeated, speaking so quickly and furiously now that his accent made him almost impossible to understand.
"Tom—" the brother tried again.
"You've got to the count of three, kid."
"Nic—"
"One."
"It's okay, Tony."
"Two."
"Nic!"
"Tell Mama and Papa I—"
"Three."
Lerror pulled the trigger. There was a crack like thunder, and Nicola stumbled backwards until he hit the wall and collapsed against it, tripping over Anthony on the way. He shoved Anthony down and away from him, put a shaky hand up to his shoulder. He looked up, his eyes catching the dim light, terrified. His features contorted with pain. Blood dripped down his chest from where the bullet caught his shoulder, and it coated his hand too.
Crack.
His head snapped back. The wall was sprayed with blood and other things. The body fell. Anthony screamed and went into shock; he didn't remember anything else. All he could see was the body of his older brother, slumped in the corner.
"Racetrack? RACETRACK!"
"Jesus Christ, he ain't waking up—"
"Shake 'im—"
"I am shakin' 'im!"
"Oh my God, what's going on, why's he screaming like that?"
"Christ, Tom, how the hell are we gonna get paid if—"
"It shows we're serious."
"You killed the kid!"
"Yeah." Lerror started back for the stairs. "C'mon." He started up them, his brother and the card players following silently. No one knew what to say. There was nothing to say.
Nicola Verdi was dead.
Anthony Verdi scrambled to the opposite corner of his prison, where he couldn't see the corpse anymore, and then threw up everything that was in his stomach. He closed his eyes, tried to block it out, but it just played in his mind, over and over again.
His brother had been killed. Killed trying to save him.
Someone slapped him.
He blinked. His eyes came back into focus.
The vision didn't fade, but he could see again. He was shaking. He reached for his cards, but found he was shaking too hard to pick them up. No one said anything.
Jack was standing over him; he dropped the hand he'd slapped Racetrack with. "Race?" he asked.
Race shook his head. "I—" he said shakily, but couldn't even say anything.
"You okay?"
He nodded.
"You'se a liar." Jack gave a nervous laugh. "What happened to that famous poker face, huh?"
"They killed 'im, Jack..." he whispered, barely audible. "An' it was my fault..."
"Racetrack, what're you talkin' about?"
"N-nothing," Race said. He curled his fingers around the cards, and from there it was automatic. Just muscle memory. He began to shuffle the cards.
"Hey," Jack said to everyone who was staring—which was everyone. "Hey, you guys get back to bed. Race's okay. Just had a nightmare, right?"
"Yeah," Race said weakly. He kept shuffling the cards. He wanted to get out of there so badly, away from the room, away from the people staring at him. But he couldn't walk until he stopped shaking. And he had to shuffle the cards, to calm himself down.
It took forever. Or at least it felt like forever. Nervously, most of the guys returned to their beds; Jack didn't, though. He sat down on the foot of Race's bed and just waited. Race glanced around. Blink must have come in while he was asleep, or whatever he'd been, because he was there too now. He and Mush were sitting up on Mush's bed.
"I'm okay," Race murmured. "'S okay. You can go ta bed. I'm okay."
"Yeah, sure you is." Jack leant against the bedpost that held up his own bunk above Racetrack's, making himself comfortable.
Race's hands stopped shaking after another minute. So did the rest of him. He slipped the cards into his pocket and stood. His body protested, but only a little, so he walked over to the window and let himself out. He didn't feel up to climbing down and heading into the city, so he just leant against the railing and stared out at the building across from him.
He knew Jack was following him, but stopped behind him, lurking just beyond the edge of his vision. Then there was the sound of some more shuffling, other people stepping out. He didn't need to turn around to see them; even exhausted Race could tell people by sound. Jack he could almost see, but Mush and Blink—who else?—he knew by instinct. The sound of nervous fingers scraping against a leather belt; Mush shifting his bodyweight to be more comfortable, maybe just the tiniest bit closer to Blink... He could have counted a dozen more signs to tell him who it was.
That ain't normal, is it? he thought to himself, reaching into his pocket, closing his hand around the deck of cards. It ain't normal to memorize things like I do, 'cause I don't trust no one... Lookit Blink and Mush, they trust each other completely, even after everything they been through. An' Jack's got David an' Sarah an' never worries about things like this. So why me? He shuddered. He knew why. It ain't normal... Maybe I am crazy.
He pulled out the cards and began to shuffle against the railing. He didn't say anything. No one else did, either; no one was sure what to say.
"I..." He started, then paused and finished flitting the cards so they fit together. "I ain't crazy," he said out into the night, not daring to turn around and face his friends. He still felt too shaky for that. "I ain't."
"No one said you is," Jack said quietly behind him. "We's just worried is all. You... You ain't had a nightmare like that in a long time, an' your eyes was open..."
Racetrack paused in his shuffling and stared down at the ground beneath his feet. "Yeah," he said vaguely. "Dreams like that make a guy wanna stay awake."
"That why you can't sleep?"
"Yeah." He shivered, partly from the wind and partly from the memory. "Yeah, I..." He swallowed. He had to tell someone. Maybe if he told someone, he could get it over with, get it out of his system... Maybe it would stop tormenting him every night. "I decided what I think happened to Anthony Verdi," he said finally.
"Oh... Yeah?" Jack asked, sounding confused at the sudden topic change. Behind Race's back, he glanced back at Mush and Blink, who were quietly waiting to see if they'd be needed or wanted, leaning against the side of the building. They shrugged, almost in unison; they had no idea either.
"Yeah," Race said. He began to shuffle again. "Yeah... His parents were pretty well off, right? Not... Not real rich, but they had enough. They was comfortable. Lived in a nice apartment, sent the kids to some real good private school. An' Louis Verdi, he owned a business or somethin' like that. Fired a guy who didn't show up on time, who gave him a lot of grief, who couldn't cut it.
"The guy went crazy or somethin', he musta. Decided he'd get paid somehow. Decided to kidnap Verdi's kids, hold 'em for ransom. Thomas Lerror. Real mean guy, real crazy... Had a brother, a couple a' friends, they was kinda like a gang. No one really wanted to do it, neither, but he made 'em, planned it out, made it seem so easy...
"On the way home from school one day, he an' a few of the others grabbed the kids. Knocked 'em out, dragged 'em home... Locked 'em in a basement." His voice almost broke, but he made himself continue. "Sent a message to Verdi, told him he wanted money for 'em, lotsa money, but Verdi didn't want to be blackmailed. Wouldn't pay. Sent the police after 'em.
"But Lerror was smart, real smart, an' had everythin' under control. Police didn't find 'im. Month or so went by, things was gettin' nuts. Verdi wanted his kids back real bad, but wouldn' stoop ta payin' off Lerror, I guess. Lerror had the kids... Kept 'em... Jus' locked in the basement. It was real dark down there, an' not too big, an' hot all day an' cold all night, an'..."
He swallowed hard. His hands were shaking again; he was afraid he'd drop the cards off the fire escape but didn't dare stop shuffling. He stared down at his hands as he shuffled, something he hadn't needed to do in years.
"One night, Lerror lost it. Decided to show everyone he meant business. So he... He..." He shuddered, barely able to say it. "He shot Nicola, twice. Killed him, in front a' the rest of the gang, an' in front a' his brother... Was gonna shoot Anthony, but Nicola wouldn't let 'im. Protected his little brother. Died to protect his brother..."
Hot tears stung his face, he ignored them. They stopped after a minute.
"...He, he left the body there for a few days before they buried it, right in that same basement, under the floor... The floor was half mud anyway... An' the thing was, Verdi didn't believe... He didn't believe they'd killed Nicola. Refused to. Still refused to pay.
"Some more time went on, I guess. Lerror... He musta realized that he wasn't gonna get 'is money, started lookin' for a way out... Couldn't see one. Started to plan ta kill Anthony an' be done with it, run for it. But his brother couldn't stand it. No one had wanted him to kill Nicola, they was too afraid of gettin' caught when it wasn't easy the way Lerror said it would be, an' I guess his brother felt real guilty, 'cause one day...
"He came down ta the basement. Anthony was real scared, he'd heard 'em talkin' about killin' him, an' he'd been down there for so long... Months, more than two months. Almos' three, I guess. But Chris Lerror didn't want ta hurt him. Instead he, he snuck 'im out. Told 'im to run home, then called the cops on his brother, an' himself. They was all caught an' arrested an' put in jail... But no one could find Anthony. Chris Lerror didn't dare say he'd helped him escape, 'cause he didn't want ta risk his brother findin' out, an' he felt real guilty about Nicola an' all... They was all put in jail for double-murder. But Anthony wasn't dead...
"He didn't know where he was, though. He found his way back inta the city somehow, but couldn't figure out where he was s'posed ta go... He was too scared ta go home. He'd got his brother killed for him, an'... His parents wouldn't want him back after that. How could they? He knew that, so he jus' wandered aroun'. He didn't even know when the Lerrors was arrested, so he got real scared all the time, always afraid that someone was lookin' for him, real... Whaddayacallit... Paranoid, yeah.
"Made up a different name for himself, made himself stop thinkin' about things. Forced it all outta his mind, refused ta even think about it, so much that he barely even remembered his real name. Barely remembered what happened... Wandered through the streets, beggin' an' starvin' an' afraid all the time... He could make himself forget about it when he was awake, but he kept havin' dreams about it all night... So he jus' stopped sleepin'. It was easier.
"He became a real bad insomniac, real fast. It was how he kept... How he stayed sane... He was only nine or ten years old, an' prob'ly woulda died on the streets, but he ran inta some newsies an' they loaned him money for papes, showed him how ta sell... An' life seemed almos' normal after that. He had friends, but he never... He didn't trust 'em, ya know? It wasn't their fault, he was jus' afraid deep down still, paranoid, kept to himself...
"But livin' with so many people like that, no way to keep things to himself, so he started ta pretend, ta act different than he felt, right? Started ta joke around, was real funny, real cheerful all the time so no one thought nothin' about him, ever... But he still couldn't sleep at night.
"For years, he couldn't sleep at night. But almos' no one noticed, an' no one who did notice knew why anyway..." He trailed off. "An' then," he said finally, "Lerror escaped from jail, an' things went ta hell.
"He couldn't keep it out of his mind no more. Started havin' dreams again, whenever he tried to sleep. Tried so damn hard not ta sleep...
"I must sound crazy, but you gotta believe me. I ain't crazy, I ain't."
"We believe you, Race," Jack said quietly, and put a hand on his shoulder. "...Anthony."
"Don't call me that. Please don't call me that..."
"Okay."
He finally turned around, not sure what to expect his friends to say or do different. He figured they'd be scared of him, or shocked, or not believe him... But they just looked concerned. "Is there anything we can do to help?" Mush asked quietly after a long silence.
Racetrack shrugged a little. "Nah," he said. "Jus'... Jus' stay up with me for awhile..."
"Sure thing," Blink agreed. "Ya wanna play poker?"
"You must feel bad for me, if you'se offerin' ta play poker." And there it was, the faÇade he'd always thrown up, taking over like it had become an instinct. He was joking. There he was, standing on the fire escape trying to convince himself not to fall off it, and he was making a joke.
Race was more terrified by it than he was proud of it.
"Well, you ain't got the best poker face right now," Blink answered, pulling Race out of his thoughts before he could lose himself in them again, and Mush swatted Blink for the comment. "What? I didn't mean nothin' by it!"
Mush hit him again, and Jack rolled his eyes. If Race wasn't still so shaky, he'd have smiled. They were his friends. They were really his friends.
"I'll go easy on ya," he promised, as Blink lead the way inside by ducking back in the window. He and Jack hesitated just another second longer. "Jack?" he asked.
"Yeah, Race?"
"Thanks."
"Sure thing, Race."