The Mafia’s Obsession

Ayla

Talbot fidgets as we ride the elevator up to his apartment. “First of all, I just want to say-”Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

“Shut up,” says Alessio. “We’ll speak once you’ve invited us into your lovely home.”

We get to the 16th floor, and the admissions officer takes us down the hallway and into his apartment. It has this funny vibe, like the furnishings are nicer than the place itself demands. There are display cases on the walls filled with figurines and autographed sports jerseys.

“You ever consider selling some of these?” Alessio asks, pointing. “Would be an easier way to pay what you owe than Photoshopping an innocent student using drugs.”

“I’ll get right on that,” says Talbot, now looking thoroughly spooked. “Whatever you want.”

“What I want is for you to get Ayla Gonzalez back into Bover City University.”

“I told you,” Talbot says, “it’s not that simple. I already showed them photos of Ayla using cocaine. How am I going to explain that away?”

“Show us the pictures,” I demand.

Talbot glances at Alessio, who nods his head. “Do as she says.”

He scurries to the desk in the corner of the living room and boots up his computer. An anime girl in a bikini greets us as his desktop background.

“The pictures,” Alessio prompts him.

Hand shaking on the mouse, Talbot navigates to a folder filled with images. He starts to sort through them, and I see that the files are organized by last name.

“What are these?” I ask, frowning. “Wait, open that one up.” I point at random to one of the files.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” he protests. “I really don’t see-”

“Open it,” Alessio growls.

Talbot does, and I see a screenshot of an Instagram exchange. Scanning over it, I read part of a conversation where one party admits to buying custom essays from a website and turning them in for good grades.

“You faked these messages?” I ask.

He chuckles nervously. “Didn’t even have to fake it. Pretended I was a friend of his using a new profile. He was almost proud to admit it.”

“So you make a business of getting kids kicked out of school?”

“I make a business of getting kidsinto school. Only time I have to kick somebody out is when it’s the middle of the school year and attendance is full. And that costs extra.”

He closes the screenshot and opens another. I see two images, side-by-side, of myself in a grungy room snorting lines of white powder off a coffee table. I know it isn’t me. I’ve never done coke in my life. But the images look so real. They’d be enough to fool anyone.

“Fuuuck,” I breathe, staring at the fake photos.

Behind us, Alessio opens the briefcase. Inside are stacks of bills. “This looks like a good business. What is this, 30 grand?”

“50,” says Talbot, looking just slightly smug.

Alessio chuckles. “You must really have a gambling problem to be owing Gonzalez big with this kind of income. From now on, you work for me. I’ll send someone every month to collect my 50 percent.”

Talbot’s face reddens. “50 percent?”

“That’sifyou promise to get Ayla back into school. If you say no, you’re going over the balcony.”

“You’re not listening to me. I don’t even know how I would-”

“16 floors. Long way down. Figure it out.”

“But the arrangement I had with Mr. Gonzalez-”

Alessio grabs Talbot by the collar of his polo shirt and drags him across the living room, through the sliding glass doors, and to the balcony. I follow, my adrenaline spiking.

“I don’t give a shit about your arrangement with Mr. Gonzalez. You want to visit him in prison, that’s your business. But you’re kicking up your 50 percent to me, and you’re getting Ayla back into school. It does not matter what lies you have to make up. You’ll come up with something.”

He forces Talbot against the railing overlooking the city street, hoisting him by the waist so his feet leave the ground.

“Either that, or we do a little experiment in human flight. Get ready to flap those arms real hard.

“Okay! Okay!” Talbot gasps, his eyes bugging out as he stares down at the street so far below him. “Jesus, I’ll do it! I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You’ll do what?”

“I’ll get her back in. And I’ll pay you half.”

Alessio allows Talbot’s feet to return to the ground, although he keeps him pressed against the railing. “Good answer. But I have to ask. Are you going to forget about our deal when I leave here? Ireallywouldn’t want to have to come back.”

“No! I won’t forget.”

Alessio steps backward, calm now. “Good. You’re not going to see my face again. If you do, it’s because you haven’t held up your end of the bargain. And that means my face will be the last thing you ever see.”

“Understood,” Talbot babbles, quaking with relief. “I’ll find a way to-”

He breaks off as Alessio sticks a syringe into his neck.

“He was talking too much,” says my husband, shrugging.

***

Alessio

“Was that really necessary?” Ayla asks, wide-eyed.

I drag Talbot’s unconscious figure back into the apartment and dump him on the carpet. “No.”

“You didn’t… kill him, right?”

I chuckle. “Of course not. He’s my new business partner. And he can’t very well get you back into BCU if he’s dead. He’ll wakeup tomorrow with a headache.” I walk to the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge. “Want one?”

She stares at me. “Do I want a beer? Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”

“What’s the hurry?”

She starts to answer, then stops herself, as though struggling to come up with something. “I mean… leaving the scene of the crime?”

“So you don’t want a beer?”

Ayla stares at me again, then she laughs. “Fine, fine. Beer me.”

I toss her a bottle, which she misses. It shatters on the floor.

“Nice throw.”

“Nice catch.”

We make eye contact, then both of us start laughing. “Here,” I say, carefully handing her the bottle this time. “Want to sit out on the balcony?”

She walks over to the coffee table, past Talbot, and picks up what seems to be a jar of weed and some rolling papers. “Sure, if you’ll smoke a joint with me.”

I give her the side eye. “You want me to smoke weed with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t smoke with us that night we met. I’ve been dying to see what you’re like stoned.”

“Really?”

She interprets my response as a yes, picking up the jar and papers and walking out to the balcony with them. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

***

I haven’t smoked weed in years. The last time was with Dominguez, now that I think about it. I’m weirdly apprehensive as Ayla rolls the joint next to me with practiced fingers.

“Should I make a joke about how good you are at that?”

My wife shrugs. “Second semester of senior year, all I did was smoke. I got pretty good at rolling.”

“It’s still weird for me to hear that and realize you mean your senior year ofhigh school.”

She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, sealing the joint with her tongue. “I think it’s a little late to be having concerns about the age gap. You know we met before? When I was 14?”

“Fuck, really? Not exactly helping me feel less creepy.”

Ayla leans closer, looking at me with big, fuck-me eyes. “If you felt creepy for being with me, you probably should have thought of that before you fucked me and came inside me a bunch of times. Iamon birth control, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t wondering.”

She looks at me sharply, then gives a shudder, putting the joint to her lips. “Got a light?”

“Actually, no.”

She hands me a lighter from her pocket. “It’s okay, I have one. Want to do the honors?”

“I feel like I’m from a 1940s film noir movie, lighting your cigarette for you,” I say, flicking the lighter and holding the flame in front of her as she inhales. “Like I’m Humphrey Bogart and you’re Lauren Bacall or something.”

She giggles. “I barely know who those people are.”

My mouth opens in mock-offense. “Come on, I’m notthatmuch older than you.”

Ayla takes a drag, the tip of the joint glowing orange. “Tell me more about the 1940s. What was it like back then? Did you fight in World War II?”

I laugh. “Oh, no, they only drafted the young bucks. I was much too old. The last war I fought in, we were using rocks and clubs.”

“Yeah, and riding to battle on a dinosaur, right?”

“Right. My favorite was the Triceratops.”

“Not the T-Rex?”

“Nah. Too nippy.”

Ayla hands me the joint. I hold it warily, watching smoke trail from the tip.

“It won’t bite, you know,” she says, looking amused. “Just start slow. I got way more stoned than I expected to when I was smoking with Belle-Ann at the wedding.”

She means the wedding where we met in the orchard, I realize. The day I got made. How far away that feels.

Okay, here goes nothing. I put the joint to my lips and inhale, coughing as the smoke hits my lungs.

“There you go,” she says, patting my back and taking the joint back from me. “Let’s see how that treats you.”

I allow the remaining smoke to trail out of my mouth, almost like a ghost. “Tastes nice.”

“Yeah, apparently Talbot smokes the good stuff. Makes sense, considering the briefcase full of cash.”

My mind jumps to the BCU admissions officer, lying on the floor of the apartment while we sit on his balcony, smoking his weed and drinking his beer. A laugh escapes me, and once it starts, it doesn’t stop.

“What’s so funny?” asks Ayla, taking another hit. “Somebody got the giggles?”

I can’t even get the words out. Objectively, I can’t really defend the situation being funny enough to justify laughing like this, but it doesn’t seem to matter right now. The giggles have a life of their own.

Ayla watches me, and soon she’s laughing at the fact that I’m laughing. “You are so adorable,” she says, putting her head on my shoulder. “Oh my god. I’m so glad I got you high.”

“That’s a new one,” I choke out, getting control of myself.

“What is?”

“‘Adorable.’ Pretty sure I’ve never been called that before.”

“Not even when you were a kid?”

I scowl. “Definitely not.”

“That’s sad.”

Is it? It never occurred to me to think about it that way. Also, we aren’t talking about my childhood. That topic would make her pity me, want to comfort me, bring us closer. I’m not doing that.

“The city lights look amazing,” is what I end up saying, staring at the skyline in the fading evening light. “Are they always this bright and colorful?”