The Don's Son Drowned Me, So I Came Back to Sink His Family novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Nine Feet

Tomo's POV. On the stern deck he tells Zuza everything he owes her, and his uncle arrives with two glasses while Dominic's mother watches through the glass.

Tomo's POV

The last time I saw Zuza Bartos, she was falling backward off a boat with her eyes on my face.

Now she was sitting beside me in a blue dress, with two hundred people watching and her chin up.

Dominic Pellegrino came across the floor with his hands open and his smile on.

He was good at rooms. I had watched him work them for years without once seeing him fail.

"Tomo," he said warmly. "My fiancée wants a dance, and she's had a glass of champagne. Be a gentleman."

"I've had half a glass," Zuza said.

"Then take her out for some air first," Dominic said, and squeezed my shoulder.

His hand was heavy and friendly.

I stood. I did not look at it.

Behind him, the band began "Volare" again, on his nod, and the room let go and started talking.

Zuza took the aisle toward the stern doors, and I followed her out into the cold.

The deck was empty. The Monongahela ran black under the lights of Station Square, and the Smithfield Street Bridge was lit up behind us.

She went to the rail and turned around with her back to it.

I stopped six feet from her. I did not go closer.

"You said it with your mouth," she said. "On the boat. Before, I mean. You were at the door."

"I was at the door," I said.

"You heard me."

"I heard you."

I had planned a long time for this, in the dark, in the thing that came before waking up.

None of it was any use now.

"Then say it," she said. "Everything, once. I won't ask twice."

So I said it, with my hands in my pockets, because I didn't trust them.

"I was on the upper deck for a cigarette," I said. "I saw Paola take your wrist. I saw the rail go."

My throat closed, and I made it open.

"I could have grabbed you. I was nine feet away."

"I didn't move," I said. "The Pellegrinos hold the note on the lodge hall and the roof of the church school."

I looked at the river instead of her.

"I told myself it was a drunk girl and a bad rail," I said. "I told myself that for three days."

"Then I stood up at your wake lunch, in front of your father, and I said what I saw."

She did not move. Her face was very quiet.

"It was the only thing I did right in that life," I said. "I did it a week too late."

"My uncle Mirko shot me on the church steps the next Sunday, after Mass."

"He said he was sorry. He said the box was empty and I should have kept my mouth shut."

I turned back to her.

"I didn't know what box he meant," I said. "I know now. I'm telling you so you'll know what I know."

I stopped. The river slapped the hull.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," I said. "I'd think less of you if you did."

"I owe you one drowned woman. I can't pay that. But I know every kitchen in Millvale."

I kept my voice level.

"I know who owes whom, and who's afraid of whom, and which widow keeps her husband's ledgers."

"You read numbers. I read people. If you want a collector, I'm one," I said.

Zuza looked at me for a long time.

The wind moved her hair across her mouth, and she did not push it back.

"Say the last part again," she said.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," I said.

"No. The part before," she said.

"I owe you one drowned woman," I said.

"Good," she said quietly. "Keep owing it. I'm going to need a man who keeps his debts."

She pulled her hair back with one hand.

Her fingers were shaking, and her voice was not.

"At eleven o'clock Paola will be on the upper deck, at the third rail section from the stairs."

"I know," I said. "I remember the section from that night."

"She'll loosen it before. She always did the work early."

"There's a deckhand crew on the lower deck," I said. "Four of them. They're your father's."

"They're mine," Zuza said. "I sign their checks."

For the first time, something that was almost a smile moved at the corner of her mouth.

It was gone before I could be sure.

Behind us the stern door opened, and a voice I had last heard on the church steps came out into the cold.

"Tomo! There you are."

Mirko came out with two full glasses of slivovitz, his face red and happy and wide.

My uncle was fifty-five and he hugged like a bear. He had hugged me on the day my father was buried.

Six years of the burial fund, I thought. And three bullets on the church steps.

"To the bride!" Mirko said, and pushed a glass into my hand. "Gospodin Bartos's girl. A great family!"

I took the glass.

My hand was steady. I was proud of that for about as long as it took to lift it.

"Zivjeli," I said.

Zuza's eyes dropped to my glass, then to my uncle's smile.

She understood it in a moment. She had always read a column faster than anyone I knew.

Over Mirko's shoulder, through the lit window of the main cabin, Dominic's mother was standing very still with her thermos in both hands.

She was not looking at the bride, or at the deck, or at her son.

She was looking at me.

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