Savage Lover: Chapter 5

I’m so mad I could scream!

Who the fuck does Nero think he is, coming into my shop and acting like I just sweep floors around here?

I can hear him down there messing around with my tools. I’ve got a mind to grab the power washer and blast him out of there like a junkyard dog.

The only reason I don’t is because my dad starts coughing again. He’s supposed to be taking a nap, but he keeps waking up every ten minutes with another round of hacking and groaning. I feel frozen in place in the kitchen, vacillating between going in to check on him, and leaving him alone if he might be falling back asleep again.

I’ve got a sick feeling of dread, like I’m standing in an abandoned building and the walls are starting to crumble down around me. Vic is getting in trouble. That cop is up my ass. And now something’s wrong with my dad. It’s not just the coughing—he’s been sick for a while. But we don’t have insurance. We’re self-employed. I’ve looked several times, and the cheapest plan we could get is $1200 a month. I’m lucky to have a spare hundred bucks after we pay for utilities, groceries, and the rent on this place, which keeps going up every year.

I keep working harder and harder, just to watch my dreams slip through my fingers like sand. I want my brother to go to a good school and become something great, like a doctor or an engineer. I want him to live in one of those big, fancy houses in Old Town, not an apartment. I want my dad to have a fat savings account so he can retire when the heavy lifting of the job gets to be too much for him. I want him to be able to take a vacation somewhere sunny now and then.

And for me . . .

I don’t know. I don’t even know what I want for myself.

I want to not feel like a fucking loser. I want to have time for friends and dating. And I’d love to be able to do the kind of work that really interests me. I love cars, more than anything. But changing brake pads is tedious at best. I’d love to be able to do more creative projects.

There’s a huge market for custom mods, and it’s growing all the time. If I had the capital, we could be doing matte finishes, wraps, custom lights, body kits, all kinds of stuff.

That’s just dreaming, though. We’ve barely paid off the equipment we’ve got. And if my dad doesn’t get better soon, we’re not going to be taking on extra work, either.

At least he’s quieting down, finally. I think he’s actually asleep.

I make myself peanut butter toast and eat it with a glass of milk. When I’m sure he’s getting some rest, and the noise coming from his room is just snoring, I put my dishes in the sink and head back down to the garage to tell Nero to get lost.

Looks like he’s already gone.

The right side of the bay is empty, his Mustang apparently fixed enough to carry him back home.

The radio is playing Drake. He changed my station. Are there no depths to which this man will not sink? I snap it back to Top Hits, swapping over to “Watermelon Sugar” instead. Thank you, Harry Styles. You’re a true gentleman. You would never fuck with a woman’s torque wrenches and then force her to listen to Canada’s worst export.

At least Nero cleaned up after himself. Actually . . . the only thing he left out of place is a wad of bills on the workbench.

I walk over to it, slowly, like there might be a scorpion hidden inside.

I pick it up. There’s six hundred bucks here. All Benjamins, of course. Douche.

I hold the bills, wondering why Nero bothered to leave money. Not because he felt guilty for being an asshole—I’ve never heard him apologize for anything, not once. Not when he broke Chris Jenkin’s arm during gym class basketball. And certainly not when he got a blow job from the Henderson twins, on the same day, an hour apart, without telling either of the sisters that he was going for a matching set.

And that was just high school shit. He’s done a lot worse since then. Serious criminal activity, if the rumors are true. They say he’s in the Italian Mafia, along with his brother. I wouldn’t doubt it. His father is a don, not just your regular goombah.

I remember the first time I saw Enzo Gallo pull up to the auto bay in a sleek, gray Lincoln Town Car that looked a mile long. He got out of the back wearing a three-piece suit, Oxford shoes, and a houndstooth overcoat. I’d never seen a man dressed like that. I thought he must be the president.

He shook hands with my dad, and they talked for a long time. They were laughing at one point. I thought they must be friends. Later I found out that Enzo’s like that with everybody. He knows everyone in our neighborhood—the Italians, and everybody else.

He’s a benevolent dictator. My father told me that at one point, every single business in northwest Chicago paid a 5 percent protection fee to the Gallos. The Irish had the northeast. But when the Gallos moved into the construction racket, they dialed back on the old-school extortion.

Now I see their name on high-rise sites in the downtown core. I really can’t picture Nero working a backhoe. Now, burying a body under a foundation . . . that I can definitely see. I bet he’d smile while he did it.

No, if Nero left money, it wasn’t to be nice. It’s because six hundred bucks is pocket change to him.

Not to me, though. I stuff it in my coveralls. That’s two month’s groceries, or a quarter of the rent. I’ll take it, even if it fell out of the devil’s pocket.

I finish topping up the fluids on the Accord, then I head into the tiny front office to pay a couple bills.

As I’m messing around with our online bill pay, my cellphone starts buzzing. I pick it up without looking, thinking it’s Vic wanting a ride home from work.

“Did you miss me yet, Camille?” a male voice says.

I cringe away from the phone, looking at the name on the display: “Officer Dickhole.”

“I really hadn’t had a chance to miss you,” I say. “Try staying away longer.”

He chuckles. “I knew I picked the right girl,” he says. “What are you doing tonight?”

“Organizing my socks.”

“Think again. You’re going to Wacker Drive.”

“What’s on Wacker Drive?” I ask innocently.

“You know exactly what,” Schultz says. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you down there.”

“I fix cars. I don’t crash them into pylons,” I say.

“Well I’m sure you’ll enjoy the show either way,” Schultz says. “Cozy up to Levi. Start making best buds with all your high school friends again.”

I shiver. Schultz knows my connection to these people. He’s learning more about me. Not to be friendly, I’m sure. He’s sinking his hooks in deeper and deeper.

I keep all my clothes in the coat closet. My little makeshift room doesn’t have a closet, or any space for a dresser. I only have a few outfits anyway. Most of them look the same. Jeans. A couple T-shirts. Undershirts that come in a pack of five from Hanes. A pair of shorts that used to be an old pair of jeans.

I pull those on, along with some sneakers and a T-shirt. Then I look in the bathroom mirror. I pull off the navy bandanna that holds back my hair. My curls spring up, frizzy in the summer humidity.

I would like to have Beyoncé curls. What I actually have is Howard Stern curls, where they stick up everywhere like I’ve been electrocuted. Even the ends are a little lighter from the sunshine, like they really did get zapped with ten thousand volts. I usually keep them tied down.

There’s no way I’m wearing my hair down. But I can at least put it up properly. I rub a little shea butter in it, then twist it up in a bun on top of my head. Some curls poke out, but I don’t care. It’s good enough.

I get my Trans Am and cruise down to Lower Wacker Drive. Wacker is like three freeways stacked on top of each other. The top two streets carry traffic, but the lowest road is much less busy. It runs parallel with the river, with heavy support beams bracketing the road on both sides.

I have been here before, once or twice, though apparently not when Schultz was around to see. I couldn’t resist watching some of the fastest cars in the city face off in illegal street races.

It’s not just drag racing. It’s drifting and burnouts, too. Every once in a while, a race gets out of control, and somebody crashes into a parked car or a pole. That somebody was Nero Gallo last fall, or so I heard. He crashed his beloved Bel Air racing Johnny Verger. It was stupid of him to even try—a classic car can’t compete with a brand-new BMW, not in speed or in handling, no matter what modifications Nero made to it. But that’s his problem. He has his normal level of crazy. And then he has his moments where he seems to crave pure immolation. He’s somebody who wants to go out in a blaze of glory. The “going out” is more important than the “blaze of glory.”

When I get there, I see half a dozen cars with the headlights on, circling lazily, with a dozen more parked around. I see Supras, Lancers, Mustangs, Imprezas, a couple M-2s, and one chromed-out silver Nissan GT-R.

I park my car and join the loose crowd, looking around for people I know.

I spot Patricia Porter. She’s a pretty black girl who was a year ahead of me at school. She’s got her hair pulled up in a high pony, and a little gold hoop through the side of her nose.

“Patricia!” I call.

She looks up, taking a second to fix on me, before she breaks into a grin.

“I haven’t seen you in forever,” she says.

“I know. I’m boring. I don’t go out.”

She laughs. “Same. I work a lot of nights, so unless somebody wants to meet for brunch when I get off . . .”

“Where do you work?”

“Midtown Medical. I’m an x-ray tech.”

“I’m surprised you’re not glowing, then.”

“I mean, I wear a lead apron. But yes, I’ve developed several superpowers so far . . .”

I’m happy to see her. It’s nice to remember that not everybody I went to school with was an ass. Just most of them, unfortunately.

Speaking of which, there’s Bella Page prowling around. Not with her little minions this time, but with some guy I don’t know—he’s wearing a denim jacket and he’s got sort of an Eastern-European look, all slicked-back hair and high cheekbones. There’s a cross tattooed on the side of his neck.

He’s the one that owns the GT-R, apparently. He’s got great taste in cars, if not in women. They call it the Godzilla for a reason. You can go around the pilings in one of those like you’re doing slaloms down a goddamned mountain.

I was planning to hold really still and hope Bella didn’t see me, until Patricia yells, “Hey, Bella—where’s your bookends?”

Bella frowns at us, annoyed that we got the first shot off before she even saw us.

“They’re not here tonight,” she says.

“That’s weird,” Patricia says. “I thought they were surgically attached.”

“It’s called having friends,” Bella says, in her sweetest, most condescending tone. “That’s why we’re The Queen Bees, and you two losers are barely Ds.”

I shake my head at her.

“You really haven’t changed since high school,” I tell her. “That’s not a compliment.”

“Yeah. You know you guys gave yourselves your own nickname. That’s lame as hell,” Patricia says.

I snort.

I don’t know who first called them The Queen Bees, but I can certainly imagine those three bitches sitting around brainstorming. Probably took them all afternoon.

Bella narrows her eyes at us until they’re like two bright blue vertical slits.

“You know what else hasn’t changed since high school?” she says. “You two are still ugly, poor, and completely jealous of me.”

“Well, you got one out of three right,” I tell her. “I am pretty broke.”

“Obviously,” Bella says, letting her eyes sweep over the whole of my person. Then she turns and stalks away, to rejoin the boyfriend who doesn’t seem to have noticed she was missing.

Patricia laughs, totally unconcerned by that little encounter.

“God, I thought she’d be living somewhere else by now,” she says. “Torturing some other innocent citizens.”

“Innocent is a stretch . . .” I say.

A few of the cars are already lining up—the tight, efficient Japanese models, and the roaring American muscle. I see a white Supra with a long scratch down the side waiting alongside a purple Impreza.

Patricia looks keenly interested in this particular race. She’s watching closely, biting the edge of her thumbnail.

The cars take off, screeching off the line. The Impreza jolts ahead first, quicker off the line, but the Supra starts to catch up along the straight stretch. There’s a curve before the finish line—the Supra is forced to the outside, but pulls ahead again when the cars straighten out. They whip across the finish line, the Supra ahead by an inch.

It’s only a quarter-mile. It lasted a total of fourteen seconds.

Still, I failed to breathe the entire time. My heart is in my throat, and I’m hit with a vivid bolt of joy.

Patricia seems equally thrilled—she lets out a whoop of happiness, like she was cheering for the Supra the whole time.

“Who was that?” I ask her.

She blushes, looking mildly embarrassed. “This guy, Mason,” she says. “We’re sort of dating.”

The two cars pull back around. Patricia hurries over to meet them, running across the beams of their headlights. I follow after her, curious to see this Mason guy.

He climbs out of the Supra: tall, skinny, with lightning bolts shaved into the side of his hair, wearing a pair of ripped-up skinny jeans.

He’s laughing at the driver of the Impreza.

“I told you, you don’t have the top-end speed—”

Mason breaks off when he sees Patricia.

“Patricia! Baby! Why don’t you pick up your phone?” he cries. “I called you eight hundred times. Listen, I’m telling you, baby, I never cheated on you . . .”

“I know that,” Patricia says calmly.

“You know . . .” He stares at her. “If you know that . . . then why . . . in the fuck . . . did you key my CAR!?” he shouts.

“BECAUSE YOU LEFT MY GRANDMOTHER AT THE AIRPORT!” Patricia bellows back at him. “You said you were going to pick her up while I was at work! She waited THREE HOURS, MASON! That woman is eighty-seven years old! She saw the Hindenburg explode. Actually, she heard it—BECAUSE THERE WAS NO FUCKING TV!”

Mason is standing there frozen, with a guilty grimace on his face. He definitely forgot all about Patricia’s grandma until right this very moment.

“Okay, okay,” he says, holding up his hands. “I might have fallen asleep—”

“ASLEEP?”

“But you didn’t have to key my car, baby! It’s a classic!”

“Nana’s a classic, Mason! NANA!”

This is so much better than a drag race. A large circle of people has formed around us, and I swear to god, somebody is taking bets on whether Patricia is going to smack Mason or go for his car again.

“She had to eat airport Wendy’s, Mason! That is so much worse than normal Wendy’s!”

At that moment, I see Levi Cargill standing over on the opposite side of the circle. He’s wearing a hot pink tracksuit and a diamond the size of my pinky nail in his right ear. I cannot comprehend why Officer Schultz needs my help tracking Levi, when you can probably see him from outer space.

I sidle over toward him, wanting to speak to him alone.

He’s talking to a couple of thuggish-looking guys. When I make eye contact, he peels off from the pack and ambles over.

“You wanna buy something?” he asks me.

“No,” I say.

He lets his eyes roam down my body, grinning suggestively. “You want something for free, then? It’s big, and thick, and I can—”

“Actually, it’s about my brother.”

“Who?”

“Victor.”

“Oh.” He stops smiling. “You dragged him out of my party last night.”

“Right. He’s not coming to those anymore. And he’s not selling for you anymore, either.”

Levi’s lips thin out into a long, straight line. He sucks in air through his nostrils.

“That’s not up to you,” he says. “It’s between me and Vic.”

“Victor is seventeen,” I say, quietly. “He’s a minor, and he’s not selling drugs for you.”

Levi grabs my upper arm between fingers that feel like steel pincers. He drags me away from the circle of headlights, behind a cement pillar.

“Here’s the problem,” he hisses. “Your brother owes me for a hundred and fifty tabs. And he also owes me a new dealer, if he’s planning to quit.”

“It was a hundred and ten,” I say.

“He’s paying me for one fifty or that’s how many strokes I’m gonna practice with my nine-iron on the back of his skull,” Levi spits into my face, digging his fingers into my arm.

“What does that cost?” I mutter, trying not to show how much it hurts.

“Ten bucks a tab,” Levi says.

There’s no way they cost him that much. But he’s obviously determined to extort me.

“Fine,” I growl. “I’ll get you the money.”

“Yeah? What about the dealer?”

I hesitate. I don’t want to cave into this guy. I don’t want to see him at all, after today.

But there’s somebody who’s not going to let me go home and hide my head under the pillow. Officer Schultz expects me to get information. He’s going to expect a lot more than the news that Vic “quit.”

“I’ll do it,” I say.

“You?” Levi sneers.

I yank my arm out of his grip. “Yeah,” I say. “I know a hell of a lot more people than Victor does. People come in and out of my shop all day long. I can probably double Vic’s sales.”

“I thought you were a good girl,” Levi says, suspiciously. “I heard you don’t even suck dick with the lights on.”

“Lights on or off doesn’t matter to me,” I say to Levi. “Either way, I wouldn’t touch yours for any fucking price.”

Levi snorts. “You’re not my type either, you Justin Bieber-dressin’ bitch.”

I want to tell Levi he looks like a cool mom, but I keep it to myself. The only way I’m going to get dirt on this guy is by working for him. And if that’s what I have to do to get Schultz off my back, well . . . I don’t have any other choice.

“That’s the best I can do,” I tell him. “ ‘My brother’s going to college. He’s not sticking around here like the rest of us.”

Levi scoffs.

“I went to college. There’s more drugs on campus than the whole rest of the city.”

“Yeah, well, there’s also diplomas.”

Levi looks me over one last time.

“Fine,” he says. “Come by the house tomorrow.”

“Perfect. I will.”

I turn away from him, trying not to hyperventilate.

Great. I’m a drug dealer now.

I don’t exactly feel like celebrating, but at least I’ll have something to tell Schultz next time he calls. Unless he gets hit by a bus in the meantime.