Savage Lover: Chapter 11

I meet up with Schultz at Boardwalk Burgers, down by the pier. He’s already eating a double stack and fries at one of the outdoor tables.

“You want anything?” he asks me.

I shake my head.

“You sure? I can expense it.”

Everything he says has a teasing tone. It coats all his statements, making it hard to understand his real intent. Is he bragging because he can write off his meals? Is he joking about how silly it is to submit a form for a five-dollar burger? Is he reminding me that I’m an informant now, effectively on his payroll? Or is he trying to flirt with me?

I don’t like that last possibility.

But I can’t ignore how Schultz is constantly pinning me down with his bright blue eyes. Standing too close to me. Sneaking a suggestive tone into every statement.

Once I’ve sat down across from him at the picnic table, he shoves the half-eaten basket of fries toward me. I shake my head again. I don’t want anything in my mouth that he already touched.

“So,” he says, taking a slurp of his soda. “What did you find out?”

“I went to the street races last night. Levi was there. I told him my brother’s not selling for him anymore. So he made me pay for the product you took, and he said I have to sell for him instead.”

“Good.” Schultz grins.

“I didn’t really see who Levi was hanging around with that night. The cops came and broke it up before anything else happened.”

I see a little gleam in Schultz’s eye.

“I know,” he says. “One of the attendees got in a chase with a couple of squad cars. Do you know Nero Gallo?”

Even the sound of his name sends a flush of heat up the back of my neck.

I try to keep my expression neutral.

“We went to the same high school,” I say.

“The officers thought he had a brunette in the car with him. Do you know who that might be? I noticed your Trans Am down there. I stopped them from impounding it, by the way.”

“Thank you,” I say, stiffly.

He finishes the last bite of his burger, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. Staring at me the whole time.

“So was that you?” he says. “Were you speeding around with Nero?”

I impulsively grab one of his french fries, to give myself a second to think. It’s already lukewarm and soggy. It tastes like grease and salt.

I chew hard and then swallow.

“No,” I lie.

“Camille,” Schultz purrs, his blue eyes drilling into me. “This isn’t going to work if you lie to me.”

“I barely know Nero,” I say.

“You do know him, though.”

I hesitate. “Yes.”

“Have you ever fucked him?”

“NO!”

Now the heat has risen all the way up to my cheeks. Schultz is grinning. He loves unnerving me. He thinks it lets him read me.

“Not even once? I hear he’s got some kind of golden cock. The ultimate Casanova, right? Girls throwing their panties at him like he’s Justin Timberlake?”

Schultz is sneering, but there’s an edge of jealousy to his words. He’s handsome, fit. He thinks he deserves that kind of female attention himself.

“Maybe you should date him,” I mutter.

Schultz glares at me, then gives a fake hearty laugh.

“Good one,” he says.

“Here’s what you need to understand,” I tell him. “I was a loser in high school. I know these people because we all grew up in Old Town. We’ve lived in the same twenty-block radius most of our lives. But we’re barely acquaintances. They don’t like me or trust me. I can try to get closer to them, but nobody’s going to be spilling their secrets to me anytime soon. Least of all Nero Gallo.”

“You know what his family does?” Schultz says.

“Yeah. They’re old-school Italian Mafia.”

“Not just mafia. His father Enzo is the head don in Chicago.”

I shrug. “So?”

Schultz leans forward, his face alight with excitement. Ambition burns in his eyes.

“Can you imagine the promotion I’d get if I took down the Gallos?”

“Yeah,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Can’t believe nobody’s tried before.”

Schultz ignores my sarcasm. “The key to Enzo Gallo is his sons. Not Dante—he’s too careful. Not Sebastian—he’s not even a gangster. It’s Nero. That reckless, vengeful little shit. He’s the weak point of the family.”

Schultz has forgotten about Aida. Or he figures she’s too well-protected by the Griffins these days.

“I don’t know if I’d call Nero a ‘weak point,’ ” I say.

“Why?”

“He’s smarter than you think. He got one of the highest scores in the school on the ACTs. His grades were shit because he never handed in any assignments.”

“See,” Schultz says softly. “You do know him.”

“I know he’s a total psychopath. Asking me to get close to him is like asking me to cozy up with a rattlesnake. He gets one hint that something’s up, and he’ll stab me in a heartbeat.”

“Better not fuck it up, then,” Schultz says coldly.

He doesn’t give a shit what happens to me. I’m a tool. And not even a very valuable one. Not an air compressor or a fancy impact wrench—I’m just a cheap plastic funnel. Easily replaced.

“Now,” Schultz says, sitting back against the fence enclosing the little outdoor dining area. “Tell me more about Levi.”

I take a deep breath, almost relieved to be off the subject of Nero.

“I went to his place today to get some more product. What do you want me to do with that, by the way?”

“Let’s see it,” Schultz says.

I hand him the paper bag. He looks inside, pulling out one of the pills. It’s small and yellow, shaped like a school bus, just like the ones he took out of Vic’s backpack.

Schultz smiles. Apparently, he’s pleased that Levi’s supply is so uniform.

“I’ll take these,” Schultz says. He counts out a dozen, slips them into a plastic Ziploc, and hands it back to me. “Keep a few, so you can sell them at parties when Levi’s watching.”

I stare at him. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“Obviously.”

“But you don’t give a shit about people taking Molly. Not really.”

Schultz snorts. “I don’t give a shit about minnows when I’m hunting for sharks.”

I stuff the baggie in my pocket. “I need cash for the others,” I tell him. “Levi expects me to bring back ten bucks a pill.”

“He’s ripping you off,” Schultz laughs.

“Yeah, no shit. He’s got me over a barrel, thanks to you.”

“That sounds fun,” Schultz smirks. “Having you over a barrel.”

God, he makes me want to puke.

“I don’t have the money to cover it,” I insist.

“Fine.” Schultz pulls out a bill clip and counts out the money. “Pay him with this. But make sure you wait long enough that he’ll think you really sold the Molly.”

I take the folded bills. It’s weird that a cop is carrying around that much cash.

Schultz is wearing street clothes again. I’ve only seen him in uniform that one time, when he pulled me over. I’m guessing this is how he usually dresses, and he was just wearing the uniform for effect that night. To intimidate me.

He’s obviously been watching Levi for a while. I don’t think it was a coincidence that he pulled me over.

“Did you follow me from Levi’s house?” I ask him.

Schultz cocks his head to the side, smiling.

“What do you mean?” he says.

“Were you waiting for me, after the party?”

“I was waiting for someone,” he says. “Someone I could use.”

Just my shitty luck that it happened to be me.

“You probably know as much as I do about the people in Levi’s house,” I say.

“Tell me anyway.”

I take a breath, trying to remember it all exactly. “There’s a big Samoan dude who acts like his bodyguard or something. He’s the one that went and got the drugs.”

Schultz nods. “Sione,” he says.

“Then there were five or six other people in the living room.”

“Which was it? Five? Or six?”

I close my eyes, trying to picture the room again.

“Five,” I say. “A girl named Ali Brown—she went to school with me. I don’t think she works for Levi or anything. It looked like she was just there to get high. Or maybe they’re dating.”

Schultz nods. He might have seen her already.

“Then there was Levi. And three other dudes. One was named Pauly.”

That was the asshole who was talking about my mom. My face colors again, remembering it. I used to get so much shit about her when I was in school. Then she disappeared five years ago. It took me a while to notice—seeing as she never called me much anyway.

“What was the other guy’s name?” Schultz says.

“I don’t know.”

“Anything else?”

I try to remember.

“Levi must keep the drugs somewhere on the main level. Sione went out of the room to get them, but I didn’t hear him climbing the stairs. I don’t know who makes the Molly, though. I asked Levi where it comes from, and he didn’t tell me anything. Basically said to mind my own business.”

“Well, don’t be so obvious,” Schultz says. “Figure it out another way.”

He expects me to do his job for him. Except that I have zero training and no desire to do any of this. I feel sleazy just for mentioning Ali’s name. I don’t want to get her in trouble. She didn’t do anything to me.

“I think Ali was just stopping by,” I say again. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Schultz shakes his head at me.

“These people are criminals and lowlifes,” he says. “Don’t try to protect them.”

That pisses me off. What makes him think he’s better than them? I bet he’s done all kinds of shady shit in the line of duty. It’s not “moral” vs “immoral.” It’s just a bunch of people on two opposing teams.

I’ve been drafted for Schultz’s team. But I don’t like being there. I don’t want to play the game at all, for either side.

“I better go,” I say, getting ready to leave.

“Keep in touch,” Schultz reminds me.

As we both stand, he grabs my arm, saying, “Hold on.”

He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, under my right eye. I have to force myself not to flinch away.

“You had an eyelash there,” he says, smirking.

Right. I just bet there was.

When I get back to the apartment, I see my dad’s door still firmly shut. It’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon, and it doesn’t look like he’s left the room. The only mug on the table is the one I used this morning.

I can hear him moving around, at least. But he’s coughing again.

“Dad?” I call out. “I’m home.”

No answer.

I grab my mug and set it in the sink, running water to rinse out the coffee dregs.

Dad has another coughing fit that ends in retching. I jump up, sprinting over to his door and knocking.

“Dad? You okay?”

I push the door open. He’s sitting up on his bed, hunched over, hacking into the crook of his arm.

When he looks up, his face is gray. There’s red froth on his lips.

“DAD!”

“I’m alright. I just need a rest—”

“We’re going to the hospital!”

I pull him up from the bed, holding him steady by the elbow. He’s not that hard to hold up. He’s lost at least thirty pounds. Why didn’t I pay attention sooner? He’s been sick for a couple of months. I thought it was just a stubborn cold . . .

I help him down the stairs, though he keeps telling me he can walk on his own. I doubt it—his color is awful, and he doesn’t look steady on his feet. I take him out through the auto bay ‘cause my car is parked out back.

“You finish that Chevy?” my dad wheezes.

“Yeah,” I say. “Don’t worry about it, Dad.”

We get in my Trans Am and I take him to Midtown Medical. We have to wait forever, because it’s Saturday, and because “coughing” isn’t exactly a high priority in the ER. Plenty of people stumble in with head wounds or dangling arms, plus one dude who shot a nail right through the palm of his hand, during a little home improvement gone wrong.

“Now you know how Jesus felt,” a blue-haired grannie tells him.

“Jesus didn’t have to sit around looking at it,” the man says, staring at the nail with a nauseated expression.

Finally, a nurse takes us back and we have to wait even longer while they run a bunch of tests, including a chest x-ray.

I’m so stressed out that I don’t even recognize the technician for a second.

“Hey!” Patricia greets me. “Is this your dad?”

“Oh, yeah.” I smile weakly. “Dad, this is my friend Patricia.”

“I like your scrubs,” my dad says. “I didn’t know they made them like that.”

Patricia’s wearing a set of lavender scrubs with a pretty floral pattern on the top.

“Oh yeah.” She grins. “It’s a regular fashion show back here.”

Patricia sets up the x-ray, then has me stand safely around the corner with her while she takes the images.

“How does it look?” I ask her nervously.

“Uh . . . well, I’m not really supposed to say anything until the doctor takes a look,” she says.

But I see a little stress line appearing between her eyebrows when she looks at the images forming on the screen.

My heart clenches up in my chest.

I’m thinking he probably has pneumonia. There was blood in his cough, but nobody gets consumption anymore, or whatever that disease was that killed all the Victorians. It’s gotta just be pneumonia. They’ll give him some antibiotics and he’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.

After the tests are done, Patricia leads me and my dad to a little curtained-off cubicle.

“They’ll be with you soon,” she says, giving me a sympathetic smile.

Another forty minutes drags by, then a young, chipper-looking doctor comes in. He looks like Doogie Howser, if Doogie were Asian and wore Converse sneakers.

“Mr. Rivera,” he says. “I have the results back from your x-ray.”

He pins the images up on an illuminated board, so the white portions of the x-ray glow brilliantly against the black. I can see my father’s ribcage, but not the lungs themselves. There are several grayish masses below the ribs that I assume are organs, or maybe his diaphragm.

“So we’ve looked at your lungs, and we’re not seeing fluid down here.” The doctor points to the lower half of the lungs. “However, you’ll see that there is a nodule or mass right here.”

He circles his index finger around a slightly pale area, to the right of the spine. It’s not bright white like the bone. In fact, it’s hard to see at all.

“A nodule?” I say, confused. “Like a cyst or something?”

“It’s possible,” the doctor says. “We need to get a tissue confirmation before we can diagnose. We can do this by a CT-guided biopsy or through bronchoscopy—”

“Wait, diagnose what?” I say. “What do you think the problem is?”

“Well.” The doctor shifts uncomfortably. “I can’t say for certain until we get a sample back . . .”

“But what else could it be? If it’s not a cyst?”

“Cancer,” the doctor says gently.

“What?” I’m staring at him, open mouthed. “My dad doesn’t smoke.”

“A lot of things can cause lung cancer,” the doctor says. “Exposure to radon, pollutants, diesel exhaust . . .”

I’m shaking my head. This can’t be happening.

“Nothing is certain yet,” the doctor says. “We’ll take a tissue sample and—”

I can’t even hear the words coming out of his mouth. I’m looking at my dad, who’s sitting silently on the edge of the gurney, coveralls swapped out for one of those humiliating smocks that don’t even close all the way up the back. He looks skinny and pale.

He’s forty-six. There’s no way he has cancer.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” I say to him. “It’s probably something else.”

I’m forcing a smile.

Meanwhile I’m sinking down, down, down into deep black water.