[right][sub] __________ πš†πš’πš—πš—πš’πšŽ π™³πšŠπš πšœπš˜πš— & πšƒπš˜πš—πš’ π™ΆπšŽπš—πš˜πšŸπšŽπšœπšŽ 44 πš‚πš’πš•πšŸπšŽπš› πš‚πšπš›πšŽπšŽπš, π™·πšŠπš’πš πšŠπš›πš π™Όπš’πš—πš—πšŽπš—πš˜πš˜πš—πšŠ, πš†π™Έ __________ [/sub] [/right] Maria Genovese was the kind of "good wife" men like Tony Genovese proudly proclaimed in a crowded room that they couldn't live without. The warm yellow glow of the porch light left on, a dinner plated and foiled untouched in the fridge, the scent of her moisturiser still lingering in their bedroom. She knew when to offer her insight. She knew when to press her lipsticked lips together in a hard line. She knew when to fuck her husband. She knew when to avert her gaze. Tony would often say "Behind every good man is an even better woman" - Maria was his home. It wasn't the hoover lines in the carpets nor the colour-coordinated place settings at the dining table. Nor was it the throw pillows, fluffed and chopped in the centre, perfectly arranged in size order like Russian dolls. Or the fact she'd fold his pyjamas on his side of the bed every morning. It was the soft cushion of her hips. The way she'd smile at him from the stove whilst wiping her hands on a tea towel. But ever since their beloved Luca had left his favourite meal getting cold on the kitchen table that night, Maria had become someone Tony barely recognised. This was a woman who would bake biscotti for the Family sat discussing gruesome business around her dining table, a woman who stoically watched her husband's fits of rage with merely a series of blinks and sighs. Maria was unflappable. Until Luca's bed was left empty for one too many nights. She quickly became jittery. Snappy. Overemotional. She wouldn't sleep, shuffling from room to room in her house slippers, lightbulb humming unblinkingly through the porch windows. Tony couldn't bare it. That's why he called Winnie's Wash. That's why he spoke to the Family, too. No pigs. No feds. These things were better handled "internally." Tony hadn't expected to hear back from Winnie so quickly. After he'd slammed the receiver back into its cradle and finished his cigarette, he'd looked up to find Maria hovering like a child up past their bedtime. Her chipped nail polish gripped the wooden door frame and her body seemed to be shrinking into the folds of her dusky pink bathrobe. [quote] [i]"Get yourself to bed, for God's sake, Maria..."[/i] Tony mumbled, shifting his weight in the Chesterfield Sofa, the buttons on his shirt straining to contain his hairy torso. [i]"I've got this handled, alright? We're gonna find him. The boy's no doubt partying somewhere, laying low with a skinful. He'll be home soon."[/i][/quote] His words were like puffs of air. They barely reached her. She flexed her fingers on the doorframe, immune to her husband's words of comfort. Like Aspirin lodged in her throat; The Headache was still there and there's a horrible powdered taste in her mouth. Maria's slippers remained rooted in the carpet fibres, breeze blocks. Her pasty lips opened and shut uselessly, weary eyes drifting to the ground where they lingered stubbornly. Tony huffed as he unfolded from the studded leather sofa and rose to his feet. He took a few cautious steps across the room, palms open and extended as if approaching an injured animal by the roadside. [quote] [i]"Maria, do you think for one second I'm gonna let this slide? No. I'm not. That boy's in so much hot water when I find him,"[/i] he placed two hands on either side of her, swallowing back the blow to his ego when she flinched at his touch. [i]"But we are gonna find him, alright? We are."[/i] [/quote] Maria's eyes barely moved, locked into that absent stare she'd worn the last couple days. Tony felt like he'd been locked out of his home, knocking uselessly at her empty bones and calling her name into a vacant room. She wordlessly backed away from him and into the dimly lit corridor. All he heard was the sound of her slippered steps, retreating up the stairs to their bedroom where she'd no doubt lay staring at the ceiling, listening for the sound of Luca's return. Tony returned to the sofa after pouring himself a glass of the good cognac from the crystal decanter on the cabinet. He reached over to the lamp beside him and clicked the light out, plunging himself into darkness. He drank. He waited. What for? He wasn't entirely sure. But when the phone trilled to life a couple of hours later, a sickening stir in his stomach told him it wasn't good news. Call it a Father's instinct. And when Winnie's worn syllables and diluted breath crackled the speaker, that sick feeling concreted like cement in the pits of him. [quote] [i]"Winnie? Jesus Christ. You work fast. You tellin' me you've found my boy already?"[/i] [/quote] [centre] _____________________________________ [/centre] Tony had given her his home address within the first few minutes of the phone call. She'd wasted no time after barrelling through her apartment door, cleaning supplies in an early grave in the back of her van. Duchess had padded happily to greet her, bell on her collar tinkering as she wound herself around Winnie's ankles, almost sending her flying face-first into the dining table. She tutted. Relaying the information to Tony Genovese was as if a newsreader was announcing the upcoming expectant showers and plummeting temperatures. She spoke of Pearl Sackville's phone call. Of the job. Of the inconsolable whore who'd she'd tucked in and who'd stuttered Luca Genovese's name between sobs. Tony listened. He didn't interject. He didn't interrupt. In fact, the only indication that he was still on the other end of the phone was the occasional whistle of his breaths. And when Winnie was finished, a silence fell. What she clung to was the promise that soon she'd leave this miserable apartment. She'd never have to clean up another mess that didn't belong to her. She pictured her granddaughter running to greet her at the bottom of the driveway. It was all waiting for her. And Tony was going to make it happen. But first? First he told her she'd have to come by the house. [quote] [i]"Now?"[/i] she'd asked incredulously. [/quote] [quote] [i]"Now."[/i] [/quote] So after a 20 minute drive she parked the van on Silver Street in Hayward where the Genovese family operated out of. The cleaner clambered out of the drivers seat, knees knocking. She told herself, as her weary soles made their way up the paving slabs of the Genovese home, that this was just a transaction. She'd give the information to Tony. He'd pay her by granting her freedom. And the fate of the crying girl? That was the price that had to be paid. The backlash for Pearl Sackville was karmic, wasn't it? She was a woman who dealt in darkness, prayed on the vulnerable minds of twisted men, caged lost girls and gave them some sick idea of purpose, selling nightmares dressed as dreams. She treated those girls like commodities. Bodies for rent. And the worst of it was she convinced them it was a better life than the one they lived on the outside. Winnie had spent years struggling with the guilt that came with her job. She was sure that's what had deepened her wrinkles and what anchored her bones. But Pearly seemingly breezed through SoirΓ©e like a celebrity, unburdened by her own evil. Was she plagued by regret? Did she, too, dream of an alternate reality where this wasn't her life? Hardly likely. The Madam didn't even bother to address Winnie by her actual name. And that is why, when Tony opened his front door and invited her in with a somber expression on his face, Winnie stepped assuredly over the threshold. For the first time in a long time, the Cleaner felt light on her feet. She was doing the right thing. And when Mrs Genovese's shaky hands stirred the teaspoon, the metal clinking against the china, and when those same shaking palms handed Winnie the cup of tea, the Cleaner bowed her head in thanks. Tony Genovese cleared his throat. [quote] [i]"Maria, mia cara, why don't you go on upstairs and let me talk to Miss Winnie?"[/i] [/quote] [quote] [i]"I'm staying right here, Tone."[/i] [/quote] [quote] [I]"I told you I'd handle it, Maria. I told you I'd deal with it. Now let me deal with it.[/I]" [/quote] Maria slammed her palms on the kitchen counter so hard that the cutlery drying in the dish rack rattled. Winnie jolted in her seat. She whirled to face Tony who stood deathly still, watching his wife with darkened eyes. [quote] [i]"I swear to God, Tony. If you say that one more time? I-If you say that? One? More? Time? I'm gonna lose it. I'm tellin' you I'm gonna lose it. I'm losing my goddamned mind, here. You think I'm stupid? You think I don't know the reason that Miss Winnie is sat at this table and not Luca? Goddamn it! Where is he, Tony? Where's our son?"[/i] [/quote] She snapped in half right there in the kitchen. Winnie watched as Tony tried to piece the shards of his wife back together, a wet pool of her spreading across the kitchen tiles like a leaking faucet. She suddenly felt the urge to up and leave, to give these people the privacy they deserved. But Tony hurriedly ushered Maria upstairs, whisperings of reassurance hushed into her ears, ignoring her flailing arms of protest. For a few minutes, all Winnie could hear was the drip of the tap and muffled voices overhead. She sighed. And when Tony reentered the room what felt like hours later, he appeared a few kilos heavier than when he left. The man made his apologies for the overtness of his wife's despair. Said of course she's struggling with all this. A Mother's heartbreak. He lowered himself into the chair across from Winnie at the dining table. There were wrinkles in his white shirt deeper than the ones that were carved into her own face. His slicked jet black hair was loosening itself from the grip of gel. He looked more human to her then than he ever had. A sigh rattled his ribcage. Tony Genovese interlaced his thick fingers and rested his elbows on the tabletop. He'd cuffed the shirt and rolled the sleeves halfway up his forearms. He looked upon Winnie with an intensity she struggled not to shy away from. Then, Tony asked her to tell him again. From the very beginning. He asked about SoirΓ©es layout. The entrances. The exits. The hours of operation. The types of people Winnie had seen there. Was it always busy? Did she see anything suspicious whilst she was there? What does this girl look like? [quote] [i]"Who works there?[/I]" [/quote] [quote] [i]"Who lives there?" [/i][/quote] [quote] [i]"Tell me about Pearl. What's she like?"[/i] [/quote] [quote] [i]"This girl say anything about what they'd done with him? Where they'd taken him?"[/i] [/quote] The barrage of questions flowed like a magician plucking a string of hanker-chiefs from his sleeve. Winnie answered them all. Well, the ones she was capable of answering. And what was indeed scarier than the prospect of Tony Genovese exploding across from her at the dining table? It was the cool, calm way he questioned her. The way he didn't seem to blink. The way his voice, monotonous and cold, hummed in sync with the whirr of the refrigerator. Tony didn't share in his wife's hysteria. The two of them were so polarised in their emotional responses in that way. She wept. He didn't shed a tear. Instead, Winnie watched the lace of revenge tie in a knot within the man's heart. And once he decided he'd had his fill, Tony showed her out. As if she'd simply popped round for a late night cup of tea. As the two of them said their awkward goodbyes at the door, Winnie hesitated on the front step. She turned slowly to face him, sheepish and coy in the dim light of the freshly mowed front lawn. [quote][i] "... Am I... Am I out?"[/i] Winnie whispered. There was something hopeful and childlike about her wrinkled, furrowed brow.[/quote] Tony looked down upon the frail, hunched old woman. Something flashed across his face in the moonlight. [quote] [i]"Thank you again, Miss Winnie. I'll call you."[/i] [/quote] And then the door crashed shut in her face. The porch light was switched off. She waited a breath longer before floating down the cobbled footpath to her van. The engine choked as it crunched into gear. Winnie drove in a trance back to her apartment. Still, she clung to the lifejacket of her granddaughter's happy smile. Not even the tears of Mrs Genovese could erase that image. She wasn't sure when she decided to keep driving. Was it when she stopped at a red light and felt something cold and hard grip at her nerves? Was it when she circled one particular roundabout twice before slapping down the indicator? The only thing that made her turn around and drive back towards her grimy, saddened apartment was the idea of Duchess mewing at nothingness for her next tin of chum.