The Most Dangerous Dame

Natasha placed her chin on her fist. “How can you live like this, Mick? Doesn’t it get old after a while?”

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve been in and out of one jam after another ever since I was fished out of the river. Only time I got a few moments to kick back was—” I paused and locked gazes with her. “You know — with your folks.”

Her eyes drifted to the tabletop. “Those were the days, right?”

“They were.”

“All that’s over now. I finally can face it. I’m coping with it. It’s just all so… strange.”

“How’s that?”

She toyed with her napkin, looking almost shy. “I don’t know anyone but you, Mick. My parents didn’t trust many people. Father laughed and spoke to all his tenants, but you were the only man he invited to the table. My mother had a few friends, ladies she mostly spoke to on the phone. I had no friends my own age growing up. So when my parents were killed… there was only you.”

“Yeah. A down-and-out amnesiac with a knack for shooting trouble. Lucky you.”

Her smile brightened the melancholy for a brief moment. “You say that as a joke, but you’re right. I was lucky. Lucky to have someone like you watch over me. You took care of me when I had nothing and I’ll always love you for that.”

“Aw, I’m getting misty-eyed over here. You don’t owe me anything, Natasha. You know that.”

“It’s just I’ve had time to think things over. Clear my head. I want to do things, Mick. I want to be somebody.” Her voice turned wistful, and for a moment she was the innocent dreamer I knew in the old days. “I want to make friends. Get out and see some things.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What, you haven’t seen enough already?”

She laughed and swatted my hand. “You know what I mean. Places without any dead bodies or bullets flying around.”

“Yeah, I know. I think you should. Get out, I mean. Socialize, see some finer scenery. What’s in your way?”

I realized the truth as soon as the words came out. Her averted gaze told me the whole story. I slowly nodded.

“I get the picture. Really, I do. It’s me, isn’t it?”

Her eyes glistened. “Look, Mick—”

“It’s ok. Honest, it is. I haven’t been thinking things through. Haven’t been looking from your perspective.”

“I didn’t know. Or maybe I did and I didn’t want to think about it. People talk about you, Mick. The tenants at the Luzzatti talk about what you did for me and my folks. How you took on the Mob all by yourself. They like you. But at the same time they’re afraid of you, too. I didn’t understand why at first.” She paused to dab the corner of her eye with the handkerchief. “I do now.”

“Because of what you’ve seen.”

She nodded. “You told me once when people have no one else to turn to, they give you a call. I finally know what that means. You know how things work. How to be cold and mean as the people you take down. It’s how you survive. It’s who you are. And I can’t get in the way of that.”

My heart took a tumble to the bottom of my feet. Natasha’s words were an echo of what Esmeralda had told me earlier. It was like looking in two different mirrors. The one I saw was just a hazy image free for interpretation. The reflection they saw was my true self, the one I didn’t want to look at.

“I’m sorry, Natasha.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I love you, Mick. I always will. I just can’t expect you to change into someone you’re not. We both know the longer I stick around, the greater my chances of being used as a hostage or winding up another corpse to haunt you.”

She reached out and placed her hand over mine as she got up from the booth. “It’s time for me to go.”

I took a wary look around as I stood with her. “You mean now? It’s not safe. Not so long as Natalie and her crew are killing women connected to me.”

“Women intimately connected to you. I’m not one of those targets, Mick.” She forced a smile.

“Still too risky. There’s no telling what might—”

“Mick.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “You have to let go. You can’t do this and try to protect me at the same time. You do what you have to. I’ll take care of myself. I promise.” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Check in with me when this is over. Goodbye, Mick.”

For once I couldn’t think of a word to say.

I watched her walk away. My muscles tensed, my heart pounded as I forced myself to sit back in the booth. Her slender frame never looked so fragile as in that moment. I expected to hear the shot, hear the screams of frightened patrons, see her recoil from the force of the slug, run to catch her limp body as she fell.

But my fears proved groundless. She strode out the exit and merged with the crowds leaving and entering the diner. They were ghosts, insubstantial blurs my eyes quickly passed over.

She was all that mattered.