42

My father would not talk.

When we got back to the house, he headed up to his bedroom, the one he had shared with my mother for nearly forty years, and closed the door. There was so much coming at me now. I tried to sort through it, but it was too much. My brain threatened to shut down. And still I didn't know enough. Not yet anyway. I needed to learn more.

Sheila.

There was one more person who might be able to shed some light on the enigma that had been the love of my life. So I made my excuses, said my good-byes, and headed back into the city. I hopped on a subway and headed up to the Bronx. The skies had started to darken and the neighborhood was bad, but for once in my life, I was beyond being scared.

Before I even knocked, the door opened a crack, the chain in place. Tanya said, "He's asleep."

"I want to talk to you," I said.

"I have nothing to say."

"I saw you at the memorial service."

"Go away."

"Please," I said. "It's important."

Tanya sighed and took off the chain. I slipped inside. The dim lamp was on in the far corner, casting the faintest of glows. As I let my eyes wander over this most depressing place, I wondered if Tanya was not as much a prisoner here as Louis Castman. I faced her. She shrunk back as if my gaze had the ability to scald.

"How long do you plan on keeping him here?" I asked.

"I don't make plans," she replied.

Tanya did not offer me a seat. We both just stood there, facing each other. She crossed her arms and waited.

"Why did you come to the service?" I asked.

"I wanted to pay my respects."

"You knew Sheila?"

"Yes."

"You were friends?"

Tanya may have smiled. Her face was so mangled, the scars running jagged lines with her mouth, I couldn't be sure. "Not even close."

"Why did you come then?"

She cocked her head to the side. "You want to hear something weird?"

I was not sure how to respond, so I settled for a nod.

"That was the first time I've been out of this apartment in sixteen months."

I was not sure how to respond to that either, so I tried, "I'm glad you came."

Tanya looked at me skeptically. The room was silent save for her breathing. I don't know what was physically wrong with her, if it was connected to the brutal slashing or not, but every breath sounded as though her throat were a narrow straw with a few drops of liquid stuck inside.

I said, "Please tell me why you came."

"It's like I told you. I wanted to pay my respects." She paused. "And I thought I could help."

"Help?"

She looked at the door to Louis Castman's bedroom. I followed her gaze. "He told me why you came here. I thought maybe I could fill in some more of the pieces."

"What did he say?"

"That you were in love with Sheila." Tanya moved closer to the lamp. It was hard not to look away. She finally sat and gestured for me to do likewise. "Is that true?"

"Yes."

"Did you murder her?" Tanya asked.

The question startled me. "No."

She did not seem convinced.

"I don't understand," I said. "You came to help?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you run off?"

"You haven't figured that out?"

I shook my head.

She sat more like collapsed onto a chair. Her hands fell into her lap, and her body started rocking back and forth.

"Tanya?"

"I heard your name," she said.

"Pardon?"

"You asked why I ran off." She stopped rocking. "It was because I heard your name."

"I don't understand."

She looked at the door again. "Louis didn't know who you were. Neither did I not until I heard your name at the service, when Squares eulogized her. You're Will Klein."

"Yes."

"And" her voice grew soft now, so soft I had to lean forward to hear it "you're Ken's brother."

Silence.

"You knew my brother?"

"We met. A long time ago."

"How?"

"Through Sheila." She straightened her back and looked at me. It was odd. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. That's nonsense. Tanya's eyes were normal. I saw no scars there, no hint of defect, no shade of her history or her torments. "Louis told you about a big-time gangster who got involved with Sheila."

"Yes."

"That was your brother."

I shook my head. I was about to protest further, but I held it back when I saw that she had more to say.

"Sheila never fit into this lifestyle. She was too ambitious. She and Ken found each other. He helped set her up at a fancy college in Connecticut, but that was more to sell drugs than anything else. Out here, you see guys slicing up each other's intestines for a spot on a street corner. But a fancy rich-kid school, if you could move in and control that, you could score an easy mint."

"And you're saying that my brother set this up?"

She started rocking again. "Are you seriously telling me you didn't know?"

"Yes."

"I thought " She stopped.

"What?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what I thought."

"Please," I said.

"It's just weird. First Sheila's with your brother. Now she pops up again with you. And you act like you don't know anything about it."

Again, I did not know how to respond. "So what happened to Sheila?"

"You'd know better than me."

"No, I mean back then. When she was up at this college."

"I never saw her after she left the life. I got a couple of calls, that's all. But those stopped too. But Ken was bad news. You and Squares, you seemed nice. Like maybe she found some good. But then when I heard your name…" She shrugged the thought away.

"Does the name Carly mean anything to you?" I asked.

"No. Should it?"

"Did you know that Sheila had a daughter?"

That got Tanya rocking again. Her voice was pained. "Oh God."

"You knew?"

She shook her head hard. "No."

I followed right up. "Do you know a Philip McGuane?"

Still shaking her head. "No."

"How about John Asselta? Or Julie Miller?"

"No," she said quickly. "I don't know any of these people." She stood now and spun away from me. "I had hoped she escaped," she said.

"She did," I said. "For a time."

I saw her shoulders slump. Her breathing seemed even more labored. "It should have ended better for her."

Tanya started toward the door then. I did not follow. I looked back to Louis Castman's room. Again I thought that there were two prisoners here. Tanya stopped. I could feel her eyes on me. I turned to her.

"There are surgeries," I said to her. "Squares knows people. We can help."

"No, thank you."

"You can't live on vengeance forever."

She tried a smile. "You think that's what this is about?" She pointed to her mutilated face. "You think I keep him here because of this?"

I was confused again.

Tanya shook her head. "He told you how he recruited Sheila?"

I nodded.

"He gives himself all the credit. He talks about his natty clothes and smooth lines. But most of the girls, even the ones fresh off the bus, they're afraid to go with a guy alone. So you see, what really made the difference was that Louis had a partner. A woman. To help close the sale. To lull the girls into feeling safe."

She waited. Her eyes were dry. A tremor began deep inside me and spread out. Tanya moved to the door. She opened it for me. I left and never went back.