24

When her son stepped off the bus, nothing remained of the boy who left her seven months before. Andrej smelled good but looked hungry, and she didn’t fuss, feeling his bones in her embrace. After kissing his head, she shifted her eyes to the men in suits.

The police had gotten their pound of flesh, but they wanted to know how it got into her son’s car. Her boy carried himself like a man, shaking their hands and agreeing to an interview without her present. She insisted it wait, and he took one of their cards and set an appointment for the following morning.

“What’s this?” she asked of the wooden case in his hand.

“It’s a nineteen eighty-five Tomas Pilar,” he said, eyes bright.

She gave both her large breasts a shove upward.

“I don’t know what the hell that is, Andrej,”

His gentle laugh almost brought her to tears.

They lunched at the casino buffet, as they had every Sunday before he left home. She listened as he talked about his time away between ravenous bites of his favorite things. He’d been a violinist for the summer before waiting tables at The Russian Tea Room. It sounded exciting, yet she couldn’t hold her tongue on the drive back to Brigantine.

“Andrej,” she said at the last red light. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, but I want you to never disappear like that again, please,”

His hand found hers on the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry, matka.”

♪

She parked underneath their beach house. Painted coral blue, the slender three-story went unchanged in his absence, and all that remained of the Volkswagen Rabbit was a light oil stain between the stilts that kept their house off the sand.

Ocean waves applauded his climb up the stairs, their foamy crests filling the air with salt. Inside, he retreated to his bedroom while matka started a pot of coffee. Tell-tale brush marks revealed the carpet freshly swept, and covering his bed was a laundered quilt heavy with fabric softener.

A bare patch on the wall over his headboard reminded him that the past wasn’t that long ago; the blanket that hung there had been left behind in the Rabbit.

Andrew emptied the first duffle bag onto the floor and found that his last seven months needed a good wash. The other duffle sat beside it, and curious to see what Sash had packed, he set upon it like a child at Christmas.

On top was a parachute-like cloth that turned out to be a Poland flag. Grinning, he shook out the folds, stepped onto his bed, and tacked it to the bare spot with some push pins. The bag then gave up the console and some games, and beneath his stolen silk sheets were four neat rows of belted cash.

Each bank-fresh bundle stunk faintly of gunmetal, and he hastily rezipped the bag as matka entered with a mug of mocha-scented coffee.

“Where’d you get that?” she asked of the flag.

“A friend,” he said, taking the warm mug.

“A Polish friend?” she pursed her lips. “You date this friend?”

“I dated the Ukrainian,” he sassed. “I balled the Pollack,”

“Oh,” she said, nonplussed. “Taller than you, I bet.”

“Which one?” he wondered.

“Both,” she replied, arm draped around him. “You never got my height.”

Andrew cuddled into her large breast when she pulled him closer.

Days became weeks, and weeks turned into months.

The school refunded Andrew, but he spent the money on a new case for the Pilar. That duffel cash tempted him, much like Samil used to on dull days. Finally, he gave in and kept a ledger on what he would repay.

Andrew’s first portion went to local contractors. He transformed the attic into a livable space, starting with the loft under their colossal round window, the one his matka called the Millennium Falcon. Pink insulation sheets went in next, hidden by drywall colored with a fresh coat of muted gray.

A new bathroom, with a clawfoot tub, shared honeycomb tiles with a kitchenette that matka found unnecessary since her kitchen worked just fine. The final purchase was a hide-a-bed couch bought from a charity store downtown. The thin-cushioned nightmare looked great in front of that 36-inch TV his mom bought him for Christmas.

Renovations complete, Andrew began his shared life with matka. He scored a bartender job at the casino where she worked; he didn’t want her to discover that dirty money financed the remodel. After a year of pretending to pay down his imaginary credit card debt, he submitted his two-week notice.

Tonight was his last complete shift, and like the other three nights before, it tested his short-timer syndrome. Off-season weeknights at a casino moved slower than growing hair, but around eight, a family reunion floated in from the gambling floor.

Not genuine casino people, they rarely tipped, and the women among them regarded the cocktail waitress and her skimpy uniform with a critical tenacity. The twenty-eight-year-old waitress du-jour, Jesse, somehow squeezed her thin frame into a thinner costume that found her behind the bar every ten minutes, adjusting her ample portions.

A smirk animated her cocoa visage. “Here come the gangsters,”

A manly group lingered in from the poker tables, their dapper suits in line with their boss, a braided man who dressed like he owned the casino. They were Jesse’s shade of comfort, and they drank often and tipped well.

“Oh shit, the white dude is with them,” she whispered.

Andrew turned to look, but she grabbed his arm.

“Don’t stare,” she warned. “He’s only got one eye,”

The man called out from the end of the bar. “Hey, get your boney ass down here and give me a drink.”

“I know he ain’t talking to me,” she snapped.

Andrew grabbed a bottle of Absolut. “No, he’s talking to me.”

“You know him?” she asked.

“Kinda,” said Andrew. “Go work your tables,”

Sash stood with an unlit cigar between his fingers. He unbuttoned his hunter-green suit jacket before sliding onto the stool, and when Andrew got close enough, his lone blue eye set upon him with affection.

Thoughts of their first real night together at a local motel last week, made Andrew’s ass ache like a day-old bee sting.

“Are you chasing this trash with ginger ale?” He asked, dropping a cube into a double-shot glass before drowning it in vodka.

Sash nodded and set a hundred-dollar bill on the bar.

Andrew broke it at the register, taking enough for two drinks; that’s all Sash would have, judging by the gun holster peeking from his jacket. The bald man gulped the shot and stared at his change.

“You could’ve taken more, Andrej,”

“I don’t need it,” he said, wiping the bar. “Speaking of unneeded things, when are you coming to get your bag?”

“I already removed my share.” Sash sat back, his muscled chest outlined in a tight tan turtleneck. “How have you been, Andrej?”

“Better than Niko,” said Andrew, growing quiet. “They found him four miles out,”

Sash slid the empty glass at him, tapping two fingers on the bar. “He had some strange ideas about where his money went,”

Andrew filled the glass halfway.

“Was he coming after me?”

“How have you been, Andrej?”

Sash clearly didn’t wish to discuss Nikola.

“I’m teaching classical to students.” He filled another glass with ginger ale from the soda gun. “My mother charges me ten dollars a month for rent.”

“That’s a good rate for your neighborhood,”

“It’s a steal in this market for sure,”

“You are many things, Andrej, none of them a thief,”

Andrew put his elbows on the bar.

“I’m opening a musical instrument shop,”

Sash nodded. “You found a use for that money,”

“Oh no,” Andrew shook his head. “I got a loan from the bank. Just enough to cover the strip mall rent and buy some second-hand instruments,”

Sash knocked back the shot and turned the glass over on the bar.

“All of it is yours, Andrej,” he said, a mirthful eye upon him.

“I took out twelve thousand to fix up my house,” Andrew said. “The rest will sit there,”

“This vodka is shit.” Sash pinched the bridge of his nose before sipping his ginger ale. “Does your matka drink this shit?”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” he said, head swinging.

Sash collected his cigar from the bar.

“I get off at midnight.” Andrew held up a lighter, flipping the top to produce a flame. “If you’re still around, we can see what she has in the freezer.”

Sash brought the cigar to the flame. “I saw that you had a visitor last month.”

“Are you stalking me, Sascha Stasiak?”

Smooth hairless cheeks hallowed as his mouth worked the log, turning its end a fiery red. “I saw the pair of you on the boardwalk,”

“He went back to California last week,” he said.

“No, Andrej,” Sash murmured. “He’s how Niko found you.”

A knot tightened in Andrew’s stomach.

“Please tell me Dmitri is okay,”

“Of course.” Sash regarded him casually. “I’m not an animal.”

Andrew poured himself a shot and downed it.

“He’s gone back to Williamsburg,” Sash added. “He’s better off.”

“What about me?” Andrew wondered. “Am I better off?”

“No,” Sash said thoughtfully. “You’re in love with a criminal,”

“Get over yourself, Glass-Eye.” He lost himself in Sash’s smile, a vision he saw first on his last night in New York.

He watched the man silently put his suit jacket back on and then exit the bar. He would be back when there were fewer eyes to see him. The strings of Sonata 9 played in Andrew’s head, a melody that tickled his soul with each draw of the bow.