14. Dante
14
DANTE
“L ower your glasses.”
Instead of a reaction, the boy continues to stare straight ahead, the concrete wall of his prison his current and only best friend. There is something off about the boy, I realize. Something oddly familiar, but at the same time peculiar. There is something familiar in his stubborn defiance, in the way he turns his head or at times angles it curiously. I wonder if it is because of my memories of Maddog when I was younger; was I projecting my own memories of Maddog, and that’s why I found the boy so oddly familiar?
Odder even is the fact that he sleeps in his get up. I’d checked the camera feed – he’d merely lifted his feet onto the bed and curled them under him, laying on his side, the glasses firmly fixed in place, the fedora almost glued to his scalp. That had confused me even more than anything else, and I had started to wonder if the boy was suffering from some invisible ailment. He hadn’t said a word since he’d arrived; gave no indication that he heard me when I spoke to him. There is definitely something off about him.
So when Marco comes charging through the hallway with shopping bags swinging from both arms, I step aside and let him do his thing. There are some lines even I won’t cross, but this charade has gone on too long.
“Okay buddy,” Marco quips, setting the bags down at the boy’s feet. “You’ve been eating, sleeping and shitting in the same clothes for three days. The smell’s not doing anything positive for my men, so you’re going to need to shower and change. Look, I even got you another hat!”
Marco pulls out a fedora similar to the one the boy is wearing from one of the bags. It’s red.
For the first time since we’d taken him, we got a reaction out of the boy. For even though his eyes are still framed by those huge dark shades, I can see by the quiver of his bottom lip when he turns to me that he is suddenly afraid of something. A whimper escapes his lips, the first noise to come from his direction, and his furrowed eyebrows disappear beneath the frame of his sunglasses. Nervous tension seeps out of every one of his pores as he sits on the edge of the bed like a statue. He watches Marco as he deftly pulls items out of the bags, trying to entice the boy with the designer labels he has selected. The boy shakes his head in defiance, throwing off the shirt that Marco throws at him as though it’s a hot coal searing his body.
“Enough,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. My gaze lingers on the boy curiously, wondering what the hell could possibly make him so fearful. I take a stab at something, wondering if that is what’s sending him over the edge. “You can keep the hat and glasses, but you will have to bathe,” I tell him. The stench really is too much; I can’t ask my men to put up with it when I can’t even tolerate it myself.
He shakes his head again, adamant that he won’t be showering. What the fuck is wrong with this kid?
“We do this one of two ways,” Marco starts, losing his patience and holding up two fingers to demonstrate his point. “Either you get up willingly and I lead you to the shower where you can have your privacy to bathe and dress, or we carry you there, throw you in, and undress you ourselves. Which I assure you, no one is looking forward to.”
Something in the way the young boy lowers his head in defeat clenches at my heart. He is young, couldn’t be older than mid-teens, and he has lived a solitary life in seclusion. Maddog had made it his life’s mission that no one outside a select few in his circle even knew he had a child, let alone what he looked like or where he was.
“I don’t even know your name,” I mutter, wondering why no one even had that information. I could only imagine the measures that Maddog had taken to conceal his son’s identity – we were never even able to find so much as a birth certificate. The matter was so murky, we had at times wondered if the boy even existed.
To my surprise, the boy looks up at me, his hidden eyes focused in my direction. He lets out a low grunt, then in what I could only describe as a whisper, I hear the word “King.”
“King? That’s your name? King?”
He responds with a short nod then turns his head to the concrete floor.
“King Murray,” Marco chuckles, and I shoot him an irritated look which warns him to keep his mouth shut. I’d finally managed to get something out of him – one word. One word. But it was still a start. I didn’t need anything derailing what little progress we’d made.
“That’s a good start,” I tell the boy. “Now, I’m going to need you to bathe and change, and then maybe I’ll let you come upstairs for some fresh air. We have a courtyard – you could get some sun.” As I say this, I notice the tan hue of his skin – obviously, the boy is used to a warm climate with his delicately bronzed skin. This boy has never resided in the underworld. Once again, something in the back of my mind triggers, placing his skin color at odds with everything else about him. Everything is off.
I watch as he shakes his head again, fearful for some reason of showering, of losing his clothes, which probably form part of his identity.
“You’re mighty attached to your clothes,” Marco laughs, and I can hear the sarcasm in his voice, indicating that Marco is quickly losing his patience. Marco is not as even keeled as I am. He is the one that throws himself into the melee and thinks about consequences later. He is the one that is always in a hurry to finish a job and move on to the next. He is all about getting the job done and getting it done swiftly, no preamble. This song and dance with the boy, in an effort to make him feel comfortable enough to let his guard down, is like poking knives into Marco.
I am the more patient type. I do things differently in this life, with more empathy, allowing situations to unfold naturally, in their own time. This is a trait my father harps on about incessantly, telling me there is no wisdom in waiting for things to happen. Yet with all the patience I possess in my arsenal, I myself am becoming frustrated with this waiting game we’ve been playing with the boy. I have other situations that are more urgent that require attention and can’t be put off any longer, yet I am pandering to this teenager’s insecurities.
The men will have to carry him forcefully into the shower. They’ll cut his clothes off him if need be, but he is going to get washed and changed, no matter the consequence of his feelings. The outcome is what matters. I need the boy clean, coherent, and singing. Like a bird. It won’t be long before someone else makes a move against Maddog’s empire, and we need to be prepared. My father has put in place measures to keep everyone at arm’s length, but there is only so much people will be willing to accept before they start to move in on Maddog’s territory, which would put them all that much closer to our own empire, opening the door to an unwanted turf war.
“Take him to the showers,” I tell Marco, turning to walk away. This is the part where I walk away and let the men do what they need to do. I can’t watch, I can’t oversee. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to stop it. That part of me, that switch called humanity, could not live with myself to see someone suffering and not put a stop to it…
I hear Marco speak as I turn away, then he curses, loud and heavy, a word I haven’t heard him use in a while. It is that word he reserves for the more dire and dangerous situations in his life. A word that not even he enjoys using, so you know when it comes out, it is almost involuntary. I turn back to him, my feet barely inches from the cell door, and see Marco standing away from the boy, a look of shock on his face. It is almost comical to see Marco this way. I notice the fedora on the ground at Marco’s feet, look up at the boy, and realize what has horrified Marco.
The boy is still seated on the edge of the bed, his head now free of the hat he is so attached to, a cascade of long wavy dark hair winding its way down his back.