Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

it’s what finally got him killed.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I think he tried to stand up to the wrong person and paid the price for it. He’s probably not the only one. It happens.”
    “Who was the person he tried to stand up to?”
    Augie shrugged off my question. “It was a long time ago.”
    I waited a moment, hoping he might say more, but when he didn’t I asked him how old his daughter was.
    “Fifteen.”
    “Where’s her mother?”
    “She was killed ten years ago. Murdered by a machete gang in Colombia. She was from there. It’s just me and Tina now.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “How about you, Mac? Any family?”
    I shook my head. “My mother died when I was young. And my father disappeared when I was seven. But you probably know all about me by now, don’t you?”
    “Do you remember him at all? Your father, I mean.”
    “Only vaguely.”
    “What is it you do remember?”
    “He chain-smoked. He was a cop. The only real memories I have are of us living in a hotel in Riverhead. I was a boy and as far as I knew he was the whole world.”
    “Where’d you go after he disappeared?”
    “He had arranged for me to be taken in by a family on Gin Lane. I guess he did this just before he disappeared. It must have been hard for him—a single father, and a cop on top of that, trying to raise a kid.”
    Augie said nothing for a moment, then: “I’d imagine he thought he was doing the best thing for you.” He paused. “I doubt he just wanted to get rid of you.”
    I shrugged. I still remember vividly being handed off to the man who would become my adoptive father. A man with an emotionally disturbed son my age in need of a companion and keeper. A man with an agenda, who, when I was old enough, decided that he would raise me to be the family bodyguard—protect his son and his wife when he was not around, protect all three of them when we traveled. I never saw my father after he had handed me over to this man, despite his promise that I would. Down on his knees, looking me straight in the eyes, he’d said, “I’ll come and see you in a few days, son. Okay?” It had felt as if something were being torn from me. But not long after that day, my father had simply disappeared. I didn’t know it at the time, was only told about it months later by the man who would eventually adopt me.
    I was his son now, he’d told me.
    I needed to change the subject, so I said, “Your daughter’s fifteen, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “She must keep you on your toes.”
    “She’s a handful. She’s her father’s daughter, whether she likes it or not. She saw her mother get murdered. She was left for dead, hid for three days before someone found her. She didn’t speak for almost a year after that. Trauma.” He smiled and shrugged. “Now of course she does nothing but talk. She’s not afraid of speaking her mind. She’s like her mother that way.”
    “You two must be close.”
    He nodded. “We take care of the ones we love, right?”
    I had nothing to say to that, so I glanced toward my front windows again. Sunrise was definitely underway somewhere not far beyond the rain clouds.
    Augie and I drank and talked till daylight was finally everywhere and the birds were singing and the rain had stopped falling through the trees. Together we listened to the church bell a half mile down North Main Street strike seven times. The bottle of Beam was empty and the twittering of the birds was like so much madness outside my windows.
    I heard Augie saying, “We’ve got to find that cop killer before he has a chance to find us … Yeah, we stepped into it good, didn’t we … I’ll probably come back for you later on tonight … Thanks for not leaving me there …”
    The next thing I knew I was alone in my living room and staring up at my ceiling from the dust-covered wood floor. I don’t know how I got there. But there was a steady ringing in my ears, and whenever I closed my eyes I saw a floating egg, blue-rimmed with an orange center. I felt as if I was being pulled along on the surface of a foaming river.
    ***

    When I awoke it was light out and I was hungry. I looked at the bottle on my coffee table and saw that it was empty. I felt hollow and weak.
    I had dreamed most of the night of the many ways of escape—the back roads out of town, and the secondary roads that bypassed the main highways and led off the island. I dreamed of the train tracks running from Montauk to Queens, mile after mile of metal rails and