122: Just Do It

November 6

Jon stood at the terrace door in the upstairs living room, peering through the glass without really seeing anything past the end of his nose.  He was stuck in a repetitive pattern of deliberation for much of the last several days, and it was coming to the point where he needed to make a move or stop thinking about it.

Should he make the call?  Could he afford to take the risk?  What was the worst possible scenario?  Was soothing his impatience worth the cost?   Could he survive it? 

So many damn questions and not nearly enough answers to allow him to make a final decision.  He needed to talk to somebody who wasn’t living the situation to offer an objective opinion, and oddly enough, he thought that might be the same person he’d call to pull the trigger, as it were. 

If there was anyone who would understand, it would be Tico.  As much as Jon tried not to think about it, his friend had slept with the counselor – more than once – so he understood that there was something more to her.  Something that could convince a man to do things outside the norm. 

White gold was cool to the touch as Jon laid a palm over the center of his chest, covering his necklace charms along with a good portion of the black shirt he would wear to the Knicks game in a couple hours. 

Jake and Romeo had eaten and were playing video games until it was time to head over to the Garden, which would be about another half-hour or so.  Their electronic shit bugged him after about ten minutes, which is what had driven him upstairs to relative quiet – until his thoughts had become deafening. 

Considering how busy Jon’s days and nights had been lately, he should take this window of opportunity and solitude to just fucking do it and get it off his mind.

Unfolding arms that were as antsy as the feet that couldn’t stand still more than a minute or two, he pulled the phone from his pocket and paced over to perch on the edge of one of the couches while the call went through. 

“Jonny,” the familiar deep rumble greeted.  Who knew that thirty years ago, a man who he’d been afraid to even speak to would end up being one of his closest friends?  “What’s up?”

“Teek.  You have a minute, man?”

“Yeah, sure.  You okay?  You sound torqued.”

“I am.  A little.”

“Fucking record company again?”

With both eyes rolling back in his head, Jon bounced back to his feet while getting pissed all over again on that topic.  Those fuckers were last night’s business, and they still wouldn’t bend enough to give him what he wanted. 

He hadn’t spoken to anyone at the record company since tossing the last paper-bag-wrapped album on somebody’s desk in July and impolitely telling them where to stick the goddamn thing.  Then, out of the blue, they’d asked for a dinner meeting last night. 

Curious as to what they wanted, while secretly hoping that they were prepared to meet him somewhere in the middle on a new contract, he agreed.  It was his first and only record label, and he wanted to stay, but Jesus!  He wasn’t signing the last half of his life away the same way he had the first.  No way.  They’d compromise or he’d find someone else who would.

“Partly, but not the reason for the call.”  The next five minutes were spent briefly outlining Chiara’s situation with Owen, from Jones Beach in 1995 to his prolonged stranglehold on her life that even jail hadn’t loosened. 

“Christ Almighty,” his friend breathed at the end.  “That’s some story, and I hate it because I remember her as being a good kid.  That she ended up in something like this is a bitch.”

“It’s a fucking twisted psychological thriller, and I’m tired of seeing her live it,” Jon agreed.  “That piece of fuck shouldn’t get another two, three years of her life.  He’s gotten enough and she deserves to be free of this shit.”

“Free to be with you?” the other man asked shrewdly.  There were pluses and minuses to practically living with a guy for so long.  Sometimes he knew you as well as you knew him. 

“Free to be free,” Jon contested.  “She’s with me, either way.”

“Okay.  So why are you calling me?”

It was do or die time.  Did he speak the words aloud that he’d only allowed himself to think up to this point?  Or did he puss out and let the whole thing ride to its natural conclusion?

You’ve never been a chicken-shit.  You told her you fix problems, not run from them – or stand by and let them happen.

Taking a sharp corner around the end of one of the sofas, he dropped his ass lightly to the arm of it, finding enough balls to spit it out.  “You used to know some… resourceful people back in the day.  People that would do anything for a buck.”

“Yeah.  And?  Where you goin’ with this, Jonny?” 

He was going back and forth, now pacing a hole in the floor of his living room.   He was going just a little bit crazy.  He was going to the edge of a chasm that he wasn’t quite sure about jumping into, but he had to know what was waiting at the bottom if he did.

“I’m askin’ if you still know those guys, and if they’d still do anything – or make anything happen – for a buck.  If so, I’d like someone to meet Owen and talk – or not.”

There was a prolonged pause before the next question came. “I thought you said the guy was in jail?”

“He is, but stranger things have happened in jail.  You know it and I know it.” 

He hoped.  The Godfather could wreak his vengeance inside a state pen, while remaining pristinely removed from it.  Without a doubt.  However, maybe Jon was taking poetic license with a fictional character and transferring that ideal onto simple thugs. 

The guys that Tico knew might be lucky to find their own asses with both hands, a map and a flashlight.

A slowly released breath seeped from south Florida and all the way up the East Coast into Jon’s ear before his friend slowly ventured, “I might know one or two people.  In Miami.  But I have no idea what’s available, how, how much.  None of that.”

“But you can find out.  Right?”  Jon sounded far more confident than he felt, but sometimes you had to bullshit your way through a place you didn’t want to be in order to get to the place you wanted to be.

“I probably can, but…  Jon, are you sure you really wanna do this?  I mean, really sure?  Because this is a pretty big fuckin’ deal.  Why don’t you think about it for a while, man?  Maybe things will work out without any… encouragement.”

It was a big deal.  He got that, which is why it had taken him this long to decide to call his friend in the first place.  He’d also promised himself that he’d listen to Tico’s point of view and take it into consideration.

The drummer had been the voice of reason on more than one occasion when tempers were flaring backstage.  It could be his deep voice that enhanced the air of wisdom he carried, but everybody always stopped to listen to the Hitman.

Hitman.  Hit man.  How fuckin’ ironic is that?

“My mind is pretty well made up.”  Jon pawed one hand over his nape when coming back to the spot at the terrace doors, not seeing any more through the glass than he had the first time around.  “But I’ll give it some more consideration.”

“Good.  If she’s with you either way, there’s no reason to let your impatience push you into a bad decision.”

Not fully believing that it was impatience fueling this decision, he simply made a noncommittal grunt.  He was on the verge of asking about things in Florida, when an incoming call interrupted. 

Pulling the phone away from his face, he found that it was Chiara, prompting him to say, “I’ve got another call, but thanks Teek.  I’ll let you know soon.”

“Sure, man.  Take care.” 

Jon turned away from the terrace to again sit on the couch as he swiped the phone screen.  Maybe this time he’d actually stay sitting. 

“Hey, baby.”

“How’s my favorite crocodile?”

With Jake’s game and that damn record company dinner last night, he’d been in a funk and hadn’t called her.  He also hadn’t talked to her today beyond a quick couple of texts, and the lightness in her voice made him lighter along with her.  The worry about Owen being a pain in the ass slid away, allowing mouth to turn effortlessly up at the corners and his ass to finally sit without the compulsive need to pop up again. 

“Smiling.  How was your day?”  Crossing his legs, he leaned his head back on the cushions to survey the recessed lighting in the ceiling. 

“My day was okay.  Do you have a few minutes to talk before the game?”

“Yeah.  The boys are playing video games and we won’t leave for a little while yet.  Something up?”

The sigh of reluctance was quiet, but he heard it right before a dog issued a single, sharp ‘yip’ and a male voice called out, “Hey!  Tell Jon I love him!”

He assumed the dog was Nana as the counselor told the man to shut his trap.  The other logical assumption was that one of the Del Vecchios was visiting the brownstone, but Jon wasn’t able to decipher which one.

“Who was that?”

“Luke.”  The single name was brimming with exasperation.  “He’s been like a giddy teenager since he had drinks with the publicist you hooked him up with.  Apparently, you chose well.”

Grinning into the phone, Jon scratched his chest with satisfaction.  Lucy wasn’t his publicist, but he’d worked with her a time or two for other reasons.  Last time he saw her, she’d been complaining about not being able to find a decent guy to date since her divorce. 

“Glad to hear they hit it off.  She’s good people, so remind him to treat her right even if it doesn’t work out.”

“I will,” Chiara promised as her brother bellowed out a question about food.  There was a scuffling that indicated her hand over the phone before he heard a muffled, “I’m on the phone!  Fix whatever you want and I’ll eat it!”

“You have food in your kitchen to fix?” Jon teased.  The cabinets were habitually bare, due to her inability and lack of desire to cook.  Coffee and protein bars were the only thing he’d found on a regular basis. 

“His kitchen; not mine,” was her rueful admission.  “Nana and I are staying with him for a couple of days.”

A frisson of unrest had Jon uncrossing his legs and sitting upright.  “Why?”

“Because Owen called and threatened me the other evening.”

The other evening.

Which meant at least two days ago, and this was the first Jon was hearing about it.  If news of the incident itself didn’t piss him off, that did.

So much for sitting still. 

Bouncing to his feet, Jon backtracked to the terrace doors, shoving a hand through his hair while voraciously swearing under his breath.  It was a toss-up as to whether he wanted to yell at her first or find out about Owen first, but priorities dictated his terse, “Tell me what he said.”

“I don’t think it’s a big deal,” she was quick to reassure, but he wasn’t reassured.  Her downplay in lieu of offering facts only cranked up the dial on his testiness.

“Why don’t you fucking tell me, so I can share that opinion?” 

With a sigh that told of her biting back her own testiness, the counselor relayed the brief conversation.  Cloaked in innuendo and subtleties that would never stand up in court, the piece of fuck had essentially threated to have her dog killed and predicted more dire tragedy if she didn’t “come to her senses and stop playing games”. 

“Owen doesn’t know anyone that could carry out threats like that,” came the chaser while Jon’s blood simmered like pasta sauce that had been sitting on the stove all day.  “I’m sure he’s bluffing, but…  Well, it’s better to err on the side of caution.”

Thank God she’d done something that wasn’t stupid. 

Several items tumbled over and over in Jon’s mind, fighting for supremacy.  Why hadn’t she called him as soon as it happened?  Or the next day?  Or the next?  Why wasn’t she erring on the side of caution by staying with him?  They weren’t dating casually – they were in a motherfucking monogamous relationship.   He should be the one she turned to for this shit.

The only upside he could see to the whole goddamn thing was that she was the one telling him, even if it was two days late.  A couple months ago, he would’ve found out about it from one of her brothers.  That was the only thing that kept him from screaming obscenities into the phone – or hanging up on her.

While he was still trying to decide which direction to go, she plunged ahead with more inane reassurances.  “Vince has talked to the administration and Owen won’t be making any more calls from prison.  There’s really nothing to worry about.”

Another word from her and he was going to lose control of the obscenities that were multiplying like rabbits behind his curbed tongue.  She hadn’t even bothered to think about Owen convincing someone else to do his dirty work, which was way too easy for Jon to visualize in light of the fucker’s resourcefulness thus far. 

“Let me talk to Luke.”

“Why?”

The belligerence in that single word had him grinding his molars.  “Because I can’t fucking talk to you without saying something I’ll regret later.”

“Then don’t talk.”  Her snapped advice didn’t do a thing to alleviate his rising temper.  “I called because I missed you, wanted to hear your voice, and needed to bring you up to speed.  All that’s been accomplished, so have fun at the games today and tomorrow.  I love you.”

His mouth was open to shoot back when the line went dead, leaving him gripping the phone with enough force to potentially crack the screen. 

She frustrated the hell out of him sometimes!  The independence that made her so attractive also came back to bite him in the ass on a regular basis.  In this situation, she hadn’t done anything that he wouldn’t have prescribed himself, but the fact that he was so far behind the curve in finding out chapped his ass.

This wasn’t a problem with plumbing.  It wasn’t car trouble, scheduling issues, or any of a million other everyday things that he’d be fine knowing she handled on her own and hearing about later.  This had the potential to be life threating, and her life meant too much to him to…

“I can’t think about it,” he muttered under his breath while flipping the phone over and pulling up text messaging.  “Take care of business first.”

[5:53 PM]JON: I’m REALLY sure.  Make something happen.  Anything. 

With that one fired out to Tico, he leaned his ass against the arm of the couch for a couple of deep breaths before composing the next one.  He went through several drafts, and when it got to be the length of a frigging email, Jon backspaced over the whole thing. 

He could lecture Chiara later.  They could work out details of where her ass would be sleeping later.  He could explain his goddamn wounded pride later. 

Right now, with uncertainty hanging in the air on so many levels, what was important could be summarized with just a few characters.

[5:57 PM]JON: I love you.  I need you to be safe.

[5:59 PM]CHIARA: I am.  <3

Maybe she was, but he was still calling Luke…  just to be sure.