20

Pino squirms on the steel chair. Its rust-bitten edges dig into her thighs like blunt teeth. The telephone’s shrill ring cuts through the clatter of typewriters and the low snore of the desk clerk. Two detectives brush past her without a glance. The thought of Mama and Papa locked away makes her stomach twist. She wants the warm kitchen at home, the bag of chips she always finds on the counter, her dolls lined up waiting.

“I’m really hungry,” she says, voice small. “Mister, I want to see my mama..”

The big, burly officer grabs a box of timbits from the snoring clerk’s desk and drops it on the table beside her with a dull thud.

Pino just stares at it. Suddenly the sweet smell turns her stomach. She pushes the box away with one fingertip and folds her hands in her lap.

The ceiling fan turns in slow, hypnotic circles. The light glances off the blades and skates across the table like the flash of gunfire at night. Lil watches it because anywhere else means being haunted by the driver’s last wet, guttural moans again. The wet thud of the bottles.. the way the car horn keeps screaming long after he'd stopped moving.

She never meant to kill him. But even best intentions won’t matter once the body is cold. Courts don’t care about the cold woods, the empty road, or a little girl without a blanket. They only care about the corpse in the trunk.

Old inspector habits surface like scar tissue. These two will not want the truth. They will want a story that ends with her in cuffs. She has written those stories herself, years ago, when the badge still felt clean.

What will she say when they ask about the body? That the driver was delivering her family to Antonioni for a payday? That she and Vincent had already been twisted into one of the Don’s private little games? Frenzied, staged, humiliating? The police over here won't even bother getting themselves caught up with quite that tale.

It's better to stay silent.

The door creaks. Two detectives step in. There is Paola: soft features, microbladed brows that make her stare feel like a blade. Carmen: stocky, thin-framed glasses, and already clipping the end of a cigar with practiced ease. They sit opposite her. The chairs scrape like warnings.

“¿Así que tienes una familia?” Paola asks.

Lil’s eyebrow lifts. She catches only the word for family.

Carmen lights the cigar, the flame brief and orange. “What she means is your daughter. Pino. We just walked past her. Kid’s getting restless.”

Lil’s jaw tightens. They’re already using her.

“We can wrap this up in five minutes,” Carmen continues, smoke curling. “Honest answers. That’s all.”

“Where’s my lawyer?”

Paola fires hasty Spanish at Carmen, her eyes never leaving Lil.

“Lillian Mayer, yes?” Carmen flips open a thin folder. Lil leans just enough to catch a typed line about a bludgeoned butler - apocryphal, half-true, already weaponized. He closes the folder when he realises she's peeking.

“Just Lil,” she says.

“You’re not from around town, are you? We can get you a public defender, but that'll take time. Overnight, maybe. Your family remains in holding. Or..” He shrugs. “We can always ask your little girl what she saw.”

Lil’s teeth grind.

Paola mutters, “Carmen, esta zorra está empezando a perder la calma—”

"HEY!" Lil’s palm slams the table hard that even the ashtray rattles out a loose cigarette butt. “You think you can get away with talking shit in front of my face cause I don't know a lick of Spanish, but I know what you're trying to pull in this den you call a police station! You're not getting anything out of me.”

“.. easy does it, Lil.” Carmen’s voice drops into that soft, principal-to-student tone which just makes her skin crawl. “The fact is, you’re in quite the situation. We’re not accusing you of anything. At least, not yet. For all we know, you just climbed into the wrong car that night--”

“He was going to sell us,” she goes, her words tasting like copper. “It was the guy's car. I heard him on the radio, he was haggling over the reward with somebody, talking about paying for his mother’s chemotherapy.”

Carmen leans back. “Um, why don't you start from the top? You've lost us already. Why were you on the go to begin with?”

Lil sees the befuddled look on their faces, and a part of her is tempted to just sigh and resign herself to silence. You try talking with someone, and it become apparent that they aren't even on the same wavelength – it's an uphill battle at best to try to level with them, because the part which is supposed to receive what you're getting at is either damaged, or it's just not there to begin with. Not that it means they're stupid, but some people just simply lack the appropriate frequency to receive certain truths, so explaining yourself is pointless, and friendship with them is impossible.

The ball is already rolling, and Lil has spent the last twenty hours letting fluorescent boredom replace her sense of caution, so mught as well. She re-tells what's happened since Nowe had arrived with his warning.

“El mafia?” Paola echoes, leaning to Carmen’s ear.

“Go on.”

“The driver who picked us up," Lil goes, "he was rude, and came across as just weird. Pino had to go for a bathroom break, and I followed her out, and I heard him on the radio haggling for more money upon delivering us. So we..” Lil struggles with putting the next part to words, as the guilt rises hot in her throat. “We knocked him out.”

“By 'we knocked him out,' what do you mean exactly?”

Lil closes her eyes. She recalls Pino’s little hands, striking the fatal blow. No. She won't put her daughter in blame's way.

“Vincent held him from behind, and I hit him with the beer bottles.. hit him until he was knocked out on the steering wheel. He was about to chew through Vincent’s wrists. It was all my plan - all of it.”