I always feel nervous and energized before I’m going to perform, but even my New York auditions and performing off-Broadway last summer never had me this keyed up. Tonight I’m the principle dancer. Sure, it’s just a community theater in a medium-sized Massachusetts city, but it’s my hometown. And it’s a city that’s got a rep to uphold because its performing arts legacy is stunning.
This production also means everything to me because I collaborated with my best friend to create it. The story’s personal to Rachel, and I need to nail my performance.
A small shiver of unease hisses through me. This story is a dark fairytale version of events some people wouldn’t want told. Did we go too far? Will word get back to Rachel’s mafia kingpin father? And then what? I know he wouldn’t actually hurt us—at least I don’t think he would—but he could do other things to make life uncomfortable for her.
Rachel has a right to tell this story, I tell myself for the millionth time.Besides, she wouldn’t back down on doing it. And no one will realize what it’s really about. Only a few people know the truth, and they won’t be there.
These thoughts steady me. Everyone has a right to express themselves through music and dance. The very best art comes from raw emotion and dark truths. Telling stories unflinchingly is in our blood in this city. Tonight I’ll be on a stage that hasn’t seen a performance in over twenty years. I have a lot to live up to.
I drag in a chilly breath, and the sharpness is good. It grounds me.
Forget everything else and concentrate on the show. For the next few hours that’s all that matters.
Be so great, they’ll talk about it for years.
* * *
Connor
The music’s bass drums through the Rover, reverberating in my chest. I rest my wrist on the top of the steering wheel and catch Anvil in my peripheral vision as he pulls his Glock from his chest holster. He shifts his bulk in the seat. He’s six-foot-six and two hundred seventy pounds, most of it pure muscle. Up close, he needs a Glock about as much as a tank does. But if the enemy is out of the long reach of one of his meaty paws, it will serve. He’s a good shot. We all are. He’s not as good as Trick, the third in our unholy trinity. Trick could part a guy’s hair from a hundred yards.
I spin the wheel and sidle into the Langs parking lot. Langs is short for the Langston Theater, which was crumbling to the ground when we bought it. Tonight the newly paved lot is full because the people, our people, have turned out.
They glance at the Rover and stop to wait for us to roll down the aisle.
Snow flurries are drifting down like confetti. I wait for an old man with a walker, flashing my lights. His family hustles forward. A middle-aged woman who’s holding a child’s hand waves an acknowledgement. I nod.
There’s a group of twenty-somethings dressed in trousers and ties. The word went out about the dress code, and people heeded the suggestion that for this reopening, they should wear their best. The young crowd waits, their breath fogging in front of their cold-reddened faces. I gun the engine since they’ve made it clear they’re not walking in front of us.
I turn into a parking spot at the building’s end. There’s a C Crue symbol painted on the brick, marking our spot, marking our building really. The Langston Theater was derelict, another piece of our history about to get bulldozed. That would’ve been fine with my former boss, Frank Palermo. It wasn’t fine with us, so we took five more blocks of the city and bought the theater.
“Let me stretch first,” Anvil says, climbing out of the truck.
He means he wants me to stay in the car while he does a quick sweep. It’s not necessary. I’m the C Crue leader, but I’m no kingpin that hides behind his muscle. Besides, Anvil, Trick, and I are more like a brotherhood now than anything else. We’ve fought and bled together. When we were in Frank Palermo’s organization, we made our bones and then our exit together.
There’s a rumor that Frank plans to bomb the theater to kill the leaders of C Crue at tonight’s opening. We’ve had guys guarding every door and checking cars in and out. Trick swept through the theater himself an hour before the performers started arriving.
I’m not worried. Neither is the city. They’ve turned out. Hundreds of people are filing in, anxious to see how it looks inside now, anxious to see an original performance, staged just for them. We’re not Boston or New York, but this was the birthplace of Bam Company, a small group of singers, dancers, and musicians who were legit talented and hardcore driven. They eventually got invited onto some of the biggest stages in the world. Those original performers from the fifties and sixties are mostly gone, but people still talk about them. It’s still a point of pride around here. Sylvia Tornado, one of the originals, came out of retirement to run this show, so the people are here and they’re ready.
Anvil raps his knuckles on the window to let me know it’s all clear, and I get out. My gun rests against my side. I put my keys in my pocket and leave my hands there. Anyone who glances over will see what I want them to see. We’re relaxed because there’s no threat we’re not ready for tonight.
Anvil and I circle around back.
“Trick says he thinks he’s found a contact for whoever hit the van two weeks ago. Some of the stuff is in an apartment four blocks from here. He’s had it marked. It’s a woman’s apartment.”
We both know there was no woman on the scene when one of our vans that was carrying guns and cash was robbed. If part of the take is in a woman’s apartment, she must just have ties to one of the guys.
“How old is the woman?”
“In her twenties and doesn’t have any brothers. So must be a girlfriend or friend of one of them. She’ll be here tonight.”
I don’t ask how he’s sure of that. I guess Trick must’ve been able to check whether she’d gotten a ticket to the show. I nod as we approach the guarded stage door.
“She’ll have seen the mark by now. Maybe when she sees you, she’ll come talk to you after the show. Come clean and make amends,” Anvil murmurs.
“Maybe. What’s the girl’s story? Do we know?”
“Yeah, some,” Anvil says, but pauses when we’re in earshot of our guy on the door.
