Peril

SARA

She sat across from him in a booth at the back and listened as he detailed the terms. The basic salary was decent, and she’d get a piece of the music charge, and even better, a piece of the bar, which she knew was more than fair. They never liked to give a piece of the bar, and she couldn’t remember ever having been offered it until now. But here this guy was, giving her a piece of the bar, and yet, as she listened, the cold, hard truth kept pressing against her mind, the fact that she simply couldn’t do it, couldn’t take the offer, the whole thing was impossible.

“So, what do you think?” he asked.

She had to tell him and she knew it. She had to tell him right now that she’d made a big mistake, that she couldn’t possibly take the job, this great deal he was handing her. She had to tell him that she’d been taken in by her own pathetic fantasy of being a singer again, even stupidly blurted out her old stage name, and that now she was sorry, really sorry, that she’d wasted his time.

“Samantha?”

Okay, she thought, I’ll do that. I’ll tell him that Samantha Damonte is a phony name, that I’m married and on the run, and that the only job I could possibly take would be one I could hide behind, a job in the back or in the basement.

“Does it sound fair?” Abe asked.

“Fair?” she asked weakly.

“Is there something else you want?”

She shook her head at how crazy she’d been to let herself get caught up in this fantasy that she could return to a singing career, erase Tony and his father, take any kind of job other than one she could crawl into and pull over her head like a thick blanket. A singer? Ridiculous. Even in a little bar like Abe’s, the singer’s name and photograph would be taped on the window or the door, her face for the whole world to see.

“I mean, we could… negotiate a few things,” Abe said.

She imagined Vinnie Caruso or some other of Labriola’s thugs seeing her picture, reporting what he’d seen to the Old Man. She could see Labriola’s smile, feel the wrath sweep over him, his desperate need to find her. She knew that he would stop at nothing to accomplish this, and on that thought she realized that she had now put this guy in danger just because she’d come into his place, sang a song, and been offered a job she couldn’t possibly take. The stark nature of her circumstances swept over her in a shivering wave, the terrible truth that she was not only in danger herself, but like some Long Island version of Typhoid Mary, infected everyone she touched.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She could feel his gaze like a hand, pressing her back to the wall. “Yeah, sure.”

“So, what do you think? Sound good, the deal?”

It sounded better than anything she could have imagined, but she knew no way to accept it. “It’s a very good deal,” she said quietly.

“So?”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Can’t what?”

“Take the job.”

He leaned forward, his eyes very intent. “Why not?”

She began gathering her things. “I can’t.” She felt her own sudden frenzy, the desperate clawing of her fingers as she reached for her purse.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Hide,” she answered before she could stop herself.

“From who, what?”

She was on her feet, turning, the door of the bar before her now like an escape hatch.

“For how long?” he asked.

She looked at him, the word chilling her spirits with its fatality. “Forever,” she said.