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Debbie sits down in front of the mausoleum that held her brother’s name, and pours herself a martini.
Shaken for no less than 15 seconds , a Spanish Queen olive, a Swarovski glass from her and Danny’s pillages in their youth. The glass was a part of a collection; antique china, nacre spoons, ivory carved butter knives. A thank you owed to the elderly widow on their street, who was rich enough that she felt no remorse at all picking out the fine silverware from the poor lady's dining room while Danny distracted her, smiling wide and innocent with all his teeth.
“You would have loved it,” She says, as she takes a sip. Would have doesn’t mean anything specific, doesn’t mean that he’s gone and buried, just means that he's missed the show. Call it intuition, call it denial, this verbal splitting of hairs - whatever the name, for all intents and purposes, Danny was as good as dead, out of contact, out of all the lives he’d changed. Her toast was one to absence, and to disappearing - for a while, for forever, who knows. To his last great job.
This, at least, was one thing she did better than her brother. Accepting things not because she believed them, but because the material reality of things just were the way they were. She operated according to the circumstances. He operated according to his ideals. Abstract formations in his head, that, once fully matured, took on a mystical quality which the world around him would bend toward. That was why he made for such a good leader, the inherent charisma so natural because he believed every last thing he was saying, even his lies. Probably why every stunt they pulled when they were younger - much younger, and inexperienced, upending whole neighborhoods and communities wherever their whirlwind childhood moved them - was led by him, Danny, shining like the fucking sun, making worlds revolve around him.
Not that she complained. She understood his magic, the appeal. The way he played certain things close to the vest, somehow making his paranoia, his mistrust, seem reasonable - even necessary . Understood why his team followed him to the ends of the earth. Why Rusty, who’s never worked quite too well with anyone, would be helping her clean up Danny’s messes, why Tess would always take him back.
“You need to figure this out, you know,” She had said, one celebratory night after a particularly impressive job, a few weeks before his arrest.
“Figure what out?” He had asked, motioning to the bartender for another round.
“What this. This thing is, between you and Rusty and Tess.”
“Tess wasn’t a part of the job.”
“I know that.”
He’d raised an eyebrow. “Enlighten me on what you think us three are doing.”
“Danny,” She’d said, aggravated. The drinks had come back then - whiskey on the rocks, classic martini. Such basic taste, barring their other glaring idiosyncrasies.
“What?” He had taken half a swig of the whiskey. Playing dumb.
“Tess keeps calling me when you’re gone. Wondering where you are, wondering why you won’t tell her.”
“She could call Rusty.”
“He’d lie for you, and that’s my point.”
“Which is?”
She’d sipped the martini then, swirled the vodka around, putting off the words. “At some point, you’ll need to choose between her and the life you want to lead. Which means Rusty, because when the two of you are together, it’s gas and a spark. It’s inevitable.”
“I can behave.”
“Like hell you can.”
“Why won’t you let me have this one moment to enjoy my spoils?”
“It’s never just one moment with you. You can’t lead both of them on -” A snort from Danny. “-I’m being serious. You have a partnership. Someone who knows you intimately, yin to your yang. Now it’s time to decide which person that applies to.”
He’d been silent for a moment, downed the last bit of whiskey, then said: “I wouldn’t worry about me, Debbie. Contrary to popular belief, I keep my romantic life and my work separate. Unlike somebody I know.”
And that was it, really, the thing she did better -not being in denial about what the game meant to herself, what people meant to her. Mixing business and pleasure was just her way of acknowledging that they were the same thing, to someone like her. Lou was the best thing to happen to her because they understood each other. They understood the game. And that required seeing other people for who they were and what they actually wanted. Danny saw what he wanted to want, the beautiful lady at his side and the savvy business partner. It made for a beautiful story, an exciting movie of a life, at the expense of his own sentiments.
Danny was, for all intents and purposes, an artist. Visionary, sometimes single-minded, creating his life's work with Rusty and all the world his canvas. Fish to water. It unsettled her, this blind spot he had around what kept him going. But she'd shut up then because of his cheekiness and thought, well - I'll let him ruin his own life if he really wants to.
She wonders now, if he thought about their conversation before his death. If he was happy with the way he left things. But she’ll save the long reflection for another time. The distant sound of a motorcycle engine faintly shakes the air, and footsteps follow not too long later. Debbie shakes the mixer once for good measure, and produces a second glass out of her purse.
“Sorry I'm late,” Lou says, sitting down next to her.
“Your timing was perfect,” Debbie says, turning to her. She lifts the martini to Lou’s lips, and this time, Lou doesn’t hesitate.
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