Page 44

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

DIAVOLO

P ercy reached for his wine, and when his hand met nothing but air, his eyes shot across to Althea, nursing it carefully by Leo’s side. “Kids, go to bed.”

“I’m nineteen!” Leo objected.

“And I’m eighteen!” Althea protested. “Now.”

“Bed!” Percy snapped.

The pair climbed to their feet with a lot of muttering and scowling, and Leo whined, “Can we at least go to a cafe or something? I’m starving.”

“No, you may not go to a cafe.”

Leo took the time to pause and fling an angry arm towards Percy. “Literally two weeks ago you had me burn the body of some guy you shot, and now you won’t let me go out for dinner?”

“The two things aren’t slightly related,” Percy threw back, slamming cupboard doors, searching for a new glass. He soon gave up, having no idea where anyone had put anything since the last ones had been smashed, and instead yelled across the room, “And have you forgotten there’s a maniacal witch on the loose?”

“There’s a what?” Giordano cut in.

Percy sent very particular eye-daggers across at him, not deigning to answer, then flicked the kettle on to boil, saying to Leo, “I’ll bring you something. Go.”

Leo rolled his eyes dramatically. Althea held onto her wine and followed him closely as they disappeared into his bedroom.

“And keep the door open!” Percy shouted.

“I’m nineteen!” Leo screamed. Yet the door made no sound as the pair settled down on opposite ends of Leo’s bed to try to hear the ensuing conversation

Percy dumped the pasta into a pot of boiling water with a hefty load of salt, stirred, and declared, “Giordano, you’re not welcome. Get the fuck out of my apartment and my life.”

Giordano let go a bitter scoff, shaking his head. “Fine. It’s been just as delightful as it always is.”

Percy didn’t turn back to see the last look. That final scan of his back, that bereftness in his eyes, mingled with anger, that said this was it. Their long, difficult, loving entanglement at an end.

But Joe, who had woken in cold sweats at the thought of living through that moment with Percy, called him back. “Stay. Please. I owe you both an explanation.”

“You don’t owe anything to anyone,” said Percy, smashing a colander down on the bench. “What’s in the past stays there. And he doesn’t get to dictate whether you do or don’t tell me whatever you choose to.”

“I’m not going to be responsible for ruining your friendship,” said Joe. “And I’m not going to let what happened to me do any more damage than it already has.” He pulled three wine glasses down from a cupboard, then leaned over Percy’s shoulder for the wine bottle, saying softly by his ear, “Put on some pasta for Giordano.”

“No,” Percy muttered. “He can go hungry.”

Joe’s eyes swept the empty bench. “You already put enough on, didn’t you?”

Percy stirred his sauce sulkily. “I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

Joe smiled, then made for the photocopied newspaper articles that lay glaring and shunned by Percy. He hadn’t seen that face in over a decade, but it was his and it was a picture he knew well; a frightened little boy, caught by the cameras of cold-hearted journalists as he made his way into the courthouse to be told the verdict on his case. It had been splashed across every paper in Italy for months afterwards. There wasn’t a person in the country, back then, who wouldn’t have recognised that face.

Giordano waited by a window in the living room, and Percy avoided any outward sign that would indicate he knew he was there. He made the food, he took some in to Leo and Althea. Joe set the other three servings on the table, with the wine and glasses, and when he and Percy were both seated, Giordano, while maintaining his distance, turned to listen.

Joe placed the papers down, spread them across the table with one movement of his arm, and calmly stated, “I killed them. My parents. Both of them.”

Percy would have taken that crack in their shell before he’d ever have let Joe fall into the stoic, vulnerable place his voice indicated he was, alone and on display like that. “You don’t need to say a word.”

Joe gave the slightest nod as acknowledgement of the sentiment he was about to overrule, then he met the brown eyes that studied him from across the room. “I lied in court, and I got away with it.”

“I knew it.” Giordano’s lip raised with disgust. “Everyone knew it.”

Percy ignored him and went about pouring wine. “Well, obviously they were possessed or something.”

“No,” said Joe.

“Actual demons, then? They’ve been known to steal human children and?—”

“No.” Joe smiled and clasped Percy’s hand. “They were just shitty people, Percy. Really, really shitty people. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, from an ethical perspective, but from my perspective… It was all I could do. I did what was right for me at the time.”

Giordano dropped an incredulous laugh. “And then lied to the whole country about it.”

Joe retorted, “It would have been pretty stupid to tell the truth, don’t you think?”

“Exactly right,” Percy agreed, every facet of his mind fast at work building a supportive framework to keep the Joe he thought he knew intact. “Truth is only useful when it aids you or those you love. And I can’t see how it aids anyone in this particular case.”

No doubt that was Percy’s own philosophy, because Joe had seen him live by it. But Joe wished he’d told Percy. There were so many opportunities. He knew it would come up, somehow, eventually. He knew Percy knew something was hidden, and Percy just let him have it, judgement free, that whole time. But now… Now his ex knew. Leo and Althea knew. And he had betrayed Percy by letting that happen before he found out.

Joe slid a hand over to his photo and rested a finger there, studying the boy. “I don’t feel like I lied to you, Percy. Not entirely. Because that’s not me. That person, who these things happened to, that’s someone who lived somewhere else, long ago. And I don’t think about that anymore. And I don’t talk about that. It’s not me, and to bring that up, it just feels like… It felt like it would have poisoned now. What we have and who I’ve become. I don’t want you to think of me like that, or to see me as someone else, because I’m not him anymore.” He glanced up at Giordano. “But clearly, I can’t outrun it forever.” As Giordano’s eyes slunk away across the floorboards, Joe returned his gaze to Percy. “You have strong links to Italy. I know we’ll be going back… And you have a right to know.”

But Percy was deep in caretaking-mode, fixing, fixing. “I know how important it is to keep those things in a lockbox.”

Joe’s heart pounded out a steady, calming beat with the solidity of Percy’s support. He wrapped his fingers tighter around Percy’s, took his hand up, and kissed it. He focused on Percy’s avoidant eyes, drawing them. “I want to tell you. Because it’s the last thing. The last secret between us. And it doesn’t feel right to me to have anything left.”

Of course, he did not expect Percy to reply, “Joe, I killed your Nazi.”

Joe’s strong chin tilted jutted sharply to the left. “What?”

“Back in book one. I killed him. Right after you asked me not to. I went back to the church, and I stabbed him in the throat. And brain. Sort of. An upward stabbing motion. Got both. But he’s very dead, and I’m sorry I kind of went behind your back there.”

A cloud crossed Joe’s face, and Percy rushed out, “It’s not that I kept lying, because I honestly barely gave him a second thought. Until just now. When you mentioned the last thing. I think he had it coming, and I understand that perhaps I should have discussed the matter with you before I killed him?—”

“Yeah, you should have.”

“You’re right. And I take full responsibility for the rashness of my behaviour. And I would like to point out that my communications skills have improved dramatically since that time. But I wanted you to know. Everything. All out in the open.”

Joe stared down at the table, a quizzical expression on his face. “You know, I wondered why he never called. I felt pretty bad about that.”

Percy gave his hand a squeeze. “You did? I’m sorry.”

“Well, only because I wondered if you were right, I suppose. That we should have killed him. And you know, after everything we’ve been through, I think maybe you were. Either way, it’s done now.”

Percy checked him over carefully. “Are you very mad?”

“No.” Joe searched his feelings, and was surprised at just how little it bothered him. The last thing he wanted was someone else with Percy’s name on their hit list. Percy was keeping them safe from the start, the way he always did. The way he was even now, when it was Joe, of all people, who had let him down. “No. I know you had your reasons. Good ones. And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t keep that sort of thing from me now.”

“I wouldn’t.” Percy, sifting through his mind desperately, then said, “Though did I mention?—

Joe cut him off with a gentle chuckle. “Stop trying to protect me, Percy. It’s okay. I’m going to say it, and it’s fine. Really.” Percy’s lips opened in a protest that Joe silenced with a shake of his head and another smile. He then raised his chin across the room. “Giordano, come sit.”

Giordano waited for Percy’s approval, which came in the form of half a shrug. He took his seat in a swaggering way that belied the palpable tension between him and Percy. He searched his ex-lover’s face with quick, anxious eyes, but Percy was stone to him, and that empathetic pity touched Joe again. He wanted to kiss the hard edges off Percy’s cheek. There was nothing good in that victory over Giordano, because Giordano was right.

“So, I’m not from Rome,” Joe commenced.

“I know,” said Percy, taking a sip of wine.

“I know you know. And I love that you never said a word.”

“Even when I called you out,” said Giordano, but he said it on a gentler note, now he understood the way Percy had chosen to let it pass when it came up in Sicily.

“I’m from Castel del Monte,” Joe continued. “It’s tiny. A tiny little village way up in the Apennines, and there’s nothing there but sheep, a church, and an old cemetery. Or, there wasn’t much more when I lived there, back in the seventies. It wasn’t the sort of town you planned to get out of. You married whoever was available, and you raised sheep to milk or kill.”

Joe choked down a little wine, the flavour of dirty wool and raw, hot sheep’s blood forever on his palate. He glanced at Percy, who, whether he was thinking about the same thing or not, kept a neutral face. “You know I grew up poor, but when I say poor, I mean dirt poor. I mean nothing to eat for days sometimes. I mean living with an alcoholic father, who was unstable before he ever touched alcohol, and a mother who was…” Percy’s deeply faithful love for his broken mother was no secret to Joe, and the bond Percy shared with Giordano’s mother such that even in their darker moments the pair put it before their animosity. Joe could only try, and hope he’d be understood. “She was just as bad as he was. But not in the same way. In some ways, she was better. In some ways, she was much worse.”

He had been okay, but with those words, there came a flash of that old house, accompanied by the memory of an adult hand winding him with a punch in the stomach. He felt a weight fall across his shoulders, which he tried to work out with a nervous crick of his neck. Percy’s fingers pressed into his.

“I still don’t know what it was,” Joe said. “Whether it was a control issue for her. If being cruel to me gave her power over someone, at least. Or over something at all. Because she never stood much of a chance from the day she was born there. And that must have been hard.”

He reached for his glass again, but didn’t take a sip this time. He only held it there, toying with the stem. “She didn’t hit me as hard as he did, because she couldn’t physically do that. Even if she tried. But the thing is, he never hugged me afterwards the way she did. He never apologised and promised me he’d never do it again. He never held me and told me we’d run away together, only to tell me on the next breath he wished I’d never been born. That I had single-handedly ruined her life. Done that to both of us. It was that sort of… long-term mental abuse that really messed me up. I didn’t have siblings. It was just me. So she was my only hope. And every time…” The glass raised to Joe’s lips, set down again without a sound. “Everybody knew what she was dealing with at home. With my father. Everyone in town saw my mother after she’d been beaten. Saw her staggering about the place. Saw me trying to help her, with my own cuts and bruises. But no one thought she did that to me, too.”

Joe could feel the tension in Percy’s taut arms. The impotence of inaction. No one to take the anger out on, no means to jump in and stop Joe from experiencing it. All of it done and over, and no long-distance vengeance to be exacted. What was there, stuck inside him, circled and swirled, giving vent only in a black glower directed at Giordano.

Joe’s hand slipped down to Percy’s knee, and his thumb ran small circles there as he talked on, trying to get it all out as quickly and clearly as possible. “My mother would take me to church regularly, and that was a respite. Of sorts. She always acted the doting mother there, in front of everyone. Except when she thought no one was looking.” He let out an empty-sounding laugh. “I used to believe her when she did that. When she would smile at me and act so kind, I thought maybe she’d forgiven me for whatever it was I’d done wrong that particular morning. But then, when no one was looking, she’d give me this death stare, from across the room, just to remind me that she hated me. Just in case I ever forgot for a few minutes. Then she’d turn back to the others, the picture of the loving mother. She was that sort of…” He reflected a moment to find the words. “She was calmly manipulative. And it never stopped. She’d do that at home, too. Just turn. Very suddenly. It was more stark when we were at church or around people, because at home I’d learned not to trust it. But outside… It got so… I think I didn’t know what kindness was anymore. Whether I could trust it in anyone, or if there was broken glass hidden in it. I couldn’t trust anything. It was…”

“Fucking hell,” Percy whispered. The admission put their entire relationship into perspective, and only then did Percy really understand the depth of Joe’s doubt in him so many times. He wondered if Joe even knew how far it ran. His fingers curled over into Joe’s palm, and he took his hand to his lips, where he kept it, needed there for his own benefit as much as Joe’s.

“It’s okay,” said Joe, but he didn’t pull it away. He looked up into Percy’s eyes. “You’re the only person who’ll know this, what I’m about to tell you.” His eyes ran over to Giordano’s, dark and hooded. “Well, you’re about to be the only two people.” Joe swallowed hard against the truth that was so desperate to spill out of him. So desperate, after such a long time hidden in that dusty chest.

In a low, shaky tone, he said, “I took oleander, and I boiled it down. I was only twelve, but I knew it was poisonous from history lessons. I boiled it into a concentrate, maybe a shot worth. I did it down by the cemetery, in an old tin can. I added more and more leaves and seeds and flowers and water, and boiled it again and again. For weeks, on and off, whenever I could get away. I don’t know if I thought I’d really ever go through with it. It was sort of… meditative. Like a comforting daydream. I imagined how nice I’d make the place if they were dead. How calm it would be. I don’t know what I thought I’d do for food or money… But it was a peaceful place, in my mind, whenever I boiled that pot.”

Joe took in a deep breath, which he let go slowly, until he was completely empty. “This one night, he beat me, which he’d done before, but not this bad. He beat me until I could barely walk. They’d been fighting with each other all evening, and I tried to sneak out, but I got caught. I just remember being so scared. So, so scared there on the floor, and he made it long and sustained, and I begged her to help me. And do you know what?” Joe’s eyes hazed over as he looked distantly into the past, nose crinkling with disgust, a slight arch in his lips. “She was smiling. A cruel, spiteful smile. She was enjoying every second of it. Whatever was broken in her, she’d lost all pity. She enjoyed the brutality of it. And that’s the thing people don’t understand. Because unless you’ve lived through that, Giordano, people don’t think a mother’s capable of that. They think she’ll be there to help you. That she’ll bleed for you. Every time in my life I’ve ever tried to tell anyone, they think I must have been mistaken. ‘Mothers don’t do that.’ But that night, it wasn’t just me being belted in the heat of passion. It was cold. And I just knew, by that look in her eyes, it was me or them.”

Joe leaned back, staring up at the chandelier. “I never felt bad for what I did. I still don’t. I know that’s ‘wrong’. It’s what we’re all taught from day one, ‘don’t murder your parents’. Or anyone, but to be specific… Anyway, that night, when they were done, I pretended I was asleep on the floor where they’d left me. This time she didn’t come with a hug and an apology. She just fell into a drunken stupor in her bed. And some time in the night, as terrified as I was of what would happen if they caught me again, I snuck out. I went, and I got my oleander extract. And I poured it into their wine. Then I went to bed. Cigarette?”

Percy flicked his case open and lit two, passing Joe one, pushing the case and lighter over to Giordano.

Joe breathed deeply, in and out, with the steadying plume dancing in the soft light of the luxurious apartment, so different to the place his mind lingered. “When I woke again, which wasn’t until late the next day, my mother was screaming in agony. Throwing up, so, so sick. My father was sick too, but not like she was. She was thin, frail.” He tapped the smoke with a sharp strike of his index finger. “And she died the same day. I wish it hadn’t been so cruel, but I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t have the strength to get rid of her by any other means. I was twelve, and I had nowhere to go. So I feel the guilt of her suffering. I do. But not of her death.”

Percy blew out his own breath of spiteful smoke. “She deserved that and worse.”

Joe checked each of their eyes. Giordano’s sympathetic with a wary note. Percy’s faithful. Quiet. With that spark of warmth he’d always kept burning for Joe since that first day, even when they were at their worst, in no way dimmed. The story, which Joe told with comparatively sparse detail, was only about to get worse, but that ember kept him going.

“My father, he wouldn’t die,” he explained. “He kept drinking until he finished the poisoned bottle, then he drank more. He kept vomiting. He was so angry and so sick. He was terrifying. But he wouldn’t die. She was dead in their bed, green, and he wouldn’t do a thing about it. He laid there next to her corpse because he was too drunk and too sick to care. And after three days, after he’d long since finished the poisoned wine and moved on, he slept. So soundly, once the poison let him. So peacefully, without the fever of sickness.” Joe’s eyes hardened in a way Percy had seldom ever seen. “And I thought, this isn’t going to work. What should I do? Spend weeks making more poison? Try again? How much would I need? He was huge. And maybe it wouldn’t work again. But what scared me most was thinking, knowing , if he gets better, and he figures out what I’ve done, he’ll really kill me this time. And so, I felt I had little choice.”

The soft touch of the cigarette on Joe’s lips broke the silence. “He slept on, and I got a knife, and I did it. Like I’d seen my mother do to our sheep. I put it in one side of his neck, just as deep as I could, and ripped. He woke up, and he choked on it. And he rolled out of bed, and the last thing he ever saw was me. My hands red with his blood. And I was happy he knew it was me.”

The phantom of a smile played at the corner of Joe’s lips, soon broken by his sharp laugh. “I was so stupid. I put the knife in his hand when he was dead. Dabbed some of his own blood on there. It was supposed to look like he’d killed himself after finding her, but no one would ever have believed he cared that much.”

He crossed his arms, letting the hand holding the cigarette tilt back. “I went to the church, and I told the priest that I’d found my mother dead, and that my father had committed suicide. I said I thought he may have poisoned my mother.” Joe turned his hand over, studying it. “I still had his blood on me. It was so, so obvious, what I’d done. He went, and he saw it, that ridiculous, horrifying scene, and do you know what he did? He cleaned me up. He gave me the first good meal I’d had in months. He told me to tell the police I’d been living with him. I didn’t want to lie like that. I didn’t want to involve him. But he said I’d be paying him back for his kindness if I let him save my soul, and that prison would only make me worse.”

Joe shifted the papers Giordano had brought about the table. Headline after headline, page after page. Giordano had done his research. Enough to convince Percy, no matter how hopelessly in love with Joe he was, that his fiancé was a killer. “As you can see, there was a huge media circus. Everyone knew about it. Everyone in town knew I did it, but just like when they’d let me go through the abuse alone, the same parochial behaviour reigned, and they said nothing after the fact either. Nothing to the police. Nothing to the media. And I went about with Father Milton, my hair brushed, clean-faced, looking like an angel. Nothing like the filthy urchin I used to be.” Joe ran his fingers over one of the grainy images, as though even now he wanted to make sure that every lock of hair fell just as it should to give the right impression. “Such a respectable-looking boy.”

He considered the picture a while longer, speaking absently. “I took confirmation when I was told to, and I got the Church on my side. The police investigated me, and they knew I’d done it. They pressed charges, obviously. But they couldn’t pin it on me, because Father Milton swore up and down that I was with him when it happened. Had forensics been better back then… But ultimately none of it mattered. Thanks to Father Milton. He pulled strings, he spoke for me, he called in favours. And because of him, this gilded cage closed around me, and so long as I stayed there, singing the song the Church wanted me to sing, I was safe.”

Percy’s eyes sparked as that piece of the puzzle finally slid into place.

“I was declared innocent. Even if no one believed it.” Joe glanced briefly at Giordano before returning his gaze to Percy. “And when I walked out of the courtroom that day, there wasn’t any question about which path my life was going to follow from there. I’d never had any dreams of my own. And I had a debt to repay. A big one.”

He watched the light reflecting in his wine as he swirled the glass around. “I would have done anything for that man. When he moved to Rome, he took me with him. When he asked me to work towards becoming a priest, that’s what I did. I lived with him and he taught me kindness. He taught me trust. He made me the person I am today. When he moved overseas, I went with him, and up until the day that demon took my hands and murdered him, I was wholly devoted to him. I owed him my life, and to be the person who took his…” During the entire tale, Joe had trudged on with barely the raise or shake of his voice, until now. Now the tears rushed fast to his eyes, and he stared down at the table, his hands shaking.

The tips of Percy’s fingers slid beneath his locked jaw, cupping Joe’s cheek. He shifted close, turning Joe’s face towards his. “Come back.”

“It doesn’t stop.” Joe’s voice broke on the words, and Percy shifted his head down, resting his forehead against Joe’s, stroking his cheek, as tears forced their way through his tightly shut eyes.

“I know,” he said gently. “It won’t. But you come back to me.” The final word was firm, and Joe opened his eyes to find Percy always, always waiting for him. Clear, capable, ready to take it all in his stride along with every other thing.

Joe wrapped his fingers around Percy’s, holding them to his cheek. Joe’s eyes, wet with those last memories, brightened. “That’s when you came along. When you turned up at my place that first afternoon, everything was more fucked than I can ever describe to you. I was so, so alone. I didn’t know what to do, because the one support I’d ever had in my entire life was gone. In such a horrible way. Then you were just… You were Percy. You lifted me out of it. It was so easy to fall for you. And when I told you how I felt, it was so simple. And when?—”

“Giordano, fuck off,” said Percy.

Giordano, caught up in the drama, had forgotten his own presence, and that he was the ball that had set the lot in motion. “Fuck. Sorry,” he mumbled. “Um… Fuck off, like out of the apartment?”

“No, just…” Percy muttered. “Just go somewhere. For a few minutes.”

“In here!” Leo called.

“And bring the bottle!” Althea shouted.

“Half a glass,” Percy yelled back. Then he tapped Giordano’s hand as he grasped the bottle. “I mean it. You pour.”

Giordano took it in hand, then said to Joe, “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you first.”

Joe, a little too shell-shocked to do much else, gave a small nod, so Percy filled in for him, spitting, “Yes, you fucking should have.”

His irritated eyes followed Giordano until they were alone, when Joe called his attention back, drawing him immediately into their former intimacy with quietly spoken words. “You made everything easy for the first time in my life. It’s never mattered to me once, all our most difficult moments, because it felt so right and so good to be with you. You said, let’s take this holiday, and it was like you were holding an escape route there in the palm of your hand. It was you. You stepped in and you saved me. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just wanted to run away. From all of it. I wanted to run away with you.”

Percy caressed Joe’s face, stroking softly. “I’m sorry. For everything you’ve been through.”

“Not me,” said Joe, looking back at his younger image. “Him. I did it for him. He deserved better. So I made it better.”

Percy took both his hands. “I want you to know I’m proud of you. Proud of you for doing what you did. Proud of you for being so loyal and kind. Proud of you for being so pure of heart, when you were dealing with that this whole time. You were so brave. You still are. Brave and beautiful and I love you.”

Joe dipped his forehead back to Percy’s with a teary laugh. “How many people do you think would say that to me? How many people in the whole world would sit there and say that to me right now and mean it?”

Percy gave a shrug and a comically disgusted glance about the place. “Fuck them.”

“One,” Joe replied. “One perfect man, and I found him. I don’t feel ashamed of what I did. I don’t think I owe a debt to society. I’ve never felt wrong. And I told you because you make it easy. And because I knew you wouldn’t judge me. You always get it. I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. But I hope you can understand why.”

“I do. And believe me…” Percy’s words cut off abruptly with a spark of memory.

The ring.

That ring that weighed heavily against his skin now, that screamed, This is it. This is how you show him you still and will always love him.

Percy wanted to meld it to his finger—meld the two of them together for eternity and be Joe’s outer shell for as long as he’d let him.

He leaned closer, squeezing Joe’s hands between his own feverishly. “What I’m about to say has nothing to do with what you just told me. Or maybe it does, but only in a roundabout way. But I was going to say this anyway, but… Things keep happening and so… I haven’t been able to get it out. And I’m not doing this right.”

A flash of panic took Joe at the sudden change—a prelude to something else—something uncharted. “What? Is everything okay?”

A louder alarm sparked in Percy as he rushed to reassure him. “Very okay. Very. Very, very all right and okay and totally normal. Only… I want you to know I love you.”

Joe’s eyes searched his, keen, worried, but with a pleasant sparkle flickering when he heard those words. “I love you, too.”

“And so…” Percy reached into his pocket. Warm, thick gold. Cool cut sapphire. “Joe?—”

Just as the word left his lips, the lights were cut, and everything turned black.