Page 62 of Mafia Princess

And hey, I’m being safe. I brought a bodyguard.

We turn into an area of project houses in East Harlem, and the driver slows, glancing at the GPS on the dash. I’ve spent plenty of time in Manhattan, and while I know there are bad areas, we never go there. This street is slummy as fuck, and I’m hoping we’re lost, because that’s better than the alternative.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I ask, glancing nervously at the sun as it sinks into a murky stew of smog in the west. Suddenly, this seems like a very bad idea.

“I’m afraid so,” the driver says. “I’ll stay with the car.”

My heart stutters erratically in my chest, and it’s not because this neighborhood is scary. What am I doing? What if I can’t go through with it?

But then I think of my husband going to work every day, facing the most dangerous men in New York, taking down the partner he should have been able to trust but who tried to get him killed, and then coming home to a wife who is still broken despite my best efforts to move on.

I take a deep breath and reach for the door. “I’m ready.”

My bodyguard gets out first, but I step in front of him, leading the way. After scanning the tall buildings of the Jefferson Housing project and rechecking the address on the sticky note where I scribbled it after secretly contacting King’s uncle with connections, I head for the doors. A couple Hispanic guys stand out front smoking cigarettes and watching us with calculating, suspicious gazes. I hurry inside and start up the stairs. I have to pull my shirt over my nose halfway because the smell of urine is so strong it brings tears to my eyes.

When we reach the fourth floor, we exit into the hallway. An old man lies against the wall, hopefully sleeping, though I don’t stick around to see if he’s breathing. I head for the door to the apartment and knock. I can hear loud music thumping from down the hall, and I have to knock a couple more times. Someone in the next apartment yells for us to shut the fuck up, though they don’t bother opening the door.

At last, the door opens a crack, and a bloodshot, unfocused eye blinks at us from inside. “Yeah?” a deep woman’s voice asks. I can just make out brown skin and frizzy cornrows in the dim lighting from within.

“I’m Eliza Pomponio,” I say, using my maiden name. “I’m looking for my mother. Is she here?”

“And who’s that?” the woman asks, her eye moving to my bodyguard.

“This is my friend,” I say.

“Nuh-uh,” she says. “That’s the DEA.”

“He’s not DEA,” I say. “He’s here to protect me.”

“You gonna need it around here,” she says. “A pretty little thing like you, shit. Won’t last an hour.”

“I just want to see my mom,” I say, my voice steady despite the trepidation growing inside me. “I haven’t seen her in ten years, and I heard she was living here. Her name’s Margaret, or Maggie, Pomponio.”

“Maggie, baby,” the woman calls behind her. “You got a kid?”

I hear a quiet voice speak, but I can’t make out the words.

“She says she don’t have a kid,” the woman tells us, looking me up and down with suspicion.

“I told you, I haven’t seen her in ten years,” I repeat. “I need to see her. Just this once. Then I’ll leave you alone, and I’ll never bother you again. Can you just get her to come to the door for one minute? Please?”

The woman sighs and steps back from the door, yelling that this isn’t her business, and she doesn’t want to deal with it. A minute later, another face appears for just a second, and then the door closes, and I hear the chain lock rattle, and then it opens fully. For the first time in ten years, I stand face to face with my mother. My abuser.

I wish I could say I hate her, or that when I see her, I feel nothing. That I could take out my gun and shoot her and walk away.

Instead, I stare at her, and I feel sad and sick and shocked.

“Come in,” she says quietly. “Your bodyguard can wait out here. There’s just a bunch of women in here, and most of them’s asleep.”

I nod to my guard, but he insists on checking the apartment before he’ll agree to stand outside and let me go in with her. When we step inside, it’s so dim I can barely make out the two figures lying on the floor in the living room, the carpet around them threadbare and stained, with holes from cigarette burns and who knows what else. One more woman lies sprawled on a sagging couch with the springs exposed.

Mom gestures for me to follow her into the kitchen. A cracked, plastic dish rack holds clean dishes, and the room itself is clean, though it’s literally falling apart. Strips of linoleum are missing, as well as half the ceiling, so you can see up to the floor of the next apartment and bits of insulation hanging down. The counters are burned and stained and missing chunks of the Formica or whatever they used for the counters when this place was built.

My mother sits down at the table, which is in similar condition to the rest of the place.

“Mom, what are you doing here?” I ask, trying to keep the horror out of my voice.

“What areyoudoing here?” she asks.

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