“I like killing,” Vinnie said casually, his arm over the back of his seat. I knew Pearl was beside him in his head by the way he leaned his body inwards toward her. I often wondered what she looked like in his mind. How she would have looked older. Beautiful, no doubt. “Do we get to kill again soon? I get a fucking hard-on when I get blood on my hands.” He smiled at Pearl. “Pearl likes me fucking her after I take some cunt’s life. She screams more. Claws my back more. Says it’s better for her.”
“Thanks, Vin. That’s a visual we all fucking needed in our heads,” Freddie said dryly and looked at me, shaking his head in disbelief. It used to piss me off that Vinnie spoke about my dead sister that way. But I was used to it now. Let him imagine her alive and well if he wanted. If it kept him from topping himself, what the fuck did I care? I wasn’t losing anyone else in my life. I was one death away from insanity at this point. I knew it—they all did.
The door opened and Vera, Ronnie and Betsy strutted into the room. “Look at you miserable fuckers.” Vera stopped in front of us, looking at our bored faces. “Who pissed on your bonfires?”
“Hello, sis,” Eric said, kissing Vera on the cheek. “Been called to arms by our old men. Waiting for them to get their wrinkly arses in here so we can get going and I can get back to fucking my latest conquest.”
“Prostitutes again?” Betsy said, brushing past Eric and sitting next to her brother, Charlie, on the arm of his side of the sofa. “They’re the only ones desperate enough to shag you, aren’t they? No one would actually fuck you of their own volition.”
Eric smiled at Betsy, but there was fuck-all humour there. “That make you a hooker then?” he said, and Betsy’s smile slipped into a familiar snarl. “You’ve ridden this dick plenty to qualify.” Eric lounged in his chair like he was the king of the fucking world. “Of your own volition.”
“You make me sick,” she snapped, eyes narrowing.
“Keep telling yourself that, treasure.”
“Now now, children,” Charlie said to Eric and Betsy. “We don’t need to hear any fucking more about your sordid history. Spare us, please. It was hard enough to deal with when it was happening. This constant tug of war you both now engage in is fucking tiring.”
“And that’s what it is. History.” Betsy went to the bar and poured herself a large glass of wine. Eric’s eyes tracked her the entire way, that same possessive look on his face that he always got around her. Fucking psychos, the two of them. Like Fred and Nancy or some other toxic bollocks. Couldn’t be together, couldn’t be apart.
Betsy ignored Eric and dropped a kiss on Vinnie’s head as she passed, then dropped one on “Pearl’s”. “Vinnie, Pearl, you both okay?” she asked, like it wasn’t fucked up we all just pretended my sister was still here with us.
Vinnie smiled as wide as a fucking clown. “We’re good, Bets. Pearl says hello.”
“I miss you, Pearlie-girl.” The truth of Betsy’s statement shone through her face, before she schooled her expression and sat directly opposite Eric, glaring at him as she sipped her wine. Betsy and Pearl had been inseparable as kids. As close to each other and Vera as the fellas were to me. I thought the reason she played along with Vinnie’s hallucinations so well was because she couldn’t bear to accept that Pearl was truly gone either.
Ronnie grabbed her drink and lit her cigar. She sat down on a chair beside the fire. Vera sat on her lap, wrapping her arms tightly around her girlfriend. “And what’s it tonight?” Vera asked. Both she and Ronnie always dressed in suits—waistcoats and pocket watches included. They were fucking good fighters, good shots too, but our old men would never let women into our firm. They were old school and believed women needed to stay at home. It came from the fact that the only woman left out of all our mothers was my grandma. The rest had been killed, killed themselves or fucked off years ago, unable to cope with this life.
It took a certain kind of person to thrive in this fucked-up underworld. Dad didn’t believe women were made for the gangster life. One look at these three and anyone could see that was bullshit.