Because It Is My Blood

XVI I ATTEND CHURCH

ASIDE FROM FUNERALS, I had not been inside a church since Christmas Eve. At first, I had had perfectly good reasons for my truancy—hiding, Liberty, house arrest—but even after I was free, I found that I didn’t want to return. It is probably too strong to say that I had lost my faith but I can’t think of another way to describe it. I had been pious for so long, and where had it gotten me? Leo was dead, and faith-wise, I might as well have been seasick in a cargo ship in the middle of the Atlantic.

(So, why was I going to church that Sunday? Did I hope to rekindle the dying embers of my faith? No indeed, readers.) The reason I was going to church was decidedly ungodly. I hoped to run into Sophia Bitter. I had decided that Charles Delacroix, my foe, was right. The best way to settle the question of Sophia’s involvement was to put it to her directly. Even if she lied to me, that lie would tell me something. And she couldn’t try to kill me in a church.

Natty had told me to wake her so that we could go to church together, but I didn’t want her or anyone else with me. I set out early so that I could walk down to St. Patrick’s instead of taking the bus.

I did not pay attention during the service. From the balcony, I had spotted Sophia Bitter. She sat about halfway toward the front and was wearing a red hat with a spiderlike ornament. Mickey was not by her side.

As soon as Mass was over, I ran down to the gallery to talk to Sophia Bitter.

“Sophia,” I called.

She turned unhurriedly, like she was dancing a waltz. At eye level, I could see the hat wasn’t a spider but two crimson bows sitting atop each other. “Anya,” Sophia greeted me. “How lovely to see you. Forgive me. I was on my way to confession.” Sophia moved closer to me and kissed me on both of my cheeks. Her lips were warm and sticky with lip balm. I asked her where Mickey was and she said that since Yuri’s death, he’d been going to his father’s church if not skipping Sunday Mass altogether. “Well,” she said, “I must get in the confession line.”

I asked her if something weighed particularly heavy on her soul.

Sophia cocked her head to the side and smiled a little. She paused to look me in the eyes, which I made sure to keep friendly and blank. “This is humor, yes?”

I made my voice as light as a butterfly. “Cousin Sophia, the strangest thing happened. I was on Museum Mile, and a man was selling chocolate. Of course, I asked him if he had Balanchine Special Dark. It’s my favorite, you know. And since Nana died and Jacks went to prison, no one ever brings it by the apartment.” I paused to look at Sophia. Her expression was as empty as my own, but I thought I saw her pupils dilate slightly. What had Dr. Lau said about dilated pupils? “So, I bought this bar and I forgot all about it until my boyfriend, Win—you remember him?—wanted chocolate. But when he took off the Balanchine wrapper, you’ll never guess what was underneath. It was a Bitter chocolate bar. I thought, ‘Bitter. That’s Cousin Sophia’s family. How strange that a Bitter bar should end up under a Balanchine wrapper.’”

Sophia opened her mouth to speak, and for a second, I even thought she might have a perfectly logical explanation for what had happened. Other churchgoers were passing us by. She closed her mouth decisively. She smiled more broadly than before. “All this honey,” she said with a snort.

“What do you mean?”

“All this honey. There must be a bee, Anya.” Sophia adjusted her ridiculous hat and then she appraised me with narrowed eyes. “So, we are seeing each other for the first time,” she said. Sophia took off her gloves. “What a relief this is. Of course, I am aware of the oversight that you speak of. It has happened before. The workers are supposed to take off both layers of Bitter wrapping but they’re lazy, Anya. Sometimes they forget.”

“But why are you passing off Bitter chocolate bars as Balanchine?”

Sophia didn’t answer my question. Instead she made a funny clucking sound with her tongue, almost like the sound of a rattlesnake’s tail.

“Did you arrange to have Natty and me killed?”

Sophia said nothing.

“Did you kill Leo?”

“A car bomb killed Leo. That is what Yuji Ono says. And I had nothing to do with that.”

I tried to control my voice. “So you did arrange to have Natty and me killed?”

“What if I said that I had only arranged to have you killed? Would the insult be less? You are a silly girl, Anya Balanchine. Yuji Ono spoke so highly of you, and I have found you nothing but disappointing.”

“I don’t care if you like me. I just need to know whether to kill you or not.”

Sophia let her bottom lip fall into an expression of mock horror. “It is Sunday, Anya. We are in church!” She paused. “No one died except Leo, so maybe you could take what happened as a warning.”

“What about your own cousin? Theo is very sick.”

“He shouldn’t have tried to intervene. I have always hated that side of my family, and they have always hated me.” It couldn’t have been true. Why would they have been so kind to me, who they had been led to believe was Sophia’s friend? “But all this is in the past, Anya. What are you going to do now? If you kill me, that would be a waste of your efforts. My relatives from Germany will come for you and Nataliya, and we Bitters will make you Balanchines look like bunny rabbits.”

She put her arms around me and whispered in my ear, “I had nothing to do with Leo’s death. That was my husband. He is sentimental and an idiot. When you didn’t agree to marry Yuji, Mickey took the opportunity to find out from Yuji where Leo was and he had him killed.” Sophia took a step away from me, then she moved back in to kiss me on the mouth. “What a waste. Yuri Balanchine was an old man, and Leo wasn’t bothering anyone in Japan.”

“I don’t understand. Why kill any of us? None of us are active in Balanchine Chocolate.”

Sophia laughed. “Do you know what the problem with Balanchine Chocolate is? Not that it is organized crime but how very disorganized your family is. There is no reason that a company as disorganized as Balanchine Chocolate should enjoy such dominance in this market. Do you have any idea how difficult it has been for me? I thought if I married your cousin, I’d have some chance to get everything running again…”

Bitter Chocolate had been failing for some time, she said. The German market was too competitive and the only way to save the Bitter business was to move it into other territories. The perceived unrest in Balanchine Chocolate since my father’s death had made America the obvious choice. She and her high school chum Yuji Ono had conceived of a plan where the two of them could create chaos in the American market and then swoop in to split up the results. She came up with the poisoning. Sophia’s wedding to Mickey Balanchine had been another bit of strategy, devised by Yuji Ono. The tainted Balanchine supply would need to be replaced with something—why not Bitter brand? There were warehouses filled with uneaten Bitter chocolate.

There had only been one problem: at some point, Yuji Ono had changed his mind about wanting to destroy the Balanchines.

Here, Sophia rolled her eyes. “He saw potential in you. And he convinced Mickey to see potential in you, too. So instead of running Balanchine Chocolate into the ground, Yuji Ono became intent upon saving it. For you, Anya. As wrongheaded as I thought that was. And I was stranded here in this awful city, married to this dull man. And so I did what I could.”

“You still haven’t said whether you tried to kill Natty and me.”

Sophia shook her head. “You are both alive, aren’t you? So what difference can failed attempts possibly make? Bygones, I’d say.”

“Your cousin was almost killed! My friend Imogen died! And for what?” I put my hands around her neck, but I did not squeeze and she did not scream.

“For all the usual things, Anya. For money. And a little bit for love.” She paused. “What if I promised to leave? What if I went back to Germany and had my marriage to Mickey annulled? You can deal with him for the death of your brother without me. Or you can just decide to call it a day. One father for one brother. What if you and I never saw each other again?”

“Why shouldn’t I just kill you?”

“Here? In St. Patrick’s Cathedral? A good Catholic girl like you? I’ll believe it when I see it.” Sophia laughed. “You won’t kill me because you are not a murderer. That is what I said to Yuji Ono after I met you the first time. The child may be brighter than her cousins but she doesn’t have the stomach for our line of work.”

“That isn’t so.”

“You think you’re tough because you sliced off that assassin’s hand. It isn’t tough to injure someone when you really ought to have killed him.

“Right now, liebchen, the smart move would be to take that machete from under your coat and stab me through the heart, too. But you won’t. I don’t envy you. Daughter of a cop and a criminal. How your heart must war with itself. So, you’ll let me go. You think you’re still deciding but it’s already done.”

I took my hands from around her neck, and she began backing down the aisle away from me.

I ran to her and pressed the machete into her side, the blade only piercing her cashmere coat.

“Damn. I liked this coat,” Sophia said.

“Just tell me one thing. Who helped you? You couldn’t have arranged the poisoning by yourself. You must have had someone over here. Was it Fats?”

She shook her head no, and her spider hat bobbed up and down.

“Was it Yuri? Mickey? Jacks?”

She squinted as if that would help her see me better. Her lips came together for something like a smile. “The young lawyer,” she whispered.

“Simon Green … Simon wouldn’t.”

“Simon did. He hates your father, Anya. And he hates you, too.”

“I don’t believe you. Simon Green doesn’t hate me.” I could not help but think of what Jacks had said to me.

“People have reasons for everything under the sun.” Sophia shrugged. “All our cards are on the table. Why would I lie?”

She turned and walked briskly out of the church. I wished I could have killed her, but Sophia was right: back then, I was still Catholic enough not to be able to do such a thing in church.

I hesitated. I wondered if maybe I could kill her on the steps instead.

I was about to chase after her when I felt something incredibly heavy hit me across the back of the head.

Despite my upbringing, I must admit to taking the Lord’s name in vain.

I turned in time to see a Bible coming straight at my forehead.

Just before the smack, Sophia Bitter laughed.

I awoke in a hospital bed. What I felt was a mild amount of pain and an incredible amount of annoyance. I had let Sophia Bitter go. Who knew where she was or what trouble she would cause next? Also, I was nearly as tired of hospitals as I had been of Liberty.

I needed to get going. I stood, feeling a bit woozy. I hadn’t been at the hospital long, so I was still in my clothes. I found my shoes (though not my machete) in the closet. I went into the bathroom to take stock of my injuries. There was a huge bump on my forehead and another one on the back of my head. I couldn’t see the second one as it was covered by hair. Other than that, I seemed to be in one piece.

I poked my head out the doorway. There didn’t seem to be any nurses around, so I made my move. I walked down a hallway, then past the reception area. No one noticed me. In the waiting area, I could see Daisy Gogol and Natty. My sister’s face was red and tearstained while Daisy’s was pale and tense. I didn’t want to be stopped, but I also didn’t want them to be too concerned.

I went up to them. “Shh,” I said.

“Annie, what are you doing out of bed?” Natty yelled.

“I’m okay, but I have to go,” I told them.

“You’re not making any sense,” Natty said. “Who hit you? What happened?”

“I’ll explain everything later. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Natty insisted. “You don’t look at all fine. If you don’t go back to that hospital room, I swear to God, Anya, I am going to scream.”

I looked at the reception desk. Despite my sister’s increasingly hysterical tone, we still hadn’t aroused much interest. It was a busy hospital in a crime-filled city, and the staff was used to filtering out the cries of the agitated.

“Natty, I have something I need to take care of, and it absolutely cannot wait.” I turned to Daisy. “Would you happen to have my machete?”

Daisy Gogol did not choose to answer my question. Instead, she looked from me to my sister. “I feel awful, Anya. I shouldn’t have let you go to church without me. I thought you’d be fine. It is church after all.”

“It’s fine, Daisy.”

“I understand if you need to fire me,” Daisy Gogol said.

I didn’t want to fire her, but I did want to know if she had my weapon.

“I do, Anya,” she said. “But I can’t give it to you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said.

“I’m sorry. My job is to protect you, not facilitate you.” Daisy Gogol lifted me off the ground, as if I weighed nothing—and trust me, I did weigh something; I may have been small, but I was also dense (yes, occasionally in the other sense of the word, too)—and carried me back to the desk. “This girl has had a head trauma, and she’s gotten out of her room,” Daisy Gogol said to the nurse.

The nurse looked insufferably bored with us, as if giant women toting around smaller women was a regular occurrence. She instructed Daisy to carry me back to the room, where a doctor would be in to see me shortly. As we were traveling down the hallway, I weighed my options. I could not overpower Daisy Gogol, but I was fairly confident that I could outrun her.

She placed me on the bed gently, like I was a beloved doll. “I am sorry, Anya.”

“I understand.”

“But I do know a thing or two about head traumas, and you need to be monitored for the next day at least. Whatever has happened can surely wait until you’re thinking more clear—”

I sat upright and pushed her as far as I could. I didn’t make much of an impact, but she was stunned enough that I had time to run out of the room. “Take Natty home!” I called as I fled.

Since I didn’t have my machete, the first place I went was Fats’s speakeasy. I’d need backup before going to deal with Mickey and Sophia. “Annie, what brings you?” Fats asked.

I had run from the hospital and I was scant of breath. “You were right. Sophia Bitter planned the hits. And I think she was responsible for the poisonings,” I said.

Fats poured himself a shot of espresso. “Yes, that makes sense. Do you think Mickey was in on it?”

“I’m not sure. Sophia says he was the one who killed Leo in retaliation for what Leo did to Yuri. The truth is, she might have just been lying to get the heat off her for Leo’s death.”

“And the easiest way to do that is to point the finger at her husband.” He paused to look at me. “Jesus, kid, what happened to your forehead?”

“I got between a sinner and her Bible,” I explained. “I want to go confront Mickey, and I need you with me.”

Fats nodded. “I’ll get my gun.”

When we got to Mickey’s brownstone, a servant answered the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Balanchine just left. They said they were going to visit her relatives.”

I said to Fats that we should go to the airport, but he shook his head. “We don’t even know which one. Maybe the best thing that could possibly happen is the two of them leaving town. Think of it, Anya—if the two of them stayed, we’d have an internecine war on our hands. With them out of the picture, it’s back to business as usual and that’s a very good thing.”

“But I want to know for sure if Mickey killed my brother!”

“I understand that, Annie. But what would knowing really matter? Sophia said he did. And Mickey is gone. You drove them out of town, so you got to take some comfort in that because that is all the truth you’re going to get for now.”

This seemed incredibly naïve to me. Just because they had left town didn’t mean they’d be gone forever. “We need to go see Simon Green,” I told him.

“The lawyer? Why?” Fats demanded.

I told him that Sophia had said that he was involved in the poisoning. “Fats, have you ever heard a rumor that Simon Green might somehow be related to us?”

Fats cocked his head and screwed his mouth into a skeptical ball. “Annie, there’s always rumors about us. And most of them you don’t got to bother paying no mind to.”

But I wouldn’t be deterred.

At Simon’s building, we walked up the six flights of stairs. My head was starting to pound and I was wishing I’d had the foresight to ask someone at the hospital for an aspirin before I’d run out.

We found that the door was open, and Mr. Kipling was standing in the center of the room. He must not have been there too long, because he was still out of breath from the stairs. “He’s gone,” Mr. Kipling said. “Simon Green’s gone.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

Mr. Kipling nodded to Fats, then held out a slip of paper to me:

Dear Mr. Kipling,

I am about to be accused of a crime, and I must now leave in order that I may clear my good name.

You have been like a father to me.

Please forgive the short notice.

Please also forgive me.

Simon Green, Esq.

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Mr. Kipling asked me. “Anya, what happened to your head?”

I answered him with a question of my own. “Mr. Kipling, why are you here?”

“Simon Green told me to come, and I did. I should ask the same question of you, I suppose.”

I told him what Sophia Balanchine had said about the poisoning and Simon Green hating my father and his children.

Mr. Kipling looked at Fats. “Would you mind giving us a moment alone?”

Fats nodded. “I’ll be in the hall if you want me.”

Mr. Kipling shook his head. “No, Anya. She’s wrong. Simon Green loves you. And I love Simon.”

I reminded him of the day of his heart attack. “Did you ever wonder if it was a setup?”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t watch what I ate and I didn’t take care of myself.”

“You should have heard Simon Green in court that day. What if he was being incompetent on purpose? What if he wanted to get me sent to Liberty?”

Mr. Kipling said that I sounded paranoid, insane.

“He knew the most intimate details of my business. He knew where all of us were. He knew everything, Mr. Kipling! If he was in partnership with Sophia Bitter the whole time…!”

“No! He would never have partnered with Sophia Bitter.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He would never have partnered with her because of who he is.”

“Who is he, then?” I demanded. “Mr. Kipling, who is Simon Green?”

“My ward,” Mr. Kipling replied.

“Who was Simon Green to my father?”

“Before he was my ward, he was your father’s ward.”

“Why was he my father’s ward?”

“Anya, I promised,” Mr. Kipling said.

“Is he my…” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Is he my half brother?”

“It’s so long ago. What difference can dredging up any of this make?” Mr. Kipling said.

“Tell the truth!” I shrieked.

“I … You see, Anya, there’s a very good reason Simon Green could never have been involved in anything that would harm you.” Mr. Kipling took his mini-slate out of his wallet. He turned on the slate and showed me the screen. On it was a picture of my father standing next to a little boy. The boy was Simon Green. I recognized the eyes. Light blue like Leo’s and Daddy’s. “Your father … Well, you could say he adopted Simon. He took him under his wing.”

“I don’t understand what ‘you could say’ means. He either adopted him or he didn’t. Why would he have adopted him and never told any of us about it?”

“I … Maybe he planned to someday, but he didn’t live long enough. The story I was told was that Simon Green’s father had worked for your father. The father died on the job, and when the mother died, too, your father thought it was his responsibility to take care of him. He was a good man, your father.”

“Why do you say ‘the story’? Stop being vague, Mr. Kipling.” I was covered in sweat and my head felt like it might explode. Something fierce and terrible was beginning to burn within me.

Mr. Kipling walked over to the window. There was a distant look in his eyes. “The day you met Simon, he had been wanting to meet you for so long. But I always kept him from you.”

“Why? Why did he want to meet me? Who was I to him?”

“Have you never noticed the resemblance?” Mr. Kipling turned. “The eyes and the skin. Does he not look like your cousin Mickey, your cousin Jacks? Does he not look like your brother? Your father? Green was his mother’s name.”

“Is he my father’s son?”

“I don’t know for sure, Anya. But I have arranged everything for Simon. His schooling. This apartment. And I did these things because your father told me to.”

I felt ill. “You had no right to keep this from me.” I’ve always thought it was preposterous in a story or a movie when someone throws up upon hearing dramatic news, but I really did feel like I might. (Of course, it might also have had something to do with the blow I’d taken to the head.)

“Sophia Bitter says that Simon Green helped plan the poisoning last fall,” I said to Mr. Kipling.

“Simon is a good boy,” Mr. Kipling said. “He would never do something like that. I’ve known him his whole life.”

I looked at Mr. Kipling’s threadbare head. I loved that head. It had been one of the few constantly good things in my life. That is to say, what I needed to do next wasn’t easy for me. “I believe that you have made an inexcusable lapse in judgment, Mr. Kipling, and I can’t have you working for me anymore.”

Mr. Kipling thought about what I had said. “I understand,” he said. “Anya, I do understand.”

At that moment, Simon’s cat came into the room. “Here, Koshka,” Mr. Kipling called. The cat approached him warily, and Mr. Kipling lured her into a pet carrier that was sitting on Simon’s bed. “When he called, Simon asked me to take care of the cat,” Mr. Kipling explained.

I left Simon Green’s apartment. Mr. Kipling did not try to stop me.

“So, what’s next?” Fats asked me on the trolley ride across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan.

I shook my head. The sun was going down on what had been a fruitless afternoon, and I was discouraged. I had wanted a big scene where I confronted Mickey and Simon, and maybe only one of us came out alive. Instead, they had both disappeared. “I’m surprised Mickey left,” I admitted.

“We don’t know what Sophia told him,” Fats said. “And you haven’t been around to follow it, but the Balanchine distributors are pretty frustrated with him at this point.” Fats looked at me. “Kid, don’t be blue. As far as these things go, this is a pretty happy ending. You sniffed out the bad eggs, sent them packing, and everyone lived.”

“Except Leo.”

“God rest his soul.” Fats crossed himself. “I’m telling you, your dad would have been proud. He didn’t believe in violence.”

I may have snorted.

“Sometimes he had to use it, but it was only ever a last resort for him.”

“Just because Mickey is gone, I don’t want Balanchine Chocolate to die. I don’t want Daddy’s company to die,” I said. I knew that Mickey and Sophia’s departure had made Balanchine Chocolate even more vulnerable.

“The key thing now is to establish a new leadership as quickly as possible. We can’t have any appearance of dissent.”

“Fats, do you think you’ll really be able to do a better job running Balanchine Chocolate than Mickey did?”

“No one can say for sure, Annie. But, if you back me, I’ll do my best. I’m honest, and I know the tribulations of chocolate better than anyone.”

It was true. Fats had run his speakeasy successfully for years, and he knew all the players. I realized now that Yuji Ono and Yuri and Mickey had probably just been flattering me to suggest that I should run Balanchine Chocolate. Because I was young and ignorant, they had been able to use me for their own ends. I had allowed myself to be flattered and had ended up being foolish yet again. “Why do you even care if I back you?”

“You don’t know the chocolate business, but the rank and file still care what you think. They remember your daddy, and they’ve seen your face in the news, and I would appreciate your support.”

“If I do back you, what happens to me?” I probably sounded childish or at least teenage-ish.

We were just about over the Brooklyn Bridge and back into Manhattan. Fats put his hand on my shoulder. “Look, Annie. See that city. Anything can happen there.”

“Not for me,” I said. “I’m Anya Balanchine. First Daughter of the chocolate mob. I have the name and the rap sheet to go with it.”

Fats stroked his goatee. “It’s not as bad as all that. Finish school, kid. Then come back to me. I’ll set you up with a job if you still want one. You can learn the ropes. Maybe even find out what it is they do in Moscow.”

At that point, I had to get off the trolley to switch to the bus that would take me back uptown. Fats said that there would be a meeting at the Pool the next day, and that he would really appreciate it if I would come.

“I’m not sure I want to back you,” I said.

“Yeah, I can see that. Here’s what I think you should do. Get a good night’s sleep, and when you wake up in the morning, ask yourself what it would be like to be free of Balanchine Chocolate forever. Your brother’s dead, and the players are gone. You back me tomorrow, and I’ll make sure that no one ever messes with you or your sister again.”

I arrived at the apartment around ten o’ clock. Daisy Gogol and Natty and Win were waiting for me, and no one looked pleased.

“We should take her immediately back to the hospital,” Natty said.

“I’m fine,” I replied as I collapsed onto the couch. “Exhausted, but fine.”

Daisy Gogol shot me an evil look. “I could have stopped you, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m not accustomed to being pushed by people I’m supposed to be protecting.”

I apologized to Daisy.

“At the hospital, they said someone was supposed to watch her to make sure she didn’t go to sleep.” Natty stood up from the couch and crossed her arms. “I’d watch her but I don’t even want to look at her.”

“I’ll do it,” Win volunteered, though he didn’t sound particularly enthused about the task.

“Listen, Natty, don’t be cross. I think I found out who tried to kill us.” And then I told them what I had learned that day.

“You can’t keep going on like this,” Natty lectured me. “Running around and not telling anyone where you’re going or what happened. I’m tired of it. And, for the record, I don’t want to end up with no brother and no”—her voice broke a little—“sister either, Annie.” I stood to embrace her, but she pulled away, then ran down the hallway to her bedroom. A second later, I heard the door slam.

I turned to Daisy. “You can go home now, if you want.”

Daisy shook her head. “I can’t. Mr. Kipling called to tell me I should stay on guard overnight. He was extremely concerned about your safety.”

“Fine, but you should know that I had to dismiss Mr. Kipling this afternoon.”

“Yes,” Daisy replied, “he said that, too. He told me that he would be personally covering my salary.”

Daisy went to the hallway to stand watch.

I sat back down on the couch. Win went into the kitchen and came back with a bag of frozen peas for my head.

“It’s probably too late for that,” I said.

“It’s never too late for frozen peas,” Win said cheerfully.

“Aren’t you angry at me, too?” I asked.

“Why? Just because you put your life in danger and didn’t tell anyone what you were doing? Why should I care? I don’t worry about you at all.”

He set the peas on my forehead as I had done so many times to Leo. I winced a bit at the cold. I stretched up to kiss him, but my head started to pound. I lay back down on the pillow. “Sorry,” I said.

“Do you think I even want to be kissed by you? You’re pretty much horribly deformed at this point.” He leaned down to kiss me lightly, sweetly. “What am I going to do with you?” His voice was gentle and low.

Because I still needed to make sense of it myself, I decided to describe for him the baffling events of the day, ending with Fats’s request that I abdicate any leadership position in Balanchine Chocolate.

“Would it be so awful?” Win asked. “What he was essentially saying to you is that you could walk away.”

“But what about Leo?” I asked. “What about Daddy?”

“Nothing you do for Balanchine Chocolate will bring either of them back, Annie.”

It was good advice. The truth was, the quickest way for me to destroy Balanchine Chocolate and my father’s legacy—such as it was—would be to get into a war with Fats over leadership. Besides, what did I know about running a chocolate business anyway?

I moved the bag of peas so that it covered my eyes, too. Even my eyes were starting to hurt. It felt peaceful to be in the cold and in the dark.

I hadn’t been to the Pool since I’d made my speech before going to Liberty the prior year. Aside from Fats, so many of the people I had known were dead, gone, or in prison, and while everyone was vaguely and literally familiar, I didn’t really know any of them personally. That was the thing about organized-crime families—you shouldn’t bother getting too attached to anyone.

Fats had asked me to explain about Mickey’s disappearance and Sophia’s involvement in the poisoning and in the hits on my family, which I did. Then I stated that I supported Fats in his desire to be the interim head of the Balanchine Family. Lukewarm applause followed this sentiment. Fats himself gave a brief speech regarding his vision for the Family. His vision didn’t seem to be markedly different from any of the previous heads of the Family: mainly things about ensuring the quality of the product and limiting supply delays, etc. Finally, Fats opened up the room to questions.

A man with a curly mustache and round eyeglasses turned to me and said, “Anya, I’m Pip Balanchine. I wonder what your dealings with the new district attorney have been like. Does she seem anti-chocolate?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “The only things she cares about are money and advancement.”

The men laughed at my assessment.

A black man with reddish hair piped in, “You’re a good guy, Fats, but you run a restaurant. You really think you’re up to heading the Balanchine semya?”

“Yes,” Fats said, “I do.”

“’Cause personally I am tired of the unrest. It doesn’t make for good business and it certainly doesn’t make for good chocolate. I think we sell ourselves short. The poisoning should have been an opportunity to overhaul the business, not…”

The meeting went on a while longer though my presence barely seemed necessary. Daisy Gogol stood behind me as was the convention at these meetings, and occasionally, she would nudge me. But what was I to say? The truth was, some part of me really was happy to let Fats run the company. Maybe I’d learned something about cacao but there were still so many other aspects of the business I didn’t know. And the endless garbage Yuji Ono had fed me about my being “a catalyst”—well, maybe I didn’t have it in me to be a catalyst. I had tried to call Yuji Ono the day before to confront him about everything that Sophia Bitter had said. I still had so many questions. Had he helped plot Leo’s murder out of love for Sophia or hate for me, or had there been other reasons entirely? Had he ever really believed anything he’d said or had he just preyed on me because I was young and susceptible to flattery? What had he known about Simon Green? But the number I had for Yuji Ono had been disconnected. He was as much a mystery to me as he had ever been.

Sitting at the bottom of the empty pool, my mind drifted. I thought of Mexico. The water there had been so blue. I wondered how Theo was. I had been too embarrassed to contact him. Had I done it over the phone, I would have had to confront one of the mighty Marquez women. A letter seemed impossible—I wasn’t good with words.

A man in a purple suit turned to me. “Anya, are you planning to consult with Fats? I like knowing that at least one of Leo Balanchine’s children is in on things.”

I promised to keep tabs on my cousin. Then, out of respect, I bowed my head toward Fats.

“Anya knows my door is always open to her,” Fats replied. “And when she’s a little older and knows more, I imagine her involvement in the business can be even greater, if that’s something she desires.”

Not long after, the meeting was over. My abdication was brief and bloodless. As Mr. Beery might have said, The Merchant of Venice, and not Macbeth.