Eddie Cardone woke to the sound of a teapot whistling. The bed beside him was empty, sheets still warm but twisted like a crime scene. Light leaked through the crooked blinds in dull slats. His body ached in good places. And bad places. He stood, winced, and limped to the window.
Outside, Doyers Street had vanished beneath a blanket of morning mist thick enough to swallow the sidewalk whole. A man, or what appeared to be the shape of one, stood on the corner beneath a broken streetlamp, looking up. Right at the window.
Eddie blinked. The figure turned and disappeared into the fog, legs trailing behind like smoke.
From the kitchenette, Eddie heard the clink of ceramic. He turned and followed.
Lillianne stood barefoot in a silk robe, hair pinned up with the same precision as the questions on her mind. She poured coffee into a chipped cup, added nothing, and slid it across the counter without looking at him.
"You take coffee?"
Eddie rubbed his neck. “Good guess.”
She made coffee for him, tea for herself, and eggs for both, sizzled in a pan. The place still smelled like crab, sex, and last night’s bad decisions.
“Did I tell you I used to work at an art gallery?” she asked.
“No.”
“Cultural center,” she clarified. “Asian arts. Mostly diaspora stuff, second-gen pieces with too much anger or not enough soul.” She gestured vaguely toward the walls, where artwork leaned in mismatched frames.
Eddie’s eyes settled on a crooked painting: an abstract sprawl of ink and oil, all shadows and implied geometry. It looked like a street scene caught mid-melt, a Chinatown alley glimpsed in a dream.
“You paint?” he asked, stepping closer.
“Used to.” Her voice dropped half a note. “Before I was shot.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, just thick.
“You work?” she asked.
“Yeah. A little of this, little of that. Storage, mostly.”
“Storage,” she echoed as if the word amused her. “You look like a man who holds onto things.”
Eddie took a sip of the coffee. It was strong, almost too strong, but welcome. “Some things are worth holding onto.”
She looked at him then. And for a moment, it seemed like she wanted to believe that.
She cracked an egg with the edge of a spatula. “So what’s your real story, Eddie Cardone? You from the West Side, or is that just a line you use when you’re down here hunting for trouble?”
He smiled thinly. “Columbus Avenue. Why would I make that up?”
“People do that.”
“Lie about themselves?”
“Yeah, lie about themselves.”
“There’s nothing much more to me. I grew up above a deli. Ma worked nights, dad split early. You want my report card too?”
“No. I want to know what a white boy with soft hands is doing running rackets with Jimmy Tong.”
Eddie froze for a second. She flipped the egg.
“I’m not running rackets,” he said.
She smiled without turning. “Okay.”
He leaned against the counter. “You always do this?”
“Do what?”
“Cross-examine your conquests the morning after? I mean, you didn’t even say ‘good morning.’”
“Good morning,” Lillianne said, sliding a plate of sunny-side-up eggs Eddie’s way. “Sorry, Eddie, I intermittently lose track of who, where, and what I am.”
“You know, I spotted someone down on the street a moment ago looking up at your bedroom window.”
“One of Tommy’s look-outs,” Lillianne conceded.
Eddie picked up his fork, pierced an egg yolk, and let it bleed. “Do you know who tried to kill Tommy that night?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached for the teapot and poured with ceremonial calm, the stream steady, almost meditative. “No,” she said finally. “But I have a flash. A shadow. A man. Not Chinese. White. Good-looking. Like you. You’ve heard of déjà vu?”
Eddie chewed slowly, eyes narrowing. “The sensation that something has happened before even though it’s happening for the first time.”
“Exactly.” She cradled her cup. “What about presque vu?”
He paused, uncertain. “Sounds French.”
“It is. Means ‘almost seen.’ The sensation of standing at the edge of memory, knowing something’s there, just out of reach.” Her gaze lifted, calm and direct. “Like something on the tip of your tongue. Like something about Eddie Cardone.”
The air shifted and tightened.
Eddie swallowed the mouthful like it had turned to stone and then said, half-joking, “You don’t think I had anything to do with it?”
She looked at him then, really looked. Her eyes were not accusing, but they weren’t kind either. “No,” she said. “But maybe you knew him.”
Silence followed. Outside, a distant siren rose and faded like the world was holding its breath with them.
“You think I’d be in this kitchen right now if I tried to kill Tommy Huang?” Eddie said voice scraped thin. “Or if I knew who did?”
Lillianne didn’t answer.
“I told you, I’m a small-time hood who runs with Jimmy Tong when he calls. Otherwise, I lift and move boxes wherever possible to turn a buck.”
She nodded once. A slow dip of the chin. It felt like the quiet acceptance of a verdict no one believed.
“They told me when I woke up I’d have false memories,” Lillianne said, her voice low, more gravel than whisper. “So now everything I remember comes with a question mark I’m too tired to erase. I remember fear. I remember betrayal. I remember the way the shooter moved. Like it wasn’t the first time he erased someone from the world.”
Lillianne looked past Eddie.
“And I remember his shape. His walk. Maybe even his face. But I can’t swear by any of it. The truth?” She laughed once, dry. “The truth is what I choose to believe. It has to be. It’s the only way I can keep moving forward without collapsing under the weight of all the things I’ll never be sure of.”
She turned her eyes to him then, steady, dark, unflinching.
“I’ve made peace with that. Because until this bullet shifts and finishes the job, I’ve got to walk like I know where I’m going. Even if I don’t.”
Eddie didn’t speak. His hands lay flat on the table, steady in appearance, but the veins had risen like wires under strain.
“I should go,” he said. “Jimmy’s probably wondering—”
“You don’t work for Jimmy anymore.”
Eddie stopped mid-motion. “What?”
“You’re mine now. Full-time. Bodyguard. I want you close to me.”
He blinked. “You’re serious?”
“You think you can survive last night and go back to selling knockoffs with Jimmy Tong? No. You’re in it now.”
Then she moved, slow and deliberate. Her silk robe whispered as she shifted, the thin fabric catching the light. One hand reached across the narrow table, not for the cup or fork, but for him. She took his hand gently, guiding it over the table, and then placed it on her chest, flat against her breast, where her heart should be thundering. But it wasn’t.
It was steady.
“You feel that?” she asked.
Eddie’s fingers twitched. The silk was warm, the skin beneath warmer. “Lillianne—”
She leaned in, lips just short of his. “I see you,” she whispered. “From the corner of my eye. Hungry. Willing to do anything for me.”
His mouth parted. His mind said don’t, but his body didn’t listen. It hadn’t been listening since last night.
Her fingers slid up his arm, slow as a tide. “How much do you love me, West Side Boy?”
He stared at her.
She smiled, half-sin, half invitation. “Answer me.”
She was a cat, and he was caught in the twitch of her tail, already under her paw. She kissed him like lovers who plan murders together. A kiss that tasted like secrets and blood.
Her hands tangled briefly in his shirt as if unsure whether to pull him closer or push him away. Eddie responded like a drowning man tasting air. For a moment, the room was nothing but silk and skin and breath and the weight of something dangerous blooming between them.
Then, as if she’d remembered herself, Lillianne smiled against his mouth and pulled away.
She smoothed the folds of her robe, collected a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and turned to refill her teacup as if nothing had happened. Her voice, when she spoke again, was brisk, almost clipped.
“There’s an art show tomorrow night,” she said. “New gallery, new money, all the right eyes.”
Eddie blinked, still caught in the heat she’d left behind.
She nodded, businesslike now. “Shanghai businessmen with a fetish for ‘gangland art.’ They’re hungry for anything that smells like Chinatown’s underbelly.” She turned to face him again, but the softness from moments ago was tucked away. “And I want you there. By my side.”
He straightened, still catching up. “Security?”
“Presence,” she corrected. “A man beside me says that I’m protected.” Her gaze lingered. “That I don’t walk into rooms alone anymore. My Ex will be there.”
“Tommy?”
“You’ll protect me, won’t you?” She moved past him, trailing a hint of perfume and purpose. “Wear something decent,” she said. “Not one of Jimmy’s cheap suits.”
“Sounds classy.”
“It’s a freak show. And I’m expected.”
She finished her tea and set the cup down with deliberate care, like placing the last piece on a chessboard.
Outside, the fog had thickened, a shroud of secrets. Somewhere in it, eyes were watching.
Eddie drank the rest of his coffee. The bottom had gone bitter, all grit and sediment, but it still kicked.
end of part two
© Michael Arturo, 2025
Michael Arturo is a playwright, screenwriter, and fiction author who also writes random essays on social and political issues. He was born and raised in New York City. His plays have been produced in New York, London, Boston, and LA. He also created the Double Espresso Web Series 2010-2014. To support his work, please donate, purchase a subscription, leave a comment, or follow. Thank you.
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