I'M FEMALE, I'M MAFIA

A FELON

Under federal law, Herbert Brownie had committed a Class C felony, punishable by up to twelve years in prison and a fine of as much as two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Bail was set at five hundred thousand dollars. He was interrogated repeatedly by local police, the Secret Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but he refused to disclose where the two thousand dollars in counterfeit money had come from.

A few days later, he was charged with a second crime - theft. His fingerprints had been run through the criminal database and matched a latent print taken at a crime scene two years ago, a construction site where he had worked.

Jade’s father was looking at a combined sentence of twenty five years.

Jade was sick with grief. She did not know what to do. Tormented by guilt, she went to the police station and tried to tell them that she had gotten the counterfeit money from the modeling agency, but they brushed her off as a distraught family member trying to protect her father.

He refused any visitors. He wouldn’t speak to an attorney, not even a court-assigned one.

Six days after he was arrested, Jade was finally allowed to see her father.

She sat down at the visiting window and waited, struggling with her emotions. A guard brought Herbert Brownie in, and pointed. “Number Seven."

Her father walked slowly down the opposite side of the visiting booths, wearing orange prison coveralls.

“Daddy,” she gushed, pressing her hands against the glass.

His lips trembling, he said, “I can’t stand for you to see me like this,” in a strained voice. He wouldn’t even look up at her.

“Please don’t be ashamed,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “Look at me, Daddy."

He finally raised his eyes. They were shadowed with dark rings, and his skin looked sallow. He had only been in jail a week, and he seemed like he had lost at least twenty pounds.

“Tell them where you got the money,” she begged.

“I’m not dragging you into this, baby."

“Please, Daddy! They’re going to put you in jail for twenty... "

“It won’t make no difference." Herbert reached up and pressed his hands to hers against the glass. “What I done was for you, honey. For your future. I don’t ever want you to feel bad about it. Ever."

The truth was, knowing that her father had been robbing construction sites to put her through Sherriad all these years made her feel ill. Somehow she had known the money was coming from shady activity all along, but she had made herself believe his stories about his video arcade businesses he and his friends owned.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You have to keep your mouth shut about that counterfeit money, sweetheart. Don’t never tell a soul. Promise me."

“But..."

“Promise me, Jade."

“I... I promise." 

“Time’s up,” the guard said gruffly, stepping behind him.

Jade pressed her hands harder against the glass, desperately wishing she could touch him. She had a terrible feeling that this would be the last time she would see her father.

“I love you, Daddy!”

The guard guided him out of sight.

Jade had no idea what would happen to her now. She knew her days at Sherriad were numbered. She drove her father’s old pickup truck to school by herself every day in a state of utter despair. She avoided Ms. Precious, as if delaying any contact with the woman would help.

It’s all my fault, Jade thought. If I hadn’t gotten mixed up with that stupid modeling agency, none of this would have happened. She wanted to destroy Romeo Estella, but she could not think of a way to do it without defying her father’s wishes.

Three days after she had visited him in jail, a student aid came to her world history class and asked her to come to the office.

Jade knew what was about to happen. As she walked down the hallway, she wondered how Ms. Precious would feel knowing that her tuition all these years had come from the sale of stolen property. She shuddered at the thought.

When she entered the office, Ms. Precious was sitting at her desk. Her eyes were red and puffy. A wadded-up handkerchief was in her hand.

“What’s wrong?” Jade said, a feeling of dread descending over her.

Ms. Precious moved from behind her desk, gazing sympathetically at Jade, sniffling.

“What is it?” Jade said.

“Your father...” Ms. Precious held both Jade’s hands tightly. “He killed himself this morning."

Jade drove the truck home in a robot-like stupor.

The words He killed himself this morning kept reverberating in her ears. But they didn’t have any meaning. They were just random noises.

She glanced around the inside of the truck, at the fuzzy dice that hung from the rearview, at his leather work gloves, at the faded picture of herself at age eight in a cowboy suit, clipped to the sun visor.

I knew I would never see him again, she thought, remembering the feeling she’d had at the jail. She laughed hysterically, her lower lip trembling. Then she began gasping for breath and almost ran off the road.

When she pulled into the driveway at the house, she was only partially aware of what she was doing. She felt like she was in a dream, a nightmare, and that she was viewing herself from above.

She watched herself unlock the front door. She watched herself walk through the small living room and go down the steps into the basement. She watched herself open the bottom drawer of her father’s beat-up metal desk and pull out the .38 revolver.

Under her father’s orders, she had never touched the gun before, but it didn’t look very complicated to operate. She found the button that released the cylinders. Her fingers spun them around slowly - there were bullets in all six of the chambers.