Icarus. by Russell Andrews Page A

do most of the work and all of the traveling. He spent at least a week a month in England for several months, making sure it all went right while she rested and ate well and didn't drink in New York, making certain that all went right there. Since their very first date, they had spent nearly every minute together and Jack, to his surprise, found himself guiltily enjoying the separation. They spoke constantly and he filled her in on every business detail, but for the first time he understood that they now had secrets from each other. He could not possibly tell her everything he did and thought and he realized it was the same for her. Women flirted with him and came on to him and he enjoyed it. He went out with his male friends, too, at pubs and private gambling casinos in Mayfair, and he enjoyed that, too. He began to horde his little secrets and he wondered how that would affect his life with Caroline when he returned home. They were harmless, he decided, and would not affect it at all.
    But Caroline's secrets were not as trivial. Right after the London opening, Jack came home and she told him that, once again, there would be no baby. She had gone into the hospital and now it was all over. She hadn't called him over there, hadn't wanted to tell him on the phone, not while he was overseeing everything. But this time was different. There were new complications: the doctor told her she could no longer have children.
    She cried and they hugged and, as before, their wounds gradually healed. And, as before, as Caroline had said, the scars left them different people. Not better, not worse, just different.
    – "-"-"ONE OF THE biggest differences was that they let Kid Demeter come into their lives.
    It began the night of their tenth anniversary. They were home, just the two of them. Jack was going to cook and they were going to have a romantic evening, going to make love and try, as they often did now, not to think about the fact that they would never have a child. They were listening to Chet Baker in Paris. Jack would always remember that "My Funny Valentine" was playing because it was Caroline's favorite song, and they were touching their champagne glasses in a toast when the phone rang. It was Dom, and as soon as Jack heard his voice he said, "We're drinking champagne and whispering sweet nothings. When can you be here?" But when Dom was silent, Jack knew something was wrong, so then he just said, "What is it?"
    "It's Sal," Dom said.
    Jack put his champagne glass down and said, "Shit."
    Sal Demeter worked for Dom, and had worked alongside Jack for years at the plant. When Jack was a teenager, Sal had always treated him like a man instead of a boy; he was the first one ever to take Jack out drinking and once let Jack, when he was fourteen, drive Sal's station wagon down an empty West Side Highway in the middle of the night. Sal was a hell of a guy. Huge, three hundred pounds, easy. An enormous belly that jutted way out in front of him. Hands that looked like ham hocks and arms that looked as if they could lift anything. That could lift anything. Not the brightest guy who ever lived, but kind and surprisingly gentle for such a giant of a man.
    Dom told Jack that Sal had just finished work. He was walking across the floor, fiddling with the string on his apron, getting ready to yank it off, when he began staggering. The big man took three or four quick steps and fell to his knees. Remained there for another second or two, just long enough for people to start running over to him, then he toppled forward, twisting slightly to his side, and was dead. Sal wasn't quite forty-five and he'd left a wife and fourteen-year-old son and, Jack was certain, not much insurance money. The fourteen-year-old was George, but no one had called him that since, well, probably since he was three months old. Right from the start it was Kid. Kid Demeter.
    It began with Dom and Jack helping him out. Jack, especially, and later Caroline, talked to the boy,