Tiger cate, p.20
Tiger Cate, page 20
Cate was hunched over weeping into her hands by then, so Joseph slipped an envelope into her purse and opened the car door.
“I hate to see a woman cry like this when it’s so unnecessary, Cate. Please, try to behave along the guidelines we’ve set up for you. And sign the goddamn NDA.” The door slammed and she was alone.
By the time the car dropped her off at 41 Cooper Square, Cate felt gutted. Seeing the video had made her relive all the trauma of that day. What kind of monster would do that to a woman, let alone show it to his own child? She felt nauseated and deeply shamed.
The art school building was as quiet as a library as she made her way to her studio. Before her loomed the canvas, still awaiting her creative brilliance.
She needed to cleanse herself, cleanse her brain of those images. Cate stood in a hot shower for twenty minutes and then put on her paint-stained cutoffs and a torn gray Gold’s Gym t - shirt. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, she focused on sweeping away the stress and horror of the last few hours. For a full hour, she just stared at the blank canvas. Then she went to mix her paints.
When her studio mate Patrice came in to do some painting later that evening, she murmured, “Hey,” up at Cate, who was balanced high on a ladder and dabbing meticulously at the Day - Glo colors on her palette. Neon yellow to orange to red to purple to blue to green. The blend on each hue was painstaking. A distinct image was taking shape in the center through the absence of color. It was a white silhouette of a small figure in a baseball cap, reaching straight up as if to pluck something out of the sky. A printed photo of Will catching the baseball lay where she’d dropped it at the foot of the canvas.
Her instructors gave her low marks for an unfinished senior project, but she knew it was finished. By the time she graduated, just eight weeks shy of her thirtieth birthday, Cate had gotten her first commission to paint another six-foot mural — the hyperreal face of a tech company CEO on a neon graffiti background. Three more commissions followed. Her floor - to - ceiling canvases, tagged with “Catify,” were trending on social media fine art sites like Paintsy and Cre - art.
At the end of that year, with accumulated mural money, Cate bought a vintage camper truck, which she named “Max.” She kept it parked at a fellow student’s parents’ house in White Plains, after telling them she planned to take it camping in the Adirondacks when she got some time.
Chapter 41
July 15, 2016, New York City
Who would have thought that sneaking out against her parents’ wishes to climb the granite monolith looming over her family’s ranch in rural Arizona would pay off so nicely for Cate’s art career?
“Do not climb it, not with Drew, not with the college kids — not at all! Hear me?” Her father would chant this like a mantra every time he caught her gazing in the rock’s direction.
“I’d prefer you didn’t, love,” Fiona admonished gently, aware how much her daughter loved to push back on any hard rules. So, Cate had climbed because Doc forbade it, but not too often because her mother had called her “love” in her melodic Irish lilt.
Now she was actually getting paid to climb, along with a slew of other street taggers. Featured in a music video, they hung by harnesses and brandished paintbrushes on a building-high mural of colorful neon images. All while some trending hip-hop artist made his moves for the videographers below. Okay, there wasn’t much pay involved, but huge bragging rights.
After the director wrapped the shoot, Cate nimbly rappelled down forty feet and landed on the ground to gentle applause from the onlookers. She couldn’t help smiling. This was fun, not work. Tomorrow she’d be back up there, without the crowd and cameras, putting finishing touches on her commissioned painting so she could collect her wages — a meager stipend, but at least it paid some bills.
As she unhooked her harness from the lines, she felt a man sidle up and stand next to her. She snuck a sideways glance at him. Probably late twenties, well - tailored Armani suit, clean-shaven face, dark complexion. A restless brute beneath a smooth exterior. Instantly, she knew what he was and who had sent him.
“Hello, I’m Tyson.” He held out his hand to shake hers, and she stared at it. His voice was light and ever so friendly as he continued. “I have a message to deliver from a friend of yours.” Suddenly her heart was thumping in her chest. She focused on slowly and deliberately stuffing the climbing harness into its pack.
“Define friend,” she answered, not meeting his eye.
“Someone who’s made it happen for you and who now needs your support and cooperation.”
“Support, huh? You mean he wants me to campaign for him? To get out the vote?” She snorted at her own joke and headed down the sidewalk, knowing the man would tag along. They always did.
“Your, um, benefactor has noticed all the attention your artwork is getting these days — that it might put you into the media spotlight and tempt you to, well, reveal a certain shared history. So, he’s, um, he’s — look, if you could just stop a second.” Cate halted and turned to stare at him icily. “He’d like you to sign this nondisclosure. It was, um, apparently returned to us unsigned.”
Judging by his earnest expression, they hadn’t let him in on the prank. Oh, she’d sent back a signed NDA the day after her son’s birthday party — the one where Joseph had shown her just how far he was willing to go to keep her in line.
The night she finished her senior project, she hadn’t been able to sleep. Instead, she’d locked herself in the computer lab, working well into the next dawn’s light. Studying the copy of the NDA, she’d captured just the right font, ink color, and letterhead in a new document. Then she’d added all the legal language, minus the paragraphs restricting her right to speak freely on her exact relationship and history with Joseph Russo. Instead, she’d inserted:
The undersigned parties agree to no binding or restraining measures of any kind that would prohibit Caitlyn Finley from reporting the history and particulars of her relationship and interactions with Joseph M. Russo, either in the present or at a future date.
As she’d hoped, no one at his office had taken a second glance at the document once they’d checked it for her signature and initials. But apparently, now that Joseph’s campaign had grown legs and Cate’s artwork had begun to attract attention, someone had pulled it out for a closer look. After all, Joseph Russo was expecting to win a seat in the State House of Representatives that fall.
Now Cate pursed her lips and returned young Tyson’s hard stare.
“By ‘shared history’ do you mean the time he drugged and raped me? Or maybe the time he hauled me into an alley and put me in a coma with his fists? That shared history?”
The change in the man’s face was almost comical, like he’d had a whiff of something hideous, some ghastly mess. He looked around to see if anyone had overheard her, then stepped in with an air of exasperation.
“Okay, look, I’m not going to … get into this with you. I’m just relaying the message for my boss. Don’t really know why he picked me for this. I do real estate and environmental law.”
“Bully for you.” She shoved the last of her harness into its bag.
“I came east on a summer internship to work for my cousin Joseph, and he liked the way I handled things, I guess. Wants me to help him get elected state senator and then governor in four years. Me? I just want to get back to the West Coast. Not my jam here.” His distress was making him chatty, severely compromising the Russo code of silence.
“California?” For a moment, he didn’t seem to understand her question.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Based in San Bruno, but I just got a job offer from a big environmental law firm in San Francisco.” Tyson realized she’d gotten him off - track and straightened his shoulders. Back to work. “Anyway, I’m not going to, you know, twist your arm about the NDA. But my message is that it needs to get signed, and you need to steer clear of giving any interviews, especially with his opponent, who will be looking for stories like yours.”
Well, that was candid of him. “Thanks. Tyson, right? Tyson … Russo?”
He smiled and handed her a card and an eight-by-ten envelope. “Burroughs. My mom is Joe Russo’s half - sister. When Mom decided to leave the family compound twenty - five years ago, she took me and got all the way out. That was enough to cut her off from any inheritance.”
That, and being female, Cate mused. Cate nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile as he handed her a card. She knew a little about escaping family ties, too. She pocketed the card, then waited until his car drove off and tore up the nondisclosure. It brought instant gratification, followed by the usual anxiety.
#
Joseph won the nomination in his district and began a rigorous battle with his opponent. Cate continued to accept high-profile mural commissions, while watching for the next NDA-bearing emissary. Strangely, they stopped coming. One October night, she returned to her studio apartment to find a clump of feathers fluttering in her mail slot. She gingerly pulled out the dead pigeon. A string tied around its neck held a card reading, “A dead bird tells no tales.” Her inner tiger sneered at the corniness, even as Cate began pulling out her suitcases. Instinct told her it was time to run.
Two hours later, when the Uber driver let her off at the teal and white camper truck in White Plains, she breathed a sigh of relief. Her untraceable route began with the debit card used for the trip, tied to an online payment account under her artist name Catify. She was done with New York but Joseph Russo didn’t need to know that … yet.
Heading for the interstate that would eventually take her west, Cate felt a strange serenity come over her. She was controlling her destiny, and even though that path was taking her away from the one person she cared about, her son Will, she knew it would lead her back to him. She had an uncanny sense that a certain environmental lawyer now back in northern California would be crucial to her West Coast plans.
But just a day later, Max broke down in Omaha. When Cate heard it would cost her just shy of a thousand dollars to fix the truck, Cate realized for the second time in nearly two decades, she would have to ask Margaret for help. Leaning against the driver’s door of her truck, she dialed the ranch number from memory, using the burner phone she’d bought across the street at the superstore.
Chapter 42
September 6, 2017 Los Angeles
She never gave out her cell number. Not socially, not for work, never. Internet messaging was the way to reach her, even though it had forced her to finally get a smartphone with a prepaid data plan.
One day, a message came in through her Paintsy page, the one with only the name Catify attached. The online fine arts marketplace had assured her their customer information was deeply encrypted and non-hackable. Yeah, right.
She sat in her camper truck, parked beside yet another sun-drenched crowded park in the San Fernando Valley, and stared down at the message on her phone.
Hello Catify, I’m sending this because I’m searching for someone who looks a lot like that one photo you have on your page. Her name is Cate Finley, and she’s my mom. I need to reach her pretty quick. If you could pass along my cell number —
Heart suddenly racing and feeling breathless, she had deleted the message before reading any more. Pretty sloppy of Joseph. Did he think she’d been brain-damaged during the assault eight years back?
An hour later, another message came through Paintsy again.
Hello again, could you possibly get a message to my mom? I’m going out of the country for school and wanted to talk to her before I leave. I think about her. A lot. Just wanted to say hi to her is all.
Again, the flickering breathless feeling. She put the phone on the table and gazed out at the homeless people wandering through the park. It was “Indian summer” in Los Angeles, with heat nearly as bad as Phoenix. Soon would come raging Santa Ana winds and the threat of wildfires.
She slid all the windows open and flipped on the small battery-run fan. Then she read the message once more and began tapping her phone.
Cate said to ask you, what was the song she sang to you at bedtime when you were six years old?
Within two minutes the response came.
You mean in 2007 when I turned six and we moved back to Manhattan from upstate?
She stared at the response and gritted her teeth. “You’re trying too hard, Joseph. To hell with your stupid mind games.”
She reached to clear the screen, but before she could, another message pinged.
Bobby Shafto’s gone to sea, silver buckles on his knee, he’ll come back and marry me, pretty Bobby Shafto. It’s Irish. My grandmother Fiona taught it to you. It’s your birthday, Mom. I just wanted to talk.
Cate sat looking at the screen as minutes rolled by. Then she took a long breath and tapped on the keyboard.
Send me the number again.
A minute later, she was listening to ringing—once, twice, and he answered, “Hello?” A rich, deep voice that had already breezed past puberty and firmly arrived in adolescence. Was she really the mother of a young adult? She felt a wry smile and shook her head. It hardly seemed possible.
“Hello?” he repeated, “Is … are you there, Mom?”
“Will? Hey, hi.” Awkward silence. Her chest pounded like a bass drum. She wanted to rush on, but fear stopped her. Was Joseph standing there next to him? She didn’t think she could bear it if he was now doing his father’s bidding.
“Hi, Mom, it’s really you? Really?” He gave an uncomfortable laugh, or was it the sound of relief? She wanted his voice to soak into her every pore. Her son, her boy. She ached to hold him again like she’d done back when they both were babies.
“It’s me, Will. God, it’s been … ”
“My thirteenth birthday, over three years ago.”
“Yes.” Memories came. Of Will’s frightened face as she handed him his present. Of sitting in Joseph’s parked SUV at the country club, seeing the horrific video images on his tablet while his velvety smooth threats violated her ears.
Another uncomfortable pause. Cate looked around the camper, suddenly seeing how small and shabby her world had become since then. If her son knew how she really lived … Better that he believed the online myth of her glorious artist’s life with its dazzling and colorful photos of completed murals. It was so easy to fabricate a grander life on social media.
“Hullo? Mom?”
“I’m still here, Will. Are they … are you doing all right there?”
“Huh? Oh sure, it’s … it’s all good. I’m fine.” His voice faltered. “Gonna — going to,” she heard him correct himself, “head off to boarding school for the next two years. Switzerland. How about that?”
Why? What did you do wrong? she wanted to ask him, Hadn’t she learned from her own experience that boarding school was simply a convenient place to stash an unwanted family member? Maybe Joseph had collected his millions and had no further use for Will. If that was the case, why not just send him back to her? She knew that answer, too. Joseph Russo would never give up his leverage over her. Never.
“Switzerland, huh?” She tried to make her voice sound conversational. “Are you excited about that?”
A sigh on the other end. Then his voice sounded raw and emotional.
“I think it’s for the best, Mom. There’s too much — ” A pause, then, “The house is getting pretty, um, crowded. With the new baby coming … ” He trailed off and there was another heavy silence between them.
Well, well, she thought, the Russos have spawned again. But it was the maturity and sadness in his voice that ripped at her heart. How could she have given him up? She should have fought for him harder … and longer.
When he spoke again it was lighter and with more finality.
“But I wanted to wish you a happy birthday. I think about you all the time, Mom. You’re my family, too. I think that … you’re very, um, brave. Just wanted to say that to you before I, you know, jet out of here.” He paused for her to say something but the sob she was suppressing wouldn’t let her mouth open. She heard him clearing his throat.
“Maybe sometime … I could come for a visit.”
A sudden picture of this bright and shining young man getting his first look at how she lived flashed through her mind. She saw a disheveled woman standing next to an ancient camper truck on a filth - laden street in Los Angeles and it was more than she could bear.
“Gosh, Will,” she tried to clear the tightness in her throat, “This has been — such a great birthday treat. I wish you all the best over there at school, I really do. It’s going to be a … a great experience.” The words felt so weak and impersonal as they tumbled out of her mouth. She’d been poised to tell him, you are my greatest creation, Will, but by then her mouth had stopped working.
“I love you, Mom.”
She could only nod and weep, even as her thumb disconnected them.
A moment later, her rage filled the camper. The big cat roared and savaged inside her. She wanted to kill Joseph Russo, to sink tooth and nail into him and rip him to shreds. Until that moment, she’d never truly wished death on anything in her life.
It had to go somewhere, so after a while she let it flow into her art and worked through the night. Hours later, as the sun rose on another blazing California morning, Cate stared with satisfaction at the five finished canvases in front of her. The last was of Will, painted from memory. A color - saturated portrait of him at five years old, standing alone in the woods and grinning out from under an enormous red umbrella while the neon rain poured around him.
