Dragonfly by Jax Hill 

Caroline, the former brothel and strip club administrator, started a new community service, too. She’d visit the girls she’d hired, and invite them to come visit with her, and Torstein, in the park. She was so sure Nikolai would not bother us ... but she was sort of “recruiting” women from his clubs!

Granted she didn’t go in and tell them they had to quit stripping. She went and told them to come and visit us in the park and learn about the power of love. A lot of them seemed to have children to provide for and no real belief that they could possibly take care of their families if they didn’t work in the clubs. A few of them were addicted to drugs and couldn’t imagine not being able to get their fix. She didn’t have much luck with them — if her objective were to get them out of dancing and stripping and whatever else they did for a living.

But she did have some luck at getting them at least to come out to the park now and then, bring their children, sit for an hour, and listen to Torstein, or talk with him. They liked him. I guess they felt like he didn’t judge them ... or maybe it was just his Irresistible Charm. I suppose Caroline felt like she got these women into that life, and she owed it to them to try to get them out. Aside from Tawny and Marigold, and the one stripper who’d gone back to Maine or Idaho or wherever, none of them quit dancing. Whether they quit anything else they were doing, I don’t know.

Maybe they did. Or maybe they just talked about it. The word got back to Nikolai what Caroline was doing. And the strangest thing happened. He came to see us.

It was sort of early in the day, not the time you’d expect a mob guy to be out doing business. We’d just finished our morning coffee and were making our way to the park. Franz was walking with me and Pete and Torstein. Bruiser, he was off on his walkabout visiting all the businesses where he used to do extortions, making amends and chatting with the business owners. But Franz recognized Nikolai half a black away. He grabbed Torstein by the arm and said, “Let’s go another way. That’s Nikolai up there.”

But Torstein was delighted. “Nikolai?” he said. “Really? Introduce me.”

Only Franz didn’t want to. “No man, this is bad medicine. Let’s just go another way, down another street.”

“You go,” Torstein said. “All of you go. I’ll talk to him alone.” Pete didn’t want to leave him, but Torstein said, “Look he’s looking for me, there’s no doubt of that. Whatever he means to say is intended for me. I’ll meet you guys in the park later.” Torstein could see Pete was getting ruffled. “Just go over there into the Starbucks. You can watch through the window and come to my rescue if anything happens.”

We did what he said. It didn’t occur to me until later that Torstein was trying to protect us, not even let Nikolai get a good look at us.

He strolled up to Nikolai, they shook hands, and they sat down at a bus stop.

We couldn’t hear what they were saying, of course, but later Torstein told us.

“He said he liked me. He really did. He thought it was nice what we were doing to help people in need, and all that. And he said he’d hate for what happened to Duncan to happen to me,” Torstein said.

“He’d hate to have to kill you?” Pete said, flabbergasted.

“Yes, I guess he meant he’d hate to have to kill me,” Torstein replied, as if just now thinking about it, his eyes twinkling a little. “He wanted to know what I was doing, what we were trying to accomplish. So I told him, and I told him how excited Van and Caroline are to be part of it, and how great it would be if he could come join us, too.”

“What’d he say to that?” Franz asked.

“He said he wasn’t going to join us, but he would be happy to support us with a big cash contribution.”

“Mob money,” Franz said. “I hope you didn’t take it.”

“I told him I’m not in the money end of things, and he could talk to Ferdy if he wanted, but that the really important thing, the really critical thing for him, for everyone, is to meet face to face like this and learn to love. That’s what I was inviting him to come and do.”

He shook his head and went on, “That part didn’t seem to interest him too much. Although I know deep down he would like to join us. He just said he would rather we didn’t focus our efforts so much on his investments. That’s what caused the tragedy with Duncan.”

“The tragedy?” Pete said. “Did he mean that time he murdered your cousin, that tragedy?”

“Yes,” Torstein said, “that was it. I told him that we weren’t focusing our efforts on anything except loving and giving, forgiving and showing mercy. And I even told him I thought those were the very things that would help him find the peace he was looking for.”

“Bet that went over big,” Franz said.

“He denied that he was looking for peace,” Torstein said sadly. “I told him, you know, how much Caroline and Van love him, and how all of us would be more than happy to have him with us, that he could start a new life, start all over. I really thought I was getting through to him, but in the end he just said it’s impossible for a grown man to go back and start over, especially himself, after the life he’s led. And then he told me to stop screwing with his clubs and to send Caroline and Van home, or something bad would happen.”

“You gotta send them back,” Franz said. “He don’t make threats.”

“I’m not sending them anywhere, and I would appreciate if none of you mentioned this to Caroline. She, at least, has found some peace with us, and I won’t let anyone take it away.”

“He ain’t kidding, Torstein,” Franz said. “Ask Bruiser, ok?”

“No, look, don’t mention this to anyone. I think Nikolai felt the truth of what I was saying to him, and I think he may change his mind. I don’t want Caroline worried about it.”

None of us told her about it.

We all went about this new business of making the world a better place by loving each other and practicing mercy. It got to be quite a buzz, to tell you the truth, finding new ways to help the people who needed it the most. Everyone was talking about it, about the green coat, the sunflower seeds, the way he’d started a revolution on new year’s eve.