The Monster In Us

4- he laUghs

When I walk through the back entrance of the Berardi Casino, I feel every fiber of my being wanting to pull out a gun and shoot it down. The rule is almost always 'if you see an Italian, shoot him down' because if you ever run into an Italian, he's a Berardi, and he needs to die. But now, that's the exact opposite of what I'm doing.

Not only do I not have a gun (for the first time since I was eleven), but I want to earn their trust, I want to work for the Berardis. I want to become a Berardi if only temporarily.

Feeling absolutely on edge, I find the receptionist's desk and tell her that I'm here for an interview. My whole body is tense and on edge because I hate everybody in this building. The receptionist seems nice but I hate her and my fingers are itching for my gun that I don't have. And not only do I hate everybody here but they hate my kind too... they just don't know it. If they figure it out though, if even one person recognizes me, this is all over and I'm dead.

The farther the receptionist takes me down the hallway, the farther into the pit I go, the closer to death I am. I always thought that my life was going to be short because of all of the dangerous situations I've found myself in but I never thought that I'd die because my father sent me to my death just for some information and I never thought that it'd be in the Berardi Casino.

"He's waiting for you in the second door on the right," The receptionist tells me with a friendly smile. She looks completely normal, completely nice. I wonder if she knows about the crime happening under these floors or if she's just an innocent secretary. At our casino, we hire some temps and other workers who don't know about the crime although I'm sure they are suspicious, but there's not many.

I thank the lady, barely able to breathe now as I'm about to meet Giovanni Berardi for the first time. I've heard about him my entire life and I've seen a thousand pictures but I've never actually met him. The door that she instructed me to is already open and when I peek my head around the corner, I see a large office with a couch and coffee table on the right hand side and a desk with two chairs on one side and a gray-haired man on the other.

I swallow the vile feeling I have crawling up my throat and I start to speak, knowing that if I'm not convincing, I will die right here, in this oddly decorated office. There are shelves and shelves of shot glasses. I wonder if these are the same as my father's golf balls. "Mr. Berardi?" I get his attention.

The graying man looks up at me and away from his computer, not offering a smile or a hint of recognition at all. The second thing that I notice about the man other than his gray hair, is his tan, and how his tan looks terribly contrasted against his gray hair. His wrinkling face has frown lines which isn't surprising. Apparently, it isn't just our side that has trouble smiling. He doesn't look this tan in the pictures that I've seen.

"You're the tech girl?" He assumes, not even standing up from his desk as he waves me into the room so I walk in farther until I'm standing at his desk and after he doesn't even motion to shake my hand, I just sit down on the other side of the desk. The desk itself isn't decorated at all, just a computer and a coffee mug with no coffee in it and a landline phone.

"Yes sir," I confirm with a nod, noticing that the only other thing on the walls other than the shot glasses is an Italian flag. I want to burn it. I want to rip it to shreds. I'm sure that Italy is a nice country and doesn't deserve my hatred but I can't help it. I look away from the flag and I just continue smiling so that he can't sense my level of undying hatred for everything in this room, including him. "Elisa Bonheur."

Elisa for Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu, one of the first female engineers. Margaret for Margaret Heafield who wrote the program that sent Apollo to the moon. Bonheur is French for happiness and I'm thinking that I'll need as much of that as I can get in the situation that I'm in right now.