Dennis Lehane - Live by Night

When two men pointed theirs guns at each other, a contract was established under the eyes of God, the only acceptable fulfillment of which was that one of you send the other home to him.

Or so it had felt at the time.

Over the years, even in the deepest of his cups, even with Eddie McKenna, who knew most of his secrets, Thomas had never told another soul what kind of intent he’d actually seen in Maurice Dobson’s eyes. And while he felt no pride in his actions that day and so took none in his possession of the pocket watch, he never left his house without it, because it bore witness to the profound responsibility that defined his profession—we don’t enforce the laws of men; we enforce the will of nature. God was not some white-robed cloud king prone to sentimental meddling in human affairs. He was the iron that formed its core, and the fire in the belly of the blast furnaces that ran for a hundred years. God was the law of iron and the law of fire. God was nature and nature was God. There could not be one without the other.

And you, Joseph, my youngest, my wayward romantic, my prickly heart—it’s now you who has to remind men of those laws. The worst men. Or die from weakness, from moral frailty, from lack of will.

I’ll pray for you, because prayer is all that remains when power dies. And I have no power anymore. I can’t reach behind those granite walls. I can’t slow or stop time. Hell, at the moment, I can’t even tell it.

He looked out at his garden, so close to harvest. He prayed for Joe. He prayed for a tide of his ancestors, most unknown to him, and yet he could see them so clearly, a diaspora of stooped souls stained by drink and famine and the dark impulse. He wished for their eternal rest to be peaceful, and he wished for a grandson.

Joe found Hippo Fasini on the yard and told him his father had undergone a change of heart.

“That’ll happen,” Hippo said.

“He also gave me an address.”

“Yeah?” The fat man leaned back on his heels and looked out at nothing. “Whose?”

“Albert White’s.”

“Albert White lives in Ashmont Hill.”

“I hear he doesn’t visit much lately.”

“So give me the address.”

“Fuck you.”

Hippo Fasini looked at the ground, all three chins dropping into his prison stripes. “Excuse me?”

“Tell Maso I’ll bring it to the wall with me tonight.”

“You ain’t in a bargaining position, kid.”

Joe looked at him until Hippo met his eyes. He said, “Sure I am,” and walked off across the yard.

An hour before his meeting with Pescatore, he threw up twice into the oak bucket. His arms shook. Occasionally so did his chin and his lips. His blood became a steady pounding of fists against his ears. He’d tied the shank to his wrist with a leather bootlace Emil Lawson had provided. Just before he left his cell, he was to move it from there to between his ass cheeks. Lawson had strongly suggested he shove it all the way up his ass, but he envisioned one of Maso’s goons forcing him to sit for whatever reason and decided it was the cheeks or nothing at all. He figured he’d make the transfer with about ten minutes to go, get used to moving with it, but a guard came by his cell forty minutes early to tell him he had a visitor.

It was dusk. Visiting hours were long over.

“Who?” he asked as he followed the guard down the tier, only then realizing the shank remained tied to his wrist.

“Someone who knows how to grease the right palms.”

“Yeah”—Joe tried to keep up with the guard, a brisk walker—“but who?”

The guard unlocked the ward gate and ushered Joe through. “Said he was your brother.”

He entered the room removing his hat. Coming through the doorway, he had to duck, a man who stood a full head taller than most. His dark hair had receded some and was lightly salted over the ears. Joe did the math and realized he’d be (thirty-five) now. Still fiercely handsome, though his face was more weathered than Joe remembered.

He wore a dark, slightly battered three-piece suit with cloverleaf lapels. It was the suit of a manager in a grain warehouse or a man who spent a lot of time on the road—a salesman or union organizer. Danny wore a white shirt under it, no tie.

He placed his hat on the counter and looked through the mesh between them.

“Shit,” Danny said, “you’re not thirteen anymore, are you?”

Joe noticed how red his brother’s eyes were. “And you’re not twenty-five.”

Danny lit a cigarette and the match quivered between his fingers. A large scar, puckered in the center, covered the back of his hand. “Still whoop your ass.”

Joe shrugged. “Maybe not. I’m learning to fight dirty.”

Danny gave that an arch of his eyebrows and exhaled a plume of smoke. “He’s gone, Joe.”

Joe knew who “he” was. Some part of him had known the last time he’d laid eyes on him in this room. But another part of him couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t.

“Who?”

His brother looked at the ceiling for a moment, then back at him. “Dad, Joe. Dad’s dead.”

“How?”

“My guess? Heart attack.”

“Did you…?”

“Huh?”

“Were you there?”

Danny shook his head. “I missed him by half an hour. He was still warm when I found him.”

Joe said, “You’re sure there was no…”

“What?”

“Foul play?”

“What the fuck are they doing to you in here?” Danny looked around the room. “No, Joe, it was a heart attack or a stroke.”

“How do you know?”

Danny narrowed his eyes. “He was smiling.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” Danny chuckled. “That small one of his? One looked like he was hearing some private joke or remembering something from the way back, before any of us? You know that one?”

“Yeah, I do,” Joe said and was surprised to hear himself whisper again, “I do.”

“No watch on him, though.”

“Huh?” Joe’s head buzzed.

“His watch,” Danny said. “He didn’t have it. Never knew him to—”

“I got it,” Joe said. “He gave it to me. In case I run into trouble. You know, in here.”

“So you’ve got it.”

“I got it,” he said, the lie burning his stomach. He saw Maso’s hand closing over the watch and he wanted to beat his own head against concrete until he stove it in.

“Good,” Danny said. “That’s good.”

“It’s not,” Joe said. “It’s shit. But it’s about the size of things now.”

Neither of them spoke for a few moments. A factory whistle blew distantly from the other side of the walls.

Danny said, “You know where I can find Con?”

Joe nodded. “He’s at the Abbotsford.”

“The blind school? What’s he doing there?”

“Lives there,” Joe said. “He just woke up one day and quit on everything.”

“Well,” Danny said, “that kinda injury could make anyone bitter.”

“He was bitter long before the injury,” Joe said.

Danny shrugged in agreement and they sat in silence for a minute.

Joe said, “Where was he when you found him?”

“Where do you think?” Danny dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, the smoke leaving his mouth from under the curl in his upper lip. “Out back, sitting in that chair on the porch, you know? Looking out at his…” Danny lowered his head and waved at the air.

“Garden,” Joe said.

Even in prison, news of the outside world trickled in. That year all the sports talk concerned the New York Yankees and their Murderers’ Row of Combs, Koenig, Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel, and Lazzeri. Ruth alone hit a mind-boggling sixty home runs, and the other five hitters were so dominant that the only question left was by how humiliating a margin they’d sweep the Pirates in the World Series.