Live by Night (39 page)
He poured himself more coffee and willed the dream from his head.
“I think,” he said to Graciela, “that it's time for you to see Ybor again.”
The restoration of the house, much to their surprise, was mostly complete. And last week Joe and Ciggy had laid the grass sod for the outfield. There was nothing holding them to Cuba, for the time being, except Cuba.
They left near the end of September at the end of the rainy season. They left Havana Harbor and crossed the Florida Straits and steamed due north along the west coast of Florida, arriving at the Port of Tampa in the late afternoon of September 29.
Seppe Carbone and Enrico Pozzetta, both of whom had risen fast in Dion's organization, met them in the terminal, and Seppe explained that word had leaked of their arrival. He showed Joe page five of the
Tribune:
REPUTED YBOR SYNDICATE BOSS RETURNING
The story alleged that the Ku Klux Klan was making threats again and that the FBI was mulling an indictment.
“Jesus,” Joe said, “where do they come up with this shit?”
“Take your coat, Mr. Coughlin?”
Over his suit, Joe wore a silk raincoat he'd bought in Havana. It was imported from Lisbon and sat as lightly on him as a layer of epidermis, but the rain couldn't make a dent in it. The final hour of the boat ride Joe had seen the clouds massing, which was no surpriseâCuba's rainy season might be far worse, but Tampa's was no joke, either, and judging by the clouds, it was still hanging around.
“I'll keep it on,” Joe said. “Help my wife with her bags.”
“Of course.”
The four of them left the terminal and walked into the parking lot, Seppe to Joe's right, Enrico to Graciela's left. Tomas rode Joe's hip, his arms around his neck, Joe checking the time, when the sound of the first gunshot reached them.
Seppe died on his feetâJoe had seen it enough times. He continued to hold Graciela's bags as the hole went straight through the center of his head. Joe turned as Seppe fell and the second gunshot followed the first, the gunman saying something in a calm, dry voice. Joe clutched Tomas to his shoulder and threw himself at Graciela and they all toppled to the ground.
Tomas cried out, more in shock than pain as far as Joe could tell, and Graciela grunted. Joe heard Enrico firing his gun. He looked over, saw that Enrico was hit in the neck, the blood coming out of him way too fast and way too dark, but he was firing his '17 Colt .45, firing it under the car nearest to him.
Now Joe heard what the shooter was saying.
“Repent. Repent.”
Tomas wailed. Not in pain but in fear, Joe knew the difference. He said to Graciela, “You okay? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Wind knocked out. Go.”
Joe rolled off them, drew his .32, and joined Enrico.
“Repent.”
They fired under the car at a pair of tan boots and trouser legs.
“Repent.”
On Joe's fifth try, he and Enrico hit bull's-eyes on the same shots. Enrico's blew a hole in the shooter's left boot and Joe's snapped his left ankle in half.
Joe looked over at Enrico in time to see him cough once and die. It was that quick and he was gone, the gun in his hand still smoking. Joe jumped over the hood of the car between him and the shooter and landed on the ground in front of Irving Figgis.
He was dressed in a tan suit with a faded white shirt. He wore a straw cowboy hat and used his pistol, a long-barrel Colt, to push himself to his one good foot. Stood there on the gravel in his tan suit with his shattered foot dangling from his ankle nub like his pistol dangled from his hand.
He looked in Joe's eyes. “Repent.”
Joe kept his own gun aimed at the center mass of Irv's chest. “I don't follow.”
“Repent.”
“Fine,” Joe said. “To who?”
“God.”
“Who says I don't?” Joe took a step closer. “What I won't do, Irv, is repent to you.”
“Then repent to God,” Irv said, his breath thin and rushed, “in my presence.”
“No,” Joe said. “ 'Cause then it's still about you and not about God, isn't it?”
Irv shuddered several times. “She was my baby girl.”
Joe nodded. “But I didn't take her from you, Irv.”
“Your kind did.” Irv's eyes opened and fixed on Joe's person, on something in the waist area.
Joe glanced down, didn't see anything.
“Your kind,” Irv repeated. “Your kind.”
“What's my kind?” Joe asked and risked another glance down his own chest, still couldn't see anything.
“Those with no God in their heart.”
“I got God in my heart,” Joe said. “He's just not your God. Why'd she kill herself in your bed?”
“What?”
Irv was weeping now.
“Three bedrooms in that house,” Joe said. “Why'd she kill herself in yours?”
“You sick and lonely man. You sick and lonely . . .”
Irv looked at something over Joe's shoulder and then back at his waistline.
And it got the better of Joe. He took a hard look at his waist and saw something that hadn't been there when he'd left the boat. Something that wasn't on his waist; it was on his coat.
In
his coat.
A hole. A perfectly round hole on the right flap, just by his right hip.
Irv met his eyes and there was a great shame there.
“I am,” Irv said, “so sorry.”
Joe was still trying to piece it together when Irv saw what he'd been waiting for and took two one-legged hops onto the road and into the path of a coal truck.
The driver hit Irv and then he hit his brakes, but all that did was cause him to skid on the red brick and Irv went under the tires and the truck bounced when it crushed his bones and rolled over him.
Joe turned away from the road, heard the driver still skidding and he looked at the hole in his raincoat and realized the bullet had passed through from behind. Passed through clean, missed his hip by who knew how few or how many inches. The flap would have been swaying in the air at that point as he covered his family. As he . . .
He looked over the car and he saw Graciela trying to stand and the blood that poured out of her waist, out of her entire midsection. He dove over the hood of the car and landed on his hands and knees in front of her.
She said, “Joseph?”
He could hear the fear in her voice. He could hear the
knowledge
in her voice. He tore off his coat. He found the wound just above her groin and he pressed the wadded-up coat to her midsection and he said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
She wasn't trying to move anymore. She probably couldn't.
A young woman dared to stick her head out of the terminal door and Joe screamed, “Call a doctor! A doctor!”
The woman went back inside and Joe saw Tomas staring at him, his mouth open but no sound coming out.
“I love you,” Graciela said. “I always loved you.”
“No,” Joe said and pressed his forehead to hers. He pressed the coat as hard as he could against the wound. “No, no, no. You're my . . . you're my . . . No.”
She said, “Shhh.”
He pulled his head back from hers as she drifted off and kept drifting.
“World,” he said.
H
e remained a great friend of Ybor, though few knew him. None, certainly, knew him the way he'd been known when she was alive. Then, he'd been pleasant and surprisingly open for a man in his profession. Now he was pleasant.
He grew old very fast, some said. He walked with hesitancy, as if he limped, though he didn't.
Sometimes he took the boy fishing. This was usually at sunset when the snook and redfish were most likely to bite. They'd sit on the seawall where he'd taught the boy how to tie his line, and every now and then he'd put his arm around the boy, speak softly into his ear, and point toward Cuba.
My immense gratitude to:
Tom Bernardo, Mike Eigen, Mal Ellenburg, Michael Koryta, Gerry Lehane, Theresa Milewski, and Sterling Watson for the early reads and feedback.
The folks at the Henry B. Plant Museum and the Don Vicente De Ybor Inn in Tampa.
Dominic Amenta of the Regan Communications Group for answering my questions about the Hotel Statler in Boston.
And a particular thanks to Scott Deitche for giving me the Cigar City Mafia tour of Ybor City.
D
ENNIS
L
EHANE
is the author of nine previous novels, including the
New York Times
bestsellers
Gone,
Baby, Gone
;
Mystic River
;
Shutter Island
;
The Given
Day
; and
Moonlight Mile
, as well as
Coronado
, a collection of short stories and a play. He
and his wife, Angie, divide their time between Boston and the Gulf Coast of
Florida.
Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive
information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
A Drink Before the War
Darkness, Take My Hand
Sacred
Gone, Baby, Gone
Prayers for Rain
Mystic River
Shutter Island
Coronado: Stories
The Given Day
Moonlight Mile
This book is a work of fiction. References to
real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only
to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other
characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's
imagination and are not to be construed as real.
LIVE BY NIGHT
.
Copyright © 2012 by Dennis Lehane. All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have
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FIRST
EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-000487-3
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2012 ISBN:
9780062200297
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