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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A Man in His Profession
He 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.
Acknowledgments
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.
About the Author
DENNIS LEHANE 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.
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Also by Dennis Lehane
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