The photographer — studying the upside down image of the slumped, bleeding man — framed his subject carefully... no rush...
He took his first shot and a bright, hard flash filled the room.
“Try not to blink next time,” Maguire advised his subject, who seemed barely conscious now.
A tiny noise behind made Maguire spin toward the doorway...
... And just behind him stood O’Sullivan’s son — who had taken Maguire’s own gun off the kitchen table, and now pointed it right at him.
Maguire had been in tight situations before — in the Rance suite, among others — but in those instances he’d been armed. Now he stood helpless, and a nausea-like wave of fear such as he’d never known rose up inside him. And Harlen Maguire suddenly understood that his fascination with death did not extend to experiencing his own...
Michael had known there was trouble when that dog ran up to him on the beach, and the boy had seen orange-red-brown dirt or something, streaked and caked on the animal’s paws... blood.
He’d already been running toward the house when he heard the shots...
... and now the boy stood pointing the pistol, shaking not with fear for himself but for his father — his wounded father, bleeding on the floor, defenseless, barely awake... a fallen soldier. That this could happen to Papa, the boy of course had contemplated; and yet seeing this terrible tableau before him, he wondered how it could be possible... was this another nightmare?
Whatever it was, he was in it, and his father was in trouble, and Michael cocked the automatic and the sound was just a click... but it made the man, whose face was all scarred up now, jump.
And Michael almost pulled the trigger.
For once, the man blinked. “Hey!... Easy, son.”
“I’m not your son.”
“No... you’re Michael, aren’t you?” The scarred man had his hands up, and he was smiling a sick sort of smile. “This isn’t about you, Michael... Your father’s gone. This is over.”
Michael aimed the gun. “It’s not over yet.”
The man was really, really afraid. “Don’t... don’t do this... It’s Frank Nitti you want... he hired me... I’ll help you get him... ”
Michael shifted his gaze to his father, for guidance. Should I shoot him, Papa? his eyes asked, but Papa’s response, a sort of weave of his head, didn’t tell him anything.
“Kid... ,” the scared, scarred man said. “Please... it’s a human life... it’s a sin... don’t... please!”
So many feelings pulsed through the boy — rage, determination, fear, desperation... Then his finger tightened on the trigger.
Two shots rang in the small room — tiny cracks louder than any thunder.
The scarred man looked at Michael, his eyes still pleading; then, like a light had switched off, the eyes were empty, and the man dropped to the floor, a puppet with its strings snipped, landing on top of his camera, making a crunch. A corpse now, the scarred man lay in an awkward, artless sprawl.
Michael, who had not fired, ran to his fallen father, who had. Smoke spiraled out of the snout of the .45 in Papa’s hand, making a question-mark curl.
“I could have done it,” the boy said, kneeling next to his father. “I could have!”
“But... you didn’t,” Papa managed, with a trace of a smile.
Michael took his father in his arms and held him, held him close but not tight, not wanting to hurt him, cradling Papa’s head against his chest, getting blood all over himself, not caring.
The boy looked around them, dead body on the floor, smell of cordite in the air, his father bleeding. “What should I do, Papa?”
“For... ”
“Yes, Papa?”
“Forgive me.”
And his father died there, in the boy’s arms; yet the boy kept rocking him, for a long time, as if the dead man were a baby he was soothing to sleep.
Out the window, where the wind whispered through, making ghosts of the sheer curtains, the vast, peaceful expanse of blue that was Fall River Lake glistened in the dying sun.
But by the time Michael moved from his late father’s side, easing the man gently to the linoleum floor, the moon was bathing the gently rippling lake in ivory. Michael removed his father’s coat, bundled it up into a makeshift pillow, and placed it under Papa’s head, so he could rest better.
A scratching sound caught Michael’s attention — the dog at the front door; and when he let the animal in, it led the boy back into the kitchen, and the pantry, where he found the bodies of his uncle and aunt, on the floor between walls of shelved canned goods. He was surprised to see them, but he didn’t look at them close, or touch their bodies — just shut them back in, almost apologetically, as if he’d opened the wrong door and disturbed somebody. The dog positioned itself at the pantry door and whined.
Then Michael took stock of the situation, thinking it through as best he could. Finally, he took the car keys from his father’s right-hand trouser pocket, and lifted the gun from Papa’s stiffening fingers, and stuck it in his waistband. After kissing his father on the forehead, Michael left the kitchen, not even glancing at the sprawled scarred dead assassin in the center of the floor.
The dog scampered after him, and followed him through the woods to the car. From the back, Michael gathered what he needed, putting the stack of newspapers on the seat behind the steering wheel and affixing the blocks to the pedals. As the boy drove off, he was not thinking about where he was going; nor was he crying. He was worried, deeply worried...
... about his father. Papa had asked Michael’s forgiveness, and Michael would gladly have forgiven his father anything, even though the boy didn’t feel there was anything that needed forgiving.
But Michael O’Sullivan, Jr. — like his late father — was a good Catholic; and he knew that he couldn’t give his father forgiveness... only a priest could do that. If a priest had been there, Papa would have been forgiven, that was certain. Last rites... absolution of his sins. And with no priest present, did that mean his father was in hell?
The boy and the dog slept in the car that night, in a park called Indian Foothills outside Marshall, Kansas; and in the morning Michael remembered the sealed envelope with his name on it, which Papa had put in the glove box, saying, “That’s for you... in an emergency.”
Seeing his father’s handwriting made the boy simultaneously happy and sad, but — along with a fat wad of money and some keys — the sheet inside was not a letter, not even a note, just a list of banks with some numbers... wait! There were also instructions; Papa had even drawn a little map for him...
Hammer in hand, nails in his teeth, Bill Baum was working on the new roof for his farmhouse when their visitor came calling. Taking advantage of the generosity of that outlaw father and son, the Baums were rebuilding their farm. But life here remained hard, and Bill was sweating in his overalls, up on his ladder; and so was his wife Virginia, out working in the field.
The sound of the approaching car raised the attention of both Baums, and they turned from their work to watch as the maroon car drew nearer, kicking up dust in its wake. The car pulled up alongside the barn, and the boy got out. A big overeager mutt clambered out of the Ford after him and followed the young man, who — suitcase in hand, bareheaded, neatly dressed in white shirt and suspenders and new trousers — moved across the field toward Sarah.
Bill climbed down his ladder to go join them. Judging by the youngster’s somber expression — and the absence of his father — bullets had finally made an orphan of him. Much as the farmer hated the thought of that, he was pleased to have this boy once and for all out of harm’s way.