Live by Night (Coughlin 2)

When full dark descended, the lights along the tiers were shut off. The three men tried to finish their hand but then Basil Chigis’s voice floated out of the black—“Fuck this”—and cards scraped as they gathered them off the floor and the bones clicked as they returned them to their sacks.

They sat in the dark, breathing.

Time wasn’t something Joe knew how to measure that night. He could have sat in the dark thirty minutes or two hours. He had no idea. The men sat in a half circle across from him, and he could smell their breath and their body odor. The one to his right smelled particularly bad, like dried sweat so old it had turned to vinegar.

As his eyes adjusted, he could see them, and the deep black became a gloaming. They sat with their arms across their knees, their legs crossed at the ankles. Their eyes were fixed on him.

In one of the factories behind him, a whistle blew.

Even if he’d had a shank, he doubted he could have stabbed all three of them. Given that he’d never stabbed anyone in his life, he might not have been able to get to one of them before they took it away and used it on him.

He knew they were waiting for him to speak. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. That would be the signal for them to do whatever they intended to do to him. If he spoke, he’d be begging. Even if he never asked for anything or pleaded for his life, speaking to these men would be a plea in itself. And they’d laugh at him before they killed him.

Basil Chigis’s eyes were the blue a river got not long before it froze. In the dark, it took a while for the color to return, but eventually it did. Joe imagined feeling the burn of that color on his thumbs when he drove them into Basil’s eyes.

They’re men, he told himself, not demons. A man can be killed. Even three men. You just need to act.

Staring into Basil Chigis’s pale blue flames, he felt their sway over him diminish the more he reminded himself these men held no special powers, no more so than he anyway—the mind and the limbs and willpower, all working as one—and so it was entirely possible that he could overpower them.

But then what? Where would he go? His cell was seven feet long and eleven feet wide.

You have to be willing to kill them. Strike now. Before they do. And after they’re down, snap their fucking necks.

Even as he imagined it, he knew it was impossible. If it was just one man and he acted before one assumed he would, he might have had a chance. But to successfully attack three of them from a sitting position?

The fear spread down through his intestines and up through his throat. It squeezed his brain like a hand. He couldn’t stop sweating and his arms trembled against his sleeves.

The movement came from the right and left simultaneously. By the time he sensed it, the tips of the shanks were pressed against his eardrums. He couldn’t see the shanks but he could see the one Basil Chigis pulled from the folds of his prison uniform. It was a slim metal rod, half the length of a pool cue, and Basil had to cock his elbow when he placed the tip to the base of Joe’s throat. He reached behind him and pulled something out of the back of his waistband, and Joe wanted to un-see it because he didn’t want to believe it was in the room with them. Basil Chigis raised a mallet high behind the butt end of the long shank.

Hail Mary, Joe thought, full of grace…

He forgot the rest of it. He’d been an altar boy for six years and he forgot.

Basil Chigis’s eyes had not changed. There was no clear intent in them. His left fist gripped the shaft of the metal rod. His right clenched the mallet handle. One swing of his arm and the metal tip would puncture Joe’s throat and drive straight down into his heart.

…the Lord is with thee. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts…

No, no. That was grace, something you said over dinner. The Hail Mary went differently. It went…

He couldn’t remember.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, forgive us our trespasses as we—

The door to the cell opened and Emil Lawson entered. He crossed to the circle, knelt to the right of Basil Chigis, and cocked his head at Joe.

“I heard you were pretty,” he said. “They didn’t lie.” He stroked the stubble on his cheeks. “Can you think of anything I can’t take from you right now?”

My soul? Joe wondered. But in this place, this dark, they could probably get that too.

Damned if he’d answer, though.

Emil Lawson said, “You answer the question or I’ll pluck an eye out and feed it to Basil.”

“No,” Joe said, “nothing you can’t take.”

Emil Lawson wiped the floor with a palm before sitting. “You want us to go away? Leave your cell tonight?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You were asked to do something for Mr. Pescatore and you refused.”

“I didn’t refuse. The final decision wasn’t up to me.”

The shank against Joe’s throat slipped in his sweat and bumped along the side of his neck, taking some skin with it. Basil Chigis returned it to the base of his throat again.

“Your daddy.” Emil Lawson nodded. “The copper. What was he supposed to do?”

What?

“You know what he was supposed to do.”

“Pretend I don’t and answer the question.”

Joe took a long, slow breath. “Brendan Loomis.”

“What about him?”

“He’s in custody. He gets arraigned day after tomorrow.”

Emil Lawson laced his hands behind his head and smiled. “And your daddy was supposed to kill him but he said no.”

“Yeah.”

“No, he said yes.”

“He said no.”

Emil Lawson shook his head. “You’re going to tell the first Pescatore hood you see that your father got word back to you through a guard. He’ll take care of Brenny Loomis. He also found out where Albert White’s been sleeping at night. And you’ve got the address to give to Old Man Pescatore. But only face-to-face. You following me so far, pretty boy?”

Joe nodded.

Emil Lawson handed Joe something wrapped in oilcloth. Joe unwrapped it—another shank, almost as thin as a needle. It had been a screwdriver at one point, the kind people used on the hinges of their eyeglasses. But those weren’t sharp like this. The tip was like a rose thorn. Joe ran his palm over it lightly and cut a path there.

They removed the shanks from his ears and throat.

Emil leaned in close. “When you get close enough to whisper that address in Pescatore’s ear, you drive that shank right through his fucking brain.” He shrugged. “Or his throat. Whatever kills him.”