Live by Night (Coughlin 2)

“Ain’t got ’em yet,” Joe said.

They pulled to the side of the road one last time for Joe to change into his uniform. Dion rapped his hand on the wall between the cab and the back of the truck and said, “Everybody be as quiet as cats when the dogs are around. ¿Comprende?”

From the back of the truck came a chorus of “Sí,” and then the only thing they could hear were the ever-present insects in the trees.

“You ready?” Joe said.

Dion slapped the side of the door. “Why I get up every morning, chum.”

The National Guard Armory was way up in unincorporated Tampa, at the northern edge of Hillsborough County, a harsh landscape of citrus groves and cypress swamps and broom sage fields gone dry and brittle in the sun, waiting for the chance to burn and turn the whole county black with the smoke.

Two guards manned the gate, one armed with a Colt .45, the other with a Browning automatic rifle, the very items they’d come to steal. The guard with the sidearm was tall and lanky with dark spiky hair and the sunken cheeks of a very old man or a very young man with bad teeth. The boy with the BAR was barely out of diapers; he had burnt orange hair and dull eyes. Black pimples covered his face like pepper.

He was no problem, but the lanky one worried Joe. Something about him was too coiled and too keen. He took his time when he looked at you and he didn’t care what you thought about it.

“You the ones got blowed up?” His teeth, as Joe had guessed, were gray and slanted, several tipping back into his mouth like old headstones in a flooded graveyard.

Dion nodded. “Put a hole in our hull.”

The lanky boy looked past Joe at Dion. “Shit, tubby, how much you pay to pass your last FITREP?”

The short one left the shack with his BAR cradled lazily in his arm, the barrel slanting across his hip. He started down the side of the truck, his mouth half open like he was hoping it would rain.

The one by the door said, “I asked you a question, tubby.”

Dion smiled pleasantly. “Fifty bucks.”

“That what you paid?”

“Yep,” Dion said.

“Got yourself a bargain. And who was that you paid, exactly?”

“What’s that?”

“Name and rank of the man you paid,” the boy said.

“Chief Petty Officer Brogan,” Dion said. “Why, you thinking of joining?”

The guy blinked and gave them both a cold smile but said nothing, just stood there while the smile evaporated. “Don’t accept bribes myself.”

“All right,” Joe said, his nerves getting the better of him.

“All right?”

Joe nodded and resisted the urge to smile like a fool, show the guy how nice he was.

“I know it’s all right. I know.”

Joe waited.

“I know it’s all right,” the guy repeated. “Gave you the impression I needed your counsel on the matter?”

Joe said nothing.

“I did not,” the boy said.

Something thumped in the back of the truck and the boy looked back there for his partner and when he looked at Joe again Joe placed his Savage .32 against the boy’s nose.

The kid’s eyes crossed to stare at the gun barrel and his breathing came heavy and long through his mouth. Dion came out of the truck and around to the boy and relieved him of his sidearm.

“Man with teeth like yours,” Dion said, “should not be remarking on the flaws of others. Man with teeth like yours should just keep his mouth shut.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy whispered.

“What’s your name?”

“Perkin, sir.”

“Well, Perkinsir,” Dion said, “me and my partner will at some point discuss whether we let you live today. If we decide in your favor, you’ll know ’cause you ain’t dead. If we don’t, it’ll be to teach you you should have been nicer to people. Now put your fucking hands behind your back.”

Pescatore gangsters came out of the back of the truck first—four of them in summer suits and florid ties. They pushed the orange-haired boy ahead of them, Sal Urso pointing the kid’s own rifle at his back, the boy blubbering that he didn’t want to die today, not today. The Cubans, about thirty of them, came out after them, most of them dressed in the white drawstring pants and white shirts with the bell-hemlines that reminded Joe of pajamas. They all carried rifles or pistols. One carried a machete and another carried two large knives at the ready. Esteban led them. He wore a dark green tunic and matching trousers, the field outfit of choice, Joe assumed, for banana republic revolutionaries. He nodded at Joe as he and his men entered the grounds and then spread out around the back of the building.

“How many men inside?” Joe asked Perkin.

“Fourteen.”

“How come so few?”

“Middle of the week. You come here on a weekend?” A little bit of mean returned to his eyes. “You’d have met some men.”

“I’m sure I would have.” Joe climbed out of the truck. “Right now though, Perkin, I’ll have to settle for you.”

The only guy to put up a fight when he saw thirty armed Cubans flood the halls of the armory was a giant. Six and a half feet tall, Joe guessed. Maybe taller. A huge head and a long jaw and shoulders like crossbeams. He rushed three Cubans who were under orders not to shoot. They shot anyway. Didn’t hit the giant. Missed him clean from twenty feet away. Hit another Cuban instead. A guy who’d been rushing up behind the giant.

Joe and Dion were right behind the Cuban when he got shot. He spun and toppled in front of them like a bowling pin and Joe shouted, “Stop shooting!”

Dion screamed, “¡Dejar de disparar! ¡Dejar de disparar!”

They stopped, but Joe couldn’t be sure if they were just reloading their creaky bolt-action rifles or not. He grabbed the rifle from the one who’d been shot, grabbed it by the barrel and cocked his arm as the giant rose from the defensive crouch he’d adopted when they started shooting at him. Joe swung the rifle into the side of his head, and the giant bounced off the wall and came for him, arms flailing. Joe changed his grip and drove the butt of the rifle through the flurry of the guy’s arms and into his nose. He heard it break, heard his cheekbone break with it as the butt slid off his face. Joe dropped the rifle when the big man hit the ground. He pulled handcuffs from his pocket and Dion got one of the guy’s wrists and Joe got the other and they cuffed them behind his back as he took a lot of huffing breaths, his blood pooling on the floor.