Live by Night (Coughlin 2)

I’m sorry about your father.

No, Joe told himself. No. He can’t know. Impossible.

Joe found his cigarette and placed it between his lips. Maso struck a match off the parapet and lit it for him, the old man’s eyes taking on the generous cast they were capable of when it suited.

Joe said, “What’re you sorry about?”

Maso shrugged. “No man should ever be asked to do what’s against his nature, Joseph, even if it’s to help a loved one. What we asked of him, what we asked of you, it wasn’t fair. But what’s fucking fair in this world?”

Joe’s heartbeat slid back out of his ears and throat.

He and Maso leaned their elbows on the parapet and smoked. Lights from the barges along the Mystic scudded through the thick, distant gray like exiled stars. White snakes of foundry smoke pirouetted toward them. The air smelled of trapped heat and a rain that refused to fall.

“I won’t ask anything so hard of you or your father again, Joseph.” Maso gave him a firm nod. “I promise you that.”

Joe locked eyes with him. “Sure you will, Maso.”

“Mr. Pescatore, Joseph.”

Joe said, “My apologies,” and his cigarette fell from his fingers. He bent to the walkway to pick it up.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around Maso’s ankles and pulled up hard.

“Don’t scream.” Joe straightened and the old man’s head entered the space beyond the edge of the parapet. “You scream, I drop you.”

The old man’s breath came fast. His feet kicked against Joe’s ribs.

“I’d stop struggling too, or I won’t be able to hold on.”

It took a few moments, but Maso’s feet stopped moving.

“Do you have any weapons on you? Don’t lie.”

The voice floated back from the edge to him. “Yes.”

“How many?”

“Just one.”

Joe let go of his ankles.

Maso waved his arms like he might, in that moment, learn to fly. He slid forward on his chest, and the dark swallowed his head and torso. He probably would have screamed, but Joe sank his hand into the waistband of Maso’s prison uniform, dug a heel into the wall of the parapet, and leaned back.

Maso made a series of strange huffing sounds, very high-pitched, like a newborn abandoned in a field.

“How many?” Joe repeated.

Nothing but that huffing for a minute and then, “Two.”

“Where are they?”

“Razor at my ankle, nails in my pocket.”

Nails? Joe had to see this. He patted the pockets with his free hand, found on odd lump. He reached in gingerly and came back with what he might have mistaken for a comb at first glance. Four short nails were soldered to a bar that was, in turn, soldered to four misshapen rings.

“This goes over your fist?” Joe said.

“Yes.”

“That’s nasty.”

He placed it on the parapet and then found the straight razor in Maso’s sock, a Wilkinson with a pearl handle. He placed it beside the nail knuckles.

“Getting light-headed yet?”

A muffled “Yes.”

“Expect so.” Joe adjusted his grip on the waistband. “Are we agreed, Maso, that if I open my fingers you’re one dead guinea?”

“Yes.”

“I got a hole in my leg from a fucking potato peeler because of you.”

“I… I… you.”

“What? Speak clearly.”

It came out a hiss. “I saved you.”

“So you could get to my father.” Joe pushed down between Maso’s shoulders with his elbow. The old man let out a squeak.

“What do you want?” Maso’s voice was starting to flutter from lack of oxygen.

“You ever hear of Emma Gould?”

“No.”

“Albert White killed her.”

“I never heard of her.”

Joe wrenched him back up and then flipped him on his back. He took one step back and let the old man catch his breath.

Joe held out his hand, snapped his fingers. “Give me the watch.”

Maso didn’t hesitate. He pulled it from his trouser pocket and handed it over. Joe held it tight in his fist, its ticking moving through his palm and into his blood.

“My father died today,” he said, aware he probably wasn’t making much sense, jumping from his father to Emma and back again. But he didn’t care. He needed to put words to something there weren’t words for.

Maso’s eyes skittered for a moment and then he went back to rubbing his throat.

Joe nodded. “Heart attack. I blame myself.” He slapped Maso’s shoe and that jolted the old man enough that he slammed both palms down on the parapet. Joe smiled. “Blame you too, though. Blame you a whole fucking lot.”

“So kill me,” Maso said, but there wasn’t much steel in his voice. He looked over his shoulder, then back at Joe.

“That’s what I was ordered to do.”

“Who ordered you?”

“Lawson,” Joe said. “He’s got an army down there waiting for you—Basil Chigis, Pokaski, all of Emil’s carny freaks. Your guys? Naldo and Hippo?” Joe shook his head. “They’re definitely tits-up by now. You’ve got a whole hunting party at the bottom of that staircase there in case I fail.”

A bit of the old defiance returned to Maso’s face. “And you think they’ll let you live?”

Joe had given that plenty of thought. “Probably. This war of yours has put a lot of bodies in the earth. Ain’t too many of us left who can spell gum and chew it at the same time. Plus, I know Albert. We used to have something in common. This was his peace offering, I think—kill Maso and rejoin the fold.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because I don’t want to kill you.”

“No?”

Joe shook his head. “I want to destroy Albert.”

“Kill him?”

“Don’t know about that,” Joe said. “But destroy him definitely.”

Maso fished in his pocket for his French cigarettes. He removed one and lit it, still catching his breath. Eventually he met Joe’s eyes and nodded. “You have my blessing on that ambition.”

“Don’t need your blessing,” Joe said.

“I won’t try to talk you out of it,” Maso said, “but I never saw much profit in revenge.”

“Ain’t about profit.”

“Everything in a man’s life is about profit. Profit, or succession.” Maso looked up at the sky and then back again. “So how do we get back down there alive?”