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  Loretto followed Vince to a narrow alley between two buildings, where they jumped a wooden fence and followed a dirt path to a small backyard littered with old paint cans and an assortment of car parts, including a red car hood and a chrome fender draped over a wire fence like a pair of wings. While Loretto watched, Vince found a rusted blade of metal amidst the junk and used it to deftly unlock and open a tall window. A second later, the two of them were creeping through a dark kitchen. Vince knew his way around, and Loretto realized he had to have been here before, probably on business. Beyond the door, a dim light illumined a flight of stairs that led to another door, this one open and beyond which Brennan was stretched out on an old-fashioned bed, a four-poster that looked like it might have been carried over with his family from the old country. He was fully dressed, on his back, his head propped up on a pillow, with a pistol by his knee. Alongside him on a night table, an almost empty bottle of gin lay on its side next to a table lamp, a greasy tumbler, a pack of Camels, and an ashtray stuffed with cigarette butts.

  Vince took the pistol from the bed and handed it to Loretto, who tucked it into his belt. He turned on the lamp. "He's sleeping the sleep of the dead," he said to Loretto.

  "He's drunk." Loretto set the bottle of gin upright.

  Vince told Loretto to search the place. "Maybe you'll be lucky and find your money."

  Loretto started by looking under the bed and moved from there to the closets and dresser drawers and then on to the other rooms. He found nothing, and when he returned to Vince, he saw that he'd used belts to tie Jimmy's feet and hands to the bedposts, and that Jimmy was awake and alert.

  "Jimmy was just telling me he don't know nothing about your money," Vince said to Loretto. "Right, Jimmy?"

  Jimmy said, "Give me a drink at least, will you, Loretto?"

  "Not much left." Loretto picked up the bottle of gin and tilted it to Jimmy's lips.

  Jimmy swallowed and said thank you. "I don't know nothing about nothing," he said to Loretto. "Once you mugs left, I picked up some gin and came here. I don't know nothing about no ambush."

  Vince sat on the mattress at Brennan's feet. "Jimmy," Vince said, "do we look stupid to you? Do we?"

  "I'm telling you the truth. What can I do to prove it?"

  "Why would you come back to your own house, Jimmy? Why would you come here—where anybody knows to look for you—instead of our place in the Bronx? Why would you do something stupid as that?"

  "Ah, I wanted to sleep in my own bed, that's all it is, Vince. It don't mean nothing."

  "Or you felt safe here because you knew no one was looking for you. That could be it, Jimmy. Couldn't it?"

  "I'm telling you, Vince! I just wanted to sleep in my own bed." Jimmy turned to Loretto and nodded toward a closet on the other side of the room. "There's a bottle of whiskey on the shelf in there," he said. "Be a good lad and bring me another drink."

  Loretto looked to Vince, and when Vince nodded, he retrieved the whiskey bottle and held it to Jimmy's lips.

  Vince scratched his head. "I know you squealed on us," he said to Jimmy. "Why are you making it hard on me?"

  "I didn't do it, Vince." Jimmy tried to sit up a bit, but his feet and arms were fastened securely and all he could manage was to lift his head. "I'm telling you, Vince, you're making a mistake."

  To Loretto Vince said, "What do you think? You think it's possible he's telling the truth?"

  "Anything's possible," Loretto said, though he had little doubt about Jimmy's guilt.

  "Give me his wallet." Vince gestured toward Jimmy's pants, slung over the back of a chair by the window. "Let's see how much money he's got."

  Jimmy's face brightened, and he tried again to sit up. "All I've got's a couple of twenties in there," he said. "And all you'll find in the Bronx is my share of the jobs we've pulled. That should tell you something. If I was the Judas, then where's my pile of gold?"

  Loretto tossed Vince Jimmy's wallet, and Vince pulled two lonely twenties out of the billfold.

  "What did I tell you?" Jimmy said, struggling against his restraints.

  Vince continued looking through the wallet, which was stuffed with receipts and business cards and scraps of paper. He tossed each item onto the bed after examining it casually until he came to something that caught his attention. As he held it up to the light and examined it carefully, his face grew darker. "Why would you have Owen Madden's name and phone number in your wallet, Jimmy?" He handed the scrap of paper to Loretto. Madden's name was scrawled but clearly legible, and under it was a phone number.

  Brennan's head fell back onto the pillow. "Must be from a long time ago," he said, but he didn't sound like he expected anyone to believe him.

  "What business would you have had with Madden a long time ago?" Vince asked. When Jimmy didn't answer, Vince added, "That's what I thought." To Loretto he said, "Let me see your knife."

  Jimmy lifted his head. "Ah, just put a bullet in me, Vince," he said. "I only done what anyone else would have done. Can't you see you're good as dead already? Why shouldn't I have made a little cush in the process?"

  Loretto said, "Patsy's dead, too. And Freddie, Mike's brother."

  "That's the business they were in," Jimmy answered with his eyes closed, as if he was ready to take a nap. He sounded tired.

  "And Maria Tramonti," Loretto said, "she's dead, too."

  "She should have been more careful about the company she kept." Jimmy settled back into the pillow, making himself comfortable.

  Loretto said, "Why don't you tell me where my money is, Jimmy?"

  "I never went back there," Jimmy said. "I don't know nothin' about your money." He seemed to think about it a second and then added, "You might want to talk to Big Owney's boys. I gave him the address."

  Vince gestured for Loretto to hand him the stiletto. Loretto waited another moment and then gave it over. When the blade snapped open, Jimmy's head shot up from the pillow. "Ah, Vince," he said. "Don't send me out screaming. Put a bullet in my head and be done with it. For the sake of the old country, Vince, if nothing else. For County Donegal."

  Vince made a circle with the knife, taking in Loretto and Jimmy and himself. "You know why I picked you, Jimmy Brennan? Because you were one of us, and I thought I could trust you for that."

  "Trust me for what? Because we were all in the orphanage together?"

  "That's right," Vince said. He stood, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and stuck it in Jimmy's mouth. He said, "That's exactly what I'm doing, you son of a bitch. I'm sending you out screaming."

  Jimmy spit the handkerchief out. "Go ahead," he shouted. "I'll be waitin' for you on the other side—and I won't be waitin' long."

  Vince punched him in the face, splitting his lip. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his mouth and held it there with one hand while with the other he cut his shirt away, exposing his belly before plunging the stiletto into him. He locked his eyes on Jimmy's as he pulled the knife up slowly, Jimmy's eyes wide and fery as he strained to free himself and screamed into Vince's hand.

  "Here," Vince said once he had sawed through Jimmy's belly from navel to breastbone. With his bare hand he reached into the bloody gash and pulled out a handful of blood and gore, which he wiped on Jimmy's face.

  Brennan's eyes darted from side to side before settling on a spot on the ceiling and glazing over, going blank as his body collapsed into the mattress and spilled out a stinking stream of urine and blood.

  Vince closed the stiletto and shoved it back into Loretto's pocket. He said, "Let's go," but in the same instant spun around, picked up the gin bottle, broke it over Jimmy's head, and went on stabbing him in the face until he wasn't recognizably human. When he was done, he stood, out of breath from the effort, and wiped his hands on the sheets. He found the scrap of paper with Madden's name and number, read the number aloud as if memorizing it, and then jammed it in Jimmy's mouth.

  In the car, on the ride back to Westchester, Vince held the wheel in both hands, steadying himself
with it as much as steering. Alongside him, Loretto smoked a cigarette and watched the road and the cloud-blotted sky at the horizon, a line of black clouds settled like ink at the bottom of a gray feld. The memory of the comet he'd seen upstate came back to him, the white-blue slash of it across the sky, and he was thrown back to his nights in Albany, sitting quietly on the back porch watching the night sky. He let himself settle comfortably there, hundreds of miles from this car driving out of Brooklyn, leaving Jimmy Brennan's mutilated body behind.

  For a brief while, Vince talked quietly to Loretto. He explained that he planned on taking Lottie upstate, to Niagara Falls, for the rest of the week, and that he'd be back on Friday. He wanted Loretto to stay at the farmhouse, where he'd be safe. When he came back, Madden's deadline would soon be up, and he'd learn whether or not he had a deal.

  "It was Madden just tried to have us all killed," Loretto said.

  "And he failed," Vince answered. "Now he knows he's still got to deal with me, one way or another."

  After that, they both fell silent. They drove through deserted streets in the dead of night, under a black sky, the weather too cold to snow but the feel of snow and winter everywhere.

  Tuesday - February 2, 1932

  9:05 p.m.

  In the chair beside Gina's hospital bed, Augie ran his fingers through his hair, lowered his head into his hands, and massaged his scalp with his fingertips and his temples with the heels of his hands, over and over again, with the solemnity of a ritual. Every now and again he'd take a break and rub his eyes and touch his eyebrows lightly, but then he'd fall back into the ritual. He'd spent the morning finalizing the funeral arrangements with Mama. Freddie would be laid out at Balzarini's Funeral Parlor Wednesday morning with one day of viewing and the burial on Thursday. The bullet that had hit him in the back of the head had exited under his right eye and taken a portion of his face with it. When Balzarini had explained that it would have to be a closed casket, that even with all his experience he could never make Freddie's face look natural, Mama had wailed and pleaded with him so desperately that even Balzarini, a man on friendly terms with grief, couldn't keep himself from shedding tears. Augie's thoughts were full of details—of bills and expenses, of arrangements and agreements, of food orders and mass cards, of priests and cemeteries. When now and then there was room for the thought of Freddie being carried out of Gina's apartment in a body bag, or the image of his shattered face, Augie's body slowed to a stop as if drained momentarily of life, as if empty.

  Gina scribbled, Augie quit it will you? on a yellow pad and then threw the pad onto his lap.

  "What am I doing?"

  Gina gestured for Augie to return the pad so that she could write her response.

  "Doctor said you should talk."

  "It hurts," Gina said. The bullet had hit her low on the jaw and taken off a piece of her chin. She touched one finger gently to the bandages that started under her lower lip. "Let him talk," she said and winced.

  "Quit what?" Augie placed the yellow pad back on the bed next to Gina. "I wasn't doing anything."

  Gina picked up the pad and then dropped it and sighed. "Rubbing your head," she managed. "It's driving me crazy."

  When Augie saw that Gina's eyes were tearing from the difficulty of speaking, he kissed her on the forehead and straightened out her hair.

  Gina took Augie's hand in hers and squeezed it. They were both crying, though neither acknowledged it. "You sure Mike's okay?" she asked and wiped away tears. "You're not keeping anything from me?"

  "You know what they say: God looks out for fools and drunks." Augie dropped back into his chair and roughly brushed a forearm over his eyes. "The bullet went through clean and he's gonna be fine."

  "What about the other guy?"

  "Martone? Not so lucky. He got hit four times. He's losing a couple of internal organs, and his knee's smashed so he won't be doing any more dancing for a while."

  Gina's eyes welled with tears. Augie knew it wasn't Martone she was crying for.

  "I heard Maria's husband is arranging a quick funeral."

  "You know where?"

  "Not here. Papers said Midwest someplace, in a family plot."

  "And Patsy?"

  "His family's burying him at Saint Raymond's, same day as Freddie."

  "The DiNapolis . . ." Gina said. She was sorry for the family. The mother was a religious woman, in her sixties. Patsy was her baby.

  "The girl Freddie was with at the party," Augie said, wanting to change the subject, "looks like she packed up and went back to wherever she came from. Celeste," he added when Gina only looked away, "the one that played dead."

  Gina nodded. She was gazing at the wall as though there were something going on there beyond a couple of charts hung from hooks. She whispered, "I'm tired," and offered Augie a wan smile.

  Augie figured Gina was thinking about Freddie. She looked the way he felt when he thought about Freddie. Empty. Quiet and empty.

  "Go take care of Mama," Gina said. She closed her eyes and settled into her pillow as if about to drop off to sleep. "Tell her I'll be there for the burial. Tell her I promise."

  "I will." Augie kissed Gina on the cheek, pulled her blankets to her neck, and then stood at the foot of the bed and watched her. Her face was a little pale, but other than that, she looked okay. The feistiness was gone out of her, but that would come back in time. It was her nature. He thought, She's the only one I have left, as though she were the last of his siblings. He realized that he was thinking of Mike as already dead. Mike, the last of his brothers. He bowed his head and concentrated, trying to imagine what he might do to save Mike from the Combine and the cops and everybody else set on killing him. When these thoughts felt like they might tear him apart from the inside, he cast them out. He looked around at the various pieces of hospital equipment scattered about the room and tried to settle down. He didn't move until Gina opened her eyes again. She whispered, "Mama shouldn't be alone," and gestured toward the open door.

  "I'll come by to see you first thing tomorrow morning," Augie said.

  Gina responded with the hint of a smile. "Go on," she said, and she

  watched until Augie finally pulled himself away from her bed and left the room.

  Mike was on the floor below Gina, and when Augie reached his room, he found him dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands on his knees.

  "Good," Mike said at the sight of Augie. "Help me out of here. I'm still a little weak."

  "V'fancul'!" Augie cocked his arm as if to give Mike a smack. "Get undressed," he said. "You're not going anywhere."

  "Augie," Mike said, his voice weary. He wiped sweat from his forehead. "Are you heeled?"

  "Since when you known me to carry a gun?"

  "Then neither one of us is safe here. You understand? If you don't want me to end up like Freddie, then help me get out of this place."

  Augie again raised his hand to Mike, and this time he did slap him. "Don't mention Freddie," he said. "Don't even say his name."

  Mike glared at Augie, his face a snarl. "Yeah," he said a moment later, the snarl melting away—and in that single syllable there was an admission of responsibility for Freddie's death, an acceptance of his guilt. "Yeah," he repeated, and he dropped his head into his hands to hide his face.

  Augie sat on the bed alongside him. When he put his arm around his shoulders, Mike laid his head against his brother's chest. "Don't look at me," he said.

  "I'm not." Augie ran his hand over Mike's head as if Mike were suddenly a little kid again and he was comforting him.

  Mike pulled away and sat up straight. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "You know I can't come to the funeral."

  Augie noticed Mike's hat on a shelf under the window. He went and got it for him and dropped it in his lap. "I'll make Mama understand," he said. "But you've got to come see her soon as you can."

  "When it's safe."

  Augie put an arm around Mike's waist and helped him up. "When
will that be, Mike?" he asked. "When's the Combine gonna stop looking for you? Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano and Big Owney—when are they likely to forget that you've robbed their money and killed their men? Anytime soon, you think?"

  "Vince has got a plan," Mike answered. "If it works, we'll be okay."

  "A plan? What kind of plan?"

  "You don't want to know too much." Mike fixed his hat on his head and pushed Augie away. "We're waiting to hear from Big Owney. If it works out, we'll be okay."

  To himself Augie whispered, "Jesus Christ." To Mike he said, "Owen Madden is not making a deal with Vince. Get that out of your head. The deal is that you and Loretto and Vince are all dead men. That's the deal."