World Gone By: A Novel (Joe Coughlin Series)
Page 27
JOE WALKED DOWNSTAIRS. He passed the guards in the foyer and then the two outside the front door.
She stood in the street, just short of the curb, the lazy afternoon traffic kicking up dust behind her. She wore a pale yellow dress and her red-black hair was tied back in a bun. She held a small suitcase in each hand and seemed to cling to her prim and proper posture, as if to relax a muscle would cause the whole lie of herself to crumble.
“You were right,” she said.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“Come off the street.”
“You’re always right. How does that feel?”
He thought of Dion lying in soft soil splattered black with his blood.
“Awful,” he said.
“My husband threw me out, of course.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My parents said I was a whore. Said if I showed my face in Atlanta, they’d slap it in public and never look at me again.”
Joe said, “Please step off the street.”
She did. She placed her suitcases on the sidewalk in front of him. “I have nothing.”
“You have me.”
“Won’t you wonder if I came because I love you or because I’d exhausted my options?”
“I might.” He took her hands. “But not enough to keep me up nights.”
That elicited a small, black laugh, and then she took a step back, still holding his hands but holding them by the fingertips. “You’re different.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “You’re missing something.” She searched his face. “No, no. Wait. You’ve lost something. What is it?”
Just my soul, if you believe in that sort of thing.
“Nothing I’ll miss,” he said and lifted her bags off the sidewalk and led her inside.
“Joseph!”
He put Vanessa’s bags down on the floor of the vestibule and turned toward the sound of the voice because whoever had called him had sounded a lot like his late wife.
Not a lot like her, actually. Exactly like her.
She was at the next corner, walking with the oversize hat she’d favored in summer and a pale orange parasol. She wore a simple white dress, a peasant dress, and she looked over her shoulder once at him, and turned the corner.
Joe stepped out on the sidewalk.
From the vestibule, Vanessa said, “Joe?” but he continued walking toward the street.
The blond boy stood on the far sidewalk in between the apartment building and the movie theater. Once again he wore an outfit that was at least twenty to twenty-five years out of date, a gray serge knickerbocker suit with matching golf cap, but this time his features were clear—blue eyes sunk back a little bit into their sockets, thin nose, sharp cheekbones, hard jawline, medium height for his age.
Even before he smiled, Joe knew who he was. He’d known it the last time he’d seen him, though it hadn’t made any sense. Still didn’t.
The boy matched the smile with a wave, but all Joe could see was the Cumberland Gap where his two front teeth should have been.
His father and mother passed by on the curb. They were younger and they held hands. Their clothes were Victorian and of poorer quality than they’d worn by the time he’d been born. They didn’t look at him, and even though they held hands, they didn’t look particularly happy.
Sal Urso, dead ten years, propped his foot on a hydrant and tied his shoelace. Dion and his brother, Paulo, played craps against the wall of the apartment house. He saw people from Boston who’d died in the flu pandemic of ’19 and a nun from Gate of Heaven School who he hadn’t known was dead. All around him were the nonliving—men who’d died at Charlestown Prison, men who’d died in the streets of Tampa, those he’d killed personally and those he’d ordered killed. He saw some women he didn’t know, suicides judging by the wrists of one or the ligature ring around the neck of another. Down the end of the block, Montooth Dix beat the shit out of Rico DiGiacomo, while Emma Gould, a woman he had loved once but hadn’t thought of in years, staggered down the sidewalk with a bottle of vodka in her bluing hand, her hair and dress soaking wet.
All his dead. They filled the street and clogged the sidewalks.
He lowered his head in the middle of the busy street in Old Havana. Lowered his head and closed his eyes.
I wish you well, he told his dead. I wish you good things.
But I will not apologize.
When he looked up again, he saw Hector, one of his bodyguards, walking in the wrong direction, disappearing around the same corner where he’d last seen Graciela.
All his ghosts, though, were gone.
Except the boy. The boy cocked his head at Joe, as if surprised he was coming closer.
Joe said, “You’re me?”
The boy seemed confused by the question.
Because he wasn’t the boy anymore. He was Vivian Ignatius Brennan. Saint Viv. The Gatekeeper. The Undertaker.
“There were just too many mistakes,” Saint Viv said kindly. “Too late to go back and fix them all. Too late.”
Joe didn’t even see the gun in his hand until Vivian fired the bullet into his heart. Didn’t make much noise, just a soft pop.
The impact swept Joe’s legs out from under him, and he fell in the street. He put one hand to the cobblestone and tried to stand, but his heels wouldn’t grip the stone. Blood left the hole in the center of his chest and spilled onto his lap. His lungs whistled through the hole.
The getaway car pulled up behind Vivian and a woman screamed hopelessly from somewhere close by.
Tomas, if you’re seeing this, for Christ’s sake, look away.
Vivian pointed the pistol at Joe’s forehead.
Joe placed the heels of both hands to the cobblestone and tried to put some fire in his eyes.
But he was afraid. So afraid.
And he wanted to say what they all said: Wait.
But he didn’t.
The flash that left the muzzle looked like a shower of falling stars.
When he opened his eyes, he was sitting on a beach. It was night. All around him was darkness except for the white of the surf and the white of the sand.
He stood and walked toward the water.
He walked and walked.
But no matter how much he walked, he never got any closer. He couldn’t see the water itself, just the impact of the waves when they broke up in the black wall before him.
After a while, he sat down again.
He waited for others to come. He hoped they would. He hoped there was more to this than a dark night, an empty beach, and waves that never quite reached the shore.
About the Author
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY GABY GERSTER/DIOGENES, ZURICH
DENNIS LEHANE is the author of eleven previous novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; The Given Day; and The Drop—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play.
Lehane’s first novel, A Drink Before the War, won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel. Mystic River was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, as well as the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction given by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Live by Night won the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year.
Lehane’s work has been translated into twenty-two languages. Born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, he holds an MFA from Florida International University. Before becoming a full-time writer, Lehane worked as a counselor with mentally handicapped and abused children, waited tables, parked cars, drove limos, worked in bookstores, and loaded tractor-trailers. He and his wife, Angie, currently live in California with their children.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Dennis Lehane
A Drink Before the War
Darkness, Take My Hand
Sacred
Gone, Baby, Gone
Mystic River
Shutter Island
Coronado: Stories
The Given Day
Moonlight Mile
Live by Night
The Drop
Credits
COVER DESIGN BY MARY SCHUCK
COVER PHOTOGRAPH © BY ARCANGEL
Copyright
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint lyrics from “Stolen Car” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1980 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
WORLD GONE BY. Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Lehane. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-000490-3
EPub Edition MARCH 2015 ISBN 9780062200303
15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com