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who died? Wasn't her father police chief?"

"They forced him into retirement," Joe said. "Last I heard he was at some kind of sanitarium. He can't hurt us."

"But his daughter did. And you let her. That's why the word on you is that you're soft. Not a coward. I didn't say that. Everyone knows how close you got to take care of that yokel back in '30 and that ship heist took brass ones. But you didn't take care of that 'shiner back in '31 and you let a dame - a fucking dame, Coughlin - block your casino play."

"That's true," Joe said. "I got no excuse."

"No, you don't," Luciano said. He looked across the desk at Dion. "What would you have done with the 'shiner?"

Dion looked uncertainly at Joe.

"Don't you look at him," Luciano said. "You look at me and you tell me straight."

But Dion continued to look at Joe until Joe said, "Tell him the truth, D."

Dion turned to Lucky. "I would have turned out his fucking lights, Mr. Luciano. His sons' too." He snapped his fingers. "Taken out the whole family."

"And the Holy Roller dame?"

"Her I would have disappeared-like."

"Why?"

"Give her people the option of turning her into a saint. They can tell themselves she's immaculately concepted up to heaven, whatever. Meanwhile, they'd damn well know we chopped her up and fed her to the reptiles, so they'd never fuck with us again, but the rest of the time, they'd gather in her name and sing her praises."

Luciano said, "You're the one Pescatore said was a rat."

"Yup."

"Never made sense to us." He said to Joe, "Why would you knowingly trust a rat who sent you up the river for two years?"

Joe said, "I wouldn't."

Luciano nodded. "That's what we thought when we tried to talk the old man out of the hit."

"But you sanctioned it."

"We sanctioned it if you refused to use our trucks and our unions in your new liquor business."

"Maso never brought that up to me."

"No?"

"No, sir. He just said I was going to take orders from his son and I had to kill my friend."

Luciano stared at him for a long time.

"All right," he said eventually, "make your proposal."

"Make him boss." Joe jerked his thumb at Dion.

Dion said, "What?"

Luciano smiled for the first time. "And you'll stay on as consigliere?"

"Yes."

Dion said, "Hold on a second. Just hold on."

Luciano looked at him and the smile died on his face.

Dion read the tea leaves fast. "I'd be honored."

Luciano said, "Where you from?"

"Town called Manganaro in Sicily."

Luciano's eyebrows rose. "I'm from Lercara Friddi."

"Oh," Dion said. "The big town."

Luciano came around the desk. "You gotta be from a real shithole like Manganaro to call Lercara Friddi the 'big town.' "

Dion nodded. "That's why we left."

"When was that? Stand up."

Dion stood. "I was eight."

"Been back?"

"Why would I go back?" Dion said.

"It'll remind you of who you are. Not who you pretend to be. Who you are." He put an arm around Dion's shoulders. "And you're a boss." He pointed at Joe. "And he's a brain. Let's go have some lunch. I know a great place a few blocks from here. Best gravy in the city."

They left the office, and four men fell in around them as they headed for the elevator.

"Joe," Lucky said, "I need to introduce you to my friend, Meyer. He's got some great ideas about casinos in Florida and in Cuba." Now Luciano put his arm around Joe. "You know much about Cuba?"
Chapter Twenty-seven
A Gentleman Farmer in Pinar del Rio

When Joe Coughlin met up with Emma Gould in Havana in the late spring of 1935, it had been nine years since the speakeasy robbery in South Boston. He remembered how cool she'd been that morning, how unflappable, and how those qualities had unnerved him. He'd then mistaken being unnerved for being smitten and mistook being smitten for being in love.

He and Graciela had been in Cuba almost a year, staying at first in the guesthouse of one of Esteban's coffee plantations high in the hills of Las Terrazas, about fifty miles west of Havana. In the morning they woke to the smell of coffee beans and cocoa leaves while mist ticked and dripped off the trees. In the evenings, they walked the foothills while rags of fading sunlight clung to the thick treetops.

Graciela's mother and sister visited one weekend and never left. Tomas, not even crawling when they'd arrived, took his first step late in his tenth month. The women spoiled him shamelessly and fed him to the point