Live by Night Page 0,76
years. "Got the polio."
Dion nodded. "Died, he was eight? My mother was never right again after that. I said to Paolo at the time, you know, we couldn't do nothing to save Seppi; that was just God and God gets his way. But each other?" He twisted his thumbs together, raised his fists to his lips. "We would protect each other."
Behind them the shack thumped with bodies and bass. In front of them mosquitoes rose off the swamp like claps of dust and found the moonlight.
"So what now? You requested me from prison. You had them find me in Montreal and pull me all the way down here, give me a good living. And for what?"
"Why'd you do it?" Joe asked.
"Because he asked me to."
"Albert?" Joe whispered.
"Who else?"
Joe closed his eyes for a moment. He reminded himself to breathe slowly. "He asked you to rat us all out?"
"Yeah."
"He pay you?"
"Fuck no. He offered, but I wouldn't take his fucking money. Fuck him."
"You still work for him?"
"No."
"Why would you tell the truth, D?"
Dion removed a switchblade from his boot. He placed it on the small table between them and followed it with two .38 long-barrels and one .32 snub-nose. He added a lead sap and brass knuckles, then wiped his hands clean of them and showed his palms to Joe.
"After I'm gone," he said, "ask around Ybor about a guy named Brucie Blum. You'll see him down around Sixth Avenue sometimes. He walks funny, talks funny, has no idea he used to be big noise. He used to work for Albert. Just six months ago. Big hit with the ladies, had himself some nice suits. Now he shuffles around with a cup, begging for change, pisses himself, can't tie his own fucking shoes. Last thing he did when he was still big noise? He come up to me in a blind pig over on Palm? He says, 'Albert needs to talk to you. Or else, see.' So I chose 'or else' and beat his fucking head in. So, no, I don't work for Albert no more. It was a onetime job. Just ask Brucie Blum."
Joe sipped the awful rum and said nothing.
"You going to do it yourself or get someone else to do it?"
Joe met his eyes. "I'll kill you myself."
"Okay."
"If I kill you."
"I'd appreciate you make up your mind about it, one way or the other."
"Don't much give a shit what you'd appreciate, D."
Now it was Dion's time to be silent. The thumps and the bass grew softer behind them. More and more cars left the grounds and headed back up the mud path toward the cigar factory.
"My father's gone," Joe said eventually. "Emma's dead. Your brother's dead. My brothers scattered. Shit, D, you're one of the only people I know anymore. I lose you, who the fuck am I?"
Dion stared at him, the tears rolling down his fat face like beads.
"So you didn't betray me for money," Joe said. "So why then?"
"You were gonna get us all killed," he said eventually, sucking air up from the floor. "The girl. You weren't yourself. Even that day at the bank. You were gonna get us into something we couldn't get out of. And my brother would have been the one to die, because he was slow, Joe. He wasn't us. I figured, I figured . . ." He sucked in a few more breaths. "I figured I'd get us all off the street for a year. That was the deal. Albert knew a judge. We were all going to get a year, that's why we never pulled guns during the job. One year. Long enough for Albert's girl to forget you and maybe you'd forget her."
"Jesus," Joe said. "All this because I fell for the man's girlfriend?"
"You and Albert were both bugs when it came to her. You couldn't see it, but once she came into the picture, you were gone. And I'll never understand it. She was no different than a million dames."
"No," Joe said, "she was."
"How? What didn't I see?"
Joe finished the rest of his rum. "Before I met her? I didn't realize there was this bullet hole right in the center of me." He tapped his chest. "Right here. Didn't realize it until she came along and filled it. Now she's dead and the hole's back. But it's grown to the size of a milk bottle. And it keeps growing. And I just want her to come back from the dead and fill it."
Dion stared at him as