'It was a hell of a shot with somebody chopping away at you.'
'Hard to shoot while you're walking fast, and scared,' I said.
Joe nodded and looked down at Gerry. Gerry was sniffling, trying not to cry, shifting as the shock began to wear off and the first hint of pain began to come.
'He's my only kid,' Joe said.
'Kid doesn't belong in this business, Joe,' I said.
'I thought he could learn,' Joe said. 'If he doesn't take it, who does?'
'Get him into something else, Joe. Landscaping, chorus girls, something. If he takes over the business, he won't last a month.'
'Vinnie's gone,' Joe said.
'I know.'
'Vinnie coulda run it.'
'I know.'
Gerry moaned. 'It's starting to hurt, Papa,' he said. 'It's starting to hurt like a bastard.'
Joe, hunched on his knees, bent awkwardly over with the stiffness of age, and pressed his face against Gerry's.
'It's gonna be okay,' he said.
'I came for him, Pa,' Gerry said. 'I wasn't afraid of him.'
'I know,' Joe said. 'I know.'
The sirens were right on us now, and the first prowl car came swerving up the walkway and halted beside us. The two cops in it got out with guns drawn but not leveled. Behind them came another one. On Arlington Street, near the entrance to the Public Gardens a big yellow and white ambulance parked, its lights flashing as an unmarked police car swung out around it and came in behind the two prowl cars.
'He's not a shooter, Joe,' I said.
'He ain't like me,' Joe said. 'He's like his mother.'
'Let him be, Joe. If he comes after me again I might have to kill him. If it's not me, it'll be somebody else. He's not a shooter, Joe. Let him try to be something else. Keep him alive.'
'Yes,' Joe said and kept his face pressed against Gerry's until the EMTs showed up.
CHAPTER 36
THE ambulance took Gerry to the hospital. Joe and two detectives went with him. I knew one of the detectives who stayed with me, a guy named J. Clay Lawson, who was once a cop in Las Vegas before he got serious. He let me take Pearl home and then he and I spent the day with Quirk and Belson and a guy from the DA's office in the homicide squad room.
When they were through discussing my failings, albeit temporarily, I went home and had dinner with Susan, which I cooked, even though she'd wanted to, because I needed to do something.
'You're all right,' Susan said.
'Yes.'
'You want to talk about it?'
'No.'
'Okay.'
We ate chili and corn bread in front of the fire in my apartment and drank beer with it. Even Susan drank beer with chili, though she didn't drink much.
'Paige called me today,' she said. 'She said Paul seems-how did she put it?-`remote,' since he came back to New York.'
I nodded, staring at the fire.
'Finding his mother made it more complicated, not less. He thought it would make it less.'
'You probably can't help him with that,' Susan said.
'I know.'
Pearl lay in front of the fire, looking back frequently to check the status of chili and corn bread. Susan ate a small forkful of chili and nibbled the edge of a small piece of corn bread. With the chili and corn bread we had some corn relish that Susan and I had made as an experiment last Labor Day.
Outside it had begun to rain again. The sunny morning had been an illusion.
'You told me how you started to cook,' Susan said. 'You never have said why you like it.'
'I like to make things,' I said. 'I've spent a lot of my time alone, and I have learned to treat myself as if I were a family. I give myself dinner at night. I give myself breakfast in the morning. I like the process of deciding what to eat and putting it together and seeing how it works, and
I like to experiment, and I like to eat. There's nothing lonelier than some guy alone in the kitchen eating Chinese food out of the carton.'
