“It’s about that Copley thing. They think you’ve got the stones. They want the stones, is all. He says they just want the stones back and that’s all it is. That’ll be the end of it.”
“You believe that, Joe?”
“I don’t know, Rick. These guys…”
“Yeah.”
“If you’ve got the stones, just give them up. Don’t fool around with this. I don’t care how much they’re worth.”
“It’s not about that. If those guys think I did that job, I’m dead. Whether they get the stones or not.”
“Did you do it?”
“Joe, I can’t-You really want to know? You can’t tell them anything you don’t know. And they’re gonna ask you.”
“They won’t believe me anyways, whatever I say.”
“Still.”
Joe nodded.
“Gargano told me you got yourself in a hole, Joe.”
“When was that?”
“Few months ago. He came looking for me about this. He mentioned you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a bigger hole now.”
“How big?”
“Big.”
“I can get you the cash.”
“It’s a lot of cash, Rick.”
“I can get anything you need.”
Joe shook his head.
“Anything.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re not gonna let me out. I’m a witness now. If I go to the feds, I could have Gargano locked up by supper-time. They aren’t gonna let me just walk away from this.”
“Fuck, Joe, why didn’t you come to me? I’ve got money.”
“We never-I don’t know, Rick. It was like, I had it under control. That was the thing. I did. It’s not like I never got in a little hole before. That’s how the thing works: you go up, you go down, it’s all part of it. You can’t let it bother you. I kept figuring it’d turn around. Only this time I just kept going down and down and down. But I had it under control. It was like, it happened real slow and then real fast. Real fast.”
Ricky massaged his eyes with the fingertips of one hand.
“Ricky, I’d just as soon Kat doesn’t know about this. We got enough trouble already, alright?”
“She’s gonna find out eventually, one way or the other.”
“Let’s make it ‘the other,’ okay?”
“Okay. How about Michael?”
“Let’s just keep it you and me for now.”
Ricky made a disapproving face but said nothing.
“What do you want me to tell them about the stones, Rick?”
“Tell them I don’t know anything about it.”
“It’s not gonna be the end of it.”
“I know.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
“Don’t know yet. What are you gonna do?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Is this all they’ve got you doing, squeezing poor guys like me?”
“No. I do some other stuff, too.”
“Kind of stuff?”
“I’d rather not talk about it. ‘If you don’t know anything,’ like you said.”
“Maybe we should go away somewhere for a while.”
“We could go to Ireland. Always wanted to go to Ireland.”
“That’s an idea. We’d fit right in.”
“You could go to France. Fag.”
“You know, what if I walk out of here and these guys shoot me? That’s gonna be the last thing you ever said to me, calling me a fag. You’re gonna feel like shit.”
“I’ll get over it. I’ll listen to a little Edith Pee-aff. That’ll make me feel better.”
“I’m serious, Joe. If I go somewhere, to France or whatever, you want to come? They won’t find you.”
“France?”
“It’s better since the Germans left. Trust me.”
“What happened to Ireland?”
“Alright, Ireland.”
“I can’t. I got a family.”
“Bring ’em.”
“What’ll we do there?”
“I told you, I’ve got cash. We won’t have to do anything. We’ll sit under a shamrock tree all day.”
“What about Little Joe?”
“They’ve got kids over there. He’ll make friends.”
“For how long?”
“Till it blows over.”
Joe frowned.
Ricky’s eyes fell.
It was never going to blow over. These guys were not going to forget, much less forgive. If the brothers left, it would be forever.
“Can’t do it, Ricky. This is where I live. Imagine me in Paris.”
“Think about it.”
“Yeah, okay, right. I’ll think about it.”
“Maybe one day you’ll wake up and I’ll be gone, y’know?”
“’Kay.” Joe studied the tabletop. He refused to lift his eyes.
“Not tomorrow, Joe. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.”
“Good.”
47
At mid-morning, Michael stood in the doorway of the BPD Homicide office at Berkeley Street. He did not like coming here, where Joe Senior had worked and where his murder had been investigated, inconclusively. To Michael, this was still his father’s office. Two long rectangular rooms side by side, sergeants on one side, detectives on the other. In the detectives’ room, second from the end, was the desk that had been Joe Senior’s. It reminded Michael, yet again, of the awesome moment when his father had ribboned down to the ground and for the Daleys everything went to shit.
So he paused at the threshold and forced himself to see the place in perspective, to realize that it was just a room after all. Empty but for a single detective, Tom Hart, who studied a pile of papers. On the wall opposite, the row of windows faced the Hancock building, each at a slightly different angle, like frames in a film strip. The overhead lights were off, and the shadow of an ailanthus tree outside dappled the wall.
Tom Hart had not been a friend of Joe Senior’s the way Brendan Conroy had been. The two had never played handball at the Y or drunk after work or visited on Christmas. Hart had been a protege. Once upon a time, Joe Senior had taught him how to work a homicide case, and forever after, Tom Hart’s view of the elder Daley was
