on.”
“Maybe I will. Thanks.” Frank kissed his son on the forehead. Maria sat down on the bed as well, on the other side of Will, and put her arm around him.
We should have another, Frank said to himself. He must have spoken out loud.
Will made a face. “Do not,” he said, shaking his head, “expect me to change any diapers.”
There was actually a fence around the property. Glass hadn’t been able to see it from the boat, but they ran into it fifty yards in from the shore. A surprisingly substantial chain-link fence, with a padlock at the access gate.
Dante used bolt cutters to shear through the lock. He pushed the gate open, and they all stepped inside, John Saint bringing up the rear, Quentin in the middle of the group.
The men gathered around him. They’d all changed now, were wearing black T-shirts, black pants, shoulder holsters. Not exactly disguises, but on the off chance they were spotted, the clothes would be what people noticed, not their faces.
Besides, the outfits made up a kind of uniform, didn’t they? And that could only encourage a more professional frame of mind, a more military cast to the assault.
He split the men into the previously agreed-on attack parties then. Himself, John, Dante, and Spoon were one team; Lincoln, Cutter, and two men they’d picked up down in the Keys courtesy of Morrie Shusheim, who ran a few properties for Howard Saint in the area, made up the second. The killing party, as it were, since, if everything went according to plan, they would do most of the shooting. The indiscriminate shooting, that is.
Glass and his team would be shooting as well, but at some very specific targets.
Both groups started forward now, spreading out across the grounds in tight formation, weapons at the ready.
Glass slipped on his sunglasses and followed.
At the last second Frank decided not to wear Will’s gift. Something about the skull just didn’t say “family reunion” to him.
He came out of the cabin wearing his favorite old chinos and a raggedy blue work shirt, all set to cook breakfast for his family. For whoever wanted it.
Except his aunt Louise had beaten him to the kitchen. Smoke rose from the stove in front of her. Frank wondered what she was making, caught a faint whiff of something he couldn’t really identify, and decided he didn’t really want to know.
His aunt wasn’t the only one awake now—maybe a dozen people were sitting around the tables that had borne the feast last night. And Tommy Castiglione was behind the bar, mixing himself a drink. He saw Frank, raised his glass, and smiled.
“Hair of the dog that bit ya, Frankie. Want some?”
Castle shook his head.
He looked toward the beach, where two people were tossing a football back and forth. It took him a few seconds to realize the two people were his wife and son. He waved; Maria saw him and waved back. Will turned and smiled.
“Frank!”
His father stood near the office bungalow, motioning for Frank to join him. Wondering what was up, Frank started walking in that direction.
More people were coming out of their bungalows now. Some still dressed in the clothes they’d worn the night before, some who joined Tommy Castiglione at the bar. One— Rachel McCarey, his cousin Donal’s daughter, who was turning into quite a beauty; in a few more years she’d be perfect for Will—found the controls for the sound system and switched the music back on.
Good God, Frank thought with a smile. The party’s going to start up all over again.
“I don’t know if I ordered enough rum,” his father said, closing the office door behind Frank.
“There may not be enough rum on the island, to tell you the truth,” Frank said, taking a quick look around the office. The room was dominated by two glass weapons cases—a tall one for Frank Sr.’s rifles and shotguns, a smaller one for his pistols.
“Just wanted to talk for a second,” his father said. Frank opened his mouth to ask about what, and then saw something in the pistol case that stopped him in his tracks.
“Wow, Dad. The Colts.” His eyes widened in admiration. “You did something to them.”
He was talking about his father’s prize 1911 Colts, which were front and center in the display case, and shone like newly polished silver.
Frank Sr. smiled. “You could say that. I bored the chamber, polished the ramp, did a custom trigger job, tightened the slide and barrel bushing, and replaced the sights with tritium night gear. They were good before; now they’re nail drivers.”
“Let me see,” he said, opening the case. “I bet they feel—”
“No.” His father reached over his shoulder and shut the case, his voice surprisingly harsh.
Frank turned around. “Dad? What—?”
“Just leave them. You’re finished with guns, thank God.”
Castle looked in his father’s eyes and got it at once.
“This is what you wanted to talk about.”
“That’s right.” Frank Sr. sighed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to go off like that, but . . . I tell you Frank, I prayed . . . I prayed every night for you to do something else with your life. Be something other than a soldier. I’m just glad it’s finally happened. Not for you, but for my grandson. For Will. I don’t want him to have a room like this. That bayonet—” he pointed at the rifle case. “—I used it. The Colts? I killed with them. That Winchester rifle—”
“You’re not going to tell me you used that, too,” Frank said, a smile on his face.
“No.” His father managed a smile as well. “I didn’t. But some U.S. marshal in Tombstone did—a long time ago.”
“It’s a beautiful weapon,” Frank said. “Just like the Colts.”
“They’re out of service,” his father said. “All of them.”
“Dad . . . listen, I hope Will never has to use a gun just as much as you do. I hope he never has to go to war. But I want him prepared, if that day comes.” Frank put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “You always told me that someone had to do the fighting, and better it be men of honor—”
“Like the Castles,” Frank Sr. said.
“Like the Castles,” he agreed. “Or none at all.”
“I don’t know.” His father shook his head. “That was when the world made sense. Let Will do something better.”
“We’ll see. I plan on leaving it up to him—the same way you left it up to me.”
Frank Sr. eyed him thoughtfully for a second, then nodded. “I suppose. After all . . . you turned out all right.”
“Nice of you to say so. Though I don’t think Mom’s ever forgiven me for not going to law school.”
“She had her hopes, didn’t she?” his father asked, a fullfledged smile breaking out on his face.
“She did indeed,” Frank replied, recalling one particularly contentious evening the summer before his senior year at college, when he and his dad had been in the basement looking over Frank Sr.’s medals. His mom had walked in on them, cradling catalogs from three different area law schools in her arms, at the exact second that the elder Castle was describing, in fairly vivid detail, the first dead body he’d ever seen.
The look on Betty Castle’s face then . . .
Shock mixed with revulsion mixed with disappointment, as she realized that the catalogs she was carrying were wasted effort, that the maxim “like father, like son” had never been more applicable than to her two boys.
Frank had never seen a look like it, before or since.
Right at that second, he happened to glance out the office window. Wouldn’t you know it, there was his mom, dancing with Tommy Castiglione over near the tables from last night. He waved, but she didn’t see him.
Somewhere very close by, a car backfired—several times in rapid succession—and his mother and Tommy, for some reason, fell to the ground.
For a long second, Castle didn’t understand what had happened.
