“Dead silence.”
“All right. I’m leaving now.”
The twins were side by side at the porch rail. John-Martin handed him the binoculars. “Take a look, Pop,” he said. After a moment he added, “Sit down.”
“It will steady your hands,” Phillip explained.
“Aren’t they steady?”
“They’re shaking.”
Dexter never had a tremor. He wondered fleetingly whether he should have gone back down to the harbor bottom, as everyone had begged him to.
“Mine tremble, too,” Phillip reassured him.
Dexter braced his elbows on the porch rail and looked through the binoculars. The boys draped thoughtless arms around his shoulders. He was aware of a bodily love for them, an affinity in their bones. Harriet would be pleased by this scene; he was fulfilling a promise. He waited, letting his eyes blur against the binoculars, putting off the moment of telling his sons he must go.
*
Dexter smelled a rat before he’d even reached the boathouse. It was a setup—he knew this without knowing how he knew, and was pleased to find his faculties still alert, despite the shaking hands and a raw, bright ache behind his eyes. Normally, he would have rounded up a few boys to bring with him, but the tip had come from Frankie Q.—in effect, from Mr. Q. himself. That meant this wasn’t a setup in the usual sense; it was theater. Dexter would have a role to play, and Mr. Q. knew there was no need to prepare him in advance. Dexter liked to think on his feet.
He parked a block away, flicked dust from his new oxfords, straightened his tie, and walked to the boathouse. A black sedan was parked right out front, dead silence within. The whole thing phonier than a surprise birthday party.
His pleasure tapered off abruptly when he shoved open the door and found Badger playing at cards with two hoods. Dexter had kept only a vague eye on his erstwhile protégé since the kid had brought his numbers game into two of the minor clubs. Now Dexter took in his painted necktie, pearl stickpin, and Borsalino hat. Badger had prospered since his arrival in New York. Yet apparently, there was still more he needed to be taught.
Badger and his crew were fresh; they’d washed, shaved, drunk their morning coffee. That was strange. If they weren’t here last night, then whom had Frankie Q. seen in the boathouse?
“Badger,” Dexter said. “Pleasure.”
“Have a seat,” Badger said with the crisp magnanimity of a man who believed he was in charge. Dexter let this go. He gazed upon Mr. Q.’s callow relation and waited for the offenses to mount. Badger’s boys melted into the walls, and Dexter took one of their chairs.
“Drink?” Badger asked. A bottle of Haig and Haig sat on the table.
“Thanks just the same.”
“Say, it’s not friendly to let a man drink alone.”
“Then don’t drink.”
Dexter leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, both to exhibit his relaxed state and to place his ankle holster within easy reach. In the act of crossing them, he experienced what they called déjà vu: sitting across from Kerrigan in this same boathouse, watching him cross those marionette legs of his. He’d been seated where Dexter was now. But Kerrigan had taken the drink.
“I’m all yours, Badger,” Dexter said. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I go by Jimmy now.”
“No kidding?”
“Badger was Chicago. Jimmy is New York.” He gestured, left versus right, clutching the cities like two grapefruits.
There had been no fear in Kerrigan, though he must have had an inkling of what was coming. Dexter could smell a man’s panic a room away: an animal odor, part skunk, part sex. Some men were aroused by it, erections straining at their trouser buttons as their victims wept and begged. But Dexter felt only relief when Kerrigan raised his glass with a steady hand, smiling his cockeyed smile. “To better days,” he said, a standard of the decade. Dexter found he couldn’t meet his friend’s eyes as they drained their glasses.
“I thought you were nuts for Chicago,” he said to Badger.
“Why, sure, it’s a fine place for amateurs.”
He was hopeless: a boy in knickers parroting a moving-picture hood. A walking target. “You grew up,” Dexter said, managing a sober look. “Jimmy.”
Thus acknowledged, Badger became expansive. “You put me out of your automobile a few months back, you might recall.”
“Vaguely.”
“Best thing you could’ve done.”
Dexter grew alert. Fawning was an anesthetic, nearly always a prelude to something less pleasant.
“You taught me not to talk so much,” Badger said.
“Is this your way of saying thanks?”
“I suppose it is.”
“Well, I’m touched. And now tempus fugit. I’ve an appointment to keep.”
“It can wait.”
Dexter gave him a long look. “You don’t tell me when to go, Badger,” he said slowly. “I tell you.”
“Jimmy.”
Dexter stood, impatient to move things along. As expected, Badger’s boys slunk in front of the door and looked up at him with rods in hand, seasick expressions on their faces.
Now must come the inspiration that Dexter had always managed to provide in like interventions over the years. How to restore order and authority—chastise, humble, and correct—without dealing mortal injury? A damaged finger, sure. A broken ankle. But nothing more serious.
Dexter smiled at Badger. “I asked before what I could do for you,” he said. “You can’t answer without the heavy artillery?”
“I want to teach you something, too,” Badger said. “Return the favor, so to speak.”
The drink had hit Kerrigan instantly—his slenderness, perhaps. He’d looked startled, then disoriented; then he’d just sat, gazing at Dexter in cloudy silence. Dexter hadn’t bothered to feign surprise. The look between them was all the conversation they’d needed: no recriminations, no explanations. The rules were clear to everyone. Kerrigan’s head hit the table not five minutes after he threw back the shot. Something about the set of his shoulders made Dexter think he might sit back up. He waited, watching his friend’s slow breaths while wood ticked in the stove. Only when he’d shaken Kerrigan’s shoulder and felt his body threaten to slide to the floor in that gelatinous sleep of dope addicts did Dexter rise from his chair and rap on a window to summon the skipper and his boys, who were waiting in the boat.
“You think there’s no one above you,” Badger said.
“Everyone but God has someone above him,” Dexter said. “That doesn’t make it you, Badger.”
“Jimmy!” Badger roared, slamming both palms on the table. “How many fucking times I have to tell you? Does hobnobbing with picture stars make you soft in the head?”
“Badger suits you better.”
He’d blasted his way out of rooms full of rods, God knew. But not in a while. He’d been younger, quicker on his feet, a few pounds lighter, without much to lose if the curtain came down early. Here, survival wasn’t the question; instruction was the question. Setting an example without killing anyone was the question.