Chapter 30: What Else Could a Decent Guy Do?

Frankie

Mercer looked up when I entered.

“I thought you were leaving.”

“I was.”

I put the Colt on his desk with the magazine out and the chamber empty. Then the knife and Vincent’s warehouse keys. Lou had pressed the keys into my hand before we left his widow. I’d taken them without thinking.

Mercer looked at the little collection.

“Frankie.”

“You been trying to get me in a room like this for years.”

“Usually you object.”

“I’m trying something new.”

Mara stood beside the door. Aldric waited in the passage with the others.

Nobody stood between me and the door.

I sat down anyway.

* * *

I started with Kowalski, then went through the collections, threats, and stolen goods. The men I’d hurt because Vincent said they needed hurting.

I’d usually left it at that.

Mercer took notes.

He asked for names, dates, and places. Sometimes I knew. Sometimes I remembered what I’d done but couldn’t give him the man’s name.

Mercer waited while I tried.

Mara stayed for the first part. When Mercer asked whether she wanted to leave, she said yes. There were people waiting downstairs who needed help finding their families.

She kissed my cheek before she went.

I watched her go.

Mercer tapped his pencil on the next blank line.

Right. We weren’t finished.

“Bellafonte ordered this?” Mercer asked after one account.

“Yeah.”

I looked at what he’d written.

“Put down that I did it.”

He watched me for a moment, then wrote it down.

I told him about Garran too. Wasn’t his country or even his world.

Mercer stopped writing when I described the release.

“Aldric told you to let them go?”

“Yeah.”

“And you refused.”

“Yeah.”

He looked toward the passage where Al was waiting.

“His sister has my statement,” I said. “With my name on it.”

* * *

They kept me while the city counted its dead.

I gave statements, identified accounts, and explained which businesses were fronts and which shops had simply paid men like me to be left alone. Lou gave his own evidence.

Mercer brought in the lawyers. They charged by the hour and took three hours to explain how long things might take.

I’d been in the wrong racket.

By the time they finished, there were payments to arrange, names to supply, and dates on which I would have to return. The charges would wait while I kept my end. Hide something or fail to come when called, the waiting stopped.

Mercer tapped the papers.

“This follows you home.”

“I understand.”

He looked at me until he was sure I did.

Then I signed.

* * *

When the release was approved, Mercer brought the papers himself.

I had been imagining the door opening for so long that I didn’t stand immediately when it happened.

“You recommended this,” I said.

“I did.”

“Why?”

He sat on the edge of the desk.

“Because I watched you come back to a city you could have abandoned. Because you stayed when you could have disappeared somewhere no warrant could follow. And because when I asked about a man’s broken hand, you didn’t tell me about all the hands you’d saved since.”

I looked down at my own.

“Doesn’t fix his.”

“No.”

He handed me the papers.

“Go do the work, Frankie.”

Mara went downstairs while I collected my things.

Mercer’s deputy waited until I was in the passage before speaking. The door was open. He hadn’t learned how far a quiet room could carry a man’s doubts.

“You’re really letting Moretti go?”

“He has conditions.”

“He’s had conditions before.”

I stopped fastening my coat.

Mercer took his time answering.

“Did you see what that woman has done to him?”

“The girl?”

“He came back here when she was waiting to take him home. Sat at my desk and told me things I hadn’t known to ask. Moretti.”

The deputy said nothing.

“She’s a better rehabilitation officer than any I’ve ever seen in a prison.”

“So that’s your recommendation?”

“That’s my observation. Keep it out of the report.”

A chair scraped.

I buttoned my coat and went downstairs.

Mara stood by the window, holding my hat. She had found a brush somewhere and got most of the warehouse dust out of it.

“Ready?”

I took the hat and kissed her.

She smiled against my mouth.

“What was that for?”

“Good work.”

She looked puzzled. I offered my arm before she could ask anything else.

* * *

Before crossing home, I took Kowalski an account of what I’d done to him. It filled less than a page once I left the excuses out. Mercer had arranged the payments; he wouldn’t have to come looking for me.

He read it in his doorway.

“What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No. Just wanted you to have it.”

He folded the paper.

“I hope you remember.”

“I will.”

He closed the door without offering his hand.

* * *

Lou waited at the tailor’s while we packed.

He’d brought a suitcase that hadn’t been hauled through a fortress and two gunfights. Mine looked like somebody had shot it.

Somebody had.

Mara took it into the next room. Lou watched her go, then looked at the warehouse keys I’d set on the table.

“The boys are asking,” he said.

“I know.”

“Vincent’s wife too.”

“How is she?”

“Got up this morning. Made breakfast. Told me I was carrying on like a man who’d never seen a funeral.”

“Sounds like her.”

“Yeah.”

He looked down at his hands.

“I should’ve done it sooner, Frankie.”

I went over and put my arms around him.

For a second he stood stiff. Then his hands caught the back of my coat.

He had stayed in that office. Taken orders while our Boss’s body waited beside the desk. Answered the telephone when Vincent’s family called.

I held him until his grip eased.

“You brought me home, Lou.”

He rubbed at his face when we stepped apart.

“Look at us. Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah.”

I picked up the keys and put them in his hand.

“You’re in charge.”

He stared at them.

“Me?”

“You kept the whole outfit running while that bastard was making a kingdom out of it. You found Mercer. Kept those gunmen off our backs. You know the work.”

“What about you?”

Through the open doorway, Mara was folding my shirts. She paused with one in her hands and looked at me.

“I’m going home with her.”

Lou followed my gaze.

He gave me a tired little smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can see that.”

I took my apartment key out of my pocket. I’d moved it into every suit Liora made me. Kept reaching for it when I came to a locked door.

“Landlord still there?”

“Rent’s paid,” Lou said. “I kept it paid.”

I looked at him.

He shrugged.

“You were gonna need somewhere.”

I put the small key beside the warehouse keys in his hand.

“There’s a few things I’ll take. Give the rest to somebody who needs it.”

“You sure?”

Mara put the last shirt in my bag.

“Yeah. I’m sure. Look after Vincent’s family. His men. Pay what’s owed. The dead go in the ground and stay there.”

“I can manage that part.”

“And no more of this business with people’s families.”

He closed his hand around the keys.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“Good.”

We stood there until Lou cleared his throat.

“When you come back, make it a Sunday.”

I looked at him.

“Bring her.”

I put a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll be there.”

* * *

We brought seeds home.

Tomatoes. Basil. A few other things Rosella had named in a letter written with enough force to leave impressions on the next sheet.

We brought coffee too.

Hobb brought beer and insisted nobody describe it as evidence.

Liora brought a book of clothing illustrations and spent most of the crossing complaining about the hats while taking careful notes on every one of them.

Aldric brought a packet of letters from Mercer, which I considered an abuse of international friendship.

Mara took my hand when the portal opened.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

We stepped through together.

* * *

My copy of the statement I’d given Neris was waiting among Mara’s papers. The original remained hers. I read it before opening the tavern accounts.

The church still held the money for Garran’s family, with no conditions attached. Anet had her house and the work she’d chosen. Mara brought me the expenses. Anet had asked not to see me, and I stayed away.

Corven was back at his harness stall. I brought him a signed account of the day I’d locked him up for his brother’s theft.

He read it with the leather still wrapped around his wrist.

“You got your timber.”

“Yeah.”

“And I hadn’t taken it.”

“I know.”

He tapped the paper.

“Put that in.”

I borrowed his pencil and wrote that I had known he was innocent when I ordered him held. Signed beneath it again. His wife brought out the stall accounts, and I paid what they’d actually lost.

Corven kept the statement. When I left, he was still reading the line he’d made me add.

* * *

The tavern sign had been repainted.

The N faced the right direction.

I stopped in the road. “Who did that?”

Brannik came out of the doorway.

“A competent person.”

His hand was still bandaged. He tried the door with it, swore, and used the other one.

I hugged him carefully. He complained, then hugged me back with his good arm.

Inside, Rosella put food in front of us before asking any questions. Benny’s place behind the bar stood empty. A towel hung from the hook where he used to leave it.

I looked at it.

Rosella followed my gaze.

“Eat,” she said.

So I ate.

Rosella filled my bowl again before I finished.

I didn’t argue.

* * *

We didn’t rebuild everything at once.

Some roofs still leaked. Some accounts remained disputed. The old fortress contained rooms nobody sensible wanted to open without Liora standing nearby and Brannik waiting somewhere he considered survivable.

The town chose people to oversee stores, roads, and the money that used to travel uphill to Azrath. They argued with one another and with me. Mara made sure the arguments were recorded properly instead of remembered differently by whichever man spoke loudest afterward.

I still ran the tavern.

I still settled problems.

Sometimes I arrived to find the problem settled. Very inconsiderate. Saved me hours.

Mercer’s letters arrived through the fixed anchors on the dates we arranged. Twice I returned to Chicago to give evidence and sign things under circumstances that made me miss necromancy as a simpler branch of administration.

Both times, I came home when Mercer said I could.

Mara met me at the anchor and asked how it went. I told her, even the parts that went badly.

* * *

I asked Mara to walk with me after supper.

Rosella took one look at my face and began clearing the table. Hobb tried to come too.

She handed him a stack of plates.

Good woman.

The garden beds were planted now. Real tomatoes. Rosella inspected them every morning like somebody might steal the red out of them.

I’d had the broken trellis repaired and put a bench against the wall. Nothing grand, but the place looked cared for.

Mara came out with her shawl around her shoulders.

“You are very solemn.”

“Got something to say.”

“That generally hasn’t stopped you before.”

I offered my arm.

She took it, smiling. We walked as far as the bench.

I’d rehearsed a speech about the house and our future. All the things a man oughta be able to promise a woman before he opened his mouth.

Then she looked up at me.

The whole damn speech left me.

“I want you beside me, Mara. In my house. At my table. Every day I got left.”

Her smile faded into something softer.

“Frankie.”

“I’ll keep a roof over us and food on the table. You already know I can be a difficult son of a bitch.”

“Yes.”

“Could’ve let that one pass.”

She laughed, but her eyes were shining.

I took the little box from my coat and went down on one knee.

The ring was plain gold. I’d asked Liora to check it anyway. She called me an idiot, but she checked.

Nothing in that ring but what I paid for.

“Mara Vale. Will you be my wife?”

She put a hand over her mouth.

I waited.

I’d waited on men holding guns with less trouble.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course I will.”

She held out her hand, and I slipped the ring onto her finger. Then I stood and drew her into my arms.

She was laughing and crying against my coat. I kissed her until she forgot to do either.

From the kitchen, something clattered.

Hobb, apparently, had been watching through the window.

“Smooth work,” I called.

Mara buried her face in my chest and laughed again.

* * *

Four months after the fortress fell, we married at the church.

Brannik escorted Mara down the aisle. He had offered her his good arm and warned me that if I made her unhappy, he knew exactly which parts of my house held the roof up.

I believed him.

Liora had made her dress.

I’d been forbidden to discuss the cost.

Worth it.

Hobb stood beside me holding the rings. He looked prepared to fight anyone who questioned his qualifications. Rosella sat in the front row with Benny’s little wooden box in her lap. Dren’s mother had informed the entire congregation that their clothes were clean and ought to remain that way until after the ceremony.

They obeyed.

Brannik placed Mara’s hand in mine and went to sit beside Rosella.

For a moment I forgot the room was full.

“You look beautiful,” I told her.

“You look frightened.”

“Churches do that to me.”

Aldric cleared his throat.

“Shall we begin?”

“Been trying to get me up here for months, Al. Don’t rush it now.”

Mara squeezed my hand.

I shut up.

We knelt beneath the restored windows while Aldric blessed us.

I vowed to love her, cherish her, and keep her, in sickness and in health, for all my remaining days.

Mara vowed to love, honor, and obey me, and to be faithful to me as my wife.

Her voice trembled at first. Then it steadied.

I put the ring on her finger. She slipped mine into place.

Aldric pronounced us husband and wife.

I lifted her veil and kissed my bride.

Hobb made enough noise for three men. Rosella cried. Brannik pretended he hadn’t.

Mara stood beside me with her hand tucked into my arm.

My wife.

I liked the sound of that.

At the wedding supper, Rosella served the first sauce made with real tomatoes.

She tasted it before anyone else, then sat down very suddenly.

I pulled out the chair beside her.

“He would’ve liked it,” I said.

She wiped her eyes with an expression that dared me to notice.

“He would’ve said it needed salt.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

We laughed. It hurt, but it helped too.

Later, Mara and I danced in the square. I had improved enough that she no longer watched her feet with concern.

“Happy?” she asked.

“Terrified.”

She smiled.

“Then hold me a little closer.”

I did.

* * *

We were leaving the square when a wagon lost a wheel near the bridge.

A woman climbed down holding a sleeping child. Her husband stared at the broken axle with the exhausted disbelief of a man who had already spent everything getting this far.

I looked at my new suit.

Mara looked at the dress Liora would certainly ask about later.

Then she handed me her flowers.

“I’ll find them a room,” she said.

“I’ll get Hobb.”

The man saw us approaching.

“Sir Francesco? I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Frankie,” I told him. “And you didn’t.”

I handed back her flowers, laid my jacket over her arm, and went to see what needed lifting.

What else could a decent guy do?