World Gone By: A Novel by Dennis Lehane Read Free Book Online Page A

just, you know, early-early.”
    His son gave him a cocked eyebrow.
    Joe watched the traffic light at the next intersection go from red to green. As they sat there, without a single car moving, it turned yellow and then red again. To distract himself he turned on the radio, expecting the war news that was a constant, as if there were no other news, as if people didn’t need weather reports or stock reports anymore. He was unpleasantly surprised, however, with a breathless account of last night’s mass narcotics arrest on the outskirts of Ybor City.
    “Here in the Negro section of the city just south of Eleventh Avenue,” the reporter said in a tone that intimated he was speaking of a neighborhood where only the fearless or foolish dared tread, “police confiscated an estimated fourteen pounds of narcotics and exchanged gunfire with brutal gangsters, both Negroes and Italian nationals. Captain Edson Miller, of the Tampa PD, reports that his men are looking into the background of all arrested Italians to ensure that none were saboteurs sent to these shores by Mussolinihimself. Four suspects were killed by police, while a fifth, Walter Grimes, committed suicide in custody. Captain Miller also stated that police had been watching the narcotics warehouse for some months before they swooped in yesterday eve—”
    Joe shut off the radio before he could hear another lie. Wally Grimes had been about as suicidal as the sun, all of the “Italian nationals” had been born here, and the narcotics “warehouse” hadn’t been anything of the sort. It had been a cooking facility and it had gone into operation for the first time Friday night, so it was impossible for anyone to have been watching it for a week, never mind a month.
    Worse than all the lies, however, were the bodies that had been lost, including a master cook and several excellent street soldiers in a time when brave, able-bodied men were increasingly hard to come by.
    “Am I a nigger?” Tomas asked.
    Joe’s head snapped on its neck. “What?”
    Tomas chin-gestured at the radio. “Am I?”
    “Who called you that?”
    “Martha Comstock. Some kids were calling me a spic, but Martha said, ‘No, he’s a nigger.’”
    “She’s that triple-chinned little troll never shuts the fuck up?”
    A smile found Tomas’s face for a moment. “That’s her.”
    “And she called you that?”
    “It doesn’t bother me,” he said.
    “I know it bothers you. Question is how much.”
    “Well, how nigger am I?”
    “Hey,” Joe said, “you ever heard me use that word?”
    “No.”
    “You know why?”
    “No.”
    “Because I got no problem with it, but your mother hated it.”
    “Well, then, how colored am I?”
    Joe shrugged. “I know some of her ancestors came from the slave class. So the bloodline probably started in Africa, got mixed with Spanish and maybe even a white guy or two in the woodpile.” His father applied the brake as the car ahead of them lurched to a stop. He laid his head back against the seat for a moment. “Something I loved about your mother’s face was that the whole world was in it. I’d look at her sometimes and I’d see some condesa walking through her vineyard in Spain. Other times, I’d see a tribeswoman carrying water from the river. I’d see your ancestors crossing deserts and oceans or walking the streets of the Old City with puffy sleeves and swords in their scabbards.” The car ahead moved and he eased off the brake and popped the gearshift into first and his head came off the seat. He sighed so softly Tomas doubted he heard it himself. “Your mother had a hell of a beautiful face.”
    “And you saw all that in it?”
    “Not every day. Most days I just saw your mom.” He looked over at his son. “But after a few drinks, you never knew.”
    Tomas chuckled and Joe gave his neck a firm pat.
    “Did people call my mother a nigger?”
    That cold thing entered his father’s eyes—a grayness that could freeze boiling water.