The Given Day (Coughlin 1)

Luther turned back to the coffee tray, but not before he caught another look from Danny. Not an entirely pleasant look, one bearing a hint of pity.

Luther shrugged into his topcoat as he came out onto the stoop and saw Danny leaning against the hood of a nut-brown Oakland 49.

Danny raised a bottle of something in Luther's direction, and when Luther reached the street he saw that it was whiskey, the good stuff, prewar.

"A drink, Mr. Laurence?"

Luther took the bottle from Danny and raised it to his lips. He paused, looking at him, making sure sharing a bottle with a colored was what the man wanted. Danny gave him a quizzical arch of his eyebrow, and Luther tilted the bottle to his lips and drank.

When Luther handed it back, the big cop didn't wipe the bottle with his sleeve, just tilted it to his own lips and took himself a healthy snort. "Good stuff, uh?"

Luther remembered how Avery Wallace had said this Coughlin was a strange who did his own thinking. He nodded.

"Nice night."

"Yeah." Crisp but windless, the air a bit chalky with the dust of dead leaves.

"Another?" Danny handed the bottle back.

Luther took a drink, eyeing the big white man and his open, handsome face. A lady-killer, Luther bet, but not the kind to make it his life's work. Something going on behind those eyes that told Luther this man heard music others didn't, took direction from who knew where. "You like working here?"

Luther nodded. "I do. You've a nice family, suh."

Danny rolled his eyes and took another swig. "Think you could drop the 'suh' shit with me, Mr. Laurence? Think that's possible?" Luther took a step back. "What do you want me to call you then?" "Out here? Danny'll do. In there?" He gestured with his chin at the house. "I guess Mr. Coughlin."

"What's your complaint against 'suh'? "

Danny shrugged. "It sounds like bullshit."

"Fair enough. You call me Luther, then."

Danny nodded. "Drink to it."

Luther chuckled as he lifted the bottle. "Avery warned me you were different."

"Avery came back from the grave to tell you I was different?" Luther shook his head. "He wrote a note to his 'replacement.' " "Ah." Danny took the bottle back. "Whatta you think about my Uncle Eddie?"

"Seems nice enough."

"No, he doesn't." Danny's voice was soft.

Luther leaned against the car beside Danny. "No, he doesn't." "You feel him circling you in there?"

"I felt it."

"You got a nice clean past, Luther?"

"Clean as most, I guess."

"That ain't too clean."

Luther smiled. "Fair point."

Danny handed the bottle over again. "My Uncle Eddie? He reads people better than any man alive. Stares right through their heads and sees whatever it is they don't want the world to find out. They got a suspect in one of the station houses nobody can break? They call in my uncle. He gets a confession every time. Uses whatever it takes to get one, too."

Luther rolled the bottle between his palms. "Why you telling me this?"

"He smells something he doesn't like about you--I can see it in his eyes--and we took that joke in there too far for his comfort. He started thinking we were laughing at him and that's not good."

"I appreciate the liquor." Luther stepped away from the car. "Never shared a bottle with a white man before." He shrugged. "But I best be getting home."

"I'm not working you."

"You ain't, uh?" Luther looked at him. "How do I know that?"

Danny held out his hands. "Only two types of men in this world worth talking about--a man who is as he appears and the other kind. Which do you think I am?"

Luther felt the whiskey swimming beneath his flesh. "You about the strangest kind I've come across in this city."

Danny took a drink, looked up at the stars. "Eddie might circle you for a year, even two. He'll take all the time in the world, believe me. But when he fi nally does come for you? He'll have left you no way out." He met Luther's eyes. "I've made my peace with whatever Eddie and my father do to achieve their ends with plug-uglies and grifters and gunsels, but I don't like it when they go after civilians. You understand?"

Luther placed his hands in his pockets as the crisp air grew darker, colder. "So you're saying you can call off this dog?"

Danny shrugged. "Maybe. Won't know until the time comes." Luther nodded. "And what's your end?"

Danny smiled. "My end?"

Luther found himself smiling in return, feeling both of them circling now, but having fun with it. "Ain't nothing free in this world but bad luck."

"Nora," Danny said.

Luther stepped back to the car and took the bottle from Danny. "What about her?"

"I'd like to know how things progress with her and my brother." Luther drank, eyeing Danny, then let loose a laugh.

"What?"

"Man's in love with his brother's girl and he says 'what' to me." Luther laughed some more.

Danny joined him. "Let's say Nora and I have a history."

"That ain't news," Luther said. "I only been in the same room with you both this one time but my blind, dead uncle could have seen it." "That obvious, uh?"

"To most. Can't figure out why Mr. Connor can't see it. He can't see a lot when it comes to her."

"No, he can't."

"Why don't you just ask the woman for her hand? She'll jump at it." "No, she won't. Believe me."

"She will. That rope? Shit. That's love."

Danny shook his head. "You ever known a woman acted logically when it came to love?"

"No."

"Well, then." Danny looked up at the house. "I don't know the first thing about them. Can't tell you what they're thinking from minute to minute."

Luther smiled and shook his head. "I 'spect you get along just fine all the same."

Danny held up the bottle. "We got about two fingers left. Last swig?"

"Don't mind if I do." Luther took a snort and handed the bottle back, watched Danny drain it. "I'll keep my eyes and ears open. How's that?"

"Fair. Eddie makes a run at you, you keep me informed." Luther held out his hand. "Deal."

Danny shook his hand. "Glad we could get to know each other, Luther."

"The same, Danny."

Back at the building on Shawmut Avenue, Luther checked and rechecked for leaks, but nothing came down through the ceilings, and he found no moisture in the walls. He ripped all the plaster out, first thing, and saw that plenty of the wood behind it could be salvaged, some with little more than hope and tenderness, but hope and tenderness would have to do. Same with the flooring and the staircase. Normally a place that had been this fucked-up by neglect and then fire and water damage, the first thing you'd do would be to gut it to its skin. But given their limited finances and beg-borrow-steal approach, the only solution in this case was to salvage what could be salvaged, right down to the nails themselves. He and Clayton Tomes, the Wagenfelds' houseman, worked similar hours in their South Boston households and even had the same day off. After one dinner with Yvette Giddreaux, Clayton had been enlisted into the project before he knew what hit him, and that weekend, Luther finally had some help. They spent the day carrying the salvageable wood and metal and brass fi xtures up to the third floor so they could get to work on installing the plumbing and electrical next week.