The Given Day (Coughlin 1)

He had woken up this morning, and because of that, a man was now dead. Whether the man deserved to die or not--and he did, he did--wasn't what concerned Danny at the moment. It was that he'd killed him. Two hours ago. He'd stood in the street and shot him like an animal. He could hear those high-pitched yelps. Could see each of the bullets enter Federico Ficara--the first through the knee, the second through the ass, the third into the stomach. All painful, the first and the third, however, exceptionally so.

Two hours ago, and now he was back on the job and the job was sitting with two men who seemed, at best, overimpassioned but hardly criminal.

When he'd shot Federico in the ass (and that was the one that bothered him the most, the indignity of it, Federico trying to scramble out of that car like forest prey) he'd wondered what created a situation like this--three people shooting it out on a city street near a car laden with dynamite. No god had ever designed such a scenario, even for the lowest of his animals. What created a Federico? A Tessa? Not god. Man.

I killed you, Danny thought. But I didn't kill it.

He realized Fraina was speaking to him.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said for a writer of such impassioned polemic, you're quite taci- turn in person."

Danny smiled. "I like to leave it all on the page."

Fraina nodded and glanced his glass off Danny's. "Fair enough." He leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. He blew out the match as a child would blow out a candle, with pursed lips and an air of purpose. "Why the Lettish Workingman's Society?"

"I'm not sure I understand your question."

"You're an American," Fraina said. "You need only to walk half a mile across the city to find Comrade Reed's American Communist Party. And yet you chose to be among Eastern Europe ans. Are you uncomfortable with your own kind?"

"No."

Fraina tilted one palm in Danny's direction. "Then?"

"I want to write," Danny said. "Comrade Reed and Comrade Lar- kin are not known for letting newcomers break in on their paper." "But I am?"

"That's the rumor," Danny said.

"Candor," Fraina said. "I like it. Some of them are quite good, by the way. Your musings."

"Thank you."

"Some are, well, a bit overwrought. Turgid, one could say." Danny shrugged. "I speak from the heart, Comrade Fraina."

"The revolution needs people who speak from the head. Intelligence, precision--these are what are most valued in the party."

Danny nodded.

"So you would like to help out with the newspaper. Yes?" "Very much so."

"It is not glamorous work. You'd write occasionally, yes, but you'd be expected to work the press and to stuff envelopes and type names and addresses onto those envelopes. This is something you can do?" "Certainly," Danny said.

Fraina pulled a piece of tobacco off his tongue and dropped it in the ashtray. "Come by the offices next Friday. We'll see how you take to it." Just like that, Danny thought. Just like that.

Leaving the Oktober, he found himself behind Louis Fraina and Pyotr Glaviach as Nathan Bishop trotted across the sidewalk to open the back of the Olds Model M. Fraina stumbled and a gunshot report echoed in the empty street. Pyotr Glaviach knocked Fraina to the ground and covered his body. The smaller man's glasses fell off the curb and into the gutter. The gunman stepped out of the building next door, one arm extended, and Danny took the lid off a trash can and knocked the pistol out of his hand and the gun went off again and Danny hit him in the forehead. Sirens rang out. They were drawing closer. Danny hit the gunman another time with the metal lid and the man fell on his ass.

He turned back as Glaviach shoved Fraina into the backseat of the Model M and stood on the running board. Nathan Bishop hopped up front. Bishop waved his arm frantically at Danny. "Come on!"

The shooter grabbed Danny by his ankles and pulled his legs out from under him. Danny hit the sidewalk so hard he bounced.

A police cruiser turned onto Columbus.

"Go!" Danny called.

The Model M squealed as it pulled away from the curb.

"Find out if he a White!" Glaviach shouted from the running board as the cruiser drove over the curb in front of the restaurant and the Model M took a sharp left out of sight.

The first two coppers on the scene ran into the restaurant. They pushed back the barmaid and two men who'd ventured out. They shut the door behind them. The next cruiser arrived on their heels and banged to a stop halfway up the curb. McKenna climbed out, already chuckling at the absurdity of it all, as Jersey Jerry Hamilton let go of Danny's ankles. They got to their feet. The two patrolmen with McKenna came over and manhandled them over to the cruiser.

"Realistic enough, you think?" McKenna said.

Hamilton rubbed his forehead several times and then he punched Danny's arm. "I'm bleeding, you fuck."

Danny said, "I kept away from the face."

"Kept away from the . . . ?" Hamilton spit blood onto the street. "I should ram your--"

Danny stepped in close. "I could hospitalize you right fucking here, right now. You want that, mug?"

"Hey, why's he think he can talk to me like this?"

"Because he can." McKenna clapped their shoulders. "Assume the positions, gents."

"No, I'm serious," Danny said. "You want to two- step with me?" Hamilton looked away. "I was just saying."

"You were just saying," Danny said.

"Gents," McKenna said.

Danny and Jersey Jerry placed their palms on the hood of the cruiser and McKenna made a show of frisking them.

"This is bullshit," Danny whispered. "They'll see through it." "Nonsense," McKenna said. "Ye of little faith."

McKenna placed loose cuffs on their hands and pushed them into the back of the cruiser. He got behind the wheel and drove them all back down Harrison.

In the car, Hamilton said, "You know? If I ever see you off the job--"

"You'll what?" Danny said. "Cry yourself stupider?"

McKenna drove Danny back to his cover apartment in Roxbury and pulled to the curb a half block up from the building. "How you feeling?"

Truth was, Danny felt like weeping. Not for any particu lar reason, just a general and all-consuming exhaustion. He rubbed his hands over his face.

"I'm okay."

"You shot the bejesus out of an Eye-tie terrorist under extraordinary duress just four hours ago, then went right into an undercover meeting with another possible terrorist and--"