The first blow is struck many years before, when Angela is murdered.
A few weeks before Jack's third birthday they're sitting in the kitchen, having just finished breakfast, when they get a call. Marie stands from where Richard's pulled her into his lap to get it, one hand trailing back to linger on his shoulder briefly. He watches Jack playing on the floor with his wooden cowboys and horses as she murmurs in the background.
Her sharp intake of breath is the only indication of something being wrong. He turns around quickly to find her gripping the phone with white knuckles, eyes wide. She glances at Jack, shakes her head, and turns away from Richard to finish the call. When she hangs up she wipes her eyes quickly and motions for him to follow her out of the room. He checks on Jack again and stands up. She's waiting for him by the staircase.
"That was Gillian. You have to go to Jimmy's, Richard." He cocks his head in confusion.
"Jimmy's…in Princeton." Marie nods, tears streaming down her face.
"Angela's been shot. She's dead." He stares at her for a second, almost not comprehending, and then it clicks into place. Angela's dead. He clamps down the sudden urge to scream and heads upstairs instead, as Jack begins to whine for his parents.
Before he leaves he puts one of his revolvers into Marie's hand, and makes sure the shotgun is loaded and put where she can reach it easily without Jack being able to get ahold of it. He picks Jack up and listens to him babble while he walks around getting ready, and gives Marie a long kiss before handing her the baby and walking out the door.
The situation at Jimmy's is hellish. The once-peaceful house is full of policemen, all poking and prodding into Jimmy and Angela's things, and Gillian is floating among them, trying to flirt and double-talk her way out of trouble. Richard's never really been able to stand her, but she's Jimmy's mother, so he can't exactly shoot her and claim it was Luciano.
Once the police are gone he excuses himself and walks through the house, examining each room carefully for any indication of who might have killed Angela. If he could help it, the police would be sitting at their station with their thumbs up their asses for the rest of the year; he planned to get there first and kill the bastard very slowly.
He comes to the bedroom last, entering as quietly as he would enter a church. He stands against the wall and takes it in; the spray of blood across the wall and the congealed pool beneath it; the muddy, sandy footsteps of the policemen tracked through the room, the bed undone. He had gotten there just before the ambulance had come to take Angela and the other woman's bodies away; it had been jarring to find out that in death, she looked exactly the same as other people did. For some reason he'd always imagined, back when he'd thought he was in love with her, long before Marie, that she'd simply lift up into the sky and vanish like a messiah.
He returns home thirty-six hours later to a jubilant son and a somber wife. He puts on a smile for Jack with years of practiced, compartmentalized ease, listening to him jabber in his baby talk about the wondrous mixture of flour and water that Mama had let him play with earlier that day. Richard doesn't speak to or look at Marie; doing so would shatter him right now. She hands him the revolver and takes Jack, who she carries upstairs to be put to bed.
Richard waits for her in the bedroom. Images keep flashing through his mind; Angela dead on the floor, lying in her own cold, sticky blood. And then again, except this time it's Marie. He shudders.
"Richard?" Marie is standing in the doorway looking at him uncertainly, visibly tense. He's on her before he knows it, swinging the door shut and pushing her up against it, his hands running over her body roughly. He kisses her hard and urgent as he slides her skirt up her thighs before racing to undo his trousers, getting his arms tangled with hers as she pulls him in again. She nips a sensitive spot on his collarbone and he shivers, muffling a groan with his fist.
They push-pull each other towards the bed but never quite make it; Marie ends up braced between the dresser and a chair, one leg wrapped around his waist. He thrusts in hard and freezes upon hearing her cry out, afraid that he's hurt her, but she tightens her leg to drive him in further and whispers a single word in his ear.
"Yes."
He sets a punishing, pounding rhythm, one that has them both moaning with every thrust. He can feel her nails digging into his sides as she edges closer and closer to orgasm, but he's so wound up, so agitated, that he can't even begin to find his own release. Every time he closes his eyes he sees someone he loves, dead.
Marie bites his shoulder hard when she comes, and the sharp edge of pain is enough to shock him into his own climax. He thrusts one last time and stills before collapsing to the floor, taking Marie with him. He cups her head gently in his hand to prevent her injuring herself on the way down. They stay there for a few moments, breathing hard, before he pulls out with a wince and sits beside her on the floor.
They both break at the same time. Marie puts her head in her hands and cries softly for her friend, while Richard leans back against the wall, arm slung around his wife, tears streaming down his face for the woman who made him human again.
He's never quite satisfied about their safety after that. They'd moved for exactly that purpose in the first place, but he changes all the locks anyways, and buys Marie a little pistol to carry with her in her handbag at all times. When Jack is old enough he teaches him how to clean, load, and shoot all the firearms in the house; better that he be prepared and able than not. Richard had learned very quickly in France and Belgium that it didn't really matter what gun you shot it from: a bullet was still a bullet, and they all did the same thing to people.
The second blow comes when he finds out exactly where Jimmy has been selling his dope.
"You promised, Jimmy."
"I have to unload it where it sells."
Jimmy looks ragged. Richard tracks him around the room as he paces, running a hand through his hair, stopping only to take another drag from his cigarette. All around them are burlap- and cellophane-wrapped bricks; of cocaine, of heroin, of marijuana. Richard tries not to breathe.
"You said no…schools, no playgrounds, nowhere near…children. That's the only reason I…agreed to do this in the first place." Jimmy turns on him, eyes red-rimmed and wild, and Richard has to wonder if he's been sampling the stock, and whether that's actually a cigarette in his hand. Jimmy's never really been the same since Angela's death, despite Richard's attempts to keep him on the straight and narrow.
"You agreed to do this in the first place because I'm your goddamn boss." A flicker of anger passes over Richard's face before he's able to smooth it out, and Jimmy crows in triumph. Richard stands up and approaches him, staring him in the face.
"What if…it was Tommy?" Jimmy glares at him and raises a threatening hand, poking Richard in the chest with a forefinger.
"Don't bring my son into this." Richard brushes the hand away, standing his ground.
"You lost the…right to that argument when you started…bringing other people's sons into this. What if it were Tommy? You'd move…mountains to find the bastard who…gave this shit to him." Jimmy backs off, head down and hands in his pockets, kicking at the straw on the floor.
"I have to move it, Richard." Richard studies him for a minute, and then shakes his head. They can't do this anymore. It's immoral, it's dangerous, and it's not worth the risk of exposure to the police. Jimmy's insistence on pursuing the drug trade was completely baffling in the first place, but this was edging on suicidal.
"We need to stop this. It's…a dirty business." He walks around to face Jimmy. Jimmy refuses to look at him.
"I can't. I'm a hundred thousand in the hole." Richard takes a step back in shock. He hadn't known they were in for even half that amount. There was no way they were going to be able to pay it back without moving most of the dope.
"To who?" He prayed it wasn't who he thought it would be. The man was hot-headed at the best of times, but his history with Jimmy would make him especially unforgiving. Jimmy looked at his feet, flushing red.
"Luciano." Mentally cursing his friend, Richard ran a hand through his hair, running through various smuggling and sale scenarios in his head to give himself time to cool down. He turned to Jimmy once he'd gotten hold of himself, laying a hand on his best friend's shoulder.
"We'll unload it. And then…no more."
The third and final blow is delivered when he almost gets killed making a deal with one of Jimmy's prospective partners.
It's a fairly mundane affair, up until the fight breaks out. He's there to negotiate a gambling and prostitution deal with an Italian named Salvatore Tarantelli out of Maryland when one of his underlings makes a smartassed remark about Italian women to which Salvatore takes offense, and then it's all over. Guns are drawn, knives unsheathed, and he finds himself on the floor with a bullet apiece in the shoulder and leg. He's bleeding profusely from the thigh; the shot must have nicked an artery, and he knows enough about arteries to realize that if he doesn't get to a surgeon as soon as possible, he'll probably be dead. He manages to get a makeshift tourniquet on the leg and the remaining man drags him to the car, and they speed all the way to a hospital.
He wakes up in a hospital bed with his wife sitting next to him, her face rigid with fear. He's confused and uncertain as to why he's there and why he hurts so much, until a sudden memory of gunshots and pain blossoming in his shoulder and thigh jars him into panic as he feels for his limbs. The last time he woke up in a hospital he found himself missing half his face. Marie's hands gently push him back onto the pillows and hold him there.
"Richard, cher, it's alright. You've got your leg, you've got your arm, nothing's missing. They didn't take them, thank God." She sinks back into her chair once she's sure he's not going to try to move, praying to herself in Cajun patois. He briefly wonders how bad he looks; it must be terrible, since these days she only lapses when very upset. Pain rolls up his body and a doctor comes, says something unintelligible, and gives him a shot; he surrenders to sleep, grasping Marie's trembling hand.
The next time he wakes up, Jimmy's there.
It's dark, and the clock on the wall tells him it's almost midnight. Jimmy is sitting in Marie's chair, reading a book. Richard can't make out the title through the morphine haze clouding his vision. Jimmy finally notices he's awake and puts the book down, leaning forward to whisper.
"How are you feeling?" Richard glares at him, gesturing to the sling on his arm and the thick bandages circling his leg with his good hand. Everything hurts again; the painkillers have worn off, but he doesn't want to ask for more. He's seen far too many wounded men develop opium addictions.
"How do you…fucking think?" He watches Jimmy hang his head, choosing his words carefully.
"I'm sorry, Richard. You told me that Polish kid wasn't worth a wooden nickel on a job. I should have listened to you." He shifts a bit, and Richard knows, he can read him like a book; he wants to ask about Tarantelli. Sighing, he pre-empts the question.
"Tarantelli's not likely…to want to deal with you…after this, Jimmy." Jimmy opens his mouth to speak, then stops short, confused.
"Not likely to deal with me? Not us?" Richard shakes his head.
"I can't do…this anymore." Jimmy's head snaps up, betrayal clearly written across his face. He stares hard at Richard, speaking with barely contained anger.
"You're leaving me. Of all people, you're leaving me. I have nobody else I can trust." Richard reaches out to him, but is constrained to his bed, and can't quite make it to Jimmy's shoulder. Jimmy regards him coldly.
"I'm still…your friend, Jimmy. But I just can't…do this anymore. I have my family…to think of." Jimmy shakes his head in disbelief.
"What, by lettin' yourself go right as the economy's crashing?" Richard nods towards Jimmy's right boot, where he keeps his knife hidden. It's gotten them out of a scrape dozens of times, that knife, but it's also gotten them into more than he can count. And that was in the 20's these are the 30s, the age of guns.
"By taking myself out of a job where I'm always about to be dead." Jimmy slumps back, frustrated, and regards Richard again.
"So you're scared of dying now?" Richard shakes his head. It causes a barb of pain to shoot up his shoulder and he hisses. Jimmy turns to get the nurse, who Richard waves away.
"No. Just of what it would do to them." Jimmy is silent for a moment. The room is thick with bad feeling, and it makes Richard sick to see just how hurt Jimmy really is. He is, to be honest, surprised to see how much he genuinely does care.
"What the hell am I supposed to do without you?" Richard looks him straight in the eye, hating the words.
"You'll find someone else." The clock strikes twelve quietly, its tiny chime marking off the hours like notes on a music box.
Standing up, Jimmy gathers his coat and turns on his heel, walking out the door silently. It's the last time Richard ever sees him alive.
He tells Marie what's happened the next day. As soon as he's well enough they move, finding a townhouse in Baltimore; he needs to get away from New Jersey for a while, and there's a girls' school there that Marie wants Genevieve to attend when she's old enough. They live there happily for three years before they get the phone call from Tommy:
Jimmy's been killed in a firefight, by men most likely belonging to Lucky Luciano.
Richard goes to Atlantic City immediately, quickly followed by Marie and the children; they help Tommy through the funeral, and Marie sits Richard down one night and insists that they take him in, at least until he turns eighteen.
"He's only fifteen, Richard. We can't just leave him."
So they move back to Atlantic City, into a house near the boardwalk. Time passes; Tommy leaves first to go to college, Jack goes to war, Genevieve gets married. He and Marie grow old.
Richard wonders until the day he dies whether Jimmy might have lived, had he been with him that day in 1933.