Date Unknown

The woman laughs, then her voice turns stern. "You honestly think we're going to let you die anytime soon?"

He moans.

"We can keep this up forever. You'll talk, sooner or later." He hears a smile in her voice, and she kicks his bound shins. "You'll talk."

Monday 22nd September, 1997, 10.23 pm.

"You're doing better, Ray." Rossetti smiled at him as they walked from the elevator to the hotel room. She squeezed his hand reassuringly, no doubt because it was shaking. They both knew he wasn't clean, but she was right – he was doing a hell of a lot better.

"The kids help," Ray admitted. "Sal's kids."

"In what way?"

Ray fell silent, remembering the day before.

Sal carried Nelly on his back when the ascent got tough for her. Marco soldiered on, manfully refusing Ray's offer of a ride, but eventually gave in, and let his father carry him on his hip. When Alicia started to flag, Sal turned, with a grin, and said, "how much do you bet I can carry all three of you?" Ray laughed as the man scooped up his eldest daughter, and continued on up the hill. Alicia clung around her Pa's neck, like a baby monkey, or the world's biggest pendant.

"Just normal kid crap."

Last time I was in the desert with that guy we were killing people.

Rossetti shrugged. "Can't say I like kids."

"Yeah, well, it's nice to be 'round brats. Just like home."

Rossetti's eyes clouded as they stepped into the hotel suite.

"Clear?" she inquired, smiling at Johnny, who nodded confirmation. She turned her attention back to Ray. "Really, you shouldn't have been considered for the job. I had no idea how much your family rely on you."

"How are they?" He still asked, knowing he'd never get a detailed answer.

"They're fine," Johnny butted in, before Rossetti could say 'that's classified.' Someone had obviously put the screws to her at some point recently, probably after he broke down laughing at Benny's antics in Chicago with the gunrunners. Someone had probably put the screws to Johnny too, but he didn't seem to give a flying fuck. "The Mountie's fine, too," he added, and shrugged at Rossetti, who sighed, and kicked off her shoes.

"Okay," she said, "you two do your debrief. I'll see you when you're done with Doc Grey."

Same old, same old, thought Ray, and handed her his watch.

"So," Johnny said as the recorder started running. "You seem better."

"It's been better," Ray admitted. "Jackie's off my back, and I'm seeing more of Sal's family. It's like – you know, I get these little 'islands of happy' where I'm not a gangster and get to play with Sal's kids." That was it, really, the big change for the better. For a few hours at a time, a few days a week, he didn't plot the best way to smuggle weapons across international borders; he didn't falsify the hospital's accounts to cover for drug trafficking; he didn't talk to pimps about the girl's territories, and he didn't talk to Jackie about enforcement of taxes.

"What do you mean Jackie's been off your back?"

"Yeah. Reckon he's pissed at me, but I can live with that. And it helps cut down on the drinking." The drinking with other people, he thought sardonically. I'm not about to tell him that I drink alone every night.

"Your relationships with both brothers have changed," Johnny said. He tilted his head back, frowning off into the empty space over Ray's shoulder. "It's troublesome. You're closer than ever to Sal, but there's a distance between you and Jackie that can't be good."

Ray shrugged. Apart from work-related things, he didn't see much of Jackie these days – which should have bothered him. He was just so damn relieved he barely thought about it. "It makes my life easier."

"You need to be careful," Johnny insisted. "Jackie's changed since Hannah's death – he's withdrawing from both you and his brother."

Armando flickered into the room, and Ray turned his head. He'd taken his anti-thingummy crap, so the apparition was tolerable. He could ignore the damn thing. And if it got any worse he'd just take some of the other stuff.

'It's your fault they're fighting,' the ghost accused him. 'I've been listening. You set them against each other. Was that your plan? Destroy us from the inside?'

"I know. I'll be careful." Ray replied to Johnny and ostentatiously ignored his brother.

'You won't always be able to hide from me,' Armando's voice was frost. 'One day, you'll die. And on that day I'll be waiting for you.'

"Are you alright, Ray? You're looking a little pale."

"I'm fine," Ray lied, and hugged himself against the cold. "Just got to sort out some…" He stuttered to a halt. Mando couldn't possess him anymore, but he had his frozen finger pushed up on Ray's lip. Johnny's eyes sharpened.

"Your brother?"

Ray closed his eyes, concentrated. When he opened them, Armando had backed off. "Sorry, I was just trying to say I've got to sort out some business. Immigration and green cards and so on. The brothers are using Smithson's old businesses as a way of getting new blood into the country – I mean, they're using them for other things too. But you'll probably find an influx of Sicilian gas-station clerks."

"They're bringing in fresh soldati?"

"Yeah, loyal to us…" Ray felt his heart hurt. "I mean… 'them.' I mean them." He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Armando was glaring hate at him. "God, when is this assignment ever going to end?" He hadn't meant to speak aloud. He wasn't thinking of going home, he was thinking of being able to lie down somewhere and never get up again.

"Soon," Johnny said. "When we get Muldoon."

"When's that gonna be?"

Johnny shrugged, and looked helpless.

"You don't know?"

"Soon."

"Yeah, 'soon' my ass," Ray laughed. "I'm gonna be here for the rest of my life." Johnny opened his mouth, but Ray interrupted him, before he could offer another empty platitude. "Don't worry, I don't blame you. You're in the same boat, after all."

Johnny's lip twisted as he acknowledged the truth of that statement. Ray nodded. He'd realised some time back that he was holding Johnny hostage – there was nobody else he would trust as his handler, and the Feds knew it. They'd both been here forever already.

Thursday October 9th, 1997. 5:45pm

I am not thinking about my next drink, Ray told himself as he left his office. He scowled. Rossetti's gonna insist on water. Maybe orange juice if I'm lucky. Bitch.

He shook his head. He was being unfair, and he knew it. She was doing a damn good job, stopping him from killing himself. A few times since Hannah died he'd woken up and thought –

I don't know what I think sometimes. He'd started sleeping with the chamber of his gun empty. It would be too easy some nights to just –

Stop it. Don't go there.

Besides. He wasn't depressed. He wasn't unhappy, he wasn't crying all the time – he was fine.

'You did a good day's work,' said Armando, popping out of nowhere, 'when you weren't betraying us.' Ray glared at him. The one problem with being a little less stoned was that he saw more of his brother. 'Good work satisfies the soul, doesn't it?'

"It wasn't good work," Ray snapped at the ghost. They were going down in the elevator to meet Ray's bodyguard in the carport. Ray knew the security of this building back to front – he had his back to the camera so nobody could read his lips, and there was no audio. If he was gonna argue with Armando, now was as good a time as any.

'You could be me, you know,' Armando said. 'You could take over where I left off – you're good at it.'

"Yeah, but why? What's the point? We all end up dead anyway. Look at you. It didn't make you happy, in the end."

'Loyalty to family is the only happiness there is.' Armando put his hand on Ray's arm, and squeezed – not painfully, but pleadingly.'You can make this right. Do the right thing. Be me.'

"I can't…"

The elevator stopped and Ray fell silent in case someone else got on. Hang on, this is the wrong floor…

"Oh shit. Mando –"

The doors opened, and before he could do anything to protect himself he was surrounded. Four, no – six men. And then he was being crushed up into the corner of the elevator – and his throat was being squeezed and –

Oh God, Oh God, please no, they're killing me. Seven months, nine days in. Please, no, please, not dead…

Date Unknown

He wasn't dead. He'd lost count of the days and nights, but he wasn't dead.

Why am I still alive?

"You're jonesing pretty bad now," the woman was saying. "Who'd a thought the Bookman was a junkie? It sure took me by surprise." There was a pause. He strained to hear her footfall as she circled his chair. "Is that how they got to you, the Feds? They got you on a drug charge? How long have you been working for them?"

Ray coughed. His throat was raw. He seemed to think he'd been screaming not too long ago – someone had been beating him with a strap. He'd thought it was Pa.

"If you tell us how long you've been working for them, I can give you some water. Or…" She paused, He could hear the smile in her voice. "Would you prefer a real drink?"

Oh God.

"Come on," she cooed, "how long have you been working for the Feds?"

'Don't die like this,' Armando said, somewhere in the back of his mind. 'Don't let my brothers think I died a junkie traitor.'

"Everything," Ray choked out, "everything I have ever done, my whole life, I did for my family." He could feel himself crying beneath his hood, thinking of Ma, and Frannie, Maria and the kids, little Paulie away in Florida far from the family ghosts. And Benny – God, Benny who he would never see again. "All I ever loved was my family, all I ever wanted was to make them happy. And look at me now. No family, no friends. And still, all I do is for family. I'd never betray them. I'd sooner die."

After several moments, a man's voice broke into the silence.

"I believe him."

"Sal?" And then he was crying for real, as Sal lifted off the hood. He shut his eyes against the blinding light. His eyelids scraped, as though they were dusty on the inside, and when Sal cut through the duct tape that bound his wrists he fell forward. The big man caught him, and patted his back.

"Mando," he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I had to be sure."

"Why would you think – why did you think –"

"Because the Feds stepped in when Honey died." Sal was kneeling now, unbinding his ankles. "We knew someone was a rat. It was either you or Honey; we didn't know who. And – Jackie's right, you've been off for months."

"I can't believe you'd…" Ray looked over Sal's shoulder, at Armando. "Mando," he said, "I can't believe they'd think that about you."

Sal turned his attention to the woman – Ray recognised her now. Sal's goomah. "Get us some water, and – uhm – stuff. He needs his head back straight."

Ray shook his head at the pills but Sal insisted. "Look, we let you go through detox a bit – thought it would break you if you'd betrayed us. But you didn't, so, I know how this works. You go cold turkey, you're probably gonna die or something. So, it's just diazepam. A bucket-load of it, but it's gonna take the edge off."

Obediently Ray drank the water and took the pills.

"Why," he asked, still shaking, "why did you think it was me?"

"Because someone was setting you up, I think." Sal helped Ray stand, and hooked an arm round him, made him walk. The room was darker than it had first appeared – the light that had at first blinded him was a forty watt bulb. There was no window, only a door, no furniture but the chair. Sal's voice was gentle. "When you got back, who did you first get drugs from?"

"The doctor prescribed –"

"I mean illegal drugs, you idiot." Sal squeezed his waist affectionately. "Don't fall over. You need your sea legs back. So. Who was it?"

"One of the bodyguards."

"Which one?"

"Al, I think. Or… No. Stevie. I got stuff off both of 'em."

"And after that, who?"

"Mainly Honey."

"And after that?"

"Pretty much anyone I asked."

"Okay, Mando, you're not gonna like this, but I think I know what happened."

"Go on." Ray's knees gave out a little, but he pulled himself upright. He was still shaking, still needed a drink.

"We think Honey was a Fed."

"A what? A…"

"Listen, here's what we know. She knew you had a drug problem, she targeted you, and don't pretend you didn't get sucked in deeper when you were with her."

"Honey was a Fed?" Ray tried to make sense of what Sal was saying, through the jumble in his head. How could they think that about Honey? She was just some poor kid hooked herself. But… Shit, at least they don't know it's me. "She was a Fed?" He repeated himself like an imbecile, staring at Sal for confirmation.

"She made you worse," Sal told him. "She made you weak."

"I never told her anything…"

"You sure of that? How do you know what she was doing when you were stoned out of your head? She could have been going through your papers, these people have methods you know."

"She was only in my office once."

"When you tried to pay her off. I know. We had you followed."

"Of course you did."

Sal shrugged, and stepped back, one hand resting on his shoulder to see if he could stand unassisted. "You'd have done the same thing in my position." He shook his head, and changed the subject. "Anyway, Hannah wouldn't go so the Feds killed her, in case she turned to our side and warned you."

"They? You think the Feds did that?"

"Well, of course." Sal's face was a picture of frustration. "They're the bad guys remember?"

Oh my God. It suddenly hit him. Maybe it was the Feds. The higher-ups might have done it – I already know they knew about the hit on Mando – that was why the sudden rush to get me in place. They knew it was coming. And like Johnny said – they stand by and watch us kill each other – what's the difference between that and actually killing someone who makes an agent weak?

"The Feds," Ray whispered, part of him knowing this was nonsense, paranoia – withdrawal and fear. "The Feds killed Hannah."

"I'm sorry, Mando."

Ray shook his head. No sense, this made no sense… Jackie killed her. He knew that. He knew it.

"What about Jackie?"

"What about him?"

"He aimed her at me, that first time – maybe it was him. Maybe he's the one who's been –"

The crack across Ray's head was so sharp his neck hurt. He reeled back from the blow.

"That's my brother you're talking about."

"I thought he was mine, too," Ray said in a small voice.

"Look, he's been talking crap about you as well. Fuck… I'm gonna have to sit you both in a room, figure out how to fix this. Shit. Look at you." Sal sighed. "Come on, let's go see Jackie. He's in the next room."

Ray stepped through the door, and staggered at the moment of déjà vu. A practically identical room, with a man, duct-taped to a chair, hooded and bound.

"Jackie," said Sal.

"Oh God," the man muttered from under the hood. "I never thought it would be you, Sal. You believed him. You believed that bastard traitor."

"I don't believe either of you. Here." Sal pulled off the hood. Jackie lifted his face, puffy with bruises, and Ray's heart clenched in sudden pity at the look in the man's eyes.

"Sal, you're my brother."

"And so's Mando. He didn't betray us. It was Honey."

"How do you know it wasn't Armando? He's clever. He's a good liar."

"He's been there for days, sick as a dog, and he never once said anything that would make me doubt him."

Jackie glared at Ray, squinting through eyelids that were so swollen and bruised they looked like purple cushions. "He's not our cousin. He never was."

"Excuse me?" Ray's voice squeaked. Oh God, what's Jackie found out?

"Great, now you've gone mad as well," Sal muttered.

"Has he been here as long as I have?" Ray asked. Sal nodded. "Give the man a drink." Ray winced at the raw gratitude on Jackie's face. Sal's expression was blank for a moment, then he looked appalled. "He's as bad off as me, Sal." Ray cleared his throat. "Give the poor bastard a drink."

"Shit," Sal managed. "I didn't realise."

"Didn't realise he was an alcoholic? We're all fucking addicted to something. You and your weights, Jackie and me poisoning ourselves. We're as bad as each other."

Sal turned, and tilted his head, considering his point. A disgusted look of amusement flashed across his face, like a child suddenly getting a filthy joke for the first time. "Maybe you're right," he conceded. "That's not the point. The point is, you two, you nearly brought us down between you. We got to get this sorted out. 'Licia," he commanded his goomah. "Get the men something to drink. Mando. Sit down before you fall down."

Ray stepped back, slid down the length of the wall, and hugged himself. He hurt all over. And it dawned on him for the first time that he was wearing only his undershirt and boxers.

Fuck. They'd searched him. Thank God the watch cam was a solid piece of Fed engineering – he had been reassured that nobody outside the government would be able to spot the microscopic computer parts that acted as camera. Well, they must have been telling the truth. He was still here.

"Mando." Sal was passing him a tin cup with something in it. He knocked it back in a sharp swallow, and started coughing. "Okay, your turn, Jackie. Sip it, don't gulp. You got some explaining to do. What do you mean Mando was never our cousin? We just proved he never turned pentito."

"Oh, it's not his fault," Jackie's voice suddenly cracked. "God, I used to feel so sorry for the poor little bastard, not knowing."

"Not knowing what?" Sal persisted. Ray panicked, even though the valium was kicking in now. "What are you talking about, Jackie?"

"Oh, you were too young to understand. You weren't even three years old. Your dear cousin 'Mando' ain't your cousin at all – at least, not the way you think."

"Shut the fuck up," Ray managed. "You're talking shit."

"No," Jackie said. His voice was raw, all the pretence and attitude stripped away. He sounded – God, he sounded sad. "No, Cuz. You're not a Langoustini at all. The old man couldn't get it up, so he bought you. Like a used car – someone didn't want you, so here you are."

Ray closed his eyes. Any minute now the word 'twin' was going to be mentioned, and Sal would finally kill him for real.

When he opened his eyes, Sal's fist was raised not to Ray, but to Jackie. The younger brother's eyes were burning with fury. "You," he said, "you evil bastard. How dare you, how dare you? That woman was a liar, you know she was a liar. She was a crazy bitch, and she hated Mando. Maybe hated her husband and took it out on her kid, I don't know what her fucking deal was, but I'm telling you, that story she told, that Mando wasn't really hers? She was talking out her ass. You know it, I know it – that's why they locked the fucking bitch up in the madhouse. And nobody else ever heard her… her fucking delusions, so shut the fuck up. You say that again to anyone, I'll kill you."

Jackie lifted his head, stared his brother squarely in the eye.

"I was about six, Sal, coming on seven. She never looked pregnant. They kept her out of sight, but she never looked it. You know how skinny she always was. And then one day Paulie Zuko turns up – you remember him? Juliana's cousin. And he has a baby with him." Jackie jerked his chin in Ray's direction. "I was always a nosey bastard – and you know what that family were like. They never saw kids. I was right behind the curtain. 'Here,'" Zuko says, 'you can have him. My cousin didn't want another mouth to feed.'"

Ray's heart fell, and he stared up at the shocked face of his brother's ghost.

What did Jackie just say? "'Cousin?'" Ray stuttered.

"Yeah," Jackie said, his face twisted and sad. "Cause you are my 'Cuz.' Third or fourth something, on Juliana's side, fifth or sixth on Langoustini's. From the rotten side of the family tree. 'Cause nobody in my family would ever sell a child."

Oh God, Ray thought, and a surge of sickness welled up in him. The Vecchios were related to the Zukos – Pa was his second cousin. Which meant that…

I really am related to these guys. And I'm related to the Onofris too – I killed family. Oh… God.

"Oh God," he said, and started crying. "It's true."

"Jackie, you shit," Sal said. "Why the hell are you telling us now?"

"Because I felt sorry for the little prick, when we were growing up. And then, when he got his act together, he was – I mean, come on, Armando on his game is fucking awesome. But he comes from bad stock. Look at him." Jackie jerked his chin in Ray's direction. "When he cracks up, he cracks like an egg. And you always listen to him, and you trust him, and he might as well be capofamiglia –"

"Don't you dare accuse me of being weak."

"Not weak, Sal. Blinded. Just where he's concerned. I was trying to protect 't you see now? We had to get rid of him. Cause he's bad blood, he was gonna screw things up. He can't help it – he cracked as a kid, he cracked at college, and he cracked this year." Jackie looked fiercely at his brother. "Fuck's sake, Sal. The mad bastard set his fucking hands on fire."

"Of course he cracked!" Sal was yelling. "For about a week and a half. And even then – that whole Yakuza thing, and Smithson, and this weapons deal we got going on. That's not cracked, that's what a consigliere is for. You think your fucking plastic Paddy is going to do any better? He can talk the hind leg off any judge in the country, but he doesn't know business."

"Armando's broke, little brother. You can't keep trying to fix him."

"It was you," Ray finally managed to speak. "This year you tried to break me, didn't you? You took out the hit. Onofri thought he was hiding behind the Greek, but you were pulling the strings on both of them. And when that didn't work you tried to break me from the inside, with… with the drugs and Hannah. You've been trying to kill me, or get Sal to do it. Haven't you?"

"Jackie?" Sal's voice was a whisper.

"Oh, come on, Sal! He's a head-case. He always has been. We'd be better off without –"

Sal hit his brother so hard that the chair fell over. The big man stood over the bound form, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side.

"You killed them," he said. "You used Onofri and the Greek to do it, but you killed my niece and nephew. You killed my sister-in-law, his children's mother, damn it. You killed Mando's goomah, and you were gonna kill Mando."

"It was for our own protection! I didn't mean for the kids to die – I loved them. How the fuck was I to know he'd take them on a road trip at one in the morning?"

'It was a starry night,' Armando whispered. Ray repeated his brother's words. "It was a starry night. I'd been working all week – it was the only time I had. I was going to show them the stars."

God, that's what he'd been doing.

Sal stared at Armando – Ray – and blinked. He brought his thumb up to catch a tear before it spilled. "Mando," he whispered, "I'm so sorry."

"I was doing this for us," Jackie pleaded. "As a family. You gotta understand –"

"Were you and Hannah working together?"

"I needed someone I could trust to see how badly he was cracking up. We needed to know. He was talking to himself again."

"Hannah made him worse. You musta known she'd give him drugs."

"Jackie gave me drugs," Ray said, in a dull voice. "At the second fundraiser." He knew as he said it that he was sentencing Jackie, or himself, to death, depending on who Sal believed. He didn't much care which way it went.

"You did what?" Sal turned on his brother, eyes widening with horror.

Jackie glared at Ray, as though he was the one being betrayed.

"You didn't complain at the time."

"What the hell did you give him?"

"Nothing," Jackie lied, too late. He'd already given the game away. "I…"

"He gave me coke," Ray said. "Mixed in with bourbon. Said you wouldn't notice because it was a longer hit and the crash wasn't as bad." He paused. "He's right, by the way." He coughed. Suddenly he really, really wanted coke.

Sal knelt next to his brother, still lying on the floor bound to his chair. "Jackie, did you use Hannah to spy on Mando, or to get him addicted again?"

Jackie said nothing.

"Jackie," Sal's voice cracked. "Did you know she was a Fed?"

"Fuck's sake, no. If anyone's a Fed round here, it's Armando. I can smell it on him – cop stink."

"The only person in this room who's betrayed anyone is you," Sal said. "You're the only one."

"I'm not a fucking traitor!"

"But you did break every vow. You spilled family blood, you killed innocents."

"He's not family! He's an… accessory. They bought him to go along with their fucking furniture."

Sal stood and kicked Jackie in the stomach, kicked again. Turned, reached down and dragged Ray to his feet. The big man's face was desperate and wild. "I can't," he said, "I can't do it."

"What?" Jackie yelled from the floor. "Can't what? You know you gotta kill one of us."

"I can't," Sal pleaded, looking Ray in the eyes. "He's my – you'll have to do it. Please, Mando – we gotta kill him, he betrayed us, but he's my – he's my brother."

'He's my brother too,' Armando said, dropping to his knees beside Jackie. 'I thought he was. I thought he was.'

"'Loyalty to family,'" Ray whispered, quoting his brother, "'is the only happiness there is.'" Mando, even now, was shielding his betrayer with his incorporeal body.

"Please, Mando," Sal was weeping. "It has to be one of us. It can't just be some soldato or capo – he deserves better.

"I… I can't." Not again. Please God, not again. Not another battered bleeding man on the floor.

Sal pressed the gun into Ray's hands and stepped back.

Oh God…

Jackie's fierceness bled away at the sight of the gun. The last few days had etched long lines of pain into his jowly face, but he looked strangely young. Ray took three unsteady steps, then knelt next to him.

"Why?"

"Because…" Jackie's sounded like the kid he once was. "You weren't one of us." His voice cracked, "You weren't one of us. But Sal loved you more."

No ritual this time, no Judas kiss. Nothing.

Blinking hard so he could see straight, Ray carefully placed the gun against Jackie's head.

"Don't struggle," he whispered, his hand cradling his cousin's cheek.

Jackie closed his eyes. When Ray opened his own, it wasn't Jackie on the floor anymore.

He buried his cousin in the desert. Sal didn't want to know where.

Ray drove out past the flurry of rocks that Sal and the rest of the family had used as a picnic point. The mountains rose ahead of him, and he drove up until his ears popped with the altitude. Then, he pulled up and walked round to the back of the car.

Jackie was heavy and awkward, and Ray struggled as he pulled him out of the trunk. Rigor mortis was just beginning to set in, and Ray stumbled as he arranged the weight across his shoulder.

And then, he started to climb. Last time he had walked through a wilderness carrying a man on his shoulder, it had been through trees, and the man was alive, the man was Benny –

This thing wasn't alive. It wasn't a man. It was –

It had been Jackie. And Ray had killed him. It had been Jackie, and Jackie was a monster, but –

Ray was a monster, too.

Armando was standing at the burial point, but even if he hadn't been, Ray would have known Jackie's grave the minute he saw it. A wind-sculpted arch of stone, like a bridge from nowhere to nowhere. They had always been heading here, Jackie and Armando.

This part of the mountain was littered with warped rock formations – wind sculptures. Perhaps where he stood was visible from the spot where he had picnicked with Sal's kids – he didn't know. He did know that it looked as though he was surrounded by giant chess pieces, dreamscape monuments to time and decay. The twisted forms cast goblin shadows in the light of the moon.

Beneath the buckled bridge Ray laid out Jackie's body. The bridge could have stood ten thousand years, being whittled by the merciless wind.

He unfolded the emergency spade he had taken from the trunk of the car, and started to dig. The first strike made a crisp hiss as it dislodged dry earth, and the second, and the third – and then he was in a trance, methodically digging a hole.

A little longer than he was tall, so Jackie could lie flat and comfortable, deep enough that it was a struggle to get out. Ray grasped at the foot of the bridge, and pulled himself up. Good. Six foot deep, just like a good grave should be.

When he laid Jackie down in it, he realised he'd made the hole too big – there was room for two bodies there. But if I lie down here, who will fill it in for us?

Maybe the wind…

Ray knelt at Jackie's side, and tried to remember how to pray. He touched his mother's cross – nothing. He tried to remember her voice praying for him – at least one word to start him off – nothing. He dropped his hand into his pockets, felt around. A compass. He was scared to read it, to see what direction it was pointing in. He wouldn't be able to see it in this light, anyway. He could barely see Jackie's face.

There in the right pocket, was the flask he had bought with him. He twisted off the cap, touched Jackie's mouth, gently tugged so the stiff jaw would part slightly. Poured in some bourbon. Put the lid back on, and tucked the flask into the crook of his cousin's elbow. He folded the dead hands neatly across Jackie's hairy chest. The man was in nothing but his boxers. Ray wanted to cry, but there were no tears.

What else? What else did you do at a funeral?

Ray took coins from his pocket. Pennies for the ferry man, he thought, placing them on Jackie's eyes. It was dark, here in the grave, so he couldn't see it, the third eye, the bullet hole, but he could feel it, staring out accusingly from Jackie's forehead.

He wanted to say something – there was supposed to be a eulogy at a funeral, wasn't there?

There was nothing to say.

He climbed out of the pit, and started filling it in.

By the time he had finished, the sun was coming up. The sand and stone and twisted bridge were the colour of blood.

Only then did he realise why he'd dug a double grave.

His brother sat on the bridge, his legs dangling like a child's, guarding the spot.

"Mando?"

Armando said nothing.

"Are you coming?"

Armando lifted his blank gaze, then turned his head away.

Ray felt it in his heart, like some rotten fabric was being torn inside his chest. This was the last time he would ever see his brother. Jackie had betrayed him in every way, but even so, Armando couldn't leave him.

"Oh, Mando," Ray choked out, then turned and started back to the valley below.

The ghost would remain, guarding his cousin's bones till the sky fell in or the ferry-man came sailing across the Nevada desert.

Epilogue

And there was no punishment, at all.

Ray got back to the car, met somewhere in the middle of the desert with his bodyguards, one of whom took his vehicle to be disposed of, while the other drove him home.

He called the Feds' emergency number. Apparently he'd been gone four days. They'd pulled Amelia out of the op – they thought he'd been made, and would give her up under torture. Other than that everything remained the same. It was some weeks before he'd recovered physically – he and Sal put it about that he'd got food poisoning while abroad. He kept the drinking to night-time, and the drugs to when he needed them – more than when he'd had Amelia, less than when he'd had Hannah.

He met with Johnny three times a week, in the roadside diner, and they didn't talk about who killed Jackie, and they didn't talk about the drugs. None of that. He just tried not to turn up too obviously stoned.

He chased up the taxes until a new capo bastone could be found. He stood by and cleaned his nails while a loyal captain broke the kneecaps of one who was withholding payment. And eventually a new capo bastone was selected – the one who had 'taken care' of Pender. Ray sat with Sal, after the vote had been counted and the capos had gone, put his arm around his brother, and let him cry.

He celebrated Christmas with Sal's kids – Margarita's pregnancy was blooming. He didn't go to Mass.

He had sex with hookers, for old time's sake. It didn't help, for more than a moment.

He worked on the Muldoon contract – it was coming together nicely now.

And time passed, the merciless grind of days and weeks, and he forgot to count them. Sometimes it scared him, how much he felt like his own ghost. Sometimes, between meetings with the Feds, he almost forgot he'd ever had another home, or any other brother than Sal.

Until Muldoon finally decided on a venue for their meeting.

Chicago.