To his surprise, the crowd took a few steps back and Danny opened the door and pulled the shaking girl across the seat. Several people let out whoops and claps, and Danny hugged Arabella to his body and headed for the sidewalk. She clutched her hands to her chest and Danny could feel something hard and square under her arms. He looked in her eyes, but all he saw there was fear.
Danny held tight to Arabella and nodded his thanks to the people he passed. He gave Finch one last look and gestured up the street with his head. Another smattering of cheers broke out and the crowd began to thin around the car. Finch nudged the car forward a few feet and the mob backed up farther and the tires rolled. Then the first orange hit. The fruit was cold and sounded more like a rock. That was followed by an apple, then a potato, and then the car was pelted with fruit and vegetables. But it made steady progress up Salem Street. Some urchins ran alongside, shouting at it, but there were smiles on their faces and the jeers from the crowd had a festive air to them.
Danny reached the sidewalk and Mrs. DiMassi took her niece from him and led her toward the stairs. Danny watched the taillights of Finch’s Hudson reach the corner. Steve Coyle stood beside him, wiping his head with a handkerchief and looking out at the street littered with half-frozen fruit.
“Calls for a drink, uh?” He handed Danny his flask.
Danny took a drink but said nothing. He looked at Arabella Mosca huddled in her aunt’s arms. He wondered whose side he was on anymore.
“I’m going to need to talk to her, Mrs. DiMassi.”
Mrs. DiMassi looked up into his face.
“Now,” he said.
Arabella Mosca was a small woman with wide almond eyes and short blue-black hair. She didn’t speak a word of English outside of hello, good-bye, and thank you. She sat on the couch in her aunt’s sitting room, her hands still clenched within Mrs. DiMassi’s, and she had yet to remove her coat.
Danny said to Mrs. DiMassi, “Could you ask her what she’s hiding beneath her coat?”
Mrs. DiMassi glanced at her niece’s coat and frowned. She pointed and asked her to open her coat.
Arabella tilted her chin down toward her chest and shook her head vehemently.
“Please,” Danny said.
Mrs. DiMassi wasn’t the type to say “please” to a younger relative. Instead, she slapped her. Arabella barely reacted. She lowered her head farther and shook it again. Mrs. DiMassi reared back on the couch and cocked her arm.
Danny stuck his upper body between them. “Arabella,” he said in halting Italian, “they will deport your husband.”
Her chin came off her chest.
He nodded. “The men in straw hats. They will.”
A torrent of Italian flew from Arabella’s mouth and Mrs. DiMassi held up a hand, Arabella talking so fast even she seemed to be having trouble following. She turned to Danny.
“She said they can’t do this. He has job.”
“He’s an illegal,” Danny said.
“Bah,” she said. “Half this neighborhood illegal. They deport everyone?”
Danny shook his head. “Just the ones who annoy them. Tell her.”
Mrs. DiMassi held her hand out below Arabella’s chin. “Dammi quel che tieni sotto il cappotto, o tuo marito passera’il prossimo Natale a Palermo.”
Arabella said, “No, no, no.”
Mrs. DiMassi cocked her arm again and spoke as fast as Arabella. “Questi Americani ci trattano come cani. Non ti permettero’di umiliarmi dinanzi ad uno di loro. Apri il cappotto, o te lo strappo di dosso!”
Whatever she said — Danny caught “American dogs” and “don’t disgrace me” — it worked. Arabella opened her coat and removed a white paper bag. She handed it to Mrs. DiMassi who handed it to Danny.
Danny looked inside and saw a stack of paper. He pulled out the top sheet:
While you rest and kneel, we worked. We executed.
This is the beginning, not the end. Never the end.
Your childish god and childish blood run to the sea.
Your childish world is next.
Danny showed the note to Steve and said to Mrs. DiMassi, “When was she supposed to distribute these?”
Mrs. DiMassi spoke to her niece. Arabella started to shake her head, then stopped. She whispered a word to Mrs. DiMassi who turned back to Danny. “Sundown.”
He turned back to Steve. “How many churches have a late mass?”
“In the North End? Two, maybe three. Why?”
Danny pointed at the note. “‘While you rest and kneel.’ Yeah?”
Steve shook his head. “No.”
“You rest on the Sabbath,” Danny said. “You kneel in church. And at the end — your blood runs to the sea. Gotta be a church near the waterfront.”
Steve went to Mrs. DiMassi’s phone. “I’m calling it in. What’s your guess?”
“There’s only two churches that fit. Saint Teresa’s and Saint Thomas’s.”
“Saint Thomas doesn’t have an evening mass.”
Danny headed for the door. “You’ll catch up?”
Steve smiled, phone to his ear. “Me and my cane, sure.” He waved Danny off. “Go, go. And, Dan?”
Danny paused at the door. “Yeah?”
“Shoot first,” he said. “And shoot often.”
St. Teresa’s stood at the corner of Fleet and Atlantic across from Lewis Wharf. One of the oldest churches in the North End, it was small and starting to crumble. Danny bent to catch his breath, his shirt drenched in sweat from his run. He pulled his watch from his pocket: five-forty-eight. Mass would end soon. If, like Salutation, the bomb was in the basement, about the only thing to do would be to rush into the church and order everyone out. Steve had made the call, so the bomb squad couldn’t be far off. But if the bomb was in the basement, why hadn’t it detonated? Parishioners had been in there for over forty-five minutes. Ample time to blow out the floor beneath them….
Danny heard it then, off in the distance, the first siren, the first patrol car leaving the Oh-One, surely followed by others.
The intersection was quiet, empty — a few jalopies parked in front of the church, none of them more than a step removed from a horse-drawn cart, though a couple had been maintained with pride. He scanned the rooftops across the street, thinking: Why a church? Even for anarchists, it seemed political suicide, especially in the North End. Then he remembered that the only reason any churches in the neighborhood offered early-evening mass had been to cater to workers deemed so “essential” during the war they couldn’t be afforded a day off on the Sabbath. “Essential” meant some connection, however broad, to the military — men and women who worked with arms, steel, rubber, or industrial alcohol. So this church wasn’t just a church, it was a military target.
Inside the church, dozens of voices rose in hymn. He had no choice — get the people out. Why the bomb hadn’t gone off yet, he couldn’t say. Maybe he was a week early. Maybe the bomber was having trouble with the detonation — anarchists often did. There were dozens of plausible reasons for the lack of an explosion, but none of them would mean shit if he let the worshippers die. Get them to safety, then worry about questions or possible egg on his face. For now, just get them the fuck out.
He started across the street and noticed that one of the jalopies was double-parked.
There was no need for it. There were plenty of spaces on both sides of the street. The only stretch of curb that wasn’t free was directly in front of the church. And that’s where the car was double-parked. It was an old Rambler 63 coupe, probably 1911 or ’12. Danny paused in the middle of the street, just froze as the skin along his throat and under his arms grew clammy. He expelled a breath and moved again, quicker now. As he drew closer to the car, he could see the driver slouched low behind the wheel, a dark hat pulled down his forehead. The sound of the siren grew sharper and was joined by several more. The driver sat up. His left hand was on the wheel. Danny couldn’t see his right.