Last Call

Theo glanced down at Moses, who looked almost as befuddled as Theo felt. Theo didn't want to see his uncle's face, but he finally looked at him. "You lying to me, old man?"

Cy shook his head. "Put the gun away."

Theo looked at Jack, searching for some signal that this was all just a nightmare.

"Do as Cy says," Jack told him.

"Save yourself another useless trip to death row," said Andie, her aim steady.

Theo lowered his gun. He was staring into the darkness, making eye contact with no one. It was difficult to think clearly, but the same thoughts kept swirling in his head – the way his uncle had never been able to tell him a single good thing about his mother, the repeated hints about secrets surrounding her murder, the way he'd pressed Theo's hand to his heart and flat-out warned him: "The past will hurt you, boy. It will cut you open and laugh in your face."

"Hey!" Moses grunted. "Can somebody call 911 already?"

"Yeah," Theo said in a weak voice. "I think I need it."

Chapter 50

Theo wanted to kill his uncle. But not for murdering his mother.

"You were go

"You didn't have to lie to me like that," said Theo.

"I couldn't let you kill a man right in front of an FBI agent. No matter how much he deserved it."

The two men were sitting out on the wood deck behind Theo's town house. Venus was rising in the east, and Theo guessed that the sun would emerge in not too many more minutes. Both men were exhausted, but neither one had been able to think about going to bed. Not since the ministroke last summer had Theo seen the old man smoke a cigarette, but tonight was an exception. With everything that had happened at HAPP-Y Stables, Theo cut him some slack.

"Guess I was dead right about Moses," said Theo.

"Mmm-hmm," said Cy

They'd been over it several times already, each time pressing another bit of speculation into established fact. Moses had been a teenage punk in an Overtown gang in the 1980s. Redden was an Overtown developer who had just been named Miami businessman of the year. Portia Knight saw Redden on the evening news and recognized him as the frat boy who'd raped her fourteen years earlier. She made the fatal mistake of calling Redden instead of going to the police. For far less money than Portia had tried to extort from him, Redden hired Moses to slit her throat and silence her forever. It had been the perfect crime – until all those years later, when Moses and Isaac Reems, fellow inmates at TGK, got to trading war stories about the 'hood.

"Pretty ballsy move/' said Theo, "the way Isaac turned Moses' bragging against him and Redden. Isaac got two pretty big players – one inside, one outside – to help him bust out of prison."

"He got hisself killed. Almost got you killed, too."

Cy crushed out his cigarette and lit up another one.

"You go

"Mmm-hmm."

White wisps of smoke curled into the night air. Theo watched the leaves move in the huge gumbo-limbo overhead. The breeze was picking up, another sign of the coming dawn. Cy was smoking furiously.

"What's wrong?" said Theo.

"Nothin'."

"You go

"I said it's nothin'." Cy inhaled so deeply that it made him cough.

"You're lying again," said Theo.

The old man didn't respond.

Theo could have dropped the entire line of conversation, but in his heart he knew that if the sun came up and this remained unsaid, they would never, ever talk about it.

"Something you said before keeps gnawing at me," said Theo. "It was when you and me were alone in the new bar, doing the inspections. I could feel that there was something you needed to say. All you would tell me is to be careful about poking into my momma's murder. And then when I pushed you to explain, all you would say is that it ain't a story with a happy ending."

The ash on the end of Cy's cigarette was nearly an inch long. Theo wanted to walk over and flick it for him.

Cy said, "I don't want to talk about it no more."

"Well, I do" Theo scooted forward to the edge of his chair. "Tonight, when you told me you were the killer, that conversation flashed in my mind. It was like I was hearing your words again: "This ain't a story with a happy ending"'

Cy glanced at him nervously, his face clouded by smoke.

Theo said, "When we was in the bar, I figured all you meant was that my momma ended up dead. But the more I thought about it, that's too obvious. No need to say it, right? I knew my momma got killed, so why would you even bother warning me that the story don't have a happy ending?"

"I don't know. Why would I?"

"Last night, for a split second there, I thought maybe I had the answer. The unhappy ending you were warning me about wasn't my momma getting killed. It was when…"

"When what?"

"You know."

"When you found out I killed her?"

"Yeah. Like I said: Just for a split second there, that's what I thought you meant."

Cy was staring off toward the trees, avoiding Theo's gaze.

Theo was all the way to the edge of his chair, resting his forearms on his knees as he leaned toward his uncle. "That ain't what you meant, was it?"

Cy flicked his cigarette butt over the fence. Finally, he looked Theo in the eye. "You really want to know what I meant?"

Theo nodded. "Yeah. I do."

His uncle swallowed hard, and suddenly Theo wasn't so certain that he wanted to know. But it was too late to stop it now.

Cy folded his arms and said, "You never was good in math, was your

"What are you talking about?"

"Your momma was raped in the spring of 1972."

"So?"

"May 20, to be exact. When were you born?"

The question hit Theo like a punch to the chest. "February 17, 1973."

The two men locked eyes, and it was as if the earth had suddenly stopped spi

Cy dug a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. There were just two left. "You want a smoke?" he said.

Theo reached over and took one. His face glowed in the darkness as Cy lit it for him. Then he sat back in his chair and took a long pull.

"Ain't that a two-footed kick in the head?" said Theo, smoke tumbling from his lips.

"Mmm-hmm," the old man said. "With boots on."

Chapter 51

Theo told no one – except Jack.

Of course the media hounded him. They wanted details about the shootings that had left a distinguished businessman like Fernando Redden dead in his barn alongside a guy like Moses, a gang leader who was wanted for the murder of a Florida state trooper. Theo refused all interview requests. He didn't even watch the news on television, except for one short statement from Andie He

Mere mention of a possible co

Fernando Redden was buried on the Tuesday following his death. Theo didn't attend the funeral, but over breakfast Trina got so angry at the newspaper that she just had to read him the obituary – a quarter-page fluff piece about the son of Cuban exiles who "personified the American dream." Redden came off like the best thing to happen to housing for Overtown's poor since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There were even humorous anecdotes about "Fernando el Fantastico" – the compassionate friend, the generous philanthropist, the doting husband. Absent was any mention of the fact that, had he lived, he would have landed in jail for fraud and misuse of public housing funds. That information would not become public until the grand jury concluded its secret investigation and returned indictments against his corporation and shady business partners. It would get even uglier with Moses' three-count indictment for murder – Redden, the state trooper, and Portia Knight, though Moses could probably buy his way off death row by testifying against the corrections officer who helped Isaac escape.