Valentine

(Frank Gusenberg Refuses to Implicate His Assassins) These coppers’ concern is real enough. I should be glad of that. One of them, husky smoke-smelling Irish lad, grips me by my lapels. Who did it, Frank? and always, Who did it? Shake, shake. Something in me shifts outward, expanding. They fear I will diffuse entirely with my secrets. They photograph my brother’s brains. A beat-cop coming after spreads sawdust on the blood like loose handfuls of feed thrown by a kid farmboy, so bored, thinking of lunch or his girl waking late at The Virginia, the Del Prado, or even this 'tough' hitching breath after bubbling hitching breath. The Irish shakes again, then gentler, seeming to think although myself’s a loss the shaking might loosen the secret, spilling it out of my belly before flashbulbs and sawdust have a chance to freeze it. Frank, Frankie, he says, Tell us who... - Behind, a captain watching my face lays a hand on Irish’s shoulder, and then, alarmed then, squeezes the broadcloth, just so. I lick my lips. What could I tell them? Capone? McGurn? Four men in just such uniforms as yours? But when the truth comes out I have of course been finished by a blonde I’ve never known. And already wandering I see this farmboy’s hotel girl brushing her hair in a big mirror that’s a whole month’s wages: One hundred strokes left, then right. Her print kimono loose-tied, she might be dull or thoughtful, cadges a smoke from his pack, runs a bath, fleetingly imagines the future like a train bearing down fast. These boys’ concern is real. But I have killed myself, like all men do. And lacking even the dignity or indignity of bringing a shivering pile of guts clutched-in already cooling to you is enough without these kids who even as I die make me their hope, their trick, their crash averted. I cough. I tell 'em “No one. Nobody shot me.” I cough. I need a drink. The Irish holds me as if he's the one who's gone.