Darkness, Take My Hand Read Online Free PDF

ever heard, and he was a legend in his circles, the man who’d survived four different bosses, three family wars, and whose enemies had a habit of disappearing so completely people soon forgot they’d ever lived. Sitting at the table, he seemed a perfectly normal, almost bland guy: handsome, possibly, but not in any way that stuck in the memory; he was probably five eleven or six feet with dirty blond hair and green eyes and an average build.
    Just being in the same room with him made my skull tingle.
    Angie and I sat down and Fat Freddy said, “Prostates.”
    “Excuse me?” Angie said.
    “Prostates,” Freddy repeated. He poured coffee from a pewter pot into a cup, handed it to Angie. “Not something your gender has to worry about half as much as ours.” He nodded at me as he handed me my cup, then nudged the cream and sugar in our direction. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “I’ve reached the height of my profession, my daughter just got accepted to Harvard, and financially, I want forlittle.” He shifted in his chair, grimaced enough so that his huge jowls rolled in toward the center of his face and completely obscured his lips for a moment. “But, I swear, I’d trade it all in tomorrow for a healthy prostate.” He sighed. “You?”
    “What?” I said.
    “Have a healthy prostate?”
    “Last time I checked, Mr. Constantine.”
    He leaned forward. “Count your blessings, my young friend. Count them twice. A man without a healthy prostate is…” He spread his hands on the table. “Well, he’s a man without secrets, a man without dignity. Those doctors, Jesus, they flop you down on your stomach and they go in there with their evil little tools and they poke and they prod, they tear and they—”
    “Sounds terrible,” Angie said.
    It slowed him down, thank God.
    He nodded. “Terrible isn’t quite the word.” He looked at her suddenly as if he’d just noticed her. “And you, my dear, are far too exquisite to be subjected to such talk.” He kissed her hand and I tried not to roll my eyes. “I know your grandfather quite well, Angela. Quite well.”
    Angie smiled. “He’s proud of the association, Mr. Constantine.”
    “I’ll be sure to tell him I had the pleasure of meeting his lovely granddaughter.” He looked at me and his twinkling eyes faded a bit. “And you, Mr. Kenzie, you’re keeping a careful eye on this woman, making sure she keeps out of harm’s way?”
    “This woman does a pretty good job of that herself, Mr. Constantine,” Angie said.
    Fat Freddy’s eyes stayed on me, growing darker by the second, like he wasn’t too keen on what he saw. He said, “Our friends will join us in just a minute.”
    As Freddy leaned back to pour himself another cup of coffee, I heard one of the bodyguards out front say, “Go right on in, Mr. Rouse,” and Angie’s eyes widened slightly as Jack Rouse and Kevin Hurlihy came through the door.
    Jack Rouse controlled Southie, Charlestown, and everything between Savin Hill and the Neponset River in Dorchester. He was thin, hard, and his eyes matched the gunmetal of his close-cropped hair. He didn’t look particularly threatening, but he didn’t have to—he had Kevin for that.
    I’ve known Kevin since we were six, and nothing that lives in his brain or his bloodstream has ever been stained by a humane impulse. He walked through the door, avoided looking at Pine or even acknowledging him, and I knew Pine was who Kevin aspired to be. But Pine was all stillness and economy, while Kevin was a walking exposed nerve, his pupils lit with a battery charge, the kind of guy who might shoot everyone in the place simply because the idea occurred to him. Pine was scary because killing was a job to him, no different than a thousand others. Kevin was scary because killing was the only job he wanted, and he’d do it for free.
    The first thing he did after shaking Freddy’s hand was sit down beside me and put his cigarette out in my coffee cup. Then he ran a