Bruno looked past Leo at the key in Paul's hand, and I knew which man he would reach first. I moved between them. There was no automobile at my back, no running engine, no passenger waiting to tell me where to go. I had the yard under my shoes and Leo leaning against my shoulder. 'He's coming with you,' I said. Bruno caught Leo by the arm, looked at his face, and then shoved me aside. One of the men behind him started toward Paul.
Paul backed into a stack of empty crates. The first blow knocked them against the wall, and he went down on one knee among the splinters. I left Leo at the gatepost and caught Paul beneath the arm before the second man could reach him. I dragged him clear, taking a glancing fist against my cheek. He clawed at my coat as if I were pulling him from that wreck again. This time there was no fire. There were men making choices in daylight, and I was one of them.
I put Paul behind an upturned handcart and braced it with my foot. 'Enough.' Bruno came around it, breathing through his mouth. I told him to look at Leo instead of Paul. Leo had lowered himself onto a stone beside the gate, both hands planted on his knees. Bruno stopped long enough to see him. Frank remained in the workroom doorway. I could see his white knuckles against the frame, but he offered no help to the man who had been holding his key.
Paul gripped my elbow. 'Get me out of here.' I told him I had sold my car. He stared as though that were a trick played specially on him. Then he asked me to say he had only come back that afternoon. I shook his hand off. 'You barred the passage. You had the key.' Bruno heard me. So did Leo. These were things I had seen, not guesses about what Paul intended. Saving him from a beating did not require me to change them into something else.
Frank came out of the workroom, empty-handed. Behind him was Walt. Leo stepped away from the gatepost. I pulled him down just as a shot took a chip out of the top of it. Walt had the gun. He was trying for Paul. I could see what would happen if I left Paul where he was: Danny's family would have a second funeral to talk about and I would never have to tell them who had brought Danny to the first one. I heaved the handcart sideways. Paul rolled out from behind it. Bruno, standing in the open, fired once at Walt. He fell across Frank's shoes.
For a second I was the only one moving. I reached Walt first. I pressed my coat against him until his eyes quit following mine. I had wanted to face him when he had no boy in front of him. Now I had. Frank tried to step away and pulled his shoe right off. There it was in the mud, one good brown shoe with a broken lace and a dead man's sleeve over it. It is the part I remember about the settling of Danny Ives.
Bruno held the gun low. He said it was finished. "Not if you put the dead one down for everything," I said. I told his men, with Frank and Paul there to contradict me, who had summoned Danny, who had furnished Walt his ride, and whose property had been used to keep Leo under lock. Paul could have denied the ride. Instead he looked at Leo. "I drove Walt there. I told him Danny was bringing his car for Nico. Nobody had to make me." He said it with his hands hanging open. He hadn't admitted pulling the trigger, and I hadn't seen him do it. What he'd owned up to was the ride, in front of the men who had to live with it. When Frank tried to give Paul another order, the two young drivers from the crossing went past him and opened the gate for Leo.
I didn't ask Bruno for a price or a receipt. I wanted the car keys from his two drivers and Frank's keys to the yard. Bruno gave me the first pair when Leo asked for them. Frank looked back at that shoe and handed me his. With the gate wide I threw all three sets into the middle of the road where the owners could go pick them up themselves. Anybody who wanted a prisoner now would have to fetch him in front of the men he'd just released. I got Leo into the street. Paul stayed to answer for the ride; no part of my coat was going round him.
Leo wanted to walk. We went a block together before he was able to tell me whether his ribs hurt when he breathed. Behind us somebody was yelling for a doctor. I'd have yelled too, ten minutes earlier, for the man who had killed my friend. We got as far as the first crossing before I felt the weight of the gloves in my pocket. They had outlasted the car and the crew.