Blackstone and the Wolf of Wall Street (33 page)

‘Nothing like that,' Blackstone answered. ‘I have to say goodbye to a friend.'

‘Goodbye? Or
au revoir
?' Flynn asked, detecting something in the other man's tone.

‘I don't know,' Blackstone admitted. ‘Only time will tell.' He walked over to the door, then turned on the threshold. ‘You know what you said about returning to Ireland?'

‘Yes?'

‘I wouldn't, if I were you.'

‘And why might that be?'

‘There's been a lot of blood spilled there in the past – and there'll be more spilled in the future. And I wouldn't like to think that some of it might end up sticking to
your
hands.'

‘You can't think about it like that,' Flynn said, mockingly throwing Blackstone's own words back at him. ‘You just have to do what you believe is right, and hope that people don't get hurt in the process.'

The train was almost ready to leave the station, but Ellie Carr still seemed reluctant to board it.

‘Don't worry, you'll charm Chicago just like you've charmed New York,' Blackstone said.

‘Yeah, I'm a real little charmer, ain't I?' Ellie said. ‘A bleedin' world champion!' She paused. ‘It don't seem to 'ave much effect on you, though, does it, Sam?'

‘You
do
charm me,' Blackstone said awkwardly.

‘But not enough to make you get on the train with me?'

‘No, not enough for that. I can't just follow you around for the rest of my life. I have to
work
, Ellie. I have to do the job I
was
born to do – because if I don't, I'm nothing.'

A serious – almost sorrowful – expression came to Ellie's face, as if she were about to say something of great significance. Then, slowly, the expression drained away, and was replaced by a cheeky grin.

‘Course yer can't come wiv me,' she said. ‘Yer an 'ero, ain't yer? An' 'eroes 'ave got to stay around to be admired.'

Blackstone smiled. ‘I might be a hero today, but it won't last,' he said.

‘Bloody right, it won't,' Ellie agreed. ‘Before this train even reaches Chicago, you'll have managed to get up right up the nose of
somebody
important.'

The guard blew his whistle, and as they kissed Blackstone told himself – not for the first time – that he was probably certifiably insane. Then Ellie climbed aboard, and the train pulled away.

Blackstone walked across the station, to where Meade was waiting for him.

‘You should have gone with her,' Meade said.

‘I know,' Blackstone agreed.

‘But since you didn't, you might consider taking an excursion to Sing Sing Prison,' Meade suggested.

‘Now why would I do that?' Blackstone wondered aloud.

‘Because Harold Holt wants to talk to you,' Meade told him.

The prison uniform was at least two sizes too large for him, and hung off Harold's thin shoulders like the loose skin on a chicken's neck. And yet, Blackstone thought, he did not look in the least pathetic, because the strength which he had been hiding for so long had finally been allowed to come to the surface.

‘I want you to speak to the District Attorney,' he said. ‘I want you to persuade him not to ask for the death penalty for my brother.'

‘Nothing
I
could say would influence him,' Blackstone told him. ‘But even if I could swing it, why would I?'

‘Because everything was my fault. I was the leader, and George merely followed my lead.'

That wasn't what he'd said just before he and his brother had been arrested, Blackstone thought.

Back then, he'd turned to his brother with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘
You have to see that none of this would have happened if only you'd been a different man
.'

‘Maybe a great deal of it
was
your fault,' Blackstone said to Harold, ‘but it was George who started it, when he killed your father.'

‘Do you
really
still think that?' Harold asked, amazed. ‘Can you still believe that George could have had the nerve to kill the man who so terrified him?'

‘So you're saying that
you
killed him?'

‘Of course it was me! I went to see him again that night, after the police had left. I told him that of all the despicable things he'd done in his life, making his own son's wife get down on her knees to him – like a common whore – was the worst. And he laughed at me. He said he hadn't
made her
do anything. He said she'd been more than willing – that she'd appreciated being with a
real
man for once.'

‘It must have been hard to take,' Blackstone said, sympathetically.

‘I showed him the knife I'd brought with me – and he laughed again,' Harold continued. ‘As I advanced towards him, he made no effort to defend himself. Why should he? It was only weak, nervous Harold. But he stopped laughing when I stuck the knife in his guts – stuck it in, and twisted it around. Then, he was screaming in agony. Then, he was begging me –
begging me
– to stop. But I didn't stop – not until I was absolutely certain that he'd reached the point where he couldn't feel pain any longer.'

‘And you have no regrets?' Blackstone asked.

‘None,' Harold told him. ‘I felt then – as I still feel now – that that was the happiest moment of my life.'

She was standing in front of the prison, looking up at the long soulless block in which Blackstone had just visited her husband. There was an intensity to her gaze which suggested that she thought she might be doing some good – that, somehow, just by staring at those blank walls, she could bring her husband a little comfort.

She was still a beautiful woman, Blackstone thought, but she had aged at least ten years in the past few days.

He wondered whether or not he should speak to her, but as he drew closer, she showed no signs of resenting his approach.

‘How often do you come here?' he asked.

‘Every day.'

‘I didn't realize you were such a devoted wife.'

‘Nor did I. But perhaps that is because, until recently, I never appreciated my husband – never saw the strength that lay within him.'

Perhaps if you had, you'd never have betrayed him with his own father, Blackstone thought.

‘Did you know that it was Harold who killed Big Bill?' Virginia asked.

‘Not until he told me, less than half an hour ago.'

‘I had always assumed it was big, beefy George who had done it. It was a great shock to learn the truth, but, almost immediately, I began to see Harold in a new light.'

‘Was that because you finally understood that he loved you so much he was willing to kill for you?'

‘He certainly killed for love, but not for the love of me,' Virginia said, perhaps a little sadly.

‘Then for who?' Blackstone wondered.

‘For George, his dear brother.'

Who Harold had once blamed for their predicament, but now no longer seemed to, Blackstone thought. But what exactly
had
he meant when he said, ‘
You have to see that none of this would have happened if only you'd been a different man
'?

‘I don't understand how, when Harold killed his father, he was doing it for his brother's sake,' Blackstone admitted.

‘George should have taken his own revenge on his father. But George couldn't – so Harold did it for him.'

‘Revenge for what?'

‘You really don't know, do you?' Virginia asked.

‘No', Blackstone confessed. ‘I really don't know.'

‘It wasn't me on my knees before Big Bill when Knox burst into the study,' Virginia said. ‘It was my sister-in-law, Elizabeth.'