Chapter 4 - The Telegram from BostonIn Boston, three hundred miles away, the fourth-floor office above the harbor was dark except for the amber glow of a single brass desk lamp.
Gino Castellano stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of amber whiskey in his left hand, his thumb rubbing the rim with slow, circular precision. Below him, the container ships moved through the black water like iron leviathans, their deck lights blinking red and green against the greasy tide.
The door behind him opened without a sound.
Sierra Voss walked in, her heels clicking sharp and rhythmic against the imported Italian marble. She wasn't wearing her coat. She wore a dark silk dress that caught the greenish reflection of the harbor lights, and in her left hand, she carried the small, heavy box Rocco had thrown across the table four days ago before he told her to get out.
"He's in Cedar Hollow," Sierra said. Her voice had none of the warmth she used to fake when Rocco was sitting across from her. It sounded like glass sliding over gravel.
Gino didn't turn around. He took a slow sip of his whiskey, the ice cubes clinking softly against his gold-filled teeth. "I know where he is. The station agent at Grafton called three hours ago to say a cripple in a broken chair bought a one-way ticket on the milk train with a handful of silver quarters."
"Why didn't you stop him?" Sierra set the box down on the mahogany desk. It landed with a heavy, dull thud that made the crystal decanter shiver.
Gino turned then. His face was gray in the harbor light, his eyes small and flat like two lead shot pressed into dough. "Because Rocco is like his father. You can't chain a dog that wants to bite the hand that feeds him, Sierra. You have to let him run until he finds out the chain was bolted to his own collar."
"He has the books," she said, her voice dropping an octave. "The ones from the old yard. The ones your brother left in the floorboards before he went down the mountain."
Gino walked slowly toward the desk, his footsteps silent on the thick Persian rug. He reached out with one finger and touched the lid of the box Sierra had brought back.
"Thomas was a fool," Gino said softly. "He thought a mine was like a family—you dig deep enough, you find something that doesn't rot. But a mine's just a hole in the ground that wants to close its mouth."
He picked up a small, folded slip of yellow paper that had been tucked inside the box—a telegram bearing the stamp of the West Virginia Western Union office.
“THE BOY HAS THE LEDGER. THE GIRL HAS THE KEY. SEND THE CARS.”
May you like
Gino smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression; it was the look of a man who had spent sixty years watching people dig their own graves and charging them rent for the shovel.
"Tell Ray’s old boy—the one with the stutter who runs the scrap yard in Wheeling—to take three men and a flatbed," Gino said without looking at her. "Tell him to bring my nephew home before the snow sets in. And if the girl gets in the way..." He paused, his thumb tracing the corner of the telegram. "...tell him timber burns better when it's green."
