“They might not have a choice,” Danny said.

“Ain’t about choice to them,” Luther said. “Ain’t about rights or a fair shake or any of that shit. You think you’re calling their bluff. Problem is, they ain’t bluffing.”

Luther sat back and Danny did, too, and they ate the rest of their peanuts and in the fifth they had a couple beers and a couple hot dogs and waited to see if Ruth would break the AL home run record. He didn’t, though. He went zero for four and made two errors. An un-characteristic game for him all around, and some fans wondered aloud if he’d come down with something, or if he was just hungover.

On the walk back from Fenway, Luther’s heart was banging away in his chest. It had been happening all summer, rarely for any particular reason. His throat would close up and his chest would flood with what felt like warm water and then bang-bang-bang-bang, his heart would just start going crazy.

As they walked along Mass. Ave., he looked over at Danny, saw Danny watching him carefully.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Danny said.

Luther stopped for a moment. Exhausted. Wiped out from carrying it. He looked over at Danny. “I’d have to trust you with something bigger than anyone ever trusted you with something in their lives.”

Danny said, “You tended to Nora when no one else would. That means more to me even than saving my life. You loved my wife, Luther, when I was too stupid to. Whatever you need from me?” Danny touched his chest. “You got.”

An hour later, standing over the bump of land that was Clayton Tomes’s grave in the backyard of the Shawmut Avenue building, Danny said, “You’re right. This is big. Fucking huge.”

In the house, they sat on the empty floor. It was almost done now, very little left but trim work and the painting. Luther finished telling all of it, every last bit, right down to the day last month when he’d picked the lock on the toolbox McKenna had given him. It had taken him twenty minutes, and one look inside told him everything.

No wonder it was so heavy.

Pistols.

He’d checked them, one by one, found that they were all well oiled and in good condition, though hardly new. Loaded, too. Twelve of them. A dozen loaded guns meant to be found on the day the Boston police decided to raid the NAACP and make it look like an army readying for a race war.

Danny sat silent for a long time and drank from his flask. Eventually, he handed it across to Luther. “He’ll kill you regardless.”

“I know it,” Luther said. “Ain’t me I’m concerned with. It’s Yvette. She’s like a mother to me. And I can see him, you know, just for the hell of it? ’Cause she’s what he call ‘nigger bourgeoisie’? He’ll kill her for fun. He definitely want to jail her. That’s what the guns are all about.”