we 'd driven along the docks , rolled past old ironsides and the naval quarters and once-dingy warehouses and tanker-repair hangars converted into pricey condos , rumbled along the cracked roads that skirted the burned-out shells of long-forgotten fisheries at the edge of the land mass , where more than one wise guy had gazed at his final vista of moonlight bathing the mystic river as a bullet cracked through a breech and into his head .