“Then he comes for you.”
“Okay, sure. But why the fuck should he spare your life for thirty lousy grains of rice? Why shouldn’t he want the whole thing for himself and grow his own damn rice?”
“People own land....”
“Is that right? And where’d they get it from?”
“They bought it?”
“From who? You keep going back far enough, kid, what you find out is, they fought for it.”
“So?”
“So why don’t the sorry motherfucker getting the thirty grains of rice fight for it too?”
“The law—”
“Was written by the motherfuckers who got the land now, see?”
“Yeah. And they got the police and the army and everything else to protect that land.”
“That isn’t all, kid. What you think the Welfare Department is all about? Or the fucking methadone ... any of that giveaway shit?”
“I don’t see how it’s the same. If—”
“The Welfare, that’s the thirty grains of rice. You can live off it but you can’t live on it, you understand? And the methadone, to a dope fiend, that’s the thirty grains.”
“Dope fiends don’t vote, Wes.”
“The fuck they don’t—winos vote on election day, right?”
“Yeah, for a bottle of wine.”
“So the dope fiends...”
“I get it.”
“Yeah. So what? Even I can see that.”
“What do you mean, Wesley?”
“That kind of crap just plain hits you in the face. They got to have systems, you know? Like in the joint. Just a few hacks ... and a fucking regiment of cons, right? But nobody ever walks over the Wall.”
“The Man has the guns.”
“Bullshit! He don’t have the guns in the blocks, on the tiers, right? The guards are unarmed, but we let him lay, because we don’t even trust each other. It’s real easy my way—black and white, us against them, period. I did it for Carmine ... but now I don’t know who to do it for. It can’t be for me....”
“Why not? If you risk your life like you do, then...”
“I’m already dead. I’m tired. I don’t want to be here anymore, kid.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“I know. That means you can still be here, you see? It can still be for you.”
74/
Wesley went upstairs and focused on the fourth-floor wall for a long while. Then he went down to the kid’s room in the garage.
“I saw on the news last night that Poppa Doc’s faggot son is coming to this country.”
“From Haiti?” the kid asked.
“Yeah. That fat, greasy nigger is running the show down there his way. I knew a guy in the joint that lived under his old man— he said Poppa Doc was the Devil, straight up.”
“So?”
“I’m going to blow him up.”
“Why? I don’t get it, Wesley. You call him a nigger, right? And all that’s going to be getting anything behind you wasting this cocksucker is another bunch of niggers....”
“Like Carmine said ... that maggot is a nigger, right? An ugly word for a black bastard with a greedy heart and bloody hands. But the others he’s got locked up there, they ain’t niggers, kid— they’re people like us, right? Like you, anyway.”
“You going to hit him for...?”
“I wish it was for me. Maybe it will be for me after it happens. If it works in Haiti...”
“Hit the Boss here?”
“You know, it’s not that hard. I studied assassinations for years. Every day, every way. The reason we don’t hit presidents here too much is that we afraid to die.... In some countries, they do it all the time. Look at the different styles; you’re going to hit a big man here, how you do it?”
“A rifle,” the kid replied. “Like at the bridge.”
“Right. In Latin America, or in the Orient, you take a goddamn machete and you jump right into the bastard’s limo, or up on the stage, or...”
“But you’d never—”
“Get out alive, right?” Wesley interrupted. “But, see, you’re not doing it for no money. You got some people you protecting—your mother and your children and your neighbors and all that, right? It’s worth it ... it fucking must be worth it.”
“It don’t seem to work here—that guy, who shot Wallace...”
“He was a whacko, kid. A stone freak, probably came behind pulling the trigger. He wasn’t a pro. I was that close, I’d have so much lead into him it’d take a fucking crane to get him off the ground.”
“That clown who shot the black preacher, wasn’t he...?”
“That was a fix, kid—just like at the fucking track. Let me tell you what happened, okay? Somebody came to him in the joint, told him he was pulling The Book anyway, didn’t have nothing to lose. So here’s the proposition: he hits the preacher and escapes, he’s ahead and he’s rich. He hits the preacher and they snatch him ... and they agree in front not to total him when they make the capture ... all he gets is another stretch. You can’t do no more than one Life, right? And in that joint, he’s a fucking hero behind hitting that preacher, too.
“Kid, you know how hard it is to hit a man right and walk away from it. You know how long I’ve worked at it. And that’s just here. I wouldn’t drive no fucking registered car to Memphis, hit him with that lousy gun he had, and then try the phony passport thing. He didn’t even have a safe house to crawl into ... no cover, nothing. The slob only fired one shot, too. Then he panicked.
“Just a fucking redneck jerk that they used, kid ... one of the bullets.”
“That book I read about it said—”
“A book! Jesus, books are good for science, but they ain’t shit for truth. I’ll prove it to you ... you always reading about crime, right?”
“Especially about murders....”
“Okay. Tell me what you know about the Taylor Twins murders.”
“Right. Two rich broads get all ripped up in their fancy apartment. The cops snag this black guy in Brooklyn. He’s retarded and scared. They beat a confession outta him, but they can’t make it stand up because there was some real obvious bullshit going on, and he gets cut loose. Anyway, to make it short, they finally get the actual killer, a Puerto Rican junkie. He confesses ... and he goes down for Double Life upstate.”
“Yeah. And here’s the truth. Langford was the name of the black guy, right? And Gonzales was the name of the Latin dude, right?”
“Right. They even had a TV show on about it.”
“Okay. Now understand this—Gonzales didn’t kill those girls.”
“How you know for sure?”
“Because I know the guy who did it. Pet and I did a job for this creep—it was hitting this old man. See, the old man was all mobbed up and he found this creep had tortured his daughter ... for fun, right? Anyway, the girl didn’t die and the outfit wouldn’t allow the creep to be killed, just messed up. But the old man wasn’t going for that; he put out a contract on his own. They paid us to hit the old man ... and they fixed it so’s the creep would pay us direct, you understand?”
“Dirty motherfuckers,” the kid snarled.
“That’s the way they do their business, kid. Anyway, when I went to this penthouse, the weasel treated me like I was like him, you know ... another fucking sex-freak? He told me he used to go to their apartment and tie the both of them up—you know, like it was okay with them. At least that’s what the freak said. Anyway, one time he got carried away and wasted them—he even kept some of their clothes in his place. For trophies, like. He was laughing his ass off at Gonzales doing time for that mess.”
“What did you do?”
“I did him.”
“For Gonzales?”
“For me. The freak was really bent out of shape and I didn’t know what he’d do next—he’d seen my face. I was going to write to Gonzales or something but I got the word that some people wanted him to stay down for that job and I couldn’t do it w
ithout exposing myself.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. Jesus. The poor sonofabitch Gonzales. I heard later he flipped out. They got his ass up in Matteawan.”
“Isn’t there something...?”
“I’m going to hit Fat Boy.”
75/
The next morning found Wesley driving the Caddy up the West Side Highway toward Times Square. Fat Boy was going to arrive in America by boat to promote Haiti’s new shipping industry. He was slated to arrive at the Grace Line Pier on the luxury liner Liberté. Wesley had planned to get as close to the scene as he could. But as he passed by Pier 40 on the highway, his eye caught a new building apparently under construction right across from the Pier.
He turned off the highway at 23rd Street and drove back downtown until he was parked across a narrow street from the rear of the new building. It was almost finished. In deference to New York tradition, the windows hadn’t been put in yet—not much sense to do that without a full-time security guard. Wesley counted eight stories. A tractor-trailer rumbled by on its way to one of the waterfront warehouses.
Wesley walked across the street to a steel door set flush into the back of the building. It was freshly painted red, with a new Yale lock. He opened the door as if he belonged there, and went inside. It was only moderately noisy—the construction crew had just about finished, and only the final touches remained. Wesley had a few quick seconds to notice an unfinished staircase leading to higher floors before a small man with an enormous beer belly screamed over to him, “Hey! You from Collicci’s?”
“Yeah!” Wesley shouted back.
“Where’s the stuff?”
“In the truck. Be right back.”
Wesley was a couple of blocks away before the man inside had time to give things another thought. He drove all the way down to where they were finishing the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, then reversed his field and drove by the front of the building again. It was a long shot to the Pier, but not anything all that spectacular.
That night, Wesley made the run again and found the building was completely dark. Fat Boy was due to arrive in two days—that would make it a Saturday. The papers said twelve noon.
The kid was waiting for him when he pulled into the garage. “You still going ahead with it?”
“Yeah. For sure now. It’s easy as hell to get in—there’s a clear shot from the top floor, and plenty of room up there ... perfect. You got the schedule?”
“Yeah,” the kid said. “He’s supposed to arrive at noon, but it could be as much as an hour and a half later, depending on the ocean. Weather report says fair and clear; high in the nineties, low in the high seventies. The Mayor’s going to welcome him and there’s going to be a big crowd ... and a big demonstration, too.”
“Who?” Wesley asked.
“Some exiled Haitians who think this country shouldn’t let him come....”
“They’ll be glad he did.”
“Where’ll I be?”
“Right here, watching the TV for the news. Aren’t they going to cover it live?”
“Yeah, fuck that! Why should I be here?”
“I don’t need you.”
“You got the whole thing figured?”
“Yeah, I told you ... you got the sextant?”
“Look, Wesley, I got everything you said. But you left out something.”
“What?”
“After you hit him, right? How you going to come out?”
“I guess I’m not.”
“No good.”
“No good! What the fuck do you mean, ‘no good’? Who’re you to— ?”
“I know who I am ... and this is fucked up, Wesley. It’s not what you said.”
Wesley watched the kid carefully. “How isn’t it?”
“You killing this faggot as an experiment, right? Sure, it’ll maybe help a bunch of other people ... but you’re going to see, right? If it works, then we going someplace else, right? That rifle’s no machete, Wesley ... and you’re no Latin American, either.”
“Look, I...”
“I know. But you can’t go home behind this one, Wesley. I won’t keep you past the right time.”
“You can’t keep me.”
“Yes, I can. Because you owe me, like Pet owed you.”
Wesley focused on the kid’s face, seeing deep into his skull. “What’re you saying?”
“Didn’t the old man look you in the face when you sent him home?” the kid demanded.
“You know he did.”
“Then you need to look me in the face before you go, too, Wesley.”
76/
1:45 a.m., Saturday. The Ford pulled up outside the red steel door. The kid sat behind the wheel with a .12 gauge Ithaca pump gun across his knees. He held a Ruger .44 Magnum in his right hand. The engine was running, but it was impossible to hear, even with an ear against the fender. Wesley climbed out of the passenger seat and walked quickly to the door. He pulled a clear plastic bag from under his coat and extracted a long, thin tube of putty-colored material. He applied the plastique evenly all around the door, between it and the frame ... an extra blob went over the handle. A string hung loose from the blob. Wesley pulled the string hard and moved quickly back across the street in the same motion.
The putty briefly sparked—there was a flash and a muted popping sound. The street was still empty. Wesley grabbed the large suitcase from the back seat, swung the duffel bag over his shoulder, and got out again.
The kid looked across at him. “Wesley, I’ll have the radio tuned to pick up the TV station. I’ll move under a minute or so just before, okay?”
“I’ll be coming out, kid.”
“I know.”
The Ford remained idling on the street until Wesley crossed and threw open the red steel door. He tossed his gear on the dark floor and closed the door from the inside, just as the kid crossed the street holding a gasoline-soaked rag. The kid wiped down the outside of the door as Wesley attached the floor-mounted brace from the inside. Working in unison even though they could no longer see each other, the kid and Wesley each broke open a full tube of Permabond and squeezed a beady trail of the liquid all around the edges of the door. The kid smacked the door sharply twice with an open palm to tell Wesley that it looked fine from the outside now—in a few minutes the door wouldn’t open unless it was blasted again. The body language of the men he’d seen told Wesley that finishing this building wasn’t a rush job, and a phone call had told him no work crew was scheduled for Saturday.
Wesley began to plan out his moves ... then he realized that his open hand was still pressed against the door in unconscious imitation of the way people said good-bye to each other in the Tombs—palms pressed against the cloudy plexiglass....
The kid, driving the Ford back toward the Slip, was thinking too, looking for clues. He didn t take the dog with him, the kid said to himself, finally relaxing. He drove professionally the rest of the way.
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