A Bomb Built in Hell

by Andrew Vachss

  “So what?”

  “So what? Don’t be a fucking punk, so what! You got a lot to do.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get out the Hole. And while you’re there, be thinking about this—that cocksucker was twice as big as you, but you almost dropped him anyway, because you took him by surprise with hot anger. If you took him in his sleep with cold anger, what you think would have happened?”

  18/

  The thirty days in the box wasn’t so bad. Carmine had books and cigarettes smuggled in by the runners. The guards transmitted the daily messages from Carmine. His notes were always instructions.

  practice not moving a muscle until you can do it all the time between meals

  practice breathing so shallow your chest don t move

  think about the person you hate most in the world and smile

  the head plans the hands kill the heart only pumps blood

  Wesley burned all the notes and flushed them down the lidless toilet. Carmine was waiting for him when he returned to the tier. The old man’s juice had kept his cell for him.

  “What’ll I do now?” Wesley asked.

  “Right now?”

  “When I get out.”

  “Damn, kid, didn’t you think about nothing else all the time you were down?”

  “Yeah, everything you wrote me.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “Just about.”

  “That’s not good enough. You got to get it perfect.”

  “Why am I learning all this?”

  “For your career.”

  “Which is?”

  “Killing people.”

  “Which people?”

  “Look, Wes, how many men you already killed?”

  “Three, I guess.” Wesley told him about the sergeant and the Marine, all the time wondering how Carmine knew it was more than one.

  “How many felony convictions you got?”

  “A few, I guess. There’s this beef, which was really two, and a couple before when I was a juvenile, and the Army thing ... I don’t even know.”

  “You know what ‘The Bitch’ is?”

  “No.”

  “Habitual Offender. In this state you get three felony drops and they make you out to be ‘dangerous to society’—it’s a guaranteed Life for the third pop. Understand what I’m telling you, Wes? The next time you fall, you fall for life. Whether it’s a lousy stickup for fifty bucks or a dozen homicides, you get the book. And killing people pays a lot more than sticking up liquor stores.”

  “What about banks?”

  “Forget it. You got the fucking cameras taking your picture, you got the fucking federales on your case for life, and you got to work with partners.”

  “That’s no good?”

  “How many partners you got?”

  “Just you.”

  “That’s one too many, but I won’t ever make the bricks anyway. Make me the last motherfucking human you trust with all your business. You gonna meet all kinds of people, but don’t ever let anyone see your heart or your head. Just your hands, if you have to.”

  “How do I do this?”

  “I’ll give you the names to get started: who to contact, how to do it without getting into a cross. After a couple a jobs, you’ll have all the work you want.”

  “What’re the rules?”

  “You can say ‘yes,’ you can say ‘no’ ... but you can’t say ‘yes’ and then not hit the person they point to. And you say nothing to anyone ... no matter what. That’s all.”

  “What else, Pop?”

  “Cold: you got to be cold right on through. And you got to show me you are that cold before we go any further with this.”

  “I am.”

  “Okay. Now listen, because we don’t got a lot of time. Dayton has a partner; another stupid animal ... but he wants me and he thinks he’s being slick by not moving right on me, okay? His name’s Logan, and he locks in 7-Up. Ice him—and don’t let me even guess how you did it.”

  Carmine started talking about the cigarettes bet on the football season and Wesley understood the subject was dropped. He would have to pick it up himself if he wanted to continue the conversation. Ever.

  19/

  It took Wesley five weeks to learn that Logan was a Milky Way freak. Another three to get the hypodermic needle and syringe from the prison hospital. Two weeks more to steal a pinch of rat poison from the maintenance crew. Just buying would have been quicker—all of those items were for sale Inside—but he understood Carmine expected him to act completely alone.

  The only risk was getting into the commissary area without being seen. Wesley took all but four of the Milky Ways. Those he carefully injected with his mixture of strychnine and water, then painstakingly smoothed over the tiny holes the needle left in the dark wrappers.

  The next morning, as he walked past Logan—who was on the end of the commissary line—Wesley muttered, “No more fucking Milky Ways for two weeks,” hoping they wouldn’t be all gone by the time Logan got to the front.

  They weren’t. About 4:05 a.m. the whole tier woke up to Logan’s screaming. By the time the hacks got there with the inmate nurse, he was turning blue. They rushed him off to the hospital on a stretcher.

  Logan held on through the night and even rallied slightly the next day. The poisoning had not been discovered, because the greedy sucker had eaten all four candy bars before going to sleep. It was too late to pump his stomach and they wouldn’t be doing an autopsy on a live body.

  Wesley walked by the hospital a dozen times that day, but it was never empty enough. Just before supper line, he slipped inside and saw that the hack was in the bathroom, probably moving his lips as he read a porno magazine confiscated from a convict. Wesley pulled the needle-pointed file he’d bought for ten packs from a guy in the machine shop from under his shirt and wrapped the handle in a rag pulled from his belt. Logan never looked up at Wesley’s soundless approach, and only grunted sharply as the spike slammed into the left side of his chest, right up to the hilt. His hands flew up and grabbed the file’s handle.

  One look told Wesley that Logan was gone. With his own fingerprints all over the murder weapon.

  20/

  Wesley caught the supper line near the end, picked up his tray, and sat down at his usual place with Carmine. He looked down deliberately into the pseudo-chicken and mashed potatoes until Carmine followed his gaze. Wesley drew an X across the top of the mashed potatoes with his fork and the old man grunted in acknowledgment.

  The word was down the grapevine by the time they returned to the block for lockup after supper. The rec room buzzed with the news, but that was soon replaced by an almost-murderous argument over which TV show to watch. Wesley and Carmine faded back toward the rear of the large room.

  “You crazy fuck. Why’d you stick him?”

  “He was going to get better.”

  “Clean?”

  “His prints are the only ones.”

  “Why’d you only fix a couple of the bars?”

  “Didn’t want anybody else to get it. He was at the end of the line. I knew he’d buy up all four of them if anyone else got there first.”

  “That’s half-smart, kid. Sometimes, you can be too slick. Now if you’d done every bar in the place, there would’ve been no way for the fucking swine to get off the hook.”

  “Sure, but if more than one guy went, they’d do a big investigation, right?”

  “So what? What do they find? Nothing about you. And why’d you give him such a light dose that he could get up behind it?”

  “I didn’t know how much to use.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have used that stuff at all.”

  “It was all I had.”

  “No, Wes—you had the library.”

  “The library?”

  “There’s a lot of things in books they never meant us to know, you understand me?”

  “Like what you said about the history books—that the winners write the sto
ries after they win the wars?”

  “Not just that—I’m talking about facts. How you make a bomb, what’s inside of a poison, how you fix guns, how much money a politician makes, what the fucking laws say....”

  “There’s things you can’t learn from books.”

  “Sure. Now you talking like a real chump. What ‘things’? You learning these things, kid?”

  “In here? Sure.”

  “You ever listen to Lester when he talks?”

  “That fucking skinner. Who’d listen to that freak?”

  “You would, if you had any sense. You think you’ll never be tracking a man in Times Square? You think people like Lester ain’t all over the place? If you going to run in the jungle, you’d better know all the animals.”

  “How come you don’t study him?”

  “I have studied him, Wes. But I don’t get too near, because I have to live in here the rest of my life. I can’t let motherfuckers think I’m changing my game after all these years or they get ideas. But if I was going out, I wouldn’t just be studying Lester, I’d be studying every freak, every maniac, every sick-ass in this joint, until I knew exactly what makes them run. And I’d use it on the street. Why you think the shrinks are always studying Lester? Anything the Man wants to know, you got to figure is worth knowing too, right?”

  “How do I make him talk?”

  “You don’t need to make him talk. Just forget your fucking image and listen—he’ll do all the talking you’ll ever want.”

  “What about Logan?”

  “Who’s that?”

  21/

  Another long year passed. With Wesley in the library, in the blocks, on the Yard ... listening and learning to say nothing, except when forced. And spending as much time as possible with Carmine, because the old man was obviously hanging on by a fine thread.

  The Yard was nearly empty one dirty, grey morning. Carmine had told Wesley to meet him at their spot by 8:30, and Wesley stayed in the shadows until he saw the old man’s bulk come around the corner of the administration building.

  “Morning, Pop.”

  “I got no more time, Wes, so you listen to me as good as you ever did. I’m checking out of here. Maybe this morning, maybe tonight....”

  “You’re not—”

  “Shut up,” came the fierce whisper, “and listen: I made out my will and you the beneficiary. Sit down with me here against the Wall.”

  The two men hunkered down against the wet wall. Wesley was stone-cold quiet, because he saw the old man wasn’t going to get up again.

  “You got to remember all this, Wes—you can't be writing it down. When you wrap up you go to Cleveland, that's in Ohio. Take the bus in, but fly out, understand? And not from the big airport—that's Hopkins. They got a little commuter airline, like for businessmen, so be sure you got a suit on ... Israel, he'll fix you up with that. Anyway, if the wheels come off, remember you want Burke Airport. It's right on the lake—just tell any cabbie and they'll know.

  “Okay, now when you get to Cleveland, you go to the King Hotel, that's at 55th and Central. You go there between midnight and two in the morning and you tell the Desk Clerk you got a message for Israel.”

  “Like the country?”

  “Yeah, like the country—but Israel is a man, a black man. You tell him you are Carmine’s son and you’re there to pick up what Carmine left. He’ll give you the name of someone to hit, and on this one you can’t say ‘no,’ you understand? You can’t say ‘no.’ ”

  “I won’t.”

  “Okay. After the hit, Israel is going to give you a package. You take what’s in there and go back to New York. You go to Mamma Lucci’s—it’s a restaurant near the corner of Prince and Sullivan Streets, on the south side of Houston. You ask to speak to Mr. Petraglia, okay? And you tell him you Carmine’s son and you came to New York to be with him. You give him the package. He will know who you are. This man, he will show you a building to buy.”

  “How am I going to—?”

  “Shut up, Wes, just listen. You’ll have the money. After you buy the building, you fix it up the way it needs to be. Pet will live there, too—he’s the last of us, kid, and one of the best. He can do things with cars you wouldn’t believe. And then you’re on your own.”

  “What if Israel’s dead when I get there ... or Mr. Petraglia?”

  “You got two years, four months, and eleven days to serve. They’ll both live that long. They been waiting for you—they won’t die.”

  “But if—”

  “If they do, call my wife at that number I gave you and tell her Carmine said to get out of the house, to take a vacation for a couple of weeks and to leave you the key. In the basement, the fourth beam from the door holding up the ceiling is hollow in the middle. Cut it down. There’s fifty thousand dollars in clean bills there. Take it and do it by yourself. But if Israel is in Cleveland, don’t touch the money—just leave it there. My wife has her own money coming, you understand? That’s your case money—it’s safer there than anyplace you could find. Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, there’s just one more thing ... you know why you’re going to do this?”

  “Yes, Pop, I know why.”

  “Who taught you why?”

  “You did.”

  “And that means you’re my blood, understand? I’m going out ... but you’re going to pay back every last one of the motherfucking swine for me.”

  “I will.”

  “I know. I waited years for you to come. Remember I told that judge that they couldn’t kill what I stood for? Well, this is perfect revenge. They took my life and buried me ... and I built a bomb right here in hell and it’s going to blow their devil’s hearts right out of their chests.”

  “I’ll see you soon, Carmine.”

  “I guess you will, son—but make it count for something while you’re out there.”

  “Pop, was I just the best of the lot ... or was it that you couldn’t wait any longer?”

  “No! You were what I wanted. You are my son ... I could have waited a hundred fucking more years....”

  Carmine slumped dead against the Wall.

  Wesley walked away. Even though he was known to be the old man’s partner, he was never a suspect. In any event, the autopsy showed an aortic aneurysm. The only thing that confused the doctors was that the burst vessels showed that the old man had been dead for more than thirty minutes when they found him. But medicine is an imperfect science and another dead con wasn’t worth the trouble of a complete investigation.

  22/

  The young guard came down the tier to Wesley’s cell carrying a piece of paper and a friendly, concerned look on his fat face.

  “Listen, kid—you want to go to the old man’s funeral?”

  “Yeah ... yessir, I would ... could you fix it?”

  “Well, I might be able to if we could really talk, you know?”

  “No, sir, but I’m willing to talk with you, sir.”

  “Good,” the guard said, walking into Wesley’s cell and lowering his voice. “The old bastard left some money stashed, right?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Did he?”

  “Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it, forget it. Let the fucking rats be his pallbearers.”

  Wesley just looked blankly at the guard, thinking that’s what he’d have anyway. He kept looking straight ahead until the guard left in disgust. Wesley had already checked the law and knew he wouldn’t be allowed to attend—he wasn’t a blood relative in any sense recognized by the State.

  23/

  When he hit the Yard seventeen days later, a slender Latin guy was running the Book, and Carmine’s stash of cigarette cartons was all gone from the loose floorboards in the back of the print shop.

  Wesley passed the Latin by without a glance. He wrote off the cigarettes and the Book and the whispers about a man being a pussy if he wouldn’t fight for what was rightfully his.

  He did the next years like moving through cold,
clear Jell-O. He was able to dodge parole twice by infractions of institutional rules. But the last time, when he only had nine months to go on his sentence, he knew that they were going to parole him to keep him under supervision, no matter what he did. He knew a hundred ways to fuck up the parole hearing, but he didn’t want the additional surveillance that came with getting a “political” label, and he didn’t want the additional time that an assault would bring. He spent several hours talking with Lee until he learned what the older man knew.