A Bomb Built in Hell

by Andrew Vachss

  That was the last conscious thought printed on his brain as the bum tossed a flaming Zippo lighter into the front seat and was off running with the same motion.

  There was a brief sound like heavily compressed air being released, then the flames enveloped the interior of the big car. Chan screamed like a mad beast and ripped at the door handle, but the door was stuck. He frantically pushed against the door but the flames held him prisoner ... for another second or so, until they reached the gas tank.

  The only witnesses to Wesley’s departure were the bums.

  The cab pulled up at the far end of the alley and Wesley caught it at a dead run—he dove into the back seat and began wiping his hands with the damp towels there. Pet turned toward Houston and took the main drag to Sixth Avenue. He followed Sixth Avenue north and wound his way through the Village until he got to Hudson Street. Pet followed Hudson to Horatio, where he parked the cab and both men got out. They climbed into the black Ford— the kid slipped from behind the Ford’s wheel and into the front of the cab. He was wearing a chauffeur’s cap today, but no belt. The Ford swung uptown, Wesley in the front seat, Pet driving.

  “That epoxy stuff is perfect, Pet. It sealed the door like cement.”

  “I told you it would. Even with a few coats of wax on the doors it’ll always work.”

  “I could have sat there and pumped slugs into him for days— nobody sees nothing down there.”

  “They paid for him to die by fire, right?”

  “Yeah,” Wesley mused. “I wonder where those kids got all that money.”

  40/

  Wesley was lying on his back on his kitchen floor, his hands working under the sink, when he heard the soft buzz from the console near the front door. The dog soundlessly trotted into position to the left of the narrow door. Wesley flipped on the TV monitor and saw Pet coming down the long corridor. Only Pet knew how to set off the buzzer, but he wanted to make sure the old man was alone. Satisfied, he hissed at the dog to get its attention. Wesley said “okay” in a hard, flat, deliberate voice. The dog tolerated Pet alone, but would attack him as quickly as anyone else in Wesley’s presence.

  Wesley pushed the toggle switch forward and the door slid away, leaving an opening large enough for a man to get through sideways. Pet came in and the door closed tightly behind him. The old man looked at the assorted tools spread over the kitchen floor.

  “What you up to?”

  “I’m fixing the dog’s food. He gets it by pushing this here lever, and water by pushing the other one. I got about a fifty-day supply and I’m going to fix it so’s he gets poison on the last one.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “If I don’t come back one time, he’ll run out of food sooner or later and he’ll starve to death. He don’t deserve to go out like that.”

  “I could come in here and feed him for you.”

  “That’s what you will do before the last day, if you’re around then.”

  “Maybe you can read minds.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “There’s a job order out with my name on it.”

  “The same people?”

  “Yeah. That’s their way. I’ve done too many jobs for them and now I get thrown in against another organization like mine. The winner gets to keep working for them and the loser don’t. They don’t trust nobody. They want to be sure the top independents don’t get together, you know?”

  “That’s what Carmine said it would be like. He said if I got real good, that’s what they’d do.”

  “Yeah, only Carmine knows these weasels. He’s way ahead of them. Even if they get me, you still on the street and they won’t be expecting a fucking thing.”

  “Why you making out a will, old man?”

  “You ever hear of the Prince?”

  “Yeah. I have. So?”

  “That’s their man for this one. He’d never come in here after me, even if he knew where I was. But if I want to work, they’ll give me a job in the cesspool, and he’s like a fish in the water there.”

  “You’re not supposed to know about the order out for you?”

  “No.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Nobody. But I put it together easy enough. They got a job for me in Times Square. Only thing it can mean, they got the Prince on the case. They never told me where to hit a mark before, but they got some bullshit story about only being able to get this guy when he comes outta one of them massage parlors. They must think I’m a Hoosier.”

  “And you not?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Carmine always said if you ready to die, you’re dangerous, but when you looking to die, you’re nothing to worry about.”

  “I ain’t looking to die, but that fucking pit is impossible to work in. And if I turn down this job, they’ll just hit me when I show my face on the street anytime ... I can’t stay in here forever.”

  “You ever think about just retiring or something?”

  “And do what? Go fishing in fucking Miami? I’ll retire the same way Carmine did—the same way you going to—but I’d like to fucking retire this Prince cocksucker before I do.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “I only saw him once. He’s a fucking giant stick. About six-four, maybe a hundred twenty pounds, with hair like that Prince Valiant in the comics. That’s where he got the name. Diamonds all over the place—wristwatch, ID bracelet, cufflinks, belt buckle, everything. He’s got monster hands, about twice as big as mine. His skin’s dead white, like yours was when you got out. Like he’s never been out in the daytime. Probably hasn’t.”

  “Can you get close?”

  “No way. He’s got that cesspool wired. Nothing goes down from 40th to 50th, Broadway to the Hudson, that he don’t know about. Every fucking freak on the street reports to him.”

  “He should be easy to spot, right?”

  “Sure. But he’d have me spotted first.”

  “He don’t know me.”

  “No, but so what? You want to hit him alone?”

  “He’s just a man.”

  “If that’s all he was, I wouldn’t be worried about this. He’s a fucking freak, I told you. Only a freak could live down there like he does.”

  “Where down there?”

  “I don’t know. He keeps different boys all the time but he always sticks them in one of those fleabag flophouses. There’s a hundred ways outta those rattraps ... if you know about them.”

  “I know about them—I was staying in one when I got popped for the last bit.”

  “Yeah, but he knows all of them, Wes, every fucking one.”

  “Stay in the house tonight—I’m gonna go in there and look. Get me some upstate plates for the Caddy.”

  41/

  Wesley returned to working under the sink and Pet left him alone to go prepare the car. At 10:30 p.m., Wesley wheeled the Caddy up Water Street and turned left onto Pike. He traveled crosstown until he got across Broadway, connected with the West Side Highway and rolled uptown. He exited at 23rd Street and followed Twelfth Avenue north to 42nd. He left the Caddy with the attendant at the Sheraton Motor Inn; he already had a reservation and was shown right up to his room.

  Wesley changed into wine-red knit slacks and a flaming Hawaiian-print shirt worn loose outside the pants. He added a pair of genuine alligator loafers and an ID bracelet on a thick sterling chain. The initials were “CT.” He left the Airweight in the Caddy and the flick knife in his suitcase.

  At 11:15, he started his walk. He strolled past Dyer, trying to get a fix on the territory. Neon smashed at him with every step: LIVE BURLESQUE *** CHANNEL 69 *** MERMAID *** 42ND STREET CINEMA *** TOM KAT THEATRE. The street was alive the way a can of worms is alive: greasy and twisty-turning, but not going anywhere and comfortable only in the dark. As he crossed Tenth Avenue, Wesley noticed that the West Side Airlines Terminal was closed. A closer look told him that it was closed for good. Wesley looked up at the fifth floor—it would give a c
ommanding view of the ugly scene. He thought about Korea for a flash-second.

  Wesley crossed Ninth Avenue and headed down toward Eighth. He noticed five phone booths on the south side of the street and the Roxy Hotel on the north side. It was the Roxy where he got busted years ago, and he had to fight down the urge to see if the same clerk was still on duty for The Man. Some other time.

  As he crossed Eighth, Wesley reflected that the Parole Board was just a couple of blocks away, right near the Port Authority. They never closed. He could have just walked in there and asked a question like any other citizen, but that thought never occurred to him.

  He could tell a cop at a glance and he assumed that reaction was reversible. He noted the big Child’s Restaurant on Eighth and 42nd, but didn’t stop in. He counted thirteen movie houses between Eighth and Seventh. Thousands of people were on the street. Wesley wasn’t even picking up second glances from the traffic flow.

  “When I’m on the street, how do I make sure the hustlers don’t make me?” Wesley had asked Lester years ago. The answer was simple: “Just stare a lot—squares always be staring at us, you know?”

  Crossing Broadway, Wesley almost walked right into the Prince, who was coming out of Rexall’s. The Prince wasn’t alone. His huge hand was resting possessively on the back of his companion’s neck—a short, powerfully built black guy with a monster Afro and a diamond earring in his right ear.

  Wesley followed them down Broadway. The Prince was continually being stopped on the street, and his progress was slow. Wesley watched closely, but all the Prince did was occasionally lay money on people who apparently asked for some ... nothing else. The Prince stopped a fat woman, and Wesley halted about a half block behind them. They held a quick, whispered conversation, making no attempt to hide the fact that their communication wasn’t meant for bystanders, the Prince still holding the back of the black man’s neck. The woman nodded vigorously as though she understood, and then continued up the block in Wesley’s direction.

  As she approached, she focused her eyes directly on Wesley and picked up speed. He could have avoided her rush but made no attempt to ... she slammed right into him, knocking him back against a mailbox. The fat woman gasped and grabbed huge handfuls of Wesley’s Hawaiian shirt to steady herself. As she attempted to rise, she pulled the shirt almost to his neck and then slammed her hands against his chest and quickly ran them along his body, across his groin, and down almost to his knees. Wesley struggled to get free, felt his pants lift over his socks, saving her that trouble. He cursed vehemently, and she backed off with some mumbled drunken apologies.

  It was a lovely, professional frisk. She’d be able to tell the Prince he wasn’t heeled.

  Wesley dusted himself off and hurried up the block. He passed by the Prince and threw him a frankly curious glance, like any tourist would. The Prince continued down the block. Using a store window for a mirror, Wesley saw the giant step into a phone booth—he didn’t see the Prince deposit any money, so he assumed it was the fat woman calling in to report.

  Wesley turned up 46th Street and got a cab downtown on Fifth. He told the driver to take him to the Village, not knowing how far the Prince’s network went. Wesley entered the hotel on Bleecker between Sullivan and West Broadway where he was already registered.

  42/

  At 3:15 a.m., he telephoned Pet and the cab took him back to the Sheraton. He checked out the next morning, paying his bill in cash.

  Pet was waiting in the garage for him. Neither of them liked to return in the daytime and avoided it whenever possible.

  “You see him?” the old man asked.

  “Yeah. How does he make a living? If he’s dealing, he must have every cop in the precinct greased—you can’t miss the freak.”

  “He does the same work you do.”

  “You know anything about a black guy, his boyfriend?”

  “No. But I know he always marks his boyfriends with one of his diamonds. They get to wear the diamond so long as they’re in with him. When they show on the street without the diamond, it means he’s done with them and they’re nothing but a fucking piece of meat after that. He’s got a new one every couple months or so.”

  “Could the kid live down there a couple a weeks and watch the black guy?”

  “I don’t think so, Wes. That’s a real freak show and the kid might panic and whack one of them when they hit on him.”

  “He might at that—one of them moved on me last night.”

  “What happened?”

  “This was on my way back to the Sheraton. I was waiting for the light to change, and this freak comes up and asks me if the CT on the ID bracelet stands for ‘cock-teaser,’ right?”

  “Jesus! I told you you shouldn’ta worn that....”

  “Hey, look, Pet, he just wanted to hit on me, period. No matter what fucking initials I’d of had, he would’ve said something.”

  “You have to hurt him?”

  “On the street? I told him I’d meet him in the last row of the Tom Kat at midnight.”

  “The Tom Kat?”

  “Some sleazo joint I saw on the way down.”

  The old man laughed, “I can’t see the kid doing that—he’d have opened up that freak for sure.”

  “You got to forget your image if you want to move out there. What happens if you lay up for a couple a weeks without doing anything? Will they think you lost your guts?”

  “Nah, they’ll think I’m getting ready to go on in.”

  “Would the Prince want to make it personal?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would he have to hit you himself ... or could any of his freaks do it?”

  “He’d want to hit me himself. It’d mean a lot if he did. You take a man out, you take his rep for yours.”

  “What’s he use?”

  “Mostly his hands—he’s one of those karate experts. He never carries, but one of his freaks is always around, and they all shoot or stab. But he works small. They say he can kill you with anything: a rolled-up newspaper, a dog chain, you know what I mean.”

  “So he’d have to be close. And you don’t.”

  “You could never pop him from one of the buildings. He’d know you was inside before you even got set up. Did he see your face?”

  “So what? He didn’t know who I was.”

  “He will the next time,” Pet said solemnly. “You can forget about getting close, too.”

  “All right. Stay here for a few days—I’m going out to look at him good this time.”

  43/

  Wesley spent six days in Times Square, catching only occasional glimpses of the Prince. But he did locate the black man with the diamond earring, and the black man had a pattern. Too much of a pattern—whatever else he was, Wesley knew he wasn’t a professional. Every night, just before 11:00, he went to Sadie’s Sexational Spa (“THE BEST IN THE WESTside”) on Eighth between 44th and 45th. He stayed about a half hour each time.

  He went in different directions after that—never the same way. Wesley followed him three times, and each time he met the Prince, always on the street or at the entrance to one of the bars.

  Wesley returned to the garage a little after midnight on Wednesday. Pet came out of the shadows and walked over to the car:

  “Can we do it?” the old man wanted to know.

  “Yeah, but it’s gonna be sticky. You’re going to have to go in there with the car. Go in fast, and get out before he can move. We need him to know you’re on the case, like you’re going to drive-by him and the cruise is setting it up.”

  “Why you want him like that?”

  “Misdirection. Like with the backfiring car you told me about.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “The rest is mine. You just wait with the car. No, bump that— how many cars can you plant in different spots around the cesspool?”

  “If I started now, I could probably get about six, ‘specially if the kid helps.”

  “Okay, we’ll use under the West S
ide Highway Bridge by the river. On 40th, and 33rd, and 23rd. And 42nd & Fifth, and anyplace else you think is good. Get the list where you got them stashed, and get ready to go out in the cab by 8:30 tomorrow night. I’m going to sleep.”

  “Wesley...”

  “What?”

  “We give the kid a key, then he could take care of the dog if—”