A Bomb Built in Hell

Pet fixed himself a place to live in the garage. There was still enough room for a half-dozen vehicles.

Wesley spent the next few weeks practicing; first, inside the place so he knew every inch, especially how to get in and out, even during the daylight. The old man showed him the tunnel he had begun to construct.

“You can only use this once, Wes. It’ll exit in the vacant lot on the corner of Water Street and the Slip. I’m going to fix it so’s it’s got about two feet of solid ground at its mouth, and plank it up heavy. When you want to split that one time, you hit the depth-charge lever down here in your apartment ... and the tunnel mouth blows in, okay?”

Wesley later expanded his investigations, making ever-widening circles away from the factory, but always returning within twelve hours. Pet got him a perfect set of identification. “You can always get a complete bundle in Times Square. Good stuff, too. But the freaks selling it usually roughed it off some poor bastard, maybe totaled him, and it ain’t worth the trouble. I know this guy who makes the stuff from scratch, on government blanks, too.”

Equipped with paper, Wesley could drive as well as walk. He began to truly appreciate Carmine’s “No Parole” advice.

When Pet came back one day, Wesley asked him about another kind of practice. “I need to work with the pieces. Where can I do it?”

“Right here. I got the fourth floor soundproofed. Anyway, with those silencers I got for you, you could blow the wall away and not have anybody catch wise.”

“What about practicing without the silencers?”

“What you want to do that for? The pieces’ll just make more noise, that’s all. Even the long-range stuff has silencers now—I’ll show you later.”

The old man was right. Wesley fired thousands of rounds, making the most minute adjustments before he was satisfied. No one came, no sirens, nothing.

It was easy to make the adjustments since Pet had the fourth floor all marked off in increments of six inches—ceiling, floors, and walls. Wesley worked out a rough formula: the smaller the caliber, the more accurate the shot had to be. The more bullets flying, the less accurate each individual slug had to be. The closer to the target, the less time you had to get ready. Pet came back late one night, pressed the silent warning system to let Wesley know he was there, and was already making himself a cup of the strong, pasty coffee he especially liked by the time Wesley got to the garage.

“I got something for you,” the old man said. “It’s a simple one. I think they want to see if I can deliver.”

“They think it’s you going to be doing it?”

“Yeah, me and my ‘organization,’ right?”

“Right. Good. Tell me.”

“It’s a pawnshop on Lenox Avenue, near 131st Street. The guy who runs it is a front for them. He’s making good coin where he is, but he’s a greedy fuck—started selling dope out of the place, and The Man got him. It’s about a hundred years in the can for what they nailed him with; he rolled over like a dog. He don’t really know all that much yet, so they’re leaving him out there to get more. He’s also got an undercover working for him—right in the shop.”

“What’s that?”

“A cop, from the CIB; a Puerto Rican kid, he looks like, but he’s a cop for sure. Supposed to be a stockboy or something like that, but he uses that phone too much ... and he’s not placing bets.”

“The cop, too?”

“Maybe more—the beat bulls are getting paid off by this creep, and they keep a close watch on his store so’s he won’t get taken off.”

“Can we get him over here some night?”

“Forget that! The first rule is that nothing gets done down here. We got to protect this territory completely. No dope fiends, no freaks, no fucking nothing. This is the safe house, right? No, he’s got to be hit right in his shop.”

“Why not at his house, where he lives?”

“Too much pressure on the boys, then. The Muslims have been giving this rat bastard hell because they know he’s dealing. We make it look like they did it.”

“A white man in Harlem?”

“You thinking about him or you?”

“Me.”

“Good. You ever use dynamite?”

“Just grenades. In the Army.”

“Same stuff. You light it, you throw it, and you get the fuck outta the way, right?”

“They might get out, too.... No, wait a minute ... are they both up front in the place?”

“Usually the cop is in the back—but if he thinks you from the People he’ll drift up just to be able to testify against you later.”

“Doesn’t this guy know who his contact is?”

“No. He’s a small-time weasel—any fucking hood comes in there with a ‘Message from the Boys’ and this faggot’ll listen, you know?”

“Okay, when does the cop leave the place at night?”

“The guy we want opens up around ten. And his cop helper gets there around noon. They work a long day, close up around eleven at night. We’ll take the cab—it cost me twenty-eight large, but they’ll never find it in this city.”

31/

Wednesday night, 9:10 p.m. A yellow medallion cab rolled up in front of the pawnshop on Lenox, the old man at the wheel. Pet slid the cab down about four doors from the target and pulled out a newspaper. He poked a small hole in the middle of the paper with a sharp pencil, adjusted his rearview mirror until he was satisfied. He slipped the cab into gear and rested his left foot lightly on the brake—the rear brake lights did not go on.

Wesley climbed out of the back of the cab. He was dressed in a steel-grey sharkskin one-button suit with a dark grey shirt and light grey tie. His shoes flashed like black mirrors in rhyme-time with the gross white Lindy Star on his right pinky; his watchband matched his cufflinks, which matched his tie clip; his snapbrim fedora was pearl grey. He carried a small, round cardboard hatbox.

The bells above the door tinkled as Wesley entered. The shop was empty of customers and the pawnbroker was up front in the cage.

“Can I help you?”

“No, I can help you, pal. I got a message from the Boys—they want you to take this package and...”

The Puerto Rican drifted toward the front as Wesley’s voice trailed off.

“Who’s this?” Wesley challenged.

“Oh, this is Juan, my stockboy. He’s okay; he knows the score.”

“Get him over here—I want to see his face.”

Juan walked smiling toward the front of the cage. Wesley brought the 9mm Beretta out of the hatbox. The silencer made it seem six feet long, but Juan caught two slugs in the chest before he had a chance to wonder about it or make a move (“Always take the hard man first—it’s tougher on your guts that way, but if you take the soft man first, you won’t be fucking alive to feel good behind it,” Carmine had told him years ago) and Wesley immediately turned the gun on the other man who flung his hands into the air. Wesley said, “Open the cashbox!” so the target would relax, and blew away the side of his face as the man bent toward the drawer.

Wesley put the hatbox down on the floor, clicked the snap-fuse open, and wheeled toward the door. He flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED and set the spring lock behind him as he went out. He was into the back seat of the cab in another second and Pet had pulled smoothly away before Wesley could get the “Eight seconds!” out of his mouth. They caught the first light and were buried in the traffic at 125th and Lenox when they heard the explosion. Traffic stalled. Everyone tried to figure out where the noise had come from, but the cop, who empathized with any white man’s desire to get the hell of out Harlem before dark, waved them through.

32/

They hit the FDR in minutes. The meter showed $4.65 by the time they neared the Slip.

“When we going to switch?” Wesley asked.

“We’re not—nobody’s following us. I got a car buried on Park and 88th and another in Union Square but we don’t need them—I’ll pick them up tomorrow. I’ll change the numbers of this one tonight—nothing to it. We don’t want to make problems by getting too cute.”

The eleven o’clock news had a story about a firebombing in Harlem; the reporter said it looked like a “terrorist act.” The film clips showed the entire front of the pawnshop and the stores on either side completely obliterated. The firemen were still battling the blaze, and it was not known if anyone had been inside at the time of the explosion. An informant had told the police that two men, both Negro, of average height, were seen running from the shop toward Eighth Avenue just before the explosion and the police expected arrests to follow.

“Were you the informant?” Wesley asked.

“You must be kidding, Wes. There’s always some righteous asshole who pulls that kind of number. Every job I ever knew about had fifty fucking leads called into The Man that didn’t have nothing to do with what went down.”

“Don’t the cops know this?”

“And you Carmine’s son! For Chrissakes, kid ... don’t you know they only want to make the arrest? They could give a fuck about who’s really guilty. Didn’t you get bum-beefed when you went down?”

“No. I did it alright. I got ratted out by a scumbag clerk in a hotel.”

“Don’t you want to pay him back?”

“Someday, when it ties in with something else I’m doing. But I can’t risk what we’re doing just for payback.”

“Good. Where is he?”

“Times Square.”

“I can fucking guarantee you that sooner or later we’ll get into his territory. I always hated to work down there, though. Those fucking freaks, you never know what they’re going to do.”

“I know what they’re going to do.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“One of them told me.”

33/

“How come they’re paying a hundred K for this guy? What’s so hard about him?”

“He used to run the ‘Family Business’ in Queens, and now he’s pulled out. There’s got to be a war over this, because he still controls Queens and they don’t let you do that. This guy is sharp now. No telephones, no mail. He lives in a fucking fortress out near the North Shore on the Island and he runs the show from there.”

“Can we get at him?”

“No way. I was out there myself a few times, and you’d have to fucking bomb the place from a plane to hit it. And he’s got himself an air-raid shelter, too. Left over from the Fifties. But he has to stay in touch. Every month, he meets his capo on the 59th Street Bridge to talk.”

“What? Right out in the open?”

“Yeah, Wesley, right out in the open. But it ain’t just him that’s out in the open. And we don’t know what night he meets on—it’s always late, and he always gets a ride to the Queens side and meets the capo halfway across. He has men on the Queens side and the capo has men on the Manhattan side.”

“Couldn’t we just drive past and hit him?”

“How? We don’t know when he’s coming and if they see the same car pass back and forth, we’re the ones who’ll get hit. Besides, he stands with his back to the girders and you couldn’t get a decent shot at him, even if you could get on the bridge.”

“How much time have we got?”

“If we get him before he wins the war, we get paid. If he loses the war, we don’t. If he wins the war, we don’t.”

“How long before the war starts?”

“It may not start at all—they’re still trying to negotiate. But they also want to cover all their bets, you know?”

“How come they don’t try and cover you, with all the work you been doing for them?”

“They think they have. I never know if I’m coming back from a meet with them. But also, they think I got a nice little organization of my own, with all old guys like me, and they don’t want to start a war to prevent one. They’re very slick, right?”

Wesley smiled. “Can you get me onto Welfare Island after dark?”

The old man nodded and got up to leave. Wesley climbed up to the fourth floor and took the .219 Zipper from the gun rack. The cartridge had been originally designed for a Marlin rifle, but its lever action was too sloppy and inaccurate. Good enough for a varmint gun, but not for Wesley’s work. He had spent hours fitting the barrel into a rechambered format and attaching it to a better stock. Now it was single-action, and magnificently accurate. But he still couldn’t make it hold a silencer, and he had more practicing to do.

Wesley squeezed off another round—as he fired, he noticed the orange light glowing just past his range of vision. Smoothly and calmly, he pulled the massive Colt Trooper .357 magnum from his shoulder holster and spun to face the door. It opened and Pet stepped inside, a wide grin on his face. Wesley put the gun down and waited.

“Wes, I got a present for you,” Pet said, displaying another rifle.

“What’s that? I already got a good piece.”

“You got nothing compared to this. This here’s a Remington .220, the latest thing. It’s got twice the muzzle velocity of that Zipper and it’s more accurate, every time. And that’s not the best part. I know a guy who works for the bullet people—he’s a ballistics engineer. You know what he told me? He said that the engineers test fire some slugs from every batch that the factory manufactures, just to see if they’re building the slugs up to the specs. Well, every once in a while they come across some that’re just perfect, you know? They call these bullets ‘freaks,’ okay? And the engineers always take the whole batch and fire them themselves to see if they can figure out why these bullets work so good. Anyway, I got fifty rounds of those ‘freaks,’ for this piece.”

“I can make a five-inch group at three hundred yards with the Zipper,” Wesley said, doubtfully.

“The man told me you could double that distance and still group the same with this piece. And he’s no marksman.”

“Let me see it.”

“Okay, kid. But remember, I only got fifty rounds.”

“I’ll test fire it with some over-the-counter stuff first.”

Pet left Wesley alone. Four hours later, Wesley came down to the garage.

“Is it as accurate as the man said?” Pet asked.

“Better. But it’s the loudest damn thing I ever heard.”

“So what? No point in silencing it anyway from the Island—the chumps on the shore’ll think it was a backfire. We hit a guy like that once, years ago, me and Carmine. I set the car up so’s it would backfire like a sonofabitch, right? So we’re driving down the street with the car backfiring and the creep ducks behind his bodyguards ... but then they get wise it’s only the car and he starts laughing like a fool. He was still laughing when Carmine sent him a message and the bodyguards couldn’t figure out what happened until we were around the corner.”

“The engineer was sure right about this piece,” Wesley said. “Any chance of getting some more slugs from him?”

“No. It was in the papers yesterday. Somebody must have wired his car. It blew up when he turned on the ignition.”

34/

Wesley and Pet replaced the stock of the new rifle. With a new cheek-piece, hand-sanded to micro-tolerances, it fit Wesley’s face perfectly. Wesley had the latest nightscope: U.S. Army issue, and only to jungle-sniper teams. Pet built a long, black anodized-aluminum cone to hide the flash. Wesley mounted the piece on a tripod and sat comfortably behind it for a while. Then he disassembled the unit and climbed to the roof.

It was shadowy black on the waterfront as Wesley sighted in. He picked up a man and a woman in the scope, lying on the grass just off the river. The range was almost a mile and Wesley carefully dialed in the right magnification until he could see the man clearly. The nightscope worked to perfection; the man looked like he was in a spotlight against a dark background. The crosshairs focused on the man’s upper chest, then on his face, and then on to his left eye. Yes ... there. With such a high-speed, low-density bullet, a chest shot wasn’t a sure kill.

Wesley thought about the books he had read on triangulation and he concluded that it would be possible for the cops to learn where the bullets had been fired from. He came to another conclusion: so what?

Pet was waiting in the garage.

“I got a kid—a good, standup kid. A State kid, you know? He’ll bring a launch alongside the FDR. I’ll be in the Caddy, pulled over like I got engine trouble. You can be into the launch in thirty seconds, and he’ll bring you back about a mile upriver from there ... and I’ll be waiting again.”

“He’ll see my face.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t remember you.”

“Him, too?”

“No. We’ll need him again—he’s one of us, I think. But I got something for him anyway.”

“Can you find out which night he’ll be on the Bridge? Can you find out where I can shoot from?”

“I already got the last information. But you got to go over every single night until he shows. Even trying to get more information would tip him.”

“When do we start?”

“You ready tonight?”

“Yes.”

“You only get one shot....”

“I haven’t thought about that.”

“Why not, Wes?”

“Tunnel vision’s better for night work.”

35/

The battleship-grey Fleetwood purred northbound on the FDR. Then its engine began to miss and sputter. Pet pulled over to the side, went around to the front, and lifted the hood. The kid came quietly out of the shadows.

“Here, Mr. P.”

“I see you, kid—I seen you when I pulled in. Stay back further next time, right?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. P., I will.”

“Okay, come here, kid, quick! I got something for you.”

As the kid approached, Pet pulled a heavy metal-and-leather belt off the back seat of the Caddy. He motioned the kid forward and circled his waist with the belt. The front of the belt was a steel-tongued clamp which Pet fastened.

“Try to get it open,” Pet said.

The kid did try, hard, but he couldn’t budge the clasp.

“It’s full of plastic explosive, radio-controlled ... with this,” said Pet, holding up a small transmitter. “You understand?”

The kid’s face didn’t move a muscle—he just nodded.

“It won’t go off no matter how hard it’s hit, even with a bullet, and it will go off even if it’s wet.”

Pet slapped the kid lightly on the cheek, smiled, and winked at him like a father sending his son up to bat in a Little League game.

The trip to Welfare Island took only about three minutes. Wesley set up the bipod in the soft mud about a quarter-mile from the bridge. Pet told him it was possible to get even closer, but then he would be shooting almost straight up. Wesley already knew that depth perception is influenced by perspective and he agreed to the quarter-mile shot. He used the hand-level with the glowing needle to get the bipod perfectly straight, set up the rig, and sighted in toward the middle of the Bridge. It took another fifteen minutes before he was completely satisfied. The kid was good; he knew not to smoke, not to talk. They waited until 3:15 a.m. and split when nobody showed. Pet met them at the right spot, and Wesley went back to get some sleep.

On the way back to the Slip, Wesley asked if the Island was really the best vantage point. “What about that Butler Lumber Millworks building on the Queens side?”

“I already checked it out, Wes. We’d have to leave about a half a dozen people there if we tried it. We don’t know what night the man’s gonna come, and that ain’t the kind of stunt you can pull twice.”

Wesley just nodded, not surprised.

36/

By the ninth time out, Wesley could set the bipod and rig up in seconds instead of minutes. The kid was smoother, too. He had a pair of night glasses with him and he was scanning the Queens side every thirty seconds, pausing just long enough to refocus each time. At 1:05, he blew a sharp puff of air in Wesley’s direction. Wesley immediately swung the scope toward the Queens end and saw the figure of a human walking toward the center of the Bridge at moderate speed. Maybe he’s a jumper, he thought ... but another puff of breath told him that someone was also approaching from the other side. Wesley never took his eye off the first man.

He watched with extreme care as the two men met in the middle ... and smoothly switched positions, so that the man on the left was now the man from Queens. A nice touch. Both men had their backs to the girders and were invisible from the Bridge itself.

Wesley sighted in carefully, not knowing how much time he’d have. A foghorn sounded somewhere up the river, but the island was quiet. The Harbor Patrol had passed more than an hour ago, and they hadn’t even bothered to sweep Wesley’s area with their spotlights—although Wesley and the kid were well concealed against the possibility.

The target’s eyes were shielded by his hat. Wesley sighted in on the lower cheek, figuring the bullet to travel upwards to the brain. He watched for the man’s lips to stop moving—he’d be less likely to move his head if he was listening instead of talking. In between breaths, Wesley squeezed the trigger so slowly that the ear-splitting cccrrack! was a mild shock—the target was falling forward before the sound reached the bridge. The capo ducked down in anticipation of another shot, but Wesley and the kid were on the move ... halfway across the river to Manhattan before the bodyguards got fifty feet toward the middle of the bridge.

When they landed, Pet quickly unhooked the kid’s belt, saying, “You were a man.”

The kid just nodded. The outfit disappeared into the false bottom of the Caddy’s back seat and Pet had the big machine running toward Harlem in seconds. They caught the 96th Street turnaround and were back in their own territory in fifteen minutes.

“The kid had me covered good,” Wesley told Pet, after they’d dropped him off. “He said there was a car on the Queens side that we could swim to if they hit the boat.”

“Yeah,” Pet replied. “He’s the goods. And I don’t think he did it for the money, you know?”

37/

It was 2:10 in the morning as they turned into the factory block. Just before they got to Water Street, Wesley noticed a trio of men huddled in an alley’s mouth.

“Cops?” he asked.

“Junkies,” Pet answered. “Dirty fucking junkies. They going to bring the motherfucking cops, though—they got no cover. We’ll have to clear them the fuck outta here soon. How’d it go?”

“I hit him. That was all I could see—I didn’t want to stay around. Would that belt’ve worked?”

“Blow a six-foot hole in concrete.”

“What’s the range for the transmitter?”

“About a mile and a half ... maybe two miles.”

“Is that alley a dead-end?”

“Yeah. And I can block it ... but don’t hit them here, for Chrissakes.”

“Put the belt in the airline bag and give it to me. Okay, now block the alley—don’t let any of them run.”

Pet swung the Caddy smoothly across the alley’s mouth and Wesley was out of the car with the silenced Beretta pointed at all three men before they could move.

“Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them.”

“What is this, man? We’re not—”

“Shut up. You want to make five hundred bucks?”

The smallest one stepped forward, almost into the gun. “Yeah, man. Yeah, we want to make the money. What we have to do?”

“Deliver this package for me. Just take it out on the Slip and walk through the jungle to the corner of Henry and Clinton. There’ll be a man waiting for it there—he’s already there. Then come back here and I’ll pay you.”

“You must think you’re dealing with real fucking chumps, man! You’ll pay us after...”

Wesley took five hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and held them out in his left hand, extending them toward the smallest one who grabbed hold. Wesley didn’t let go. “Take them and tear them in half. Neatly. Then give me back half.”

“What the fuck for, man?”

“That way we’re both covered, right? You come back and by then my man has called and says he got the stuff ... you cop the other half of the bills. I’ll pay you, alright—half of the fucking bills won’t do me no good, and I don’t want no beef with you guys anyway. Okay?”

“Okay, man, but...”

“But nothing ... and either all three of you go or it’s no deal.”

“Why all three?”

“What if some fucking hijacker rips you off on the way over? You’ll be safer with all three and my stuff’ll be safer, too. But don’t open the fucking bag—it’s booby-trapped with a stick of dynamite.”

“You must be kidding, man!”

“You think so, just open it up, sucker ... but get the fuck away from me first.”

With Wesley still holding the gun on him, the smallest one reached for the bills and carefully ripped them in half, handing half to Wesley. He looked up from his work and saw the glint of metal from the Caddy.

“Your partner got the drop on us too, huh?”

Wesley didn’t answer. The smallest one took the airline bag, pocketed the torn bills, and the three junkies walked out of the alley. The Caddy backed up just enough to let them by. They turned toward the Slip. Wesley got in the Caddy and Pet pulled away. Using the night glasses, Wesley could pick out the three walking dead men as they moved toward Clinton Street.

Pet looked at his watch. “It takes a man about twelve to fifteen minutes to walk a city mile. Those dope fiends ain’t no athletes— should take them about twenty to get to Henry Street.”

Wesley said nothing—he was still watching the couriers to make sure they wouldn’t split up and force him to go after whoever wasn’t near the bag. Pet wheeled the big car toward the garage. They were inside in seconds and Pet climbed into the newly painted cab. “Still got about five minutes to go—I’m going out driving to make sure that stuff works.”

“I’ll be your passenger—I want to see if it works, too.”

The cab was coming up Clinton toward Henry when Pet said, “Seven minutes—that’s enough,” and pressed the radio’s control button.

Explosion rocked the night. The cab raced toward Henry Street, but by the time they arrived all they got to see were a few dismembered cars and a lamppost lying in the street. There was glass everywhere, reflecting all sorts of once-human colors. Pet turned the cab around quickly and went the wrong way up Clinton to East Broadway and then raced uptown for a couple of minutes. He was back to normal late-night NYC cabbie speed by the time they crossed Grand Street.

“The miserable hypes must’ve wanted that money bad—they was already at Henry Street.”

“I guess it worked.”

“They’ll need blotting paper to find them,” Pet said. “Make sure you set fire to your half of the bills.”

“I already did.”

38/

The morning news linked the Bridge assassination to “mob sources,” and the explosion on Henry Street to “long-simmering political differences between Latin gangs, as yet unidentified.” Eleven people had been reported killed and twenty-one others hospitalized.

39/

Hobart Chan smiled to himself as his sable Bentley rolled gently across the mesh grids of the Williamsburg Bridge and into the clogged traffic on Delancey Street. Its air conditioning was whisper-quiet, the FM stereo filled the car’s vast interior with soft string music, its plushy tires transmitted not the slightest vibration to the driver’s seat.

Chan preferred to drive himself into the city each day, although he could have quite easily afforded a chauffeur. It wasn’t the expense that stopped him, nor the paranoia that seemed to haunt the Occidental gangsters of his acquaintance. There were many trustworthy young Chinese boys coming over from Hong Kong every day. Good boys, not filled with the ancestor-worship crap that those born in Chinatown still seemed infected with. He used a number of them in his business. But there was just something so ... perfect about the cloistered luxury of driving in his steel-and-leather cocoon right past all the degenerates and bums that filled the area along Forsythe, Chrystie, and—Chan’s favorite—the Bowery. Something wonderful that the corpulent little man loved with a deep, private passion. He never missed an opportunity to make this soul-satisfying drive. As he crossed the bridge, the J train rumbled by in the opposite direction.

Hobart Chan was a firm believer in community control. Until he came from San Francisco seventeen years ago, the Cubanos controlled prostitution in Chinatown by a tacit agreement with the Elders. But his willingness to promote a homicidal war between the Cuban and Chinese factions finally resulted in a change of ownership. Hobart Chan had run a lot of risks. But that was in the past. The risks were over, the gusanos were back dealing cocaine in Miami where they belonged, and the flesh business was never better.

Chan sometimes thought longingly about Times Square, but always concluded by writing off the idea. There was more money to be made there, true, and Chan was no stranger to the packaging and sale of human degeneracy ... but something about the cesspool frightened him. Chan told himself that he was a businessman and a good businessman didn’t take unnecessary risks. So he remained content with the significant cash that annually funneled into his Mott Street offices.

The only flicker of worry that ever crossed Chan’s mind was about his new competition. Not all the young Chinese from Hong Kong wanted to work for the established organization and he had been receiving threatening messages from some of the younger thugs. But Hobart Chan was too much a master of the art of extortion to fall victim to it himself. The new kids had no base outside of Chinatown, and they certainly weren’t going to attack him inside his own territory.

As the big car crossed Grand Street, Chan decided he would drive down to the Bowery today. The sight of dozens of pathetic humans in various states of decomposition, all running toward his car with filthy rags to “clean” his windshield in grateful exchange for whatever coins he wished to bestow, did more for him than even his occasional visits to his own merchandise. He thought of his humble origins in Hong Kong: the forged birth certificate that cost his father seven years of indentured servitude to enable the young Chan to enter the land of promise, the bloody-vicious mess in San Francisco, his eventual—and, in Chan’s mind, inevitable— rise to power in his world.

As the Bentley approached Houston Street, Chan automatically slowed down. He never wanted to make the turn west on this light—it was the best corner for the display of bums. Once he had thrown a dollar into the street after some of the lowlife had attempted to clean his windshield and had watched fascinated as they groveled in the street for the single piece of paper. Hobart Chan fancied all the bums knew his car and that they fought among themselves to see which of them would have the privilege of serving him each morning. Although it was difficult to imagine such human waste actually fighting for anything.

The bum that approached the car was younger than most, although no less degenerated. Chan mused on the theory that the entire race would someday find itself right down here on the Bowery as the youngish bum industriously cleaned the windshield and the side mirror with a foul rag. The bum was about thirty or thirty-five; it was hard to tell under the dark stubbly beard and the rotted hat. This bum even carried a pint of what looked like white wine in his hand, holding on to it with a death grip. Chan thought it somehow strange that a bum who already had a bottle would still work to clean windshields like this. Somehow it seemed even more debasing than usual, if that was possible.

The bum quickly finished and looked beseechingly at Hobart Chan. The fat man’s jade-ringed finger touched the power-window switch and the glass zipped down on its greased rails. As Chan extended the crisp dollar bill, the mouth of the bum’s wine bottle seemed to fly open and the wine gushed out all over the flesh merchant. His face twisted into an ugly mass and he drew back his left hand to slap the bum when he noticed that the wine smelled like gasoline.

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 commanding 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 Side 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—”

“The dog would kill him.”

44/

The yellow cab rolled up Eighth Avenue, Pet driving, Wesley the passenger. He wore a khaki fatigue jacket and heavy twill khaki pants tucked into soft-soled field boots. Under the jacket, he wore a black Banlon pullover with long raglan sleeves.

In the side pocket of the pants he carried two identical knives; the blades extended back through the handles and were anchored by a tiny metal bead. Wesley carried the Beretta zipped into the inside pocket of the field jacket. One outside pocket held a screw-on silencer. Another held two full clips of hollowpoints. Swinging from the thin webbing belt was a pair of baseball-sized fragmentation grenades. The front pocket of the pants held a Colt Cobra with a two-inch barrel. Wesley also carried a small plastic bottle of talcum powder, four pairs of rubber surgeon’s gloves, and a black silk handkerchief. Clipped to the back of the webbing belt was a pair of regulation police handcuffs. Also on board was a thousand dollars in bills, from singles to centuries, a soft pack of Marlboros, a disposable butane lighter, and a miniature propane torch.

Sewn into Wesley’s left sleeve were registrations for the six cars, as well as a valid FS-1 for each—but only one set of keys, which would start any of the vehicles in the garage. He also carried a driver’s license, Social Security card, draft card, a DD 214 form from the Army, a membership card in Local 1199 of the Hospital Workers Union, and a clinic card showing that his next appointment was for Monday at the VA Hospital on 24th and First Avenue. Wesley had once spent twenty-four hours a day for three weeks dressed the same way—he could move without giving the slightest hint of all the extra weight.

The cab stopped on 44th and Wesley got out. It was 10:15.

Wesley entered Sadie’s. A red light glowed against the far wall. Beneath it a fat man with a menacing face sat behind a scarred wooden desk. The fat man’s face lit up with what was supposed to be both a smile of welcome and a warning.

“Can I help you, buddy?”

“I want a massage.”

“Twenty-five bucks in front. You pay me for the massage—you got twenty minutes. Anything extra, more time, whatever, you settle with the girl, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now take a look in this here book and tell me which a the girls you want.”

He showed Wesley the kind of album proud mothers keep of weddings. There were about forty pages, with two devoted to each girl. Wesley watched as the man thumbed through it. They all looked alike. Wesley’s finger stabbed at random.

“How about that one?”

“Sorry, buddy, this is Margo’s night off. But if you like blondes, how about this?” He displayed a well-worn 8x10 glossy with obvious pride. The merchandise was lying down on a couch, nude and looking straight into the camera’s eye. She looked about sixteen.

“Yeah, okay. Is she ready now?”

“Sure, just hold on a minute. Joanne!” he bellowed. A girl who vaguely resembled the picture in the album came into the front area to escort Wesley back to a booth. He couldn’t see her face at first, but as they walked back together, he saw she moved like she was thirty-five and tired. She ushered Wesley into what looked like a large closet: plasterboard walls, an army cot with folded sheets, a pillow without a case, a tiny lamp with a pink low-watt bulb, a cracked porcelain bowl half-full of tepid water. The girl pulled her shift over her head. She was wearing what looked like the bottom half of a bikini and several pounds of flesh-colored powder.

“Why don’t you just lie down on the bed there and tell me what you’d like, honey?”

Wesley’s watch said 10:28.

“Come here.”

“Sure, honey, but you know that’ll cost you extra, right?”

“Right.” Wesley motioned for the girl to sit beside him on the cot; he took out two hundred-dollar bills and folded them flat across her knee.

The girl nervously licked her lips and gave him a half-smile. “Honey, I know this is Times Square and all ... and I can show you a real nice time ... but for that kind of money maybe you want one of the other girls here, I don’t—”

“You can get this, and another two hundred, just for being quiet and helping me a little bit.”

“What do you mean? Listen, I don’t go—”

“Just take the money and keep quiet, okay? I need some answers and some help. I can pay you for it ... or I can cut your fucking throat.”

The razor-edged knife was nestled against the girl’s carotid artery before Wesley finished the sentence. He watched her eyes to make sure she wouldn’t panic or scream, finally satisfied himself that she wouldn’t.

“No noise, okay?” he said quietly. “Just no noise and some answers and I’m gone.”

She said nothing.

“Every night, just before eleven, a short, husky black guy comes in here. He’s got a big Afro and a diamond earring in his right ear and—”

“I know who he is, that sicko.”

“Yeah. Okay, who’s he go with?”

“Anyone, man. For what he does, he can’t be choosy. You know what he wants to—”

“I don’t care what he wants. I want him. I want to talk to him, you understand? Alone. Just for five minutes.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You got two choices. I could cut you real quiet and just wait for him back here in this room ... or you could go out front and bring him back here with you.”

“I’ll bring him back. He’d like to go with me. He asked me before. I could—”

“Just relax. Look at this: you know what this is?”

He held the Beretta in one hand, the knife still at her throat with the other.

“I know what it is.”

“Do the other girls get angry if you take a customer?”

“Nobody would get mad if I took him. They only take him in here at all because he’s got a real strong friend in the Square.”

“I know all about his friend—that’s who I work for. I’m here to take the diamond outta that nigger’s ear, you understand?”

“Why didn’t you just say so, man? I know the score. You don’t need the knife, I’ll—”

“You wait in the doorway,” Wesley cut her off, pointing. “Right there. When he comes in, you bring him back here with you. You say anything to the fat man, you scream, you do anything, I’ll put a bullet in your spine before you finish.”

“Okay, okay, stop talking like that. Give me another twenty-five.”

“For what?”

“So’s I can go out and tell Harry that you’re paying for another session—that way he won’t bother you. Then I’ll tell him you’re getting cleaned up so he won’t wonder about you being back here, okay?”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

Wesley’s alternative plan was to shoot both the girl and the manager and be waiting at the desk when the black man came in. If she did anything bogus, he’d have the decision made for him. He screwed in the silencer, making sure the girl saw it, gave her another twenty-five dollars, and watched from the doorway as she walked to the desk.

“Here’s another payment, Harry. Client wants another session.”

“Good. Make this one shorter, understand?”

“Sure, Harry, but I want to work him for a tip, too.”

“Bitch, you work for me, not the fucking customers, understand?”

“Okay, Harry—I’ll get him out soon.”

The manager went back to his newspaper. Wesley thought he must have fantastic eyes to read in that dim light. Joanne returned to the room, walking past Wesley, who was still in the doorway.

“I did it.”

“I heard. Is he going to freak if the black guy comes back here with you without me leaving yet?”

“Man, I thought you knew what that guy’s scene was. Harry wouldn’t expect you to come out.”

“Okay. Just be quiet and wait now.”

45/

They sat in silence as the door opened. It wasn’t the black guy. The new customer seemed to know who he wanted and sat down to wait. In a couple of minutes, a tall, thin girl came out of one of the other rooms and he followed her back. It was 10:48.

The door opened again. It was the black man, wearing a red velour jumpsuit and red shoes with four-inch platform heels. Joanne slipped past Wesley and switched her hips into the front room. The black man looked up as she entered. Joanne smiled and motioned with her hand.

“Changed your mind?” the black man asked.

“A girl can, can’t she?”

The black man followed her back toward the room. Wesley was just walking out of the same doorway. As they moved past him, Wesley wheeled and rammed the silencer viciously into the black man’s kidney. The black man pitched forward into the tiny room, the girl just ahead of him. They went down in a sprawl of bodies. Neither made any effort to get up. The black man was transfixed by the extended barrel of Wesley’s gun.

“No noise,” Wesley told him.

“What is this?”

“It’s a quiz show—you give me the right answers and you win a big prize.”

“Don’t be stupid, man. You know who I am?”

“Yeah.”

Wesley pulled the handcuffs from the webbing belt and walked toward the black man, who extended his wrists as though he’d been through this routine a thousand times. Wesley slammed one cuff over the black man’s right wrist and snapped the other over the girl’s left before she could react.

“Hey!” she yelped.

“Shut up. It won’t be for long—I don’t want either of you to move. Now we’ve got about ten minutes for you to tell me what I need to know,” he said to the black man.

“And what’s that?” the black man said, calm and in control.

“You going to meet the Prince when you leave here. Where?”

“Man, you’re not serious!”

Wesley leveled the piece at the girl’s forehead and squeezed the trigger. There was a soft-ugly splat! and her body was wrenched backward, almost pulling the black man with her. The top of her head was gone—fluid ran over the opening in her skull. The black man frantically shifted his weight to keep dry.

“I’m very serious,” Wesley said softly. “The next one’s yours.”

“Man, don’t do anything like that, listen....”

Wesley cocked the piece again, held it in both hands pointed at the black man’s upturned face. His facial muscles tightened....

“Under the Times Clock! On 43rd. Between Seventh and Eighth! Don’t!”

“What time?”

“Eleven-thirty.”

“Who gets there first?”

“He does, man. He always—”

The bullet hit the black man at the bridge of his nose. His death was as soundless as the shot. Wesley shifted the piece to his left hand and squatted by the bodies. He carefully slit each throat and wiped the blade on the velour jumpsuit. He shook talcum powder onto his hands and pulled on a pair of the surgeon’s gloves. Then, still holding the gun, he wiped every surface in the room with the black handkerchief—it took only about forty-five seconds. He knelt by the door to listen; there was still no sound from the front room.

Wesley slipped down the corridor. As he entered the front room he saw the clock over the desk said 11:20; his own watch said that was a couple of minutes fast. The fat man at the desk looked up as Wesley approached.

“Just about to call you, buddy.”

Wesley fired. The first slug caught the fat man in the chest; his head dropped to the desk. The second bullet entered the top of his head. Wesley was about to walk out the door when he remembered the Marine and put another bullet into the fat man’s left ear socket. Even in the thin-walled parlor, the shots were virtually soundless. Wesley exchanged clips, then carefully pocketed the spent casings.

46/

Wesley turned right on 43rd. He noticed the clock in the package store said 11:23; his Rolex tallied with this, and he slowed a bit. The still-assembled piece was now tucked into his belt. By sharply drawing a breath, he could pull it free without trouble.

He lay back in the shadows until he saw 11:29 on his watch, then mentally counted to fifteen and started to walk up the right-hand side of the block toward the Times Building. The big digital clock read 11:31, and he saw the Prince standing underneath, legs spread and arms extended. His left hand gripped his right wrist and Wesley could see the diamond-flash.

One hundred feet. The Prince was focused on him now, but the Wesley he had seen was a tourist geek in a Hawaiian shirt. Wesley padded softly forward on the dark street—the silenced piece wasn’t accurate over more than forty feet.

Fifty feet. Suddenly, the Prince spun and was running up the street almost before Wesley even saw the movement. Wesley sprinted after him. The silenced pistol cut into his groin, but he didn’t slow—if the Prince got to contact one of his freaks, the whole thing would be over.

The Prince wasn’t used to running—by the corner of 43rd and Eighth, Wesley was only about ten yards behind. His target glanced west for a split-second, then, seeming to understand that he was running out of cesspool in that direction, he turned north on Eighth and dashed across 44th toward the Playbill Bar. Wesley hit the bar seconds behind the Prince, spotted him trying for the phone booth to the left of the door, brought the gun up just as the Prince saw him and dove for the Eighth Avenue door.

Wesley backed out of the 44th Street door and hit Eighth just in time to see the Prince flying up Eighth, this time on the west side of the street. The street was clogged with people and the Prince was better at moving through human traffic, but he couldn’t disappear and Wesley was too close for him to stop and get help.

The Prince dashed into the custard stand on 49th and Eighth and immediately exited out the side door. He tore up the side street toward the river. Wesley was close enough now but running too fast to get a clear shot. The Prince looked back quickly without breaking stride and jumped the fence that enclosed the parking lot between 49th and 50th. He was halfway across the lot, heading toward Polyclinic Hospital, when Wesley stopped, braced himself, and fired—but the Prince was bobbing and weaving and the shot missed. Wesley clawed his way over the fence and set himself for another shot, but the Prince seemed to sense this and veered sharply left just before the hospital entrance, steaming up 50th toward Ninth with Wesley again close behind.

The Prince turned right again at Ninth, just slightly ahead of Wesley, who could now run faster with his gun out. Between 50th and 51st was a construction site, partially excavated. The expensively painted sign read something about YOUR TAX DOLLARS. The Prince was over the fence and into the site in a heartbeat. He looked back and couldn’t see Wesley. For the first time since he’d been spooked, the Prince felt a quick jolt of fear to go with the adrenalin.

Wesley had seen the Prince’s move and had rushed up 50th, instead of going up Ninth. He was into the site before the Prince.

The streetlights didn’t penetrate the excavation—it was the same kind of soft-dull darkness Wesley remembered from Korea. He lay prone in the weeds, listening. It was a simple equation: the Prince had to be close to kill, and Wesley didn’t have the luxury of shooting from a distance.

Wesley could hear the street noises above him, but they were normal—no one knew they were down there.

He heard the kind of tearing sound grass makes when it’s pushed against the way it normally grows. He forced himself not to relax. He could lie there for hours without moving, and the Prince couldn’t come up on him without getting blown away. But he didn’t have a long time. If the Prince got out of the site, he’d have a hundred freaks surrounding the place.

Wesley focused, blocking out everything but the sounds of movement. As soon as he picked them up, he fired twice in that direction. The silenced bullets were only slightly amplified by the depression in the ground—Wesley heard them whine close to the earth. The movement had been about fifty yards away from him when he fired. It all depended on how close the Prince was now.

The next movement was closer. Wesley fired three times, as fast as he could pull the trigger. The site was a bowl of quiet inside the street noises. Wesley started to move around as if in a panic, making it clear where he was. He heard another movement about twenty yards away. The Prince was probably moving the grass with a stick. He looked hard for the diamond-flash but it was black out there—he guessed the target had made the sacrifice.

Wesley pulled the trigger rapidly. The whine faded to a dry, audible click! as the firing pin hit air. “Fuck!” Wesley said in a voice just past a whisper and full of panic. He viciously threw the gun at a spot about ten feet away and sprang to his feet, the now-unarmed assassin lost without his weapon.

Wesley made all the sounds of a panic-stricken man trying to remember to make as little noise as possible. He rolled onto his back and started pushing himself toward 51st Street with his legs, the two-inch Colt now in his right hand.

The Prince flew out of the darkness in a twisting, spinning series of kick-thrusts, offering a tiny target if Wesley had a knife. He was about eight feet away when he saw the pistol and threw himself flat on his back, already tucking his shoulder under to kick upwards when the x-nosed slug caught him in the chest, pinning him to the ground.

The noise from the two-incher was deafening—magnified by the bowl, it was cannon-like. The street noises seemed to all stop in unison. Wesley walked slowly toward the Prince, saw he was choking on his own blood—the slug must have caught a lung:

“A ... million dollars,” the Prince gasped. “A million if you don’t finish me, man. Just...”

The Prince launched himself off the ground, the knife-edge of his hand extended. Wesley saw it all in slow-motion—he had plenty of time to single-action out another round, slamming the Prince back to earth. Wesley walked up calmly and emptied the pistol. Two shots into the face, which disappeared under the slugs’ impact, and the third into the throat.

The street noises were getting much louder. Wesley quickly reloaded, pocketing the empties. He scanned the field, looking for the silenced Beretta, but gave it up in a second. Then he pulled the pin on one of the grenades and held it tightly in his right hand—with his left he pulled the Prince’s hands up until they were on either side of what had been his face. He stuffed the grenade into where a mouth should have been and released the lever.

By the time the blast echoed throughout the city canyon, Wesley was at the perimeter of the site. As he slid under the fence, he saw a crowd of people outside Lynch’s Bar on the corner ... and a squad car. He looked to his left, toward the river, and saw that way was still clear. Wesley threw himself prone and unsnapped the last grenade. He pulled the pin and held it tightly in his right hand. With his left, he aimed the pistol carefully at the big cop trying to hold back the crowd.

The revolver boomed twice. Wesley was up and throwing the grenade before the crowd started to panic and run. It arced through the night under the streetlights, then exploded in the middle of the crowd. Wesley was running toward Tenth Avenue on the follow-through from his throwing motion. The closest car was at 40th and Twelfth. Wesley knew he only had a minute or two to disappear into the shadows. He kicked his legs high into his chest, trying desperately for a burst of speed that wouldn’t come.

As he crossed Eleventh Avenue, a cab flashed its lights off and on twice. Wesley turned toward it, the little gun up and ready. He ran toward the driver’s window and was only half surprised to see Pet behind the wheel. He was into the cab and it was heading downtown before Wesley could catch his breath. The cab turned left on 23rd and headed crosstown.

“What were you doing in the street?” he finally asked Pet.

“I was cruising Twelfth all night. When the police-band said there was a report of shots fired in the construction site, I figured it might be you. I knew 40th and Twelfth was the closest car, and you wouldn’t be trying to go crosstown to Fifth with all that heat around.”

“What if I didn’t come out?”

“I was going in.”

“After me?”

“After that Prince motherfucker.”

The cab hit the FDR Drive and grabbed the service road. They were back onto the Slip and into the garage by 12:15. The police-band was still screaming CODE THREE!

47/

The Post had a bylined story on the riot in Times Square the night before. Police theorized that it was a terrorist attack of some kind, probably aimed directly at the “Guardians in Blue.” There was no mention of a man found in the construction site. Pet looked up from the paper at Wesley, who was staring with fixed concentration at a completely blank white wall.

“There’s nothing in here about the Prince,” the old man said.

“Why should there be?” Wesley wanted to know. “There wasn’t much left of him.”

“They always got fingerprints ... dental charts ... something.”

“With any kind of luck, they won’t get either off him. But some of his freaks probably took him away and buried him.”

“What do I tell them?”

“The people?’

“Yeah.”

“Tell them he’s gone and you not.”

“How did I do it?”

“None of their fucking business, right? You don’t get paid to draw no blueprints—that’s not professional, anyway.”

“I’ll go downstairs and call them—might as well get this thing on,” Pet said. “There’s going to be a council behind this for sure.

They won’t admit what they tried to set up, but with the Prince dead, they’ll know I know ... something.”

“You know where the meet is going to be?”

“You never know in front. They’ll just meet me on some corner with a car and take me there ... then drop me off when it’s over.”

“Could I follow them with the cab?”

“No way. I might be able to do it ... maybe ... but not you. It takes years to be that good with cars.”

“Could we find out where from someone?”

“You think this is the fucking movies? Forget it. In forty years doing their work, the only thing like that I ever found out was where Salmone’s daughter lives ... and that was a fucking accident.”

“The big guy? His daughter?”

“Yeah. His natural daughter, only she’s changed her name and everything. She lives on Sutton Place in one of those co-ops—married to a lawyer or an accountant or something like that.”

“Yeah...” Wesley said thoughtfully. “You’re the best now, right? With the Prince gone?”

“As far as they know.”

“Okay, go to the fucking council. I’m going to hit his daughter.”

“Why? What do you want to—?”

“I’ll make it look like there’s a gang of freaks after all of them. Make it so’s they have to go after whoever’s got a hard-on for them, you understand?”

“No.”

“Look, they need to be fucking scared. I know how to do that. It’s not just killing. When I’m done, they’ll know it’s no job for a few soldiers. And that’s when they’ll turn it over to you.”

“Depends. They could always—”

“An open contract’s garbage, and you know it. How long was Gallo on the street? And Valachi? For their own fucking necks, they’d only want the best. They only put out an open contract when it’s not about them.”

“Nah, Wes. They really wanted Gallo.”

“Sure, but for money, right? He wasn’t coming into their fucking houses after them. It was just business with Gallo—this won’t be.”

“So what? I don’t get this. If...”

“You going to get them all together, Pet: to explain what they’re up against, tell them what precautions to take. About this, they’ll listen to you. When I get finished, they’ll all show up to listen. And that’s when we end this whole stupid fucking game of us working for them.”

“How you gonna play it ... make it look like someone getting revenge for the Prince?”

“You’re kidding me, right? Carmine taught me. All those swine ever think about is throwing people like us away. They think it’s payback for the Prince, they’ll just stake you out in the cesspool like a slab of beef.”

“If not for the Prince, then...”

“This is gonna be like the freaks of the whole world rising up. They don’t need a reason. It’s going to be like they opened a fucking box and the slime comes squirming out over the rim.”

“You can’t...”

“It’s not hard. I’ve been thinking about it. Just be slick but look sick, that’s all. Get me all the information on the woman. Make sure she’s still there, get everything.”

“Yeah, okay. But I don’t—”

“Pet, this is the right way. I know.”

48/

Wesley went back to the wall, staring into it, until Pet left. He stayed there for three hours without moving. Finally his eyes closed—he took a massive breath and got to his feet. He got up, shaved, and changed into a battered cord jacket and chinos. Sneakers and some black-rimmed glasses completed the student trip. He went to the main library on 42nd Street, and stayed until it was near closing.

Two days later, Wesley drove up the FDR toward the Fifties. It was just past noon and he found a parking place on East 51st, right near the river. He walked the rest of the way to Sutton Place, thinking of another 51st Street—in New York, sometimes the other side of the city was the other side of the world.

He found the address Pet had given him. The old man had told him that the security system was a joke—the people who lived in that neighborhood wanted the kind of class building that wasn’t bristling with electronic devices and rent-a-cops. But there was a doorman, a middle-aged clown dressed in the kind of uniform self-respecting banana republics would have shunned, but suited the kind of humans that dwelled in the building. He didn’t give Wesley a second glance. Wesley took in the doorman’s flat, expressionless face and watched as he sprang to open the door for a tiny dowager. The doorman’s flatness wasn’t professional—he was just an ass-kisser who didn’t waste his talents on non-members.

Wesley saw a sign saying that service deliveries were to be made in the rear, so he walked around to the narrow, super-clean little alley. The service entrance wasn’t guarded, but it was locked. There was another sign telling the tradesmen to ring the bell that was beneath it. Wesley went back to the car and drove home, thinking.

Pet was already inside the garage.

“You got everything?” Wesley asked.

“Yeah. Her husband works on The Street. Leaves about 8:30, comes back between 7:30 and 10:00 every night. No dog. There’s an intercom which lets her ring the guy at the door downstairs if she wants. She’s got all those clubs and things, but she’s home every Wednesday and Thursday morning for sure. They go out together a lot—have parties in there about once a month. No one’s a regular visitor. Getting in’ll be the hard part.”

“I’ll have her father take me in.”

Pet went back to polishing the El Dorado, not asking for explanations.

“That’s the one I want for this,” Wesley told him, nodding at the beige Caddy. “Make it look like somebody rich owns it.”

Pet just nodded.

Wesley took a piece of paper out of his pocket, a news clipping.

“Pet, you know what they’re talking about here?”

The old man quickly scanned the clipping and saw what Wesley wanted. “A letter-bomb? Sure. It’s no big thing. All you need’s a spring to trigger it when the mark opens the flap.”

“Can you make one?”

“Yeah, I can make one. How big?”

“Big enough to blow someone up.”

“The bigger the blast, the bigger the package.”

“Can you get enough inside of a regular letter?”

“If the envelope’s heavy-enough paper, sure.”

“Rich people always write on heavy paper, right?”

“I guess,” the old man said, dubiously.

“You see this column, the Debutante Ball? The third broad down on the line is DiVencenzo’s daughter.”

“So? He’s nothing.”

“Right. But I got his address behind this paper. She should be getting a whole bunch of invitations to stuff now, right? That’s why the weasels pay so much coin ... to get their daughters into the society columns.”

“So?”

“So this particular broad’s gonna get a special invitation from us.”