A Bomb Built in Hell

“That’s good thinking, kid. There’s no code, we don’t owe the sucker anything. But if he’s got cover and you hit him, we’re in a firefight. And that’s a bigger risk, right?”

“Yeah,” the kid said. “I see.”

“So what we do is take the weasel’s money and just don’t make the hit on him ... or his wife. We just disappear.”

“And we get the fifty thousand.”

“Yeah.”

“Somehow it don’t seem right.”

“Not to hit the wife?”

“Not to hit him. It don’t seem safe to leave him alive.”

“Don’t think like a sucker. This is no hit on a mob guy. What’s he gonna do, run to the Law, say we cheated him? Right now, he wouldn’t begin to know where to look for me. A trail of bodies is easier to follow than a trail of fucking rumors.”

“But he’s seen your face.”

“Kid, he never saw my face.”

72/

After the kid went back downstairs, Wesley stayed on the roof to focus on the choices he had: if he took the money from Norden and just walked away without fulfilling the contract, the overwhelming odds were that Norden would never be in a position to retaliate—he would never see Wesley again, or hear of him. But Pet’s established business had been based upon two foundations: regular employment by the conservative old men who formed an ever-loosening and sloppy fraternity ... and occasional jobs from an even sloppier and far hungrier group of wealthy humans. The latter group depended on their own telegraph for information, and Wesley’s distinct failure to carry out the contract might curtail future employment.

It wasn’t nearly as simple as he had represented it to the kid. But the kid had to be taught to think a few steps in advance, and this was the best way to teach him. Wesley calculated the cash he and Pet had hidden in various spots throughout the building, in stashes elsewhere in the city, and in various banks and safe-deposit boxes around the country. Wesley could put his hands on almost half a million and never leave the building, but he could hardly bank the whole thing and expect to live on the interest. Even this huge sum of money was nothing compared to what they had actually earned in their profession. Pet routinely discounted all payoffs from employers against the possibility that the money was somehow marked, in special serial sequence, or just plain bogus. The discounters charged seventy percent for brand-new money with sequential serial numbers all the way down to twenty percent for money that looked, felt, and smelled used. They, in turn, deposited the money with a number of foreign banks—banks of friendly South American governments ran a close second to those in the Caribbean. Pet had laughed out loud once before reading Wesley a Times article about the “unstable” governments in South America:

“Simple-ass educated motherfuckers! Listen to this, Wes. The fools talk about fucking predicting which countries is stable and which ain’t. Now any asshole could tell you which was which if he would just ask the discounters. Wherever they put their money, you know there ain’t going to be no fucking revolution.”

“I thought you said some of them banked in Haiti.”

“So?”

“So how about if that Poppa Doc takes it all and tells them to go fuck themselves?”

“No way. Why you think America sends troops in there like they do? So many rich motherfuckers got their money in that place, and it’s those same rich motherfuckers who bankroll the politicians. They’re all criminals.”

“Like us.”

“Wrong. Stealing to eat ain’t criminal—stealing to be rich is.”

“I wanted to get rich.”

“So’s you wouldn’t have to...?”

“Work ... yeah. Okay, old man.”

The money they got in exchange was perfect: old, used, no way to distinguish it or connect it with any job or payoff. “Steam-cleaned,” they called it. Such money always came with a lifetime guarantee—the lifetime of the laundryman.

So the half-million was clean. They could pass it all day, anyplace, without trouble. Pet had made some water-tight containers for the cash, and Wesley had memorized the locations. And the bank accounts and safe-deposit boxes all had books, keys, and papers to grease the way if necessary. So they didn’t have to kill to eat, to survive, even to live in what would amount to a certain degree of luxury and comfort. Wesley often thought about foreign countries, but never with longing. The only piece of land he would give his life to protect was an ugly old warehouse on Pike Slip.

So why kill Norden ... why meet him at all? What could another fifty thousand mean to either of them now?

But Carmine had built a bomb in hell—a bomb that had somehow learned how to explode and kill without destroying itself. Wesley sat on the roof, thinking: Is that the only fucking thing I can do now?

Carmine had spent hours examining, probing, destroying Wesley’s once-treasured genetic misconceptions. “The only color I hate is blue.” And Wesley spent still more hours wrestling with them on his own. What made Carmine hate the men who had perished in their custom-made gas chamber was easy to see. They had left him to die without a cause, without a culture—so the old man forged his own out of his hatred and Wesley’s need.

But what had made the men that Carmine hated? They weren’t born like that.

The only common thread in all the humans Wesley had been paid to kill had been their wealth or their threat to those who had wealth. That same thread ran through all the humans Wesley killed intentionally for himself and Carmine and Pet—but it wasn’t in every one of the victims. The woman on Sutton Place had died because she was a way to kill others—that she was rich was incidental. The Prince had had money—he must have had some serious money stashed someplace—but he was killed because he was an enemy. The people in the crowd on West 51st who got bombed by the grenade ... the junkies blown up by the booby-trapped bag ... whoever was within the fallout range of the building on Chrystie ... the methadone clinic ... the girl in the massage parlor...

War casualties. Very fucking casual.

When the jets strafed a village in Korea, they left everybody there on the ground, burning. Women breed children; children grow up to hunt their parents’ killers. Blood into the ground, seeding the next wave.

They hit a village way up north once, before Wesley got on the sniper team. When his squad charged the smoking ruins, Wesley was on the point. The lieutenant wasn’t shit, a ROTC-punk kid that the whole platoon hated, so Wesley just up and took the point because he wanted to stay alive. The silent backing of the rest was enough to educate even a human with a college degree on that miserable slice of earth.

Wesley crashed through first, but the place was empty. In the next-to-last hut, he heard a baby’s cry and he hit the ground elbows first, rifle up and pointed at Oriental-chest level. No more sound. Wesley crawled toward the hut ... slowly.

He saw the woman then; she looked about thirty and was coming at him with a tiny knife as quickly and quietly as she could. As he came to his knees, she launched herself at his face. Wesley spun his rifle and slammed it against the side of her head. She went down hard. He ran past her toward the hut; he got about ten feet when the woman landed on his back and the knife pricked into his upper shoulder. He rolled with the thrust—the woman went flying over his back, still holding the knife.

Wesley held the rifle at his waist and their eyes met ... and time stopped. He motioned with the barrel for her to split ... get into the fucking jungle before he blew her head off. It took her only a second to understand what he meant. The woman got to her feet holding the puny knife between herself and Wesley, as though it were a cross to a vampire. But instead of running into the jungle, she backed toward the hut.

Wesley’s ears picked up the sound of other soldiers systematically working their way through the burning ruins ... shots fired, an occasional scream.

The woman kept backing toward the hut. Stupid bitch, he thought. She was going to die or worse if she didn’t get into the brush fast. The woman ducked into the hut and came out in a second holding a naked little male child under her left arm. The right hand still held the knife. Wesley watched as she faded into the jungle. He was still staring at the spot when the others came up behind him.

On the way back, Wesley forced himself to think about what had happened. He finally realized the only reason he didn’t blow her away at first was because it wasn’t consistent with his image of himself to kill a woman. And besides, it was the motherfucking colonel that talked about wiping them all out and he never went with them, so fuck him and his orders—that was consistent.

But when Wesley saw her face, he had been afraid for just a split second. It wasn’t until she came out of the hut that Wesley realized the crazy woman was willing to die to protect the little kid. He remembered her face and her look. If his mother had looked like that, maybe he wouldn’t have been raised by the State. But he had never seen his mother as far as he could recall, so he just didn’t know....

When they kill only the male children, they make one big motherfucker of a mistake, he thought.

73/

The next morning, Wesley told the kid they weren’t even going to meet Norden, much less cancel his ticket or his wife’s. He watched the kid’s face closely, pleased to see no trace of disappointment ... or happiness. It was always bad news when the bomb started to need the target.

But the kid was still puzzled. “What’s the next thing?”

“I don’t know, kid. There’s a reason why I didn’t want to go out with Pet. The methadone clinic was part of it ... and some other stuff, too ... just before that creep at the racetrack.”

“What stuff?”

“That sicko, the freak who went around here cutting little kids with a razor, you know who I mean?”

“Yeah. They never caught him, right? He’s still out there?”

“He’s in the morgue. I hit him on the Slip the night I brought the dog home, a long time before you came.”

“That was the right thing to do. If I was the fucking heat and I came on him, I’d never bring him in.”

“They wouldn’t bring me in either, right? And I didn’t hit him for that. Remember: all dead meat brings flies. He was the same as the methadone clinic to me.”

“Because?”

“Because baby-rapers bring the law—they always do, just like the dope fiends bring it. So he had to go. I thought he was cutting on a kid out there, but after I hit him it turned out to be the dog.”

“How’d you know where to look for him?”

“I learned in prison. If I was a cop, there’d be a whole lot of sorry motherfuckers out there.”

“How’d you hit him?”

“With the target pistol, at about fifty feet.”

“That don’t seem right to me. Like you showing him too much respect, you know? You maybe should of slashed his fucking throat.”

“He’s just as dead this way. You think they’d pin a fucking medal on me for whacking him out?”

“No, I know they don’t do that.”

“They used to do it, right? I got a couple of medals in Korea for shit like that ... stupid.”

“For giving you the medals?”

“Me, for doing their fucking killing for them.”

“You did Carmine’s killing for him....”

“Carmine made it my own killing.... And even if it wasn’t, I had to kill them so I could do my own.”

“At the racetrack?”

“No. I thought that was it. But, if it was, I’d go on this Norden thing, right? In fact, that’s the one thing been on my mind for a long time.”

“Why just that?” the kid asked.

“Meaning...?”

“Why just killing—there’s other things.”

“That’s all I know how to... Look, you got a woman?”

“No, not right now. I mean, there’s a girl I go and see sometimes, but I can’t make anything regular out of it....”

“But you can have one if you want, right? You can talk to them? Talk to all kinds of people out there,” he gestured with a wide sweep of his hand to encompass the city. “Right?”

“Just some kind of people, really....”

“What kind?”

“Guys that have been Inside, women on the track.... I don’t know ... maybe you’re right. I could talk to anybody I wanted, probably.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Have a woman, talk to a man, be around people and not have them know about me.... I did it when I went out to see Norden but that’s not because I fit in. I was invisible to those people. In Times Square, they all knew. And when they don’t.... You believe that three punks tried to take me off in a parking lot on the Island?”

“Heeled?”

“No!” he snorted. “Three punks and one little knife between them ... and I’m already sitting in the car with the engine running.”

“Jesus! They must of been...”

“They just couldn’t see, kid,” Wesley explained. “I could walk right up to them and they’d never know ... but I couldn’t talk to them.”

“The women ... maybe I could...”

“No. I left that ... I left it in the jail, or maybe before.”

“You could get it back.”

“It would cost too much now—what would I do with it? I know what I have to do ... just not who to do it to.”

“I don’t know either,” the kid said.

“Well, you better fucking find out. Carmine sent me to the library to find out how—I guess you’d better start going to find out who.”

“I haven’t had a woman since I moved in here.”

“You better stay in touch with that too, kid. Stay in touch; stay close to it all. After I go, you don’t want to be all alone.”

“Wesley...?”

“Carmine and Pet were always together, right? I was alone until I had them. When Carmine checked out, he left Pet behind. And Pet left me behind for you, right? When I go, you’ll be alone ... and we don’t have enough bullets for them all, kid. It was all for fucking nothing unless you can make it happen—I know that now. I came out to avenge Carmine. I did that. Why aren’t I dead and home with him?”

“I don’t know, but...”

“Pet wouldn’t have gone unless he knew that I was okay to leave. I can’t go either until you are.”

“I’m not ready ... you’ve still got stuff to show me.”

“Show you what? I’ve taught you just about everything I know about how to kill.”

“But...”

“But there has to be something more, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s the mystery, kid. The part I don’t know about. But I’m going to figure it out before I leave.”

“Politics?” the kid asked.

“Politics? I don’t know. I know this—when I was overseas I learned some things. Say it takes thirty grains of rice a day to keep a man alive ... what happens if you give him forty grains?”

“He’s happy?”

“Enough not to kill you, anyway. What happens if you give him twenty grains?”

“Then he comes for you.”

“Okay, sure. But why the fuck should he spare your life for thirty lousy grains of rice? Why shouldn’t he want the whole thing for himself and grow his own damn rice?”

“People own land....”

“Is that right? And where’d they get it from?”

“They bought it?”

“From who? You keep going back far enough, kid, what you find out is, they fought for it.”

“So?”

“So why don’t the sorry motherfucker getting the thirty grains of rice fight for it too?”

“The law—”

“Was written by the motherfuckers who got the land now, see?”

“Yeah. And they got the police and the army and everything else to protect that land.”

“That isn’t all, kid. What you think the Welfare Department is all about? Or the fucking methadone ... any of that giveaway shit?”

“I don’t see how it’s the same. If—”

“The Welfare, that’s the thirty grains of rice. You can live off it but you can’t live on it, you understand? And the methadone, to a dope fiend, that’s the thirty grains.”

“Dope fiends don’t vote, Wes.”

“The fuck they don’t—winos vote on election day, right?”

“Yeah, for a bottle of wine.”

“So the dope fiends...”

“I get it.”

“Yeah. So what? Even I can see that.”

“What do you mean, Wesley?”

“That kind of crap just plain hits you in the face. They got to have systems, you know? Like in the joint. Just a few hacks ... and a fucking regiment of cons, right? But nobody ever walks over the Wall.”

“The Man has the guns.”

“Bullshit! He don’t have the guns in the blocks, on the tiers, right? The guards are unarmed, but we let him lay, because we don’t even trust each other. It’s real easy my way—black and white, us against them, period. I did it for Carmine ... but now I don’t know who to do it for. It can’t be for me....”

“Why not? If you risk your life like you do, then...”

“I’m already dead. I’m tired. I don’t want to be here anymore, kid.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“I know. That means you can still be here, you see? It can still be for you.”

74/

Wesley went upstairs and focused on the fourth-floor wall for a long while. Then he went down to the kid’s room in the garage.

“I saw on the news last night that Poppa Doc’s faggot son is coming to this country.”

“From Haiti?” the kid asked.

“Yeah. That fat, greasy nigger is running the show down there his way. I knew a guy in the joint that lived under his old man— he said Poppa Doc was the Devil, straight up.”

“So?”

“I’m going to blow him up.”

“Why? I don’t get it, Wesley. You call him a nigger, right? And all that’s going to be getting anything behind you wasting this cocksucker is another bunch of niggers....”

“Like Carmine said ... that maggot is a nigger, right? An ugly word for a black bastard with a greedy heart and bloody hands. But the others he’s got locked up there, they ain’t niggers, kid— they’re people like us, right? Like you, anyway.”

“You going to hit him for...?”

“I wish it was for me. Maybe it will be for me after it happens. If it works in Haiti...”

“Hit the Boss here?”

“You know, it’s not that hard. I studied assassinations for years. Every day, every way. The reason we don’t hit presidents here too much is that we afraid to die.... In some countries, they do it all the time. Look at the different styles; you’re going to hit a big man here, how you do it?”

“A rifle,” the kid replied. “Like at the bridge.”

“Right. In Latin America, or in the Orient, you take a goddamn machete and you jump right into the bastard’s limo, or up on the stage, or...”

“But you’d never—”

“Get out alive, right?” Wesley interrupted. “But, see, you’re not doing it for no money. You got some people you protecting—your mother and your children and your neighbors and all that, right? It’s worth it ... it fucking must be worth it.”

“It don’t seem to work here—that guy, who shot Wallace...”

“He was a whacko, kid. A stone freak, probably came behind pulling the trigger. He wasn’t a pro. I was that close, I’d have so much lead into him it’d take a fucking crane to get him off the ground.”

“That clown who shot the black preacher, wasn’t he...?”

“That was a fix, kid—just like at the fucking track. Let me tell you what happened, okay? Somebody came to him in the joint, told him he was pulling The Book anyway, didn’t have nothing to lose. So here’s the proposition: he hits the preacher and escapes, he’s ahead and he’s rich. He hits the preacher and they snatch him ... and they agree in front not to total him when they make the capture ... all he gets is another stretch. You can’t do no more than one Life, right? And in that joint, he’s a fucking hero behind hitting that preacher, too.

“Kid, you know how hard it is to hit a man right and walk away from it. You know how long I’ve worked at it. And that’s just here. I wouldn’t drive no fucking registered car to Memphis, hit him with that lousy gun he had, and then try the phony passport thing. He didn’t even have a safe house to crawl into ... no cover, nothing. The slob only fired one shot, too. Then he panicked.

“Just a fucking redneck jerk that they used, kid ... one of the bullets.”

“That book I read about it said—”

“A book! Jesus, books are good for science, but they ain’t shit for truth. I’ll prove it to you ... you always reading about crime, right?”

“Especially about murders....”

“Okay. Tell me what you know about the Taylor Twins murders.”

“Right. Two rich broads get all ripped up in their fancy apartment. The cops snag this black guy in Brooklyn. He’s retarded and scared. They beat a confession outta him, but they can’t make it stand up because there was some real obvious bullshit going on, and he gets cut loose. Anyway, to make it short, they finally get the actual killer, a Puerto Rican junkie. He confesses ... and he goes down for Double Life upstate.”

“Yeah. And here’s the truth. Langford was the name of the black guy, right? And Gonzales was the name of the Latin dude, right?”

“Right. They even had a TV show on about it.”

“Okay. Now understand this—Gonzales didn’t kill those girls.”

“How you know for sure?”

“Because I know the guy who did it. Pet and I did a job for this creep—it was hitting this old man. See, the old man was all mobbed up and he found this creep had tortured his daughter ... for fun, right? Anyway, the girl didn’t die and the outfit wouldn’t allow the creep to be killed, just messed up. But the old man wasn’t going for that; he put out a contract on his own. They paid us to hit the old man ... and they fixed it so’s the creep would pay us direct, you understand?”

“Dirty motherfuckers,” the kid snarled.

“That’s the way they do their business, kid. Anyway, when I went to this penthouse, the weasel treated me like I was like him, you know ... another fucking sex-freak? He told me he used to go to their apartment and tie the both of them up—you know, like it was okay with them. At least that’s what the freak said. Anyway, one time he got carried away and wasted them—he even kept some of their clothes in his place. For trophies, like. He was laughing his ass off at Gonzales doing time for that mess.”

“What did you do?”

“I did him.”

“For Gonzales?”

“For me. The freak was really bent out of shape and I didn’t know what he’d do next—he’d seen my face. I was going to write to Gonzales or something but I got the word that some people wanted him to stay down for that job and I couldn’t do it without exposing myself.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Jesus. The poor sonofabitch Gonzales. I heard later he flipped out. They got his ass up in Matteawan.”

“Isn’t there something...?”

“I’m going to hit Fat Boy.”

75/

The next morning found Wesley driving the Caddy up the West Side Highway toward Times Square. Fat Boy was going to arrive in America by boat to promote Haiti’s new shipping industry. He was slated to arrive at the Grace Line Pier on the luxury liner Liberté. Wesley had planned to get as close to the scene as he could. But as he passed by Pier 40 on the highway, his eye caught a new building apparently under construction right across from the Pier.

He turned off the highway at 23rd Street and drove back downtown until he was parked across a narrow street from the rear of the new building. It was almost finished. In deference to New York tradition, the windows hadn’t been put in yet—not much sense to do that without a full-time security guard. Wesley counted eight stories. A tractor-trailer rumbled by on its way to one of the waterfront warehouses.

Wesley walked across the street to a steel door set flush into the back of the building. It was freshly painted red, with a new Yale lock. He opened the door as if he belonged there, and went inside. It was only moderately noisy—the construction crew had just about finished, and only the final touches remained. Wesley had a few quick seconds to notice an unfinished staircase leading to higher floors before a small man with an enormous beer belly screamed over to him, “Hey! You from Collicci’s?”

“Yeah!” Wesley shouted back.

“Where’s the stuff?”

“In the truck. Be right back.”

Wesley was a couple of blocks away before the man inside had time to give things another thought. He drove all the way down to where they were finishing the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, then reversed his field and drove by the front of the building again. It was a long shot to the Pier, but not anything all that spectacular.

That night, Wesley made the run again and found the building was completely dark. Fat Boy was due to arrive in two days—that would make it a Saturday. The papers said twelve noon.

The kid was waiting for him when he pulled into the garage. “You still going ahead with it?”

“Yeah. For sure now. It’s easy as hell to get in—there’s a clear shot from the top floor, and plenty of room up there ... perfect. You got the schedule?”

“Yeah,” the kid said. “He’s supposed to arrive at noon, but it could be as much as an hour and a half later, depending on the ocean. Weather report says fair and clear; high in the nineties, low in the high seventies. The Mayor’s going to welcome him and there’s going to be a big crowd ... and a big demonstration, too.”

“Who?” Wesley asked.

“Some exiled Haitians who think this country shouldn’t let him come....”

“They’ll be glad he did.”

“Where’ll I be?”

“Right here, watching the TV for the news. Aren’t they going to cover it live?”

“Yeah, fuck that! Why should I be here?”

“I don’t need you.”

“You got the whole thing figured?”

“Yeah, I told you ... you got the sextant?”

“Look, Wesley, I got everything you said. But you left out something.”

“What?”

“After you hit him, right? How you going to come out?”

“I guess I’m not.”

“No good.”

“No good! What the fuck do you mean, ‘no good’? Who’re you to— ?”

“I know who I am ... and this is fucked up, Wesley. It’s not what you said.”

Wesley watched the kid carefully. “How isn’t it?”

“You killing this faggot as an experiment, right? Sure, it’ll maybe help a bunch of other people ... but you’re going to see, right? If it works, then we going someplace else, right? That rifle’s no machete, Wesley ... and you’re no Latin American, either.”

“Look, I...”

“I know. But you can’t go home behind this one, Wesley. I won’t keep you past the right time.”

“You can’t keep me.”

“Yes, I can. Because you owe me, like Pet owed you.”

Wesley focused on the kid’s face, seeing deep into his skull. “What’re you saying?”

“Didn’t the old man look you in the face when you sent him home?” the kid demanded.

“You know he did.”

“Then you need to look me in the face before you go, too, Wesley.”

76/

1:45 a.m., Saturday. The Ford pulled up outside the red steel door. The kid sat behind the wheel with a .12 gauge Ithaca pump gun across his knees. He held a Ruger .44 Magnum in his right hand. The engine was running, but it was impossible to hear, even with an ear against the fender. Wesley climbed out of the passenger seat and walked quickly to the door. He pulled a clear plastic bag from under his coat and extracted a long, thin tube of putty-colored material. He applied the plastique evenly all around the door, between it and the frame ... an extra blob went over the handle. A string hung loose from the blob. Wesley pulled the string hard and moved quickly back across the street in the same motion.

The putty briefly sparked—there was a flash and a muted popping sound. The street was still empty. Wesley grabbed the large suitcase from the back seat, swung the duffel bag over his shoulder, and got out again.

The kid looked across at him. “Wesley, I’ll have the radio tuned to pick up the TV station. I’ll move under a minute or so just before, okay?”

“I’ll be coming out, kid.”

“I know.”

The Ford remained idling on the street until Wesley crossed and threw open the red steel door. He tossed his gear on the dark floor and closed the door from the inside, just as the kid crossed the street holding a gasoline-soaked rag. The kid wiped down the outside of the door as Wesley attached the floor-mounted brace from the inside. Working in unison even though they could no longer see each other, the kid and Wesley each broke open a full tube of Permabond and squeezed a beady trail of the liquid all around the edges of the door. The kid smacked the door sharply twice with an open palm to tell Wesley that it looked fine from the outside now—in a few minutes the door wouldn’t open unless it was blasted again. The body language of the men he’d seen told Wesley that finishing this building wasn’t a rush job, and a phone call had told him no work crew was scheduled for Saturday.

Wesley began to plan out his moves ... then he realized that his open hand was still pressed against the door in unconscious imitation of the way people said good-bye to each other in the Tombs—palms pressed against the cloudy plexiglass....

The kid, driving the Ford back toward the Slip, was thinking too, looking for clues. He didn t take the dog with him, the kid said to himself, finally relaxing. He drove professionally the rest of the way.

Wesley carefully, slowly laid out the two dozen sticks of dynamite the kid had purchased from a construction worker a few weeks ago. After he had screwed in the blasting caps one at a time, he stuck them all together with more of the plastique putty, driving the wires through and around the deadly lump and into the rectangular transmitter. Finally, he gently positioned the unit under a dark-green canvas tarpaulin in a far corner of the first floor.

Wesley climbed the seven flights of stairs to the top floor. The place was nearly completed. He found himself in a long hall, with doors opening into various rooms. He tried each room, looking across to the Pier with the night glasses until he located the right one. The elevator shafts were already finished, but no cars were installed. There was another staircase at the opposite end of the building parallel to the one Wesley had used.

Wesley stored all his stuff in the room he was going to use and began to retrace his steps. He tried the portable blowtorch on the steel steps first, but quit after a few minutes, only halfway through the first step. He then pulled a giant can of silicon spray out of his duffel and began to carefully and fully spray each individual step, working his way up the steps backwards until he again reached the top floor. Then he went down the parallel staircase to the first floor and worked his way back up again, repeating the procedure.

He looked down the stairs and gently tossed a penny onto the step nearest him. The penny slid off as if it were propelled and kept sliding all the way to the bottom of the flight. Satisfied, Wesley then applied the Permabond to each of the two top doors. He used all the remaining silicon to paint his way back toward the entrance of the room he was going to use.

He walked to the opposite end of the floor and worked his way backward, so that the only clear spot on the floor was in the very middle. Then he stepped inside the door and, without closing it, sprayed an extra-thick coat around the threshold. Finally, he closed the door and applied a coat of the Permabond to the inside.

It was 3:18 a.m. when he finished. Between Wesley and the ground floor were some incredibly slippery stairs, all separated by doors bonded to their frames.

Wesley set his tripod way back from the window, only about three feet from the door. No matter how the sun rose the next day, the shadows would extend at least this far back. Wesley would be shooting out of darkness, even at high noon. He went to the window and leaned out. The street below was narrow and empty. It was a long way to the ground.

Wesley took a long coil of black Perlon 11mm line from his duffel. It would support five thousand pounds to the inch. He anchored it securely to the window frame and tested it with all his strength. He laid the coiled line inside the window and attached the pair of U-bolts to the window frame to make sure.

Wesley spread a heavy quilt on the floor. On it he placed a bolt-action Weatherby .300 magnum. From all Wesley’s research, this one had the flattest trajectory, longest range, and greatest killing power. He’d tried several rifles set up for the NATO 5.56 mm cartridge, but the Weatherby gave him the best one-shot odds. If he put any one of the Nosler 180 grain slugs into Fat Boy, that would get it done.

He and the kid had talked it over for hours. The kid wanted Wesley to go for the chest shot, since it was a much bigger target. But Wesley had showed him the new LEAA Newsletter with its successful field-tests of the new Kevlar weave for bulletproof fabric. The publication said the weave would turn a .38 Special at near point-blank range and Wesley figured Fat Boy to be double-wrapped in the new stuff.

The 2-24X zoom-scope was bolted to the rifle’s top; the whole piece was designed so that the bolt could be worked without disturbing the setting. He put the spotting scope, the altimeter, and a handful of cartridges down on the quilt. No silencer this time; there would only be the one chance, so accuracy ruled over all other considerations.

Wesley removed the deerskin gloves, and the surgeon’s gloves he wore underneath. His palms were dry from the talc. Wesley took the auger with the four-inch bit and drilled sixteen precise holes in the room—in the walls and in the floor. Into each he put a stick of dynamite. The dynamite was connected with fusing material and the whole network again connected to one of Pet’s zinc-lined boxes. It would have been better to take all the stuff with him, but that would cost time he wouldn’t have. Wesley taped the other eight sticks of dynamite together and wired them to the door, with a trip mechanism set just in case the radio transmitter failed to fire—sooner or later, the cops would be breaking down the door, even if they hit him with a lucky shot as he was leaving the window.

It was 4:11 a.m. when Wesley finished this last task. None of the metal in the room gleamed—it had been worked with gunsmith’s bluing and then carefully dulled with a soapy film. All the glass was non-glare, and Wesley was dressed in the outfit he had field-tested on the roof. He was invisible even to the occasional pigeon that flew past. Wesley hated the foul birds. (“I never saw a joint without pigeons; fucking rats with wings!” Carmine had said once.) But it would be too much of an indulgence to even think about killing one now.

Wesley had no food with him, and no cigarettes, but he did have a canteen full of glucose and water and he took a sip just before he went into a fix on the window. He came out of it, as he planned, at 6:30. The city was already awake. Staying toward the back of the room, he took the readings that he needed. The building was one-hundred-and-eighteen-feet high at window level, the Pier was seventeen-hundred-and-fifty feet from where he stood. Wesley stepped behind the tripod and refocused the scope. There was no ship at the Pier, but he swept its full length and he knew he’d have a clear shot no matter where Fat Boy got off.

Wesley went toward the back of the room again, crossed his legs into a modified lotus, and sat focusing on the window ahead of him, mentally reviewing everything in the room and all the preparations inside. The building outside the one room was blocked off completely. There was no way to go back downstairs anyway, so Wesley’s entire mind was focused in the room and out the window. He mentally reviewed the picture of Fat Boy the kid had clipped from Newsweek. It wasn’t all that good, but Wesley knew the target would wear a ton of medals on his fat chest and would be obviously treated like a big deal when he walked down the ramp to the Pier.

77/

The crowd started to assemble well before 10:00 a.m. At first it seemed like it wasn’t going to be such a big event after all; maybe three hundred people total, half of them government agents. But the crowd kept growing, and Wesley saw the white helmets of the TPF keeping people back. Demonstrators ... with the spotting scope, it was easy to read the carefully lettered signs:

THE U.S. DOES NOT WELCOME TYRANTS!

KILLER OF CHILDREN!

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON!

“They should be the ones up here in this fucking window,” flashed through Wesley’s mind. He carefully plucked the thought and tossed it into the garbage can of his brain—the part that already contained questions about his mother and the name of the first institution he had been committed to when he was four years old.

By 11:15, the crowd was good-sized, but not unruly. Traffic was backed up on the West Side Highway as people rubber-necked to see what was going on down at the Pier. The dock, which could accommodate two ocean liners at the same time, was still empty.

At 11:45, the Mayor arrived in a helicopter with three men who looked like politicians from the ground, but like bodyguards through the scope.

At 12:05 p.m., the first tugs steamed in, towing the ship. The crowd let out a major cheer, drowning the voices of the demonstrators. Wesley trained the scope on the face of their leader, searching carefully for anything dangerous. But he seemed too beside himself with rage to have planned anything that might get in the way.

At 12:35 p.m., the gangplank was lowered from the ship to the dock. An honor guard came first, flying the Haitian flag and the American flag in separate holders. The soldiers held their rifles like they were batons. As the TV crews trained their cameras toward the entrance to the gangplank, the reporters jockeyed for position at its foot.

At 12:42 p.m., Fat Boy started to walk down the gangplank. In what must have been a carefully orchestrated move, he stood alone, with bodyguards in front and behind, his fat body contrasting photogenically against the gangplank’s fresh white paint.

Fat Boy halted—from the way the men behind him halted too, the whole thing must have been rehearsed to death.

Fat Boy turned and waved to the crowd—a huge roar went up and surrounded him. Wesley felt a lightness he had never felt while working before—a glow came up from his stomach and started to encircle his face.... But it had too many years of breeding and training to compete with. Wesley focused hard on the scope, watching Fat Boy’s face fill the round screen. He watched the crosshairs intersect on Fat Boy’s left eye.

The crowd was now in a huge, rough semicircle around the base of the gangplank and the noise was terrific. The wind held steady at seven m.p.h. from the west—the tiny transistor-powered radio which picked up only the Coast Guard weather reports gave Wesley a bulletin every fifteen minutes. He had cranked in the right windage and elevation hours ago and stood ready to adjust ... but everything had held ... static.

Wesley slowed his breathing, reaching for peace inside, counting his heartbeats.

Fat Boy turned to his left to throw a last wave at the crowd, just as Wesley’s finger completed its slow backward trip—the sharp cccrack! came at a higher harmonic than the crowd-noise. It seemed to pass over everyone’s head as Fat Boy’s head burst open like a rotten melon with a stick of dynamite inside. The screaming took on a higher pitch and the bodyguards rushed uselessly toward the fallen ruler as Wesley smoothly jacked a shell into the chamber and pumped another round into Fat Boy’s exposed back, aiming this time for the spinal area. It seemed to him as if the shots echoed endlessly, but nobody looked in his direction. Still, it wouldn’t take the TPF too long to figure things out.

Wesley stood up, stuck the two expended shells in his side pocket out of habit, and ran to the window. Without looking down, he tossed the coil over the sill and followed it out. Wesley rappelled down with his back to the waterfront, both hands on the nylon line. Either the kid would cover him or he wouldn’t—he didn’t have any illusions about blasting somebody with one hand holding on to the rope. The bottom of his eyesight picked up the Ford as he slid down the last twenty feet. Wesley hit the ground hard, rolled over onto his side, and came up running for the back door, which was lying open. He grabbed the shotgun off the floor of the Ford, heard running footsteps, and saw the kid charging toward the car with a silenced, scoped rifle. The kid tossed the rifle into the back seat and the Ford moved off like a soundless rocket, as good as Pet ever could have done.

78/

The quiet car spun itself loose in the narrow streets of the area. The kid hadn’t said a word—he was watching the Halda Trip-Master clicking off hundredths of a mile. Just before the machine indicated 99/100, the kid slammed the knife-switch home. A dull, booming sound followed in seconds, but the echoes reverberated for another full minute after the Ford had re-entered the West Side Highway and was passing the World Trade Center on the left.

The Ford sped back to the Slip without seeming to exceed the speed limit. A touch of the horn ring forced the garage door up, and the kid hit it again to bring it down almost in the same motion. The door slammed inches behind the Ford’s rear bumper. Both men sprinted out from the Ford and jumped into the cab, which was out the door and heading for the highway again almost immediately.

Wesley inserted the tiny earplug and nodded to the kid who turned on the police-band radio under the front seat. It was more static-free than the regular police units and Wesley could hear everything clearly.

All units in vicinity Pier 40, proceed to area and deploy ... TPF is in charge ... acknowledge as you go in ... repeat: acknowledge as you go in ... unknown number of men spotted in building directly across from pier ... eighth floor, fourth window from left ... shots fired.

Central ... Central, this is 4-Bravo-21, K? We’re going to try the rear door. Get us some cover, K?

Four-Bravo-21, 4-Bravo-21: Do not enter the building. Repeat: Do not enter the building. Back-up is on the way. You are under the command of the TPF captain on the scene. Do not enter. Acknowledge.

Wesley slid back the protective partition between the seats, tapped the kid on the shoulder, “Slow it down, kid—they’re not even at the building yet.”

The kid did something and the cab slowed to a crawl, although it still appeared to be keeping up with the traffic stream. Wesley kept locked into the police-band. Minutes crawled slower than the cab.

All units now in position, acknowledge.

A series of 10-4s followed as each car called in. Central went back to a stabbing in Times Square. Wesley tapped the kid again, and the cab sped up unobtrusively.

The cab passed by the building on the highway very slowly; traffic was clogged as the drivers bent their necks to see what was happening. The Pier was crowded with people and ambulances. The cab finally came to a dead stop in the traffic. From where they sat, they could almost see into the blown-out window—the rest of the building was completely intact.

“I guess we got the window blown out in time,” Wesley said. “They never noticed the rope hanging down.”

“There was no rope hanging down—that’s what I was doing with the piece when you ran into the car,” the kid replied.

“You fucking shot the rope down?!”

“It wasn’t hard—black line against a red building, and I had almost a minute to get set up. I figured it would only cost us a second or so and the rope hanging down was the only bad part of the whole thing.”

“How many shots you have to fire?”

“I got it the first time—I cut loose as soon as you let go.”

“You’ve got Pet’s blood in you, alright.”

Wesley spotted the SWAT team deploying on the roof. He flicked the walkie-talkie to the intercept band.

“Not a fucking sound in there, Sarge. Want us to go in?”

“Negative! Stay right there! The Captain’s getting on the horn down here first—maybe the bastards’ll surrender.”

The cop’s short laugh sounded just like a bark over the speaker. Then the bullhorn’s battery-powered voice blasted the air.

“You men up there! This is Captain Berkowitz of the Tactical Patrol Force. Throw out your weapons and walk out of the back door one at a time, with your hands away from your bodies. You will not be harmed. The building is completely surrounded—you don’t have a chance. You have to surrender peacefully—don’t make it any worse on yourselves.”

It didn’t surprise Wesley that only silence came back out at the police from the building. The cop was back on the horn again.

“Listen, you people ... the man you shot isn’t dead—he isn’t going to die! It’s not a murder rap yet—don’t make it one! Come out without your weapons ... you have thirty seconds.”

The kid said “Fuck!” softly, almost beyond audibility, but Wesley had been listening for it.

“He’s dead, kid,” Wesley told him. “The first shot took his face off. The cops are just running a hustle, that’s all.”

“They said...”

“Doesn’t mean anything. We’re not the only ones don’t play by the rules. Fat Boy is gone to heaven, I promise you.”

One of the cops on the roof lobbed in a tear-gas grenade—the wind carried the gas right out of the window of the sealed room and it stayed quiet. A sharp bang! broke the silence.

“They must of figured they wasn’t going to break in that street door,” Wesley smiled.

While the TPF Captain kept up a steady stream of threats and promises, the floor of the building rapidly filled with cautious policemen who started up the stairs. They slid back, cursing and frightened. After they reported back to the Captain, he tried the bullhorn again. “All that crap on the stairs isn’t going to keep us out forever, men! You’ve got nowhere to go! Make it easy on yourselves!”

A break in traffic opened up and the kid shot for it like any good city hackster. They followed the highway to 23rd Street and doubled back toward the building. Four blocks from the site, they found traffic choked off again—a burly cop was gesturing threateningly at anyone who tried to get by.

The police-band was frantically screaming instructions to all units again—about thirty men had entered the building and were slowly making their way up the stairs with the aid of sandbags ... then they were even more slowly taking down each door on their way to the top. It was 2:45 p.m.

The kid made a gross U-turn right in front of the cop and the cab headed back toward Times Square. This time, they angled toward the water and finally pulled up on Twelfth Avenue just past 26th Street, right in front of the Starrett Lehigh Terminal. The huge, abandoned building had a giant SPACE AVAILABLE sign on its facade.

“There’s going to be a whole lot of motherfucking space available in one building I know about,” Wesley said. “Are we still within range?”

“Easy,” the kid responded. “We got about four-tenths-of-a-mile leeway from the Erie Lackawanna Yard and that’s a couple a blocks further north.”

“The building’s about as full as it’s going to get now. Hit the switch before they get into the room.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I set the dynamite to blow upwards, you know? I just wanted to blow out that one room, so’s they won’t find anything. We need at least one body so they won’t catch wise—it should look like the guys in that room decided to check out together instead of surrender.”

The kid didn’t reply. He reached forward and pushed the three buttons on the radio transmitter in correct sequence. In seconds, there was the familiar dull-booming throb, followed by a space-muffled crash. It wasn’t impressive at that distance.

The cab turned right at 42nd and slowly threaded its way back east. They picked up the FDR Drive down by the river and headed back toward home.

79/

As soon as they got inside, they both went to Wesley’s apartment, first setting all the security systems and leaving the dog in the garage. Wesley flicked on the television. The picture showed a huge, milling mob that the police were trying to control, not being too gentle about it. The TV announcer had a huge bulb-headed microphone with a white numeral “4” on its base. He looked harried.

“One of the worst tragedies in the history of our city—Prince Duvalier has been assassinated by person or persons unknown and the killers have apparently blown up the building in which they were trapped in an effort to avoid capture. At least four police officers are missing in the wreckage and presumed dead. The fire department is on the scene and rescue crews are working at top speed to clear the debris. The building from which the shots came is apparently owned by a major firm, but we have been unable to contact a spokesman....”

Wesley clicked off the set and looked at the kid. “Not dead, huh? The fucking maggots.”

“I should’ve known,” the kid said. “You think they’ll find anything?”

“Not this year.”

80/

Wesley couldn’t get anything solid about Haiti on the radio or TV for days. The papers were mostly full of the destruction in the building across from the Pier. The one thing that puzzled the police so far was the absence of any bodies that could have belonged to the killers ... they continually referred to the job as the work of several men. Several cops privately told their reporter contacts that the killers had been blown into such small particles that the lab boys would never be able to identify anyone. The FBI was asked to enter the case on the presumption that the killers had crossed a state line in the preparation of the crime. The CIA outbid the FBI and the locals—and promptly collected a ton of useless information. Wesley finally found what he was looking for in the Times.

Port au Prince, Haiti--A brief attempt at a military coup has failed on this Caribbean island once ruled with an iron fist by Prince Duvalier as it was by his father before him, the infamous “Poppa Doc.” A spokesman for the provisional military government announced that the island was completely under control and that Generale Jacques Treiste would temporarily assume command until free democratic elections could be held. If such elections follow the former pattern established by “President for Life” Duvalier, the island will undoubtedly remain a dictatorship.

It is not known how the islanders will react to the rule of a strictly military regime. “Poppa Doc” was widely believed to have occult powers stemming from his intimate relationship with the dark gods of obeah. His son, appointed following the old ruler’s death, was actually controlled by Duvalier’s wife. Any relationship between Generale Treiste and Mrs. Duvalier is unknown at this time, but insiders believe there will be no change.

Wesley read the article over several times, then slammed it to the floor in disgust. The dog jumped, startled—it had never seen Wesley move with such a vicious lack of smoothness. Wesley never left the room—the kid brought him the papers every day. Four days later, he found the confirmation.

Port au Prince, Haiti--Earlier today, Madame Duvalier, the former wife of the infamous “Poppa Doc” Duvalier and mother of the recently assassinated Prince Duvalier, was married to Generale Jacques Treiste, head of the provisional military government of Haiti, in a lavish ceremony attended by thousands of cheering islanders.

“President for Life” Treiste allowed his new bride to do most of the speaking to the assembled journalists. The crux of her remarks was contained in her opening statement: “I am in constant communication with my husband. This marriage is at his wish, so that the great nation of Haiti can continue to show the unity and strength that has marked its recent period of growth. My son died for his country, as did his father before him. In Presidente Treiste, we have a new leader ... a leader with the blessings of both my husband and my son.”

Mrs. Duvalier, as she still prefers to be known, told journalists that her son knew there would be an assassination attempt if he came to America, and that a Communist plot to overthrow the government was behind the killing.

Inside sources also reported that a brief armed rebellion by guerrillas in the southern part of the island was crushed by 2,500 Haitian troops without difficulty. Persistent rumors that American troops were involved have been denied.

Wesley stared at the newsprint until it blurred and faded. He focused on the white paper from which the black print was disappearing.

It was dark by the time he went down to the garage. The kid had the intake manifold and the heads off the Ford and was working under a single little trouble-light.

“It didn’t work, kid.”

“I know—I read it, too. Those niggers got no fucking guts.”

“Forget that shit. It’s not guts. All people got guts when it means enough to them. A woman once tried to take me out with a tiny little knife when I was holding a loaded M1 at her chest ... because of her kid, you know? I think ... there’s another way the weasels do it and I don’t know what it is. Like in the joint, right? How come we got any rats in the joint? We should all be against the hacks, right? But they get your nose open. They make you think about yourself so much you don’t ever think about yourself ... you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. In the training school they used to give you a parole if you grabbed a kid trying to run. The bigger guys used to make the little kids run, so’s they could catch them.”

“They make you run?” Wesley asked, curious.

“The first time I was in, they did. And they caught me and beat me with that fucking strap until I couldn’t stand ... and I went in the Hole for thirty days ... and the motherfucker who caught me got to go home.”

“You didn’t learn nothing from that?”

“The next time, as soon as I got out of the Hole, I went up to another big one and told him I wasn’t getting my ass whipped for nothing. I told him I’d run again but he had to leave me his radio when he went home ... and I told him I wanted some money, too. He said okay—probably laughing himself to death—and I went over the fence the next damn night. I told him I’d meet him by the big tree just about a hundred yards outside the fence. I was waiting for him up in the branches. I dropped a cinderblock right on his skull and split it wide open. I thought he was dead and I was going to hat up ... but I could see him breathing, so I dragged him back to the fence and screamed up at the guards. They threw him in the Hole when he got out the hospital, and I got to go home.”

“That was good.”

“Yeah. But I didn’t have no home, so they put me in this foster home upstate. It was just like the joint—they fucking beat you and you worked all day on this fucking farm. They told me I’d have to stay until I was eighteen. I split from there, too. I was going to burn down the motherfucker’s barn, but I didn’t want to get a freak-jacket if they ever picked me up again.”

“You learned a lot earlier than I did,” Wesley told him. “Yeah, the only way we get to beat them even a little bit is to beat ourselves. It’s like...”

Wesley pulled a soft pillow off the kid’s cot and held it in front of him.

“Here. Punch this, as hard as you can.”

The kid viciously slammed his fist into the pillow, deforming it but not tearing the cover.

“You see how it comes right back?” Wesley asked, fluffing it up. “You see how you can’t hurt it no matter how hard you hit it? That’s what their system is like, I think ... I think now, anyway.”

“You can blow up a pillow.”

“Not a real good one ... it’s so soft and flexible, it keeps readjusting ... but it fucking stays a pillow—like that bitch marrying that general. There’s got to be another way, but I can’t figure it. That’s what you’re here to do. Me, I was here to clear the shit out the way for you.”

“This means you’re going home?”

“No. Not now. There’s still some of it I do understand ... some more shit to clean up. When I go home, I’m going to leave you a clean piece of paper to draw on. You stay in from now on—I’m going out and I’m going to look around. The next time I leave here with stuff, I won’t be coming back ... a whole mess of motherfuckers not going to be coming back then. I know this: it’s gonna be right here—no more of this overseas stuff for us. Right here, right in our country.”

“It’s not our country.”

“Then whose is it? If we can’t have it, maybe nobody can have it.”

“Nobody can blow up America....”

“No? I can sure as hell make them think somebody can.”

81/

The next morning, the Firebird slipped out of the garage and made its way up Water Street and then over to the FDR. Wesley followed the Drive to the 59th Street Bridge and crossed into Queens; he took Northern Boulevard through Long Island City, Woodside, and Jackson Heights, watching the neighborhoods change past his eyes.

He crossed Junction Boulevard and into Corona. By the time he reached 104th Street, it was as much a slum as anything Wesley had seen in Manhattan. A young black man, built like a human fire hydrant with huge tattoos on his arms, crossed in front of Wesley’s windshield. He glanced into the Firebird and caught Wesley’s eye. He’s going to do the same thing as I am, Wesley thought, but the black man’s expression never changed.

Wesley crossed 114th, passed Shea Stadium, and followed the signs to the Whitestone Bridge. As the Firebird climbed over the bridge, Wesley saw LaGuardia Airport on his left. He threw two quarters into the exact-change basket and followed the signs to Route 95 North.

Wesley saw the giant crypt they called Co-Op City on his right and thought about dynamite. It’d take a fucking nuclear attack, he thought. Anyway, it was full of old people, and they couldn’t breed anymore.

Wesley kept driving at a sedate fifty-five until he saw the signs for Exit 8. He turned off then; right to North Avenue and then right again, driving through downtown New Rochelle. Moving aimlessly, guided by something he didn’t understand but still trusted, Wesley drove past Iona College on his right and then turned right on Beechmont. He followed this up a hill surrounded by some lavish houses until he reached a long, narrow body of water.

This was Pinebrook Boulevard and Wesley noted the NO THRU TRUCKING signs near the large 30 m.p.h. warnings. He followed Pinebrook until he reached Weaver Street. A furrier’s truck passed him, doing at least forty-five. He turned left and followed the street to Wilmot Road, then he ran across a pack of long-haired white kids with SCARSDALE ENVIRONMENTAL CORPS lettered on their T-shirts, aimlessly hanging around an open truck with a bunch of earth-working tools in its bed. Wesley saw a light-green Dodge Polara police car, its discreet white lettering tastefully proclaiming its functions and duties. Wesley saw St. Pius X Church just ahead and turned left onto Mamaroneck Road. He drove steadily down this road until he saw a sprawling, ultra-modern structure on his left. He swung the car between the gates and motored slowly toward the entrance. The sign told Wesley all he needed to know: HOPEDALE HIGH SCHOOL.

The kids hanging around the campus hardly glanced at the cheap-shit Firebird. They sat on polished fenders of exotic cars and looked at Wesley briefly. They were creatures from another planet to him. But he didn’t need that excuse....

It took fifty-five minutes to get back into Manhattan and only another twenty to get into the garage. The kid was waiting for him. “I went to your place to see if the dog wanted to go upstairs and run around,” he said. “I couldn’t even get in the door.”

“I know—he’s like me. This time, I’ll take him with me.”

“What do you need?” the kid asked.

“I need a refrigerator truck with some very professional lettering on the sides. I need a dual exhaust system on it and flex-pipe connectors to reach them from the back up into the box.”

“Who’s gonna be in the box?”

“They all are, this time. Now listen to me; there’s a lot more. I need a two-hundred-gallon tank with a high-speed inlet valve, and I need a mushroom of plastic explosive from the roof down ... so everything in the truck explodes toward the ground, not up into the air. I need fifty hundred-pound bars of pure nickel and I need about twenty of those pressure bottles they keep helium in. Now listen: buy this stuff if you can. If you got to steal it, leave anyone you find right there. This is the last time and it’s got to be perfect.”

“I’ll get it all, Wesley.”

“And find out when school opens each day at Hopedale High—it’s a 914 area code—and class hours, if you can. The Westchester Library’ll have a floor plan of the building, too.”

It took the kid almost five weeks to assemble all the equipment. Inside the garage stood a huge white refrigerator truck with PASCAL’S FINEST BEEF FROM ARGENTINA lettered in a flowery, blood-red script. The tank was installed inside. Wesley and the kid screwed off the top, laid it on its side on the floor of the truck, and carefully loaded in the nickel bars.

“With the meat shortage, those assholes won’t think nothing strange about a rich man ordering a lot of beef,” Wesley said. “This is what we do now, we extract the carbon monoxide and fill the tanks, then we—”

“Just from the truck’s exhaust?”

“That crap is only seven percent carbon monoxide—we need pure stuff.”

“I guess seven percent can snuff you all right,” the kid said. “Like when those kids checked out together ... in their car?”

“Yeah, but not quick enough ... and it don’t work in the open air. When we play the right stuff over the pure nickel inside a pressurized tank at exactly fifty degrees centigrade, we get perfect nickel carbonyl, right? That’s one million times as potent as cyanide. It’ll work in open air and it has an effective range of about five miles if there’s no wind. But the explosion’s got to be light—we might blow this stuff all up in the air and the extra heat would screw things up, okay?”

“You want a steady fifty degrees centigrade, right?”

“Yeah,” Wesley confirmed. “Can you get this truck to reach it and hold it?”

“Sure. That’s only about one-hundred-and-twenty-two Fahrenheit—I looked it up. These rigs work both ways—they can heat as well as cool ... no problem.”

“Okay,” Wesley said, “here’s the deal. Under pressure, this gas’ll set up in about ten minutes ... enough to fill the big tank after the small tanks of carbon monoxide are emptied. I need the explosive so that when I blast it all open, it’ll mushroom low. It gets too high, it won’t do the job for us. This is a nice, heavy gas—it should stay low.”

“How you know it’ll work?”

“We’re going to test it first. In one of the small tanks with just a small piece of the nickel. We’ll stuff it into this,” he said, holding up the pressure tank for the miniature blowtorch. “You’ll be with me on the test. And then that’s all, right?”

The kid was already silently at work and didn’t answer.

82/

Two days later, the experiment was ready. The cab pulled out—Wesley driving, the kid in the back. The kid was dressed in chinos and a blue denim work shirt. He carried a duffel bag over his shoulder. In his pocket was a roll of bills totaling $725. It was 11:15 p.m. when the cab pulled up past the corner of Dyer and 42nd. The kid stepped quickly out of the back seat and walked toward the Roxy Hotel.

The kid looked nervous as he approached the desk clerk, a grey, featureless man of about sixty. The kid pulled a night’s rent from the big roll—the .45 automatic was clumsily stuck into his belt, not completely covered by his tattered jacket. The clerk gave him a key with 405 on it and the kid turned to climb the stairs without a word.

Wesley entered the hotel just as the kid disappeared up the stairs. He wore his night clothing, the soft felt hat firmly on his head. Under the hat was a flat-face gas mask of the latest Army-issue type. It had replaceable charcoal filters which could be inserted in the front opening and could withstand anything but nerve gas for up to thirty-five minutes. It was held on top of Wesley’s head by elastic straps and was invisible from the front. Wesley approached the clerk, whose hand was already snaking toward the telephone.

“Remember me?” Wesley asked.

The clerk didn’t know Wesley’s face, but he knew what those words meant. He whirled for the phone again as Wesley slipped the gas mask into place and pressed the release valve on the miniature blowtorch. The greenish gas shot across the counter and into the clerk’s face. He coughed just once as his face turned a sickly orange. The clerk slumped to the floor, his fingers still clawing for the phone. As he hit the ground, the kid came down the stairs with a gas mask on his face, carrying a Luger with a long tube silencer. He walked deliberately past Wesley, who had already stuffed the now-exhausted gas cylinder into his side pocket and pulled out a pistol of his own.

The kid slipped the gas mask from his face as he climbed into the front seat of the cab—the chauffeur’s cap was on his head, and the flag dropped as Wesley hit the back seat.

The cab shot crosstown, toward the East River. The kid spoke quietly. “I had to waste one of the freaks upstairs—he came into my room with a knife before I could even close the door.”

“You leave the room clean?”

“Perfect—I never got a chance to even sit down. Anyway, the charge in the duffel bag will go off in another few minutes.”

“That clerk was gone before he hit the ground,” Wesley said. “The stuff is perfect.”

“Was he the same one?”

“I don’t know. But he was guilty, alright.”

The cab whispered its way toward the Slip. It was garaged by midnight.

83/

Thursday night, 9:30 p.m. Wesley and the kid were completing the final work on the truck.

“Tomorrow there’ll be a full house. The Friday assembly period’s at 11:30, and there’ll be almost four hundred kids in the joint.”

“Wesley...”

“Yeah?”

“How come you’re taking the gas mask?”

“I’m not going out that way, kid. The gas’s for them, right? I won’t leave them a fucking square inch of flesh to put under their microscopes—no way they’re coming back here to look for you. You going to keep this place?”

“I don’t know,” the kid said. “I guess so. But I’m going to find a couple other places, too ... and fix them.”

“Yeah. And be out there, right? Everything you learn, teach— there’s a lot of men out there who’d listen, and you know how to talk to them.”

“Women, too.”

“They already know, kid. You see how the pillow snapped back into place in Haiti? It was a woman who held it. She must of been the one behind the old man, and the kid, too.”

“Maybe.... It don’t matter anyway—I’ll know who to talk to.”

“You got to be different from us, kid. We never had no partners, except in blood. I never could figure out how all those freaks run around calling each other ‘brother’—all that means is that the same womb spilled you, anyhow.

“You’re not going to be alone, kid. You know why? ‘Cause if you are, you end up like me. Carmine thought he built a bomb, but he didn’t. I’m a laser, I think. I can focus so good I can slice anything that gets in the way. But I can’t see nothing but the target. When I was in Korea, I thought I’d be the gun and they’d point me. But it didn’t make no sense, even then. It don’t make sense to have any of the other assholes point me either....”

“What other assholes?”

“Like them Weathermen or whatever they call themselves—writing letters to the fucking papers about which building they going to blow up ... and blowing themselves up instead. Bullshit. But I know how they feel—they got nothing of their own to fight for, right? The blacks don’t want them; the Latinos don’t want them; the fucking ‘working class,’ whatever that is, don’t want them.... They don’t want themselves.”

“Why didn’t the blacks want them?”

“Want them for what? All those nice-talking creeps want is to be generals—the niggers is supposed to be their fucking ‘troops.’ The blacks can see that much, anyway.”

“I talked to a few of them—the revolutionaries. I can’t understand what the fuck they’re talking about.”

“Nobody can but themselves—that’s what they should stick to. It’s like a fucking whore everyone in the neighborhood gangbangs, right? You might get you some of it, but you damn sure not going to bring her home to meet your people.”

“I would, if—”

“—if you had people. But you not like them. Now listen; that’s what their asshole politics is like—good enough to fuck around with, but not good enough to bring home, you understand?”

“Yeah. I guess I did even while they was talking.”

“They’re out there, kid. Driving cabs, working in the mills, mugging, robbing, fighting, tricking ... in the Army ... all over ... there’s a lot more of us than there are of them, but we don’t know how to find each other. You got to do that ... that’s for you.”

“Why me?”

“Carmine had two names, right? And Pet had one and a half ... Mister Petraglia? How many names I got?”

“One, Wesley.”

“And how many you got, kid?”

“I see....”

“But they won’t. I got another name someplace—I had one in the Army and I got one in the records up in the joint and I had one that the State gave me until I really didn’t have one no more. You ever see a giant roach?”

“No. Wesley, what’re you—?”

“One time Carmine and me decided to kill all the fucking roaches in the joint. We made this poison, right? It was deadly, whacked them out like flies. But after a few weeks we saw all kinds of strange roaches around. Some were almost white-colored. And then we saw this giant sonofabitch—he musta been six inches long. And fat.”

“That was a waterbug, Wesley.”

“The fuck it was. I seen too many roaches to go for that—it was a goddamn mutant roach. They breed much faster than humans and they finally evolved a special roach that ate the fucking poison, you see?”

“No.”

“That giant roach would’ve died if Carmine and me hadn’t fed him, kid. All he could live on was the poison, and we didn’t have too much left. When we ran out of the stuff, he just died.”

“How is that like your name?”

“I’m like that giant roach. I can only live on the poison they usually use to kill us off ... or make us kill each other off. That’s why I’m going home tomorrow. But the poison can’t kill you—you don’t need it to live on, so you’ll be the ghost who haunts them all.”

“How’m I going to find the answers?”

“I don’t know. They’re not all in books. And don’t be listening to all kinds of silly motherfuckers ... test them all. You got enough money to hole up fifty years if you have to, right?”

“Yeah. How’m I going to bury you, Wesley? I don’t want the—”

“The State birthed me—the fucking State can bury me. Just watch the TV real close tomorrow. You’ll see me wave good-bye.”

84/

They both went back into Wesley’s apartment and, after Wesley told the dog to stay put, he showed the kid all the systems, where everything was. It took several hours. Then Wesley stood up. “I’m going up on the roof, kid. Get everything ready—I’ll be pulling out around ten tomorrow.”

Wesley smoked two packs of cigarettes on the roof, thinking. The News only reported the “heart attack” death of the desk clerk because it was in the same hotel where a half-nude man was found shot to death—a bullet in his chest, one in his eye, and another in the back of his neck. A low-yield explosion had blown out most of the room.

He thought of calling Carmine’s widow to tell her about the fifty thousand in the basement, but decided to tell the kid about it instead.

He spotted a tiny fire out on the Slip—it was getting cold again and the tramps would have to make their usual arrangements. Wesley realized that he wasn’t sleepy. And that he’d never sleep again.

85/

By 10:30 the next morning, everything was ready. The dog sat on its haunches in the corner of the garage. It ran forward and leaped into the truck’s cab when Wesley snapped his fingers. Wesley started the engine; it rumbled menacingly in the sealed garage.

He looked down at the kid, who was looking up.

“How old’re you, kid?”

“Twenty-eight, I think.”

“I don’t want to see you for a lot of years, right?”

“I’ll be here, Wes.”

“You got your own brain, but you’re my blood. All my debts are cancelled—the only reason you out here now is for yourself, right?”

“For all of us.”

“If something fucks up, I’ll get across the Bridge before I let go. You know what to do if they come here?”

“I always knew that.”

Wesley pressed his hand against the window glass, palm out—the kid’s palm flattened against his.

86/

The kid turned and hit the garage button. Wesley released the clutch and the big truck rumbled out onto Water Street. As the truck headed for the Bridge, Wesley spoke to the dog. “Keep your fucking head down. As ugly as you are, they’d see something was wrong for sure.”

The dog sat on the floor of the cab on the other side of the gearshift lever. The thermometer on the dashboard, calibrated in centigrade, read a steady fifty degrees, the speedometer an equally steady forty-five.

Wesley remembered not to take the exact-change lane since he had a truck this time. He paid the Whitestone toll and motored sedately onto 95 North. The big truck moved through New Rochelle without problems. It wasn’t the only rig on North Avenue.

It was almost 11:30 when Wesley turned onto Pinebrook Boulevard. A squad car passed him by without a glance. By 11:45, he was turning into the school parking lot.

Wesley drove the truck right up to the front entrance of the huge building. He got out quickly and threw a series of switches. The carbon monoxide hissed into the giant tank with the nickel bars, a heavy-voltage current shot through all the hardware holding the truck doors closed, priming the system to release the explosive at the same time.

Wesley drew a couple of curious glances, but nobody said a word. He opened the cab of the truck and snapped his fingers for the dog to jump down. Then he pulled two large suitcases and a heavy canvas duffel bag from the cab. He reached back inside and pulled what looked like the choke cable. A tiny, diamond-tipped needle slammed into the plastic distributor cap and five cc’s of sulfuric acid ran into the points; nobody could hope to start the truck now, even with a key. A quick twist on the valve of each tire sent a similar needle slamming home and the tires started to drain—the hiss was audible only if you stood very close.

Wesley shouldered the duffel bag, grabbed a suitcase in each hand, and walked up the flower-bordered concrete to the main door, the dog trotting along behind him as silent as a fish in clear water. Students and teachers looked at him curiously, but the elderly lady didn’t seem surprised when Wesley stopped in front of her. “Pardon me, ma’am. Could you direct me to the auditorium?”

“Certainly, young man. It’s just down the end of this corridor,” she gestured with a ringless left hand. “You’ll see the signs.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Wesley turned and began to walk down the corridor. A teacher who looked like a college kid, with long brownish hair, a red shirt and a silly-authoritative face stopped him. “Can I help you?”

“The auditorium,” Wesley replied. “Gotta go fix the lights.”

The young man looked at Wesley critically, but finally shrugged. “It’s straight ahead,” he said, and went back to his dreams of a marijuana paradise where all men were brothers.

Wesley found the auditorium. It had three doors across the back and an entrance on each side—five in all, too many to cover. The floor plan had been accurate. It was empty. Wesley walked down the center aisle to the front row. He threw his equipment up on the stage and opened the duffel bag. He pulled out a pair of holsters and cartridge belts and strapped them on, sticking an S&W .38 Special with a four-inch barrel in one, the silenced Beretta in the other. He pulled out the grease gun and bolted in the clip. The stopwatch on his wrist told him four minutes had elapsed—ten minutes to go to be safe.

Wesley pushed all the equipment toward the back of the stage and tested the PA system to be sure it was working. He climbed off the stage and started to walk back up the aisle when the young teacher with the long hair came running down the aisle toward him.

“Hey, you! I just called Con Edison and they said there wasn’t any—”

Wesley’s first shot with the Beretta caught the young man in the chest, knocking him over two rows of seats. There was no reaction to the muffled sound. Wesley kept walking unhurriedly toward the auditorium doors. The Permabond went all around the openings of both doors, leaving the middle one open.

Wesley checked his watch—no more time. He snapped his fingers and the dog rose from where he had been resting. Wesley pointed toward the left-hand side door, said, “Guard!” and the dog trotted into position. Wesley quickly bonded the door and switched positions with the dog again, finishing the other one.

Leaving the dog lying down near the center of the stage, Wesley walked through the middle door toward the signs that said ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES.

The walls were all glass, floor-to-ceiling. Students were hanging over the long counter asking questions about clubs and transcripts and bickering over their schedules when Wesley walked in and swept the entire field with a long, screaming burst from the grease gun. In seconds, the whole giant room was red and yellow with human death. Wesley walked quickly around the counter and into the big office marked PRINCIPAL. A nice-looking woman, apparently the man’s secretary, was seated at a kidney-shaped desk with her mouth wide open. No sound was coming out. Wesley shot her in the stomach with the unsilenced piece and kept walking.

A chubby man was in the office, crouched down behind a desk. A solid-looking older woman was frantically speaking into a phone. “Florence! Florence, get the police! Florence...?”

Wesley walked in and they both fell silent. Wesley looked at the man. “You the principal?”

The lady stood up to her full five-foot height. “I’m the principal.”

She didn’t look frightened. Good—maybe she’d do what she had to do. “Get on the PA system and tell everyone to get into the auditorium,” Wesley snapped at her. “Tell them there’s been an emergency and to get a move on—”

“I won’t do any such thing! Those children are my—”

Wesley ripped her open with a short burst from the grease gun, thinking, Fucking women and children—I should’ve known. He spun the gun’s barrel into the face of the crouching man. “You do it. Do it fast!”

The man’s fingers were wet and trembly as he pushed the button for the PA system, but he couldn’t make himself talk—only spittle came out. Wesley shot him with the revolver and grabbed the microphone.

“Attention, please!” He heard his voice echoing and knew the man must have turned it on correctly. “There’s been an emergency. All students and teachers proceed at once to the auditorium. Enter only by the middle door from the back. Repeat: This is an emergency—we are under attack! Proceed to the auditorium at once!”

He stepped out into the corridor just as he heard the police sirens in the distance. His watch said six minutes still to go before the gas was sure to be ready. Wesley stepped over the bodies in the outer office and sprinted back toward the auditorium. The frightened students seemed comforted by the sight of the man in military gear, obviously armed to protect them. They were already milling into the auditorium as he rushed into the side door, smashing a path with the butt of the pistol. The dog was patrolling in front, keeping the students away from the stage.

Wesley ran to the stage. He turned to see a mob of terrified students streaming in through the middle door. A tall cop was trying to shove his way through to the front—Wesley waited until the cop almost got through and shot him in the face with the loud gun. The screaming got worse. The auditorium was nearly full of students and teachers, with all the others trying desperately to get inside—to safety.

Wesley aimed the grease gun at the middle door and screamed, “Get the fuck away from that door!” and cut loose with another burst before he switched clips. Bodies went flying out into the hall and the screams from the kids already inside made it impossible to hear anything else.

Wesley charged the one open door. The dog followed. Wesley cleared out what was left of the remaining people with the grease gun, jacked in his last clip in one motion, and ran forward. He managed to slam the door even against the frightened tide—they fell back when they saw Wesley and the gun.

The dog went berserk, mouth foaming, snapping, keeping the remaining crowd away from Wesley. Students ran to the side doors, now trying to get out—it was useless. The Permabond went around the middle door in seconds and Wesley turned and ran back toward the stage. He leaped up and grabbed the microphone with one hand, firing another burst into the ceiling. “Shut the fuck up! Keep quiet or I start blasting again!” and the place quickly silenced except for occasional whimpers. One kid was crying and couldn’t stop. Wesley looked out at the horrified crowd, the grease gun still threatening the room.

“Stay quiet! The next one moves or screams gets killed!” He could hear the sirens clearly now—cops must be all over the place. His watch said three minutes until the gas would be ready. Wesley’s eyes swept the auditorium. He stopped at a husky-looking kid in a letterman's sweater. The kid caught Wesley’s eye, too, and tried to look away.

“You! Come up here! Quick!”

The kid slowly climbed up out of his fear and walked quickly toward the stage. Wesley held the gun at the boy’s face. He spoke without the microphone. “Climb up to that ledge by the side and go out a window. Tell the cops that I got me a few hundred hostages. Tell them I got enough dynamite in those suitcases to level this whole fucking school. Tell them I want to talk. You got that?”

“The windows don’t open,” the kid quavered “I—”

“Break the fucking windows! Move!”

The kid ran toward the side of the auditorium, causing a momentary stir. Wesley grabbed the microphone again. “Stay still! He s going out to get help for you!” and they quieted. The kid finally clawed his way out of the window and dropped to the ground. Wesley’s watch showed one minute still to go when he heard a familiar, bull-horned voice.

“You inside! What do you want? You can’t get out!”

Wesley grabbed the microphone—the volume was already boosted as much as it could go and he shouted at the top of his voice.

“I want a helicopter to take me to the airport and I want a motherfucking 747 to take me to Cuba! You got that, pigs?”

Wesley figured that sounded sufficiently like the usual revolutionary bullshit to hold the cops for the minute or so he needed. The voice came back immediately.

“Let the kids go! Let the kids go and we’ll get you a plane!”

Wesley didn’t answer. He flicked the switch on the transistor radio in his shirt pocket and the tiny earplug gave him the immediate public version. The announcer said that three units of the State Police as well as squads from New Rochelle, Larchmont, White Plains, and Scarsdale were all around a building where an unknown group was holding hundreds of children hostage. The people inside had demanded a plane to Cuba but, remarkably, they hadn’t mentioned a thing about ransom to release the hostages....

Forgot the fucking ransom, Wesley thought, hoping his act wouldn’t appear too bogus. If they knew...? But his watch told him the time was up and he relaxed.

The loudspeaker outside crackled again.

“You inside! We’ve got the plane for you! Let all the hostages go and we’ll send in some cops to replace them. Unarmed, okay?”

“How many cops you got out there?”

“Too many for you, punk!”

“Bring some more, motherfuckers!”

The bullhorn was silent—they must have been working over the lame asshole who had screamed that crap about “too many.” A thing like that could make a man act crazy.

When the radio told him that the TV crews were in place outside, Wesley checked his watch again—it was 12:03.

He slipped the gas mask over his face and sprayed the auditorium with one final blast from the grease gun. He pulled out a stick of dynamite, then immediately rejected it in favor of six similar sticks all taped together with a long fuse.

Everyone was screaming and crying and dying in the place. Wesley lighted the single stick and threw it with all his strength toward the rear of the auditorium ... it blew out half the wall, taking dozens of kids with it. Wesley bolted for the giant hole the explosion made, and the dog followed. They almost ran right into four cops stationed in the corridor. The dog covered the distance to them in a flash-second and was ripping out the first one’s throat as Wesley spray-blanketed the corridor with bullets. As he leapt over the bodies, he saw the dog was hit along the spine. The animal was trying to breathe—he didn’t have long.

Wesley scooped up the dog in his arms and headed for the metal stairs leading to the roof. He gained the roof in seconds, and stepped out in front of everyone. He checked quickly—the screaming about the dynamite should have been enough to keep cops off the roof, but...

The roof was empty.

The TV cameras all focused on the single figure of a madman carrying a dog. Before anyone could shoot, or even react, Wesley knelt, gently lowered the dog to the roof, and pressed the transmitter button. The bottom and sides of the truck shot outwards. A huge, dense cloud of greenish gas started to billow out over the ground. The explosion was still echoing and everyone was running for cover.

The kid was magneted to the TV in Wesley’s apartment, watching and listening to the announcer.

“The unknown man on the roof has apparently detonated some sort of explosion on the ground ... people are taking cover and a squad of policemen has gone around the back to try and gain access to the roof. The darkness you see on your screen isn’t your picture ... apparently some type of gas has been released from the truck ... but we’re about five hundred yards from the scene so there shouldn’t be any problem bringing the rest of this to you ... the man is lighting something! It looks like a torch! He’s holding it high above his head ... he... Oh my God, he looks like the Statue of Liberty! He’s...”

As the kid watched, the explosion darkened the picture screen and the announcer’s voice faded.