Dirty Words

Hot Enough For Ya?

Jimmy Romance felt the blood drain from his face like somebody pulled out the stop plug in his neck.

"So joo had no idea that she was his daughter?" asked Ricardo with a smile as he leaned on the countertop of Jimmy's Tan-O-Rama. He asked the question slowly, savoring the words like a fine wine.

Jimmy couldn't answer the obvious question since his mind was still spinning with the new information.

The girl with whom he'd recently broken several laws of New York State, physics, and nature with, was the one and only daughter of the one and only Jonathan Bass.

Or, depending on who you asked, "Butcher" Bass.

And asked quietly.

Jimmy thought he might vomit right into his brand new tanning bed.

Ricardo clicked his tongue. "Of course joo didn't know. Because…"

Jimmy didn't need Ricardo to finish. The rest of the sentence would have been something about sado-masochism, death wishes, or both. "Does he know yet?" Jimmy hated the tremble he heard in his voice.

"Oh, he knows," Ricardo said, grinning, his gold incisor winking at Jimmy. Ricardo was the type of guy who liked to bring sour grapes to the dinner table. The kind of guy who only talked about the movies he didn't like. The restaurants with sucky food. The bad luck around the neighborhood. And he did it with glee. Ricardo was a ghoul for the jinxed residents of the West Village. "She come home last night wearing somebody's old bowling shirt. The one with Jimmy R. embroidered over the pocket?" Ricardo traced a finger over his heart.

Jimmy felt another wave of nausea run roughshod through his intestines. "How do you know this?"

"I heard Jonathan hollering as I passed by getting the paper this mornin'. Sounded kinda juicy, no offence, so I hung around front to hear."

That alone didn't bode well. Jimmy knew that Bass's apartment occupied the top floor of a brownstone on Thompson Street. If Ricardo heard him from the sidewalk, then he was yelling pretty fucking loud. What little Jimmy knew about Bass included his soft-spoken demeanor.

And that he preferred to do his loud talking with very sharp pieces of metal.

Wait a minute here. "Home? She still lives at home?"

"She only sixteen, Jimmy."

That did it. Jimmy ran into the can and lost his breakfast burrito into the toilet. "Ohgodohgodohgod", he muttered to the soon-to-be dead man in the mirror.

How? HOW the fuck could she be sixteen? She took it in the ass! Sixteen-year-olds didn't take it in the ass.

Did they?

Oh sweet fucking God…

He'd stuck his dick into the underaged anus of Butcher Bass's daughter.

Ricardo rapped 'shave and a haircut' on the bathroom door. The blood flooded back into Jimmy's brain with a roar. Was that little prick making some kind of joke? They both knew the rumors about Butcher's weapon of choice; a straight razor. "Hey Jimmy? Joo okay in there?"

Jimmy burst out of the bathroom and grabbed Ricardo by the neck, slamming him back into the counter. "Why are you telling me this! What's your play here, fucko?" he screamed, spittle flying in Ricardo's face. Jimmy knew Ricardo had a play, Ricardo always had a fucking play.

Ricardo only smiled condescendingly into Jimmy's outburst. "Cuz I'm a friend, Jimmy. I figure maybe somebody should keep an eye on the salon while joo away."

Away.

That was it all along. Ricardo knew that he'd need to go away. Where the hell was he supposed to go? Didn't matter. They could sure as hell find him here.

Mean Gene popped into Jimmy's mind's eye. Bass's cause and effect man. As in, cause Bass any grief, Mean Gene Ricciardi effects serious damage on your ass. Then he brought you to The Butcher for the big finish. Mean Gene had just been here a couple of months ago before his vacation.

Where was he going?

Paris. That was it. He said he wanted to get a head start on his tan. Jimmy remembered thinking of that crap movie, An American Werewolf in Paris. Gene could have passed for one if he had twenty percent less body hair and better people skills. Jimmy spent an extra hour Windex-ing Mean Gene's black curlies off the tanning bed.

Man oh man. Jimmy was woozy with the realization of just how big a world of shit he was suddenly in.

He had to go.

Fast.

"How much you got?" he asked Ricardo.

"Well, I got a couple hundred on me that I can give joo until…"

Jimmy caught Ricardo with a hard uppercut to the chin. Ricardo's jaw snapped shut with a sound like cracking ice. He stumbled, leaning backwards into one of the empty tanning beds. Jimmy slammed the top of the bed shut with all his weight on top, sandwiching Ricardo's face in the bed. Something crunched in the machine and Ricardo slumped to the floor, blood pouring from his ruined mouth and trickling from one ear.

Jimmy felt Ricardo's neck. He still had a pulse. Good for him.

He reached into Ricardo's pockets, took the money and dropped the keys to the salon on the floor. He wouldn't need them because he wasn't coming back.

Couldn't come back.

Ever.

Jimmy noticed the gold incisor catching the light again. Unfortunately for Ricardo, it was on the floor, next to his right foot. Jimmy picked up the tooth and stuck it in his pocket.

"Hi," he'd said. Like most of life's grandest clusterfucks, this one had started out simply enough. Jimmy could tell with just that one little word whether or not to continue talking to the girl two seats over or to flash his practiced fuck-me smile at another. And there was always another.

Jimmy thought she looked young, but fuck it, they were in a bar. How young could she be? The big goon in the Jets jersey sitting at the door must have carded her on the way in.

She was decked out in a black leather miniskirt and a gold spaghetti-strap tank that showed off her flat belly and clung to her nipples nicely. She was obviously looking for some attention. The only kind of attention that Jimmy gave women.

"Mm-hey," she replied through her ruby-lipsticked mouth, a small daub of crimson makeup smeared under her plump lower lip.

Jimmy gauged the situation so far as very good. Her eyes had the soft glaze that indicated she was just past her alcohol tolerance. In the twenty minutes he'd been sitting there, she'd popped back two and a half apple martinis. A little more grease, Jimmy thought, and this engine is a-runnin'.

"Want to do a shot with me?" he asked. "I hate dinking alone."

The rest, until that cocksucker Ricardo came strutting through the door, went exactly as planned.

Jimmy made a mental note to stab that fucking bouncer in the throat if he ever saw him again.

The paranoia was the worst part. It had been five days since Jimmy ran from the Tan-O-Rama, hauled his ass to 14th Street, dove into a cab and got home to Brooklyn. He hadn't opened his door since.

Although Jimmy would be willing to bet that most people he'd known for a decade or more didn't even know real last name, he wasn't taking any chances.

Everybody called him Jimmy Romance.

Romance wasn't his real last name, of course.

Jimmy earned the moniker from the long trail of women that he'd conquered over the years. They were his Achilles Heel. His one weakness. Jimmy didn't smoke, didn't drink to excess, didn't do drugs. Clean as a bean. It wasn't out of any moral or health concerns that he'd kept himself so straight-edged, it was the pussy. Didn't smoke, because he liked to keep his breath clean and teeth polished, was often complimented on his pearlies. Drugs and alcohol killed his game, fucked with the brain and body. His mind was his greatest seductive tool. His body closed the deal. Why waste the money anyway? The intoxicant under the panty line was Jimmy's only drug. It was all he wanted.

The irony wasn't lost on Jimmy.

It was women that kept him in prime physical condition over the years.

It was one girl that might end up killing him.

He didn't know if anybody knew where he lived, but was pretty certain nobody did. Was his address written down anywhere in the salon? He couldn't remember for sure. It must have been. Was it anyplace obvious? Jimmy could just imagine that grinning prick Ricardo handing his address over to The Butcher for his thirty pieces of silver. Not having as much as looked at a Bible since Sunday school, Jimmy didn't recall Jesus busting Judas's teeth onto the floor before the betrayal, but wouldn't have thought any less of Jesus for it.

Nor did Jimmy plan on going peacefully into his personal crucifixion. During the few short hours that he slept, when he felt his eyes going too heavy for even the terror to keep open anymore, he would slide his recliner to the end of the long hallway and drift into an uneasy sleep, revolver in hand. On two separate occasions, he'd almost shot a Jehovah's Witness and a Girl Scout when they woke him up in a frenzied panic out of his tortured dreams.

Dreams about sharp things. Lots and lots of sharp things.

Jimmy wondered how much longer he could keep it up.

Pun definitely not fucking intended…

He was running out of food, for starters. His last meal consisted of oily old sardines on chewy rye crisps. He couldn't remember buying the dusty can of sardines. Who the hell bought sardines? Either way, in the moment, Jimmy was glad he had them.

He lived in New York, for chrissakes, where anything at any time could be delivered to your doorstep, but Jimmy was afraid to get anything brought to his house. He didn't need anyone to know that he was home. He would carefully watch the street from behind the thick curtains for any unusual cars, but what qualified as an unusual car? Jimmy didn't know his neighbors, much less what they drove on a regular basis.

The dark van with tinted windows, for instance. There was a dark blue Caravan that sat kitty-corner to his front window and didn't move for three days. Then on Saturday, some loser in full clown get-up filled the back of it with bright balloons. How the fuck could Jimmy live next to a clown and not know? For some reason, he felt he should have possessed that little nugget before this point.

On the fifth afternoon, as Jimmy prepared himself a lunch of watery clam chowder (he'd run out of milk) and a Froot Roll Up, he heard footsteps on the porch. Jimmy pulled the gun from his waistband, and pointed it down the hallway. It was just about time for the mailman, but Jimmy wasn't going to be taking any chances. The footsteps were heavy. Whoever it was, they weren't feeling any need for caution.

A sharp squeak. Jimmy cocked his gun with a shaking thumb. Rustling papers and the click of the door slot snapping shut. Without thinking about it, Jimmy hadn't even checked his mail for the four days he'd kept himself a prisoner inside the apartment. Too close to the windows. Also, somewhere in the back of his mind, he feared a letter bomb, even though it wasn't even close to Butcher's style. The Butcher liked cutting people, if that could be thought of as a style. John Bass liked his punishments delivered first hand and close up. For hours and hours at a time.

Jimmy crept carefully over to the door and collected the pile of mail off of his doormat. It was the typical mélange of crap. Gas bill, phone bill, some toolbag pleading for his City Council vote, credit card applications…

…wait a minute.

There it was.

He didn't know how long it had been there, but right there, printed gaily on a five-by-seven postcard was his salvation.

"Fortune Estates," came the sugary voice on the phone.

"…"

"Excuse me?"

Jimmy cleared his throat, realized that he didn't need to whisper "Yeah, I got your postcard."

"Excellent! So, as I'm sure you can see from the pictures that Fortune Estates offers the highest in quality living arrangements in t-"

"I want to see it."

"What? Oh, um…okay." The girl obviously wasn't accustomed to such an easy sale. "I'll need to check your name in our database. When would you like to see-?"

"Soon as possible. Name's James Romancelli."

"Well, Mr. Romancelli, I can send you the information packet in a week and…"

"I only have the next few days off. I can fly in the next two days or I can't fly out at all. You can overnight the ticket."

"Oh. Okay. Well, I'll need to check with my manager and see if that's possible."

Jimmy was put on hold to the strains of muzak Rod Stewart. He hated the real Rod Stewart. What the fuck made these people think that anybody wanted to listen to the muzak version? Jimmy's foot tapped on the floor anxiously.

The line clicked back. "Mr. Romancelli?"

"Yeah."

"I've brought your situation to the attention of my supervisor, Mr. Casey, and he said that we can help you."

Jimmy exhaled the breath he didn't know he was holding in and almost broke into tears of relief. "That's great."

"I'll send your ticket tonight and we'll see you on Wednesday. Is there anything else…?"

Jimmy hung up the phone and sagged against the wall. He had his out. His ticket, literally, would be in his hand the next day. Up to that point, Jimmy's running potential had been limited. With the money he'd taken from the register and out of Ricardo's pockets, he'd amassed a sum total of $1,022.36. Not nearly enough to run-and run as far as he felt he needed to in order to be safe. Not enough to start over. He had a couple grand more in the bank (and Ricardo's tooth), but couldn't access it, not wanting to go out in public and such. But now, he got himself a free ticket to another time zone. He could get his money and live for a couple months while he set himself up. The operating words being he could live.

All he had to do was take a look at some dinky little timeshare. The location was the icing on his getaway cake.

Jimmy Romance was going to Vegas, baby.

Strutting through McCarran airport, Jimmy heard Dean Martin singing "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" on a loop through his brain.

How lucky can one guy be?

You better believe Jimmy felt lucky. And what better city to be lucky in? He felt like a million bucks. He felt better than he had in years. He felt…free. He walked with a Rat Pack bounce through the terminal, all the way to the goofball holding a handwritten sign that read 'Fortune Estates' and 'Romancelli' underneath.

Check this guy, Jimmy thought. Only somebody truly living the good life could afford to dress so stupid. First off, the guy was wearing a white linen suit that looked like he'd bought it for a nickel at Don Johnson's yard sale. His peroxide-blonde coif was moussed tighter than a Catholic girl's bra strap.

Actually, as Jimmy looked around, he was a little startled to see how much color everyone wore. Jimmy was the only person in the terminal wearing full black. New Yorkers stuck to their black clothes like they were participating in a seven million-man wake. The wardrobe that would have blended him seamlessly into the teeming masses of Manhattan made him stick out in Vegas. Jimmy suddenly felt obvious and uncomfortable.

The guy caught Jimmy's eye. "Mr. Romancelli?"

"Call me Jimmy."

The guy smiled with teeth even whiter than Jimmy's, whiter than nature ever intended. Apart from the guy's skin, which was tanned a George Hamilton brown, everything else looked bleached to the bone. Jimmy shook his hand and smiled back, trying to make it look friendly, rather than the mockingly superior East Coast smile he felt worming onto his lips.

"Norman Casey, sales manager for Fortune Estates. But please, call me Norm." Norm extended a pristinely manicured hand at Jimmy.

Jimmy, took it in his own, suddenly feeling self-conscious for the first time in his life about the state of his cuticles. "You got it, Norm. So, what's the deal?"

"Well, first we'll get your luggage. Then I'll drop you at the hotel. No hard sell tonight. Tonight, you get to enjoy Sin City at your leisure."

"Sounds good, Norm."

"You expecting someone?"

"Huh?" Until Norm pointed it out, Jimmy wasn't even aware that he'd been nervously glancing from person to person around the terminal. The fear had crept back into Jimmy's subconscious when he realized that his outfit made him noticeable; a target if someone was looking.

Jimmy didn't appreciate the fear returning and did his best to push it back. "Nah. just taking it all in, Norm."

"First time in Vegas?"

"First time out of New York State."

"Well, you picked a hell of a time to see the desert, my friend.

When the automatic doors whooshed open, the heat nearly knocked the breath out of Jimmy. "Jesus."

"Hot enough for ya?" Norm cackled.

Jimmy couldn't believe that he actually asked that. "This whole place is like a big fucking Tandoori oven." Jimmy shielded his eyes from sunlight so powerful, it felt like it had weight.

"Blessing and curse. You'll notice that you're not sweating, though?"

Jimmy looked at his hands. Dry as a Saltine. "Well, I'll be…"

"Desert heat, my friend. It's not even as hot as it gets. Tomorrow's supposed to hit a hundred-ten."

"Degrees?"

"Yup. You're actually sweating, but the second it hits your pores it evaporates. Can be quite dangerous. I've got some spring water in the car. You'll want to make sure that you stay hydrated."

Norm drove himself a brand new Beemer convertible. Not too bad for a real estate shill. Norm leaned over, popped the glove compartment and handed a bottle of water to Jimmy. "Here you are, pal." Norm started the car and Frank Sinatra immediately sprang from the speakers singing "My Way." "Welcome to Vegas, Jimmy. Believe you me; you live the life for a while, you may never leave."

Funny that, Jimmy thought, I have no intention of leaving.

After he checked into his room, Jimmy went to the lobby and asked about rates. Four-hundred a week. Unbelievable. In New York, Jimmy knew people who paid three times that to share a Bronx studio with a ten pound rat named Bruno. The complex was geared towards conventioneers, but what the hell. It had a friggin' pool. Jimmy paid the guy a month's advance and hit the tables, looking to build his kitty.

Before the clock turned the day over, Jimmy was forced to give up his first Vegas dream of becoming a career gambler. Three hours in the casino and his pot was already down five hundred between the craps and blackjack tables. Not long after his final double-down implosion, Jimmy was filling out an application in the casino bar for poker dealer. Work had never exactly been Jimmy's favorite four-letter word, but all he had to do to stay positive was to remind himself that he was alive and 2,500 miles away from Jonathan Bass' pointy things.

"Rise and shine Jimmy," came Norm's cheerful voice from behind the door.

Jimmy's eyes sprung open. He sat bolt-upright out of another nightmare (pointy, pointy). Then his stomach sat bolt-upright. While the rest of Jimmy found its bearings, his stomach went on to do the Worm, the Slide, the Twist and every other dance move Wilson Pickett sung about.

First night in Vegas, Jimmy had allowed himself a couple of drinks. The price was right in his new budget, in that they were comped. A couple turned into God-knows how many. Even skunk drunk as he was from the free table liquor, Jimmy managed to charm the phone numbers off two women he'd struck up conversations with. He was too shitfaced to entice them back to his room, but he'd be damned if the old Jimmy Romance magic wasn't still strong as ever.

Jimmy opened the door too quickly, then stumbled back as the heat and blinding sunlight smacked into him again. That shit was going to take some getting used to. It also felt like unbelievable torture on his hangover.

"Whoa," said Norm. "Looks like somebody tasted a bit too much of the old Vegas high life last night." Norm cackled and Jimmy fought the desire to unpack his gun and put an end to the high-pitched torture. "Listen," he said, "I'll go get some breakfast and be back in an hour. You think you'll be ready?"

"Yeah," Jimmy mumbled through dry and cracked lips.

"Super."

Jimmy took the coldest shower of his life, hoping to wash the hangover away. He stood under the freezing jets with an empty coffee cup, repeatedly filling it under the stream and chugging it back into his dehydrated self. When he was done, he felt a little better, but his schlong had crawled halfway up his sternum.

When he pulled a shirt out of his bag, Jimmy looked at the revolver he'd packed just in case. He'd disassembled it and packed each piece into a different item, but it was still a minor miracle that the TSA hadn't dragged him off and turned him into a sock puppet for a few hours just for the attempt.

Luck.

Jimmy Romance was feeling it, brother. Long as he could suppress the memory of the previous nights' bad streak at blackjack, it was all coming up roses. He was gonna make it work.

He was heading out the door when he looked at the gun on the bed again. His problems were gone. What did he need the gun for now? Jimmy stopped at the door again.

Looked back at the gun.

Just in case.

The hard sell started the second Norm pulled onto the highway. Jimmy had trouble keeping his eyes open.

"Fortune Estates is going to be the premiere…" Jimmy's eyes drifted shut. "…golf courses accessible from the property."

Closing again.

Asleep.

Jimmy jumped up with a start at the hand on his shoulder.

"Whoa, whoa, there cowboy. Didn't mean to scare you," Norm said, his hands held up in mock-defense.

"Where are we?" They weren't even on any road to speak of anymore. All Jimmy could see on three sides was desert. Directly in front of the car was a ramshackle construction site. A couple of empty bulldozers were parked at the lip of what looked like a half-dozen empty foundations.

"The future site of Fortune Estates." Norm held his arms wide, like he was introducing Adam to the Garden of Eden.

"Nothing here," Jimmy croaked. His throat felt like it was full of dry ash. He went to get a bottle of water, but the glove compartment was locked.

"Nothing yet," Norm said, reaching into the back seat. He handed Jimmy a plastic gallon of Poland Spring. "Truth is, you're the first potential buyer we've brought here. We weren't planning on showing the site for another month. Been waiting for the weather to cool off a bit, but your circumstances made us bump up the schedule."

Jimmy sucked hungrily at the water, his head pounding a rumba. This was why he didn't drink.

"That wasn't fair of you," Norm said with a wink.

"What wasn't?"

"Sleeping through my pitch." Norm gave Jimmy another toothpaste ad smile. "C'mon. Let's go see the construction."

The desert wasn't what Jimmy expected. The ground had a gravelly consistency, like the stuff they poured in the infield at Jimmy's old Little League park. He was expecting more of a beach-type sand. There were no pointy cacti, just a lot of scrub. Scrub, gravel, and not a lot more. Jimmy stared down into one of the eight-foot deep foundations. His foot skidded in the sand and Norm grabbed Jimmy by the shoulder.

"Don't want to fall in there. It might be just sand, but that first step's a doozy." Norm haw-hawed.

Jimmy forced a smile. Yeah, a doozy. Me breaking my neck is real funny, too. He started feeling the old paranoia creeping back. There he was, literally in the middle of nowhere. The sensation was somehow sharpened to a point (pointy, pointy!) in the desert. The city kid inside him screaming for some concrete, one skyscraper to base perspective from. The sickness in the pit of his stomach was familiar, but the sweats were missing. Where were the sweats? Oh yeah. Sucked off by the hot air. Even his familiar fear felt wrong in this overheated death hole.

He'd tuned out Norm as they walked around the big nothing. What was wrong? There wasn't anybody who knew he was there. There was no place for anybody to hide. It was just the two of them, the open desert and…

And…

And a lot of holes in the ground.

"…right back." Norm said.

"Huh?"

"I said I'll be right back. I want to go get something in the car." Norm smacked Jimmy on the shoulder and trotted off. "Don't fall in."

It all came to him in a rush. Was it just a fucking coincidence that the offer came just at the right time? Jimmy hadn't been offered any timeshares before in his life. The thoughts bounced around Jimmy's brain like a superball. Butcher Bass had connections. Connected connections. Connections to crime.

Sin City.

Mean Gene. Mean Gene was getting a head start on his vacation tan. In Paris? Who the fuck went tanning in Paris?

In April.

There was, however, a casino called Paris right here in Vegas, the town hot enough to suck the moisture right off your bones.

Sin City, baby.

Jimmy watched Norm open the passenger door and lean down.

He was unlocking the glove compartment.

Jimmy didn't think Norm was getting mittens in the 110-degree heat.

For the first time since he'd arrived, Jimmy felt sweat on his neck as the rest of his body went numb. Without a second thought, he pulled his gun from the back of his pants and fired three shots into the windshield. The windshield splintered with a sound that reminded him of the one that Ricardo's face made when he slammed the tanning bed on it. Norm's outline bucked once and slumped over. Jimmy sucked the furnace air in rapid gulps. A couple of breaths later, his throat was squeaking dryly.

He started shuffling over to the car when the engine turned. Jimmy started running (to hide where exactly?) and emptied the gun at the shiny Beemer as it surged forward. The windshield exploded. The huge car didn't get far. It rolled into one of the empty foundations with a boom that echoed in the desert's empty expanse. The car's rear wheels kept rolling even though they had no ground to roll against anymore.

Jimmy jumped into the ditch, gun ready. He didn't realize that he'd emptied the clip in his panic, but it didn't matter. "Kill me, huh? You think you're gonna sucker Jimmy Romance? Fuck you!"

Jimmy opened the door. Norm's body lay still in the wheel well. Blood spurted from the puncture in his neck where one of Jimmy's bullets hit home, the tan linen jacket quickly going to red. Jimmy rolled him off the pedals onto the hardened foundation floor. Once his body was off the accelerator, the engine slowed, coughed once and died.

Norm's mouth moved like a dummy who'd lost his ventriloquist. Tears rolled down from eyes that weren't looking at anything in particular. Then with one heaving gasp, he was still.

Jimmy once-overed the car's interior. No gun.

With a loud crack, the wall of the foundation gave under the Beemer's weight and came crashing down. The car rolled onto its roof, over Norm's body with a wet crunch.

Good thing he's already dead, Jimmy thought. Now it was his turn to laugh, even though the sound of it was alien in his ears. Jimmy carefully climbed into the compacted luxury car and looked in the glove box.

Jesus, it's stifling.

He found blueprints, a contract and a smashed bottle of sparkling wine. Cheap bastard couldn't even spring for the good stuff. On the roof of the car (now the floor) lay two jugs of water. One was empty, a ragged bullet hole through the plastic. The other was intact, but more than half empty, since Jimmy had greedily drank from it only recently.

No gun. No knives. Hell, there wasn't even a toenail clipper in the car.

How do people live in this heat?

Jimmy climbed out the car and considered his options. They weren't bad. Yeah, he'd killed the guy, but it already looked like an accident. It wouldn't take much to torch what was left and let any evidence burn up.

The feeling of freedom washed over Jimmy again. He would get away with it. Sorry Norm, but there just wasn't any motive. Jimmy grabbed the bottle of water and walked over to the partially-collapsed foundation wall. He could climb over, follow the tire tracks, flag a car and sob his story to the cops.

As Jimmy tried pulling himself over the edge, his feet kept sinking into the loose earth. Skidding backwards, Jimmy fell ass-over-teakettle, the desert gravel crumbling through the now fully-collapsed wall. Sand and dust quickly poured in to fill the vacuum. Jimmy sat up, spitting out grit from between his teeth.

Jimmy rinsed the dry earth from his mouth, dusted off his pant legs. So the collapsed wall was a bust. No biggie.

Jimmy went to the other side and tossed the jug over the edge ahead of him. Jumping up, he grabbed the wall and scrabbled to get his leg over. The rim came free under his shoe, sending Jimmy tumbling onto his back, clutching two handfuls of foundation wall.

Jimmy crumbled the cheap concrete between his rolling fingers. Looked like the people building Fortune Estates were going to make their fortunes by cutting back on materials.

North and south walls, same goddamn thing.

He couldn't get out.

Damn, it was hot. Jimmy looked at his arms, which were already going a dangerous shade of red. He checked his watch.

11:42 a.m.

It was only going to get hotter.

Jimmy climbed onto the overturned car, tried to get up speed and flung himself towards the edge. He hit the lip of the foundation halfway over and slid back slowly into the hole, his fingers scraping over the all-too-yielding ground. Almost made it, until the fingernail on his left pinky finger ripped out. Jimmy fell onto his ass once more and screamed his curses into the air.

In frustration, he marched over Norm's corpse and kicked him in his dead face. Too bad you're dead, Norm. I could have used the number for your manicurist.

The second time, Jimmy tried to psyche himself up. This was the only way he was going to get out. Do or die. Now or never. The old Brooklyn try.

On the second step of his second attempt, Jimmy's ankle caught under the muffler. His shin snapped like a chopstick as he face-planted into a muddy pool of Norm's blood. Jimmy rolled back and forth in Norm's gore, howling in obscene pain at the merciless sun.

The sun didn't care.

Jimmy closed his eyes, steeling himself against the pain. A shadow flickered over his clenched eyelids. Jimmy opened his eyes. A few seconds later, the shadow returned.

Huh, thought Jimmy. Would you look at that? Don't see too many of those back home.

Nope. Of all the negative things he could say about New York, one thing it had going for it was that there were no buzzards in Brooklyn.