The Finishing School

53

THINGS WERE GOING like clockwork for Bud. This was no accident but rather the result of brilliant planning. Finally some payoff for being smarter than everyone else yet eating their shit so patiently for so long.

Jay called Bud’s cell phone at eleven-thirty from the office at Noir, the club in the Flatiron District that was strictly for the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Noir was always packed on a Thursday night. Bud had advised Jay to be seen out and about so that he had an alibi for what went down in Puerto Rico, and Jay had fallen for it easily. Every step was carefully mapped, down to the fact that Jay’s office at Noir had a private back door that led out to the alley. Anybody watching would witness Jay enter his office from inside the club, alone. And plenty of people would be watching, because all eyes were always on Jay at his clubs. That was one of the perks of being a celebrity, and Bud was counting on it.

“Where the fuck you been?” Jay demanded, hearing the sirens in the background as Bud walked down the street. Bud was carrying the golf bag, annoyed that his feet were wet from the slush at the corners, that he didn’t have the cash to take a cab on a miserable night like this. That was about to change, but not soon enough for his taste.

“I’m not too far from you. I’m gonna stop by. I don’t want to get into details over the phone,” Bud said.

“Fuck that pussy-ass shit.”

“You’ll thank me later, Jay.”

“I want an update. Now.”

“Relax. I talked to Pavel. The deal happened already. Everything’s cool,” Bud lied smoothly. He was enjoying every second of this double-cross.

“If the transfer was made, why the fuck haven’t I heard from the Colombians?”

“I’ll be there in five minutes to explain. Leave the back door unlocked, okay? It’s better for you if nobody sees me.”

There was something very ultimate for Bud about this impending confrontation. It had become much more to him than just a settling of old scores. He felt like he’d finally be liberated from all the things in his past that smacked of failure, of defeat, of unfulfilled promise. He’d finally be free.

His mother and Jay’s had been sisters, Italian girls from Bensonhurst. Both had married minor thugs, but Jay’s father made a good living at it, whereas Bud’s was an Irishman with the Irish curse. He drank himself to death, but not before beating the crap out of Bud for enough years to fuck him up good. Then Bud and his mother were charity cases, living off Jay’s family, never allowed to forget that either. Everything Bud got his hands on-money, girls, drugs-Jay felt free to take away, and none of it was ever enough. Jay hadn’t stopped, never would. The guy had an appetite. Bud got his education, he got his job, and Jay had to put his hairy paws all over that, too. Bud found this perfect young girl, taught her all about sex. It made him want to cry, thinking about Whitney’s tits. Then Jay took her for his own purposes and ruined her, so she didn’t want to be with Bud anymore except as a way to get to Jay. That was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

Bud reached out with his gloved hand and pushed open the back door to Jay’s office. The place had been done by some trendy designer, and it was butt ugly. Black rubber floors, concrete walls, and strange lighting made from silver tubing. Jay was sitting in his silver swivel chair with his back to the door, talking on the phone. Fricking chair was so weird. Looked like it was covered in duct tape, but Bud happened to know it cost four grand. For a goddamn chair. Any idiot should’ve realized that a few nightclubs could never support Jay’s lavish lifestyle, yet somehow the guy had managed to skate along and avoid getting locked up. The feds were so incompetent it was hardly much of a challenge to beat the system.

Jay whipped around in the chair, phone in his hand. Bud could see from the expression on his face that the game was up. More than up: played out to the bitter fucking end.

“Jesus, Javier, I have no fucking clue how the cops found out about El Yunque,” Jay was saying as he stared at Bud with savage rage.

I do, you prick. I arranged for that little snitch to tell them, right before I beat his brains out with your golf club. Now I waltz away and everybody else gets locked up. Everybody except you. I have other plans for you.

Bud had bought the gun a week earlier in a dingy stairwell in the East Harlem projects. It was untraceable, with a defaced serial number, but it fired like a dream. He knew, because he’d been practicing.

Jay covered the mouthpiece of the telephone with his hand. “You’re a dead man,” he said to Bud. Then his eyes followed the golf bag as Bud dropped it on the floor, and he looked confused.

Bud held the gun in his right hand, hidden in the folds of his long overcoat. He lifted it in one beautiful, fluid arc just as he stepped up to the swivel chair and grabbed Jay by the throat. Bud had the advantage of complete and utter surprise, or else Jay would’ve twisted away easily. Jay had always been the stronger of the two by far; Bud had scars to prove it. But this time, when Jay’s mouth fell open in shock, Bud jammed the gun straight into it and squeezed the trigger, firing up and back. He blew Jay’s brains all over the designer walls, then carefully folded his limp, dead fingers around the gun. It was the perfect suicide, perfectly timed, just as the feds were closing in.

“ ’Ello? ’Ello?” the receiver squawked. And Bud replaced it carefully in its cradle before slipping out the back door.