Terminal

A Burke Novel

Andrew Vachss

Pantheon Books, New York

for

Judith Moore,

who used her sweet, soft heart to break the cruelest of all chains.

You were never a fat girl to me, beautiful.

I got to the job site a couple hours early. The kind of work I do, you show up too late, sometimes you dont get to go home when its over.

Gigi was already planted in his spot, his enormous body mass taking up most of a wooden bench, a half-empty pitcher of beer on a little table to his right. The behemoth had a perfect sight-line on the front door, but his tiny eyes were too deeply flesh-pouched for me to tell where he was looking. Wrapped in a faded gray jersey pulled over drawstring pants of the same material, he looked like a moored battleship.

I found a stool at the far end of the bar. The guy behind the stick had a little slice of forehead and less chin. His eyes showed signs of life I guessed somewhere around geranium level.

I ordered a shot nobody does brand names in a joint like this. The inbred blinked a couple of times, then brought me some brown liquid. I asked him for a glass of water. He stared at me for a minute. You could see his mind working it wasnt a pretty sight. Finally, enough tumblers fell into place. He reached under the bar and came up with a glass the EPA wouldnt allow you to dump without a permit.

The TV set was suspended from the ceiling by cables at the opposite end of the bar from where I was sitting. Some baseball game was on. I was too far away to hear the sound, or even make out who was playing, but I watched the moving images. Reminded me of being Inside. They rig the TV in the dayroom the same way, probably for the same reason. Most guys want to be outdoors every chance they get, but theres cons who know their soaps better than any housewife.

Usually, I drink the water, slip the whiskey into the water glass, let the ice melt into it, and then ask for another. If I think anyone might be watching close, I transfer by mouth. I was raised in places where you learn to do that with meds you dont want, watched by staff who hoped youd refuse restraints and hypos were more fun for them.

Eventually, the bartender takes away both glasses, brings me a same again, and everybodys happy. Any regular interested in the stranger sees a man drinking solo, dedicated to his work. In a place like this, you sit by yourself not drinking, its like a red neon arrow pointing at you. Down at you.

But I watched how other guys at the bar had to practically scream to get the inbreds attention. He mostly just stood there, in the Zen state of just being the mouth-breathing genetic misfire that he was. So I nursed my drink the way a crack-addict mother nurses her kid if it could figure out how to drink itself, fine.

Forty minutes later, a man in a bone-colored leather sports coat shoulder-rolled in and sat down in an empty booth. Late thirties, with a tanning-bed complexion. He sported a hundred-dollar short haircut gelled, not spiked. His wristwatch was crusted with diamonds; a three-strand loop of eighteen-karat draped against a black silk collarless pullover.

The battleship slowly broke loose from its mooring and started across the room. From behind me, two torpedoes cut across his wake. As the first passed by where I was sitting, I slid the length of rebar out of my sleeve, gripped the taped end, and took out his knee from behind. The other whirled at his partners scream, but I was already swinging. His collarbone snapped under the ridged steel whip.

The guy in the bone-colored jacket never made it out of his booth.

I was one of the men who flowed around Gigi like river water around a big rock, all of us heading for the door. The sidewalk was empty, except for a squat-bodied man in a wheelchair. He had a begging cap on the ground next to him, one hand under the army blanket spread across his lap. Nobody gave him a second glance.

* * *

The battleship was docked at a pier overlooking the Brooklyn Navy Yard, behind the wheel of an ancient black Caddy. He covered more than half of the front seat; the steering wheel was hidden somewhere under his upper body. A thick skullcap of wiry black hair covered his bowling ball of a head. I was standing next to him, talking through the opened window. Id done time with Gigi keeping something solid between you and him is always a good play.

Didnt expect you, Gigi said. Never saw you before.

I shrugged, wasting fewer words than he had.

I did time with your boss. Thought hed be sending Herk to watch my back.

I shrugged again. Herk was short for Hercules, named for his hyper-muscled physique. Everyone but Gigi called him Big Herk, but Herks 275 pounds of prison-sculptured, Dianabol-boosted chassis made him a middleweight in Gigis league.

The man Gigi thought was my boss was me, the Burke he knew years ago. My face had changed bullet wounds and trainee surgeons will do that for you but the payphone that rang in the back of Mamas restaurant still took my calls. And my voice was still the samewhen I wanted it to be.

He still in your crew, Herk?

I gave him the look.

What? he said, insulted. You think Im a fucking cop? They wanted to wire me up, theyd have to use a motherfucking bale of the stuff.

I shook my head.

Youre a dummy? You cant talk, that it? Look, pal, I can see youre not Herk, but I sure as fuck know you aint Max, either.

Gigi meant Max the Silent, a Tibetan combat dragon. Max cant speak, but thats not how he got his name.

Im not a dummy, I said, softly. But I know when to dummy up.

Not everyone does, he said, a tinge of nostalgia in his guttural voice. Things aint the same. These days, you got to pay a man to watch your back even when you get hired just to do a simple job like pounding on that mook. But with these punk kids taking over now, fucking bosses they are, you never know when theyre gonna watch too much TV, start thinking all plots and shit.

Those two guys, you dont think they were his?

Marios? The guy in the pretty white coat? Yeah, they were his, all right. Even a fucking stugotz like him knows when hes been put on the spot, marked down for some serious pain. But hes still got to do business, got to make his rounds, show some face. It was just a matter of time. Wasnt me, it would have been someone else.

Besides, if those guys you took out were from thepeople who hired me, they would have been shooters. Those guys, they were just dumbass muscle.

I nodded agreement. If theyd been experienced bodyguards, one look at Gigi would have had them heading for the back exit. Probably a pair of strip-club bouncers, used to flexing their gym muscles at drunks.

Mario couldve got himself some shooters, but hed have to go to the yoms, get someone to do that for the kind of chump-change money hes holding now. Can you imagine a nigger walking into that place? Itd be like one of them wandering onto our range, Inside.

I shook my head.

You know what, pal? This is seriously fucked. I get paid to do some work on a guy, I got to pay a piece of that just to make sure my back dont get cold. Turns out, I wasted the money.

You could have handled both of those guys, too? I said, pretending mild surprise. Id seen Gigi waddle up to whole groups of men Inside, then go through them like an enraged kid busting up balsa-wood model airplanes. He had all the speed of a fire hydrant, and about the same pain tolerance. Gigi wasnt any good at chasing you down, but thats the thing about prisonnowhere to run.

Ask your boss, the battleship said.

I didnt say anything.

Hey, fuck you, you dont want to talk. Heres the other half of your money. Tell Burke I still owe him a glass of vino.

* * *

Going back home to New York is like going back to an old girlfriend just because you remembered how great the sex had been. The minute you come, you remember all the reasons youd decided to go the last time.

It wasnt that bad, not really. Being away from my family had hurt more than Id ever imagined, but I had them back again. All the ones left, anyway.

I didnt have my old place, but the new one was better, once you got past the first couple of floors. I didnt have my dog, but I could go for days without thinking about her now.

What I didnt have was my old ways.

I couldnt go back to scamming-and-stinging. I had always specialized in fleecing the kind of humans who couldnt run to the Law, but the Internet boys had the freak market sewn up now. Promising kiddie porn I was never going to deliver was one of my bill-payers back in the day, but thats all done Cybervilles full of places where freaks can sample the product for free before they buy.

Selling info on how to become a mercenary is another dry well. Worked fine back when mercenary meant government-funded, no-risk slaughter machine guns against machetes, that kind of thing. Every master-race moron with heavy experience killing paper targets wanted to get in on the fun. Thats a different game today, too. The real merc work is in overthrowing governments, and that takes specialists with track records, not fantasy-fueled freaks whose fetal alcoholism convinced them that they were the last hope of the White Race.

I used to middleman arms deals, selling ordnance towhoever. But thats a no-touch ever since 9/11. The buyers could be Saudi-financed robots, or one of those neo-Nazi crews whose idea of screening is skin tone. And some of those are the kind of scum-sucking swine whose idea of a part-time job is being an informant for the federales.

One surefire sting had been offering kids for sale, then strong-arming the exchange the old badger game, cranked up to big-number payoffs. Who were the ripped-off buyers going to complain to, the Better Business Bureau? But, today, the human-traffickers have so much genuine product in their pipelines that the price keeps dropping. What you could sell twenty years ago for a hundred grand wouldnt get you five today. Not worth the time and trouble to set up the mark, never mind the mess you sometimes make when they get all aggressive the second they find out what they really just bought.

I heard there was good money selling electromagnetic shields to poor souls who were sure they were being targeted by psychotronic weapons, but I couldnt make myself go there. Same reason I could never pluck the ripe alien-abductee fruit, even when it dangled so close to the ground.

Cant even rip off the dope men, anymore. They used to just truck the weight around, open for any hijacker with accurate info and the right skills. Id done one of my stretches for a move like that. Had everything figured out: steal it, sell it back to the owners. Only thing is, they did call the cops. Their cops.

Anyway, thats all changed, too. Just read this whole frantic piece in the News about a new drug hitting the streets. Heroin cut with fentanyl. Supposed to have killed a few people already.

Reading stuff like that always makes me sad. Not because of a few dead dope fiends, but I cant figure out why anyone thinks thats news, or why it matters. This new stuff isnt new at all its been killing addicts in Chicago and Detroit for a long time now. What kind of chump thinks hard-core addicts read the papers for street news, like yuppies checking their mutual funds? For the dealers, a few deaths are good for business. Proves theyve got the real thing, not some stepped-on lemonade that wont even buy you a mild buzz.

A junkie worries about only three things: finding the money to fix, finding a seller with righteous stuff, and finding a vein to slam it home. Death? You try that ride every time. Part of the deal. Thats why the top dogs brand their stuff.

Maybe theyll make a movie about it.

* * *

I used to find people. Kids mostly. I was good at it the best tracker in the city, the whisper-stream said. But Id finally learned that bringing kids back to the people who paid me didnt always make me a hero.

And the last job Id done had changed that forever. The man who used to send me tracker work would never be calling me again, either.

I scratch around now. Helping people go and stay gone, thats something I know how to do. But theres not a lot of that kind of work around. And most of it just vibrates with danger, like the hum in an electric fence.

The thing about doing crime for a living is that you have to keep doing it. And, every time you do, the odds shiftin the wrong direction. Im not going Inside again. Not for all the usual reasons although every one of those is a good one but because I cant play that hand anymore. At my age, with my record, any sentence would come with a lifetime guarantee. So when I do violence-for-money, like covering Gigis back, I make sure Im nowhere near the fallout zone.

Still, in my world, being sure is just another way of saying you had cut down the odds. Nobody was supposed to die in the job Gigi had hired me for, but accidents happen. What I was sure of was that nobody was going to talk. Not because of some bullshit code, but because it was the smart play. The only play.

Nobody was even going to call the cops, much less talk to them. And if some passing citizen had a cell phone, good fucking luck interrogating that bartender he wouldnt be playing dumb.

With all that, I still should have passed. Anytime you cover Gigi while hes working, you could end up watching a homicide.

Ive got some money. That last job had turned out to be worth a lot more than Id thought it could be. Cost me a lot more than I thought I had, too.

No reason why I couldnt go the rest of the way on that one score. I live small. I have the whole top floor of a flophouse thats been scheduled for the wrecking ball for years, but the bribery they call paperwork in this town had prolonged the process through two administrations already. In the meantime, I dont pay rent. Or utilities.

I dont have a phone. For outgoing, I use an ever-changing batch of cloned cells the Mole puts together for me. For messages, theres the same number the underground has been using for years. The same one Gigi had called.

Ive even got cable, a feeder line from the ground floor of the flophouse. I see whatever I want on the screen, but I never see a bill.

Thanks to my sister Michelle, I dont pay retail for clothing. Except when she gets in one of her You need this now! moods. Then I end up paying through both nostrils and a few assorted veins.

My car is as maintenance-free as an I-beam, a 69 Roadrunner two-door post. It looks like a derelict from the outside but underneath is an all-new chassis, complete with a transplanted Viper IRS, and a bulletproof, injected Mopar wedge, hand-assembled for torque. Purrs on pump gas, never uses a drop of synthetic between changes, and wouldnt overheat in a Saharan summer.

I shoot pool, but for nickels and dimes. I play cards, but only with my family my brother Max is into me for over a couple hundred grand, but we agreed wed settle up when we both reach the Other Side. Hes my partner in our two-man betting syndicate, too, but weve never gone more than a few hundred plus-or-minus there.

I dont drink. Even when I did smoke, I only bought Dukes meaning straight from North Carolina, without those pesky New York tax stamps. Later on, I used one of those hundred-foot Indian reservations they have on Long Island, the ones they built to display the governments deep respect for its favorite Native American tribe: the Casino Indians.

I dont use drugs for the same reason I dont drink. Some kids who come up the way I did use stuff like that to get numb. Others, the ones like me, take hyper-vigilance as a sacred vow.

No woman who ever loved me cost me money. But none of them are still with me. Some are dead; all are gone.

Max has his family. His wife, Immaculata; his daughter, Flower. The Prof, my only true father, has another child a young gun he had picked up and lifted up, like he had done with me. I was way older than Clarence, but Id never felt replaced; I felt added-to. He calls us both son, but, to the Prof, Id be Schoolboy forever.

He and Clarence had a crib together over in East New York. Michelle had the Mole; together they had Terry. I had snatched him from a pimp in Times Square years ago, before Giuliani cleared up midtown and left the boroughs to rot. Mama had all of us, but Flower, her granddaughter, was the pick of the litter, and none of us had a moments doubt about that.

It wasnt so much that they all had one another I had them, too, and they me. It was that they all had something to do.

* * *

I walked in the glass door with the taped-over cracks, found myself facing a man in a wheelchair, sitting behind a wide wooden plank that holds a register nobody ever signs.

Gateman, I said.

Hey, boss. You had a call.

That meant someone had called me at Mamas and she had left word with Gateman. I wouldnt carry a cell on a job like the one I just did, and none of us would ever use an answering machine.

I nodded, then handed him an envelope.

Thanks, boss.

Count it.

For what? We didnt set no exact price.

Yeah, we did. Remember?

For real?

Count it.

Theres fuck me! five large here. Whatd that humongoid pay?

Ten. Knowing Gigi, he probably got twenty-five, minimum.

Hes worth it, Gateman said, reluctantly respectful. That monster motherfucker never misses. And he dont even know how to spell rat. 

True, I said, remembering a conversation Id had with Gigi on the yard, a long time ago.

Im kind of like a whore, the monster said, shocking me into silence. I mean, we both rent our bodies, right? You know what makes me different?

I made an I wouldnt even guess gesture, afraid to say anything out loud.

We got different values, the monster said, solemnly. There aint a whore in the world you can trust to keep her mouth shut. And there aint a thing on this earth that can make me open mine.

Nobody rats on him, neither, Gateman said. You know I was at a trial of his once, over in Brooklyn?

Yeah?

Square business. It was hilarious, bro. The whole courthouse was cracking up. See, Gigi rolled up these three jamokes who got behind in their payments. Probably three separate jobs, but you know that whale-scale bastard he does them all at the same time, save himself a few steps maybe. So, anyway, while theyre in the hospital, probably flying on morphine, they all give statements, and Gigi gets taken down.

But comes time for trial, one by one, the three witnesses get up on the stand, point over at Gigi sitting there, and swear that he wasnt the one who did them.

The DA, some kid probably a week out of law school, one of those Daddys-got-connections clowns the DAs always hiring, hes fucking screaming at his own witnesses: Are you trying to tell this jury that you were beaten by another four-hundred-and-fifty-pound white male with a red lightning-bolt tattoo on his right forearm!? That is the exact description of your assailant that you gave the police, isnt it? And the witness, each witness, mind you, stares him straight in the eye, says, Thats right. Alls I know, it wasnt him. 

Yeah. Gigis a few hundred pounds over the ninja limit, but he can sure disappear right in front of your eyes.

Gateman high-fived that, said: Five large, boss. Damn! So this is 

Half. Like we agreed.

Ah, come on, man. I didnt think you was 

I said partners, Gate. Partners dont cut pieces, they split. Equal shares.

You dont just talk it, man.

I tapped fists with one of the citys deadliest shooters, and headed up the stairs to my place.

* * *

You know, when people say scared to death, they dont mean it, the skinny brunette said. Not for-real mean it. Theyre afraid of doing something, maybe. Or of getting caught at it. A woman like me, if she said something like that, she might be talking about getting a beating. But not about dying. Shes just being dramatic. Youve seen that, right?

I made a gesture that could mean anything.

Hed do it, she swore, as fervently as a preacher selling lies.

I made another gesture.

So I dont have any choice. Dont tell me about putting a restraining order out on him. He told me, I ever did that, theyd find it in my purse, lying next to my body.

I hadnt been going to say anything about restraining orders. Im not a counselor. Or a citizen.

Ive got kids, she kept on, relentlessly trying to find another button to push. Two kids. Theyre terrified of him. If I dont get away 

She reacted to my raised eyebrows like Id slapped her.

Hey! I cant just go, all right? What am I going to do? This is real life, not TV. People dont just disappear. Specially people with kids. It costs a lot of money to do something like that.

I let the right corner of my mouth twitch, knowing her eyes were on me like prison searchlights when the escape alarm goes off.

So where am I going to get the money for what I want you to do, right?

I shrugged.

Hes got a life insurance policy. It comes with his job. Im the beneficiary. You want to see it? she said, reaching toward the purse where she probably also had the tape recorder.

I shook my head no. The guy she wanted hit was a prison guard a CO is what shed called him. Even if Id bought her story about the life insurance, no prison guards union policy was going to buy her a sure-to-be-investigated murder.

How the live-in girlfriend of a prison guard got involved with a convict was more than I wanted to know. Why the convict wanted the guard dead probably had nothing to do with anything he was doing to the woman, but that didnt interest me, either. How the con got my name was no mystery any one of a couple of dozen lifers up there could have dropped it.

Only thing was, not one of them had ever reached out to me himself, just to give me the heads-up.

Youve got the wrong man, I told the brunette.

Her dark eyes teared right up. I can get more 

No. I mean, youve got me confused with someone else. I dont do the kind of work youre talking about getting done.

But I was told 

By who?

Im not supposed to say. And when I give my word, thats it. Id never give up someone who tried to do me a favor.

Im sure youre a righteous, stand-up woman. You sound way too good for the guy you talked about. I wish you the best of luck finding a solution to your problem.

But 

I think whoever referred you to me and I do respect you for not saying their name was thinking about you going away. Disappearing. Starting over. Theres a group I know that could help you with that. After they checked out your story, of course. Thats all that happened, I think. Wires got crossed.

I dont want to disappear. I want him to disappear.

You should be careful who you say things like that to. You never know whos listening.

I came a long way.

Me, too, I lied. That happens a lot, I think. People travel to meet their expectations, and they turn out to be disappointed when they arrive.

* * *

If that woman had been telling the truth and if shed had the money I could have helped her go and stay gone. Ive got a whole stash of identities. Not ID, identities. Different planets. Today, any amateur can get photo ID all you need is broadband, the right software, a color laser printer, and a laminator. But thats just pictures on documents, not an identity.

A real identity takes years to establish. You need credit cards, and you need to use them. Buy things, pay them off. Travel. Make a nice paper trail.

Drivers licenses get renewed. Taxes get paid. Phone numbers stay listed. Answering machines pick up.

If youre going to use a sham identity to work a score, it helps to have a Web presence, too. Not an actual site, just tracks enough of a trail for chumps who think Googling makes them an investigator. Like a few posts to newsgroups, or even a blog. Faking a newspaper or magazine story is probably the safest anything you plant on the Net will metastasize so quickly that tracing it back to the original becomes impossible for anyone less than a real pro.

All this costs money. An investment, the way I see it. Takes years to ripen on the vine, but when you harvest, its a sweet crop. A cash crop.

Id been stockpiling ID ever since I learned how to do it. Each new one is better than the last. Since 9/11, theyre worth fifty times what they were, an inflation-proof asset. It isnt that I knew the governments license to invade privacy it has today was coming but I always assume something bad is.

Thats one bet Ive never lost yet.

Today, my walk-around ID is Scott Thomas. Scott or is it Thomas? Hard to tell with names like that is a good citizen. He owns my car that rust-bucket 69 Roadrunner with dog-dish hubcaps and a single, sorry exhaust pipe poking out the back pays the insurance on time, keeps the registration up to date.

Scott pays his taxes, too. Of course, the poor guy doesnt make a lot of money, working as a kitchen helper. But hes lucky; the rent where he lives hasnt gone up in ten years. You could ask the landlord, but his building is owned under a corporate name it would take a team of forensic accountants a decade to unravel. Theyd have to be fluent in Chinese as well.

Still, the brunette worried me. Shed called Burkes number, and she could have gotten it from anywhere. Some of those places are more reliable than others, so it was possible shed been told Burke did contract jobs.

That rumor had been as much a part of the city as judgeships-for-sale since forever but then Wesley had checked out so explosively that it made the front page of every tabloid in the city. He left behind a suicide note being Wesley, it read like a threat taking the weight for a whole string of killings that went back a long time. Some of those were mine. Wesleys suicide was anomic, but his confession was my inheritance. My brother, the iceman nobody could touch, still touching me.

Nobody doubted Wesleys note. Not the cops, not the people who live down here. That was what Wesley did, make people dead for money. He never asked why, just told you how much.

Years ago, my compadre Pablo told me about a contract Wesley had on a Puerto Rican dope dealer uptown. The dealer knew the contract was out. He went to a Santería priestess, begging for voodoo heat against the glacier coming for him. The priestess told him Chango, the warrior-god, would protect him. For a price.

The priestess was an evil old demon, feared throughout the barrio. Her crew was all Marielitos. Zombie-driven murderers. They set fires to watch the flames. Ate the charred flesh. Tattoos on their hands to tell you their specialty. Weapons, drugs, extortion, homicide. Their executioners tattoo was an upside-down heart with an arrow through it. Cupid as a hit man.

The priestess called on her gods. Killed chickens and goats. Sprinkled virgins blood on a knife. Loosed her death-dogs into the street looking for Wesley.

The dealer hid himself in her temple. Safe.

Blazing summer, but the kids stayed off the streets around her temple. They knew winter was coming.

A few days later, a UPS driver pulled up outside the temple. The Marielitos slammed him against his truck, pulling at his clothes. Eyes watched from beneath slitted shades. The killers took a small box from the driver, laughing when he insisted someone had to sign for it.

Experienced assassins, they held the box under an opened fire hydrant, soaking the paper off. Then one of them held the box to his ear, shaking it. Another pulled a butterfly knife from his pocket, flashed it open in the street, grinning. They squatted, watching as the box was slit open. Looked inside. Saw a ghost.

They took the box inside to the priestess. A few minutes later, the dope dealer was thrown into the street, hands cuffed behind his back, duct tape sealing his mouth. He ran from the block. Never made it past the corner.

Nobody saw anything. His body was still there when the cops came.

The whisper-stream went mad with rumor. In the bodegas, in the after-hours joints, on the streets. It was said the priestess found the severed hand of her executioner inside the box, the tattoo mocking her. Chango was angry she needed a better sacrifice than a chicken to appease him.

The Prof said it best: Maybe that bitch was a witch, but Wesley just quelled her spell.

* * *

Everyone saw him die. Wesleys final moments were on live TV. Every channel in the city. But nobody ever found his body. The cluster of dynamite Wesley held aloft before he blew the screens into blackness hadnt left even a micro-fragment behind. So, every time a super-clean, no-trace kill goes down, some part of the whisper-stream questions whether the iceman is really, truly gone.

The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that the brunette had just gotten bad info. Cons lose touch with the World; maybe her boyfriend was working off old rumors. Or just profiling, telling her he knew people. If shed been a plant, I couldnt see the cops doing it. Even if they somehow knew I was still alive, so what? I wasnt wanted for anything. Ever since Id gone missing and presumed years ago, they hadnt even sniffed around.

No. Just a bad connection. My numbers been the same since forever. You float a public offering, you cant choose who buys your stock.

* * *

He was mad-dogging me, I mean right in my grille, so I fixed him up with a left hook, the light-skinned Latino with a coiled-cobra tattoo on his neck said to me. And what does this punk-ass faggot do? Cocksucker runs down to the precinct like a slapped bitch, puts a case on me.

And?

And what, man? What else I got to tell you?

I look like Legal Aid to you, amigo?

Yeah. All right, I get it. What are we talking about, then, make this go away?

You break anything?

Broke that punks jaw, he said proud, holding up the fist that had done the job.

So its a felony beef. Is that the problem?

Why you want to play me off like that, bro? Im looking at strike fucking three, okay?

But you made bail.

He leaned forward, left shoulder dropping just a notch. What you trying to say?

Me? Im just listening.

Yeah? Well, look here, the people who put up my bail, theyre the ones who gave me your number to call. They said you had contacts, could take care of stuff like this.

You got fifty?

Fifty what?

He gave me a prison-yard stare for a long five seconds. I let my eyes go all soft and wet, so hed know I knew. Every joint is full of murderers, but killers are a much rarer breed. All cons learn this, sometimes with their last breath.

Not in my pocket, man, he said, giving it up. But I can get it. Question is, what do I get for it?

A good lawyer.

A lawyer? Fuck a bunch of lawyers, man. What I need is a judge.

And the people who told you to call my number, they said I could get that done?

Nah. That was my idea.

Its a bad one.

So what you got?

I told you. A lawyer.

What you been smoking, man? You talking about some self-defense thing, right? That wont 

Right. You cant take the stand, because then your priors come out. And your priors, theyre for the same thing, same kind of thing, right?

Im a collector, he said, crossing his arms to display his ropy biceps.

Reason you want the lawyer is you need one to pull a Michael Jackson.

A what?

The guy you clocked, he drops the case, okay? Then he sues you, like in civil court, for the damage you did to him. You settle the case for, say, thirty K. He gets twenty, his lawyer gets ten, your lawyer gets ten, and so do I. Nobodys mad, nobody goes to jail. Hows that?

I could just pay the motherfucker off myself.

No, you cant, I said. Not arguing: telling. You go anywhere near him, youre going back Inside. If anyone comes around with cash in an envelope, thats all kinds of hurt ready to be let loose. But if a lawyer approaches this guy, tells him he might have a good case

Hows my lawyer gonna approach him?

Not your lawyer. A barrio guy. Abogado, comprende? One of those vultures you see hanging around every night outside the Arraignment Part, looking to pick up some change. You know the kind I mean: got their office in their cell phone.

Yeah. Those motherfuckers. So youre saying I need two lawyers?

Just hire the one I tell you to, everything else will take care of itself.

He nodded slowly.

My kind of score: low risk, low cash.

Big fucking deal.

* * *

Gigi? Never forget that two-ton, son, the Prof said. Inside, you couldnt touch him. They only got shanks in there, not harpoons.

He sounds like a pig, mahn, Clarence said, fastidiously inspecting the line of demarcation between the edge of his butter-colored cashmere jacket and the protruding French cuff of a bronze silk shirt, anchored by glittering topaz links. A gross, fat pig.

Theres all kinds of pigs, boy, the Prof said, seriously. My man Gigi, hes a razorback hog. Aint got none of those down in the Islands, do they?

Clarences clean-featured face twisted into a grimace of disgust. No, Father.

Havent seen one of those devil beasts since I was a boy. But once you see one coming your way, its in your mind, permanent.

There was a tincture of pride in the old mans voice. I knew the Prof had been born in Louisiana, but he always swore the only good thing that ever came out of the place was Slim Harpo; didnt want to hear about Lazy Lester. Id tried to interest him in Tab Benoit, but he said Weary Time of Night reminded him of Freddy Fender. Even Lonnie Brooks didnt turn his crank. And he thought Zydeco was just plain wrong.

He hasnt changed, Prof, I assured him.

Who changes? the noble-featured little man said, challenge clear in the textured voice that gave him half the weight behind his name: Prof was either Prophet or Professor, depending on how you knew him.

Me. Ive changed.

Yeah? No offense, but your face wasnt exactly your case ace, son. The work they did on you in that hospital so what?

I dont mean that. Im justbored, I guess.

How you gonna be bored, boy? Hell, even Inside, we was never bored. Out here, theres a gazillion things to do.

And if you already did them?

Look, fool, if everyone walked around with that attitude, nobodyd have more than one woman. And her only the one time. Theres some things we all meant to be doing over and over again, get it?

You know what I mean.

The Prof took a long drag off his Kool, blew a harsh jet of smoke at the ceiling.

You cant roll the dice 

 if you cant pay the price. Yeah, I know.

So?

Ill come up with something, I promised him.

* * *

The Bowery station on the J line is what happens to a neighborhood once politicians realize the people who live there dont vote. Caveman paintings lined the dingy walls. Like all artists who cant afford new canvas, the taggers just painted over the ones they already had. The structural columns were so encrusted with layer after layer of graffiti that they were an inch thicker than when they started.

One tagger had blazed NOFEAR 13! just past the third rail. Kid wasnt lying. He must have stood on his toes, bent at the waist, his sneakers in puddled filth, leather-lined socks to protect him from the river of rats that made short work of all the fast-food containers tossed onto the tracks. Making his statement in hyper-drive, every nerve ending exposed, tuned to catch the sound that could mean hed just run out of time.

The tag had been sprayed in yellow-outlined orange fire. Looked pretty fresh. Maybe the kid himself was still alive, somewhere.

In this station, women dont wait on the platform for the train to arrive. They stand huddled on the stairs, not moving until they hear the rumble of an incoming.

I didnt make eye contact with any of them.

* * *

I was on my fourth cup of Mamas hot-and-sour soup when she left her register to sit across from me in my booth.

You working?

Looking.

Look hard?

I am, Mama.

Good.

I expected more. Usually, no matter what I say, Mama berates me for lack of effort. In her mind, you look for work, you find work, period.

But she just nodded. Didnt even ask me if the soup had been good.

* * *

I could feel the city shifting all around me. Under my feet, too. Like an earthquake rising up to meet a hurricane.

Slums being torn down to build high-rent high-rises urban renewal, New York style. Maybe theyll build a tent city on Welfare Island to house all the service personnel. Ferry them over every day to wash the hallways and clean the toilets, take them back to where they belong before it gets dark.

The Fulton Fish Market is closed down now, all the action relocated to the cheaper real estate in the Bronx. The subways may be underground, but any strong rain takes them out of service. The average cabdriver wont leave Manhattan, and most of them wont take a black man north of Ninety-sixth.

It isnt even news anymore that some restaurants are selling hundred-dollar hamburgers, or that reciting a list of brand names is enough to make some girls wet. The evangelicals dont have a chance in this town. Consumerism always trumps Christianity in a city where pieces of red string for your wrist are going for a C-note.

Celebrities need causes its an image thing. And you cant have a cause without a gala. Ice-sculpture swans, caviar canapés, and enough jewelry to cure MS if you pawned it. They always announce how much money they brought in, but never how much they actually paid out.

Whos supposed to give a damn? The paparazzi?

They do TV specials on human-trafficking. You know what that means: beautiful European women tricked into coming here to be models who end up in brutal whorehouses. Just say sex slaves and youve got a guaranteed audience. The truth that every child victim of incest is the very definition of sex slave just doesnt make for good cheesecake. Not in public, anyway. But you cant walk into a porn shop without finding an incest section. I guess its true: if you build it, they will come.

Hobbyists troll the Internet pretending to be children to attract pedophiles. Some pathetic first-timers actually show up at the girls house, looking for the hot underage action theyve been promised. Naturally, the camera crews are waiting. Nobody ever goes to jail, but it makes for nice low-budget TV. Another public service, brought to you by the network.

Sex offenders are being disgorged from prison like toxic waste into drinking water. Profiteers are selling Megans Law snake oil to morons who think a human that would rape a baby would never lie about his home address.

Some other geniuses are pushing GPS cuffs for the freaks. Wont stop them from doing what they do, but itll save a lot of money on cadaver dogs.

Its just a matter of time before some marketing degenerate wires up a halfway house for sex offenders and makes a reality-TV show out of it.

On Law and Order, everybodys taking the Man One and he does the max! deals. In the streets, they just deal out the manslaughter.

Borough racism is back in style, from Bensonhurst to Howard Beach. Street gangs are making a comeback. If you melted down all the illegal handguns in the city, youd have enough steel to put the Twin Towers back up.

The Albanians are moving in on the Italians. The Vietnamese are making things tight for the Chinese. The Puerto Ricans are getting tired of the Dominicans having all the fun. The Jakes are looking to take back the turf they lost to home-grown blacks.

The mayor spent the gross national product of most third-world countries just to beat out a party hack who had all the charisma of a poorly embalmed corpse. Pocket change for a sheik who has his eyes on a bigger throne.

In this city, the politicians tax everything except the bribes they live on. The former Commissioner of Corrections was such a model of tough on crime that they named a jail after him. Bush was going to make him head of Homeland Security when the favors he took from companies who did business with the city started to surface. So he pleads guilty to the usual no jail deal, they take his name off a building, he doesnt get the public job. Maybe hell write a book about how he would have gone about being corruptif hed actually done it.

Judges buy their way onto the bench, then sell their judgments. When they get caught, they roll faster than a greased ball bearing down a Teflon slide. Cant wait to put on the wires and help nail the same lawyers they used to take money from.

Its never over, not really. Hell, you can get disbarred here and still get licensed to practice in Florida. Just like one of those pedophile priests they used to recycle.

Everybody takes the pills, but nobody reads the labels.

* * *

The letter took a long time to get to me. There was no date on it, but the postmark on the envelope was six weeks old. I recognized the name on the return address. And couldnt miss the NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES INMATE CORRESPONDENCE PROGRAM printed on the back, never mind the CORRECTIONAL FACILITY stamped in red.

The man who wrote knows I dont personally check the mail drop I use. He knows the pickups over in Jersey are made once a month, at most. And take even more time to find their way into my hands.

Theres a lot of names on that drop. All of them belong to me, but nobody who uses it knows more than one of them. This was addressed to Gustav Erchdorf. The prison censors run a random scan on outgoing mail, but known gang members get special scrutiny. And if a ranking member of the tightest white-supremacist crew in New York sent a letter to any of my other covers, from Rubinowitz to Rodriguez, it would trip even the low-voltage wires that pass for a security squad Inside.

Of course, even if one of those ace code-crackers opened this one, all theyd find is what I read:

Gus, my main man!

I bet you didnt know Ive been trying my hand at poetry. Got to kill this time somehow, right? What do you think?

My pain banishes

White window, filmy shallowness.

Clearest, fairest, willfulness. Telling:

Universe is eternity.

Not fate, common comedy.

Truths lethal Taxation.

14 Words

44 Twice

30 Pieces

The closing was the authenticator.

14 Words is a standard signature for neo-Nazis: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. Written by David Lane, former member of The Order, doing life-plus in supermax for his part in the assassination of a radio talk-show host. A Jewish one.

44 Twice comes out to 88. The eighth letter of the alphabet, so HH. As in Heil Hitler!

And the 30 Pieces wasnt about Judas; it was about what they paid him with.

Silver was an old friend. Better, an old comrade. Inside, Id never run with his crew. Given a choice, I dont think he would have, either. But his destiny changed the day he killed a black convict for stealing his wifes picture from his cell.

Must have taken Silver a long time to put that message together. Just the right touch of could-mean-anything, bullshit-mystical poetry to give off that authentic aura to any mailroom cop who sees the same kind of crap every day.

But theres no single convict culture, no matter what Hollywood tells you. Theres only one thing all prisoners have in common: time. Some do it; some use it. And theres all kinds of ways to do that, from learning to be a better person to learning to be a better predator.

The letter code works like this: if you see an exclamation point, you throw out every word before the last question mark. The whole things written in ultra-fancy, artistic script. You see this from convicts a lot, so the watchers are used to it: laboriously hand-printed words, each letter as individually detailed as a piece of netsuke. To decode, you take the first letter of the first word, second letter of the second, and so on, making one word per line, starting each line with the first letter of the first word.

I did that. Came up with:

Man will call. Use name Tex.

It was another couple of weeks before that happened.

* * *

I hadnt been there the first time hed called.

He say, no phone to call him at; he call you. What time? I say, I just answer phones. Answer lot of phones. Business, answer phones, okay? 

The number the underground has for me rings different places the Mole reroutes them all the time but its always forwarded to Mamas. Only a few people know about me and Mamas place, and nobody was guaranteed Id be around at any given time. But Mama always was.

He say, tell you his name Tex. You expect his call. I say, Sure, sure. Tex. You call couple of days, Tex. Maybe Mr. Burke check messages by then, leave number for you call him at, okay? 

Howd he take that? I asked her.

Very polite man.

Sound nervous? Angry?

Very calm man. Quiet voice. Not soft, quiet, okay? White man. Not young.

Smell bad to you?

She shrugged, her ceramic face expressionless. Maybe bad man, she said. But not police. Not police, not this one.

* * *

When he called again forty-eight hours to the minute from when he had first tried Mama gave him a number for mea cloned-and-clipped Mole special, way past untraceable. Besides, it was only going to be used once.

What? I answered when it rang.

A brother of yours told me to call you. Said to use the name Tex. Said youd recognize it.

Enough to listen.

I have something big. Huge. Enough for everyone. No bang-bang, no B-and-E, nothing but talk. My brother said you were the man for this. He said I could trust you, down the line. I want to pitch the job 

Go ahead.

Not on the phone. His voice was exactly as Mama had described. Quiet, not soft, with the absolutely neutral hardness of a blue-white diamond. The real thing. With plenty of miles on his odometer. No you know better than that speeches from this one. No flexibility, either.

I dont make dates.

Any way you want to do it, its done. Point-blank.

That could mean 

It doesnt matter, he said. My brother told me I could trust you with my life. Im ready to do that. You name your terms, I say yes, and we do it. If thats not enough, you want me to prove in first, just say what you want and its done.

* * *

I was watching from behind the second-story kitchen window of a Chinatown apartment, invisible through glass a trompe-loeil master had turned into translucent orchids on a white frost background.

A man entered the small park. Difficult to guess his height from my angle of observation; impossible to guess his weight inside the thigh-length denim coat. White man, red knit watch cap on his head, some kind of work gloves on his hands.

All of the battered benches were occupied except for one. Every time a local wino had tried to stretch himself out on it, a couple of young Chinese with glossy pompadours and high-sheen silk shirts under fingertip black-leather jackets would detach themselves from a clot at the entrance, stroll over, and explain that the bench was reserved.

Most just moved along, but one guy, who had approached the bench while having an animated, angry conversation with himself, swung a clenched fist at the first Chinese kid who approached. They took him down like wolves cutting a cripple from the herd.

Those kids were all shooters, but I never saw a gun, much less heard a shot. I guess they were learning more from Max than humility and respect.

The white man walked over to the empty bench. Sat down. Lit a cigarette. Stared straight ahead, as if the smoke held secrets he needed to know.

Five of the Chinese kids approached. Two behind him, one at each side, the other squared up, hands empty but ready to draw.

Im not a lip-reader, and I didnt have binoculars anyway. But I didnt need any of that to know what the Chinese kid said as he carefully removed a small, bronze-colored glass bottle out of his jacket and handed it to the man.

You drink this now.

The man never hesitated. He opened the bottle, tilted it to his lips, swallowed. He held the bottle upside down, shook it a few times, showing them he had emptied it.

The Chinese kids took the bottle and walked away from the bench, back to their posts.

Nobody bothered the white man when he stretched out on his back and closed his eyes.

* * *

Four hours later, the man opened his eyes.

Dont sit up too fast, I told him. Just ease into it, or its gonna hit you like an ice pick in the spine.

If waking up in an abandoned warehouse with holes in the roof and rats running the rafters bothered him, he didnt show it.

You he glanced at his wristwatch, taking care to move slowly had plenty of time to make sure. Right?

Right, I agreed. Whoever he was, hed been searched as deeply as you could search a human. By the best in the business, men and machines both. He hadnt been carrying a weapon, or anything that could be used as one. He hadnt been wired. He wasnt GPSed.

And nobody could have followed the pony-express handoffs wed used to finally get him here.

He gingerly patted his pockets. Wed put everything back where wed found it. Hed been carrying a current California drivers license. Claude Davis Dremdell. Brown/blue. Six feet one, 212. DOB: 1/9/44. His photo matched all the info except that this guy was bald. Not skinhead-shaved, hairless as a teardrop. And not just his head, his whole body. He didnt even have eyebrows.

When his clothes had been removed, I could see his upper body had been covered in White Power ink, prison-issue. Some of it pretty artistic, some just blue blobs of hate messages, down to the thick swastika on the back of his left hand.

Anything else you want me to do? he said, slowly pulling himself into a sitting position, patting his pockets again until he found his cigarettes.

Yeah, I said. Talk.

* * *

You know how the niggers call each other dog, like they invented the concept? Well, they didnt. Niggers never invented 

I raised my hand like a traffic cop.

Yeah, thats right. Silver said you run with 

What he would have told you is theres only one color I care about. You went to a lot of trouble to get this meet. Took a lot of risk, too. Silver vouched for you with me, same way he did me with you. Theres nothing about you that smells cop. Fair enough. But youve been around enough to understand were not alone here. You wanted it this way: nothing on the phone, nothing in writing. When this is over, youre going to have another drink. Well leave you somewhere safe, make sure nobody bothers you until you wake up.

So theres only one question left, I said to him. When do you want to take that drink?

Can I tell my story?

Not if its going to be the one you started with. I heard that one already.

But thats the only way to set the 

Youre an intelligent man. I can see that. Feel it. And you must be a righteous one, too, if Silver has your trust. But me, Im a money man, period. You want to tell me a story with a big-money ending, I got all the time you need. You want to tell me some mud-people/ice-people story, you might as well drink up now, pal.

He got his smoke going, closed his eyes for a second, then nodded, like he was agreeing with himself.

You got other references, you know, he said, giving me a skulls smile. Guy named Bobby says you did a deep solid for us, way back.

I picked up the sound of a slowly approaching car. Nothing necessarily bad there wasnt ever much traffic out where we had him stashed, and the unlit roads were busted concrete, so nobody went too fast, butI raised my left finger to my lips in a ssssh gesture, giving me the half-second I needed to slide my short-barreled .357 Mag out and center it on his chest.

He didnt move. Neither did I. Not my body, anyway. My mind searched for what hed meant by the us Id done a major favor for. Then I remembered. Went back. Long time ago.

* * *

Bobby took a seat on the hood of my car. You calling in the marker?

There is no marker, Bobby. Im asking an old friend for a favor, thats all.

The guys you want to meet you know who they are?

Yeah, I told him. My eyes were on his hand. The hand with the crossed lightning bolts that looked like a swastika.

Say the name, Bobby shot at me, cold-eyed.

I put it on the table. The Real Brotherhood, I said, my voice quiet in the empty garage.

You didnt say it right, Burke. Its the Real Brotherhood.

Thats how you say it, Bobby.

That is how I say it. And thats how it is.

I told you on the phone. I got no beef with them. I just want to talk.

I let it hang there it was his play. He reached into my pocket and helped himself to a smoke. I saw the pack of Marlboros in the side pocket of his coveralls he was showing me we were still friends.

Bobby took the blazing wooden match I handed him, lit up. He slid off the fender until he was sitting on the garage floor, his back against the steel of my car door. The way you sit on the yard.

He blew smoke at the ceiling, waiting. I hunkered down next to him, lit a smoke of my own.

When Bobby started to talk his voice was hushed, like in church. He bent one leg, resting his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hands. He looked straight ahead.

I got out of the joint way before you did. Remember I left all my stuff for you and Virgil when they cut me loose? I got a job in a machine shop, did my parole, just waiting, you know? A couple of guys I know were going to the Coast. See the sights, nail some of those beach blondes out there, check out the motors, right?

I get out there and everybodys doing weed like its legal or something. I fall in with these hippies. Nice folks easygoing, sweet music. Better than this shit here. You see it, Burke?

I see it. It was true convicts see all kinds of things, always going over the Wall in their minds.

I get busted with a vanful of weed. Two hundred keys. Hawaiian. And a pistol. I was making a run down to L.A., and the cops stopped me. Some bullshit about a busted taillight.

He took a drag of the smoke, let it out with a sigh. I never made a statement, never copped a plea. The hippies got me a good lawyer, but he lost the motion to suppress the weed, and they found me guilty. Possession with intent. Ex-con with a handgun. Worse, I wouldnt give anybody up.

They dropped me for one-to-fucking-ever. Knew Id have to do a pound before I even see the Board.

Bobby locked his hands behind his head, resting from the pain. When I hit the yard I knew what to do not like the first time, when you and Virgil had to pull me up. I remembered what you told me. When the niggers rolled up on me, I acted like I didnt know what they were talking about. They told me to draw my commissary the next day and turn it over.

Bobby smiled, thinking about it. The smile would have scared a homicide cop. I turn over my commissary, I might as well turn myself over at the same time so they could fuck me in the ass. I get myself a shank for two cartons just a file with some tape on the end for a grip. I work on the thing all night long, getting it sharp.

In the morning, I draw my commissary. I put the shank in the paper bag with the tape sticking up. I walk out to the yard with the bag against my chest, like a broad with the groceries. The same niggers move on me, tell me to hand it over. I pull the shank and plant it in the first guys chest, trying for his heart.

The spike comes out of him when he goes down. I back up to get room to finish him. Turn around andIm alone the niggers took off. I hear a shot, and the dirt flies up right near me. I drop the shank, and the goon squad comes for me.

You shouldve dropped the shank and run, I said.

I know that now. I wasnt expecting them to shoot so quick. Things are different there.

Bobby ground out his cigarette on the garage floor, took one of his own, and lit it. They put me in the hole. Expected that. Fucking solitary out there, its as big as a regular prison; guys spend fucking years in there. Only they call it the Adjustment Center. Nice name, huh? Theres three tiers on each side. Little tiny dark cells.

The noise was unbelievable screaming all the time. Not from the guards beating on anyone crazy assholes screaming just to be screaming. Half of them were stone fucking nutsmaybe from being locked up there for so long.

I was sitting in my cell, thinking about how much more time Id get behind this, even if the guy I stuck didnt rat me out. I mean, theyd caught me with the shank and all. Then it started.

The niggers. You a dead white motherfucker! You gonna suck every black dick in the joint, pussy-boy! All that shit. I yelled back at the first one, but they kept it up, like they were working in shifts or something. And then one of them yelled out that the guy I stabbed was his main man, so he was personally gonna cut off my balls and make me eat them.

They were fucking animals, Burke. They never stopped. Day and night, calling my name, telling me they were gonna throw gasoline in my cell and fire me up, put glass in my food, gang-fuck me until I was dead.

Bobby was quiet for a minute. His voice was solid, but his hands were shaking. He looked, curled them into fists. After a couple of days, I didnt have the strength to yell back at them. It sounded like there were hundreds of them. Even the trusty the nigger scumbag who brought the food cart around he spit in my coffee, dared me to kite the warden.

Finally, they pulled me out to see the Disciplinary Committee. They knew the score even asked me if the niggers had hit on me. I didnt say a word.

The lieutenant told me the shank itself was no big deal the other guy was going to make it, claimed hed never seen who stuck him. But Id have to take a lockup go into PC for the rest of my bit. You know what that means?

Yeah, I said. PC is supposed to stand for protective custody. For guys who cant be on the mainline: informers, obvious femmes, guys who didnt pay a gambling debttargets. To cons, PC means Punk City. You go in, you never get to walk the yard. And you carry that jacket the rest of your bit.

They kept me locked down two weeks no cigarettes, nothing to read, no radio, nothing. Just those niggers working on me every day. They never got tired, Burke, like they fucking loved that evil shit. Screaming about cutting pregnant white women open and pulling out the babies, stuff like that.

Then, one day, it got real quiet. I couldnt figure it out. That fucking trusty came around. He didnt have coffee that time; he had a note for me a folded piece of paper. I opened it up. There was a big thick glob of white stuff inside. Nigger cum.

I got sick, but I was afraid to throw up afraid theyd hear me.

Thats when one of them whispered to me it was so quiet it sounded like it was coming from the next cell Lick it up, white boy! Lick it all up, pussy! We got yard tomorrow, punk. The Man letting us all out, you know what that means. You lick it all up, tell me how good it was! Hes saying all this to me, and all I could think of was, there was no way to kill myself in that lousy little cell. All I wanted was to die. I pissed on myself I was sure they could all smell it.

Bobby was shaking hard now. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he was lost in the fear. I got on my knees. I prayed with everything I had. I prayed for Jesus stuff I hadnt thought of since I was a kid.

If I didnt say anything, I was dead. Worse than dead. I looked at that paper with that niggers cum on it. I went into myself and then I saw how it had to be. I found a way to get the only thing I still wantedto die like a man.

I got to my feet. My voice was all messed up from not saying anything for so long, but it came out good and steady. It was still quiet; everybody heard me. Tell me your name, cocksucker! I yelled at him. I dont want to kill the wrong nigger when we go on the yard, and you monkeys all look alike to me.

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I felt different like God came into me just like Id been praying for.

Then they went fucking crazy! Like a pack of raving maniacs. But it was like they were screaming on some upper registerand underneath it was this heavy bass line, like in music. A chant, something. It was from the white guys in the other cells some of them right near me. They hadnt made a sound through all this shit just waiting to see how Id handle myself, I found out later. I couldnt hear them too good at first, just this heavy, low rumbling. But then it came through all the other stuff. R B! R B! R B! 

Bobby was chanting the way hed heard it back in his cell, hitting the second letter for emphasis, pumping strength back into himself, squeezing the pus out of the wound again.

They kept it up. I couldnt see them, but I knew they were there. There for me. They didnt say anything else. I started to say it, too. First to myself. Then out loud. Real loud. Like prayer words.

When they racked the bars for us to hit the exercise yard one at a time I walked out. After so long, the second the sunlight hit me in the face, I almost couldnt see.

I heard a voice. Stand with us, brother, it said.

Bobby looked at me. His eyes were wet, but his hands were steady, and his voice was cold. Ive been standing with them ever since, Burke, he said in the quiet garage. If you got a beef with them, you got one with me.

I stood up. Bobby stayed where he was. I already told you I got no beef with your brothers. I want to ask some questions, thats all. Ill pay my own way.

Bobby pushed himself off the floor. You think you could find the Brotherhood without me?

Yeah, I told him, I could. And you know I could. If I was looking for them like you think, I wouldnt have come here, would I?

He was thinking it over, leaning against the car, making up his mind.

Bobby made a circuit around my Plymouth the one Id had back then peering into the engine compartment, bouncing the rear end like he was checking the shocks.

Whens the last time this beast got a real tune-up, Burke?

A year ago, maybe a year and a half, I dont know, I said.

Tell you what, he said, his voice soft and friendly, you leave the car here, okay? Ill put in some new plugs, time the engine for you. Change the fluids and filters, align the front end. Take about a week or so, okay? No charge.

I need a car for my work, I said, my voice as soft and even as his.

So Ill lend you one, all right? You come back in a few days a week at the most your car will be like new.

I didnt say anything, watching him. And while Im working on your car, Ill make some phone calls. Check some things out, see whats happening with my brothers

I got the picture. My old Plymouth could be a lot of things a gypsy cab, an anonymous fish in the citys slimy streets whatever I needed. This was the first time it would be a hostage.

You wont know your own car when you come back, Burke, Bobby said, his hand on my shoulder, leading me out to the front garage.

I always know whats mine, I reminded him.

* * *

Bobby had done his checking. And when he called, Id been ready for his questions:

All I got is this, Bobby. One of them, big guy, he did some work. Delivering money.

For her?

With her. Bodyguard work.

We do that he mused, thinking.

I waited.

You never joined us, he said. Not an accusation; a fact.

I joined you, I reminded him. Again.

* * *

When I pulled into the shop a few days later, Bobby was waiting. The other guys are out back, Burke. Okay?

Okay. You want me to leave Pansy out here?

Fuck, no! She might eat one of the cars.

Bobby led the way, me following, Pansy on my left, just slightly in front of each stride.

There was only one car in the back a Mustang. And three men two a few years older than Bobby, the other more like my age.

They all had prison faces. The older guy had a regular haircut and was wearing a dark jacket over a white shirt, sunglasses hiding his eyes. The other two were much bigger men, flanking the guy in the sunglasses like they were used to standing that way. One was blond, the other dark, both with kind of long hair, wearing white T-shirts over jeans and boots.

The blond had tattoos on both arms. In case anyone could miss where he got them, he had chains tattooed on both wrists. Black leather gloves on his hands. The dark one had calm eyes; he stood with his hands in front of him, right hand holding his left wrist. On the back of his right hand were the crossed lightning bolts.

I stopped a few feet short of the triangle. Pansy immediately came to a sitting position just in front of me. Her eyes pinned the blond she knew.

Bobby stepped into the space between us, speaking to the older guy in the middle.

This is Burke. The guy I told you about.

The older guy nodded to me. I nodded back. He made a come closer gesture. I stepped forward. So did Pansy.

The blond rolled his shoulders, watching Pansy. The dog do any tricks? he asked.

The hair on the back of Pansys neck stood up. I patted her head to keep her calm.

Like what? I asked him.

The blonds voice was half snarl, half sneer. I dont fucking know. Like shake hands?

Shell shake anything she gets in her mouth, I told him, a smile on my face to say I wasnt threatening him.

The older guy laughed. Bobby vouches for you. Thats enough. If we can help you, we will.

I appreciate it, I said. And Im willing to pay my way.

Good enough, he said. What do you need?

I know you, the blond suddenly blurted out.

I looked at his face Id never seen him before. I dont know you, I said, my voice neutral.

You were in Auburn, right? he said, as if daring me to deny it. I saw you on the yard.

I shrugged Auburn was a big place.

You mixed with niggers, the blond said.

I mixed with my friends, I said. Same as you did.

I said niggers!

I heard you. You hear me? I said, knowing the price of showing weakness to one of his kind.

The blond rolled his shoulders again, cracking the knuckles of one gloved fist.

B.T., I told you what Burke did for me, Bobby put in. No anxiety in his voice, just setting the record straight.

Maybe you like niggers? the blond said, a step away from chesting me.

No point keeping my voice neutral any longer hed take it for fear. Whats your problem, pal?

The blond looked at me, watching my face. I lost money on you.

What? I said, honestly confused.

I fucking lost money on you. I remember now. You was a fighter, right? You fought that nigger. I forget his namethe one that was a pro light-heavy?

Ah. That nonsense. The black guy had been a for-real contender before he beat a guy to death over a traffic accident. I dont remember how it got started although I still figure the Prof for the culprit but it ended up with a bet that I couldnt go three rounds with him.

I remember sitting on the stool in my corner waiting for the bell to start the first round, the Prof whispering in my ear. Send the fool to school, Burke, reminding me how we had it scripted.

I was a good fifteen pounds lighter than the black guy, and quite a bit faster. Everybody betting on me to last the three rounds was expecting me to keep a jab in his face, bicycle backward, use the whole ring. Make him catch me. Thats what he expected, too.

When the bell sounded, he came off his stool like he was jet-propelled. I threw a pillow-soft jab in his general direction and started backpedaling to the ropes. The black guy didnt waste any time countering. He walked through my jab and pulled his right hand all the way down to his hip, trying for one killer punch that would end it all.

That was when I stepped forward and fired a left hook. Caught him flush on the chin as he was coming in, and down he went.

But then the plan came unglued. He took an eight-count, shaking his head to clear it. He got to his feet so smoothly that I knew I hadnt really hurt him. The black guy waved me in, grinning. I took him up on the offer and pinned him to the ropes, firing shot after shot. But he wasnt just a tough guy he was a pro. He blocked almost everything with his forearms, picking off my punches until I realized I was running out of gas.

I leaned against him to get a breath. He buried his head in my chest, loading up an uppercut. I collapsed all my weight on his neck, stepping on his toes, not giving him an inch of room to punch. The guard in charge of the bell rang it early hed bet on me, too.

I let him chase me through the second round, still an easy step faster than he was. He wasnt going to bull-rush me again, so he just took his time, taking what I gave him, pounding my shoulder, my forearm, whatever I blocked with, waiting for my hands to come down. He hit like a hammer. My arms ached so much from blocking I could hardly lift them.

He caught me good at the beginning of the third round I felt a rib go from a right hook. He doubled up, catching me on the bridge of the nose with the same hand.

Grab him! I heard the Prof scream. I brought my gloves up over his elbows, pulling his hands under my armpits, until the referee finally forced us apart. He butted me on the break, aiming for my bloody nose. I staggered back, letting my knees wobble to get closer to the ground.

When he came over to finish me, I threw a Mexican left hook so far south of the border that I connected squarely with his cup.

The black guy dropped both hands to his crotch, and I launched a haymaker at his exposed head missed by a foot and fell down from the effort. The referee wiped off my gloves, calling it a slip, killing time.

He came at me again. I couldnt breathe through my nose, so I spit out the mouthpiece, catching a sharp right-hand lead a second later. I heard the Prof yell, Thirty seconds!, just before another shot dropped me to the canvas.

I was on my feet by the count of six, with just enough left in my tank to dodge his wild lunge. He went sailing past me into the ropes. I drove a rabbit punch to the back of his head and slammed my shoulder into him at the same time, pinning him to the ropes with his back to me. He whipped an elbow into my stomach and spun around, hooking with both hands, knowing he was almost out of time.

I grabbed his upper body. He blasted at my ribs. I drove my forehead hard into his eyes, not giving him room to punch. If Id let go of him, I would have fallen for good.

I was out on my feet when I heard the bell. It took four men to pull him off me. We won almost six hundred cartons of cigarettes that day. The State even threw in a free bridge for my missing teeth Id have to wait for my go-home to have the deviated septum repaired.

If you lost money that day, you bet on the other guy, I told the blond. The bet was that I couldnt last the three rounds.

I bet on you to win, the idiot said. Fucking sucker had gone for the fifty-to-one shot.

I shrugged my shoulders.

You didnt even try and beat that nigger, the blond said, like he was accusing me of treason.

I was trying to survive, I told him reasonably. Look, pal, its not a big deal. How much did you lose?

Three fucking cartons, he said. Like it was his sisters virginity.

Tell you what Ill do. That was a few years ago, right? Figure the price has gone up a bit how about a half-yard for each carton? A hundred and fifty bucks, and well call it square?

The blond stared at me, still not sure if I was laughing at him.

You serious?

Dead serious, I told him, slipping my hand into my coat pocket.

The blond couldnt make up his mind, his eyes shifting from Pansy to me. The guy with the sunglasses finally closed the books. Let it go, B.T., he said. The blond let out a breath.

Sure, he said as he walked over to me, hand open for the money.

Pansy went rigid. Her teeth ground together with a sound like a cement truck shifting into gear.

Ill give it to you when I leave, I told the blond. Even a genius like him got the message. He stepped back against the fence, still flexing the muscles in his arms. Pansy was real impressed.

Can we do business? I asked the guy with the sunglasses.

He waved me over to the side, against the fence by the Mustang. I flattened my hand against Pansys snout, telling her to stay where she was, and followed him over. I lit a cigarette, feeling Bobby against my back.

One of your guys did some bodyguard work. Delivered some money to a day-care center. Money was in a little satchel, like a doctors bag.

I couldnt see his eyes behind the sunglasses; he had his hands in his pockets waiting for me to finish.

There was a woman with the bodyguard. Maybe he was protecting her, maybe he was guarding the cash, I dont know.

Anything else? he asked.

The woman, shes no youngster. Maybe my age, maybe older. And she has a house somewhere outside the city. Big house, nice grounds. Has a guy who works with her: a big fat guy. And maybe a school-bus-type vehicle.

Thats it?

Thats it, I told him.

And you want to know what?

All I want to know is who this woman is. And where I can find her.

You got a contract for her?

I thought about it didnt know if the bodyguard work was a one-shot deal, or if the Brotherhood was part of the operation.

She has something I want, I told him, measuring out the words as carefully as a dealer dropping cocaine on a scale.

He didnt say anything.

If youve got something working with herthen Id like to ask you to get this thing I want from her. Ill pay for it.

And if we dont?

Then I just want her name and address.

He smiled. It might have made a citizen relax; I kept my hands in my pockets. And for us to get out of the way? he asked.

Yeah, I told him. Exactly.

The blond moved away from the guy in the sunglasses, his back to the fence. Pansys huge head tracked his movement as if she was the center of a big clock and he was the second hand.

B.T.! Bobby said, a warning in his voice. The blond stopped where he was. Hed be a slow learner to the grave.

What is this thing you want? the leader asked.

Its nothing youd want.

I dont know where her stash is.

Its not dope Im after, I told him.

The leader took off his sunglasses, looked at them in his hands as though they held the answer to something. He looked up at me. Youre a hijacker, right? Thats what you do?

I held my hands together and turned my palms out to him, putting my cards on the table. Im looking for a picture a photograph.

Whos in the picture?

A kid, I told him.

He looked a question at me.

A little kid a sex picture, okay?

The leader looked at the dark-haired guy standing next to him. I thought it was powder, he said. I never asked.

The leader nodded absently, thinking it through. Yeah, he said, who asks?

I lit a cigarette, cupping my hands around the flame, watching the leader from the corner of my eye. He was scratching at his face with one finger, his eyes behind the sunglasses again.

Bobby, you mind taking your friend inside for a couple of minutes? Weve got something to talk over out here, okay?

Bobby put his hand on my shoulder, gently tugging me toward the garage. I slapped my hand against my side, telling Pansy to come along. She didnt move, still watching the blond, memorizing his body. Pansy! I snapped at her. She gave the blond one last look and trotted over to my side.

Back in the garage, I opened both front doors of the Plymouth and signaled Pansy to climb in.

B.T.s okay, Burke, Bobby said. Hes just a little nuts on the subject of niggers, you know?

No big deal, I assured him.

We waited in silence. Pansys dark-gray fur merged into the dim interior of the Plymouth. Only her eyes glowed she missed the blond. I closed the door, but didnt click it.

The garage door opened, and they came inside. The leader sat on the Plymouths hood, leaving his boys standing off to one side.

The woman told us she had to deliver money to various places. Serious cash, okay? She was worried about somebody moving on the money. Victor he nodded his head in the direction of the dark-haired guy he picked up a couple of grand for every delivery. He carried the bag. We thought it was a regular series of payoffs she never took anything back when she turned over the money.

I didnt say anything. I had a lot of questions, but it wasnt my turn to talk.

She told Victor no weapons. If someone made a move on them with a gun, he was supposed to turn over the bag he was carrying. He was just muscle, okay?

I nodded. The woman hadnt been worried about being hijacked Victor was there to intimidate the people who supplied the kids. One look at him would get that job done.

Youre sure she has this picture? the leader asked.

No question, I told him.

This means she has others? That she does this all the time?

Its what she does, I said, flat.

The leader was wearing his sunglasses even inside the garage, but I could feel his eyes burn behind the dark lenses. Im a thief, he said, just like you are. We dont fuck kids.

I know that, I said.

Some of our guys, theyre a little crazy. Like B.T. Hed stab a nigger just to stay in practice, you know?

I know.

But none of us would do little kids. Our brotherhood

I bowed my head slightly. You have everyones respect, I told him.

We do now, he said, his voice soft. If word got out that we were involved with stuff like that

It wont, I said.

He went on like he hadnt heard me. If that word got out, wed have to do something serious, you understand? We cant have anything hurt our name people would get stupid with us.

I kept quiet, waiting.

If we give you the information you want, are you going to try and buy this picture from her?

If shell sell it.

And if she wont?

I shrugged.

Victor made a lot of those cash runs for her, he said. A couple of day-care centers, private houseseven a church. There has to be a fucking lot of those pictures around.

Like I said, shes in the business.

The leader put his hand over his heart I could see the tattoo on his hand. His voice was still very soft. Her name is Bonnie. The house is on Cheshire Drive in Little Neck, just this side of the Nassau County border. A big white house at the end of a dead-end street. Theres a white wall all around the property electronic gate to the driveway. Big, deep backyard, trees and shrubs all around. Two stories, full basement, maybe some room in the attic, too.

Anything else? I asked him.

She has that school bus you talked about a little one, maybe a dozen seats in the back. She uses the big fat guy as the driver.

Any security in the house?

I dont know, he said. When we work, we play it straight. We werent even thinking about taking her off.

I handed him five grand, all in hundreds. That square us? I asked. And you take care of B.T.?

He nodded, and we were done.

They stepped away. Later, I stepped in.

It made the papers.

The perpetrators were never caught.

* * *

Bobby had spent a lot of time trying to get me to spray my old Plymouth. The guy Id gotten it from had been trying to build the ultimate New York taxicab, until the wheels came off his life. Bobby passionately believed I could get the two-ton beast into the twelves if I went nitrous.

I knew hed love the Roadrunner I drive today. Kept telling myself Id bring it over, show it off, take him out for a ride.

Someday.

The car Id heard was well past us by the time I came back to the present. I pocketed the .357, nodded at the man Id been holding it on, telling him we were back in business.

* * *

Ill start over, the AB-OG said. Making it clear he wasnt expecting me to acknowledge what hed called my references. He just wanted me to understand that he knew Id been certified, measured up to the real convicts standard. Time-tested. Theother stuff, it has to come in. But just a stage-setter, no soapbox. Work for you?

Your dice, I told him.

* * *

People think prisons were always mixed, but thats wrong. It wasnt until Lyndon Johnson was making all his moves that they started desegregating the joints. I was in Q in 64. Already been through the whole Youth Authority. Soon as I turned seventeen, they decided I was all grown up.

It sounds like it would have been bad there. But Id been schooled, spent more time locked up than I had on the streets. If theyd just kicked me to the street, I would have been lost. But a prison even a much bigger prison, full of older guys I knew how to get along there.

I found a little car to ride in thats what we called crews back then, cars and I was just jailing. You know: lifting on the yard, playing cards, moving slow, doing a little of whatever was around, jawing, TV, even some reading. Time, you know how it is.

But the minute they made us mix, the niggers took over. They grabbed everything. I dont just mean they ran the place; I mean it wasnt safe to be a white man in there anymore.

They didnt try to ease in negotiate, make deals, split things up. Fucking animals wanted the drugs, they wanted the cash-queens, they wanted the gambling, they wanted the home-brew. They wanted anything that was yours, they just took it. You know what Im saying?

So thats where we sprung from, he said, tapping a crude AB tattooed in Prussian script over his heart. Cause it wasnt just the colored gangsters coming at us, it was the fucking revolutionaries, too. White trash like me, bad-to-the-bone outlaw peckerwoods. Born someplace else, it always seems like. Our people came to the Coast one step ahead of the law, and raised us to be worse than them. No education, no hopes. A whole breed of winos and check-collectors, and we were the fucking oppressor?! The ruling class, if you believed those stupid fucking apes.

He lit a smoke, showed some teeth. You know whats funny? The only ones who ever did believe them were the same rich motherfuckers we hated.

He blew out a long exhale, giving me a chance to talk if I wanted it. I didnt.

And then you had the beaners, he said. Specially EME then. Flexing their muscles, starting to get strong, too. It was like it had been up in Tracy. Get in the car, thats all you heard if you were white in there. Ride with us, or ride alone.

You ride alone, you dont ride long. So we rode together. But we didnt have anything to hold us together. Thats where the Aryan thing came from. Blood. Pure white blood. Same thing our grandfathers got bought off with, understand?

No, I said. This wasnt a man you ever wanted to pretend you understood if you didnt. I sat back. He lit another smoke from the butt of his last one, settled in.

Youre living in shacks and trailers, eating off food stamps, got nothing, never going to have nothing, but at least youre not a nigger. You get conned, tricked, put down, spit on, youre not welcome in the good parts of town. Thats what trash means, right? After youre done with it, you throw it away. But at least youre not a nigger, he said, self-mockingly. So you beat the crap out of a man for looking at some pig of a slut you wouldnt fuck if you were drunk and blind, and you call it protecting the race.

I said nothing, waiting.

Yeah, he rolled on, grim-faced. Got that beautiful, pure white blood beating in your veins. Remember, your ancestors owned those fucking niggers once.

Well, that wasnt what we were about. I dont mean any of us were liberals, but hating niggers, thats an attitude, not a job. When we went out to work, we wore ski masks, not punk-ass white sheets over our heads, like faggot ghosts.

Didnt matter what you did so long as it was work, am I right? We were robbers, burglars, dope-dealers, muscle for hire, safe-crackersin that class. The Life, the outlaw life, that was our identity then. Thats what set us apart.

So, when we got locked up, we were somebody. Convicts, not inmates. And what we cared about wasnt white supremacy, it was supremacy, period see? Being in charge. Running things.

You know what? Quiet as its kept, some of us, we worked with colored guys. In the World, I mean. When youre working, you want the best. Turns out the best wheelman out theres a different color than you, who gives a fuck? Work, thats the thing. You know the two tests, right?

Whatd you go down for? And did you come alone?

Yep. Same as it is everywhere. I worked with black guys whod walk into the fucking Death House alone rather die like a man than live as a rat. But a diddler? Sicko like that, he could never be with us, no matter what kind of skills he had. Because a baby-raper, hell give you up before they get the second bracelet on his wrists.

Inside, sure, we stayed to ourselves, color-wise. But when we thought of ourselves, we didnt think of Aryan, that never came into the picture. Way before we got started, you had bikers wearing Nazi crap, you know, like Kaiser helmets and stuff like that. Plenty of them even wore big-ass swastikas on their jackets. But that wasnt about anything but blowing minds. Making a show. All they wanted to do was ride, fuck, and fight. Took them a long time to get the picture, too.

Anyway, he said, with the air of a man who knew hed digressed, when things changed Inside, we saw right away that we needed something more than being stand-up thieves to keep us together. You got niggers whod stab each other in the back walking around calling each other brother. Whats that tell you?

Right, he said as if Id actually responded to his speech. All of a sudden you got the black-liberation guys. They didnt want nothing to do with nigger pimps, but theyre not trying to knock them out of the way, theyre trying to recruit them. Just like those Muslims. They got their religion shuck, but they were a gang, for real. Good tight gang, Ill give them that. So now you got George Jackson spades who want to ice guards; and you got Elijah jungle bunnies who say, When you in the Mans house, you live by the Mans rules. And, naturally, you always got niggers who just want to take over the rackets, like in the streets. You see what Im saying? Colors never enough.

And Im not just talking about niggers, either. Say youre a Mex, it matters if youre from south or north. California, I mean. Their Mason-Dixon Line was Bakersfield, I heard. I mean, EME and Nuestra Familia, theyre both brown, right? But could they ever get together? Fuck, no.

I shook my head in agreement. I hadnt come up with Mexicans, but Puerto Ricans have gone the same route here they wont mix Latin Kings and Netas on the same tier at Rikers unless they want a war.

And those motherfuckers are all born blade-men, he went on. Turned the joint into Shank City. But you know what they all had in common? If you were with one of the crews, any of them, you were safe. Not safe when race war jumped anyone can die then, you know that. But say you were a seventeen-year-old black kid. Light-skinned, sweet face, skinny little body. You walk the yard alone, youve got a daddy by nightfall. Or you get busted up so bad that, next time the wolf barks, you turn right over. But you claim Black Muslim, thats not going to happen. A lot did, for just that reason.

So we knew we had to stand together, or wed all be plucking our eyebrows, putting on lipstick, and cutting the back pockets off our jeans. We had to consolidate, because there werent enough of us to split into separate crews, like the niggers had. So we needed something else. Something the niggers had. And the spics, too. Brotherhood. We had to be the same. Shared blood. Heritage.

Thats where this started. And now its full-circle. We were a gang, threatened by bigger ones, so we all came together for protection. Way it always happens, you think about it. Then we got thisideology. The key word in AB isnt Aryan, its Brotherhood. And we still use it, for the same reasons. We use it to recruit, to hold us together. But the last part of the circle is where we are now. All of us. We all know its a lie.

You listen to some of us, you listen to Elijahs boys I guess theyre Foghorns now youd hear the exact same thing: Its the fucking Jews. Theyre the ones who cause all the misery we suffer. Theyre the reason were in the joint to begin with: Jew laws, Jew lawyers, Jew judges.

Buts that a mountain of bullshit. And when youre serious about your work, bullshit gets in the way. We got some dumbass Aryans who can tell you all about the Vikings. Odin. Valhalla. All that crap. Always reading. Big students of history. Assholes are as lame as the Christers who they used to send around from outside. The only history a good thief should care about is history he can use. He laughed, sweet as cyanide.

He lit another smoke, asked: Did you know that Al Capone only committed one murder himself in his whole life? I mean, he must have ordered a couple of hundred hits, but he only did one himself. You know who he whacked?

Some punk who beat up his best friend, I said.

He gave me a look, said nothing.

Guy named Jake Guzik, I went on, making it clear I could go on a lot longer if he wanted.

Yeah, he said, slowly, shifting his tone, not his posture, but it was enough of a tell that Id surprised him. And when he did that Valentines Day Massacre, it was the Purple Gang he called in for the work. Kikes, every one of them.

Dumb ones, too, I said.

This time, his laugh was chestier. Yeah, there goes another rumor down the toilet. But that boat still floats. You got Italian guys saying theyre Aryans. You got skinners thinking theyre part of the Master Race. They go around quoting Nietzsche, got their spiderweb tattoos, all that crap. But heres the joke: any real con with half a brain knows its all a hose job. Just like those Black Muslim bosses you think they really believe some mad scientist on a secret island created the whole white race in a test tube? Sure.

What we are now is a gang. Same as the bikers. May have started out different, but now were about money. Most of the race stuff, it never makes it to the streets. Look at the white kids we should be recruiting. But what do you find in the trailer parks, now? Dumb-fuck skinheads who just want to get wasted and go out and whack somebody with a baseball bat. Or punk-ass Nazis who have to hide behind the goddamn police when they go on one of their little marches. And white kids are turning into stone whiggahs they want to be fucking rappers or play in the NBA.

Look, this is about business, okay? Theres evenYou ever hear of the Nazi Lowriders?

No, I lied. More to keep in practice than for any other reason.

They started out like anauxiliary, I guess youd call them. We were in; they were out. So they got things done for us, specially the drug stuff. Worked out good for everyone. Only thing, some of them are spics. I dont mean no half-and-halves, either.

Nazis, huh?

Yeah, he said, dry-laughing. Heil fucking Hitler.

I get it, I said. Not lying, then.

As long as you have prisons, youll have gangs, he went on, like I hadnt spoken. They got them in Australia, they got them in Thailand, they got them in Russia. And when members get out and most do they just keep on trucking. Back to business. It works for us, and it works for them, too.

Them? I asked, keeping anything resembling a challenge out of my voice.

You think, if all the gangs Inside got together, the guards could hold the joints against us? Not for a minute. Long as they can keep us killing each other, theyre pretty safe. Sure, every blue moon, they put an ultra-hard-core like Tom Silverstein in a unit with a guard that just has to fuck with him, and thenBut most of the time, the cops Inside just stay out of the way, let us do what we need to do, so long as we dont do it to them.

He fired another cigarette. Ever notice how often you hear blood in this? Niggers call each other blood even named one of their gangs that way the one that kills another nigger gang on sight. Its all a trick, and we all get played.

Now, listen for another minute, cause Im coming to what really counts. You know what every AB man Inside fears most today?

The same thing they experiment on in labs.

Huh?

White rats.

Thats it, he said, grimly. Theres dozens of our men looking at the Death House right now because they got snitched off. Not infiltrated those movies where they put undercovers in prison, never happen. Couldnt happen weve got that acid test for new members. Cops kill people all the time blow away a bunch of dealers, keep their stash, and get medals for it. Fuck, some of them hire out as killers. But theres no way their bosses give them permission to take someone out just so they could work undercover. That kind of thing, there has to be a record of it. I met some dumb motherfuckers who carry a badge, but never one that pure-grade stupid.

No, its always one of our own that turns. Some pure white Aryan warrior, one hundred percent man, ready for Valhalla when his time comes, thats who gets on the stand and fingers us.

Thats why all the Brand bosses got their California life sentences commuted by the governor a while back so they could start on their federal time. That was supposed to be to spread out the leadership, but it was really about setting us up for one big take-down.

And it worked. By now, theres so much paranoia running wild that you got guys checking in because they think theyre about to be put on knock-off, see? If youre going to be iced for ratting when youre innocent, why not make yourself guilty, and score all the rewards that go along with it?

I shrugged at the perfect cross he was describing. It was true enough every gang put out hits on suspected rats, so it had to happen. You start suspecting youve been suspected, and

He dragged deep enough on his cigarette to reduce it by half guy had lungs like bellows. Few years ago, theres this guy Felton, I think his name was. Anyway, hes East Coast, big player in one of the max joints in Jersey. Second-in-command. He gets out, ready to kick it off. Rahowa know what that is?

Racial Holy War.

Yeah. This guy, hes not going out to work, hes going to start blowing things up, bring on the revolution. Naturally, being an amateur, he screws up. All that time Inside, he never learns anything about crime? Fucking amazing. Anyway, he gets caught passing some funny money I mean, real silly shit that he made on a Xerox machine or something.

So back Inside he goes. And thats when it hits the fan. This guy, hes half mud. And his mother, the white half, shes a dyke. Probably got some Jew in her, too. So, naturally, the real white guys put him on the KOS list.

But he never turned rat! the AB man said, pride overruling everything else in his voice. He never rolled, and he could have given them a lot. So whos more old-school? Whos more real? Whos more loyal? A nigger passing for white, or a white passing for a man?

Thats not a question.

Right. Im not telling you anything you dont already know. But I had to say it, because otherwise nothing Im going to say now is going to make sense, all right?

Youre still talking.

* * *

He stubbed out his cigarette. Reached toward his shirt pocket, then stopped, as if he was trying to prove something to himself.

Youre at the bottom of a long steep hill. Theres an enemy waiting for you at the top. He holds the high ground, and hes comfortable up there. If you stay where you are, you starve to death. But you cant rush him. You cant charge up that hill. Youll be out of breath, your muscles will lock up on you. Even if you make it to the top, youre easy pickings. So what do you do?

Depends on what youve got, I said. Emotionless as a mathematician reciting a theorem.

Give me some examples.

Trick him into coming down off that hill. Blow the whole thing up. Get a sniper to pick him off.

No, he said. Not disrespectfully, just giving me more facts.

Sneak up the hill, then. Take your time more important that he doesnt see you coming, I said, reciting my ghost brothers mantra. So, when you make your move, youre as close to ready as you can be.

I didnt bother to say, Dont fight fair. In the world we share, thats the air we breathe.

Thats right. Thats the only way. And you know what gets me up that hill? What gets me close enough to make a fight of it?

Money.

He nodded.

And you know where theres a lot of that, but you cant put your hands on it yourself, I said.

Youre asking, or telling?

Guessing.

I went to Silver for a reason. Im not going anywhere near a Brand for this one not one on the street, I mean. You never know wholl turn. Not anymore. Silver, he knows this, too. So remember what I said about references? Theres only one I care about: can you be trusted? You know what Silver told me about that. But he told me something else, too. He told me you were the smartest guy he ever met.

I didnt react.

Im dying, he said. Doctors told me I got a year, maybe a year and a half.

I watched him, waiting.

Im not just rolling over for it. I spent what I had, used up a lot of favors. Theres a place over in Switzerland where theyre supposed to have been doing stuff with stem cells for a long time. Years and years before that asshole we got running this country said it was illegal. Anyway, supposedly, supposedly, theyve got a way to beat thisthing I got.

For money.

I need a million and a half, cash, he said. Thats for everything. Getting over there I got no passport getting fixed, few months in their clinic, then coming home.

I kept my face expressionless. All this for another ex-con with some dream heist he conjured up in the darkness of his cell. Now all he needs is for someone to put the right string together, take all the risks, and, if it actually works, give him his piece. If the poor bastard was looking at me for it, he was rolling a pair of one-dot dice.

I know what youre thinking, he said. And he probably did.

He tapped another smoke out of his pack, lit up. Its not that. This is as real as steel. Got enough patience left to hear the rest?

Ask Silver.

* * *

When we started, the Brotherhood wasrotating. Wed have guys Inside, guys on the bricks, guys making the return trip. Outside, race war was just yak-yak. But Inside, once it moved from the occasional flare-up toto the way we lived all the timewe had to change the rules. The rules about getting in, I mean. It wasnt enough to say youd die for the race that was something you could do, not something you did do. Acid test, like I said before.

Blood in, blood out.

Yeah. No more get in the car. The car was too big. More like a bus; even a convoy of buses. Only one driver, just a few in the front seats. The rest were passengers. And passengers, they have to buy tickets. If you came to us for protection, you paid for it. If you came to us to be us, you had to pass the test.

What that meant sooner or later, what it had to mean is that we had some guys who were never going to rotate. Killing a man Inside, it used to be you got some A.C. time. But the worse it got, the harder they came down. Turned cases over to prosecutors out in the World, not the kangaroo court they run behind the Walls.

So, instead of just losing some good time, you got actual charges. Which means, all of a sudden, the Man was holding a lot more cards. You with me?

Sure. Anyone with the power to add to one sentence has the power to cut another one.

Right. So some of us ended up with a string of Life-Withouts on top of what they were already doing. The shot-callers now are the guys whore never going home, see?

He got a nod out of me, nothing more.

Mercy is always a symptom of weakness, the dying man said. Its just another form of fear youre secretly afraid that if you dont spare your enemy, someday your enemy might not spare you.

His eyes, so light a brown they were almost colorless, held all the empathy of an alligator waiting in shallow water for something anything to walk too close to the riverbank.

I was one of those on rotation. Got out before it went crazy. By the time I came back, I was already one of the Originals nobody thought to even ask me to prove in. I kept goingin and outalways affiliated, though.

I met Silver when the feds had us both him short, me a little longer. He went on you know his story and now hes got two life sentences. He owes one to the State, and one to us.

He took a deep drag of his cigarette, giving me a chance to ask him a question without interrupting. I signaled him to keep talking.

No matter what we called ourselves in the World, Inside we went back to being together. It was when the feds had me that I met this guy the one whos the key to everything. He was in for business stuff. Not the kind of stuff youd expect to see a Level Six joint for. So, the way I saw it at first, he must have been a stand-up guy, because they always offer those business boys some soft ride if they give people up.

He needed us. No chance he was going to prove in that wasnt him. And he could pay for protection. So we did business. Nothing special. We did it for a lot of guys, even Mafia bosses.

One day, out of nowhere, this guy, he gets me alone on the yard. And he tells me why he kept his mouth shut when the feds dropped him. He had something to trade, all right. Something so big he probably could have walked away with probation maybe even immunity and relocation. But he didnt want that. He wanted the money. The money these other guys three other guys owed him. At least the way he saw it they owed him. Hed been waiting years I mean, a lot of years to collect what he thought was coming to him. But he knew it had to be done just right, and he wasnt man enough for the job.

So he came to prison to find the right guys?

No, he said, giving me a look I couldnt interpret. What he did was, he fucked up his life. Tapped these other guys for loans, started businesses, went belly-up every time. So he started stealing. Cooking the books, skimming, that kind of bullshit. The tax guys nailed him first, then the locals piled on.

Thats when he realized the truth. He was born to fail at anything he ever tried. That was his destiny. It didnt matter how many chances he got, hed mess them all up. What he needed was one T-rex score, so he could live in the Philippines he never explained that one to me for the rest of his life, live like a god.

I shrugged my shoulders. Wed both heard this one before. Hell, I thought Id been about to hear it again a few minutes earlier.

What he had was some information. Three guys three rich guys, from the best families had committed a real ugly murder. Gang rape, torture, you name it. Then they killed the girl and I mean a girl; she was, like, twelve, thirteen years old. When they did it, two of them were fifteen, the other was sixteen. This was in 1975. Today, theyd be in their forties.

He wanted you to get them to buy the proof he was holding?

Yeah. He knew he couldnt pull it off himself. You need a whole crew for something that complicated. Besides, he was scared of them. Or at least of the muscle their kind of money can buy.

But you never did it?

No. One, it isnt the kind of job you farm out; youve got to be in control yourself. Two, even if it worked, the money would get whacked up so many ways before I saw any myself, it wasnt worth the risk.

So?

So he never tried it, either.

How do you know?

This guy, he found me. Just a couple of months ago. Hes been out for years. Now hes just a pathetic little piece of shit, owns some kind of two-bit strip club, kicks back to everyone who says Boo! to him, drives an old Caddy, wears cheap jewelry, gets a free blow job whenever he wants one.

Not the paradise in the Philippines, huh?

No. I guess whatever scheme he had didnt play out. But he still wants it to happen. That whole life, I mean. Says he can do it on a half-mil. I collect that, whatevers left is mine.

So you want me to get it done, and I get to keep whatevers over two million?

If he thought I was being sarcastic, he let it slide. These guys check them out for yourself first, be as sure as you need to be; I got the names could come up with a couple of mil apiece. Wouldnt even make a dent.

Thats if this guy the one who came to you is for real.

Whats he get out of making it up? Hes pretty sure I can get the job done on these three guys, but he knows I can get it done on him, this easy, he said, snapping his fingers. Plus, hell show the proofprovided I say Im ready to make the move.

So hows he know you wont just move in, get the other three to pay you, and walk away with it all? Leave him with nothing?

Hes one of those guys you know the kind Im talking about he wants something to be true so bad, he needs it to be true so bad, that it turns into truth in his mind. He needs me to be an Aryan of Honor my word is my bond. In his mind, Id never cheat him.

Cause hes with you, I said, letting the AB man know I understood the difference.

Yeah, he said, his voice as cold and unyielding as an iceberg. He knows what I am; his kind is always studying mine. I let him tell me everything he knows, make a ton of money out of it, and walk away without giving him his cut, that wouldnt be honorable. Wouldnt be merciful, either.

* * *

That door you talked about, it swings both ways.

You mean, whats to prevent you from burning me? he asked.

Yeah.

What do you care? What should it matter?

If you were to cross this guy, what could he do about it? Nothing, right?

Right, he agreed.

So?

Ah, I get it. You want to know what I think Im holding that I could use if you crossed me.

You were me, wouldnt you want to know?

I would. But I wouldnt want you to take the answer the wrong way.

I made a come on with it gesture.

Silver.

Silver? Youre saying you got plenty of soldiers on the streets? And if I walked away with the money, you could find me. Or?

Not saying it aloud the one threat that could change everything. If this guy was what he said he was and he must be something close to it, for Silver to have reached out for me, and vouched for him in the bargain and any threat to my family came out of his mouth, he wasnt going to die of cancer.

No, no. Not that, he said, raising his hands as if he was warding off evil spirits. Do I know bad guys? Absolute fucking psychos whod take a week to kill you, and come a thousand times while they were doing it? Sure. But theyre nottheyre not with me any more than this other piece of shit is.

Thats what I was telling you. That long story I made you listen to. Silvers my ace. Not because hes down with the Brotherhood the old-school Brotherhood, when our honor was our life but because he says your word your real word, the one you give to your own people makes one of those girders holding up a bridge look shaky.

I cocked my head at an Im listening angle.

Look, you got a guy with you, he said. Black guy. Silver says people Inside call him the Prof. Used to be a preacher or something? Little guy, always talks in rhyme? Silver told me he heard him say this: Lying to a sucker is just playing a role. But lying to your own is giving up your soul. 

Im listening, I said, out loud this time.

No, youre not, man. Youre not tuning in. See, Silver says this Prof, hes got everyones respect: all the time he put in, he always walked it righteous. So, when he talks, everybody listens. But you, its much more than that. Its like he was your father or something.

I didnt say a word. Just watched. Watched a man walking across a tightrope in a high wind, suspended over a shark tank.

Silver, he says you and him, youre brothers. For real, brothers. One of your own, see? Youd never lie to him. It just wouldnt be you.

And?

And its not me youd be giving your word to, its him. Silver.

If I did that, whats in it for him?

He doesnt want anything, the AB man answered, knowing Id check for myself. Silver said you already did things for him he wouldnt trust another man on earth to do. He says you know things about him that could get him done in a heartbeat. And you never would. He says you already fixed him up with a great lawyer. And, if he ever needed anything, youd take care of it for him. He knows hes risking all that by saying you can trust me.

Now, me, I figure a man doesnt get to be your brother behind what he says, or some silly-ass tattoo, or just hating the same people you do. A man gets to be your brother because of what he does. Am I right?

By me you are.

And Silver, hes your brother?

He is.

And thats my insurance. I want to be able to get a message to him my own way and tell him you gave your word. To him, I mean. Nothing cute: so long as I play it laser-straight with you, I get my cut. Can I do that?

Yeah. You can do that.

Ive got a satchel with me. I know you already went through it. Nothing in there but paper, and a cassette tape. Im leaving it here when I go. All you need to check out everything I told you. Everything except the guy himself, of course. You go through it. Decide if the peach is as ripe as I say it is. You think it is, you think its worth climbing the tree to get it, you call me, and Ill do whatever you say after that. You dont think so, just call and say one word, and Im out of your life forever. Your name will never come out of my mouth again.

Meaning: no matter what I decided, he was going to take the shot, play the only cards he was holding. And if he couldnt pull it off, so be it. He was going out the same way he came in. Because theres one thing you do take with you when you go: your rep.

I walked over, shook his hand.

Close your eyes, I told him. Your drink will be here in a minute.

* * *

He worked on this, Michelle said, standing with her hands on her hips, looking down at the Kong-sized table we had made out of rough planks laid across seven thick sawhorses. It took up just about all the space in what used to be my living room. No easy feat: the living room had been constructed by knocking down non-load-bearing walls that had separated all five of the flophouse rooms on that floor.

He had plenty of time, little sister, Clarence said, pointing with a shooters index finger at the array of brightly colored file folders. Each was labeled in block printing as anonymous as the pasted-up words in a ransom note.

Time aint worth a dime, the Prof said. He was Inside, son. Aint no kind of space in that place.

I nodded. Looked up to see Max doing the same thing. That satchel was more like a small suitcase. Forty-point-nine kilos, the Mole said, after he was done putting it through his machines.

Inside, its not space thats the biggest problem; its privacy. The hacks thats what we called them in New York, back when I was locked up; they call them cops in Jersey, screws in Massachusetts who knows what they called them where the cancer-ridden man had done his time could turn your house upside down just for the fun of it. They liked doing things like that, but they were always careful who they did it to.

If you were someone they hated and it never took a lot to get on that list they didnt just search, they destroyed. Tore up precious photographs, letters you would never see again, an art project youd been working on. Just because they could. Those soldiers who played torture-power games with Iraqi prisoners, you think they were from one of the elite fighting forces, like the Rangers, or the Green Berets? Forget that: former prison guards is what they were. Theyd had their own off-the-books training, spent their days in a subculture the World never sees. Theyre not allowed to bullwhip prisoners anymore, so they learned new tricks.

All the power-boys do it. They dont change their attitudes, they just adapt them to fit the times. Ever notice how the cops always scream Stop resisting! while theyre gang-beating some poor bastard into permanent paralysis, just in case theres some good citizen with a videocam lurking nearby?

A convict can spend years, decades even, planning a job. But hes not going to draw diagrams of it, not while hes a captive. Unless he wants to stay one.

Hes not an impatient man, I told them. Even with that cancer clock ticking inside him, he wasnt going to panic. He talked tough in that warehouse, but were his last chance. His last real chance, I mean. He could put together another crew, but where would he find one he could trust? Not in the time hes got left.

Its only a plan, man, the Prof said. You got the time to make one, you got the time to fake one. Not arguing for one side or the other, just saying it like it was. He and Silver had a friendship of sorts shared respect, more, actually but even if it had been Silver himself pushing the score, the Prof would have wanted his own look first. Trusting a man doesnt mean you trust his judgment.

Max reached over, tapped the face of my wristwatch, held up one finger.

First thing, I answered him, and everybody else, is we check out everything thats got an independent source. So, for openers 

I can do all the newspaper stuff, mahn, Clarence volunteered, his Island voice expressing pride in his recently acquired computer skills. There is a database LexisNexis, it is called that I could look through. Very quickly, too. If all those articles he collected are true not true in what they say; true copies of what was in the papers, or the magazines I can tell you.

Perfect, I told him, as the Prof nodded approvingly. Remember, though: this case was never solved. So theres no court proceedings. And theres a lot of stuff in the police files were never going to get a look at.

Michelle exchanged a look with the Prof.

Forget it, I told them. I wasnt going back to Wolfes network, not after the last time. Wolfe. An angels face, and eyes that matched her name. Shed walk through hell wearing a gasoline dress to put a freak down for the count, but she never considered ass-kissing part of that job. Or looking the other way, either. Because she hadnt come up through the clubhouse in Queens, the Democratic machine doesnt just control judgeships, it runs the whole show she never participated in the voluntary fundraisers, or tacked up campaign posters, or kept a photo of the DA in her office. The only mistake Id ever known her to make was thinking that being the best sex-crimes prosecutor the city had ever seen would be enough to let her keep her job as head of the Special Victims Bureau.

She never understood the go along to get along mentality of the political appointee, so she was probably the only one in the city who was surprised when they finally fired her. After that, shed gone outlaw. Not committing crimes, but going places she wasnt supposed to go. She ran the best info-trafficking cell in the city. And she still had a lot of friends on the force.

I thought I had a chance with her once, but I waited too long. Crossed too many borders, too many times.

You and me, its not going to be. Thats how shed ended it between us.

Last year, Id taken some risks to show her I was back to myself the man whowell, the man who she onceHell, I didnt know, but I wanted to be that man again, if only in her eyes.

Id sworn to her that I was doing the right thing, for the right reasons. That wasnt a lie, but it wasnt all of the truth. The whole job had reeked of money, and I was looking for some of that, too. So shed used up a big favor, gotten me some stuff from inside police files.

But shed made it clear I couldnt go there again. I kept hoping word of the last thing Id done would get back to her. Kept hearing Johnny Adams wailing Reconsider Me in my head, hoping she was tuned to the same station.

If shed reach out to me, any excuse would do. But she hadnt, and I wasnt going to break my word not to contact her again. Sure, I could get to her crew, buy some information, like anyone else. But police files, only Wolfe herself could get that kind of thing done. Not an option.

Were not trying to solve a case here, I told everyone. If the guy Silver sent is telling the truth, the case is already solvedonly nobody ever paid for it.

Writing a check wont clear that deck.

I know, Prof. Look, Im not saying we should do this. Were family for real, not some fucking TV show. So, straight up, this is an extortion job, okay? If if this guy is telling the stone truth, theres guilty people rich guilty people wholl pay major bucks to get their hands on something that proves they killed a little girl. Thats the job. The girl herself, shes been in the ground for thirty-some years. Theres nothing we can do for her. Thing is, do we want to do this for ourselves?

Idont think I do, Michelle said, softly.

How come, sis? Its not like we never 

Just stop it! She whirled on me. You know perfectly well what thosedegenerates who killed her want. Theres only one way they can ever be sure whoever has the goods on them never comes around again, no matter how much they pay.

Thats Silvers pals problem, not ours.

Wed still be helping them get away with it.

They got away with it, honeygirl. You think theres still an investigation going on? This case is as buried as that little girls body.

Look at me! my sister commanded.

I held her eyes as best as I could my eyes dont work together anymore, not since that gunshot wound a few years back, and the learning-on-the-job surgery that followed. The two eyes arent even the same color anymore. But Michelle had been reading the truth in them since we were street children together.

I see, she finally said.

Everybody looked at her, waiting.

And Im in, Michelle said.

* * *

The copies were authentic, Clarence said, every single one. It was four days later, all of us in the war room. Like before, the makeshift table was covered with paper, but none of it had come out of the satchel that the AB man had handed me.

The walls were now plastered with white oaktag, fastened with pieces of duct tape, covered with writing in different-colored Sharpies. Everyone had their own color, so you could tell at a glance who made the comment. I dont know where Michelle had found a lilac one.

Clarences voice was deliberately flat, showing us he could be professional abouteven this: On August 17, 1975, the body of Melissa Welterson Turnbridge was found in the woods north of the Merry Meadows Country Club golf course. The child Clarence stumbled a little over the word, but didnt look up from his computer screen was thirteen years old. Born August 27, 1961. She would have turned fourteen in a few days. Reported missing by her parents when she had not come home by ten at night on August 4. The police had been looking for her ever since.

Teenage girl breaks curfew and the parents call in the police? I said.

And they rush right out and start looking for her? Michelle put in, laying her suspicions over mine.

Different schools, different rules, the Prof said, sweeping away our doubts. Walk into a big-city precinct, tell that same story, parents get the brush-off. Up there, the cops rush off. You call from the Projects, say your little girl hasnt come home, the blue boys think shes probably up on a roof somewhere, giving blow jobs to gangbangers. But when you call from a town where being a millionaire puts you on the wrong side of the tracks, they call out the SWAT team if you tell em theres a possum in your backyard.

There had been a big storm the night before, Clarence went on as if nobody had said a word, his voice still as impersonal as the screen he was reading from. One of the men who works for one of the owners the Shelton Estate, the papers called it was out checking for damage. From knocked-down trees and things like that. It was that man who found her. Just her leg, sticking up. The storm had uncovered her.

So she wasnt buried? I asked.

No, mahn. It was like someone rolled a big log over her, then covered it with whatever they could find. She was never actually under the ground.

Huh! the Prof said.

Everybody waited, but he didnt say anything more.

Finally, Clarence picked up the thread: She had been dead for days, the coroner said. Probably killed the same night she hadnt come home.

Max tapped the table to get Clarence to look up, then made the sign of a pointed gun.

No, the West Indian said, his Island voice so hard and tight that the lilt had been squeezed out of it. She wasnt shot, and she wasnt stabbed. Beaten to death. Strangled, too. Multi-sexual assault, they also said.

Before or after? I asked.

It does not say, he answered. There is a lot more. It was the biggest story in the local papers for months. A lot of national coverage, too. All I am saying is the clippings this man brought to you? he did not make them up. Or change them. Even the pictures there are lots of those, mostly from her junior-high school; she was supposed to start the ninth grade in a couple of weeks those are the same. Not Photoshopped or 

Photo ?

The Mole waved away whatever ignorant question I was going to waste his time with.

You started at the other end? I said to Max, gesturing as I spoke. He can read lips as easy as he reads print, but the sign language wed taught each other was ours, and I was never giving up that part of our bond.

The Mongolian nodded.

They ever get specific about the cause of death?

He shook his head. Shrugged his shoulders. Then slammed one steel chunk of a fist into an open palm. Over and over again. As we watched, he mimed a beating. A vicious, systematic beating. And the kind of rape maggots do with a broomstick or a beer bottle. The mute Mongol pointed at the pile of paper, and shook his head. Then he pointed to his own temple, held up a number one gesture.

We all nodded, following along. The papers had never said so, not out loud, but the little girl had been strangled after the kind of beating that might have killed her anyway.

Some freak had pain and sex twisted together into a single wire, a wire he had wrapped around that little girls neck. The actual cause of death didnt matter. We didnt know who, not for certain-sure, but we all knew why.

And a white supremacist with no reason to lie said he had a man who could tell us the part we didnt know.

We have to 

The Mole doesnt interrupt, unless he needs to get the train back on the track. This time, he pointed to a large, flat piece of equipment, with four VU meters on the front.

We all turned to watch as he stood up and pushed a button.

* * *

This is pause,  the man with the subterranean complexion and Coke-bottle glasses said. When I activate it, what you will hear is not the original. The signal-to-noise ratio was very poor probably just a cassette recorder in the pocket of one of the people talking. There are only two voices. I put them on separate tracks he pointed at a pair of cone-shaped speakers, placed equidistant from the thing with the meters on the front so there will never be a doubt as to which one is talking. Here is a transcript my son made. His pale-blue eyes met Michelles lilac contact lenses; the pride of parenthood lanced between them, so clear you could actually see the beam.

He handed Max a thick sheaf of paper, bound along the left side and coated in heavy, transparent plastic.

Then he pushed a button.

* * *

How come you give me the full search, and I dont get to do the same to you?

I didnt recognize the Tootsie Pop voice hard around the edges, soft in the core but I put the speakers age around fifty.

You think Im working for the Law, walk out. The cancer-mans voice: low in volume, too self-assured to waste effort on threats.

Its not that, the other voice said, whining with resentment. Its justwell, you know, I havent had a finger-wave since I got out.

You think that was a thrill for me?

No. You know I didnt mean that. Only

Nothing but a throbbing silence for several seconds.

Okay, forget it. But something like this, a man has to be careful.

I was.

Not you. Me.

You said a man, the AB old-timer said, his voice the opposite of the other guys. Theres only one of those here, in this room. You asked for me. There had to be a reason. Whatever it is, I know its not Brotherhood business. So it better be money. Lots of money. Something you want done, but you dont have the stones to do on your own, maybe. Or, maybe, something you need a crew for, and you dont have one. So youre going to say something. Something you dont want anyone else to hear.

If it was, you could understand why Id want to check for 

You dont need to check for what you already know. You know me. You know my name. You know my pedigree. You know I dont talk.

Sometimes, when people getdesperate, they 

Look at me, the AB man commanded. Look at me the way you looked at me Inside. What do you see, punk? Im the man who stood between you and a ram job from every nigger in the joint. Right? Right?!

The tape was silent for a few seconds. Long enough for the other man to nod, I was guessing.

You were supposed to be some kind of long-con guy, the AB boss said. A paper man. So you must have done your homework. Before you got word out to me, I mean. You know I dont have paper on me. No wants, no warrants. No parole, no probation. No arrests, no charges. You could confess to more killings than that sack of shit Henry Lee Lucas, what could I use it for? The Laws got nothing I want. And I sure as fuck wouldnt waste my time blackmailing you.

I searched you to make sure youre not here working for the Feebles, trying to get Brotherhood info, make some kind of deal for yourself. Me, I got no deal to make. So now were done with this. Talk, or walk.

The sound of a cigarette being lit. Exhalation.

Ive got something, the strangers voice said.

Another exhalation.

A murder.

Call 911, the AB man said. I could hear the dismissive shoulder-shrug in his voice.

This is an old murder. More than thirty years old. Three men boys they were then, but that doesnt matter did it. Rich boys. Rich boys who got richer.

The ones you told me about when we were Inside? Theyre still alive?

Yes! All three of them. Ive got everything on them. And every single one could pull millions in cash out of safe-deposit boxes alone.

So what changed since you first told me? Youve got some suspicions 

Proof, the stranger said, confidence adding strength to his voice. Absolute, rock-solid, stand-up-in-court proof. Whats changed is that now I realize that I cant turn it into the kind of money its worth, not by myself.

This proof you saw it for yourself?

IYeah, I guess you could say that.

This murders never been solved?

Never. And the girl they killed was no throwaway, either. Her family was rich, too. They still have muscle. Thirteen years old. Raped to death. You think they forgot? Im telling you, this is worth a fortune. Millions.

So you say.

No. I mean, I will say, if it comes to that. But Ive got a lot more than that.

What? DNA? Fingerprints?

Not DNAprobably. It was a long time ago, like I said. Fingerprints? They probably left some, but how could they still be around now? It doesnt matter. Even without any of that, Ive got something that nails their coffin.

Sound of another cigarette being lit.

I got pictures. I got one of the bats they used on her. And the kicker: a piece of paper. An old piece of paper theyve got all kinds of ways now to prove how old it is with them all but admitting it. This club they had, they kept a journal. I made them give it to me, to protect myself, from what they asked me to do. Plus, for all they know, I got them on tape, too. I always had a lot of that recording stuff in my place back thenand thats where we were when they told me about it.

So you want to give them what you have in exchange for ?

A million apiece. Thats three. And all I need is a half.

Half of ?

No, no. Half a million. The rest is yours, all yours. I know theres expenses with something like this.

How come you never just ?

These are rich men, the strangers voice said, fear threatening to break through the thin membrane of his voice. Really rich. Who knows how they might react if I was to 

So you want me 

The Brotherhood. I want the Brotherhood. That kind ofoperation, its not part of their world. If they even saw some of the men youve 

They might just call the cops.

Not a chance, the stranger said, confidently. Not when you put certain stuff stuff Im going to give you on the table.

Another exhale.

Then its done, the stranger said. Done for everyone. Theyre not coming after you guys, not people like them. And me, Ill be in a place where they could never find me.

See how sweet? You get paid. I get paid. And they get the Sword of Damocles removed from hanging over their heads all these years. Everybody wins.

Sound of another cigarette being lit.

Exhale.

Ill listen, the cancer-ridden man said. If youre playing straight, there might be a move here. If youre not, I can find you a lot easier than you found me.

* * *

It happened in 1975, the other mans voice said. It was late summer. Maybe two-thirty, three in the morning. I hear a car pull up. I figured it was probably one of the local rich boys, looking to score some weed. My light was on, so 

Your light? Outside your house? Meaning you were open for business?

Exactly! Everyone in town knew that signal.

Which means the cops did, too.

Sure. And so what? The kind of kids I sold to, you think the cops wouldve done themselves any favors busting them?

Silence on the tape. I could see the AB man on the screen in my head, making a keep talking gesture.

There were three of them. I knew them all. From dealing. But they werent there to score weed they were scared. Scared to death. You know how some people get so scared they actually stink from it?

On that screen in my head, I could see the AB man. Just sitting there. Staring at the sniveler, not saying the obvious.

I got them calmed down. Best I could, anyway one of them, he couldnt stop crying like a baby. What they told me was this: There was this girl in their neighborhood. A little younger than them, but way filled out, and she knew it. The oldest one, he had his own car. You know what that kind of thing means to kids. And this girl, she wasnt even fourteen, okay? But when he asked her to go someplace with him the movies, I think it was she just laughed in his face.

It wasnt like she had a boyfriend or anything. She was just one of those natural-born cock-teasers. You know the kind I mean. She let one of the other two the one who couldnt stop crying, in fact hold her tit once. In the backyard of her own house big house, with a gazebo you know what that is?

Sound of a match scraping. Flame. Cigarette being lit. Exhale. Figuring that was all the response he was going to get, the stranger picked up his story:

Well, anyway, heres the thing. He had to kiss her ass first. I dont mean be nice to her; I mean, get down on his knees like a bitch and actually kiss her ass. And he did it. Me, I would have 

It doesnt matter.

Yeah, it does. Im trying to show you what kind of 

It doesnt matter what you would have done.

Oh. Yeah, thatsAnyway, she was to hear them tell it like some kind of devil-bitch. She gave the other one not the crying one, not the guy with the car, the third one a hand job once. But she stopped before he got off. And then she told him, if he ever wanted another one from her, he had to finish that one himselfand let her watch. You see what kind of cunt she was?

Sound of a cigarette exhale.

They spent a lot of time on her. Like they had some sort of club. Sick bastards. They took pictures of her. One even broke into her room, took a pair of her panties. Next day, the cunt sees him, tells him he should have taken a pair from the hamper theyd smell better.

All they could do was think about what they wanted to do to her. Tie her upside down and whip her until she begged. Begged for everything, I mean. The guy with the car, he kept talking about how he wanted to fuck her in the ass, make her scream, you know?

Exhale.

They followed her everywhere. She knew it, but she wasnt afraid of them. She wasnt afraid of anything, the way they told it. One night the night they came to my house they caught her alone. They decided they were going to do it. All of them. One after the other, then all at the same time. Teach the dirty little whore a lesson shed never forget.

They took her to this place they had all set up. A house that was empty for the summer. One of them had the keys he was supposed to water the plants or something. They even had this old rug they were going to lay down on the floor. When they were done, they were just going to roll her up in it, and unroll it on her front lawn.

They had cameras. Polaroids. If she ever opened her mouth, the whole school would see them. See her on her hands and knees, one cock in her mouth, another up her ass.

It worked just like they thought it would. They grabbed her, took her to the place. And they all did her. She wasnt such a mouthy bitch then. Even posed for the pictures. Onlyonly she died.

Exhale.

Thats when they went nuts. They never figured onsomething like that. She just stopped breathing. They knew it was all over then.

Why come to you?

I was a little older than them.

How little?

What difference does that ?

Silence.

Cigarette exhale.

Twenty-two, the stranger said, just the faintest hint of defensiveness in his tone. They knew I was a man they were boys, just little punks they knew I could get things done. I told them, yeah, I could take care of it. Take care of everything. But it would cost them. Cost them big.

How much?

I didnt say. They didnt ask. They just said, Do it, Thorn. Please do it. And I did.

Did what?

Just what they planned, only in a different spot. I rolled her body up in the rug, carried her out to this place in the woods I knew. I pushed a big log over her, covered the body with stuff from the ground. Didnt take long.

They never found the body?

Oh, they found it, the stranger said, bitterness almost overpowering his voice. Assholes didnt give me enough time to do a professional job. I would have put her through a woodchipper or in a furnace. Or gutted her and dumped her in the lake. But it didnt matter. The cops never had a suspect. Never made an arrest.

Her parents had money?

A lot of money. Everybody there had money. Even my parents had moneynot that youd know it from the way I had to live. They the cunts parents they hired private detectives, even got the FBI involved, I heard. But there was nothing.

That big a case, maybe they still have tissue samples, hair, fingernail scrapings.

The kids were all wearing rubber gloves. Masks, too I dont know why they told me she knew it was them from the moment they snatched her. Condoms. Like I said, they were planning this for a long time. Now, the rug that I did burn. But they dont know that. If I still did have it, the forensics guys might get enough stuff off it to bury them all.

Whatd they end up paying you?

A 1976 Corvette Stingray, the stranger said, reverently. Brand-new. I ordered it with everything. All white, inside and out. Man, if I still had that car today, itd be worth 

Itd be worth crap, I thought to myself. Maybe ten thousand, tops. The Vettes of the Gas Crisis era were sad little weaklings, about as collectible as Edsels. I filed the thought away: either this guy knew nothing about cars, or he was someone who kept his lifelong bitterness derma-close, hating the rest of the world for the opportunities he fucked himself out of.

That was it? the AB-OG said, in his machine voice.

Well, yeah. I mean, later on I tapped them for little loans. That was much later, when things went bad for me. They were always happy to help out an old friend who fell on hard times.

You dont have a tape, do you?

No. But they dont know that. And they sure dont know I dont have that rug.

What do you have?

The Polaroids. Nice clean, sharp copies. And something else. Something special.

* * *

I didnt know what the Mole had done to the cassette tapes the AB man had left with me probably wouldnt have understood if he had explained it, either but the audio quality was like being in the room. I caught the Profs eye. His slight nod told me he was thinking the same thing I was. Max was buried in the transcript, still reading.

Youre not from out here, the stranger on the tape said, a little bit of confidence seeping into his voice. New York, its got a set of laws you wouldnt believe. Back then, anyway. Heres the way it worked: youre under age sixteen, you could walk into a church with an Uzi, mow down a few dozen people, and the worst you could get was juvie time.

Until you were twenty-one, right? Then theyd just put you 

Then they had to cut you loose! the strangers voice said, proud to out-knowledge the man he feared. There was this kid, I forget his name, but I know he was a mud; he killed a whole lot of different people, just because he liked doing it or whatever. He was the one that got the law changed. A reporter did this big story on him for New York magazine, it was, I remember about how kids could get away with murder. Thats what got the law changed.

So?

So that law, it was like standing between heaven and hell. Because, if you were under sixteen, no matter what youd done, youd never see a real penitentiary. But on your sixteenth birthday, youre a man. None of this transfer hearing stuff you read about in other states. You know, where the court gets to decide if you should be tried as a juvenile or as an adult. In New York, you turn sixteen, you go straight to criminal court. No social workers, no best interests of the child, none of that crap. Trial by jury. And if you lose, you go down the same as any other adult.

Exhaled cigarette.

Dont you see what Im telling you, br ?

I could feel the stranger stop himself before he slipped and called the cancer-ridden man brother. He was tiptoeing as it was that deep of an insult could cost him a lot more than a refused offer. Look, he said, quickly, two kids commit the same murder. I mean, they do the exact same thingssay, shoot a guy in the head, using two different guns, and the coroner said either shot would have been fatal. Only difference between the kids is they were born twenty-four hours apart. One turns sixteen the next day; the other turned sixteen a few hours before the murder. Its 1975, remember? The younger one gets kiddie camp; the older one gets life. Sixteen in this state makes you a man; and a mans crime means a mans time.

Thats the trick in this? the AB man said. Not challenging, just making sure he understood what he was being told. The fifteen-year-olds, they dont have that much to worry about, but the one whos sixteen, he gets The Book?

Right! So, if you go to one of the fifteen-year-olds right now, today, I mean he knows the one who was sixteen at the time is going to confess, cut a deal for himself. He has to. And if you go to the one who was sixteen, he knows the other two will talk what would there be to stop them?

That law that was then.

I know. But it still works. Look at that guy from Connecticut. He commits a murder, what, twenty years ago? He was just a kid when he did it. But when they finally bring him to trial, he goes down as an adult.

Exhale.

But before they did that, they had to give him a hearing, see? Like he was still a kid. To find out if he was a good candidate for rehabilitation. It was just a farce, sure, but they still had to do it. In New York, for the sixteen-year-old, they wouldnt even have to go through that dance.

Whats the difference?

Between a few years and forever? the stranger said, only fear keeping the sarcasm from his voice. Are you kidding?

Its really the same risk for all of them, the AB man explained, patiently. Whether they go down for five minutes or five hundred years, theyre done. Even if they beat the rap on some technicality, once the family of the murdered girl finds the right lawyer, theyll all end up on Welfare.

Oh, the stranger said. I see what you mean. But that makes it even better, then, dont you see?

Exhale.

I mean, now that I think about it, youre right. What they did to that girlI mean, they were stone fucking skinners. When I found the body, I almost threw up. I dont go for stuff like that. Im a thief, not a 

Silence. Dead silence. The stranger had come perilously close to claiming in. To call yourself a thief in front of a real convict, especially a high-status one like an AB-OG, you were saying you were a righteous man. Trustworthy. Committed to The Life. Holding the values sacred. And this guy, he was just a low-grade scam artist who couldnt even make a living at it. For some clubs, just claiming youre a member could get you seriously dead.

Look, the stranger said, hastily. Ive got everything you need. You well, anybody you sent they wouldnt be bluffing. It did happen. They did do it. Theyre all guilty. And theyre all rich.

Silence. Sound of a cigarette being lit. Exhale. Then: Ill get back to you.

Better make it soon, the stranger said. Theres other people whod 

Dont play that with me, the AB-OG said. Dont ever do that.

* * *

Maggot, Michelle said, as quiet as acid in a beaker.

Doesnt mean its not all true.

Oh, I think it is, baby, she told me. They knew who to go to, the ones who did that little girl.

Being scum dont make him dumb.

My father is correct, Clarence said instantly. I did a public-records search on some of the paper that man gave to you, Burke.

And?

Clarence cleared his throat. We have the names. The names thisperson gave, anyway. Here:

Donald A. Henricks, born February 7, 1960. He would have been fifteen at the time of the murder.

Reginald William Bender, born July 31, 1960. He also would have been fifteen.

Carlton John Reedy, born May 17, 1959. He would have been sixteen that night.

And thisperson. The one who wants to shake them down. His name is Percival K. Thornton. Born April 5, 1953. He would have been twenty-two just as he said on the night the child was killed.

Okay. You already checked ?

Do the three he named have money, mahn? Theinformant was not lying there, either. Henricks owns so much real estate, through so many corporations, it is impossible to tell how much exactly, but 

Maybe hes cash-poor? Michelle said, looking over from where she had been copying all Clarences information onto more blank pieces of oaktag one per name. She didnt use the lilac marker for any of them.

No, little sister. His house alone is worth several millions, and there is no mortgage. He owns two other homes: one in Montana, one in the Bahamas. No mortgages there, either.

Ah.

Yes. Now, Bender is an owner, too. Shopping centers, hotels small ones, independent, very high-end a horse ranchtoo much to list, but he is wealthy, beyond dispute.

And Reedy, he declared an income of thirty-one-plus million dollars last year alone. He is an investor, which could mean anything.

Thats nice work, I told him.

Oh, there is something more, mahn. Terry and I if he caught the Arctic blast from Michelles eyes, he ignored it we ran that pattern-recognition software. You know, the one we designed when you were looking for that 

Yeah. And?

They were all born on a Sunday, mahn.

They? All three of the killers?

Them and the others. The man who wants to blackmail them. Even the little girl they killed. It was on a Sunday that they found her body, too.

Damn that church, the Prof said.

* * *

We all went silent. Except for Max.

He stood up, pointed at Clarences computer, at the Moles recording rig, at the paper spread out on the table, the walls covered with our writing. Then he walked to the wall himself, and drew a hollow rectangle on a blank spot. Max swept his arms, indicating he was including everything he had pointed to originally.

Using rapid broad strokes, he blacked in the rectangle. When he stopped, more than half of it was still white. Empty. He filled the space with a huge question mark.

We all watched, as attentive as yuppies getting an insider tip on a stock.

Max tapped his own chest. He flowed into a kata so perfect that it was like watching vapor crush bone.

He pointed at the Mole. Tapped his temple. Bowed.

Pointed at the Prof. Spread his arms wide. Bowed again.

He went through all of us. Everyone got their recognition. Their respect for what they did best.

Except me.

Max stepped to the chart with THORNTON at the top. Made the gestures of a man, talking, as if in conversation with another. Then he pointed to the question mark inside the rectangle again. And then at me. He covered his right fist with his left hand, bowed. Couldnt be clearer.

Max has it straight, the Prof said. Aint but one of us that can throw that hard eight.

I do not  Clarence started to say.

But the Prof cut him off: This aint about the gun, son. Burke, hes got the touch to open them up. You want a freak to speak, Burkes the best there is.

Because you taught 

Listen to me, boy, the Prof said. You can only train a man so much. Like with fighters. You can teach a man to deliver a punch, but real power, thats something you born with. And thats never enough. See, being a puncher dont make you a fighter, son. You got to have this touching his heart or you got nothing. If you cant take it, sooner or later, you stop giving it. And you start giving it up am I telling the truth?

Yes, Father, Clarence said. Getting it. Getting it now. The man he worshiped wanted only the respect he earned; he wasnt some half-ass guru who snatched credit he didnt deserve.

The Prof turned and gave me a hard, deliberate look, meaning: I know what youre thinking, but stay out of this.

And he did know what I was thinking, as if he was inside my head. The second the Prof put heart and fighter together, my mind flashed on boxers whod rather die in the ring than quit. Mike Quarry didnt have his brother Jerrys punch, but he had his heart. Theyre both gone now, way before their time. Dementia from subdural hematomas. Too many punches to the head. Boxers brain, they call it, without a trace of sarcasm. Michael Watson, Gerald McClellan, Greg Pagea long list.

But theres another kind of heart some fighters have the one you dont see inside the ring. Wife-beaters, rapists, child-molesters. If they can make some promoter money inside the ring, who cares what they do outside it?

Davey Hilton had been one of the three Hilton brothers, Canadians who followed their father into the pro ranks. They were all top-ten guys, real bangers, willing to take two to land one. Matthew was the best, but it was Alex who stopped Shawn OSullivan, a fast and tough Irishman I was sure would win a welterweight belt when I watched him get jobbed at the Olympics. Davey was holding one of the minor belts as a fifty-four-pounder when he was convicted of holding his two daughters in sexual bondage over a period of several years.

They were the ones with heart it took a lot to get on that witness stand and tell the truth. Rape was the least of it, and the jury dropped him for enough crimes to bury him. But the judge didnt count him out. Not even a standing eight. The champ was out in less than five.

Maybe his prison psychologist will quit and become his manager, like Tony Ayalas had. Rehabilitation, its a wonderful thing.

The Prof took my slight nod for what it was, turned back to Clarence: Now, Burke here, you should have seen him in the ring. Slippery? My man made an eel look like sandpaper. And fast? He could put four on you before you could blink. But that one-punch knockout power? Not there. Just not there. Understand?

But what does that have to do with ?

Burkes got the magic, Michelle confirmed. He canI dont know how to say it. He can be them. Theyll say things to him.

I have seen this for myself, the Mole agreed.

Max swept the room with his eyes hed seen it, too. Satisfied, he sat down.

* * *

This AB guy the one who made that tape he was just there to listen, the Prof said, thoughtfully.

And you think the guy who told the story was lying?

Is Clarence Thomas black? the Prof countered.

If you mean his color 

Now you driving the nail, son!

It sounds right, Michelle explained. But that doesnt make it right.

So thisall of this; none of thisis enough? Clarence said.

Scamming pro scamming is a special art, the Prof explained. Once you figure out the stupidity level of the mark, you adjust your game, see? You think this AB guy, hed answer an ad in the papers about earning five grand a week for stuffing envelopes? This is a hard man. Been around. Even if he wants to believe and Lord knows he does; he has to hes not going for any quick-fix trick. But, against this boy pointing at the THORNTON chart hes so overmatched they shouldnt let him in the ring.

Hes lying, Michelle said, as certain as the Prof. We just dont know about whatand how much.

And if this AB boy wants us to get down, hes got to come around, the Prof said.

Ill put it to him, I said.

* * *

When you talk about a fighters class, youre not talking about his weight. Theres bantams with hearts strong enough to pump out a flooded basement, and heavyweights who can beat a man okay, but turn to jelly if the other guy takes itand hits back.

Life is a fight, but not everyones a fighter. Otherwise, bullies would be an endangered species.

I sat alone that night and worked on a plan. On a whole bunch of plans. Wolfes crew could get me a complete breakdown on all three targets in a finger-snap. No way Clarence is as good as they are for that. Wolfes people use special tools to unearth ancient bones, an artists brush to clean them off, and, when they finally put the pieces together, they always fit.

But computers have their uses, and none of the three rich boys grown men now were underground. Sure, maybe they had assets hidden. Probably did, considering the kind of money they got to play with. But we didnt care where they got their money, we just wanted some of it. According to Thornton, what we were after was such a small chunk the marks wouldnt even miss it.

Id asked Clarence what he found out for me. And got this:

I amI am still a student, mahn. Terry, now, he knows how to do things I could never 

So bring him in. Whats the problem?

Well, even Terry, he is not the very best. He would be the first to say so himself.

Youre saying we need the very best? Just to do a simple scan on these three guys?

When you are fighting a mind war, the more you know 

The harder you throw, I finished one of the Profs adages for him. So?

Well, we could ask 

Stepped in that one, didnt you, sucker? I mentally kicked myself. Clarences unrequited love for the cyber-slinger we all called the Dragon Lady was no secret. Yeah, fine. Ask your girl to show you some more tricks, I said, surrendering. But whatever it costs, thats coming out of your share.

The Islander tried to keep from grinning, but he couldnt pull it off.

* * *

I told myself I didnt want to go to Wolfes crew because the fewer people who knew, the better the urban survivalists version of the Golden Rule. But once you start lying to yourself, the danger is that youll get too good at it.

So I just faced it. Faced it and took it: The last time Id asked Wolfes cell to do a job, Id ended up seeing Wolfe in person. Thats when I told her I was back to being myself. To being the man she first knew. The one sheI never finished that part: shed drained my tank before I could get out of first gear.

But this thing, it was all about money. And no matter what story I might try to tell Wolfe about bringing a little girls killers to justice, no matter how many layers of lead I wrapped around it, shed see through it.

That last time, I hadnt been lying when Id told Wolfe I was doing the right thing, for the right reasons. But, like always, Id left things out.

Id done a lot of thinking ever since that last job. A lot of thinking about myself. About how I saw things. Why I did them. Who I was.

Now I knew. And I wasnt going anywhere near Wolfe. Not because I had crossed some borders that she wouldnt; because I lived on the other side of hers.

* * *

I did learn some things, Clarence reported, happily. The only reason those newspaper clippings were in the database was because they were added. The database itself was not even in existence when 

And we care about this because? Michelle said, just short of sarcastic.

It is a small town, Clarence said. With its own newspapers. It would be quite an undertaking 

All it takes is coin to join, the Prof cut him off. Look, son, we already knew this was a rich ville. That computer thing of yours, its real nice and all, but Burke used to get that same stuff out of libraries all the time. They got it onwhat, Schoolboy?

Microfiche, I said. Sometimes, if the town is small enough, they actually keep a copy of every issue they ever printed. Old-time newspaper guys called it the morgue. The Internet may get it quicker sometimes, but its not any better than 

With all respect, Clarence said, the Internet is a tool. Like you are always saying, what good is something you dont know how to use? What I learned was that there is a way to locate old Web sites, ones that used to be available but have been taken down. You will not find such things in any library.

I still dont see 

Little sister, please, the young man said, the Island sweetness sugaring his voice. Just take a look.

* * *

The now-dead Web site had been WhoKilledMelissa.com. The screen of Clarences laptop filled with a photo that looked as if it had been scanned from a yearbook, with HELP US FIND HER KILLER! scrolling across the bottom of the screen in a blood-red font. At the top were icons of various weapons: pistol, knife, stranglers rope. Clarence demonstrated how playing the cursor over each icon showed what they would open into, stuff like:

Contact Us  The Crime  Help!  Suspects?

There were a lot of those links. We patiently watched as Clarence opened Suspects? but it held nothing except mug shots of convicted sex killers. All they had in common was that they werent in custody at the time of the girls murder, and that the killing fit their known pattern.

Total crap. TV profiler bullshit.

I spent an hour clicking links before I realized what I was really looking at. So I asked Clarence to run a certain name, just to be sure my nose was working. Sure enough, the site had been set up by one of those true crime quickie-paperback specialists. Apparently, this journalist couldnt crank out her usual couple of hundred pages of cribbed newspaper accounts plus the obligatory photos and autopsy reports as fast as the market demanded anymore. So she had decided to ride the Unsolved Mysteries train, panning for gold.

Since she was nothing resembling an investigator excuse me, criminal investigative reporter she had thrown up the Web site. Probably hoping someone from the girls past would give her enough to cobble together another piece of porn that would have Jack Olsen spinning in his grave.

That old site was now as dead as Melissa Turnbridge. I even looked at its message board, but it was just the usual collection: from ghouls salivating over More details, please! to conspiracy theorists the Monarch Program just barely edging out the Illuminati to suggestions for casting when this all got turned into a movie. Not a hint of contact by anyone we were interested in. Still, I had to ask:

Was the site hacked down, or just ?

The domain name lapsed, Clarence said. And there were no new buyers. That means the person who put it up just let it die a natural death.

Thats worth something right there, I said, aiming it at Michelles caustic comments about Clarence consulting the Dragon Lady, but feeling it inside my heart, where the beast-killer always lurks.

* * *

Is this going to mean another milkshake?

No, I said into the cancer-mans prepaid, onetime cell. Just you and me. No more Q and A. Theres something you need to do. Get done, anyway.

Just say 

No.

The neighborhood wasnt a place where a man like him could ask for help if he got lost. So I gave him real specific directions. And a time.

* * *

If being in a place full of nonwhites bothered him, youd never know it.

If eating a meal that could be his last upset him, it didnt show on his face.

We were in my booth. In the back, against the wall that separates the main body of the joint from the kitchen. The bank of payphones was right behind where I sat, invisible but not always silent.

Max materialized next to me.

This is 

Max the Silent, the AB man finished for me, his tone that of a man who was actually getting to see something hed heard about for years but had never been sure existed. Like Bigfoot or Nessie.

Yeah. And, behind you, coming this way, is the Prof.

He never turned around. His only reaction was to move to his left, making room.

I need to speak with your boy, I told him.

He didnt bristle at the characterization, a man who didnt have the time for that kind of thing.

Alone?

Yes.

You willing to ink up a little?

So I can pass for one of your guys?

Yeah.

Not for real. And I dont want to risk a temp.

But I can tell him ?

Anything you want. So long as he understands that he has to talk to me. Its not an option.

You going to hurt him?

I gave him a quizzical look.

To make him talk, he explained.

I thought you said he already did that.

Yeah. And youre not buying?

Because I want to talk to him myself?

Thats right.

This isnt about the truth of what he said. Its about the truth of who he is.

Youve lost me.

Burkes got powers, the Prof assured him. He can get inside a mans mind as easy as me picking a lock.

Max tapped the mans forearm. Got his attention. Nodded. Nothing elaborate, but enough.

So if hes lying ?

It wont matter, I assured him. Not to us doing the job, I mean. Itll just change how we do it.

You believe those three ?

Did it? Yeah.

So what more do you need?

Whyd you come to me?

Silver said I couldAh, all right, I get it.

Can you make it happen?

I think so. It is okay, I tell him youre one of ours, right?

Right.

And I can go along? Not come inside, wherever you do whatwhatever youre going to do, but just come along with him?

Hes scared bad, huh?

Those are three big dogs.

I gave him one of Wesleys smiles.

* * *

Inside isnt the same for everyone. If you got a little county-jail slap, youve got different options: they mix the pre-trial detainees with the ones doing misdemeanor bits, so you can work the guys who havent been tried yet for all kinds of nice stuff: phone relays, packages, maybe even get yourself introduced to their womans girlfriend on visiting day.

But theres always people trying to work you, too. Pre-trial tanks draw more rats than Open House in a cheese factory, sniffing around for a little info they can sell to the DA for a cut-loose. If the crimes headline-quality, and the proof isnt too tight, a jailhouse snitch can buy himself a sweet lifeprovided he never comes back Inside.

When youre short-time jugged, the homeboy stuff wont do a thing for you unless youre one of those youngbloods whore still flying colors.

Anyway, if youve been down before, done real time, you stay far away from kids like that. Shank-happy fools act just like they do on the streets stab someone over a bullshit diss, chest you to test you, act like theyre actually glad to be theremore status for when they go back to the corner.

Like the Prof said years ago, You spend too much time working on your cred, you spend a lot longer being dead.

If youre like me, you look for the older guys, guys who know how things really work.

Theres rules: You never talk about your case. And you double-never ask about theirs. You find out if you know anyone in common, and you use the phones to start checking him out. You dont front; you dont profile; you dont sell tickets; you dont tell stories about how good you had it in the World.

Youre always ready to do every single minute by yourself, if thats how it has to be. You stay polite, quiet, respectful. But you dont step aside, you dont ass-kiss, and you never talk to a uniform. You dont play cards, you dont throw dice, you dont use dope no kind of dope. You dont run a hustle, you dont open a book. You stay low and walk slow.

The penitentiarys a different life. There, you have to connect. You cant do your own time, like every con says he wants to do.

Used to be a saying: Theres no Switzerland behind the walls. But that was wrapping a truth around a lie. Yeah, sure, Switzerland was neutral in World War II. But all that meant was that they didnt fight. And didnt give a fuck who won, like the poker parlor taking a piece of every pot.

So they stored art treasures the Nazis looted from the Jews, then did the same for those American commanders who handled the mopping-up operation after the Ultimate Aryan Warrior pulled the maximum punk-out.

Switzerland might not have taken a side, but they sure played them all storing no-trace cash for power-men from Germany, Russia, America, Italy, Japanand anyone else who made it worth their while. The way they had it set up, the only sure winner was them.

Forget that kind of game Inside. Everythings out in the open; no place to hide. So a jailhouse turnout takes a daddy because he thinks gang rape is his only other optionbut hes safe only if his daddy can hold his own ground.

Some cant. And some of those who can, they rent out their property. Or sell it. Even if your daddy keeps you, and keeps you safe, youre still a punk, forever. And, Inside, no punk is ever really safe.

In all my time, I only ran across a few guys who were actually able to pull it off and stand alone. They didnt join, they didnt roll over, and theyd kill you if you tried to make them do either one. If you wanted to be left alone, one of the best reps to have was being a for-real psycho. You can threaten him for a few minutes, but you cant tell him what to do. Only the voices in his head can do that, and theyre on the job twenty-four/seven.

No matter what liberals tell you, it never matters what got you there. There was this freak, Lenny, I forget his last name. A citizen, until he was caught. Some said he had been a pharmacist. Some said nurse; some said chemist. But everyone knew what brought him Inside: the maggot poisoned his own three kids, for the insurance.

Lenny was Central Casting for punk. Pale, fair-haired, chubby young white boy with rabbit eyes and lips so naturally red youd think he used lipstick.

But nobody bothered him.

Turned out Lennys fucking hobby was poisoning people. He loved to do it. And he knew a thousand ways to get it done.

One day, a guy named Uriah suddenly froze in the middle of chow, then started twitching like an epileptic on meth. When the guards got there, he was still doing his death-dance, but he was stiff before they rolled him onto the stretcher, already turning some color nobodyd ever seen on a human before.

Creeper got his name like youd expect. And putting him behind bars didnt change his game. Nobody cared, because he wasnt a snitch he just liked to watch. And he knew things.

A few days later, Creeper was telling his story. Hed been on the tier late the night before, and he passed by Lennys cell. Lenny was jerking off, and not being quiet about it moaning like he was getting a blow job from a porn star, with three others lined up waiting their turn. Lenny had a piece of paper wrapped around his cock. But when he was done, instead of flushing it, he crumpled it up and tossed it out into the corridor.

Creeper took the paper back to his cell the same thing inside him that got him his name made him do it. When he opened the paper ball, it turned out to be an autopsy report. On the guy who had spasmed to death.

So, the next time Lenny started babbling about all the different ways you could make poison out of damn near anything, everyone knew two things: He wasnt lying. And he was the wrong guy to fuck with.

It turned out that this Uriah fool had given Lenny the usual Shit on my dick or blood on my knife! speech. Gave him twenty-four hours to make his decision about as smart as telling a man youre going to break into his house as soon as it gets dark out.

After that, anytime you saw Lenny coming down the corridor with an aerosol can of shaving cream in his hand, you moved out of his way fast.

Making other people afraid gives some freaks a bigger appetite for more of the same. After a while, Lenny put on a lot of weightand started throwing it around. Lenny knew chemicals, but he didnt know cons. He scared one of them so much that the guy hired Wesley.

* * *

When I was Inside, they were just starting to have programs. They always had the Bible classes, the AA meetings, stuff that the Parole Board was supposed to believe made you ready for the street. Provided that street was the Bowery.

The new stuff was different: art classes, literacy programs, GED-prep courses. And therapy, that was the trump card. Especially group therapy. Always run by some smug little weasel who was born a chump and then went and got a degree in it. Big thing was, you had to confront all the time. Not just yourself, you had to jump on anyone who wasnt coming clean. See, the goal was to get you to express your feelings. Criminals hadnt learned how to do that. Once they did, well, they could be citizens.

Inmates sucked that stuff up. Convicts wouldnt go near it. The Parole Board was appointed by the governor. Do the math.

The fancier stuff came along much later. Today, its all the rage. Some tough guy beats his woman bad enough to be locked up, they decide its all about too much testosterone. What a real man like that needs is some Anger Management. Get in touch with his sensitive side. Learn empathy. Learn to feel the pain of others.

Wesley was way ahead of his time he could have been the poster boy for Anger Management. Nobody ever saw Wesley get mad. Hed step off for anyone, back down from any challenge. One guy a crewed-up biker who must have ridden too long without a helmet even slapped Wesley in the face once. Right on the yard.

Wesley took it. Just turned and walked away.

Action was heavy that night. Gambling action. I almost took the whole pool, betting ninety-six hours to the minute.

Fools went short, cons whod been around awhile went long. Me, I figured two days to let the biker think he was the new bull on the block; another day to let him make some more enemies, so Wesley wouldnt be the only suspect; and one day to let dopes wonder if the stories theyd heard about Wesley werent just jailhouse rumors, magnified over time.

But it wasnt until the fifth day they found the biker in the weight room, when they opened it for business. He was on his back on the bench-press slab, a length of wire stiffer than he was embedded in his carotid artery. How it got there, nobody knows.

Nobody knows. Thats how you answer any question about Wesley. You get this much time to do it, he told me once, making a dry-click sound with his tongue, but you might have to wait hours to do it. Even days, sometimes.

You know what they call an impatient sniper?

Dead.

* * *

You cant kill time. It doesnt ever really die. Some of it keeps coming back, too. But you can make it pass.

If waiting was a martial art, Id be a grand master.

The paper had a story about a coyote whod been terrorizing Central Park, taking down dogs. Beloved pets, the sob sister who wrote the column called them. Letting your dogs run off-leash in that place after dark yeah, thats love.

The outraged city mounted a major effort, spent a ton of money, and finally bagged the coyote. They tranqed him out, put him in a cage photo ops galore. More proof that one-bedroom walk-ups with no super and less service are worth a couple of grand a month just so you can live in the Big Apple.

The coyote died. Autopsy said it was from stress. Maybe it was too many flashbulbs in his face. Maybe it was the knowledge that hed never run free again. Never find a mate. Never make another decision for himself.

All that time and energy, but nobody could find the gas money to drive him upstate, let him out in some forest, and leave him be, I guess. Always better to lock up the troublemakers.

I hate zoos. Lovingly supported by nature-lovers, theyre a crime against nature.

Whats the point of saving a species from extinction if the only way they can live is behind bars? And if kids need the opportunity to see a rhino or a panda or whatever, why cant they just watch television?

Hell, why not have virtual zoos? Take the million miles of footage already stored, edit it down, and build long, dim corridors lined with giant, hyper-definition screens. Label each one, put a drop-down menu along the side, and let the kids get a better look at the animals doing what they really do than they could ever see in some zoo.

Whats better, watching a polar bear cross a glacier, or pace around in tiny circles? Whats more educational, a close-up of a tiger so tight you could count his whiskers, or smelling the foul rankness of his captivity?

Why pay extortion money to China to rent their goddamned pandas? Why pay big money for baby lionsespecially when you know what had to have happened to their mothers for the bring em back alive heroes to harvest their crop? How do you put a great white shark in an aquarium and call it a lesson for children?

How many kids have the patience to watch a butterfly leave its cocoon? On tape, they can watch it whenever they want, just by pushing a button.

How the fuck do you call the creation science loons ignorant when you keep your own ancestors behind bars?

A hundred years ago, the New York Zoological Society yeah, thats right, they own the Bronx Zoo now actually kept an African Pygmy in a cage, right next to the orangutans and chimps. Sure, slavery was outlawed by then, but that only applied to humans. An explorer had captured the Pygmy in the Congo, and turned him into an exhibit at the St. Louis Worlds Fair. When that show was over, the owner sold his property. Its the American way.

You know who finally busted him out? The forebears of the same true believers who are trying to stop schools from teaching evolution today. How can there be a missing link if the whole world went from Nothing to Now in seven days? Thats downright ungodly. And America is a nation under God, isnt it?

Yeah, speak of the Devil.

After they got him loose, they gave the Pygmy a name Ota Benga, I think it was. They handed him a Bible and taught him to use tools. He finally got to go home, the same way a lot of locked-down, no-hope kids do: he took his own life, is what it says in the history books.

By me, he took his life back.

I understand he used a firearm to do the job. Somebody must have taught him how to shoot. Too bad they never taught him who to aim at.

I looked at my watch. Id been gone foralmost three hours.

Yeah, I know how to wait.

* * *

Theres other ways. Michelle dragged me to this white-hot new club in the Village. Apparently, retro was in. The place reminded me of the club where Id first seen Judy Henske the goddess of torch-singing live. I think shed been on the card with Dave Van Ronk that night; I dont know where he is, but I do know that Judy can still bring it.

The club even had a Joan Baez typea tall, dark-haired girl with an acoustic guitar and the transported look of a solo violinist. She only did one number, but she drove it:

A long time ago when we werent at war

Even then we knew he was a political whore

His daddy tasted blood, so the son wanted more

And hes still killing today

She carried that torch all the way to

And now the little weasel stands alone

A single step from his Magic Phone

You know hell never call our soldiers home

Haliburtons still got its bills to pay

and closed to a standing O.

* * *

We have to stop this one! she shouted, as she walked off the stage. Our mothers and fathers showed us how!

No, they didnt, I thought to myself. They showed us how to blow themselves up, or how to get their heads beat in by cops in Chicago, or to die at Kent State. Sure, some came in from the cold after a few years and told stories about how they had renounced their white-skin privilege while theyd been underground. The ones who couldnt change their skin color, they were still in prison. Or undergroundin a pine box.

But the dividing line was never as simple as color. Some of the whites had gone the distance, like Ray Luc Levasseur and Tom Manning. But it wasnt only the Vietnam War that drove their car: theyd been working-class guys whod done enough thinking to realize that thinking wasnt going to get it done.

Levasseur is out now, after doing a ton, but Mannings going to die behind the walls. Kathy Boudins free after twenty, but all the others in on that fatal armored-car heist are serving for the duration. David Gilberts never going home. Neither are all the BLA members they caught, even those who just helped out. Ask Marilyn Jean Buck.

The DA who prosecuted that revolutionary Brinks job later pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. Hed been ratted out by his mistress, whose details of her sugar daddys sexual preferences were enough to kill his reelection chances anyway. The DA got the probation and community service sentence they reserve for the nonviolent offender, especially one who could tell a few stories of his own if pushed too far.

The Symbionese Liberation Army was firebombed and blasted out of existence, but a couple of survivors formed a new crew, with Bill and Emily Harris running the show. Whether Patty Hearst was their convert or their captive, only she knows. But it was the threat of her testimony that pulled guilty pleas decades later from everyone in on that bank job where a woman making a deposit was murdered because one of the armed struggle twits couldnt handle a shotgun.

And even that wouldnt have happened if someone hadnt informed on Kathy Soliah, who had been living aboveground as a community activist/housewife/mother for decades as Sarah Jane Olsen. Theyll all be out in a few years.

All except Joe Remiro, the first SLA soldier to be captured. Hes got natural life. Rumors kept flying that the underground was going to bust him out. But the only freedom fighter they ever managed to spring was Timothy Leary.

Were the Panthers revolutionaries, or dope-dealers? The ones still behind bars arent talking, and neither is Fred Hampton.

I knew where that whitewater rapid of thought was taking me, and I didnt want to be back in Biafra again. So I stepped outside, as if I wanted a smoke, pulled a cell phone, called a girl I know, and came up with another way to make the time go by.

* * *

The guy selling supernotes the counterfeit C-notes made in North Korea; supposed to be the best in the world wanted way too much for the boxcar load he was supposedly trying to peddle.

The woman who wanted a deep investigationyou know what I mean, right? of the mother who was accusing her ex-husband the wannabe clients current boyfriend of sexually abusing their six-year-old daughter on overnights made a down payment and left. On the way back to her car, she had an accident. With any luck, shell be out of the hospital in time for the trial.

The impeccably dressed Nigerian who wanted to make sure I understood the concept of virgin cleansing before proceeding further seemed greatly reassured when I recited the gospel for him: An HIV-positive male who has sex with a girl so young that her virginity is assured can transfer the disease to the child. Certain procedures must be observed. When the barrier is penetrated for the first time, only then can the disease itself be ejaculated out of the donor and into the recipient.

Of course, a physicians examination must precede the actual transfer ceremony, he explained. After all, believe it or not, some unscrupulous individuals have been known to have a childs ruptured hymen surgically restored, so that the product could be used again. What an evil world this is!

I played the only cards I had, saying I had to meet his principal myself, to make sure he had the kind of money this was going to cost. The Nigerian smiled, opened his rhino-hide briefcase, and placed stack after stack of hard currency on the table between us.

I told him I would call when I had the package in my possession. Because I couldnt keep the little girl for long, his principal would have to come to wherever I was holding her to conduct his transfer ceremony.

I was told this was unacceptable; the Nigerian would continue to be the bridge. When I was ready, he would bring the required amount and take the child with him.

The Prof watched him leave. Told us that the Nigerians car had diplomatic plates. And that he was assisted into the backseat by a chauffeur who made no attempt to conceal the shoulder holster he wore.

A couple of nights later, while the Nigerian was on the phone getting the news hed been waiting for, his chauffeur was enjoying a leisurely smoke outside the limo he never saw whoever broke his neck. When the Nigerian came out, he was assisted into the backseat.

A couple of hours later, he finally acknowledged that he himself was the principal. Then we transferred a steel-jacketed lump of lead to his brain.

The papers called it a political assassination. They got it right the same way a man who picks the winning number gets it right.

The way I see it, he got what he paid for. Id promised him he would never die from AIDS.

It was another week before the call came.

* * *

Hes yours, the AB man said. Want to do it the same way?

No need for all that, I told him. Drop by my place, pick up a couple of bottles. He takes the blue one. When youre sure hes ready, you take yours the red one.

So he doesnt see me 

Yeah.

* * *

You must have given him a much heavier dose, the AB man said, watching the man on the cot across from us: still zonked, mouth open, trace of drool on his chin.

Just gave you a much lighter jolt than you had last time.

I get it. What do we do now?

Wait for him to come around. Then you tell him what I told you, the first time you woke up here. After that, you make sure he understands that talking to me isnt optional.

Ill do that, brother.

I gave him a look.

Just practicing, he said, straight-faced.

* * *

The guy on the cot came around slyly, slitting his eyes so whoever was watching wouldnt know he was awake. The AB boss and I caught the angled overhead light bouncing off the whites of his eyes. We exchanged a look, but kept quiet.

What the guy on the cot saw was two men, each wearing a black hoodie draped to cover his hair and ears. The AB mans alligator eyes were enough of a memory-cue; mine were hidden behind wrap-around mirror sunglasses.

What we saw was a tallish runt with thinning dark hair, combed straight back from his forehead and moussed into what I guessed he thought was a style. His face was flabby, his chin was weak, and his eyes were little pools of greed and fear.

The AB man warned him about sitting up too quick, his voice soft and mechanical.

Thanks, the guy on the cot said, moving very carefully. He wasnt the type to test his pain tolerance.

This is the man, the AB man told him. You already know how its going to work. Youre going to tell him your story. Then hes going to ask you questions. Youre going to answer the questions. What youre not going to do is ask questions.

Seeing us both smoking, the guy on the cot lit one of his own. And then youll decide if youre going to ?

The AB man stood up and walked off into the shadows, leaving me alone withwhatever he was.

* * *

Thorn thats what your friends call you, right? what I need you to do is start at the beginning.

He took a drag on his cigarette, gave me a look, as if he was making sure I measured up. Then he realized his mistake, and started talking: It was somewhere between two-thirty and three in the morning when 

Thats not the beginning, I told him. No threat, just a man making sure of the facts. Thats the night it happened. But these boys, theyd been to your place before, right?

Oh, yeah. Plenty of times.

Because?

Because? Oh, you mean, them being just kids and me beingYeah, I get it. It wasnt like I hung with them or anything. I mean, they were high-school kids. Punks.

And you were a dealer?

Just grass and pills.

Pills?

Ludes, mostly. Once in a while, I had some speed not coke, I mean amphetamines and some downers, too. Like tranqs, you understand?

You had a steady connection? I asked, acting as if I was reluctantly impressed at the operation hed been running at such a young age.

I had a lot of them, he said, back to being what he thought he was.

Sure. You had access to a doctors office, a pharmacy, or a scrip pad. For weed, you just went down to The City, bought at street price from people who scared you, then doubled that when you sold it to kids who thought you were a real bad guy.

I kept those thoughts where they belonged, just nodded. Thats how you do it if you really want to get it done. Never interrupt the flow, let them talk. No fish ever bit a hook with his mouth closed. But there has to be some bait, and letting the mark finish your sentences was always a good choice.

So theyd been coming around for? I asked.

Maybe a few months, a little more. Carl was the only one with a license. Before that, theyd only show up when they were with older guys.

So word was around?

Definitely. I mean, a little town like that, there wasnt really room for more than one dealer.

So if they knew?

The cops knew, too? Fuck, yes, they did. Had to.

 Had to? Meaning you never got shook down?

Not even once, he said, with the smugness of a vet explaining the ropes to a rookie. See, even back then, I figured out how things work. Its not whos selling, its who hes selling to. The cops knew I never handled hard stuff. It was whats called an unspoken agreement. 

Showing your hand pretty early, huh? I thought. Or are you testing? You that smart a sociopath, Thorn? Or are you trying to find out if Im a stupid one?

Nobody ever got arrested for possession? I asked him. Ever?

You have to remember when this was. Just past Vietnam. Who wasnt smoking weed then? Besides, it isnt like I was an outsider.

Because you had a house there?

I was born there. Same as those punks were.

So your parents could ?

It wasnt like that, he said, making a dismissive gesture with his left hand. I was a disappointment to them. That house I had? It was really more like a cottage. And it wasnt them who bought it for me; it was my grandfather.

You were tight with him?

I dont even remember him. Died when I was a little kid. Left me some money, but I couldnt get my hands on it until I was thirty or whatever. Unless I went to college. So the money was in trust, and my father got to manage it for me. What he did was, he invested it in the cottage, see? That way, I had a nice place to live, and, instead of paying rent, I was making money.

Your father knew you were dealing?

No, he said, barely suppressing a sigh at my slowness he had my number now. Real estate appreciates. Goes up in value. The idea was, I live in the cottage until I turn thirty, then I sell it for a lot more than they paid for it.

I get it. So your parents, they just thought you had some kind of regular job?

They. Did. Not. Give. A. Fuck. Making each word its own sentence: a sentence he was still serving.

Okay. Did it work out like they planned?

You mean, sell the place when I turned thirty? he said, chuckling. No. No, it didnt.

You were never arrested before the night the three kids came to you?

For what?

For anything, I said, indicating it wouldnt matter to me what he got dropped for; I was just getting all the facts. Doing my job.

No. Unless you count some little juvie 

For anything. Ever, I repeated, icing my voice, letting him know I was going to do the job Id been ordered to do.

What difference could that ?

I had a choice then. I could have reminded him what his former paid protector had told him about not asking questions. That would get me an answer, but it would be a lie. When a guy comes into prison for the first time, the cons call him a fish. Smart cons know theres all kinds of fish. Some you catch and throw back, some you eat, and some you dont want to be in the same part of the ocean with. A big fish doesnt necessarily mean a dangerous one, but even when theyre easy to hook, they still have to be played.

This freak was as reactive as a rheostat, and you had to use a feathery touch on his dial. Frightening him would be easy work, but fear makes people untrustworthywhich is why torture isnt the way to get truth. Only an amateur thinks being scared works the same way on everyone, I thought, flashing back to what happened that time in prison, when Lenny had overplayed his fear-dealing hand.

These kids trusted you, I said, making my voice into a blanket I could wrap around us both. I mean, sure, they were scared out of their punk minds, but, if you think about it, what they trusted was your rep, see? Not just that you knew your way around, but that youd never talk. When I was coming up, everybody did juvie. It was, like, some test you had to pass. Not just because those places are full of muds, and you have to stand up or theyll have you for supper. No, theres something else. Something that would count heavy with shaky kids.

Nobody wants to be Inside, I rolled on, catching the knowing nod from him Id been waiting for. Nibbling, but the hook wasnt in deep enough yet. The juvie officers, they know that even kids with minor-league beefs probably run with other kids. Which means they know things about those kids. So you get dropped, you almost always get the chance to slide, provided you got something to trade.

I felt him coming closer, now satisfied that I was coming to him. The first time I went in, you know what it was for? I confided, letting the bitterness in my voice come through, tightening the space between us. Setting a fire in an empty house. Not to burn it down, just to keep warm. What total bullshit, right? But they took me in a little room, told me if I could tell them something I could go home.

I get it now, he said, echoing my words from before the hook finally set. And you know what, I think you might even be right. In the town where I lived, going away was a big deal. Its supposed to be this huge secret they cant put your name in the papers, nobodys even allowed inside Family Court but word gets around.

How long were you down?

The first time, it was only for a couple of months, he said, no longer worried about being judged, now that we had the same respect for each other. I wouldnt have gone in at all, but my asshole father thought it would teach me a lesson or something.

Yeah?

Yeah. So I shot a lousy alley cat with my pellet gun. Ill bet half the kids in town did things like that. I mean, who doesnt?

There it is! I thought. But I just nodded, this time to keep him going I knew there was more.

The second time was really lame, he said. Attempted this; attempted that. All bullshit beefs. I didnt actually do anything. If Id been in regular court, they would have thrown it all out.

Attempted?

Just a couple of houses down from where we lived, there was this woman. Big, stacked blonde. I dont know if her husband was out of town a lot, or just got home late, but she was always getting ready for bed by herself. Put on a real show doing it. No way she didnt know she had an audience. She loved it.

So they caught you in her yard and 

And dropped about a thousand different charges on me, he said in a stepchilds voice.

You had your pellet gun with you that time, too, didnt you? I thought. Or some ninja crap you bought out of a catalogue. Orwhatever it took to show the cops that you had plans for that blonde. Who do you think called them, you freakish little maggot?

They offered you a deal? was all I said aloud.

No, he said, making that dismissive gesture again, telling me it wouldnt have mattered a stand-up guy like him wouldnt have given anyone else up, even if someone else had been with him in the womans yard that night. As fucking if. I dont even think it counted.

Counted?

As juvie time. They sent me to this place. It was all white this time. First thing I noticed. All we had to do was talk. All day, every day. Talk to them, talk to each other you end up talking to yourself in that fucking nuthouse.

How long that time?

Six months. Six months to the day. It wasnt a sentence, it was a fucking program. By the time I got out, I was too old for the kiddie system anyway.

And you never took another fall until 

Until when I met Claw, thats right.

Dumb fuck should have told me his Brand name, just in case, I thought.

So you did have a rep, I stroked him. People knew you went away. They didnt know what for, but they did know you came in by yourself, didnt give anyone up. Still feathering that rheostat no point pretending hed been a for-real AB, like I was supposed to be, but he hadnt ratted anyone out, and that was a credential.

In our world, time will tell has a different meaning. Six months in the County doesnt entitle you to call yourself a convict, even though thats more than enough time to get yourself seriously dead if you dont make the right moves.

Yeah, he said, being all modest about it.

Okay, I said, lets go there.

* * *

I wasnt surprised when he intuited that there was the night of the killing. He skipped back over thirty years, got right to it. No problem.

Maybe thats when I first realized that Thornton was an easy guy to underestimate. On my side of the border, that made him dangerous. Some are good with knives, some with guns. You get good enough at anything, you get a name for it, but thats not always a roadmap you can trust.

A mans name dont always give away his game, the Prof had schooled me on the yard. See Ruppo over there, he side-mouth whispered without turning his head, knowing I wouldnt turn mine Id already learned that trick in the training schools where Id served my apprenticeship. People call him Blade, but they never peep his shade.

Ruppos shade was big enough to provide plenty of it. That was the first time Id seen Gigi. He was big enough to block the sun, and the sun was about the only thing hed ever let get behind him, anyway.

Thornton was the same cut, only from a different fabric. He had a weak chin, cowards eyes, and a body that would probably reject steroids. His hard-guy talk was nice cover. Hed expect a man like me a blooded-in Brand, vouched for by a former shot-caller to see right through the pose, but be under orders not to slap him down.

What he wouldnt expect was that I could see his slimy mind. Not just the part hed kept from the psychiatrists the part hed kept from the Brotherhood, too.

I could see him for what he was, but he could only see me for what I was supposed to bewhat he needed me to be.

I remembered my lesson: You do it right, they should never see you coming. Not the Profs words. Wesleys.

Where do you want me to start? Thornton asked. Claw already told you the story, so?

You told the kids the three boys that youd take care of everything?

For a price, he reminded me. Making sure I wouldnt forget he wasnt some sucker whod do favors for punks; he preyed on them, same as any real man would.

Yeah. You went right out to this house where theyd left the body.

Its called window of opportunity,  he said, back to the superior tone a fool uses when he thinks hes teaching you something. Late summer, it gets light early there wasnt a lot of time for me to get everything done.

Sure. The kids, they stayed in your place?

Fuck, no! I told them, move it! Get their punk asses back home, sneak back into their beds, make sure they were ready to alibi each other, if it ever came to that.

They left before you did?

By a minute or so.

What kind of car were you driving then?

A 71 Plymouth. The GTX. That car had everything.

Including a big trunk.

You got it, he said, risking a wink. Never know when thats going to come in handy.

The rug?

I told you 

Me? I said, toning my voice just enough to let his mind put me back in the role hed cast me for.

Oh. I see what youre saying. Truth is, I dont know where the rug came from. That was the punks idea. I mean, they brought it with them when they snatched her. To roll her up in when they were done. It was still there. On the floor, I mean. Right next to her body.

Were you gloved?

Huh?! He paused too long before covering up with, I mean, of course, man. Fuck, you think Id walk into a murder scene so I could leave prints?

Whatd you do with everything later?

He was back in control by then. He wasnt being interrogated, he was a player, the one the boss had picked to brief a soldier for a mission. He visibly relaxed, knowing he was in about as much danger as a guy showing a map to the getaway drivera map for a bank job he wasnt going to be involved in.

Everything I had on me went into the furnace, he said. I cleaned every inch of my car I was always doing that anyway; I kept it sharp. But the trunk didnt just get cleaned, it got bleached. If the cops ever asked, I spilled a bottle in there when I was taking a load to the Laundromat.

You didnt have a washing machine in your place?

Sure, he said, just the safe side of insulted. After all, hed already told me that, besides being a master criminal back then, hed been living semi-large, too. But it was broke. He grinned around the words. The repairman who came out gave me a bill anyway. Fucking robber charged me fifty bucks for a service call, when it was nothing but a loose wire.

Nice.

He lapped that up.

So, okay, youve got her in the trunk, wrapped in the rug, and youre driving. By now its, what, four in the morning?

Maybe, he said, rolling his eyes upward to show me he was trying to re-create as faithfully as he could. Whatever, it was too damn close to daybreak for my taste. Which is why I took her to this place I know 

In the woods?

Not deep in the woods. Just enough for me to back the car in, so you couldnt spot it from the road. If I had driven all the way over to the place I wanted, the car could have bottomed out. Been scratched all along the sides, for sure.

And made tracks.

Right. I just put her over my shoulder and walked.

Yeah? I said, sounding just impressed enough to mute any trace of anxiety he might have left. That must have been a bitch, carrying that much weight all that distance, especially in the dark.

Ah, she didnt weigh much. And the rug was one of those thin ones, like for decoration? No padding or anything like that. Made it easier, actually like having a cushion for my shoulder. The walk was maybe a half mile; I couldnt tell you exactly.

How long did it take you?

To get there? Or to ?

To get there.

Ten minutesmaybe a little more.

Okay.

I knew the exact spot I needed, he said. There wasnt time to be digging a fucking grave. I thought about the river before I decided on the way I went, I mean but the drive was too far, and there could be campers, or fishermen setting up early, ora whole bunch of things. I had to think fast. I had to move fast. And thats what I did. When I got her to the spot, I just rolled her out of the rug onto a bed of dead pine needles, made like a mound on top of her with more of them, and then the log.

Good thing you didnt have more time.

What are you talking about? If Id had more time, theyd never have found the little cunt.

Exactly. Then itd be a disappearance, not a homicide. Youd be the only one who knew where she was buried. You, not the three guys we have to touch. They could all pass polygraphs that they didnt know where she was. Theyve got money. Theyd talk to lawyers. The lawyers would talk to forensic guys. Probably tell them, in the ground all those years, all anyone could ever prove is that it was her, not how she died. And thats if they had wanted to play soft.

Im not sure I 

Theyve got money, I reminded him. Theres guys, you put enough green on the table, theyll go dig up a body, take it somewhere else, and make it really gone. What kind of leverage would you have then? Youll go to the cops? Go the fuck ahead. What DA wants to try a murder case against three straight, clean, rich men with no body, no evidence, nothing but the word of an ex-conespecially an ex-con whod caught a fraud beef? The only one who gets arrested in that scenario is the guy who tried to extort money from those good citizens. See what Im saying?

Yeah, he said, slowly. Because they found her body so quick, they know she was murdered.

And raped, right?

Oh yeah. Fucked, stuck, and made to suck. For all I know, she could have choked to death on cum.

Body pretty marked up?

I didnt look that close. And there was no light, anyway.

I thought maybe you had a flashlight. You know, to make sure the log had her covered.

Oh, that. Yeah. But I didnt use it for 

I got you, I told him, dialing down his rheostat with my voice as I listened to another voice in my head: Albert Collins, telling the truth on Cold, Cold Feeling.

People like to say the blues are the truth. Not where I come from. Down here, only behavior is.

I put Thornton back to sleep.

* * *

Claw? I said, a few hours later.

Its a long story.

I got time.

So did I, he said. Starting when I was a kid. Same as you, right?

Yeah.

You know how they jump on you for anything in there? I dont mean just the color thing, anything they can fuck you around with like if youre fat, or dumb. Well, the name I came in with was one I had on my school records: Claude. I took a lot behind that name. Where my parents came from, that was a mans name. But where I ended up, it was one of those faggy namesfor a white man, anyway. You know, like Stanley or Melvin. A hard guy, he turns that into Stan or Mel, see? But what can you do with fucking Claude?

I was always a big guy, and good with my hands, too. But that name justI dont know, it made some motherfuckers braver than they should have been. One day, Im out in the yard, I find this rusty old pair of pliers. Now, I know thats a treasure, but I dont know what to do with it. Then, like a bomb going off in my brain, I see it.

I put a piece of stone inside the lips of the pliers, and I squeezed it with all my strength. I kept squeezing until my hand froze. The cramps in my arm were so bad I almost cried behind it. But I knew Id found something that would change my whole life, if I had what it took to use it right.

After that, I practiced all the time. Every chance I got. Sometimes for hours and hours at a time. One day, the stone broke. Right in my hand. After that, I found lots of other ways to work on my grip. I never stopped.

I woke up one morning, and I knew it was here. My day. I couldnt wait to get out on the yard. Walked up to this giant nigger who was always ragging on me. He was fucking Mighty Joe Young with a brain, that guy. He could kill you with his mind. I hated him, but I admired him, too. You ever know anyone like that?

Inside and out, I said.

Okay. So Im passing by and he says, Whats up, Claude? The way he said it, his whole crew got shit-eating grins on their faces. I didnt keep moving. I stopped, and stuck out my hand, like for him to shake. Im good, I tell him, but you got my name wrong. You could see from his face he didnt know what the hell was happening, but he grabs my hand. And thats when I locked down and squeezed. I could feel him trying for power the muscles in his arm were jumping like current was running through them. He kept right on grinning, like it was nothing, but, that day, I was the pliers, and he was the stone. You said my name wrong, I say, real relaxed. Its not Claude, its Claw.

Christ, that was one tough nigger. I could feel the bones in his hand starting to go before he finally said, Thanks for putting me straight, man. Claw it is.

So I won that pot, but I knew I couldnt just take the money and walk away. I knew I had to keep what I won. And I did. Every day of my life since then, I worked this hand, he said, holding his right out for me to inspect. It was half again the size of his left. By the time that wormy little fuck you just talked to met me, I could crush steel. And Claw? That was my name. I earned it.

Ever turn it into money? I asked, frankly curious.

One time, I went up against the arm-wrestling champ of a joint I was in. Guy had arms that made the iron-freaks look like toothpicks. Never lost a match. The odds were just insane. Were out on the yard, at the table, cons so thick around us it was like being inside the fucking Colosseum. We chalk up, lock hands, I clamp down, and hes paralyzed. His hands broken, whole arm is dead. We had to rent space in a few dozen cells just to store all the smokes we won that day.

That was beautiful, I congratulated him. But no way the arm wrestler let it go, right?

No, he said, sadly. He didnt.

* * *

We need things we dont have yet, I said to Claw as he stubbed out his cigarette.

Like what?

The girl was murdered. The dates are right. I got enough out of the punk to believe he could prove he was the one who dumped the body, but that doesnt get us where we need to be.

This time he didnt even waste the single syllable it would take to agree with me: a man driving on fumes doesnt floor the gas pedal.

He came up with enough details that never made the papers so that only someone who actually had their hands in it would know. What I cant tell is if the cops finally put this in the deepfreeze. A few years ago, that would have been a sure bet. But as soon as something becomes fashionable, police procedure changes. Working cold cases, thats a hot ticket now. See what Im saying? Instead of buried in some basement, rotting inside an evidence box, the file could be on some detectives desk right this minute.

So?

So were holding an ace that your guy can prove he was involved but its not close to the full house we need to play this round.

Why not? Claw said. All he has to do is 

What? Threaten to go to the Law, right?

He nodded.

Whats he go there with? A confession? That might put him down for life 

I caught Claws expression, said, This is New York, not California. One, weve got the death penalty here, too; but it hasnt been used since I was a kid. And, two, there was a time when the Supreme Court threw out all death-penalty convictions. By the time some of the states were able to come up with new laws that would stand up, it was years later. A grace period, like. Nobodys looking at the needle for this one.

Grace period, Claw half-whispered, a tiny dot of rage buried in the iron of his voice.

Yeah, I told him. How come you think the Manson Family keeps going to those parole hearings?

He shook it off a fighter telling you if that was your best youre not going to be around at the end.

Youre right, I agreed. Like we said, it wouldnt matter if those three guys were looking at six months in the County or a thousand years. It would still be worth the same to them to make it go away.

Whats missing then?

The connection. I spent hours with your guy. And heres the truth: He hasnt got one tiny piece of proof that points to those three as the ones he buried the body for. Nothing.

But he tapped them for cash 

He says.

The bat they used.

Theyll say he was the one who used it. After he borrowed it from them, a few days before. Probably as imaginary as those Polaroids.

That journal they kept. That should 

Prove they were obsessed with the girl? Maybe. Theyll say they were writing a book, collaborating on a project, thinking they were creative geniuses. Free speech. I guarantee you, theres uglier stuff on the Internet every day. Kids write school essays about torturing a classmate to death, and if they so much as get an F on the paper, the ACLUs right on the job.

And thats if it ever got into evidence. You dont exactly have a clean chain-of-custody going here that journals been in your guys hands for thirty-some years. Maybemaybe the lab guys could prove the approximate age of the thing, depending on the paper and ink they used. But its too weak to stand up, never mind walk.

And it gets even worse, I continued. Even if you could dig up some old school papers they wrote, by that time, rich kids like those, they probably typed everything. Or paid someone else to do it. This whole handwriting analysis thing is a whores game: You bring your expert; Ill bring mine. Whos going to bring the best one? You think some little town is going to spend the years law-enforcement budget trying to convict three of its most illustrious graduates, from three of its best families?

You said we needed a full house to playand now we dont even have the ace we thought we had?

Yeah.

So were done? Claw said. Like he must have said to the oncologist who gave him the news.

No. Were down, not done.

Down to what?

The tape. The one your guy made of them asking him to go bury the body.

There is no tape. We already know 

That were holding garbage? Sure. But they dont. Like a bluff in stud poker: well show them weve got something but we have to make sure thats enough to scare them out of calling our hand.

* * *

When I was a little kid, I never cried when they hurt me, not ever. Not because I was tough. Torture doesnt make you cry; it makes you scream. They loved that part.

Crying, that came later. When I finally understood that what they did to me was to show me what I really was. Property.

Only one thing ever made that crying stop.

When I got to prison as inevitable for me as prep school for a Kennedy I called myself a thief. The Prof straightened me on that, the way he taught me everything else: hard, cold, clean, and true. You aint no thief, chief. Thats a mans game. An experienced man.

I cracked plenty of 

You in here behind a gun, son.

I couldnt deny that. Id lived in the basement of an abandoned building then. It was a foul little rat-hole, but it was mine. Someone wanted it for himself. Things happened.

You lame to the game, Schoolboy, the Prof had said, giving me the name hes called me ever since. Among others. A real thief, thats a pro. A kid who pops a punk he knows, thats an amateur.

Not letting someone take whats mine, that makes me an amateur? I said, hotly.

The Prof let out a long, sad sigh. No, son. Letting him get to the hospital, thats what.

I never thought hed 

What? the little man sneered. Rat? Roll over? Give you up? Boy, theres partners whod give you up; you think a fucking enemy wouldnt? You know pig Latin?

Huh?

Never mind. You ever hear a black dude an older black dude say the word ofay?

Yeah.

You know what it means?

White, right?

It means foe. Get it?

The ones who say it, they hate whites?

No, he said, annoyed at my thickness. Look, you want to play the role, you got to learn it slow. You doing time, you need to take your time, learn how to do it right. Its your call.

I apologize.

He gave me a slow, appraising look. Say why, Sly.

Because youre giving me something, and Im being disrespectful. I know everyone here respects you. I know you know things. I know you havepowers, or whatever they call it. I dont know why you picked me 

Now you cooking.

I dont 

You white, right? So why should some old nigger be teaching you something if he wasnt running a scheme on the scene?

I didnt say anything, ashamed that Id been so trusting, but not regretting it.

Southern blacks, they know the show. White man smiles at you, always got to be something he wants behind that. You know what Mr. Charlie says if a white tries to fuck with a black man thats worked for him all his life? He says, to the other white guy, Step off, thats my nigger. They all put us last. Even the best of them, they always going with their own first. We know this right from our first taste of mothers milk.

But, you think it through, you know it cant be true. Got to be some white men whore righteous, for real. As down as old John Brown. You play it safe, stick only with your own kind, you miss some chances. Thats my power, you see what Im saying to you? I can tell. Youyou cant tell nothing. So you got to decide with what you got.

What have I got?

You got a gift, son. I can feel it in you. You learn to trust that, you trust me. You dont, walk on.

How do I ?

Ill teach you, the little man said. But that means you mind me like Im your father.

I never had 

You think I cant see that, fool?

II know you can.

That was it, from that moment. It was the Prof who taught me the rules. A real second-story man is a ghost, Schoolboy. He can unhook a pearl necklace from a woman sleeping on her silk sheets and never wake her up. I dont care if shes sleeping nude, and shes the finest piece of ass you ever seen. You touch her and youre over the line. Not a thief, not no more. You can never be one of us then, never.

You cant be a thief unless you about the money. Nothing else. So, like Im saying, a real second-story man, he dont use weapons, he uses tools. No guns, ever thats for another kind of work.

Now, Im not saying you cant be a stickup artist or a hijacker or even a gunslinger. Thief, its not about what you do; its about what you wont do, okay?

You want to be a pro slip-in man, you always move light and you always carry light. Dont fit in your pocket, you leave it. Only junkies steal TV sets. Any fool can count cash. You got to learn to tell a Timex from a Rolex, a diamond from glass, a piece of gold from a slab of brass.

I thought you were here for 

Whatd you do, boy? Ask one of the hacks? Tune into the jailhouse vine? Pull my records?

I just heard 

You heard Im on this bit for dropping the hammer. But what I am, Im a thief. Im out there to steal, but sometimes some fucker will force you to deal.

Dope?

Dope? You wasnt so damn childish, Id be insulted behind that. Dope! They named it right, Schoolboy. Never went near it, and I wouldnt work with anyone who did. This bit Im working on is for armed robbery. When I say Im a dealer, I mean I dealt it out. We were halfway out the door when the fool they paid to guard the place tried to earn his money.

So if?

Look, now. Listen up. Hijacking aint always smart, but its not the same as dropping a dime, or taking your crime partners down with you. You want your rep to be carved in stone, you always go down alone. But if you got your ear to the ground, if you plugged in, if you listen, you keep picking up cards. When they got you I mean, got you wrapped and trapped, jury ready to drop you, judge ready to top you then its time to deal.

But if you cant give the cops anything 

You cant give them yours, the little man said. You cant even give them your own kind. But theres one kind I dont mind.

When he explained the kind of humans he was talking about, I knew he was my father. Every Child of the Secret wishes he had different parents. I was still a kid in my heart or I wouldnt have asked him, one day: Prof? Whats your real name?

What you think, boy? the little man said as he drew himself up to his full height and pumped out his chest. There aint but one name the Man ever had for a nigger like me. I never went to class, and I never kissed ass. You can hang me from a tree, but Im always going to be. Im never gonna die, and thats no lie. You want my true name? Im John Henry, fool.

* * *

It was the Prof who taught me how to find a way in. If you press, you stress, Schoolboy. Once you have the power, you have to lay in the cut until you see the gut. Stealing aint about thrill; its about chill. Let it come to you then youll know its true.

I was trying to do that now. The clock was ticking for the cancer-man, not for me.

Theres two places I can always go. For one, I get in the right position in front of a mirror I use a round one with a red dot painted exactly in its center. I breathe the way I learned to do, until I fall into that dot. Sometimes, its hours before I come back.

This morning, I was going the other route. I just relax today, with a tall, frosted glass of pineapple juice and some roasted almonds and take in random information. I dial my subbrain to scan, looking for answers to questions nobody has asked me yet. I dont know how it works, but I know it happens one part of my brain takes in the info; another part is gnawing at it like a rat in a concrete cage.

I had WABC on for background music. Yeah, I know its talk radio, but something about the Huff & Puff Show in the morning has the predictable tonal quality of a schizo arguing with the voice in his head. Its music, so long as you dont try to make sense out of the lyrics.

The newspaper was a comedy act. The feds had an exNYPD cop on trial, said he was actually working for the mob. Not just selling info, going all the way, right down to participating in hits. The ex-cop says its all a pack of lies; hes never had anything to do with the mob. Then he puts up a couple of million bail, and hires John Gottis old lawyer to represent him. Should have pleaded insanity.

One of the giant ISPs says that configuring its software so China can finger dissidents and send them to torture camps is just showing respect for another countrys culture. Of course, our culture prevents them from IDing the kiddie-sex trollers who use their servers. After all, us Americans have the right to privacy.

If hypocrisy was a virus, the Internet would crash tomorrow.

I killed the radio the show had gone from its usual white noise to some other level. I hadnt realized there was anything lower than dull before. Time for a little TV.

Jurors were being interviewed. Must have been some kind of major case. They all agreed it was just disgusting that the killer hadnt shown the slightest trace of remorse. He never shed a tear for her, not once, one blobby woman in a blue dress with a white Peter Pan collar said. Her own piggy eyes dutifully welled up as she reached for her personal Oprah moment.

I didnt know if the guy they were talking about was guilty or not, but I felt a wave of disgust for that jury, anyway. TV trials have turned jury service into a media opportunity, and the slugs know their lines by heart: If the poor bastard says hes innocent, they want to fry him because hes not sorry. And if he blows any chance of appeal by admitting he did it, any tears that come out of his eyes are dismissed as phony.

Its all a show. Like those Victim Impact Statements in mandatory-sentence cases. Its really uplifting to watch people read their pre-typed scripts: Youre going to be in prison for life, but your mother can still visit you. The only place I can visit my son is in the cemetery. Yeah, okay, we got it already. We know dead people cant have babies, or go to college, or whatever dreams you had for them. Why tell the guy who made that happen? Think its going to make him feel bad? Or did you just need closure?

The teleprompter-reader announced that Nigeria and China had just signed some sort of treaty, the centerpiece of which was cooperation between their governments. Nigeria announced it was irrevocably committed to a one-China policy, meaning, the day the Chinese decide to attack Taiwan, they could count on Nigerian oil to keep flowing to their war machine. Nice two-way street: if Biafra or any other separatist movement ever tries to rise again, and the Nigerian generals go back to their genocide program, Chinas going to veto any UN Security Council vote to intervene.

Dictatorships sticking together, forming mutual-support alliances. Doesnt anybody remember the last time that happened? Or maybe that info wasnt in the script the spray-haired journalist was reading from.

A man who survived Katrina by pulling his family out just in time was being interviewed. He told some girl reporter it was like he had been raped, but didnt understand why he felt that way. She made sympathetic noises, and cut to commercial.

I know why. Everyone knows that kids whove been sexually abused by strangers have a much higher recovery rate than when the perpetrator was inside their own family. It always comes down to what the victim expects for a response, and how close that expectation comes to the truth.

For Katrina victims, FEMA was the cop who tells a gang-raped woman that nothing would have happened if she hadnt worn that short a skirt and gone to that bar and let a stranger buy her a drink.

Katrina didnt rape New Orleans. Everybody knows who the real rapist was. But do you think any of those organizations that live on government grants are going to say it out loud? You know who I mean: the same ones who run around gushing over how Congress is protecting our kids. I mean, look at all theyve done! Why, we even register sex offenders now, so any father whos fucking his own kid can go on the Internet and make sure his propertys not exposed to danger from a stranger. The missing children thing went dry when the half-wits who run the show finally figured out that just about all of those missing kids were custodial interference cases, not abductions. So they just switched to Amber Alerts and slid themselves into the Internet safety business. Now the mother who pimps her kid can make sure some chat-room predator doesnt get to teach the kid how to make his own money.

I remember something a working girl told me, a long time ago. Id done her a favor her coat-hanger-loving pimp had never seen me coming and she was trying to repay me in the only coin I wanted back then: survival skills. You get a trick hot enough, hell pay you the same for a hand job as the full ride, shed told me.

She might have been talking about the people who vote in this country. She sure as hell was talking about the ones who dont.

* * *

I need some things, I said into the cloned-chip cell phone.

What?

From him, not you.

Can you say? Meaning say on the phone.

Business records. His.

From the joint he ?

He might have them there, but I need to go back much further than that. He started a lot of businesses, none of them worked out. Those records.

His place isnt that far away fromfrom where you and me last ate. Under an hour, depending on the time of day.

After dark, I told him.

* * *

The strip club was a faceless slab of fatigue-cracked concrete, with the usual signs outside. Even the neon looked greasy.

His office is in the back, Claw said. No way in except through the front door. Theres a bouncer, but hes about as much as youd expect, a place like this.

No.

No what?

Theres a fire exit out back.

Yeah, but theyre always locked from the inside. And an alarm goes off if you open them.

Not tonight, I promised.

I backed the Plymouth into an open slot on the broken asphalt behind the club. He watched as I threw some switches, not asking what they were for.

The back of the building was completely tagged. Overriding all the graffiti was the symbol MS-13 in huge white letters, edged in blue.

What? Claw said, watching me stare at the sign.

I stepped back into the deeper darkness next to my Plymouth, nodded an okay when he took out a smoke, knowing hed cup it. When he had it going, I explained why we were waiting.

In this city, the only way you get a piece of anything is to take it. If youre reaching from the bottom new kids on the block, no politicians in your pocket, no cops on your pad, no unions, no nothing your only way in is with product or power. The Colombians brought both. They had their own pipeline, and they were truly vicious bastards, too. The Russians had the gas scam locked down tight: no-tax gas in this town is gold, if you can guarantee enough stations regular deliveries. Then the Albanians decided they wanted to play, too. They didnt have any sources, so they had to go psycho. It all got settled one night in the Bronx. The tanker was right there, pumping, when they had their meet. Everyone had guns, but the Albanians brought hand grenades. The Russians told them, you toss those things near the tanks, we all get blown to pieces, wheres the profit in that? The Albanian boss told the Russians every man he had with him came there to die. The Russian boss didnt read it for a bluff.

You think it was?

No.

So whats with that MS-13 thing?

Mara Salvatrucha. Started on your coast, all guys from El Salvador. Got together for the reasons anyone crews up. Same reasons you did. At first. Then they started pulling from all over Central America: Guatemala, Honduras, like that.

You grow up with death squads owning the night, people disappearing all the time, the threat of dying doesnt have any impact on you after a while. Some of them were street kids who got across the border; some of them were the same soldiers who used to hunt them. Theyre not into organized crimeat least, not yet. Dope is the same as robbery or a shakedown to them a thing you do for money. But they never hire out they get money by violence, not for it, see?

They ink up?

Big-time. Some of them, right on the face. In Honduras, an MS-13 tattoo buys you serious time. Just for the tattoo, I mean. So its a commitment. In for life, whether its on the bricks or behind bars. Theyre big on messages. Heads on stakes. The kind of thing the newspaper clowns call senseless violence. But it makes perfect sense to them. Works, too.

See, theyve got no rules, no boundaries. Never had a treaty with anyone. They cant be infiltrated undercovers can slip into the Mafia if theyre good earners, but MS-13 wants to see you make a body, up close. Got to be with a blade, and its got to be slow. They dont even pretend to be legit businessmen. Forget the tax boys, forget the wiretaps, forget the forensic accountants to catch them laundering money.

Their life expectancy is death, see? Theyre proud of being crazy. And anyone whos not crazy is scared of them. Scared to death.

Claw tuned right in. Prison is a pyramid. Actually, a row of pyramids. In some joints, especially down south, you have convict bosses running the dorms or the blocks. But even the biggest bulldog isnt going to scare an elephant, and if the real boss the warden decides he wants to change the regime, thats all it ever takes.

Not so many years ago, it was right out on Front Street. They had cons guarding cons. Armed cons, ready to shoot if you made a break from the fields. No problem making sure those boys walked the line: one slip and theyre back in the fields themselves. With a life span until sundown.

Today, they just use bus therapy move the problem to another prison, a prison thats already got a boss. Where Claw had done his time, they do it different. Known gang members are deep-freezed, dropped down into the Shoe thats how you say Special Housing Unit, SHU. The only way out is to debrief. The ones who do it for real, give up all they know about their gang codes, leadership hierarchy, signs, stashes they get released into protected housing. Putting them back into Population would make them the prize in a shank lottery.

The stand-ups sometimes make it out of the Shoe on their own, especially if theyve got real lawyers on the job. Men like them would never take a voluntary PC, and they go right back to the block, certain their rep will hold.

But their crew can never be sure. And some of them might decide not to take the chanceespecially if the man who was running things while the boss was away got to like his new job.

You think theyre shaking down our guys place? he asked.

They marked the territory.

Just because other gang kids didnt overtag them doesnt mean 

I dont care what it means. They could be bleeding the place dry, its nothing to us.

So why are we watching?

Theyre not talkers, I told him. If theyre inside right this minute, theyre either collecting or theyre using their machetes. Theres some parties you dont crash.

* * *

Fifteen minutes was enough. We stepped through the shimmed-open fire door in the back. Claw pointed to his right. I followed him down an unpainted plywood-walled corridor, pulling my watch cap down into a ski mask. Music or something like it boomed from the front of the building. We passed an unmarked door. I was guessing bathroom, but I didnt like the idea of a door opening behind me, so I switched stances still following, but with my back against the wall.

The last door had the kind of sign you buy in a hardware store; peel off the backing tape and stick wherever you want: PRIVATE.

I pulled my short-barreled .357, pointed my left hand at the door twice, once at Claw.

He opened the door, stepped inside.

The girl who came out was moving quick, keeping her head down like shed probably just been doing making sure whoever was outside could see she hadnt seen them. All I could make out was that she was short and real skinny, long black hair in pigtails, carrying some kind of blue robe in one hand, shoes in the other.

I went through the open door.

Thornton was behind an office-surplus desk, in a red vinyl chair, looking like what he was. Claw was to my left, positioned so he could watch the corridor.

No! I 

Thornton cut himself off as he saw the pistol go back inside my jacket. Just talk, I said. Like we did before.

Oh! Youre 

Yeah. You dont need to see my face, do you?

No. Of course not. I mean, all I want 

We know what you want. Im not here to go over all that again. Im here for something that could help make it happen.

What could I have that I havent already given you?

You told the big man if he noticed that I didnt call the other man Claw, like he did, it didnt register on his face that, before you went down, you tapped them a few times, right?

Not for 

Yes or no.

Yes.

Two things first. One, howd you make contact? Two, howd they make the delivery?

Id just call their office 

They dont work together, right?

Right. I just meant, whichever one I was going to 

I get it.

Id just call, say I was an old friend from back in the day. Tell whoever answered that I realized Mr. Whoever wouldnt be able to come to the phone, but Id appreciate it if I could leave a number, and Mr. Whoevers assistant could just leave a message on my machine, telling me when it might be convenient to call.

The machine wasnt where you lived.

Im a lot of things, he said, superiority slipping back into his voice now that he wasnt scared, but none of them are stupid.

Okay

Id always get a call back. Thered be a number for me to call and a time. Id call from a phone I was never going near again and thered be some man at the other end. Not the one I called, but I wasnt expecting that. This man I know they had to be different men, all the times I did this, but, I swear, they all sounded like the same voice hed say he understood I was calling to negotiate a small venture-capital project, and, depending on the reasonableness of the request, it could probably be arranged.

And Id make it reasonable. Wed have a nice talk. Id give him my business plan, wed talk about stuff like anticipated rate of return, crap like that. Anyone listening, it would sound like it was all plausible. I mean, sure, maybe my new concept was a little shaky good cover when the investment went sour but enough for them. I figured it was all being recorded.

But they never paid by check, so what diff ?

Who said never? he said, giving me a triumphantly sleazy smile.

You did.

Every time but once, he said. His teeth looked gray in the pus-colored overhead light. Naturally, I never did a hand-to-hand. I wasnt going to meet with anyone those guys sent. FedEx to one of those mailbox-rental joints; I used a different routing every time. They get it; they send itright back out. By the time whoever they were using ran the trace, Im gone. With the cash. But, one time, Reedy actually sent a check. Didnt have his name on it or anything, just some company he probably got opened and closed in a day. I guess he figured Id have to cash it somewhere, and the canceled check would tell himI dont know, something.

How big a check?

Twenty-five K.

You remember the name of the company he was ?

I got better than that, the weasel said, smirking like he was casually turning a winning hand faceup.

* * *

Only tourists think of Manhattan as an island. Most of the people who live here travel underground to get anywhere some subway stops have longer distances between them, thats all.

Now, Staten Island, thats an island. But it doesnt get tourists.

Neither does the part of the Bronx where the Mole lives. Everythings the opposite of Manhattan the subway goes there all right, but it rolls outdoors, on elevated tracks. Its the Mole who lives underground.

I knew if Michelle ever found out Id made the ride without asking her to come along, shed go ICBM on me. I also knew the Mole wouldnt talk. Thing is, he wouldnt lie, either, not to his woman. But I needed him for what I had to have, so I risked it.

I celled him from Bruckner Boulevard, heard him pick up. I knew he wouldnt speak until he heard a voice, so I asked, Okay to come by now?

Yes.

I thumbed the cell into lifelessness and concentrated on negotiating my way through Hunts Point until I got to the junkyard. Passed by burned-out buildings, so far gone that the gang graffiti had faded turf not worth claiming. Abandoned cars. Abandoned people. Hungry dogs. Needy junkies. Blood-bank winos. And, not far away, the humans who turned all of that into cash.

The city has a seat at that table, too. I passed by Spofford, the community-based juvenile detention center. After one look around the community, you could decode that message pretty quick.

The fence looked even rustier than ever, but the flesh-ripping concertina wire woven through and over it was the same smoke color. I knew the Mole had me on visual somewhere, so I just waited for the first gate of the sally port to open, drove inside, locked up behind myself, opened the second gate, docked the Plymouth, and started walking.

The pack popped up suddenly, like meerkats checking for predators. Except that these dogs were the predators. The most dangerous kind they were still evolving, learning how to be better at what they do. After so many years running wild, feeding off whatever the nearby Meat Market dumped and anything else that couldnt outrun them it was as if theyd become a breed of their own. They ranged in color and markings, but most were kind of a smog shade, with only two body types: barrel or blade.

Simba! I called out, quickly.

As the old beast moved toward me, the pack parted like the Red Sea. Simba was many years past being able to hold his position if any of the young bulls wanted to try him. None ever did. Anyone who says dogs dont understand respect hasnt seen a permanent pack.

Simba wasnt moving fast, but he played it off like he was taking his time, sizing me up. I didnt move toward him. I understand respect, too.

Simba-witz! I greeted him.

He nudged against my leg. I scratched him behind what was left of one ear, knowing his eyes were too filmy to actually see me, trusting his other senses to tell him who I was.

We walked all the way to the clearing outside the Moles bunker together. Two good pals, taking in the sun, bragging about old times. I never once looked behind me the rest of the pack would go piranha on anyone stupid enough to try entering without a passport.

The Mole was outside, sitting on a bucket seat wrenched out of one of the hundreds of junkers that littered his lot. Simba ambled over to him, lay down at his feet. The Mole thumped the monster on the top of his triangular head a couple of times. Simba made a sound in his throat.

Downstairs? the Mole said. Meaning: did I need him to do some work, or had I come to talk?

Heres good, I told him, taking a seat on a milk crate with some kind of spongy-looking pad on its top.

I let a couple of minutes slide past. Neither the Mole nor Simba was ever anxious, and they didnt like it when others were.

I have a check a photocopy of a check that was written a few years ago. The company that wrote it was a fraud, but the check was good. I need to trace the check so I can connect it with a certain man.

Canceled check?

No. The guy who cashed it made a copy before he did. Its all I have.

Bank records?

Thisll be a long, twisty trail, Mole. Shells inside shells. The company was probably formed just for this one check. No PI could track this. Even if you could get a subpoena which is impossible here it would dead-end way before the connection was made. Youd need government-level access toa whole bunch of different sources.

Just the check?

Theres also somefiles, maybe. Or evidence boxes, maybe in deep storage. Inside a police station.

City?

Suburbs. Rich suburbs.

It would take the government.

Yeah. But not necessarily 

I shut up. The Mole knew what I was asking for. The Israelis have had a spy network running in the U.S. for decades, and whatever units they have on that job are as good at what they do as the ones they sent to Entebbe. I had met Mossad men in this same junkyard. The Mole had done plenty of work for them, but it was never for money.

Would this be about my ?

No, I said, some part of my mind hearing Claw tell me that he trusted me because he knew I wouldnt lie to my own. I know how to push the Moles button: You say Nazis to the dumpy little man and those faded-denim eyes behind his Coke-bottle lenses catch fire. Then his mind a mind that would make the most powerful AI program on the planet drop to its knees and worship would start to laser-burn through any obstacle in the way.

But the Mole was my brother. And the Prof had taught me right.

What, then?

Justice and vengeance.

Those are the same.

I guess so. And money, Mole. Thats there, too.

He shook his head.

Justice for a little girl, Mole. Raped, tortured, and murdered. And the rich guys who did it walked away. Walked away laughing. More than thirty years ago. Can this be right?

Mole wasnt just my brother, he was Michelles man. And Terrys father. That was another reason I wanted to make sure I came to him alone: I wasnt going to play those last cards, or even show them, with either one around. And I dont think the Moles woman or his son knew about his special friends, either.

And I did something for yourfriends, too. Remember? I reminded him.

Yes, he confirmed. So do they. Are you saying ?

Uh-uh, Mole. I got nothing to trade this time. If I knew something I thought they didnt, I would have brought it to you soon as I found out.

He nodded.

Simba made a sound I hadnt heard before.

The Bible says 

The what?

The Bible, the Mole answered, looking at Simba as if for backup.

I thought only Christians 

The Old Testament, not those novels they wrote later.

But youre aa man of science, Mole.

I am a Jew.

Yeah. But thats not a religion, its atribe, right?

To the Nazis, we are a race, not a tribe. A different breed of human.

Not just to them.

I know.

But the Bible, Mole? You believe that stuff? Like Eden was a location you could find on a map?

Not that, he said, in a you cant be that stupid tone.

What, then? Jesus was a Jew, right? Didnt he tell people not to marry because the end was coming?

Revelations is not the word of God.

How the fuck could it be? I said, angry without knowing why I was. What, the son of God called it wrong? Bet on the wrong Four Horsemen?

On the Mole, sarcasm was about as effective as Mexican law enforcement. A book can contain truth without being truth, he said, calmly. The Torah is the Law. The Law came from the Old Testament. The Law is the code of conduct for our people how we are to act on earth.

So you dont buy the Seven Days thing? I asked.

Evolution is a theory 

So is Christianity. And Islam. And any other explanation. Just because you cant prove something doesnt mean it isnt true, right?

Yes, he admitted. He should have; hes the one who taught it to me.

So lifes nothing but a goddamn horse race, and were all two-dollar bettors? My soul, on Allah, to win. Or on Jesus. Or Buddha. Or a pile of rocks. Theres your proof, Mole. How can there be more than one God?

Or, how can God allow six million of us to ?

Right. Its a long list, brother.

Yes. That is why it is called faith. Not because it cannot be proven; but because it is the only way to reconcile that which refutes it.

I looked at Simba for a long minute.

You dont buy any of it, I said, finally.

This is truth, the Mole said. Objective, proven truth. Our people have been persecuted since the beginning of our time on this earth. We have learned there is only one way, and that way is not inside the temple or the Torah.

Self-defense.

The Mole made a sound in his throat that only someone real close to him would recognize as a sort-of laugh.

Mole, I came in here naked. I got nothing to trade. Thatservice I did for your friends, its no secret that there was something in it for me and mine. You were there, for chrissakes. This thing Im in now, Im bound to do it.

Because of the little girl?

Yeah.

What you want, there is risk?

Got to be. Even if the paper trace I need doesnt hit any trip wires, getting into a police station and removing 

Real risk, the Mole said. Meaning: was there going to be any anti-personnel work anywhere along the road? Theres work you can do without leaving a trace, but some you cant do without leaving a body.

Not for them, I promised.

* * *

The subway runs to Brooklyn, too. The building was one of those old factories being converted into luxo-lofts. A work-in-progress, its value growing faster than the construction. The front was coated in some high-tech glaze that wouldnt protect spray-painted messages against a water hose. But some tagger must have figured one days worth was good enough for what he wanted to say:

what came first: computers or icons?

I stepped inside, between two industrial-looking pillars. By the time I got to the man sitting behind a table covered with what looked like architectural plans, Id been photographed, scanned, screened, and recorded.

The man behind the desk looked up. The two men moving in from different corners were wearing tool belts and hard hats. I knew what tools they were good with, and I knew those hats would turn a bullet.

My name is Pearl, I said to the man behind the desk.

He watched me the way a mother-to-be watches her first sonogram.

Im here to see Mr. Gentile.

The man behind the desk pointed to a staircase that looked like it might be worth a fortune on the Antiques Roadshow. It was so deliberately discordant in that place that I knew it had to mean somethingbut not to me.

I started climbing. Footsteps behind me, making no effort at masking their sound. As I moved, the occasional microdot flash told me the whole staircase was photo-celled.

At the first landing, I kept climbing. Saw nothing but beams and girders until I reached the top floor.

I crossed to what looked like the one of those steering-wheel doors they use on bank vaults. There was a faint hiss as it swung open.

I stepped into a windowless area I immediately realized had been constructed within the core of the building, invisible from outside. Id been in dirtier operating rooms.

Yes? A womans voice, about as soft and sweet as liquid titanium.

I turned in her direction. She was medium-height, with long black hair worn in an elaborate French twist. The white lab coat wrapped her body like a sheath. Her prominent nose gave her a hawkish look that her dark eyes didnt diminish even a little bit.

Leolam Lo Odd, I answered.

Come, she said, turning her back on me as she stepped through a door to my left.

I followed her, not too closely. And not because it was a treat to watch her walk. Just as well, because she suddenly spun on one heel and turned to face me, moving in very close.

The password you gave, do you know what it means?

 Forever no more. 

In English?

Never again.

You learned this where?

From my brother.

Your brother? No. Your half brother, maybe?

Youre a geneticist?

She stepped back a fraction, trying to gauge whether I was deliberately insulting her. But all she said was, Your face has been altered.

It wasnt cosmetic surgery.

I see. She stepped very close. Even her perfume was hard. She put her hand to my face the way a blind person does, feeling for truth. You are Rom, yes?

I dont know.

How can you not ?

I had no mother.

Every man has a mother.

Whoever gave birth to me left me in the charity ward of the hospital.

Yes, she said, undeterred. But on your birth certificate it says?

Baby Boy Burke, I told her. For mother, the hospital used whatever name she gave them, made up on the spot. For father, they just put in U-N-K. You understand?

She nodded, lowered her eyes for a second, then said, You have a Gypsy face. But a Gypsy woman would not leave a child. Children are treasure to them. As they are to us.

And they were right behind you on the line for the camps.

She nodded again, but kept her eyes on mine. So, when you say brother, you dont mean blood.

I do mean blood, I said, explaining as much as I was going to. I just dont mean DNA.

She nodded again. Said, Come.

* * *

Another room. I expected the row of computer screens, the anaconda cables, machinery I didnt recognizebut I wasnt ready for the occupants.

Kids, they were. Not one of them looked as old as twenty-five. A full-spectrum array, from army-surplus jackets to pineapple-colored spiked hair to unlaced combat boots to what looked like a white tuxedo jacket with red velvet lapels.

Someone had hand-painted a rust-colored sign across the top of a side wall

LUCK is only perceived when results exceed information

No luck means no BAD luck

Service is not faith, it is WORK

or maybe it was done in dried blood at least a couple of the girls looked Goth enough to have gone that way.

Chill the testiculating! one of those snapped at a young man with a shaved skull and a hole in one earlobe big enough to put a thumb through. Youre so 404, its a sadness.

Fuck you and your co-signer, the kid fired back.

The woman in the lab coat looked the entire room into silence. Daniel, was all she said.

A kid with a fifties flattop with matching motorcycle jacket and engineer boots came over to where we were standing. Maybe he didnt know the wire-frame glasses spoiled the look. More likely, it was his look.

This is the man you were told about, she said.

The kid looked at me. His eyes reminded me of a chrome champagne flute. An empty one.

Come, the woman said again, this time including the two of us.

The air in the next room had a chemical undercurrent. The walls looked like those at Attica, built out of acoustical tile. The carpet didnt try to hide that it was nothing but a pad over a grid of wires.

In the precise center of the room was a round table and three chairs.

The woman in the lab coat made a gesture. I followed Daniels example and took one of the chairs. She took the last one.

Id sat down with stone killers plenty of times in my life and still been the most dangerous man in the room. Because I wasnt alone. My family may not have known where I was, but the people in the room, they all knew who I was with.

Some of them may have known the Prof. They all knew about Max. Some maybe just knew his rep; some may have seen him work. But they all knew there was more where that came from. My family. And what theyd do if I didnt come back.

But that was never my trump. Theres plenty who think they could handle the Prof if they caught him without his scattergun. Theres gunmen in this town who think they could take Max down if only they could keep distance between them long enough shooters think like that. But there isnt anyone in our world who didnt fear Wesley. Even today, my ghost brother was always riding my shoulder, like a cape of invisible vipers. Thats because the whisper-stream is always flowing, and theres currents in there too dark and deep to see. The Prof said it best:

You saw the show, but you cant never really know. And if you cant be sure, you never knock on his door. Never. Dont matter what you pack, you cant chance that Mystery Train coming down your track.

This international assassin thing is for thriller-writers who think the CIA is an intelligence service. Guy gets a phone call, hops on a plane, flies to a country hes never been to in his life, learns the language on the way over, pops his target, and disappears into the shadows. Then he flies back home, puts on some Mozart, fixes himself hey, hes a loner, right? a glass of something special from his wine cellar, and contemplates the meaning of life.

Wesley? He was the truth.

But the people in the room with me werent from my world. They were specialists the kind who dont care about going wide because they live only for going deep. Whoever had ordered them to give me whatever they were going to hand over, theyd know Wesley. But even if they believed he was still around, that wouldnt make them blink. After all, they were in the same business, just working for different wages. In the parallel universe they occupied, if you werent the other mans target, and he wasnt yours, it was the same as a truce.

The woman made a hand gesture, then rapid-fired in something I guessed was Hebrew.

The kid turned to me, watching my hands.

What? I said. You dont think Id bring a ?

We know youre not armed, he said. What Im telling you is, no notes, understand?

I nodded.

There were eleven, eleven, he said, emphasizing the word in a tone meant to convey reluctant admiration, separate shells. Like one of those Matryoshka dolls, one inside the other. Some of them existed for less than twenty-four hours; some of them are still alive. But even those are empty just minor money on their books, sitting offshore and stagnant.

I set my mind to Intake, sat with my hands folded in front of me like a kid at school. Which, to them, I was.

The check youre interested in, it was drawn on an American bank.

I held his eyes, expressionlessly.

Only it was one of those S&Ls that went belly-up during the early eighties. That should have made the records disappear Reagan was in charge then, and there were a bunch of senators who were pals of the principals. Only it turned into a big enough scandal for a federal audit, because too many people lost their life savings, the media started screaming, and the politicians did what a raccoon does when his leg is caught in one of those steel traps. They chose survival.

Of course, those records are sealed. Very interesting cases, some of them. In one, the defendant was a personal friend of Senator John McCain. Didnt seem to help him much. Or hurt McCain, either, in fact. The judge was someone named Ito.

I said nothing.

The corporation youre interested in DrepTechDepth Drilling was opened with a cash deposit of thirty-five thousand dollars. A checkbook was issued by the bank. Only two checks were ever actually written, numbers 2077 and 2078, which means the checks were just pulled out at random.

The person who opened the account was one Lester T. Ambrose, a licensed private investigator in Nevada. Check number 2078 was made out to him.

Ambrose is well known to the local authorities. Suspected never arrested of a variety of offenses, from forging documents to wiretapping. Some divorce lawyers use him rather frequently.

I sat there, waiting.

Two days before the account was opened, the passenger manifest for TWA flight 609 from JFK to Las Vegas shows a Mr. James LeBrock in first class, seat 3B. On that same day, Mr. Ambrose rented a car, a 1997 Cadillac SLS, from Hertz. Both men stayed at the Aladdin that night. Each checked out the next day. You know the Aladdin, right? Its the hotel that was demolished in 1998, so the owners could build a brand-new one on the same spot.

I made a noise that could mean anything.

Mr. Ambrose did not rent the car under his own name. However, the credit card he used traces to a separate identity he had established and had in place for several years. Mr. LeBrock also booked his flight and his hotel stay to a credit card. A company credit card. And, although its bank account has long been closed, the company itself still exists. Its a closely held corporation whose stated purpose is real estate investment. The owner of all its shares is one Carlton John Reedy. Date of birth matches the one you gave us; Social Security number squares with his tax returns, home address is 

Son of a bitch, I said.

The kid took it as the statement of admiration I meant it as. The woman in the white lab coat turned to me, said, That is our part, do you understand?

I did. It wasnt the first time a beautiful woman had told me not to come back. Never again.

* * *

Isnt that enough? Claw asked.

We bet the Daily Double, Ace, the Prof answered for me. So far, we only bagged the first race.

The AB man gave him a look. Clarences hand flew to his chest he wasnt checking for a heartbeat.

Easy, son, the Prof reassured the young gunman at his side. My man digs our plan; he just wants the time to rhyme.

Claw gave the Prof another look. No mistaking this one: respect.

Remember what I told you before? I told the cancer-man. This is five-card stud, okay? Table stakes. And we only get to sit in for one hand. So weve got to come in holding so heavy that we dont get called behind what were already showing, make it so they dont want to make us show them our hole card.

Claw nodded his acceptance. He was a man used to waiting. Used to counting, too. And his chances were down to one.

* * *

I went your way, the Prof said, as soon as the AB man left. But I dont get the play.

What are you saying? I answered, signing to Max at the same time.

We think we already got enough in the tank to make major bank, Schoolboy? You thinking, let nature take its course, then 

You know I cant do that, Prof. I gave my word.

To Silver.

Yeah. To Silver.

Okay, so you not just waiting on that Double-H motherfucker to check out for us to score. But you still holding back, Jack. That other stuff you asked the Moles people to get

Yeah?

It could take fuck, I dont know months to set up a job like that. What could the cop shop have on a murder that old thats going to tie our three pigeons into it? They were never even suspects, right? Never questioned. So no statements. No searches. Nonothing.

Whatre we doing this for? I said. Not flipping the script, just enlarging the type.

This scene aint about nothing but green.

Yeah. One with three targets.

You want to be sure before you go for the cure, the man who raised me said. It wasnt a question.

Nobody ever paid, I admitted. Now some people want to get paid for that.

That little girl, she really put you back, didnt she, son?

I looked down at the table for an answer. Our last job had turned over rocks I hadnt even known existed. And shown me things Id never imagined underneath.

A child Id been paid to rescue from a pimp a long time ago turned out never to have been his victim at all. Even at her age, she had been playing the pimp, not the other way around. And Id returned her to the place where shed learned those tricks. Yeah, Id gotten paid for doing it. But what I was really looking for back then was payback. To me, the freaks are a tribe. Anytime I take one from Them, thats one for Us.

Beryl had been the little girls name. Twenty years later, a man hired me to find her again. Not her father this time: a sucker she had fleeced and released. He wanted me to find a woman he knew as Peta Bellingham, but as soon as I saw her picture I knew who she really was. What her real name had been, anyway.

A few minutes after hed hired me, the ripped-off sucker was taken out by a hunter-killer team. One so smooth and professional it was clear that they werent paid just for a hit this one was all about sending a message.

I figured Beryl was next. So I found her, even though there was no one left to pay me. Figured I couldI dont knowrescue her one more time. And this time for real.

But what I finally found was a predatory sociopath so twisted I wanted to stop her viperous heart.

I didnt do that. Instead, I fixed it for her to collect reparations in the only coin she wanted: vengeance. Then I bought a baby from her and gave it to a real woman.

Before Beryl came back into my life, I had dismissed my mother as a teenage whore who carried me until she went into labor, then hung around the hospital just long enough to pop me out and get back to work.

Me, I was a trick baby. Whoever had planted the seed that became me had wanted to fuck an underage girl, probably paid extra for it. Couldnt be any other way no pimp would ever let a moneymaker be out of circulation for that longespecially if his stable held only one horse.

But the pain of what Beryl shoved in my face opened my eyes to a possibility Id blocked with such perfection that only one truth had ever touched my core. Was my mother the whore Id always assumed she was? Or could she have been a hero, like Belles sister had been, giving up her own life to spare her childs? What if my bio-father was her father? What if she gave her baby the only chance he ever could have, and went on the run before the freak could start using her again?

Had I gotten that vasectomy when I was just a young man because, somewhere inside me, I knew?

Bad blood. That bad blood Belle always said was in her her big sister, the woman whod traded her life for Belles, had also been her mother.

When Id been tracking Beryl, Id gotten help from the woman Ive always loved. Wolfe. But shed given me my chance twice and Id fucked it up.

Another woman who told me, Dont come back. The one that hurt the most.

Wolfe had only helped me find Beryl because I swore to her that I was back to being the man she first met hunting the humans who prey on kids.

Over the years, Id slipped away from that. Too many times, Id found kids who didnt want to be saved. One was working in a low-rent whorehouse. I told her I thought runaways took off to find a better place. She said she had.

You ever wonder why so many working girls call their pimp Daddy?

I didnt bring that girl back, but the man whod hired me still paid for itjust not the way he figured on doing. I never did a legit piece of work in my life. Yes, if one of Them walked across my path, they wouldnt get to keep walking, but that wasnt what I was about anymore. It just seemed tohappen, sometimes.

The Prof knew. I didnt owe Melissa Turnbridge a thing. But I owed whoever didwhat they didto her. Yeah, I was going to get paid. Everyone was going to get paid.

But only my crew and Claw were guaranteed to be paid in cash. The others? Thats what I needed those old police files to decide.

* * *

I was just coming back from visiting a guy tall enough to dunk on Wilt and skinny enough to do it through the eye of a needle. That is, if his legs worked. He needed one of those two-handed walkers to get around, but his hands were as good as any surgeons.

I pulled into the chain-link cage behind the two-pump gas station that never seemed to have any fuel to sell. The Plymouth was now a resplendent shade of Mopars infamous Plum Crazy, instead of its usual urban camouflage, a mottled pattern of dull black and gray primer.

Thats what the guy I had visited wanted to show me. He had a way to apply a full-body decal to any car. Looked exactly like paint, even up close. It took him a while to put one on the less chrome to remove the better, and my Roadrunner was a perfect candidate but only a few minutes to peel it right off. Especially if you had help.

Think of it as a getaway drivers condom, he said, smiling with teeth so perfect they had to be replacements.

My plan was to test it for a couple of days, including running it through a car wash. If it worked, it was worth every dime the man was asking.

The new color didnt faze the three pit bulls ambling out of their own two-story condo. I dont know if dogs can see color, but I know they never rely on it. If they hadnt recognized me in whatever way dogs do, even the plastic tub of pulled-pork BBQ I brought with me wouldnt have distracted them from their job.

As usual, the old male got the first deep snarf of the goods. His humongous head plunged viciously, shook once, and then turned the concrete into a dinner plate. The two females went right for the booty, but one of them, an orca-spotted beauty Id been courting for a long time, gave me a look over her shoulder first. I made a come here gesture with one hand. She immediately trotted around me, deftly snatching the solid cube of steak I held out behind my back, without breaking stride.

After I slammed the three-pound padlock closed, I walked back to the flophouse. Darkness was down, and I wrapped it around me the way a rich mans mistress does her mink. It was mine, and Id paid what it cost to make it so.

The kids upstairs, boss, Gateman greeted me.

Alone?

Yeah, he said reluctantly. To Gateman, both Terry and Clarence were kids, but he only called Terry by that title, because Clarence was a fellow gunman. The naked unhappiness in his voice was because Terry had come without his mother Gatemans unrequited adoration of Michelle had never been expressed once he found out she was the Moles woman. Never expressed to her, that is.

Bad? I asked. Meaning: was Terry on the run? If hed been down here and got caught in a bad spot, this is where hed come. Getting past Gateman would be a hard job for a couple of pros, impossible for amateurs.

Nah, Gateman dismissed my worries. He had a message for you, said he had to deliver it in person.

Something happened to the Mole! flashed in my mind, but I let it go just as quick. That was the case, Terry would have been with Michelle, for sure.

Why didnt he wait down here with you, Gate?

Oh, he did, boss. Got here hours ago. We sent out for sandwiches and everything. But I had a little business to do, and I didnt think youd want

Youd make a good father, Gateman.

Probably would have made a good sprinter, too, the man in the wheelchair said.

I tapped fists with him, acknowledging his recital of the truth we all learn: you play what youre dealt.

Then I hit the stairs.

* * *

Hey, son, I greeted Terry as he looked up from his laptop.

Burke.

Gateman said you had a 

Dad needs to see you.

So why not just ?

Now, okay?

Do I need ?

Nothing. Meaning: No weapons. And come alone.

* * *

Nice ride, I told the kid. Im not a rice-burner man, but I could feel the Scion tC we were riding in had been major-league reworked, even if the boost gauge on the A-pillar hadnt tipped me off.

I had a big fight with Mom about it, he said, not quite smiling.

The only thing Michelle knows about cars is how good the leather on the seats is.

Not that. She wanted to buy it for me, and I wanted to pay for it myself.

She should have been proud of you.

She was. But she saidWell, you know how she gets.

Amen.

I told her she and Dad were already paying for college, and 

She reminded you that youre on a full scholarship, and youre not too big to forget you were raised to respect your 

Exactly. He sighed. She got kind of upset, Burke. I asked Dad. You know what he said, right?

I shrugged.

The kid burst into laughter. Yeah. That is what he said. I mean, hes not exactly afraid of Mom or anything, but

I know.

The kid handled the car expertly. I wondered whod taught him, maybe feeling a little hurt that he hadnt asked me. I knew it hadnt been the Mole; he drives like Ray Charles on Valium.

Burke?

What?

You know Mom. You maybe know her better than anyone.

Sure. Shes my kid sister.

Yes, he said, quiet and serious. Why did she get so worked up about the car? If its none of my business, okay. But dont tell me you dont know, okay?

If I still smoked I only do it now when I have to play a role that would have been one of those times when Id have reached for one. I took in a long, shallow breath. Let it out.

Youre pulling away, T.

From Mom?! Are you ?

No. Not from your mother. Or your father. From The Life, understand?

He turned and gave me a quick look.

Terry, you know where we all live, I said, treading softly. None of us are citizens. None of us are ever going to be. Its not that we picked our own paths; its that those paths crossed. Each one was our way out, and we cant go back. The Mole and Michelle, you know they dont want that for you.

But Id never 

Yeah, you will, I told him, straight to the heart, the way he deserved, from the uncle who loved him. You have to. We dont want another generation coming up with us. We live underground; we want you to live in the light. Whatever we teach you, its for just in case, okay? Not to earn a living.

They always saidsomething like that.

Not always, son. When they thought you were old enough to understand. Understand that the freaks who sold you are our blood-enemies; youre one of us now. And we never give up our own. But I didnt say that out loud, just: Its not so much about what they want from you; its about what they expect from you, see?

No, he said. But he wasnt telling the truth. Or just refusing to face it.

You dont change the world from underground, Terry. You dont cure cancer, or isolate the enzyme in mosquitoes that kills the malaria inside them, or figure out how to locate trauma paths in brain-wave patterns or 

People are already working on all that.

Cut it, kid. You know what I mean. Exactly what I mean. Can you even imagine what your father could have discovered ifif things had been different for him, earlier?

And if Mom 

Yeah.

You, too, Burke.

Me? Look, I was talking about 

You know what Dad once told me about you? He said you know more about people than any man he ever met. And that, if youd been a cop, no freak on earth would ever be safe.

Okay, I said quickly, trying for a nerve block.

But if Mom wants me to go 

She knows you have to go, Terry. She knows its right. Its hard for her todeal with sometimes, thats all.

Me, too, he said, setting his jaw.

As far as he knew, I never saw the teardrop track his cheek.

* * *

Terry slipped the metallic-ruby coupe inside the junkyard without a trace of drama. Walked through the dog pack like it was a fur-and-fangs turnstile, just like his father always does.

We walked the rest of the way. Found Simba sitting next to the Moles empty chair.

Ill wait here, Terry said.

I entered the Moles underground bunker, moved through the dark with the confidence of a blind man in his own house, turned the corner and there he was.

Sit, he said, as he turned from a table covered with tiny bottles and glass tubing.

I took the special chair Michelle had bought him for Fathers Day a few years ago. None of us ever celebrate our birthdays. We dont even acknowledge them. Except for the kids: Terrys, sure. Flowers, not an option. Max might let it slide; Immaculata might understand; even Flower would let it go. But Mama wouldwell, none of us were brave enough to find out.

The Mole dragged over the four-legged wooden stool he sat on whenever Michelle wasnt around.

My people, they want something.

Theyve got it, I said, knowing there was no other answer.

This was not expected, he said, almost apologetically. But those I know, they have the younger ones coming. To those, I am not so much a

I get it.

There is a traitor. An old man now. My people cannot touch him.

I cant speak Hebrew, but I can translate Mole. Some fools think the Rosenbergs were Communists. Or did whatever they tried to do for money. I guess youre not supposed to spy on your allies. I asked the Mole about that once. Ally? he said. You mean, like Saudi Arabia? So, when he said traitor, I knew he meant a man who had sold one of Israels citizen-spies to the federales.

He is a wealthy man, the Mole said.

Meaning: he could afford security. Nothing the Mossad murder-magicians couldnt penetrate, but they couldnt be connected. Or even suspected. This was a job for thugs, not spooks. Maybe a burglary gone bad?

He sold his daughter, the Mole said, controlling his voice with effort. If she is convicted, she will be sentenced to life in prison.

I looked a question over at him.

The Moles faded-denim eyes glistened behind his thick lenses. Somethingsomething I couldnt read.

If hes gone in the Grand Jury already, they can still use his testimony if hes unavailable at the time of trial, I told him.

The Mole nodded. Meaning: We know. And its not a problem.

You know I cant involve my own 

There is a budget, my demented genius brother said, softly.

They expect me to just go out and 

Do you remember a long time ago? you were looking for something you needed very badly? I took you to a house. We met a man. The agreement was that he would talk with you. Talk freely. But you could not hurt him.

I said nothing.

You wanted to hurt him. This was known. You gave your word this would not happen. But thepeople who made himavailable, they insisted I come with you.

I remember, I finally said.

You did nothing to him. But something happened to him. Later.

Scumbag like that, just a matter of time.

He was a very valuable asset. Some of my people, they have not forgotten.

Why are you telling me this?

Because what they want from you this time and this I swear is the opposite of what they required from you that last time.

I see.

No. No, you dont, Burke. I am saying to you what they want, it is something you want, too.

For real?

For everything, the Mole said, holding out his hand. Yes?

Yes, I answered, closing my hand over his.

He turned, grasped the handle of a metal file box, held it out to me.

I took it, and turned to leave.

Sei gesund, my brother said.

* * *

Fifty K? Gigi said. Thats 

The front money, I finished for him. Half.

For that kind of cash, youre looking to buy 

You may not have to do anything. Depends on what this guys got in place around him. Could be you just sit there and watch. Could be you have to take someone off the count.



Same pay either way?

Either way. What Im buying is what you cant get anymore.

Good help? the Godzilla said, chuckling.

Time-tested, I told him, speaking in the language only men like us understand by then, Gigi knew the whole story of my new face.

* * *

Im no good with guns anyway, Claw said.

I hadnt used any of the Moles budget to buy him in. Whether he believed me when I told him that I was trading the job we were going to do for the second half of what we needed to move on our targets, I dont know. But he believed me when I told him that, if I didnt get this one done, I couldnt do the one he needed.

Or wouldnt. From where he was sitting, same thing.

* * *

It took me three days and nights just to work through the stuff the Moles people supplied. Id never seen surveillance work like it. They had draftsmans-quality blueprints of everything, right down to the wiring of the apnea monitor; terrain maps; wiretap tapes; camera work telephoto to macro. Plus, CAD/CAM 3-Ds; the combination to the floor-mounted safe; and even a list of weapons the bodyguards carried. There were two of those, and they never left the place. Slept in shifts sometimes, but they were both always on the job when it got deep-dark.

You get the shooter, I told Claw. The karate guys yours, I said to Gigi.

I already got the car, the humongoid assured me. Motherfuckers put together like a jigsaw puzzle. We can leave it anywhere and walk. But we cant get stopped.

I nodded. We each had our own reasons, but none of us were going back Inside. If some trooper lit us up on our way back from this job, court was in session.

* * *

Cocksucker! Gigi cursed. Again. You didnt tell me this was gonna be no fucking cross-country trip, man.

Theres no dogs, inside or out, I said, softly, into the soft night. The old mans afraid of them. No fence, either. What do you want to do, drive up to the front door?

Claw never said a word. He wasnt even breathing hard.

* * *

The house was mostly dark. A few lights on, all on the first story. The key Id been given opened the back door. The security codes I punched in clicked.

Then we started working.

The bodyguards were in one of those great rooms, their eyes magneted to the gangbang porn playing on a wall-sized plasma screen. Claw had his spike deep in the shooters neck before the glazed-over slug could even touch leather, but the karate guy caught the peripheral flash and was out of his chair like a rocket, launching a kidney-killing side kick at Claws back. Gigi plucked him out of the air like a gorilla snatching a butterfly on the wing.

I went up the carpeted stairs, rubber-soled and plastic-gloved. A faint glow spilled from the room I wanted. I slipped inside. The old man saw me. I wasnt wearing a mask. He had to know what that meant, but he didnt move.

I knew what he was, right in that moment. The kind of human that would make lice jump off his skin and vultures refuse to eat his flesh.

I crossed to him. The rooms shadow shifted, darkness inside gloom. Before I could whirl, a heavy forearm wrapped around my neck like constrictor cable. Something slammed into the back of my thigh. I slid down, not resisting, trying to get my chin tucked while I still had time.

The choke artist came down with me, still locked on. Darkness was closing.

I thumbed my sleeve knife open and stabbed his cabled forearm deep, raking the serrated edge through muscle tissue. He made an ugly noise as his grip loosened. I slipped out, stepped back, sucked in a deep, ragged breath. The choke artist, a powerfully built black man, staggered to his feet, left arm limp at his side. I circled, buying time, hoping the knife would make him hold off long enough for me to get more air into my lungs.

But he knew, and he stepped right to me, firing a Shotokan right hand off his front foot. His balance was off enough for me to slip the punch, toss the knife to my left hand, and hook him to the liver with it. He made a sound I recognized as he went down.

Quick! rang in my head as I spun toward the old man. He still hadnt moved. Hadnt reached for a phone or a panic button. Just kept staring at a portfolio-sized display case, standing open on a shelf. Inside were dozens of tiny compartments, mirror-backed.

I warned that filthy little cunt, he said, rheumy eyes blazing with righteous conviction.

His last words.

I heard a crack-snap noise behind me. Spun again, weaponless. But it was just Gigi, making sure the bodyguard the Moles friends hadnt known about wasnt going to bleed out.

* * *

We ransacked the place like amateurs on angel dust. Grabbed all the loose cash, cleaned out the medicine cabinet, chopped off the shooters ring finger, and left it there some TV-trained cop would spend a lot of time checking pawnshops for a ring that had never existed.

But the prize was the display case: constructed of what looked like Hawaiian koa wood, it folded into the size of an artists portfolio. The intricate fastening clamps were gold. I saw the OCR-font printout from one of the pages the Mole had given me as clearly as if it was projected on the wall:

Among certain individuals, it is well known that Target possesses these items. They were created a minimum of two hundred years ago, each of handcrafted ivory. One of a kind, every one. Unduplicatable. Literally priceless, but could never be sold openly. The security Target employs is to protect his treasure, not his person.

I couldnt stop myself from looking before I closed the case. Each tiny figurine was really two: an adult male and a girl child. I wished the craftsman whose magic hands had created such intricate, complex scenes on such a small scale was still alive. So I could take my own trophy.

While I was doing the hophead-burglar thing opening the chest of drawers starting at the top, then turning each one upside down Claw was razor-slitting a bunch of cushions, the way you do when youre looking for a hidden stash and dont have much time. He made sure to take the shooters piece looked like a Sig P210, way too expensive for junkies to pass up, even with the serial number showing and empty everyones wallets. He even snatched the karate guys G-Shock watch and platinum neck chain.

Gigi just wrecked everything, including a Sub-Zero that it should have taken two men even to move, much less turn over.

We went out the way we came in. Standing outside, Gigi kicked in the back door, then smashed the wall next to the security box with a brass-knuckled fist. Claw immediately reached in and cut the wires.

Then we split for real, leaving enough clues to keep crime-scene techs busy for months. Every meth-head within fifty miles was in deep trouble.

Back at the car, we all stripped, tossing everything wed been wearing into a thick canvas bag. I tied it at the top, wrapping the wire around one of the Moles little boxes and put it in the trunk. Anyone who tried to open that bag before it got to the crematorium would destroy a lot more than evidence.

Wed gone in double-sheathed; all our prints were in the system. But wed also splattered some random DNA carried in baggies, emptied by hands covered in surgeons gloves in a few spots.

For cops, the only thing worse than no clues is too many.

* * *

Gigi dropped Claw at a subway on the West Side. Dropped me on a corner in Chinatown.

Its mine from here, he said. This meaning the car is a big fucking paperweight in a couple of hours.

Wed already divided up the cash equal shares. Everything else went into another bag for the Disposal Three-Step: cremation; sledgehammer; then the river. The collection was going to stay inside the paperweight. I trusted Gigi to handle that part. He was a stand-up con, and he wouldnt back-deal a partner. Plus, even if he looked, hed know hed have to reach way out to sell something like that. But trust only goes so far Id spent the return trip sitting in the backseat, carefully using a pair of needle-nose pliers to crush each of the figurines into ivory dust.

* * *

I didnt need to get word to the Mole; it was all over the papers. TV, radio, Internet. Every media outlet had a different version of what happened. Every expert had a different guess as to why: cults, criminals, or crazos. The cops were still evaluating the evidence. Too bad the maniacs probably flying on speed, one genius solemnly intoned had busted up all the computers. I mean, thats the first thing you check, right?

* * *

Call for you, Mama said.

I got up from my booth, picked up the phone, said, What?

Its Bishop, man.

Sorry. You must have the wrong number.

Hey! You havent even heard my 

I hung up on him. Bishop was a menace. Not to society, to any thief who went near one of his ideas. He was a lifelong failure the kind of guy you usually have to pass through a metal-detector to visit. The hapless fool never falls hard small-time all the way; no violence, ever but with Bishop, falling is such a guarantee that the Prof calls him Gravity.

Id met him on Rikers a long time ago. I was being held for trial a trial that never happened, when a pimp whod taken a bullet developed a medical complication: loss of memory. Bishop, he was doing ninety days becausewell, because of what he was. A softhearted judge had let him off with probation and restitution on his last job. He paid the restitution immediatelywith a rubber check. Bishop was the kind of master planner who could always figure out how to come out on the bottom.

Hes supposed to be so smart, I said to the Prof once. I mean, hes got, like, a Ph.D. or something, right?

Why you think they call a diploma a sheepskin, son?

I dont get it.

A real teacher, he wants the ones he teaches to be better than he is. Smarter, sharper, slicker. Wants them to rise, okay? But all they teach those poor kids in college is rinse-and-repeat, see? Thats cause those teachers, theyre the kind of punks who stay up by keeping folks down. And theyve got lifetime gigs doing it.

So college, its a waste of time?

It dont have to be. Its like the Good Book, he said, switching from Professor to Prophet. You got to read the book itself, not the book reviews, see? A teachers like a fighter got to bring some to get some. When they cant bring it, they just sing it. And most of those kids going to school, all they ever learn is to just sing along. Memorize the words, so they can spit them back out. Hows that gonna make you smarter?

So a guy like Bishop?

Oh, hes smart for real. But the motherfuckers radioactive, son. Dealing with him, its like swimming in the swamp. You might pull it off once, but you try it too many times, something in theres going to pull you down. You see that man coming, you cross the street, hear?

I never went to college, but I never forget what Ive been taught. Any of it.

I dont forget the people who taught me, either. Any of them.

* * *

I walked through the shadows, sadness-shrouded by how at home I felt there. And how I could heat this whole city in the middle of winter with the flames from all the bridges Ive burned.

My car was where it was supposed to be. So were the pits. This time, I was carrying top-quality tribute: a massive T-bone. The male and one of the females each took a bite and played tug until a slab came loose for each. My orca girl took a fat cube of filet mignon from behind my back.

I drove my purple Plymouth to the badlands, stripped off its condom inside the chain-link as Simba came over to keep me company. I couldnt just slog though the pack the way the Mole or Terry did I needed the old warrior to walk point.

The Mole had us on visual all the way. He was waiting outside. We both followed him down me to his Fathers Day chair, Simba to the gorgeous sable coat Michelle had abandoned after deciding that wearing fur was a badge of low character. It was Simbas curl-up spot now.

Nu?

You know its done, I said.

Not that. Was I right? Meaning, was killing that piece of filth something I would have wanted to do, even if I didnt have to?

Or?

Or what?

Or are you checking to see if your own people lied to you?

I already know.

How?

I can feel it coming off you. So can Simba.

The beast made a throaty sound. I took it for recognition of his name; the Mole took it for agreement.

He was 

I know, he cut me off.

So his daughter 

Yes, the Mole said. There is what you wanted.

I followed his stubby finger to the corner where it was pointed. Six more metal file cases, with carrying handles. Duplicates of the one he had given me originally.

The deal was for just this one 

Yes, yes, he said. Those boxes are not anotherjob. They are what you wanted.

I met his eyes. Saw the truth.

You had the stuff all the time, I said. Not an accusation, saying aloud what I just realized.

I was trusted, he said. Three words a thousand meanings.

* * *

If the pits noticed that my Plymouth had been restored to its night-blending color scheme, I couldnt see it on their faces. I had stopped by the flophouse first. No way I was going to tie up both hands trying to carry all those file boxes through the route I had to take. Or make six trips, either.

By the time I got back, Max was sitting with Gateman. He took two boxes in each hand. I followed him up the stairs.

We sat down at the poker table. Max spread his arms in an Is that all of it? gesture.

Thats what they say, I told him.

* * *

It took the Prof and Clarence almost two hours to show up. By then, Max and I had figured out that every single piece of paper in the file boxes was a copy, even the color photos. I was guessing Xerox didnt make whatever the Moles people had used for the job.

Motherfucker! the Prof burst out, when he saw the mountain. Whatd those fools do, rob a paper factory?

Its all on the case, I said. I dont know how much work they really put in, dont know how much of this is just cops playing CYA, but its all on Melissa Turnbridge, Prof.

So youre saying, if were not gonna cheat, we gotta check every fucking sheet?

I didnt even answer him. The reason so few crimes actually get solved if you dont count informants, or fools who dont clean up after themselves is because of prejudice. Not black-white kind of prejudice thats what pins crimes on the wrong man, sure, but thats not what muddies the water if youre really looking for answers. I mean the kind of prejudice that makes the investigator start with a bent mind.

Psychologists call that cognitive distortion. You view the world through a prism, refracting the images to fit your needs. Thats how freaks resolve their internal dissonance. They know sodomizing a baby is nothing but pain and terror for the victim. But not having a conscience doesnt mean you dont know right from wrong; it just means you dont let stuff like that get in the way of your fun. Or, more likely, the pain is the fun.

The treatment community believes this means the thought process of child-molesters is distorted. Baby-rapers dont see a victim being used; they see a child being loved. And all children want love, dont they? Isnt love good for them?

For decades, theyve been building sex-offender treatment on the foundation of this quicksand: If we can just alter the poor mans cognitive distortions, we can change his behavior. The treatment twits arent wrong about cognitive distortion they just dont understand that theyre the ones who have it.

The whole concept was probably a deliberate plant, suggested to a therapist who believed some freak had achieved insight. The therapist repeats it, like a trained parrot, only he calls it a discovery. Eventually, repeat-and-believe becomes the formula, and, before long, theres a whole new industry springing up.

The pipeline opens, and the money flows. Politicians pass the right laws, judges do the right thing, and the right people get treatment.

Its the perfect scam, because people want it to be true.

I just read this test some researchers conducted. Ah, it was a beaut. The researchers didnt care about sex-offender treatment; their field was statistical measurement, and they wanted to know what sort of factors might affect results. So they asked this whole group of imprisoned baby-rapers who had been placed in a treatment unit a series of questions. The first job was to measure the percentage who reported cognitive distortions concerning sex with children. Amazingly, virtually all of them did.

Then what the researchers did was to tell the subjects that they were all going to be given the same set of questionnaires again, only this time they would be polygraphed to see how many had been truthful. And the only thing that would be disclosed to the Parole Board was whether they lied or told the truth.

Get it? Maybe you dont, but the freaks sure did.

They passed the polygraph at an astounding rate. Nearly every one of them was absolutely truthful. That time, only a couple of them probably the ones with the lowest IQs still reported cognitive distortions. Baby-rapers only lie when theres something in it for them.

Actually, the whole polygraph thing had been a fraud. The researchers were interested in validity-reliability methods, not sex offenders. The real test was to see if people changed their answers when they had something to gain by telling the truth.

And it sure told the truth about the whole cognitive distortion game.

Sex-offender treatment is like performing an exorcism on an atheist.

Making assumptions is the same as volunteering to be stupid. When I investigate, Im never invested. Im looking for whatever the truth is, because thats the only combination that will open the safe I need to crack.

Put in the time you can, I told them. We wont ever finish this in one shot. Everybody just come and go when you need to, okay?

Max stood up. Sat down again. Made gestures of a man rowing the arms of his chair.

Youre right, I said. No reason Gateman cant help with this. Even Terry, if we can slip around 

You bring her boy into this mess, his mommall set fire to your chest, Schoolboy. And put it out with an ice pick.

Hes just at the research end, Prof. No way he goes past that, okay?

I could send him documents, Clarence said. Over the 

No, I cut that off. Nothing leaves this building except by way of the smokestack.

The way the Moles ancestors had. The thought ripped into my mind like a supercharged chainsaw, shredding the resentment Id been nursing. His shadowy friends had made me take some life-or-death risks, sure. But they played for the same stakes, every day. Where would I draw the line if I thought someone was trying to exterminate my whole family? When it comes to fighting off genocide, theres no rules.

* * *

What are we looking for, boss?

I cant say, Gate. Something thats not right.

Whole motherfucking things not right, he said, his eyes as cold as the custom 9mm semi-auto that he carried the same way an artist would carry a paintbrush. Youre thinking what? the blue boys got paid?

That plan wont scan, the Prof cast his veto. Sure, a badge aint nothing but a license to steal, but something like this, theres too many to pay to make them all stay away.

Max made the sign of a man writing something in a notepad, looked up, cocked his head as if listening, wrote some more.

Sure, I agreed. Reporters had to be all over this one, too.

Yes, mahn, Clarence confirmed, looking up from his computer screen. The coverage was all very critical; the police took a lot of heat for this.

Dont forget the reward, Terry added.

I nodded in his direction. A hundred grand the girls parents put up. Thirty years ago, that was enough to shake every tree in the forest.

Max rubbed his first two fingers and thumb together, then shook his head disdainfully.

The dragon pulls the wagon, the Prof said, pointing his finger at Max as if acknowledging a major contribution to a big score. The Max-mans clue is true. Any of their fathers had even tried a bribe, their kid wouldve ended up taking a ride.

Youre saying the cops really went after it? Gateman said, skeptically.

I think they did. Come on, bro: would the locals ever call in the Feebs if they werent desperate? Its the same as admitting they dont have what it takes.

FBI made the scene?

Yes, Father, Clarence answered. Many of the later news accounts refer to them, some by name.

So whatre we looking for? Gateman asked, again.

See this? I said, pointing to the transcript of my conversation with Thornton. Everyone had a copy. It should match. Well, not match, but not be I paused, trying to put words to the pattern-recognition software that keeps people like us alive. And makes us the best hunters on the planet. Look, youre rolling down the street, I told them, signing for Max as I spoke. Somethings justwrong, okay? Somedisturbance in the visuals. Nothing major. Wrong posture on the guy near the lamppost. Wrong jacket for this time of the year. A flash of color youve seen somewhere before, earlier that same day, in another part of town. This isnt like when a hawks in the sky and all the animals go quiet and still. Citizens wont ever see it. But we will.

Like when a guy hits the yard walking robot?

The Prof was talking about how a man who expects to be facing a blade will wrap himself with layers of newspaper under his jacket. Maybe not thick enough to turn a shank, but enough to stop it from getting all the way in.

Just like that, I confirmed. Something that draws your eye, tells you somethings off. Yeah?

The Prof nodded. Max and Gateman, too. Clarence was a lot younger, but hed come up as a gunman, and he got it, too. For Terry, it was a theorem, not an experience. Still, he had his fathers mind and his mothers soul I knew hed find his way to the same place. I didnt want to tap any trigger-point in his past, but I couldnt pretend it was anything other than what it was.

Even though we all wanted him to walk a different path, we knew he might someday need what we could teach him.

* * *

I took the subway to a three-bedroom, two-bath rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side. It was occupied by an elderly lady with half a dozen diseases ravaging her wasted body. She didnt have long, and she knew it.

Death didnt scare her, but she wasnt the type to hoard her pain pills, either. She knew, the second she checked out, the rent would rocket from $595 to maybe four grand, minimum. And thats if the owner didnt improve the unit, upping it even more.

The buildings owner would end up as swine-swollen as a CEO treating his boys to a night in an upscale strip club to celebrate the companys latest creative-accounting triumph. Nothing like glancing over a glass of sucker-priced champagne to convince yourself its your raging testosterone thats attracting such a cooing herd of for-sale flesh to your table.

But this pig had a problem the old ladys nephew. He occupied two of the bedrooms. And because shed adopted him when he was nine, hed inherit the right to keep occupying the placeat the rent-control price.

The nephew was around thirty years old. What his parents had done to him had bent his neurons and snapped his synapses. He had an incomprehensible mind, a one-occupant world of torture, degradation, and horror.

He never left the apartment.

He never had guests.

His brain didnt register the past. He thought hed been born when puberty struck, and the warp opened.

But his aunts mind was still as clear as Bushs agenda.

And she never forgot.

So when she gasped out, Theodore, this man is very special to me. You must do whatever he asks, between hits of oxygen, all the damaged boy said was Yes, Auntie.

While he was waiting for me in his rooms, I again swore to the old lady that my lawyer a bull elephant named Davidson had the battle plan against the landlord all mapped out, and was looking forward to it. Her nephew was always going to have his home.

Ill be watching, the old lady said.

I believed her.

* * *

I hate what they do to animals, the nephew said. A demon-eyed wraith, he had a voice that was pure Aspergers, utterly devoid of emotion. Do you?

Yes, I said, knowing theres always a toll.

What do you hate?

Zoos.

All zoos?

I told him about my idea for virtual zoos. He nodded, bored. Not because the idea was so simple, but because his idea of protecting animals was to eliminate humans. He held his misshapen head in his hands for a minute, then looked up at me.

You know those games where you can buy points from other players?

I dont think so.

Online, he said, as if that explained everything. His fractured-iris eyes searched mine, instantly registered my level of knowledge, readjusted. Some of the games have thousands of players, all over the world. If youre good, if you have skills, you can acquire different things. Like weapons, for example. Or maps to where they might be. You can sell these to other players, I mean. For actual cash. So if you spend money, you increase your chances of winning.

I get it.

Im designing a game. Right here, he said, pointing to a computer housed inside a transparent casing full of vibrantly colored wires. In my game, the prize if you can get it is that you can destroy it all.

The game?

Yes. People spend an incalculable number of hours playing. Its kind of like The Sims, but what you do impacts the other players. If you can get enough points, you get to take the whole game down. It could take years to do it, but all those people, all they invested, it would be gone. Not just the money, everything.

But if the players knew something like that could happen, why would they ?

He gave me a look of profound pity.

* * *

You want a poison pill, the nephew finally said, a couple of hours later. He had been listening to me, asking questions, listening some more. He was never impatient, never annoyed. I meant less than a cockroach to him, but when his auntie told him to do something, the one pipeline to humanity still inside him opened. Hed kill a planet to hear her say, Thank you, Theodore. Youre such a good boy.

Whats a ? I asked.

Never mind. See this? He held up a thin, rectangular piece of metal. Its disguised to look like a memory stick. Plugs into any USB port. All you have to do is insert it before you boot up the machine, and it recodes everything inside.

What good would that do?

You know what the Enigma Machine was?

Yeah. It was 

This is a thousand times more sophisticated. A team of top cryptographers couldnt hope to crack it. Even a mainframe would fry its circuits trying.

But you could read it?

Yes, he said, the way a polite person talks to a retardate.

Could you make one that restores, too? So I could plug that one in, turn the whole hard drive into gibberish, then plug in the other and make it good again. Like the antidote for the poison?

Yes. He sighed, as patient as Einstein explaining long division.

* * *

Why did you design it in the first place? I asked him. Id long since gotten what Id come for, but I didnt want to disengage too abruptly. When you find yourself too close to a land mine, you back away very, very slowly.

To hurt things, he said, as if that was the only sensible answer to any question.

Satan must have been burning up in frustration that the nephew never left the apartment. If that mutated-by-terror maniac ever played his games with real people, hed make Ted Bundy look like the Dalai Lama.

* * *

Was Theodore helpful?

Yes, maam. Very helpful.

Its not his fault, the old lady said.

I know.

Will you come back? And visit, sometime?

Of course, I lied.

You are a good man, she lied right back.

* * *

I thought about her nephew on the way back to the subway. I guess there had always been creatures like him, but technology seems to have changed the game. Its cool to be cruel now. Some human puke who thinks hes cutting edge makes a video of puppies being doused with gasoline and incinerated. Putting that video on the Internet for all to admire is about what youd expect from a maggot like that. But when people actually pay to download it, I wish I could get them all together and show them what cutting edge means to some of us.

On the side of a building, someone had sprayed DAM in huge yellow letters. To make sure the droll cleverness of the multimedia artiste was fully appreciated, Mothers Against Dyslexia was written out beneath it.

* * *

I dont think we can wait, I told the Prof late that night. We were in my Plymouth, parked at the end of a prostie stroll just a few blocks east of the Hudson. The real-estate agents call the area Clinton. Whos going to want to pay seven figures for a bare loft in a neighborhood called Hells Kitchen? Thats why theres no Lower East Side anymore. And whys theres a TriBeCa, and a SoHo.

But the name game isnt just for the real-estate pushers. The Bureau of Child Welfare calls itself the Administration for Childrens Services now. Of course, it still pays its workers a ton less for dealing with humans who treat their children like garbage than the sanitation engineers who empty the cans people leave at the curb.

In this city, the agencies copy the criminals: when theres too much heat, they just switch to an alias.

Dannemora used to be the states worst place to do time, a max joint so far north you could walk to Canada. That icebox was so synonymous with extreme isolation that we called it Little Siberia. Its still there, still doing what it always does. Only now they call it Clinton, just like the neighborhood. But this ones never going to be gentrified.

You the one behind the wheel, the little man said, mildly.

Yeah. I know. I wanted to

Right. You looking for truth, but all we really need is proof. This scheme is for the green, Schoolboy.

That check?

You got two packages from the Mole. That first one leaves us holding the gun. The other

Youre saying, what difference?

Dead is dead. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Whatever that little girl was, she wasnt one of us.

I cant just scam my way past all the barriers that a guy like that 

Theres three of them.

But we only have that one check, Prof. Besides, if it happened like that Thornton scumbag says it did, hows the one guy not going to reach out for the others? I dont care how rich he is, why should he pay the whole thing himself?

You mean the money?

What else?

The little man didnt say anything. To him, I was a pane of glass, and he always carried a bottle of Windex.

* * *

The girl who poked her round, sweaty face into the side window of my Plymouth might have been sixteen under that amateur paint job. Maybe.

You look like a man who wants a date, she sex-whispered.

Get your ass around this side, the Prof snarled, speaking across my chest, jerking his thumb as a summons.

I watched her as she passed by the windshield. Cheap white halter top over cheaper red satin hot pants, baby fat jiggling. About as sexy as watching a drunk vomit on a curb.

Hey! she blurted out when she saw the Prof. How old are you, anyway?

Old enough to be your father, the little man shot back. Young enough to be your daddy, tooif I was enough of a two-bit simp to be running some R. Kelly bait like you.

Hey! Im 

I know what you are, the Prof said, letting another organ-stop into his voice, shifting into a reach-out. You some little child who ran away, got pulled by a punk who talked a lot of junk, and now you think you gonna be a star.

Youve got it 

My song aint wrong, he dismissed her. They all the same, child. They charm you; then they harm you.

Tway-Z isnt 

He isnt nothing. And thats what you are to him, child. You nothing but a piece of toilet paper to that slimy little snake.

I make  she started to say, defensively.

What you make aint the same as what you take, you dumbass little bitch. What you keep is what counts. Please dont tell me how some faggot motherfucker is taking care of you, either. You see this? he said, holding up a thick wad of bills, fanning it so she could see nothing but hundreds. You want some?

She licked her lips, on home ground now.

Sure, Daddy.

Ill give you two yards for an hour.

I usually get 

You usually get a twenty to suck some strangers cock, maybe a little extra if you take it without a rubber, the Prof cut off her lie before she could finish it. You hear me? Some stranger. Could be a psycho with a straight razor in his pocket, could be a freak with AIDS who wants to take a whole bunch of little whores with him when he goes. Could be anybody, ready to do anything; what do you know? You aint no escort, bitch. You aint got no security, no protection, no nothing. Remember that word: nothing. Thats your real name.

Her face twisted. The Prof grabbed her wrist. You want money? Ill give you the two bills for an hour of your time, and you dont have to give up nothing.

What do you mean? Scared for real now.

Theres a place. In the Village. We drive you there. You talk to the lady inside. One hour. Then you do whatever you want.

I dont She looked over her shoulder, breathing hard.

You think your man is out there, watching your back? the Prof sneered. You think, we wanted to snatch you, you wouldnt already be snatched? You got a panic button? Nah, you dont even know what one is. Your man aint a man at all. Look, bitch, Im not trying to pull you; Im trying to pull your coat, get it?

* * *

It took longer than it usually does, but she finally climbed in the backseat, holding the Profs two hundred in both hands, like a cross to ward off vampires.

We dropped her off. If the program could talk her into staying, Tway-Z was going to be one girl shortwhich should empty his stable. If not, we could find her again.

And then she would lead us to what Im always looking for.

* * *

Michelle was dressing me for my frontal assault on Reedy when her cell phone trilled.

Thats 

I know, honey, I said, shrugging off her apologetic face.

She stepped out of the room to take the call. When she came back, I read her heightened color like it was Caller ID.

You have to ?

Not untillater. And I can get Terry to come and pick me up, baby. Dont fuss.

In all the years since they first connected, this was the first time the Mole had ever called that Michelle hadnt asked hell, demanded that I get her out to his place, personally and pronto.

I let it go. She tossed a fifteen-hundred-dollar suit into the corner like it was a dust rag, yammering, Classic doesnt mean ancient, you idiot.

I wasnt enough of an idiot to say anything.

And we cant have tomorrows look, either, she rolled on. Youre supposed to be?

A problem-solver.

Yes. But not a thug. And not a con man, either. What we want to show is expertise, understand?

I didnt say anything. What would be the point?

Not just expertise, successful expertise. Youre not some criminal who stumbled across a piece of information in a bar. Youre a professional. A spider, at the center of a web. When the web trembles, you know youve got something, so you go and take a look. Most of the time, its garbage. But when its gold, you know the spot price. The going rate.

So what were after is dignified, baby. Not mortician-dignified, okay? Calm, self-assured, confident.

You can dress to be that?

Oh, you can dress to be anything, my little sister said, dismissing any argument with an airy wave of her hand. But the best that does is get you in the door. After that

I took a deep breath.

And nobodys better at it than you, baby, she said, fiercely. Nobody.

* * *

My wheels dressed the part, too. The graphite Mercedes E500 sedan was a generic in the parking lot of the bronze glass building, which only a discreet brass plaque identified as the home of QuisitionDevelOp Enterprises, LLC.

The security guard at the green-veined black marble desk had the resentfully dull eyes of a retired cop who hadnt quite gotten used to the idea that his authority had been handed in with his badge. His eyes took me in, figured me for someone it wouldnt be a safe idea to get all TV-show with. I might have a mug-shot face, but Michelle was right the outfit spoke louder. To this fool, anyway.

Sir?

Im here to see Mr. Reedy.

And you are ?

My name is Thornton, I said, smiling. And, no, Mr. Reedy is not expecting me. Im an old friend. I was in the area, and thought Id take a shot at inviting him to lunch.

Im not sure hes even in the building, sir. Im sure you understand 

That Mr. Reedy uses a private entrance? Or that theres a helipad on the roof? I cut him off, smiling again.

You got that right. He chuckled. Well, let me call up and see.

I stepped back, deliberately showing respect for the delicacy of his position. He was on the phone for way longer than he should have taken.

Yeah, he said, gesturing for me to approach. Just like I figured. Mr. Reedys not in. In fact, hes not even in the country at the moment. If you want to leave your card, though, Ill make sure they 

I was already handing him a card. Delicately engraved on off-white vellum, it identified me as:

Donald R. C. Thornton

Nothing else was on the card except a 212 number in the lower left-hand corner, and By Appointment Only in the lower right.

* * *

I knew they had me on video from the time I walked in the door, but didnt expect the black Dodge Magnum wagon to be in my rearview mirror so quick.

I drove like I had no idea I was being followed. Motored sedately down to Bronxville, where I used the Moles code-grabber to remote-open the door to a three-car attached garage standing a covered archways distance from a fieldstone home whose owner was at work. His wife and kids were visiting her mother in Pepper Pike, Ohio he was going to join them that weekend.

I went out the open back window of the garage, drab green mechanics coveralls over my suit. The stage actors cheek-altering clay, black mustache, and red-rose tattoo decal on my right hand were all sitting in my pocket.

Michelle would turn my hair back to its natural steel gray from the jet black theyd have on their videotape, and cut it, too. Id be three inches shorter without the lifts. And a good long soak would remove the acetate from the pads of my fingers and thumbs.

I was through a short patch of woods half an acre was a big piece of property in that neighborhood and into the Honda EV while the two guys in the Magnum were still waiting for instructions.

The electric car didnt make a sound as I moved off. Thats me: green is what I live for.

I dont know how the guy who owned the house was going to explain the stolen Mercedes in his garage to the men who would be coming to call, but I knew he could pass a polygraph that it was all a mystery to him.

* * *

I left the Honda in an underground garage just over the border, keys in the ignition. I exited via the freight elevator to the loading dock. The Roadrunner now a bilious yellow with Mopar-heresy red bumblebee stripes around its rear end was waiting.

The Honda was probably gone before I was; that place is always full of thieves. Max had been waiting within striking distance, but it took Clarence a couple of minutes to come down from the roof.

I dropped them both off at the flophouse first, not wanting to introduce the dogs to strangers. The pits enjoyed the random assortment of deli sandwiches I tossed out. As I was converting the Roadrunner back to its original camouflage, the orca-blotched female sat next to mepretty close.

Shed already had her special bribe, so I didnt think this was about food. The battle-scarred male watched as I knelt and cooed to the girl, but he didnt move.

The distance between us shrank as she approached, bouncing in the way pits do when theyre making up their minds. When she got close enough to nail me, I risked a gentle pat on her wedge of a skull. She sat, as if in response to a command. I scratched her behind the right ear.

Youre a beautiful girl, I said, softly.

She gave me a look, then trotted away to join the others.

* * *

Fucking amateur probably got the marks guard up, the Prof said when Id run down the past few hours. Tapping that baby-killer like he was a fucking maple tree.

I do not understand, Clarence said, his face alive not from puzzlement, but with the joy of learning something from his father.

Blackmail is a one-stop shop, the little man told him. Hit and run, son. One jack, and you never go back. Even if the well aint dry, you still fly, understand?

So because thisperson kept going back to him, over and over again?

Could just be corporate, I said. Whos got the kind of serious money our guys holding without putting some protection in place? Figure he hears the name the one I used with the security guy in front and he grabs me on video, live feed. Doesnt recognize me, but he knows Im not Thornton, so he figures he better find out who that weasel may have sold him to. Good luck with that.

Sure, the Prof said, sourly. But it didnt get us in the door.

Hes got the card I left. When the trace goes dead, hows he not going to call? A man like him, information is plutonium. Worth a fortune in the right hands, blow you off the planet in the wrong ones.

Max held up three fingers. Pulled the middle one back toward his palm.

Yeah, I agreed. Theres still two left, but Reedys the only guy we can actually connect to Thornton. Besides, hes probably already gotten word to the others.

And if he dont call?

I dont have a Plan B, Prof. But that doesnt mean we cant 

One of the cloned cell phones I keep in individual charging cradles made a sound I recognized. I walked into another room, pulled it loose and opened the channel. Said, Uh, which is all anyone was going to get until I knew who I was talking to.

You get more Paleo every day. Michelle, her voice even waspier than her waist.

Huh?

Well, it must have not come off, or I know you would have requested my presence by now.

Yeah, I admitted.

Im sorry, baby. But theres more than one 

Yeah, I said, again. I know my little sister loves me, but some things you just dont need to hear more than once.

* * *

Theres parts of Chicago Ive always loved, ever since the first time I went there. Just a kid, picking up a package for some guys in Brooklyn. Had to go to this fleabag hotel in Uptown they called it Hillbilly Harlem then and wait for a man with a blue-and-yellow flight bag. They said hed be there between ten and noon, but couldnt be sure what day hed show. The nights were mine.

I was so young and dumb then. Hell, Id once taped a plastic bottle to the front end of a revolver and thought I had a silencer. Now, when I have to work quiet, I use one of Clarences custom-built semi-autos, the magazine packed with hand-loaded poison tips, the casings cast to luminesce in the dark, so I can pick up my brass without a flashlight.

I didnt know Chicago, but I didnt want to be inside that dirty little room at night, so I roamed.

The blues bars of Chicago in the sixties were merciless. Anyone who thinks Darwin got it wrong should have been there, down in the crucible. If you wanted to try, you looked for a nod from the leader, climbed up on the tiny little stage, plugged in, and took your shot.

If you could bring it, theyd let you know. If you couldnt, you had to go.

Good enough was never good enough in those joints. Either you killed the crowd, or the crowd killed you. For every Buddy Guy, the West Side produced a thousand who didnt make the cut.

Magic Sam wasnt a stage name; it was a title, earned in the ring. I dont mean some two-bit belt, handed out like a rigged-bid contract by one of those licensed-to-steal sanctioning bodies who rule boxing today. No, Magic Sam won his title in matches where the crowd picks the winners.

His signature song was Sweet Home Chicago. A Robert Johnson original, transplanted but still rooted in Delta soil. Like Sam himself. But I Found a New Love was always my favorite.

I loved the citys architecture, too. Supposedly, the whole town is built of stone because no wood construction was allowed after the Great Fire. But the first time I saw the Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side, I saw the future of America. Miles of housing project, sixteen stories high, overlooking the Dan Ryan Expressway, the outside walkways covered in chicken wire so the inmates could look out from their cages on the world passing them by. It became its own world. Gangland. Just like the planners planned.

The Robert Taylor Homes are gone now. The inmates have been relocatedto where they were intended to spend their adult lives since birth.

This time, I could have driven its only about a twelve-hour trip, with all kinds of disinterested motels between Ohio and Indiana.

But this was a hit-and-run. Id sent a message and given it a few days to work its way through to the guy I asked to do something for me. I knew better than to think hed talk on any phone. All I needed was five minutes with him, alone. Plus, I owed Claw some speed after he did the job inside the rich old freaks house on just my word.

OHare is famous for a lot of things, but on-time landings isnt one of them. I walked through the terminals glowing tunnels on my way to the CTA line. That was another reason I hadnt driven: where I was going, I wouldnt need a car. Paper is a fingerprint you cant go through life without touching anything, but you avoid it whenever you get the chance.

As I approached the airport exit, a young woman came toward me, towing one of those wheeled suitcases behind her. As we passed each other, she smiled. Not flirting an anxiety reaction to any man who looked like me. A momentary please dont hurt me flash in her too-wide eyes.

I knew some humans who would get aroused by that look. Just as the Prof knew the truth about why Id come all this way just to draw to a gut-shot straight.

* * *

The receptionist took the name we agreed I was always going to use, said, Someone will be out to get you in a minute, sir.

The someone was wearing a skirt tighter than spray paint and four-inch strappy stilettos instead of business pumps. She walked ahead of me, letting me know that the man I was there to see was getting his moneys worth. And that he hadnt learned anything from the last time he did.

Id had to clean up that mess for him that was the favor he owed me.

I could only get something off the radar on one of them, was his greeting. He didnt get up from behind his free-form desk, or offer to shake hands. Didnt even invite me to have a seat.

I watched his eyes.

He looked away from mine.

Reggie Bender is leveraged.

I made a So? gesture.

Yeah, he said. Doesnt mean anything, all by itself. But hes got some very heavy plays going in nonprecious metals. And he borrowed against his own holdings to go that deep. If copper jumps, hes in mega-bucks. If it goes the other way, he could have to sell off some big pieces. Moneymaking pieces.

I spread my arms, palms turned to the ceiling.

Who knows? he answered my unspoken question. Maybe got word of something. Maybe hes gone all Hunt brothers remember what those loons tried to do with silver? and wants to corner the market so he can set the price. He doesnt need the money, and the risk looks stupid, but

I made a fist, extended the little finger and the thumb, held it to my ear.

I dont have a direct line for him, the man behind the desk said. But I can certainly get him on the line; hed return my call. You want me to tell him he should speak towhoever?

I shook my head no.

Would a home address help?

I gave him the same answer.

He doesnt have the kind ofinterests I do, the man who owed me offered.

I made my wrist limp, asking the obvious question.

No. I dont mean that. Its just that hes a straight arrow. Wife, four kids. Church. Doesnt get out much. Or around. Far as I could find out, anywaywithout making anyone curious. Sorry. I wish I could have been more help.

I made a no big deal gesture, walked out, took the elevator down forty-eight floors, walked to the El, and caught the three oclock to LaGuardia.

* * *

Nothing makes people more outraged than being wrong. A few years back, I was in a bar, waiting for a man who said he had a job for me. Michelle was there, too not only is she the perfect cover, the job was the kind of thing shed be in on if we took it.

We were there early. Too early, as it turned out. Michelle was looking past my shoulder when she saw someone coming, signaled me it wasnt our man but someone she knew.

The woman was big-city pretty, about as fresh-faced as a Kabuki dancer, indigo cocktail dress, black-pearl necklace, perfect manicure, no rings. She slipped into Michelles side of the booth, hip-checking her way into the spot facing me.

Who is this, girl?

My brother, Michelle said, sweetly. My big brother.

Oh! Meaning: shed heard the stories. But she made a little gesture to summon the waiter, ordered a gimlet Absolut Mandarin, please and settled in.

I looked at my watch, telling Michelle we had a half hour, tops.

The girl If Michelles not going to introduce me, I guess Ill have to do it myself. Im Tommi was asking Michelle about people she hadnt seen in a while. I tuned out. Until I heard Tommi say, I voted for Nader. I mean, really, there was no difference between Gore and Bush, anyway.

I hope you remember that the next time you need an abortion, bitch!

Michelle was still giving off steam long after Tommi jumped up and split like the place was about to be raided.

Im sorry, baby, Michelle said. Its just that 

I held one finger to my lips, nodded my head up and down to tell her I understood.

And I did. None of us can vote. Were not citizens. But we cant figure out how citizens cant be bothered to. Or, worse, throw their vote away so they can say something they think is precious-special in their blogs.

Like the Prof always says: Nothing you can do about being born stupid, but volunteering for that job means you need a proctologist, pronto.

Sure, politicians are whores. But even in a whorehouse, youd want to pick your own, right?

And certain whores, you pay them enough, theyll do anything. Even the right thing. I still remember Michelle bursting into Mamas holding a copy of the newspaper in her hand. She was always beautiful that day, she was incandescent, glowing with joy.

Look! she yelled, too excited to say anything more.

We all gathered around, staring at the story she was pointing to. And felt it pulsate through us alltogether. A law had just been passed that closed the incest loophole forever. Used to be, in New York, you fuck a neighbors baby, you were going under the jail. But if you fucked your own baby, youd probably never see the inside of a criminal court. Maybe, if the case was real serious, they might bring you down to Family Court, that secret room where the predator gets therapy and the victim gets fucked. Again. By everyone.

Say some maggot sneaks into a ten-year-old girls bedroom one night and tells her to suck his cock or something terrible will happen. Thats Rape One, a Class B felony, with a twenty-five-year top. But if the maggot is smart enough to grow his own victim, and does the exact same thing to his ten-year-old daughter, then the DA could charge him with incest. And that was a Class E felonymeaning, even if he was convicted, they could still just put him on probation.

Happened all the time. Very clear message: Children are property. You cant mess with your neighbors property thats holy but you can do whatever you feel like doing with your own.

And now that beast was dead.

How the hell did this happen? I asked Michelle, still shaking inside because New York finally, after all those years, had called incest what its always been rape.

I know, she said, as gleeful as a little girl with a new doll. Theres this PAC you know, political-action committee, like the NRA or the AARP or whatever and all it cares about is protecting kids. Its called the National Association to Protect Children, okay? Anyway, they put this huge package togetherthe whole works. I saw the boss of the New York chapter on TV gorgeous Asian girl and you could just tell, she was in this to the death. I dont know how they got it done, but who cares?

Amen! from the Prof.

I looked over at Max. He put both hands over his heart.

Mama came over. Read the story in silence. Then she stood up, walked to her register. When she came back, there was a wad of cash on the table.

Yes! Michelle said. And instead of crying about how this came too late for any of us, my steel-hearted little sister said, Ante up! I saw their site on the Web: protect.org. It shows how to join. We cant do that. But that machine runs on money, and Ive got the deposit slip right here.

She pulled a FedEx box out of her giant purse, already addressed. Youre not supposed to send cash that way, but our kind dont play by your rules.

* * *

I couldnt wait much longer, but I couldnt come up with a way in. A guy with office help like Reedy had wouldnt answer his own door at home. Or even open his own mail.

Going backdoor didnt appeal to me, which was why I rejected the Chicago guys offer to set it up so that one of the others would take my call. Too many ways that could go wrong. Reedy was the only one I had anything on to tie him into the killing, not counting Thorntons nonexistent tape.

A straight arrow is what the Chicago guy had called Bender. Said he was leveraged heavy, too. I get him to take my call, first thing he does is run to Reedy.

I replayed my debriefing of Thornton in my head. All it did was remind me of questions I hadnt asked. The plans those three punks had for that little girl, was that some sort of collective enterprise, or one leader and two followers? Was this a folie ŕ trois crime, or the kind one of them would have done on his own?

If Reedy was the power man in a triad, using Bender as a messenger was all wrong. Prison taught me that. Theres killers wholl draw the line at torturebut no torturer will ever draw the line at murder. If the whole plan had been Reedys, Benders family was going to be cashing life-insurance policies.

And if Bender was cash-poor, he wasnt any good to me, anyway.

The other one Henricks was in Europe somewhere. Not relocated; on business. I only knew that because The Wall Street Journal had a little squib about him meeting with some big players in the Netherlands neutral territory? about putting together a consortium to run a natural-gas pipeline from the Russian icelands all the way down to a Y pipe. One channel to go to countries where they paid in euros, the other to one that paid in anything you wanted, from warplanes to harvested organs.

Reedy.

I thought of something Wesley told me once. Its easier to take a mans life than his money. He dont always carry his money around with him, but you can put the crosshairs on him wherever he goes.

* * *

I was walking down lower Fifth, between the New School and the Arch, when I heard a cell phone go off. Knew it wasnt mine that one is always set to vibrate when Im working.

I saw a homeless guy, sitting on an old army blanket, his back to a building, holding a sign, THE VA THREW ME OUT!, hand-lettered on a piece of cardboard, a dented coffee can in front of him for contributions. He furtively looked both ways, reached inside his olive-drab jacket with a name stenciled on a piece of tape over his heart, and pulled out a fold-flat cell.

Im at work, bitch! I heard him growl as I passed by.

* * *

Feel anything, Gate?

Just that its wrong, boss.

Wrong, like inoff?

When is a fucking skinner not off, man? Gateman half snarled. I havent looked at the whole thing, just what the kid brought down for me, butI dont get what youre saying.

I dont know if Im saying anything, I admitted. Just feeling it.

This all came out of some evidence locker?

Yeah.

Cops, Gateman said. Saying it all. There could be pieces missing. Pieces wed never see.

I think they went for it, Gate.

I kinda think they did, too, boss.

Yeah? I said, frankly curious. How come?

Nobody ever got jugged, right? Girl like that, crime like that, town like that, thats heavy pressure. If they werent really looking to do the right thing, how hard could it be to come up with a George Whitmore?

I slapped Gatemans held-out palm; hard, signifying complete agreement. The Career Girl Murders had shocked New York back in 1963. Daughters of the rich and famous, found raped and murdered in their own apartment. A headline story, so big that it pushed the surrender of a gutter thug who had helped kill two cops in a bar for the fun of it down to the second lead. That murder had been in Jersey, but the punk had given himself up in New York, where he and his partner had run to, looking for a place to disappear. His partner had made the other choice: they put enough bullets into him to stock a lead mine.

Months went by before some cop got a mentally impaired black man named George Whitmore to confess to the Career Girl Murders. Big press conference. Medals and promotions. But it only took a few more months for some investigative reporters to figure out Whitmore couldnt have done it. Were not talking about CSI stuff here Whitmore was in another state at the exact time the sex murders were taking place. The only evidence was his confession, which was about as believable as a used-car salesman deep into a nasty loan shark over his gambling debts telling you the odometer was accurate.

But just in time before the papers started calling for deep investigations into police practices they caught the right guy, a dope-fiend burglar named Robles.

Well, they didnt actually catch him. What happened was that a three-time felony loser got popped for a homicide of another street-level dealer. This was when they still had the electric chair in Sing Sing, and this guy knew he was a prime candidate. He told the law that Robles had confessed to him, and he wanted to trade. Told a great story, about bloody clothes and a knife he had disposed of. Did such a great job of it that nobody could ever find them. So the cops wired him and his apartment, and waited for Robles to admit everything.

When they got tired of waiting, they arrested Robles. A few months later, New York abolished the death penalty. By then, it was such common knowledge that Whitmore had been framed, people finally realized an innocent man could be executed. The abolition vote wasnt even close.

Robles was convicted. Nobody down here thinks he did it, either. But, more than forty years later, hes still up in Attica.

Supposedly, he finally admitted the whole thing. None of us bought that one, either. Oh, we believe he said it, but we know who he said it to the Parole Board. By then, Robles had been jugged for at least twenty years, and hed learned the convicts Three Rs for dealing with the Parole Board: Remorse. Repent. Release. If you dont say the first word, nobody even listens to the rest.

Where I come from, the cops always get their man. Whether its the man isnt always top priority.

Anyone who thinks theres only one law in this city is a tourist. Whitmore had been convicted of other crimes all on confessions so the man who became district attorney of Brooklyn, Eugene Gold himself, personally petitioned the court for the poor bastards immediate release. I still remember reading how Gold said the evidence renders the case so weak that any possibility of conviction is totally negated.

Years later, Eugene Gold yeah, the same one gets charged with aggravated rape of a child, a ten-year-old girl. Happened in Nashville, when he was attending a convention. The victim was a prosecutors daughter. Gold pleaded guilty to fondling, and the court gave him probation and treatment. He was on the next plane to Israel.

I remember that one because I showed the paper to the Mole. Got a blank stare for my efforts.

Yeah. Citizens read the news. But we know the truth.

* * *

Dad wants to see you, Terry greeted me as I walked into my place.

So why didnt he just ?

Just you, the kid said, not happy about it.

Whats with the mope, dope? the Prof asked him, not looking real happy himself.

I cant say anything to Mom.

There are things I could never tell my mother, mahn, Clarence put in, trying to smooth things.

Did your father ever tell you that? Terry shot back.

You know I didnt have no 

But I do, Terry said fiercely. A mother and a father. Never once did my dad tell me not to say anything aboutanything. Ever.

Max touched his heart, made the sign for child. Pointed at the daughter who was not there, put his finger to his lips. Nodded forcefully. Meaning: Sometimes, its better to keep things from your mother. And hed asked his beloved Flower to do that himself.

None of this was doing Terry any good.

My turn. What happens if Michelle finds out Im going to meet the Mole, kid?

Shed have toAh, Im just stupid!

The day you stupid is the day I join the Klan, the Prof scoffed. Listen to Burke, boy. He knows the road.

A mans entitled to his privacy, I said, in a just-the-facts voice. So is a woman. You give up that in one of two ways. Voluntarily thats why youre in my house; because I gave you the address or when they take it from you. Those of us who had it taken, we know how precious it is. The Mole not wanting Michelle to know something, that does not mean hes keeping secrets from her, understand?

Iguess so, said the young man, still scared. Even the word secret made him tremble in places he wished he didnt have. But he knew his secrets werent secrets to me, so he listened. And trusted.

Can you even imagine the Mole getting some on the side?

This time, the kid finally laughed. Mom would 

And dig his fool ass up and do it all over again, the Prof confirmed.

This isnt them, Terry, I told him. Its something between me and the Mole. Something weve had working for a while.

About this? the kid said, waving his hand to indicate the big room, papered with the photocopies of the police file on the rape-murder of a little girl that happened way before Terry had been born.

Yes, I said, lying now. The Mole had already turned over everything. Id done my part, and his people had done theirs. So I, for real, didnt know what he wanted. But making sure Michelle didnt get involved meant it was something that could end ugly.

But Mom already knows about 

Your mother doesnt know it all, I said, very quietly. A man has the right to protect his wife. Thats his job, okay?

And a good son respects his father, Clarence added.

Not a single person in that room thought he was talking about bloodlines.

Ill drive you, Terry said.

* * *

Figuring the Mole wouldnt have gone through Terry if he hadnt wanted the kid involved somehow, I went along for the ride. I knew something was hard-core the minute the kid pointed at a beige Toyota Camry sedan, a car about as noticeable in this city as pigeons on the sidewalk.

It was getting dark when we approached the junkyard. This time, Terry just drove on in instead of walking, so I knew the anonymous Toyota wasnt going to be my ride back.

The Mole was waiting for us. Simba, too.

We took our seats. The Mole turned slightly to face his son. Burke has taught you pattern recognition? Social preamble was a foreign language to him, but that didnt throw Terry at all; he knew his father.

Well, I know about it. Clarence and I 

Not pattern-recognition software, the Mole cut him off. Not for catching criminals, for decoding. Application of logic.

I 

Did Bush believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

How could anyone know what he believed? Terry shot back, showing his credentials.

I know, the Mole said, showing his. And you should, too. No contest.

But how could I ?

If Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction, what would they have done, the moment they were invaded? he asked.

Fired them off, Terry said, no hesitation. Thats what happened the last time. Those SCUD missiles.

Yes. And where were they aimed?

At Israel.

Did Israel retaliate?

II dont think so.

No, the Mole said, his voice shifting subtly. And why not?

Becausebecause they had a deal with us? And, anyway, the war was over so quick that 

Because those missiles were counterfeits, his father interrupted. The Mole hated speculation, but he loved crushing it with the pile-driver of logic. The consequence of tyranny is that such a country never develops its own thinkers. When great minds are discovered, instead of being nurtured, they are eliminated. That butcher bought his weapons from Russian outlaws, but none of his own people had the skill to check their viability. So he hired people to do that, the way a man who cant get a woman to love him buys sex. And smart whores always tell customers whatever they want to hear. So the experts he hired told Saddam they were in good working order. It wasnt just for the money; they knew what would happen to them if they responded any other way. Do you understand?

Terry nodded. Said, If those missiles had actually worked, if a lot of people died, then Israel would have 

Correct, the Mole said. Now imagine if, instead of mere explosives, Israel had been hit with chemical and biological weapons. The key word is not destruction, it is mass do you understand that, too?

Like what happened when Hitler?

Leolam Lo Odd, I said.

The Mole nodded, gravely. If Israel were hit with such weapons, Iraq would have disappeared.

Nuclear? the kid said, just short of shocked. That could start a 

Holocaust? the Mole spat bitterly. Is that the word you search for? Listen to me, my son. For a Jew, better the whole planet vanish than we go back to the camps. Nobody doubts our commitment to this. Otherwise, Israel would not still exist.

So, if Bush thought Iraq actually had the weapons, he never would have invaded! the kid said, angry himself now. He would have been the man who kicked off a nuclear war. Instead of a hero, hed be a

Pattern recognition, the Mole said.

Is itteachable? the kid asked, back to the cold-logic place in his mind that always comforted him.

You can teach almost anyone to play chess, his father answered. How many become grand masters?

So its agift?

At its highest levels, yes. One can learn all that can be taught, but the top of the mountain is only for those who have the gift.

You have the ?

Me? the Mole said, quietly. No. I can apply logic and reason. But I dont sense things; I have to work them through. Your uncle, he is the gifted one. So you learn from both of us, yes?

Thats what Ive been doing, Terry assured him. But if it takes 

Oh, you have the gift, my son, the Mole assured him. It probably comes from your mother.

* * *

The kid stayed outdoors with Simba as I followed the Mole downstairs. When we were seated, the underground man faced me squarely, as if we were going to fight, not talk.

You think my devotion is blind, yes?

To Michelle? Dont be 

Stop!

I spread my hands in a What the? gesture.

You think I would do anything for my people, the Mole said, an edge to his voice Id never heard before. And you are not wrong.

Thats not news.

But I never had to make a choice, he said. You are my brother. Just as Terry is my son. And Michelle is my wife. Yes?

How else could it be? I said. When the Children of the Secret form a family, bloodlines never count. And thats not just for us: if Malcolm X could say he hated every drop of white blood in him, couldnt this Felton guy Claw had told me about hate every drop of black blood in himself, too?

Everybody trades. Even allies. They bargain, they make deals.

Not between us. Not in our family.

Yes, he said, sadly. I know. And I am ashamed.

Mole, I dont get this. Any of this. You think Im mad because you held back the files until your people saw I got the job done?

I looked at the files, he said, refusing to take his eyes off mine. You areback. When we first 

Yeah. I know.

Yes. You know. But me, the man who taught you Leolam Lo Odd, maybe I never taught you the meaning.

 Never again. 

A slogan. It actually means we are never to forget. That does not mean just building memorials or writing history books. It is literal. I know why you wanted those files.

I never said 

I know my own brother, the Mole said. I know the man who brought me my son. I know why. And I have been guilty of forgetting all that.

Look, Mole, I never 

An apology is words, not behavior, he cut me off. And only behavior can be the truth. He reached behind him without taking his eyes off me, pulled something off his workbench, and handed it to me.

What the hell is this? I asked him, holding a dull-gray box, maybe five times the size of a cell phone, with twin antennas in the closed position.

It is many things, the Mole answered. It is a satellite phone, with an embedded harmonizer and a GPS-diverter.

Huh?

When you speak into this phone, your voice will be digitally reprocessed broken apart and reassembled. It will not be your voice, but it will be a human voice. Even if recorded, voiceprinted, subjected to stress analysis, it will be as unique as a snowflake, and just as untraceable.

The diverter will retriangulate any trace attempt. The callers number will not be blocked, so the person being called will recognize it on their Caller ID and know it is authentic. But their equipment any equipment they have will tell them the call is coming fromwell, from random places. You cannot set the diverter yourself, so their trace will show the call as coming from anywhere at all from next door to the other side of the world.

What do I need this for?

Open it up, the Mole commanded.

I did. It looked like a big fat phone: keypad, viewing screen, the usual.

I still dont see

The buttons are pre-set, the Mole said. That is one reason it is so heavy. If you press 88, you have approximately two-point-five seconds before a charge ignites. Like Semtex, but much more potent. That is one reason it is so heavy, the shaped charge inside. Anything within a fifty-yard radius is unlikely to survive. As they get closer, and the space they occupy is more enclosed, the possibility of survival drops to below measurable.

So its a bomb. Why all the ?

You can press remotely, if you are connected at the time, he went on, as if I hadnt spoken. Understand?

If anyone Im on the line with presses that 88, I vaporize. Why set it up that ? Never mind, I said, interrupting myself as I began to understand what the Mole had built.

If you press 11,  he continued, in the same patient voice you use when youre making sure, the screen becomes a receptor a real-time receptor and the person dialing into it can send whatever image they wish.

Mole

There are other button combinations, too, he rolled on, inexorably. For proof, you will use 22 and then 23. 

Proof? Of what?

I will explain, be patient, he said. If you press 33, it will ring the personal cell phone of one Carlton John Reedy. He is the only person to carry that phone, and only a few highly trusted individuals have the number. This does not include his wife, his children, his mistress, or his friends. If that number rings, he will answer it.

Son of a bitch! I shook my head at the power of what my brother had just handed me. I knew you could build a bang-machine this small, Mole. But that number 

He held up his hand, meaning Enough! as clearly as if he had shouted it.

* * *

Your father is a real man, I said to Terry on the drive back in the kids tC.

You think I need you to tell me that? the kid snapped at me. The Mole was right he had his mother in him, all right.

No, I said. I just felt the need to say it out loud, and you were the only one here.

Im sorry, Burke. I know you werent 

And I never would, T.

I levered my bucket seat so it was almost reclining, closed my eyes.

After a few minutes, Terry turned on the radio. Must have had a satellite hookup, because doo-wop flowed from the speakers.

Some things never die. Dion always was a bluesman, even back in the day. I hear hes doing the traditional stuff now. Not walking a new road, going back to where hed never known hed started from.

But this was some weird station the kid had tuned to. The play list was all covers: the Cadillacs version of Gloria going back-to-back with the one by the Passions, the Willows and the Diamonds both with Church Bells May Ring, then Will You Love Me Tomorrow by the Shirelles, followed with a version by what sounded like Kathy Young and the Innocents. I recognized Theres No Other Like My Baby by the Crystals, but the next version rang through like Rosie and the Originals. I thought theyd only done one record I flashed on me and Flood, slow-dancing to Rosies Angel Baby, just after she dueled a freak to the death. His.

Love You So always hit me. A teenage girl sent me the lyrics when I was locked down as a kid. Only she sent them as a poem. It wasnt until later that I realized those werent her words. Or her feelings. That was the Ron Holden version. But the cover by Little Isidore and the Inquistors didnt touch me at all.

When A Thousand Miles Away came on, I came out of my altered state. Something aboutthen it hit me. Shep and the Limelights. Or the Heartbeats, whatever they were calling themselves back then. Theyd earned their way in the same way Magic Sam had: you didnt get to do one of Alan Freeds live shows unless you could deliver the mail, and the crowd at the Apollo was downright savage if you showed weak.

Shep was James Sheppard. His textured lead vocals are a model for doo-wop revivalists to this day. But his day was over real quick. They found his body on the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens one January morning in 1970. Hed been beaten with ugly precision, then stripped. Maybe it was the blows, maybe he froze to death. Another murder, never solved. I wondered if anyone was looking for the killers.

* * *

Whos sponsoring this flimflam, Western Union? I heard the Prof sneer as Terry and I walked in.

I guessed they were all taking a break, sprawled around the TV, watching a boxing match. At least the Prof was limiting his running commentary to his disgust with fighters who telegraph their punches, and not still trying to talk Max into entering one of those ultimate fighting leagues. Id heard him pitch that proposition a dozen times. Every time, Max would show him how deaf he could really get.

You got money on this one? I asked, finding myself a seat.

Money? I dont bet on pig races, Schoolboy. Only mystery in this fight is which one of those out-of-shape slobs gasses out first. This is so pathetic, motherfuckers be changing channels even if it was pay-per-view.

I got something I started to say, just as one of the fighters collapsed to the canvas from a slow-motion left hook to his flabby side-pillow. His opponent staggered to a neutral corner, sucking in huge gulps of air through his mouth.

The Prof waved a disgusted hand at the screen, hit the mute without waiting for the count.

We got a shot? he said, turning to me.

Yeah. Just an idea Im working on, I told him, signing to Max by tapping my temple.

Let it cook till you can set the hook, the Prof answered. Meaning: whatever I had, I didnt need to say it in front of Terry.

I nodded agreement. I need to go over those files again.

If we just knew what you were looking for, mahn

I cant know that, I explained. Again. But when I see it, Ill know.

It has to be there for you to see it, Terry tossed in. His fathers son.

Dog hears a whistle you cant, the Prof said. Whats that mean, there wasnt no whistle at all?

Okay, the kid said, throwing up his hands.

* * *

The soup is the best you ever made, I said to Mama.

She shrugged, but the faint pink that suffused her cheeks was the truth-teller.

The Prof raised his mug a white one, with BARNARD in bright-red letters in agreement.

This could never be duplicated, Clarence echoed.

Max tapped his heart twice, either in appreciation of the soup or of the fact that, from the moment his daughter Flower had chosen to attend Barnard, Mama switched from her traditional small bowls to the mugs that displayed her granddaughters achievement.

The mugs were for family only, same as the soup. Hell, it should be wed all been kicking in a piece of every score for babys college since Flower had been born. I figure the kid had enough cash in there to attend grad school on Mars, and come home on holidays, too.

I ran down what the Mole had given me. They all listened in silence until I was done.

So it aint just Terry thats out, the Prof said. Our girl cant play, no way.

Right.

So were down to four.

Claw could play a role, I suggested. Id never told any of them about how he already had.

Those boys are all dogs, the Prof dismissed the idea. And the only trick I want any of them to do is play dead.

Im not saying take him in with us, Prof. But when youve got a man with nothing to lose

We aint gonna get but this one shot. Thats if the man even picks up the line.

He will, I said, maybe with a little more confidence than I felt. But hes a wild card. We need them to come up with a lot of cash. And, from what I heard in Chicago, Bender may be illiquid.

Stuck in a paper rut, the Prof translated for Clarence, as I signed the situation out for Max.

Not only that, but Henricks may be out of reach, at least for a while.

So you think this one guy is going to come up with enough to cover all their tabs?

I dont know. Dont care. I know he can. And we all know that hes still good for the murder. He was sixteen when they did it, remember?

When you gonna call? the little man said, giving in.

Soon as you buy into us bringing Claw in. The best Im going to get out of a call is a meet. And it wont be in any back alley, or waterfront warehouse. We need a man who can work close.

Whos better than Max? the Prof demanded.

Whos going to stick out more in the kind of place we want Thornton to trust? I shot back.

All white is all right, he said, giving in.

* * *

The phone was picked up on the third ring.

Where are you calling from? a voice demanded. A boss, expecting a subordinate.

That doesnt matter, I said, through the harmonizer. Im not who you expected.

He made a sound I couldnt translate.

But you know me, I went on. I called at your office a little while back. Left my business card.

If this is some kind of 

You know what this is some kind of, Reedy. This is a call from a professional problem-solver.

And thats you? he said, coolly, fully recovered, back in control.

Thats me. Not the name on the business card I left. That, that was the message.

Message? Playing for time now.

Youve got thiscondition. Youve had it for over thirty years. Every time you think youve gotten rid of it, it shows up out of nowhere. You pay the doctor bills and it goes away. But thats just remission theres never been a permanent antidote. Like, say, a tapeworm. Either you get the whole thing cut out, or theres always the chance it could go back to feeding on you.

I dont have a clue 

Word games. He heard the tape in tapeworm clear enough. And wasnt going to put himself on another one.

Thing is, I do. But thats not what matters. What matters is that Ive got the antidote. The permanent antidote. And it comes with the kind of guarantee you can take to the bank.

And Id have to rob a bank to buy this antidote, I suppose? Just enough sarcasm in there to distance himself from anything resembling self-incrimination. You get as rich as he was, dealing with extortionists comes with the territory.

Theres a cost for the service, naturally. But, obviously, that cost should be split three ways.

You dont know what youre talking about.

Weve got him, I said. Understand? Got him. We dont want to keep tapping a vein like hes been doing. We want a quick in-and-out. Yeah, a big one. But, like I said, a permanent one, too.

Even if something were to happen to Still vague enough to stay on his side of the line, but he wanted whatever information I was willing to give up.

I said a guarantee, and I meant it.

Spell it out.

Over a cell phone?

Leave a number; Ill call you back.

You have the number.

On that card?

No. The one on your screen now.

I hit the end button in the middle of whatever he was about to say.

* * *

Need a meet, I told the cancer-man.

Just say 

Northeast corner, Houston and Thompson. Two hours enough to get there?

Half that.

Done. One hour. Hail the cab with the Off Duty light on.

* * *

Hes not going to do it, Claw said. He was sitting next to me in the Plymouths passenger seat. Max was behind him. Clarence lounged against the front fender, showing the world a long black coat topped by a Zorro hat; his right hand rested inside his coat. The Prof was leaning against the trunk, facing out, his sawed-off against his chest, dangling from a rawhide loop, only half concealed by the white cattlemans duster that came to his ankles. In this part of Red Hook, we didnt want anyone mistaking us for DEA. Or a scouting party for a new player.

Sure, he will, I assured him. Once we explain the scam, hell love it.

Didnt you learn anything Inside?

Just because heswhat he isdoesnt make him stupid. But anyone who plays him for that sure the fuck is.

Now you want to rank me, too?

Ive treated you like a man from the beginning, pal. You want to do your elder-statesman number on someone, go find some skinheads. No, wait: didnt your boy Pierce his wife was Latina, but I guess the leader gets to make his own rules, right? didnt he say they were all a bunch of morons and animals?

All Im saying 

Youre not here because I want your advice, I told him, not raising my voice. Youre not my partner. You came with a proposition. I bought in because you came with references. But youre a role-player, got it? This is a job, not a consensus-building exercise. And where theres a job, theres a boss. Thats me. Not you, me. Youre out of your league here. I dont have a green shamrock on my hand, but I already spent a lot of green on this. Its my money on the blanket, so I get to throw the dice.

Its your money, yeah, he said, but its my life.

Your life? Whats that to me? My word to my brother, thats what means something. And if thats not enough for you, just walk your own road. Starting right now.



You know I cant just 

You cant do anything with me and my crew. You proved yourself with a man I trust. You proved yourself with me, that last thing we did. I know your clock is ticking, okay? But think about it: whatever Silver told you about me, theres one thing I know he said.

Yeah?

Yeah. He told you I can get things done.

The AB man nodded, not arguing.

Youre not going to be the one to talk Thornton into the play. Thats my job. But youve got to make sure he carries it through.

But what if he ?

Hell fucking love it, I promised. But I need to talk with him first.

I can get 

Not yet. Im not ready. But soon, understand?

I got it, he said, holding my eyes. I got it, boss.

* * *

You own this? I asked the green-eyed beige man behind the wheel of a dark-turquoise Maserati Quattroporte.

All of it, the man said, moving his index finger in a 180-degree arc. I was looking at acres of razed land. The only building left standing was a one-story lump of cinderblock that had probably been the staging area for the operation that had done all the wrecking work on the rest of the assembly plant that once had covered all that empty ground.

Another one of those Enterprise Zone projects with enough minority names on the paper to score the government contract. You know, the ones that were going to revitalize the community with jobs, vocational training, affordable housing.

Sections of chain-link were still standing, Y-shaped at the top to hold the coiled razor wire. Looked like what was left of a demolished prison.

The driver was a slim, elegantly dressed man, with a complexion models would kill for. Only his marcelled hair gave a clue to his age.



Electricity still hooked up in there? I asked him.

Its nice in there, man. Got A/C, heat, carpeting, big bathrooms. Even dish TV. Better than plenty of places folks could ever hope to live in.

Or die in.

He tapped the custom wood wheel with pianist fingers. A heavy emerald ring caught the fading light. This, this squares us? For real, Im off the list?

I nodded, said, You got security on this parcel?

Twenty-four/seven.

Patrol, or live-in?

Nothing to patrol. But this neighborhood, junkies will tear up pavement just for the copper.

Dogs?

To keep off some junkies? No way. Dogs, you either got to keep them behind a fence, or you need a man who can handle them. Just a waste of money.

How much notice would you need?

About ten minutes, man. I touch the right button, that place empties like it was on fire. And nobody comes back until I touch another button.

Show me.

Now?

Right this minute.

All I got is your word that 

Youll get more than that, I told him. We do this thing now, you get the name of the person who paid to 

Wait, he said, holding up his hand. A white French cuff shot out from his sleeve, displaying his initials, monogrammed in green thread. If I was onthe list, how come Im still? I mean, nobodys even tried. And word is, yourwell, that hes gone, man. I mean, it was on TV and all.

Wesley had been gone a long time. But nobody knew. Not for-sure, bet-your-life knew. And thats just what youd be doing. Even the whisper-stream current that said Wesleys ticket had been canceled said that hed done the job himself. Nobody else could have.

My ghost brother. And I still had Wesleys book. Not just the jobs hed done every detail, from who paid to how much to what hed used to make it happen but also the contracts he still hadnt executed before hed left.

The green-theme man behind the wheel had been one of those. Wesley had gotten his usual half up front. Maybe whoever had paid so much for his finale was still waiting for it to happen.

He wouldnt be waiting much longer. I said his name.

Quinones?! He thinks, Im gone, he could actually run things? Man is insane! We let him play el cacique for so long, he forgets its just a role.

I shrugged.

Hold up. If Quinones paid for me to be taken off, why didnt it happen? Everyone knows 

I cut him off with a silent chop of my hand. I knew what he was going to say: the one crime Wesley would never be charged with was attempted murder.

It wasnt supposed to happen until after the next round of elections, I said, with a Get the point, fool? raise of my eyebrows as I spoke.

Cocksucker! That fits. That gusano always did love his dominos.

I said nothing.

So hes not gone?

Ask Quinones.

Im gonna ask him.

I wasnt worried about Quinones telling the truth. I knew hed deny everything. The man sitting next to me had another trademark besides the color green: anyone he wanted answers from got wired to a battery first. Quinones had a quadruple bypass last year, while he was fact-finding in Puerto Rico on the taxpayers dime. The first jolt would be more than enough.

* * *

Its perfect, I told the Prof. Got everything we need.

Almost, the little man said. But we can bring that.

I didnt say anything.

You calling in a lot of markers for this one, Schoolboy.

These are bad people, Prof. All wolves, no tickets.

Yeah, yeah. I got it. But I aint lame enough to think all this is about a money game, son.

* * *

You love me?

What kind of stupid ?

Just say it. I want to see if youre still the best liar on the planet.

Michelle

You wont?

I love you, honey. Youre my baby sister.

Then why arent I in on this?

I never said 

I said. I said I was in on it. And you, youve been slipping around ever since.

Its just not time yet.

Thats not it, she said. That would never be it. So it can only be one of two things: either you got my husband involved, or my son. I know I cant do anything about him she half smiled, making it clear she meant the Mole but you know the rules.

Terrys a grown man, honey.

She slapped me so fast I almost didnt see her hand move. When she was on the street, a tiny little tranny with nothing but herself for protection, shed made a scorpion look slow with that same move. Only, this time, her hand hadnt had a straight razor in it.

Oh! was all she said. Then she started to cry.

* * *

It was a long time before she let me hold her, wrapping my arm around her like when we were kids, sleeping wherever we could find shelter. Hes not in on the hard end, honeygirl. I swear it.

II know you wouldnt do that, baby, she said, as soft as a feather. I know heshelped before. With his mind. But ever since he and Clarence 

Hes the one teaching Clarence, I said, quickly. Truth, when it came to computers. But the lessons had gone two-way. I warned the kid that if he ever let Michelle see how he could handle a pistol, Id fucking kill him myself. This is still about the pattern recognition 

Yes, yes, she said, beyond bored.

His piece is just about over.

Just about?

Its jumping off soon. One way or the other. I set the hook, deep. If the mark calls, hell want a meet. And hes odds-on to make that call I already showed him I can find him, and that Ive got access to what he wants.

This meetTerry wouldnt be there?

He wont even know about it, honey.

Well, she said, flashing a witchs smile as her long red fingernail tapped against the vein on the underside of my wrist, I know one way to make sure of that.

* * *

You!?

Me, I assured her.

After all this time, huh? You must want a nice quick fuck. Whats the matter, dont have time to troll?

Yes or no?

How do you know Im not with someone?

How do you know Im not?

Yeah. She chuckled.

Theres more than one way to kill time.

Luella probably noticed the thick bulge in the side pocket of my jacket. Probably thought she knew what it was. Sure as hell didnt care.

Ever going to call me again? she said, when we finished.

Sure.

Thats what you said the last time.

And I did call, didnt I?

Youre such a bastard. Her pout was as real as a Zimbabwe election. You couldnt even bring me flowers?

The shops were all closed, I said, pressing some folded bills between her two silicone mountains. I was hoping you might be willing to shop for some tomorrow.

* * *

Youre sure you got this?

Cold, Claw assured me, giving the cinderblock building one more walk-through. You know anything about Nietzsche?

Youre not going to babble some of that whatever doesnt kill you crap, are you? I know a lot more about your boy than you think. You know where Aryan Paradise was supposed to be? Not in Viking country, in Paraguay. That freaks sister opened a colony there. Naturally, it failed. See, if you want true racial purity, youve got to breed true.

So? he said, more interested than he wanted to admit.

So what that means is, you have to breed back, get it? Sons fuck their mothers, brothers fuck their sisters. Sound good to you?

Look, all Im trying to tell you 

The colony I think the degenerate whore called it Nueva Germania, get it? had deep roots. You think its an accident that Mengele lived in Paraguay? You think he was the only one?

What are you now? A Jew, too?

My brother is.

Silver? Get the fuck 

Ive got a big family.

Claw took a last drag on his cigarette, ground it out on his palm. That didnt impress me Ive seen it before, too many times but pocketing the butt did. I didnt bother explaining that there wasnt going to be any DNA around when we finished. Look, man, I dont care if youre a nigger-kike-spic-gook super-mutt. I played it straight, down the line, and I came with references. What else do you want?

I already told you. Just spare me the Nazi shit, understand?

Youre the one whos not understanding, he said, dragging deep on his just-lit cigarette. You said, before, that I thought Thornton was stupid. I know hes not. I know him better than you ever could. Once he sees this he reached into his gym bag and pulled out what looked like a miniature version of the Jaws of Life they use to extract car-wreck victims hell be fine. You know why? Because he knows that what doesnt kill you might make you strongeror it might make you wish it had killed you.

What the hell is that thing?

Its called an Alligator Lopper. Walk into any hardware store, theyll sell you one. Regular old Black & Decker tool. Perfect for cutting off tree limbs with one hand. Go through bone like it was cardboard.

So whats so special about ?

Its not the tool, its the knowledge, he said. And Thornton knows.

Im still not seeing 

He knows Ill use it. Ill spell it out for him, exactly how its going to work. One chop, he faints. Wont even feel the blowtorch Ill use to cauterize the area. When he comes around, hell still be a freak in his mind, but he wont be able to do anything about it.

How do you know?

I told you. I know him.

I know he talked to you. You hear something you havent told me about?

It doesnt have anything to do with this job.

Not to you, maybe, I thought. Or maybe you just told me something about yourself.

* * *

The Moles special phone rang. Digital readout showed a pictograph of a sweeping searchlight.

Go, I said.

You said not over the phone. Reedy. His security people must have told him that a trace would be easier at a time when cellular traffic would be light. Or maybe he just figured I was a man who worked nights.

Just you and me.

Of course, he counter-punched with a lie of his own.

I pick the place. Itll be in downtown Manhattan. This Wednesday.

Just 

You just be downtown, anywhere below Canal, by noon Wednesday. Ill call then, give you forty-five minutes to get to the spot. I dont want surprises.

And Im not walking into some 

Itll be outdoors, public place. Well be two businessmen, doing business. When you see what Ive got, well only need one more meeting and then were done.

You can prove ?

If you walk away from the meeting anything but one hundred percent satisfied, youll never hear from me again.

I only have your word for that.

And Im betting, betting a lot, that once you see the property I want to interest you in, youll buy. You dont want to even look at it, thats your choice.

So if I dont come to this meeting?

Then were done, I repeated. And hit end.

* * *

I dont see why we have to keep doing this.

Im going to explain that to you, I told Thornton. Im going to explain it to you with respect. This is a complex operation, and I need you with us on it.

I already said 

Just listen, please, I said.

Ill be right outside, the AB man assured him. And stepped away, closing the door behind him.

I thought you worked for Claw, Thornton confronted me, his eyes honed sharp by fear. How do you get to give him orders?

Its not orders, I said, gently, its professionalism. Claws the boss, the shot-caller, Inside or in the World. But lets say he told one of the crew to crack a safe, okay? He wouldnt tell the man how to do it. And if the man needed some special tools to do the job, well, the boss would get them for him. This is no different.

Youre no safecracker.

Thats right, I agreed, amicably. Im an extortionist. A blackmailer. Whatever you want to call it. All Claw knows about that line of work is Pay up or get stuck, am I right?

Thornton nodded. When youve been Inside, you know stuck means one of two things, and it had been the AB that stood between them both for him. After he paid.

I told the boss that I cant do my job without another private talk with you first. This is all about finesse, and thats my specialty.

How much finesse could this take? Either they pay up or I 

You want half a million, cash.

So? Thats pocket change to 

You think were all working for you? I asked, almost in a whisper. Everybodys got to get paid here. If you werent in so tight with the boss, we could make more just bringing those three guys your head.

What?!?

Think about it, I said, very calmly. Youve got nothing but your word about what happened. You dont have any tape, no photographs, nothing.

It was just a little tic-movement at the right corner of his mouth. But I had been watching his face like it was a cardiogram.

Theyll have left DNA, he said. If they exhumed the corpse, Ill bet theyd find 

On a skeleton? After thirty-plus years? Youve been watching too much TV. Truth is, were down to a bluff and a threat. If we had a tape to play for them, thatd make it another game. But with only your word, how much do you think theyd pay us to make sure you never opened your mouth?

Claw wouldnt 

Now youre getting it. Heres the cold truth, Thorn. If we could vote on this, all of us would rather just offer them your head in a box than go through this fucking dancing around. But the boss said that was off the table. This isnt a democracy. Were Aryan warriors, and theres a chain of command. So we cant touch you. Ever.

I let my eyes shine with the absolute obedience of a Nazi doga dog who wanted to rip out a throat, but obeyed his masters command to stay. After all, isnt that what Master Race means?

But youre not sending me in there without putting some more cards in my hand, I went on, nice and well mannered. Always ready to be reasonable. As flexible as piano wire.

I still dont 

You remember what your lawyer told you when he first took your case?

He told me a lot of things, the miserable piece of 

He told you that you had to tell him the truth. You didnt have to tell anyone else. Not your wife, not your mother, not the law, even though he was going to advise you to cooperate. Right?

He said that, yeah.

And he told you why?

Because, if he got surprised anywhere along the way, Id be the one who fell through the trapdoor, not him.

Thats it. I dont want to be surprised, Thorn, I said, giving him my I know. And I understand look. But, the way I see it, theres no reason for the boss to know.

Know what?

What youre going to tell me. And show me.

I already told you everything. And I dont have anything to 

Lets start with the pictures, I said, my tone free from judgment, as impersonal as typhoid.

* * *

Whats this?

Its an Internet Tablet, stupid.

Michelle

Think of it as a cell phone with an Internet connection. Wi-fi. Just the thing a businessman like you would be scanning while waiting for a client to show up.

Why cant I just read a newspaper?

Why cant I be a blonde? Oh, wait! I am a blonde, she said, tossing her golden mane.

Jesus H. Christ.

Oh, just stop! This is a more challenging task for me than usual. No way you are going to out-dress this one. And we dont want you to, either. What were looking for is a no-look look.

I love you, honey. But you just might be the worlds biggest pain in the 

Will you be quiet? I can overink that tattoo on your hand again meaning the hollow blue heart between the last two knuckles of my right hand; my tribute to Pansy, not the temps I sometimes use when Im working but your face will have to go as is. That stage makeup will fool a camera, but it wont stand up to an up-close-and-personal. Were going to have to go jet-black with the hair. And I can extend those eyebrows, too.

Fine, I said, surrendering, as we both knew I would.

Charcoal, she finally pronounced. Its making a comeback, anyway. White shirt, red suspenders 

What?

Red suspenders. Its the kind of detail people remember. Kind of passé, but you arent trying to look Wall Street. And a plain blue tie Ill find the right shade.

The restaurant is locked?

Locked? Its tighter than that, big brother. You didnt know Mama held the paper on it?

No, I said. Not surprised, though. Mama hated anything that wasnt working, and money was no exception. She even owned a nice co-op in a building shed never visit. Cash-purchased it from the girl Id given the baby Id taken from Beryl the most righteous rescue of my life.

Loyal, the babys new mother, her real mother, got the purchase offer for her co-op through Davidson. I dont know who owns it on paper, but I know the current renters are paying through the nose they wouldnt want the lease on the ID theyd bought from me to get canceled.

And Max had those crazy boys visit, too.

Crazy boys was Michelle-speak for the Blood Shadows, still the most feared of all the Chinatown gangs. Their allegiance to Max was something they could never explain, but so precious to them that their own boss never so much as questioned them about it.

You know it could get stupid. This guy, I dont even have a guess how hell play itif he shows at all.

You think?

Enough, I told her, holding up both hands.

* * *

The restaurant was one of those fusion joints, this one French-Asian. Light food, heavy presentation, short wine list, major attitude. The outdoor patio was small, exclusive, and sidewalk-blocking illegal.

Just four tables out there. I was at the far left corner, alone, consulting my Internet Tablet, waiting for whoever was going to join me. Michelle and Clarence were at the other end, their chairs pulled close enough so they could whisper to each other. Clarence was in subdued peacock mode: metallic threads from his burnt-orange silk jacket sparkling in random patterns whenever he shifted his weight. He looked drab next to Michelle, who was wrapped in a silver-foil sheath, with matching hat and veil.

A passing couple stared at them. The girl tugged the guy with her to a stop just as they came to where I was sitting. He was a man of the world a veteran of the harsh reality of crime movies so he broke it down for her. Just a high-class pimp trying to sweet-talk a racehorse whore into switching stables, he explained, swollen with his own coolness.

Maybe he could work the scene into whatever noir screenplay he was writing that week.

A gay couple took up the inside table closest to me. Looked like they were celebrating a wedding anniversary. Lots of hand-holding, an occasional kiss.

The table inside Michelle and Clarence was empty, a big RESERVED sign making it clear that there was no point even asking the red-jacketed young Chinese who stood in the open doorway without moving, hands behind his back.

A couple of guys with gym muscles under their nice suits tried anyway. It didnt take long.

I picked up the Moles phone, hit 33.

Im here. Reedys voice.

I gave him the location the restaurants and mine and killed the call.

I stood up and rotated my head on my neck, two circles in each direction. Just working out the kinks.

The homeless man sprawled against the wall on the other side of the street, wrapped in several layers of blanket despite the weather, may have seen me.

* * *

My Internet Tablet was tuned to the wire services. Cambodias ruler a former Khmer Rouge soldier who calls himself the Prime Minister now announced he was banning certain cell phones, because they had the capacity to send video images. His beloved country had to be protected against pornography. After all, what if some innocent child saw such images?

Images. Liberia was once ruled by a dictator who called himself Samuel Doe. He was overthrown by another of his kind, Charles Taylor. Only Taylors ambitions overreached his borders, and he ended up financing the mass murders in Sierra Leone, an endless slaughter that gave blood diamonds the name they carry to this day. Taylors in The Hague now, awaiting trial for genocide. Nigeria gave him up. Theyve got oil over there, but theyve got to keep up a nice front with the UN, because they might need to crush a rebel movement themselves at any time. Not like the Saudis, who dont have to worry about such things they let Idi Amin live in one of their castles until he died. Didnt hurt their image a bit.

Images, yeah. Samuel Doe was tortured to death on orders of one of Taylors freakish followers, with every shriek of agony carefully captured on videotape by a Palestinian journalist they invited to watch the fun. Running a dictatorship and reinforcing it with the occasional pogrom is one thing, but Does regime had recognized Israel, and supporting the Zionist Oppressor is a crime against all humanity. That tape is still commercially available, in the words of The Economist.

A couple had just been arrested. For the kidnap, torture, rape, and murder of a young girl, all captured on video. By the killers. Another one of those snuff films the blasé bloggers will call an urban legend, I guess. After all, this was just a home movie, not produced for commercial purposes, so it doesnt count. And the video, I guess if it shows up on the Internet for free it still doesnt count, right?

Image. Its everything.

A couple in Milwaukee both wealthy physicians were found guilty of forcing a woman they imported from the Philippines to work sixteen-hour days for less than prisoners are paid to make license plates. She was their slave for nineteen years, but it wasnt prime-time material. After all, she hadnt been a sex slave. Didnt photograph well, either. Lousy images.

A team of humans who paid a fortune so they could add climbing Mount Everest to their life accomplishment list came across another climber on their way up. Looked like he was already too far gone, they said, so they trekked on past, leaving him for dead. They didnt owe the guy anything. They might have saved him, but there wasnt any law against looking the other way. Ask David Cash. But dont try asking a little girl named Sherrice Iverson.

The murderers who run Burma decided Suu Kyi, the woman who won the election the generals had voided with bullets, needed to stay under house arrest. She won a Nobel Peace Prize more than fifteen years ago, so their decision was sure to spark some heavy discussions in the UN.

Yeah, what a scary thought. Theres already four million slaughtered in the Congo, and blue helmets on the ground are about as effective as Tom Cruise working a suicide hotline.

Joseph Kony was a witch doctorturnedwarlord who ran the Lords Resistance Army, a gang of rape-for-fun, kill-for-kicks zombies. Basic training was simple in that army. They kidnapped children, made them watch a few torture-mutilations, pointed at the bodies, and gave the children a choice: Join us, or join them. Kony started in Uganda, but was now based in the south of Sudan, where he was getting paid to make sure the region stayed destabilized. The World Court issued a warrant for his arrest. They didnt say who was going to serve it on him.

It sure wasnt going to be the UN they probably figured their condemnation of the use of child soldiers would fix everything. Just like their oil for food program had in Iraq. That monument to impotence still thinks that you can hand out food to warlords, and count on them to distribute itafter the bosss son gets his cut, of course. Or that a good, stern admonition will deter missile launches. Whats their next move: calling for a boycott of genocide?

Besides, Kony can always make a deal. Call off his army of psychotic children, hand over some weapons, go in front of some Truth and Reconciliation committee, admit every crime known to humanity, be told he did bad thingsand be forgiven. Just like going on Oprah. Only, instead of some door prize, you get to keep the fortune youve stashed away in a nice safe country.

A reverend in Illinois was arrested for disciplining a twelve-year-old girl. Supposedly, he applied this discipline with a piece of wood, while her mother waited outside the punishment chamber. The mother told the police her daughter had accused a man of sexually abusing her, so she took her for counseling. This reverend told the mother hed been a police officer, so he could always tell when a child was lying about sexual abuse, and the rod would bring out the truth. The mother thought this was a great idea. When the child wouldnt recant after a month of ritual beatings, it just meant she was stubborn. But when the cops arrested the perpetrator, the mother suddenly got very upset. The holy man begged her not to tell anyone about the fun hed been having, but her concern forced her to tell the cops about that, too. After all, nobody was going to beat her for false allegations. Poor woman she actually had to change churches after that; the congregation was very upset with her betrayal.

A massacre of women and children by combat troops was reported in Iraq. An investigation is in progress. If someone actually did this, they better pray Big Christian is still in the White House by the time theyre found guilty, so he can do the patriotic thing before he leaves office, like Nixon did for Calley, back in the day.

The ACLU was suing some town that passed an ordinance saying registered sex offenders couldnt come within a thousand feet of childrens playgrounds. Un-fucking-constitutional! I guess camouflage is a civil right now. Just like the right to videotape.

Harder to tell whos stupider: wet-brains who dont realize that laws like that dont keep freaks away from private playgrounds check out any McDonalds lately? or imbeciles who believe laws like that actually protect kids.

You know why we hate you? Not because you dont know what we know, but because, even if you did, you wouldnt give a damn.

So Im sitting here, waiting to commit extortion, and planning a lot worse. Im what youd call a career criminal. Thats why Ill never be you. And Im proud of it.

* * *

When a Maybach 62 the chauffeur-only version, in a shade of blue Ive never seen in real life pulled to the curb, I felt a slight drop in tension. The tank-on-wheels may have been fitted with bulletproof glass and armor-plated doors, but it was no getaway drivers car.

The man behind the wheel never left the car. The rear door popped open. The man who climbed out of the backseat was tall, with thick dark hair, worn longer than I would have guessed. His hands were empty. He looked at me. I nodded. He stepped through the opening in the wrought iron that surrounded the patio and made his way toward me, covering the distance as effortlessly as a shark in a swimming pool.

I stood up as he approached, offered my hand.

He took it. Gave me a nothing to prove grip. His hand was dry.

We sat. He had a good-looking, professionally toned face, milk-chocolate eyes, strong chin.

A waiter appeared.

A drink to start? I asked Reedy.

Black, he said to the waiter, holding up two fingers.

Gordons, I told him. Cold, no ice.

The waiter disappeared.

You know my name.

Mines Gardener, I told him. A family name.

He made a question out of his expression.

My familys been in the business for generations. Each one passes on what it learned to the next. Me, Im the very, very best. Im such a good gardener that I can do magic tricks with flowers. My specialty is the rose.

Whats so ?

I can create a whole rosebush without a single thorn. Not by hand-clipping each one off, like some do. I can actually make a rosebush that no thorn can ever grow on.

That does sound like tricky work, he said, as the waiter appeared with our drinks.

You ready, order?

Ill let you know, I told him.

He bowed slightly, disappeared again.

I heard you might be interested in my services, I said. But, you know how it is, you find the perfect gardener, you dont tell your friendsbecause you dont want him poached, right? So my business doesnt rely on word-of-mouth. I know I have to show each new client what Im capable of, and I cant expect former clients to be references.

That sounds like a very difficult business plan to execute, he said, relaxed and casual.

Not if you have my kind of portfolio.

Talk isnt a portfolio, he said, glancing at his watch.

Talking to you on your private cell was that the kind of talk you meant?

Is that it?

Not even close. Mr. LeBrock still work for you? Or did you fire him after DrepTech went under?

I have no idea 

DrepTechs not your problem, is it? Not even check number 2078. Problem is the credit card LeBrock used to book his flight. And his hotel. Andwell, you understand, Im sure. Since you still own the real-estate investment company you set up. Sole owner. Then and now.

He stared at me for a long few seconds.

And then theres that tape.

Tape?

Good play, I complimented him. And youre right, either way. Even with the original in your hands, you wouldnt be clear, not for an absolute certainty.

I dont see where youre going with all this, he said, lowering his voice just a notch.

The statute of limitations on anything he did, thats run out decades ago. Hes not at risk. But even if he decided to justdisappear from your lives all three of you, Im talking about now you couldnt ever be sure he hadnt left something behind. Thats the only reason hes still walking around.

He looked down at his hands, then back up at me.

But theres a way out. A permanent way. Its so magical, only a true expert could get it done. Am I boring you?

His eyes burned violence. I smiled. Not a friendly smile the smile you give another convict who just threatened you.

What if she was alive? What if he was sent to take her to the hospital, only he decided to have some fun with her instead, and ended up with a corpse on his hands? That does this, I said, crossing and re-crossing my wrists to show black turning into white. No matter what anyone might have done back then all three of you, I mean the statute has run. Criminal and civil.

He kept watching me. His drink as untouched as mine.

Thats my portfolio. His confession. Videotaped in real time. Not under duress. Too much detail for it to be anything but the stone truth. A guilty man, apologizing to innocent boys he put through hell all these years. I mean, they knew they hadnt donewhat happened. But they had trusted the wrong man to help. The wrong man, because he wronged them.

Why would such a person ever?

Why would any of you care? Nobodys ever going to see this confession unless he left a package behind. And if he did which I cant imagine: who could he ever trust with it, and whod ever trust him, anyway? the confession ends any problem. Stops it dead in its tracks. Kills it, you might say.

Its still talk was all he said, but his voice was wound as tight as a garrote.

When I said real time, thats what I meant. You bring the price. And whoever you want to protect it. I bring you the show. Live. I come alone, and I walk away alone. Me with the price; you with the tape.

And the ?

He does what a lot of people do when guilt gets too much to bear, is my guess.

What would an exercise like this cost?

Six.

You cant mean 

Thats only two apiece. Not one of you would miss it. And all three of you are going to want to be there when it goes down, anyway. See it for yourselves.

I could probably 

Stop it. Im the best at what I do, but Im not going up against a master outside my field. This isnt negotiating; this is a specific price for a specific service.

How long is the offer ?

Why insult me? I havent insulted you. You want me to explain the enormous expenses involved at my end? Want me to justify the price? What I said is not an offer. You want the service or you dont.

Id have to reach out

Yeah, you would, I said, paper in my eyes to cover the scissors in hisso I could drop the rock if he tried to cut the paper. Because Im not selling you something for six that you couldnt sell the others for three each. I didnt just come to you because youre the smartest, or the most successful. You were born May 17, 1959. Ask your lawyer what that means in this state.

His eyes told me hed already had that conversation.

You already know I dont work alone, I said. So please dont be stupid. Youre a businessman. This is business. If my phone doesnt ring within five days, dont try dialing that number again. Itll be disconnected. And so will I.

He nodded. Not I agree, but I understand.

The Maybachs rear door swung open by itself. He stepped inside, and then he was gone.

* * *

I didnt look over my shoulder to watch the car move off, I looked across to Michelle. She flipped up her veil, put on a pair of sunglasses. I got up and walked into the restaurant, carrying my drink with me.

I carried that drink all the way through the interior, heading toward the restrooms. I passed a Chinese kid wearing a white kitchen workers uniform. He nodded at me, took the drink from my hand.

A door closed behind me, a door nobody but me could pass through. It was made up of the same group that were leaning casually against the walls of the basement I found by going down the steps inside a beaded curtain. I didnt recognize any of the faces, but the gold silk shirts, buttoned to the throat, the fingertip-length black leather jackets, and the glossy high pompadours were as distinctive as Crip blue or Blood red.

One of them stepped forward. I followed him down a dim corridor. He rapped twice on a door I guessed it was a door; I couldnt actually see it until it opened.

Now we were in a tunnel. A short one. At the other end was the basement of an apartment building. We walked up the stairs to the lobby. By the time I rolled out into the street, I was an elderly man in a wheelchair, with a tired-looking Chinese woman in a nurses uniform pushing me down the block.

* * *

Motherfuckers good, the Prof said, late that night. You only gave him a narrow slot, but he got it filled. Must have had a whole team in place, ready to roll.

One by one, I said, looking around the table.

The two they had in front were real spooks, the Prof started off. Shadow men. They floated in soon as the mans car moved out.

They try and get inside?

Not for two hours, he said, impressed. They watched you go in and just went gray, you know? Part of the scenery.

I was gone before that, Michelle said.

Me also, Clarence said. I hung around after my sister left, for another few minutes. Kept looking at my watch, like I was waiting for something. Then I reached in my pocket and opened my cell phone, like I was taking a call. Then I split.

Max stood up. Walked to the wall, drew a box on a piece of posterboard, made a little fence around the front, so wed know he meant the restaurant.

He held up two fingers, pointed to the front door. Arranged his face into an expression of total puzzlement, showing us what the two shadows encountered. Then he took the black marker and made a pair of dots behind the building, pointed to his eyes, made the gesture of a door opening. So they had men in place behind the restaurant, too. If they were waiting for me to step out that way, theyd be there a long time.

I thought Max was done, but he used another board to draw a cube, pointed at the first drawing and shook his head to make sure we understood he wasnt talking about the same building, then added a stick figure of a manon the roof. He made his hands into binoculars.

I made the sign of a man holding a rifle.

Max shook his head no. This had been all about surveillance, not a hit.

Reedys got a deal with the feds? I said, aloud.

No, the Prof said.

We all looked his way.

They the ones I saw, anyway they moved too good. If you blinked, you couldnt be sure they were even there. If the government spooks had men that good, they wouldnt be using them up on a favor for a friend.

They dont seem to be using them for much else, Michelle said.

You not lying, girl. But these menI cant explain it exactly, but they were the kind of guys who wouldnt work for no government salary. Maybe they did once they were no kids but they got thatneutral thing going.

Freelancers? I said.

The less they shout, the less I doubt, son.

I looked over at Max. He made a this close gesture to show me he hadnt caught the glint of binoculars hed been on that roof himself. The Mongol pointed at the Prof, nodded several times. Total agreement.

They wouldnt have gone inside without orders, I said. Breaking cover like that, it would be against everything they believe in. So he didnt have any more people close enough. Otherwise, they hold their positions, and he sends in new faces.

You set up a meet with him, hell have all the time in the world, Schoolboy. No way he does the payphone shuffle with six mil in a suitcase.

I told him, if he brought the price, he could bring whatever he wanted to protect it.

So whats to stop them from just taking 

I got that part figured, I assured them all. He already knows I didnt turn into the Invisible Man on him without major help. And I told him I dont work alone, anyway. Hes not going to risk a firefight over money. And when he sees what Im going to deliver, hes not going to worry about ever being tapped again.

Hes going to call, baby? Michelle asked. Not anxious, just asking for me to set the odds.

Sure as Satan, honey, I told her. Hes got five days, but we cant count on him using them all. Weve got to put it all in place, starting right now.

* * *

This time, when I finished bribing the dogs, the orca-blotched female came over and sat next to me. I risked patting her wedge head, hoping the old stud didnt decide to go pit bullistic on me for invading his turf twice in a row. He watched, but let it slide.

It was too early to actually do it yet. But I felt the pull. So I walked around to the back of the two-pump gas station and rapped nine times, regularly spaced.

The door opened. The man inside was short, with legs like tree stumps and a chest you could project movies on. Looked like a double-wide trailer that had been crushed to half-height. He was some kind of Latino, crossbred with who-knows-what. A businessman whose business you didnt want to know. I always called him Jester, after the image blue-tattooed on one of his python biceps.

We had been just two businessmen, doing business the way its done here. Goods for services. Cash, not conversation. Just enough talk to make the deal; just enough respect to keep to it.

That had all changed one afternoon. I was out back, under the Plymouth, checking a fitting on the transmission cooler. Jester was inside the enclosure with me: grooming his dogs, crooning to them in a language I understood, even though I couldnt tell you a single word. The beasts were chained to separate thick steel posts, just in case some strange dog wandered through the open gate.

We heard the music before they showed, the throbbing of the mega-bass speakers turning the whole scene into a movie soundtrack. A bad movie. A blinged-out Escalade with spinner twankiedeuces pulled in, and a trio of gold-roped gangstahs stepped out.

Hey, bro! the leader said. I could tell he was the leader from the way the other two flanked him, posing. Probably even choreographed their drive-bys. Word is, you got the baddest fucking pit in the whole city. Now, see this, Im putting together a major match. Got a place the size of a fucking arena, babe. We doing it tournament-style, like K-1.

Jester said nothing. I couldnt see his face, but I knew it was wearing the kind of expression only being Inside can bring. I saw his feet shift, though. Slightly, but just enough.

I stayed where I was, exchanging the socket wrench Id been holding for my short-barreled .357.

The leader took Jesters silence for something it wasnt. Look, man, he said, confidence flowing like an unfurling ribbon through his Suge Knightwannabes voice, heres how it gonna go: Forty dogs enter; one dog leaves. Got it? No entry fee. And for the winner? A hundred grand, cash money. Your dog that good? Or was what I heard not the word?

Oh, Jester said, like he was having trouble with English. You want to fight my dog?

Sí, sí, the gangstah said, mockingly. His boys laughed on cue.

Bueno! Jester said. Hes right over there, maricón. You just walk back to that cage meaning the chain-linked spot where Id parked my Plymouth you step in, I unhook my dog, you can fight him all you want.

The gangstah was even dumber than his blue-and-white crocodile shoes. No, you fucking taco 

I slid out from under the Plymouth, took up a position behind the rear fender just as Jester snatched the gangstahs throat in one hand, holding him off the ground like he was a can of spray paint, ready to write a message. The other two backed away, then whipped out their shiny semi-autos. Still posing, but lost without a script.

Put down the pieces, I said, from cover. Put them down, and everybody gets to live.

It went quiet enough for them to hear my .357 being cocked.

Vito! I yelled over to my imaginary confederate behind them. Hold your fire. These guys just didnt know the score. I addressed the punks with the pistols.

Whoever shoots, dies, I said, very calm. You come here, you show no respect. One more stupid move and you niggers are all dog food.

The leader made a frantic gesture. The chrome pistols went to the concrete. Gently. I stepped out of the shadows not enough for them to see my face, but they couldnt miss the .357. It was all they were looking at, anyway.

Jester dropped the leader like a sack of smelly garbage, took a step back. The pits were both snarling in fury, ramming themselves against the chains, threatening to snap the steel with their combined power.

This place is protected, understand? I said, in my best Sopranos voice. It belongs to us. You didnt know before; now you do. Next fucking yom we see close to this joint, its gonna take him days to die. We got your plate, well have your name in an hour. We got your pictures, too. Youre on the list now. You want to keep breathing, stay the fuck away.

When they left, smoking the tires, Jester turned to me. His face said, I could have handled it.

My face said, I know you could.

That was a few years ago; before the orca pup had been born.

Tonight, I asked him, That little female, the black one with the white spots?

Yeah?

I really like her. Any chance you might consider letting me buy her from you?

He crossed his arms over his chest. Not threatening, thinking.

I got to ask Nova about it first, ese.

Nova?

El jefe, he said, pointing at the huge stud.

Why dyou name him Nova? I asked, frankly curious.

Is short for Casanova,  Jester said, grinning. Then his face turned cold. You know I never fight my dog.

Fuck, no. But I figure someone did hes half scar tissue, that old guy. Maybe you, uh, rescued him. A man who does something like that, Id admire him for it.

He gave me a long look. Not challenging, searching. I think maybe you the right man for Rosita.

Thank you, I said, respectfully. Thinking, I have to ask Pansy, too.

Then I walked home, alone.

* * *

Watch this, I told Thornton.

I took a chair in front of the videocam we had set on a tripod. The boom mikes were already in place, invisible to the viewer.

I faced the camera squarely. My name is Wesley, I said, hearing the icemans voice come out of my mouth. You think Im gone, dont you, suckers? Bang!



You like the stuff I mailed you? All true, right? You checked it out. Thats what you blue boys do, check things out. After some snitch tips you. You know how many men I killed? You ever solve one of them?

So youre saying, maybe he made this tape before he blew himself up. Maybe hes just fucking with us. You know, like the way we fucked with him when he was just a little kid. You know who I mean. All of you, you know.

I hate you. I hate you all. So heres your personal nightmare, pigs. Ask your Bronx boys where Fernando Quinones is. Nobodys seen him around lately. Big-time politician like him, missing. Been all over the papers. Youre never going to find him. The people who paid me didnt want him found, but they had to be sure I did my work. So I brought them the pieces. I hear theres certain Cuban restaurants in the South Bronx you dont want to order from for the next few weeks. Nothing with meat in it, anyway.

I had to go away for a while. Not because of you clowns. For a job. A big job. Out of the country. Took me a long time to plan it out, get everything in place. But I got it done.

And now Im back. With a long list. Watch your backs, pigs. You got a lot of men locked up, but you never found their money.

Claw clicked off the camera. He reached over and rewound the tape we had made.

Here, I said, handing it to Thornton.

What am I supposed to do with this?

Just stick it in the player, make sure everything works.

I believe 

Do it, Claw said.

Thornton inserted the cassette, hit play.

And there I was, confessing to a murder.

Rewind it, I told him. Then pop it out.

He did it.

Now take it with you.

Huh?!?

Take it with you, I repeated. Stick it in any machine you want. And play it again.

Why? Whats all this ?

Its all about showing you how weve got you covered, I explained, bringing him under the partnership blanket that he needed to feel around his shoulders if he was going to go all the way we needed him to. You hit play and that tape is going to be nothing but static.

But I just saw 

What you just saw cost us fifty grand. It records anything perfectly. Plays it back perfectly, too. Once. That activates the software. Its all digital for every frame it plays, it goes back and wipes it. Not erase, wipe. Like a computer doing a total overwrite, understand? Instead of data, or images, or whatever, you get random-generated ones and zeros. It cant be recovered, cant be repaired. It is fucking gone.

His mouth dropped open, but no sound came out.

I just told you my real name. And confessed to a murder that just happened, too check it out for yourself. I put it on tape. Would I give it to you and let you walk out of here with it if I wasnt absolutely sure it would work?

How do I know this isnt a bluff? Or some kind of test?

You know its not a bluff because you are going to take it. And you are going to see for yourself. And, once you see for yourself, you know this is no test.

Because then youll know what it really is. Its us, protecting you. I already told Claw what youre going to say on the tape were going to make. He knows its all a shuck, total fraud. But we need to deliver them something to make all this money happen. And the only thing theyll take is you, on tape, saying what we worked out. What we rehearsed.

So theyd have to play it

To be sure we delivered, exactly! I congratulated him. But when they try to play it again

Theyre fucked!

No, I said, very seriously. Theyre not. Youre in the Philippines, with your half-mil, and youre not coming back. Sure, they dont have a tape, but, for real, youre no threat to them anymore. Theyll get what they paid for, even if it wasnt in the way they expected. And they got something else, too.

What?

Theyll get the message, I said, dialing up the freaks rheostat. Youve got people. People who know things. People who know how to get things done. You know what that spells, Thorn. Protection! Theyll know youre not a threat to them because well tell them. And well tell them something else: they fuck with you, they fuck with us. And theres no way they want to do that.

I watched the freak swell with the surge of power flowing through him. I knew what turned his crank, even if he didnt.

When he left with the tape Claw and I exchanged the slightest of nods. A prison-yard gesture: the shot-caller giving the okay to take someone down.

* * *

Let me tell it, the Prof commanded, silencing us all. We were gathered in Gatemans back room. The mirror on the wall separating the wheelchair-bound shooters living quarters from the flophouse desk he supposedly manned around the clock was a see-through, just in case someone wandered in, looking for a room. For the first few years, Gateman had expected his PO to drop by, but hed given that up after a while.

Anyway, he was finally off that paper. The plea deal Davidson had worked out for him last time ended up being a Man Two, which translated to almost eight in, because Gate was a predicate felon. Hed done the time the way youre supposed to do it.

By the time he was out of Processing and rolling onto the yard, the word was out about his last time in court. The judge had offered to cut the deal lower, all the way down to a simple assault beef: In consideration of three factors, sir: one, the Court agrees with your counsel that your justification defense might well have, at a minimum, cast a significant shadow of reasonable doubt; two, your physical handicap; and, three, an equitable cooperation agreement, to be negotiated between 

Gateman cut the judge off at the knees, his voice booming through the crowded court. You got that whole handicapped thing wrong, Judge. Just because a mans in a wheelchair dont mean he cant stand up. Cooperate this, you miserable whore.

Gateman never lacked for friends Inside. Old-school cons made it a point to go over and shake his hand, as clear a message as if they had Day-Glo-ed it on those big gray walls.

The Prof held center stage. On his feet, ready to preach, the way he used to do. Back down home, son, they said I had the spirit in me when I was just a little boy. They got that right, in church. But they never came to my house.

Okay, now, he said, heres how it goes, people. My boy nodding in my direction he figures this guy Reedy tried to follow him once, hed try it again. But last time he did? Flop City. So whats the man gonna do now? Thats right! he said as if anyone had spoken. Gonna send someone back to the vanishing point. No ghosts this time, though. Gotta be someone who can speak the language. No teams, this scene. One guy. Thai?

Max nodded.

Anyway, he strolls in, sits at a table. Asks the waiter who comes over if any of his friends have been in lately. Only hes not speaking Thai, hes speakingChinese?

Max nodded again, making a patting-something-down gesture: Cantonese, not Mandarin. Not a language you learn in college.

These friends, hes talking about Maxs friends. You know, the boys with theAnyway, he figures, I figure, that someones gonna make a call, bring them all. Then hes gonna negotiate. Had fifty large in this little leather bag he brought with him.

Call goes to Mamas. So, when the boys show, they got Max in tow.

Oh, Michelle said. Not to rhyme, just to show she was part of the congregation.

Thats right! the Prof said, again. Man thinks hes looking at gang boys. Shooters, sure. Hes relaxed behind that. All he was packing was the money. Not even a blade. Kind of man, hes walked into guns before. But when he got to the roof the part you cant see from across the street, because of that old water tank they never took down there was Max.

You saw this? I asked him. Wondering why Max was letting the Prof do all the talking.

These eyes dont lie, the little man fired back. I was on the spot. In fact, my son took us all there.

Clarence nodded. Apparently, hed been left at the curb. Not because he was being disrespected in case the visitor had brought friends.

I was in the corner. Bundle of rags. Both barrels cocked, ready to drop if anyone came to bop.

Now listen, people, he exhorted us. This guy, he showed a picture of Burke. Big, clear picture. Close-up. Looks just like him, except for his hair andsomething around his eyes.

That was me, Michelle said, proudly.

It was still a nice picture, sweet girl. Whatever those boys use, its the best. So, anyway, he shows the picture around. Opens his bag, shows the cash, too. The boys all give him the never seen him routine. But then one of them screws up, blows the role. Pulls his iron, says, You dont come back. 

This guy they sent, he was fast. I mean, the kind of fast you got to wonder if you even saw what you think you did. He flashes his foot, the gun goes flying, and the boy who pulled it, hes going to need steel pins in his wrist. The Thai guy, hes back to where he was, still holding Burkes picture, like he never moved.

Fuck! Gateman said. Didnt they all ?

No, the Prof cut him off. They stepped right off. You know why? Because, all of a sudden, Max the Silent was justthere. And when the life-taking, widow-making silent wind of death walks, these boys know the show: step aside or die.

But the guy with the moves, you could tell hes not from around here. An import.

Max points. You dont have to know no sign language to read whats hes saying. And then the Thai fucking jumps him.

Max lets him come. Like watching a breeze rush a rock. The Thai lands a kick to Maxs leg, below the knee, then he grabs Max behind the neck and fires a triple knee-strike: thigh, chest, head. Only the last one never gets there.

Jesus! I blurted out. Id seen Max go against a Muay Thai fighter before. He had blocked the long-distance strikes, feinted a slip, and let the other guy get in close, where hed want to be for the climbing knee-strikes that they specialize in. Max had stabbed a nerve on the Muay Thai mans left side. In a split-second pause, the Mongol drove his blue-knuckled fist to the guys sternum. Stopped his heart.

So he never came out? Gateman asked, way ahead of me.

Sure, he did! the Prof scoffed. He disappears, what kind of message is that? Maybe a dozen guys ventilated him. Thatd be okay with his boss. The guy he sent was good, real good, but he was just cannon fodder. So he walked right out the front door. After he came to.

Max choked him out?

Bingo! the little man congratulated me. When the Thai comes to, hes back in the same booth he started from. With his bag of cash. He walks out the front door and walks a few blocks. Makes a call from a cell phone. Probably for the pickup.

Dont know what story he told, people, but I guarantee you this: no way it made whoever sent him sleep easier that night.

* * *

Thornton was telling me and Claw how the tape Id made had disappeared when hed tried to play it. This was the third time he told us, and he was still slack-jawed with amazement.

Enough, I told him. If youre not ready to do it now, then youre 

The Moles phone-bomb rang. I stepped out of the concrete box to take the call, said, What? when I was far enough away.

We can do it this Friday. Reedy.

Which means ? I pressed him.

All three.

With the ?

Yes, yes, he said, annoyed at the trivia. Youre going to bring what you said you had to show us. Were going to authenticate it well have our appraiser on the premises, as agreed and, should it prove to be all you promised, the transaction will be completed on the spot.

Fridays fine. Where and when?

The silence that came back over the satellite connection was the sound of a boxer whod been warned about your jab and never saw the hook coming.

You want us to pick the site?

Why not? I said, with an innocence as real as Russian democracy. You already know youre dealing with more than just me, so why should you get all stupid when were so close?

Why indeed? he agreed. I admit, this is a little unexpected. You understand, there is a need for privacy, so it cant be at my 

Call me back with the time and place, I told him, and cut him off.

* * *

Three days, the Prof said, solemnly.

You want me to make sure he 

No! I cut off Claw, sharply. I told you we were doing this my way. No threats. And absolutely no rehearsals. This has got to be live. And come across that way. Besides, he doesnt need any practice; hes got this one down pat.

I know, the guy Id been calling the cancer-man in my head ever since we first spoke said. Your man he meant the Mole, who hadnt said a word all the time he was working inside the concrete box has got it perfect. All I have to do is wait for this one to ring he held up a cell phone with a band of red duct tape across the back to let me know that were coming through, and this one this time, the tape was yellow to tell me that were done. I dont answer either one; I just make sure its ringing.

He looked to me for confirmation. I nodded.

Couldnt you use someone else? For my part, I mean?

Why?

Youre not going in bareback. I know youve got a crew, but me and that big guy nobody whod ever watched Gigi work ever called him fat showed you we can do work, right?

Thanks, I said, meaning it. But without you right there, in the room, the maggot could always get stupid. He couldnt pull this off if he was scared. He needs you right there with him. Needs you to believe that the whole thing is a scam. He needs yourapproval, I guess is the only way to say it. He needs to be with someone, feel like hes part of something. Sure, Inside, he paid. But that was for protection, not membership. Now hes earning, see? Contributing. Thats your job, your piece of this: youve got to let this freak feel your respect, understand? Hes showing you something, and youre going to admire how slick he pulls it off.

Claw said nothing for a minute.

You can do this, Michelle told him, using her spell-casters eyes. Then you can do that other thing you have to do.

I can see it in you, the Prof said, softly.

What?

Youre going to kick its ass, the little man said. I can see that in a man. You think I dont have the sight, you ask Silver about the night I was right.

Claw stuck out his hand.

If it had been a different place 

The Prof took his hand. Youd be with us, he said. I know this, too. I do now, anyway.

* * *

Can you get this whole thing ready on time?

For the kind of money youre talking, I could get it done tonight, Gigi assured me. But whats that ramp thing you want out back for?

Wheelchair access, I said.

* * *

Your car, mahn? Your own car?

Itll be a different color. With dead-end plates.

Still, Burke. How many cars ?

You know a faster one? Or a better corner-carver?

No, mahn. Your machine is the work of a magician.

Yeah. And what we might need is a disappearing act.

* * *

That is heavy matériel, the man I knew as Yitzhak said. He wasnt talking weight; he was talking cost.

Did I lie to you? Meaning: the last time we dealt with each other.

You did not.

Theres plenty of them out there for sale. I came to you because I believe you are a man of honor. You wont cheat me on the price, but that isnt what Im worried about.

You have to know it is going to work.

Thats it, I confirmed. The SCUDs were duds.

And they came fromYes, I understand. It is none of my business, but

What?

He looked at me for a long moment. I understand you havefriends. Some of those friends, they consider us, what our people do, a disgrace.

Because youre not out hunting Nazis?

Because we are businessmen.

Plenty of businessmen 

What? Write checks, and call themselves freedom fighters? You dont know everything that we do, he said, hurt, but making it sound like an accusation.

Like you said: Business. Not my business.

You come back here, he said, consulting a massive wristwatch if you weighed it, the measurement would be twelve ounces to a pound in twenty-four hours.

* * *

They were waiting when I pulled up. Two men, standing outside their car, so I could see Yitzhak hadnt come alone.

I had. I followed their hand signals, backed the Plymouth in so our cars were trunk-to-trunk. Mine was already lined with quilts, covering the fuel cell and the relocated battery.

Yitzhak offered his hand. A signal to the man next to him. The man wasnt wearing a uniform, but everything about him screamed military.

No introductions.

We have an Igla, the man said, meaning whatever was in the trunk of Yitzhaks car. You have used one?

I dont even know what it is.

He exchanged a look with Yitzhak, then turned to face me again.

It is also called an SA-16 Gimlet, he said, as if that would explain anything. This is perhaps twenty-five years old. I say old, although it has never been used. But it has been properly maintained. It is as good now as it was the day it was made. I have a model with me. In case

Please, I said, respectfully.

He removed a tube of metal, pulled on the underside with both hands, and hoisted it to his shoulder. It is not so heavy maybe twenty kilos for what it can do. But you understand, it must be aimed at least ten meters off the ground to be effective. More is better.

I nodded. He went through a lot of stuff about target acquisition and passive infrared.

He watched my face as he spoke. Unless you are experienced, this is not what you want, he finally said. An RPG would be much more effective. And much cheaper. He never glanced at Yitzhak this guy was all about the work.

Were not looking at an armored car, I told him.

A helicopter?

Maybe, I said. Then, realizing hed take that for craftiness, I explained: Its just for backup. The people wemight have a dispute with, they have access to one.

Altitude? the military guy said. Not so much a question as data-gathering.

I dont know, I said. But low, real low.

No, no, no! he said, disgusted. The surface-to-air you asked for, it requires an experienced hand.

I can 

What? Practice, you think? On what? Where? With what?

I just stood there, listening to him put my lame idea through the Cuisinart of his professionals mind.

The SAM is a heat-seeker, he finally said. It acquires the target, not the operator. But an RPG, its just a shoulder-fired rocket. Like a tiny bazooka does that help you understand?

I think so.

It weighs less than half of the Igla. And you aim it like a rifle. Your eye finds the target, hot or cold.

Yeah, but 

Yes. He sighed, almost bored. It will bring down a bird, if it comes in low enough. And thats even without our modifications.

I said nothing. I already felt like an idiot; I wasnt going to make it worse.

I never understand him, either, Yitzhak said, kindly.

The warhead, that is custom work, the unnamed man said, as matter-of-factly as a hardware-store guy explaining a power drill. The one we have, it will totally destroy whatever it hits. And burn whatever is left.

That does sound better, I admitted.

It is actually cheaper, Yitzhak reminded me.

What do I have to ?

I have it with us, the military man said.

* * *

The building is in Upper Westchester, Reedy said. I own it. By midnight, it will be completely empty, except for invitees. Im giving you the address in advance, so you can put anyone you want in place. Good faith.

Good faith, I echoed the lie.

* * *

You know I can drive, Michelle said, just a fingernails distance from the detonator to her temper.

Weve already got 

Im not saying Ill be the driver. Im saying I can drive. Things happen. You could need me.

My sister 

You dont say a word to me. She wheeled on Clarence. I was doing work before you were  Michelle cut herself off. She wasnt afraid of dying, but shed rather die than admit she was older than Clarence.

Sweetheart, you too pretty to be 

Spare me, she sneered at the Prof. Only one man gets to pat me on the ass, and he couldnt honey-talk a woman if his life depended on it.

Youre in on the sin, the little man said, surrendering on behalf of us all.

* * *

Really should have a rifleman for this, boss. That kind of distance

We dont know the distance yet, Gate. May not be any distance, if they play it square.

Whats the odds?

Fifty-fifty.

You looked over the scene?

Not me personally, but it was done, I said, showing him the aerial photos.

I dont like that long alley, boss. You got high ground on both sides.

Cleared ground, I said. They put anyone up there, theyre still going to be there when the cops show up. Nobodyll have to read them their rights, either.

* * *

It was a three-story building, looked like the management office for what had once been an industrial park, now in the process of being converted to condos. Land in this part of the country is more valuable than any business conducted on it.

The place looked deserted. Only the third floor had lights showing.

Clarence pulled up to the front door. I stepped out of my Plymouth. Gigis panel van was close by, a probably still-fuming Michelle sitting next to the monster. Gateman was checking through the gun-slit openings in the steel plates lining the van, spinning freely in his wheelchair.

Max was in the shadows, somewhere. I didnt know where the Blood Shadows were, either. Or the Prof.

I pulled back on the unlocked doors, saw the elevator lights were out, and started up the stairs. My mind started to take me places I didnt want to go: Maybe the only threat they see is me. If thats so, Im about to solve their problem. In fact, I guess I already did. So I went back to that place I found every time I had to walk into an enemys darkness. Some people have faith. Me, I had the born-to-lose career criminals mantra: Fuck it!

* * *

The conference room was big enough for a twenty-person table, with plenty of space surrounding it. The double doors were standing open. Behind the table, facing me, were three men. Reedy was in the middle, Bender to his left, Henricks on his right. Three rich, privileged, glossy lumps of necrotic flesh.

Behind them: a huge pane of glass, black night for a curtain. As I stepped forward, I deliberately scanned the men in the corners, and along the walls. Id seen them all before. In Africa. Not these same men, but from the same tribe.

Wolfe had once called me a mercenary trying to pass for a patriot. She wasnt talking about national loyalty.

I knew what I was. What Id done. Id told Wolfe I was back to being myself.

I wasnt lying when Id said that. And now I was back in the same swamp, wondering if I could find my way home.

* * *

I took off the shoulder strap to the canvas pouch I had slung over one shoulder, put the pouch on the desk across from the three men facing me.

None of the hired guns moved.

I put the briefcase Id been carrying on the table, too.

Want to do it? I asked, starting to pull my jacket off.

Reedy waved it off. His silent gesture said it all: if I was wired, it wasnt going to do me any good nobody on their side was going to speak out loud.

This, I said, taking out the Moles phone, is the transmitter. The signal is cellular, not cyber. Scrambled at both ends. I have to dial in the encryption codes for it to work. When the connect is made, youll be able to see it all, live, on this screen.

Thats whats in here, I told them, pointing at the briefcase. Just a magnifier, so you can all watch at once the pickup screens pretty small, but the sound is adjustable. Theres also a couple of tripods to set the whole thing up, so you dont need to hand-hold it. What youre going to see could take a while.

Reedy nodded assent. They all slid their chairs back so I had room to set up the apparatus.

Theres something I have to show you first, I told them, holding up a quarter-inch-thick stack of paper, my back deliberately to the hired guns. Nows not the time, but soon, if everything goes the way its supposed to. Ready?

When I got the silent nod, I punched in the number of the phone Claw would be holding, the one with the red tape on the back. Then I added a string of numbers, fake-dialing the nonexistent encryption.

I stepped back. And the magnified screen popped into life.

I moved back to the door. Not to be closer to it I was sure the staircase would be blanketed by then but to watch their faces.

Reedy stayed flat. Maybe his eyes narrowed a little. Henricks was a beefy slab. But Benders complexion picked up a greenish hue, and his mouth was dry enough so that he broke ranks and took a drink of something from the iced glass on his left.

The voice that came over the micro-speakers was as clear as if Thornton was in the room.

My name is Thornton, Percival K. Thornton. Back in the day, I went by Thorn. Now, I go by Terminal. Because thats me, now: terminal. Im just about done. But theres something I have to do first.

One night in August of 1975, a girl was killed. Her name was Melissa. Melissa Turnbridge. They never caught who did it. I dont think they ever had any real suspects. Thats the part I cant fix the wrong I cant make right.

But theres one part of it I can fix, and thats why Im doing this. Theres someone or maybe even more than one; Im not saying whove been blaming themselves for what happened. More than thirty years of carrying that around. Not the fear of the knock on the door thats never going to happen, not now. But theres something worse. Something I found out for myself. The guilt.

The speaker took an audible breath. Then:

Heres the truth. The truth the cops never knew. The one they may never know that parts not up to me. Melissa was my girlfriend. Yeah, I know what youre thinking. How could a grown man have a thirteen-year-old girlfriend?

Its not what you think. You didnt know her; I did. Youve heard about natural-born killers, right? I didnt believe there was any such thing until I went to prison. Then I saw it for myself. They werent abused as kids; thats all bullshit. They were just born to be what they are, same as a rattlesnake.

Slimeball probably believes what he just said, I thought. Natural-born is how people always account for what they dont understandor dont want to.

Well, that was her, Melissa. Not a born killer, a born whore. And not just a whore, a dirty little slut who loved what she did. Loved it. Not the money oh, she liked money, but she already had so much, from her parents and all, that it didnt have much of a jolt for her. For her, money was liketribute or something. The only thing that really got that little cunt wet was power. Thats what made her come, making people crawl.

Before her, I was a normal guy. Better than normal. I was a good-looking man ask anyone who knew me back then. I had a sweet ride, my own place, plenty of spending money. All the pussy anyone could ever want, and I never paid a dime for any of it.

Melissa came on to me, not the other way around. What did I want with some junior-high kid? Im just sitting in my car, near the school, when she jumps in. Before I could say a word, she pulls up her skirt, right to her panties. Turn left at the light, she tells me. Im, like, in a trance. This is broad daylight, okay? And suddenly were in thisforestlike place. And shes kneeling on the front seat, sucking my cock. Not just sucking it: shes got her fingernail under my balls, twirling her tongue, making all these noises. Ive had this was years later five-hundred-dollar-an-hour hookers, and none of them could do it like Melissa. Like I said, a natural.

This is all happening, and Im, like, frozen. And I dont mean my cock. I couldnt move. She reaches back and pulls her skirt up, so I can watch her ass wiggle. I explode in her mouth. She makes these yum, yum sounds, like she just had a bowl of ice cream. Licks her lips. Tells me, dont worry about anything where we are, its on her property. Not her fathers, hers, the way she says it.

Im dead. I know Im dead, but I cant do anything about it. She reaches in her purse, takes out a tube of something. Youll need this, for next time, she says. Your cocks so big, it wont fit, otherwise.

I already know theres never going to be any next time with this one. All I want to do is get out of there. But she can see this. Tomorrow, we can use the cabin, she says. Not asking me, telling me.

It gets worse after that. I was never in charge. Not for a minute. Once she made meget down on my knees andIt wasdegrading. She made me say things. Do things. She even took pictures of me, and I couldnt stop her.

I hated her more every day. But she held the whip. From the very first time, she kept telling me what was going to happen to me if she told her daddy. Thats what she called him. She knew more about the law than any lawyer. Where do you think I learned all this? I remember her saying. Ive been in charge since I was nine years old.

She never thought I had the balls to stop her. I dont think she was afraid of anything. She was like some devil-girl.

Well, she was wrong. Maybe I didnt have the balls to kill her, but I had one thing nobody ever gave me credit for: brains. Not school brains, street brains.

Once she made me into aIt doesnt matter, but thats when I started. I knew it would take time, and Id have to be careful. But I also knew where I had to look for what I needed.

These three spineless little nothings. Always hung out togetherif you call circle-jerking hanging out. They had nothing going for them but money. Only, where we lived, just about everyone had money, so that didnt get them anything. A guy like me, a guy they thought had it all, they fucking worshiped me.

So when I invited them over one day they knew who I was, knew I dealt to some of the older guys, so they werent surprised to see my car around the school it was like they died and went to heaven.

I started them slow. First, just talk. Advice, like.

I showed them stuff. Cards, dice. Let them hear me place a few bets. Like a big brother.

The marijuana mellowed them, but I didnt want them too mellow.

It was the tapes that got them going. I started them off on lightweight porn, so I could see if they had the taste. For all I knew, they could have been queer.

By the time I was up to the heavy stuff you had to know where to get hard S&M in those days, not like now thats all they wanted to see. The more the girls had to take it, the more those punks liked it. Because, on the tapes, the girls liked it, see?

In the stuff I showed them, no matter what got done to them, the bitches always begged for more. Fuck them in the ass, come all over their faces, make them eat shit theyd love you for it.

It was like I showed the little punks a special secret. The girls who were always blowing them off, what they really wanted was a man to make them take it. That arrogant stuff was just a front inside, theyre all the same.

Thats when I started feeding Melissa into the picture. Got them to see her for the fuck-princess she could be if she was only handled right. By the right guys.

I got them into keeping a journal. Just a fantasy thing. Told them all men did that, planned out what they were going to do to a certain bitch to teach her a few lessons. Showed them a couple of mine, in fact.

I kept working on them, waiting for everything to come together. When they were ready, totally committed, I even had the place for them to do it. I knew the house would be empty, because the owners were paying me to keep an eye on it while they were on some cruise. They were planning on doing all this redecorating when they got back, so the front rooms were right down to the bare floor, no furniture. Im the one who put the rug thereand the plastic underneath.

The plan was perfect. I knew where Melissa would be that night. Summertime, she could stay out untilAh, for all I knew, she didnt even have a curfew. I sure as hell knew I wasnt the first guy she had turned into a

Anyway, the reason I knew where shed be was she thought she was going to meet me.

That bitch had a mouth on her like a thousand razors, but she didnt have any physical strength. Besides, I had these punks so pumped up on what studs they were going to turn into after doing the job on her. I mean, they were absolutely convinced shed take it every way they gave it to her, then shed be their girlfriend all three of them forever. Just to make sure, I had them all a little wired on speed. They thought they could do anything.

He paused for a second. Reached out of camera view for something. I heard the distinct sound of exhaled cigarette smoke. I knew what this was all about. What Thornton was all about. Power. He could smoke; Claw couldnt not without revealing his presence. And Claw really needed a smoke. Thats the reason wed never rehearsed; it would have detracted from the freaks perfect-truth performance.

The docs say these things can kill you. Well, they wont kill me. Youll see.

Anyway, Im just kicking back, waiting for those stupid little tools to show up with the photos I told them to take. I knew Melissa wouldnt go to the cops about other kids, but those pictures would be my proof, in case she ever went to them about me. Like she was always saying she might do, every time I tried tomake her stop.

And then it went haywire. The stupid punks run into my house, babbling about how they killed her. They didnt mean to Christ, they must of said that a million times but it happened. So I did what I had to do if anything at the scene connected back to those wimps, theyd be spilling their guts to the cops in ten seconds. And Id be in it.

Only thing is, when I get there, shes not dead. Not fucking close to it. Oh, shes beat up pretty good, bleeding a little bit. Maybe she even was unconscious for a while. Must of been, actually, since she was still there when I showed up. Thats probably why they thought theyd croaked her.

But there she is. Just been tied up, gang-fucked, pissed onand shes threatening me!

Thats when I knew how it had to end. I punched her right in the mouth man, I had been wanting to do that for so long and thats when she knew, too. I could see it in her eyes. The one thing Id never thought Id see there: fear. Because she knew it was finally going to happen. Shed gone too far.

She didnt even try and fight when I used the handcuffs and the gag. I wrapped her in the rug and the plastic, and I drove her out to this spot I know.

And thats where I showed her what happens to any cunt who abuses me like she had.

I know the cops never released any of the crime-scene photos. At least, not to the public. So these pathetic little punks the ones whove been thinking theyre killers for all these years they never saw what the body looked like when it was dug up. If they had, they would have known the truth.

What I really wanted was to carve my initials in her ass after I finished with her, but I knew I couldnt do that. But I did burn a sign into her. With cigarettes. She probably died while I was finishing I could hear her trying to scream through the gag but it doesnt matter. Because I had to make sure.

Nothing was ever in the papers about exactly how she died, but I know. Im the only one who knows. Because it was me who beat her face in until those dirty whore-cunt eyes of hers were gone. Then I turned her over and used the same bat to open her skull, right down to the white stuff.

That was the real last laugh. She thought I didnt have any brains, so I beat hers in.

I slid some of the paper across the slick surface of the table. It landed in front of Reedy. The autopsy photos. A perfect match to everything Thornton had just confessed to.

Copies of the police files, I said. The originals are still in their evidence locker. In storage. Cold-cased. The seals are intact. I was just a messenger, describing the contents of the package I was handing over to its rightful owner.

Reedy couldnt help himself. How could you possibly ?

Trade secret, I told him. And then Thornton came back on:

I cant say Im proud of what I did. Thats not why Im making this statement, or whatever you want to call it, now. That filthy whore made me into what I ended up being. Nothing. Thats what I ended up being. I was on the fast track, and she turned me into a loser.

Those kids I used? I ended up blackmailing them. Right up to the time anyone sees this, theyre always going to believe that theyre killers. I told them that I had a tapean audiotape. There never was any tape; it was all a bluff. But if youre scared enough, if you feel guilty enough or if youre afraid of being caught that bluff is always good forfor whatever you want.

Where do you think I learned that trick? Thats right. Sweet little Melissa. She was the expert. Far as Im concerned, I did the world a favor by taking her out. What Im doing now isnt for her. Shes probably in hell right this minute, sucking the Devils cock, saying, Oh, that tastes so good, Daddy! No, this is for the people I really wronged.

What good is an apology now? Especially from a man whos terminal? Im not going to pay for what I did. But I dont want anyone else to, either.

I have to be back in the hospital in another couple of hours. Next time I leave, Ill be in a box. A little box.

Im sorry about a lot of things. But what Im sorriest about most is that Ill never be able to watch that dirty little cunt die again. I still have the Polaroids I took. Im going to burn them before I go back to the hospital, bring the ashes with me. In my will, I tell them to cremate me. And scatter my ashes with the ones from those pictures I took of her that night. So we can be together, forever.

Thats all I have to say.

The speakers went silent, but you could still see Thorntons image on the screen. Lighting another cigarette, leaning back in his chair, like hed just had a real good one, from a really experienced whore.

* * *

Well? was all I said.

Reedy made a crooking motion with his left forefinger. One of the mercs stepped over, handed me a big, soft-sided suitcase.

Want to count it?

No, I said. I want to add to it.

What? Reedy snapped, both hands grasping the Moles special phone, as if I was going to try and snatch it back from him.

I brought you what I promised, I said, hands open at my sides. Walked into the lions den to do it. Am I lying?

All three shook their heads no. Reedy handled it nicely; Henricks went at it a little harder. Bender looked like one of those bobble-head dolls.

You can keep that phone, I said. The whole thing has been captured. You can transfer it to video. Right now, if you want; Ill wait.

Reedy made another signal. One of the mercs I knew he was a tech, because he wasnt carrying immediately ran over. He examined the phone, nodded. He moved rapidly back to a bank of equipment, plugged a thin cable into the phone, the other end into an adaptor, into which he plugged a much thicker cable, leading to a computer screen.

Just press 22 on the phone, I said.

The tech did it.

When its rewound, the screen will flash red. Just hit 23 and you can transfer.

It took a few minutes, but there was Thornton, on the techs computer screen, the terminal man, doing his thing.

You can keep these, too, I said, tossing the rest of the police-file photocopies over to Reedy.

So the extra money would be for what exactly?

Remember what Thornton called his statement?

An apology? Reedy said, angry at something, but I couldnt tell what he had a lot of choices.

A dying declaration, I said. To be legal, it has to meet two criteria. You know what they are?

Why dont you tell us?

Sure, I said. One, it cant be made under duress. Like, if someone had him wired to a source of electricity, and he was reading off a script, knowing one slip and he was going to feel real pain. Over and over, until he got it right. If a man did that, and later changed his story, well, it wouldnt pass the first test.

And the second?

A dying declaration is only good if the person not only believes theyre dying, but

Reedy nodded again. Another merc opened another suitcase. There was a lot more in there than the six Id asked for. He counted it out, pointed at the over-the-shoulder canvas bag Id used to bring in the Moles cell phone. I opened it showed him it was empty and he shoveled in the money.

Theres one more thing, I said. Ive played this straight, right down the line. I hope you did, but I cant be sure. You had me followed before. At least twice. I cant have that.

Nobody move, Reedy ordered.

Yeah, thats very nice, I told him. But it wont do. That phone youre holding? Keep holding it. You let me walk clear, no trail, no trace; I keep walking. And you never see me again.

Agreed.

Right. And when Im sure, Ill call youon that phone. You pick it up, say whatever you want, just so I recognize your voice. Then, Ill say, Okay. And then were done. Ill take care of the rest of what you just paid me for. If youve got any sense at all, youll leave me free to do just that.

We have a deal, Reedy said.

I turned and walked out the door.

* * *

On the way down the staircase, I passed a man dressed all in black. Not breathing.

I guess the guy theyd stationed on the next landing never heard his partner go he looked like hed never seen it coming, either.

As I walked out the front door, Clarence pulled up in my Roadrunner. Max would already be gone, along with the Shadows. The loudest sound was the blood pounding in my ears.

Clarence handed me a cell phone. I motioned for him to get rolling, and I dialed the Moles device.

Already? Reedy answered, no surprise in his voice that his staircase assassins had failed. You see? Im a man of my word, too.

I punched in 88.

The top of the building exploded into a raging fireball the mercs must have been packing something heavier than the firearms Id seen.

The Plymouth blasted down the narrow corridor like it was trying for a ten-second quarter. I spotted a black blotch against the wall just ahead, screamed: Stop!

The Plymouths four-piston calipers locked like an anchor in asphalt. I was out the door while it was still skidding.

Prof! I screamed. The little man was lying with his back to the wall. His right thigh was torn so badly I couldnt see anything but blood.

I knelt next to him as Clarence ran up, pistol at the ready.

Get that car out of here, quick! the Prof gasped. Too big a target.

Prof 

I was inside, cross the way, the little man said. He twisted his head at the building across from Reedys headquarters. It was just one story higher than the one Id just left the windows said it was some kind of factory, not for the executive class. I was on full ghost, but the motherfuckers peeped me anyway. Must have had an electronic eye somewhere. I thought Id got away clean, but they got a sniper on the top floor. Left corner window.

Pain flashed across his face. They got ten, twelve men on that floor. Full gear. Probably be coming down this way any second. A warriors grin drove the pain from his eyes. If they got the balls I fed them some lead before I fled. Now go!

We will not 

You hush, boy! the Prof snapped at Clarence. Im done, but I can buy you time to get gone.

Father

The Profs eyelids fluttered. I took over. Get the car around the corner, where the sniper cant see it, I snapped at Clarence. Pop the trunk. Then get back behind the wheel. Ive got this.

The Profs eyes came back to life. A bubble of blood was in his mouth from where hed bitten into his lip to revive himself. Do what I tell you, boy! he barked, his iron voice too full of love to be disobeyed.

A piece of the wall just above us came off. Never heard a shot the shooter must be using a suppressor.

Cocksucker aint no Wesley, the little man sneered. I been laying here like a fucking bulls-eye; he already missed twice.

I leaned close, needing to catch every word, but desperate to get to my car.

Honor thy father, he whispered. Call my name, son. My true name. Say it! Say it loud, so those whores know whos gonna bar their door.

John Henry! I screamed, with all my strength. The war cry pulled the Prof back from the brink I could see the blaze of golden fire flare in his all-seeing brown eyes.

Fetch me my hammer, son! the little man commanded. Time for me to drive some steel for real.

I was frozen trapped between the two most compelling forces of my life.

Get gone, Schoolboy, he assured me. Ill be waiting when you show up. Me and that hound of yours.

I kissed him. Another shot ripped the wall. I pulled a fistful of spare 12-gauge double 0s from the Profs side pocket, dropped them by his side. Found his scattergun a few feet away, placed it reverently in his right handand ran for the corner.

* * *

The trunk was open, but Clarence wasnt behind the wheel. He was on one knee, his pistol out, a rabid dog on a gossamer leash. Id told him to get around the corner, but that was as far as he was going.

I grabbed the RPG, shouldered it, shouted, Get ready to fly!and ran back the way Id come.

The Prof was still down, but his sawed-off was up. Waiting. The concrete was dark next to him, a spreading stain.

He never saw me as I dropped to one knee, sighted, and let loose at the snipers roost, screaming Die! inside my heart, like Id been doing since I was a kid. I could actually feel my hate raging inside that whistling warhead.

Yitzhaks man hadnt been lying. I was still staring at what was left of the top corner of the building when the armored van wheeled up broadside, a string of killer wasps flying out of the gun slits, a buzzing fog of death for whoever wanted to come down that alley toward us.

Gateman kept blasting, emptying clip after clip, covering Gigi as the giant lumbered out, so wrapped in Kevlar he looked like a moving boulder.

He scooped up the unconscious Prof, draping some layers of bullet-blanket over him. The back doors opened. Gigi laid him down, ran around to the front door. Michelle was already in motion. She jumped into the back. I could see Gateman already had the tourniquet out just before the doors closed. I knew the morphine was next.

I left the RPG where it was and sprinted down the alley. I stole a quick look over my shoulder. The alley was empty.

Couldnt face John Henry, could you, punks? My fathers too much man for every fucking one of you! I was sobbing with pride, moving faster than that rocket had.

As I turned the corner, I yelled, We got him! Hes in the van! as I dove into the passengers seat.

Clarence had the Plymouth on full-jet as I speed-dialed Claws last phonethe one with the yellow tape.

* * *

Count it, I told Claw, three days later.

I dont need to.

I want you to.

He gave me an unreadable look, then opened the duffel bag, stacked the banded cash on the table in my booth at Mamas. Took him a long time to count he knew I wanted him to touch every bill.

Theres an extra 

 share, I finished for him. The guy who was supposed to get it, he wont be needing it.

Thats the fucking truth, the AB man said, grimly. I did it plenty of times before. Inside, I mean never on the street. Did it because I had to. I always stayed away from guys who liked doing it. But this time

I know, I said. I held out my hand. He grasped it with the claw hed used on Thornton. Youre going to make it, I told him. The Prof knows.

Is he going to?

We do not know yet, mahn, Clarence said. My father is in a place where he is getting the best of everything, but we could not get him there immediately. We cannot visit. Every day, we wait. Every day, we pray.

He didnt mention that it was going to take a big chunk out of our piece to cover the freight for this one. And cost a few doctors their licenses if they got caught.

I pray for him, too, Claw said.

Max bowed. Meaning: we didnt care who or what Claw was praying to we believed that he was.

Mama came over to my booth. Handed Claw a Barnard mug.

Whats this? he asked. It wasnt a food question.

Old Chinese medicine, Mama told him, her black-ice eyes unblinking. Kill bad things inside.

Claw held her eyes as he drank it down.

Sure cure, Mama said. Need two cups.

May I please have the ?

When you come back, she said. And walked away.

* * *

All we can do is wait? Michelle said, floodlighting the truth none of us wanted to speak aloud.

If my father does not come back to us 

Hes got the best, I cut Clarence off. Meaning: theres some things you cant get revenge for, and if the Prof didnt come back to us, it wouldnt be due to malpractice. The sniper whod shot our father was already nothing but tissue samples.

Maybe the Mole has something, Michelle said, hopefully. Something special.

Couldnt hurt to go ask, honey, I told her.

* * *

I finally said the first prayer of my life that didnt ask for death. I couldnt know if it would mean anything, but I had to say it. I would never disgrace my father by begging. But I could be a man and still say what Id been saying ever since I could remember: You owe me this.

Only, this time, I didnt curse whoever I was talking to.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Vachss has been a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a social-services caseworker, and a labor organizer, and has directed a maximum-security prison for aggressive-violent youth. Now a lawyer in private practice, he represents children and youths exclusively. He is the author of numerous novels, including the Burke series, two collections of short stories, and a wide variety of other material including song lyrics, graphic novels, essays, and a childrens book for adults. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, The New York Times, and many other forums. A native New Yorker, he now divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.

The dedicated Web site for Vachss and his work is www.vachss.com.

ALSO BY ANDREW VACHSS

THE BURKE SERIES

Flood

Strega

Blue Belle

Hard Candy

Blossom

Sacrifice

Down in the Zero

Footsteps of the Hawk

False Allegations

Safe House

Choice of Evil

Dead and Gone

Pain Management

Only Child

Down Here

Mask Market

OTHER NOVELS

Shella

The Getaway Man

Two Trains Running

SHORT-STORY COLLECTIONS

Born Bad

Everybody Pays

Copyright Š 2007 by Andrew Vachss

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Vachss, Andrew H.

Terminal: a Burke novel / Andrew Vachss.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-375-42528-8

1. Burke (Fictitious character) Fiction. 2. Private investigators New York (State) New York Fiction. 3. Girls Crimes against Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.) Fiction. 5. Extortion Fiction. I. Title.

PS3572.A33T47 2007

813'.54 dc22 2006102372

www.pantheonbooks.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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