Smoke started to shake.? "Look," he said.? His words tumbled out in a torrent, a flood of chatter.? "You win, all right?? You win.? Am I keeping my mouth shut?? No, I'm not.? I told you where the money is.? We can get most of it tomorrow, if you want.? And I didn't tell anybody.? I can prove it, too.? For the first couple of years I kept a diary.? I wrote in loose-leaf notebooks almost every day.? I kept stacks of them.? I couldn't keep it in my head, but I was afraid to tell anybody.? For just this reason - I didn't want to get anybody in the soup with me when you guys eventually showed up.? I probably even wrote about stashing the money in the banks.? I don't remember now.? But you can look at them.? We got all night, right?? The banks are closed by now.? If we hadn't spent all day with this?" He gestured at the floor around himself, the dead cats, the blood, his own crumpled form, and somewhere out there, his dead friend Lorena, who only wanted to have a garden.
"?with this bullshit, you could've gotten the money?"? Abruptly, he started crying, and that surprised even him.? But it hurt.? It hurt so bad, and they had hardly even fucking started yet.? New York was going to be worse.? He knew that.? He knew how bad it was going to be.? His body was wracked by sobs.?
"You can have the fucking money.? Read the notebooks.? It's all in there."
Cruz smiled.? "Okay, notebooks.? That'll be a start.? It won't be proof that you didn't talk to anybody, but it might make things easier on you.? Where are the notebooks?"
"I keep them out in the workshop."
Cruz looked at the two men standing by the doorway, watching the sun go down.? "Moss, go check out those notebooks."
The big man smiled, apparently at the thought of this little man giving him a direct command.? "You heard the man, Fingers.? Go on and get those notebooks out of the shed.? We can see what our friend's been up to all this time."
Smoke shook his head, the tears still flowing.? "The kid will never find them by himself.? They're in there under about a million different things.? He'll never be able to figure out all my junk."
An amused, mocking light came into Cruz's eyes.
"You know if you try anything funny, I am personally going to cut your left eye out.? You realize that, right?? You can't get away from us, so don't let something in your mind convince you otherwise.? It'll make your life, what little is left of it, a lot harder."
Smoke shook his head.? "I know all that.? I'm just trying to help.? The kid won't find the stuff.? It'll take him half an hour.? I'm not even sure where they are myself.? But I'll do a better job of finding them than he will."
Cruz gestured at Smoke, and Smoke lay there until the two young men came over to help him.? They grabbed him under the arms, and lifted.? Smoke let his head loll backwards as they raised him.
Then he was standing.? "I need my cane," he said.
Cruz was right in front of him.
"Never mind your cane.? Fingers here will help you walk."
Smoke allowed Fingers to support him as he and the kid passed through the garden backyard and approached the workshop.? Cruz followed behind them.? They passed the little grave marker for Butch.?
"You used to have a dog, Dugan?"
"Not me.? The dog was buried there when I got here.? I never felt like digging it up."??
Fingers leaned Smoke up against the wall of the shed, and handed him the key chain they had taken away from him earlier.? Smoke worked the key in the lock and pushed the heavy door.? It creaked as it opened.? The shadows were long inside the workshop.?
The kid shoved Smoke through the door and Smoke bounced across the room, then fell to the dusty floor.? He was lying below the window that led to the back alley, and from there, the street.? That back alley was overgrown with weeds that came right up to the window.? He locked that window whenever he was away from the shed.? But he kept the lock well-oiled and ready to open.? It got hot in there, some days.?
Fingers laughed at him.? "You know what, old man?? You're pathetic.? This is the easiest job I been on in my life.? You know what I mean?? I mean, we didn't even hurt you.? Not really."
Smoke reached up and used the window to claw himself into an upright position.? He leaned on the window sill.? He reached up to the top of the window and clamped his hand on the lock.? Motes seemed to float in front of his eyes.? He was going to pass out again, and soon. ??
"The stuff is over here somewhere," he said.? "Look, can you turn that overhead light on?? I can't see, I need some light if I'm gonna see over here."
"Do it yourself," Fingers said.?
Obnoxious kid.? "Can't you just do it?? You guys come here, beat the shit out of me, and tell me I'm gonna be killed.? Then you push me down onto the floor of my shop.? I can't even fucking walk, you know that?? Shit.? Fuck it, I'll turn the light on myself."
He made a move like he would turn around and pull the chain on the light, the simple hanging bulb.? If only it was right there behind him.? If only he could move a little better.? If only he wasn't so sore from the beating he had taken.? He turned around wearily, creakily, gazing upward at the bulb.? It was dark out, getting darker.
"What's taking so long?" Cruz called from somewhere outside.? It sounded like he had drifted back toward the house.???
"Jesus fucking Christ," Fingers said.? "I'll turn on the fucking light, you gimp."
Smoke braced himself as the kid moved into the room behind him.? It was too bad it was just he and the kid in here.? He wished it could have been everybody.? Okay, this would have to do.? His hand quietly turned the lock on the window.? He imagined himself yanking it open then leaping through, blasting head-first through the bug screen, propelled by both his legs and arms.? It would take everything he had.
Fingers played with the chain.? "I can't seem to get this thing to?"
Come on, kid.? Light it up.
"You gotta do this fucking thing, you gimp."
"Why?? You can't turn on a fucking light?"
COME ON.
"All right," Fingers said.? "I got it."
Whooooosh.
Smoke saw the flash of light played out against the wall.? He heard the tiny pop of the light-bulb going and then he felt the sudden heat on his back. ?An instant later he heard the kid start to scream.?
It was loud, like a siren.
Smoke wrenched the window open and sailed through, his back in flames, the fire eating away at the hair on top of his head.? He fell to the ground in the alley behind the shop, rolling to put out the flames on his back, patting out the flames on top of his head.
The inside of the shop was already on fire.? With the paints he kept in there, the thing was going to blow sky-high.? He saw a shadow stagger through the bright orange and yellow of the flames.? It was the kid, lit up like a torch.? He screamed for only a second longer, then went silent, and keeled over.? Smoke pictured the kid inhaling fire.? His larynx ruptured, the scream had died almost before it began.
The kid was a goner, but the other two weren't.? Smoke dragged himself up the footpath between yards in the gathering dark.? Behind him, the shadows leapt and danced in red and amber.
Precious seconds passed.?
Smoke turned right on the quiet street.? No one was coming.? No one was running.? Soon though, they would all come soon enough.
Paint cans.? Gunpowder.? Blasting caps.?
These were just a few of the things he stored in that shed.?
He thought of the two ladies, old biddies, sisters, who owned the house.? They could have been twins, but after so many decades, who could tell?? Neither one stood five feet tall.? They both had their white hair pulled back into buns.? Neither one could hear worth a damn.? They were eighty if they were a day.? He rented his apartment from them, and they lived upstairs.? How far was that shed from the house?? Thirty yards?? Less?
The neighbors, the firemen, someone would come and get them long before the house was threatened - he felt sure of it.
He lost his balance and fell into his neighbor's dense bushes.? His vision swam and darkened.? He crawled deeper int
o the hedge.
He heard the explosion just before he lost consciousness again.? The sound was deep, like far away thunder.? It made an impression in the air, like a wave on the ocean. ?The wave passed over Smoke Dugan as he lay in the bushes.? His face was lit with the firelight as the flames burst toward the heavens.
At the very end, a thought occurred to him.? They knew about Lola.?
His eyes rolled back in his head and he slept.???
?
* * *
?
Cruz ran up the street, Moss loping along beside him.?
In his mind, Cruz saw Fingers go up in flames again and again.? The image was imprinted on his mind.? He had stared at Fingers for several seconds too long.?
Then the whole shed had blown and he and Moss were over the fence and running together up the block of tidy suburban homes.? No signal, no teamwork, just BOOM, and they were gone.?
They reached the work car.? It was a green Ford Taurus, a couple years old, nondescript, a real piece of shit.? It had twenty thousand miles on it.? At least it would run for a while.? They jumped in.? Moss took the wheel and Cruz slid into the passenger seat.? Moss started it up.? Fingers had removed the lock mechanism.? He had left four license plates in the trunk for them, in case they had to switch later.? Fingers had done his job.? Now he was dead.?
Moss was laughing.
"Okay, what's funny?" Cruz said.? He didn't see much humor in it.? The whole job, everything, slipping away in the two minutes it took for Dugan and Fingers to go out to the shed.
Moss cruised past the house with the backyard on fire - ice cold, Moss - burning embers flying everywhere, black smoke funneling into the sky against the red and orange glow.? The house was in danger of going up next.
Moss turned slowly onto the main thoroughfare - Broadway, it was called - still cruising slowly.? His head did a slow swivel, looking for possible tails.? None.? Only now did he turn on the headlights.? Cruz watched him check the rearview.
Now he sped up into traffic.
"You," Moss said.? "You're funny.? You tried to send me in that shed with the old man.? If you had your way, it woulda been me going up in flames.? That was the biggest fuck up I ever seen.? Only way it could have been bigger was if it had been me."
Cruz sat back.? "I didn't see you warning him off."
Moss only shrugged.? "You're the boss, big man.? That's what the dossier says, anyway."
At this moment, Cruz would love to know exactly what else Moss's dossier said.
Moss went on: "And you know what?? I didn't mind Fingers.? Had a sort of way about him.? You didn't know him, seeing as how you work alone and all, but I did.? He was a good kid.? Didn't get scared.? Did what he was told, didn't complain too much."
Moss nodded at the truth of this eulogy.?
Cruz figured it would amount to about the kindest tribute Fingers would get now.? If he had a mother somewhere in the world, God knew she had been expecting her boy to go down in flames for years - except without the actual flames.?
Sirens began to wail in the distance.? As of yet, Cruz didn't know from what direction they were coming.? They stopped at a traffic light.? Three or four cars were ahead of them.? No one was looking or acting strangely.
"Do you suppose the old man got out?" Moss said.?
Cruz regarded the question.? He didn't answer right away.? It was his job, they had sent Fingers along with him, God knew what for, and now the kid had been deep fried.? Toasted.? In his mind, Cruz saw the kid go up in flames again.? His insides felt scraped raw.? Shit.? He cared.? He had to get out.? He was tired of seeing them die, even guys like Fingers, who had probably lived on borrowed time since he was ten years old, and had deserved his fate ten times over.
We all deserve it, Cruz thought.? All of us.???
These maniacs had killed the fucking Guatemalan cleaning woman or whatever she was.? Why?? No loose ends.? That was the excuse, anyway.? That was always the excuse.? The real reason was they had killed her because they felt like it.? They had tied her to some cinderblocks and dumped her off of the pilings near one of the lighthouses.? It was about twenty feet deep, they thought, and murky down there.? Oh, somebody would find her soon or later, sure, but we'd be gone by then.? When they had told Cruz about it, he had nearly cried.?
But he kept on the face.? Impassive.? A mask.? Hell, he had seen it all before.?
A thought surfaced like a shark from the depths of his mind.? Dugan's money was out there, enough money to drop out of sight and get away from all this bullshit.? Six safe deposit boxes, four here in town, one in Boston, and one up in Canada.? Could it be true?? Cruz found himself clinging to the idea that it was true, that most of the money was right here somewhere, and all he had to do was make Dugan go in the banks and get it for him.? Tricky, but after seeing what Dugan was capable of, Cruz would be more careful next time.? And Moss?? Cruz could handle Moss if necessary.
"Yeah," Cruz said.? "I suppose he did.? That's what it was all about, wasn't it?? Getting out?? He had the place booby trapped."
He scanned the streets, looking for what he knew he wouldn't see - Smoke Dugan, bloodied and battered, his lungs half-seared, limping along with the secret to more than two million unmarked dollars tucked away in his head.? No, Dugan was back there somewhere, back near the flames.?
Damn!? Cruz had done exactly the wrong thing.? If he had wanted Dugan, he would have had to risk the cops and the good people of South Portland and wait around back at that house.? Instead he had run.?
Getting old, Cruz.? Getting weak.?
"What's your big plan now?" Moss drawled.
Cruz had one ready.? "We go forward," he said.? "Back across the bridge and into the city.? We go see the girlfriend.? If Dugan, O'Malley, whatever he wants to call himself, lived through that, he's going to run to her next.? Either to warn her, or collect her before he leaves town, but he's going to get her.? And when he does, we'll already have her."
"What if he don't?" Moss said.? "What if he just gets the money and leaves?"
"He won't," Cruz said.? "An old guy like that, he's going to run for the girl."
Moss smiled.? "All right, I'll buy it.? The girl I saw in the pictures, I'd like to run to her too.? Can't wait to meet her, in fact."
Moss hit the gas and stolen Taurus took off across the long, winding bridge and toward the city.
?
* * *
?
Hal had a bad feeling.?
He and Darren were parked in the Cadillac, the bucket seats lowered way back, watching the action on the dark, quiet street around Lola's building.? The way they were sitting, Hal could just about scan the area over the top of the dashboard.? A moment ago, they had watched two men pull up in a Ford Taurus, park it up the street, and climb out.? One of them was fucking HUGE.? To Hal, it seemed like his massive arms hung down almost to his knees.? He was like a gorilla, only taller.? In fact, the big guy had captured his attention so completely that it was only after a moment he noticed the other one - a little guy, thin, dark, wearing a light spring jacket, no doubt with a gun inside there somewhere.
His first thought: cops.
Sure, he had made these guys as the real thing in no time.? Lola had called the cops and these guys, plainclothes detectives, were working the case.? They were probably doing some follow-up with the victim - cop talk for "let's go back and ogle that sexy chick some more."?
Shit.
All these thoughts had passed through Hal's mind in the first seconds after spotting them.? Then they had come down the block, moving fast, and gone into Lola's little walk-up building.? Here's where it got squirrelly.? The building was old.? It fronted the street with a red wooden door, right on the sidewalk.? The door was locked - Hal had checked it half an hour ago.? The big boy had jimmied the lock on the door and had it open in about ten seconds flat.? Of course.? These locks were to make the straight world feel safer.? They were there to keep honest people on the narrow path.? They didn't mean shit to
somebody who knew how to take them down.
But why would two cops break into the building?
Easy answer: they're not cops.
He glanced over at Darren, who was smoking a joint to calm his nerves.? The lumpy skin around Darren's eyes was slowly turning a sickly yellow.? Darren smiled and offered the joint.? It was clear from the beatific look on his face that Darren had taken the edge all the way off.?
"No thanks.? Look, do me a favor, okay?? Go up the block and break the right taillight on that Taurus those guys popped out of, will you?"
"Why?"
Hal shrugged.? "No reason.? Just looks to me like something's going on, that's all.? Boyfriends, maybe, but I doubt it.? Boyfriends usually have a key to the front door.? A broken taillight ain't really any harm if I'm wrong, is it?"
"Suppose not."
Darren climbed out and moved up the block in the darkness.
Simple Darren.? The two guys - bad guys, trouble - go in our building.? A building we already cased.? There's three apartments in there.? The first floor opens on the street, and we already saw a creaking old man enter there just as the sun went down, straw hair swooped back over his head like a cartoon version of a symphony conductor.? Then there's a second-floor apartment, currently empty.? Then there's a third-floor apartment, belonging to Lola Bell / Pamela Gray, according to the mailbox.? Roommates, apparently.? These guys break in there, and Darren's wondering why I might want their taillight broken.? So I can tail them, you silly fuck.
He loved Darren like a brother, but this is how Darren got to the trailer park.? He didn't think.? He couldn't think.
Hal heard the sound of a breaking taillight.? At least Darren got that part right.? Here he came now, floating back up the sidewalk like a ghost.
He slid into the passenger seat.? "No problem," he said.? The grin seemed permanently locked onto his face.???
Hal glanced at the building again.? He imagined reaching up and hitting that carved granite face he had seen go in there a moment ago.? Just the thought of it made his arms tired.? Another woman, a young white woman, her hair pulled straight back, came along the street and entered with what looked like a bag of groceries.? She didn't even stop and notice the door was already open.? She just went right inside.