He and Paris raise their beers and drink a toast. My stomach churns as I think about the pulpy dent I put in the side of Russ’s head. I sip more ginger ale and look out the tiny slit window, which lets no light into the basement apartment. I get up off the couch.
—I need to use the can.
Ed has gone over to the fridge for another beer.
—Down the hall on the right. Hold the lever down for a second or it won’t flush all the way.
I put my soda can on the coffee table, grab my bag and walk down the shag-carpeted hallway.
—Don’t take forever. I want to make that call.
The walls of the hallway are lined with photographs, each one marking the passage of another year. The first is of a handsome young couple with their newborn, a chubby little Paris. The next one is the same: the couple is on the plastic-covered couch, Paris between them getting bigger. Ed arrives in the third photo and sits in his big brother’s little lap. They grow, Paris a shy beanpole and Ed, small and intense, always wearing the outfit his brother wore a few photos back. At the tenth picture, the father disappears. There are six more. In each the boys edge toward one end of the couch and their mother toward the other, until in the final picture they sit at opposite ends, staring into the camera, unsmiling. Soon after this point, these small, beautiful boys will whip another child to death. I look at the eyes in the photos: Paris looks afraid, Ed looks hurt. I go into the bathroom.
The toilet has one of those fuzzy covers and a cushy seat. I sit to pee just because it looks so comfy, and it is. I hold the handle down and keep it there while the toilet flushes. I take off my jacket and grimy sweatshirt and crusty T-shirt and unwind my bandage. I dig the first-aid stuff out of my bag and clean my wound again and rewrap it. Then I find an extra T-shirt and a heavy flannel in the bag and put them on. There’s a wicker laundry hamper in the corner and I toss my dirty stuff inside. When I packed the bag, I didn’t bother with pants. Way to think ahead, asshole. I look in the mirror and John Carlyle looks out. He looks like he’d like to kick my ass. I open the door and go back down the hall so I can use Ed’s phone to set up Roman and Bolo to be murdered. I feel pretty good about it. Does that make me a bad person?
Ed tells me what to say.
—You’re a shit eater, Roman.
Great lines.
—And you aren’t too fucking smart, either.
Fucking Shakespeare.
—Isn’t that right, Roman; you’re a shit eater and you aren’t too fucking smart?
He’s not talking yet, so I improvise a little.
—Use that key yet, Roman? Go and open that storage unit yet? By the way, you can have any of my old stuff. I’m gonna buy new stuff with my four and a half million fucking dollars. Just don’t take the beanbag chair. I love that fucking chair.
It speaks.
—You’re making a mistake.
—The only mistake I’m making is not calling the papers and telling them about you. The only mistake I’m making is not spending a few grand of my money on making you dead.
Ed is twirling a finger at me, telling me to get on with it.
—Instead, I’m gonna give you four million. Do you want to know why I’m gonna give you four million and keep only a half million for myself?
—Yes.
—I’m gonna give you four million to help me get out of town and to help keep the Russian fucking Mafia from coming after me. I’m gonna give you that money to get you out of my fucking life forever. And then I want to go away. Sound reasonable?
—Yes.
—Good.
Paris is out front getting something from the car. Ed sits right across the little kitchen table from me. I try not to look at him too much while I’m talking because he has his sunglasses off and those fucking eyes are creeping me out.
—At ten, I want you and Bolo to walk over to Astor Place
and stand out on the traffic island, the one with the big cube.
—And?
—And just stand there, stand there and stand there with cars passing by until I feel safe and then I’ll walk over from wherever the fuck I am and I’ll give you a very big bag full of money.
—And?
—And then I will go away and I will trust that you won’t shoot me in front of a city full of witnesses. I will trust that you understand it is in your best interest that the police do not catch me, because I will tell them all about you. I will trust you understand that if the Russians find me, I will tell them it was you that killed their boys. Which may be a fucking lie, but who’s counting?
I hear the front door open and close as Paris comes back in. Ed is gesturing for me to wrap it up.
—Are we all together on this, Roman?
—Sure.
—See you at ten.
—Too bad about Russ.
—Yeah, too bad.
—I mean, his dying at your hands. That pretty much screwed you and your chances of being Mr. Innocent In Over My Head. That was your point of no return, Hank. No going back now. No normal life for you.
—Yeah, pretty much. Your point?
—Don’t fuck with me too much, Hank. I’ve got a temper. I’m known for it. And you’re a murderer now. No one will miss you when you’re gone.
—Good point, Roman, I am a murderer. Don’t forget that. OK?
I push the power stud on the phone and break the connection. Ed is nodding his head and smiling.
—Now that’s the shit, right there, that’s the shit. Very slick. “I am a murderer. Don’t forget that.” And just, click. Just hang up. Very slick. What do you think, Paris? Pretty slick, huh?
Paris is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a large black alloy attaché case. A little grin slides along his lips.
—Yeah, slick.
He hefts the case and points at the table.
—Why don’t you clean that off and I’ll show you something real slick, Mr. Bad-Ass.
The town I grew up in was a gun town. We never had them in my family, but most of the kids I knew grew up shooting and hunting. I’d go up in the hills with them or out to the Rod and Gun Club and plug away for a few hours. I’d flip through their back issues of Gun magazine and Soldier of Fortune and look at the guns and read about stopping power and firing rates and blow-back and concealment profiles. It was like knowing about cars or my favorite ball players. I fired rounds from an M1 Carbine, a .357 Magnum, a .38 Police Special, a 9 mm Chinese Mauser knockoff, a Ruger .32, a couple of .30-06 hunting rifles, several shotguns and any number of .22 rifles and handguns. Russ’s .22 was the first gun I’ve picked up in over ten years. I haven’t fired one since I was eighteen.
Paris sets the case on the table, works the little combination locks, flips the catches and opens it up. The interior of the case is lined with black foam rubber. Nestled in this lining are eight very beautiful tools designed for the single purpose of ending human life. Ed reaches into the case and runs his fingertips over all the steel.
—So how ’bout it, Hank? You wanna carry a piece on this or what?
When I was a kid, my mom would let me go to R-rated films as long as they were rated R because of sex and cursing, not violence. I got to see Saturday Night Fever, but not Friday the 13th. I wasn’t allowed to watch Hogan’s Heroes because it treated war like a game and a joke. I wasn’t allowed even a toy gun. When the kids in the neighborhood played cops and robbers, I used a stick. And when I went shooting with my friends, I never ever let her know. I look at the guns in the case: some vintage pieces, like the set of Colt Peacemakers; others so modern and efficient, they look more like computer components than weapons.
Ed takes a small gun from the case and holds it out to me.
—This is perfect for you, a real classic.
I know this gun. It’s a .32 Colt Detective Special. It’s a narrow snub-nose revolver with the hammer filed down to a nubbin so it won’t snag on anything as you whip it out of your shoulder holster. It has no safety, minimum recoil, is designed for
concealment and very short range combat. I take the gun from Ed.
—Careful, it’s loaded.
I keep my finger off the trigger and keep the barrel of the weapon pointed at the floor. I thumb the catch and flip the cylinder open: full load, five rounds. I empty the bullets into the palm of my left hand, flip the cylinder closed, place my finger on the trigger, raise the weapon, point it at the wall, inhale and, in the pause just before I exhale, I squeeze the trigger in a single smooth motion. The action is just a bit tight, so that it gives you a real sense of control at the firing point. The hammer pulls back as the cylinder rotates and then snaps down hard with the sound unique to an empty gun.
—Hey, Paris, looks like our boy knows what he’s doing here.
Paris nods.
—Just full of hidden talents, ain’t he?
I hand the gun and the bullets back to Ed.
—I’ll pass. My mom wouldn’t like it.
I nod in the direction of a little black-and-white TV, with rabbit ears on top of it, that sits on the kitchen counter underneath a picture of a black Jesus.
—Any chance we might get a look at the game on that thing?
The brothers DuRanté look at each other and you’d think those boys might never stop laughing.
Mets vs. Braves: top of the third, no score, rain delay. The Giants game won’t start for a couple hours yet.
We flip on the news. They’ve found Russ. Some do-gooder got concerned when Russ’s body tumbled to the floor of the C train and lay there without moving for about five minutes. She waited until she got out at the JFK stop and told the station manager that there was a guy on the train who looked pretty sick. The train had pulled out of the station by then, but he radioed ahead. A couple stops down the line, some cops checked it out and things moved pretty quickly after that. They’re calling him one of my “known associates” and have added his murder to the list of crimes for which I am being sought.
Paris has been taking the guns and the money to the Caddie, along with a few odds and ends from the house, while Ed and I flip through the few channels that come in clearly on this relic TV.
—How’s it feel, Hank?
—What’s that?
—Being wanted?
I think about that. I think about it for a while.
—OK, I guess. I haven’t really been wanted for a long time.
—Infamous.
—Yeah.
—Kinda cool, isn’t it?
—Kinda.
—Got no past, nowhere to go back to.
—Yeah.
—Just today and maybe tomorrow.
—Yeah.
—’Cept, course, you got people out there still. Right?
—Yeah.
—That’s tough, man, very tough. Me and Paris, we only got each other, so we just roll. Be tough to have folks out there worrying after you.
—Yeah.
—Best way to deal with that? Know what it is?
—What?
—Just don’t think about them. Just don’t fucking think about them at all.
Paris comes back in, walks over to the TV and switches it off.
—Fuckin’ thing will rot your brain. Let’s go.
Once again, Paris drives while Ed and I ride in the back. Bud sits in my lap, being mellow. The Caddie is vintage prime, so there’s no tape deck, but Paris grabbed an old boombox back at the apartment and he has it up in the front seat with him. He drives with one hand and, with the other, he sorts through a shoebox full of old cassettes, some store-bought, some homemade, none with cases. He pulls them out one after another, checks them out and tosses them back in the box. He pulls one out, reads the hand-lettered label on its front and sticks it in the player.
—Check it out.
He hits play. It’s Curtis Mayfield, “Keep on Keeping On.” Ed leans forward.
—Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah. You know this, Hank?
—Sure.
—Curtis. Wow.
He reaches into the front seat and turns it up. He and Paris sing along a little.
—Many think that we have blown it. But they, too, will soon admit that there’s still a lot of love among us and there’s still a lot of faith, warmth, and trust when we keep on keeping on.
They start laughing and Ed squeezes his brother’s shoulder and leans back next to me.
—That was our mom’s shit, all the classic soul, all the funky stuff. Talkin’ all the time about the music of our people and a “positive black self-image.”
Up front, Paris is still singing along under his breath. Ed leans his head close to mine and whispers.
—That’s kinda why she washed her hands of us. Far as she was concerned, we turned out just another couple a nigger hoodlums and she raised us for better. I wrote her off years before, but Paris took it pretty hard, bein’ cast out and never talkin’ to her before she died. He’s my big brother, but damn, he’s sensitive.
We’re on the Queensboro Bridge, heading back into Manhattan. Ed points straight ahead.
—Take the scenic route. All goes well, none of us will see this place again, ’least not for a long-ass time.
Paris takes us west on 59th, along Central Park South, past the Plaza and the Ritz, to Columbus Circle
and down Broadway. Someone visited me from California once and said he thought of Times Square as the pumping heart of New York. I told him it was more like the running asshole. But it is something to see, at night, in the rain.
By the time we reach Broadway and Astor, “The Underground” is playing. It’s all fucked up, distorted guitar and Curtis growling “the underground” over and over. Paris stops at the curb. I open the door and step out into pouring rain. I want to bring Bud, but Ed is afraid he’ll get in my way, so he’s making me leave him behind.
Ed sticks his head out the door. Rainwater streams off the brim of his hat. He’s holding Bud, keeping him from leaping out of the car after me.
—Now just do as you’re told this time, no fucking improvisation. We took you in this once. Fuck up again, I’m gonna take off the leashes an’ put the fucking dogs on your ass. Got it?
—Got it.
—Be cool, Hank. In an hour, you’re gonna be on your way to a new an’ better life.
He ducks back into the car with Bud. The door slams shut, the Caddie rolls off. They gave me an old ball cap with an eight ball inexplicably embroidered on the front. I pull the cap down tighter on my head and walk around the block to my post.
I sit in the window at Starbucks, the one on Astor Place
as opposed to the one a block away on Third Avenue
. New Yorkers like to complain about the proliferation of Starbucks and Barnes & Noble shops in their great city. They bitch about the “malling” of Manhattan. But me? I’m all in favor of anyplace in this city that has a public bathroom.
The rain is keeping people at home. A few of the tables in here are occupied by NYU students or street people with enough change for a cup of joe. Based on appearances, I could belong to either group. Outside, the streets are wet and empty. Rainy Sunday night, plus folks are probably waiting at home for play to restart out at Shea. I look up at the sky. There’s a good wind blowing and the clouds are moving along pretty damn fast. They should get it in.
The pain from my wound is growing, spreading. I could take a pill. Shit, I could take a dozen pills. I need to stay sharp. The pain will help me to stay sharp.
I sip my decaf herbal tea and look out the window at the cube. Astor Place
, St. Mark’s, Fourth Avenue
, Bowery and Lafayette all collide in an impossible knot of an intersection out there, and in the middle is a sliver of a traffic island. And in the middle of the island is the cube. Black steel, maybe eight feet to a side, it sits there balanced on one of its corners. It’s mounted on some kind of pivot so that if you give it just a little shove, it rotates. It is a prime example of ugly fucking municipal art.
The tea doesn’t really taste like tea and it taste
s nothing at all like beer, but it has no caffeine or alcohol, so it’s good for my surviving kidney. I also got a croissant, but I don’t have an appetite just now because it’s a few minutes to ten and I really want to see Roman and Bolo walk out onto that traffic island and stand there in the rain. Then I will get up and go to the pay phone by the bathroom (which I already checked to be sure it works) and I will call Ed and Paris and they will drive over from where they are parked nearby and, while I watch, they will shoot down Roman and Bolo in the street. After that, I will step outside, Ed and Paris will pick me up and we will speed away. I don’t see much point in trying to imagine what might happen after that.
Out in the rain, Roman and Bolo cross over to the traffic island from the direction of St. Mark’s.
They’re both carrying the kind of cheap umbrellas that vendors hawk for five bucks a pop when the rain starts up. Roman is wearing a long raincoat over his suit. Bolo is out there in just his leather pants and motorcycle jacket. He has his left hand pressed down on his head, trying to keep the wind from blowing his long hair around. I watch them getting wet for a moment.
A gust of wind comes along and blows the cheap umbrellas inside out. Roman turns his to face the wind and it flops back into shape. Bolo takes his hand from his head to fix his own and all that black hair flies off in the wind and lands in the gutter a few feet away.
I turn to run for the phone and bounce off the real Bolo, who is standing right behind me with a Band-Aid on his thumb where Bud clawed him. He points out the window.
—Fucking Russians got nothing but shit for brains.
—I can understand you thinking I might be stupid. I mean, I’m big and strong and I have dark skin, so people see me and figure I must be the dumb one in the group. But Roman? What? You think he suddenly grew a brain tumor or something?
We’re sitting at my table. Bolo picks at my croissant, keeps one eye on me and another out the window on the decoys.
—Asshole. You had Ed’s fucking card on you when the cops picked you up. We knew you’d been talking to him. “Meet me at ten and just wait.” Come on. You get away with the money and then you call us to give it back? That had fucking bushwhack written all over it.