Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

The man in the front seat checked Weames in his rearview. As before, he didn't turn around.

"First things first. You got the fifty large?"

"Yes. Right here." Weames opened his briefcase and lifted up a fat manila envelope. The man in front raised a restraining hand. "Not so fast. We haven't decided to take your business."

"What the hell! What're you talking about?"

"Because the problem's not so simple anymore. You screwed up so bad that half the FBI's down there. If we're going to take the extra risk, we need to know what happened, the planning, who did what, and what went wrong. Otherwise, no deal."

"Hell, it's no big story. I told George Floyd to get rid of him, Heeney, and George hired a gang of goddamn slows to do it, and they left evidence all over the place, and the cops caught 'em. That's it."

"You told Floyd to do it. You told him to get rid of Heeney and his family, or just him?"

"I told him to get everyone in the house."

"Why?"

"Because it makes more of an effect. Man might take a risk himself, but not if he knows his family's going to get dead, too. It's better for business."

"And this Floyd supplied the money."

"Yeah, from the union. Untraceable, except the damn fool goes and licks it all before he gave it out. Now he's going state's evidence on me."

"Which is why you want to take him out. He's not in jail?"

"No, out on bail. He's living in his house. Got a couple of union security people with him, but they ain't much. You can take them out, too." Weames hesitated. "Or would that be extra?"

"No, that's covered. Bodyguards are always covered in the sticker price. Okay, Mr. Weames, I think we can do business. You're going to hand me fifty thousand dollars now, in exchange for which you want me to arrange the murder of George Floyd. Have I got that right?"

"Yeah, as soon as you can."

The man held his hand up.

Weames placed the envelope in it. "When do you think you can get it done?"

Mr. Schaeffer did not answer, but took the bills out of the envelope, riffled them, rolled down his window, and waved the wad out at the empty offices, as if trying to attract a wandering stockbroker.

"What're you doing?"

"It's an old Italian custom. It takes the curse off blood money."

"I asked you when you're gonna do it. I'm thinking I need to fix me up with an alibi for the time."

Squeal of tires. A car pulled up alongside on the left, the right-hand door flew open, a big dark man in a suit slid into the seat beside Weames. He felt queasy fear. A face appeared in the window next to him. Mr. Schaeffer swiveled around in his seat and pressed the button that rolled down the rear window.

Karp said, "Hello, Lester. How about moving over and letting me sit down?"

The big dark man put an arm around Weames's shoulders and jerked him across the seat. Karp got in. Mr. Schaeffer was grinning and showing a gold NYPD detective's badge.

Karp said, "Lester, this is Detective Cicciola of the New York police. He's going to arrest you for conspiracy to commit murder, which is a major league felony in the state of New York."

"This is entrapment."

"Oh my, Lester, you've been watchin' too many crummy TV crime shows. When a scumbag like you is 'ready,' 'poised,' 'wanting,' and 'predisposed' to engage in the criminal activity, entrapment goes out the window. Lester, we got you on tape. You're goin' down as big time as it gets for the Heeney slaughter and the Floyd attempt. While you're in custody, I wouldn't be surprised if the state of West Virginia attempted to extradite you for ordering the murder of the Heeney family. What I can assure you of is that the New York district attorney's office will make no objection to that extradition."

"I want a lawyer."

"And you shall have one, my murderous little hick," said Karp, "but it will not do you much good."

Tran entered the strong room. He was carrying a steel bowl with a cover and a pair of chopsticks on it and a steel mess-kit mug from which steam rose. The aroma from the bowl reached Lucy. She felt liquid rush into her mouth and her belly quivered. Tran placed the things on the floor, then removed the cover from the bowl.

" Pho. And tea."

"Thank you." She picked up a sliver of meat with the chopsticks. "Not dog, I hope."

"No, it's dried beef. I recalled that you did not care for dog."

Lucy was already slurping away at the pho. Between bites she asked, "How is your war going?"

"Well. There are about twenty-five of them on a little knob in front of their settlement. A stupid position and easily outflanked. When night falls, we will have them." A pause. "I assume you have the information we require. I could not help noticing that our prisoner is gone."

"Yes. You planned that, didn't you?"

"I thought it was a reasonable assumption that you would act as you did. You are a clever child. I hope I didn't terrify you too much."

"You did. You still terrify me. And you really would have tortured it out of him?"

"Of course, or Freddy would have. But having been tortured, I find I have lost my taste for it. In others, you know, the same experience heightens the taste. I am glad not to have to do it."

"What will happen now?" she asked in a tone that suggested she didn't much care.

"Tonight we will do our operation, return here, and go through the tunnels with our prizes. A truck will be waiting. You should not be here when we return."

"Because you might be killed."

"Yes. Freddy will certainly kill you if you remain. He will almost certainly try to kill me, and therefore I must arrange that this doesn't happen."

"You'll kill him."

"Not I. Someone else. Someone he believes has been suborned, but has not. It is quite complex and boring. We Vietnamese! In any case, you will not observe the last charge of the 614th Battalion of the National Liberation Front's popular forces. We were five hundred and fifty in 1965. Ten survived the war's end, of whom four are here with me today." He stood up. "I will look in on you before we depart. There is a guard at the door. No one will disturb you for the next few hours."

He waited for a moment, as if expecting some comment. She was, however, silent, and he left.

She drank the tea. It grew dark outside, and darker still inside. She loved him and he was a devil. What did that make her? She rocked back and forth with the pain of it. Her brother was probably dead by now, or a vegetable. There was no help in this world or out of it. She fell to the floor, arms outstretched, face against the dusty, splintered planks. Priests lie this way when they are ordained, but she was not thinking of that. Her head hurt, a nauseous pounding behind her eyes. She pressed her forehead against the floorboards, as if she could press clear through the wood, down to the earth, down to its hot bowels and be lost. There was no time, no light, the universe was nothing, deep stupidity, suffering, meaningless death, forever.

"Help me," a small voice said to nothing. Lucy was surprised to find that it was her own voice. "Help me," she said again. After that, silence, the blood in her ears, pain.

An odor touched her nostrils, cutting through the dry-wood and dust smell of the boards. Roses, heavy and sweet, and something sharper. Roses and onions.

Lucy lifted her head, groaning. She saw a woman dressed in dark robes, with a white wool coif around her face, sitting on a chair. She was cutting pieces from an onion with a small knife and eating them. The woman looked uncannily like her mother-dark, large, luminous eyes, thick brows, a straight, perfect nose, the mouth full and sensuous. The skin of her face was smooth and fine like her mother's; unlike hers, it was adorned with three small moles.

"You're a hallucination. Go away." Lucy said this in Spanish.