Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

“Think of how it will look, Jimmy.”

“My dick?”

“The fact that you’re bringing five hookers to the sit-down,” Sal says. He’s pissed, he’s wondering when and if Jimmy Peaches will ever grow the fuck up. The guy is a loose fucking cannon. You bust your balls to get something set up right, then this fat, horny fuck does something like fly five working girls in from fucking California. Just what he needs-five people in the room who aren’t supposed to be there. Five innocent fucking bystanders. “What does John think about this?”

“John thinks it’s my party.”

Fucking A, he does, Peaches thinks. John is old-school, John is class, not like that fucking old hump they got for a boss now. John is properly grateful that I’m going to go in like a man and take what’s coming, without trying to cut a deal, without naming any names, especially his.

What does John think? John’s footing the fucking bill.

Anything you want, Jimmy. Anything. It’s your night. On me.

What Jimmy wants is Sparks Steak House, the Copa, and this chick Nora, the best-looking, most delectable piece he’s ever had. Ass like a ripe peach. He’s never gotten her out of his head. Putting her on all fours and slamming her from behind, watching those peaches quiver.

“Okay,” Sal says. “How about meeting the women at the Copa, after Sparks?”

“Fuck that.”

“Jimmy-”

“What?”

“This is serious business tonight.”

“I know that.”

“I mean, it doesn’t get more serious.”

“Which is why,” Peaches says, “I’m going to do some serious partying.”

“Look,” Sal says, bringing the hammer down, “I’m in charge of security for this thing-”

“Then make sure I’m secure,” Peaches says. “That’s all you gotta do, Sal, then forget about it, okay?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like it,” Peaches says. “Fuck you. Merry Christmas.”

Yeah, Sal thinks as he hangs up.

Merry Christmas to you, Jimmy.

I got your present all ready for you.

There are a few packages under the tree.

Good thing it’s a small tree because there aren’t many presents, money being tight and all. But he’s gotten her a new watch, and a silver bracelet and some of those vanilla candles she likes. And there are a few packages for him-they look like clothes, which he needs. A new work shirt, maybe, some new jeans.

A nice little Christmas.

They were planning to go to midnight Mass.

Open presents in the morning, try to cook a turkey, hit an afternoon movie.

A nice, quiet little Christmas.

But that ain’t gonna happen, Callan thinks.

Not now.

It was going to end anyway, but it ends quicker because she finds the other package, the one he shoved way under the bed. He comes home early from work that evening and she’s sitting there with the long box at her feet.

She’s turned the tree lights on. They blink red and green and white behind her.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“How'd you get that?”

“I was dusting under the bed,” she says. “What is it?”

It’s a Swedish Model 45 Garl Gustaf 9-mm submachine gun. With a folding metal stock and a thirty-six-round magazine. More than enough to do the job. Numbers filed off, clean and untraceable. Only twenty-two inches long with the stock folded. Weighs eight pounds. He can carry the box like a Christmas present down to midtown. Drop the box and carry the gun under his pea coat.

Sal had it delivered.

He doesn’t tell her all that. What he says is stupid and obvious: “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

She laughs. “I thought it was a present for me. I was feeling guilty for opening it.”

“Siobhan-”

“You’re back into it again, aren’t you?” she says. Gray eyes hard as stone. “You’re doing another job.”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

He wants to tell her, but he can’t let her carry that weight around with her the rest of her life. So he says, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand,” she says. “I’m from Kashmir Road, remember? Belfast? I grew up watching my brothers and uncles leave the house with their little Christmas boxes, going out to kill people. I’ve seen machine guns under the bed before. It’s why I left-I was sick of the killing. And the killers.”

“Like me.”

“I thought you’d changed.”

“I have.”

She gestures down to the box.

“I have to,” he repeats.

“Why?” she asks. “What’s so important it’s worth killing for?”

You, he thinks.

You are.

But he stands there mute. A dumb witness against himself.

“I won’t be here when you come back this time,” she says.

“I’m not coming back,” he says. “I have to go away for a while.”

“Jesus,” she says. “Were you planning on telling me? Or were you just going to go?”

“I was planning on asking you to come with me.”

It’s true. He has two passports, two sets of tickets. He digs them out from the bottom of the desk drawer and lays them on top of the box, at her feet. She doesn’t pick them up. She doesn’t even look at them.

“Just like that?” she asks.

A voice inside him is screaming, Tell her. Tell her you’re doing it for her, for the both of you. Beg her to come. He starts to tell her, but then he can’t. She would never forgive herself, being part of it. She’d never forgive you.

“I love you,” he says. “I love you so much.”

She gets up from the chair.

Comes close and says, “I don’t love you. I did, but I don’t now. I don’t love what you are. A killer.”

He nods. “You’re right.”

He walks past her, puts his ticket and passport into his pocket, closes the box and hefts it over his shoulder.

“You can live here if you want,” he says. “The rent’s paid.”

“I can’t live here.”

This was a good place, though, he thinks, looking around the small apartment. The happiest, best place of his life. This place, this time, here with her. He stands there trying to think of the words to tell her that, but nothing comes out.

“Get out,” she says. “Go murder somebody. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

He gets out in the street, it’s raining like hell. A cold, icy rain. He pulls up his collar and looks back up at the apartment.

Sees her still sitting by the window.

Bent over, her face in her hands.

The tree lights blinking red and green and white behind her.

Her dress sparkles in the lights.

A sequined top of red and green.

Very Christmasy, Haley had said, very sexy.

Tres decollete.

In fact, Jimmy Peaches can’t help looking down her dress.

Otherwise she has to admit that he’s acting the gentleman. Cleans up surprisingly well in his steel gray Armani. Even the black shirt and tie don’t seem horrible. A touch of goombah chic, perhaps, but not entirely gross.

Same with the restaurant. She expected some gaudy Sicilian horror show, but Sparks Steak House, despite the prosaic name, turns out to be done in understated good taste. Not her taste-the oak-paneled walls and hunting prints, basically the English look, are not her thing, but it’s tasteful all the same and not at all what she expected from a mob hangout.

They arrived in several limos, and a doorman held an umbrella to cover the two feet between the car and the long green awning. They make quite an entrance, the wise guys with their dates on their arms. Diners sitting at tables in the big front room stop eating and openly stare, and why not, Nora thinks.

The girls are fantastic.

Haley’s best, served to order.

Chosen by their hair color, their faces, their figures.