Andrew Vachss - A Bomb Built in Hell

“But you knew I’d come?”

“Yes. This means Carmine’s dead?”

“They buried his body.”

“I understand. You come with me now. I got to set you up until we can get the building.”

The old man’s car was a dusty black 1959 Ford with a taut ride. He drove professionally, whipping through traffic without giving the appearance of going fast.

“We’ll talk in the car. Nobody hears then, okay?”

“Whatever you say.”

“I got the building all picked out. It’s on the Slip ... you know where that is?”

“Over far east, by the river?”

“Yeah. It used to be a shirt factory, but now it’s nothing. We can get it for about half of this money and use most of the rest to fix it up right.”

“I’m going to live there?”

“You and me too, son.”

“My name’s Wesley.”

“Pet—my friends call me Pet.”

“Carmine said Mr. Petraglia.”

“That was so I could make the decision first, right? You call me Pet. What if you got to call me in a hurry—you gonna say all them syllables?” The old man laughed high up in his dry throat. Wesley nodded in agreement.

28/

Petraglia took him to a house in Brooklyn. Its garage led directly into the basement, which was double-locked from the outside.

“You stay here. Maybe three weeks, maybe a month. Then we’ll be ready to move into the building. There’s a john in the back, plenty of food in the refrigerator, got a TV and a radio. But only play them with the earplugs—nobody knows you’re down here, right?”

“Okay.”

“You’re not worried that it might take so long?”

“I been waiting a lot longer than that.”

“I figured you had to be Inside with Carmine. We got to do something about that paleface shit—a cop could spot you in a second. There’s a sunlamp down here too, and some lotion.”

“Will the people upstairs hear the toilet flush?”

“Just me is upstairs and I don’t hear a thing. I’m not really worried about anybody seeing you—I’d just prefer it, you know? You got a PO to report to?”

“Just you, Pet.”

The old man smiled and went out, leaving Wesley alone. Wesley dialed his mind back to solitary confinement and did the next nineteen days in complete silence. He kept the radio on and the earplugs in most of the time, listening to the news with careful attention. He watched the TV with the sound off and looked carefully at the styles of clothing, haircuts, and cars; the way people carried themselves. He familiarized himself with how the Yankees were doing and who was mayor and everything else he could think of, since there was no library in Pet’s basement. There was no telephone, and Wesley didn’t miss one.

29/

When Petraglia returned to the basement, he found Wesley totally absorbed in the TV’s silent screen, lying perfectly motionless on the floor in what looked like an impossibly uncomfortable position. The old man motioned Wesley to turn the set off, ignoring the pistol which had materialized in the younger man’s hand when he entered the door.

“How in hell can you lay on the floor like that?”

“I can do it for three hours,” Wesley assured him.

“How d’you know that?”

“I already did it yesterday. I found the piece in the toilet tank.” The old man seemed to understand both Wesley’s gymnastics and his search of the premises and said nothing more about it. They got back into the Ford and drove all the way out to the old shirt factory. It was dark on the FDR, and it was pure pitchblack by the time they turned into the Slip. Every streetlight in the neighborhood seemed to be smashed. The old man pressed the horn ring, but no sound came out—the side of a filthy wall seemed to open up and he drove inside almost without slowing down. Another press on the horn ring and the same door closed silently behind them.

“This here is the first floor. We’ll use it like a garage, since it used to be a loading bay. You going to live just below this. The rest of the place is empty and it’s like a damn echo chamber. I got the whole place mined—I’ll show you the schematic before we go upstairs—enough stuff to put this building into orbit. We got a phone in the electrical shack on the roof.”

“What’s an electrical shack? What if someone hears it ring?”

“The shack is where they used to keep the compressors and the generators for the factory before they closed this place. And the phone don’t ring. It flashes when someone’s calling in—I got a light hooked up. I know what I’m doing, Wesley.” The old man sounded mildly hurt.

“I know that. Carmine said you were the best.”

“ One of the best is what Carmine would have said, but he didn’t know what was happening out here. The rest are gone and now I am the best.”

Wesley smiled and, after a second, the old man smiled too. They walked down the stairs to the apartment Pet had fixed up for him, Pet showing the security systems to Wesley as they walked. The walls on the lower level were all soundproofed, but Pet still kept his voice supersoft as he talked.

“I’ll have a job for you in a couple of weeks. Now remember, there are a couple of rules in this kind of work: One, you never hit a man in his own home or in front of his children. Two, you never hit a man in a house of worship. Three, you only hit the man himself, nobody else.”

“Whose rules are these?”

“These are the rules of the people who make the rules.”

“Then they can fuck themselves—I’m coming for them, too.”

“I know that. I know what Carmine wanted. I’m just telling you so’s you know how to act in front of them if that ever happens.”

“What you mean, in front of them?”

“You never know, right?”

“I’ll do good work, you understand?”

“Them, too?”

“They’re the real ones, right? Rich people?”

“Yeah, rich people ... very fucking rich people, Wesley.”

“Good. Now show me the rest.”

30/

It took another ninety days for the place to fill up completely to Pet’s satisfaction. The generator he installed would enable the place to run its electrical systems without city power. The freezer held enough for six months, and the old man installed a five-hundred-gallon water tank in the basement and slowly got it filled from outside sources. A gas tank the same size was also added, as was a complete lathe, drill press, and workbench. The chemicals were stored in an airtight, compartmentalized box.

Pet fixed himself a place to live in the garage. There was still enough room for a half-dozen vehicles.

Wesley spent the next few weeks practicing; first, inside the place so he knew every inch, especially how to get in and out, even during the daylight. The old man showed him the tunnel he had begun to construct.

“You can only use this once , Wes. It’ll exit in the vacant lot on the corner of Water Street and the Slip. I’m going to fix it so’s it’s got about two feet of solid ground at its mouth, and plank it up heavy. When you want to split that one time, you hit the depth-charge lever down here in your apartment ... and the tunnel mouth blows in, okay?”

Wesley later expanded his investigations, making ever-widening circles away from the factory, but always returning within twelve hours. Pet got him a perfect set of identification. “You can always get a complete bundle in Times Square. Good stuff, too. But the freaks selling it usually roughed it off some poor bastard, maybe totaled him, and it ain’t worth the trouble. I know this guy who makes the stuff from scratch, on government blanks, too.”

Equipped with paper, Wesley could drive as well as walk. He began to truly appreciate Carmine’s “No Parole” advice.