Andrew Vachss - A Bomb Built in Hell

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“He won’t remember you.”

“Him, too?”

“No. We’ll need him again—he’s one of us, I think. But I got something for him anyway.”

“Can you find out which night he’ll be on the Bridge? Can you find out where I can shoot from?”

“I already got the last information. But you got to go over every single night until he shows. Even trying to get more information would tip him.”

“When do we start?”

“You ready tonight?”

“Yes.”

“You only get one shot....”

“I haven’t thought about that.”

“Why not, Wes?”

“Tunnel vision’s better for night work.”

35/

The battleship-grey Fleetwood purred northbound on the FDR. Then its engine began to miss and sputter. Pet pulled over to the side, went around to the front, and lifted the hood. The kid came quietly out of the shadows.

“Here, Mr. P.”

“I see you, kid—I seen you when I pulled in. Stay back further next time, right?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. P., I will.”

“Okay, come here, kid, quick ! I got something for you.”

As the kid approached, Pet pulled a heavy metal-and-leather belt off the back seat of the Caddy. He motioned the kid forward and circled his waist with the belt. The front of the belt was a steel-tongued clamp which Pet fastened.

“Try to get it open,” Pet said.

The kid did try, hard, but he couldn’t budge the clasp.

“It’s full of plastic explosive, radio-controlled ... with this,” said Pet, holding up a small transmitter. “You understand?”

The kid’s face didn’t move a muscle—he just nodded.

“It won’t go off no matter how hard it’s hit, even with a bullet, and it will go off even if it’s wet.”

Pet slapped the kid lightly on the cheek, smiled, and winked at him like a father sending his son up to bat in a Little League game.

The trip to Welfare Island took only about three minutes. Wesley set up the bipod in the soft mud about a quarter-mile from the bridge. Pet told him it was possible to get even closer, but then he would be shooting almost straight up. Wesley already knew that depth perception is influenced by perspective and he agreed to the quarter-mile shot. He used the hand-level with the glowing needle to get the bipod perfectly straight, set up the rig, and sighted in toward the middle of the Bridge. It took another fifteen minutes before he was completely satisfied. The kid was good; he knew not to smoke, not to talk. They waited until 3:15 a.m. and split when nobody showed. Pet met them at the right spot, and Wesley went back to get some sleep.

On the way back to the Slip, Wesley asked if the Island was really the best vantage point. “What about that Butler Lumber Millworks building on the Queens side?”

“I already checked it out, Wes. We’d have to leave about a half a dozen people there if we tried it. We don’t know what night the man’s gonna come, and that ain’t the kind of stunt you can pull twice.”

Wesley just nodded, not surprised.

36/

By the ninth time out, Wesley could set the bipod and rig up in seconds instead of minutes. The kid was smoother, too. He had a pair of night glasses with him and he was scanning the Queens side every thirty seconds, pausing just long enough to refocus each time. At 1:05, he blew a sharp puff of air in Wesley’s direction. Wesley immediately swung the scope toward the Queens end and saw the figure of a human walking toward the center of the Bridge at moderate speed. Maybe he’s a jumper , he thought ... but another puff of breath told him that someone was also approaching from the other side. Wesley never took his eye off the first man.

He watched with extreme care as the two men met in the middle ... and smoothly switched positions, so that the man on the left was now the man from Queens. A nice touch. Both men had their backs to the girders and were invisible from the Bridge itself.

Wesley sighted in carefully, not knowing how much time he’d have. A foghorn sounded somewhere up the river, but the island was quiet. The Harbor Patrol had passed more than an hour ago, and they hadn’t even bothered to sweep Wesley’s area with their spotlights—although Wesley and the kid were well concealed against the possibility.

The target’s eyes were shielded by his hat. Wesley sighted in on the lower cheek, figuring the bullet to travel upwards to the brain. He watched for the man’s lips to stop moving—he’d be less likely to move his head if he was listening instead of talking. In between breaths, Wesley squeezed the trigger so slowly that the ear-splitting cccrrack! was a mild shock—the target was falling forward before the sound reached the bridge. The capo ducked down in anticipation of another shot, but Wesley and the kid were on the move ... halfway across the river to Manhattan before the bodyguards got fifty feet toward the middle of the bridge.

When they landed, Pet quickly unhooked the kid’s belt, saying, “You were a man.”

The kid just nodded. The outfit disappeared into the false bottom of the Caddy’s back seat and Pet had the big machine running toward Harlem in seconds. They caught the 96th Street turnaround and were back in their own territory in fifteen minutes.

“The kid had me covered good,” Wesley told Pet, after they’d dropped him off. “He said there was a car on the Queens side that we could swim to if they hit the boat.”

“Yeah,” Pet replied. “He’s the goods. And I don’t think he did it for the money, you know?”

37/

It was 2:10 in the morning as they turned into the factory block. Just before they got to Water Street, Wesley noticed a trio of men huddled in an alley’s mouth.

“Cops?” he asked.

“Junkies,” Pet answered. “Dirty fucking junkies. They going to bring the motherfucking cops, though—they got no cover. We’ll have to clear them the fuck outta here soon. How’d it go?”

“I hit him. That was all I could see—I didn’t want to stay around. Would that belt’ve worked?”

“Blow a six-foot hole in concrete.”

“What’s the range for the transmitter?”

“About a mile and a half ... maybe two miles.”

“Is that alley a dead-end?”

“Yeah. And I can block it ... but don’t hit them here, for Chrissakes.”

“Put the belt in the airline bag and give it to me. Okay, now block the alley—don’t let any of them run.”

Pet swung the Caddy smoothly across the alley’s mouth and Wesley was out of the car with the silenced Beretta pointed at all three men before they could move.

“Freeze! Put your hands where I can see them.”

“What is this, man? We’re not—”

“Shut up. You want to make five hundred bucks?”

The smallest one stepped forward, almost into the gun. “Yeah, man. Yeah, we want to make the money. What we have to do?”

“Deliver this package for me. Just take it out on the Slip and walk through the jungle to the corner of Henry and Clinton. There’ll be a man waiting for it there—he’s already there. Then come back here and I’ll pay you.”

“You must think you’re dealing with real fucking chumps, man! You’ll pay us after ...”

Wesley took five hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and held them out in his left hand, extending them toward the smallest one who grabbed hold. Wesley didn’t let go. “Take them and tear them in half. Neatly. Then give me back half.”

“What the fuck for, man?”

“That way we’re both covered, right? You come back and by then my man has called and says he got the stuff ... you cop the other half of the bills. I’ll pay you, alright—half of the fucking bills won’t do me no good, and I don’t want no beef with you guys anyway. Okay?”