Andrew Vachss - A Bomb Built in Hell

“You going to hit him for...?”

“I wish it was for me. Maybe it will be for me after it happens. If it works in Haiti...”

“Hit the Boss here?”

“You know, it’s not that hard. I studied assassinations for years. Every day, every way. The reason we don’t hit presidents here too much is that we afraid to die.... In some countries, they do it all the time. Look at the different styles; you’re going to hit a big man here, how you do it?”

“A rifle,” the kid replied. “Like at the bridge.”

“Right. In Latin America, or in the Orient, you take a goddamn machete and you jump right into the bastard’s limo, or up on the stage, or...”

“But you’d never—”

“Get out alive, right?” Wesley interrupted. “But, see, you’re not doing it for no money. You got some people you protecting—your mother and your children and your neighbors and all that, right? It’s worth it ... it fucking must be worth it.”

“It don’t seem to work here—that guy, who shot Wallace...”

“He was a whacko, kid. A stone freak, probably came behind pulling the trigger. He wasn’t a pro. I was that close, I’d have so much lead into him it’d take a fucking crane to get him off the ground.”

“That clown who shot the black preacher, wasn’t he...?”

“That was a fix, kid—just like at the fucking track. Let me tell you what happened, okay? Somebody came to him in the joint, told him he was pulling The Book anyway, didn’t have nothing to lose. So here’s the proposition: he hits the preacher and escapes, he’s ahead and he’s rich. He hits the preacher and they snatch him ... and they agree in front not to total him when they make the capture ... all he gets is another stretch. You can’t do no more than one Life, right? And in that joint, he’s a fucking hero behind hitting that preacher, too.

“Kid, you know how hard it is to hit a man right and walk away from it. You know how long I’ve worked at it. And that’s just here. I wouldn’t drive no fucking registered car to Memphis, hit him with that lousy gun he had, and then try the phony passport thing. He didn’t even have a safe house to crawl into ... no cover, nothing. The slob only fired one shot, too. Then he panicked.

“Just a fucking redneck jerk that they used, kid ... one of the bullets.”

“That book I read about it said—”

“A book! Jesus, books are good for science, but they ain’t shit for truth. I’ll prove it to you ... you always reading about crime, right?”

“Especially about murders....”

“Okay. Tell me what you know about the Taylor Twins murders.”

“Right. Two rich broads get all ripped up in their fancy apartment. The cops snag this black guy in Brooklyn. He’s retarded and scared. They beat a confession outta him, but they can’t make it stand up because there was some real obvious bullshit going on, and he gets cut loose. Anyway, to make it short, they finally get the actual killer, a Puerto Rican junkie. He confesses ... and he goes down for Double Life upstate.”

“Yeah. And here’s the truth. Langford was the name of the black guy, right? And Gonzales was the name of the Latin dude, right?”

“Right. They even had a TV show on about it.”

“Okay. Now understand this—Gonzales didn’t kill those girls.”

“How you know for sure?”

“Because I know the guy who did it. Pet and I did a job for this creep—it was hitting this old man. See, the old man was all mobbed up and he found this creep had tortured his daughter ... for fun, right? Anyway, the girl didn’t die and the outfit wouldn’t allow the creep to be killed, just messed up. But the old man wasn’t going for that; he put out a contract on his own. They paid us to hit the old man ... and they fixed it so’s the creep would pay us direct, you understand?”

“Dirty motherfuckers,” the kid snarled.

“That’s the way they do their business, kid. Anyway, when I went to this penthouse, the weasel treated me like I was like him , you know ... another fucking sex-freak? He told me he used to go to their apartment and tie the both of them up—you know, like it was okay with them. At least that’s what the freak said. Anyway, one time he got carried away and wasted them—he even kept some of their clothes in his place. For trophies, like. He was laughing his ass off at Gonzales doing time for that mess.”

“What did you do?”

“I did him.”

“For Gonzales?”

“For me. The freak was really bent out of shape and I didn’t know what he’d do next—he’d seen my face. I was going to write to Gonzales or something but I got the word that some people wanted him to stay down for that job and I couldn’t do it without exposing myself.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Jesus. The poor sonofabitch Gonzales. I heard later he flipped out. They got his ass up in Matteawan.”

“Isn’t there something...?”

“I’m going to hit Fat Boy.”

75/

The next morning found Wesley driving the Caddy up the West Side Highway toward Times Square. Fat Boy was going to arrive in America by boat to promote Haiti’s new shipping industry. He was slated to arrive at the Grace Line Pier on the luxury liner Liberté . Wesley had planned to get as close to the scene as he could. But as he passed by Pier 40 on the highway, his eye caught a new building apparently under construction right across from the Pier.

He turned off the highway at 23rd Street and drove back downtown until he was parked across a narrow street from the rear of the new building. It was almost finished. In deference to New York tradition, the windows hadn’t been put in yet—not much sense to do that without a full-time security guard. Wesley counted eight stories. A tractor-trailer rumbled by on its way to one of the waterfront warehouses.

Wesley walked across the street to a steel door set flush into the back of the building. It was freshly painted red, with a new Yale lock. He opened the door as if he belonged there, and went inside. It was only moderately noisy—the construction crew had just about finished, and only the final touches remained. Wesley had a few quick seconds to notice an unfinished staircase leading to higher floors before a small man with an enormous beer belly screamed over to him, “Hey! You from Collicci’s?”

“Yeah!” Wesley shouted back.

“Where’s the stuff?”

“In the truck. Be right back.”

Wesley was a couple of blocks away before the man inside had time to give things another thought. He drove all the way down to where they were finishing the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, then reversed his field and drove by the front of the building again. It was a long shot to the Pier, but not anything all that spectacular.

That night, Wesley made the run again and found the building was completely dark. Fat Boy was due to arrive in two days—that would make it a Saturday. The papers said twelve noon.

The kid was waiting for him when he pulled into the garage. “You still going ahead with it?”

“Yeah. For sure now. It’s easy as hell to get in—there’s a clear shot from the top floor, and plenty of room up there ... perfect. You got the schedule?”

“Yeah,” the kid said. “He’s supposed to arrive at noon, but it could be as much as an hour and a half later, depending on the ocean. Weather report says fair and clear; high in the nineties, low in the high seventies. The Mayor’s going to welcome him and there’s going to be a big crowd ... and a big demonstration, too.”

“Who?” Wesley asked.

“Some exiled Haitians who think this country shouldn’t let him come....”

“They’ll be glad he did.”

“Where’ll I be?”