Andrew Vachss - A Bomb Built in Hell

“What are you waiting for now?” Wesley asked.

“Just to die, kid. There’s nothing out there for me. In here, those people take care of my family, and after I go they’ll keep doing it. I’m going to die the way I lived: with a closed mouth. Those people appreciate that—they have to. But if I was to go out there they’d expect things of me that I won’t do anymore.”

“Like what?”

“To respect them.”

“You don’t...”

“Not no more. Our thing is dead, Wes—it’s dead and fucking buried. There’s no organization, no mob, no fucking Mafia or whatever the asshole reporters want to call it. It used to be a blood thing, but now it’s just criminals, like the Jews used to be.”

“ Jews used to be big criminals?”

“Kid, they was the worst . Used to be you couldn’t be in crime in New York unless you was Jewish. The Irish came after them, and then we came after the Irish. And now it’s time to bury us, too.”

“Who’s next?”

“The Blacks, the Latins ... who knows? Maybe the fucking Chinese. But it’ll all end the same. Greedy, stupid bastards.”

“Then I couldn’t...”

“No, kid, there’s no place for you. Even if I recommended you, you’d just be a soldier in someone’s fucked-up army. But I’ve been thinking a long time. And before I check out of here, I’ll tell you what you can do.”

17/

The next two years went by the same way. Carmine ran the Book as he always did—fairly—and his customers were never lured away by promises of bigger payoffs elsewhere. Too often, those bigger payoffs were a shank planted in some sucker’s chest. Besides, Carmine was the old, established firm and prisoners are a conservative lot.

Dayton was big trouble from the day he hit the Yard. A tall, over-muscled motorcycle freak, he gorilla’ed off a couple of young kids easily enough. This immediately gave him some highly inflated ideas about prison reality. The older cons just shook their heads and predicted a quick death for him, but Dayton stayed alive through a strange combination of strength, skill, and stupidity.

Dayton bet fifty packs with Carmine on the Yankees in the 1960 Series and lost. He passed Carmine and Wesley on the Yard the next day and strolled over to them. “You looking for your fifty packs, old man?”

“Do I have to look for them?”

“Nah ... don’t look for them, because I’ll cut your throat first.”

Wesley stayed relaxed—he heard this kind of bullshit threat every day on the Yard and Carmine could handle the ticket-sellers in his sleep. But before he turned his head away, Dayton leaned over Carmine, whispered: “And just so you’ll know...” and slapped him viciously across the face.

The next thing Wesley remembered was the hack’s club smashing into the back of his head for the third time—he woke up in the hospital. He opened his eyes and saw Carmine staring down at him.

“You okay, kid?” the old man asked.

“Yeah. Is he dead?”

“He will be in about an hour.”

“I didn’t kill him?”

“No, thank the Devil, you didn’t.”

“I will as soon as I get out of here.”

“Be too late then, you stupid punk!”

“What ... why’d you say that, Carmine? Pop, I did it for you.”

“The fuck you did. You did it for you , right? You couldn’t stand the profile of being partners with the kind of old man who’d take a slap in the face from a buffoon. So you try to snuff him right on the Yard. Stupid ... stupid fucking kid.”

“Listen, Carmine, I...”

“No, you listen, Wesley. You never lose your temper or someday you lose your head. Now this is only a minor beef you got—fighting on the Yard, no weapons, no sneaking up, right? You gonna get thirty days in the Hole behind it and a black tab on your jacket, but so what? You take him off like you tried to and you never get outta here ... never.”

“So what?”

“So what? Don’t be a fucking punk, so what! You got a lot to do.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you when you get out the Hole. And while you’re there, be thinking about this—that cocksucker was twice as big as you, but you almost dropped him anyway, because you took him by surprise with hot anger. If you took him in his sleep with cold anger, what you think would have happened?”

18/

The thirty days in the box wasn’t so bad. Carmine had books and cigarettes smuggled in by the runners. The guards transmitted the daily messages from Carmine. His notes were always instructions.

practice not moving a muscle until you can do it all the time between meals

practice breathing so shallow your chest don t move

think about the person you hate most in the world and smile

the head plans the hands kill the heart only pumps blood

Wesley burned all the notes and flushed them down the lidless toilet. Carmine was waiting for him when he returned to the tier. The old man’s juice had kept his cell for him.

“What’ll I do now?” Wesley asked.

“Right now?”

“When I get out.”

“Damn, kid, didn’t you think about nothing else all the time you were down?”

“Yeah, everything you wrote me.”

“Can you do it?”

“Just about.”

“That’s not good enough. You got to get it perfect.”

“Why am I learning all this?”

“For your career.”

“Which is?”

“Killing people.”

“Which people?”

“Look, Wes, how many men you already killed?”

“Three, I guess.” Wesley told him about the sergeant and the Marine, all the time wondering how Carmine knew it was more than one.

“How many felony convictions you got?”

“A few, I guess. There’s this beef, which was really two, and a couple before when I was a juvenile, and the Army thing ... I don’t even know.”

“You know what ‘The Bitch’ is?”

“No.”

“Habitual Offender. In this state you get three felony drops and they make you out to be ‘dangerous to society’—it’s a guaranteed Life for the third pop. Understand what I’m telling you, Wes? The next time you fall, you fall for life. Whether it’s a lousy stickup for fifty bucks or a dozen homicides, you get the book. And killing people pays a lot more than sticking up liquor stores.”

“What about banks?”

“Forget it. You got the fucking cameras taking your picture, you got the fucking federales on your case for life, and you got to work with partners.”

“That’s no good?”

“How many partners you got?”

“Just you.”

“That’s one too many, but I won’t ever make the bricks anyway. Make me the last motherfucking human you trust with all your business. You gonna meet all kinds of people, but don’t ever let anyone see your heart or your head. Just your hands, if you have to.”

“How do I do this?”

“I’ll give you the names to get started: who to contact, how to do it without getting into a cross. After a couple a jobs, you’ll have all the work you want.”

“What’re the rules?”

“You can say ‘yes,’ you can say ‘no’ ... but you can’t say ‘yes’ and then not hit the person they point to. And you say nothing to anyone ... no matter what. That’s all.”

“What else, Pop?”

“Cold: you got to be cold right on through. And you got to show me you are that cold before we go any further with this.”

“I am.”

“Okay. Now listen, because we don’t got a lot of time. Dayton has a partner; another stupid animal ... but he wants me and he thinks he’s being slick by not moving right on me, okay? His name’s Logan, and he locks in 7-Up. Ice him—and don’t let me even guess how you did it.”