Andrew Vachss - A Bomb Built in Hell

“How am I going to—?”

“Shut up, Wes, just listen. You’ll have the money. After you buy the building, you fix it up the way it needs to be. Pet will live there, too—he’s the last of us, kid, and one of the best. He can do things with cars you wouldn’t believe. And then you’re on your own.”

“What if Israel’s dead when I get there ... or Mr. Petraglia?”

“You got two years, four months, and eleven days to serve. They’ll both live that long. They been waiting for you—they won’t die.”

“But if—”

“ If they do, call my wife at that number I gave you and tell her Carmine said to get out of the house, to take a vacation for a couple of weeks and to leave you the key. In the basement, the fourth beam from the door holding up the ceiling is hollow in the middle. Cut it down. There’s fifty thousand dollars in clean bills there. Take it and do it by yourself. But if Israel is in Cleveland, don’t touch the money—just leave it there. My wife has her own money coming, you understand? That’s your case money—it’s safer there than anyplace you could find. Okay?”

“Yes.”

“All right, there’s just one more thing ... you know why you’re going to do this?”

“Yes, Pop, I know why.”

“Who taught you why?”

“You did.”

“And that means you’re my blood, understand? I’m going out ... but you’re going to pay back every last one of the motherfucking swine for me.”

“I will.”

“I know. I waited years for you to come. Remember I told that judge that they couldn’t kill what I stood for? Well, this is perfect revenge. They took my life and buried me ... and I built a bomb right here in hell and it’s going to blow their devil’s hearts right out of their chests.”

“I’ll see you soon, Carmine.”

“I guess you will, son—but make it count for something while you’re out there.”

“Pop, was I just the best of the lot ... or was it that you couldn’t wait any longer?”

“No! You were what I wanted . You are my son ... I could have waited a hundred fucking more years....”

Carmine slumped dead against the Wall.

Wesley walked away. Even though he was known to be the old man’s partner, he was never a suspect. In any event, the autopsy showed an aortic aneurysm. The only thing that confused the doctors was that the burst vessels showed that the old man had been dead for more than thirty minutes when they found him. But medicine is an imperfect science and another dead con wasn’t worth the trouble of a complete investigation.

22/

The young guard came down the tier to Wesley’s cell carrying a piece of paper and a friendly, concerned look on his fat face.

“Listen, kid—you want to go to the old man’s funeral?”

“Yeah ... yessir, I would ... could you fix it?”

“Well, I might be able to if we could really talk, you know?”

“No, sir, but I’m willing to talk with you, sir.”

“Good,” the guard said, walking into Wesley’s cell and lowering his voice. “The old bastard left some money stashed, right?”

“I don’t know, sir. Did he?”

“Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it, forget it. Let the fucking rats be his pallbearers.”

Wesley just looked blankly at the guard, thinking that’s what he’d have anyway . He kept looking straight ahead until the guard left in disgust. Wesley had already checked the law and knew he wouldn’t be allowed to attend—he wasn’t a blood relative in any sense recognized by the State.

23/

When he hit the Yard seventeen days later, a slender Latin guy was running the Book, and Carmine’s stash of cigarette cartons was all gone from the loose floorboards in the back of the print shop.

Wesley passed the Latin by without a glance. He wrote off the cigarettes and the Book and the whispers about a man being a pussy if he wouldn’t fight for what was rightfully his.

He did the next years like moving through cold, clear Jell-O. He was able to dodge parole twice by infractions of institutional rules. But the last time, when he only had nine months to go on his sentence, he knew that they were going to parole him to keep him under supervision, no matter what he did. He knew a hundred ways to fuck up the parole hearing, but he didn’t want the additional surveillance that came with getting a “political” label, and he didn’t want the additional time that an assault would bring. He spent several hours talking with Lee until he learned what the older man knew.

Wesley appeared before the Board promptly—unshaven and smoking a cigarette. The Chairman, who was a Reverend, spoke first.

“Is there any reason why we should parole you at this time?” And Wesley broke into sincere and hearty laughter.

“What is so funny?”

“Man, you got to parole me—I’m nine months short.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to us. We want to know what you’ve done to rehabilitate yourself.”

“I haven’t done a motherfucking thing. But so what? You guys always parole a man who’s less than a year short—that’s the law, right? Anyway, I’m innocent.”

“That’s not the law!” the Reverend proclaimed self-righteously. “Your case will be reviewed like any other.”

“But the guys in the block said...”

“Oh, so that's it. Who’re you going to listen to, this Board or a bunch of prisoners?”

“But I thought...”

“Now we may parole you anyway , but you shouldn’t listen to—”

“See! I knew you were just kidding me, man.”

“This hearing is concluded. Return to your unit!”

The note from the Board said he was being denied parole at this time because of “poor institutional adjustment.”

24/

They let Wesley go on a Tuesday. He was among eight men going home that day, but the only one who wasn’t being paroled. He noticed one already nodding from his morning fix and wondered if the pathetic sucker would find the stuff as easy to score on the street as he had Inside.

The State provided transportation to the Port Authority Terminal in Manhattan, a suit, and twenty-five dollars. The factory-reject suit screamed PRISONER! as loudly as black-and-white stripes would have, and Wesley’s dead-white face made sure the impression stayed with any cops who wanted to look. But nobody was looking. Wesley saw at once why Carmine had told him to learn from Lester—the terminal was a swirling river of predators and prey.

He thought about getting some fresh clothes, but he knew Israel wouldn’t care what he looked like.

The Greyhound to Cleveland cost $18.75. Fifteen hours later, Wesley grabbed a cab in Public Square, and he was in front of the King Hotel just before midnight. Wesley watched the whores shriek to passing cars for another fifteen minutes before he went inside, up to the desk clerk.

“I’ve got a message for Israel.”

“He not here, man.”

“I’ll wait.”

The clerk went to the back and, in about ten minutes, a husky man with a blue-black face and a full beard came down the stairs.

“I’m Israel,” the man said. “Come on up to my room.”

They walked upstairs to 717 and went inside. The man motioned Wesley to a chair near the window and pulled a short-barreled pistol from his inside pocket in the same motion. The gun was pointed negligently, only vaguely in Wesley’s direction, but his eyes were locked into Wesley’s face.

“What are you here for?”

“I’m Carmine’s son.”

“And...”

“I’m here to pick up what he left.”

“You know what that is?”

“He said Israel would show me.”

“He tell you anything else?”