“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?”
“Right here, watching the TV for the news. Aren’t they going to cover it live?”
“Yeah, fuck that! Why should I be here?”
“I don’t need you.”
“You got the whole thing figured?”
“Yeah, I told you ... you got the sextant?”
“Look, Wesley, I got everything you said. But you left out something.”
“What?”
“After you hit him, right? How you going to come out?”
“I guess I’m not.”
“No good.”
“No good! What the fuck do you mean, ‘no good’? Who’re you to— ?”
“I know who I am ... and this is fucked up, Wesley. It’s not what you said.”
Wesley watched the kid carefully. “How isn’t it?”
“You killing this faggot as an experiment, right? Sure, it’ll maybe help a bunch of other people ... but you’re going to see, right? If it works, then we going someplace else, right? That rifle’s no machete, Wesley ... and you’re no Latin American, either.”
“Look, I...”
“I know. But you can’t go home behind this one, Wesley. I won’t keep you past the right time.”
“You can’t keep me.”
“Yes, I can. Because you owe me, like Pet owed you.”
Wesley focused on the kid’s face, seeing deep into his skull. “What’re you saying?”
“Didn’t the old man look you in the face when you sent him home?” the kid demanded.
“You know he did.”
“Then you need to look me in the face before you go, too, Wesley.”
76/
1:45 a.m., Saturday. The Ford pulled up outside the red steel door. The kid sat behind the wheel with a .12 gauge Ithaca pump gun across his knees. He held a Ruger .44 Magnum in his right hand. The engine was running, but it was impossible to hear, even with an ear against the fender. Wesley climbed out of the passenger seat and walked quickly to the door. He pulled a clear plastic bag from under his coat and extracted a long, thin tube of putty-colored material. He applied the plastique evenly all around the door, between it and the frame ... an extra blob went over the handle. A string hung loo
se from the blob. Wesley pulled the string hard and moved quickly back across the street in the same motion.
The putty briefly sparked—there was a flash and a muted popping sound. The street was still empty. Wesley grabbed the large suitcase from the back seat, swung the duffel bag over his shoulder, and got out again.
The kid looked across at him. “Wesley, I’ll have the radio tuned to pick up the TV station. I’ll move under a minute or so just before, okay?”
“I’ll be coming out, kid.”
“I know.”
The Ford remained idling on the street until Wesley crossed and threw open the red steel door. He tossed his gear on the dark floor and closed the door from the inside, just as the kid crossed the street holding a gasoline-soaked rag. The kid wiped down the outside of the door as Wesley attached the floor-mounted brace from the inside. Working in unison even though they could no longer see each other, the kid and Wesley each broke open a full tube of Permabond and squeezed a beady trail of the liquid all around the edges of the door. The kid smacked the door sharply twice with an open palm to tell Wesley that it looked fine from the outside now—in a few minutes the door wouldn’t open unless it was blasted again. The body language of the men he’d seen told Wesley that finishing this building wasn’t a rush job, and a phone call had told him no work crew was scheduled for Saturday.
Wesley began to plan out his moves ... then he realized that his open hand was still pressed against the door in unconscious imitation of the way people said good-bye to each other in the Tombs—palms pressed against the cloudy plexiglass....
The kid, driving the Ford back toward the Slip, was thinking too, looking for clues. He didn t take the dog with him, the kid said to himself, finally relaxing. He drove professionally the rest of the way.
Wesley carefully, slowly laid out the two dozen sticks of dynamite the kid had purchased from a construction worker a few weeks ago. After he had screwed in the blasting caps one at a time, he stuck them all together with more of the plastique putty, driving the wires through and around the deadly lump and into the rectangular transmitter. Finally, he gently positioned the unit under a dark-green canvas tarpaulin in a far corner of the first floor.
Wesley climbed the seven flights of stairs to the top floor. The place was nearly completed. He found himself in a long hall, with doors opening into various rooms. He tried each room, looking across to the Pier with the night glasses until he located the right one. The elevator shafts were already finished, but no cars were installed. There was another staircase at the opposite end of the building parallel to the one Wesley had used.
Wesley stored all his stuff in the room he was going to use and began to retrace his steps. He tried the portable blowtorch on the steel steps first, but quit after a few minutes, only halfway through the first step. He then pulled a giant can of silicon spray out of his duffel and began to carefully and fully spray each individual step, working his way up the steps backwards until he again reached the top floor. Then he went down the parallel staircase to the first floor and worked his way back up again, repeating the procedure.
He looked down the stairs and gently tossed a penny onto the step nearest him. The penny slid off as if it were propelled and kept sliding all the way to the bottom of the flight. Satisfied, Wesley then applied the Permabond to each of the two top doors. He used all the remaining silicon to paint his way back toward the entrance of the room he was going to use.
He walked to the opposite end of the floor and worked his way backward, so that the only clear spot on the floor was in the very middle. Then he stepped inside the door and, without closing it, sprayed an extra-thick coat around the threshold. Finally, he closed the door and applied a coat of the Permabond to the inside.
It was 3:18 a.m. when he finished. Between Wesley and the ground floor were some incredibly slippery stairs, all separated by doors bonded to their frames.
Wesley set his tripod way back from the window, only about three feet from the door. No matter how the sun rose the next day, the shadows would extend at least this far back. Wesley would be shooting out of darkness, even at high noon. He went to the window and leaned out. The street below was narrow and empty. It was a long way to the ground.
Wesley took a long coil of black Perlon 11mm line from his duffel. It would support five thousand pounds to the inch. He anchored it securely to the window frame and tested it with all his strength. He laid the coiled line inside the window and attached the pair of U-bolts to the window frame to make sure.
Wesley spread a heavy quilt on the floor. On it he placed a bolt-action Weatherby .300 magnum. From all Wesley’s research, this one had the flattest trajectory, longest range, and greatest killing power. He’d tried several rifles set up for the NATO 5.56 mm cartridge, but the Weatherby gave him the best one-shot odds. If he put any one of the Nosler 180 grain slugs into Fat Boy, that would get it done.
He and the kid had talked it over for hours. The kid wanted Wesley to go for the chest shot, since it was a much bigger target. But Wesley had showed him the new LEAA Newsletter with its successful field-tests of the new Kevlar weave for bulletproof fabric. The publication said the weave would turn a .38 Special at near point-blank range and Wesley figured Fat Boy to be double-wrapped in the new stuff.
The 2-24X zoom-scope was bolted to the rifle’s top; the whole piece was designed so that the bolt could be worked without disturbing the setting. He put the spotting scope, the altimeter, and a handful of cartridges down on the quilt. No silencer this time; there would only be the one chance, so accuracy ruled over all other considerations.
Wesley removed the deerskin gloves, and the surgeon’s gloves he wore underneath. His palms were dry from the talc. Wesley took the auger with the four-inch bit and drilled sixteen precise holes in the room—in the walls and in the floor. Into each he put a stick of dynamite. The dynamite was connected with fusing material and the whole network again connected to one of Pet’s zinc-lined boxes. It would have been better to take all the stuff with him, but that would cost time he wouldn’t have. Wesley taped the other eight sticks of dynamite together and wired them to the door, with a trip mechanism set just in case the radio transmitter failed to fire—sooner or later, the cops would be breaking down the door, even if they hit him with a lucky shot as he was leaving the window.
It was 4:11 a.m. when Wesley finished this last task. None of the metal in the room gleamed—it had been worked with gunsmith’s bluing and then carefully dulled with a soapy film. All the glass was non-glare, and Wesley was dressed in the outfit he had field-tested on the roof. He was invisible even to the occasional pigeon that flew past. Wesley hated the foul birds. (“I never saw a joint without pigeons; fucking rats with wings!” Carmine had said once.) But it would be too much of an indulgence to even think about killing one now.
Wesley had no food with him, and no cigarettes, but he did have a canteen full of glucose and water and he took a sip just before he went into a fix on the window. He came out of it, as he planned, at 6:30. The city was already awake. Staying toward the back of the room, he took the readings that he needed. The building was one-hundred-and-eighteen-feet high at window level, the Pier was seventeen-hundred-and-fifty feet from where he stood. Wesley stepped behind the tripod and refocused the scope. There was no ship at the Pier, but he swept its full length and he knew he’d have a clear shot no matter where Fat Boy got off.
Wesley went toward the back of the room again, crossed his legs into a modified lotus, and sat focusing on the window ahead of him, mentally reviewing everything in the room and all the preparations inside. The building outside the one room was blocked off completely. There was no way to go back downstairs anyway, so Wesley’s entire mind was focused in the room and out the window. He mentally reviewed the picture of Fat Boy the kid had clipped from Newsweek. It wasn’t all that good, but Wesley knew the target would wear a ton of medals on his fat chest and would be obviously treated like a big deal when he walked down the ramp to the Pier.
77/
The crowd started to assemble well before 10:00 a.m. At first it seemed like it wasn’t going to be such a big event after all; maybe three hundred people total, half of them government agents. But the crowd kept growing, and Wesley saw the white helmets of the TPF keeping people back. Demonstrators ... with the spotting scope, it was easy to read the carefully lettered signs:
THE U.S. DOES NOT WELCOME TYRANTS!
KILLER OF CHILDREN!
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON!
A Bomb Built in Hell Page 17
