Wesley’s back was to the others. He fingered the tools without a word.
Brubaker ran interference. “He has a farm…near White Plains, and a place in Kansas—where his wife’s from.”
“Oh yeah, that chick who converted him,” the kid said.
Tony slammed the middle drawer closed.
“That was some story, how she wrote to him ever since she was a teenager—Jesus this and Jesus that. And finally it stuck…can you believe that? The guy went off the deep end!”
Tony rose to his feet. “Some people hit you over the head again and again with that hype till you’re brainwashed.”
“Well, look at the guy,” the kid said. “I mean…he’s changed! I saw him and his wife on Larry King Live and he, I mean, Larry couldn’t—”
“Let’s do this deal!” Wesley fumed, turning around and kicking a piece of scrap metal across the dusty white floor.
The corners of Tony’s small mouth curved up into a quick smile as he raised an eyebrow at the kid in the middle and walked over to an old white sink. Pushing up his sleeves, he rinsed his hands and squeezed a glob of gray goop into his palm from a bright orange bottle.
“You got the money?” he asked the kid above the running water.
“Yeah, yeah.” He dug almost frantically into his front pocket and pulled out a clump of folded bills.
“Count it, Wes,” Tony ordered, still washing.
Wesley snatched the wad and rifled quickly through the bills. “Fifteen hundred. It’s here.”
Tony dried his hands with a dirty towel, wiped his face with it, and looked at himself in the smudged mirror above the sink. Then he found the kid’s reflection in the mirror. “You don’t know where this ice came from.”
The kid gulped. “Oh . . . definitely not.” He stammered and smiling anxiously. “I don’t even know you. We never met, as far as I’m concerned. Nope. Never met.”
Tony laid the towel on the edge of the sink and walked to the tool chest. Lifting the top, he pulled out a Tech .22 assault rifle with his right hand and a good-sized bag of off-white, crystal-like powder with the other. Turning, he tossed the bag to the sweating kid, who fumbled it awkwardly but mangled it at the last second before it escaped his unsure hands.
“D’you hear about the body that turned up in Canarsie other day? In the scrap yard?” Tony approached the kid.
“Ah…um, no.” The kid eyed the gun. “No, I missed that.”
“Well, don’t miss what I’m telling you,” Tony’s voice got rough as he neared the kid’s face. “That guy was a narc. Okay? I know dat for a fact. And you know what he was blabbin’ about?”
The kid’s mouth was wide open, big eyes flashing, cheeks red as radish.
“He was blabbin about where he got his rocket fuel.”
“Listen, I…”
But before the kid could eke out another word, Tony lifted the modified Tech .22 sideways, shoulder high, bit his bottom lip, squinted, and blasted six rounds across the base of the metal wall beneath the workbench with one squeeze of the trigger.
Brubaker floundered back four feet as the smell of gunpowder and the echo of the gunfire hung in the air.
The kid’s red face went ash white, and he looked as if he might lose his dinner.
“You know how many .22s this mag carries?” Tony grabbed the fat magazine with his free hand.
The kid jerked his head in one rapid “no.”
“Fifty. And I got it rigged so I pull the trigger once and it unloads. You understand?”
The kid opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Word on the street is, that guy in Canarsie was a rat-squealing tell-all.” Tony lightly tossed the Tech .22 in his right hand. “He got himself whacked for blabbing.”
“Oh…don’t worry—”
“And the same will happen to you if you tell one soul where you got that cristy, you read?”
“Oh, hey, I read, I read.” The kid fell apart. “I’m not about to…”
“Now beat it!” Tony hoisted the weapon up to his shoulder as the kid scrambled about-face and practically started sprinting for the door with a blubbering Brubaker right on his heels.
***
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