Howard Burns, standing in front of the windows, staring out through a cold haze that circled the city in the wind, was captivated by the city lights, which looked like hazy shards in a kaleidoscope. He heard the key enter the lock and the door open. He whirled, crouching as he did. The wine glass clattered off into a corner and the .22 Woodsman appeared in its place, like a coin in a magician’s sleight-of-hand trick.
‘It’s me!’ DeLaroza screamed, falling back against the door jamb.
Burns stared at him with a flash cf white hate, his hands trembling, his trigger finger twitching in the steel guard. He stood that way for a very long time and then slowly bent his elbow and pointed the weapon at the ceiling. The hand was shaking. ‘That’s how close you came,’ he said nodding to his hand. ‘Walk in on me like that, fro’m behind, no knock, no nothin’. Whatsa matter, you crazy?
‘1 thought you’d be asleep. I thought after...’
‘Asleep? Who you shittin’, asleep? I’m high. I’m up there somewhere. I blew a chippie’s head off an hour or two ago. Whadya mean, sleep?’
‘I am sorry, I, uh, I don’t know...’
‘No, that’s right. Somebody always does it for you. No powder burns on your lily whites, is there? Shit, lookit that, I spilled my fuckin’ think. You don’t walk in behind somebody!’
‘All right, all right.’
Burns went to the wet bar and poured himself another glass of Bertolucci red wine and plunked an ice cube in it. ‘I seen that circus downstairs. I sneaked a look on the way up here,’ he said.
DeLaroza stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
‘You oughta be sweatin’, a dumbass play like that,’ Burns said. ‘Thirty years you stay clean, then all of a sudden you’re gonna walk right out there on the trap door and spring the trap yourself. Whaddya want, me to tie the noose around your neck?’
‘It’s safe now. I have been working for this moment since 1945. The dangers have all been removed.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Listen to me, Howard —,
‘Bullshit. I scratch the colonel in Hong Kong, Corrigon
shows up. I scratch Corrigon, there’s the dame. Now she’s outa the way, who’s next, hunh? Who’s gonna pop outa the box next? You think somewhere there ain’t somebody’s gonna look at that face of yours and start thinkin’ and then start rememberin’? Lemma tell ya, partner, I been Livin’ like that for seven years. A new name, new business, new place. Had to give up everything and live in Nebraska. Nebraska for Chrissakes. Shit, they don’t even get all the fuckin’ television stations in Nebraska. Took me two years to find a bookie. And with all that, see, with the Feds practically feedin’ me with a spoon, I was waitin’ every time I turned around to see somebody from the old life.’
‘It is thirty years for me,’ DeLaroza said, ‘not nine. Nobody will recognize me. I do not even look like the same man.’
‘I’d spot you in a minute, kiddo. That phony accent, red beard, all that fat, that wouldn’t throw me.’ Burns sipped on his wine, then added, ‘You bring it down, I go down with it, know what 1 mean?’
‘There is no way to put us together.’
‘Oh no? How about those Chinks on the boat? The gook that picked me up tonight? How about the guard downstairs when we come in’?’
‘They have no idea who you are.’
‘Well, they ain’t blind, are they? One picture, pow! I’m made. They’ll dump me, don’t make no difference if I’m in Yokohama, Singapore, or the fuckin’ South Pole, I’m a gone gosling.’
‘Look, what you did with your life, I cannot do anything about that. I did something else. What you were is your business, what I am is mine.’
Burns turned his back to DeLaroza and stared out the window again. He said, ‘This Domino, the one I burned, she was a hooker, you said.’
‘A very high class hooker.’
‘She have a pimp?’
‘Well, I suppose you could call. ..‘
‘She had a pimp, right? And he didn’t know about this Hotchins, this pimp didn’t?’
‘No. Nobody knew.’
‘But he knows about you, right? He knows you knew her and he can tie you two together. All it takes is your name, they’ll be knockin’ at the door.’
‘He will not do that. He will put them on to many others before that,’
‘Shi-i-t. I gotta laugh.’ He looked over his shoulder at DeLaroza. ‘I been in the rackets all my life. Had a couple dozen buttons on my payroll at the time. Know what a button is, DeLaroza? A shooter. Very loyal people. But if the need comes up that one of them has to go quiet, there’s only one way.’
‘We can’t keep killing.’
‘Hah, that’s my line. One goes, then another, then another. It don’t stop. You take out the pimp, it’ll be somebody else. Whyn’t you leave it alone, keep yourself Ia the background. You got it made. Al] the power. All the money. The heavy friends. You’re gonna blow it. You’re gonna get us both killed.’
‘You are getting melodramatic, my friend. That’s ridiculous.’
‘No, it’s experience. Which you ain’t got and that’s what scares me shitless.’
‘You are safe, Howard, believe me.’
‘You listen to me, see, because I been around a long time. I know how this system works. You gotta hit the pimp. Your people, well, okay, I can’t go whackin’ off half the population of China. But the pimp goes. You don’t like it, that’s too bad. I cover my own ass.’
‘You can do it again, this soon?’ DeLaroza said and there was a look of shocked disbelief on his face.
Burns smiled. He poured another glass of wine, plopped in another ice cube. ‘You think it’s real tough, don’tcha? That’s funny.’ He closed his eyes, remembering the way the room looked and her, her head haloed by the lamp, the perfect target. ‘I forgot how good it was,’ he said. DeLaroza’s arms went numb. Burns kept talking. ‘Up close like that, I was Dominic Scardi again, not some name I don’t even know. You get your balls off thinking about all the people you control, all the money, all that power. Well so do 1, baby. I get off too because I got power, right here in this hand, in this fuckin’ finger I got it. I hold the vote. Yes, they live. No, they go down. You think that ain’t power? When you see it in their eyes? You know what, partner? I had to change my underwear when I got back here. That’s right. I shot off in my drawers. I always do. You take a little pill, it makes it even better. Works in two ways. It keeps you on top, see, keyed up, y’know. But it also makes coming that much better.’
He reached in his pocket for the other red devil. His fingers searched the corners of his pocket. It was gone. But where? He bad had them both in the apartment. He tried to think back, remember where he had seen it last.
‘Is something wrong?’ DeLaroza asked. ‘Did something go bad tonight?’
‘Go bad. Did it ever go bad with me?’
‘No, I can honestly say no to that.’
‘You there, you’re a little off your feed. Kinda sends you up when it happens, don’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Who ya shittin’, Victor? You ain’t Cut out for the real messy stuff. Anyways it’s my thing, right? You make the money, I clean the cat box.’
DeLaroza turned towards the door. ‘I guess I better get back downstairs.’
‘Don’tcha wanna hear about it?
‘Not really.’
‘Boom, boom, just like that. The first shot took her straight on. Gorgeous. She saw it a second before she got it. The second one caught her as she was going down. Three feet, four feet —,
God, I hate him, DeLaroza thought. He was a pariah, a killing machine, enshrouded by death, and the carrion smell of his flesh filled the room.