Ed McBain

An 87th Precinct Mystery

GUNS

The night of the liquor-store job, you could fry eggs on the sidewalk. It was seven o'clock already, and outside it was still an oven. Coney was all for calling off the job. Even there inside the cafeteria, with the air conditioning going, he was sweating.

"No," Jocko said. "I think we're primed for it, we should go ahead."

"Because when it's this hot," Coney said, "things could go wrong."

"Nothin'll go wrong, don't worry."

"Guys lose their temper, guys take stupid chances," Coney said.

"Only one guy in the store," Jocko said, "and he won't take no chances, don't worry."

"Or lose his temper or something, in this heat, "Coney said.

"Only heat he's gonna know is the gun I stick in his face," Jocko said. "I'll tell him up front he opens his mouth, his brains are on the wall."

"Same as always," Teddy said, and shrugged.

Coney looked at him. Teddy shrugged again. He was their driver, what the hell did he

care if something happened inside the store? something started in there, he'd throw her gear and ride off into the sunset, the hell with the two dopes inside with guns in their hands. With heat like this, you never knew what was going to happen. When you got a on a cold winter day, he'd open the register without a peep. But on a day like today, when his underwear was creeping up his behind, or he maybe had an argument with a delivery man, who knew what might happen? When it was hot like this, you told him to open the register, he was liable to take a swing at you. So then you'd have to use the gun.

"Look," Coney said, "have I ever backed off a job before?"

"No," Jocko said. "What's right is right." "I just got a thing about heat."

"I can understand that," Jocko said. "But there's nothing to worry about here."

"People act unpredictable when it's hot," Coney said. "I myself, I find myself getting irritated sitting here with you guys and trying to convince you to call this job off."

"It ain't hot in here," Teddy said.

"It's nice and cool in here," Jocko said.

"To me it's hot, and to me I'm getting irritated. This heat's been building here in the city for the past five days. We're get a storm soon, I say we do the job after the storm. When everybody's cooled off, th we go in there and show the pieces and the old man does just what we tell him to without no fuss."

"How you know when this heat's gore break?" Jocko asked.

"They said any day now."

"Who's they?"

"The guy on television. What the hell's his name? The one used to do the weather for Con Ed."

"I don't know his name," Jocko said. "Him. He said the heat'll break soon." "The one with the mustache?" Teddy said. "Yeah, him."

"We postpone the job, we have to wa another week," Jocko said. "Cause that when there's the biggest take in there. have to wait till next Saturday night."

"So what's so bad about that?"

"Okay, suppose we postpone, okay? An it rains. And then by next Saturday it's ht again. This is New York, this is August, rains, it gets hot, it's up and down all t. time. Also, how do we know that old fart am planning to go on vacation or something? W go back next Saturday, we find grilles up a over the place, the guy went to the mountain for a week. Here's what I say, Coney..."

"Yeah, I know what you saw."

"I say you plan a job, then you go through with it for when it's planned."

"That's right," Teddy said.

"Otherwise, it's amateur night in Dixie."

"I'm saying you got to bend with the wind," Coney said.

"There ain't no wind," Teddy said, and laughed. "That's exactly your beef, ain't it, Nicholas?"

"Lay off the Nicholas shit," Coney said, and gave him a look that was supposed to be full of menace and threat. Teddy only shrugged again. They knew each other too long, that was it. The three of them had done twelve jobs together in the past eight months, that was a long time for guys to be together.

The funny thing was they hadn't known each other from a hole in the wall before Christmas, when Coney met Jocko in a bar on Eighth Avenue. Jocko had his hand under this black hooker's skirt. They struck up a conversation across the hooker. She was sitting in the middle, Jocko on one side, Coney on the other, they started talking across her about various cops they had known. The hooker had her legs spread on the stool there, Jocko was exploring under her skirt, and meanwhile telling Coney about the Texas Rangers and what sons of bitches they were.

Colley'd never been to Texas in his life. H was born and raised in New York, he'd never been further west than New Jersey, went there to see the burlesque in Union City; that wa when he was only seventeen, before the whol city opened up with skin flicks and body-ru. joints and topless dancers and whatever th, hell you wanted. If you couldn't find wha you wanted in New York City, then, man you just weren't looking. Jocko was tellinl him the Texas Rangers just enjoyed beinl mean sons of bitches. Not only to nigger To white guys like you and me, Coney. Is that your name? Coney?

The black girl was looking at Jocko becaus, he used the word nigger in her presence. H, had his hand halfway to Yugoslavia, but that didn't upset her. What did upset her wa he said nigger. She kept looking at him Jocko didn't even know he'd said anything to upset her. He kept going on about th Texas Rangers. By that time the hooke: was beginning to realize she didn't have true john here, all she had was a honk, telling Texas Ranger stories and feeling he up freebies. So she got up off the stool ant wandered over to where a live nine-to-five was sitting there nursing a beer, and sh started pitching at him- Good r/ddance Jocko said.

That's when they got down to straight talking.

It turned out Jocko had been in it a long time, done his first robbery when he was eighteen, well, almost nineteen. That was in Waco, Texas, held up a supermarket down there, came away with close to a thousand in cash. He was Texan by birth, six feet two inches tall, weighing two hundred and twenty pounds, hair as red as fire, pale-blue eyes, freckles all over his face. He had a baby face, Jocko, but he was built like a gorilla and there was a mean streak running through him that showed in the slight curl of his lip and the cold, flat look in his eyes. Coney was a little scared of him; big men like that always scared him. He himself was five-ten, which wasn't short, but he was built narrow and the idea that Jocko could pick him up and throw him against the wall if he wanted to ... well, that scared him a little. He told Jocko he'd done a few things in his life, too; he didn't want to tell him too much, he hardly knew the guy.

They sat there drinking, and before you knew it Jocko was sounding him about a job he'd been casing for a couple of weeks. Pawnshop on Lennox and a Hun' Twelfth, up in nigger Harlem. Jocko had himself a wheel man, but he still needed a fall partner to go in there with him keeo the tlace ture

while he was cleaning out the register. Coney said he might be interested, depended on who the driver was, and also on whether or not he could get himself a gun. He had to tell Jocko, then, that he'd only been out of jail a little more than a month, that he'd taken a fall for armed robbery four years ago, and just got out after doing three and a bit more. That was why he didn't have a piece yet; he was on parole, he wasn't organized yet. Well, Jocko said, what you need to do is meet some people who'll help you get organized, that's all.

The people Jocko had in mind, or what it looked like at first, were two girls in his apartment up in the Bronx. Coney thought they were maybe hookers, but he wasn't sure. They were both in their early twenties, one of them a skinny blonde, the other one a skinny brunette. The blonde had pimples all over her face; maybe she was younger than Coney had guessed. They both came into the apartment wearing fake furs. It was snowing outside, but neither one of them was wearing stockings.

Just the fake furs, and short skirts and boots. Teddy came in a little while later.

"This is Teddy Stein," Jocko said. "This is the driver I was telling you about. Teddy, meet Coney Donato."

"Hey, how you doin?" Teddy said, and took Coney's hand. "Coney, huh? I never

heard that name before. Is it short something?"

"It's short for cauliflower," the blonde the pimples said, and laughed.

"It's short for Nicholas," Coney said. "Coney, huh?"

"That's right, Coney Donato."

"How come they don't call you Nick?" brunette said.

"How come they don't call you Abigail?" Coney said.

"What do you mean? My name's Ginny:

why should they call me Abigail?"

"Forget it," Coney said.

"Why don't you and Teddy talk a little?" Jocko said. "Girls, come on in the other room."

"What's so special in the other room?" the blonde asked, and laughed. But she and the brunette went out with Jocko.

"So you interested in this job, huh?" Teddy said. He was a little shorter than Coney, and a little stouter. He wore eyeglasses, and he was going bald at the back of his head. Coney guessed he was in his late thirties, which was old for a guy doing robberies. Then again, he was only a driver. In this business, Coney found it important to separate the dudes with heart from the ones who only thought they had heart. The dude sitting behind the wheel

might kid himself into thinking he was at the center of the action, but he wasn't. The dude who went in there with the gun, he was the one calling the tune, man.

"I'm maybe interested," Coney said. "It depends on how it's set up."

"Well, I thought Jocko told you all about it," Teddy said.

"No, all Jocko told me was he's got a pawnshop picked out, and somebody to drive a car."

"So what do you want to know?"

"Has this pawnshop been cased good?" "Yeah, Jocko done that himself." "When?"

"Two, three weeks ago."

"How many of us will be on the job?" "Just the three of us. If you come m. "No lookout, huh?"

"Not outside the shop, no. The way Jocko figures it, that'll be your job. He'll be at the register, you'll be at the door, blow the whistle you see any trouble coming." "Mm," Coney said.

"So how does it look?" Teddy said. "Who's runnin the show, you or Jocko?" "It's Jocko's job." "What's the split?"

"You got to talk to Jocko about that." "You ever do a job together before?"

"No, this'll be the first one."

"What's he promised you?"

"Well, you talk to Jocko about that, okay?"

"If he wants me in on it, I get the same as him," Coney said.

"That's up to him."

"No, that's up to me. Cause otherwise,

ain't interested."

"If the split's okay, you think you might be interested?"

"It sounds like he done his homework,"

Coney admitted.

"Oh, yeah, he's a very thorough guy. He's got it all worked out so smooth, it's almost boring."

"Boring, huh? You in this for thrills or money?" Coney asked.

"Well, money, sure. What I meant "

"You ever been busted?"

"Only once."

"What for?"

"Hanging paper."

"How'd you get from that to this?"

"I figured if I got caught passing queer checks, then maybe I wasn't so good at it."

"How do you know you're good at driving?"

"I don't. There's always a first time,

though, am I right?"

"Yeah," Coney said, and thought Who the

hell wants to be with an amateur his first time out? "What about Jocko? He ever done time?"

"Twice. In Texas." "What for?" "Robbery both times."

Great, Coney thought. I got a punk who never drove before, and I also got a mastermind who's so good at plotting robberies he's already been busted twice. This is certainly the job for me.

"I'll think about it," he said to Teddy.

That night they fixed him up with the blonde, who was not too bad in bed once you got past the pimples. And the next morning, which was three days before Christmas, Jocko came around with a Colt Detective Special and said it was a present. Counting the blonde, that was the second present. They went out for breakfast together, and Jocko said, "Well, Coney, what do you think? Are you coming in with us or what?" Coney spooned cornflakes into his mouth, and said, "Only if I get the same action you get." Jocko nodded and held out his hand across the table.

So that was it, that was how it all started. Twelve jobs counting that first one on Christmas Eve, and all of them exactly the same, all of them coming off without a hitch, knock wood. But today the heat was botherin

Colley. And besides, this was the thirteen job. He debated mentioning this.

"This is number thirteen, you know," h said.

Jocko looked at him and smiled. "Always, got to be a number thirteen," he said. "Les you want to retire after number twelve." "I'm only saying..."

"He's superstitious," Teddy said.

"I'm not. All I'm saying is if we got to do number thirteen, then for Christ's sake let'S do it when it ain't so fuckin hot!"

"Coney, I'm going to tell you something," Jocko said. There was no menace in his voice, he spoke softly and reasonably. It was just that you could read meanness behind his pale-blue eyes and in the telltale curl of hisl lip. If Jocko hadn't become an armed robber, he'd have made a good Texas Ranger. "I'm going to tell you why we have to do this job tonight, okay, Coney? Now, after I finish telling you, you're free to do what you like. If1 Teddy and me has to do it just the two of us, him outside and me going in there alone, why then, that's what we'll have to do, and no hard feelings, I mean it."

"Well, you know I wouldn't let you "

"I mean it, Coney, there'd be no hard]

feelings. Man has to do what he wants to]

do, and that's that. But let me explain whvl

I feel it's essential that we go in there tonight. Never mind that we'd have to wait another whole week, we don't do it now. So we'll wait another week, so what, waiting a week ain't important one way or the other. Except, of course, the man may go away on vacation, this is August, remember. But here's the real reason, Coney; I am being as honest with you as I know how to be. The real reason I want to do this job tonight is because I am stone dead broke. That is the real reason. I am down to the bare soles of.my feet, Coney, and I need to get in there and come out with some bread. That's the long and the short of it."

"I can lend you some money," Coney said. "Coney, I don't borrow from nobody," Jocko said, and grinned. "Hell, man, reason I started stealing was cause I'm too proud to borrow."

Teddy laughed. "That's a good one," he said.

"Ever since Jeanine come up from Dallas.," Jocko said, "my expenses have gone sky-high, I don't have to tell you. She's a good woman, a good wife, but man, she does enjoy clothes and whiskey and having herself a gay old time. So what can I tell you?" Jocko said, and shrugged. "I got to do that job tonight, I got to get me some bread. I'll tell you the truth, Collev, was you to back out. was Teddy

to back out, I'll do it all by my that's the truth, I'm that hard up for Jeanine was telling me only this morning was thinking of maybe taking a job in one them massage parlors, help out a little, know. Well now, man, you know and I that those massage-parlor girls ain't but whores, am I right? I told Jeanine I' kick her ass clean around the block she mention such a idea to me again. Point she's worried, and she's got reason to Woman has a right to expect her man provide. I got to go in there tonight, that's that." Jocko shrugged. "With you without you, Coney, I'm goin in. Besides it sounds to me like maybe all this busine: about it being hot and all is really cause this number thirteen and that's somehow got spooked,"

"No, it's just it's so hot," Coney said.

"Well, either way, the choice is yours: friend."

"You'd go in there alone, huh?"

"That's right."

"End up in jail before the night's out," Coney said.

"Ain't nobody ever going to bust me Jocko said. "You don't have to worry about that, I can take care of myself." He spread his hands wide, said, "So that's it," and looked at:i

his watch. "It's quarter past seven now, the liquor store closes nine o'clock on Saturday nights. I want to go in about five to, what do you say, Coney?"

"Well, I can't let you go in there alone." "I told you that's no worry of yours."

"If I don't go in with you," Coney said, "I

guess that's the end of us three, huh?"

"I guess so," Jocko said.

"End of the Three Musketeers," Teddy said.

"Well, I can't let you go in alone."

"Then you still with us?"

"I'm still with you," Coney said. "Good," Jocko said. "Good," Teddy said.

In the movies, it was always a caper. The movies made it sound like somebody dancing a jig in the street. A caper. Fun and games. Mastermind plots it down to the last detail, everybody rehearses it, gets everything down like clockwork, the day of the job something goes wrong. Crime does not pay. The thing that goes wrong is something the mastermind never thought of in a million years. Or else it'ssomething about one of the characters. A flaw in his character, like he digs girls in boots. The day of the job a girl in boots marches by, he takes his eve.q nff the bunk uurd. wu.tches

the girl, there goes the caper.

Those two girls in boots that night Jocko's apartment. Ginny and whoever the blonde was the one whose name he' forgotten, and the blonde was the one he' gone to bed with. Surprised she didn't her goddamn boots on in the sack. off everything but the boots, went around the room for the longest time, " tits, narrow hips, tufted blond crotch hair looked like a teenager in a kinky movie. Coney finally asked her was she to march around the room all night long. blonde said she was loosening up. He told to come get in bed, he'd loosen her up. it hadn't been for the blonde, he wouldn't have thrown in with Teddy and Jocko. Well, the gun, too. Jocko bringing him that gun, must've cost him a good two-fifty on the street, that was what decided him. He began to feel like himself again, hefting that gun in his hand. Yeah. That was the part they forgot to mention in all the movies. The gun. Well sure, how could they? Do a thing that's about a caper, all the guys talking about a fuckin caper instead of a job, then the gun becomes a minor part of it. The major part is the clockwork timing and the breathless suspense that's going to lead up to that girl in boots walking by at just the crucial moment

Alice, that was her name. They forgot to mention the gun.

They forgot to mention what it felt like to have that big mother gun in youi" hand, to know that when you went in there and shoved that piece in somebody's face, why, that person was going to look at that gun, and his eyes were going to go wide, and you were going to smell the stink of fear on him, man, and from that minute on, from the minute you yanked that piece out of your coat and saw his eyes bug with fright, you were the boss. And from that minute on, you knew the man there was going to get off his money and hand it to you nice and peaceful.

Here's your caper movie, Coney thought; here's tonight's job the way it would be in a caper movie. We go in, right? I've been bitching about the heat all day long, so at the very last minute I wipe sweat out of my eyes and I miss seeing the cop on the beat who's coming around shaking doors. The cop barges in the liquor store with his gun blazing, shoots Jocko in the back, and is putting the cuffs on me even before I'm finished wiping away the sweat. End of caper.

Or else how about this, yeah, this would be even better. We go in the store, right? Jocko does this number with the old man, I'm standing watchin the outside, everything goes off without a hitch. The old man the register, nobody comes anywhere near store, we're home free and are running where Teddy's waiting with the car. But ri at the crucial moment, a black cat eros my path. And since I've been worried abo this being number thirteen and all, wh naturally I panic and shoot the fuckin and we get the whole damn precinct up down on our asses in ten seconds flat. end of caper.

In real life, nothing like that ever happens.

In real life, a job ends only one of three You get the money and you get away; you. don't get the money, but you get away! or you don't get the money, and you busted besides. Usually, if there's trouble! it's because somebody blows his cool. Now. unless you're dealing with amateurs, person who blows his cool is not one of people. A dude holding a gun had nothin to worry about, he's the one in control of the situation. What causes the trouble, usually, is some fat lady beginning to yell at the top her lungs, or the guy who owns the store all of a sudden deciding to become John Wayne, even just a passer-by outside seeing the action in there and marching in to make a citizen's arrest. Blow your cool when holding a gun on you, and you're forcinig that man to use the gun. And that's trouble.

A man going in someplace with a gun had to be ready to use it, of course, but Coney hardly knew any robbers at all who actually wanted to use it. You found some kooks, yes, who enjoyed blowing a man's brains out, but they were in the wrong racket, they should have been hiring out to do contracts instead. Your armed robber was a man who showed face, don't forget; he went into a place unmasked, usually, and one reason for his sticking a gun under a man's nose was to scare the guy not only for now but for later, too. If you scared him enough, he wouldn't be so quick to identify you if you happened to get picked up later. The chances of getting picked up, unless it was right at the scene, were pretty slim anyway. What's the guy going to do, wade through hundreds of mug shots of armed robbers? That was for the movies, too.-Guy sitting at a desk with patient, kind detective. "That's the man, Officer! I'd recognize him anywhere!" Bullshit.

You shove a gun in a man's face, he suddenly loses his mind, his memory, his courage, and ten pounds of weight. "See this, mister? I'll shoot your face off you don't open the register fast. Now do it!" Coney had heard Jocko using that same line a total of twelve times now. He said it the same way each

time. Each time the man opened the re Fast. There was something in Jocko's voic that told the man he meant business. Jock would use the gun if he had to. The man knew it, and the man didn't want to get shot. Tha was simple arithmetic.

In one of the holdups- this was a Morn an Pop grocery store in Queens, they hit it on Friday night in April, gorgeous spring night this was about six o'clock, the place was just closing. Teddy was outside in the car, it was a car he'd boosted that afternoon, they always used a stolen car on their jobs. Jocko went in. walked straight to the counter, Coney came in behind him, was closing the door when he heard Jocko doing his monster routine. "See this, mister? I'll shoot your face off you don't open the register fast. Now do it!" This was Coney's cue to take his own gun from his pocket, keep it low, under the glass panel the door, but have it ready to bring it up if there was trouble of any kind. The old ginzo behind the counter was opening the re[ almost before Jocko got the words out of his mouth. This store had been hit four times already by two different gangs, that's why Jocko had picked it, cause it was an easy mark. The guy's wife was standing right alongside him. She looked a little like Coney's Aunt Anna, big fat Italian lady wearin a

black dress, faint black mustache over her lip. She was scared but at the same time angry, and you could see she was thinking her husband was a coward for not doing something. This was the fifth holdup here, and all the guy did was open the cash register each time. Which he was also doing this time.

Coney was at the door, half watching the action at the counter, half watching the street outside. It was stickball time, you could hear kids up the street yelling. Nice April noises. City noises. He loved this fuckin city. Outside, a woman came up to the door, she was talking to somebody over her shoulder, she didn't even look at the knob. She'd been coming here maybe half her life, she could fred the place and the doorknob blindfolded. She grabbed the knob, she walked in, she saw Coney's gun. Nice Italian lady, also like one of his aunts, but not as fat as most of them. Ready to scream down the whole neighborhood.

Coney lifted the gun so the muzzle was pointing up at her head; the hole in the muzzle could look mighty big when it was pointing up at you. He slitted his eyes. He made his voice a rasp. In Italian, he said, "Signora, sta zitta." That meant, "Lady, cool it. rae didn't have to say another word. The lady went over near the shelves where

the macaroni was, and she started saying novena. Forty Hail Marys and a few

Our Fathers Who Art in Heaven while was cleaning out the register. When started for the door, the lady fell to knees because she knew from television the movies that the two bad guys were " to kill her now. "Signora," Coney said, finita, la commedia." That meant, "Lady, comedy is finished." It was a famous line something. Coney's grandfather, who used go to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for operas there, was always quoting that line Coney figured it was from an opera. lady looked up at him. She still thought was going to get shot. Coney started lau Jocko thought Coney had lost his marbles, and began tugging on his sleeve, trying get him out of the store. The lady thought Coney was Richard Widmark in picture where he threw a lady just like down the stairs. She was shaking so hard she was knocking La Rosa boxes off the shelf. Jocko finally got Coney to put the gun and they both went outside, the guns back in their pockets now, two gentlemen out for evening stroll. Behind them, a real-life opera started in the grocery store. Teddy open the car doors. Coney was still laughing.

:.e, was really worried about the hot weather. d about this being the thirteenth job. But le'd given them his word on it, said he was going along with them, so the only thing to do now was shut up and go along. Still, he was worried. His grandmother wouldn't even go out of the house on the thirteenth of each month. "Hoodoo jinx of a day," she'd say, sounding more like an Irish washerwoman than a lady who'd been born in Naples. His grandmother was dead now. Cancer when he was twenty-five. That was four years ago. Hoodoo jinx of a day, she used to call the teen th and refused to budge from the house on that day. Even when her brother Jerry died in New Jersey, she wouldn't go t the funeral because it took place on the thirteenth of the month. Well, this had nothing to do with a day, of course. But still, it was the thirteenth job, wasn't it? Well, that was stupid, that really was being superstitious. Teddy was right. And Jocko was right, too. There had to be a number thirteen unless you wanted to retire after number twelve.

-Coney wasn't nervous, he was never nervous before a job. But he was worried that this time somebody who was irritated by the heat would do something dumb. He didn't know what. Just something that would force One or the other of them to use the gun. He

had never had to use the gun. Jocko had used the gun in Texas. He had blinded a in a gas station. Shot him in the eye when guy told him he didn't have the corr. to the safe, "See this, mister? I'll shoot face off..." and that's just what he'd

Barn, right in the eye. Jocko got busted; was the second fall he'd taken. If you the gun, there was always the chance of descending. Very dangerous. Also, you into much heavier raps once you used gun. On top of the robbery-one charge, got felonious assault added. Or homicide, forbid. Jesus, he would never want to anybody. Never. In his nightmares he the gun and killed somebody.

"This is a nice heap," Teddy said. handles nice."

The car was a 1974 Ford station Teddy had boosted it that afternoon " Brooklyn. There was no need to put different license plates or anything like

If you boosted a car that morning, it didn show up on the police department's ho sheets till sometime the next day. The wouldn't be looking for it till maybe three days after it got stolen. Beside" nobody in the police department went constantly checking license plates against numbers in their little black books. The

they checked out a plate was if they saw something suspicious. Three guys sitting in a car watching the street, that's suspicious. The op on the beat'll check out the license-plate numbers in his book, just on the off chance he's got a stolen vehicle there. Wants to know what he's going up against. Are those three guys just sitting there watching the girls go by, or are they thieves casing a joint they're going to make in the next five minutes, or are they junkies waiting for the man to show with their dope? These are all considerations for the cop on the beat. He doesn't want to rap on a closed car window with his stick and all of asudden three guys are shooting at him. So he checks out the plate first. If the car is stolen, he: calls back to the ranch for help.

"Another time he'll check a plate is if omething accidentally rings a bell. At muster, the sergeant will read off the hot-car sheet, and all the patrolmen'll make notes, and maybe something'll stick in the guy's head -red and white Buick with a smashed right headlight, something like that. So while he's walking the beat he'll see a red and whiteluick with a smashed right headlight, it loesn't take a mastermind to figure that maybe this is the car that was stolen. Out comes the book, and he checks the numbers. g is, your t)rofessional car thief is a man

who doesn't steal a car in the Bronx, example, and then drive it all over the so every cop on the beat can get a good at it. If he steals it in the Bronx, he's us1 from Brooklyn. And the cop on the Broo beat couldn't care less what the hell was in the Bronx..

"Don't you think it rides nice?" said.

"Yeah, it rides nice," Coney said.

"I grabbed it outside a supermarket. must've been inside doing her shopping."

"Comes out, finds her wagon gone," said.

"That's life," Teddy said.

"She leave the keys in it?"

"No, but it was unlocked. I opened door and got at the hood latch. Thing always amazes me, I can be working on car four, five minutes, hood up, the wires so I can start it, nobody'll boo to me. I once had a cop come would you believe it, stood there on sidewalk with his hands behind his watching me while I crossed the wires. nodded when I got the job finished. work, he was telling me. You fixed was wrong with it."

The men laughed. The sense of in the car was beginning to dislel

Colley had about the heat or the jinx number thirteen. They had done -a dozen times before, they had talked and casually on the way to one job or.

Teddy, xn fact, had probably told very same story on the way to each and job, and they had laughed genuinely time he told it. He would now explain he had rigged a switch... "What I done," he said, "was rig a switch on the dash. So I can start it without being under the hood each time." [ l!.iYeah, good," Jocko said.

I.-is. that clock right?" Coney said. He was iijng alone in the back, and he leaned 'vard toward the front seat. "Jocko checked the dashboard clock against wristwatch. "I've got a quarter to," he

"That's what I've got," Coney said.

"I never had a car in my life the clock

"Worked," Teddy said. "I stole Cadillacs,

Mercedes-Benzes, Continentals, you name it.

e clock never works."

"They bud em so they won't work,"

Jko said.

"What do you mean?"

They don't want them to work." ,:. why woulan t they want em to work?" :-leddy asked.

"If they wanted them to work, don't think they could build them so they Man, they build a machine costs thousand dollars, whatever, everything precision-made, you mean to tell me if. wanted that old clock to work, it work?"

"I guess they could make it work if wanted to," Teddy said. "Sure," Jocko said. "Then why don't they?"

"Who knows what their motive is?" said. "These big companies are all up." Abruptly, his voice and his changed. "Listen, I just want to go over one more time, Teddy. After we come you're going cross town to Jerome and we'll ditch the car someplace near

Stadium, wherever you find a good spot." "Yeah, I got it."

"Then we go our separate ways, and tomorrow morning at my place." "Right," Teddy said. "Coney?" "Fine."

"You still worried?"

"No, no."

"Just make believe it's number

One after this will be fourteen, so just believe it's this one instead."

"Or make believe it's a baker's dozen," Teddy said.

::..

"What's that, a baker's dozen?"

"That's thirteen," Teddy said.

"So how does that change anything? If a baker's dozen is thirteen, I think of it as thirteen, it's still thirteen, ain't it?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Teddy said.

"Jesus," Coney said. Don't think about it at all," Jocko said. That s the best way." "I'm not thinking about it," Coney said. I'm hot, that's all. I can't stand this kind of eat her that's all."

h'Probably cool off later tonight," Teddy Won t cool off till we get some rain, ?,011ey said.

,.Jeanine likes this kind of weather," Jocko ill .iki. "She's from Fort Myres originally- you i er been down that part of Florida?"

,. I never been to Florida, period, Coney

-"Gets mighty hot down there in the er. July and August, it's a blast furnace there."

S.ounds like just the place for me," Coney

"Yeah," Jocko said, and laughed. " loves it. A day like today, that's a little brisk for her."

"Yeah, it sure is brisk," Coney said.

"You want to take a right when we the corner," Jocko said. "Yeah," Teddy said. "Then it's four blocks up." "Yeah."

Jocko reached in under the blue windbreaker he was wearing and pulled the pocket of his trousers a Colt Cobra. gun was almost identical to the Special that Coney was carrying, except it was partially made of aluminum and lighter fifteen ounces to twenty-one for Coney's gun. Both pistols were revolvers, with fixed sights and walnut sto Each gun carried six .38 Special cart rid Jocko rolled out the cylinder now, glanced at the cartridges, nodded flipped the cylinder back into position, put the gun in his pocket again. Teddy made the turn onto the avenue now, and heading north toward the liquor store.

Neither Coney nor Jocko had permits licenses for the guns they were carrying; go guns had been purchased from receivers stolen goods. If a cop stopped and searche! them and found the laieces on them. th

tould both be charged with violation of Section 265.05 of the Penal Law- Possession of Weapons and Dangerous Instruments and Appliances. Coney practically knew the Penal

LW by heart. Possession of a loaded firearm was a Class D Felony, punishable by a minimum of three and a maximum of seven. Teddy was driving very carefully. No one wanted the fuzz coming down on them for a bullshit gun violation. Get busted holding up a store, okay, that was a legitimate beef. But get stopped for passing a traffic light and then pend seven in jail on a gun rap- no way.

"The Penal Law sections on robbery were very clear, with none of the fine print that existed in the burglary sections, where the degree of the crime was figured by whether the breaking and entry had been done in the daytime or in the night, in a dwelling 0rin a building, with a gun or without man wanted to become a burglar, he first had to become a lawyer so he'd know what crime he was about to commit! But the robbery sections were in straightforward, almost blunt English, starting right off with the definition: ROBBERY IS FORCEFUL

STEALING. You couldn't make it plainer than that. The various degrees of robbery were also Plain to understand:

Robbery 3rd Degree:

Forcibly stealing property.

Robbery 2nd Degree:

Forcibly stealing property when aided another person actually present.

Robbery 1st Degree:

Forcibly stealing property and, in the of the commission of the crime or immediate flight therefrom, the actor another participant in the crime:

1: Causes serious physical injury to person who is not a participant in the

2." Is armed with a deadly weapon; or

3: Uses or threatens the immediate use dangerous weapon.

Any kind of robbery was a felony. For three, you could get a maximum of sev years in prison; for robbery two, you could get fifteen; for robbery one, which was a Cla B felony and nothing to sneeze at, you cou] get twenty-five. The three of them were abol to commit, by definition, robbery one.

"There it is," Jocko said. "Just up ahead." The crime itself began for them the mom el Jocko said those words; until then there ha been only the prelgaration for the crime I In1

the atmosphere had been relaxed and now it became charged and tense. i They had done this a dozen times before, and ach time the risk was the same. Each time Golley and Teddy gambled whatever was in the cash register or safe against a possible twenty-five years in prison. Jocko gambled a possible life sentence; he had already taken two falls, another bust would be his third. He was twenty-seven years old and had already spent fourteen years of his life in detention centers, county jails, adolescent correctional facilities and hard-ass prisons. Coney had been sentenced to seven for the robbery two fall, and had got out on parole after serving a little more than three. That had been shortly before last Christmas. He was twenty-eight at the time.

He had gone home to pick up his clothes and then had moved in with a girl he knew, a go-go dancer in one of the joints on Fortyninth, just off Broadway. That had lasted about a week and a half, a total bummer. She kicked him out at the end of that time, called him a freeloader, said he wasn't even any good in bed. He was living in a fleabag on Forty-seventh when he ran into Jocko in the bar that night. Only reason he'd sat down next to him was because he was. hoping to make time with the, black hooker The next

day he was holding a gun in his hand a And two days after that, on Christmas Eve, committed another robbery.

They knew just how to do it, they had it together often enough and they do it exactly the same way tonight. There something athletic about their an end running wide, perhaps, to " quarterback's pass, a guard taking out sole opposing tackle; or a smooth double combination Tinkers to Evers to Teddy swiftly pulling the stolen in toward the curb and cutting the en " Jocko and Coney getting out on the and beginning to walk purposefully but too swiftly toward the front door of the lk store. There was something theatrical in performance as well- Teddy looking bored the wheel of the car as he lit a cigarette and out a long stream of smoke, Coney and making small talk as they approached store, some bullshit about Jeanine's having come down with a summer cold, tho were the worst kind, each of them to every hem and haw, every pause, lifting of the eyebrow while robbery in their heads, robbery hummed in blood, robbery propelled them to the of the liquor store.

And finally, there was something

e way they worked together, a trio that had in the short space of eight months learned each other's skills and shortcomings, and moved now to supplement or correct, the thrill of what they were doing undeniable; Teddy confessed one night that he always waited at the wheel of the car with an erection. There was for Coney and Jocko- Teddy never experienced this, or at least mentioned it- the feeling that they were on dope. That everything was being slowed down by a fix. Not all the way down to slow motion, but somewhere much slower than what the real tempo was.

Coney saw Jocko's hand reach out in the shimmering August neon, saw clearly and precisely the small heart-shaped tattoo on the ball of the hand where thumb and forefinger joined, saw the fingers grasping the brass knob, and turning the knob, and easing the door open slowly everything moved so slowly when the juices ran high. He heard the tinkling of the bell over the door as though it were coming from a distant lush valley, and he moved into the store behind Jocko, moved on feet that seemed cushioned- he was Somehow in sneakers again, though he wa sWearing black-leather loafers, he was running in high-topped Keds, he was ten years old and oin far a hae that had bean chalked

onto the asphalt, running in slow motion, Coney, they are yelling at him. Go. He closes the door behind Jocko. o is moving across the store. The bottles 1 catching light and reflecting it; brilliant co explodes from the shelves and the stack displays, bourbon browns and Scotch ambe sauterne yellows and burgundy reds, cr de menthe greens. Jocko is walking toward the counter and Coney watches him sees him moving through a stained-gl window toward an altar where a baldhead priest stands in a brilliant red surplice: t counterman wearing a red cotton jacket, t pocket of it embroidered in white with t words Carlisle Liquors. Coney wonders if th is Mr. Carlisle himself, he wears the name proudly, Carlisle Liquors, it might easily I a family crest, a proud and ancient family name, like Donato is a proud and anciel family name if your grandmother happens : come from a slum in Naples. Or is Carlisl the man's first name? Is he perhaps Carlisl Abernathy the Third, standing there beamin behind the counter as Jocko takes forever cross the stained-glass room.

Coney closes the door.

Has it taken him all this time to clos the door? He hears the snug whisper the door easing into the lamb. hears a tin

g click as the strike plate engages bolt. There is a shade on the door, he wonders if he should pull down the shade. He has never had a door with a shade before. lever on any of the dozen jobs they pulled. lie wonders now if the shade on the door is the big mistake the mastermind made. Is the shade on the door the thing that is going to wreck the caper? But this is not a caper. This is a job. The job is armed robbery. You luck up on this job, mister, you go to jail for twenty-five years.

Is Jocko at the counter yet? Coney turns from the door, glances toward the counter for just a moment, sees that the baldheaded man in the red cotton jacket is looking suspiciously at Jocko as he approaches, the smile more tentative now: Is this a hold up here? Are these two guys together, the one coming toward the counter and the other one standing over there near the door? They have to be together, otherwise why doesn't the one near the door either start looking at the wine bottles on the rack there to the left, or else come toward the counter himself to state what sort of alcoholic beverage he wishes to purchase here in Carlisle Liquors, a proud and ancient family name.." the gun is coming out of Jocko's pants.

I-Ie hold. the glln like a hllge cock. wavin

it in the bald guy's face. Coney a sudden urge to giggle, and looks the street. People are moving past in the stifling heat, cool here in the though, air conditioner humming, no of anybody doing anything stupid in here, cool in here for anything stupid. Behind he hears the words he's heard a dozen before, spoken exactly the same way, same voice level and tone, the same

"See this, mister? I'll shoot your face off don't open the register fast. Now do it!" There is another voice.

Coney ignores the words at first; they too loaded with everything he has feared he woke up this morning. He hears the of course, and he knows what they but he chooses to react instead to the that there is another voice in the store, unexpected voice that follows so quickly Jocko's set opening speech that it seems an altar boy's response to a priest's and makes suddenly valid the image of counterman-priest in his stained-glass store.

Coney is suddenly trapped inside a

It is a caper movie, and everything is " wrong. It is the next-to-the-last scene in picture, where everything goes wrong. mastermind forgot something. Or a flaw exposes itself. In the instant before

towards the counter, he tries to think it is that possibly could have gone knowing full well what it is because has heard the words and understood them, refuses to accept the words and the of the words until he can see forlf that what the voice claims is actually He knows, too, that he cannot do anything change this situation. This is the scene where everything goes wrong, and there is that anyone can ever do to change it.

i..This is the hoodoo-iinx scene; it cannot be changed because it was filmed too long ago. :]0cko said his lines a long time ago, and they ere recorded on film, just as the other voice was recorded. The movie is playing here in Us liquor store for the first time anywhere, folks, it is a world premiere. But it really happened a long time ago, when it was being filmed, and nothing the actors can do Or say now will change a frame of what has been frozen for posterity. Coney knows the Penal Law, he now thinks, "the /ctor or another participant in the crime," and he ks yes, ]ocko has said his lines, the scene is progressing nicely. The voice that answers ]ocko raps into the store with machine-gun authority. Jocko knows his lines because he's aid them so often, and the man responding on cue has surely said his lines at least as

often- oh, the scene is going only Coney wasn't so scared shitless, he maybe eat his popcorn and enjoy the the movie. He is scared only because of the other voice has just said, even though has not yet turned toward the counter to sure this isn't merely old bald Carlisle making his voice big and barrel-chested;

are some short guys like that who can voice deep in the soles of their feet and imitate wrestling champs.

"Police officers!" the voice says. "D

move!"

Instead of not moving, Coney moves.

turns from the door, where he has watching the street, which suddenly like a foolish occupation, since the thing is going wrong is not coming from the but from inside the store. At first he he has made a mistake. Nothing seems to changed there at the counter. Jocko is sl holding a gun in his fist, the barrel up at Carlisle Liquors" face, and the old man looking into the muzzle, nothing has chan it is all a mistake. Not the mistake, not big blunder that fucks up the caper,

simply an auditory mistake. Coney really hear anybody saying anything cops, all he really heard was the i they saying "Yes, sir, I will open the reister r," and somehow, probably because of shitty acoustics, thought he heard "Police 's! Don't move!"

"But no, this is number thirteen, this hoodoo of a movie was shot a long, long time probably when his grandmother was a er walking the streets of Naples and to meet a neighbor's glance for fear either of them would be suspected of casting ttae Evil Eye and what Coney sees are two officers, sure enough, both as big as and twice as wide. They are neither of them wearing the blue, they are not uniformed

ps, but then, who would expect uniformed -ops to be sitting a liquor store? They look ctly like any detective Coney has ever seeniin his life, and they are both holding guns in their fists, and Coney notices something else is wrong, notices it at once, and has the feeling now that this goddamn movie he is in has suddenly turned into a negative print because the detectives are holding their guns wrong.

He realizes all at once that both of them are left-handed, they are both holding their

-. pieces in their left hands as they come down a narrow aisle formed by two standing racks. The racks are made of metal, they are green, ey are maybe eight or ten feet high, and are neatly stacked with whiskey bottles. detectives are each at least six feet tall,

they come charging down the narrow like bulls coming into an arena. At the end of the aisle, Coney sees an open There's a room back there, he can see piled on the floor. That's where the were staked out, in the room back waiting for somebody to hold up the " " Probably a lot of liquor-store holdups in neighborhood, cops decided to stake out or two places, see if they'd get lucky. that, or some stoolie heard him and were going to hit the joint, in which case cops weren't here waiting for just they were here specifically waiting for and Jocko to come in and make their Coney wonders which it is. He will s the rest of his life wondering about it. ] the meantime, the cops are here. Why or however, they are here.

Cops have always scared him, and scare him now. The one in the front position ludicrously holding a shield in his right The shield is a regular detective's shield, with blue enamel, maybe three inches lon two inches wide, pinned to a leather case. flap of the case is hanging down toward wrist, and he's got the shield cupped in palm of his right hand. In his left hand got the piece. He holds the piece close to hip, almost resting on the hipbone there;

same gun Coney is holding in his hand, a Detective Special. The other cop keeps from side to side as he comes down aisle, as if he's trying to get a look around partner at the bad guys who are holding the store. When they reach the end of the they fan out in two directions, one of coming towards Coney, the other going Jocko at the counter.

one coming toward Coney is the man the shield. He holds it like a warrior's never mind just a little badge. He!ds it like one of King Arthur's knights. lith that shield out in front of him, nothing's ,g to happen to him. He's Lancelot, with fuckin shield there. For the first time ihis life Coney wants to use the gun. "Not because he's that scared (though he is : scared) and not because he's angry the is going wrong (though he's angry, too) blot only because he wants to show the cop how fuckin dumb he's being with that shiel. at does he think it is, a magic shield or Omething? Hold it out in front of you, it tects you from the bad guys? Hell it does, lley thinks, and pulls the trigger. The cop is about to say "Police officers!" i. He gets only part of the word out. He "Po" and then the bullet takes him right mouth. It's as if the bullet rams the rest

of the word back into his throat and it up into a thousand red and yellow white globules that come flying out the of his head and splatter all over a poster behind him. He does an almost skid, the force of the bullet knocking backward, his feet still moving forward flying out from under him. He goes into air backward, hangs there for an instant! an upside-down swan dive, his arms wide, the shield in one hand, the gun in other, his back arched, his head thrown and spurting blood. Then he crashes suddenly to the white vinyl tile floor, knocking a wine rack. There is the sound of crashing. Burgundy, Chianti and are suddenly spilling deeper reds into around the bright screaming red that is pouring from the back of the cop's Coney watches all this in fascination. He not yet realize he's shot a man. He does not realize the man is already dead.

Jocko is now facing the aisle the cops out of. The second cop, the one who'd weaving down the aisle like a runner, stops cold-in his tracks when he the gun exploding and the bottles He doesn't turn toward the noise. he immediately levels his gun at Jocko, as

Jocko is the one who fired the shot. C.nlh

just inside the door, looking at the on the floor. In the background, near register, he sees Jocko and the second squaring off, but he keeps his eyes on man he just shot. It is beginning to dawn him that he shot a man. The man lies like a bundle of old clothes. Move,

thinks. Get up! There are two shots in succession now, crack, and then crack,

goes BANG like in the comic strips.

sharp cracks, differently pitched. Coney the fact that the shots come from different guns, but he keeps watching the on the floor, he does not take his eyes off man on the floor. There is another crack,

air is hanging blue with smoke now, the stinks of cordite, the air conditioner is the smoke to swirl in patterns that the room go in and out of focus. For a

Coney thinks he is going to faint.

are two men on the floor now. J cko ts coming toward him: iii UliColley's eyes go one, two, three: the man he idiot, the other man lying on the floor some ill ix feet from the cash register, and Jocko

ering toward him. He does not realize , first, he is very slow to grasp things in fuckin movie, he does not realize that o has been hit. Then he sees that Jocko his left hand hnnked like a claw. and he sees that blood is pouring from under sleeve of the windbreaker and into cupped hand, and spilling from the onto the floor as he comes toward Jocko's eyes are out of focus, it looks he is going to pass out. He has the gun in right hand, and to steady himself he out with the hand that's running blood clamps the hand onto Coney's sleeve. summer-weight fabric soaks up the the blood spreads along the sleeve, can feel it wetting his skin. He loops his around Jocko's waist. Jocko's gun the floor, and all at once he goes limp. starts dragging him toward the door.

At the door, he stops and looks back at man he shot.

The man is not moving.

There are suddenly too many things think about. Where's the car? that first thing; he can't remember where parked the car. He has one arm around Jocko, his left hand clutched Jocko's belt, supporting him that way, left arm dripping blood onto Coney's he can feel the blood sticky and hot. In right hand he's still got the gun, but can't turn the doorknob without putting gun away, and this suddenly becomes problem that seems imtossible to

there supporting Jocko, and feeling the flow of Jocko's blood, and behind him counterman is yelling obscenities at him, them in a steady monotonous senseless and he cannot for the life of him figure how to put away the gun and turn the b.

door opens magically.

I-I.e expects it will be an entire police coming in the store here, but it's Teddy. Teddy's face is all squinched sweaty, he looks as if he's going to bawling any second. But he loops Jocko's arm over his shoulder, and together they him out on the sidewalk. The heat out comes up into Coney's face like a puff smoke. He almost chokes on the heat. begins to sweat profusely as they carry and pull Jocko up the block- where's the does Teddy know where the car is? the coming through his clothes, or is that blood? A lady stops in the middle of and looks at them. Coney yells at , he doesn't even know what he yells, and backs off apace. He yells again, and she es away even further, and he remembers time at the Bronx Zoo when a tiger in cage began roaring and everybody backed y; the lady is backing away like that now.

and Coney throws Jocko in on the but Jocko's front legs are hanging out the sidewalk. This becomes another he doesn't know how to solve. He can't the door with Jocko's legs hanging out that, but Teddy is already running the front of the car, Teddy is already in car. Teddy is slamming the door on his Teddy is starting the fuckin car, he yells Teddy to hold it a fuckin minute! He staring at Jocko's legs hanging out of the trying to figure out how to get them Teddy is hollering at him now Get in, for Christ's sake, get in! but he keeps at Jocko's legs until finally it occurs to that all he has to do is swivel Jocko on the seat, change the position of his so that his legs are inside the car too. puts both arms under the backs of knees, and he swivels him in that way, then he steps back as though he had the time in the world to examine what just accomplished, even though Teddy is yelling at him to get in the car.

He floats on sneakered feet to the back of the car, and reaches out in slow "

for the handle, and opens the door and inside. He hears the solid thump of the when it closes behind him, but he has recollection of having pulled it closed. He

instead the ridiculous gold and shield. He is remembering the red and and yellow globules that exploded from back of the man's head. What he finally

Teddy is close to the truth, but it is not exact truth. He is unconsciously editing memory, the way in confession when he a kid he edited his sins so Jesus Christ our Lord wouldn't have suffered in vain so God Almighty wouldn't send down a bolt to strike him dead right there in St. Augustine's.

:.."I shot a man," he says.

does not say, "I killed a cop."

Teddy runs the red light on the corner,

is thinking only that his grandmother go to her own brother's funeral it took place on the thirteenth day month.

were worried that the lady in the had seen the blood.

hey had parked the car behind Jocko's ding, and then had come in through the k door, into the basement, carrvin lnclrn

between them. There was a lady there the washing machines, but she was putting in detergent and they went her hoping she'd think it was some bringing home a drunken buddy. She looked at them as they went past her to elevator. But now they were worrying she maybe seen the blood.

Jocko was still bleeding.

The blood had slowed to a steady seep, it was still coming from under the sleeve of windbreaker and dripping onto the floor the elevator. There was no one in the with them, they were grateful for that. had driven past the front stoop of the first, and had almost lost heart when they all those people sitting there on the talking; this was ten o'clock on a hot night August, and nobody was eager to go to apartments like furnaces. It was who got the idea to drive around to the open parking lot behind the building, go in the door to the basement. The sleeve Jocko's poplin windbreaker was covered blood, and his pants were covered with and there was almost as much blood on and Coney from carrying him.

"You think she seen the blood?" Ted asked again.

"No," Coney said, "she didn't see it,

tried himself.

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, id they eased Jocko out into the hallway, d then belatedly looked around to see body was there. Without a word- they ew where the apartment was, they had ] th been here before- they turned to their ight and started toward the end of the hall.

ehind them, the elevator doors closed, and he elevator began whining down the shaft Outside apartment 5G, Coney rang are doorbell. Just like Jeanine to have gone to a movie," eddy said.

"N

' : o, she 11 be home. Night of a job, she'll file home," Coney said, and rang the bell again. hey could hear chimes sounding inside e apartment. Coney thought he heard a evision set going, but that might have been the apartment next door. He pressed the button again. The peephole flap suddenly t up, and then fell again an instant later. ey heard the door being unlocked- first the tteadbolt, then the Fox lock, then the night llhain. The door opened wide.

'- e " "

:.-,iJ atone stood slightly to the side to let tn past. She didn't scream, she didn't say ord. She'd already seen them. through the

,phole, so she knew somethm had

wrong. She just watched them silently they moved past her into the living room, then she closed and locked the door them- first the deadbolt, then the Fox and then the chain. They were standing in middle of the living room waiting for tell them where to take her husband, who dripping blood all over the rug. She didn't what happened, she didn't ask how was, she didn't say a word. She began toward the rear of the apartment instead they followed her without being told to her. Jocko was beginning to weigh a ton. was a big man to begin with, and now were practically dragging him across the his feet trailing, his two hundred and pounds multiplying with each step they "In the bathroom," Jeanine said.

They managed to squeeze him through narrow bathroom door by going through sideways, and then they sat him down the toilet bowl, and Jeanine began undres" him. She was wearing white shorts cut on the leg, an orange halter top, no shoes. long blonde hair was hanging loose her face as she took off his windbreaker then began unbuttoning the white shirt it. Both the shirt and the windbreaker soaked with blood, and each time she her hair away from her face, she got blood

r cheek and in the hair itself.

he had good features going a bit fleshy; alley guessed she was in her late thirties, ybe closer to forty. Her eyes were dark -en, not that pale jade you saw on most ght-complexioned women, but a deeper en- like an emerald a burglar had once towed him. She had a good sensible nose ith a tiny scar on the bridge that made it ok like she'd lived with the nose a long time, ld sniffed around with it a little, had maybe uck it in places where it didn't belong, and d it broken or slashed. The.nose and the res and the mouth, those were what gave r face definition. The mouth was full, the per lip lifting gently away from her teeth, it hat you always saw a flash of white and the impression she was parting her lips ut to say something. Her skin was very hire; he imagined she turned lobster-red in sun. Years ago she'd been a stripper down "Dallas, Jocko told him, and she still had ip per body, heavy breasts in the halter , generous thighs a bit fleshy, like her face, at the calves firm, tapering to slender ankles. feet were big. Her feet were peasant's t. They didn't seem to go with that face that body.

he lowered Jocko's shirt off one shoulder then gently tued the sodden material away from the wound and slid the off his arm. Coney caught his breath she exposed the wound. There was small hole where the bullet had gone but on the other side of Jocko's arm, . behind the biceps the exit hole was Coney could see a bone inside the arm. turned away.

"This is bad," Jeanine whispered. He nodded. He did not look at the again. He had not expected the damage this bad, in spite of all the blood, m s of the fact that the cops had been38-caliber pistols.

"Take off his shoes and socks," said.

Coney stooped at Jocko's feet and unlacing his shoes. There was blood on the shoes- Jesus, what a mess! He off the shoes and socks and then he Jeanine pull down Jocko's pants and take his undershorts. Jocko had red crotch same as the hair on his head. He had a small pecker. Coney was surprised, big like that. Massive head, red hair curling it, eyelids closed over those pale-blue menacing eyes hidden now by the lids; his face looked almost cherubic for the curl of his lip betraying the even when he was unconscious. Power

: wide shoulders and huge chest. Must've ied weights as a kid, blood on the bulging torals, tiny contradictory prick. He was unconscious, but he twitched now, and nted something. ,

ii, "You going to need me?" Teddy said. "I

rant to get rid of the car. Hot car sitting out There with blood all over the front seat."

:. i'Go ahead," Jeanine said.

Okay to call my wife? She's gonna be ndering."

i "Phone's in the bedroom," Jeanine said,

d went to the sink, and put a stopper in t, and let the water run. Teddy went down k hall to the bedroom. Jeanine soaped a onge, and then went to where Jocko was sitting on the toilet bowl, and began washing wound. Down the hall, Teddy was dialing phone. The apartment was silent except the clicking of the phone dial and the y splashing sounds Jeanine made when she pped the sponge into the sink and lifted it tn the water. There was blood on her white orts. Blood on her thigh." too. Down the , they could hear Teddy s muffled voice. inc pulled the stopper from the sink,

d then turned on the hot- and cold-water ets and tested the stream of water with r hand. With a clean washcloth she began sing off Jocko.

Teddy came back up the hallway and in the bathroom doorway. "I'm gonna s he said. "Get rid of the car." He he "Were they both dead, Coney?"

"I don't know," Coney said. "Two sitting the store," he explained to Jeanine the back room there."

"Him and Jocko walked into a Teddy said.

"Minute Jocko threw down on the old the two of them came out the back fUZZ."

"You shot two cops?" Jeanine said. "I only shot one of them. Jocko..."

"Never mind who shot them," Jeanine "I'm asking "

"Yeah, two cops got shot."

"They both looked dead," Teddy "Coney, they really looked dead to me. one laying closest to the door, his brains all over the floor."

"Great," Jeanine said.

"They surprised us," Coney said. "Great," she said again. "Two dead cops, "I ain't so sure about them being Coney said. "I ain't even sure about the Teddy says had his brains..."

"It'll be on television later," Teddy "I'll bet it's on television. Two cops killed."

"Look, we don't know for sure..." "They're dead all right," Teddy said. Heed very owlish and wise and sad behind glasses. He also looked exhausted. He had been busy since early that morning, boosting car in Brooklyn, and he still had to get of it. Before the holdup it had only been to len car. Now it was a car that had been in a felony murder ... Well, Coney n't sure either one of them was dead. Man d look dead without being dead.

#I'll call you in the morning," Teddy said. YYou going outside like that?" Coney said. "Huh?"

"All that blood on your clothes?"

"Shit," Teddy said. "You got something I put on, Jeanine? Just something to..." i'Jocko's clothes'd be too big for you," ey said.

There s some stuff from when Bobby was e," Jeanine said. "His brother." i'All I need's a raincoat or something," dy said.

Together they went out of the bathroom. flley could hear them rummaging around in le: of the closets. Jocko mumbled something, fl then fell silent. Coney heard them in the lway again, heard the front door opening closing, heard Jeanine relocking it. Mdy had left without savin oodniht.

He heard Jeanine padding barefooted the bathroom again. She came in and big white towel from the towel bar. was still unconscious; his head lolled to: side as Jeanine began drying him. her, Coney was reminded of he couldn't place what. He was absorbed, watching her. Down the he could hear a clock ticking kept watching her. The wound had bleeding completely. She patted it carefully, and then took some stuff from medicine cabinet over the sink, and something from a tube onto the wound,". then put a gauze pad over it, and with bandage and adhesive tape.

"Help me get him in the bedroom," said.

Coney took him from behind, and lifted his legs, and they carried him hall to the bedroom. He got heavier each they moved him; Coney was be think this was what hell must be like and carrying Jocko through eternity.

In the bedroom, Jeanine let his legs while she pulled back the spread and blanket. Coney stood there supporting the weight of the man pulling on his arms his shoulders and his back. His own legs beginning to tremble.

Come on," he said.

"Yes," she said, and nodded.

He had the feeling she wasn't even talking him. She had pulled the blanket to the of of the bed and was coming around where Coney stood with Jocko collapsed nst him. She seemed completely involved her own thoughts. She picked up Jocko's saas if she were picking up the handles wheelbarrow. Together they moved him ato the bed.

"You better cover him," Coney said.

She pulled the sheet up over his waist, stood there looking down at him for qmoment. He was breathing evenly and larly. In the hallway outside, a light was ing; they turned it off before they went io the living room. There was a television t against one wall. Coney instantly looked at watch. It was ten-thirty. If either of those was dead, the eleven o'clock news would ly carry the story.

Place looks like a slaughterhouse," Jeanine d, and shook her head. "Do we have to about cleaning up right this minute?" "What do you mean?"

Are you expecting company is what I

I DS, I mon "

"No, no."

"You sure?"

"Well, I'm not sure. But even if guy... "What old guy?"

"Behind the counter."

"Great, did you shoot him, too?"

"No, no. Come on, Jeanine, it couldn helped."

"What about him?"

"I'm saying even if he gives them a description of us, well, it takes time, know, to check files, you know, and with mug shots and fingerprints and like They might never get to us. I mean, the old guy remembers what we look like

"Coney," she said, "if those cops are they'll get to you."

"Well," he said.

"Even if only one of those cops is dead. "Who said anybody's dead, huh? was only in the store there a minute, he came in to help me with Jocko. you ask me, huh? I was the one in there Jocko when the shooting started. I'm the i ought to know what happened in there."

"All right," she said, "what did there, Coney?"

"They surprised us, that's all. Jocko down on the guy behind the counter, and

lag you know there was fuzz."

Who was the one started shooting?"

"The one coming at me," Coney said. ]olding out his badge. He was left-handed, anine, both of them were left-handed. They id their pieces in their left hands, how like that?" he said, and shook his head. amazement "Listen," he said, "you got ing to drink around here? I could really a drink."

'There's booze in the kitchen," she said. "You want one?" he said.

-Mix me a light Scotch and water."

I'm not moving in," he said, "I just want : see the news. I'll go right after the news, re don have to worry."

"Who's worrying?" Jeanine said, anded at him.

Well, I didn't mean actually worrying." "What did you mean?" she said.

he was still watching him. He couldn't the look on her face. He knew she was because of the shooting in the liquor , and Jocko getting hurt. But there was ething else mixed in with the anger. What I meant is I know you're upset t now," he said, and got up quickly and out into the kitchen. On the counter the refrigerator there was an almost full [ue of Scotch and an unopened bottle of

bourbon. He pried an ice-cube tray from the freezer compartment and put cubes in each of two glasses. He was Scotch liberally into both glasses remembered she'd asked for a light one he poured more heavily into his glass, made hers light by comparison. "Did you water in this?" he called to the living but she either didn't hear him or didn't to answer him. He himself wanted soda, there wasn't any in the refrigerator, so a little water in both glasses and then them out to the living room. The living was empty. Down the hall, he heard shower going. He looked at his watch a " was a quarter to eleven, plenty of time the news came on.

He turned on the set, and then sat on sofa and took a good heavy gulp of his and then another heavy gulp, and then began sipping at it slowly. Down the the shower was still going. The was still except for the steady drummin the water and the drone of the television A movie was on, he watched it only he did not want to think about what happened in the liquor store. He did want to believe that either of those two were dead.

He could accept them being hurt bad,

didn't want to believe they were dead then he might just as well admit he was dead. You kill a fuckin cop in this any city, for that matter that was it, So he didn't want to believe he had that cop. Until he knew otherwise, why he chose to believe the man was only bad. Stupid bastard running at him that holding out the badge as if it was a shield protect him from harm. Like people

St. Christopher medals in their car. those crazy bastards on the highway, you more than a St. Christopher medal survive.

sound of the water stopped. He kept the movie. He had no idea what the was about, no idea who the actors were. the hallway, he heard the bathroom opening. Silence. The ticking of the On the street outside, filtering up to windows, the distinctive laughter of a woman. In the distance, the sound of an train rattling along the elevated on Westchester Avenue. Summertime. summertime in that apartment and those open windows. Summertime. he had shot a cop.

she came back into the room, she wearing faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt. No bra, her breasts moved

fluidly beneath the thin fabric as she barefooted into the room. She looked and cool and she brought the scent of with her. She looked younger, too, because the narrow jeans hid the of her thighs and gave her a long, look. Stopping just inside the door to room, she put her hands on her hips stood there watching the television The movie had just gone off. Another went roaring past on the avenue a block smothering all sound. Jeanine looked for drink, saw it on the coffee table and bent to pick it up.

The anchorman came on just then to a quick summary of the news. They turned to watch the screen, Jeanine to Coney's left, the drink in one hand, other hand still on her hip. The was saying something about a outside the U.N. Building. Jeanine " the drink, her eyes on the screen. Now anchorman was talking about a fire in the Wall Street area. Coney was there wouldn't be anything about the

If they didn't report it on television, would mean neither of the two cops been hurt bad. But then the anchorman "In the Bronx tonight one detective was and another seriously injured when a

men attempted to hold up a liquor store on White Plains Avenue. And in..." "There it is," Jeanine said. "Shhh," Coney said.

#... the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, a threer traffic jam caused tempers to flare while hperatures soared. Details on these in ament

One of there's dead," Jeanine said. gI heard." Great," she said.

"Shhh, I want to hear if they..."

Just great."

he seemed about to say something more, It instead she angrily plucked a cigarette from the box on the coffee table, and struck a match with the same angry, impatient motion, then walked to the easy chair across from sofa and was about to sit in it when she she still had the burnt match in her hand. e pulled a face and came back to the coffee hie and put the burnt match in the ashtray e. Then, instead of going back to the ,y chair, she sat cross-legged on the floor ifront of the couch, and silently and sulkily tched the screen. The commercial was r, the news team came back to elaborate the events the anchorman had earlier arized. Jeanine dragged on the cigarette let out a stream of smoke. They were showing footage of the Wall Street fire was really fascinating, fires fascinated They began interviewing a fireman, he telling all about the people they'd re, from the top floor of the office Then, suddenly, the liquor store the screen.

There it was, all right, it was really seeing it there on a television screen. tonight Coney had felt the job itself was a goddamn movie, and now it really movie, right there on television. Only missing was the actors. Camera was around outside the store, showing the on the plate-glass window, Carlisle L and the bottles in the window, focusing sign that was advertising something for and then moving away to the front door, door was opening, the camera moving the store itself, going in through the showing the bloodstains on the floor, then continuing to move deeper into the toward the cash register, to show where, second cop had been shot.

It was just like all the newsreel Coney had ever seen on television, with lighting, most of the scene dark except the area right near the lights, camera and bouncing, reporter explaining what happened earlier and hoping the

ld be able to reconstruct the action.

time Coney had no trouble at all 6nstructing the action; Coney had been t of the action. The reporter finished by g the second cop had been taken to rdham Hospital. Then he smiled and said, hat's the weather for tomorrow, Frank?" ;olley got up and turned off the set just as weatherman appeared in front of his map. went back to the sofa then, picked up his ak, drained the glass, and set it down on coffee table.

"Now what?" Jeanine said.

iI don't know what."

i'He's dead, you killed a cop."

"I ain't so sure I'm the one who killed ," Coney said. 'ou just heard..."

"It could've been Jocko. It could've been one he shot."

What difference does t make?" Jeanine "You were in there together, you're gomplices..." i'All right." you killed a man!"

6." right, I sad!" .

ttGreat," Jeamne sad.

I.want another drink," he said, and went into the kitchen. As he mixed the drink ii thought what a lousy break t was, the cop

dying. He was beginning to convince the cop had really fired first, that if only cop had played it cool, if only everybody kept their heads inside the store there, cop would still be alive. As he took ice from where they were melting in the he became aware of how hot the was. He'd been so busy carrying and then watching the news, he hadn't time to concentrate on anything else. But he felt the heat, and felt the clothing sticking to his flesh, and called the kitchen, "What's the matter with conditioner?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Whyn't you turn it on?" he said. "What for?"

"Cause it's hot as hell in here."

"I don't feel hot," she said, and remembered Jocko telling him how she liked the heat, how she'd been in Florida someplace- where had he He went back into the living room and

"Where you from in Florida?"

"Fort Myers."

"Yeah, Fort Myers, that's what Jocko You like it when it's suffocating like huh?"

"Right, let's talk about the weather," said. "We just heard the cop is dead..."

"Yeah, that's a lousy break," Coney said.

lut let's talk about the weather, okay?

think it's going to rain tomorrow? Maybe it rains the cops won't come looking for

"4'hey probably won't come looking for us iyway," Coney said. "I doubt the old man finger us." He drank from his glass, dded thoughtfully, and then said, "He was red, you know. When Jocko threw down I him. He might figure if he fingers us, we'll back and hurt him." b'!He might also figure you won't be able to back and hurt him," Jeanine said.

"What do you mean?"

"He might figure you'll be in jail a long,

lg time."

Well,. you always get out of jail, you

OW."

They bust Jocko for this one, it's his thirdnse. They'll throw away the key."

"Yeah. But, you see, the old man don' tow that. The old man in the liquor store. don't know us from a hole in the wall. So ." be afraid to finger us, you see."

You hope," Jeanine said.

ell, sure, I hope. I mean, who the _!

an say for sure what anybody'll do ays? Who can figure that cop starting

running at me holding out his badge shooting before he hardly has the words of his mouth,"

"What words?"

"He yells "Police officers!" and shooting."

They were silent for several drinking. Outside, another train roared The windows were wide open, but breeze came through into the Coney debated asking her again to the air conditioner. Instead he finished! drink, sucked on one of the ice cubes moment, and then said, "You mind if myself another one of these?" "Go ahead," she said. "You want another one?"

"Just freshen this a little," she said, handed him her glass.

He carried both glasses out into the The Scotch bottle was almost poured some of what was left into glass and the remainder in his, and added a little water to both glasses and them back into the living room.

"What it is," he said, handing J glass, "you get lots of cops, they're happy. They'll shoot little kids carrying pistols, you know that? Not that we carrying water pistols," he said, and lau

then took a long swallow of the drink. The was beginning to reach him. This was third, and he'd poured all of them with heavy hand, just the way he'd have poured if the job had gone off okay. Always after a job, man had to celebrate, didn't This one hadn't come off, but it was the one that hadn't since they'd been working so what the hell, have a little drink r. He was beginning to feel a little and very comfortable and cozy here i the living room. Safe. He was beginning safe.

g I'm worried about..." she said.

I hope we won't need a doctor for him." "I don't think we'll need a doctor."

know anybody?"

:1 come, I mean. If we needed him." don't know anybody."

what do we do if he starts bleeding

)"

don't know. I think he'll be okay, he's a strong guy." yeah, he's strong, all right," she said. more'n bullet to kill old Jocko. Take in his heart, you want to know," said, and laughed, and then sobered and glanced past Coney toward

the hallway, as though afraid the lau might have disturbed Jocko.

"How long you been married?" asked.

"Three years."

"You were a stripper when you met huh?"

"No, who told you that?"

"Jocko said you used to be a stripper." "Yeah, but that was before I met haven't been stripping for seven, eight now. This is August, ain't it?"

"Yeah, August."

"I quit stripping eight years November."

"I didn't realize that."

"Yeah, I've been out of it a long time." "How come you quit?"

"Getting old, sonny," she said, and "Yeah, sure," he said.

"How old do you think I am?" "Thirty-two, thirty-three." "Come on," she said. "Okay, thirty-seven, okay?" "I'm forty-four," she said. "I was when I quit. Girl gets to be thirty-six, if she takes good care of herself, she looking it, you know what I mean? S! getting a little flabby."

"You don't look flabby to me," Coney

Thanks. Guys coming to strip joints, they want to look at somebody who's over hill, they want to see firm young bodies." "You got a great body," Coney said. "Thanks." "I mean it."

said thanks. Also, I was getting static my husband. Not Jocko, this was my husband. He said it was wrong what was doing, shaking my ass and getting all hot and bothered. He turned out the a junkie with a habit long as Southern

, but he was always bugging me being a stripper, can you imagine?

were the days, all right," she said, and her eyes and sighed.

you like being a stripper?" he asked. wasn't bad," she said. "Actually, it was

" sometimes."

do you mean?"

5"Turning guys on," she said. "I'd go out you know, and the drums'd be banging, the lights'd be on me, and I'd start myself around, and it would reach sometimes." She shrugged. "You know

I mean?"

," he said.

shrugged again, tossed her head and then took another cigarette the box on the table. He watched

her while she lighted it. She took out the match, and he watched her breasts under the T-shirt, and then she the window and he watched the motion her hips in the tight blue jeans, and he watching her as she stood by the window one hand cradling her elbow, hip jutting, other hand holding the cigarette and brin it to her mouth. The sky outside was with stars. There wasn't a chance of it " anytime soon, not with all those stars in sky. Heat would probably last another two. lie kept watching her.

"They're all the same, actually," she "I told Jocko I was thinking about job in a massage parlor, they get good those girls. He hit the ceiling, said that nothing but whoring. I don't happen to it's whoring. A massage ain't the whoring."

"Well, lots of massage parlors, it's than just a massage," Coney said.

"You ever been in one of those parlors?"

"Oh, sure."

"What do they do in there?"

"Well, they do a lot more than: massaging a man."

"What do they do?"

"Let's just say I can see why Jocko hit

:. If you were my wife, I wouldn't like idea of you working in a massage parlor." "How about my being a stripper?"

"That might be different," Coney said. "I lon't know how I'd feel about that."

"Uh-huh," Jeanine said, and nodded.

"You're thinking I'd hit the ceiling, right?" "How'd you guess?" she said

I would. Good-looking woman like " he said, and quickly picked up his and discovered it was empty, booze went fast around here. He tried to whether the bottle in the kitchen Scotch or bourbon, the bottle that hadn't opened yet; he suspected it was bourbon,

good to mix Scotch with bourbon. He feeling exceedingly content now, sitting in the living room watching Jeanine. job had gone wrong, true enough, but was something very pleasant about being with Jeanine, something reassuring about standing there at the window looking out,

he wondered just what the hell she so fascinating out there.

e debated complimenting her on her body woman didn't tell you how old she unless she wanted you to say she looked

But just then another train went by and she turned toward the sound of

Iv wanted tn rend all That t";hl"

interesting graffiti sprayed on the sides the cars, "Spider 10?" or "Shadow "Spic 32", dumb bastards scribbling all the city. If she ever turned away from window, maybe he'd look her straight in eye and tell her she had great You've got great knockers, Jeanine, did realize that? No, of course she didn't it. She'd only been a stripper for Christ how long, only had guys yelling and every time she took off her bra and it in the air, but no, she didn't realize had great knockers. I'm stoned, he thou killed a fuckin cop, this is my third drink. fourth drink, who the hell's counting. I know what the fuck I'm doing, and don't a shit besides.

"You've got great knockers," he said "Thanks," she said.

"What are you doing there by the "I was just thinking," she said. "What about?"

"I was wishing something, actually." "What were you wishing?" "That Jocko would die."

He was not sure he had heard her

He reasoned that she could not have said she'd just said because he'd seen her a while ago giving tender loving care to even though Jocko had a very small

tender loving care indeed, washing out wound and gentling him, yes. You did not away a man's wound and then wish he wish he was dead. "You want to know something about your

Jocko?" she asked.

He shook his head. No, he did not want know something about his friend Jocko.

was his fall partner and you did not around looking at your fall partner's wife thinking she had great knockers ... had said it out loud? No, he did not want to nothing more about Jocko, nor see him besides with his red crotch hair and his little prick.

friend Jocko beats me," she said. "No, no," Coney said, and shook his head.

yes," Jeanine said. "He hasn't missed since I came up to New York. How 'we I been in New York now? When did up from Dallas?"

don't know," Coney said. "Two months Five?"

came up on the twentieth of May.

today?"

date, I mean."

don't know," he said.

sixteenth, ain't it?"

," he said.

"That's three months," she said. "Yeah."

"Look at this," she said, and seized bottom of the T-shirt in both hands pulled it up over her breasts. Her rib her chest, the slopes and undersides of breasts were covered with angry black-; blue marks. "That's your friend," she and lowered the shirt again.

"Listen," Coney said, "you shouldn"

saying such things about Jocko."

"Why not?"

"He's my fall partner, we work to It's not right to say such things."

"You still think you've got a little going, don't you?" Jeanine said. "You a cop tonight..."

"No, no," he said, and shook his head. "Yes, yes, and for all you know, the cop might die, too. But you still think got a little holdup gang going. Jesus!" said.

"I just don't want to hear nothing about Jocko," he said.

"Are you afraid of him?"

"No."

"Sure you are."

"No, I'm not afraid of Jocko," he said. "Sure you are," she said again, and "Fine," he said, "have it your way.

got something I can wear out of here? I

I better leave."

"Are you drunk?" she asked suddenly.

sir, I am not drunk," he said.

Iesus, how did you get so drunk?"

iI am not drunk," he said.

"You'd better get in the shower," she said.

lsh off the blood," he said.

off the booze. How'd you get so man? Go get in the shower. You know the shower is?"

where the shower is," he said. down the hall there." down the hall."

ahead now."

," he said, and went down the hall bathroom. He was surprised to discover he had a big pistol, big .38 Detective in his pocket. He pulled the gun out it on top of the toilet tank and was further surprised to learn that his his jacket and his shirt were stained

, where'd he get all this blood on He took off his pants and saw that his were soak with blood, too. There dried and crusted blood on his left arm,

both hands, and all over his face. He if he should get in the shower with in his arms, and then dropped in a bundle on the tiles instead. He

got into the shower, drew the curtain opened it again to make sure his gun was there on the toilet tank, and then clo: curtain and turned on the water and scalded himself. He backed away adjusted the water gingerly, and then around for the soap.

He soaped his crotch and the hair chest and under his arms and that when he was in prison, first anybody soaped when they got in the was their crotch. Not that he looked. in prison saw you looking, he figured were ready to be turned out as his next thing you knew he was making a play for you. This was nice soap, it nice, he guessed it was Jeanine's. Big like Jocko wouldn't use sweet-smelling like this, pecker sure came as a though. He wondered if Jeanine had him looking at Jocko's pecker. He want her to think he was, you know, at it. Nothing wrong with a little though. Guy's sitting there, nothing with checking him out, see how you up in the world. Nothing wrong with Jeanine's soap, either. Besides, it was the soap here in the bathroom, so what the So he'd smell like a bed of roses, so what?

There was a uv in tri son his name

he was as big as Jocko. They all him the Kraut, he had a scar on his they said he'd been in the German during World War II, before coming New York, where he got busted. What busted for, he took a thirteen-year-old up to a hotel room, burned her with raped her, broke both arms and dislocated her jaw, blackened her eyes, out seven of her teeth. He left her dead she sure as hell looked dead. But girl was still alive, and she identified him

, the stupid bastard had given her his name when he'd picked her up in Central

Why she'd gone up to that hotel with was anybody's guess, guy old enough to father, take one look at him you had he was a mean bastard. First time saw him in prison... " how'd we get on this? he thought. let's get off this, okay? You start about that fuckin Kruger, you'll the nice fme edge off this fuckin who the hell wants to think about bastard? Standing in the yard there,

his cigarette. Standing there. Cool eyes, that scar on his face. He turned to Coney, and he grinned, and a chill up Coney's spine. He came over then, stuck out his hand, and Collev shrank

away from him, terrified, and he

Coney's hand in his own and sq squeezed it so hard it felt like he was "

break all the bones in it, and he kept "

all the time, grinning. '

In the shower now, Coney shivered.

water was hot, the water was pouring on him in a steady sobering hot stream.

he shivered thinking of Kruger. He known what Kruger wanted from him and he still didn't know. It wasn't sex,

had his steady punk, a slender blond who'd been busted for pushing dope and

Kruger had turned out two days after the drove up. So it wasn't sex, he didn't from Coney, Coney didn't know what the he wanted. Followed him around all joint. Coney'd get in the shower, he'd six ways from tomorrow to make

Kraut wasn't anywhere around. Then, "

he turned on the water and started himself, the Kraut would suddenly grinning, and he'd step behind Coney grab his ass in both hands, and squeeze cheeks so hard Coney thought he would from the pain. Rotten son of a bitch

Three and a half years in prison, and

Kraut dogging him day and night,

him. Just hurting him for the sheer pleasure of it. Like Jocko, he supposed.

putting those black-and-blue marks all Jeanine, what the hell was wrong with like that? He thought of Jeanine. He of Jeanine lifting the T-shirt up over breasts. He thought of her stripping for of men. He soaped himself and of her.

was a knock on the bathroom door,

st didn't hear it over the sound of the His hand stopped.

?" he said.

okay in there?" Jeanine said.

"he said.

right to come in? I've got some clothes can't leave here in your own clothes, blood on them."

sure. Come on in."

door opened. The shower curtain in toward him, the plastic sticking legs. The water was drumming against his prick was standing up stiff with drilling it and the soap running off long white streams.

['ll put them here on the counter," she hope the pants fit you."

"he said. He heard the door opening

and closing again. The room was full of now, he was beginning to tremble steady pressure of the water.

turned off the shower, and then curtain back on the rod, and of the tub.

He looked down at himself. He around the room. He found a clean and dried himself, and then found the she'd brought him, Jocko's brother's he guessed. There was no underwear or only a pair of pants and what looked old sweater. Just the thing he needed hot August night, a ratty old sweater. put on the pants without any and debated putting on the bloodstained again, but decided in favor of the matter how damn hot it was. He still go down in the street, and all he needed some cop stopping to ask about the his shirt. There was only a little one of his socks, so he put on the and shoes, and then combed his hair "

comb he found on the countertop, lots blonde hair tangled in it, probably

He lifted the gun from the toilet tank and it in his pocket. He pulled back his and opened the bathroom door.

Jeanine was standing in the bedroom.

e's still out," she said.

" Coney said. "Listen, I'm gonna now. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

walked him to the front door. He could the clock ticking. "Be careful," she said, unlocked the door for him.

"he said.

stepped into the hallway. The door behind him. He heard her fastening the locks again. He looked at his watch went down the hallway to the elevator.

close to midnight, another day. He for the elevator and stood watching indicator bar as the elevator crept up shaft, these goddamn projects never put merchandise. he reached the street he began toward the train station on

Avenue. He thought about oh as he walked, thought about how the job had gone, couldn't have gone

he'd killed one cop, Jocko had another one. Shit, he thought. Times he to quit this fuckin racket, get himself girl, his mother was always telling him himself a nice Italian girl, settle down

Times like tonight he was tempted it. Who the hell needed this kind of life? felt the gun in the pocket of the pants.

bulk flt errl enth lg

There was trouble in the street.

He got back to the old neighborhoo little past midnight, but he was afraid into his mother's block because there two police cruisers parked just pizzeria. The heat hadn't let up a bit. night was still sticky and moist. milling around in their undershirts; in flowered house dresses were standing their hands on their hips, looking up street toward the police cars. Most were black.

The neighborhood had been strictly when Coney was growing up, and then turned Puerto Rican, and now it was His mother still lived here, you dynamite her out of that apartment. been living upstairs from the " twenty years, from when Coney was years old. Had black friends who for. coffee every morning. Nice black who'd moved uptown to the Bronx, Coney's mother had twenty years ago. black ladies whose sons Coney had met when he was doin three-years

robbery.

wanted to get rid of the gun.

wanted to get out of these borrowed and hide the gun someplace; those cars up the street were making him s. He stopped a white guy going by and him what the trouble was.

cut somebody in the bar," the guy

""The pizzeria, you mean?"

," the guy said, and walked off.

looked up the block again; and began walking in the opposite direction,

the corner and onto the avenue. This Saturday night, he didn't expect to find home, but he went up the three flights apartment anyway, and knocked door and waited.

a voice said.

It's me. Coney."

Hey, Coney!" Benny said through and Coney heard him fumbling with lock, good old Benny, and then he threw door wide and looked out at Coney,

his arms spread, his head tilted,

open; he looked like a jolly fat pope a blessing. "Paisan," he said.

pais an Coney said warmly, and there nodding foolishly, and grinning,

hi. hnd. the

his hands open, but suspecting he look anywhere near as pope like as Benny "You gonna ask me in?" he said.

"No," Benny said. "I'm gonna let stand in the hall. You hear this?" he to someone in the apartment. "He know if I'm gonna let him in."

"So let me in already," Coney was chuckling now, Benny always made chuckle. He hadn't seen Benny for or seven months, since just after he'd in with Jocko. He had put on weight, had. He'd been fat ever since Coney remember, but now he was even put his arm around Coney and led him i the apartment.

A girl was sitting at the kitchen There was an empty glass in front of ice cubes melting in it, The girl was nineteen years old. She was wearing a flowing white robe with embroidery the yoked neck, tooled sandals, a white-striped kerchief on her head. black hair and brown eyes and a very complexion. She was even darker than B whose grandparents had come from around the turn of the century. the block used to kid Benny about him half-nigger. This was when they had the Benny used to say, "I'll I've you

throw the arm salute. He really was very but not as dark as the girl.

This is Naomi Bernstein," Benny said.

meet my best friend in the entire

- Coney Donato."

ow do you do, Coney?" she said, and her hand.

aomi's from Mosholu Parkway," Benny

"I met her in Poe Park."

"Is Coney short for something?" she asked.

"he said. "Nicholas."

'll bet a lot of people ask you that."

everybody I meet," Coney said. "But better than Nick. Nick sounds like every meet in the street."

get offended," Benny said.

offended?" Naomi said. "

,"s Italian, it's okay for him to say it.

belongs to- What's the name of it?"

know the name of it."

forget," Benny said, and shrugged. "It's

" protects niggers, spies, wops

," he said, and burst out laughing.

I'm glad you think it's funny," Naomi want a drink, Coney?" Benny said.

be surprised how much prejudice is in this city," Naomi said. ou Jewish?" Coney asked.

you uess? With a name like

Bernstein, what'd you think I was?"

"I thought you were maybe an Arab." "You mean this?" she said,

robe. "My aunt sent it to me from

"It looks like what the Arabs wear."

"There are very close cultural ties

Jews and Arabs, believe it or not."

"I believe it."

"You want a drink, yes or no?" Benny "You talking to me?" Coney said. "No, I'm talking to the wall."

"I'll have another gin and tonic," said.

"How about you, Coney?"

"No, nothing," Coney said.

"That's a nice sweater," Naomi said. chic, those holes in the elbow. You're snappy dresser, Coney."

"Lay off," he said.

"Then don't give me any crap about I'm wearing, okay?" she said.

"Hey, watch your mouth," Benny "Maybe you didn't understand this is a of mine."

"I thought I was a friend of yours, Naomi said.

"Not like Coney. You got that?"

She glared at him sullenly.

"You got that?" Benny said again.

"I got it," she said.

here's your drink," he said, and put and tonic down in front of her.

"she said.

"Take it in the bedroom," Benny said. "I

to talk to Coney."

looked at him.

o what I tell you," Benny said.

think I'll go home instead," she said.

go down the street this time of night, get raped," Benny said. "You want boogie to jump out a doorway and rape Get in the bedroom there. You trying to me in front of my friend?" but..."

get in there," Benny said. "And take that thing your aunt sent you. You look a goddamn Arab, Coney's right." girl hesitated. on," Benny said. lip was trembling. on." sighed heavily, and then left the room.

could hear her sandals slapping on the as she walked through the apartment. a door open and then close. s the matter?" Benny said s cops in front of my mother's some nigger stabbed a guy in the

I don't want to o un there i11.t vet '

"What else, Coney?"

Coney hesitated.

"Come on, this is me," impatiently.

"I shot a man," he said. "Benny, I cop.

Benny nodded.

"It was on television," Coney said.

Benny nodded again. "I seen it. A store?"

"Yeah."

"I

"

seen it, Benny said again.

you, huh?"

"Yeah."

"They looking for you yet?"

"I don't think so. I think it's too soon." "Who saw you? Did anybody see "The guy behind the counter." Benny nodded. "Maybe he won't you. Sometimes they're scared. cop dead, you know?"

"That's what I figure."

"You want to stay here tonight?"

"I don't know what I want to do," said. "I think I'll go over my mother's. the cops leave, I think I'll go over there. can't be too much longer, huh? It's only nigger stabbed a guy."

"They'll just throw him in the car, " Benny said, and shrugged. "Look,

here if you want. Don't let her bother " he said, and gestured with his head the rear of the apartment. "She's mad cause I got her shooting dope. I her up in Poe Park, this was last night, she's coming on like a big you know, smoking pot like it's going style. I get her down here, I tell her baby, you want something'll really the top of your skull, try some of She says what's that? I tell her it's

She says what's scag? And then she it's dope, it's heroin. No, thank you,

,s. Thanks a lot, but no, thanks. That last Friday. Sunday, she shot up for the time. I got home from church, I went to o'clock mass, you know me, Coney, I sleep late..."

," Coney said.

got back to the house, it must've been after twelve, she asked me was there pot left? I tell her we're all out of pot,

don't she try some of the real stuff? shrugs and says why not? She's been a nickel bag a day ever since. She's hooked already. Few more days, I'll have the street peddling her ass. How you that?" he said, and laughed.

laughed too. " you sure you don't want to slend

the night?" Benny said.

"No, I got to get going," Coney said stood up.

"Paisan," Benny said, and beamed pope again, his arms wide, his head palms open in benediction.

The police cars were gone.

Coney went up the street and looked pizzeria, see if there were any guys knew. There was only a black guy one of the booths near the jukebox, him had an Afro looked like the Frankenstein in blackface. Coney'd picture on television, couldn't tell it was supposed to be a put-on or guessed not He guessed it was just old movie that it seemed funny, even was supposed to be scary. He nodded bartender, and the bartender nodded but Coney figured the guy didn't from a hole in the wall. He went into the hot August night again. Two girls were standing in the doorway mother's building.

"Well, well," one of them said.

The other one pursed her lips and kissing sound.

Coney went right by them. Hookers mother's building, great. His brother All

it would be traumatic to move their out of the building. His brother A1 was years old. He was a Buick dealer in Albert L. Donato, it said on his "s showroom window. The L. Stood , but AI never told anybody his middle name was. Lawrence sounded to AI. AI had gone to college for two planning to become an accountant; he'd his mind when the opportunity to to the Buick dealership came along. An in New Jersey had put up the money dealership. Uncle Nunzio. Dear old Nunzio. When Coney got busted the time- this was when they had the club, he shot Macho Albareda in the throatNunzio wouldn't go the bail for him. up in an automobile agency at the age of t-one but wouldn't go the five-hundred his other nephew. Nice man, Uncle They finally had to ask A1 for it, Coney's mother hadn't wanted to do, was why they'd gone to Uncle Nunzio first place. A1 was always using words ma tic or "personality disorder" or neurotic." He especially used disorder" when he was talking man-to-man.

" he would say- he was the only on earth who called him Nick "I

want to talk serious to you. I Nick, from what Mama tells me, didn't learn too much while you were in"

learned a lot while I was in jail, "Yes, I'm sure. But I'm not talkin what you might have learned from are acting-out neurotics," A1 said. me you came home only to pick up clothes, and then you moved right out that you're living someplace downtown

"AI, I'm twenty-eight years old, little old for somebody to be living mother."

"Nick, I want to tell you something.. "Yes, AI."

"Nick, when a man lives by the gun. "Yes, A1, I know." "He dies by the gun."

"Yes, AI, you told me before."

"And a man who has to robberies..."

"Yes, AI."

"Is a man with a serious disorder."

That particular conversation had place just before Christmas. Coney Jocko a few days afterwards, and done their first job together on Eve. Coney supposed Jocko had a disorder, too. He knew one thing for

certainly been traumatic tonight in that store. It had certainly been traumatic the trigger of the .38 and watching the of that cop's head come off and splatter the Seagram's poster. Yes, A1, that was

That was probably more traumatic moving Mom out of this building full of would be.

began climbing the steps to the third There were cooking smells contained building, and they blended with the of the day to create an overpowering that almost knocked him back down stairwell. The cooking smells were alien. he was a kid growing up in this the smells were always Italian,g feasts at best, or at the very simple meals that were wholesome familiar. He never felt at home in any t that wasn't Italian; the cooking smelled of worlds he could never hope was this kid he used to work with in Stockroom of a company downtown, this before he joined the club, before he got that time. Coney was just fifteen, he red he had to get working papers in to take the job. The kid was Jewish, he down on Hester Street, the Lower East One time, after work, he asked Collev

would he like to come home for him. Coney went, and when he got house there was an old Jewish man newspaper, and cooking smells in the those strange cooking smells. The food out to be pretty good, Coney couldn't out how, with all those funny cooking

Later, him and the kid sat on the stoop and talked. The kid said he to be an opera singer. Told Coney studying Italian in high school of operas were in Italian and he be able to sing every opera there the world. They tried talking a little together, but Coney spoke only what learned from his grandparents, which Neopolitan dialect, and the kid spoke he'd been taught at school, the "

they had a difficult time of it. Coney remember the kid's name any always wondered whether the kid had it as an opera singer. That had been years ago; if the kid was going to make it have made it by now.

Coney knocked on the door to his apartment.

He waited. He could hear everywhere around him in the Johnny Carson's voice clearly the apartment next door to his

airs someone shouting, a toilet flushing eplace; he rang the bell again, and then ed at his watch. It was twenty minutes ac, but this was Saturday night, and he a't expect his mother to be asleep so early Saturday night. She'd either be watching vision he didn't hear anything inside e- or else out playing poker with her ads. He reached into his pocket for his key in, He carried a key to the apartment only ause his mother insisted on it.

Suppose I'm away sometime, and you mt to come in?" she said.

Mom, you never go away," he said.

[went away that time to Daytona Beach."

iMom, that was six years ago."

iSo? I could still go away. How do you w?"

Mom, if you did go away, why would I

e up to the Bronx?"

gYou might want to use the apartment, she "Take the key, Coney, please. Suppose ne thing happens to me? I'm not getting any ger, you know."

hat's right, Mom, you've got one foot in grave.

ou'd at least have a key, you could open

d.M'oOOr and see if I was dead."

m, you're only fifty years old. Not even

"That's right, and how old was your when he died, may he rest in peace?"

"Okay, Morn, let me have the key."

"God bless you," his mother said, kissed him on the cheek.

Coney unlocked the door, opened it, reached in for the light switch. His had a Mickey Mouse lock on the door. think she'd know better, especially neighborhood getting blacker every locked the door behind him, and then through the apartment throwing on ahead of him. The apartment was a flat, the rooms strung out one after the so that you had to pass through one get to the next. The room he grew up at the end of the apartment, the single in it overlooking the back yard. When a kid, he used to look out the window the waiters from the pizzeria out there a smoke on a summer night. Once he down and saw one of the waiters a girl against the brick wall of the buildin

There was maple furniture in his bed, a butterfly chair with paisley low dresser, and a higher dresser that part of it looked like a wide drawer, but you opened it the front fell down to a desk. His mother kept that maple waxed and polished as if she was

queen of England to come there and use room whenever she was in New York. his mother hadn't sent the queen That maple furniture had been a big when they moved up from Harlem. His had hit the numbers for two thousand that was the biggest anybody had hit a long time. When they moved to the she'd bought the maple furniture for bedroom, and also a new couch for the room. That was a long time ago.

Harlem, he'd shared a room with AI. they got up here to the Bronx, AI fifteen. There were three bedrooms apartment, it was really a pretty apartment and a nice neighborhood in days. Their mother took the biggest for herself, of course, the one with windows overlooking the street. On hot nights like tonight, she would put on the windowsill and look down street; it was the best entertainment in New York. A1 got the second biggest but it was Coney who got the new furniture. The furniture still looked There was a maple lamp on the made to resemble a candlestick with on it. Coney snapped on the lamp and gun out of his pocket.

him here in his mother's house. he carried a gun nowadays was when going to a job or coming off it. Man carry a gun and risk getting busted reason. He didn't know where to gun now. He went out of the room and the hall to the bathroom, passing what be Al's room, but what his mother for her sewing machine and her card That's where she probably was, out poker with her cronies. He thought he take a towel from the bathroom, wrap in it, and hide the gun and towel on in his closet, the back of the shelf there! his mother would probably miss the she probably knew exactly how many she had in the bathroom, she'd want to what happened to the goddamn towel.

He went past the bathroom and kitchen- he was still holding the his hand- and in the kitchen he gun on the enamel-topped table and in the cabinet under the sink to see had any of those plastic trash bags, didn't have any of those, either. He saw brown paper bags from the A&P under though, folded neatly alongside the pail. He took one of these, and shook it and then picked up the .38, and put it bag, and folded the bag around the

tell there was a gun inside there. For knew, it could be a ham-and-cheese smiled, went out of the kitchen, and down the hall again to what he still of as his room even though he'd out of the apartment eight months

He opened the closet door, pulled the cord, and then shoved the gun way to the of the shelf. His mother found it, he'd he was holding the gun for somebody. wouldn't find it, though; she wouldn't be for it, so how could she find it? He a few clothes here in the apartment, he took a pair of khakis from a hanger and also a short-sleeved sports shirt. He visit his mother too often nowadays, whenever he did come up to the Bronx, to make himself comfortable. He'd uptown wearing a suit and a tie, for like when he came up last Easter subway, and then he wouldn't feel hanging around all day in a suit, so he'd into a pair of jeans and a sports shirt, Clothes didn't mean very much to

You get some guys, they scored on a they went crazy buying clothes. Coney the money on booze and women and He loved going to the Copa after score. Go in there with a blonde on

your arm, guys in there knew you. somebody. Throw a few bills around, the skids, get a table up front, blonde there with you.

He took off his shoes and socks he'd to wash out the socks before his home, there was still some of Jocko's on one of the socks and then he the borrowed sweater and pants. He pair of clean underwear in one of the drawers, and then he put on the khaki and the sports shirt and a clean pair of and the same shoes he'd been wearing job tonight- Jesus, how had things to go so wrong?

He went down the hallway to the While he was washing his socks he a boom of thunder and saw flash against the pebbled glass bathroom window. Almost" began raining.

The club was called the Orioles, SAC.

The "SAC." stood for "Social and Club," but everybody on the block Orioles was a bopping gang. There had an Orioles down in Harlem long before was born, back in the forties. When still a little kid, guys used to talk Orioles and what a great and laowerful

been, with thousands of members all over and even in the Bronx. All the clubs out in the late forties, early fifties; dope the clubs. Guys shooting heroin didn' to be bothered rumbling in the streets other clubs. Didn't want to be bothered anything, in fact, except getting that " bag and ripping it open and cooking shit in a spoon, man, and shooting it into

Harlem didn't have any clubs when was growing up there in the fifties.

-Coney's Harlem- was the area First Avenue and Lexington Avenue,

ll0tgh from 125th Street on the north

Street on the south. There were other Harlems: Spanish Harlem, which just west of the Harlem Coney knew; Black Harlem, which was all the way near Lennox Avenue, Coney guessed, all the way over on the other of the city. There were Puerto Ricans into Coney's Harlem even then, the imaginary boundary line that Lexington Avenue, drifting over from and Madison, moving into apartment that had been exclusively Italian the war years, almost filling up project on 120th Street, bode gas and restaurants popping up everywhere; d was chanin.

That's why Coney's mother move up to the Bronx. His father from cancer two years before, and all mother's relatives had moved either to or Long Island, so there was nothing to i her in Harlem any more. Then she numbers for two thousand dollars, and the ladies in her poker game "

an apartment was available on her they'd packed up and made the move.

There were no clubs in the Bronx, Not at first. It really was a nice nei But when Coney got to be fourteen, the clubs started up again. This sixties now. He began noticing guys the Oriole jacket, black jacket with cuffs and a picture of a bird on the the bird colored orange, the lettering SAC. in orange just below the bird: bird was perching on the "O" in Coney noticed the guys in the jackets, he asked about them, and learned that called themselves a club, but he knew were a gang. He steered clear of His brother AI knew all about street because he was six years older than presumably remembered the gangs in dying of heroin pollution. He warned to keep away from them. He was college at the time, and was learnings!

rew words. "Gangs are full of kids with disorders," he told Coney.

Coney did manage to stay away the Orioles or any of the other gangs just before the summer he turned That was almost a year after he'd the stockroom job with the Jewish kid; he in fact thinking of taking another summer going down to the employment agencies

, looking over the blackboards to what jobs were chalked on them. He L't thinking of joining any damn street i. But one day in school this fat kid sat down across the table from him in cafeteria. Up to that time, Coney had seen around the neighborhood, wearing the jacket and strutting like a bigshot. He knew he was an Oriole, but t know his name. Coney was working crossword puzzle in one of the books he to buy; it was Benny who started the like doing those things?" he said, and looked up. Benny wasn't wearing the jacket. Coney learned only later that cool to wear the jacket to school. got nervous seeing the Oriole jacket, other club jacket in school. That's most of the teachers had grown up in s and knew nil nh nut

were afraid of street gangs starting up

"Yeah, I like crossword puzzles," said.

"You must be a good speller."

"I'm not bad."

"I can't even spell my own name," said. "Gallitelli. Benny Gallitelli. No can't spell it," he said, and laughed. spell Gallitelli?"

"I don't know," Coney said.

"Try it, I'll give you a hint, it starts Ca."

Coney spelled the name on the Benny seemed amazed.

"You got to meet my English said. "She can't even pronounce it,

spell it. What's your name?"

"Coney Donato."

They went through the whole "what's. short-for" routine, Benny expressing that anybody named Nicholas would be Coney; his own brother was named and he'd always been called Nick or Coney explained that he had a cousin Nicholas, and when they were little the aunts and uncles and goombahs call one of them Nickie and the Coney, to tell them apart. That's got the name Coney. Benny said he understand this because he himself

of cousins both named Salvatore, and called one of them Salvie and the one Sally. seemed to Coney that Benny was him about something, but he know what. Finally, Benny started about the Orioles, and Coney figured was trying to find out whether or not be interested in joining the club. The was just a bunch of guys who'd got because they liked hanging around each other, Benny explained. And also

:tion.

st what?" Coney said.

whoever wants to start up with t."

ever starts up with me," Coney

This was true. He was small in to some guys his age, but he'd lifting weights when they moved to the and he was muscular and hard, and thought twice before they picked on him. never know," Benny said.

, nobody bothers me," Coney said.

still might need protection for?"

do I know what for?" Benny said. i seemed irritated all at once. "Guys could

jump you for no reason at all."

The next day, on his way home school, half a dozen guys jumped Coll, no reason at all. They were all wearing jackets. They knocked out two of teeth and closed one of his eyes. That he went looking for Benny in the found him sitting on a stoop two blocks the pizzeria. There was a wrought-iron to the right of the stoop, and steps down to the basement of the buildin basement windows were painted over green paint, and you could see the strokes where the lights from inside shining through. A record player was a rock group singing a doowah, doo-wah rift. A girl laughed.

Benny was smoking a joint. Sitting all alone, wearing the black jacket wi orange cuffs, his name stitched in over the heart, Benny. Puffing, the toke, letting it out at last. Joint a roach already. "Hey, man," he said, you doing?"

"Not so hot," Coney said. "Some of!

friends knocked out two of my teeth." "That right?" Benny said.

"Yeah," Coney said. "Also, they right eye. See it here?"

"Th 's hame,"B id at a s enny sa .

suppose they're downstairs in the :?" Coney asked. e. Why?"

don't like getting jumped for no reason,"

said. "I'm limping. Did you notice I limping? They hurt my ankle, too." He limping, that part of it was true. But had hurt his ankle. He was limping he had a baseball bat inside his pants, the length of his left leg. "Are they there?"

guess they're down there," Benny said, I wouldn't go down there if I were you."

not? I got a question I want to ask what?"

"Like who told them to beat me up."

"Benny said.

T?" Coney said.

teach you respect." what?" the Orioles."

you had them knock out two of my huh?"

right," Benny said. close my eye, huh?"

" Coney said, "there are going to cripples," and he pulled the baseball of his tants.

Benny was slow getting off the pot had reached him and his eyes little glazed and he was grinning to ear because he was so fuckin having taught Coney respect for the SAC. Coney brought back the bat. as were swinging at a ball coming in over the plate. Benny let out a yell the bat connected, and four or five came running up out of the basement what was the matter. They were to find Benny lying on the sidewalk a bone splinter showing through his leg, and they were even more see Coney coming down the basement . toward them, the bat in his hands.

You didn't have to tell anybody slums that a baseball bat was a deadly The guys saw the bat and recognized the kid they'd beat up that afternoon, saw Benny writhing in pain on the and they did an almost comic in the doorway, some of them back some of them still running forward, them too late to do a goddamned thing Coney or the bat. Coney started bat into them, swinging that fuckin like a machete, doing just what he himself he'd do when he looked in the and saw those two teeth missinz in the

mouth and that big swollen purple sunset an eye. All the while he was swinging the the girls kept screaming inside, and some he never did see who they were because were afraid to come out of the basement swearing and crying (it sounded like), telling him they'd get him for good, he'd be able to walk the street again.

was Benny who didn't get to walk the Not for six weeks, anyway, because :'s how long his leg was in a cast. And one the guys in the club, a big musclebound named Ernie, was wearing a bandage on head for almost a month, and one guy a broken wrist, and another guy had his and his middle finger together in Wherever Coney went, he carried baseball bat with him. Even to school. in one of his classes told him he was to report Coney to the principal if he bringing the bat to school with him. said to the teacher, "Mr. Gersheimer, if bring this bat to school with me, I'm to get killed. Would you like my blood your hands, Mr. Gersheimer?"

"Nobody's going to kill you, don't be Mr. Gersheimer said. But his face went and he never mentioned the bat again.

before school ended for the summer, doctors took the cast off Benny's leg.

That was when Coney bought the bought it from a black kid who the high school band. The kid was stealing instruments from the band room, and trading them for handguns, which he to whoever could pay the price; there was a bigger market for pistols trumpets or clarinets. The guns were crap; Saturday-night specials. The one bought was a .25-caliber pistol. It was gun he ever owned. To pay for it, he money from his mother's never even found out the money was " but if she'd asked him about it, asked he'd taken it, he'd have told her yeah, a matter of life and death. The day bought the gun, he went around to the clubhouse again.

Two guys were on the front stoop, went running down the basement the they saw Coney. Benny came out a later. No cast on his leg. Lost a little too, but still fat as a pig and black as a m

"I have a gun in my pocket,"

him at once. "Yeah?" "That's right."

"What do you want here?"

"I want to tell you anybody starts up me, I'll kill him."

e's already a warrant out on you," said.

give me any of your bullshit gang" Coney said. "Warrant, shit! I'm telling

I'm going to use this if I have to," he said, t pulled the gun from his pocket and stuck in Benny's face. "You the president of gang?"

"Benny said, and looked at the gun.

told me you were the one..."

up the gun, man," Benny said.

lad me beat up."

right, watch the piece, will you?" ain't the president..."

the president," a voice said. "What fuck you want around here?"

turned. Frnie was coming up out of i basement room. Ernie was the one whose been in bandages for a month.

well," Coney said, and laughed. the man whose head I busted. Well, The gun made him feel very cool and

"I didn't know I was busting the s head," he said. The president one funny move, he was going to be ex-president. The former president. The you're the president, how come it was gave the order to have me jumped?" said.

"Benny's the war counselor," Ernie "

"The war counselor, huh?" Coney said laughed again. "Well, well."

"He told us you were putting down club "

"I didn't say nothin about your club," Coney said.

"You told Benny you was safe. You him you didn't need no insurance."

"Oh, are you insurance salesmen?" said. "I didn't realize that."

The gun was still pointing right at nose, and everybody was getting nervous,

as nervous as Benny, who was "

get shot any minute now. But pretty nervous. They had guns of their own "

gang armory, but the armory was six away, at Concetta's house, and right a guy with a .25 under Benny's nose.

kept looking up the block for fuzz, and looking back at the piece under Benny's

Benny kept his eyes on Coney's face was figuring he would know when was about to squeeze the trigger; if kept watching Coney's eyes, the eyes telegraph, and then Benny would duck in time. Faster than a speeding bullet,

was Benny Gallitelli.

"He came home and told us you you were hot stuff," Ernie said. "So..

war counselor, so I told him to get up party..."

"You guys always talk like this?" Coney

"Man, I never heard such shit in my life. counselor, raiding party.." what the hell this? An Indian tribe?"

"That's the kind of talk got you in trouble first time," Ernie said.

"Ernie, do you see this gun in your war

"s left nostril?" Coney said.

see it, I ain't blind," Ernie said.

"Don't get him mad," Benny said.

If

I pull this trigger, your war counselor's to be breathing from his nose up on the while he's still here down in the street.

what I'm going to do, Mr. President, going to ask you whether you want a counselor without a nose, or whether want to call off this fuckin warrant shit make peace. Because if you don't want then, man, you've got war with a crazy

I'm telling you. The first thing I shoot is fat Benny's nose, and the next thing I

off is your balls, Mr. President. So what say?"

"You're holding the cards," Ernie said.

now you're the one holding the cards.

," Coney said, "what you say right sticks forever, you di? You don't say

you want peace now, and then jumped. No way, Ernie. I want your word, or else lard-ass here will be cha, nose over the rooftops. Swear on your mother, Ernie."

swear on my mother, Ernie said. "What do you swear, you cocksuckerl "I swear we won't try to hurt you." "Never. Say never."

"Never. We won't try to hurt you

"You swore it on your mother," said. "You heard him swear it on his

He put the gun away, and turned his on them, and went up the street. The Benny came to him and asked if he to become a member of the Orioles. said he would think it over.

A week later he told them yes.

It had stopped raining by the time down to the street again.

He had hung his socks up to dry bathroom, and had also left a note mother on the kitchen table so she come in the house and dron dead nf

when she saw a pair of men's socks the bathroom The rain had washed the clean, washed away the contained heat the day as well; everything smelled fresh clean and sweet. He could remember he was a kid in Harlem, stomping d barefooted in the gutter rainwater. could remember shooting immies after summer storm, spinning the marbles in :bside puddles.

could remember, too ... Yeah, it had raining that afternoon, yeah. This was the Bronx, he was just sixteen, this was he'd joined the Orioles, that first summer the club. It was Benny who brought the around. She lived four or five blocks from clubhouse, she was maybe fourteen. When brought her down the basement that , she was wearing a miniskirt and blouse; there was a button missing blouse, he could still remember the flaring open over a white brassiere She and Benny stood just inside basement door. The record player was :. "This is Laurie," Benny said. "Laurie to fuck, don't you, Laurie?"

girl was, well, like a little retarded. took off her blouse and played with her , she had very big tits, and then they took ran ties and one after the nrher they

fucked her on the sofa, her skirt around her waist, while the Beatles little hearts out. There were six guys clubhouse that afternoon. Four of virgins, including Coney. It was " " it got to be his turn. Coney was the one with her. Ernie, the president, of course. Then the war counselor, Then Coney, who was sergeant at charge of breaking heads with if guys didn't pay attention, or smoked or chickened out when the shit was another club. The girl giggled all he was fucking her, and the rain beat the painted basement windows. embarrassed later on.

The girl's father came down the next day, big ginzo could hardly English, Coney didn't think there grease balls like that around. Big yelling they'd taken advantage of his daughter. "You take anvage my screamed, goddamn sanitation man wearing the brownish-green uniform and an underwear top, came there from work to protect his daughter's stopping home first to take off his grab a quick glass of courage-bolsterin which the Orioles could smell on his as he stamped around the clubhouse

noises. Ernie told him he should better care of his daughter if he didn't her to get fucked, and then he told wop to get out of the clubhouse before shot him. Coney was sitting on sofa, tossing the small .25-caliber pistol palm of his hand. The wop looked gun and then yelled that he was going something about this, and off he went and puffing. He never did do anything it cause he was afraid the Orioles would after him, and also he didn't want it around the neighborhood that his daughter had been gang-banged.

walked through the rain.

wasn't sure where he wanted to go or he wanted to do. It was close to two the morning, the streets were rain-slick almost deserted, except for some black shuffling along with that sideways glide thought was cool, elevator shoes, big hats even though none of them were pussy. Thought it looked cool to pimps. Take a man like Benny, was a pimp, but he looked like your

Dominick come to play the mandolin Sunday. was funny the way most of the guys club grew up to be just what you

Benny was always bringing girls

around, and now Benny was a was always looking for a fight on him, swollen knuckles and was a heavyweight boxer, fought name of Ernie Pass, which was short Passaro. And Duke, who they'd the club for shooting dope, he full-time junkie, later kicked the turkey and began pushing the stuff. busted just after Rockefeller changed in New York State; you ever again, he'd be eighty-five years old long white beard. Duke's mother up to see him every month in Some fuckin trip up there, mother used to come up when he was his three-to-seven for .... There. There it was.

Exactly what he meant about guys out just the way you expected " himself. On the Orioles, he'd made with a gun. Reason they'd come kissing his ass was because he'd gun up Benny's nose and was pull the trigger. Would have done it, anybody'd given him any shit that time he got busted was because of That was January, the winter joined the Orioles. The shit was on

club named the Dragons, bunch of who could hardly speak English, they silk jackets made up with a dragon all over the back, you'd think it was a Chink gang instead. Kid on the club Macho. He gave himself the name, supposed to mean he had balls. Macho around one day, said something to one girls. Sounded her. Petie was sitting on the stoop, this was in front of the He heard what Macho said to the he jumped up off the stoop. "Hey," he to the spic, "watch your mouth, you ",

didn't say a word. Macho pulled a and stuck it in Petie clear up to the They had to take Petie to the hospital, seven stitches in his side. After that, the on, and the one they were especially to get was Macho.

January, Coney was still carrying25 he'd bought the summer before. t a bad piece. You got some of Saturday-night specials, they fell apart your hand first time you used them, or blew up in your face, whatever the hell. iat s because they were made so cheap. This wasn't a bad pistol. It was called anrFirecat, and it was made in Spain and

about thirty dollars brand-new; bought it secondhand from the black was stealing band instruments, but it thirty dollars anyway. On the grip, the bottom, the word FIRE CAT was into the metal. It wasn't a bad name, wasn't a bad gun, either. Or at least what Coney thought at the time, when still a kid and getting used to guns. It Firecat that Coney had shoved under nose. It was the Firecat that he'd palm of his hand the day Laurie's father came down the club yelling. It Firecat he used to shoot Macho in the one January night.

Coney was sixteen years old; he had sixteen in July. July the fourteenth, his birthday. He told everybody he he was born on Bastille Day. Hardly knew what the luck he meant. Only in prison, guy named Brenet, whose and father had come here from France what Bastille Day was. They were laundry working, Coney had this job i laundry at the time, he mentioned to that he was born on Bastille Day. dope started singing the Marseillaise top of his lungs, pig comes over says, what's going on here?"

"It's a code," Brenet tells the nir.

a break, and we're singing about code."

are you, a wise guy?" the pig says, his eyes are slitted and there's a suspicious on his face. He doesn't know whether to

Brenet or not. Brenet nudges Coney ribs and says, "Seven o'clock, pass it Coney takes a chance on the pig having of humor. "Seven o'clock," he says to i pig, "pass it on," but he doesn't nudge in the ribs. Nudge a pig, he's liable to you back with his stick and throw you shitter for a month.

funny," the pig says.

Sing was always a barrel full of laughs.

missed going to prison when he was only because a judge took pity on him. down from behind his bench and his

, saw clean cut Nicholas Donato in iblue-serge Communion suit, looking up out of his baby browns, decided to sentence instead of sending him

The crime they'd charged Coney , rightfully, was second-degree assault.

been a bonafide adult, the crime by five years in a state or a fine of a thou salad dollars, i both. But Coney was a "young adult,"

in the Penal Law as someone who than sixteen but not yet twenty-one,

and if he'd been convicted of assault, he would have been sentenced to a reformatory for "a period of un..

duration, to commence and "

provided in PL 75.10." In such a court would not have fixed a "

maximum sentence. That was good.

better than that, Coney's lawyer would be for him to plead guilty to charge of third-degree assault.

The assistant district attorney the case was of Hispanic heritage, just client Luis Josafat'Albareda; Coney

Macho's real name only after he'd

The assistant D.A. told Coney's whereas criminal law was most bargain basement of the legal would not allow Coney to cop a third-I

assault plea, not when a weapon was not when a .25-caliber pistol had been shoot poor Luis Josafat in the throat,

him to lie bleeding in the snow for three without proper medical attention because Coney had planned his catching Macho in a deserted ran between two apartment houses "Hey! Macho!"

Macho turned and was already his blade when Coney opened up. He twice. The first shot missed him. The

alleyway wall and sent a piece of brick into the air, and then went ricocheting, zing, zing, and Coney pulled off the shot and blood began spurting out of ?s neck.

assistant district attorney argued that Luis Josafat had lost part of his larynx se of the shooting, and now spoke ;h a voice box" this fine boy who seventeen years of age will have to go of his life in this handicap position," assistant district attorney said, sounding much like Pancho Villa, and actually a laugh from Coney's attorney, who covered his mouth with his plump hand. When it was pointed out to the D.A. that poor Luis Josafat was a kid himself been arrested many times for ranging from possession of narcotics rape to burglary to assault, the D.A. decided to forsake Hispanic in favor of job security, and promptly to the lesser charge.

judge was Italian; that didn't hurt

? Is that you?" the voice said. stopped stock-still in the center of the.

r?" she said.

"Coney?" cradle her face in both hands, and

It was getting to be like one would lean over him and her hair would grandfather's operas. All right over his own face, and she would thought. It's Coney. So who the fuck her lips to his. The hair was blond

"Terry," she said. clipped close to her head in a mannish

He looked. Tires hissed against

Huge gold earrings on her ears. Blue slick asphalt, on her lids, lipstick gash on her

"Terry," she said again.

She had never worn makeup when

In the neon stillness, steam known her years ago, not even lipstick.

a curbside sewer. Jesus Christ, he was wearing a black trenchcoat, the

She looked ... Jesus Christ. The high on the back of her neck, the he'd seen her was four years ago . pulled tight at her waist. She had on it five? The year before he got bu shoes that easily added two inches armed robbery, when the fuck her height; he felt short in her presence

How could he forget the year, the always before he had felt much taller.

the day, the exact hour and "

was smoking a cigarette, and she dropped squad car pulling to the curb as he the sidewalk at once, and stepped on it his own car. "Hold it, mother-fucker though it hissed out immediately against language for a police officer. "Hold wet pavement. He remembered that once,

they threw him up against the wall, and ago, he had objected to her smoking,

him, and one of them found the pistol she had given it up for him. He himself he'd thrown it in the gutter the " two packs a day. But she had given it heard the cop yelling at him. Four him. He remembered everything about this September eleventh. And a year that instant.

that Teresa Brufani had left for

"Hello, Terry," he said.

She'd been twenty at the time, stood some four feet apart from each twenty-four. He looked at her now. He looking at each other, the steam from she was Terry, she had just told him as drifting across the sidewalk between

Otherwise, he wood not have known her,

They had been intimate for close to

He remembered her hair as brown years, and then she had gone to

Vermont, and he had continued doin she said she could not bear, and he'd got busted for doing it. Seven judge had said. Tough shit, next case. they stood four feet apart, a century They would not touch, they would not toward each other, they stood looking other like strangers, which they were,

at each other through the steam. "Hey," she said.

"How you doing?" he said.

"Great," she said. "Great."

"I thought you were in Vermont." "No."

"That's what I thought." "I've been back since May." "Well," he said.

"Boy," she said, "running into this."

"Yeah," he said.

"You want to buy me a drink, or..." "Yeah, sure," he said, "sure." "Or you want to just stand here all "No, yeah, I want to buy you a how about this, huh?"

He took her by the elbow and they up the street to the Blue Moon. were three black dudes on the they looked Terry up and down. the old days, Coney'd call the

fuckin niggers'd be in the hospital in e. He gave them a dirty look. One niggers laughed as though his buddy cracked a joke. Coney gave him another look, and he turned away. Inside, the box was going. A rock song, Coney didn't the tune or the group. You grow you don't know who's playing what any

There was a mixed crowd in the place black, a few Puerto Ricans. Coney a booth too near the kitchen and too the juke.

okay?" he said.

, sure," she said.

ain't too near the kitchen, is it?"

no, it's fine."

I hate cooking smells," he said.

, but I don't see. anything else, do

"he said.

fine," she said, and grinned. "What're gonna do? It's the only game in town." "Right," he said, and returned the grin, and her out of the coat. He was surprised she was wearing underneath. She was like for a party. One of those clinging fabrics, cut very low in the front and on the knee, scalloped edge to the skirt, sleeves. Green.

been out?" he said.

"Huh?" she said. "You're all dressed up." "Oh. Yeah," she said.

He hung up the coat, and they sat each other in the booth. Coney looked for a waiter. A black guy was leaning the jukebox, looking over the the booth across the aisle, a black sitting with two black dudes. She her fingers at Terry, and Terry fingers back.

"Who's that?" Coney asked. "Friend of mine," Terry said. "You living around here now?" "Yes," she said.

"How was it up there in Vermont? "It was pretty good."

"So why'd you come back?"

"I got fired of it."

"What were you doing up there,

he said, and tried to catch the waiter's "We had a shop." Terry said. "Who's we?"

"Me, and two other girls, and

We made things and sold them in the "What kind of things?"

"You know. Rings, enameled necklaces..."

"Oh, it was a jewelry store," Coney "No, no, we sold other things,

you know, and silk-screened T-shirts, sandals. We all made things and sold in the shop."

"What'dyou make?"

I made these- There was this boy through with beads he'd bought in Iran. bought the beads from him and I made

:es out of them."

Was there money in that?"

a lot of money, but enough to live "

you got tired of it, huh?"

," Terry said, and nodded.

"Hey, over here," Coney said, and snapped at the waiter. The waiter came over table.

it going?" he said to Terry.

"Not bad," she said.

"What do you want to drink?" Coney

"The usual," she said. looked at her. about you?" the waiter said.

have a Dewar's and water," he said.

waiter walked away. "You come here a t?" Coney asked.

I been back," Terry said, and

"So what've you been doing?" she "When did you get out of jail?"

befnre C.hrirm "

"You on parole, or what?" "Yeah, I'm supposed to be on "What does that mean, supposed to "Well, I don't go see the parole "Can't you get in trouble for that?"

"Sure," he said. "But you can get in just crossing the street, am I right?"

"They could send you back to jail, couldn't they? For not going to the officer?"

"Yeah."

"So why don't you go?" "I don't want to," he said. "You really should go."

"This sounds like old times," "When was it- four, five years agoi were always bugging me to get out of it. "You should have got out of it." "Sure, sure," he said.

"You got busted, didn't you?"

"That was just a bad break.

The waiter brought their drinks. "usual" was a shot glass of whiskey tumbler of water on the side. She shot glass, winked at Coney over it, tossed back the shot.

"You drink it straight now, huh?" he

"Yeah," she said, and picked up the tumbler.

They were silent for several m

y lley was finding it difficult to think of thing to talk about. Last time he was hh her, she'd told him she was going up Vermont. He'd wanted to know why she

[s' going all the way up there, and she'd ld him she wanted to get away from him. he quit what he was doing, she wouldn't go. tit if he continued ... Listen, he'd said, go, ay, do whatever the fuck you want, I ain't ging my lifestyle for anybody. He looked her now. She smiled at him over the water tablet. Then she put down the glass, opened r bag, and took out a pack of cigarettes. "I see you're back on the weed," he said. "Yeah," she said, and struck a match and ld it to the end of the cigarette. She blew e smoke up at the ceiling, and then leaned ick in the booth, one arm resting on the ltherette top, the other bent, her elbow on i table, the cigarette trailing smoke. "How is prison?" she said. Lousy," he said. "How you think it was?" i'Where were you anyway? "Sing Sing." i'That's supposed to be a good one," she id.

There ain't no good ones," he said. "That's where Di Santo got sent," she said. Be told me it was a good one." ' D1 Santo of sent to Attica."

"No, Sing Sing."

"Attica, don't tell me. It was Attica."

"Where's that?"

"That's in New York, too."

"Well, wherever. Di Santo said it good one."

"It's worse than Sing Sing. That's they had all the riots, few years back. a lot of guys got killed."

"That must've been while I Vermont," she said. "I hardly even newspaper while I was up there. We even have a radio in the house."

" ho's we?"

"Me and the other kids. We all together in this old run-down house we renting."

"What were you, like "

something?"

"No, no," Terry said, and shrugged. just lived together, is all."

"Three guys and three girls," Coney

"Yeah."

"What did they have, these guys? hair?"

"Yeah."

"Beards?"

"Yeah."

"So they were hippies, right?"

"Look, call them what you want,

'm calling them what they were. Hippies they were. What'd you do up there all time? Smoke dope all the time?"

Yeah, we smoked dope all the time,"

said, and sighed. "And had orgies." "What?" Coney said.

Tuesdays," she said.

""We had orgies on Tuesdays," she said. day Tuesday. That was the orgy day."

"I'm trying to be serious, and you're around," he said. "You left the and you were a nice girl, you didn't know what the fuck a marijuana cigarette So you go up there to Vermont with those hippies, and all of a sudden you "

"I went up there because you wouldn't stop you were doing." "You can't expect a man to change his way

"You were a crook, Coney," she said. "That's right. I was a crook," he said. "I

am, you want to know. Right."

And I didn't want to be around they busted you. It was as simple as

The way you were going, I knew it was a matter of time before they busted you. I went to Vermont. Because I loved you,"

said, and the table went silent, the bar silent, the street went silent, the entire

world went silent.

"Well," he said.

"Yes," she said.

Their voices were softer now.

reminded him that she had loved perhaps it no longer meant anything perhaps people do not want to hear they were loved, perhaps all they want is that they are loved, here and now,

present, never mind the fuckin past;

had loved him, she had just told loved him once upon a time, long, long

,.

"I loved you, too," he said. The sounded strange to him. The left his mouth, he wished he them. He felt suddenly in danger for said them. He did not even know this with the butch haircut and the so low you could almost see her

Blue eyeshadow on her eyes, lips a painted red, cigarette smoke trailing her face. "That was a long time added quickly.

"Yes," she said. "People change,"

"But I can still remember."

"Sure," he said, and nodded. His empty, he wanted another drink. He to the waiter, and when he came to the he ordered a double this time, and

Terry if she wanted anything, and

wouldn't mind. They were silent until the brought the drinks, as though neither them was willing to explore the territory had just been opened. The moment the put the drinks down, they reached for glasses. Terry again swallowed the shot in le gulp and then picked up the tumbler sipped at the water. Coney took a large ow and then set his glass down.

you remember the time we went to Island," she said, "and the Ferris got stuck, and we were up there for to three hours? Do you remember that,

I remember that," he said. He sipped his drink and listened to her as she a sky full of stars, the lights of : amusement park below, the sound of from the calliope, the breeze blowing in off the Atlantic. They had held hands and about the future. Trapped on the Ferris he had promised for perhaps the tenth that he would quit doing robberies. The had moved her to tears, and they had there swinging in the chair at the top of wheel, and had talked about when the would take place, and what kind of job Coney might get, and where they live- should they stay in the Bronx, or

up? He was lying even then. He had and cased a job for the very next night, knew he would go through with it, he promised her tonight on this wanted to reach up and touch the stars.

He had stolen her from Ernie,

to be Ernie's girl. Ernie was already by then, this was two years after broke up, the Duke had already junkie, and had kicked the habit, pushing the stuff; everybody said Mafia connections, but Coney

Benny already had himself two girls by both experienced pros who were enough cash every week to keep him pretty good. His ambition, he told was to have a string of twelve gentleman of leisure. Coney told him a better man than Benny to control a girls, and Benny threw him the arm Coney himself had already done a more robberies and was beginning to a good living at it. He sounded Benny coming in with him, said he could use a driver. Benny said he would rather girls. That was how the situation stood Coney met Terry.

He met her when she was sevenl he was twenty-one; she was engaged to Pass at the time. They were all calf

Pass by then because he was boxing professionally, was in fact on the road all time, fighting in tank towns, which was come Terry Brufani was alone so much the time. Coney met her at a confirmation a big ginzo affair, ham sandwiches and in a hall on Westchester Avenue, one of cousins three or four times removed. The family had been invited, too, and she was- Terry Brufani, seventeen old, ripe as a Sicilian olive. They danced the whole night, but when he asked if she'd like to go see a movie or something Saturday, she told him she was engaged Ernie Pass.

you know him?" she said "Ernie Pass, prizefighter?" I know him," Coney said, "I once his head."

He checked with the guys the next day, and all told him it was true; she was engaged , they planned to get married in the Coney said, "That's very interesting ," and he went to the candy store and up her phone number and called her Her mother told him she was at work. He where she worked, and Mrs. Brufani in the bank on Fordham Road and Avenue. Coney looked at his watch.

two o'clock. When Terry came out of

the bank at three, he was waiting for the sidewalk. That night he took her with him in a motel on the Post Road, Parkchester. She wasn't a virgin, he know anybody who was a virgin. She to] Ernie would kill them both if he found

He didn't wait for Ernie to find Coney's experience, the guy who the marbles was the guy who made move. You went into a grocery store the place, you didn't wait for the guy the counter to pull out a shotgun. You the pistol in his face, and you told up or he was dead. That was the way" done it the first time, and that was the he was still doing it. The first place he', up was a pawnshop on Tremont went in there thinking he would get good camera. This was when he was He had got off with the suspended on shooting the spic in the throat, had met all his obligations, and the was clean. They still had the club, but wasn't much bopping any more, and younger kids were beginning to take over the time him and Benny and Duke and were nineteen, twenty, the younger kids beginning to think of them as old men. of the guys Jimmy Giglio and .Petie were already married. One guy,

to, was doing time in Attica.

(;olley decided he needed a camera, and he io decided he was going to go into a camera 're and shove a gun in the man's face and al the camera. Then he decided instead he uld go in a pawnshop, and he picked the aeon Tremont Avenue. When he got inside ere, he told the man to shut up, this was a ickup, but for some reason he didn't ask for camera he instead asked the man to give im all the money in the cash register. He gne away from the job with eight hundred al lars and some change. He never knew y he'd done that first robbery, or why he ntinued sticking up places.

When they had the club, they occasionally ook down kids for nickels and dimes, and course they were always shoplifting in this r that store. But Di Santo was the only guy the club who had really been into it, you now, into real crime. Not bullshit stuff like ashing dope, or running a stable of hookers taking numbers bets, like Jimmy was aing even though he was already married. i Santo had been doing burglaries before got busted and sent to Attica. What they t him for was burglary one, he was going to I up there in Attica a long, long time. Coney ten tried to remember how he'd felt that day the first robbery, what had gone through

his head before he'd done it. His " you know. All he could remember was really wanted a camera bad. And he'd to steal one. And he'd decided to use But then, why had he picked a instead of a camera store? And why taken money instead of a camera? He figure it out. He never could figure it out

The thing with Ernie Pass head when Ernie got back from somel upstate where he was on a double billi a black fighter named Tornado Jacksonl incidentally had belonged to a club Scorpions, which the Orioles had against many times in the past. Coney wait for Ernie to come to him. He knew would have heard about him and now, so he went straight up to Ernie's Mrs. Passaro was in the kitchen, the stove, roasting peppers over the gas

"Hey, hello, Coney," she said. "You come around no more."

Mrs. Passaro said that to all the used to be in the club. She took it personal insult that none of the guys in to talk to her or have a glass of milk kitchen now that Ernie was a boxer and road all the time.

"Where's Ernie?" Coney said.

"In his room," Mrs. Passaro said

gestured with her head toward the doorway leading out of the kitchen. Coney knew where e's room was; when they were kids he'd up there early in the morning, wake Ernie p,.then both of them would go around tung all the other guys.

Ernie was awake now and listening to the dio. This was maybe ten o'clock in the orning, a shaft of sunlight was coming trough the window next to Ernie's bed. There were pictures of him all over the wall, boxing pictures- Ernie with his gloved t hand tucked under his chin, right hand :ked to deliver the knockout punch, Ernie Osing with the big bag, Ernie with his around the guy who was his manager, ."w named Oscar Holmes, who had changed from Horowitz. There were also three beets on the wall, printed in red and blue, ouncing the bill wherever Ernie happened D be fighting. The three-sheet in the center g all the others announced Ernie at the very bottom of the bill in St. Nicholas Arena. That s probably the biggest fight he'd ever had. Ie'd lost it, incidentally. r-Coney got straight to the point. "Ernie," he rid, "I want to tell you this before you hear it otn any "

I, "I already heard it," Ernie said.

I "About me and... ?"

"You're doing me a favor," Ernie "You're welcome to her. I been brains trying to figure how I could ditch I met this girl in Albany, I've been going her for three months now."

"Well, okay then," Coney said.

He'd been expecting trouble, everything was cool. He never did out whether Ernie really did have a Albany, or whether he was just shining " trying to avoid trouble himself. Either' Terry was now officially his. It was " taking money from some guy's cash re Before you stole it, the money was his: that, it became yours. Terry became morning he went up to Ernie's house: made it official. On the way out, Mrs. said. "You want some chocolate made some nice chocolate pudding."

He sat down at the kitchen table some chocolate pudding. From Ernie's he could hear the radio going. He feeling something was ending that day.

The black girl sitting in the booth the way from them came over to the interrupting Terry's story about the they were trapped on the Ferris whispered a few words to Terry, and nodded, and the black girl went back with the two black dudes in the booth.

"I have to go now," Terry said, putting her in her bag, and closing the bag, and sliding out of the booth. "It was nice seeing again. Say hello to your mother for me, you?"

"Hey, where you going?" Coney said.

ii, "Thanks for the drinks," Terry said, and over to the other booth.

"Hey!" Coney said.

The black dudes were standing now. One them was looking Terry up and down,

felt like going over and punching the out. The black girl introduced them to and the dude who'd been looking her put his arm around her, his fingers on her hip. Coney looked at the black trying to place her. He suddenly realized the hooker who'd made the kissing in his mother's doorway earlier tonight.

watched as Terry and the black girl off with the two black dudes.

he thought.

he was wrong.

ordered another drink and sat there alone in the booth, listening to tunes couldn remember, imagining things that weren't true- she probably just the girl to talk to, but the girl was a the girl had made kissing sounds in

his mother's doorway. And the dress was wearing, a party dress, this was night, true enough, but she'd been the street at close to two in the wearing a long-sleeved party dress the long sleeves covering tread her arms, was she a junkie like almost other hooker Coney knew in the world?i he thought, hey, come on, she ain't a " she ain't even a hooker, she knows that girl, she'd told him up girl was a friend, hadn't she? When waved to her? Sure, she had. Hell, his mother had black ladies in for coffee, shouldn't Terry know a black girl, the fucking neighborhood was turning black, only natural to know black people if lived around here. But the girl had kissing sounds.

He suddenly had to take a piss. He up from the table, surprised to legs unsteady under him- had he much to drink again? There were three guys in the men's room. He always nervous when he went in a men's room there were other guys in there leaning the sinks smoking or talking- es when they were black. He went into of the booths and locked the door him, and unzipped his fly and took

cock. Standing there with his cock in hand, he began pissing into the bowl, he began weeping because Terry was a Terry was a junkie whore, and oh, he stood there weeping and pissing, he continued weeping ing after the of urine stopped, stood there with cock in his hand, looking down into the and weeping.

At last he shook out his cock and put it in his pants, and zipped up his fly, wiped his eyes dry, and thought Jesus, ,"s a hooker, Jesus, she went off with two guys, Jesus. He washed his hands face at the sink, and he thought again Terry back when they were kids- but no, we couldn't call ourselves kids, he thought. She was twenty and I was twenty-four, and that wasn't kids, but Jesus, how did I get so old so fast?

He went out of the men's room and over to the bar and climbed up on a leatherette stool alongside a black girl who was probably a whore just like Terry and her friend. He didn't say a word to her. He ordered another double, and when it came he sipped at it slowly. He didn't want to get too drunk. He SUspected he was already too drunk, but he.

didn't ant to get any drunker. The girl kept

whether he wanted a piece of ass or not then finally she said, "You got a match?":

He looked at her, and he said,

you, a hooker?"

"Yes," she said. "You got a match?"

"You want a match, or you looking john, which is it?"

"Right now I want a match," she said. "Here's a match," he said, and he book from his pocket and struck a held it to the tip of her cigarette. "Thanks," she said.

"You know Terry Brufani?" he asked.

"No, I don't know Terry Brufani said. "Who's that?"

"A hooker," he said. "Like you." "No, I don't know her."

"What the fuck do you know?" he "You don't know nothin. What are said. "A junkie?"

"What difference does it make?" she "No difference. Whole fuckin of junkies and hookers and fuckin robbers, what's the difference?" "No difference," she said. "None," he said. "Right." "Right," she said.

"And burglars," he said.

"What?"

"In the world. Burglars."

"Right," she said.

It occurred to him that this was the second he'd been drunk in four or five hours,

hours- who the fuck was counting? But was because he'd killed a cop. Kill a cop, 's entitled to get drunk. Maybe he was to change his luck, too, knock off a piece of black ass. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Coney," he said, "and for Christ's sake ask me what that's short for."

"What's it short for?"

"Nothing. What's your name?"

"Barbara," she said. "Don't ask me what short for."

"Listen," he said, "would you mind if I

you something?"

"What's that?"

"I have never been to bed with a black girl my life."

"You're missing something," she said. "It's good, huh?" "Oh, my," she said. "It is, huh?"

"Oh, my, my, my," she said.

"Well, maybe I'll give it a try," he said.

," he said, "how much would it cost

"Police officer," someone at his elbow said.

!:.Collev automatically reached intn h i nnrlrt

for the gun, and then remembered was up his mother's house, in the the back of the closet. He turned, clenched, ready to put up a fight, he had a cop tonight. But the cop here in wasn't even looking at him; he was up his shield to the bartender. stood to his left, another fuckin cop; his eyes were on the bartender, too.

"Yeah, what is it?" the bartender said. He was a white bartender in a going black, Coney figured he had here every day of the week. Half of were on the pad, probably bugging him one bullshit violation or another you put out the garbage, your toilet's leaking, i napkins are dirty, your fuckin fly is

"Know anybody named Nicholas the cop asked.

Coney froze.

"Nicholas who?" the bartender asked. "Donato. He lives up the street, his does, anyway. Upstairs from the know him?"

"Why do you want him?" the said.

"You know him or not?" the cop said. "You want some prices, huh?" the girl

"Yes," Coney said, and turned on the and looked the girl straightin the

the ugliest fuckin woman he'd ever seen his life, blackheads all over her face, kind of complexion only niggers had, a blonde wig that was lopsided on head, pair of gold teeth in the front of her no bra under her dress, tits sagging to naval. "Yes, sweetheart," he said, "let's talk

"You saw the shield, or didn't you see the d?" the cop asked the bartender.

"I saw it."

"Okay. Do you know a person named

Donato, and don't give me any about why we want him. Okay?" "Why do you want him?" the bartender

The cop looked at his partner. "Wise guy," said.

"Yeah," the partner said.

"All right, wise guy, he killed somebody, all

"You want to spend the nigh" with just me the girl whispered.

"What do you mean?" Coney said.

"You could also spend the night with me

"Smyo girl friend together."

you know where we can find him?" the said.

"Who'd he kill?" the bartender asked.

"A detective," the cop said. "That's a shame," the bartender tone made it clear that it wouldn't him if every detective in the city got tomorrow, together with the entire force. "That really is a shame."

"Did you say somebody killed a the hooker asked, leaning over address the cop.

"Yeah," the cop said, turning "Liquor-store holdup on White Avenue. We got a positive make other officer who was in there. So you say?" he asked the bartender. "Y him, or not?"

"No, I don't know him," the said.

The cop turned to the hooker. you're not soliciting in here, sister," he

"Brother," she said, "I don't you mean by the word soliciting."

"Yeah, okay," the cop said, and his partner turned and started for Over his shoulder, to no one in partner said, "Keep your nose clean."

"So what'll it be?" the hooker asked "Me and Cynthia for the night?"

"What?" Coney said. "Who's C

the mirror over the bar, he was cops cross the room.

"Cynthia. My girl friend."

right," Coney said. His forehead covered with sweat. He took out his handkerchief and wiped it. The cops were the door, the cops were going out the sidewalk. He got off the stool, hastily the hooker's hand, said, "Some other honey," and was walking away from the when the bartender said, "Hey, there's a you don't mind."

"Right," Coney said. "Sorry." He took his wallet. The hooker was scowling at

"How much is that?" Coney asked the der.

, what'd he have at the table?" the yelled to the waiter.

"What do you mean, some other time?"

hooker said. She sounded like Flip doing Geraldine. "Whutchoo mean, other time?"

other time," Coney said. "Really, busy tonight. How much is that, huh?"

impatiently.

your horses," the bartender said. waiter was standing at the service bar looking through his checks. He finally Coney's and handed it to the bartender. you had a double here at the bar," the said.

whatever the lady's been drinking, okayl

"Thanks," the hooker said. It "Drop dead."

The bartender made change for a

Coney pushed a two-dollar tip across thel "Big spender," the hooker said.

Half a dozen police cars were in the outside, and uniformed cops were the sidewalks, walkie-talkies in their stopping people and asking them He had never seen so many cops in except that time when he was still living in Harlem, and a spic was holed an apartment in Spanish Harlem, between Park and Madison. He'd with a friend of his and there was a siege going on, the cops with tear gas and shotguns, all of them bulletproof vests, the spic in the up there shooting down into the street finally got him out. The crowd in the seemed disappointed. Here was a guy off what seemed like the whole damn. department, and these people in weren't too fond of cops to begin they wanted the spic to stay up there show the cops who was boss. But of i the cops killed him, and that was party was over; the crowd began to even before the ambulance

with his body on a stretcher, rubber sheet over it.

Coney was beginning to understand the of what he had done.

Rape an old lady, cut out her heart, hang from a lamppost by her thumbs, police got officially outraged. "Heinous

" the Chief of Detectives said. "We putting on it not only our Homicide

, but we are pressing into service and patrolmen from all over the including Staten Island, not to mention and vacationing policemen, be they or uniformed." Next day, if they catch the guy, the whole thing began to By the third day the cops were yawning asking each other how the Yankees were i. But kill a cop? Kill one of their own?

had a race riot here on this street, you'd a handful of cops telling everybody to down while bricks were flying from the

But kill a cop? Look at the bastards. to be at least fifty of them going up to and asking... stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. The cops in the street here had something detectives in the bar didn't have a few

ago. Coney saw now that a man in was leaning against the fender

'74 Chevy, handing out flyers, and he

didn't have to guess what was on flyers, he goddamn well knew. One of had got away either from the detect" was handing them out or from one patrolmen who'd been given it. The flyer was sticking to the wet sidewalk feet from where Coney stood, and at him was a picture of himself as he'd four years ago, when he'd got bu, holding up that tailor shop. They'd first to the Forty-sixth Precinct, been booked, and then downtown to a the Criminal Courts Building, where snapped his picture the next morning. picture, there were numbers across his His hair was longer then, and he had a mustache in those days; he had growing the mustache right after T for Vermont. But the face was " his, a little fuller perhaps, he'd lost a weight in prison. All a cop had to subtract the mustache and a few the hair a bit, and there was Nicholas himself in person right here in an camp of policemen who'd love nothin than to shoot him dead on the spot.

A cop was approaching him, because he was standing there in the of the sidewalk looking down at picture plastered to the cement. The

e-talkie in his right hand, and in his left the flyer. They were keeping close touch this operation because they were dealing a mad cop killer here. They wanted to sure this fiend didn't shoot all of them the back while they were asking people in street if they had seen Nicholas Donato,

man here in this mug shot taken four ago.

"Excuse me, sir," the cop said.

looked up. He did not have his with him; his gun was in his mother's

If he'd had the gun, he would opened fire at once, and then run take chances, what the hell.

"Yes?" he said.

cop was coming up to where and the first cop were standing on sidewalk. "You-get one of these flyers,

the second cop said.

"Yeah," the first cop said.

son of a bitch, ain't he?" the second said, and laughed.

" the first cop said, "we're looking for named Nicholas Donato, he lives on street with his mother. Would that name anything to you?"

,"

Coney said. "It don't mean nothin' He took out his handkerchief and his nose, and then he kept wiping the

nose, cleaning it, practically polishing " so he could keep the handkerchief the lower part of his face.

"This is a picture of the man," the "It was taken four years ago, he I'm have the mustache now. Would you him?"

"No," Coney said, and blew his nose "I don't know him."

The second cop was staring at him. "That it?" Coney said.

"Hold it just a minute," the sec said, and looked at the flyer in his hand.

"Mike," he said, and was reaching gun holstered at his side when Coney

He was used to running from these streets. Years ago, when they club, he ran from trouble on the twice a week. The cops knew him in those days. They knew Ernie, the president, and Benny, who was counselor, and Coney, who was the at arms. The big three. The ones the Orioles. More than a hundred in those days. Two dozen here on the another seventy-some spread for a half a mile. One time, when the shit between the Scorpions and another gang near the parkway approach, of the Italian gang asked Ernie could

help for a rumble supposed to take place the park Saturday morning. Ernie said he put a hundred guys in that park just snapping his fingers. That Saturday they up the street with those Scorpions. There were shots behind him; they with brittle precision in the cool ,-morning air. The night people were they sat on stoops and congregated street corners, they moved apart to let through. The shots sounded unreal. those shots fired in the liquor store, those shots that had killed one cop wounded another, none of these shots g the air sounded genuine. They to alert the other cops, though. Cops shots, they see a man running, they have to ask if he's the victim or perpetrator, they know automatically the running is the guy who done something

Coney was running, and people on sidewalk were stepping aside to let him ducking away, actually, because they hear guns cracking, and they knew that bullets were flying, and bullets didn't hit who they were intended for. There cops behind him firing, and cops ahead him beginning to get the drift of what was they were only here looking for a who'd killed a coo, they were only here

with flyers and walkie-talkies and half:

police cars and half a hundred cops, and Christ alone knew how.

plainclothes bulls, and they were now with two cops firing at a but they were still looking puzzled. A

cops, in fact, parted to let him go by,

shouted, "Hey! Hey, you!" after he'd them and gone around the corner.

He knew these streets, he knew these streets.

There were more cops ahead of didn't know what had happened corner, but they had heard enough time had elapsed now for have drawn their guns. They were running toward the corner as he turn, and he wheeled sharply to his leather-soled shoes skidding out from him, he wished he was wearing in the old days. But he didn't fall, he his balance at once and began running vacant lot alongside the grocery store.

There were no cops ahead of him they were all behind him, hnd they shooting. A bunch of black kids "

jackets were standing under the their eyes opening wide as they shots and doped out something happening, not your penny-ante

fling high, nothing like what even the ,rpions had. And the Dragons- you d to admit those spies had some fancy kets, the blood spurting from the throat f Luis Josafat Albareda, onto the front of the now silk, the name Macho in green threader his heart.

iColley was in the lot now. There were tts in the lot, they scampered over the rbage, scaring him half to death, squealing, currying away noisily as he ran for the :nce. The cops behind him were yelling ifferent direction sand orders and swearing he stumbling and generally behaving like he dumb bastards they were. "This way," "Hold your fire, there's civilians," or "In he lot, he's in the lot," or "Get a car, we eed lights," a babble of sound behind Coney s he ran over the familiar terrain toward a Fence he'd scaled a hundred times or more in is youth.

He was smiling when he reached the fence. e knew that once he scaled this fence, cops behind him were out of luck. He knew that beyond this fence was of back yards and alleyways,

abandoned buildings, stairways to joined other roofs, shaft ways to leading to roof leading to roof, until emerge a block away and cross a enter yet another labyrinth of back yards. In ten minutes he would different neighborhood entirely, in to be Scorpion turf. The cops would be creek once he scaled that fence.

He jumped for it. He skittered wooden face like a cat with a claws. He straddled its top as bullets around him, ricocheting off the brick the abandoned building on the and then he deliberately turned and looked back at the cops. He was l them the edge, daring them to off the fence with their popguns, off the cop killer, you bastards, yourselves a Kewpie doll on a cane night at Coney Island on the Ferris the promises he'd made, Terry "

to be a hooker. Coming home had bust, all of it had been a fuckin bust for this moment, this exhilarating with the cops running toward him garbage in the empty lot, the rats away, the guns popping against the

es of yellow, the bullets humming past head: he was Superman, he was able to p tall buildings, he was able to out race e.ding locomotives, he was invincible, he s indestructible.

|!He burst out laughing.

The laughter froze the policemen in their cks.

ii The firing stopped.

n. an instant Coney was over the fence and nine was still wearing the blue jeans and he T-shirt, she was still barefooted.

"She let him into the apartment, and then lie locked the door behind him and listened tttietly while he told her what had happened. te was still feeling high after his run from he cops, not the kind of high he experienced when he was smoking dope, nor even the kind f jazzed-up, slowed-down high that was there ach and every time he went into a store with gun in his pocket. This was a combination aervous energy and fear and excitement him from a mug shot and flyers had run off, and now every cop in the " a picture of him and was looking On the way over here, his heart had stopped every time he saw a squad car a lone patrolman standing on the corner a lamppost.

He had read a story in one of magazines that published true articles, where it showed a guy wrestling an alligator on the cover where inside it had ads for and condoms and books on how to up girls. This particular story was guy who'd got lost in the jungle and it told about how he was in a intense excitement the whole time in there, listening for every and searching the dark for glowing even learning how to interpret silences. had felt that way coming cross town apartment, and he still felt as though on some kind of dangerous mission end. with him walking out of the " civilization, big shining city in the there, music and booze and beautiful

He told Jeanine about how identified, and he thanked her again though he'd already thanked her on the for letting him come over here

the cops were on to him. She said that okay, she hadn't been asleep anyway. She him she'd spent some time cleaning up place after he'd left and then she'd tried sleep in here on the sofa, but all she did was and turn. Coney looked at the rug. She been able to get the bloodstains out.

-"You should have used cold water," he

"I did."

Wouldn't take them out, huh?" "No. I washed your clothes, too, by the r. The pants said Dry Clean Only, but I

it was better to take a chance ruining than leave blood on them."

, good," he said. "Did the blood outMost of it." i'They were old pants anyway," he said i'Jocko's still bleeding," Jeanine said,

,g with her head toward the corridor the bedroom "Soaked through the four times since you left"

"Looks like we're all in fine shape, don't

Coney said. "Next thing I expect to hear got hit by a bus on the way home."

, smiled "You want a drink?" she "There's only bourbon left, but if that's with a little water." he said.

"You seem calm," she said.

"I'm pretty jazzed up, you really know."

"You look calm."

He shook his head.

"I'll get the drinks," she said, and into the kitchen.

He sat on the sofa listening to the of the clock. He would have to ask her the clock was. Could hear the thing the apartment, but couldn't see it

In the kitchen, he heard her "

refrigerator. He thought of earlier of the way she'd showed him her

Well, she was used to that, an

Still, it had been only the two of them apartment, Jocko unconscious down

That was different from doing a strip "

joint. He got up off the sofa, started kitchen, and stopped. He listened hall, could hear nothing.

He went into the kitchen. "Need help?" he said.

"No," she said, "I'm doing fine." Her back was to him, he studied her He had telephoned her forty minutes a a black bar in Scorpion territory, after rooftops and crossing back yards and through alleyways. He had called because i told himself he would need a gun now

had identified him, and the only place could get a gun was in Jocko's apartment. had guns. But Jocko also had a wife Jeanine who'd pulled her T-shirt up her breasts and showed them to him and asked him if he was afraid of Jocko. Yes,

:'d been afraid of Jocko then, and he knew once he came down from this fantastic he would become afraid of Jocko all again. He knew that if he did not make move soon, if he did not go over to where stood at the sink in those tight blue jeans, he would never do it. i She turned from the sink, moved to the alongside it, and put ice cubes into glasses. The seal on the bourbon bottle broken; she'd been drinking since he left apartment. She poured whiskey into both

, added some water to his, and held it to him. He went to her, and took the glass her hand and they stood not three feet apart in the narrow kitchen, Coney against the refrigerator, Jeanine leaning against the counter. Her hands were wet, she wiped them on the thighs of the faded blue jeans, and then left them on her thighs, the fingers widespread. She looked up into his face, and suddenly there were no secrets, his eyes had told her everything she needed to know.

She kent lnnkin into his face as he moved

toward her, standing against the hands resting on her thighs. He c longer hear the ticking of the clock; put his glass down on the counter her, and then, slowly, lifted the front T-shirt the way she had lifted it in the room earlier tonight, took the bottom both hands and pulled the shirt up naked breasts.

She did not move.

She kept her hands on her thi fingers spread. He noticed that she.i long, slender hands, that the fin were painted a red as bright as the that had spurted from the dead cop's he did not want to think about that bastard, he reached up for her breasts" T-shirt was bunched above them, she with her shoulders back, the breasts a faint smile on her face now, her eyes a lazy languid look in them. The was dripping. He could hear the and also the ticking of the clock again brought his open hands up to her breasts, She leaned into his hands.

He touched her breasts lightly, he want to hurt her the way Jocko had, afraid of causing fresh bruises. a sheen to her skin, the flesh was the globes shimmered with secret

lavenders, mother-of-pearl breasts, he

'.d them gently, his fingers exploring. skin around the nipples came as a coarse of sex, blatant and rude, the circles darker flesh erupting in pinpoint nubs.

hardening nipples were a declaration, responded to them wildly, tightening his on her breasts, cupping them to his kissing the freckled sloping tops and sides, and then bringing his mouth to hers, waiting wet and wide, and covering lips with hs.,

She threw elf into him, she ground her s against him, he visualized her on a small in a smoke-filled room. I'd go out there, knozo, and the drums'd be banging, and the be on me, and I'd start throzoing myself and he reached for the front of the jeans and found first the button and then zipper. She was naked under the jeans, nakedness there came as a surprise, the shock of her belly, the sudden deep the Crisp tangled hair. He spread his into her crotch and she pulled her from his and whispered directly into ear, a cannon shot in his ear, "He'll kill She was referring to Jocko, he knew was referring to Jocko, but he could only Kruger the Kraut grabbing him

both hands, squeezing, squeezing, stopping just before he fainted, and and walking out, the other cons nothing had happened.

"He'll kill you," she said again, was stepping out of the blue jeans, kicking them away across the kitchen and reaching for him again, o fly, pulling him free with one and then leaning back against the hands coming up behind his neck, .1 open, grinding again even before their touched. He reached behind her and her naked buttocks in both hands her up onto the counter. He was s her wide when they heard the voice. opening her like a melon when they The first thing he thought was It's the. he didn't know why he thought that.

"Jeanine," the voice said.

The voice was hoarse, Coney recognize it at first. But Jeanine voice immediately and reacted to it at She put both hands against Coney's shoved him away from her, closed and slid off the counter and onto

She was reaching for her blue jeans before the voice said again, slightly time, "Jeanine." There was no q at the end of that vnic.- thi. x t't

to calling her and not having her come. was someone who beat her often and who left her bruised and aching, this her Kruger, and his name was Jocko.

To Coney, watching her, it seemed as she came off the counter and moved to where the jeans were crumpled on floor and stooped to them and reached them with one hand and with the other tugged at the T-shirt bunched above breasts, all in a single graceful motion of several separate, panicky moves. saw the swollen breasts for just an instant before she pulled the shirt down over again. The nipples were still erect, they through the thin cotton fabric, the were the same but everything else was g, everything else was on the edge of g a nightmare.

was just beginning to come up out of crouch, the blue jeans in her left hand. raised her head, tossed her hair back over shoulder, and then her lips parted just a and Coney saw terror come into her as she stood erect and backed a pace into the kitchen. She was naked from waist down, the T-shirt reaching to just inch above the tufted blonde triangle of crotch, and she was looking past Coney a spot somewhere behind his left shoulder.

He turned swiftly, and immediately his breath. Jocko was in the doorway kitchen. He was huge and he was the bandage covering his shoulder was through with blood, and blood was down his arm the way it had in the store just after he'd been shot, the floor, the clock syncopating its " tick against the steady patter of Jocko's

"What the fuck?" he said, and took a step into the kitchen, and what happened so quickly that Coney wasn'l it was happening at all. With his arm, Jocko flicked Coney aside as were a eunuch caught in the sultan's The motion was only a backward swipe arm as he moved past Coney toward Jeanine stood cowering near the sink,i Jocko's strength was such that even he'd been bleeding since shortly after i o'clock, and was still bleeding, this motion of his arm could send Coney violently against the wall, his head back against the plaster. Jeanine Coney, dazed, slid down the wall floor. Jocko brought back his right palm of the hand open, and then the arm like a pitcher throwing a curve Jeanine's head snapped to the side force of the blow. ocko was upon her now. He seized the in his big fist, twisted the thin fabric, holding onto the fabric, his fist literally in it, he punched out at her, sending flailing back against the refrigerator. He lid not let go of the shirt. He pulled her if the front of the refrigerator, and then unched out at her again and again, still molding the shirt, bouncing her repeatedly ga inst the refrigerator, Jeanine grunting each e his huge fist struck her chest or herreasts or her rib cage. The shirt was tearing. Ie pulled her off the refrigerator a final time, md swung her around against the counter. Letting go of the shirt, he brought his arm ck and pistoned a short hard punch to her khoulder, and then punched her in the left , a blow so hard it caused the arm to fall imply to her side.

: She was collapsed against the counter top low, her right arm across it, her hand lapping, grasping, the fingers opening and ilosing spasmodically, reaching, searching for me thing anything.. Each time Jocko threw punch, the force of it rumbled through er body, and each blow sent blood specks ying from his wounded arm onto the white i-shirt. Coney was moving toward them to

elp her now, afraid to help her, feeling it uld be useless to try, but knowing he

would anyway: He saw Jeanine's hand strike the handle of a bread knife in the rack on the counter. Her hand reco knife, her fingers closed on it. The knife clinked against a dish that was drying rack, and then the knife came around arc, high into the air above Jeanine's clenched in her fist just as Jocko drew l his arm to punch her again. Coney eyes and knew she would kill him, thought Yes, kill him, kill him! but he "No, Jeanine," and then more sharply, don't!" but he was too late.

The blade came down with force.

She was a big woman, and she was and she was angry, and she sank the inch blade into his chest clear to the plunging it in just below the right his collarbone, and then pulling it plunging it in again in fury. "Jesus," said, and she pulled the knife free and her hand came up again, and stood unable to move, watching as paralyzed, and Jocko said "Jesus," it this time, and Jeanine said "Yes. plunged the knife again, and said "Yes. voice rising, and "Yes" again and "Yes' "Yes," each uttered affirmative with a plunge of the knife, "Yes" and

"Yes," till Jocko fell, gushing blood, to kitchen floor, and then she straddled him as though she were fucking him, and she kept plunging the knife into his chest and his throat and his face until finally the blade broke on the hard bone of his forehead, and even then she brought the handle and the broken blade down twice more before she realized the knife was broken, and then she stopped.

"Yes," she said.

She was breathing heavily. Straddling Jocko, she looked into his face and nodded. Then she got up slowly, and backed away from him a pace, and nodded again. She heard Eolley behind her, and she whirled at once, her eyes wide, surprised to see him, surprised that she was not alone in the kitchen with the man she had just killed. She was still holding the broken knife in her hand, and fora moment Coney thought she would strike out at him blindly and in terror. But the surprise ileft her eyes almost at once, and he realized that she was not frightened, she had only been startled. Neither of them said anything. Shetook a quick step to the counter and put the broken knife down on its wooden top. She down at Jocko again, and then walked around him, and went to where Coney was g. The broken knife blade had fallen

onto Jocko's chest. It lay half hidden red hairs curling there. His tiny cock to have shriveled in death. Only the to head peeked from the red pubic hair mushroom cap. His blue eyes were o and staring up at the ceiling.

"Close his eyes, for Christ's sake," said, and moved past her and knelt the body, and made one abortive close the eyes himself, pulling back his before he touched the lids. Behind could hear Jeanine's heavy breathin reached out again, and closed one lid his thumb, the other with his Jocko's face was crisscrossed with throat had been opened with one deep the knife, and Coney looked into the and saw exposed raw tissue there. He away immediately and brought his his mouth, certain he would vomit.

I. Behind him, Jeanine laughed.

The laughter was dark and chillin seemed to rumble up from somewhere inside her, rising in her throat to find behind tightly compressed lips. Her eyes mirthless. Looking into her face, he something that warned him to get out place now, before it was too late. Leave go, get away, run.

She held out her hand to him.

It was her right hand, the hand that had fielded the knife. The fingers and the palm ere covered with blood. There was blood on the torn T-shirt and on the breast that showed where the fabric was ripped. There were flecks of blood on her thighs. He was in or sure why she was extending her hand. He hesitated. When he did not move to her, she came to him, and put her arms around his neck and moved her mouth toward his and he saw- in the instant before they kissed- that there was blood on her lips as well.

I They made love on the sofa. Through the open doorless iamb between i kitchen and living room, Coney could see a i thin line of blood trickling across the kitchen floor. He was on top of Jeanine, she was spread beneath him when he discovered the thin trickle of Jocko's blood creeping inexorably across the kitchen floor. And then he noticed, for the first time that the springs Were jutting through the fabric on the easy chair opposite the sofa, and he saw that the cabinet of the television set was scarred with cigarette burns, and the ceiling plaster was chipped and peeling, and there was a rust mark on the wall from a leaking pipe, and the rug Jeanine could not get the bloodstains out of was worn and faded the place was a

dump. Jocko'd been in this business for than fifteen years, and his place was a And he was dead on the kitchen floori blood trickling toward the doorjamb stranger fucked his wife.

Coney watched the blood. He did not whether the blood was really moving that slowly, or whether this was the phenomenon that took place in the store at nine tonight, or nine yesterday whichever. He always thought of the hours of the morning as part of the before; to him, it was still Saturday sun came up and then it would be On Sundays, every Sunday when he boy growing up in Harlem, and later they'd moved to the Bronx, he'd gone o'clock mass, stopped going when he the Orioles and began doing bad thin was technically Sunday already, thou was still thinking of it as Saturday and he was indeed going to church. the church was wet and dark and the was the preacher. He'd seen the devil Jeanine's mirthless eyes, heard the laughter echoing up out of her bowels, itself onto her mouth, laughter exul evil, reveling in the dark and that had just been committed. stream of blood oozed its way

doorjamb.

live by the gun, you die by the gun.

: That was Albert L. Donato speaking, noted salesman and criminal psychologist. lived by the gun, yes, but tonight died by the knife, and now he was on kitchen floor dribbling out the last few of his blood while a stranger entered the gun in hand. Not a stranger, though. good buddy, his fall partner, the man went in with him on each and every job,

the danger and the fun, the man who now sharing the wet and secret places of wife, who, incidentally, happened to be person who tore his flesh to dangling Christ, those tubes in his throat was that the jugular, was that the trachea?

that what the throat of Luis Josafat looked like after Coney shot him time so long ago? His first gun. An Astra

, a fucking peashooter, how could it caused so much damage? Luis Josafat a speaking through a voice box now, Spanish accent sounding absurdly like the of Senor Wences: You want to go back in the box?

From behind countless footlights over the strutting in high-heeled, ankle-strapped across hollow noisy stages, blue smoke

she twirled it, blonde tangled hair it. Jeanine promised sex unequaled, promised skill and passion, hours and of unending excitement- she would where you'd never been, you would a steamy night with her in the devil' chamber. Now she was going to deliver. she was going to honor all those markers been handing out since she was sixteen old, all those IOUs that were still She was going to make them good now couch in this apartment where five ago she'd committed bloody murder. Coney thought of guns. His told him that the pistol was of course a psychological symbol, that whenever a. dreamt of a gun or even thought of he was actually dreaming of or penis. Coney wondered if his brother his own cock a penis, or did he only use word when he was discussing guns as psychological symbols?

Coney loved guns, there was no about that. He remembered his various now as Jeanine whispered in his ear, him to explode inside her. She'd man in the kitchen by stabbing death with a fourteen-inch blade, he suspected she wanted to kill here in the livin rnnm hx, f'rlrn k

He sensed it would be dangerous leave this woman unsatisfied; sooner or she would remind him of it in ways might be unpleasant. What had been tscious ten seconds before she whispered his ear, commanding him to come Give to me, baby, let me have it- now became conscious. Willfully, he thought of s. Lovingly, he thought of their parts. He thought of them as engines.

He thought of them as death machines. He'd disassembled enough of them to know their design was basically simple. He of that design now, concentrating on caused the explosion in the barrel of a refusing to obey her whispered urgings, g he could not himself explode inside or he would one day pay for it. She herself paying all her markers, and perhaps that's she wanted or needed to do please him,

him, leave him basking in the afterglow her methodical assault. But he felt certain was testing him somehow, having utterly a man bigger and stronger than se/f and wanting now to reduce him coaxing and teasing and tormenting him an orgasm he refused to release. was afraid of leaking his juices into her

He was afraid that would be the same e lr'L," Ilrlnc hi hlnnrl nntn the

kitchen floor She suddenly rolled him her. She sat up.

Her mouth descended.

In the simplest of pistols, like the

Derringer, there were only seventeen and you could assemble the gun from for about twenty-five dollars. In a complicated gun, like the German there were fifty or more parts. Coney the names of the parts, he'd seen them on a clean white cloth in front of him,

a deadly jigsaw puzzle. Front sight and block, toggle joint and firing pin, "

spring stud

He was frightened now. His frantically grasped for other breechblock catch link rivet, responding to something as " " his grandmother's fear of the thirteen, believing that if he allowed to succumb to her mouth, she would him more completely than she'd Jocko. She would devour his parts, drain him of his vital juices, she from his cock the manhood he'd and preserved for twenty-nine years. was nothing subtle about her attacki She no longer wished to tantalize " bumps and grinds learned on rickety smoky saloons. Her breathin was

worked him liquidly, he was melting into mouth, he was losing himself to her, he his head violently... In any gun, the cartridge sat in a narrow shaft. It was composed of case, primer,

and bullet. When the trigger was , the spring action caused the firing to strike the back of the cartridge case, it and simultaneously causing an los ion of fulminate... She lifted her mouth for just an instant. "Come, you son of a bitch," she whispered. igniting the powder and propelling the from the shaft.

SIX

s cutting his hair.

He was sitting on a chair they had pulled in the kitchen, and a dishtowel was draped his shoulders while Jeanine worked on He was facing the open doorway. The of blood had stopped. He could hear ticking of the clock, he still did not where the clock was. His hair kept onto the rug as she snipped away the scissors. They had not bothered to

put newspapers on the floor around they were going to leave the and nothing could be any messier corpse they were leaving in the kitchen.

As she cut Coney's hair, she ram about what it was like growing daughter of a career soldier. showered together fifteen minutes and now he sat in the chair wearing robe, the sleeves rolled up to the length of his arms, and she stood him wearing a blue smock. her, hearing the gentle reminiscent her voice over the clicking of the seeing the steadiness of her hands, you never guess she had killed a man an hour ago.

"I was born in what was su the worst year of the Depression. my father joined the Army because Depression, figured he'd get him squares a day. Did I tell you how old "Forty-four, you said." "Right." She grinned suddenly.

it feel, being involved with an older

"It feels good," he said. He was was afraid of her. He was afraid of the scissors in her hand. He was way she had butchered Jocko in the

"I was still a kid while the

on," she said. "It wouldn't have meant to me, anyway. We always had to eat, the Army took good care of :. My father was a quartermaster. This was

World War II. We went all over the he kept getting transferred from post ,ost. Wherever there's an Army post, I've in the nearest town to it. Fort Benning,

I lived in Columbus when I was years old. Fort Dix? I lived in Trenton. Huachuca, I -"

rt what?" Coney said.

"Huachuca. That's in Arizona, outside of

I've been to every Army post there was, some of them don't even exist any

When the war broke out, World War we were living in Louisiana, town named

, have you ever been there?"

,"

Coney said.

"Fort

Polk is down there," Jeanine said.

father got shipped overseas in 1942. of staying in Leesville, which is not the biggest city in the world, my and I moved to New Orleans for , and then down to Florida- Fort That's not an Army post, that's just name of the town. Fort Myers. That was

1943, I was eleven years old. I grew up Fort Myers. I love it down there. Do you

Sanibel Island?"

"No," Coney said. "I've never South."

The scissors stopped just beside ear. The silence was complete the ticking of the clock. He his breath. He turned to look up " face. There was a distant look on was remembering something " cherished. She sighed then, and saying another word about Sanibel began cutting his hair again.

"My father got killed in 1944," "During the Italian campaign. July. the telegram near the end of the was killed in Sicily. I was twelve the time. I cried for weeks, I to stop crying. I still miss him. I a lot." She sighed again and fell scissors clicked into the clockwork Locks of his hair kept falling to the

He had thought maybe they it, but Jeanine had said she'd a homemade job that looked When she was fifteen or sixteen to touch up her own hair, make it little blonder and shinier than it was, and all it did was come out brassy. And she was blonde to don't forget. Coney had brown hair. dark brown at that. For his hair, the

use twenty-volume peroxide and either a or a liquid bleach and proteinators,

they'd have had to bleach out the roots and then the ends- the whole job would taken hours and would have come out shitty besides; anybody taking even a look at him would realize in a minute bleached his hair because he was trying change his appearance.

crew cut, on the other hand, really change a man's appearance, and looked besides. Your average person wouldn't you'd cut your hair only this morning, think you'd worn it that way forever.

your hair short or shaving off mustache didn't work with friends relatives, they'd take one look at you say, "Hi there, Joe, I see you cut your short and shaved off your mustache." with people who were working from a of you, just a simple crew cut be enough to throw them off the track. l'Come look in the mirror," she said.

got up. His hair was all over the floor. rubbed his hand across the top of his head felt the bristles, and then he followed her the hall to the bedroom. Jocko's blood still on the sheets, Jocko's blood was all this fuckin apartment, the sooner they out, the better. There was a mirror over

the dresser. He looked into the " was wearing Jocko's robe, which was for him, the sleeves rolled up, the far too wide. He would have looked in the robe even with a full head of with the crew cut he looked emaciated. "It's awful," he said.

"I think it looks good," Jeanine said. "It's terrible," he said, turning his the side to see what he looked like in "Jesus, it's really awful."

"You want to look beautiful, or you get where we're going?"

"I don't even know where we're said.

"We're going to Fort Myers," she

It was still dark, he was beginning to would stay dark forever; they had bad things tonight, and the sun come up again, the sun would stay shame for the things they had done, the cop but that was self-defense cop had a gun in his hand, he was "Police officer"; you don't announce as a cop. unless you mean business, you intend to use the gun. He again if somebody had snitched to about the job. He did not know so important that he know whether

been tipped or not. If he could only call police department and ask them whether stakeout had been for just anybody, or the cops know he and Jocko were going hit the place. He really wanted to know. if they'd been waiting there for just why then, it made the killing of the seem, well, senseless. Because that meant cop would have come running out of the room yelling at whoever walked in there a gun. That meant the cop was yelling at Coney but at the gun in Coney's hand.

the wished he could call the police and find out. Maybe he'd ask to call for him. Just to see if the was planned for him and Jocko. if it was planned for them, if the cops specifically waiting for them, then killing cop was very definitely self-defense, the Jeanine killing Jocko in the kitchen had self-defense. The way, when you came think of it- though he wouldn't mention to Jeanine- the way the German or the who had killed her father in Sicily was acting in self-defense and trying to save own skin. The way Coney'd been trying save his skin in the liquor store. Dumb cop had nothing to lose, Coney had years staring him in the face. Police my ass. Collev thought. If my own

brother tried to send me back to with that fuckin Kruger grabbing my put a bullet in his head, too, Fuck him.

He needed a gun.

She'd cut off all his hair like Delilah, he'd seen that picture on with Victor Mature and Hedy robbed him of his fuckin strength. He a gun now. He'd come to this get a gun, and he wasn't going to without one.

"Where's the gun he had on the asked her. "Did he' have it when we him in here tonight?"

"I don't think so," Jeanine said. "You think he dropped it in the Coney said. "That's bad if he did. prints'll be on it. Do they have this for him?"

"I don't know," Jeanine said.

get out of here, okay?"

There was an edge to her voice, but packing unhurriedly, folding slips and and sweaters and putting then neatly suitcase. He thought of what had just a little while ago, Jocko cau threshing machine that had been wielding a bread knife. Why fallen apart immediate!v

they still in this apartment, for Christ's Jeanine moving to the dresser now to out a stack of blouses, placing them on the slips she had just folded and into the suitcase. The clock ticking. V/'hen found that clock, he would step on it, he crush it beneath the heel of his foot.

they don't have this address," he "Jocko moved around a lot, didn't he?"

"Yes," she said. She was at the closet now, to pick up several pairs of shoes from floor.

, his parole was from Texas, isn't that i "That's right, yes."

So the cops here wouldn't have a sheet him, except maybe he's wanted for

What I'm saying is, even if did get some good prints from the gun, could only get a make from the F.B.I. and even then it wouldn't give them this

So we got time."

"Okay," she said. "Fine."

"I know he had some spare guns, he told he had some spares. A Walt.her, I think, one of them. Do you know where he them?" "No, I don't," Jeanine said.

"You been here since April, and you don't where he kept his guns?"

"Why don't you go ask him," J "You must have seen him take out he used tonight, didn't you? Where'd it from?" : "I don't know," Jeanine said. :i

"Well, I ain't leaving this without a gun in my belt." i

He went to the dresser and opened' drawer, and began rum aging through underwear and socks and the back of the drawer he found a box Parabellum cartridges, which told memory had been right about the He also found a box of .38 Specials. were the cartridges that fit the Colt that Jocko had used on the job tom there was a third box of .32 Long He was lifting the lid on this box to many cartridges were in it when the rang, startling him. The box hand, spilling cartridges onto the The telephone shrilled into the Cartridges rolled off the dresser top the floor. He saw his own startled the mirror and did not recognize an instant, and again the phone looked swiftly at his watch. It was in the morning, and the phone was ringing... "Get it," he said.

Suppose it's the police?"

"It won't be the police, they don't have an

'"SS

"You don't know that for sure."

"Answer the fuckin thing!"

picked up the receiver on the table. "Hello?" she said. She listened. Teddy," she said. Coney let out his breath.

"Yes, Teddy," she said. "When was that?

-huh. Um-huh. Urn-huh. Well, he's here,

you want to tell him yourself?" She handed phone to Coney, and then walked over to closet. "Hello," Coney said into the phone. "Hey, how you doin?" Teddy said. "Not so hot," Coney said.

"They got a positive on you, huh?" "How'd you know that?"

"I heard your name on the radio. I couldn't

I got up and went to make myself a

, I turned on the radio low while f was eating, I didn't want to wake the ffe. The announcer gave your name, said he police were conducting a citywide search br you.

"Yeah," Coney said.

"How'd they get on to you?" Teddy asked. '"Son of a bitch recognized me."

"Who do you mean?"

"The other cop in the store. From got busted four years ago."

"You're kidding me."

"I wish I was."

"Boy," Teddy said.

Both men were silent.

"How's Jocko doing?" Teddy

For a moment Coney did not to answer.

"Coney?"

"Yeah."

"I thought we were cut off."

"No, no, I'm here."

"How's Jocko doihg?"

"He's dead," Coney said. J

taking a skirt from the closet; she him sharply and looked directly into

Coney nodded assurance. "Jeanine stop the blood," he said into the called here to see how everything was,

me to get over here in a hurry."

"Boy," Teddy said.

"Teddy, I'm going to make a run for "Coney, am I in this yet Teddy "I don't see how."

"I keep trying to remember if his gun with him when he came that store. Because if he didn't, then they'll get prints from it and find he is and start asking around.

in this city seen me and Jocko

,."

don't worry about it," Coney said. i'He had the gun then, huh? When he came of the store?"

"No, Teddy."

"He left it in there?"

"I think so."

"Well," Teddy said, "that don't sound too

Guy who took a couple of falls already,

have a sheet on him in the F.B.I. files,

thing you know they'll be knocking on door." "How you figure that, Teddy?" "Because when they ask around, they'll out him and Teddy Stein were pals, next thing you know Good morning, Mr.

we'd like a few words with you if got a minute." "No, I don't think "

"And also, Coney, what were them cops inside there? Were they waiting for us show? Did somebody snitch that we were to hit that store?"

"I don't know about that. I been wondering myself."

"Cause, if that's the case, they know the fuckin gang, never mind just you." "What do you mean?"

"If somebody set us urn. then he must've

also told the cops who we were, think?"

"Maybe not. Look, Teddy, I'm in Jocko's dead in the fuckin kitchen,

cops know " "Where?" "What?"

"Where'd you say Jocko was?"

Coney did not immediately answer, : was wondering how a man who was to have bled to death had managed in the kitchen. He knew the apartment, and he was wondering. was ticking. The clock was a constant reminder of itself, like Death.

"In the kitchen," Coney said at la in the kitchen."

"How'd he get in the kitchen? You me "Jeanine was in the kitchen. He her, and she didn't hear him, so he after her."

That was the truth. He had told absolute truth. Now it was time to start

"And that's where he died, huh?" said.

"Yes," Coney answered. It was truth. No need to lie, after all. "Mm," Teddy said. There was another silence.

Colley. he said.

Yeah?"

When you split, is Jeanine going with

"Yeah."

Where you going?"

"We thought Canada," he said immediately d intuitively. Teddy was worried and Teddy ss suspicious, and he did not want Teddy know they were headed in the opposite direction, toward Florida. Teddy might dope out for himself, but Coney wasn't going help him. He suddenly did not trust 'eddy at all.

"So far, I'm the only one the cops ain't on ," Teddy said. "You they already made, and acko they'll make from whatever shit he left n the Cobra. Me, there's a chance they'll ask round and people will say "Oh, yeah, yeah, e Jew with the glasses, yeah a good friend f Jocko's, I seen them around a lot together." *r maybe the guy who set us up..."

"We don't know for sure we were set up." "Well, if we were, okay? Before now he idn't tell the cops who was going to do the ,b, he only told them it was coming off. But aw a cop's been killed, so he suddenly gets :ligion. He knows by now they already made au, so he figures he'll score a couple of points ith the law. Bango, he nails Jocko and me in

the same breath. I'm saying maybe,

"I follow you," Coney said. "But think we were set up. I ain't sure, bull was the case..."

"I'm only saying maybe. On the hand, let's say it was a complete coincidence, okay? The bulls were" waiting for anybody to hit, and we out of the blue. Which means I'm clean know you, and they're gonna very soon, but they don't know me, "That's right."

"So, Coney, do I have to worry?" "About what?"

"About somebody dragging me in where so far I'm clean?"

"Who's gonna do that, Teddy?" "You tell me."

"Why would I drag you in it?" "Make things easier for yourself," said. "They pick you up, you might cop a plea."

"You're giving me ideas," Coney tried a laugh. Teddy did not laugh with

"Coney, I don't want to have to about you."

"You don't have to worry."

"Coney, I never done time in my life,: don't want to have to start worrying now. I got a wife and two kids, I don't

It fucked up this late in my life."

E. "What do you want from me, Teddy?"

"I want your word, Coney. That if they k you up, you don't know who was driving car, you never saw the driver in your life." "Yeah, okay, fine," Coney said. "You promise?" [ "I promise, yeah. Relax, willya?"

[ "Because, Coney... I find out you snitched n me, I'll make sure you don't ever snitch on body else ever again. They send you to jail, lley, they send me to jail, we could be in jfferent jails a thousand miles apart, you'll ill be sorry you snitched. I got friends in cry fuckin jail in this country, they'll kill man for a package of Bull Durham. I mean it, Coney."

"That's a good way to keep my friendship," Eolley said. "Threaten me, that's a very good ay." i "It ain't my fault this went wrong," Teddy d. "I wasn't in the store. It was you guys who fucked up. I coulda drove off, em ember but I came back to help you."

"Thanks," Coney said.

"Just remember," Teddy said.

:

"The Three Musketeers," Coney said. "Yeah, bullshit," Teddy said, and hung up. Coney slammed down the receiver. From

cross the room, Jeanine was watching him.

"He's worried, huh?" she said.

"Yeah. Fuck him," Coney said,

back to the dresser and began looking the drawers again.

In the bottom drawer he found a Smith & Wesson .32 and a

He loved that German gun. He'd even when he was seven or eight and his mother took him to the "

her and he saw pictures about World with all those Nazis carrying this and deadly handgun. He knew the

Luger in those days. He used to do a imitation, hold his right hand out index finger extended, "You zee hold ink here in mein handt? Dot's a mein Herr, und I know how to use it."

Stamped onto the metal just breech of the gun were the words Carl

Waffenfabrik Ulm/Do. He didn't know Waffenfabrik meant but he loved the the word, those fuckin Germans had Under that was stamped P-38 Cal. The official name of the gun was

P-38 Automatic, and the caliber Luger, which is why there was a box cartridges in the top drawer of the hefted the gun in his hand, smiling. beautiful piece, and Jocko had kept condition. Coney slipped the magazine

butt and loaded it with eight cartridges from the box in the drawer. He put cartridge into the breechblock, and tucked the gun into the left-hand side his belt.

The32 was not one of his favorites. The 30 was a six-shooter that came with a two-, three-or four-inch barrel. This gun had a two-inch barrel, and was grateful for that because it made small enough to carry in the right-hand of his pants. He had pulled his sports out of his pants to cover the Walther,

the two shirt buttons just above belt so he could reach inside for a quick

But the .32, even with the two barrel was a tough gun to carry tucked your pants; you really needed a holster it. There was no question of the sight on anything in his pocket; it tapered smoothly from the open end of the to a point midway between the muzzle the cylinder. He rolled out the cylinder took six cartridges from the box in the

, loaded the gun, and then put it in his Lts pocket.

felt good again.

"Look," Jeanine said, and turned toward window. "The sun's coming up."

Jeanine was wearing a pleated and a lime-coloured blouse that the color of her eyes. A white wrapped low on her forehead, falling loose on either side of her wore no stockings, and she drove red car with her handbag on the seat her, white leather to match her right hand rested on the handbag, " the clasp. There was forty-seven that bag: Coney had watched her out earlier, when they were taking The car was Jocko's, a 1971 Pinto York plates. It had been parked in behind the building, in the space apartment 5G. Jeanine was driving Coney was a convicted felon on parole state wouldn't grant him a license. own license had been issued to her in and was valid through September of

Into a small valise Jeanine had up from Dallas, Coney had packed of Jocko's sweaters and shirts, a handkerchiefs and six pairs of socks. from the clothes he had on his was it. In the right-hand side his trousers, he was carrying the Wesson. In the waistband of his on the left-hand side, he was Walther. The boxes of cartridges for

were in the glove compartment,

with the registration for the car. 's wallet was in his left-hand side pocket hip pocket was the sucker pocket, easily with a razor blade; the best place to your stash was close to your balls, where could feel anybody trying to lift it. Inside wallet, there was sixteen dollars in cash ten a five and a single. Together with what had in the handbag, that gave them a of sixty-three dollars. From the minute counted up the cash this morning,

knew he would have to do another

The only question was how soon. thought about this all the way cross town,

he thought about it on the way over the into New Jersey. He did not want to the robbery too early in the morning cause be nothing in the till. But he wanted do it while they were still in Jersey; he had in Jersey, he'd been to Jersey before, felt familiar to him. He was afraid of what beyond. He had studied the Mobil Guide only briefly when they climbed into the and the names of those southern states him nervous.

You got those fuckin redneck cops down they beat the shit out of you in their local jails and then sent you to on the road gang forever. Foreet about

appeals, forget about paroles, you paving roads or cutting down forests long in the blazing sun and then back to the stockade where you ate and hog shit and got buggered by a nigger. That was what Coney thou South was like. Southern cops and jails, anyway. He'd had no real with either, but that was what he " it would mean, getting busted down he wanted to do the robbery while still in Jersey, and before they into any of the southern states. On map, it looked as if they had to cro Pennsylvania before heading south, supposed Pennsylvania was okay, preferred Jersey. One thing for sure, sounded southern as hell, and he no redneck Virginia sheriff shooting the leg with a Magnum. So it would be either Jersey or Pennsylvania, two he preferred Jersey.

What he decided to hold up was a This was Sunday, and there choice. Unless you wanted to go in a someplace and steal either from the or the basket while it was being r then, you were limited to either a serving food or else a gas station. stations nowadays, they had these

concrete and the attendant stashed the down inside them except for chicken he needed to make change, and a big said ATTENDANT DOES NOT KNOW INATION TO SAFE, so that let out a station. It had to be an eating place of kind, and Coney figured if he found an all-night diner, then the receipts Saturday night might still be in the and maybe he could get himself a good score instead of like, say, he hit restaurant that had just opened for lunch, be nothing in there but checks that got paid at lunchtime. Anyway, it was too early for lunch, and they'd probably out of Jersey before lunchtime, so he kept eye open for a diner that had a sign out saying it was open all day and all night. was in no hurry, long as they found one they got out of Jersey. Never mind , he had definitely decided now it would be Jersey.

The day was bright and clear and cool after night's rain. Great day for a robbery, you out running, there was no danger of car skidding off a wet pavement onto sidewalk or into a lamppost; your driver the gas pedal and off you went. Jeanine a good driver, he was grateful for that.

he mt hll.tecl nd sent tn Ring Rin

that time, he had once used a girl a job. She was a girl he was with, she seemed like a pretty broad and the times he'd been with a car she seemed to handle the good. Day of the job it was like a Kops comedy; this wasn't the job he got busted on, but it was a miracle it turn out to be the biggest bust in the of New York State. He had to smile, of it now, though it certainly wasn't at the time.

He was working alone at the time; always worked alone before he threw Jocko. When he first started he even do his own driving, but then later he cutting a man in for ten percent, way had a car waiting at the curb for He had lost a very good driver weeks before he'd started shacking this girl; guy moved to California. name was Carter, that was her first was a Wasp from New Canaan, she'd gone to prep school and cone was looking for thrills, Coney guessed. Hewlitt. She told Coney she'd been after a mystery writer, Carter said her mother was a big and loved reading Carter Dickson. She Coney if he'd ever heard of a mystery

ey told her he didn't read mysteries, ad they got into an ' argument about it. That was the night her he was an armed robber and that was involved in real-life crime and didn't time for reading any bullshit mysteries. said, "These happen to be very good

These are locked-room mysteries." He didn't know what a locked-room nystery was, and he didn't bother asking ter. They started talking about going in }laces with a gun then, and she didn't em shocked at all by what he did for a lying, and she didn't seem scared either that maybe he'd pull a gun on her, blow her New Canaan brains out now that she knew he was I' thief. In fact, she seemed very excited by fn of it. He had the feeling she couldn't wait o go home and tell her mother all about the flashing crook she'd met. Be even better than

Carter Dickson. Anyway, two weeks later Ishe drove for him on this job. Everything

inside the place went like clockwork. This was a place sold office supplies, copying i! machines, typewriters, expensive items like it hat. Coney figured there'd be at least aCouple of grand in the register, and whereas lit turned out there was only six fifty, that u bad either for an hour's work, counting i Commutin time It was the commutin time

that nearly blew the job.

He came running out of the store money in a dispatch case, and he Carter sitting at the wheel of the her head craned over her shoulder, hair cut short, blue eyes alert. He car starting. Great, she was on her was going like clockwork. He threw curbside door and climbed in, and and Carter grinned back and tossed blonde hair and rammed the car into instead of going forward, where clear space, backed up into a instead. Barn, they hit the truck, it of those very high bumpers, it the trunk of the car. Carter mumbled under her breath in a very Canaan Wasp way, and then the stick, and threw it out of into neutral and then into gear looking straight ahead of her windshield, let out the clutch and the gas and the car backed up into the truck again, right into the high bumper

By this time people were be" gather on the sidewalk to watch button of a girl trying to park the they thought she was trying "to fuckin thing instead of drive it a holdup! Coney had his gun in

the window on his side, he was just for the owner of the store to come and start yelling cop. He had just beat guy for more than six hundred bucks,

guy was either on the phone yelling cop se he'd come out on the sidewalk and yelling it in person to whoever'd listen.

tried again. She said to the gear shift,

on, motherfucker," in not such refined Canaan Wasp tones, and then rammed stick into what she hoped was first, and let the clutch and stepped on the gas and, lo behold, they were off and running at last. "What's so funny?"

"Huh?"

"There's a smile on your face," Jeanine

"I was thinking of something happened a time ago," he said.

SEVEN

diner is here and now.

It is high noon in New Jersey and the sun directly overhead when Jeanine pulls the

Pinto into the parking lot. There is a trailer truck harked over on the right.

some distance away from the diagonal painted onto the black asphalt in front diner. A smaller truck occupies two front-side spaces, and there are a pleasure cars parked at angles on of it. A hand-lettered sign reads

HOURS. The sign is three feet high feet long and it is supported by a pair aluminum poles in front of the diner. It sign that caught Coney's eye when they. still a block away from the place.

On the right of the diner is a store automobile appliances, but it is closed; Sunday. On the left of the diner is an lot. There are a lot of used tires in Aside from the tires, the lot is clean. No tin cans, no trash, just the lying alone on their sides or piled on each other. It is almost as if the out to pasture. The sky beyond the lot is clear and blue, there is not a anywhere in sight. As Coney comes the car, he smells cooking grease. not had anything but a glass of oran and a cup of coffee early this mornin smell of the grease almost makes him He considers going back to the car, hell it, find a restaurant doesn't smell one. But the sign is huge above him it says OPEN 24 HOURS and that

register inside there will probably be m t'h.ng full, and he wants enough money e one job to last them all the way

1o Florida. He does not want to have to do whole string of jobs, especially not in the oaan South.

He has no plan as yet. He does not know hi's" place, he has not cased it. His nor malO even before he began working with ocko, was to case a joint thoroughly before te hit, maybe even do two or three day runs before the day of the job. That way there were ao surprises. Except for last night, when there ere two surprises, both of them left-handed, toth of them running out of the back room if the liquor store with guns in their fists. Jut normally, you case a joint, you learn the yout by heart, you plan your escape route, othing's going to happen unless somebody ets dumb while you're inside and you're orced to use the gun. The way he'd been forced to use the gun last night because that bastard cop opened fire first.

The diner is all aluminum and glass, there are steps on either side of a small entrance cubicle. He chooses the steps on the right, closest to where Jeanine is waiting in the red Pinto. He opens the entrance door and sees first a telephone on the wall opposite and then the cigarette machine, and then another lass

door leading into the main body of the The place is air-conditioned, a wave air rushes out at him as he opens the and steps from the entrance cubicle diner, as though he is moving from of decompression chamber. Inside the directly to the right of the entrance the cash register. He walks past it seeming to give it a second glance.

There are booths on the front the diner, on either side of the door. Red leatherette. Directly entrance door, running along the rear diner, is the counter, red leatherette ranged in front of it, mirror behind of burly truck drivers at one end counter, both of them trying to make with a skinny brunette waitress in a uniform. Other end of the counter, blue pants and shirt, probably the the smaller truck outside. In the booths, couples, two of them with children. takes a seat at the counter. The cash is directly behind him, he can see it " mirror and he can hear the cashier into the telephone that rests on one the counter enclosing her space. She is to someone who is probably her is telling him how to work the oven it will clean itself. She is instructin

which knobs to turn and which buttons push and which switches to activate. She in a high whiny nasal voice and her tructions are impatient, as though she is to someone with either a very low I.Q. very poor finger dexterity. Coney dislikes at once. It will be a pleasure to shove the

P-38 in her face.

The brunette waitress knows Coney has a stool at the counter, but she is in middle of a story to the two horny drivers, and she is not about to let customer intrude on her private life. She the story and both truck drivers burst laughing and she stands there grinning them, basking in the accolade of their

Then she nods, having just played Palladium to thunderous applause, and grinning, walks to where Coney is sitting down the counter, his back to the register. On the telephone, the cashier is the dummy on the other end whether understood the part about locking the oven, had to make sure the oven is locked. "Good afternoon, sir," the waitress says. "Good afternoon," Coney says. "Care to see a menu?"

i, "Please," he says.

He has no intention of doing the job while are three truck drivers in the tlace,

especially when two of them have coming on with the scrawny he needs is a pair of guys trying off for a girl, maybe making a grab gun when he shoves it in the cashier' He's not worried about the couples " the booths. The two couples with just going to sit there and hope family gets hurt, and the other two cou an old man and his wife sitting in the closest to the register, and further aisle a teenage kid and his girl. Coney worried about the truck drivers. Not so about the one sitting alone at the probably mind his own business once comes out. But those other two still at the joke the waitress told.

The waitress puts a menu on the front of Coney, and then sets down a water and a paper napkin and then hurries on down the counter to her enthralled audience is waiting. close to the one sitting at the very counter, big guy wearing a hat with of button on it, and she whispers to him, and the guy bursts out lau the other guy says "What? What'd and she whispers it all over again and he starts laughing too. Then he up and stretches and Coney thinks

leave, but instead he heads for the men's The minute he's gone, the one with the on his hat engages the waitress in so meus whispered conversation.

Another waitress comes out of the kitchen. :'s a country girl, plain face, straight brown thick figure. She comes through the in the counter on Coney's left and a loaded tray to where the old man his wife are sitting in the booth closest to cashier. She takes eggs off the tray, and a of toast, and two cups of coffee, and she the old man if there will be anything else. old man looks at the food and then asks if has any jam or marmalade. The waitress she'll get some, and comes back through break in the counter again and gets the and the jam from a shelf under counter, and comes past Coney again and to the old man, chirpily. "There you sir." The old man thanks her. He's a guy, must have been a powerhouse when was young, broad shoulders, thick chest, hands. His hair is white now, and he's g eyeglasses, and his hands shake a when he picks up his food. Down the , the third truck driver calls for his and the country-girl waitress brings it him. Good, Coney thinks. Now let's get rid other two.

The brunette is back.

"Have you decided yet, sir?" she asks. i

"I'll have a pair of eggs over lightly," says. "Cup of coffee and a toasted

"Bacon or sausage with the eggs?" "Does it come with them?" "Yes, sir,"

"I'll have the sausage," he says, immediately says, "No, make it the Every time he orders sausages with he expects them to bring Italian then when they come with those small links, he's disappointed. This has to him maybe fifty times in his life, he sausage and then is disappointed. he remembers and catches himself. is, he doesn't much care for bacon. he should have told her no sausage, no But the girl is already on her way kitchen, pushing open the swinging He sees the short-order cook, guy beer-barrel belly, wearing a white sweat stains around the armpits and his chest. Got on a little white hat, not hat, thing looks like a soldier's only in white. Tilted on his door swings shut.

"You being taken care of?" the waitress asks.

"Yeah, thanks," Coney says.

truck driver who'd been sitting alone at counter is paying his check. The cashier him, "Was everything all right, sir?" and guy nods and takes a toothpick from a container on the counter. The cashier up the check, money comes tumbling the cash register chute into the small "tal receiving dish. Coney wishes he could into the open drawer of the register, but mirror isn't angled that way. "Have a day now," the cashier says. "You too," truck driver says, and goes out.

t: In the mirror, Coney can see him buying at the cigarette machine in the cubicle. The door to the kitchen open again. The short-order cook is and the brunette waitress has a " on her face; she missed her calling, she have been a stand-up comic. Down the other end of the diner, the truck is coming out of the men's room, g with his zipper. Coney is willing to eight-to-five that the guy did not wash hands afterwards. Coney always washes his hands afterwards, even if he's only taken a leak. But he has noticed over the years that guys don't bother washing their hands s. He has also noticed that most don't even bother flushing the goddamn afterwards.

In Sing Sing the cops would get mad you didn't flush the toilet afterwards. movies, all the prison security called screws by the cons. Coney Sing Sing, he discovers the cops are cops or pigs, just like outside. a fuckin pig no matter where he cop up there, they called him the SI he'd sneak up on a man before what was happening. "The Shadow he'd say, and give you a shot with his stick, the end of it, poke you with it If he found a guy. walking away toilet without flushing it, he was man in a minute, sneaked upon a whisper. "The Shadow knows," and ram that fuckin stick in your it black-and-blue for a month. Even so up there didn't flush the toilets. outside here.

The truck driver who came out of says, "Well, you ready to roll, Frank?"

"I was asking Jill here she maybe dancing tonight," Frank says; he's with the button on his hat.

"What makes you think we'll tonight?" the other guy says.

"We're only going far as Washin we?"

"I thought we'd maybe stay over."

"I rather come back here, go dancing with

"Frank says.

"He's a good dancer, he tells me," Jill says.

that true, Eddie?"

"I never danced with him," Eddie says, and jerks start laughing again.

Eddie and Frank, Coney thinks. Get the.

out of here, Eddie and Frank. Get the rolling, lots of miles to cover before you to Washington. "So what's it going to be?" Jill asks. "Are on for tonight or what?"

"What time you quit?" Frank says.

"Five o'clock."

"I'll call you before then. Soon's I see what of time we're making."

"You made some pretty good time right in the diner," Jill says, and they all laugh

She is writing out the check as she says the girl really missed her calling. She t even look up at them, she just keeps g, and they're practically rolling on the laughing at her remark. "Here you go, iboys," she says. "Who's taking it this time?"

"I think it's my turn," Eddie says, and the check from her hand.

Frank gets off the stool like he is

".g from a rodeo horse. He s his arms over his head, showing belly when his shirt rides urn. "I'll call you

before five," he says.

"I'll be waiting," Jill says. : They laugh again, for no reason this and the two men come down the stop at the cash register behind sees them in the mirror as they pay the "Was everything all right, gentlemen cashier says, and Eddie says, "Just and Frank says. "Best food in all the cashier rings up the check and "Well, thank you, I'm glad you en" Have a nice day now."

Jeanine is sitting outside in the red Coney is afraid the truck drivers her sitting there and wonder what she's doing sitting there while her or whoever is inside the diner. He should have ordered sandwiches to something to eat inside here. So if got suspicious of Jeanine, they'd was in here buying something for her in the car. In the mirror behind the he sees the truck drivers opening and stepping out into the entrance Frank, the one with the button on his stops at the pay telephone on the wall automatically feels in the coin-return see if there is any change in it, cheap They both go outside. Coney waits hears their truck starting, hears the

gears, the hiss of air brakes, the truck up again as it enters the highway,

then the sound of its engine fading into distance. It is time to make his move.

"Eggs over lightly," Jill says, and puts plate down in front of him, together a second plate on which there's the

English. "You did say bacon, didn't ?" she asks. "Yeah, bacon."

"Coffee's coming," she says, and turns to big urn on the wall to the left of the door to the kitchen and draws a cup, puts it on the counter next to the plate of

"Cream and sugar?" she asks. "Please," Coney says.

Behind him there is nobody at the cashier's ; he wants to make his move before a traffic jam starts. Jill up the sugar container from where it's two stools down and carries it to Coney sets it down on the counter in front of

To the left of the coffee urn there's a tray of creamers and she reaches for of these now, her back to Coney. He about to turn on the stool, and get to his and throw the gun in the cashier's face. is almost starting into motion when the door to the kitchen flies onen and the

short-order cook comes out. He look directly in the face and smiles.

"Hot back there," he says, and forearm across his upper lip. "Eggs asks.

"Yeah, fine," Coney says, and fork. He does not want to throw the cashier while the short-order front. He does not know who the sometimes in these small diners the also the owner, and he doesn't want to shoot a man trying to protect what's in

Jill is back now, she puts the two in front of Coney. He rips the foil one of them and pours the contents " coffee. Jill reaches into the pocket uniform, takes out a package of discovers it's empty, crumples it, it in an ashtray. Then she comes the break in the counter and goes the cigarette machine. In the mirror, sees her looking out at the parking rips the red cellophane strip off the package. When she comes inside says to the short-order cook outside there in a red Pinto." "Yeah?" the cook says.

"That's my wife," Coney says "She wasn't hungry."

"She should come in, cool off," |ill

"It's cool in the car," Coney says.

"Cool in here, too," the cook says. "Except there by the stove."

"We didn't know it was air-conditioned,"

says.

"Sign right on the door," the cook says.

"We didn't see it." He's getting into an argument with the hckin cook. What business is it of his whether iJeanine comes in or stays out or climbs up the OPEN 24 HOURS sign and throws a moon at the highway?

I: You working half a day or what?" the !ountry-girl waitress says to the cook. She has ijust taken an order from one of the families flat the other end of the diner, and she's back with her pad now. The cook takes the order slip from her, and looks at it, and goes back into the kitchen. Behind the counter, Jill is smoking her cigarette with obvious pleasure. The other waitress goes over to her and says,

i "Let me have a drag, huh?"

As Jill hands her the cigarette, Coney swings around on the stool, facing the cashier, and steps out with his right foot, and with his right hand he reaches into the shirt where the two buttons above the belt are unbuttoned. He feels the stock of the alt her he has owned many of them in his lifetime Vie nHll. the- mm out of his waistband

and thumb-cocks the hammer even he knows it can be operated by trigger. The cashier is dialing the he figures she's calling her dummy again to make sure he locked the oven that down," he says, and she" the receiver back on the cradle. Her wide, her lip is trembling, he figures about to scream. He uses Jocko's words this?" he says, thrusting the gun "I'll shoot your face off you don't register fast. Now do it!"

The cashier is opening the re takes a step to the right, figuring to over the counter and clean out the Fie catches her eye, he sees that is looking past his left shoulder, whirls immediately and throws the the country-girl waitress who already palm of her hand on the swinging door ready to push it open.

"Hold it right there!" Coney says, girl freezes, and now the place is still because everyone in it knows gunman at the cashier's counter. He in over the counter and pulls stacks of from the cash drawer, one come time. Twenties, a good hefty sack, tens, and fives, and singles. He is for the rolls of coins at the front of r

when the trouble comes. It comes the least expected place; this weekend just full of surprises. It comes from the old

He is standing, he is six feet four inches the old fart, and he has the shoulders a lumberjack and the chest of a wrestler hands that could pull apart the jaws of alligator, like that guy on the cover of men's magazine where Coney read about lost in the jungle. The old man's fists already bunched, he is going to be a hero. is seventy-five if he's a day, but he's still a [big man who remembers when his enormous |body surged with strength and power. His [hands are shaking as he approaches, there are

| ears streaming down his face from behind the eyeglasses. He is crying for his lost youth and his lost power, he is crying because he's lived honestly all his life and cannot aow condone this criminal act, he is crying because he suspects his foolhardy intervention !-may well result in his death. He is crying for any one of these reasons or for all of these reasons- Coney only knows the man : Constitutes a threat.

' Coney has killed a cop.

This old fart coming at him with his fists "clenched and tears running down his face,

closin the nr between them. coming closer

and closer as Coney stuffs three quarters into his hip pocket, this means nothing at all to him, he will him without remorse if the man stop him.

He says, "Hold it, mister!" and the country-girl waitress lets out a' could wake the dead in every Long Island, and Coney looks away an instant, and that's enough time for man to clamp his fingers on Coney's left "Let go," he says to the old man, swinging door to the back of the place:i and out comes the sweating and he's got a cleaver in his hand, he'si to protect his turf, he comes out of the like a fuckin Chinaman waving a movie about gold-rush camps.

Coney does not want to shoot the old But the old man is clinging tightly wrist and the cook is coming break in the counter now, the cleaver i hand, and there are a lot of people noise now the old man's wife in the next to the cashier's counter yelling no, please, Harry," and down the girl with the teenage kid screaming at a Stones concert. Coney can see old man and down the aisle to where the families is sitting in a booth and

little boy with brown eyes and blond hair he remembers his mother telling him that he was small he used to have blond didn't start changing to brown till he five or six.

"Harry, let go of my fuckin hand," he says the old man. The old man is surprised to hear his name. lets go of Coney's wrist and peers at him as he's possibly made a mistake- is this Inc he knows? If not, why has the man his name so familiarly? Coney swings from him and toward the cook, who the cleaver like it's a fly swattter, the son of a bitch know it's a deadly He's bringing it up over his head to Coney dead, what he doesn't know is Coney's killed a cop, Coney has nothing lose. "Mister," Coney says, and he is about say "you are making a big mistake," but the is upon him, and Coney fires the gun lively and reflexively.

:: The slug takes the cook in the shoulder, he pins around from the force of it, and slams against the counter. The old man's mouth Opens wide when he hears the explosion. He eems about to take a step toward Coney but he thinks it over and quickly his mind. Nobody's moving. The is on the floor. The cook is bent over

one of the stools now, and blood is down his arm the way it was ] night.

"Okay now," Coney says. He backs toward the door. "Okay," he says again.

He opens the door and runs Jeanine has already started the knows that what he should do is the car, get into the car. But the headed for Florida in the month of and Coney doesn't want that kind of l he doesn't want the kind of heat that the minute Jill tells the cops they're a red Pinto, probably at the this minute copying down the number, he is tempted to turn and i look. He does not want to be in a halfway or maybe all the way he does not want to be going to the month of August, but most of does not want to be with Jeanine any Jeanine scares the hell out of him. drives with her legs wide-spread, the White skirt high on her thighs, and smell brimstone rising from her cunt, whiff reminds him of the devil's the kitchen, Jocko bleeding out his he does not want to go with Jeanine to or anyplace on earth.

He begins running in the opposite direction.

He does not even hesitate to see what of look is on her face. He is running , and he knows she cannot turn car anything but southward once she out of that parking lot, there's a divider the highway lanes, that's it, my He runs across the southbound lane the traffic is light, this is Sunday, d he leaps the divider and then crosses northbound lane and runs into a patch woods on the other side of the highway. does not know where he is in New but he suspects he is not close to sprawling metropolis like New York or Newark, where his Aunt Tessa lives. he enters the woods, he is reminded of that story in the men's magazine, guy lost in the jungle, and he wonders civilization will be his Aunt Tessa's house Newark, New Jersey. He knows one thing certain. He is not going to any fuckin Fort , Florida, he is going to New York City, the big apple, the only fuckin town in entire universe. He is going to cut through woods parallel with the road, and he going to come out of them maybe a mile of where he went in and he is going to out his thumb and head for New York.

He suddenly bursts out laughing,

Jeanine starting up the Pinto and "

him to get in but instead he runs off opposite direction. He wonders if

Jeanine in with the robbery, throw her local hoosegow. Jersey cop comes over

"Well, well, miss, so you was an in a holdup, huh, miss?" Laughing, Coney runs through the He is happier than he has been since killing that fence in the Bronx and his nose at the cops chasing him. Not. thumbing it, of course, but letting them just what he thought of them by "

against the sky and daring them. He

Jeanine what he thinks of her now.

Amazon scaring him to death with that boiling up from her gut, where'd she fuckin laugh? Probably had a hoodoo her, made her stab Jocko that way in a places, broke the fuckin knife on his.

Jesus! Leaves are slapping his face as he

There are insects in the woods, and biting him, he is not used to this shit.

a city boy yessir, born and raised in across the river there, and that is going, back to the city, back to where be safe again, never mind Fort loves Fort Myers so much, let her go

Myers, this kid's going to New York,

to make his fame and fortune there.

go in the pimping trade with Benny,

on as an apprentice, his job'd be breakin the new girls. He laughs again.

He is having a gay old time in these fuckin even though the leaves are slapping and the insects are biting him. He is free her, he has shaken that blonde hoodoo off back, he has turned her loose in the world she can stab anybody comes near her, ust so long as it's not him. Stab them all,

give it to them. Just stay far away from truly, Joe College with the crew cut. He at the idea of wearing a crew cut. He is already planning on dropping in on old Benny, knocking on the door, maybe the Jewgirl opens it, this time she doesn't recognize him. She's still wearing the Arab thing, she looks out at him, doesn't recognize him with the crew cut. Wouldn't recognize him anyway cause Benny's got her stoned to the gills, Benny comes, to the door, looks out, Coney says, "How you do, sir, I'm working my way through college selling heroin." Benny busts out laughing cause till that minute he don't realize the guy with the crew cut is Coney.

He has probably run about three or four blocks through the woods now, he can't be Sure. If back there at the diner they have

latched on to Jeanine, they are asking her questions about who she who the man is held up the place and the cook, fuckin dope with his his head, and that will give Coney time.

is what he needs. Time to run the so in these woods and come out further north and then thumb a ride city. He keeps running until he is and then he drops to the ground there breathing hard. In a little while up and begins pulling bills from his the money he stole from the diner.

three hundred and twelve dollars,

the three rolls of quarters, He figures

not too bad. Counting the sixteen he had, that makes three twenty-eight.

The woods are very still.

He notices all at once that the are very still, and he remembers a story he read in the men's ma heart is thudding heavily in his can hear each separate beat, can own pulse in his ears, and is fearful moment that everything will remain this hyped-up, slowed-down state.

will be a robbery forever, nothing return to normal, they even will in excruciating detail, a rose will fall open grave in twisting slow motion,

the air, hanging, hanging, and finally onto the black coffin top. He can his watch ticking noisily in the stillness of the woods, and then he hears the snapping of twigs and sees the leaves parting ahead an instant before the beast comes into the clearing.

The beast is a German shepherd, jowls -pulled back over his fangs, growl rumbling up from his gut and into his throat. He runs three feet into the clearing, there is a second and a half of heart-stopping terror during which Coney scrambles to his feet, and then the beast is airborne. He hurls himself at Coney with jaws wide, saliva dripping from his fangs; he is all head and teeth. Coney throws his right arm up, bent at the elbow, the forearm across his chin and throat. The jaws close on his arm. He does not feel pain at first, he is too frightened. He sees only the beast's black nose dripping snot, and he sees the black edged jowls and the teeth closing on his arm, joining on his arm, and he sees the sudden gush of blood, but he feels no pain for an instant.

And then the pain strikes.

It is excruciating, dozens of sharp needles penetrating his flesh each a separate bleeding Wound, each blinding in its intensity, he is certain he will faint. He wants to reach for the

Walther in his belt, reach into the o buttons and pull the gun free in a cro.. but the beast is fastened onto his right is going to faint, the fuckin beast will alive in the jungle. He knows he is backward and falling to the ground, knows this is the wrong thing to do, the beast will go for his throat, bite" jugular, send his blood spurting up floor of the forest. But he is helpless his backward fall, the beast must least two hundred pounds, he is the dog Coney has ever seen in his life, will not let go of Coney's arm, he is on it like a fuckin soup bone, and the is flying in the air as Coney falls bright-green ground, flailing his arm, to shake the dog loose.

He cannot reach the gun in his pocket, he cannot reach the .32 Wesson, which he doesn't like fumbles with the bottom of the s hanging out of his trousers, trying to up over the butt of the Walther, but is kicking at him with his back legs, going to faint, he feels his life gushing him between the beast's jaws. The butt gun is facing in the wrong direction, he nothing but air at first. He has managed the shirt up over the butt, and now he

to twist his left hand so that he can pull the ckin gun out of his belt, turn it, twist it somehow into firing position before the dog kills him. He knows the dog will kill him. The only thing that can save his life is the gun. The dog lets go of his arm for a moment, d the pain is instantly eased, and then the |!dog is snapping at his face and biting at his |shoulder, climbing all over him as he rolls |.over the green floor of the forest, staining the [grass and the weeds with blood. The butt of lithe Walther is in his hand now, his left hand, |he says under his breath, "Here, you son of a |bitch!" and shoves his hand and the gun into the dog's open mouth as the dog comes at him again. The dog smells of horror and of death, the dog smells of hair and shit. He squeezes the trigger inside the dog's mouth just as the jaws clamp shut on his wrist. The explosion takes off the back of the dog's head, fur and bone and blood flying into the air, sunlight glistening on them. It is like the back of the cop's head He watches in fascination. He is afraid the dog will bite his left hand off at the wrist, but there is almost no head left to the dog now, the 9mm slug has taken away half of that fuckin triangular head and the jaws have gone lax and Coney pulls back his hand as the dog slides in slow motion to the forest floor. Collev fires at him aain, and then aain.

He keeps firing. Something warns he is wasting ammunition, the cart rid the Walther and the .32 are still back1 in the glove compartment of the Pinto:i he keeps firing into the lifeless body beast nonetheless, watching patches oft gristle and blood fly into the air. clicks empty. He throws the gun at the He has never even been able to throw straight with his right hand, and this left hand and he is throwing a gun, not and of course he misses. He kicks out dog, his foot colliding with the black snout, the back of the dog's head he wants to kick out all the dog's fuckin He keeps kicking at the head.

Then he collapses to the ground, over onto his back and tries to breath. He is afraid he will choke to if he does not start breathing normally His left wrist isn't bleeding at all, barely had his teeth on it before the went off inside his mouth. But his right bleeding very badly. His right arm a piece of meat in a butcher's shop, his arm looks as raw as Jocko's throat did Coney looked into it earlier tonight. teeth were easily as sharp as the knife used, and Coney is certain he will die Jocko died, leakin blood from the t

teeth slashes on his arm. He knows he has stop the blood, and he decides he should off his shirt and wrap it around his arm. he is trembling so hard and fighting so to catch his breath that all he can do lie on his back on the trampled weeds, his closed, the sunlight flickering on his lids. The sun goes out. He thinks he is dead.

He thinks his heart has stopped beating, his actually does stop beating in that instant when the blackness closes on his lids. He his eyes at once. The man standing there against the sun, blocking the sun, is wearing dirt-stained bib overalls, no shirt under them. His arms are long and thin and covered with hair. He is holding a shotgun in his hands, the barrel cradled on the palm of his left hand, the stock in the crook of his right arm, his right index finger inside the trigger guard and curled around the trigger. Coney looks first at the shotgun and then up at the man's face.

It is thin and gaunt, the cheeks are sunken, there is a four-day beard bristle on the man's jaw, the man looks like the fuckin rednecks Coney has seen in the movies- but this is

New Jersey, what is a redneck doing this far north? The man's eyes are a pale blue.

see any whites at all, the blue consume the eyeballs, Coney is a trick of the light in the forest. the man continues to stare down his mouth unmoving, his eyes Coney begins to think this is not a but is instead Death, the same Death in the unseen clock in ocko's same Death that's been hounding nine o'clock last night when he killed a fuckin police officer in a in the Bronx.

He does not know what Death him, except his life.

The man suddenly reverses the grasping the barrel in both hands. of a bitch," he says softly, and " stock at Coney's head.

There is a clock ticking.

The side of Coney's face is where the shotgun stock collided cheekbone. The Smith & "Tesson has taken from his side pocket, he is once of the absence of its bulk. The the "galther, is probably still in the He feels suddenly naked. He is lying floor in one corner of a wooden arm is crusted with dried and drying No one has cleaned it, no one has d

woman is sitting beside him and above him a straight-backed wooden chair. She is in late fifties, her eyes are blue, her hair is T. She is wearing only a soiled slip. She when he opens his eyes. The clock is on a shelf behind her head. The time is ten iminutes past three. He knows it is P.M. and not A.M. because there is sunshine outside the to the left of the shelf.

"He's out burying the dog," the woman says. She is still smiling. There is a gold tooth in the lower left-hand corner of her mouth. She has long'\.thin arms like the man's and her knuckles are raw and red. The shotgun is leaning against the seat of the chair, the barrel not six inches from her right hand. "Shouldn'ta killed that dog," she says. "He loved that dog like his own son. Why'd you kill the dog?"

"He attacked me," Coney says.

"You had no right in them woods," the woman says,

Coney's arm aches. The bleeding has stopped, but he is worried about gangrene or blood poisoning or whatever- things he has only heard about and has no real knowledge of, except that he knows they can result from gunshot wounds and probably from dog bites as well- Jesus, does he have to worry about rabies, too?

"What were you doin in the woods?" woman says.

"Taking a walk."

"That's posted property. Didn't you posted signs?"

"No. Listen, have you got something put on my arm here? I'm afraid it " infected."

The woman shakes her head.

killed that dog," she says, " ' request. "You're gonna be in for it gets back."

He wonders if he should make a play shotgun now, before the man gets back, does not think the man will kill him, if he was going to do that, he'd have in the woods. But he can feel the bruise on the side of his face stock connected with his cheekbone. he does not want to suffer a beating the man returns. It has been his that bad situations only get worse. If not make your move when something is starting, then everything gets out of later on and it is impossible to make a that will change the picture. The sitting there smiling, she seems frail he decides he will make his move now, the gun, blow her brains out if she gives any trouble. The woman anticitates him.

seen something in his eyes, she has looked his head and seen the wheels turning. She flirts the shotgun and points it at him and says only, "Don't."

"Relax," he says.

"Oh, I'm relaxed," she says, and smiles. "It's you better relax, mister."

He looks at her face. She looks like a hillbilly, what are hillbillies doing here in Jersey, he thought this was a civilized state? Her hair looks like rats are nesting in it, there is something crusted on her right cheek, pus or whatever, her lips are thin and cracked, the eyes are blue and cold and hard over the thin long nose and the smiling mouth, gold tooth in the corner. Behind her the clock ticks away minutes, throws minutes into the room onto the dirty floor; there are minutes twisting and turning on the floor.

"What do you want with me?" he says. "Me? I don't want nothin with you." "Then put up the piece and let me go." "Sam told me to keep you here."

"I've got money,". Coney says. "I've got more than three hundred dollars," he says, and reaches into his pocket and discovers the money is gone. "Where's my money?" he asks the woman.

"Sam took it. That was a valuable dog," she

8.VS.

"That was a killer dog," Coney says.

"Even so," the woman says, and smiles. "He was a valuable dog."

"Okay if I get up?" .: "No, you better stay right are."

"I'm cramped, I want to get up." "That's too bad," she says. "Stay put. "Fuck you, lady," he says, and is to stand up when the smile drops mouth, the gold tooth winks out. He for a moment she will squeeze the and end it all right then and there. immediately sorry for what he said, is also too late. She comes up out chair, and before he can turn away, he even realizes what her intention be, she kicks out at his wounded is wearing worn and faded, lace less sneakers, and her kick does not much as it might if she were wearing boots, but it sends immediate pain into his skull nonetheless. He tries away from her, but she lifts her stamps on his arm, and then stamps again as if she is trying to squash a " bug, until finally he manages to turn away from her so she cannot reach legs are unshaven, her slip is soiled, pus on her face, she lives in a filthy

woods- but she objects to his language.

is a censor, this fuckin hag, and she has her opinion onto his arm, causing it bleed again, making her point much more than if she had, for example, washed out his mouth with soap.

, she sits again. Against the wall, whimpers in pain. The door opens.

He cannot see the door from where he is in the corner, but he hears it opening,

then he feels the floorboards moving the weight of the man who comes into room.

"Over there," a voice says, and he it as the voice of the man who hit him with the shotgun, and he realizes there are two men, or maybe more, coming into the room- their combined weight is what causes the floorboards to tremble beneath him.

-"He's got a dirty mouth," the woman says. "He get funny with you, Myra?"

"No, but he's got an awful dirty mouth," she says, and laughs.

Coney keeps his hurt arm pressed to the wall, fearful she will try to step on it again. He wonders what he is doing in this shack With these hillbillies. Before the hound came leaping out of the woods Coney'd been Counting his money, which was a civilized

enterprise, and before that he was and laughing. Now there are three standing around him- the woman her hairy legs and her soiled slip,

man Sam in his dirt-encrusted bib and another man wearing glasses and a khaki pants and a sports shirt big red flowers. Fat man. Fat legs in khaki pants, fat arms hanging short sleeves of the shirt, fat face.

mouth. He takes the cigar out now down at Coney.

"What's your name?" he says.

"What's yours?" Coney answers, up.

"Will Hollip," the man answers, Coney.

"I'm Jack Wyatt," Coney says, him Jocko's name; what the hell, dead.

"Mr. Wyatt," Will says, "you shot dog no good reason..

"Theheredogf r attacked me," Coney'" says.

"You were on posted land," Will

"That don't give anybody the right a killer dog loose on me."

"That's the gentlest dog ever did live.

says.

"He sure is," Coney said. "You see did to my arm?" he says, and stands

the arm at Will. "How you like that, Hollip? Does that look like I killed him no good reason?" "Sam says"

"Sam wasn't there, Sam didn't get there till was all over. And while we're on Sam, look he did to my face here."

"You do that, Sam?" Will says.

"He killed my dog," Sam says.

"And also Sam took three hundred and eight dollars from my pocket..."

, "That's a lie, Will."

"And two pistols for which I have licenses.

licenses. They're restricted to hunting, they're carry licenses, anyway." He is but he doesn't think Will Hollip will it. He doesn't know who Will Hollip but he is pleading to him now as he would to a higher authority, as though he's been busted for the offense of killing a vicious dog, d has been brought to trial for it, and is now brilliantly pleading his own case to a benign fat judge who only needs a camera around his neck to be a tourist in Hawaii.

"You take two guns from this man?" Will asks.

"I did, Will. They'll help pay for the dog."

"If that mutt cost more than five dollars..." Collev says.

"Just watch it, mister," Sam says.. "Well, Mr. Wyatt," Will says, understand how maybe the dog he's a big dog. But "

"Scared me? He came flying out woods..."

"But I got to agree with my brother that what you did was illegal. Sam, we take him over to the trooper station."

Coney looks at fat little

Hollip in his tight-fitting khakis flowered shirt, and he sees the now, the same blue eyes, the same brows- Will is simply a short, stout of his big brother Sam. The three of watching him now, maybe waiting for make the move he should have made it got too late, the way it is be" " look too late now. Sam Hollip has shotgun from Myra, who is either or his sister, Coney can't tell which, seems to be no family resemblance for maybe the hairy legs. He has shotgun casually over his arm, but his l is inside the trigger guard and Coney he will not hesitate to shoot him if he break for it. Or, if Sam doesn't care ammunition, he might simply hit the stock of the gun again, this time breaking the cheekbone, whereas

merely bruised it. Coney does not want get shot, nor does he want his cheek broken or even bruised. He only wants to get out of here.

If these dopes take him to the troopers with a complaint that he killed their hound, it'll take the troopers ten seconds flat to realize that Coney is the man who held up the diner mile and a half down the road, and then it'll take them another ten seconds to find the the New York fuzz undoubtedly out, and here we have Nicholas Donato, bona-fide cop killer- is there maybe reward? old Sam Hollip will ask. Coney allow them to take him in. He cannot these country hicks to be the cause his going back to jail forever. Because this time it will be forever. He has killed cop, and for that you get either forever jail or else you get the death penalty. That is one of the crimes you can still be for in the glorious, glamorous state of New York- cop-killing. Yes, the sentence for murdering a "peace officer," as he is d in the criminal law, can be death, provided "there are no substantial mitigating circumstances which render the sentence of unwarranted." Kill a cop, and you are trouble. Coney was in trouble even before met these dopes. Now he is in even more

trouble because these dimwits are lead him at gunpoint into the arms of and there goes the ball game.

He decides to make his move. His is dangling uselessly, and dripping the wooden floor of the shack. As gets out of here, he will have to do about the arm. But meanwhile, he has out of here. He has already tangled Sam Hollip, blue-eyed Death him" with the wiry, hairy woman who is his sister or his wife Coney would at all surprised if she's his sister, humping her nightly here in the the woods; ladies who can't stand the "fuck" are sometimes ladies who too terribly shocked by incest. Either husband and wife or brother and sisterl are tough customers and he is not come up against either one of them ever Which leaves fat Will Hollip, brother to perhaps brother or at least Myra, fat Will Hollip of the tight flowered shirt. How do I get to you, How do I use you to get out of this situation that can cost me my life?

He does not know.

The shotgun is looking him in the he has got to make his move because thing that will happen is he'll be taken

Lcar or a truck and driven to the state-trooper Or else he'll be marched through the ds to the highway and then to the trooper but either way he is going to be in hands of the cops, and this time it will forever. There is no way he can possibly llain to a judge and jury that he was fire in self-defense in that liquor They will say that's very nice to hear, Donato, but you shouldn't have been le that liquor store committing a felony in first place, next case.

He decides to faint. All he wants to do is his hands on that shotgun. He's got only good arm, and that's enough to hold a shotgun and fire it, provided it's been cocked he suddenly wonders if the shotgun has been cocked. He is not as familiar with shotguns or rifles as he is with handguns, but this one looks like a slide-action repeater, and he wonders if the slide has been pulled back, g the gun. With only one good arm he will not be able to fiddle around with the slide and then get the gun in position again after he has it in his possession. He hopes it is cocked. He is about to give an Academy Award-winning performance, and the Oscar is the shotgun and he doesn't want it to turn out to be brass instead of gold.

: "Look, Mr. Hollip," he says to Will, "that

dog really did try to..." and he stops,.

and puts his hand to his forehead,

sways slightly, and then says "Uh, uh,

like that, and leans in against W

against him. Will doesn t.

collapses " " " ,

whether to grab him or what, he want to get blood on his nice

He keeps backing away and flapping until it's obvious he either has to catch i or let him fall flat on his face to the decides that's what he wants to do,

fall flat on his face, so he opens his and takes a very quick step

Coney tumbles forward as can without getting splinters in his still has the shotgun.

Put a nice hole in a man if it's close.

"He's out like a light," Sam says.

"What you want to do with him?" asks.

"Give me a hand, we'll drag him over| corner again."

Coney listens. He is listening for the of the shotgun being placed against th the wooden stock hitting the wooden or else being put on the table, the sou metal scraping against wood or nn.lt is listening but he does not hear hopes to hear. He wonders if he has mad

move, and then he begins to think Sam simply handed the shotgun to his sister or wife or whoever she is, the way he did when he went out to bury the dog fetch old brother Will. They are dragging into the corner of the room. They are him the way they are holding him, he cannot scream or even wince, he is sed to be unconscious. He has pulled big fainting routine because he wants to his hands his hand actually, his one good his left hand- on the shotgun, and now doesn't know where it is or who has it and hears Sam telling Will they'll need some they'll have to tie this sumbitch up. It is getting worse, it is only getting worse. did not make his move when he was to make it, whenever that might been, and now it is about to get worse, are going to tie him up and leave him bleed to death in the corner. Their voices just a little way from him, they are to look for rope to tie up the city slicker. He opens his eyes. He can see Myra's legs across the room, level with his line of vision, lace less white sneakers, and he can See just a little past them to where Sam is tan ding can see the blue overall bottoms rolled up over the high tops of his brown work but he cannot see Will Hollil nor can

he see the shotgun. '

"Let me get a stool for you,"

and suddenly the stock of the magically beside one sneakered resting the shotgun on the floor, against something, a cupboard or a ta chair, he doesn't care what- it is floor some fifteen feet from where he in the corner. Myra leaves his frame He sees only Sam's big shoes direction now. Sam is waiting for a stool. Rope has to be on a shelf Sam can't reach, loving wife or " making it easy for him. Sneakered coming back into the frame, Myra the stool. Sam climbs up on the stool sees only the backs of his hi now. That means Sam's back is to is Christ only knows where, and the is still leaning against something, on the floor.

Coney makes his move all at slow and steady crawling across the sneaky tactics, he gets to his feet in a like a track star about to break starting line, and he's off in the same sprinting across the wooden floor shotgun. The gun is leaning against a table, he can see the table now, and see the gun, and he only hopes the

cocked, because otherwise he is dead.

Yra has turned from watching Sam, who is hing in a cabinet high up on the wall. She s Coney crossing the room, and she knows ist what he's heading for, and she grabs the hotgun by the barrel just below the sight, nd is bringing it up with her left hand, her ight hand reaching for the stock when Coney lets to her. He doesn't bother making a grab Or the gun. Instead he punches her in the to mach as hard as he can with his left hand, md she lets out a grunt and drops the gun, md staggers back against the counter. Sam as turned at the sound of the running and the scuffling, and he's about to step down off the stool when he sees that Coney has picked up the shotgun and is holding it in just one hand, forward of the stock, his left index finger inside the trigger guard and on the trigger.

"Hold it," Coney says.

Fat Will is at the sink on Coney's left. He has been watching all this with some interest and much trepidation. He has probably never liked his brother's vicious dog, nor his brother's hairy wife or sister as the case may be, and he likes even less the notion of having a big shotgun hole put in him by a man who is bleeding and probably desperate. He just stays there at the sink, watching. His eyes

tell Coney he hardly knows these two even though he is certainly related to one of them and probably to both.

stool, Sam says, "Easy now, boy." "Easy, shit," Coney says. "Easy now."

"Get over here, Will[" Coney says. "I didn't do nothin," Will says.

Sam has a coil of clothesline in his He stands on the stool like a man supposed to be making a speech in Square, probably a speech about inhuman it is to hang people. is with the rope, ready to proposition, but all he's got by way of is a skinny hairy lady, a fat man in a sports shirt, both relatives, and a has already killed his dog and who is at him now as if he's ready to kill Coney zvould like to kill the son of a is Sam Hollip who allowed a vicious roam free in the woods, it is Sam smacked him in the face with a shotgun Coney would like to kill him and Myra he has not forgotten that Myra and down on his arm a few times, nice

"Give me that rope," he says to "Get down off that stool. Will, you here."

"I didn't do nothin," Will says aain.

"Get over here, Myra. With your brother

"He's my husband," Myra says.

"Congratulations," Coney says, and hands clothesline to Will. "Will, I don't have tell you I want them tied so they can't get

"he says.

"That's right," Will says, and nods.

"You understand me don't you, Will? If can free their hands..."

"No, no," Will says, "I'll tie them real

"Good, you do that," Coney says. "I want back to back."

"Myra, would you step over here, please?" says. He sounds very tired. Coney would prefer doing the tying-up himself, but the fingers on his right hand feel numb, and his arm is bleeding again from Myra's fancy footwork. He thinks maybe the numbness is psychological, but the blood certainly isn't. He does not even want to look at the arm. He will have to do something about the arm, but first things first. He Watches as Will ties Sam's hands and then Myra's hands, and then wraps brother and sister-in-law with clothesline as though he is Wrapping a pair of back-to-back mummies for burial. "Good and tight," Coney says.

He remembers the times he's been busted,

that first time he shot Luis Josafat the throat, and then the time he was away after the tailor-shop holdup and surprised him. Both times they cuffs on his wrists like they clear through to the bone. The way of handcuffs is made, there's a that slides into the other side of You squeeze the cuff onto a person', the sawtooth edge is engaged and reversed unless you unlock the cuff. it quick and easy for a cop to slam on a man, zing, zing. They throw on one wrist, they' whip your arms your back, they squeeze the cuff other wrist, you think your arms to break behind your back there, think your circulation is going to are going to die of your blood stopping: at your wrists. They throw you in the squad car were a plastic bag of garbage.

The minute those cuffs are on your you stop being a human being. To a are the perpetrator. Perpetrator is a of police manuals. It is not a human You are the perpetrator all the are in a police station, and after they you and take you downtown to the Courts Building to be arraiuned, you

accused and/or the defendant, and once are convicted and sentenced, you become e prisoner. When you add all those things together you are nothing but a plastic bag f garbage.

"Tighter," he says.

ut side the shack, there are rows and rows of orn and what looks like cabbage. He has left Myra and her husband Sam trussed on the floor back to back, and he has locked Will in the storage shed behind the shack. He is wearing the only clean clothes he could find in the whole filthy place, a pair of blue trousers and a white shirt and a plaid sports jacket. Under the sleeve of the sports jacket, he has wrapped a pillowcase around his arm. He thinks the blood has stopped, but he is not sure.

From Sam's. bib overalls he has taken the three hundred and twenty-eight dollars Sam stole from him earlier, and he has also taken the Smith & Wesson revolver. There are six bullets in that revolver, and he can fire it very nicely, thanks, with just his left hand. He would have taken whatever other money Sam had, but Sam didn't have a nickel of his own. His brother Will had. seventeen dollars and forty cents, and Coney relieved him of the bills but left the forty cents as a til9

for his assistance in tying up Mr. Sam Hollip, newlyweds in Coney's since he's only learned of their quite recently.

The pickup truck is parked near like a pigpen, but there aren't any " Sam has promised him the keys are ignition. He has told Sam that if aren't in the ignition, if he has to the way back here again and go Sam's pockets again for the keys, will just leave Sam on the floor with a head. But the keys are here, and the truck and feels a sharp pain in and wonders if he's going to be drive the thing. He wants to find a booth. He has to get some help for his There was no telephone in the shack, directory, and he wants to find one he can call a doctor and get some doesn't know what town he's in, except it's somewhere near the Pennsylvania and he doesn't know if it's big enough have a hospital, but he doesn't want to a hospital anyway. That's where he go, to a hospital emergency room, he that. But he suspects a hospital would to report an animal bite, don't they to call the Board of Health or

For rabies? He doesn't know, but he

the chance. All he wants is a regular general practitioner. He'll go in, tell doctor he got bit by a dog, tell him the 's dead. Doctor wants to report it, he'll it tomorrow, this is Sunday, no rush. Be at a hospital, everybody crisp and in white.

Coney puts in the clutch and manipulates gear shift till he feels certain he knows reverse and the various drive positions are. He backs around the pigpen toward the side of the shack. The place is silent. Sun is shining on the cornstalks, the sky behind them is blue and cloudless. He brakes the II truck, shifts into first, and drives down the dirt road to the highway. At the highway, he turns right, heading north, driving past the diner he held up not four hours ago. There are no police cars outside; the hubbub probably died down a long while ago. He wonders if they've taken Jeanine into custody.

If they've got her in custody, they'll be asking her what Coney meant in the diner when he said "That's my wife." She'll tell them that's all bullshit, she never saw the man in her life, she was sitting out there deciding whether to go in for a hamburger. But they'll search the car, which is their right because a crime was committed and they have ood reason to believe she was

an accomplice, since the holdup after all say she was his wife. the car without a warrant, they a warrant, and they'll find two cartridges in the glove compartment of 9mm Parabellums and a box of .32i And they'll already know from B the bullet that hit the short-order shoulder was a 9mm Parabellum, so there's a connection between the was sitting in the Pinto outside man who was in there shooting joint.

But more important than that, they find in the glove compartment an registration for the Pinto, and it will be out to one Jack William Wyatt. And were any good prints on the gun dropped in the liquor store last I'll if the New York fuzz got a make on from the F.B.I. files, why then, a went out describing Jack William alias Jocko Wyatt, alias Jockostrap as he was known in Texas prisons. the New Jersey cops are on the ball, they will know at once that they've got of the wife of a man who held up a and was an accomplice in the crime It does not take Sherlock Holmes to driver's license. Jeanine Wyatt, it says

they will have looked at her license before they searched the car. If they can't a connection from that alone, then they in the wrong business, they should give law enforcement and begin selling storms screens.

He figures she's in trouble.

He does not give a damn. He hopes in fact they will find Jocko's body and nail her the murder and lock her up and throw the key. He does not want to run into ever again. He can still remember her laugh, and it makes him shiver now. Up ahead, he sees a phone booth on the side the road.

He has to get help for his arm.

The doctor who opens the door looks a lot younger than he sounded on the telephone. His name is Emory Hughes. He has coal-black hair and brown eyes. He is perhaps forty, forty-five years old and he looks like a tennis player or a skier. Coney wouldn't know a tennis player or a skier if he woke up in bed with one at Wimbledon or St. Moritz, but he's seen actors pretending to be tennis players or skiers on television, and this doctor, this Emory Hughes, looks like one of those actors. Usually the actors drink beer afterwards. The beers are interchangeable. Coney can never

remember which beer the actors are II after they get off the squash court sailboat, or after they finish climb ia mountain or jumping out of an without a parachute. He wonders Emory Hughes drinks beer. He won Dr. Emory Hughes is an actor pre ten be a doctor, the way he himself is an robber named Nicholas Donato pre ten be a tourist named Steve Casatelli. chosen the name Casatelli because he that when he talks he sounds Italian. Hewlitt from New Canaan, Connecticut told him that the minute he opens his his heritage is immediately apparent. : were her exact words. That was fucked up on the getaway that time. chosen the name Steve only because that name, always wished his named him Steven instead of Stephen with a p-h, that would just as good.

"Mr. Castelli," the doctor says,

name wrong. You give somebody a in a, i or o, they immediately wrong.

"Casatelli," Coney says,

him, and wondering suddenly mispronunciation was a trap. good doctor suspect that this man

the gnawed arm is not indeed a tourist through the Garden State of New ersey, but is instead an armed robber who Icked off a diner five miles south of here at twelve noon?

"Excuse me," the doctor says, and smiles. "Let's take a look at that arm, shall we? This way, please."

He follows the doctor through the waiting room and into an examination room. The office is part of a white clapboard house with a white picket fence. Somewhere in the house Coney can hear a baseball game on television. In the back yard there's the sound of children laughing. The doctor watches him as he takes off the plaid jacket. The jacket is winter-weight and the sleeves are a little too long for Coney. He wonders if the doctor is noticing this. Sunlight slants through the curtained window. In a glass-fronted cabinet on the wall opposite, scalpels gleam.

"Would you sit up here, please?" the doctor says, and Coney gets onto the examination table. There is not much blood on the pillowcase he wrapped around his arm. The doctor removes it gingerly, and says, "Mmm" when he sees the wound. There is blood caked all over the wound, it looks worse now than it did just after the dog quit gnawing on it. The doctor goes to a cabinet and takes a

squeeze-bottle from it, and then wets of gauze and gently soaps out the he works, it begins to look a little There is some fresh blood, but just and he wipes this away and studies flesh and the teeth marks on the arm.. the skin has not been ripped.

"Where'd this happen?" the doctor "Down the road," Coney says. "Big dog?"

"Police dog," Coney says, and "German shepherd, a German

"Mmm," the doctor says. "Where's 1

now?"

"Dead," Coney says. "I killed him." "Mmm," the doctor says. "Am I going to need stitches?"

"Not with this kind of injury," the says. "Animal bites, human bites, we wound open. No sutures," he says, and suddenly, looking more like a tennis than ever. "Don't worry, Mr. says, getting the name right this patting Coney's shoulder reassuringly.

He opens a drawer in the cabinet searches among a clutter of drug and comes up with a small tube. just an antibiotic," he says, and black cap and squeezes the ointment gauze bandage. He puts the bandage

and then takes out a roll of gauze and wrapping the arm.

Coney is beginning to feel better. He likes way this doctor handles himself, and also feels very comfortable here in the

" room, with sunlight slanting the window and children laughing the back yard and a baseball game going television. It is like he is in a relative's house. It is like he is a kid again, and he cut his finger visiting one of his relatives, and an uncle or somebody is taking care of it.

But as the doctor bandages the arm, he begins telling Coney about rabies, scaring him half to death. He tells Coney he does not wish to alarm him, and then he starts giving him the symptoms, starting with a pain in the scarred arm, the arm will have healed over by then. This will be about forty days from now, it takes about forty days for the virus to incubate, it is different with a face bite or a leg bite. Coney doesn't want to hear it. He is beginning to sweat as the doctor tells him that if he has rabies, and he certainly doesn't want to alarm Coney, why, then the symptoms will start with a pain in the scarred arm, and he'll also have a headache, and he'll feel generally lousy, and he won't have any appetite, and there'll be vomiting, and restlessness, and aoorehension, and he'll

have difficulty swallowing. Later on be mucus in his mouth and he'll be hard and talking fast, and eventually into convulsions at the slightest " will suffer delirium and maniacal until finally, on the third or fourth the acute phase, he'll go into and finally death.

The doctor is finished bandaging now. He goes to another drawer, the full of drawers, and he takes out a and a vial. He pierces the top of the the needle, fills the syringe, and briefly, "Tetanus toxoid." He rubs a cotton ball saturated with alcohol ontoi biceps of Coney's arm, and then gives shot so Coney can't even feel it. Coney "Okay?" the doctor says. "Yes, fine."

"Is that cheek bothering you?"

"No, it's ... I bruised it when the attacked me."

"I wish I knew if that dog were the doctor says, getting back to the gruesome subject of rabies.

"He wasn't foaming at the mouth anything," Coney says.

"Where'd you leave him?"

He can't tell the doctor he left the dog the woods because then the doctor will

know what he was doing in the woods which woods and so on. "By the side the road," he says. "I got out of the truck to stretch a bit and the dog attacked me."

"Side of the road where?" the doctor says. "Few miles from here." I. "Because if he's licensed, he'll have had his rabies shot, you see."

"Yeah," Coney says.

"If I were you, I'd call the police..." "Well, I'm just passing through..." "Because even if the dog isn't licensed, once they find him they can cut off the head and test the brain."

"Well, I don't think he had rabies," Coney says. "He wasn't foaming."

"It's up to you," the doctor says. "But I'd " call the police if I were you. It'd be worth the peace of mind. Rabies is not a pleasant disease."

"Well, thank you, maybe I will," Coney says.

"Or I can phone for you, if you like."

"That'd be fine," Coney says. "I'd appreciate that."

"A few miles up the road, you said? Was that north or south?"

"South," Coney says.

"If the dog should prove to be rabid, how can I reach you?"

"In the Bronx."

"1217 Kruger'the doctor says, wri " "Yes'," Coney says. He knows them Kruger Avenue in the Bronx, but. never been there. He suddenly realize he has given the doctor the name o man who made his life miserable in Kruger. The Kraut.

"How much is that, Doctor?" Coney a "Twenty-five dollars," the doctor says,!

Coney pays him, and shakes hands him, and leaves the office.

Behind him, he can hear the doci children playing in the back yard.

He is sure he has rabies.

As he drives the pickup north, he begin . imagine he has all the symptoms the do talked about. He begins to believe that hyped-up, slowed-down condition is a re i of the dog biting him. He cannot rememl feeling this way before the dog rushed out the woods and bit him, this feeling of running in place though he is running forward as fast as he can, this sense of impending door! Apprehension is what the doctor called Restlessness and apprehension. He does not remember that this all began the mom.e Jeanine pulled the red Pinto into the oarkm|

in front of the diner. The holdup seems centuries ago. He is centuries old and he rabies and he will go into convulsions at the slightest stimulus and suffer delirium and maniacal attacks. If there is any way he does not want to die, it is from rabies. If he has any choice in the matter, he will choose even death by drowning over rabies. Rabies has got to be the dumbest way in the world to die.

He is suddenly ravenously hungry. The hunger attacks him like another pain, he thinks at first it may be a symptom the doctor forgot to mention. Except for the lecture on rabies, he likes the way that doctor handled himself. He admires professionalism, and the doctor was a real pro. Things were different, these were different times, they'd probably go out and play a few games of tennis together, have a beer afterwards. Jesus, he is starving hungry, he wants a hamburger and a cold beer. He begins looking for a place to eat, but all he can find is a drugstore in a roadside shopping center, with signs in the window advertising specials like eggs with bacon, toast and coffee for 99c. This is Sunday, he hopes the lunch counter is open. The way he feels, he is going to eat the gear shift if he doesn't get some real food soon.

The day has turned hot and humid; he takes off the wool ll aid jacket and throws it

onto the seat of the truck. He isn't about his bandaged arm being is no law against getting bit by a has put the Smith & Wesson in compartment and he leaves it there hitches up his belt when he gets out truck, and then walks casually drugstore. He would not walk this if he had not killed a man last night. exaggerating everything. He does not why. He is sure it's because he has

The drugstore is one of those sell everything from desk lamps to whales for swimming pools. He pities a:. guy coming in here to have a filled cause he'd never find where they the drugs. Behind the lunch counter waitress wearing black slacks and a blouse. Coney thinks of Jill in the diner. way she came on with that truck driver, luck with a button on his hat. She'll be talking about the holdup for the rest of] life. Tell her children and her about it. At the far end of the counter an old guy wearing a fedora on the back of] head. He is sucking his teeth and to himself. The waitress comes over to

"Hi," she says. She is a girl in her "

black hair pulled back in a ponytail,

eyes, full figure.

Colley figures she's Italian; with that

it's eight-to-five she isn't Irish. He a little bit safer thinking she's Italian. ?s about to get something to eat, and he's here in the drugstore with just an Italian

, an old guy sucking his teeth, and a " sitting there at the checkout counter.

drugstore has a checkout counter like a supermarket, it's really a supermarket in i disguise. The drugstore goes into a phone booth, takes off all its clothes, and out flies a supermarket.

"Hi," Coney says. "I'd like a hamburger and a cold beer."

"You can get the hamburger, but all we've got is soft drinks."

"Okay, a Coke then. Put everything you got on the burger, okay?"

"Well, what'd you want?" the waitress says.

"Relish and a slice of tomato and some onions and pickles, everything you got."

"Are you pregnant or something?" the girl asks, and smiles.

"No, I got rabies," Coney says, and returns the smile.

At the end of the counter the old man says, "Everybody's got something wrong with them. There's nobody in the world has nothing wrong with them."

The girl talvs her temple, indicating the old

man is nuts. Coney nods. She goes where the hamburger patties are, one on the griddle and then goes his Coke. Coney is thinking he the crew cut. The cops are sure questioned canine, and she is sure told them who he is and how she cut early this morning. He doesn't expect been any big television flash about holdup, that'll wait till the six o'clock tonight, if it gets on the air at all. maybe been radio news about it, but worried about that because you what a man looks like on a radio ghat he's afraid of is that canine the Jersey cops about him and they contacted the New York cops, who pictures to the toll collectors at the and tunnels. So he takes a sip of Cokei while his hamburger is cooking he and wanders around the drugstore, for something he can put on his finds a billed cap that looks like the hat his brother Albert used to wear when went fishing together. That was when first moved to the Bronx. Albert used to him out to City Island, and they used fishing. The cap is blue, it looks just hat Albert used to wear. He tries it on, then takes it back to the counter with him.

"Where do I pay for this?" he asks the is.

"The food here, that hat at the checkout,"

ishe says. "What happened to your arm?" "A dog bit me," he says. "You really got rabies?"

"No, rio."

"Cause that's catching, ain't it? Rabies?" At the far end of the counter the old man says, "There's nobody in the world has nothing wrong with them."

"It's only catching if I bite you," Coney says, and smiles.

"You're not going to bite me, are you?" the girl says. She is looking at him sideways, like a sultry movie queen in an old television movie, sort of from under partially closed lids. She has one hand on her hip. Behind her the hamburger is sizzling on the griddle.

"No, I'm not going to bite you," Coney says.

"How you want this hamburger?" she says. "Medium rare."

She goes to the griddle, shovels the hamburger off it and puts it on a bun. Then she puts two slices of tomato on it, and some pickles and relish and onions, and she throws a couple of green olives and a piece of celery on the plate and brings it over to him. The hamburger is delicious. He has never

tasted anything so delicious in his .lif girl watches him as he eats. It is as if never before seen a hungry man eati watches each move he makes, she watch hamburger coming up to his mouth, teeth closing over it, she watches htm c and swallowing, she is making a do cum on what it is like to eat a hamburger.

"You're not a bit hungry, are you?"

says. :

"Nobody," the old man. at the e the counter says. "Nobody in the wor nothing wrong. Miss?" he says.

"Yes, sir?" she says .... "I would like a check, please."

"Yes, sir," she says, and walks over to

Coney watches her behind in the tight slacks. She knows he is looking at her.

exaggerates her walk. She is wearing heeled shoes, but she struts over to man as if she is wearing rhinestone with three-inch spikes. As she makes ourl old man's ticket, she glances at Coney smiles. He nods. He is beginning to be may not go back to New York all. Where can he go in New York?

goes to his mother's place, the fuzz'll.

there waiting. He can't go to Teddy's hou..

Teddy'll slam the door in his face. And cops have a dossier on all the guys used

in the Orioles, they'll be watching Benny's all the guys, what's the sense of going there? Back there is where he killed the At least here in Jersey the cop beef ain't theirs. All they're worried about is the diner holdup. He thinks maybe he will explore this little Italian waitress a wee bit further.

He knows he is very good with girls, and he further knows he is very good-looking. But he is also smart enough to know there isn't a man alive who doesn't think he himself is good-looking. Man looks in the mirror, he says to himself, "Good morning, you handsome irresistible devil." He'd catch guys in prison looking at themselves in the mirror, preening. Ugliest sons of bitches in the world, you ran into one of them in a dark alley you'd drop dead of a heart attack just looking at them. Preening. Good morning, you handsome irresistible devil. So h 's smart enough to know that maybe he's mistaken about how good-looking he is or isn't, but he knows he has a pretty fair batting average with gifts, and he prides himself on the fact that he's never had to pay for it in his life. That's not to say he hasn't fucked whores, because he has. But he's never paid for it. Never. He is pretty confident that the girl here in the drugstore finds him attractive, and he is alsn confident that he can make her.

The old man gets off the stool his change. He stares at the change in of his hand and then counts it again. approaches the checkout counter, puts down her confession magazine annoyed because she thinks she's going to have to stop reading and do instead. But the old man has paid at the counter, and he jerks his thumb back waitress, and the cashier nods and the confession magazine, and he goes the checkout and out of the drugstore.

The waitress is standing in front of now. She has her hands on her hips. there be anything else, sir?" she asks.

"Call me Steve"' he says, using the gave the doctor.

"Okay, Steve," she says, and she sound like they have already agreed to a month together in Brazil. "Will anything else?"

"Depends what you got in mind," says, and smiles.

"Right now, I got food in mind," says.

"But that's only right now, huh?" he She is smiling, too. They are both smiling looking into each other faces. "How later, huh?"

"We'll see about later" she says.

"How about seeing about later now?" he

"You want a cup of coffee?"

"I want to talk about later."

"Have a cup of coffee first," she says.

"Okay, I'll have a cup of coffee and also a piece of that Danish back there. Is that

"Cheese Danish," she says.

"Let me have a little piece of it," he says. He watches her as she draws the coffee, and lifts the cover off the Danish tray, and picks up a piece of pastry. He is still watching her when she brings the coffee and the Danish to the counter. She is wearing a smoky sultry look now; she smiles like a harem girl through a gauze mask.

"What's your name?" he says.

"Marie."

"Are you Italian, Marie?"

"French," she says.

"French. Well, well. How old are you, Marie?"

"Old enough, don't worry," she says. "What time do you get out of here, Marie?"

"That late, huh?" The coffee is very hot. He sips at it gingerly and then puts the cup back on the counter. "Six o'clock, huh?"

"Yes." She is looking at him steadily.

"Maybe I'll stop back here later," "What time is it now?" He looks wristwatch. "Almost four-thirty,"

"That gives me an hour and a half." "That's right," she says.

"So maybe I'll stop back later."

"If it's maybe," she says, "forget it." "Hey, wait a minute," he says, but already walked away to the end of the She comes around the counter, sits on picks up the comics from the Sunday and begins reading Dick Tracy.

Coney sips at his coffee. He is going her plenty of time. He puts the hat head and looks at himself in the mirror the counter. Not bad. He looks a little Albert L. Donato, the noted Buick sips some more coffee. He tilts the more rakish angle. He winks at himself mirror and then glances toward where is still reading the funnies at the end counter. She is thoroughly absorbed in Tracy. She is lip-reading her

Dick Tracy there at the end of the "Marie?" he says.

She turns toward him as if a st ran entered the drugstore and she cannot the sound of his voice. She has heard speaking, but she cannot imagine who possibly be, since she is alone in the

only the cashier and Dick Tracy, and voice from out of the blue has startled her. She locates Coney at last, sighs, gets up off the stool, comes around the counter, and walks to where he is sitting.

"Hi," he says.

She says nothing. She stares at him. She is i mortally offended.

"Can I have a check, please?" he says.

She begins writing. She does not look at him now. Her pencil scratches out the figures on her pad. He looks at her hand as she writes. The fingernails are bitten to the quick; he likes tense, nervous girls, they are very good in bed.

"You're a pretty girl, Marie," he says.

She does not look up.

"You want me to come back here at six o'clock?"

She puts the check on the counter facedown, and then she looks up into his face. He thinks she. is going to tell him to go to hell.

Instead, she says, "Do what you like." "I'd like to come back," he says. "Fine," she says.

"Okay, I'll be back at six."

"Fine."

"You live near here?"

"Yes."

"You of a car?"

"I take a bus."

"Cause all I'm driving is a pickup true! "That's okay." .... "Okay," he says, and picks up the

"Do I pay this here?"

"Yes," she says.

"Okay," he says, and takes out his and wonders if he's supposed to tip just made a date with her, is he tip her? He pays her the exact am,

the check, and she gives him a look,"

can't tell whether she's still sore what he said earlier, or whether she':

now because he stiffed her. "Well,

you later," he says, and walks away counter. At the checkout, he takes blue cap and hands it to the cashier. Sh.e inside it for a price tag, and then rln the sale. The plate-glass windows at the of the store are behind her. Through

Coney can see the pickup truck. Alon the truck is a white car marked

NEW J

STATE POLICE.

"That's a dollar forty-seven," the cas says.

The police car is empty. Coney can the trooper in the cab of the pickutde rummaging around. He can only assu fat Will Hollip got out of the storage si and called the state police to tell them a

shot his brother's valuable and gentle shepherd and stole a pickup truck sides. Otherwise, why would a trooper be through the truck now? He will find Smith & Wesson in a minute. He will thumb open the glove compartment and find the gun. Coney turns immediately from the checkout counter and walks to where Marie is sitting reading the funnies again. She just cannot tear herself away from Dick Tracy, this girl. She has already read four panels of the strip. By Christmas she will have finished the whole page. He imagines being in bed with her. He imagines trying to talk to her afterwards. It will be like talking to a yak.

"Marie," he says, "is there a back door to this place?"

"Why?" she says, and looks up from the comics into his face. Her eyes dart past him to the front door.

Coney turns at once. The door is opening. The trooper is coming inside. He has his gun in his hand. Coney does not know what kind of gun it is, but he knows that the troopers in some states use .357 Magnums, and he knows a bullet from a Magnum can tear off your head. The gun in the trooper's hand is a big one, it could easily be a Magnum. Coney starts moving toward the back of the drugstore. He does not think the trooper

has seen him yet. He figures the trooper has his piece in his hand is he's had a report on a stolen picku and he's found the truck and there's a in the glove compartment. Which is reason for him to proceed with "

him, proceeding with caution means his own weapon in his hand as he drugstore in front of which the is parked.

Coney is moving down the center shelves on his left and right, perfume, Band-Aids, toothpaste, razor blades, shaving cream, menstrual pads: he is moving between of stationery and monster models, cards and boxes of candy; he is between shelves of magazines and books. He spots the door at the back place, a glass door with a metal across it about waist-high. He tries the and it is locked. He glances back shoulder. The trooper has moved from checkout counter to the lunch counter. talking to Marie, and she is pointing the rear of the store.

The door is wired for a burglar alarm, strips creating a border design around glass. He knows the alarm isn't on, it would ring every time somebody

Io e front door. Besides, an alarm going off uld only bring cops, and he has a cop re already, looking toward the back of the store and nodding. In a minute he will come through the store yelling. And maybe shooting. Coney brings back his foot and kicks out flat footed at the deadbolt lock. The door doesn't budge. He kicks at it again. The cop is coming down the center aisle now. His gun is out in front of him. Coney thinks he has been here before. He has certainly been here before with a cop coming down the aisle at him holding a gun. This cop is not holding the gun in his left hand. This cop is not holding up a shield. This cop is just coming down the aisle very fast. There is also one other difference. Coney does not have a gun.

"Hey, your" the cop yells.

There are garbage cans and rakes and rubber hoses in the back part of the store, sprinklers, trowels, bags of fertilizer- this is the gardening section of this drugstore that's a supermarket. There are metal garbage cans and plastic garbage cans. He picks up one of the heavy metal cans and hurls it at the glass door, but it just bounces off the fuckin door, the door has got to be made of steel though it only looks like glass. He picks up a rake and swings it at the door, and the wooden

handle of the rake breaks in half, door still hasn't got a dent in it. The yelling "You, hey you!" and there is Coney can do now but run toward the' of the store again, either that or be There are three aisles in the store, cop is running down the center aisle, gun getting bigger and bigger as he closer and closer. Coney breaks for on the left, and the gun goes off like a putting a huge hole in the glass door him. Coney is sure it is a Magnum he is afraid of it, he does not want to with a Magnum.

He is running up an aisle that has in it, Pyrex dishes and serving bowls, drinking glasses and brandy snifters, some drugstore. He knows that cop reaches the end of the center will come around into this aisle, and drop to one knee and steady his firing and put a big hole in Coney's back. has already fired his warning shot, shouting "Halt! Halt or I'll shoot!" as comes running down the center aisle, going in the opposite direction up the the left. There is a space above the an open space, the drugstore has a vaulted ceiling and the shelves are really dividers between the aisles I-la c'limh.

[ivider on his right the way he climbed that fence in the Bronx, only now he is knocking il asses and dishes and cups and saucers to the floor; the entire glass wares department of this fine drugstore-supermarket-department store

is crashing into the aisle as he climbs the divider and rolls over the top of it as if it is a back-yard fence, and drops into the middle aisle. The blue hat drops from his head. He does not stop to pick it up.

He comes sprinting up the aisle, heading straight for the checkout counter. The cashier has stopped reading her confession magazine, there is a true story unfolding right here where she works, and she is watching Coney goggle-eyed as he runs toward her. For no good reason, she starts screaming. Behind him, the trooper has figured out that Coney isn't in the aisle on the left any more, he has climbed over the divider and is in the center aisle again. But Coney has a good lead on him, and even when the trooper opens fire behind him, he feels confident he is going to make it through the checkout counter and out of the store. The cashier ducks, she is afraid she's going to get shot by accident. Coney runs past her and veers sharply to his left, towards the front door. In a minute he is outside in the parking lot. He does not know whether to keep running, or take the pickup

truck, or steal the trooper's car. He if the trooper has left his keys in the doubts it.

He decides to run.

He has always been good at running. He runs parallel to the front drugstore, and then cuts sharply the edge of the building and into the behind it. If the trooper has seen him into the woods, Coney will still be off in here than running on the the open. He is wearing Sam Hollip's pants and white short-sleeved shirt, the second time in twelve hours he's clothes belonging to another man. He the pants and the shirt were green, be camouflage if the trooper opens fire a he does not hear any thrashing in the behind him; is it possible the trooper see him coming in here? He tries to the kind of lead he had on the trooper, long enough so that by the time the came out the. front door, Coney would have been around the side of the building? wouldn't the trooper have seen him the plate-glass windows, running right? And wouldn't he have guessed Coney'd be heading for the woods " the highway?

The terrain slopes sharply upward,

doing more climbing than he is running, but he still doesn't hear anything behind him- is it possible? Is it possible that dumb trooper doesn't know he's in here? He begins to suspect a trap. Maybe the trooper knows a shortcut, maybe he's circling around from another direction, he'll spring out of the woods the way Sam Hollip's monster dog did. But the only sound in the woods is the sound of Coney's own breathing, and the crackle of twigs underfoot as he labors up the incline, and the hum of insects and the occasional voice of a bird. Nothing else. He is getting very good at hearing things in the woods, despite the fact that he is only a city boy. Maybe they will do an article on him once this is all over. Put his picture on the cover of a magazine. He does not have much hair on his chest, however,.

He has reached the crest of the hill now. The ground is level here, the rock outcropping covered with soil and tufted with weeds. On the other side the ground rolls, gently away into a grassy valley. There are wild flowers in the valley, blue and yellow and white and lavender. The sun is shining brightly, and there is a single cloud in the sky; it hangs motionless, a puff of white.

He starts slowly down the gentle slope.

He does not know how long he has walking. He has forgotten to wind his and it has stopped at four o'clock, does not know what time it is now. him, beyond a fringe of trees, he hears and laughter.

He has come through the valley and i woods on the other side of it. He has more than once in dappled clearings, has stopped to drink water from a a stream deep in the woods. He has a pasture of waist-high grass, circling, grasshoppers leaping ahead of and now he comes through yet another and cautiously approaches the voices laughter. He crouches. He peers the leaves.

There are men and women in bathing on a lawn as emerald-bright as the had been. The pool beyond sparkles late-afternoon sunshine. A black man white jacket and black trousers is behind a table covered with a white There are whiskey bottles and glasses the table, a dish with lemon peels and wedges, another dish with olives. The man is mixing a drink for a tall suntanned woman wearing a white bikini. A fat man wearing red trunks black-rimmed glasses is tellin a Joke.

he finishes the joke, the circle of men and women around him burst out laughing.

Coney would love a drink. He would love nothing better than to stroll out of the woods and up to the bar, ask the nigger for a gin and tonic. A gin and tonic would hit the spot now. The fat man is obviously the host. He leaves the group of people he's just told the joke to, and wanders over to another group, probably to tell the same joke. If he was any kind of host, he'd ask Coney to come out of the woods and have a gin and tonic. There are great-looking women here, none of them spring chickens, but all of them tall and suntanned and wearing hardly any clothes.

There is the smell of money hanging over this place. The black man has set up his bar on a flagstone terrace covered with a striped awning, red and' yellow. Behind the terrace, there are mullioned doors leading to a room in shadow beyond. The house is very big, ivy-covered stone rising to turrets and gabled windows, a slate roof, copper gutters, a huge chimney with three green hooded cones sticking out of it. The women are sleek and tan and swift as race horses, and the men ignore them the way only rich men would, talking instead about their investments in oil or soybeans, talking about their clubs in New Yark talkin about thereat squash game

they had yesterday, after which off the court and drank some beer on television, talking about the they will take to Europe in the fall, French girls they are going to fuck get to Paris.

Coney envies them and hates them.

He wants a gin and tonic.

He wants the tall sleek blonde in the string bikini.

He circles around through the trees, the diving-board end of the pool, his way toward the big stone house. occurred to him that all these fat rich out here are in swimming trunks. out here talking among themselves, 1 their sleek tanned women, and they swimming trunks- which means their are somewhere in the house. Or separate pool house. Coney can't see a house. He knows what a pool house like because he has seen movies in people come out of a cabana is what them, these pool houses, and then water or lie in the sun. He has never a private pool. He would like to swim pool with the tall blonde in the white bikini. The only pools he has ever are the Boys' Club pool on 110th Street he was living in Harlem, and the I

pool on First Avenue, also when he was in Harlem. And then after they'd moved to the Bronx he swam at Tibbetts Brook in Yonkers, and also at Willsons Woods, and once his brother AI took him to Playland and they swam in the pool there. He would give his right arm to swim in this pool with the blonde in the white string bikini. Rabies and all, he would give it. He would give his left arm for a gin and tonic. He would swim armless to the side of the pool and ask the nigger to hold the drink to his lips. The blonde would giggle at his marvelous stunt, an armless man swimming the length of the pool. He would be the first unarmed robber in history,

The trees completely surround the house, he is grateful to the landscaper. The back of the house is all stone, windows slightly higher than his head on the main floor, windows on the second floor some fifteen feet above that; high ceilings. He is looking for a door he can go in through. He keeps circling the house through the trees, and he finds a place where there's a small courtyard, and on one wall in the angle where the walls join, there's a door painted a pale blue. Brass knocker on it. Dutch door, top half open. Inside he can see a black woman puttering around.

He doesn't know if the lady of the house is in the kitchen ivin orders to the hired help,

but he figures he'll take a chance. He to get in that house and find different threads. The trooper back must have seen he was wearing blue and a white shirt. Even if the trooper see it, Marie sure as hell did. Very to help the police officer, old

There he is, Officer, heading for the at the back of the store. Thank you, You cunt. He comes out of the walks nonchalantly across the lawn kitchen door. Inside the kitchen, woman is humming. This is down South. She is probably cookin on the cob in a great big pot on the and she is humming old slave walks right in the kitchen. The black is alone in there.

"Hi," he says.

"Afternoon," the woman says, and him.

"I'd like to take a swim," he says, most certainly the truth.

"Yes sir," the woman says.. "Where do I change my clothes?" he This is the truth, too, more. or sincerely wants to change his clothes rather Sam Hollip's clothes, for else's clothes.

"Top of the stairs," the woman says.

"Thank you," Coney says, and smiles pleasantly, and walks out of the kitchen into a carpeted hallway.

Everybody's outside, the house is still and empty, there are dust motes climbing shafts of sunlight in the living room. A woman laughs, her laughter hangs delicately on the air and then shatters like broken glass. He climbs the carpeted steps. He has never been inside a house like this in his life. He wonders if the owner of the house, the fat man in the red trunks and black-rimmed glasses, keeps a gun. He would certainly like a gun. Once he gets himself a change of clothes, which he is sure to do in the room at the top of the stairs, the only thing he will then need is a pistol. Guy has a house like this one, he's got to have a gun in it someplace, protect the turf. The door at the top of the stairs is aiar, Coney can see into it, can see one angle of the bed, and on it clothes neatly laid out.

He goes into the room and closes the door. There are only men's clothes in here, the ladies have probably changed in another room. There are trousers and shirts and undershorts on the bed, and on the floor around the bed, lined up in pairs, there are shoes with socks tucked into them. Through the two open windows in the bedroom, he can hear people laughing and splashing and

talking outside. He has a crazy idea minute- if there's a bathing suit around, maybe in one of the dresser he'll put it on and go join the party. over to the bar, tell the nigger he'd gin and tonic. Then find the blonde white string bikini, tell her she looks familiar, didn't he once drink beer " in a television commercial? It was rl they won the stickball game, will laugh her laugh, it will hang on the tinkle like glass.

Most of the guys outside looked fat to be wonders now if any of these clothes fit him. He is beginning to think will never again in his lifetime wear clothes. "Then they put him in his excruciating detail, hands folded over a on his chest, he will be wearing a shirt and gabardine trousers and and patent-leather shoes belonging to rich bastard in New Jersey. He the bed for a pair of pants that seem about his size, and he finds a pair of white slacks, and a shirt of a synthetic fabric, polyester and says on the label, blue-and-green it, long-sleeved. The long sleeves are because dear Marie back in the dru sure to have told the trooper the man

bandage on his arm and was kidding about rabies. He feels a little funny putting on another man's undershorts, used undershorts at that, but he puts them on and then slips on the white pants, Jesus, they fit like a glove. He puts on the shirt then rolls up the cuffs just two turns. He leaves the shirt hanging out of the pants. The socks are a pale blue, the shoes are white patent leather. The fuckin shoes are too small for him. He goes through the shoes lined up around the bed, looking inside for sizes. His own shoe size is a 101/2B, he finds a pair of 11's and puts them aside, and then he finds a pair of 10's, and he tries on first the 10's and then the 11's and decides the 10's feel better. They are brown shoes, and they don't go too well with the white pants and the polyester shirt, but that's life, sweetheart. The door opens.

A woman comes into the room. "Hi," she says, and smiles. "Hi," Coney says.

"I'm looking for the loo," she says.

She is wearing an orange beach coat and high-heeled cork-soled wedgies. Long tanned legs, hair like a rust-colored mop. She has brown eyes and she wears orange lipstick that matches the beach coat. There is green shadow on her eyelids.

"Leavin so soon?" she says.

"I just got here," he says.

"I'm Lili Shearson," she says, and out her hand.

"Steve Casatelli," he says, and hand awkwardly.

"I'd love to chat a while," she says, "but I really have to tinkle. Is that says, indicating a door, and going' to it, and opening it. She sighs in am" " relief, does a sort of Groucho Marx the bathroom, and locks the door behind]

Coney leaves the room at once, down the carpeted steps into the hallway. He cannot go out through the again because he told the black woman going to take a swim, and you don't swim in white slacks and a blue-and polyester and cotton long-sleeved sports He wishes he could wait for the woman orange beach coat to come out of the to chat with him. He would love to chat i! a woman who calls a toilet a loo, and a tinkle. He wonders if the blonde in the string bikini talks like that. He finds thinks must be the front door of the and he opens it and steps out onto an gravel driveway.

There is a pale-blue Cadillac sitting in front of the house, the engine "

woman is getting out of the car on

side, and a man is getting out on the driver's side. A kid in blue jeans and a striped T-shirt is holding the door open for the woman. She smiles at Coney as she gets out of the car. He smiles back nervously. The man comes around the car and says "Hi" to Coney, and Coney says "Hi" back. The kid in the blue jeans says, "Be with you in a minute, sir," and the man says to Coney, "Roger Lewis," and sticks out his hand. "Steve Casatelli," Coney says, and shakes hands with the man. "My wife Adrienne," the man says. "Nice to see you," the woman says. They both nod and smile and then go into the house without ringing the door bell. Coney starts walking up the driveway.

The kid is parking the blue Cad on the road that runs past the house. There are a halfdozen cars parked in the oval driveway, and another dozen or more on the road. Coney figures he can drive away from here in style if he is willing to add a grand-larceny auto to what the cops already have on him. Counting the diner this morning, they have him on two separate counts of armed robbery, one in New York, the other in Jersey, and they have him on what they will probably call murder one, though it was actually self-defense, and they also have him on assault one in New Jersey, for shooting the cook who came at him with the cleaver, though that was self-defense too.

So he figures adding the grand-larceny to all the rest isn't going to make a a difference, one way or the other. He: the feeling, in fact, that since nine o' last night, when he returned that cop's and shot him dead in self-defense; since minute and that second, nothing he's and nothing he's about to do is " change the situation in the slightest. He particularly worried about this, he figures sera, sera. So he continues walking up driveway, knowing he is going to steal a When he was a member of the Orioles, used to steal cars all the time, but only' joy-riding, dump them in the city after they were done with them. It was stealing cars back in those days. But easy as it is going to be today. Today going to be handed the car of his a silver platter. The kid is running driveway to meet him. "Yes, sir," he "which one is it again?"

"The brown Mercedes," Coney says. The kid frowns, looks at him as if wondering if this is the same guy who up in the brown Mercedes. But Coney him down, and the kid turns and runs where the Mercedes is parked right at head of the driveway. By the time reaches the big brick pillars flanking

drive, the kid has the car started and is standing outside it, holding the door open on the driver's side. The kid still looks puzzled. He is probably certain now that Coney isn't the man who drove up in this car, and he is probably also beginning to wonder if Coney is the man who was earlier wearing the white slacks and the polyester shirt. But Coney hands the kid a buck, and the kid says. "Thank you, sir," and smiles, and keeps holding the door open until Coney is inside and fastening the seat belt. He closes the door then and stands back a few feet, watching Coney as he eases the car out into the road.

The car smells of real leather. It is a rich smell, he luxuriates in it. He has not driven a car since he got out of prison. He began breaking parole a month and four days after his release from Sing Sing, but the one thing he has not done in that time is drive an automobile because he does not want to get stopped by a cop on a traffic violation and be unable to show him a driver's license. The car he is driving now is a 280SL, a '63 or a '64, he's not sure which, but a discontinued model either way. Probably cost eight or nine thousand dollars new, bucket seats in beige leather, stick shift on the floor, AM/FM radio he turns on the radio now, stabbing at one of the buttons and getting a rock station; and

then pushing in another button and station playing an opera. He reme grandfather going to the opera in B all the time. The car has a convertible he is tempted to lower the top and drive with the wind in his crew cut and the of the opera flooding the countryside. It beautiful countryside he drives through forgets for the moment that he is from the law. He feels instead that he is for a late-afternoon drive. He looks at watch, sees that it is still four o'clock, remembers that it's stopped. The clock reads 6:10.

In a little while it will be dark.

He desperately needs a gun.

Before this he has used guns aggressively, to force people into things he wanted them to do, to force into giving him things he wanted from

Now, at 7:48 P.M. on the dashboard wants a gun only for defense. He is something terrible is going to happen if he does not get his hands on a gun He knows that there are probably two angry people back there at the pool the one whose clothes he stole and the whose car he stole unless they are and the same person. He knows the have undoubtedly been called by now

he knows they are probably looking for the stolen car this very minute, but he is reluctant to get rid of it until he has a gun.

All that remains of the afternoon sun is a thin line of vibrant purple behind the silhouetted hills. As he drives northward and eastward, the sky and the hills blend into one. There is a moon, a slender silver slice hanging against the blackness. His headlights have meaning now, they pierce the darkness ahead, picking out shops, and roadside stands, and gasoline stations, all of them closed this is Sunday. He glances at the fuel gauge. The tank is a quarter full. In the glare of the headlights he sees a phone booth on the side of the road, and he pulls in alongside it, and then steps out of the car and walks quickly to the license plate at the rear. The plate is a Jersey plate, pale yellow and black, the police undoubtedly have the number. There is a clean pressed handkerchief in the hip pocket of the slacks he stole, and he takes that out now and tents it over his hand and gingerly unscrews the bulb illuminating the license plate. He throws the bulb aside, and then steps into the phone booth.

If this was New York City, there'd be no telephone directory in the booth. Also, the phone wouldn't be working. Also, somebody would have oissed on the floor. But this

is Jersey, and when he closes the the booth the light comes on, and directory on the end of a chain and the is clean and he figures if he wanted to phone call, he would stand a very good here in this booth. In New York City the are thirty-to-one you will never get to phone call from a public booth. It is " the police to have a special number to when you want to report crime. Tro you go into a booth the phone is always' Hi of order. Coney sometimes thinks there bunch of guys just like himself "

over New York City fucking up the

So if later they're committing a robbery burglary or mugging an old lady in the nobody can pick up the phone and dial 91

He opens the directory to the yellow at the back of the book. There are two with the heading GUNS at the top.

them reads GRAVEL-GUNS and the other reads GUNS-HAIR. The listings start bottom of the first page, under the

GUNS & GUNSMITHS. There are four on that page, and six on the following Coney rips both pages out of the phone Then he puts a dime in the slot and operator. When she comes on he tells on the highway someplace, and doesn't exactly where he is, and could she please

him the location of the phone booth, what town it's in. She tells him where he is, and he thanks her and hangs up, and then goes to sit in the car with the interior light on, to study the ten listings for GUNS

& GUNSMITHS.

There is only one listing for this town. A place called Richard's Gun Rack, Inc. The address is 76 Rock Ledge Road. He snaps off the overhead light, puts the car in gear, and begins driving north again. Probably going in the wrong direction, Rock Ledge is probably someplace behind him. He passes two closed gas stations, an Exxon and a Mobil. lie passes a closed diner, looks just like the one he held up this afternoon, except it doesn't have those big aluminum poles out front with the OPEN 24 HOURS sign. Finally, he comes to a shopping center with everything closed in it but a tavern.

The jukebox is playing a country-western song when Coney walks in. He takes a stool at the bar and waits for the bartender to discover him. At the other end of the bar, there is a man wearing a pinkie ring that sparkles even in a place as dim as this. A girl wearing a black dress is sitting on the stool next to him. She almost fades into the background except for her frizzy blonde hair. The bartender nods at something the girl says, and then comes over to Collev.

"I'm looking for Rock Ledge Road," says.

The bartender nods. "Keep going till you come to the third says. "That's Main, goes straight the middle of town. You make a right, go two more stoplights, and then you'll another right, that's..."

"What are you telling him, Lou?" the with the pinkie ring says.

"He wants Rock Ledge. I'm down Main."

"He's better off taking Lakeview." "Too complicated." "Shorter, though."

"You go the way I'm telling bartender says to Coney. "Third you make a right, then you go two lights and make another right. That's Street. You go four blocks on Pointer, Rock Ledge. What number did you

Coney hesitates, and then lies. four," he says.

'You'll have to make a left, I Where's one-oh-four Rock Ledge,

"Down around Osborne, I think," the with the pinkie ring says.

"Yeah, you'll have to make a left. mostly stores on Rock Ledge," the says. "You're not lookin for a store, are

Cause this is Sunday, you know."

"No, it's not a store," Coney says.

"There's houses, too, on Rock Ledge," the guy with the pinkie ring says. "Tony from Newark used to live on Rock Ledge."

"Who's Tony from Newark?" the bartender says.

"Tony from Newark, what do you mean who's Tony from Newark? Tony from Newark."

"You mean Tony who lives on First Avenue?"

"Yeah, Tony who lives on First Avenue."

"You telling me he used to live on Rock Ledge?"

"That's right, he used to live on Rock Ledge."

"It's mostly stores on Rock Ledge," the bartender says to Coney, and shrugs.

"Well, thanks a lot," Coney says.

"He don't know who's Tony from Newark," the guy with the pinkie ring says to the girl. The girl lights a cigarette and says nothing. On the iukebox, there is a click, a pause, and then Sinatra comes on singing "My 'ay." Coney thanks the bartender again and goes outside.

The car starts immediately, he is beginning to like this sweet little wagon. His mother always tells him he has extensive taste, and

she is right. She is not right about too things, his mother, but she is certainly about his taste. There is nothing he like better than to live in the kind house he stole the clothes and the car swim in a pool with a blonde in a string bikini, take her to the Copa show her off. Drive up in this sweet wagon, doorman'll say, "Good evening, Donato," give the guy a five-dollar ti inside and show off the blonde. Wear diamond on his pinkie, like the one the the bar was wearing just now. Flash it Coney doesn't care much about clothes; jewelry, yeah, and good food, and liquor, yeah, he could enjoy that kind all right. Maybe when this is all over, the heat cools about the cop, he will big one someplace. Maybe go west, over a bank in a hick town out there. Texas, those Texas Rangers are

But someplace out there. Some hick Maybe in Kansas someplace. Walk in, the. piece in the teller's face, you could knock over one of those hick a cap pistol. Cops out there wouldn't be New York cops, fuckin bastards. Co there'd be sitting with their feet up desk, fanning themselves with a fan. The phone rings, somebody tells

the bank's just been held up. "Yeah?" the cop says. He's probably a sheriff. "Yeah?" he says, and swings his feet off the desk, and looks around for somebody he can make a deputy- was that the second stoplight just then, or the third? Coney's thinking about holding up a fuckin bank, and he's losing track of the stoplights. He hopes it was only the second one. There's another one up ahead, and if that's where he's supposed to turn, it'll say Main Street.

He peers through the windshield, sees the street sign on the corner it's Main, all right. He makes the right turn, and starts counting stoplights again. At the second light he makes another right turn and that's Pointer Street, just like the bartender said. Four more blocks to Rock Ledge, there it is, there's a FULL STOP sign on the corner. He brakes the automobile, he looks in both directions, he is being a perfect little driver in this sweet little wagon, and he is beginning to feel as cheerful as a whore on payday because he is about to find Richard's Gun Rack, and he is about to break into it and steal himself a deadly weapon. A death machine. Maybe a P-38 like the one he emptied into the dog. Or maybe a .45 automatic, he likes that gun, too.

He discovers in a minute that he's heading in the wrong direction. The number on the

corner was 125 and the numbers are up instead of down, he has reached before he discovers he's made a "

Not his mistake, actually, he's only the bartender's directions, it's the who made the mistake. He drives to next corner, the streets are almost even though it's only eight o'clock byl dashboard clock, eight o'clock on a night in a hick town in New Jersey, probably won't even be an alarm s Richard's Gun Rack. The light on the is red, he waits it out, he is doing by the book. He is just a law-abiding Jersey resident out for a drive in his Mercedes-Benz, cruising Rock Ledge search of an open pizzeria. He makes a turn, circles the block, comes down to Ledge again, and makes a left. The are dwindling now, 118 and 116 and 1 passes the corner, he is in the 90 block and then the 80 block and finally he into the 70 block.

76 Rock Ledge Road is in the middle block.

GUNS the sign says.

It is a big white sign over the entire of the shop.

GUNS.

There are two Ilate-glass windows

the entrance door of the shop, and there is nothing on either of these windows but the single word GUNS again, lettered in gold leaf on each window. There is nothing about this being Richard's Gun Rack. Guns are what the man is selling and that's what it says on the big white sign in black letters, and that's what it says in gold leaf on each of the plate-glass windows: GUNS.

Coney has come to the right place.

He continues on past the place, though, because if the cops in this hick town stumble onto the hot Mercedes, he wants them to find it outside a paint store or a beauty parlor and not outside the place he is in. He parks the car in the 60 block, in front of a store selling radios and phonographs and television sets and stereo equipment. The television set is going in the front window. Owner probably left it on over the weekend because there are millions of people milling over the sidewalks here in this thriving little metropolis. A night baseball game is on. It is the Mets and some other team, Coney can't make out the uniform. He watches for a minute, and then starts back toward the gun shop.

The sidewalks are deserted.

There are rifles in both windows of the shop, with cartridges spread all around them as if they were gold coins spilling from a

pirate's chest. Coney searches the plate for the metallic strips that will tell him place is wired. He cannot find any, are there any burglar-alarm stickers on windows. He wishes he knew more burglar alarms. He knows guys can tell exactly what kind of alarm is in a place by taking one look at any exposed wire. systems, it doesn't matter if there are wires hanging all over the outside because if you cut a wire the alarm goes!. anyway. But he doesn't see any strips windows here, and as he circles the going through the alley on the side of the and around to the back, he can't see any or bells or anything that would indicate place has an alarm system, lie can't it, a gun shop that isn't wired. There's a on the back of the shop, glass panels in upper half of it, a deadbolt showing on outside. That's in case anybody smashes: glass, they can't simply reach in and bolt and open the door. This kind of lock, need a key to open it even from the " metallic strips on the glass here, either. really possible?

He tries a flat footed kick at the hoping to spring the lock, but the doesn't budge an inch. That is hates about this kind of shit. When

doing a robbery, you just walk in the front door and throw a gun on the man, and that's it. Here you have to go fooling around with locks and trying to break into a goddamn place, anybody'd go into burglary has to be out of his mind. He doesn't know what to do. If he breaks the glass panels, he won't be able to unlock the door because of the deadbolt. And even if he breaks out all the glass and the wooden frame, the opening will still be too small for him to crawl through. There are guns inside this fuckin shop, he can taste them.

He comes through the alley again, looking for a window, and he finds a small one high up on the wall, probably a bathroom window. Loo, she called it. I'm looking for the loo. If he can open that window, he can get inside the shop. He goes around back again to where he saw a garbage can alongside the door, and he carries the can into the alley with him and stands on it, and tries to open the window. He can see the street at the end of the alley. A single lamppost illuminates the sidewalk, but the alley itself is in darkness. There is no traffic on the street. In the darkness in the silence, he works on the window, trying to raise it. He wishes he had a screwdriver or a knife, but he has neither. There are probably tools in the trunk of the Mercedes, he should have thought of that, but he didn't know he

was going to have to open a window. half thinking of forgetting the whole But there are guns inside there.

He climbs down off the garbage can, then takes the lid off, and turns the can upside down, and climbs onto it There is garbage all over the alley floor but it's not rotten food, it's clean little cardboard boxes that cartridges and newspapers and gun-company crap like that. Coney plans to smash window with the lid of the garbage can, will smash the upper pane of glass just the inside latch, and then he wilt reach in unlatch it. He is afraid that maybe the is wired, after all, maybe with one of new sonic alarms where they put " around and if a door or a window is or anything is smashed, whoever's picks up the noise and calls the police. is afraid that when he smashes the bell will go off. He is also afraid that smashes the window he will get glass in his eyes.

But there are guns inside there.

He brings back the lid of the garbage He is holding it like a shield, and he it flat against the glass and the glass making a racket he is sure they can hear the way in the Bronx. There is no bell,

the sound of the glass shattering, but his heart begins to beat wildly anyway. He waits in the darkness. He is sure someone has heard the breaking glass. He is sure someone will yell Hey, what are you doing there? "There's houses, too, on Rock Ledge," the guy with the pinkie ring said back there in the bar. Coney waits. A shard of glass falls from the window frame and shatters on the alley floor. It sounds like a cannon going off in church. He waits and listens. Nothing. He reaches in and turns the latch. He opens the window, crawls in over the sill, and comes through the bathroom into the shop.

There are guns everywhere.

He has never seen so many guns in his life. There are rifles and shotguns in racks on three walls of the shop, and there are handguns in cases along two of the walls and also in a center case that has an aisle on either side of it. Light from the lamppost outside splashes through the two plate-glass windows, glinting on blued steel barrels and walnut stocks. On both plate-glass windows, Coney sees the word GUNS backward. He reads it as SNUG, and he smiles. Yes. Yes, he feels snug and cozy inside this shop, he could stay in this shop forever. The shotguns and rifles in the wall racks stand like soldiers at attention as Coney inspects the revolvers

and automatic pistols in the cases. There Remingtons on the wall, and Springfield and rifles and shotguns he cannot immediately place. But he knows each and every hand in the cases.

He can never remember the names of all seven dwarfs, but he knows all these gu by name. Silently, he rolls the names on:! tongue. The names echo sonorously inside head. Lovingly, like a poet reading his work, he recites the names in silent revere -Colt and Llama; Bernadelli; Smithi Wesson; Crosman; Ruger and Savage; St. & Derringer; Hi-Standard; Iver Johnson. knows the models, he loves those names, t the Buntline Special and the Buntline Sco the Commander and the Agent, the C Special and the Centennial Airweight, the W Terrier and the Sidewinder, the Trails and the Python. There is a Walther P-38 one of the cases, identical to the one he u to kill the dog, and there is a .357 Magnum Jesus, it is a monster gun. He would be afra to hold that gun in his hand, afraid it might i off accidentally.

He takes his time deciding which gun.: guns he will finally choose. He is like a c in a toy shop on Christmas Eve, and his fa has said to him he can have any toy shol. He can hardly remember his father, 1

wonders why he thinks of his father at this moment. But he does feel childlike here in the midst of all these pistols of varying sizes. The cases are locked. With the stock of a rifle he smashes the glass on the case in the center, and then reaches into it and begins trying various pistols for grip and heft. He has carried many of these guns in the past, but some of them are new to him, and he examines each with care and discernment. Here is the pistol he shot the cop with last night, he does not want that hoodoo jinx of a gun again. And there's the gun Jocko was using, and there's the .32caliber Smith & Wesson that Coney left in the glove compartment of the pickup truck. He passes a boxed pair of Number 4 Derringers, be a nice gun for Jeanine, she could tuck it in her G-string, fire off a shot with every bump and grind. He wonders where she is. Fuck her, he thinks.

He keeps coming back to the Magnum.

It is some gun, bigger than any of the others in the case- well, bigger than any of the real guns. Some of the target pistols and early western reproductions have longer barrels, but the Magnum, a Ruger Blackhawk, has got to be what- ten or eleven inches overall length? Has to be at least a six-inch barrel on that weapon, has to be.

He is afraid of picking up the gun. guesses it isn't loaded, but he has held such a huge weapon in his hand, he's fearful of it. He moves down the to the Walther, and he picks it up, the is familiar, he knows this gun, it saved life this afternoon when that fuckin was chewing on his arm. The arm pretty good now, he is beginning to that maybe he won't die of rabies, after" even though the doctor told him it take forty days for the first syml appear. He has already forgotten what first symptoms will be. Doc, Dopey, Happy, Droopy, Dumpy and Doc, he and bursts out laughing. He is be" " to feel very giddy and silly here inside gun shop with the light shining from the lamppost outside, lie doesn't he wants another Walther, maybe he'll the Government Model Colt. But he drifting back to the Magnum.

That is some big gun.

He picks it up. Blackhawk is some for a gun. It sounds like an Indian. His is trembling as he picks it up. It's a gun, it weighs a little more than two It's got a walnut grip with an emblem just behind the trigger, looks like a flight, must be the Ruger trademark.

hefts the gun. He rolls out the cylinder to make sure it is not loaded. Then he rolls the cylinder into the gun again, and pulls back the hammer with his thumb, and squeezes the trigger.

Click.

It is as if he turns on a red light. He squeezes the trigger, and he hears the click and the red light goes on. It takes him a second to realize he has not caused the sudden red illumination, it is not his squeezing the trigger that makes the light go on. The light is coming through the plate-glass windows of the shop. The light is red, the light is flashing, the light is the dome light on top of a state trooper's car.

The first thing Coney thinks is Yes, the place is wired, it is one of those sonic jobs, and then he thinks No, it is probably a neighbor who heard the glass smashing, and then he realizes it doesn't make a damn bit of difference, they have got him cold inside here, he is standing here with a huge pistol in his hand, but the pistol is empty, he is standing here naked. The trooper who gets out of the car is a big black bastard. He is wearing the trooper hat and the trooper boots, and he is coming toward the front door of the shop. He has his gun in his right hand and a lonz torchlizht in the other

hand. As he approaches the door, a car pulls into the curb, and then a one. Two of the cars are state police, other one belongs to the local fuzz, is a three-alarm fire here. Coney can through the two plate-glass windows, an looks like a movie taking place on two screens that have the word SNUG written each of them.

"Watch it, there he is!" one of the 1 cops yells, and the trooper who got the second car throws his light through. window into the shop. The second trool is white. Coney sees this the instant bef the light comes on. He also sees that black trooper is taking aim along the lenin. of his arm. It is just like the liquor st last night: the bastards are going to s shooting at him, and he is going to h to kill one of them in self-defense. But gun is empty. The gun in his hand, the fuckin gun that can tear off a man's head, no cartridges in it.

The movie screens up there are splint with light now, everybody is throwing li onto the glass and it is splashing all over shop, there are guns everywhere. There guns inside the shop, on the walls and in cases, and there are guns outside there Rock Ledge Road where two state troop

and two local cops are waiting to shoot him dead, he wonders if they know he killed.a cop last night. Light is bouncing all over the shop, he can see only guns and light, the plate-glass windows splintering first with light and then splintering with the impact of the bullets that come leaping out of the darkness. The glass shatters, he has never heard such noise in his life, the sound of the guns going off outside and the sound of the glass shattering and then the sound of something angry buzzing past his ear, he must do something, they are trying to kill him.

Instinctively, he fires back with the empty pistol. He hears a click and another click, and he keeps squeezing the trigger, and he sees the big fuckin gorilla nigger cop taking steady aim again, and he thinks No, you don't! and fires the empty gun at the trooper, and then sees a flash of light from the muzzle of the trooper's gun, and hears the explosion, and wonders if the trooper is firing a Magnum same as he's firing, click, click, and the trooper's shot takes him in the face.

In the last instant of his life he wonders what they will tell his mother, Jesus what will they

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