Smoke

The other henchman stepped forward and said, 'We'll move these cars, they're ours,' meaning the ones blocking entrance to the dungeon.

But Freddie said, 'Not me, Josh. You got guys know how to baby these babies. I couldn't back one of these monsters anywhere if I had to.'

'Deal,' Josh said.

'No, Josh. The deal is I bring it here. You want me to back that up? I'll knock the whole building down, the first thing you know you'll have cops here, wanting to know what's going on.'

It's the little things that change history. Josh had been prepared to honor his side of the bargain, but on the other hand, Freddie and Peg had bested him in a couple of encounters recently, leaving a bad taste in his mouth in addition to the bad taste that was always there. Also, one was always up for betrayal, if the situation looked promising. And now Freddie wouldn't back up the truck.

'No deal,' Josh said.

'You mean, you want me to take the truck away?'

'It stay.'

'We keep the truck,' said one of the henchmen, catching on fast.

'You go away,' said the other henchman, also a quick study.

Peg said, 'Without our money?'

Josh gave her a nasty smile. 'Revenge,' he said.

Both henchmen drew pistols from under their Hawaiian shirts. 'Maybe,' one of them said, 'we keep the broad.'

Freddie said, 'Josh, you got three seconds to get smart.'

Josh looked at him in gloomy satisfaction. 'U could die,' he said.

'Peg,' Freddie said, 'go around the block,' and he was already ripping off the head and gloves when he dove down and went rolling under the trailer.

The henchmen shouted, as Peg accelerated, and Josh missed her wrist by a millimeter. The van went tearing away down the block. The henchmen ran around both ends of the truck. Josh bent to peer under the trailer, seeing nothing, hauling out his own very old and well-used pistol, just in case Freddie decided to come rolling back.

The henchmen met at the far side, and stood over a pile of clothing on the sidewalk there. 'He's naked,' one of them said.

'Duhhh,' the other one said, and fell down.

The first henchman stared. It was a brick, is what it was, a big dirty brick, waving around in the air all on its own, and now it was coming after him. He backed away, stumbling over Freddie's clothes, dropping to one knee in his panic, and took a shot up at the damn brick, and the bullet zipped away up into the understructure of the railroad, binging and caroming off the metal up there for quite a while.

With a moan, the henchman dropped his pistol, swung about, and tried to escape on all fours, which meant he didn't have far to drop, when he dropped.

Josh remained crouched on the other side of the trailer. He could hear activity over there, but didn't know what it meant. Then there was a shot, which he didn't like; if there were seven or eight more like that, somebody might call the cops. But then there was silence, which was better, but not informative. Josh waited, and waited, and then something cold and hard touched his right cheek, and when he rolled his eyes down and to the right, it was a gun barrel. He froze.

'Josh, I'm beginning to lose patience with you.'

Freddie, behind him somehow. Where were the henchmen? Josh remained frozen.

'Straighten up, Josh.'

Josh did so.

'Do you even have the money, you jerk?'

'In car,' Josh said, moving nothing but his arm as he pointed away to his right and behind him, at one of the cars blocking access to the gate.

'Is it locked?'

'Dough no. Not mine.'

The van returned then, having circled the block, and stopped next to Josh. Peg said, 'Freddie, is that you?'

'Yeah. My clothes are the other side of the trailer, would you get them?'

'Sure.'

While Peg got out of the van and trotted away, Josh stared and blinked at the side of the trailer, stared and blinked, afraid to turn around. Freddie was naked? Why?

Peg came back with the pile of rumpled laundry and latex and tossed it into the van, then said, 'Now what?'

'He says the money's in the car there. Is it locked?'

Peg went over and tested. 'No.'

'Trusting.'

'There's three big manila envelopes on the backseat.'

'F!' cried Josh. 'F! F!'

Peg said, 'One of the envelopes has an F on it.'

'Freddie!' cried Josh.

'Is there money in it?'

'There's money in all three.'

'Take them all.'

'Just F!' Because the other two envelopes contained the extra sixty thousand earmarked — or dogeared — for Josh.

'Shut up, Josh.'

Josh, tried beyond endurance, spun around to remonstrate, to argue, to put his case, and found himself staring at the brick wall beyond the sidewalk. He goggled. 'What? What?' Then he saw the pistol, hanging in the air, pointed at his face. Automatically, he thrust out a hand, and it hit something where there wasn't anything: flesh, a chest. 'Aaaa!'

Low and dangerous, Freddie's voice sounded from the air directly in front of the trembling Josh: he could feel the warm breath on his face. 'Now you know a secret that nobody knows, and lives.'

At that point, Josh fainted. And then Freddie had to drag the big flea-covered hulk closer to the curb, so the van could get by.

'A hundred thousand dollars,' Freddie said, in satisfaction, and dropped the last of the three envelopes onto the floor behind the passenger seat. He was in his messy clothing and the latex again, beside Peg as she drove.

'That's great, Freddie. That'll set you up for a good long time.'

'Set us up.'

'Freddie, uh, there's something I want to—'

'Peg.' They were driving north on Tenth Avenue, and Freddie said, 'Peg, I don't think we should try to drive all the way back upstate tonight.'

'You don't?'

'No. It's almost four in the morning, we been at it all night, we're both whipped. Let's go home to the apartment, get a good night's sleep, go back up there tomorrow.'

'You may be right,' she decided.

'I know I am.'

'Okay.' She turned right on Forty-second Street.

He said, 'There was something you wanted to tell me?'

'It'll keep,' she said.

41

Due to various matters that were proceeding along in several cloudy corners of his life, Barney Beuler was at the moment operating seven different wiretaps within the five boroughs of the City of New York, every one of them illegal. Which meant he didn't have the advantages of unlimited manpower he'd enjoy if these wiretaps had been