The Bachman Books

'There are a couple of conditions,' he said.

'Conditions,' Fenner repeated, and sounded instantly wary.

'Don't get excited. It's nothing you can't handle.'

'Let's hear them,' Fenner said. 'But I'm warning you, Dawes, you've squeezed us for about all you can.'

'You get the form over to the house tomorrow,' he said. 'I'll bring it to your office on Wednesday. I want you to have a check for sixty-eight thousand five hundred dollars waiting for me. A cashier's check. I'll trade you the release form for the check. '

'Mr. Dawes, we can't do business that way-'

'Maybe you're not supposed to, but you can. The same way you're not supposed to tap my phone and God knows what else. No check, no form. I'll get the lawyer instead.'

Fenner paused. He could almost hear Fenner thinking.

'All right. What else?'

'I don't want to be bothered anymore after Wednesday. On the twentieth, it's yours. Until then it's mine.'

'Fine,' Fenner said instantly, because of course that wasn't a condition at all. The law said the house was his until midnight on the nineteenth, incontrovertibly the city's property a minute later. If he signed the city's release form and took the city's money, he could holler his head off to every newspaper and TV station in town and not get a bit of sympathy.

'That's all,' he said.

'Good,' Fenner said, sounding extremely happy. 'I'm glad we could finally get together on this in a rational way, Mr.-'

'Fuck you,' he said, and hung up.

January 8, 1974

He wasn't there when the courier dropped the bulky brown envelope containing form 6983-426-73-74 (blue folder) through his letter slot. He had gone out into darkest Norton to talk to Sal Magliore. Magliore was not overjoyed to see him, but as he talked, Magliore grew more thoughtful.

Lunch was sent in-spaghetti and veal and a bottle of Gallo red. It was a wonderful meal. Magliore held up his hand to stop him when he got to the part about the five-thousand-dollar bribe and Fenner's knowledge of Olivia. He made a telephone call and spoke briefly to the man on the other end. Magliore gave the man on the other end the Crestallen Street address. 'Use the van,' he said and hung up. He twirled more spaghetti onto his fork and nodded across the table for the story to go on.

When he finished, Magliore said: 'You're lucky they weren't tailing you. You'd be in the box right now.'

He was full to bursting, unable to eat another mouthful. He had not had such a meal in five years. He complimented Magliore, and Magliore smiled.

'Some of my friends, they don't eat pasta anymore. They got an image to keep up. So they eat at steak houses or places that have French food or Swedish food or something like that. They got the ulcers to prove it. Why ulcers? Because you can't change what you are. ' He was pouring spaghetti sauce out of the greasestained cardboard takeout bucket the spaghetti had come in. He began to mop it up with crusts of garlic bread, stopped, looked across the table with those strange, magnified eyes and said: 'You're asking me to help you commit a mortal sin. '

He looked at Magliore blankly, unable to hide his surprise.

Magliore laughed crossly. 'I know what you're thinkin'. A man in my business is the wrong guy to talk about sin. I already told you that I had one guy knocked off. More than one guy, too. But I never killed anyone that didn't deserve to be killed. And I look at it this way: a guy who dies before God planned him to die, it's like a rain-out at the ball park. The sins that guy committed, they don't count. God has got to let 'em in because they didn't have all the time to repent He meant them to have. So killing a guy is really sparing him the pain of hell. So in a way, I done more for those guys than the Pope himself could have done. I think God knows that. But this isn't any of my business. I like you a lot. You got balls. Doing what you did with those gas bombs, that tooks balls. This, though. This is something different. '

'I'm not asking you to do anything. It's my own free will.'

Magliore rolled his eyes. 'Jesus! Mary! Joseph the carpenter! Why can't you just leave me alone?'

'Because you have what I need.'

'I wish to God I didn't.'

'Are you going to help me?'

'I don't know.'

'I've got the money now. Or will have, shortly.'

'It ain't a matter of money. It's a matter of principle. I never dealt with a fruitcake like you before. I'll have to think about it. I'll call you.'

He decided it would be wrong to press further and left.

He was filling out the relocation form when Magliore's men came. They were driving a white Econoline van with RAY'S TV SALES AND SERVICE Written on the side, below a dancing TV with a big grin on its picture tube. There were two men, wearing green fatigues and carrying bulky service cases. The cases contained real TV repair tools and tubes, but they also contained sundry other equipment. They 'washed' his house. It took an hour and a half. They found bugs in both phones, one in his bedroom, one in the dining room. None in the garage, which made him feel relieved.

'The bastards,' he said, holding the shiny bugs in his hand. He dropped the bugs to the floor and ground them under his heel.

On the way out, one of the men said, not unadmiringly: 'Mister, you really beat the shit out of that TV. How