dynamite out of your car window?'
'No. Whenever there's a holiday, they leave all their machines at the site. I want to blow them all up. And all three of the new overpasses. I want to blow them up, too.'
Magliore goggled at him. He goggled for a long time. Then he threw back his head and laughed. His belly shook and his belt buckle heaved up and down like a chip of wood riding a heavy swell. His laughter was full and hearty and rich. He laughed until tears splurted out of his eyes and then he produced a huge comic-opera handkerchief from some inner pocket and wiped them. He stood watching Magliore laugh and was suddenly very sure that this fat man with the thick glasses was going to sell him the explosives. He watched Magliore with a slight smile on his face. He didn't mind the laughter. Today laughter sounded good.
'Man, you're crazy, all right,' Magliore said when his laughter had subsided to chuckles and hitchings. 'I wish Pete could have been here to hear this. He's never gonna believe it. Yesterday you call me a d-dork and t-today . . . t-t-today . . . ' And he was off again, roaring his laughter, mopping his eyes with his handkerchief.
When his mirth had subsided again, he asked, 'How were you gonna finance this little venture, Mr. Dawes? Now that you're no longer gainfully employed?'
That was a funny way to put it.
'I cashed in my life insurance last month,' he said. 'I'd been paying on a ten-thousand-dollar policy for ten years. I've got about three thousand dollars. '
'You've really been planning this for that long?'
'No,' he said honestly. 'When I cashed the policy in, I wasn't sure what I wanted it for. '
'In those days you were still keeping your options open, right? You thought you might burn the road, or machine-gun it to death, or strangle it, or-'
'No. I just didn't know what I was going to do. Now I know.'
'Well count me out.'
'What?' He blinked at Magliore, honestly stunned. This wasn't in the script. Magliore was supposed to give him a hard time, in a fatherly son of way. Then sell him the explosive. Magliore was supposed to offer a disclaimer, something like:
'What did you say?'
'I said no. N-o. That spells no. ' He leaned forward. All the good humor had gone out of his eyes. They were flat and suddenly small in spite of the magnification the glasses caused. They were not the eyes of a jolly Neapolitan Santa Claus at all.
'Listen,' he said to Magliore. 'If I get caught, I'll deny I ever heard of you. I'll never mention your name.'
'The fuck you would. You'd spill your fucking guts and cop an insanity plea. I'd go up for life.'
'No, listen-'
'You listen,' Magliore said. 'You're funny up to a point. That point has been got to. I said no, I meant no. No guns, no explosive, no dynamite, no nothing. Because why? Because you're a fruitcake and I'm a businessman. Somebody told you I could 'get' things. I can get them, all right. I've gotten lots of things for lots of people. I've also gotten a few things for myself. In 1946, I got a two-to-five bit for carrying a concealed weapon. Did ten months. In 1952 I got a conspiracy rap, which I beat. In 1955, I got a tax-evasion rap, which I also beat. In 1959 I got a receiving-stolen-property rap which I didn't beat. I did eighteen months in Castleton, but the guy who talked to the grand jury got life in a hole in the ground. Since 1959 I been up three times, case dismissed twice, rap beat once. They'd like to get me again because one more good one and I'm in for twenty years, no time off for good behavior. A man in my condition, the only part of him that comes out after twenty years is his kidneys, which they give to some Norton nigger in the welfare ward. This is some game to you. Crazy, but a game. It's no game to me. You think you're telling the truth when you say you'd keep your mouth shut. But you're lying. Not to me, to you. So the answer is flat no. ' He threw up his hands. 'If it had been broads, Jesus, I woulda given you two free just for that floor show you put on yesterday. But I ain't going for any of this.'
'All right, ' he said. His stomach felt worse than ever. He felt like he was going to throw up.
'This place is clean,' Magliore said, 'and I know it's clean. Furthermore, I know you're clean, although God knows you're not going to be if you go on like this. But I'll tell you something. About two years ago, this nigger came to me and said he wanted explosives. He wasn't going to blow up something harmless like a road. He was going to blow up a fucking federal courthouse.'
Don't tell me any more, he was thinking. I'm going to puke, I think. His stomach felt full of feathers, all of them tickling at once.
'I sold him the goop,' Magliore said. 'Some of this, some of that. We dickered. He talked to his guys, I talked to my guys. Money changed hands. A lot of money. The goop changed hands. They caught the guy and two of his buddies before they could hurt anyone, thank God. But I never lost a minute's sleep worrying was he going to spill his guts to the cops or the county prosecutor or the Effa Bee Eye. You know why? Because he was with a whole
'All right,' he said again. His eyes felt small and hot.
'Listen,' Magliore said, a little more quietly. 'Three thousand bucks wouldn't buy you what you want, anyway. This is like the black market, you know what I mean?-no pun intended. It would take three or four times that to buy the goop you need.'
He said nothing. He couldn't leave until Magliore dismissed him. This was like a nightmare, only it wasn't. He had to keep telling himself that he wouldn't do something stupid in Magliore's presence, like trying to pinch himself awake.
'Dawes?'
'What?'
