business, what I am is mine.’
Burns turned his back to DeLaroza and stared out the window again. He said, ‘This Domino, the one I burned, she was a hooker, you said.’
‘A very high class hooker.’
‘She have a pimp?’
‘Well, I suppose you could call. ..‘
‘She had a pimp, right? And he didn’t know about this Hotchins, this pimp didn’t?’
‘No. Nobody knew.’
‘But he knows about you, right? He knows you knew her and he can tie you two together. All it takes is your name, they’ll be knockin’ at the door.’
‘He will not do that. He will put them on to many others before that,’
‘Shi-i-t. I gotta laugh.’ He looked over his shoulder at DeLaroza. ‘I been in the rackets all my life. Had a couple dozen buttons on my payroll at the time. Know what a button is, DeLaroza? A shooter. Very loyal people. But if the need comes up that one of them has to go quiet, there’s only one way.’
‘We can’t keep killing.’
‘Hah, that’s my line. One goes, then another, then another. It don’t stop. You take out the pimp, it’ll be somebody else. Whyn’t you leave it alone, keep yourself Ia the background. You got it made. Al] the power. All the money. The heavy friends. You’re gonna blow it. You’re gonna get us both killed.’
‘You are getting melodramatic, my friend. That’s ridiculous.’
‘No, it’s experience. Which you ain’t got and that’s what scares me shitless.’
‘You are safe, Howard, believe me.’
‘You listen to me, see, because I been around a long time. I know how this system works. You gotta hit the pimp. Your people, well, okay, I can’t go whackin’ off half the population of China. But the pimp goes. You don’t like it, that’s too bad. I cover my own ass.’
‘You can do it again, this soon?’ DeLaroza said and there was a look of shocked disbelief on his face.
Burns smiled. He poured another glass of wine, plopped in another ice cube. ‘You think it’s real tough, don’tcha? That’s funny.’ He closed his eyes, remembering the way the room looked and her, her head haloed by the lamp, the perfect target. ‘I forgot how good it was,’ he said. DeLaroza’s arms went numb. Burns kept talking. ‘Up close like that, I was Dominic Scardi again, not some name I don’t even know. You get your balls off thinking about all the people you control, all the money, all that power. Well so do 1, baby. I get off too because I got power, right here in this hand, in this fuckin’ finger I got it. I hold the vote. Yes, they live. No, they go down. You think that ain’t power? When you see it in their eyes? You know what, partner? I had to change my underwear when I got back here. That’s right. I shot off in my drawers. I always do. You take a little pill, it makes it even better. Works in two ways. It keeps you on top, see, keyed up, y’know. But it also makes coming that much better.’
He reached in his pocket for the other red devil. His fingers searched the corners of his pocket. It was gone. But where? He bad had them both in the apartment. He tried to think back, remember where he had seen it last.
‘Is something wrong?’ DeLaroza asked. ‘Did something go bad tonight?’
‘Go bad. Did it ever go bad with me?’
‘No, I can honestly say no to that.’
‘You there, you’re a little off your feed. Kinda sends you up when it happens, don’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Who ya shittin’, Victor? You ain’t Cut out for the real messy stuff. Anyways it’s my thing, right? You make the money, I clean the cat box.’
DeLaroza turned towards the door. ‘I guess I better get back downstairs.’
‘Don’tcha wanna hear about it?
‘Not really.’
‘Boom, boom, just like that. The first shot took her straight on. Gorgeous. She saw it a second before she got it. The second one caught her as she was going down. Three feet, four feet —,
God, I hate him, DeLaroza thought. He was a pariah, a killing machine, enshrouded by death, and the carrion smell of his flesh filled the room.
‘.-. quick and easy. I don’t torture people there, Vic. It ain’t my style. But the second before I squeezed it off, that’s when it felt best. Waitin’ just for that fraction of a second when they’re between heaven and hell. You think that ain’t power?’
DeLaroza said, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
Burn’s lip curled back revealing his yellowing teeth Suddenly there was hate burning in his eyes, too. ‘Ya know somethin’, Vic old boy? I was thinkin’, on the way back over here with that Chink friend of yours. All these years I been hearin’ about what a hot shit you are. Big brain. You been pullin’ the strings, playin’ the big cheese all over the world. You had me believin’ all that shit, y’know. But if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be nothin’. Just another dumb yokel kissin’ ass someplace to get a five dollar raise. And when your eyes turned white, when you needed somebody pull the ol’ trigger, you hadda come cryin’ to me. When the tit was in the wringer, who did the dirty work? Me. And don’t you forget it.’
‘I never —,
‘Don’t say nothin’, pal. Just put it in your scrapbook. Oh yeah, only one other thing, buddy-boy. There was a cop in the place.’
