Hard Candy

'That isn't your car.'

'Julio, he knows my car.'

'Okay.' Wesley sat down on one of the crates. I sat across from him. Max stayed where he was. Not watching Wesley, eyes sweeping the area.

'Tell him it's safe here,' Wesley said. 'I got trip wires strung all around except for the way you came in. And you're sitting on enough plastique to knock down the bridge.'

'That's your idea of safe?'

'The cover's too thick. And if they charge, we all go together.'

'Great.'

Sarcasm is wasted on machines. 'You got it?' he asked.

'The don is holed up. They have a compound of some kind in Sands Point.'

'I know where it is.'

'Yeah. But he never leaves the basement. And the place is set up like a bomb shelter.'

'You sure?'

'Sure. He's scared to death, Won't even talk on the phone.'

Wesley went as silent as Max. Time passed. Finally he spoke, voice just past a whisper but with no breath in it. 'Fire fixes it.'

'What?'

'The place burns bad enough, he has to come out.'

'If he has it right, he won't have to. The place could burn to the ground, he'd still be okay in the basement. He has the cash to fix it that way. Some of those rich geeks, back in the fifties, they fixed up their basements like the Russians were going to drop the bomb any day. All the survival-freaks aren't living in the mountains. It wouldn't work.'

'Yeah. Maybe you're right. I saw one of those basements once. Guy even had the place soundproofed.'

'I got one more thing. The don, he has to meet his underboss. And he won't talk on the phone, remember? So every Monday night, he meets. On the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.'

'Out in the open?'

'Yeah.' I told him what Strega told me. He made me go over it twice more, taking each word in a single bite, chewing it slowly.

'He probably stands behind the pillars…so even if we drove by in a car, there'd be nothing to shoot.'

'Sure.' Thoughts flashing. Who'd drive the damn car anyway?

His voice was calm, talking about the weather. 'This was another time, it wouldn't matter. I got him in a box. I got nothing to do but wait. But I'm in a box too. I got to finish my work.'

'And get paid?'

'They'll pay me. When my work is done, I'm all paid up.'

'Julio, he still wants me to bring money to you. It'll be a trap, but…'

'No good. They wouldn't send the big guys. They try something, everybody gets blown up. We don't get to take them with us. Like when I was in the Army. The soldiers die, the generals find new soldiers.'

'How come you didn't stay in the Army?'

'When I went in, I did it like doing time, right? Keep your mouth shut, stay out of trouble, wait till they open the gates. I didn't talk, so they figured I was stupid. I was a good shot too. So they make me a sniper. We had this platoon leader, some college kid. He talked to us like we were dogs. Nice dogs, dogs he liked and all. But stupid, you know? Especially the blacks. He made things simple for us. Every time we go out there, it's the fucking gooks keeping us from going home. To our families and all. One day, we're in a firefight. Charlie's winning- got too much juice for us. Time to split, come back another day. But this asshole, he wants us to hold our position. Wait for the choppers to spray the area. Or until they drop napalm on us. Four of our guys got wasted the last time they did that. It came to me. In a flash-second, didn't even think about it. We was supposed to kill gooks cause they was keeping us from going home, right? And now it was this lieutenant keeping us from going home. I put a few rounds into his chest. He goes down, I step up and yell, 'Retreat!' I'm the last one out. I got a Bronze Star for it. I had a good war record. So when they court-martialed me later they let me out with a dishonorable. No stockade time. I stuck up a liquor store the night I got back to the city. Everything went smooth, but the night clerk called the cops when I came back to the hotel. That's when I caught up with you again. In prison.'

'What'd they court-martial you for?'

'I was in Japan. On R and R. In a bar. Some Marines got into a fight with some Navy guys. I was halfway out the door when one of them jumped me. I went down. Came back up, chopped the guy in the back of the head with this glass ashtray. He turned into a cripple behind it.'

'An accident…'

'Didn't make no difference. I was glad to go. I'm not a soldier. Like the scams you run.'

'You mean the mercenary thing?'

'Yeah. They talked to me once. Guys with British accents, only they ain't British. Fight communism, right? Sure. I don't fly nobody's flag.'

'Does Julio know your face?'

'I don't have a face. I met him once. He gave me the go for this Mortay freak. But it was dark and he was scared- he couldn't pick me out of a lineup. It was like it is out here- you can't see much.'

'He's part of this now.'

'I know.'

'No you don't. I made a trade. For the information I got. About the place in Sands Point. And the meeting on the bridge.'

'You got to do Julio?'

'Yeah.'

He went into himself I could feel the edges go soft, merging with the darkness as the center hardened. I lit another smoke, cupping the tip. Max watched. He could feel the changes in the air like a blind coroner doing an autopsy.

'That's the one thing I know. Really know,' the monster said. 'Murders. In some countries, the leaders get whacked all the time. You know why? 'Cause the people doing the killings, they're not professionals. They're willing to fucking die to get something done. Trade their life for another. Over here, we never get close, you know. Only lunatics do it that way. Remember that guy who shot Reagan? I was that close to him, I'd have so much lead in his body they'd need a crane to get him off the ground. You kill people for money, you have to live to spend it.'

'So?'

'Julio's no problem for me- he's a problem for you. Even if this informant of yours didn't want Julio dropped, you know he's setting you up. So it don't make a difference- he's gotta go. And the don- he's no problem for you, right? He don't even know you exist. And he don't care. You ever think of just taking me out…? Max, he's close enough now. Maybe. You bring the don my head, you're off the hook.'

'No. I never thought about it.'

'You're a dancer, not a killer. You don't understand the way things work. Death makes it right. Wipes the slate clean.'

'I wouldn't know.' Thinking of Belle. Death hadn't made it all right. Not because the wrong man died- because the wrong man did the killing.

'I know a way to hit the don,' Wesley said. 'But I need three, four people to make it work. You got the people. You help me, I'll do Julio for you.'

'It's just me and Max.'

'He's in?'

'Yes.'

'You got more people. More brothers.'

'I have to ask. They're my brothers, not my soldiers.'

Wesley's voice dropped just a fraction. 'Here's the way it goes down,' he said. I listened to his toneless voice, thinking how easy he would have taken Mortay. How I should have jumped off the track.