Hard Candy

locker.

The one where the whole crowd died along with him.

Tommy Brown. I cracked his skull with a lead pipe and set fire to the house.

Near the end, I got to the part he left me in his will.

I killed somebody named Mortay. It was a contract from a man named Julio. He works for Don Torenelli. I shot him with a.38 Special, then I dropped a grenade on his face. I killed a man named Robert Morgan. In a playground in Chelsea. A rifle shot from the roof The same contract. Julio wouldn't pay me. He said it was the don's orders. So I hit Torenelli's daughter on Sutton Place. I cut off her head and stuffed it in her cunt. I wrote 2 on the wall. It was a message. They didn't listen.

Then he listed the other hits. Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island.

Torenelli put out a contract on me for revenge. I shot him on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. A.220 Remington with a night scope. Then I killed Julio. I killed a man named Train. I blew up a car on Wards Island with him in it. A man named Morrison hired me to do it. On Long Island. He tried to get out of paying me, so I killed him too. With a.357 magnum, wad cutters. Two in the chest, one in the face. He owed and he had to pay.

All my life, I worked for the same people. They had different names, but they were all the same. All bosses. Generals. I was a soldier.

I have no love in me for any of you. You have no love for me. You don't need my story. Why doesn't matter. What I did, you did it. You did it to me, I did it to you. I'm tired. I'm tired of all this. I'm not a man. I don't know what I am, but I wasn't born to be it. So I'm dying to be it. What I am.

I have no friends and I have no fear. I only stopped because I got tired. You could never have stopped me.

I worked for my money. That's what I did. They didn't pay me. So I made them pay. They didn't listen to my warnings. So I'm leaving them one last warning. I don't know where I'm going and I don't care. But they better not send anyone after me.

If you're reading this, you're a cop. Some kind of cop. I'm not leaving you this as a favor. It's my last chance to tell you how much I hate you.

Pray to your fucking gods that I'm the last one. But you know I'm not. There's more coming. You do things to us, we grow up and we do things to you.

I'm signing this with the only name you ever cared about.

His dark thumbprint was at the bottom of the last page.

151

I READ IT through twice. He wasn't just getting me off the hook, he was warning me. For the last time. Never show them your soft spot. Everyone in the street knew mine.

Wesley checked out and took a bunch of kids with him. Seeds. Cards in a stacked deck. They dealt them- the monster played them.

I held the pages in my gloved hands. Knowing the last word Wesley never said to me.

Brother.

I waited until my hands stopped shaking. Then I called Morales.

'It's Burke. Let's play some more nine ball.'

'I get off at four.'

152

I WAS AT MY TABLE when he walked in. In the middle of a rack.

'Take off your coat,' I said under my breath. 'Just do it, you're not the only guy in the room wearing a gun. When we're finished, go someplace private and read what you find in your pocket.'

His mind wasn't on the game. I was up a yard and a half before he split.

153

WHEN I called Mama's the next day, the message was waiting for me. I met Morales on West Seventeenth, just off Twelfth Avenue. Whore corner. We watched the girls jump into cars for a while.

'What do you want…for what you gave me?'

'To get square.'

'Most of it's the dead truth. Most of it. We checked it out. He knows things only the killer would know. Why would he take you off the hook?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'We can clear a couple of dozen unsolved homicides behind this. It means a gold shield for me.'

'And for McGowan.'

'He's my partner,' he said, insulted.

'I'm not.'

'No, you're not. But we're square. There was no paper on you anyway.'

'I know. It's over.'

He held out his hand. I took it.

154

IT WASN'T OVER.

Just Wesley's killing was.

Candy let me in. Wearing a man's button-down dress shirt over toreador pants. Like a hundred years ago. 'You want to play?' she asked.

'Not today, outrider.'

The cat's eyes narrowed. 'What?'

'It was always you and Train. From the beginning. Elvira didn't run from you- you dumped her. Into Train's net. You knew Train was on Wesley's list. You thought I killed this Mortay freak. Thought I was a killer too. You knew Wesley was coming, so you put me on the same track. Facing him.'

'I had to find out. I just watch- I don't risk. I didn't know how to find Wesley, so I sent you after Elvira. I knew there was a contract on Train- I knew Wesley was holding it. I know how he works. He watches. He waits. And then he does his work. It was all a play, and I wrote the lines. Wesley sees you hanging around, he figures you're with Train. Then he comes. You get in his way, somebody goes down. Not me. Never me.'

'And you fuck the winner,' I said. Remembering the subway tunnel, the kitten in the basement.

'Sure. That's the way it works. But I never thought you'd win. And you didn't.'

'How long have you been with Train?'

'Since I was nineteen. I was one of his first. His very first. But I'm no outrider. That's a game. For the kids. Nobody leaves. I'm a partner, not a soldier. I made him…all that mumbo-jumbo bullshit. He tell you the one about truth?'

'No.'