A Bomb Built in Hell

“Be too late then, you stupid punk!”

“What ... why’d you say that, Carmine? Pop, I did it for you.”

“The fuck you did. You did it for you, right? You couldn’t stand the profile of being partners with the kind of old man who’d take a slap in the face from a buffoon. So you try to snuff him right on the Yard. Stupid ... stupid fucking kid.”

“Listen, Carmine, I...”

“No, you listen, Wesley. You never lose your temper or someday you lose your head. Now this is only a minor beef you got—fighting on the Yard, no weapons, no sneaking up, right? You gonna get thirty days in the Hole behind it and a black tab on your jacket, but so what? You take him off like you tried to and you never get outta here ... never.”

“So what?”

“So what? Don’t be a fucking punk, so what! You got a lot to do.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you when you get out the Hole. And while you’re there, be thinking about this—that cocksucker was twice as big as you, but you almost dropped him anyway, because you took him by surprise with hot anger. If you took him in his sleep with cold anger, what you think would have happened?”

18/

The thirty days in the box wasn’t so bad. Carmine had books and cigarettes smuggled in by the runners. The guards transmitted the daily messages from Carmine. His notes were always instructions.

practice not moving a muscle until you can do it all the time between meals

practice breathing so shallow your chest don t move

think about the person you hate most in the world and smile

the head plans the hands kill the heart only pumps blood

Wesley burned all the notes and flushed them down the lidless toilet. Carmine was waiting for him when he returned to the tier. The old man’s juice had kept his cell for him.

“What’ll I do now?” Wesley asked.

“Right now?”

“When I get out.”

“Damn, kid, didn’t you think about nothing else all the time you were down?”

“Yeah, everything you wrote me.”

“Can you do it?”

“Just about.”

“That’s not good enough. You got to get it perfect.”

“Why am I learning all this?”

“For your career.”

“Which is?”

“Killing people.”

“Which people?”

“Look, Wes, how many men you already killed?”

“Three, I guess.” Wesley told him about the sergeant and the Marine, all the time wondering how Carmine knew it was more than one.

“How many felony convictions you got?”

“A few, I guess. There’s this beef, which was really two, and a couple before when I was a juvenile, and the Army thing ... I don’t even know.”

“You know what ‘The Bitch’ is?”

“No.”

“Habitual Offender. In this state you get three felony drops and they make you out to be ‘dangerous to society’—it’s a guaranteed Life for the third pop. Understand what I’m telling you, Wes? The next time you fall, you fall for life. Whether it’s a lousy stickup for fifty bucks or a dozen homicides, you get the book. And killing people pays a lot more than sticking up liquor stores.”

“What about banks?”

“Forget it. You got the fucking cameras taking your picture, you got the fucking federales on your case for life, and you got to work with partners.”

“That’s no good?”

“How many partners you got?”

“Just you.”

“That’s one too many, but I won’t ever make the bricks anyway. Make me the last motherfucking human you trust with all your business. You gonna meet all kinds of people, but don’t ever let anyone see your heart or your