40/
Wesley was lying on his back on his kitchen floor, his hands working under the sink, when he heard the soft buzz from the console near the front door. The dog soundlessly trotted into position to the left of the narrow door. Wesley flipped on the TV monitor and saw Pet coming down the long corridor. Only Pet knew how to set off the buzzer, but he wanted to make sure the old man was alone. Satisfied, he hissed at the dog to get its attention. Wesley said “okay” in a hard, flat, deliberate voice. The dog tolerated Pet alone, but would attack him as quickly as anyone else in Wesley’s presence.
Wesley pushed the toggle switch forward and the door slid away, leaving an opening large enough for a man to get through sideways. Pet came in and the door closed tightly behind him. The old man looked at the assorted tools spread over the kitchen floor.
“What you up to?”
“I’m fixing the dog’s food. He gets it by pushing this here lever, and water by pushing the other one. I got about a fifty-day supply and I’m going to fix it so’s he gets poison on the last one.”
“What the hell for?”
“If I don’t come back one time, he’ll run out of food sooner or later and he’ll starve to death. He don’t deserve to go out like that.”
“I could come in here and feed him for you.”
“That’s what you
“Maybe you can read minds.”
“What’s that mean?”
“There’s a job order out with my name on it.”
“The same people?”
“Yeah. That’s their way. I’ve done too many jobs for them and now I get thrown in against another organization like mine. The winner gets to keep working for them and the loser don’t. They don’t trust nobody. They want to be sure the top independents don’t get together, you know?”
“That’s what Carmine said it would be like. He said if I got real good, that’s what they’d do.”
“Yeah, only Carmine
“Why you making out a will, old man?”
“You ever hear of the Prince?”
“Yeah. I have. So?”
“That’s their man for this one. He’d never come in here after me, even if he knew where I was. But if I want to work, they’ll give me a job in the cesspool, and he’s like a fish in the water there.”
“You’re not supposed to know about the order out for you?”
“No.”
“Who told you?”
“Nobody. But I put it together easy enough. They got a job for me in Times Square. Only thing it can mean, they got the Prince on the case. They never told me
“And you not?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Carmine always said if you
“I ain’t looking to die, but that fucking pit is impossible to work in. And if I turn down this job, they’ll just hit me when I show my face on the street anytime ... I can’t stay in here forever.”
“You ever think about just retiring or something?”
“And do what? Go fishing in fucking Miami? I’ll retire the same way Carmine did—the same way you going to—but I’d like to fucking retire this Prince cocksucker before I do.”
“What’s he look like?”
“I only saw him once. He’s a fucking giant stick. About six-four, maybe a hundred twenty pounds, with hair like that Prince Valiant in the comics. That’s where he got the name. Diamonds all over the place—wristwatch, ID bracelet, cufflinks, belt buckle, everything. He’s got monster hands, about twice as big as mine. His skin’s dead white, like yours was when you got out. Like he’s never been out in the daytime. Probably hasn’t.”
“Can you get close?”
“No way. He’s got that cesspool wired. Nothing goes down from 40th to 50th, Broadway to the Hudson, that he don’t know about. Every fucking freak on the street reports to him.”
“He should be easy to spot, right?”
“Sure. But he’d have me spotted first.”
“He don’t know me.”
“No, but so what? You want to hit him alone?”
