Connolly’s Hide Food until they were glove-soft, and the crosscut crepe soles gave superb traction without making a sound. He had on a soft, black-felt hat—with the jersey’s turtleneck, it gave an unbroken line of black from the back. Dark grey deerskin gloves hid his hands. The same black paste that football players use to protect their eyes from reflected glare was smeared across both cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. In the roof’s blackness he was just another shadow.
Wesley put the night glasses to his face and dispassionately watched a gang of car-strippers at work under the only remaining streetlight in the area, about two blocks north of Pike Slip. Unlike the junkies, these kids were anxious to avoid contact with the rest of the human race while they were working. They were the same as the birds in the trees in Korea had been—everything was safe as long as you saw them (or heard them) going about their business.
The old man worried him. Pet had tried to check out in the gas chamber. They both knew this, and it made things hard. Pet couldn’t hit the street at all anymore—Wesley had to rely on the kid.
They were working only for money now. Before they put all of Carmine’s employers in the gas chamber Wesley hadn’t thought a minute about the future. He was on earth to do a job, a guided missile ... but now he was a missile that hadn’t exploded when it had connected with its target. He had to think about tomorrow for the first time, and it was a new experience.
Wesley climbed down the stairs. Before he went back to his own apartment, he checked the garage. The old man had a blank look on his face, polishing the cars for the hundredth time—they gleamed like jewels, too bright.
64/
The next morning, the old man was polishing the Ford as Wesley slipped into the garage. For the first time in all their time together, the old man didn’t turn when someone entered. Wesley walked up to the Ford and just stared silently until the old man finally turned to face him.
“What?”
“I want to talk to you, Pet. You want to check out of here?”
“Yeah. I wanted to check out when I had to do that Prince motherfucker ... and you knew it and you wouldn’t let me and that was good, Wes. But you should have left me in that room there on Chrystie.”
“I know it. I know it
“I waited for you, for Carmine’s son, all those fucking years because I had a
“I know, Pet. But...”
“There ain’t no ‘but’ behind this, Wes. If I go out now they’ll hit me. And what’s worse, they’ll fucking know I was involved in that whole thing. They’ll know there was other people. They’ll know, and they’ll smell around and sooner or later...”
“I know.”
“I was going to go out
“No soldier’s going to hit you, Pet.”
“It wouldn’t be right. I helped kill the sharks, Wes—I don’t want the little fucking fish to eat my flesh. I’m tired....”
“Your family...?”
“Gone. A long time ago. Carmine was my family, and then you.”
“I still am.”
“Then
“That’s why I came here now.”
“Yeah. What was your mother’s name?” the old man challenged.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you learn enough from me to be proud of that?”
“Yes.”
“I want to stay here, right?”
“I wasn’t thinking about no Potter’s Field, Pop.”
“Or Forest Lawn, either. I don’t want to be buried with trash.”
“You want to know in front?”
“Punk! What do you think I am?”
“I’m sorry ... I’m sorry, old man. I know what you are. You’re the most man I ever knew.”
“That’s okay, Wes. I know why you said that. The same thing as pulling me out of that room, huh? It’s no good anymore, son.”
As if by mutual consent, they walked toward the corner of the garage farthest from the street. The old man calmly seated himself in his good old leather chair, lit a twisted black cigar and inhaled deeply. He smiled up at Wesley.
Wesley screwed the silencer into the Beretta and cocked the piece. He held it dead-level pointed at Pet’s
