A Bomb Built in Hell (9 page)

Wesley thought about the books he had read on triangulation
and concluded that it would be possible for the cops to learn where the bullets had been fired from. Then he came to another, more significant conclusion:
So what?

Pet was waiting in the garage.

“I got a kid,” he told Wesley. “A good, stand-up kid. A
State
kid, you know? He'll bring a launch alongside the FDR. I'll be in the Caddy, pulled over like I got engine trouble. You can be into the launch in thirty seconds, and he'll bring you back about a mile upriver from there. And I'll be waiting.”

“He'll see my face.”

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“He won't remember you.”

“Him, too?”

“No. We'll need him again—he's one of us, I think. But I got something for him anyway, just in case.”

“Can you find out which night the boss'll be on the bridge? Can you find out where I can shoot from?”

“I already got that much. But no time. That's all there's gonna be. Even
trying
to get more information would tip him.”

“When do we start?”

“From tomorrow night until Thursday; that's as close as my guy knows. You ready?”

“Yes.”

“You only get one shot.…”

“I haven't thought about that.”

“Huh?”

“Tunnel vision's better for night work.”

T
he battleship-gray Fleetwood purred northbound on the FDR. Then its engine began to miss and sputter. Pet pulled over to the side, went around to the front, and lifted the hood.

The kid came quietly out of the shadows.

“Here, Mr. P.”

“I see you, kid. I
seen
you when I pulled in. Stay back further next time, right?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. P., I will.”

“Okay, come here, kid,
quick!
I got something for you.”

As the kid approached, Pet pulled a heavy metal-and-leather belt off the back seat of the Caddy. He motioned the kid forward and circled his waist with the belt. The front of the belt was a steel-tongued clamp, which Pet snapped closed.

“Try to get it open,” Pet said.

The kid did try, hard, but he couldn't budge the clasp.

“It's full of plastic explosive, radio-controlled … with this,” said Pet, holding up a small transmitter. “You understand?”

The kid's face didn't move a muscle—he just nodded.

“It won't go off no matter how hard it's hit, even with a bullet. But it
will
go off even if it's wet.”

Pet slapped the kid lightly on the cheek, smiled, and winked at him like a father sending his son up to bat in a Little League game.

The trip to Welfare Island took less than three minutes. Wesley set up the long-armed bipod in the soft
mud about a quarter-mile from the bridge. Pet told him it was possible to get even closer, but then he would be shooting almost straight up. Wesley already knew that depth perception is influenced by perspective and opted for the quarter-mile shot.

He used the hand-level with the glowing needle to get the bipod perfectly straight, then set up the rig, took a windage reading, and sighted in toward the middle of the bridge. It took another fifteen minutes of click-adjustments before he was completely satisfied.

The kid was good; he knew not to smoke, not to talk. They waited until 3:15 a.m. Nobody showed.

On the way back to the Slip, Wesley asked if the Island was really the best vantage point. “What about that Butler Lumber Millworks building on the Queens side?”

“I already checked it out, Wes. We'd have to leave about half a dozen people there if we tried it. We don't know
exactly
what night the man's gonna come, and that ain't the kind of stunt you can pull twice.”

Wesley just nodded, not surprised.

B
y the third trip, Wesley could set the bipod and rig up in seconds instead of minutes. The kid was smoother, too. He had a pair of night glasses with him, and he was scanning the Queens side every thirty seconds, pausing just long enough to refocus each time.

At 1:05 a.m., he blew a sharp puff of air in Wesley's direction. Wesley immediately swung the scope toward the Queens end and saw the figure of a human walking
toward the center of the bridge at moderate speed.
Maybe he's a jumper
, he thought, but then another puff of breath told him that someone was also approaching from the other side. Wesley never took his eye off the first man.

He watched with extreme care as the two men met in the middle … and smoothly switched positions, so that the man on the left was now the man from Queens. A nice touch. Both men had their backs to the girders, invisible from bridge traffic.

Wesley sighted in carefully, not knowing how much time he'd have. A foghorn sounded somewhere up the river, but the Island was quiet. The Harbor Patrol had passed more than an hour ago, and they hadn't even bothered to sweep Wesley's area with their spotlights—although Wesley and the kid were well concealed against the possibility.

The target's eyes were shielded by his hat. Wesley sighted in on the lower cheek, figuring the bullet to travel upward to the brain. He watched for the man's lips to stop moving—he'd be less likely to move his head if he was listening instead of talking. In between heartbeats, Wesley squeezed the trigger so slowly that the earsplitting
cccrrack!
was a mild shock. The target was falling forward before the sound reached the bridge.

The capo ducked down in anticipation of another shot, but Wesley and the kid were halfway across the river to the Manhattan side by the time the bodyguards were fifty feet from the middle of the bridge.

When they landed, Pet quickly unhooked the kid's belt, saying, “You were a man.”

The kid just nodded. The outfit disappeared into the false bottom of the Caddy's back seat, and Pet had the big machine running toward Harlem in seconds. They caught the 96th Street turnaround, and were back in their own territory in another fifteen minutes.

“The kid had me covered good,” Wesley told Pet, after they'd dropped him off. “He said there was another car that we could swim to if they hit the boat.”

“Yeah,” Pet replied. “He's the goods. And I don't think he did it just for the money, you know?”

I
t was two-ten in the morning as they turned into the factory block. Just before they got to Water Street, Wesley noticed a trio of men huddled in the mouth of an alley.

“Cops?” he asked.

“Junkies,” Pet answered. “Dirty fucking junkies. They going to
bring
the motherfucking cops, though—they got no cover. We'll have to clear them the fuck outta here soon. How'd it go?”

“I hit him. That was all I could see—I didn't want to stay around. Would that belt you made the kid wear have worked?”

“Blow a six-foot hole in solid concrete.”

“What's the range for the transmitter?”

“About a mile and a half … maybe two miles.”

“Is that alley a dead end?”

“Yeah. And I can block it. But don't hit them here, for Chrissakes.”

“Put the belt in the airline bag and give it to me.
Okay, now block the alley, and don't let any of them run.”

Pet swung the Caddy smoothly across the alley's mouth, and Wesley was out of the car with the silenced Beretta pointed at all three men before they could move.

“Quick! Put your hands where I can see them.”

“What is this, man? We're not—”

“Shut up. You want to make five hundred bucks?”

The smallest one stepped forward, almost into the gun. “Yeah, man. Yeah, we want to make the money. What we have to do?”

“Deliver this package for me. Just take it out on the Slip and walk through the jungle to the corner of Henry and Clinton. There'll be a man waiting for it there—he's
already
there. Then come back here and I'll pay you.”

“You must think you're dealing with real fucking chumps, man! You'll pay us
after …
”

Wesley took five hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and held them out in his left hand, extending them toward the smallest one, who grabbed hold. Wesley didn't let go. “Take them and tear them in half. Neatly. Then give me back half.”

“What the fuck for, man?”

“That way we're both covered, right? You come back, and by then my man has called and says he got the stuff. I get that call, you cop the other half of the bills. I'll pay you, all right—half of the fucking bills won't do
me
no good, and I don't want no beef with you guys anyway. Okay?”

“Okay, man, but …”

“But nothing. And either all three of you go or it's no deal.”

“Why all three?”

“What if some fucking hijacker rips you off on the way over? You'll be safer that way, and
my
stuff'll be safer, too. But don't open the fucking bag—it's booby-trapped with a stick of dynamite.”

“You
must
be kidding, man!”

“You think so, just open it up, sucker. But get the fuck away from me first.”

With Wesley still holding the gun on him, the smallest one reached for the bills and carefully tore them, handing one half to Wesley. He looked up from his work and saw the glint of metal from the Caddy.

“Your partner got the drop on us, too, huh?”

Wesley didn't answer. The smallest one took the airline bag and pocketed the torn bills, then the three junkies walked out of the alley. The Caddy backed up just enough to let them by.

They turned toward the Slip. Wesley got in the Caddy and Pet pulled away. Using the night glasses, Wesley could pick out the three walking dead men as they moved toward Clinton Street.

Pet looked at his watch. “It takes a man about fifteen minutes to walk a city mile. Those dope fiends ain't no athletes—should take them about twenty to get to Henry Street.”

Wesley said nothing; he was still watching the couriers to make sure they wouldn't split up and force him to go after whoever wasn't near the bag.

Pet wheeled the big car toward the garage. They were inside in seconds, and Pet climbed into the newly painted cab. “Still got about five minutes to go—I'm going out driving to make sure that stuff works.”

“I'll be your passenger. I want to see if it works, too.”

The cab was coming up Clinton toward Henry when Pet said, “Seven minutes—that's plenty,” and pressed the transmitter's control button.

Explosion rocked the night. The cab raced toward Henry Street, but by the time they arrived, all they got to see were a few dismembered cars and a lamppost lying in the street. There was glass everywhere, reflecting all sorts of once-human colors.

Pet wheeled quickly and went the wrong way up Clinton to East Broadway, then raced uptown for a couple of minutes. He was back to normal late-night New York City cabbie speed by the time they crossed Grand Street.

“The miserable hypes must've wanted that money bad—they was
already
at Henry Street.”

“I guess it worked.”

“They'll need blotting paper to find them,” Pet said. “Make sure you set fire to your half of the bills.”

“I already did.”

T
he morning news linked the bridge assassination to “mob sources,” and the explosion on Henry Street to “long-simmering political differences between Latin gangs.” Eleven people were reported killed and twenty-one others hospitalized.

H
obart Chan smiled to himself as his sable-and-tan Bentley rolled gently across the mesh grids of the Williamsburg Bridge and into the clogged traffic on Delancey Street. The air conditioning was whisper-quiet, the FM stereo filled the car's vast interior with soft string music, and its plushy tires transmitted not the slightest vibration to the driver's seat.

Chan preferred to drive himself into the city each day, although he could have quite easily afforded a chauffeur. It wasn't the expense that stopped him, or the paranoia that seemed to haunt the Occidental gangsters of his acquaintance. There were many trustworthy young Chinese boys coming over from Hong Kong every day. Good boys, not filled with the ancestor-worship crap that those born in Chinatown still seemed infected with. He used a number of them in his business. But there was just something so … perfect about the cloistered luxury of piloting his steel-and-leather cocoon past the degenerates and bums that filled the area along Forsyth, Chrystie, and Chan's personal favorite, the Bowery.

The experience was namelessly wonderful, and the corpulent little man loved it with a deep, private passion. He never missed an opportunity to make this soul-satisfying drive. As he crossed the bridge, the J train rumbled by in the opposite direction.

Hobart Chan was a firm believer in community control. Until he came from San Francisco seventeen years ago,
Cubanos
controlled prostitution in Chinatown through a tacit agreement with the Elders. But his willingness to
launch a homicidal duel had finally resulted in a change of ownership.

Hobart Chan had run a lot of risks. But that was in the past. The risks were over, the
gusanos
were back dealing cocaine in Miami, where they belonged, and the flesh business had never been better.

Chan sometimes thought longingly about Times Square, but always concluded by writing off the idea. There was more money to be made there, true, and Chan was no stranger to the packaging and sale of human degeneracy … but something about that cesspool frightened him. Chan told himself that he was a businessman, and a good businessman didn't take
unnecessary
risks. So he remained content with the significant cash flowing into his Mott Street offices.

The only flicker of worry that ever crossed Chan's mind was about his new competition. Not all the young Chinese from Hong Kong wanted to work for the established organization, and he had been receiving threatening messages from some of the younger thugs. But Hobart Chan was too much a master of the art of extortion to fall victim to it himself. The new kids had no base outside of Chinatown, and they certainly weren't going to attack him
inside
his own territory.