6

“WHO,” ASKED Keven, “holds the all-time record for the longest kiss?”

“The what?”

“Longest kiss.”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you care to hazard a guess?” She grinned at the old pun.

He didn’t.

She imitated the way he usually answered, fast and sure.

“A blue-movie star from San Francisco named Sally Beaver and a Hell’s Angel from Fresno known only as Big J, for some famous reason.” She shrugged contritely. Hazard still wasn’t amused. “On a beach in Monterey in 1971, August 12th and 13th to be exact, they kept their mouths in continuous contact for thirty-six hours and twenty-one minutes. During that time neither participant ate or drank but somehow both managed to smoke. A lot.” She inhaled, an exaggerated marijuana inhale, and held it so her next words came grunting out from the back of her throat. “Although the kiss, among other things, was performed entirely in a prone position, the couple finished five miles north of their starting point, impeded by a large boulder at high tide. They could have continued but the chrome studs on Big J’s leather jacket were painfully incompatible with Sally’s recent silicone injections.”

“You and your Irish imagination.”

“It’s true,” she said with a straight face, then conceded with a grin, “Anyway, it might be.”

He had to laugh, a little.

That was what she was after. She went to him, tilted his head up and kissed him, short but sweet. “Not the longest but the best,” she declared.

Hazard was grateful for her attempt to lift his spirits. He smiled a good smile for her, gave her behind a playful swat and told her, “Back to work.”

They were at Carl’s apartment. One of those furnished short-lease places designed for minimum comfort and maximum indestructability. Every possible surface was burn, scratch and stain proof. Wall to wall was synthetic carpet, a beige that could take city dirt. Framed paintings were screwed permanently to the walls, Paris street scenes ordered done by the dozen.

Keven was there to pack Carl’s clothes into cardboard cartons that the Good Will people would come to pick up.

Hazard was sitting on a cocktail table in the living room. He’d emptied every drawer, cabinet, and shelf, literally picked the place clean of every scrap of paper. He’d dumped it all on the sofa and was now going through it, systematically item by item.

He found government pamphlets having to do with United States armament policies. Transcripts of Congressional and Senate committee hearings. Verbatim testimony by generals and high officials of the Defense Department arguing the need for an unsurpassed arsenal. For and against, mostly for, such things as SAMS, missile launching subs, and chemical-bacteriological weapons. As a retailiatory measure was a phrase that appeared repeatedly. One general, apparently pushed to exasperation by his dove inquisitors, said: “No damned reason why we should get wiped out with our pants down.” The pamphlets were not secret. They were part of the public record and available from the Government Printing Office on request.

Hazard also found reproductions of the entire file Carl had assembled on war atrocities in Vietnam. Photographs, sworn statements, first-hand accounts by witnesses. There were copies of letters Carl had written to the State Department, bringing the atrocities to State’s attention, calling for action, expressing indignation when nothing was done. Copies. Where, Hazard wondered, were the originals?

It would have taken an average person two days or longer to read everything Carl left behind. Hazard did it in under four hours, including the fine print of three $50,000 insurance policies. Each stipulated in legalese they wouldn’t pay anything for suicide. Not fair, thought Hazard; death was death no matter how. But then he noticed the beneficiary named on all three policies was Catherine. She didn’t need it, so forget it. He tossed the policies into the throw-away box.

Carl’s attaché case. Hazard saved that for last. It was locked and rather than search around for the key he used a screwdriver to break open its clasps. Inside was Carl’s passport, a soiled shirt, the latest issue of Time, an ounce bottle of Fragonard perfume gift-wrapped for Catherine, and a blue folder containing some Disarmament Committee memos—routine correspondence.

Nothing. Nothing in all of it.

Keven came from the other room, struggling with a large carton she’d packed. She was trying to pull it along to the entrance hall. Hazard picked it up and carried it there, stacked it on top of another carton near the door.

Keven asked was he hungry.

“No.”

“You must be.”

He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and then not much. It was now after six.

“I’m going out,” he told her.

“To eat?”

“No.”

“Without me?”

He nodded and thought she’d protest but she didn’t. She smiled. “Wait a minute,” she said. “No more than three, I promise.” She hurried to the kitchen.

Out of mindless habit he went to the phone. He hadn’t bet on anything in nearly a week, hadn’t settled his last loss. He called his bookie, put another nickel on the Mets, didn’t know who they were playing. He almost made it a dime.

Keven returned with two tall glasses containing a thick, unhealthy-looking mixture, bilious colored.

“This will hold you.”

He took large gulps to get it down.

She was glad he didn’t ask what it was, that she didn’t have to tell him it was brewer’s yeast, lecithin, fertilized egg yolks, over-ripe bananas, yogurt, fresh orange juice, a squeeze of lemon, and a dash of sea kelp. She knew his drinking it so fast would probably cause gas but she didn’t say anything. At least it was going down and would do him a lot of good.

Hazard didn’t complain about the taste or even bother to make a face. He told her, “See you later.”

“Take care,” she said brightly.

But her eyes, Hazard noticed, were intense, and he left with the feeling that she knew what he had in mind.

He drove to the 17th Precinct station house on East 51st Street. He parked right in front as though he were official. He went in and told the cop on desk duty that he wanted to see someone.

The someone he got to see was a detective sergeant named Binzer. Not a shirt-sleeve, loose-tie, hat-on-the-back-of-the-head stereotype by any means. Binzer had on a dark brown suit, wide, geometrical-figured tie, and an embroidered striped shirt. Everything he was wearing looked new, not in keeping with his face, which creased deep and lined especially around the mouth and eyes, old early from fifteen years of dealing with everything from self-cremating protesters at the United Nations to afternoon sidewalk homicide in Times Square.

What could he do for Hazard?

For a moment Hazard was tempted to tell Binzer what he felt about Carl’s death—what he suspected and what he had to go on. However, he realized he’d only come off sounding like a dead man’s hurt and angry brother. Besides, the police had it wrapped up and most likely would be inclined to keep it that way. So then and there Hazard decided he was on his own. He told Binzer, “I want to know who’s the registered owner of a particular car.”

Binzer didn’t change noticeably. He was too experienced for that. He merely pushed back from his desk a way. He calmly lighted an extra long without taking his eyes off Hazard. Hazard didn’t look like some nut off the street but Binzer knew most nuts don’t look like nuts. “Who are you?” he asked.

Instead of saying, Hazard showed him. It was the first time Hazard had ever used his DIA identification card. He’d never thought he would.

Binzer examined it and handed it back. “Never met one of you guys before.”

“We’re around,” said Hazard, trying to act the part.

“What are you into?” Binzer asked.

“Probably nothing, just a lead.”

“Okay, what’s the license number?”

Hazard remembered easily. The episode, brief as it had been and not of particular importance at the time, came back to him now. Not just a vague, general impression but total recall of every detail. The two men who’d come out of the apartment building with Carl. The two others who’d waited in the limousine. Their faces, features. He’d seen the car and the men only for a few moments, which was enough. He told Binzer: “A dark blue seventy-two Cadillac Fleetwood limousine, New York license plate number 973–DPL.”

“A DPL plate?”

“Yeah.”

Binzer said that meant the car was registered to a foreign embassy or UN mission. They were the only ones who got DPL plates. DPL for diplomat. “It lets them get away with murder,” Binzer said.

“Really?”

“Sure. The bastards can park anywhere. They can be stoned and doing a hundred up Madison and give us the finger. They’ve got immunity. Anyway, if you’re after a DPL, that’s easy. What was the number?”

“Nine seven three.”

Binzer didn’t have to call the motor-vehicles section to get the information. The United Nations was in the 17th Precinct, so it was convenient to have a list of all DPL registrations. In a small bound book that Binzer took from the lower drawer of his desk, he quickly found 973–DPL and told Hazard: “Registered to the Consul General of Lebanon, 9 East 76th.”

“Thanks.”

“Nothing.”

“Do me one more favor.”

“What?”

“I never asked.”

“You couldn’t have,” said Binzer, “you were never here.”

The Lebanese consulate was in a private, four-story building half way down on the north side between Fifth and Madison. A nice, expensive neighborhood. Hazard circled the block a few times looking for the dark blue limo. Lots of limos but not that one. Finally he pulled into a hydrant zone on the corner of 76th. To wait and see. From there he had a good view of the building, could even make out the small national emblem of Lebanon over the entrance way; red-and-white diagonally striped shield with a green fir tree centered.

Hazard stayed in the car. An hour passed. It seemed longer than that to him with nothing to do but just sit there and watch and think about how he was going to handle it if he got the chance.

He had doubts.

Possibly he was way off on an emotional tangent, just grasping in anger. Possibly those four men were coincidental, innocent. No matter, he had to find out. One thing he felt for sure, whether suicide or murder, somehow, directly or as an indirect consequence, Carl had been killed by the fucking government.

At half past seven the dark blue Cadillac limo bearing license plate 973–DPL turned into the street. It pulled up in the DPL zone in front of the consulate. The driver got out. It wasn’t anyone Hazard had seen before. The man entered the building.

Ten minutes later two older men and a woman came out. They were dressed for the evening. At that same moment, as though on cue, a driver came up the exterior steps from the floor below street level. A different driver. It was Saad. Hazard, of course, didn’t know that name but he recognized the driver as one of the men he’d seen with Carl, the last time he’d seen Carl alive. Saad hurried to open the limo’s rear door for his passengers. Then he got in front behind the wheel and drove away.

Hazard followed. It wasn’t easy because what Binzer had said about abusing the privilege of diplomatic immunity was certainly being demonstrated by the way Saad cut in and out of traffic, no regard for lights that had just turned red, leaping getaways. Hazard almost lost the limo twice but managed to keep sight of it all the way to Lincoln Center, where it pulled in to the special-access road and discharged its passengers. They were going to the ballet. But not Saad. He steered the limo out to Columbus Avenue and headed downtown.

Hazard went after him, tried to keep up, but Saad really put his foot to the limo, as though the busy avenue were the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The Packard just didn’t have enough horses, and those it did have were too old. Hazard felt as though he were on the wrong end of a rubber band as he helplessly watched the limo stretch its lead. Somewhere in the West Thirties Hazard lost it completely. He cursed and took out some of his anger on the Packard’s gear shift. He circled around and went uptown, back to Lincoln Center. His stomach was bothering him. It felt bloated and he had sharp gas pains. Tension, he assumed.

The ballet was over at eleven.

Saad timed it just right, got there with the limo as soon as the audience started coming out. He picked up his passengers and again headed downtown.

Hazard managed to get the Packard directly behind the limo. It turned at Columbus Circle and went crosstown on Central Park South. For some reason not so fast now, and Hazard had no trouble staying with it.

The limo’s destination turned out to be the Sherry-Netherland at 59th and Fifth Avenue. It pulled up in front; the passengers got out and entered the hotel. They were going to Raffles, the private club for supper and dancing located downstairs at the Sherry. Saad apparently would wait. He maneuvered the limo into place among the numerous other chauffeured cars standing by there. Cadillacs, Mercedes-Benzes, Rolls-Royces, double and triple parked.

Hazard drove past and around the block. He parked on 61st in a hydrant zone. He walked to Fifth, crossed over and down to the southeast corner of Central Park. Directly opposite the Sherry-Netherland’s entrance. He sat on a public bench, from which he could observe without being noticed. He saw Saad was out of the limo, standing talking with a couple of other drivers.

After a few minutes Hazard got up and walked across the square to the Plaza Hotel. Inside the Plaza he went to the lobby newsstand, bought a roll of spearmint Life Savers and, as an afterthought, a ten-cent-sized Almond Joy that cost a quarter because he was buying it there. He ate the Almond Joy on his way out and back across the square to the bench. He saw Saad was still talking with the other drivers.

Don’t just stand there, you fat little prick. A moment later, as though directed by Hazard’s unspoken instructions, Saad left the group and got into the limo. He turned on the interior light and began reading a magazine.

Hazard had been waiting for that. But now he wasn’t so sure. He had to reassure himself that he’d once seen Cagney get away with it in a movie. He shoved his hand into his left jacket pocket, felt the roll of Life Savers there, and started across the street.

Saad was enjoying the magazine. The girls exposed in it had no less than 42–D. He was so involved with trying to make the photographs come to life that he was taken unaware when Hazard opened the limo’s right front door and slid across the seat. Hand in pocket, Hazard shoved the hard round end of the roll of Life Savers into Saad’s side.

“Don’t say anything,” Hazard told Saad, “just drive.”

Even through his fat Saad could feel the hard pointing pressure of what had to be a gun. He glanced at Hazard’s face, saw the set of it matched the threat. He did as he was told, dropped the magazine into his lap, started the limo, and steered away from the Sherry.

Down Fifth Avenue.

“I don’t have any money,” said Saad. “All I have is ten, maybe twelve, dollars.” He hoped his shirt cuff was hiding his watch.

Hazard let up some on the pressure he was applying with the roll of Life Savers. Only so that he could poke it again even harder into Saad’s side. With his free hand Hazard reached into his other jacket pocket and brought out a photograph of Carl. When the limo had to stop at an intersection, Hazard held the photograph in front of Saad’s eyes.

“You know him?” Hazard asked.

It was a head-on photo of Carl, a good likeness, unmistakable.

“No.”

“Never seen him?”

“Never.”

“How about last Friday night?”

“I was sick. In bed all Friday and Saturday last week.”

The back of Hazard’s neck flushed as he heard the incriminating lie. He told Saad: “His name was Hazard. My name is Hazard.”

Saad couldn’t hide what he felt then. His mouth stayed the same but he started to sweat and his eyes began moving as though looking for a way out. He now knew he was in trouble more serious than a holdup.

On down Fifth Avenue.

“Tell me all of it, and maybe I won’t kill you.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Don’t shit me.”

“I don’t. I just drive.”

“Okay. You just drive and I’ll tell you where.”

Hazard let silence work on Saad. At 23rd Street all he said was, “Hang at left here,” and when they came to FDR Drive he told Saad, “Downtown.”

“I just drive,” Saad kept repeating.

Nothing from Hazard except directions. Off at the Battery Park exit. North on West Street a few blocks and then beneath the West Side elevated highway. Cobblestone pavement, the tires tattooing, a maze of red-and-white wooden barriers with yellow, blinking reflectors. Then about a half-mile stretch of wire mesh fence. The area beyond the fence had been river but was now being filled in for more city living space. Someone would get richer from it.

A wide opening in the fence. A sign that said AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY was disregarded as the limo turned in onto a dirt road, a way created by the daily going and coming of heavy trucks. No one there now. Bulldozers, graders, earth shovels stood around like grotesque, catatonic beasts. The fill wasn’t clean, rather the dumpings of every sort of rubble and junk. Crushed, twisted, mangled, rusted chunks, mounds, slabs, splinters—everything from the skeletons of car bodies to rotting baby-crib mattresses, toilet bowls, and beer cans by the millions. The solid waste of consumers, a massive defecation of installment-plan buying. All this would be pounded down, pressed, and finally topped off with a few feet of good earth on which would be built structures that would be rooms full of future junk, future rubble.

A short way in, the limo’s headlights hit upon a temporary shack with the words ONE MAN ONE JOB crudely handpainted on it. Along with a poster urging SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT TO END THE WAR.

The limo continued to the end of that bad road, to the river’s edge. From there, a clear view of the Statue of Liberty out in the harbor, green giant lady on her private island. In the opposite direction was the money skyline of Wall Street and left of that, closer, just across the highway, the twin towers of the Trade Center, tallest in the world, now lighted up—so high at this close range they gave the impression they were leaning and about to fall over.

Hazard cut the motor, pocketed the key and just sat there, keeping the pressure on Saad. He could sense Saad’s spiraling panic, was waiting, hoping it would come out.

Saad, meanwhile, was not encouraged by his surroundings. The place was clearly right for a killing. He reminded himself that he’d always been a coward and living for a cause was different, easier than dying for one. Saad felt that if all was written as claimed, then his own lack of bravery had been and was meant to be. But he had sworn, hadn’t he? What about honor? His fear had a ready answer. Honor was important only when there are witnesses.

For nearly a half hour Saad argued with his conscience. It was a one-sided argument.

Hazard kept his pocketed hand and the roll of Life Savers aimed at Saad and every so often he’d move it, thrust it purposely to build Saad’s anxiety.

Saad wet his lips, ran his tongue over the bristles of his dab of a mustache and said, “I must have your word.”

“Sure.”

“You won’t kill me.”

“Not unless you lie.”

“The truth is I only did the driving.”

“Where?”

Saad told him about the house that was near Nyack, the interrogation, the George Washington Bridge. He didn’t go into detail and he lied about one part, said with a trace of admiration that Carl had held out, that they hadn’t been successful in getting the information they’d wanted from him. Saad figured the lie was in his favor because it was something Hazard would want to hear.

Hazard believed it.

“It wasn’t anything personal.” Saad was more confident now. “It could have been any one of a dozen people. It happened, unfortunately, to be him.”

Hazard doubted that. “What was the information you wanted?”

“I don’t know. They never told me. And when they decided to kill him I pleaded with them not to do such a horrible thing, but I was nothing, only the driver.”

Hazard asked who they were.

“Black September.”

“I mean who were the other three?”

Saad told him the full names of Badr, Hatum, and Mustafa. After naming them he felt relieved, as though the blame was no longer focused on him.

“Where are they now?”

“They left the following day.”

“Out of the country?”

“I do not know.”

“You drove them to the airport.” Hazard was guessing but sounded as though he knew.

Saad decided he’d better admit that.

“You took them to the international terminal.”

“I was happy to see them go.”

Hazard nodded thoughtfully.

Saad interpreted it as agreement. He smiled and asked if it was all right if he had a cigarette, started to reach.

Hazard told him no. “Get out.”

“You gave your word,” reminded Saad, but realized it was useless. Reverting suddenly, he said with hatred, “Weld Iihudi-gahba!” (son of a Jew whore). He opened the door and got out. The moment his feet touched the ground he started to run.

Hazard hadn’t anticipated that. Should have, but hadn’t. He got out quickly and by the light of the Trade Mart towers saw Saad running up the road as fast as his stubby legs could go under the handicap of sixty overweight pounds. Hazard sprinted after him.

Saad expected any moment to hear shots at him, to feel the sting of a bullet entering his back. He knew he’d never make it all the way out to the street. He cut abruptly to his right, stumbled, almost fell, and got off the road, clawed and clambered up a pile of rubble and down to where it was darker. He made his way over the debris and through the maze of junk and, finally, with his lungs aching, flopped down behind the overturned hulk of a discarded refrigerator. He pressed tight against it, closed his eyes, and tried not to breathe so loudly. He heard Hazard coming, the rubble crunching under Hazard’s steps. Hazard paused only a few feet away on the opposite side of the refrigerator. Saad silently begged to God to be merciful and, a few moments later, Hazard moved on, searching.

Saad remained where he was for several minutes, listening, estimating Hazard’s movements, now further and further away. Then slowly, careful to make as little noise as possible, he crawled away from the refrigerator and up a small rise to peek over. He saw the limousine not more than a hundred feet away. He thought he’d run farther than that. He looked in the direction of the street and saw how far he’d have to go to reach there. Too far. He decided on the car. Took a deep breath and made a dash for it.

Hazard heard the limo’s door slam. It occurred to him that Saad might have a spare ignition key. He ran for the limo and when he got to it saw Saad in the front seat. Saad had the limo’s telephone up, calling for help.

Hazard rushed to the rear of the car where the telephone aerial projected up from the center surface of the luggage compartment. He grabbed the aerial and yanked. It gave some but was still intact. He bent it down, put his entire weight on it and it finally snapped off at its base.

Saad knew the phone was dead when crackling static replaced the voice of the operator who’d been late in answering the remote-service signal. Saad hadn’t had time to say a word.

But Hazard couldn’t know that. It was possible Saad had gotten through to someone. He went to the left front door of the limo. Saad moved immediately to the opposite side, hunched down to make himself into as difficult a target as possible, still believing Hazard had a gun. Hazard got the key from his pocket and inserted it into the door lock. Before he could turn the key Saad, risking everything, was across the seat and pressing down the locking button from the inside. Saad had the advantage. Hazard’s fingers could not get enough leverage to turn the key.

There was Saad’s face, less than a reach away but protected by the rolled-up window.

Hazard gave up on the door.

Saad found it incredible that Hazard hadn’t just shot him point blank through the glass.

Hazard hurried around to the other front door. Shoved the key into its lock. But Saad beat him to it, held down its inside locking button.

Impasse.

Hazard backed off to decide what to do. No time to waste, however. Saad’s help might be on the way.

Keeping an eye on the limo Hazard searched around among the debris until he found a suitable hunk of metal, a short I-shaped piece of rusted steel. He went to the driver side of the car, reared back, and let go. He expected the glass to smash and fly but instead it merely turned frosty opaque with a cobweb pattern of cracks, and remained intact except for an irregular four-inch hole at the point of impact.

Shatter-proof.

It took a half dozen full-force blows for Hazard to break enough of the window out. He looked in. Saad was against the opposite side. Hazard opened the door. He saw then that Saad had a knife extended directly at him, a five-inch blade. It was more than a match for the gun Hazard didn’t have. Considerably more formidable than a roll of Life Savers. But Hazard shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, still pretending to have a weapon. Cautiously, Hazard reached around to unlock the rear door. He took one careful step up and in.

Over the seat Saad cut the air with the knife; short, slashing jabs. It was a weapon he knew how to handle, had known since he was a boy.

Hazard decided he had to make his move. He waited a moment and then made it all at once. Into the back seat, the fingers of his left hand curled slightly but tensed, his wrist stiffened as he’d been taught by the DIA instructors. His left hand by-passed the knife and the fleshy heel of his hand chopped at Saad’s forearm, sending it aside, away. Hazard’s right hand was already made into the most powerful of all karate fists—the oyayiuhi ipponken: four fingers folded in tight and solid, thumb bent with its tip pressed hard down on the second knuckle of the forefinger, a fist strictly forbidden in karate matches because of its lethalness.

In continuous motion with his left, Hazard brought his right hand around and even remembered to rotate it at the last possible moment for a snap of maximum power. Perfect strike. It caught Saad flush on the left temple, sending him against the steering wheel and instrument panel. He slumped down, his dead weight settling.

Hazard pulled Saad back to the seat, shoved him over, and propped him up and put the chauffeur’s cap on him. He looked asleep but Hazard was fairly sure he was dead. Blood was coming out of Saad’s left ear.

Hazard picked up Saad’s knife, got out, and threw it into the river. A harbor police boat was coming downstream at that moment, a short way out, patroling. Hazard’s plan for Saad had been the river but now with the boat and possible phone call, he decided to get away from there.

He drove out and turned north to Jay Street, went up the ramp and, when he was on the West Side elevated highway, felt very exposed. Cars coming. Cars passing. The city to his right looking as lighted and awake as always. The power of the limo felt unfamiliar and he had to restrain his foot not to use it, kept exactly on the fifty limit. He switched on the radio. Music. A piece of soul. He dialed away from it, got some bad news. The Mets had lost in the ninth on a wild pitch.

He glanced over at the body of Saad and thought of Carl. And again when the lights of the George Washington Bridge came into view. He turned off at the 125th Street exit and headed downtown on Riverside Drive, thinking about how to dispose of his passenger. Maybe just leave him in the car somewhere. But remembering Binzer and the DPL license-plate inquiry made Hazard cancel that idea. He couldn’t rely on Binzer to keep that quiet. No, he had to put the body some place where it wouldn’t be found for a long while, or never. Where?

The limo was stopped for a light at 102nd Street when Hazard heard it. He thought he’d merely imagined it but then he heard it again, definitely.

A short moan from Saad. He wasn’t dead. Almost, but not dead.

Hazard’s first thought was to hit Saad again. He pulled over. All it would take was a single blow in the same spot. He took off Saad’s cap and made his own right hand into that lethal fist.

But then he couldn’t do it.

Saad was just a lump of a man, too helpless.

Hazard tried to call up enough hate. He told himself he had to. He told himself it was an act of mercy. He reminded himself of the consequences, the danger, if, by some remarkable means, Saad recovered.

Three, four times, Hazard was about to deliver the final blow but he just couldn’t do it.

By then it was ten to three.

Hazard drove around awhile, avoided the major avenues and was headed east on 98th Street near Amsterdam when he saw the lettering on the truck:

SANTIANO & SONS

Brooklyn, N. Y.

The dark green garbage truck was collecting along that street. Two men were feeding garbage into its wide rear opening. No neat tied-up plastic bags in this area. Plain old classical cans, overflowing.

Hazard took special notice of how the men worked, hoisted the heavy cans up and emptied them in. And when the rear of the truck was full enough one or the other of the men banged loudly on the side, a signal for the driver to activate the device that scooped the load into the huge body of the vehicle.

Hazard drove by. A tight squeeze. He had to go slow and he got a long, closer look. He circled the block and kept a discreet distance behind the truck, matching its stops and starts to the end of that crosstown block. He used the time to empty Saad’s pockets. A half pack of Egyptian cigarettes, a ballpoint pen, ring of house keys, and, from Saad’s back trousers pocket, a worn, much-sat-upon wallet containing, among other things, sixty-four dollars.

Half way down the next block the truck stopped at an alley that ran deep between two larger buildings. The alley was half below street level. The two garbage men disappeared down into it.

Hazard decided this was his chance. He pulled the limo up so it was in position with the rear of the truck but out of view of the driver. Quickly, Hazard got out, went around and opened the limo’s other front door. He turned and squatted to get his shoulders under Saad. A fireman’s carry. Hazard’s legs nearly buckled when he straightened up with all that extra weight. Four steps to the rear of the truck. The edge was waist high. He dropped Saad in and saw now that this section of the truck was cylindrical, shaped like a huge horizontal drum partially cut away.

The sour smell of garbage.

Hazard banged twice on the side of the truck.

At once the compressing mechanism went into motion with a grinding sound as its line of thick steel teeth came curving over and down to the inside edge, like a monster closing its mouth, scraping its food back into its belly and with a hydraulic hiss digesting it with fifty thousand pounds of pressure per square inch.

No more Saad.

Garbage.

The dull clanging of pails warned Hazard that the two men were coming back from the alley. He got into the limo, drove by and away.

He left the limo right on Madison Avenue, where it was sure to be towed away. Immunity? No, the limo was anonymous, susceptible after Hazard stripped it of its DPL plates.

Hazard didn’t tell Keven what he’d done.

When he arrived home he found her on his bedroom floor, using the door for a headboard. She had ocean breakers on the cartridge player.

“What are you doing down there?”

“I wanted to make sure you woke me when you came in.”

“Were you asleep?”

“Just half.”

She tried to kiss him hello and he wanted that very much, but he avoided her and went into the bathroom.

He took a long shower, lathered thick all over, and rinsed, lathered and rinsed again. While he was drying in front of the mirror he thought he didn’t look the same.

He brushed his teeth extra hard and used the Water Pic.

He expected by then that Keven would be trying to sleep, but she was waiting for him on the bed. He detected the fragrance of tangerines in the air. Clean. Welcome. Her arms were extended as though to guide him to her and he went between them to be drawn against her.

The love they made included something they hadn’t experienced together before—a desperation, a greed, like a verification of life.

No need to tell her what he’d done, thought Hazard.

She knew.