Sally fiddled with the dial on the car radio. There was only the sound of static. "I can't get nothin' on this thing," he complained. Skinny, sitting next to him in the front seat of the parked Ford, lit one cigarette from the lit end of another and said, "You gonna run down the battery, you keep playin' with it like that. That would be real great, you can't start the fuckin car."
Rain was coming down in sheets. The water ran in streams across the windshield, concealing the occupants. It was twelve-thirty at night, and the Brooklyn street was empty except for a few parked cars. Sally and Skinny sat hunched down behind the dashboard, their hands cupped around the glowing ends of their cigarettes, eyes fixed on the trailer office of Calabrese Construction Company in the building site across the street. There was an office building going up, its dark skeleton looming up in the rain.
Sally and Skinny watched the trailer through an open gate. A short driveway of wet, rutted earth led from it to the street, the deep tire tracks from trucks and earthmovers filling with rainwater. There was a hastily thrown together cinder-block landing under the trailer door, and a few wooden planks disappeared into the muddy pools in front of it. Behind the louvered window of the trailer, dark shapes moved in front of a light.
"When are these guys gonna leave?" muttered Sally. "They don't have homes, these people?"
"Maybe they're fuckin' each other," offered Skinny.
Sally stubbed out his cigarette in an already overflowing ashtray and moved his hands impatiently up and down the barrel of the big shotgun on his lap. It was an Ithaca Mag-10 Roadblocker, with a distinctive rubber butt-guard. Sally lit another cigarette. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard. He picked his nose.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," said Sally.
"They'll be comin' outta there any minute," said Skinny, the barrel of a Mossberg Bullpup just visible from under the folds of his rain poncho. "They gotta go by Joey Balls's place before closing," said Skinny. "Joey closes his place at one-thirty."
"Maybe they're not goin' tonight," worried Sally. "Maybe they want to eat Chinese tonight."
"Joey's their skipper. They gotta be there," said Skinny. "Every night they come here, they go there later. Every night. Joey doesn't like no once-a-week. He wants it every night . . ."
"I wish they'd hurry the fuck up in there,'5 said Sally "Any minute now," said Skinny. He pulled the hood of his poncho up over his head and snapped the collar around his chin. "Wait till they get to the middle of the street."
"You sure that's their car over there?" asked Sally. He looked over at the silver Seville parked a few car-lengths down the street.
"I'm sure," said Skinny.
"What time you got?" asked Sally Skinny looked at his watch. "FT minutes after the last fuckin' time you asked me."
"I think they're comin," said Sally. "They're comin now." He squirmed around in the driver's seat.
The trailer door opened and two men in Brioni suits stood illuminated in the office light. They looked up at the rain, then down at the muddy pools of water. The taller of the two men disappeared back into the trailer for a moment, reappearing with a single umbrella. He held it over the other man, reached back and flicked off the light, and they both stepped carefully onto the cinder-block landing. The shorter man snapped closed a padlock on the trailer door.
When they reached the sidewalk, the shorter man kicked mud off his shoes before stepping off the curb and into the street.
Sally reached for the door handle.
Skinny, in a calm, low voice, said, "Wait a minute . . . wait. . . wait. . . okay, now. Let's do it."
The two men were halfway across the street, making for the Seville. Sally and Skinny got out of the Ford. The interior dome light did not go on; masking tape kept the buttons in the doors depressed. They left the doors open and moved toward the two men.
The shorter man saw them first. Leaving the taller man alone under the umbrella, he bolted for the Seville. The taller man turned, a confused look on his face, in time to see Skinny coming at him in the rain, the barrel of the Mossberg rising up and out from under his poncho.
"Shit!" he said.
The first blast from the Mossberg took him in the left knee, knocking his leg out from under him. He teetered for a second before flopping over onto the wet asphalt. He rolled, gasping, over onto his back, trying frantically to pull himself across the street with his arms, the shredded leg dangling limply below the knee. Skinny took another few steps and put a wet foot down firmly against the man's throat. He pressed the Mossberg barrel against the man's chest and pulled the trigger. The man's body bucked violently, the one good leg kicking up into the air and then falling with a wet slap back onto the pavement.
Skinny looked off to his left. He watched as Sally, all 280 pounds of him, trotted after the shorter man. The man was struggling with the driver's side door of the Seville, saying, "Please, please, please," under his breath as he fumbled with the key. He gave up on the door and had just started to move away from the car when Sally let loose with the Ithaca. The powerful round caught the man at the hinge of his jaw, blowing most of the top of his head onto the roof of the Seville and shattering the driver's-side window. He was knocked against the door, and as he slid to the ground, Sally fired again, hitting him in the neck. He fell sideways onto the street, what was left of his head folded over onto his shoulder at an unnatural angle, a ruined, leaking shell.
"WOW!" exclaimed Sally. "You see that?"
"That's why they call it a fuckin' Roadblocker," said Skinny.
"Well, it sure knocked his fuckin' block off. . . Marrone!"
Sally and Skinny walked back to the Ford. As Sally started the car, Skinny retrieved an old army-surplus duffel bag from the back seat and put the two shotguns inside. He removed the ashtrays and dropped them in the duffel with the guns. Sally stepped on the gas and roared down the street, slowing down slightly to pass the two left wheels over the dead man in the middle of the street. There were two dull thuds as the car bounced over the corpse.
"You shouldn't a done that," said Skinny. "That's bush."
"Fuck him," said Sally, grinning from ear to ear.
"Guy could get caught up in the wheel well or the bumper. Next thing you know, were draggin' a fuckin' stiff halfway across Brooklyn."
"Fuck him," said Sally.
"It's bush," said Skinny. "I don't like it. Now you got forensics onna tires. I really don't like that."
THEY DROVE the Ford to the parking lot of the Acropolis Diner near Cadman Plaza. They parked next to a green Mercury. Skinny removed the masking tape from inside the door frames, got out of the car, and put the duffel in the trunk of the Mercury. He took off his poncho and crumpled it in a ball and threw it in the trunk. Sally found the key to the Mercury in the exhaust pipe and got behind the wheel. Skinny returned to the Ford and, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped down the steering wheel, dashboard, ignition key, and the door handles, inside and out. Then he got in the Mercury next to Sally.
"You leave the doors unlocked?" asked Sally.
Skinny nodded.
"Good," said Sally. "Maybe some mouli'll steal it."
Sally pulled the car slowly out of the parking lot, not turning on the headlights until he was out in the street. He drove toward the Brooklyn Bridge and the lights of Manhattan.
"You see the fuckin' car those pricks were drivin'?" he asked.
"That's the new Seville," said Skinny, his eyes on the rearview mirror.
"New Seville. Fuckin' cherry. They got a fuckin' cherry Seville to drive and I get another Buick. There's no fuckin' justice in this world no more."
"They ain't drivin' nowhere tonight," said Skinny.
"You got a point," said Sally.
"Drop me at the garage, right? I gotta get rid of the guns," said Skinny. "Then leave the car. Where you parked?"
"I got my car parked over the West Side there, on 125th under the highway," said Sally.
"You park legal?"
"Yeah, I parked legal," said Sally. "What am I, a fuckin' moron?"
"Good, you don't want no tickets tonight. There gonna be a space nearby? Someplace for this one?"
"Yeah, yeah. The spot I picked is perfect. I leave this one, walk half a block and I drive home. Bing, bing, bing."
Sally turned on the radio. "At least this one works," he said, turning to a news channel. There was nothing yet on the radio about the shooting. After a few minutes, Sally said, "That is some beautiful gun."
"Which one?"
"Mine. The one I used. That is beautiful. I couldn't believe it. You see what it did to that guy's fuckin' head?"
"They make that gun to shoot cars with," said Skinny. "I think you supposed to be able to shoot through the engine block and hit a guy behind the wheel. I think it's for state troopers."
"It's a beautiful gun," said Sally.
"I hope you ain't even thinkin' about holdin' on to it," said Skinny. " 'Cause there's no way. An hour from now, it's gonna be all crushed up and on its way with the other one. You smart, you get rid of your clothes, too. Burn 'em. Shoes too. That's the smart thing to do. You can't get naked when you gotta piece of work, you should burn the clothes. That's the next best thing."
"Saves money on the dry cleanin', right, Skin?" joked Sally.