Ed walks very close to him.

– Tell me again.

– Eight-four-five-one.Cycle. Thirty seconds.

The boss tries to cower away from Ed, but Ed slips an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close.

– I’ll kill you both. I’ll come back from the dead and kill you both.

– Eight-four-five-onecycle thirty.

Ed backs out of the room and I close the door and lock it. He helps me carry the money to the elevator. We go down, get Paris, activate the alarm, lock the door behind us, throw the money in the trunk, get in the Caddie and drive away. Ed pulls the bandanna from his face and looks at me.

– See, we got it covered.

We’re in the apartment they grew up in.

– Roman got the Chink, and your boss got Bert, and Russ got Ernie. So who got Russ?

Their mother died some years back, never having reconciled with her hoodlum sons. A cousin got the lease and the brothers arranged for the apartment to be maintained as a hideout. Ed told me about it as we drove out here to Queens. Paris listened and added nothing of his own. I watch Bud lap milk from a little blue bowl on the linoleum kitchen floor.

Paris is sitting at the Formica-topped kitchen table, surrounded by the cash, tapping out numbers on a calculator and scribbling them down in a yellow legal pad. Ed and I sit on a beat-up couch with plastic covers. He’s drinking a Heineken. I’m drinking ginger ale.

– I got Russ.

Paris looks up from his figures and Ed nods his head.

– No shit?

– No shit.

– What’d you get ’imwith?

– A baseball bat.

– Fuck.

I’m squeezing little dents into my soda can,then popping them out. Pop, pop, pop, pop.

– Well, Russ wasa OK cat, but I guess he kind of screwed us all. Damn, a baseball bat?

– Uh-huh.

– I’m tellin’ you, Hank,watchin ’you, it’s likewatchin ’ a egg get all hard-boiled. No shit.

Paris clears his throat and Ed looks over at him.

– Well?

– Four million five hundred twenty-eight thousand.

– No shit?

– Yep.

– How ’bout that?Only twenty-two K short. Let’s hear it for Russ keeping his fingers out of the till.

I take a swig of my soda.

– Exceptfor trying to rob it all.

– Well, yeah, but the man wasn’t exactly made of steel,ya know?

– I know.

– Great thief, though.Great fucking thief.

He and Paris raise their beers and drink a toast. My stomach churns as I think about the pulpy dent I put in the side of Russ’s head. I sip more ginger ale and look out the tiny slit window, which lets no light into the basement apartment. I get up off the couch.

– I need to use the can.

Ed has gone over to the fridge for another beer.

– Down the hall on the right. Hold the lever down for a second or it won’t flush all the way.

I put my soda can on the coffee table, grab my bag and walk down the shag-carpeted hallway.

– Don’t take forever. I want to make that call.

The walls of the hallway are lined with photographs, each one marking the passage of another year. The first is of a handsome young couple with their newborn, a chubby little Paris. The next one is the same: the couple is on the plastic-covered couch, Paris between them getting bigger. Ed arrives in the third photo and sits in his big brother’s little lap. They grow, Paris a shy beanpole and Ed, small and intense, always wearing the outfit his brother wore a few photos back. At the tenth picture, the father disappears. There are six more. In each the boys edge toward one end of the couch and their mother toward the other, until in the final picture they sit at opposite ends, staring into the camera, unsmiling. Soon after this point, these small, beautiful boys will whip another child to death. I look at the eyes in the photos: Paris looks afraid, Ed looks hurt. I go into the bathroom.

The toilet has one of those fuzzy covers and a cushy seat. I sit to pee just because it looks so comfy, and it is. I hold the handle down and keep it there while the toilet flushes. I take off my jacket and grimy sweatshirt and crusty T-shirt and unwind my bandage. I dig the first-aid stuff out of my bag and clean my wound again and rewrap it. Then I find an extra T-shirt and a heavy flannel in the bag and put them on. There’s a wicker laundry hamper in the corner and I toss my dirty stuff inside. When I packed the bag, I didn’t bother with pants. Way to think ahead, asshole. I look in the mirror and John Carlyle looks out. He looks like he’d like to kick my ass. I open the door and go back down the hall so I can use Ed’s phone to set up Roman and Bolo to be murdered. I feel pretty good about it. Does that make me a bad person?

Ed tells me what to say.

– You’re a shit eater, Roman.

Great lines.

– And you aren’t too fucking smart, either.

Fucking Shakespeare.

– Isn’t that right, Roman; you’re a shit eater and you aren’t too fucking smart?

He’s not talking yet, so I improvise a little.

– Use that key yet, Roman? Go and open that storage unit yet? By the way, you can have any of my old stuff. I’m gonna buy new stuff with my four and a half million fucking dollars. Just don’t take the beanbag chair. I love that fucking chair.

It speaks.

– You’re making a mistake.

– The only mistake I’m making is not calling the papers and telling them about you. The only mistake I’m making is not spending a few grand of my money on making you dead.

Ed is twirling a finger at me, telling me to get on with it.

– Instead, I’m gonna give you four million. Do you want to know why I’m gonna give you four million and keep only a half million for myself?

– Yes.

– I’m gonna give you four million to help me get out of town and to help keep the Russian fucking Mafia from coming after me. I’m gonna give you that money to get you out of my fucking life forever. And then I want to go away. Sound reasonable?

– Yes.

– Good.

Paris is out front getting something from the car. Ed sits right across the little kitchen table from me. I try not to look at him too much while I’m talking because he has his sunglasses off and those fucking eyes arecreeping me out.

– At ten, I want you and Bolo to walk over to Astor Place and stand out on the traffic island, the one with the big cube.

– And?

– And just stand there, stand there and stand there with cars passing by until I feel safe and then I’ll walk over from wherever the fuck I am and I’ll give you a very big bag full of money.

– And?

– And then I will go away and I will trust that you won’t shoot me in front of a city full of witnesses. I will trust that you understand it is in your best interest that the police do not catch me, because I will tell them all about you. I will trust you understand that if the Russians find me, I will tell them it was you that killed their boys. Which may be a fucking lie, but who’s counting?

I hear the front door open and close as Paris comes back in. Ed is gesturing for me to wrap it up.

– Are we all together on this, Roman?

– Sure.

– See you at ten.

– Too bad about Russ.

– Yeah, too bad.

– I mean, his dying at your hands. That pretty much screwed you and your chances of being Mr. InnocentIn Over My Head. That was your point of no return, Hank. No going back now. No normal life for you.

– Yeah, pretty much.Your point?

– Don’t fuck with me too much, Hank. I’ve got a temper. I’m known for it. And you’re a murderer now. No one will miss you when you’re gone.

– Good point, Roman, I am a murderer. Don’t forget that. OK?

I push the power stud on the phone and break the connection. Ed is nodding his head and smiling.

– Nowthat’s the shit, right there, that’s the shit.Very slick. “I am a murderer. Don’t forget that.” And just, click. Just hang up.Very slick. What do you think, Paris? Pretty slick, huh?