But after several weeks in and out of the hospital while the medics kept futzing with what tittle cartilage and bone was left in his knee and upper leg, they gave Big Bore a prosthetic hinge—he couldn't call it a knee—of plastic and steel and consigned him to four months of sheer hell called physical therapy. Every time Big Bore whined or cursed from the pain, which was a hundred times a day, he thought of Joe Kurtz. And what he was going to do to Joe Kurtz.

And then, just last month in September, two of Big Bore's good A.B. buds from Attica got out on parole, and together the three of them began looking for Kurtz. But his two Aryan Brotherhood pals—Moses and Pharaoh—were unreliable, shot up on skag half the time, and now Big Bore was looking for Kurtz on his own. He had his beloved double-action, seven and a half-inch barreled Big Bore Redhawk.357 Magnum. The huge pistol was made even larger by the addition of a big 2X Burris LER pistol scope hooked to the barrel scallops by scope rings.

The assembled weapon with scope was huge. Neither of his two ex-wives could have lifted the thing with one hand, nor could they have pulled the trigger, what with its 6.25-lb. trigger pull. Big Bore couldn't fit the scoped weapon in his custom-made Ruger shoulder holster, so he carried around a little gym bag with the scoped Redhawk and a hundred rounds of Buffalo Bore ammo.

He was carrying the bag when he went back to Blues Franklin this night to apologize to the old nigger who owned the place—Daddy Bruce—and explain that he'd been drunk the last time he'd been in and that the A.B. types with him were no friends of his—and to ask, casually, if Daddy had seen Joe Kurtz recently. Daddy had accepted.

Big Bore's apology, bought him a drink, and said that if Joe Kurtz didn't show by eleven P.M., he wasn't coming.

Big Bore waited alertly until eleven-thirty and had three more drinks while he waited. Some group was playing music, jazz probably, although all music sounded the same to Big Bore. He sorted through various plans but then decided on the simplest one—when Kurtz came through the door, Big Bore would lift the.357 Magnum, blow a hole in Kurtz wide enough to drop Daddy Brace's little granddaughter through, and then Big Bore would hop in his Dodge Power Wagon and drive straight out to Arizona or wherever, maybe stop in Ohio to visit his cousin Tami.

Quarter to midnight and Big Bore realized that Kurtz wasn't coming. Just as he was leaving Blues Franklin, Big Bore got the uneasy feeling that he was being set up. What was to keep Daddy Bruce from calling Kurtz. Maybe Kurtz was paying the nigger to be on the lookout.

Franklin Street was dark, everything shut down but the blues club and the coffeehouse three doors down. Big Bore slipped the huge double-action out of the gym bag and carried it muzzle down, pressed against his leg, the massive hammer thumbed back. He moved from shadow to shadow, watching out of the corners of his eyes like they'd taught him in the army before they kicked him out.

No one on the street. No one in the alley. A single other car—a dark and silent Lincoln—was parked half a block up from where his ancient Dodge Power Wagon pickup truck sat high on oversized wheels just across the street. Had he locked it?

Big Bore slipped a flashlight out of the gym bag and shifted the bag under his left arm. Then he moved forward quickly, stabbing the flashlight beam ahead of him toward the cab, the Ruger half-raised.

Both doors were locked. The high cab was empty. Big Bore set the bag down, fished around for his keys, opened the driver's side door, flashed the beam around once more to be sure, looked over his shoulder to check that no one was getting out of the Lincoln, looked up and down the street, and then jumped into the cab, tossing the bag on the seat to his right and laying the huge scoped pistol on top of it.

He felt the breeze on his neck a second before the muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head. Some sonofabitch took the window out of the back of the cab and was hiding in the truck bed.

"Keep your hands on the top of the wheel, Big Bore," whispered Joe Kurtz. "Don't turn around."

"Joe, I been wanting to talk to you…" began the Indian.

"Shut up." Keeping the cocked.38's muzzle deep in the flab at the back of Big' Bore's neck, Kurtz reached in, grabbed the Ruger, and dropped it into the bed of the truck.

"Joe, you gotta understand…"

"I understand that the next word you say will be your last," hissed Kurtz in Big Bore's ear. "One bullet for each additional word from here on in."

Big Bore managed to keep quiet His left leg began shaking, but then he remembered. I got the knife on my belt under the vest and he knew that Kurtz would want to talk, want to threaten him, and that's when Big Bore'd gut him like a fish. He almost smiled.

"Listen," whispered Kurtz. "Start the engine but then put your right hand back on the top of the wheel next to the left one. That's good. Steer with both hands up there."

"I gotta shift…" began Big Bore and then winced, shut his eyes, and waited for the bullet Kurtz pressed the muzzle so deep into his neck that it felt like a bullet coming up into his skull.

"No shifting," said Kurtz. "This thing's in second gear, it'll start in second gear—keep it there. Both hands on the wheel. That car in front of you is going to start up and pull out now. Follow it, but not too close. Get within twenty feet of its bumper and I'll blow your head off. Fall more than fifty feet behind it and I'll blow your head off. Go over thirty miles an hour and I'll blow your head off. Nod if all this is clear."

Big Bore nodded.

The Lincoln Town Car ahead of them started up, turned on its headlights, and pulled away from the curb, heading slowly south on Franklin Street.

"Turn left here," said Kurtz. The truck followed the Lincoln as it turned east.

Maybe someone'll see Kurtz in the truck bed behind me reachin' in, thought Big Bore, but the stab of hope faded quickly. It was too dark. The sides of the Power Wagon were too high. Kurtz had the old tarp pulled up over him. The Lincoln was moving slowly, crossing Main into the black ghetto where there were fewer and fewer streetlights.

"You just couldn't leave it alone, could you, Big Bore?" said Kurtz.

The Indian opened his mouth to say something, anything, then remembered Kurtz's threat.

"You can answer this," said Kurtz. "Do you know anything about the parking garage?"

"Parking garage?" repeated Big Bore.

Kurtz could tell from the tone of the man's quavering voice that Big Bore Redhawk had nothing to do with yesterday's shooting.

The Lincoln pulled up in front of an abandoned line of shops in the darkest section of the old black neighborhoods.

"Stop ten feet behind it, put it in neutral, and set the brake," whispered Kurtz. "Do anything else and I kill you here."

Big Bore considered going for the knife then, but the circle of the muzzle pressed into the back of his head was more persuasive than his desperation.

Three men got out of the Lincoln and walked back to the Dodge wagon. Two of them aimed guns at Big Bore, ordered him to step out of the cab, frisked him, took his giant knife, and led him to the Lincoln, where they had him lie down in the trunk. The Town Car's trunk was very well insulated and Big Bore's sobs and entreaties were cut off as soon as the lid came down.

"I understand this is supposed to happen tomorrow, way the hell down by Erie, at ten A.M. exactly," said Colin, Angelina Farino Ferrara's personal bodyguard.

"Yeah," said Kurtz. He held the huge, scoped Ruger up in his gloved hand. "You have any use for this?"

"Are you kidding?" said Colin. "That thing's almost as big as my dick. I like smaller weapons." He hoisted the little.32 he was holding.