“I’ll think about it,” Frankie said.

“Okay,” Russell said, “I’ll tell her. She’s supposed to call me. See, you can’t call her there, because the guy’s apparently there some times. So she has to call you. She’s supposed to call me tomorrow. She was supposed to call me today, actually, only, I was out. Jesus, you should see the thing I got this morning. I got this big black fucker, German shepherd.

“Guy I know,” Russell said, “calls me. Last night. He’s looking over this place in Needham. Guy that owns it’s supposed to have a pretty good coin collection. Those medals they’re selling now? Made of silver and stuff. I can get in there like I was getting into bed,’ he tells me. The both of them work and they haven’t got no kids. But they got this goddamned dog in there, looks like a fuckin’ wolf or something.’ So he tells me, I get the dog outa his way, I can have the dog. Plus he’ll gimme a fifth, what he gets.

“So I go over there,” Russell said. “The house’s back from the street and all, lots of trees and stuff. Beautiful. And we go around the back, there’s the dog in there, jumping around like he’s gonna go out of his mind or something. Barking and everything. ‘Okay,’ I say, let the bastard out.’ I’m not going inside and tangle assholes with that monster. ‘Let him out?’ the guy says. ‘You must be crazy or something. He’ll kill both of us.’ Well anyway, he racks up the window and that fuckin’ dog comes out of there like his ass’s on fire. I hadda couple wool shirts on my arm and he makes this whipass flying jump at me and knocks me on my ass, but I got the arm up and all he’s doing, he’s chewing the hell out of them shirts. And I’m, he keeps trying to spit them out and I won’t let him. And he’s growling like a mad bastard. So, I get this stick in his mouth. Now he’s not chewing, ack, ack, ack. Then I put six phenobarbs down his throat and I take the stick out and he’s got to swallow and I put the stick back in. He almost bit the fuckin’ stick in half, for Christ sake, and I had it way the hell back in there, too. Then, I got this rope, and I tie, I hadda slip knot in it. Tie his mouth shut onna stick. Tie his feet, the guy’s helping me. I get him inna car. I had Kenny’s car. He’s a great dog, boy. If I can ever sell him to somebody, find somebody that wants a dog to kill people with.”

“What’d he get in coins and stuff?” Frankie said.

“Nothing,” Russell said. “Guy put them inna bank.”

“Bullshit,” Frankie said.

“No bullshit,” Russell said, “I know the guy. He came right around. Showed me what he got. Couple cameras, portable color, some silver stuff. He had the paper the guy got, the guy put the stuff in the bank. Guys borrow money some times. It happens.”

“That’s what I oughta do,” Frankie said. “I oughta go down the bank and borrow myself some money. They probably wouldn’t mind, last time I did it I was inna can for doing it, I had a gun.”

Frankie turned the 300F up the Bedford-Carlisle exit ramp on Route 128. At the island he turned left on Route 12 and crossed 128 on the overpass. Beyond 128, Route 12 was dark.

“Once they see what a nice fellow you are now, and all,” Russell said.

“Sure,” Frankie said. “I can show them my papers, there. Rehabilitated son of a bitch, is what I am. Well, let’s see how this turns out, first.”

Frankie took the fifth right beyond the 128 overpass. The Chrysler moved beneath bare, tall oaks. At a slight rise the road bent to the right and a small white sign, in script, said: INNISHAVEN. Frankie took the Chrysler right, into the driveway.

“Got a nice golf course here and everything, huh?” Russell said.

“Oh, they got all the nuts,” Frankie said. “John was telling me, they got a gym and they got one of them saunas and a massage thing. First you get all hot and then you go and get blown off, I guess.”

Frankie drove the Chrysler around the northerly end of the two-story motel into the parking lot at the rear. It was poorly lighted.

“One thing we could do,” Russell said. “Instead of going in there and everything, we could just wait out here and grab the guys when they come out.”

“Yeah,” Frankie said, “and get ourselves a lot of Papermates and Zippos off the losers. Fuck that.”

Frankie parked the Chrysler at the front of the driveway, pointing the nose toward the exit. He shut the lights off.

Russell reached into the back seat and came up with a Stop and Shop bag. He took out blue wool ski masks and handed one to Frankie. He pulled the other one over his head. Russell pulled out yellow plastic gardening gloves. He handed a pair to Frankie and put on the other pair.

“Fuckin’ things’re too thick,” Frankie said.

“Look,” Russell said, “you take what you can fuckin’ get, all right? They got none of that light stuff around. Fat shits’re all raking leaves and stuff, this’s what they want. Do the best you can. You gonna use the sawed-off or what?”

Russell took a Stevens double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun out of the bag. The barrel had been cut off behind the front end of the stock. The stock was cut off behind the pistol grip. The shotgun was eleven inches long. There were two shells in it. The front of each green shell stuck out a quarter-inch from the sawed-off muzzles.

“Jesus,” Frankie said.

“You said you wanted a sawed-off,” Russell said. “I told the guy: ‘Wants a sawed-off.’ He told me, he hadda sawed-off for me like I never saw. This’s it.”

“Them things,” Frankie said. “What is that, double O?”

“Double O when they got made,” Russell said. “That’s another thing. What they did, they uncrimp the things and pour the buck out and they take them forty-five wad-cutters, you know? Just like the L.A. police. Split them wad-cutters in half, you can get six of them in there. You can clear out a room pretty fast with this thing, I think. You’re me?”

“Me,” Frankie said. He took the shotgun.

Russell took a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight from the bag and put it in his belt. He zipped his jacket shut over it. He got out of the car.

Frankie got out of the car and stuck the pistol grip of the shotgun into his belt on the left side. The barrels, silver on the edges where they had been cut, fitted in against his body. He zipped his jacket shut over it. He closed the door of the car.

Frankie and Russell walked at a regular pace across the parking lot. They went to the outside stairs that led to the second deck of the Innishaven. The stairs were wood. Frankie and Russell made very little noise.

On the second deck there was light from the rooms, filtering through blue curtains in even-numbered rooms and orange curtains in odd-numbered rooms. In front of each room there were two aluminum-and-redwood chairs, pushed back against the sills of the picture windows.

“Fourth one,” Frankie whispered.

The jalousied door of Room 26 was slightly ajar. Frankie removed the shotgun from under his jacket. He held the pistol grip in his right hand and what remained of the forestock in his left. He carried the gun at waist level.

Russell took the thirty-eight out of his belt. He smoothed the ski mask at his neck.

Russell kicked the door open and went quickly into the room. Frankie came in fast behind Russell. Frankie kicked the door shut and stepped back against it. Russell stopped at the bureau.

There were three round tables, two beds, a bed table, five lamps, a color television set on a chromium pedestal, sixteen chairs and fourteen men in the room. The men sat motionless at the tables, holding playing cards in their hands. There were piles of red, white and blue chips on the tables. There were four men at one table; five men sat at each of the other two tables. Some of the men had tumblers on the tables in front of them.

Frankie nodded toward the washstand and the door, closed, beside it. Russell walked silently toward the washstand.