«Which doesn't make you much money, right?»
«It's only a little piece,» said Willie.
«I understand,» said Mo Edelstein. «You're a good client, Willie.»
«Thank you, Mo.»
«And only one thing would make you a perfect client. One small little thing, Willie.»
«What is it, Mo?»
«Do not take offense at this, Willie. Please. But sometimes, Willie, you don't exactly come up with the full bill.»
«I pay often,» said Willie, leaning forward in his seat.
«You do. You do, Willie, you pay very often. You're one of my most-often paying clients, except for those who pay all the time.»
«Nobody's perfect,» said Willie.
«Right,» said Edelstein. «Not even the people who pay you. I do not mean to cast aspersions on your employers or anything.»
«What's an aspersion?»
«A not nice thing, Willie. But you should be a rich man.»
«I'm loyal to the people I work for,» said Willie and his dark brown eyes narrowed.
«I am not suggesting you betray any of your employers, Willie,» said Edelstein, smiling as wide as he could. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. «I am suggesting a way to make a lot of money. Lots and lots of money. More money, Willie, than you ever made in your whole life.»
«'Cause I wouldn't never betray the people I work for.»
«I know you wouldn't, Willie. That's why I'm giving you this great opportunity. How would you like to make almost a million dollars? Do you know how much that is, Willie?»
Willie the Bomb Bombella's eyes rose. He thought very hard. And what he thought was This man is lying to me.
«It's a lot,» said Willie.
«I'm telling you the truth, Willie. Almost a million dollars. It's waiting out there for you and just a little bit for me. Just what you owe me, Willie. A hundred and twelve thousand dollars.»
Willie's eyes opened wider. He nodded. If there was $112,000 in it for Edelstein, maybe this man was not lying to him. When there was so much money for Edelstein in anything, everything seemed to happen.
«My employers have done me some injustices I can think of,» said Willie.
«No, no. It has nothing to do with them. I have a second cousin who lives on the West Coast …»
«There is nothing worse than blood betraying blood,» Willie interrupted.
«No, no, Willie. Listen to me. He is a funeral director. He buried someone recently and a strange thing happened. There was money in a funeral wreath. It was not his money so he did not keep it.»
Willie's eyes narrowed. This man is lying to me, he thought again.
«He didn't keep it because he was afraid.»
Willie nodded. Edelstein might be telling the truth, he thought.
«But a strange thing happened. A voice on the telephone asked him one night if the money had reached the family of the dead man.»
Willie nodded and Edelstein continued.
«My cousin is smart. He found out what the money was for. The word is open contract.»
Willie's eyes narrowed.
«An open contract. You've heard of a contract on someone's life?» Edelstein paused and laughed nervously. «Of course you have. Well, this is the sort of contract where anyone can fill it and collect the money. See?»
This man is lying to me or setting me up or is a fool. No, thought Willie, Edelstein is no fool.
«You mean you get paid after the job?»
«Right.»
«What if no one wants to pay you?»
«I don't think that would happen. Already more than $100,000 has been thrown around for failures. Real money. My second cousin wasn't the only person this happened to. Other funeral directors had the same thing happen. Most of them aren't as smart as my cousin. He got a phone number.»
Willie watched Edelstein take a piece of paper from the center desk drawer.
«You get financial details from that number,» Edelstein said.
«Did you call this number, Mo?»
«That is not my sort of thing, Willie. I've got to stay here to protect you in case there is any trouble. I should not even tell you that the girl's name is Vickie Stoner, she is nineteen, and she will be at an acid rock concert in Massachusetts in two days, if she is still alive.»
Willie blinked. «Let me get this straight. I am supposed to try to do a job on somebody who might not be alive for someone I never saw for money I do not get until the hit is good. Is that what you are telling me, Mo?»
«A million dollars, Willie. A million dollars. Can you think of a million dollars?»
Willie tried to think of a million dollars. He thought of it in cars, in ready cash, in owning pieces of companies, but he could not imagine it. Another thought was crowding it out. This man may be crazy.
«I'm not crazy, Willie,» said Edelstein. «If it weren't so strange, why would so much be offered? A million dollars, Willie.»
Willie looked at the piece of paper in Edelstein's hand. «How come there's ten numbers?»
«Area code.»
«I do not know this area code.»
«Chicago.»
«Why is it you know the girl's name?»
«My cousin.»
«Give me your phone,» said Willie, taking the piece of paper from Edelstein's hand.
«No, Willie. Not from here. We don't want that. We don't want our defense lawyer to be connected, because he has to stay free in case something goes wrong. We want to be able to say, 'I want my attorney, Mo Edelstein,' not, 'Guard, I have a message for Inmate 79312.' That's what we want, Willie.»
«We want you to come with us,» said Willie.
«No, no. That's what we don't want,» yelled Edelstein.
«That is what we want,» said Willie. As they left the office for a street phone, Mo Edelstein took two Maalox and a Seconal. After the phone conversation, he popped a Nembutal. He was still nervous, so he took a Librium.
«You know, if they put booze in a pill, Mo, you'd be an alcoholic,» said Willie the Bomb.
Edelstein's face eased somewhat as he watched Willie the Bomb load his Lincoln Continental. Edelstein's curiosity was aroused. Here was a man with an IQ that probably never saw the high side of retarded, but when it came to making and setting bombs, knowing what they would do and how they would do it, Bombella was the Michelangelo of the blast.
Bombella sensed this newfound respect and although he had never before explained how he did things, he did so for Edelstein. He knew Edelstein would never use his trade secrets. Edelstein could do more, Willie knew, with a briefcase than Al Capone with a thermonuclear warhead.
Going east and north from St. Louis, Willie explained that nothing he had in the car was illegal until he put it together.
«Almost anything that'll burn can be made into a bomb,» Willie explained. «What a bomb is, is really a very fast fire with not enough place to go fast enough.»
«That is the most brilliant explanation I have ever heard of a bomb,» said Edelstein. «Brilliant in its simplicity.»
«Now there are two basic ways to use one. One is to use it to send something else into the hit or another is to make the hit part of this very fast burning fire. Now, take a car for instance. Most of these guys go putting it in the engine. Do you know why?»
«No,» said Edelstein.
«Cause they only know how to hook up to the ignition and they don't want no one to see the wires. Right in the engine they put it and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You know why it doesn't. It doesn't cause there's a frigging fire wall between the driver and the engine and all you get sometimes is blowing off some poor guy's legs.»
«Incompetent,» said Edelstein, who secretly despised prosecutors who did not give him a good professional battle.
«Yeah, that,» said Bombella, knowing from the tone of the voice that incompetence was something not nice. «Now the place to put a bomb is under the seat. You use a mechanical device that works on pressure, maybe eighty pounds pressure tops, no more.»