26

I GRABBED the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side and drove across, staying in the right lane. I took the first off-ramp and kept bearing right until I hit the light under the overpass. To the right was the federal courthouse. It's a good spot to meet someone like Julio-nice and private, but too close to the federales for anyone to start shooting. I turned left onto Jay Street and kept rolling my way through the side streets until I was just past John Street, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge. I turned the Plymouth parallel to the water on the passenger side, dropped my window, and lit a smoke. The deserted slips hadn't seen a boat in years. I was about fifteen minutes early.

I only had a couple of drags on the cigarette when the white Caddy pulled up. It pulled up to the Plymouth, stopping only when it was nose to nose. The passenger door opened and Julio got out. I opened my door and started to walk away from the cars, my back to the Caddy. I heard one man's footsteps crunching on the gravel behind me. When I got to the railing, I turned so I could see both cars, looking past Julio to see if he was going to be stupid.

The old man had both hands in his overcoat pockets, collar turned up, hat pulled down over his eyes. Maybe he was cold.

"What's so important?" he wanted to know.

"Your friend's daughter-you told her where to find me?"

"Yeah."

"She wants me to do something for her."

"So you do it. You get paid. What's the problem?"

"What if I don't want the job?"

Julio turned away from me, looking out over the water. "Times have changed, Burke. Things aren't like they used to be. It's different inside too, you know?"

"I know," I told the old man. And I did: When I was a kid, it was always "Do the right thing." You couldn't go wrong if you did the right thing. When the new cons roll up on a new kid inside the walls today, they still tell him to "Do the right thing." But they mean get on his knees or roll over. Even the words don't mean the same things.

The old man just nodded, watching me.

"You told her about the Nazis too?" I asked him.

The old man went on like he hadn't heard me. "Remember how it used to be? If you was a rat in there, guys would shank you right on the yard…just to be doing it. You knew where you stood. Now guys come in bragging how they sold their partners for a better deal."

"What's that got to do with me, Julio?"

The old man was wasting away. His cashmere overcoat looked three sizes too large. Even his hat was too big for his head. But his alligator's eyes were still the same-a man on chemotherapy can still tell someone else to pull the trigger.

He looked me full in the face. "I always thought it was you that did the hijacking," he said.

I moved closer to him, my right hand on the handle of the ice pick I kept in my overcoat pocket. The tip was covered with a piece of cork, but it would come right off if I pulled it out. Julio had spent more time in prison than on the streets-he knew what it meant for me to stand so close. You spend enough time inside, you don't even think about getting shot-there's no guns behind the walls. It takes a different kind of man to stab someone-you have to be close to do it-you have to bring some to get some.

"You thought wrong," I told him, holding his eyes.

He looked right at me, as cold as the Parole Board. "It don't matter anymore. People do things…maybe it's the right thing to do when you do it…who knows? It don't matter to me.

"So why bring it up?" I asked him, my hand still on the ice pick, eyes flicking over to the white Caddy.

"I want you to understand that some debts get paid, okay? Whatever you did years ago, you always been a standup guy, right? Enough years go by, anybody should be off the hook."

I knew what he wanted me to say, but not why. "Yeah," I told him, "we all got a life sentence."

He gave me a chilly smile-he was lying about something and I was swearing to it.

"You told her about the Nazis?" I asked him again.

"Yeah," he answered again. His voice was dead.

"Why?"

"She's like my blood to me, you understand? I can't refuse her anything." He moved his shoulders in a "What can you do?" gesture.

"I can," I told him.

The old man didn't say anything for a while. He lit one of his foul cigars, expertly cupping his hand around the wooden match. He blew a stream of blue-edged smoke out toward the water. I just waited-he was getting ready to tell me something.

"When I was a young man, the worst thing you could be was an informer. The lowest thing. That's all over now-you can't count on anything," he said.

"You said that already. When I was a kid, it used to be 'Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.' Now it's 'Don't do the crime if you can't drop a dime.' " The old man made a dry sound in his throat-it was supposed to be a laugh. "Only now it's a quarter," he said. The laugh never reached his belly, like the smile never reached his eyes.

"I still want to know what this has to do with me, Julio. It's your family, not mine."

"Yeah. My family." He took a breath, turned his flat eyes on my face. "Gina is my family," he said, as if that settled it.

"Whose idea was it to send that clown with my money?"

"Okay, it was wrong. I know. She wanted him to do it-I didn't see the harm. There was no disrespect. You got your money, right?"

I just nodded.

"Did Vinnie get stupid?" he wanted to know.

"Vinnie is stupid," I told him.

Julio didn't say anything. Being stupid wouldn't disqualify Vinnie from employment.

"The girl threatened me," I said. "Like I do her work or else…"

"She don't know no better, okay? When she wants something, she's like a crazy person. I'll talk to her."

"Do that. I'd appreciate it."

"It's done," he said. The old man put his hand in his pocket, came out with a roll of bills wrapped in a rubber band. He handed it to me. I pocketed the money, waiting.

"For your trouble," he said.

"My past trouble or my future trouble?"

"For the past. I apologize. I never thought she'd go all the way on this."

"You know what it is?"

The old man took a breath. The smoke came out his nose in two faint wisps. He took too long to think about the answer. "Yeah," he said. "That picture."

Now it was my turn to just nod. The jackpot question was still on the table.

"I just walk away? No problems?" I wanted to know.

"Burke, you want to walk, you walk. But if you did this thing…for the girl…if you did it, I would be grateful. You would have my gratitude, understand?"

I nodded again. A hundred feet away the two cars stood in silence. They looked like two giant dogs, nosing each other to see who was in control. It was a good question.

The old man walked over to the Caddy. He never looked back. His door closed; the Caddy backed away from the Plymouth and pulled out with a chirp of tires on the pavement. I was alone.