34

I DROVE back carefully, speeding up so I blended in with the late-night traffic. The streets were quiet, but if you looked close, you could see things. Two guys standing against the wall of a darkened gas station-the wool caps on their heads would turn into ski masks when they pulled them down, hands in their pockets. A lonely whore in a fake-fur coat with a white mini-skirt underneath, looking to turn one last trick before she called it a night. A van with blacked-out windows driving by slowly, watching the whore while the two men in the shadows watched the van. In New York, the vultures work close to the ground.

Back in the garage, I unscrewed the plate and took out the magnum. I needed to test the piece and I didn't have time to run over to the Bronx and ask the Mole. I broke the gun and loaded it with some.38 Specials I keep in a jar full of nuts and bolts. The door to the basement is set into the garage floor, like a manhole cover. I pried it loose and backed down the stairs, reaching for the light switch with my hand. I heard the rats running across the floor even before the light went on. Some of the bolder bastards just looked at me-it was their place, not mine.

The walls are lined with sandbags donated from a construction site-about four bags deep all around the wall and up to the ceiling. I don't keep anything else down in the basement; there's no other way out except for the tunnels the rats use. It's good for nothing but testing things that make a big bang-you couldn't hear a cannon from the street.

There's a little workbench on the floor down there with a heavy-duty vise attached and a reel of two-hundred-pound-test fishing line. I wrapped the butt of the magnum in the vise, wedged it tight, and tied some of the fishing line around the trigger. I aimed it at the far wall, cocked the hammer, and ran the line back to the stairs. I climbed halfway up and gave it a hard pull. There was a sharp crack! sound and a puff of dust from one of the sandbags. I went over to look-just a nice round entrance hole-the other side would be wide open, but I wasn't going to pull the whole thing apart just to take a look.

I pulled the magnum out of the vise, held it two-handed, and emptied it into the wall. It kicked a bit, but not as much as I expected from the short barrel. I broke the gun and dropped the empties into my hand. Jacques was still selling quality merchandise.

The rats were back doing business before I had the trapdoor closed.

35

I WOKE up the next morning and just stayed there on the couch for a bit, watching Pansy growl in her sleep at a patch of sunlight on her face. I'd been dreaming of Flood-I do it all the time since she left. When I was a kid in reform school I used to dream about getting out-staying out-being somebody important, like a major-league gangster. Now I just replay the tapes of my past inside my head-I can't erase them but I do enough editing to keep me sane.

I took my time getting ready to go out and get some breakfast. I wasn't in any screaming hurry to check out the race results.

The bakery was a couple of blocks away, still standing despite the invasion of yuppies. Newspaper columnists who never rode a subway still call my neighborhood the "mean streets," but the only danger out there is maybe getting hit by a flying croissant.

There was a new girl working in the bakery, about sixteen years old, with black hair and dark eyes. From the way the guy who runs the place was watching her, she had to be his daughter. I make sure I don't buy there too often-the owner thinks I make the trip all the way from Brooklyn just for his bread. If too many people know where you live, sooner or later you get visitors.

I picked out a semolina loaf for Pansy and a couple of hard rolls for me. Next door in the deli I got some pineapple juice and seltzer plus a slab of cream cheese. A lot of guys I did time with said when they got out they'd always start the day off with a real breakfast-bacon and eggs, steak, hash-browns, coffee, all that. I never did that-I'm particular about who I eat with.

I grabbed a Daily News off the stand. The newsdealer is blind. I handed him a five, telling him what it was. He put the bill face down on this machine he has, moving his hand so it forced the bill over some lights. "Five dollars," the machine said in a robot voice. The paper costs thirty-five cents now. The price of everything except human life has gone up a lot in New York.

Upstairs I tore open the semolina loaf and scooped out the guts. Most of the slab of cream cheese went inside. I looked over at Pansy. She was sitting like a stone, drooling. I tossed her the loaf, saying the magic word at the same time. As usual, she bit right through the middle so that the piece on each side of her jaws fell to the floor. It was gone before I had a chance to make my own breakfast. "You've got the table manners of an animal," I told her. Pansy never looked up-nobody respects my social criticism.

I mixed the seltzer and pineapple juice, opened the hard rolls, and put the last of the cheese inside. Finally, I turned to the race results. Sure enough, Flower Jewel was the first horse listed in the seventh race. But before I had even a split-second's worth of pleasure out of it, I saw the tiny "dq" next to her name. Disqualified. I went over the charts, trying to see how I was robbed this time. My horse tried to get to the top but was parked by another animal all the way to the half before she was shuffled back to fourth against the rail. Then she pulled out and was flying in the stretch when she broke stride. When she crossed the wire first she wasn't pacing like she was supposed to, she was galloping. Flower Jewel was out of an Armbro Nesbit mare by Flower Child, a trotting stallion. She had her grandfather's heart, but not her father's perfect stride. What the hell: she probably didn't know she didn't win the race. My love for the animal was unchanged-she did the right thing-much better to get there first by cheating than play by the rules and finish back in the pack. At least she'd get another shot next week.

It was still early enough for the hippies downstairs to be asleep. I picked up the phone and called over to the restaurant.

" Poontang Gardens," answered Mama Wong. Some soldier had suggested the name to her years ago and she's too superstitious to change it.

"It's me," I said. "Any calls?"

"Same girl. She say you be there."

"What?"

"She call, okay? I say you not here. She say, 'You tell him be there, and she hang up."

"Thanks, Mama."

"Hey!" she snapped, just as I was about to hang up, "People tell you what to do now?"

"No," I said and hung up.

I called Pansy back from the roof and went into the other room. I got the little TV set and went back to the couch. I asked Pansy what she wanted to watch but she didn't say. All she likes are shows about dogs and professional wrestling. I found a rerun of "Leave It to Beaver" and kicked back on the couch. I was asleep before it was over.