LITMIR.BIZ

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blue veins running all over the place. Danny wished he’d never looked down at the guy’s feet.

      ‘Hey,’ Charlie said again. ‘Can I get you some coffee? It’s not made, but I can make some. Or a beer maybe.’

      Then Charlie saw the gun in Vince’s hand.

      ‘Hey,’ Charlie said a third time, and pointed at the gun. ‘Come on, guys, what’s with that?’

      Vince looked at Charlie for a moment, his eyes as warm as a snake’s. ‘You owe twelve grand. I told you two weeks ago to pay it. I told you last week to pay it. Now you’re gonna either pay it today, right now, or you’re gonna give me the keys to your Lincoln.’

      ‘I can’t give you the Lincoln,’ Charlie said. ‘How would I get to work?’

      ‘I don’t give a shit how you get to work,’ Vince said. ‘Gimme the money or gimme the keys.’

      ‘Let me have until Saturday night,’ Charlie said. ‘Oklahoma’s playin’ Nebraska. I got it nailed.’

      Danny would have laughed if he hadn’t been trying to look tough. Fuckin’ gamblers. Charlie had borrowed money from some other shark, hoping he’d win enough to pay back the first shark. These guys should just kill themselves.

      ‘Go get the keys,’ Vince said.

      ‘Come on, just till Saturday,’ Charlie said. When Vince just stared at him, Charlie looked over at Danny, his eyes begging.

      Then Vince hit Charlie with the gun, whacked him right across the side of the face, high up near his left eye. Danny thought Charlie would collapse to the floor or hold his hands up to his head and start moaning – but he didn’t. Instead he let out a yell and grabbed Vince’s throat.

      The crazy bastard. He ignored the gun like it wasn’t even there, put two big hands around Vince’s throat, and began to strangle him. Danny thought later that that was why Mr B had made him go with Vince. Mr B had known Charlie was the kind of nutcase who would do something dumb like this.

      As Charlie was choking Vince, Vince banged his gun ineffectually on the top of Charlie’s head, but Charlie, the maniac, was oblivious to the blows. Danny tried to pull Charlie away from Vince, and when he couldn’t, he jumped on Charlie’s back, put his right forearm under the fat man’s chin, and began to press his arm against Charlie’s windpipe. The faces of both Vince and Charlie were now turning purple as a result of being simultaneously strangled.

      And then Danny heard the gun go off.

      The first thing that went through Danny’s brain was that it was lucky Vince’s bullet hadn’t passed through Charlie and hit him. The second thing he thought was that Vince hadn’t really wanted to shoot the guy. You never kill someone who owes you money. No, Vince hadn’t meant to shoot him. He’d just panicked, thinking Charlie was going to kill him. Or maybe he didn’t panic; maybe he was so goddamn mad at what Charlie had done, so humiliated that Charlie had made him squawk, that he stuck his gun into the guy’s gut and pulled the trigger.

      ‘What the hell did you do?’ Danny said, looking down at Charlie lying on the floor, the front of his white T-shirt turning red.

      Vince didn’t say anything. He just stood there rubbing his throat, staring at the gun in his hand as if he was surprised at what it had done.

      And then Danny saw Charlie give a little shudder and die.

      Vince hadn’t shot him in the gut, he’d shot him in the heart.

      ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Vince said.

      ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Danny said, still looking down at Charlie.

      ‘Come on. Let’s go!’ Vince said. He turned toward the door and started running.

      By the time Danny got to the door, Vince had almost reached the fourth floor landing, one flight down. Danny started to follow him, then for some reason, for some fuckin’ reason, he pulled out a handkerchief so he wouldn’t leave prints and started to close the door to Charlie’s apartment. That was his big mistake.

      Just as he was shutting Charlie’s door, the door across the hall opened. He and the woman stared at each other for about two seconds. She was a short, heavy old broad with a fat nose and gray hair tied up in a bun. Polish or German, Danny thought, and she looked tougher than elephant hide.

      ‘Danny!’ Vince cried out from the stairwell. ‘Come on!’

      Great, just call out my fuckin’ name, Danny thought, as he tore his eyes away from the old Polish woman and started to run. But Vince wasn’t through. Just as Danny reached the stairs – the woman now standing in the hall looking at his back as he ran – Vince yelled again.

      ‘DeMarco!’ Vince screamed. ‘Move your ass!’

       3

      Joe DeMarco’s hand was on the doorknob when the phone rang again.

      Mahoney’s secretary had called twenty minutes ago, waking DeMarco and telling him to get to Mahoney’s office right away. He took a quick shower, skipped shaving, and dressed in a white shirt and a dark suit. He’d put on his tie and shave in the cab on the way to the Capitol.

      When the phone rang the second time he thought about not answering it, but maybe it was Mahoney’s secretary calling back, telling him the meeting with Mahoney had been canceled. Half the meetings he had with Mahoney were canceled. He picked up the phone.

      ‘Hello.’

      ‘Joe, it’s me.’

      DeMarco couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. It was his ex-wife. He hadn’t spoken to her in almost two years. He hadn’t even thought about her in … shit, maybe a week.

      ‘What do you want, Marie?’ he finally said. He tried to keep his voice flat, to let her know how much he hated her, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought that she was calling because she wanted him to take her back. It was pathetic that he should think such a thing, pathetic that he’d even consider such a thing.

      ‘I need your help, Joe,’ Marie said.

      ‘My help?’ DeMarco said. ‘My help with what?’

      ‘It’s Danny, Joe. He’s in trouble, big trouble. I didn’t know who else to call.’

      DeMarco couldn’t believe this. His ex-wife was one of the vainest, most self-centered people he had ever known. And not all that bright, if he was honest about it. But he couldn’t believe she’d ask for his help when it came to Danny.

      Danny DeMarco was Joe DeMarco’s cousin. Marie had had an affair with him, and then she divorced Joe and married him. She didn’t even have to change her last name when she married the asshole.

      ‘You gotta be shittin’ me!’ he said, and started to slam down the phone.

      But he didn’t.

      DeMarco sat impatiently in Mahoney’s office, staring at the photographs on the walls. In them Mahoney was posing with various famous people, mostly politicians, and in the photos all the politicians were smiling – as if they actually liked Mahoney.

      The man that DeMarco and Mahoney were waiting to meet was fifteen minutes late, which was almost unheard of. Mahoney kept people waiting all the time because he was rude and inconsiderate – and, yes, busy – but no one kept Mahoney waiting.

      DeMarco was five-eleven and Mahoney was the same height, but he always seemed taller than that to DeMarco. Maybe that was because of Mahoney’s bulk – or maybe it was because of his personality. The speaker had a big hard gut, a broad back, and a wide butt. His hair was thick and white, his features large and well formed, and his blue eyes were red-veined and watery. Mahoney had the eyes of an alcoholic, which he was. And like DeMarco’s ex-wife, Mahoney was

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