LITMIR.BIZ

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on your sheets.”

      She grinned. “Love the feel of a greasy bed. I’ll get a tray for you and something to drink.” She looked him over. “You need another pot of tea.”

      “While you’re down there, how ’bout fetching some silverware and a couple of napkins?”

      “Didn’t I bring …? I’m so absent-minded. Just snarf it down through your nose.”

      “Get out of here,” Decker said.

      She laughed and left. Decker couldn’t wait for utensils. He ate a slice of apple and honey, then peeled a rib bone from the meat and took a big bite.

      Words wouldn’t do justice to the taste. He ate one bone and polished off the next. Picked up the breaded cauliflower and ate that, too. Then the asparagus spears, bending them in the middle and popping them whole into his mouth.

      There was a knock at his door, then it was pushed open.

      Decker looked up expecting to see Rina.

      Instead what he saw was Mrs. Lazarus—and her.

      Decker felt his eyes widen, his mouth open.

      Too surprised to look down, too surprised to refrain from reacting.

      She was smiling, her lips painted bright red, a spot of lipstick on her front tooth.

      A toothy smile.

      Not like his at all.

      A stranger.

      The two of them standing there, holding a silver tray of sweets—cakes, cookies, strudel, brownies …

      He caught her eyes.

      Smiling eyes.

      But only for a moment.

      Then came the confusion, the recognition, the shock, the plunge into despair.

      With plates of food on his lap, there was nothing he could do, nowhere to run.

      He turned his head away but he knew it was too late. He heard the gasp, the tray tumbling onto the floor. He looked up and saw her hand fly to her chest, her body staggering backward. Her eyes were fluttering, her pale lips were trembling.

      Mrs. Lazarus yelling Frieda!

      Rina screaming out What are you doing here!

      Mrs. Lazarus shrieking Call a doctor!

      Rina shoving her mother-in-law out the door, ordering her downstairs.

      Frieda Levine hyperventilating.

      Rina trying to catch her.

      Mrs. Lazarus still shrieking to call a doctor.

      And Decker sitting there—an army vet, a cop for twenty years, having served three different police departments, an expert with firearms, the perfect point man for any operation because he was always cool, calm, rational, stoic, so goddamn unemotional. Just sitting there, paralyzed by the sight of his mother falling.

       5

      The time has come.

      The time is now.

      Just go, go, go, I don’t care how.

      You can go by foot.

      You can go by cow.

      MARVIN K. MOONEY will you please go now!

      Hank closed the dog-eared children’s book and packed it inside his suitcase. Zeyde used to read it to him when he was just a little kid. Then they’d laugh together …

      Marvin K. Mooney was one stubborn sucker. Everyone in the book against him, telling him to get the hell out, but he don’t care one single bit. He goes by his own time when he wants to go.

      And no one was gonna tell him different.

      He thought for a moment.

      The time had come.

      The time was now.

      Do it, do it, I don’t care how.

      Go by foot, go by cow.

      Just get the hell out, it don’t matter how.

      But you need someone to carry the bags.

      Need someone to beat up the fags.

      Need someone to wash your feet.

      Need a wuss to take the heat.

      Just look around, it’s there for the takin’.

      Your little boys willing to … willing to … willing to …

      He stopped, unable to think up the rhyme.

      What the hell. Poetry was for faggots anyway.

      But there was truth to what he was sayin’. He had a faithful following of true believers. Little dummies just waiting to follow orders. Errand boys. And one of them would do.

      The apartment was closing in on him.

      Do it. Do it right away.

      It was the time of year made him feel this way, all bent out of shape, all nervous inside. Everyone acting so damn godlike and then shittin’ all over you as soon as the holidays was over.

      Bunch of fanatical hypocrites. He’d love to buy himself an AK-fucking-forty-seven and take ’em all down in one moment of glory.

      But that was too dangerous, too easy to get caught.

      One glorious moment, but then it was the cooler for the rest of your life and having to knife off the shaved-headed shvartzes from reaming you in the butt and who needed that crap?

      Anyway, he might hit a baby or something and even though the kid would grow up to be one of them, he couldn’t see splattering the wall with baby brains.

      Besides, no one had any respect for a baby killer. Rip off a bank or something, now that got you respect. But killing a baby—even by accident—that was definitely out.

      Besides, if you’re gonna do anything like that, you don’t do it yourself.

      And then there was the principle of the thing.

      You needed a gun, no doubt about that. Nothin’ gets cooperation like the muzzle of a sawed-off resting between the eyes. But guns was only for last resorts, or people who couldn’t do no better.

      And he could do better.

      The suitcase was full of them—knives for gutting, filleting, or butterflying. Cleavers for chopping off heads and tails, picks for piercing tough skin. And the portable hacksaws for the bigger bones.

      A part of the old man that would be with him for life.

      Best thing was, he knew how to use them, where to stick them to do the most damage with the least amount of blood.

      The trick—whether it was a shank or an ice pick—was to keep ’em sharp. The sharper the blade, the cleaner the cut, the less blood.

      And he’d packed his best stones.

      None of that mass-manufactured sharpeners for him. Just good old-fashioned stones.

      Had to have them—all of them. But shit, did they make the suitcase one heavy load.

      He picked up a pencil and wrote on a piece of scrap paper:

      Rule number one: Keep your hands cleen.

      Rule number two: Find the rite dumshit to do the dirty work.

      Excepchon to rule number two: First you gotta do the dirty work once to show the dumshit how to do it. Then you let the dumshit do the rest of the dirty work.

      Rule number three:

      Rule number three:

      Rule number

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