Free A Bomb Built in Hell by Andrew Vachss Page A

was supposed to, but there’s still got to be a war over this—he still controls Queens, and they don’t let you do that.”
    â€œDo what?”
    â€œKeep tapping the till. He says he’s not the boss, but his crew isn’t going for that. This guy is
sharp
, now. No telephones, no mail. He lives in a fucking fortress out near the North Shore on the Island, and he runs the show from there.”
    â€œCan we get at him?”
    â€œNo way. I was by there myself a few times, and you’d have to fucking drop a
bomb
on the place. And even
that
might not work—he’s got himself an air-raid shelter, left over from the Fifties.
    â€œBut he has to stay in touch. Got no choice. So, every month, he meets his capo on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.”
    â€œWhat? Right out in the open?”
    â€œYeah, Wesley, right out in the open. But it ain’t just
him
that’s out in the open. And we don’t know what night he meets on. All we know is that it’s always late. He gets a ride to the Queens side and meets the capo halfway across. On the walkway. He’s got men on the Queens side, and his capo has cover on the Manhattan side.”
    â€œCouldn’t we just drive past and hit him?”
    â€œHow? We don’t know when he’s coming, and if they see the same car pass back and forth,
we’re
the ones who’ll get hit. Besides, he stands with his back to the girders, and you couldn’t get a decent shot at him, even if you could get on the bridge.”
    â€œHow much time have we got?”
    â€œIf we get him before he wins the war, we get paid. If he loses the war first, we don’t. If he wins the war, we
sure
don’t.”
    â€œHow long before the war starts? Out in the open, I mean.”
    â€œIt may not start at all—they’re still trying to negotiate. But they also want to cover all their bets, you know?”
    â€œHow come they don’t try and cover
you
, with all the work you been doing for them?”
    â€œThey think they have. But they
also
think I got anice little organization of my own, with all old guys like me, and they don’t want to
start
a war to prevent one. They’re very slick, right?”
    Wesley smiled. “Can you get me onto Welfare Island after dark?”
    The old man nodded and got up to leave. Wesley climbed up to the fourth floor and took the rifle chambered for .219 Zipper from the gun rack. That cartridge had originally been designed for a lever-action Marlin—good enough for a varmint gun, but not for Wesley’s work.
    He had spent hours fitting the custom barrel to a full-bedded stock. Now it was a single-action weapon, and magnificently accurate. But he still couldn’t make it hold a silencer, and he had more practicing to do.
    Just as Wesley squeezed off another round, he noticed the orange light glowing immediately past his range of vision. Smoothly and calmly, he pulled the massive Colt Magnum from his shoulder holster and spun to face the door. It opened, and Pet stepped inside, a wide grin on his face. Wesley put the gun down and waited.
    â€œWes, I got a present for you,” Pet said, displaying another rifle.
    â€œWhat’s that? I already got a good piece.”
    â€œYou got nothing compared to this. This here’s a Remington .220, the latest thing. It’s got twice the muzzle velocity of that Zipper and it’s more accurate, every time. And that’s not the best part. I know a guy who works for the bullet people—he’s a ballistics engineer. You know what he told me? He said that the engineerstest-fire some slugs from every batch that the factory manufactures, to see if they’re building the slugs up to the specs. Well, every once in a while they come across some that’re just perfect, you know? They call these bullets ‘freaks,’ okay? And the engineers always take the whole batch and fire them themselves to see if they can