Free The Hollow Man by Dan Simmons

with him. Don Leoni just wanted a confirmation, that was all. Bremen imagined himself answering questions. Roachclip? Yeah, sure, he knew the crazy little Puerto Rican fuck. He remembered the night Roachclip had taken out the two Armansi brothers—the big one with the plastic leg left over from World War II and the skinny younger one with his sharkskin suit. Roachclip hadn’t used a gun or a knife, just that fucking lead pipe he carried around in the trunk, coming up behind the Armansi brothers after driving them to the meeting place in the Bronx and then bashing their skulls in right there on the street, right in front of that Polish babushka with her fat white face and black scarf, her little plastic shopping bag from the fucking old country spilling oranges onto the slushy pavement.…
    Bremen shook his head. He would not do that.
    They had passed through lake country and into ranch-land where egrets followed cattle, watching for insects stirred up by bovine hooves, when suddenly Vanni Fucci pulled over by a roadside phone, lifted the pistol until the muzzle was inches from Bremen’s eyes, and said softly, “You fucking move outta the fucking car, and I swear to Christ I’ll kill you here. You unnerstand?”
    Bremen nodded.
    The phone conversation, while not audible, was easy to overhear. People tended to concentrate heavily on language while on the phone.
    Look, I’m not gonna whack the miserable fuck here. It ain’t my goddamn business to …
    Yeah, I know he saw
me,
but it’s not my fucking business. It’s Cappi’s and Leoni’s fucking problem and I’m not going to let some fuck out fishing set me up for a …
    Yeah … no … no, he’s no fucking problem. Goddamn geek. I think he’s fucking retarded or something. Wearing these fucking pants that are too short and a fucking safari-shirt thing and fucking Florsheims, like a retardo dressed by another retardo
.
    Bremen blinked and looked down at his clothes. He was wearing the work pants and khaki shirt he’d bought three days ago in Norm Sr.’s store. The pants
were
short and his dress shoes were caked with dust and mud. Suddenly Bremen patted his pockets, but the roll of cash—most of the $3,865 he’d taken out of the savings account—was still in his suitcoat pocket draped over the chair in the tiny bedroom in the fishing shack. Bremen remembered transferring a few twenties and maybe a fifty or two to his billfold when buying provisions, but he did not check now to see how much was there. He felt the lump of his wallet against his buttock, and that was enough for now.
    Yeah, I’ll make the fucking meeting on time, but I’ll be dragging retardo along. Just as long as … hey, don’t interrupt me, goddamn it … just as long as Sal knows that this fuck is
their
fucking responsibility. Got it?… No, wait, I said fucking
got it?
Okay. Okay. I’ll see you in an hour to two then. Yeah
.
    Vanni Fucci slammed the receiver down and walked to the edge of the highway, kicking gravel into the grass and clenching his fists. His white coat was getting dusty now. Fucci spun around and glared at Bremen through the windshield, the sunlight gleaming on the black silk of his shirt and the oil in his black hair.
    Do him now. Now. No fucking traffic. No fucking houses. Just whack him here and get on with it
.
    Bremen glanced at the ignition, knowing without looking that Fucci had taken the keys. He could roll out the door and take off across the fields, weaving, hoping that he could outdistance Fucci and the range of the short-barreled .38 … hoping that another car would come along, that Fucci would give up the chase. Fucci was a smoker and Bremen wasn’t. Bremen set his hand on the car door and took a breath.
    Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it
. Vanni Fucci had decided. He came around the driver’s side, got in, set his hand on the grip of his pistol in his waistband, and glared at Bremen. “You do anything cute, say anything to anybody where we’re