The Weight (18 page)

I waited until I heard the girl go into one of the other rooms and close the door behind her. I guess she was going to study, like Solly said.

“I’m not a hit man,” I told him.

“This I asked for?”

“I been thinking. About the way you broke it down and all. Something’s not right.”

“What do you know, something’s not right?”

“Solly, I have to be a fucking genius to see through glass? The five years are up. For me, I know. And for you, too, never mind that fairy tale about being down in Florida. Maybe you went, maybe you didn’t … but you didn’t stay. And, knowing you, I don’t think anyone could prove you even left the state at all.”

“Okay,” he said.

That surprised me, him giving it up so easy. I expected more, but I could tell—if I wanted more, I was going to have to ask for it.

“Okay, what?” I said to him.

“Okay, you’re right. So here’s what you’re thinking: even if this Jessop got popped tomorrow, and even if he wanted to roll, he’s got nobody to roll
on
. Except Big Matt, I suppose … but that’s
his
problem, not mine. Tell me if I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Good. Then just listen for a minute. Listen good, Sugar. I’m not … I’m not responsible for this Jessop. Just for you and Big
Matt. The guys
I
brought in. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Now, Albie,
he’s
responsible for Jessop. Only, Albie, he’s not around.”

“So tell Big Matt—”

“Tell him fucking
what?
There’s a guy named Jessop who could maybe blow up his whole life? Tell him this guy could reach out from his past and destroy his future? I should tell him, maybe that baby he’s waiting on, that kid’s fifteen years old before he ever sees his father, except maybe on Visiting Day?

“I should tell him his wife’s gotta put the kid in some day-care place, go out, and get a job herself? ’Cause you
know
the law’s going to be sitting on her forever, waiting to see some sign of the money. Want me to go on?”

“No. No, I get it.”

“If you ‘got’ it, you wouldn’t be telling me you’re not a hit man. A hit man, that’s a guy who kills for money. Plenty of them around. But it wouldn’t cost me a cent, I wanted this guy done. One call to Big Matt and …”

“I know.”

“But it’s not that simple. This Jessop, he’s probably rock-solid. Wouldn’t even think about giving anyone up. No way he even knows where Big Matt is, anyway.”

“So why don’t you just let it go?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I’m smart enough to follow orders, but not smart enough to understand them?”

He looked at me. Straight and hard, like he was boiling-over mad, but keeping a lid on it.

“Let’s look at it the way Albie would have. Can we do that? Yeah? All right. Try this: Albie doesn’t know you. Not even your name. So, if
his
guy, this Jessop, if he comes back, says it went fine, Albie wouldn’t expect him to hang around. But he’d know where to find him, he had to.

“Next thing would be, Albie gives me a call. Only, this time, there’s no answer. Then he gets the word. I’m dead. Not killed—that would be different—just, you know, dead. Natural causes. You with me?”

“Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I was.

“Okay, so what does Albie do
then
?”

“I don’t—Ah, wait a second. You’re saying Albie, he’d have to go and find
me
. And Big Matt, too?”

“At last!” Solly said, just short of ranking me.

“Not find us to … do anything. Just to be sure
we
hadn’t done anything.”

“Now you’ve got it, Sugar.”

“So you, like, owe your friend?”

“My brother, more like. That’s how close we were. And I owe him the same as he would owe me, it went the other way.”

The girl came in so quiet I didn’t realize she was there until she said, “Uncle Solly, would you and Jerome, would you like some apple juice? You know it’s good for you, and—”

“That would be lovely, sweetheart,” Solly told her.

Ken’s daughter. I never thought of him having a kid. A house. Stuff like that.

Solly, he never
stops
thinking.

Only Solly, maybe he was more than just a thinker. If he hadn’t been lying about that war, he’d killed a lot more guys than any hit man I ever heard of. And not for money.

It was what he
didn’t
say that I heard the clearest. Some things, they just have to be done. Taking out this Jessop, that wouldn’t make me a hit man. It would make me what I always wanted to be: a good thief. And a good thief always cleans up after himself.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“I knew you were the real thing,” the old man said, showing me teeth.

I was working on getting back to things everybody does, like getting up when the alarm went off. What I mean is, the alarm
I
set, not those damn prison gongs.

But I hadn’t even bothered to set the alarm last night; I knew I couldn’t do any of the things I wanted to do until the afternoon, so I just slept in.

I’d filled the refrigerator with protein shakes and power bars, stuff like that. I’d picked up a lot of vitamins, too. I don’t really know much about them. A young guy in the health store, he picked most of the stuff out for me.

He didn’t know he was doing that, I don’t think; just assumed he knew what I’d want. Which was a good thing, since I didn’t want to be asking a lot of questions. You do that, people remember you. I even let him sell me a set of dumbbells for traveling … the kind you fill with water.

I didn’t really have any special taste for that powdered stuff, but it was what guys who power-lifted were always talking about. And I figured that woman downstairs, she’d be nosing around, sooner or later. I wanted it to look like I really was what it said I was on those business cards.

“It’s always better you don’t try looking like something you couldn’t be,” Solly said. “Nobody’s gonna buy you’re an accountant, but you don’t have to look like a thug, either.

“So forget the fancy suits. Get a nice leather jacket—a
nice
one, I’m saying. Go to Bally on Madison, spend some money. Clean pair of jeans, good sneakers. Not like the kids wear, like … you know, athletic shoes? Simple black ones. There’s a store a few blocks from Bally. Mephisto. All they sell is shoes, and they’ll have what you need.

“And a white shirt. Not a stiff one, like mine,” he said, holding out his hand so I could feel his cuff—it was like a smooth-faced brick. “Silk is best. No custom-made stuff, just off the rack. A
good
rack, though. You wear a shirt like that, no tie, under that leather jacket, you’re good to go.”

“Okay,” I said. I’d lived a lot of years without stuff like that, but Solly, he was setting up jobs before I was born.

“Next, you get yourself
another
leather jacket. Heavier one. Pair of work boots, steel toes. Scuff ’em up so they don’t look new. Lose the good shirt, wear a pullover. Now you’re a guy who works with his hands for a living. Between those two looks, that’s all you’ll ever need.”

“You said there was something I could do about—”

“Way ahead of you, kid.” He handed me something that looked like a skinny tube of lipstick. “Just fill in the scar with this. Not too much; you want it to look natural. The scar’s so white you really can’t see it until you’re up close. Unless you get a flashbulb exploding in your face, nobody’ll even notice. I even got you a present.”

He handed me a long, narrow little box. Inside, a pair of glasses. I put them on. But I didn’t see anything different.

“ ‘What’re these for?’ is what you’re thinking, am I right?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not a … disguise or anything.”

“No? That’s
exactly
what it is. These glasses, they got no prescription. Just plain glass. With a tiny little bit of tint, like the ones they make for indoor-outdoor. You know, the brighter it gets, the darker they get? Go look at yourself in the mirror over there.”

That’s when I saw what Solly meant. The glasses didn’t change my face or anything, but you couldn’t see my eyes through them. I mean, you could see them, but not good enough to see the colors.

“Get used to them,” Solly told me. “I got three more for you, exactly the same. Wear them all the time. After a while, it’ll be just like brushing your teeth in the morning.”

“Thanks, Solly,” I said. And I meant it—compared to Solly, I was still an amateur.

I was unlocking my car when the woman came out.

“Those look good on you,” she said.

“What?”

“The glasses. When did you start—?”

“Oh. No, I always wear these,” I told her, “they’re prescription.”
This one doesn’t miss much
. “But it takes a while to make them up in the flexible frames I like. I just got these back.”

“You work some strange hours,” she said.

“Yeah, I do.”
Nosy, too
. “But that’s what this business is. The people I train, they’ve got important stuff to do. If I want to make a living, I need to understand that their schedule’s more important than mine.”

“I guess that pays pretty good.”

“Better than you might think,” I told her. I had a decent bit of cash upstairs. Not hidden, like I had done with that closet years ago, just stuck in different places, like one of my jackets and my gym bag. I figured she’d find it anyway. I was worried about snooping, not stealing, and I figured
not
having loose cash around would only make her suspicious.

“It sounds like you never have too much time for yourself.”

“Sure, I do. See, I work whatever hours the clients want, but that’s only when they’re here. In New York, I mean. They go away, I do, too. Like a long vacation. One time, I was gone almost three months.”

“Wow!”

“Well, like I said, they pay good. And I’m careful with my money; I don’t throw it around. If you don’t waste money on … 
things
, you know, then you can pretty much travel anywhere you want.”

“That sounds—Ah, I’m holding you up, aren’t I?”

“A little,” I said, looking at my new watch. It gets a signal from some atomic station, and it’s always on the nose. It wasn’t flash, either.

“Well, nice talking with you.”

“Me, too,” I said. Then I got behind the wheel and turned the key. She walked back into the house like she was sure I’d be watching.

“Do you have an appointment?” the girl behind the glass-top desk asked me. She was slim, dark-skinned, with shiny black hair. She wore it pulled up, held with a little heart-shaped diamond clip.

“No, I’m sorry. A friend of mine told me about Mr. Ramirez, and I thought I’d ask him about this … thing. I guess I should have called.”

“Well … he
is
working on a very important case. A brief to the United States Court of Appeals. But let me just try.…”

She punched a number. Talked in Spanish. So fast that I couldn’t even make out a single word. I only know a couple of words, anyway—everyone who’s done time knows those.

The conversation went on too long. By the time she said it was okay to go on back, I figured out that she was the lawyer’s girl, not just some secretary.