Blaze. Part 22

'The f.u.c.khead couldn't defend the Pope on a rape charge. Listen: you stay away from Moochie's.'

'But Hank said if I came around, he could -'

'And stay away from Hankie, too. Get a straight job until I come out, that's how you roll. Don't go trying to pull any cons on your own. You're too G.o.ddam dumb. You know that, don't you?'

'Yeah,' Blaze said, and grinned. But he felt like crying.

George saw it and punched Blaze on the arm. 'You'll be fine,' he said.

Then, as Blaze left, George called to him. Blaze turned. George made an impatient gesture at his forehead. Blaze nodded and swerved the bill of his cap around to the good-luck side. He grinned. But inside he still felt like crying.

He tried his old job, but it was too square after life with George. He quit and looked for something better. For awhile he was a bouncer at a place in the Combat Zone, but he was no good at it. His heart was too soft.

He went back to Maine, got a job cutting pulp, and waited for George to get out. He liked pulping, and he liked driving Christmas trees south. He liked the fresh air and horizons that were unbroken by tall buildings. The city was okay sometimes, but the woods were quiet. There were birds, and sometimes you saw deer wading in ponds and your heart went out to them. He sure didn't miss the subways, or the pushing crowds. But when George dropped him a short note - Getting out on Friday, hope to see you Getting out on Friday, hope to see you - Blaze put in his time and went south to Boston again. - Blaze put in his time and went south to Boston again.

George had picked up an a.s.sortment of new cons in Walpole. They tried them out like old ladies test-driving new cars. The most successful was the queer-con. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d ran like a railroad for three years, until Blaze was busted on what George called 'the Jesus-gag.'

George picked something else up in prison: the idea of one big score and out. Because, he told Blaze, he couldn't see spending the best years of his life hustling h.o.m.os in bars where everybody was dressed up like The Rocky Horror Picture Show The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or peddling fake encyclopedias. Or running a Murphy. No, one big score and out. It became his mantra.

A high school teacher named John Burgess, in for manslaughter, had suggested kidnapping.

'You're trippin!' George said, horrified. They were in the yard on ten o'clock exercise, eating bananas and watching some mokes with big muscles throw a football around.

'It's got a bad name because it's the crime of choice for idiots,' Burgess said. He was a slight balding man. 'Kidnap a baby, that's the ticket.'

'Yeah, like Hauptmann,' George said, and jittered back and forth like he was getting electrocuted.

'Hauptmann was an idiot. h.e.l.l, Rasp, a well-handled baby s.n.a.t.c.h could hardly miss. What's the kid going to say when they ask him who did it? Goo-goo ga-ga?' He laughed.

'Yeah, but the heat,' George said.

'Sure, sure, the heat.' Burgess smiled and tugged his ear. He was a great old ear-tugger. 'There would would be heat. Baby s.n.a.t.c.hes and cop-killings, always a lot of heat. You know what Harry Truman said about that?' be heat. Baby s.n.a.t.c.hes and cop-killings, always a lot of heat. You know what Harry Truman said about that?'

'No.'

'He said if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.'

'You can't collect the ransom,' George said. 'Even if you did, the money would be marked. Goes without saying.'

Burgess raised one finger like a professor. Then he did that dopey ear-tugging thing, which kind of spoiled it. 'You're a.s.suming the cops would be called in. If you scared the family bad enough, they'd deal privately.' He paused. 'And even if the money was hotyou saying you don't know some guys?'

'Maybe. Maybe not.'

'There are guys who buy hot money. It's just another investment to them, like gold or government bonds.'

'But collecting the swag - what about that?'

Burgess shrugged. He pulled on his ear. 'Easy. Have the marks drop it from a plane.' Then he got up and walked away.

Blaze was sentenced to four years on the Jesus-gag. George told him it would be a t.i.t if he kept his nose clean. Two at most, he said, and two was what it turned out to be. Those years inside weren't much different than the jail-time he'd put in after beating up The Law; only the inmates had grown older. He didn't spend any time in solitary. When he got the heebie-jeebies on long evenings, or during one interminable lockdown when there were no exercise privileges, he wrote George. His spelling was awful, the letters long. George didn't answer very often, but in time the very act of composition, laborious as it was, became soothing. He imagined that when he wrote, George was standing behind him, reading over his shoulder.

'Prisin laundre,' George would say. 'My f.u.c.kin word.'

'That wrong, George?'

'P-r-i-s-o-n, prison. prison. L-a-u-n-d-r-y, L-a-u-n-d-r-y, laundry. Prison laundry.' laundry. Prison laundry.'

'Oh yeah. Right.'

His spelling and even his punctuation improved, even though he never used a dictionary. Another time: 'Blaze, you're not using your cigarette ration.' This was during the golden time when some of the tobacco companies gave out little trial packs.

'I don't hardly smoke, George. You know that. They'd just pile up.'

'Listen to me, Blazer. You pick em up on Friday, then sell em the next Thursday, when everybody's hurtin for a smoke. That's how you roll.'

Blaze began to do this. He was surprised how much people would pay for smoke that didn't even get you stoned.

Another time: 'You don't sound good, George,' Blaze said.

'Course not. I just had four f.u.c.kin teeth out. Hurts like h.e.l.l.'

Blaze called him the next time he had phone privileges, not reversing the charges but feeding the phone with dough he'd made selling ciggies on the black market. He asked George how his teeth were.

'What teeth?' George said grumpily. 'f.u.c.kin dentist is probably wearin em around his neck like a Ubangi.' He paused. 'How'd you know I had em out? Someone tell you?'

Blaze suddenly felt he was on the verge of being caught in something shameful, like beating off in chapel. 'Yeah,' he said. 'Someone told me.'

They drifted south to New York City when Blaze got out, but neither of them liked it. George had his pocket picked, which he took as a personal affront. They took a trip to Florida and spent a miserable month in Tampa, broke and unable to score. They went north again, not to Boston but to Portland. George said he wanted to summer in Maine and pretend he was a rich Republican f.u.c.kstick.

Not long after they arrived, George read a newspaper story about the Gerards: how rich they were, how the youngest Gerard had just gotten married to some good-looking spic chick. Burgess's kidnap idea resurfaced in his mind - that one big score. But there was no baby, not then, so they went back to Boston.

The Boston-in-the-winter, Portland-in-the-summer thing became a routine over the next two years. They'd roll north in some old beater in early June, with whatever remained of the winter's proceeds stashed in the spare tire: seven hundred one year, two thousand the next. In Portland, they pulled a gag if a gag presented itself. Otherwise, Blaze fished and sometimes laid a trap or two in the woods. They were happy summers for him. George lay out in the sun and tried to get a tan (hopeless; he only burned), read the papers, swatted blackflies, and rooted for Ronald Reagan (who he called Old White Elvis Daddy) to drop dead.

Then, on July 4th of their second summer in Maine, he noticed that Joe Gerard III and his Narmenian wife had become parents.

Blaze was playing solitaire on the porch of the shack and listening to the radio. George turned it off. 'Listen, Blazer,' he said, 'I got an idea.'

He was dead three months later.

They had been attending the c.r.a.p-game regularly, and there had never been any trouble. It was a straight game. Blaze didn't play, but he often faded George. George was very lucky.

On this night in October, George made six straight pa.s.ses. The man kneeling across from him on the other side of the blanket bet against him every time. He had lost forty dollars. The game was in a warehouse near the docks, and it was full of smells: old fish, fermented grain, salt, gasoline. When the place was quiet, you could hear the tack-tack-tack tack-tack-tack of seagulls walking around on the roof. The man who had lost forty dollars was named Ryder. He claimed to be half Pen.o.bscot Indian, and he looked it. of seagulls walking around on the roof. The man who had lost forty dollars was named Ryder. He claimed to be half Pen.o.bscot Indian, and he looked it.

When George picked up the dice a seventh time instead of pa.s.sing them, Ryder threw twenty dollars down on the c.r.a.pout line.

'Come, dice,' George said - crooned. His thin face was bright. His cap was yanked around to the left. 'Come big dice, come come come now now!' The dice exploded across the blanket and came up eleven.

'Seven in a row!' George crowed. 'Pick up that swag, Blazerino, daddy's goin for number eight. Big eighter from Decatur!'

'You cheated,' Ryder said. His voice was mild, observational.

George froze in the act of picking up the dice. 'Say what?'

'You switched them dice.'

'Come on, Ride,' someone said. 'He didn't -'

'I'll have my money back,' Ryder said. He stretched his hand out across the blanket.

'You'll have a broken arm if you don't cut the s.h.i.t,' George said. 'That's what you'll have, Sunshine.'

'I'll have my money back,' Ryder said. His hand still out.

It was one of those quiet times now, and Blaze could hear the gulls on the roof: tack-tack-tack tack-tack-tack.

'Go f.u.c.k yourself,' George said, and spat on the outstretched hand.

So then it happened quickly, as those things do. The quickness is what makes the mind reel and refuse. Ryder reached his spit-shiny hand into the pocket of his jeans, and when it came out, it was holding a spring-knife. Ryder thumbed the chrome b.u.t.ton in the imitation ivory handle, and the men around the blanket scattered back.

George shouted: 'Blaze!'

Blaze lunged across the blanket at Ryder, who rocked forward on his knees and put the blade in George's stomach. George screamed. Blaze grabbed Ryder and slammed his head against the floor. It made a cracking sound like a breaking branch.

George stood up. He looked at the knife-handle sticking out of his shirt. He grabbed it, started to pull, then grimaced. 'f.u.c.k,' he said. 'Oh f.u.c.k.' He sat down hard.

Blaze heard a door slam. He heard running feet on hollow boards.

'Get me outta here,' George said. His yellow shirt was turning red around the knife-handle. 'Get the swag, too - oh Jesus this hurts! oh Jesus this hurts!'

Blaze gathered up the scattered bills. He stuffed them into his pockets with fingers that had no feeling in them. George was panting. He sounded like a dog on a hot day.

'George, let me pull it out -'

'No, you crazy? It's holding my guts in. Carry me, Blaze. Oh my f.u.c.kin Jesus! Oh my f.u.c.kin Jesus!'

Blaze picked George up in his arms and George screamed again. Blood dripped onto the blanket and onto Ryder's shiny black hair. Under the shirt, George's belly felt as hard as a board. Blaze carried him across the warehouse and then outside.

'No,' George said. 'You forgot the bread. You never got any G.o.ddam bread.' Blaze thought maybe George was talking about the swag and he started to say he had it, when George said: 'And the salami.' He was beginning to breathe very rapidly. 'I got that book, you know.'

'George!'

'That book with the picture of -' But then George began to choke on his own blood. Blaze turned him over and whammed him on the back. It was all he could think of to do. But when he turned George over again, George was dead.

Blaze laid him on the boards outside the warehouse. He backed away. Then he crept forward again and closed George's eyes. He backed away a second time, then crept forward again and knelt. 'George?'

No answer.

'You dead, George?'

No answer.

Blaze ran all the way to the car and got in and threw himself behind the wheel. He screamed away, peeling rubber for twenty feet.

'Slow down,' George said from the back seat.

'George?'

'Slow down, down, G.o.ddammit!' G.o.ddammit!'

Blaze slowed down. 'George! Come on up front! Climb over! Wait, I'll pull over.'

'No,' George said. 'I like it back here.'

'George?'

'What?'

'What are we going to do now?'

's.n.a.t.c.h the kid,' George said. 'Just like we planned.'

Chapter 23.

WHEN BLAZE BLUNDERED out of the little cave and got his feet under him, he had no idea how many men were out there. Dozens, he supposed. It didn't matter. George's pistol fell out of the waistband of his pants and that didn't matter, either. He trod it deep into the snow as he charged the first guy he saw. The guy was lying in the snow a little distance away, resting on his elbows and holding a gun in both hands. out of the little cave and got his feet under him, he had no idea how many men were out there. Dozens, he supposed. It didn't matter. George's pistol fell out of the waistband of his pants and that didn't matter, either. He trod it deep into the snow as he charged the first guy he saw. The guy was lying in the snow a little distance away, resting on his elbows and holding a gun in both hands.

'Hands up, Blaisdell! Stay still!' Granger shouted.

Blaze leaped at him.

Granger had time to fire twice. The first shot creased Blaze's forearm. The second plugged nothing but snowstorm. Then Blaze crashed all two hundred and seventy pounds into the guy who had hurt Joe, and Granger's weapon went flying. Granger screamed as the bones of his broken leg grated together.

'You hit the kid!' Blaze yelled into Granger's terrified face. His fingers found Granger's throat. 'You hit the kid, you stupid sonofab.i.t.c.h, you hit the kid, you hit the kid, you hit the kid!'