Mohawk

you why, but I want you to know I hate him.”
    “Good,” he said. “So do I.”
    He backed the VW down the drive and onto the macadam. The police car was parked down the block, and when Randall passed it the headlights came on and the car lurched forward. At the intersection Randall stopped at the sign, and the police car pulled up so close that its headlights disappeared from the rearview. Randall waited for a blip and the revolving lights, but nothing happened. When he pulled away, the cruiser surged steadily behind, as if in tow. Even when Randall sped up, it kept exact pace, no more than a few feet behind.
    When they came to the highway, Randall pulled over. So did the police car. Turning off the ignition, he rolled down the window and waited. The radio in the car behind barked and coughed. Finally, the door opened and Officer Gaffney, with some difficulty, got out. Even in the rearview Randall could see that he wasn’t in uniform, but rather in street clothes, except for theblack revolver holstered to his hip. And even in the rearview he could tell he was drunk.
    Officer Gaffney leaned with both hands on the roof of the VW, almost as if someone had told him to spread ’em. For a long time he said nothing, just breathed heavily.
    “What,” Randall said finally.
    “Give him a message.”
    “Your brother?”
    “No. Him. You know who.”
    “No I don’t.”
    “Just do it,” the policeman said. “Tell him to stay away from my place. I’ll shoot him down like a dog.”
    Officer Gaffney’s eyes were red and wild.
    “All right. Sure.”
    “I don’t want him in my rooms. There’s nothing there for him. I won’t have him going through my things.”
    “I’ll tell him that.”
    “And tell him,” the policeman stopped, his chin dropping momentarily. “Just tell him to keep away. I know how he does it. I can follow his voice along the wall. Tell him I got it figured.”
    Randall promised he would.
    “All night,” Officer Gaffney said. “All night and no sleep. Listening to that
oughta
shit.” He took his revolver out and showed it to Randall. “Shoot right
through
a wall. Next time … right where the voice is … bang. No more
oughta
.”
    “I’ll make sure he understands.”
    Officer Gaffney put the gun away and straightened up. Randall couldn’t see his face. “He was dead. The walls were coming down. How come you couldn’t a just left him alone?”
    ·   ·   ·
    Rory Gaffney was waiting in the van at the end of the street. “You’re late,” he said when Randall pulled alongside.
    “I ran into a little problem.”
    “Since when is pussy a problem,” the old man said. “Stay close. We gotta get loaded before the storm breaks.”
    They turned down a one-way street, and when the van came to the end of the pavement it slowed but kept going along a dirt road that wound through the trees. This was a part of town Randall was wholly unfamiliar with. They crossed the Cayuga Creek on a narrow bridge and stopped by a hut just short of the railroad tracks. On the far side, the Tucker Tannery was silhouetted against the night sky. The wind was blowing so hard now that several small trees dusted the ground with their topmost branches. When he got out of the van, Rory Gaffney’s hair stood straight up like an angry gray flame. “Many a night your granddad and I crossed these tracks together, loaded down. The bastards never suspected us, either. Not their best men.”
    “You keep forgetting,” Randall said. “I don’t believe any of it, so why keep it up?”
    “I do lie something awful, don’t I? Not lie, really. It’s just the way things could of been. We should of been friends, him and me. I wanted it. We weren’t so different. It was just some little thing in him that couldn’t let go. Otherwise he’d of been one of the world’s great sinners.”
    Inside the shack were a press and several long tables piled high with leather. The windows were blackened and curtained so that light from the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling couldn’t be seen from outside.
    “You know how to get to White Plains without using the Thruway?”
    Randall said he did, and the two men began loading the van. The newly tanned skins had the same rich, almost overpowering scent he’d always associated with his grandfather. It was strongest when Mather Grouse came in at the end of the day, but he was never wholly without it. Though the two men worked quickly, methodically, Rory Gaffney showing no