Shallow Graves

nobody without a good reason for it. These new gangs, the Jamaicans—or the fucking Dominicans?— they’re animals. They do a drive-by, waste a fucking street corner full of fucking people, get the one they want. I never heard a one of our contracts wasn’t specific, I never heard a hitter did anybody more’n he was told to. I tell you something else, too. You ever see an execution?“
    “A hit?“
    “No, I mean a government one. Like gas or the chair.“
    “No.“
    “Well, let me tell you. One of our associates, he got himself in a fight down in the Land of Grits . Shiwed some redneck was trying to wrap a tire iron around his head, but that’s not how the witnesses saw it. Anyway, the jury decides to puff him, then it takes nine years, nine fucking years for the courts to decide, does he go or not. Finally, they decide he goes, and somebody’s got to travel down there, kind of get him through it, you know?“
    “I think so.“
    “Well, it turns out I’m it, so I fly down there and rent a car and drive through some of the worst places I ever seen. Shit, the shacks with real tarpaper, outhouses, makes the worst block in Roxbury there look like Beacon fucking Hill. Anyways, I get to the prison early, I pay my respects to our guy. He’s in this room, it’s maybe eight by ten, with a stainless steel sink and john below it and one fucking bunk. The thing that got me is the colors, though. The bars are powder blue, powder fucking blue like some broad’s bedroom, and the bulls are the same way, looking like maybe they got bleached out of the Navy or something. And our guy, he’s in this orange jump suit, only he’s sweating so bad, he’s gotta change his jump suit twice in the hour I’m with him.
    “He gets to me. Cuddy. He asks, can I stay for the show? He says it’d mean a lot to him, knowing there was somebody there he knew. So I tell him, sure I’ll stay for it. Christ, like the guy’s last request, you know? Then the bulls tell me, I got to go to the viewing room so our guy can get prepped. I say okay, and they put me in this place, looks like something outta a fifties horror movie. Like I’m in living color but seeing all this in just black and white? Well, I sit down on a folding chair, maybe ten other people around me, and they’re all making small talk about the weather and the crops and some high school fucking football team ain’t won a game yet and I’m the only one in the room can say a sentence in like less than five minutes.
    “Then through the glass we see the bulls come in, and everybody sits down. The bulls work the door with this wheel on it, like in a submarine, but it’s not my guy’s time yet, they’re just testing the fucking gas chamber. And get this, right? We’re in the Old South, so what do they use to test it with? They use this little black rabbit, black as a jigaboo. It’s in a cage like a milk crate, and they put it in the chair. Then they clear out and drop the pill or whatever, and there’s a little cloud, like somebody’s grabbing a smoke under the seat. And this rabbit starts twitching, then hops hard around the crate, so hard you figure he’s breaking bones, fracturing his fucking skull banging it into the top of the cage.
    “Well, I’ll tell you something, Cuddy. I had to get out of there. I had to get out. I’m a made fucking member of our organization, and I couldn’t take what one of our governments does to a guy. You want to croak somebody for what they did? Fine. They know going in they fuck up, you’re going to croak them, fine. They do something real fucking bad, like plank your sister, then you torture them a little. Maybe cut off their fucking wang and stick it in their fucking mouth, that’s fine too. Everybody understands why it happened. But for chrissake, don’t keep a guy on ice for nine fucking years and feed him and play with his fucking mind over it. Do him, then move the fuck on.“
    The music ended. Zuppone took a breath, then said, “Let’s try a little Wim Mertens, lighten things up.“
    He popped in a new tape. This was mostly piano, but not entirely, and was the best I’d heard in the car. Solid but varied, eerie but thoughtful.
    I said, “I like that.“
    “You serious?“
    “I’m serious.“
    “It’s yours.“
    “Primo, don’t—“
    “No. Really. I got a dozen of them. They ain’t so easy to find, this way you’ll have it.“
    “Thank you.“
    We were within sight of the Pru and the Hancock, the lights