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knows a lot. Networked all over the place. He even had one of those computer programs where you send images over the wire to a laser printer."
    "Good." You do enough bragging about where the bodies are buried, you could join the crowd.
    Morales weighed in. "Yeah. Fucking great. He drops a pocketful of dimes on his brother freaks, does a few soft years in a federal rest camp, sees one of those whore–psychiatrists, comes out and gets a job in a day–care center or something. Maybe writes a book."
    I shrugged.
    Morales took it as a challenge. "You think those fucking therapists can fix a freak like him?"
    "No. They know what to call it, that's all. Pedophilia. Like it's a disease. They had a disease named after hijackers, maybe I would of gotten past the Parole Board the first time."
    Morales wouldn't let it go. "A few years ago, they'd have to lock slime like that away from the regular cons. Not no more. Baby–raping motherfuckers like him need to resist arrest more often."
    McGowan shook his head sadly. He got up to leave, Morales trailing in his wake. The cops tossed bills on the table for their breakfast and split. I watched the smoke collect near the ceiling of the diner. Thinking of something Wesley once told me.
    Something he once called me.

13
    I WAS AS CLOSE to square as I was going to get. I could go on vacation, not worry about the mail piling up on the doorstep.
    But a responsible businessman doesn't take a vacation unless his desk is clean. After a half hour of dodging potholes deep enough to have punji sticks at the bottom, the Plymouth poked its anonymous nose off the BQE at Flushing Avenue. Heading through Bedford–Stuyvesant. Some people call it "do or die Bed–Stuy." Those people are called something else. Escapees.
    On to Bushwick. A bad piece of pavement even by city standards: if you went down on these streets from less than three gunshot wounds, the hospital would write "natural causes" on the death certificate. Just before the intersection at Marcy Avenue, a three–story shell of a wooden building, blackened timbers forming X–braces, decaying from the ground up. Next to it, an abandoned Chinese take–out joint. Hand–painted sign: Houes of Wong. Parked in front, a car full of black teenagers, baseball caps turned on their heads so the bills pointed backwards. Waiting for night.
    The going rate for three rocks of instant–access cocaine is five bucks. The dealers won't take singles, makes too much bulk in their pockets. The bodegas operate as war–zone currency exchanges: a five–dollar bill costs you six singles.
    I crossed Broadway, past a pet store that advertised rabbits. For food. A rooster crowed from somewhere inside one of the blunt–faced buildings.
    A Puerto Rican woman strolled by on the sidewalk, wearing a bright orange quasi–silk blouse knotted just below her midriff, neon–yellow spandex bicycle pants with thick black stripes down the sides stretching almost to her knees. Backless white spike heels, no stockings. She was fifteen pounds over the limit for a yuppie aerobics class, but on this street, she was prime cut. She acknowledged the men calling out to her with her lips and her hips, but she never turned her head.
    Another couple of blocks. The projects. An olive–skinned little boy was playing with a broken truck in a puddle near a fire hydrant, making it amphibious.
    Most of the businesses were war casualties, liquor stores and video rental joints the only survivors.
    And the crack houses. Fronted by groups of mini–thugs hoping to grow up to be triggerboys. Watching the escape vehicles slide by, Mercedeses and BMWs, seeing themselves behind the wheel. Ghetto colors slashing the grime, not telling the truth.
    Gut–grinding poverty. Sandpaper for the soul.
    Pigeons overhead, circling in flocks. Hawks on the ground.
    Make enough wrong turns and you're on a no–way street.
    A no–brand–name gas station on the corner. It pumped more kilos than gallons. A big