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Amber's doorway.
    "Never mind, here they are," Braddock said. "Nice big plastic trash bag for Fido. He'll fit in that real good. Then a few rocks, we tie it up and off we go to dump him in the East River. Just like you eye-ties would do it."
    "Brotherhood, brotherhood, Tommy. Oh, and may Wambli—what the hell kind of name is that?—rest in peace."

FIVE
    S
huj! Shuj!
(pronounced
shouesh
) and
Pusho! Pusho!
were Albanian, and the strapping young man who shouted those words was Genc Serreqi. Now, in the dark recesses of Central Park, he caught his breath and tried to calm himself, rubbing the front of his sweaty T-shirt to help untie the knot in his stomach. The knot that always came when there seemed to be a chance that his status in the United States might be challenged.
    Officer Braddock had been right. Serreqi was an illegal, here on a tourist visa that had expired a year earlier. Prior to his travels, he had earned a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Tirana. Confronted with high, double-digit unemployment in his impoverished country, he had worked at a series of menial jobs, bricklayer the most dignified, until he had saved enough to leave.
    Here in the States, he had hooked up with an acquaintance from home who worked as a doorman at a fancy Park Avenue apartment building. He was able to get Genc a job as the substitute handyman there and in another one nearby. The newcomer's skill as an electrical engineer had proved useful and he was in constant demand in both places. Within nine months he was able to rent a one-room apartment of his own in the East Village.
    Serreqi worked on his English and diligently tried to read the throwaway newspapers available in the boxes on his corner, including the newly free (given away, that is)
Village Voice.
It was in the classifieds in
The Voice
that he saw the ad for a houseboy for a "middle-aged widow." This sounded more appealing to him than his handyman job; the widow was likely to be a better boss thanthe rather disagreeable and demanding supers he reported to. And he knew that his good looks had not hindered his popularity with the housewives, if they could be called that, in the buildings where he worked; perhaps he would be popular with the widow, too. The job offered would certainly beat most of the other jobs available to him as an illegal: busing slots in marginal restaurants (those willing to flout the immigration laws) or drug dealing (not appealing, and dangerous besides).
    The prospective employer turned out to be Sue Nation Brandberg, widow of Harry Brandberg. She hired Genc after the briefest of interviews, expressing indifference to his illegal status. "I myself am a Native American," she explained, "without much use for the United States government."
    The new position turned out to be a comfortable one. He had his own room—the biggest he had ever occupied—and ate well at the hands of the motherly Jennie, Sue's cook. His duties originally were quite light, walking Wambli three times a day, doing some shopping and errands, fixing things up around the capacious brownstone on East 62nd Street.
    After about two months, Genc and Mrs. Brandberg, on Jennie's night off, found themselves alone in the house. Normally Sue would have gone out with her cook away, but her dinner date that evening had canceled. Genc offered to make supper and the two ate together in the kitchen, washing down his veal goulash with a superior bottle of Chardonnay.
    At the end of the meal, Sue thanked him for preparing it. Then, before he knew it, she was kissing him full-front and fondling his crotch. He responded, and nightly service in his employer's bed was added to his job description. Genc, at 26, was half Sue Brandberg's age but she was in excellent shape, with a sexyfigure. Now, leaving aside her affection for Wambli, she seemed to direct her passion and feelings toward the Albanian hunk who shared her bed.
    Gradually Genc's stomach calmed down and he