2
"Yo, Stan."
Stan Kozlowski lowered his copy of the Times and looked across the table. His shorter, heavier younger brother Joe had a copy of The Light folded in half and was pinning it to the table with the index finger of his good hand. Usually he bought the Post but The Light's front page photo of the dead gunner must have caught his eye this morning.
They occupied their usual table near the front window of Moishe's kosher deli on Second Avenue. The kosher part didn't matter—they'd been raised Catholic—but Moishe's was convenient, the coffee free-flowing, and the bagels unbeatable.
"What?"
"You been reading about this guy on the train last night?"
"Some."
He'd skimmed the stories to see if the Times knew more than last night's TV news. It didn't. And the mystery about this "Savior" guy had the whole city buzzing. Moishe's was no exception: Didja hear? The Savior this, the savior that. Whatta y'think? Blah-blah-blah. The story wasn't a day old and already Stan was sick of it.
"Yours say anything about his gun?"
"No. Not that I recall. I—"
"You guys figured out who he is yet?" said a squeaky voice with a Brooklyn accent sharp enough to cut steel.
Sally, their usual waitress at this, their usual table, had returned with her usual pot of coffee. Seventy if she was a day and built like a hunchbacked bird, she dyed her hair flame orange and applied eye make-up with a trowel.
Stan noticed how Joe slipped his scarred hand off the table and onto his lap. An automatic move. Seeing it caused something to twist inside Stan. Joe shouldn't have to hide any part of himself.
Two years now since the accident…
Accident, hell. He and Joe had called the fire an accident and stuck to the story so well that Stan caught himself every now and then believing it really was an accident. But the fire that had ruined their reputations and put them both out of business and scarred Joe for life had been no accident.
Joe hadn't been the same since then. Before the fire he'd been Joe Koz, top torch in the Northeast, maybe the whole coast, and no slouch with C-4 either. Now… well, he was damaged goods, and his ruined hand was only the visible part; he'd been damaged inside as well. He'd stopped caring. He never worked out anymore. Must have put on forty pounds while Stan had maintained his fighting weight. He was four years younger but now looked a good ten years older.
Stan looked up at Sally. "Who? This Savior guy? Why should we carer
"We might," Joe said. "We might care a lot."
Something in his voice made Stan give his brother a closer look; he noticed that Joe's face was set in grimmer lines than usual.
"Sure you do," Sally said, refilling their cups. "Especially if they offer a reward."
"If the city doesn't," Joe said, "I just might offer one myself."
Sally laughed. "You do that, Joe. You do that."
As she moved on, Stan stared at his brother. "What's up, Joe?"
"It doesn't say nothin' in the Times there about the kind of gun he used to whack the crazy?"
"No."
Joe smirked. "I guess bein' a college boy has its drawbacks. Even us lowbrow dropouts hit pay dirt once in a while."
They'd had a long running rivalry about who read the better paper. Joe had never finished high school. Stan had gone to college after Nam, earned a B.A. in English from Pace, not that he ever used it. All he'd ever needed to know he'd learned in Nam.
"Get to the point."
"One of The Light's reporters was on that train last night—right in the car where it all went down—and he says here this Savior guy used a tiny little .45 that he pulled out of an ankle holster."
Stan went cold. The Times articles had said the killer had used 9mm pistols with homemade silencers but hadn't mentioned a thing about the caliber of the Savior's gun or his holster.
"That doesn't mean it's him," Stan said.
"Yeah. I bet there's fucking thousands of guys running around with teeny-tiny .45s strapped to their ankles."
For the first time in two years Stan saw that old spark in his brother's eyes. He didn't want to douse it.
"You've got a point. It could be him. But don't get your hopes up."
"Get them up?" Joe grinned, showing yellow teeth. He'd never been much for dentists. "They're already up—way up. I hope to God it's him, Stan. And I hope if he doesn't show himself they track him down and drag him into the spotlight. Because then we'll see him, and then we'll know if he's our guy, and if he is he's gonna die!"
"Easy, Joe," Stan said. "You're getting loud."
"Like I give a steaming wet brown cruller! Damn fuck right I'm getting loud!"
He held up his left hand and waved it in Stan's face. Mottled shiny pink scar tissue gleamed under the ceiling fluorescents; it enveloped his index and middle fingers, fusing them into a single digit, and it swathed his ring and pinky fingers, joining them as well. The thumb too was scarred but remained separate.
"We've got issues with this guy, Stan. Serious business issues. But for me it's personal too." He began pounding the table with his good hand. "I've been lookin' for him two years, and if this is him, he's gonna die! I'm gonna blow him off the face of the fucking earth!"
Joe's final words echoed off the hammered tin ceiling of Moishe's kosher deli where patrons and staff alike stared at him in stunned silence.