16
Joe opened the rear door of the car, dumped his toolbox on the floor, then dropped into the front passenger seat.
"Done!"
Stan looked at him. "Fine. And now that it's done, you mind telling me just what it is that's done?"
Half an hour ago Joe had arrived in this stolen Taurus and parked it downstream from the apartment building. He'd looked like a new man—showered, shaved, and dressed like a serviceman. He'd been coy, refusing to say what he was up to until he'd done it.
"Left a little gift for our guy. I was afraid I wasn't going to get in, what with that obsolete Bell Atlantic ID from the old days, but she bought it."
"Lucky. How big a gift?"
Joe grinned. "A brick."
"A whole brick?"
"Damn right."
Stan closed his eyes. Before the Feds had closed in they'd managed to salvage part of their stash of army-issue C-4—foot-long bricks, two inches wide and an inch thick, neatly wrapped in olive-drab cellophane. Lovely stuff. Stable enough to play catch with, still soft and moldable at minus-seventy degrees, no extrudation even at one-hundred-seventy.
In Nam he'd come up with other uses for it beyond explosions. Starting fires, for instance. Cut an inch-thick slice off a block, put a match to it, and instant fire. Stank but it burned hot enough to ignite wet wood. One thing you had to remember, though, was if you wanted to put out burning C-4, you drowned it. You did not—repeat, not—stomp on it. He once saw a guy lose the front end of his foot trying that. Stan even learned the meaning of detonation velocity, and that C-4's was a devastating 8,100 meters per second.
And Joe had set a whole brick of it in that apartment. Shit.
He pressed the buttons that raised the windows and swiveled toward his brother.
"Joe… an old building like that… you just might bring the whole thing down."
A beautiful building… a shame to mess it up.
"Yeah, maybe. But probably not."
"At the very least it'll take out most of the third floor and both apartments above and below his, and blow off the whole front of the building."
Joe stared at him. "And your point is…?"
"He hasn't come back yet. He might not come back before it blows. It might not even be his place."
"Oh, it's his all right. His girlfriend told me it wasn't her place, so that means it's his."
"All right, let's say it is his place. What if he's out all night? If the place blows without him there, then we've tipped our hand. He'll know—"
"He'll know that his girlfriend is dead and that he's next." Joe's voice dipped to a cold rumble. "Let him stew awhile, let him suffer a little, let him be scared, wonderin' when the next shoe's gonna drop. I almost hope he doesn't come home in time. I want to be in the crowd and see his face when he finds what's left of his building."
"It's not our style, Joe. We always placed just the right amount in just the right place to get the job done with a minimum of collateral damage. We were surgeons, Joe."
"Yeah, well, this is a special case. This will send a message that if you mess with the Kozlowskis you die. And not only do you die, but your family and friends and neighbors die. You mess with the K brothers you invite a whole shitload of death and destruction. So think twice. Think three times. Better yet, don't think about it at all."
Stan sighed. No talking to Joe on this.
He glanced in the rearview mirror where he had the apartment house entrance framed. The car seemed far enough away to be safe from the bigger chunks of debris. And it would be downstream from the explosion, which meant they'd be able to cruise away immediately after the blast.
He watched a black Crown Victoria pull into a space directly in front of the doorway. He had to smile. Here was a guy probably thanking his lucky stars for finding such a primo parking spot. He wouldn't be thanking anyone if his car was still there when Joe's bomb blew.
"Joe!" Stan whispered when the driver stepped out of the car. "Take a look!"
Joe did a casual one-eighty in his seat, then jerked up straight when he recognized the man on the sidewalk.
"Yes!" He started punching Stan on the shoulder. "Yes-yes-yes-yes!"
"When does this go down?"
"Soon," Joe said softly. "But not soon enough."