2
"Fuck!" Joe shouted. He pushed back in the passenger seat and began kicking the dashboard. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
"Easy, Joe."
Stan checked his watch again: 3:14 and no explosion.
"He must have found it!"
"Think about that, Joe. You think he'd still be up there if he found a whole block of C-4 in his apartment? No way. He'd be heading for the hills."
"So you're sayin' I fucked up, is that it?"
Stan heard the menace in his brother's tone. Had to tread carefully. Lots of pride at stake here. Better simply to lob the question back.
"Joe, no rig you've ever made has ever misfired, right?"
"Right."
"But something did go wrong tonight. What? What's different about tonight?"
"Nothin'! I made the simplest damn fucking rig ever! I always keep in my head what you told me when we first started out: Keep it simple—the more bells and whistles, the more chances for a malfunction. So I had no bells and whistles. And I used two detonators instead of one, just for insurance."
"You said you disabled the display. Could that—?"
"Naw, I triple checked it, reconnecting and disconnecting. The clock advanced each time. The alarm stayed set for three. The rig was sweet. He found it. I tell you, Stan, the fucker found it."
Stan didn't want to mention Joe's scarred-up hand and how he was pretty sure that was why his rig had failed. Hard to solder fine wires when one of your hands looks like melted wax.
"So let's go back to my question: what's different about tonight?"
"I told you: Nothin'!"
"But there is: how you're burning up. Every time we've done a job it's been business, pure and simple. Never emotionally involved. Never knew the people on the receiving end. But tonight's not like that. We want this guy. And when you get emotions involved, things go wrong."
"That wasn't it, Stan. I—"
"How big a hard-on you got for this guy, Joe? Think about it."
Joe sat silent, staring out the windshield. Finally he shook his head.
"Shit." His voice was laden with disgust. "I fucked it up."
"It's all right," Stan told him. "The night's not over yet." He started the car. "You get out and wait here. Watch the place while I go cook up something."
My turn now, he thought. And this time no mistakes.