preparations for The Outsider, and they had taken elaborate steps to elude the
government—but how were they supposed to have prepared for this? It wasn’t fair.
Silent again, he stared at her intently for a minute or more, another eternity.
She could feel his icy green gaze on her as surely as she would have felt a
cold, fondling hand.
“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” he said.
“No.”
Perhaps because he found her pretty, he chose to explain. “I’ve only ever told
one person before, and he made fun of me. His name was Danny Slowicz, and we
both worked for the Carramazza Family in New York, biggest of the five Mafia
Families. Little muscle work, once in a while killing people who needed killed.”
Nora felt sick because he was not merely crazy and not merely a killer but a
crazy professional killer.
Unaware of her reaction, switching his gaze from the rain-swept road to her
face, he continued. “See, we were having dinner in this restaurant, Danny and
me, washing down clams with Valpolicella, and I explained to him that I was
destined to lead a long life because of my ability to acquire the vital energies
of people I wasted. I told him, ‘See, Danny, people are like batteries,
walking batteries, filled with this mysterious energy we call life. When I off
someone, his energy becomes my energy, and I get stronger. I’m a bull, Danny,’ I
says. ‘Look at me—am I a bull or what? And I got to be a bull ‘cause I have this
Gift of being able to take the energy from a guy.’ And you know what Danny
says?”
“What?” she asked numbly.
“Well, Danny was a serious eater, so he kept his attention on his plate, face in
his food, until he scarfs a few more clams. Then he looks up, his lips and chin
dripping clam sauce, and he says, ‘Yeah, Vince, so where’d you learn this trick,
huh? Where’d you learn how to absorb these life energies?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s
my Gift,’ and he said, ‘You mean like from God?’ So I had to think about that,
and I said, ‘Who knows where from? It’s my Gift like Mantle’s hitting was a
gift, like Sinatra’s voice was a gift.’ And Danny says, ‘Tell me this—suppose
you waste a guy who’s an electrician. After you absorb his energy, would you all
of a sudden know how to rewire a house?’ I didn’t realize he was putting me on.
I thought it was a serious question, so I explained how I absorb life energy,
not personality, not all the stuff the guy knows, just his energy. And then
Danny says, ‘So if you blew away a carnival geek, you wouldn’t all of a sudden
get the urge to bite the heads off chickens.’ Right then I knew Danny thought I
was either drunk or nuts, so I ate clams and didn’t say any more about my Gift,
and that’s the last time I told anyone until I’m here telling you.”
He had called himself Vince, so now she knew his name. She did not see what good
it would do her to know it.
He had told his story without any indication that he was aware of the insane
black humor in it. He was a deadly serious man. Unless Travis could deal with
him, this guy was not going to let them live.
“So,” Vince said, “I couldn’t risk Danny going around telling anyone what I’d
told him, because he’d color it up, make it sound funny, and people would think
I was nuts. The big bosses don’t hire crazy hit men; they want cool, logical,
balanced guys who can do the work clean. Which is what I am, cool and balanced,
but Danny would have had them thinking the other way. So that night I slit his
throat, took him to this deserted factory I knew, cut him into pieces, put him
in a vat, and poured a lot of sulfuric acid over him. He was a favorite nephew
of the don’s, so I couldn’t take a chance of anyone finding a body that might be