Part 33 (1/2)

”Boss! Boss, don't die!” cried Horace as he shook Vale harder.

In the grim morning light, Tommy Vale's face bore the blankness of death, whose ledger always tallies exactly if you only wait long enough.

Then Tommy Vale laughed in Horace's face.

He laughed till his eyes watered.

”Horace,” Vale said at last, when he had caught his breath. ”Get me some coffee.”

”Yes, boss!”

When Horace hurried out of the way, Vale turned his attention to Lacey.

”You're still smiling,” Vale said. ”You must know something I don't.”

”I know it's seven fifty-five, and I still got five minutes.”

”That ain't much,” said Vale. ”You should be sweating by now.”

”Five minutes? I don't sweat the small stuff.”

”You used to.” Vale took the coffee Horace brought to him and swirled it once to make sure the sugar was dissolved. ”You used to sweat the small stuff and choke on the big stuff. And now you're gonna choke again when I don't die by eight.”

Lacey's smile was gone.

”You think I don't know who you are,” said Vale, sipping the coffee and blinking in its steam. ”and how you got here and how come you're so hot. I knew you as soon as you walked in here, Bill Lacey.”

Horace spilled his own steaming coffee into the white linen lap of Lacey's suit, but Lacey didn't flinch at the scalding liquid.

”Lacey's dead!” Horace protested, and peered into the dead man's face.

”I went to the funeral.”

”That may be,” said Tommy Vale, ”but he's sitting right there, and he's still a cheap little coward, a cheat, still pulling cheap tricks, trying to cheat me, trying to break me, trying to be the big shot. Sure, he found out from the other side when I was gonna croak, and he took that inside dope and tried to make it pay.”

The man with no neck made the sign of the cross over the lapels of his cheap dark suit and found no comfort in the weapon inside it.

Bill Lacey craned his head around on his dingy neck and looked at the Ballantine clock. ”It ain't eight, Tommy Vale.”

”You know, Lacey, you should never underestimate the power of the human will. That's one thing I learned just sitting in this seat for the last thirty years. It's the doggonedest thing, the human will. Either you got it or you don't. You were a scared rabbit, you're gonna be a scared rabbit again. Leaving a wife with TB and two little girls *cause you were scared to face the music.”

With one hand Lacey pulled out a small white handkerchief, and with the other he lifted the hat, for the first time revealing his bald head. The bare crown of pallid, stretched flesh made him look weasley and disreputable, cunning and weak. ”I lost everything,” he said.

”You sure did, you dumb jerk. And you're gonna lose it all again.”

For the first time since he's awakened with laughter, Vale looked up at the clock.

Lacey, Horace, and the two guardians of the briefcases followed his gaze.

The second hand lurched closer to twelve, and with it went the minute hand. With them both, the hour hand crept closer to eight.

Beep beep beep.