thought. "Probably. This war of yours has put a lot of bodies in the earth. Ain't too many of us left who can spell gum and chew it at the same time. Plus, I know Albert. We used to have something in common. This was his peace offering, I think - kill Maso and rejoin the fold."
"So why didn't you?"
"Because I don't want to kill you."
"No?"
Joe shook his head. "I want to destroy Albert."
"Kill him?"
"Don't know about that," Joe said. "But destroy him definitely."
Maso fished in his pocket for his French cigarettes. He removed one and lit it, still catching his breath. Eventually he met Joe's eyes and nodded. "You have my blessing on that ambition."
"Don't need your blessing," Joe said.
"I won't try to talk you out of it," Maso said, "but I never saw much profit in revenge."
"Ain't about profit."
"Everything in a man's life is about profit. Profit, or succession." Maso looked up at the sky and then back again. "So how do we get back down there alive?"
"Any of the tower guards fully in your debt?"
"The one right above us," Maso said. "The other two are faithful to the money."
"Could your guard contact guards inside, get them to flank Lawson's crew, raid them right now?"
Maso shook his head. "If just one guard is close to Lawson, then word will get to the cons below and they'll storm up here."
"Well, shit." Joe exhaled a long slow breath and looked around. "Let's just do it the dirty way."
While Maso talked to the tower guard, Joe walked back down the wall to the trapdoor. If he was going to die, this was probably the moment. He couldn't shake the suspicion that every step he took was about to be interrupted by a bullet drilling through his brain or cracking through his spine.
He looked back down the way he'd come. Maso had left the pathway, so there was nothing to see but the gathering dark and the watchtowers. No stars, no moon, just the stone dark.
He opened the trapdoor and called down. "He's done."
"You hurt?" Basil Chigis called up.
"No. Gonna need clean clothes, though."
Someone chuckled in the darkness.
"So, come on down."
"Come on up. We got to get his body out of here."
"We can - "
"The signal is your right hand, index and middle fingers raised and held together. You got anyone missing one of those digits, don't send him up."
He rolled away from the doorway before anyone could argue.
After about a minute, he heard the first of them climb up. The man's hand extended out of the hole, two fingers raised as Joe had instructed. The tower light arced past the hand and then swung back over again. Joe said, "All clear."
It was Pokaski, the roaster of his family, who stuck his head carefully up and looked around.
"Hurry," Joe said. "And get the others up here. It'll take two more to drag him. He's deadweight and my ribs are busted up."
Pokaski smiled. "I thought you said you weren't hurt."
"Not mortally," Joe said. "Come on."
Pokaski leaned back into the hole. "Two more guys."
Basil Chigis followed Pokaski and then a small guy with a harelip came after him. Joe recalled someone pointing him out at chow once - Eldon Douglas - but couldn't remember his crime.
"Where's the body?" Basil Chigis asked.
Joe pointed.
"Well, let's - "
The light hit Basil Chigis just before the bullet entered the back of his head and exited the center of his face, taking his nose with it. As his final act on earth, Pokaski blinked. Then a door opened in his throat and the door flapped as a wash of red poured through it and Pokaski fell on his back, and his legs thrashed. Eldon Douglas leapt for the opening to the staircase, but the tower guard's third bullet collapsed his skull the way a sledgehammer would. He fell to the right of the door and lay there, missing the top of his head.
Joe looked into the light, the three dead men splattered all over him. Down below men shouted and ran off. He wished he could join them. It had been a naive plan. He could feel the gun sights on his chest as the light blinded him. The bullets would be the violent offspring his father had warned him about; not only was he about to meet his Maker, but he also was about to meet his children. The only consolation he could offer himself was that it would be a quick death. Fifteen minutes from now he'd