The Stolen - Jason Pinter [84]
Every person was born with a specific skill set. Ray's
son was born a technogeek, the kind of guy who could
build computer systems out of thin air, could design corporate Web sites and security systems as easily as he
buttered a bagel. The last Ray heard, his boy was making
nearly a hundred grand a year. He was married with two
kids. Ray hadn't seen them in a decade.
Ray himself was born with a different set of skills.
And in a cruel irony, it was that skill set that led Ray to
spend the majority of his twenties shuffling from prison
to prison. He was a born criminal. Burglar, fighter. Age
had sapped much of his brawn. No way that Parker kid
would have had the upper hand when Ray had his juices
flowing, when his fists were like unstoppable pistons.
Now, in his late fifties, Ray was holding on to his fighting
memories the way a jilted lover holds on to his, afraid of
what would become of him when he realized the man he
used to be was slipping away. Lives like Ray's didn't
have second acts.
He thought about his time in Attica. Somehow the worst
and best years of his life. They'd made him what he had
become, but he wasn't sure if the pain and sacrifice were
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worth it. He thought about that day back in '71, when his
fellow prisoners had finally risen up against the guards,
who'd tortured them for so long. Ray remembered watching Dog Day Afternoon as a young man, just a few years
after he got loose. He remembered the feeling of pride in
his gut when Pacino delivered that electrifying speech. It
was simply incredible, like a candle being lit in his
stomach, working its way through him until his whole
body was warm. He'd seen that in person. He'd been there.
Everyone watched that flick and got that vicarious thrill
of what it was like to make a stand. Ray had been there.
He'd made that stand.
When Vince came back from the bathroom, the red
welt above his eye was shining like a Christmas bulb. The
younger man slid into the booth across from Ray, went
right back to work on his ham, eggs and sausage links. Ray
watched Vince eat for a bit, the man shoveling food into
his yawning mouth like it was Thanksgiving and he didn't
have a care in the world.
"Eat enough of that, it'll kill you before a bullet does."
Vince smiled as he gnawed on a link. "Best to go out
having fun," he said.
"You know, as dumb as we were," Ray said, "things
could have gone worse the other night. Much worse."
"Sure could have," Vince said, a forkful of dripping egg
sliding back onto his plate. "What d'you think would have
happened if the cops had come before we'd taken care of
the place?"
Vince stopped chewing. Put the fork down. "We would
have been in a world of shit. Years wasted," Ray said.
Vince nodded as if he'd figured out the right answer on a
multiple-choice test.
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"Not really wasted. I mean, it's been fun, right? We've
made money."
"You know we're not doing this for money, for our
health," Ray said. "This isn't some two-bit scam we're
pulling. There are lives at stake."
Vince laughed. "You mean like Petrovsky," he said with
a goofy smile.
"No," Ray seethed. "Not fucking Petrovsky. Lives that
matter. Petrovsky was a degenerate. He was a means to an
end. And we have to protect that end, you hear me?"
"I hear you."
Ray lowered his voice. "I'll be talking to our friend
later. We need to make sure everything is sealed up on our
end. No doubt they'll find out that house was registered
in my name. I'll play the 'woe is me' card, but let it end
there. There isn't enough evidence in that house of
anything. I gave it a once-through before we lit the match.
Now I'm not too worried about the Hobbs police. If
anything they're doing a good job protecting what we've
created. But that Parker reporter, we can't give him
anything more to latch onto. The New York media gets
hold of this, it goes national. Nobody gives two shits about
a poor kid in a poor city."
"I hear you, Ray. Geez, it's not like I don't know this
already."
"Fucking Parker," Ray said. "Never