He made an A shape and overlaid it.
They had taken Eddie and held him awhile and then let him go.
Balazar had grabbed Eddie’s brother and the stash they shared. That would be enough to bring him . . . and he wanted Eddie.
He wanted Eddie because it had only been two hours, and two hours was wrong.
They had questioned him at Kennedy, not at 43rd Street, and that was wrong, too. That meant Eddie had succeeded in ditching most or all of the coke.
Or had he?
He thought. He wondered.
Eddie had walked out of Kennedy two hours after they took him off the plane. That was too short a time for them to have sweated it out of him and too long for them to have decided he was clean, that some stew had made a rash mistake.
He thought. He wondered.
Eddie’s brother was a zombie, but Eddie was still smart, Eddie was still tough. He wouldn’t have turned in just two hours . . . unless it was his brother. Something about his brother.
But still, how come no 43rd Street? How come no Customs van, the ones that looked like Post Office trucks except for the wire grilles on the back windows? Because Eddie really had done something with the goods? Ditched them? Hidden them?
Impossible to hide goods on an airplane.
Impossible to ditch them.
Of course it was also impossible to escape from certain prisons, rob certain banks, beat certain raps. But people did. Harry Houdini had escaped from straitjackets, locked trunks, fucking bank vaults. But Eddie Dean was no Houdini.
Was he?
He could have had Henry killed in the apartment, could have had Eddie cut down on the L.I.E. or, better yet, also in the apartment, where it would look to the cops like a couple of junkies who got desperate enough to forget they were brothers and killed each other. But it would leave too many questions unanswered.
He would get the answers here, prepare for the future or merely satisfy his curiosity, depending on what the answers were, and then kill both of them.
A few more answers, two less junkies. Some gain and no great loss.
In the other room, the game had gotten around to Henry again. “Okay, Henry,” George Biondi said. “Be careful, because this one is tricky. The category is Geography. The question is, ‘What is the only continent where kangaroos are a native form of life?”
A hushed pause.
“Johnny Cash,” Henry said, and this was followed by a bull-throated roar of laughter.
The walls shook.
’Cimi tensed, waiting for Balazar’s house of cards （which would become a tower only if God, or the blind forces that ran the universe in His name, willed it）， to fall down.
The cards trembled a bit. If one fell, all would fall.
None did.
Balazar looked up and smiled at ’Cimi. “Piasan,” he said. “Il Dio est bono; il Dio est malo; temps est poco-poco; tu est une grande peeparollo.”
’Cimi smiled. “Si, senor,” he said. “Io grande peeparollo; Io va fanculo por tu.”
“None va fanculo, catzarro,” Balazar said. “Eddie Dean va fanculo.” He smiled gently, and began on the second level of his tower of cards.
11
When the van pulled to the curb near Balazar’s place, Col Vincent happened to be looking at Eddie. He saw something impossible. He tried to speak and found himself unable. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth and all he could get out was a muffled grunt.
He saw Eddie’s eyes change from brown to blue.
12