Nebraska

“The Smith and Wesson.” He put up the collar on his coat. “That okay with you?”

“Oh, that's just swell, Max. You're a real buddy.”

Al stopped to light another cigarette. He coughed badly for a long time, leaning with his arms against a building, hacking between his shoes, then wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. Al shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched forward. The cigarette hung from his lip. “Cold, that's all.” Smoke steamed over his face. “I feel it in my ticker when I cough.”

“You ought to have it looked at,” Max said.

“You're a regular funny boy today, aren't ya?”

They turned left at the corner and walked into a lunchroom that used to be a trolley. A bell jingled over their heads. They sat on stools at the counter and ordered coffee and egg-salad sandwiches. They were the only customers.

“Do you remember the Swede?”

Max nodded.

The counterman turned over the sign that read CLOSED, then got out a broom and began sweeping the floor. He swept under their feet as they ate. Max turned on his stool.

“Is there a place where a fella could get a newspaper?”

“There's a booth at the corner,” the counterman said.

Max handed him a dollar bill that the counterman put in his shirt pocket. “Which one you want?”

“Make it the Trib.”

He rested his broom against the counter.

“Walk slow.”

When the counterman was out the door, Al put down his cup of coffee. “He coulda stayed.”

“I know.”

“I personally like having people around. Afterward they'll begin to imagine things and get you all wrong in their heads.”

Max used a toothpick on all of his teeth. Al put two sticks of chewing gum into his mouth. He crumpled up the wrappers.

“You know how it works,” Max said. “You get the call and she says do this, do that. What do you say? She got the wrong number? You do what you have to do. Nothing personal about it.” He looked at Al's face in the mirror behind the counter. “What am I telling you this for? You know all the rules.” Max got off his stool. “You said you wanted to visit the men's room.”

They walked to the back of the place, Max following behind. He stood on a chair to switch on a small radio and turn it up loud. Then he went into the gray lavatory where Al was washing his hands and face. He looked at Max in the spotted mirror. Max was pushing down the fingers of his gloves. He asked, “What'd you do, anyway?”

Al shrugged. “I started taking it easy.” He dried his hands with his handkerchief. “I burned myself out as a kid. I lost my vitality.”

Max opened his coat. “Do you want to sit down?”

The man sat down under the sink.

Max crouched close, reaching into his shoulder holster. “Waiting's the worst of it. You don't have to do that now.” He felt for the heartbeat under Al's shirt, and Al watched him press the Smith and Wesson's muzzle there. Max fired once and the body jerked dead. The arms and legs started jiggling. They were still doing that when Max walked out and closed the men's room door.

He's short, for one thing, so the cuffs on his jeans are rolled up big and he folds a manila paper up four times to put in the heels of his boots. He chews gum instead of brushing his teeth like he should, and pulls his belt so tight that there're tucks and pleats everywhere. He washes his hair with hard yellow soap, then it's rose oil or Vitalis, and he combs it sometimes three or four times before he gets it right. He keeps aspirin in his locker. He says he falls asleep each night with a washrag on his forehead. He punched a tattoo in himself with a ballpoint pen, but it's only a blue star on his wrist and mostly his watch covers it. You can go through school and see his name everywhere: Rex on a wall painted over in beige, Rex on the men's room door, Rex on a desk seat bottom when it's up, Rex Adams stomped out in the snow. He eats oranges at lunch—even the peel!—and gets D's in all his subjects, including music and phys ed. If he comes to sock hops, he just stands there like a squirrel, or like he's waiting for lady's choice. He's always giving me the eye. Especially when I wear dresses. He doesn't have a father or listen to records or play sports. He was the first one in school with a motorcycle, which is chrome and black and waxed and which he saved up for with money from the parking lot. His favorite pastime is collecting magazine pictures, but there's only one taped over his bed; it's from the fifties, from Life, about a gangster washed up out of Lake Michigan and swelled up yeasty in his clothes. He says the thing he remembers most is the way the blood seeped into the creases of Art's pants and dripped to the floor like out of a tap when it's not tight. He's got a gun. He's the only Rex in school. He's not cute at all. His shirts all smell like potatoes.

The Swede? That's an old story.

Max had dressed at the hotel window. Leaves rattled in the alley. He crossed his neck with a silk muffler and buttoned a black overcoat tightly across his chest and put on gloves and a derby hat. He met the other man on the street. They both held their hats as they walked.

“I see you got it,” Max said.

The man, whose name was Al, said nothing but kept one hand in his pocket.