Pompelli still turned the razor over, looking at Jamie again. “His hand, you know, is like this.” He lifted his right hand and opened it partway as if grasping a small glass, the thumb crooked in toward the fingers, the fingers evenly spaced, not touching one another. “Victor Fortini. The kids call him the Claw. Vic the Claw.”

“Jesus.” The word out of Jamie air out of rotten bellows.

“No, He ain’t gonna be help to you now. Now, Vic Fortini, Vic, he’s one of those long slow fires, nothing slick or flashy about him, just one step after another. Hey listen, I know the man; he’s my father-in-law. One thing you got to understand, Pelham. He’s known where you was for years. Years and years. Think about that. His hand all fucked-up frozen and he just waits quiet and patient. Most of us, we think, There’s an opportunity in front of us, we better take it before it goes away. He could have come after you long since. So what do you think? What is it gives a man the confidence to sit back and wait? It’s something to ponder. I watch him myself, thinking maybe I’ll learn a thing or two. Shit, Pelham, I don’t know. But you got to look at the facts. All those years he waits and then here you are tonight. Like he knew this night was coming for you. What he told me was, Wait, Vinnie, let him come to you. He will, he will. That’s what he told me. And look, here you are.”

Jamie said nothing. Nothing to say. His mind now a bright clear empty shining star. A small pith in absolute darkness.

After a minute Pompelli said, “It’s funny, how something stupid sometimes can work in your favor. You, you’d gone farther away, gone to New York or Jersey or someplace, he probably wouldn’t have been so patient. Might have thought you could slip through and away. But you do something stupid, go—what? a hundred miles? So he knows right where you are. He keeps track of you without any effort at all. And you, I bet you worried for what—two, maybe three months? Looking over your shoulder. Bet you even thought you were laying low.” Pompelli paused and finally set the razor down, placing it on the green blotter before him. A pale rust of blood on the slice of moonlight blade. Looked back at Jamie. “Well? You got anything to say?”

Jamie sat silent. His hands down now in his lap, the clotted towel a rough wrap over the tender flaring hand, the other hand wrapped over it all, all resting on top of his wet crotch. The tang of urine the only clear scent in the room to him.

Pompelli said, “Sammy?” As if asking an opinion.

The hand on top of his head gripped hard and drove down so Jamie’s forehead struck the desktop. Shattering the glass star. Shards red and silver emptying into the dark. The hand in his hair jerked him back upright. His eyes seemed to be bleeding.