He turns to Werth. Werth says, “Boss, I’m sorry as hell to hear about this.”

Zoladski waves a hand.

“God comes for all of us in the end. You know how he got me? Asbestos. This is a fuckin’ asbestos cancer.”

Haversham, in a clipped tone, adds: “Mesothiolioma.”

“Right. Asbestos cancer. Some time in my life, way back when, a little shitty speck of asbestos embedded in my lung-meat and now here we are. Death sentence.” He sniffs. “We had that shit in our house down in Kensington. In the roof shingles. In the siding. Wrapped around the pipes. Inevitable, I guess.”

“They got surgery they can do,” Werth says. “Right? Lung transplants. And then there’s chemo and radiation and, and– what?”

“Hell with all that,” the Boss says, flecks of saliva dotting his lip and gathering at the corners of his mouth like sea foam. “I go that way they maybe give me another three, four months, and my quality of life goes down the crapper. I’ll look like a baby bird what lost his feathers. No. We have to project strength. Continuance. We got a good thing going here in the Organization, but soon as those fuckin’ gangland piranhas smell blood in the water, it’s over. They’ll churn the river good trying to get to me. What we got here, boys, is a real fragile situation. Like an egg balanced on the tip of the finger, could get messy. Could all go tits up in a blink.” His voice goes low and his eyes lose focus. “All because of a little piece of asbestos.”

The Boss’s gaze returns to Mookie.

“You used to work with asbestos.”

“Uh. Yeah.” How’d he know that?

“You were a Sandhog.”

Mookie grunts in assent.

“Family thing?”

“My Pop. My Grampop, too.”

“But not for you, not anymore. Why you’d quit?”

Mookie shrugs. “This is my thing.”

“This thing we do,” the Boss says, the words almost musical, like a Sinatra croon lurks somewhere behind the words, a sing-song ghost. “Christ, I’m hungry. But the cancer’s a jealous mistress. It eats me; I don’t get to eat anything else. Food here’s good, though. Kielbasa’s solid.” He pronounces it kill-baasy. “They know a good kilbo. Still ain’t like in my Philly days, though. They, they knew kilbos. Before we came here they called us the Kielbasa Gang. You know that? Maybe you did. I repeat myself in my old age – forgive me that sin, yeah? Where you come from, Mookie?”

“Jersey originally.”

“Good. Well. You go eat.” Then the Boss waves them off. Sits back down. And that’s that. You’re dismissed.

On the way back to the food line, Werth says, “Fuckin’ cancer, am I right?”

“Fuckin’ cancer,” Mookie says.

The plate is heavy. Pierogies – fat dough pockets filled with cheese, slathered with butter and onions. Kielbasa red like a Russian rocket. Beet salad. He’s tempted to toss the plastic fork away and just use his hands, but people would stare.

Fuck it. They stare anyway. He starts using his hands.