Nightbird by Edward Dee

Cleanliness at their price level was a rare commodity. That was why every year,
     as soon as the weather turned warm, Pinto and Victor tossed their belongings into Pinto’s old Chevy and drove north, hoping
     she had a vacancy.
    Though clean, the place came sparsely furnished: a couch, chair, two beds, dinette set, a few kitchen items. He’d brought
     his own sheets and towels; he wasn’t going to sleep on the sheets of another. A TV and a weight bench were their only other
     furnishings.
    Victor flicked on the TV and tossed his undelivered envelope on the dinette table. The envelope contained instructions for
     Trey Winters on how and when to deliver the money. It was a simple plan, and simple plans worked best. In light of the involvement
     of this reporter, he’d need to rethink his strategy.
    He put on his gloves and took an old newspaper from the stack. He’d cut out a new message outlining his demands. Winters would
     see he was not greedy and jump at the deal. He leaned down to pick up the scissors off the floor.
    A sharp pain flashed down Victor’s lower back and down his right leg. The red pills were wearing off. They weren’t as strong
     as his usual white ones. He dropped the scissors on the table and went into the bathroom. He took the remaining three red
     pills and washed them down with Pinto’s vodka.
    The French Connection
was playing on TV, a movie he loved. He felt dirty and sweaty; he needed a shower, fresh clothes. He hated to feel this way.
     On the train home he’d promised himself a long, hot shower. But for the moment fatigue won out. He sprawled on the sofa. He’d
     watch the movie for a while, then clean up. His fingers had trouble working the remote control, trying to turn the volume
     louder.
    Victor had gone downhill rapidly this past year, having more and more difficulty manipulating delicate objects. The simplest
     small movements of wrist and finger had become torturous, as if his hands were bound with twine. It was the way he’d seen
     his father start to deteriorate, the small motor skills first. The fingers, then the wrists, then spreading to the larger
     joints. On TV the Frenchman Alain Charnier outwitted the dumb cop Popeye Doyle, leaving him stranded on a subway platform.
    Like his father, Victor had been one of the premier trapeze artists in South and Central America. Like his father, he had
     been in his late twenties when the first signs of the progressive disease had begun to plague him. Cruelly, for his father,
     the degeneration worsened just as he attained his lifetime dream, a chance to bring the family act under the big top. Less
     than three years after being signed by Ringling Brothers, his father could no longer perform safely. Both the family and the
     act fell apart. His father went back to Mazatlán, where he proceeded to drink himself to death.
    Unlike his father, Victor would not let bad luck dictate his life. A man made his own luck. He would not wind up a peon, an
     object of ridicule. He was better than that. His mother said the Gypsies always told her she’d have a famous son. He was meant
     to be important, to live his life as a man of respect. Nothing was going to stop him.
    On TV, Alan Charnier, a neat, elegant man, was head and shoulders above the poorly dressed and scatterbrained cops. Charnier
     planned and used his mind. He made fools of the NYPD, defeating them in their own city. A warmth came over Victor as the pain
     subsided. Everything coming up rosy. He pulled off the tight gloves and closed his eyes.

11
    T rey Winters’s duplex had not one, but two top-dollar views: he faced west toward Central Park, and to the south you could
     see the afternoon sun glinting off the MetLife Building.
    “You know somebody’s rich when you can walk behind their furniture,” Joe Gregory said, running his hand along the back of
     Trey Winters’s leather sofa. “The rest of us got everything jammed up against the walls. Couches, chairs, lamps,