Chapter 15 Chapter Twelve

"I know she's got it," St. Peter said to himself as he dug up the half pint of nitroglycerine he had buried in the garage. "Trying to look innocent and kind. She thought she could fool St. Uncle. I knew she was a deceitful whore." He mumbled to work.Although the situation was urgent, he had to handle it carefully.Pink Boy only left here for five minutes, but it doesn't matter when Sister Bliss comes back, he must have got his things and left by then. "The devil believed she was going to see Gus off," he murmured. "There's no way that lying bitch can tell the truth. Once she has something, no matter what it is, she will sell me to the police for protection."

The green glass bottle was filled with nitroglycerin and sealed tightly with a rubber stopper.He'd been hiding it for fifteen years, ever since she'd started trying to get rid of him—because one of her lovers objected to keeping him here. "She's going to get rid of me anyway," he muttered under his breath. "But she's going to serve twenty-five years for it." At first he wrapped the bottle in a length of rubber tube and tied it with a roll of tape.After fifteen years, the texture has hardened and the bottle seems to have sunk in deeper.At first he was digging with a shovel while measuring the extent of the hole with a wooden folding rule.He used to bury the bottle two feet deep.Now when he was twenty inches deep, he threw away the shovel and replaced it with a cooking shovel.However, after digging another ten inches, he finally touched the top layer of the package. The cooking shovel was really slow.Time was ticking by, he was sweating profusely, still wearing his old driver's uniform and hat, it felt like he was in a charcoal oven.

Now he had to work carefully, using a spoon to remove the dust from around the rotting parcel. Corrupted tape and rubber tubes came loose from bottles like rotten corks.He resisted the urge to touch the bottle with his spoon. "See if that bitch is happy?" he murmured. "When I got home, I found that I was gone. I didn't even have to bury my body. Just fan the dust away." The green bottle finally showed up.Trembling, he slowly took it out of its hiding place inch by inch. The rubber stopper fell off, but there was still a film sealing the nitroglycerin.He held his breath and stood the bottle on its side, then took a big breath.

A loaded shotgun hides on the ground nearby.Holding the nitroglycerine bottle in his right hand, he reached forward to pick up the shotgun with his left hand, and slowly got up like a weightlifter lifting two tons of steel. To keep the nitroglycerin out of the sun, he tucked it under his breast coat.Sweat trickled down the brim of his driver's hat and stung his eyes, and he was like a tightrope walker crossing Niagara Falls, step by step through the dry bumps of the garden for camp. When he reached the kitchen door, he leaned the shotgun against the wall before opening the door with his right hand, turning completely around before stepping into the kitchen to make sure the bottle never hit the edge of the door.Then he closed the door softly and looked around for a place to rest.The kitchen table seems to be safe.So he placed the bottle in the center of the oilcloth table.

Now he had to go back to the garage to get another small package, a power drill with a three-eighth-inch diamond bit, a twelve-inch fuze, and two feet of rubber tubing with a quarter-inch gauge. The package, wrapped in plastic wrap, was hidden inside old tires hanging from the rafters.He had kept them for eleven years, counting from the time he planted the nitroglycerine and the second serious crisis he had with the Blissful Sisters.That time, it was because Sister Bliss concluded that the main reason why it was difficult for her to find a reliable new lover was that he refused to leave. He had only been out of the kitchen for a few minutes when the mother goat opened the screened door and entered the house, eating the oilcloth on the table.As it ate, it pulled the oilcloth towards the table, and now it has bitten a hole a few inches deep.As a result, the nitroglycerin bottle moved more than six inches, dangerously approaching the table, but remained upright.

Just as it was about to take its second bite, he called, "Hey!" The mother goat stopped, stared at him coldly with yellow eyes, then turned her head and continued to chew. He sharply aimed his shotgun at its head. "Go away, or I'll fucking blow your head off," his dry voice was murderous. His palms began to sweat, but he dared not shoot. The goat turned slowly to look at him.Of course it didn't know that he was too scared to shoot.He looked at it like he was about to shoot, and it believed it. It still turned in style, opened the door with the top of its head, and stepped gracefully out of the kitchen.And he didn't even dare to kick its ass from behind.

He moved the nitroglycerin back to the center of the table, next to the other package.Then he sat on the berth, pulled out his locked case, unlocked the big padlock, took out the spirit lamp and spoon, and boiled a dose of pure heroin to calm himself down.His hands were shaking violently and his mouth was moving, but no sound came out. "what!" He groaned as the drug injected into the veins in his wrist. He put the gear in the box and locked it, pushed it back under the berth, and then sat and waited for the medicine to take effect. "How did she get it? What do I care about?" He started talking to himself again. "That cunning whore could even get Jesus' cross out of nowhere." He giggled dryly. "But old St. Peter's better than her."

At this moment, his hands have regained their stability, and his head is clear as if he knows everything.He even thought he could roll a double-two for a four in the first round of craps. He stood up, unwrapped the package, and put the bits on the electric drill.Then he took it in his right hand, walked to the berth, retrieved the shotgun in his left hand, and went into the bedroom of the Blissful Sisters. He put the shotgun on the floor in front of the chest of drawers, then unplugged the lamp and plugged it in for the drill. Locking out is easy for him.He drilled a row of holes near the lock until the hinged cover fell forward.Then he set about drilling a hole an inch to the right of the safe's turntable.The hard steel of the safe didn't budge; it nearly wore out the diamond bit before it finally got through.

Now comes the tricky part.He inserted a quarter-inch pipe through the three-eighth-inch hole, and penetrated into the bottom of the safe door, leaving more than a foot of pipe protruding.He cut it down to an inch.Then roll a piece of white letter paper into a funnel shape, and insert the tip end into the rubber tube. He went back to the kitchen to get the bottle of nitroglycerin and went into the bedroom.Using the end of a safety pin, he pulled out the rubber film from the neck of the bottle.After taking all precautions, he held his breath and poured the contents of the bottle into the funnel in a steady trickle.After pouring, he let the empty bottle stand on the floor and let out a deep breath from the bottom of his heart.

He began to feel elated.Now it's finally done.He removed the paper funnel, inserted the fuse into the rubber tube head, and started to collect the drill and empty bottles, but then he thought: "What am I doing?" He picked up the loaded shotgun and was about to strike a match when he heard movement at the kitchen door.He swung the shotgun sharply, cocked the double-barreled trigger, and walked into the kitchen.It turned out to be just the doe goat trying to break in again.He suddenly burst into flames, and withdrew his gun to hit it on the head.But suddenly an idea popped into his mind.

"You want to come in, come in," he murmured, opening the door wide to let it in. It looked at him with its eyes, then looked around and walked in with a slow murmur, as if it was the first time it was here. Giggling maliciously, he returned to the bedroom to light a match.The mother goat followed him curiously, and just as he lit the fuse, she cocked her neck and peered around his legs.Saint Peter didn't see the goat follow him into the bedroom.As soon as the fuse started to burn, he turned and ran.The goat thought he was going after it, and turned and ran away.But it went in the wrong direction, and by the time St. Peter saw it it was too late.He tripped over the goat and fell to the ground. "There are sheep, be careful!" He yelled when he fell. He forgot to let go of the trigger of the shotgun still in his hand, with the stock facing forward, with which he had intended to beat the goat's head. The butt hit the floor, and the twin barrels went off.Large buckshot slammed into the front of the safe, and behind it was a half pint of nitroglycerin. Oddly enough, the house disintegrated in only three directions: the front, the back and the top.The front of the house flew across the street, and things like beds, tables, chests of drawers and hand-painted ceramic chamber pots all crashed into the front of the neighbor's house.Clothes from the Blissful Sisters—some dating from the 1920s—are strewn across the street like strangely colored bedspreads.At the back of the house, the kitchen stove, refrigerator, dining table and chairs, St. Peter's berth and lock box, and kitchen utensils, etc. were carried, and they flew over the back fence and rushed into the open space.Later, homeless people sleeping in that area were able to cook a luxurious vegetable stew that had not been seen for several months.The corrugated iron garage was moved a hundred feet away intact, leaving the Lincoln limousine naked in the sun.And the roof part including the attic, together with the old upright piano, the throne of the Blissful Sisters and the memorial box, all flew across the sky, and long after the explosion sound gradually subsided, the sound of the piano could still be heard somewhere far away. Ring alone. The blasted outer door of the safe flew backwards along with the kitchen stove.The steel inner door exploded like a bulging paper bag with a hard punch.Fragments of hundred-dollar bills flew like green leaves in a hurricane.Later that day, people as far as ten blocks away were picking up pieces of bills, and some neighbors had spent the winter trying to piece them together. But the floor of the house was unharmed.All loose debris has been swept away, not an inch remains, only the smooth wood and linoleum surfaces are damaged. After the bombing, it was difficult to tell where St. Bo and the goat went, but no matter where they went, they must have been close to each other, because two assistants of the Bronx County Forensics Department It was impossible to distinguish the fragments of the goat from the fragments of Saint Peter's body, and those were the only remnants available for study. The crux of the commotion was that St. Peter had never blown a safe before.In fact, to blow up the safe, you only need to use one-fifth of the nitroglycerin instead of sending him and the whole house to be buried with him.