The Friends of Eddie Coyle

by George V. Higgins

  “I know how you feel,” Waters said.

  “Particularly since we missed the revolutionaries,” Foley said. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody.”

  20

  Robert L. Biggers of Duxbury, having been unable to sleep, dawdled over breakfast and read the Herald thoroughly. His wife walked sleepily into the kitchen with the baby as he was getting his coat. “Your head hurt or something?” she said.

  “No more’n usual,” he said, “why?”

  “You’re up so early,” she said. “I thought something was the matter.”

  “Nothing at all,” he said, “I just thought, you know, it’s the early bird that catches the worm. I get in early today, I can wrap up those Christmas Club promotions and maybe get home at a decent hour, for once.”

  “Have a good day,” she said.

  “I will,” he said. He kissed her goodbye.

  Robert Biggers locked his car and walked through the parking lot at the West Marshfield Shopping Plaza toward the principal office of the Massachusetts Bay Cooperative Bank. He used his key to open the front door of the bank. He locked the door behind him. He went directly to the coat closet, removing his trench coat, and hung it up. He emerged from the anteroom, humming a Supremes song he had heard on his way to work. Facing him was a medium-sized man. The man wore an orange nylon ski parka and a nylon stocking mask. In his right hand the man held an enormous black revolver.

  “What the fuck?” Robert Biggers said.

  The man motioned to his own right with the revolver.

  Robert Biggers said: “What the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck is going on?”

  “Move,” the man said.

  In the branch officer’s private office, Harry Burrell sat in his chair with his hands clasped across his stomach. There were two more men in the office with him. They wore orange nylon parkas and nylon stockings over their faces. Each of them had a black revolver.

  “We’re being held up, Bob,” Harry said. “I hope you and the rest of the staff won’t do anything courageous or foolish, which is much the same thing in these circumstances. These men have a friend with them. He’s at my house with my wife, who is probably having hysterics by now. They’ve assured me they don’t want to hurt anyone, they only want the money. You’re to stay here until the normal opening time and then go about your business. When the time lock opens, they will take the money and leave. I will go with them. Just don’t do anything to interfere with them, and everything will be all right.”

  “My God,” Robert Biggers said.

  “It’s not all unusual,” Harry Burrell said. “I’ve been in this business for thirty-six years. I’ve been held up, this is the fourth time. It’s been my experience that people like this’re generally telling the truth. They want the money. They don’t want to hurt us. If we can keep calm, we’ll be all right.”

  “None of this is happening,” Robert Biggers said.

  “I’m afraid it is,” Harry Burrell said. “Just keep calm and everything will be all right. Now, I have something for you to do. Can you handle it?”

  “Of course,” Biggers said.

  “Go out front,” Harry Burrell said. “As the rest of the people arrive, let them in. Close the door each time. Take them into the cloakroom and explain to them what’s going on, and that they’re not to do anything that would jeopardize anyone. Keeping in mind that my wife’s under a gun at home. Can you do that?”

  One of the men spoke. “Just keep everybody nice and easy,” he said. “No commotion, no alarm, no nothing. That’s what he wants you to do.”

  “I can do that,” Robert Biggers said.

  “Fine,” Harry Burrell said. “You go ahead now, and remember, I’m relying on you.”

  Robert Biggers sat at his desk and made no pretense of working. His mind ran furiously, in no apparent direction. As the three tellers arrived he let them in, made the same explanation to each—“We’re being robbed. They’re waiting for the time lock to open. Don’t make any noise, or do anything. There’s another man with Mrs. Burrell, waiting.”—and ushered them to the cloakroom.

  Nancy Williams was the only one who did not react calmly. She was nineteen, just out of high school the previous June. Her eyes opened very wide. “You’re kidding me,” she said.

  “No,” he said.

  “They’re really here?” she said.

  They were standing in the corridor next to the coat closet. One of the men with guns had padded up while they were talking. Nancy Williams turned around and stared into the black revolver. “Oh my God,” she said.

  Robert Biggers felt a surge of wrathful protectiveness. On three Thursday evenings, after eight o’clock closing, he had taken Nancy Williams to dinner at the Post House. He had purchased several drinks for her. Then he had taken her to the Lantern Lodge and undressed her and screwed the socks off her. She was young and firm, and her nipples came up fast under tweaking. “Hey,” he said.

  “Get to work, sweetie,” the man said. He motioned with the gun again. “You too, Gene Autry. Never mind this hacking around in the coat closet.”

  Nancy Williams hesitated, then walked toward the tellers’ cages.

  “Nice piece of ass,” the man said. “You ripping off some of that?”

  Robert Biggers stared at him.

  “Look,” the man said, “I don’t care what you’re doing. I was just asking. Now get the hell over there and mind your own god-damned business. Go on.”

  Robert Biggers returned to his desk.

  At eight fifty-two the time lock released. Harry Burrell and the other two men emerged from Burrell’s office. One man stood with a revolver pointed at Mr. Burrell. The other two men stuck their guns in their belts and removed green plastic bags from under their coats. They entered the vault. In a while one of them emerged with two bags bulging. He went inside again. In a few minutes, both of the men came out.

  “May I have your attention?” Mr. Burrell said. “I am going to leave now with these men. We are going to my house. We will pick up the man who is still at my house. Then I will go with these men. They will release me when they feel they are safe. For my sake, do nothing until ten o’clock. Keep the shades drawn until nine-fifteen. Then let people in, and do the best you can to appear calm and that everything is all right. If anyone wants a large sum in currency, tell them the time lock is stuck and I’ve gone to get assistance. Is that clear?”

  The tellers nodded.

  Mr. Burrell and the man with him left by the rear door. The other two men stood at the vault. They had their guns out again. One of them put his gun in his belt. The other held his gun in his right hand. Each man stooped slightly to pick up the green plastic bags.

  Robert Biggers moved his left foot slowly to the left under the desk and hit the alarm button. His face relaxed as he hit it. It was a silent alarm. It rang only in the police station.

  The man with the gun in his hand said: “What did you do?”

  Robert Biggers looked at him.

  “I said what did you do?” the man said.

  Robert Biggers stared at him.

  “You hit the fucking alarm,” the man said. “You stupid fuck.”

  “I didn’t,” Robert Biggers said.

  “You lying bastard,” the man said. The black revolver came up slowly. “I told you not to do that. And you did it. You stupid fuck.”

  The revolver kicked hard against the man’s bent right arm. As it kicked, Biggers was coming out of the chair to protest. The slug caught him in the belly and he reeled backward in the chair. The second slug hit him just to the right of the center of his chest and tipped him over the right arm of his chair, the surprised, innocent, protesting look still on his face.

  “The rest of you motherfuckers,” the man said, “get in the fucking vault.”

  The tellers began to scramble. Nancy Williams had a perplexed expression on her face.

  “Get in the fucking vault,” the man said. He waved them into the vault. He slammed the door behind
them and spun the locking wheel. “Come on,” he said.

  The second man was already halfway down the corridor to the rear entrance, carrying all three bags of money. In the business area of the bank, Robert L. Biggers bled over the arm of the chair, the blood dripping down slowly onto the gold and orange carpeting, the look of stunned, protesting innocence settling into the features of his face.

  In the parking lot the two men hurled the bags of money into a white Plymouth sedan. In a green Pontiac sedan, the first man sat with Harry Burrell. The man who had shot Biggers shouted: “Bingo. For Christ sake, Bingo.”

  The first man brought his revolver up and whacked Harry Burrell at the base of his skull with the barrel. Burrell sagged off to the left of the rear seat. The man stripped his mask off, opening the door as he did so. “I’ll get him,” he said. “Same place. Go.”

  The other two men were backing the Plymouth around. It left the parking lot swiftly, but without peeling any rubber. When it reached the parking lot in front of the bank, it was moving quickly, but not conspicuously so. Each of the occupants had removed his nylon stocking.

  The green Pontiac emerged from behind the bank and swung through the parking lot. It proceeded east, in the direction opposite from that taken by the other car.

  21

  The receptionist spoke apologetically. “I asked him for his name, Mr. Foley,” she said, “and he wouldn’t give it.”

  Foley said that was all right and picked up the telephone. “Foley,” he said.

  “This is Eddie,” the voice said. “I know you’re busy and all, but I was wondering how that turned out. Did you make the grab?”

  “Yeah,” Foley said. “I was going to try to get in touch with you and then I decided it’d be better if I didn’t. Yeah, it went fine, just fine. He had five M-sixteens, just like you said.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said. “Glad to hear it. He’s gonna get indicted and all?”

  “I think so,” Foley said.

  “Fine,” Eddie said. “Now does that do it?”

  “Do what?” Foley said.

  “You said you needed a reason,” Eddie said. “That day I saw you, we talked about this New Hampshire thing, and you said you needed a reason. You gonna come up there with me now and tell them what a nice guy I am?”

  “You mean that truck thing,” Foley said. “The booze.”

  “Hey, Dave,” Eddie said, “don’t jerk my chain, okay? You know what I mean. You gonna go through for me?”

  “I already made the call,” Foley said. “I called the U.S. Attorney up there and I told him you were instrumental in bringing about a major arrest, and that as a result of your cooperation, we confiscated five stolen military machine guns and arrested a known dealer in stolen guns. Okay?”

  “I hope so,” Eddie said. “You think it’ll work?”

  “I dunno,” Foley said, “he’s pretty mean, that guy up there. He took it all down and I asked him what he thought of it, and he said: ‘Well, it’s a start, anyway.’ ”

  “What does that mean?” Eddie said.

  “I told him we couldn’t’ve made the case without you, and he said: ‘All right. Now, is he working on anything else for you? I’d like it better if he was working on something else for you.’ ”

  “Anything else?” Eddie said. “He isn’t satisfied?”

  “I don’t know whether he’s satisfied or not,” Foley said. “I’m telling you what he said. He said he’d like it better if you were working on something else for us. You know how it is, it’s one thing to just go and trade one guy for another one, but when you got a guy that’s joined up, that’s going to be sending you some more stuff, well, you got more to go with, is all. I suppose that’s what’s on his mind.”

  “Shit,” Eddie said.

  “Hey look,” Foley said, “I don’t blame the guy. He’s in a different district, you know? His guys grabbed you and grabbed you fair and square. And you didn’t plead out on him, you made him go through a trial and you didn’t have a prayer of winning, just because you didn’t want to play ball with him.”

  “He wanted me to fink on the guys that stole the stuff,” Eddie said.

  “Well, I know that,” Foley said. “You can’t blame him for that, can you? And you wouldn’t tell him. So he convicted you and now he’s got you in the box, and somebody from another district calls him up and says: ‘Coyle did me a favor. Leave him go.’ It’s only natural the man’s going to say, ‘Well, that’s very nice, but what’d he do for me? I still don’t have the guys that stole the booze. Why should I be doing favors for a guy that isn’t doing me any favors?’ And what do I say to that? I’d feel the same way, I was to get a call from somebody in New Hampshire telling me Jackie Brown did something for him. Dandy. But what’s Jackie Brown done for me?”

  “Is the kid doing anything for you?” Eddie said.

  “Let me put it this way,” Foley said. “I think he’s giving it some very serious thought. I kind of dropped it on him he was looking at a five-year stretch, and we might have to turn him over to the State, even though we didn’t want to, and if we did, well, if the State catches you with a machine gun, it’s life and forever plus two years on and after. He asked me what he’d probably get if he was convicted in federal court, and I leveled with him, I said it depends on the judge, probably anywhere from two years minimum to five years, the full route. Then, by then he’s been arraigned and made bail and so forth, and we’re in the elevator, and he says, ‘Okay, I’ll be seeing you, I guess. Where do I get my car back?’ And I give him the look and then the bad news: ‘You don’t get the car back, Jackie,’ I said. ‘That car was a vehicle being used to commit a crime, to transport contraband. It’s forfeited to the United States of America.’ And he looks at me like he can’t believe it and he says he paid four thousand dollars for the car, and I tell him, ‘Look, I know how you feel. But we don’t have no choice. That car is gone, and you might as well get used to it. It’ll be put into government service. Kiss the car goodbye.’ So he looks at me and I tell him some more: ‘The guy that had that Charger I’m driving,’ I said, ‘he felt the same way. It’s a tough thing, but there it is.’ So he knows we’re not kidding,” Foley said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he came around.”

  “Look,” Coyle said, “I can’t give him the guys he wants in New Hampshire. You got to call him up and explain that to him. If I do that I am dead, is all there is to it. He can’t ask me to go out and commit suicide for him.”

  “He’s not asking you for anything,” Foley said. “He didn’t ask you for Jackie Brown. That was your idea. You’re the one that’s asking for something.”

  “You were the one that said it,” Coyle said. “You said you hadda have a reason. So I give you a reason.”

  “That’s right,” Foley said. “I said I wouldn’t make any calls for you unless you did something for me. So you did something for me, and I went through, I made the call, just like it was our understanding. But the man I made the call to, he never got into this. He didn’t say he’d go to the judge if you got us a grab. He didn’t know a goddamned thing about it. I never said he did. You tipped us on Jackie so I’d make a call for you, and I made the call. You just don’t like what the call got you. I can’t help that, Eddie. You’re a big boy now.”

  “So now I got to do something for him,” Coyle said. “How the fuck do I do that? I’m never up in New Hampshire, I don’t know anything about what’s going on up there.”

  “You knew about the booze,” Foley said. “You knew and you wouldn’t tell. You were a stand-up guy. Stand-up guys go to jail, in most jurisdictions I know about.”

  “I couldn’t tell him about the booze,” Eddie said. “They’d’ve killed me. He should be able to understand that.”

  “He probably does understand it,” Foley said. “And anyway, he isn’t saying—he didn’t say you had to tell him about the booze. He said he’d like it better if he could go in to the judge and say you were a guy that made one good case for the uncle an
d was working on some others. Then he’d feel better about it, because it’d show that you rehabilitated yourself, that you weren’t just giving us a ransom for some time in jail for you. What he wants is something like that, is what I think.”

  “You’re telling me I gotta turn stoolie permanent,” Eddie said. “Permanent goddamned fink.”

  “I’m telling you nothing of the kind,” Foley said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, except one thing: you got to be in federal district court in New Hampshire in three weeks for disposition of a charge of stolen goods. That you got to do. If you don’t, they’ll put out a capias on you and the marshals’ll pick you up and drag you in. But that’s the only thing you got to do. Anything else you do is because you want to.”

  “It ain’t right,” Eddie said. “You set me up.”

  “Look, Eddie,” Foley said, “you go some place and have yourself a glass of beer and a long talk with yourself. The only one fucking Eddie Coyle is Eddie Coyle. You wanted a call. You gave me a grab to get the call. You got the call. You want something else, you start thinking about how to get that. You know where to reach me. You don’t want to reach me, that’s also all right. No hard feelings. We’re fair and square. I can certainly understand a man doesn’t want to rat on his friends. I know that. You got to understand the position I’m in. All I can give you is what I tell you I can give you, and I gave you that. What you do next is entirely up to you.”

  “I should’ve known better’n to trust a cop,” Eddie said. “My goddamned mother could’ve told me that.”

  “Everybody oughta listen to his mother,” Foley said. “You know where to reach me if you want to talk.”

  22

  Corporal Vardenais of the Massachusetts State Police was eating breakfast at two o’clock in the morning at the Eastern Airlines lunchroom at Logan Airport. Propped before him was the Record. He was reading a story headlined: “2ND BANKER DIES OF WOUNDS IN W. MARSHFIELD STICKUP.” The story said that Branch Manager Harold W. Burrell had died of a skull fracture suffered three days before when he was pistol-whipped during a sixty-eight thousand dollar robbery. It mentioned the shooting to death of Robert L. Biggers.