The Digger's Game

by George V. Higgins

  “That’s what I thought,” Harrington said.

  “Look,” the Digger said, “you had two thousand in the bank, any time you wanted that dough you could go down the bank and take it out, and it’s, you got a guarantee, right? That’s why this thing, you’re listening to me because you don’t have it in the bank, you did and you’d be down to Green Harbor with all the rest of the fat bastards. They, the money that’s here is here for somebody that hasn’t got it and wants it.”

  “I don’t know,” Harrington said.

  “Okay,” the Digger said, “that’s fine. I’m gonna take that, you’re not interested. And one more thing: forget you had this talk with me, right? I wouldn’t want to think you went out and told somebody anything.”

  “I didn’t mean that,” Harrington said.

  “You’re a nice guy,” the Digger said, “I like you. But you either gotta shit or get offa the fuckin’ pot, is all, I haven’t got time to wait around while you go this way and that and say, ‘Gee, Digger, gee.’ I like things to go right when I do something, get everything all set up ahead of time so everybody knows what he’s gotta do and what the other guys’ve gotta do. So make up your fuckin’ mind.”

  “I wished I knew more about it,” Harrington said.

  “You know all you’re gonna know unless you come in,” the Digger said. “I told you as much as I’m gonna.”

  Harrington said he would have another beer. When the Digger brought it, Harrington said, “Look, this’s gotta be something pretty big we’re after, two thousand for cab fare. There’s how many of us?”

  “Probably four,” the Digger said.

  “Okay,” Harrington said, “four. I got probably the easiest thing to do, I’m getting the two, you said, you told me, it’s gonna get you clear on the eighteen. Now I figure, that’s twenny thousand dollars, and them other guys, they’re not working for nothing. So there’s gotta be quite a bit of money coming out of this.”

  “Harrington,” the Digger said, “the two is tops. Don’t gimme none of that shit. I can get five guys in ten minutes, do it for a grand. I’m being nice to you, get it? You want to stall around with somebody, go down the Lincoln-Mercury and pretend you can afford the Mark, there. I don’t go no higher.”

  “No,” Harrington said, “I didn’t mean that. It’s just, this isn’t no bank or anything, is it?”

  “No bank,” the Digger said.

  “Okay,” Harrington said. “Okay. No bank, I’m in.”

  “Beautiful,” the Digger said. “I guarantee you, you’ll never regret it.”

  “Now,” Harrington said, finishing his beer, “tell me if I’m wrong. It’s jewelry, right? Gotta be jewelry. Isn’t anything else worth that kind of money, except money, four guys can move that fast.”

  “You object to jewelry?” the Digger said.

  “Digger,” Harrington said, “I object to no money, that’s what I object to.”

  “You don’t object to jewelry,” the Digger said.

  “I’d take pennies if I could get enough of them,” Harrington said.

  “Because this is something like your cherry,” the Digger said. “Once it’s gone, you’re in. No way of going back.”

  “I know,” Harrington said. “Where’s the jewelry?”

  “Isn’t jewelry,” the Digger said. “Look, you read the paper, what kinda ads you see inna paper this time of year?”

  “I don’t read them,” Harrington said. “I’m always giving the wife a whole bunch of money for stuff, kids’re going back to school and that, we gotta practically buy out Zayre’s. I dunno. We’re not stealing kids’ clothes.”

  “No,” the Digger said. “See, you’re wasting your money on the paper. You oughta look at them ads better. We’re stealing furs.”

  “Hey,” Harrington said.

  “Sure,” the Digger said. “All them guys down the beach, they all think: this is the year I get the wife a mink stole. Them other guys, can afford the minks, their wives already got a stole, wear to the supermarket or something. They want a nice chinchilla. So naturally, all them guys, sell furs, got the ads in. All over the place there’s them trucks coming in with furs. And that is the real stuff, you know? That stuff moves.”

  “Holy shit,” Harrington said.

  “We’re gonna get ourselves a trailer load of that stuff,” the Digger said. “A whole fuckin’ trailer load.”

  “We got a buyer?” Harrington said.

  “This friend of mine,” the Digger said, “he’s got a buyer. Except, well, we’re not really stealing furs. Look, the guy that’s buying the furs?”

  “Yeah,” Harrington said.

  “Well,” the Digger said, “the less you know, the better off you are, but he’s also the guy, you go back far enough and you look at everything and all, that we’re stealing the furs from. He knows we’re stealing them.”

  “Ah,” Harrington said, “insurance.”

  “Yeah,” the Digger said. “See what I mean, this’s a tit? We’re stealing insurance. See what I mean, safe?”

  “Beautiful,” Harrington said.

  “You bet,” the Digger said. “We take them furs out of the place that the guy owns, and we turn them over to a guy runs another place, and the guy that owns the other place is gonna sell them and the first guy howls like a bastard, all his furs’re gone. Then he’s gonna get the insurance, and he keeps his stock up, he’s gonna buy from the guy we sell to. He’s gonna buy his own stuff from the guy we sold it to, with the insurance money. Nice, huh?”

  “Jesus,” Harrington said, “I’d rather know him’n you. He’s doing better’n any of us.”

  “No,” the Digger said, “he don’t want to do this, you know. He’s gotta.”

  “Shit,” Harrington said.

  “You see the Super Bowl,” the Digger said.

  “Yeah,” Harrington said. “Shitty game, I thought. Baltimore.”

  “Onna field goal,” the Digger said. “Last-minute fuckin’ field goal, all right?

  “The guy that owns the stuff,” the Digger said, “he missed the spread on that field goal. Cost him one hundred thousand dollars. He’s been paying juice a long time. He’s through. He’s getting even.”

  “THE GREEK WAS IN,” Schabb said. “He had a whole lot of things on his mind.”

  “I know, I know,” Torrey said. “I got home, one this morning. I was absolutely beat. I actually, onna way up there’s this girl, little heavy, but I look her over and she didn’t mind, you know? I would’ve invited her up for a drink. Not this trip. I was so tired all I wanted to do was sleep.”

  “Well,” Schabb said, “the Greek was right about that one, anyway. He said you’d fuck yourself out down there.”

  “The Greek, the Greek,” Torrey said. “That don’t make me tired. I been onna steady jump for almost a week. You see a guy and you talk to him. Then you see somebody else. Looks like a pretty good deal, but first you better check and see what this other guy can do, You’re making calls, it’s this and that, you got to fly all over the place on these dinky little planes that scare the living shit out of you. It comes right out of you. I, the screwing’s not as good there as it is here.”

  “Keep that quiet,” Schabb said. “I plan to say something else, it looks as though saying something else’d make a difference.”

  “Shit,” Torrey said, “tell them there’s an ocean full of mermaids down there, you want. They’ll have a better time gettin’ screwed’n I had setting up the screwing no matter what you tell them. Then I get home, I take a couple aspirin, practically fall on my face I’m so drunk, I drink like a bastard onna plane, only way I can stop myself from jumping out, and then bang, six thirty, the phone rings. It’s the Greek. That fuckin’ guy, he was probably in bed before it’s dark last night.”

  “He didn’t go for the trip,” Schabb said. “That was one thing that bothered him.”

  “I know,” Torrey said. “And the Digger paid him out and pissed on his shoe for him, and now it’s this and that,
that fuckin’ guy. That fuckin’ guy. He’s turnin’ into a regular fuckin’ pain in the ass.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with him?” Schabb said. “He was all right when he started. Now, nothing you do suits him.”

  “He’s got two things the matter with him,” Torrey said. “He lost his nerve. That’s the first thing. Then he gets greedy. All at once. He diddles along for twenny years with this pissy-ass little operation of his. Then he gets this. He starts counting his dough from this, and he likes that all right, but he’s still sweating the diddly-shit he gets from the other.”

  “That’s his regular business,” Schabb said.

  “His regular business is dogshit,” Torrey said. “He’s down the G.E. all the time, two hundred guys, five bucks apiece, six back on payday. The really big stickers go for twenty, twenty-four back. Chickenshit six for five, week after fuckin’ week. He’s had about three K a week turning over there ever since the Korean War, and he takes out six big ones a week. He don’t pay more’n a point a week back, he’s had it so long, two at the most, he’s probably got his own dough in it now. Fifteen, sixteen, twenty, thirty a year he takes in, and he’s loving it. He should’ve stayed at it. Nobody ever would’ve bothered him. He was small shit and he was happy being small shit. He could’ve joined the fuckin’ Chamber of Commerce.

  “Then the fuckin’ Strike Force gets Mister Green,” Torrey said. “I still say it’s a bad rap, conspiracy to, for gambling. Shit. Mister Green never touched no gambling in his life. Strictly money. He wouldn’t know a horse from a fuckin’ beagle, for Christ sake. He looked like a fuckin’ minister or something. That guy was big. He probably had, I would say he probably had two or three million moving around.”

  “Cash?” Schabb said.

  “Cash,” Torrey said. “Checks made out to cash he gets back from the heavy trade, two mill at least. I bet I’m low. He was thinking about taking this, his case’s on appeal and he decides it’s probably not worth the risk. But he wasn’t very hot for it anyway. Too small for Mister Green, this thing.”

  “We can generate five thousand dollars a week in points on this,” Schabb said.

  “He figured that,” Torrey said. “Matter of fact, he thought it might go ten, even more. ‘But it’s spread all over the place,’ he says. ‘I got to have guys running around. And this thing I’ve got, it could be problems. I tell you, lemme think about it. I’ll give it to somebody for a while, this thing gets settled. I trip over something, I could get five or six years for this. I gotta be careful.’

  “Yeah,” Torrey said, “well, they turn him down, appeal, and he’s getting ready, do the five. Only, see, his lawyer didn’t tell him something, so he don’t know, he thinks all he needs is somebody mind the store maybe two or three years. So he cops out, he says he can’t beat it if he tries it, there’s no way around it, his great lawyer says, he’ll just end up getting more time if he does. Only, they got this new thing, they can do before they try you, they got this, they say, ‘Organized crime.’ You know what that does?”

  “No,” Schabb said.

  “No,” Torrey said. “Mister Green didn’t know either. Well, they get you on something with a five-year top, they can whack you thirty fuckin’ years.”

  “Ah,” Schabb said.

  “And they did it to him,” Torrey said. “Thing comes up, one of them motherfuckin’ micks up there, and they give him twenty years. His lawyer’s standing there, big dumb grin on his face, the judge gives him the twenty. He says, right inna courtroom, ‘Twenty years? I hear you right?’ The clerk says, ‘Twenty years, to be served.’ Mister Green says, ‘You fuckin’ asshole’; see, he’s talking to his lawyer. The judge gives him another six months for contempt, on and after. Then the lawyer sees the judge after, talks him out of the six months. But he’s still doing twenty.

  “So now,” Torrey said, “now, they revoke bail on him, and he’s gonna appeal again, incompetence of counsel, but he’s going away while they think that one over, he don’t have no time, make arrangements, nobody can see him except his family, which he don’t tell nothing to, and his fuckin’ dumb lawyer, that he’s all through talking to, he can’t do nothing. So the other guys get together, they take Jesse Bloom and the Greek and they just, they give Bloom the heavy stuff and they give the Greek me. ‘Take care of things awhile. Just take care of things, we figure something out. Don’t get no ideas, it’s yours.’

  “All of a sudden,” Torrey said, “all these years, Greek and Bloom’re big league. Bloom, I think he would’ve made it anyway. The Greek, no way. He’s playing with more dough inna week, he’s used to seeing inna month. It threw him, is all. He’s got everybody all upset. He’s treating major guys like they’re into him for ten a week down the G.E. People’re getting calls: ‘The fuck is it with this guy, he’s gonna piss his pants or something, somebody doesn’t do something.’ And they stall around. And the Greek, he decides he needs some muscle up the Beach, he sends up a couple guys and he don’t set them straight, they beat up a wrong guy, doesn’t owe the Greek money. And he happens to be a guy, he’s not into anything but he knows who is, and he’s a guy that as a result knows some guys to call. And he calls them. And they don’t care what Mister Green says, and they don’t care what nobody else says, it’s either the Greek gets taken off that stuff or they hit him. So, he gets taken off, they take him off that and they give him something a baby couldn’t fuck up.

  “Mill,” Torrey said, “you can’t shine shit. This’s what they give the Greek. They give him me. They give Bloom the heavy stuff, the way they see it, they give me the Greek. See what happens, you got a nice thing up to Lynn and you start thinking, you got your feet up onna desk someday and you think, ‘This could be all right?’ You get the word back, go ahead, expand, and then they tell you, you win the Greek.

  “Oh no,” Torrey said, “I tell them that. That’s what’s the reason, nothing’s moving up there, the word’s out the Greek’s got the old business and he’s fuckin’ crazy. ‘You gimme Bloom. Mister Green comes out, I’ll have a nice thing going here, I got a good man, help me, Mister Green can leave Bloom this and Bloom won’t bitch at all. Gimme Bloom.’

  “Nothing doing,” Torrey said. “They’re not giving me Bloom. The Greek. You want this, all right. Greek’s part of the price. Bloom’s doing all right. You get the Greek onna track again.

  “I go see the Greek,” Torrey said. “I hadda lot of trouble doing that, even. I call him, I get his wife. She says, ‘He’s not here.’ I say, ‘Have him call me.’ Then I wait. He don’t call. Next day, I call him again. I get his wife. ‘He’s out, he’s not here.’ Okay. I tell her, ‘Have him call me, willya? It’s important.’ I wait. He don’t call.

  “I know what he thinks,” Torrey said. “He thinks, ‘All them guys screaming and yelling, Richie’s calling for the Office. Gonna take things away from me.’ I know that. He’s not calling me because he don’t wanna hear that. He’s calling other guys, though, he’s got time enough for that, he gets them calls all right. He’s telling them, how good he’s doing, he wants them to call me off. I want them to call me off. They’re all laughing at both of us.

  “So finally,” Torrey said, “one of them says, ‘For Christ sake, Greek, willya leave me alone, call Richie, willya? He don’t want anything you got. It’s something else.’

  “He calls me,” Torrey said. “It’s like I’m tryin’, collect a bill off him. You know where he picks, I’m supposed to meet him? Onna plaza, front of City Hall, lunchtime.

  “I say, ‘Look, Greek, you look to me like a man that was worried about something.’ He says, ‘I got a lot of big money out. I gotta be careful.’ Careful, he says. Sure, we’re talking about business in front of the whole goddamned world, he’s telling me about being careful, fuckin’ asshole. I say, ‘Greek, willya calm the fuck down? The Office, they gimme something, I’m supposed to see you about business. There’s no contract, all right? Nobody’s gonna do anything, you.’

  “After that I cal
l them,” Torrey said. “I told them, this guy’s gonna have a fuckin’ baby. He’s hearing footsteps. He’s not gonna work out. I got a good thing here. He’s gonna ruin it. For Christ sake, gimme Bloom, put the Greek back on six for five. Please.

  “ ‘No,’ they say,” Torrey said. “The Greek’s my responsibility. He’s, I’m what they’re doing, the Greek, keep him quiet, Mister Green gets out. ‘Mister Green’s not getting out,’ I tell them. ‘He gets out, the Greek’s gonna fuck things up so bad by then, Mister Green’s gonna have to sell razor blades, for Christ sake. Gimme Bloom, for Christ sake.’ No, I gotta keep the Greek, Mister Green’s gonna get out, the Greek’ll have this, everything’s gonna be all right. I don’t believe them, they don’t believe me. No, I got the Greek.”

  “Well,” Schabb said, “I don’t know about them, but I believe you, Richie. That guy has gone haywire.”

  “Of course he has,” Torrey said. “I said, ‘Look, this’ll make the Greek worse. It won’t make him better, it’ll make him worse. He’ll get nervous and he’ll do something else. I can’t control the bastard, he’s fuckin’ crazy. There must be somebody else. Lemme have Bloom. I can’t have Bloom, lemme have somebody else, don’t shit his pants, he gets the big nut. Not this asshole.’ They tell me, ‘No.’ I’m supposed to shape him up and quiet him down. Well of course there ain’t no way to do that. I tell you, Mill, you come around, I was interested, I talk to you, I didn’t know it’s gonna turn out like this, that fuckin’ old lady, I really didn’t.”

  “Hey, look,” Schabb said, “you never gave me any guarantee. I knew what I was getting into. Maybe there’s some way, we can get the Greek straightened out so a human being can live with him for a while.”

  “My friend,” Torrey said, “there’s only one thing you can do with the Greek, make him fit to live with.”

  “Well,” Schabb said, “let’s hear about it. This has got the makings of a good thing. I know, I can tell. There’s a market for what we can do. There’s nobody else trying for it, the way we are. We play this right, we’re going to take them guys and then get repeat business. We know the guys, we know the places, we know where we can get the money. We’ve got to consider what we stand to lose here.”