The Digger's Game

by George V. Higgins

  Magro jumped off the platform. He trotted across the pavement. The Digger went through the hole in the fence. He held it open for Magro. Together they bent the fabric back against the previous bend and tangled some of the cut ends together.

  They straightened up quickly and put their hands in their pockets. At the Cabot Street end of the alley five moviegoers turned in. The Digger and Magro were back-to to the moviegoers, and about ninety yards ahead of them, when they reached the Post Office lot. Several people had reached the lot by different routes. The Digger and Magro got into the Mercury. It started at the same time as four other cars.

  Magro swung the Mercury out of the lot and into the movie traffic. He turned right on Cabot Street and headed north, toward Commonwealth Avenue.

  Twelve minutes after the Vega pulled out of the alley, Magro turned left on Commonwealth Avenue and proceeded at the legal limit toward the Massachusetts Turnpike. At the same time the Newton Police, hampered by the movie traffic and using no sirens, parked four prowl cars near Pavilion, two in front and two in back.

  “Keep in mind, now,” Sergeant Duggan said, “that’s a silent alarm. There could be guys in there with guns, and they don’t know we’re coming. You don’t get paid for getting shot.”

  THE GREEK surveyed the turquoise shag rug in Schabb’s private office. Schabb sat behind a kidney-shaped birch desk; the kneehole was screened in woven cane. Torrey sat to the left in a brown Naugahyde chair, set on a chromium pedestal. There was a Panasonic pop-up television set on the desk; the telephone was in a walnut box. Two prints of Degas paintings were on the wall.

  “All right,” the Greek said. “I see it all.”

  “Just what do you think, Greek?” Schabb said.

  “I tell you,” the Greek said, “originally I come in here, I open the door and there’s this crotch at the desk there, I was gonna say, ‘Excuse me, must’ve got off the wrong floor.’ So I take a quick look at the door, it says, ‘Regent,’ I gotta be inna right place, there’s nothing wrong with the brain or anything. It’s just, the last time I’m here, there’s no tits in a see-through blouse staring me inna face when I come in.”

  “She’s got a bra on, Greek,” Torrey said.

  “I know she’s got a bra on,” the Greek said. “I could see the fuckin’ bra, don’t forget. I figure we’re gonna spend all this time on it, I would’ve read the fuckin’ label. She’s also got a mole on her left one, where the bra goes down, there.

  “So I think to myself, Richie’s gone and done it. Then I see the rag, and the cabinets, and I, I don’t see you guys. So I say to Miss Tits, where are you? And she says, ‘Who?’ Well, them two guys, the one that eats you and the one pays you money so the first one can eat you. Them guys. Your fuckin’ employers.”

  Torrey got up and shut the door. “Greek,” he said, “you really got a mouth on you like a fuckin’ sewer, you know that?”

  “The worst thing I ever put in my mouth was a cigar,” the Greek said. “I know some guys can’t say that. Now this is my money too. I gotta right to know what’s going on. All of a sudden this thing I own part of gets turned into a fuckin’ first-line whorehouse and nobody ever sent me no letter or nothing. How much does Miss Tits cost? That’s for openers. Then we get to the rest of this shit you guys’ve got all of a sudden.”

  “That kid is Joanie Halb,” Torrey said. “I know her brother, took himself a bad one down the track about four years ago, swapping spit boxes. She’s a nice kid and I’m helping a guy out. Eighty-five a week and she can answer the phone and do typing. That’s all she is and that’s all she does.”

  “He’s gonna eat her,” the Greek said, to Schabb. “By ten fifteen today she’ll blow him. And private offices too, huh? How much this cost?”

  “Two eighty on paper,” Schabb said. “Two sixty, actually. It was two eighty for this, they knocked the wall out. But for the two of them, five twenty.”

  “What about all this shit you got in here?” the Greek said. “Them hairy rugs, this museum shit. How much am I out on this?”

  “Total?” Schabb said, hesitating and looking at Torrey.

  “Total,” the Greek said, “and never mind waiting for him to give you the word. I think I gotta right, know how mucha my money you assholes’re throwing out the window ’thout asking me.”

  “Around three hundred a month,” Schabb said. “I’m not sure on the rugs, yet. We rent the rest of the stuff.”

  “That’s a hundred of mine,” the Greek said. He looked at Torrey. “I figure, about one eighty a month of my money this little thing of yours, you didn’t even ask me. I gotta loan around a thousand and make four calls to make that. That’s a nice goddamned thing to find out. You fuckin’ cocksucker, I could fuckin’ kill you for this.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” Torrey said, “because Miller suggested it and I thought it’d be a good idea and I really didn’t give a shit whether you liked it or not.”

  The Greek sat down fast. He did not say anything. He kept his face clear of expression.

  “You want a cup of coffee, Greek?” Schabb said.

  “If I do,” the Greek said, looking at Torrey, “I suppose I got to go out for it. I’m the nigger now, is that it?”

  “Hell, no,” Schabb said. “We’ve got the pot right up here.”

  “I don’t want no fuckin’ coffee,” the Greek said.

  “He drinks it black, Mill,” Torrey said. “Have Joanie bring him in a cup. You’ll be all right, Greek. Nothing like a nice hot cup of coffee, shape a man up. Okay for your diet, too, right? See how we’re thinking about you?”

  “I said,” the Greek said, “I said I don’t want no fuckin’ coffee.”

  “Mill,” Torrey said, “have her bring him in the coffee.”

  Schabb said into the intercom, “Joanie, please bring Mister Almas a black coffee, no sugar.”

  The girl brought the coffee. She walked primly across the rug and set the cup on the desk. She walked primly back and looked inquiringly at Torrey. He shook his head. She went out and shut the door quietly.

  “Whyn’t you spill it on the rug, Greek?” Torrey said. “Maybe that’d make you feel better.”

  “You cuntlapper,” the Greek said.

  “Greek,” Torrey said, “have your coffee. Think about what you’re doing to yourself. You got a chance here, move into the big leagues to stay. You’re fucking it up. You’re fucking us up. I hate to see a man, don’t know what his own best interests are.”

  The Greek hunched forward in the chair. “You listen to me,” he said. “I been around longer’n you have and I know what I’m talking about. You’re the one that’s gonna fuck up. I seen guys like you before, didn’t know which end’s their ass and which end’s their fuckin’ tool. You’re gonna attract attention to this thing. You’re gonna fuck it up, and you’re gonna try to drag him and me down with you. Not me, Richie, not me. This here’s partly mine. You can go out inna street and wave your dick at the cabs, you want, it don’t matter to me. But my money, my money matters. Every time you spend a fuckin’ buck, thirty-four cents of it’s mine. Don’t tell me, my best interests, I get to come in once a week and a free cup of coffee, don’t gimme none of that shit. I’m the guy makes this thing go, and I’m not taking no more shit like this from you.”

  “Have some coffee, Greek,” Torrey said.

  “I don’t want no fuckin’ coffee,” the Greek said. “You’re fuckin’ with me, Richie, and I know a couple guys, fucked with me, they got in trouble.”

  “You’re right, Greek,” Torrey said. “I know both of them guys and you’re right. I apologize. One of them steals suits down to Robert Hall’s and he can’t understand it, nobody wants to buy them. I forget what the other guy’s doing. I think he’s stealing hubcaps offa Studebakers. Them the two guys you mean?”

  The Greek turned to look at Schabb. “You with him, Mill? Is that it? You and him against me?”

  “Look,” Schabb said, “I’m a nice guy. I came in with a guy that knows junket
s and a guy that knows how to collect. I thought this was just about what I was looking for. I thought it was just business. Turns out, it isn’t. I’d like somebody to tell me what kind of game we’re playing. Then I’ll pick sides, if I have to.”

  “I can kick the shit out of you, you know, Mister Schabb,” the Greek said. “It won’t cost me no more, kick the shit outa you along with him. You keeping that in mind?”

  “Greek,” Schabb said, leaning back in the chair, “I calculate that there’s about four million people who can kick the shit out of me. So far, nobody has. You know why?”

  The Greek did not answer.

  Schabb clasped his hands behind his head. “Nobody kicked the shit out of me,” he said, “because I always look around very carefully before I do anything. And when I see a fellow, looks as though he might kick the shit out of me, I avoid him. I don’t think I’d like what he might have in mind.”

  “Well,” the Greek said, “how’s your vision now?”

  “Pretty good,” Schabb said. “I shaved this morning and I didn’t cut myself.”

  “Good,” the Greek said. “Now, me and Richie, we’ve sort of got you where one of us is probably gonna kick the shit out of you. So which way you gonna flop?”

  “Out,” Schabb said.

  “Out?” the Greek said, looking at Torrey. “Out, where? Ain’t no out. There’s me and there’s Richie. That is the lineup. There ain’t no out.”

  “There is for me,” Schabb said.

  “Lemme hear about it,” the Greek said. “I’m generally pretty good at seeing outs. Where is it?”

  “Well,” Schabb said, “you guys seem to be running a pissing contest here, right?” Neither the Greek nor Torrey answered. “Right,” Schabb said, “that’s what I thought. And it’s over the business. Now, what’s the business?”

  “Junkets and sharking,” the Greek said.

  “Nope,” Schabb said. “That’s what the business was before we started all these things. Richie had the junkets, you had the, well, lending business. That’s not this business. This business is the rugs and the prints and the girl and the files and the brochure. It’s the investment in the Holy Name tour. This business is me, fronting for you guys.”

  “I’m still listening,” the Greek said.

  “You better listen pretty close,” Torrey said. “That’s Mill’s polite way of telling you, he’s the business. He can do without us, mostly.”

  “Miller’s getting a little fat for my taste,” the Greek said. “Maybe I’m fighting the wrong guy.” To Schabb he said, “You’re saying you’re gonna run it, that it?”

  “Nope,” Schabb said. “I’m telling you, I know how to run something that’s different’n anything either one of you guys knows about. I can run it for you guys, because I need you guys, or I can run it for somebody else. Doesn’t matter to me. But I can tell you one thing, Greek: I’m not fighting anybody for it. Because all I have to do is leave, and I take this business with me, and you and Richie can beat each other shitless. It won’t matter a bit to me. I’m going to make this thing a genuine business. Those file cabinets, when I get them working, will give me a reliable list of guys who play hard and lose respectable amounts of money and pay up afterwards. Everything.”

  “I keep that in my head,” the Greek said.

  “I keep shit in my ass,” Torrey said. “Listen to the man for a change, willya? You really want to be chickenshit all your life? He knows something we don’t.”

  “I could take you apart right here, you know,” the Greek said to Richie.

  “You could get shot right here, too,” Richie said.

  “You got a lot of cheap talk,” the Greek said.

  “Depends on who’s getting the bill,” Torrey said. “I know a couple guys too, you know.”

  “Now that’s what I mean,” Schabb said. “I’ve got better things to do’n listen to you guys fight over bones. I think you’re a couple of assholes. You’re worse’n guys that sell stock. They spend all their time getting laid and drunk, no time for business. You guys fight all the time, no time for business. Two weeks from now, Greek, I can get by without either one of you. Six months from now, unless something happens that I sure can’t see, I can run it better all by myself. Those’re facts, Greek. So, you ask me who I’m with, I’m against both of you. You’re just an annoyance to me. Especially you. Richie’s at least creative enough to see what I can do.”

  “And in the meantime,” the Greek said, “inna meantime I go a third of Richie’s private office cunt. And your fuckin’ rugs and stuff. I’m the one that’s gotta go down to Dorchester there, nobody ever asks me what I think, you fuck up my regular business, and six months from now I’m just supposed to pack out.”

  “No,” Schabb said. “Six months from now you’ve got a third of a very going concern. All you got to do in the meantime is let somebody do things you’re not used to seeing done. Take a few risks, Greek. You could end up a respectable businessman.”

  “You got any idea how you piss me off?” the Greek said.

  “He doesn’t give a shit, Greek,” Torrey said.

  The Greek looked at Schabb.

  “I don’t give a shit either,” Torrey said. “I told him that. He’s not with me, Greek. I’m with him.”

  The Greek stared at each of them. “Lemme tell you something, Mister Schabb,” he said. “One of them great guys of yours, lives out to Dover, went to Vegas? Lost himself seven. I go around and see him, he said he wasn’t gonna pay. ‘Gambling debts’re uncollectible in Massachusetts,’ he says. I said, ‘Whaddaya mean? What is this shit?’ He says, ‘Go ahead and sue me. I talked to my lawyer. See how far you get.’

  “I look at him,” the Greek said. “I said, ‘Mister, I guess you probably don’t know much. I’m not suing you. I don’t sue nobody. Fuck suing. I been collecting money twenty years now. I never sued anybody in my life. That’s not the way it works.’

  “So he says, ‘Well, I’m not paying, otherwise.’ I said, ‘Yes you are. You just don’t know it yet. You’re gonna pay. You’re gonna pay every fuckin’ dime.’

  “He gets this little smile on his puss,” the Greek said. “See, I’m in his office, just like I’m in yours now, I’m used to that, I see that little kind of grin there, I know what’s going on. He’s got the Dictaphone on. Tryin’ to suck me in. ‘Are you threatening me, sir?’ he says, the asshole, thinks he can blow one by me like that. I say, ‘Look, sir, my advice to you, you go right down the FBI and you tell them everything I said. Only, I advise you, don’t tell them nothing I didn’t say, because I got a thing on me that puts everything I said to you on a tape I got down in the trunk of my car, and you tell them I said something I didn’t say, I’m gonna play that tape back and they can prosecute you for that.’ He don’t smile so much then. I say, ‘Them fellas the experts. You ask them, am I threatening you or not. Get it all off your chest. Then get the goddamned money up, all right?’ ”

  “So?” Torrey said.

  “This morning,” the Greek said, “I got a nice little check from that guy in Dover. Made out to cash, just like it’s supposed to be. And it’s good. I can tell by feeling it. And the next week and the week after. I don’t think I’m gonna have to sue him after all.”

  “Uh huh,” Schabb said.

  “You oughta think about that, Mister Schabb,” the Greek said, “about just what you got here, with Richie to help you. Richie’s just like the FBI. He’s good now, but inna middle of the night you can’t always get to him fast when you need him. I knew a guy, more’n one, goes bellyaching to the cops when somebody comes around to collect what he owes, they give him all kinds of stuff, they’ll protect him, he don’t have nothing to worry about. Then they go home and have dinner, and they go on vacation and all, and the next thing you know, somebody comes around when he don’t expect it and kind of run him up against a wall a few times, break his nose and some teeth and stuff, and he turns up with kidney trouble. I advise you, Mister Schabb, you think about just wher
e you are, and then you call me. I’ll give you a little time. I don’t want to be unreasonable with a partner, you know?”

  The Greek stood up. He stared at Schabb and he hitched up his pants.

  “I’ll give it some thought,” Schabb said.

  The Greek nodded. He stepped to the door and opened it. He turned to look at Torrey. “I’m not finished with you yet either, Richie,” he said. “I gotta think what I’m gonna do with you. I don’t like trouble. Trouble makes heat, and heat’s bad for business, and I don’t like that. But I think probably, you and me got something we’re probably gonna have to settle out, one way, the other.”

  “Your convenience,” Torrey said.

  The Greek left the room. He did not close the door. He walked past Joanie Halb without saying anything. He opened the outer door and went out and closed the door behind him.

  Torrey leaned back when the outer door closed. “Now lemme ask you,” he said, “you still think there’s a way, get along with that guy?”

  “No way in the world,” Schabb said.

  “So that leaves what I been thinking about,” Torrey said. “You got any idea what that is?”

  “Yeah,” Schabb said.

  “You got any objections?” Torrey said.

  “Nope,” Schabb said. “Somebody doesn’t do something to him, I got his promise he’ll do something to me. That cuts down on the objections, fast.”

  “You gonna help?” Torrey said.

  “Yeah,” Schabb said.

  “It’s gonna be early inna morning,” Torrey said.

  “Look,” Schabb said, “I’d rather it was him early in the morning, me late at night.”

  IN THE AFTERNOON Harrington inquired about the possibility of another job.

  “Jesus,” the Digger said, “you’re like one of them cheerleaders in high school, got a taste of the dog and now you can’t leave it alone.”

  “I was looking at boats,” Harrington said. “The two’ll buy a nice one. But no dock and all, I’m gonna have to tow it. For that I need a new car. I’ll rip the transmission right out of the Ford, I pull a boat with it. I was just wondering.”