“My friend,” the Digger said, “you get a gaff job like that once in a lifetime. Another one comes along, though, I’ll tell you. Hell, I’ll give this place back to Evvie Malloy and she can give it back to O’Dell, all I care. I could get one of them a month, I’d sleep till noon every day.”
“Sure,” Harrington said. “Well, I was just wondering. See, I was reading the Record today and all.”
“That’s what I kind of thought,” the Digger said. “I figured that was it.”
“I didn’t mean nothing, Dig,” Harrington said. “I was just saying.”
“You seen the reward ad,” the Digger said.
“It was kind of hard not to,” Harrington said. “Twenty-five thousand and all, that insurance company.”
“You should’ve tried harder, my friend,” the Digger said.
“Well,” Harrington said, “thing made it hard, was, I see where that stuff’s worth about two hundred thousand.”
“That’s about double, as usual,” the Digger said.
“Okay,” Harrington said, “but still, I got two for what I did.”
“That’s what you agreed to,” the Digger said. “You’re a fuckin’ beauty about it, too, the thing was going on. You’re scared shitless.”
“I was,” Harrington said. “Now, now I think I done what I did too cheap. You and Marty and Mikey-mike must’ve got about thirty-five apiece.”
The Digger leaned on the bar. “Lemme tell you something, Harrington,” he said, “you take the rough with the fuckin’ smooth in this life. I went out to Vegas there and I said, ‘Fuck me, fuck me.’ And they fucked me. Then I get that gaff job. I got unfucked. Mikey-mike made some dough. Marty made some dough. I made some dough. You even made some dough, and it come right out of the sky for you, my friend. I’m okay with the wife again, everything’s all right.”
The Digger straightened up again. “Now one thing I like,” he said, “I like everything all right. I don’t like the wife pissed off. I like going home, she’s all happy because we’re going San Juan. I like it, I got Bloom paid off. I feel good. Feels good to feel good. I missed it. I wouldn’t like it, somebody was to get me fucked up again.”
“Well,” Harrington said, “I know. But I don’t like it, I got taken advantage of.” He drank his beer.
“Ah,” the Digger said, “I took advantage. I paid you two for driving. I get a cabbie any night I want, take me into deepest darkest Roxbury for that, my friend. Now you take some advice: you go buy your boat. And you forget about the car. And you keep your fuckin’ mouth shut, understand? You could wind up dead, you know.”
Harrington finished his beer. He did not meet the Digger’s eyes. Without looking up he said, “I’m going home now.” He slid off the stool.
“I SHOULD’VE HAD BREAKFAST,” Schabb said. He held the Impala with the brake at the intersection of Madison Street and the Southern Artery in Quincy. The car surged periodically. The traffic light remained red. It was six-ten in the morning. The gas stations and the automobile dealerships were quiet in the morning light.
“You oughta get this thing looked at,” Torrey said. “Fuckin’ thing’s lunging. Idle’s too high.”
“I hadda guy look at it,” Schabb said. “Every time I cramp the wheels, the power steering stalls it out. When I start it, cold, she stalls. So he fixed it. Now it creeps. I dunno.”
“You had an asshole look at it,” Torrey said. The light changed. The Impala moved forward. “He looked at it and he didn’t know what was wrong with it. So, he set the idle up. You’re wearing out the brakes and the fuckin’ rear end. What you needed was a fuckin’ tune-up, somebody knew how to do a fuckin’ tune-up.”
“He said something about the pollution thing,” Schabb said. The car moved south on the Southern Artery.
“They’re all doing that now,” Torrey said. “That’s the big excuse for guys, don’t know what they’re doing. They oughta build that guy Nader a fuckin’ monument, what he did for dumb mechanics.”
“This guy’s always been all right with me,” Schabb said. “I’ve been doing business with him a long time. He kept the Cad running all right.”
“That’s another way of saying,” Torrey said, “he’s been fucking you a long time. Somebody did to me what he did to you, I’d let him do it once. Then I’d go back, it still didn’t run right, I’d give him a couple shots.”
The clam stands and the liquor stores were dark along the Artery. “I could still use breakfast,” Schabb said. “I haven’t been up this early since I took the kid fishing. All I had was coffee, and only about half a cup of that.”
“Look,” Torrey said, “there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts up here at the intersection, way I remember it.”
“Okay,” Schabb said. They passed a fuel oil depot on the left and a Volkswagen dealership on the right.
“But you’re not stopping there,” Torrey said. “You’re turning right, there. Then we’re gonna do what we came to do, and then you’re going back and drop me off, and then you can go home and have a fuckin’ jelly doughnut if you want. Nobody writes down no numbers today.”
“I am fuckin’ starved,” Schabb said.
“You are fuckin’ scared,” Torrey said. “I don’t blame you. This’s your first run. Everybody’s scared on the first run. Everybody wants to stop and eat. Anything to put it off. Take a shit, anything. Just so you don’t have to do it.”
“Richie,” Schabb said, “I’m not kidding. I really am hungry.”
“I know that,” Torrey said. “I didn’t say you’re making it up. My first time, I was convinced, I hadda take a shit. I told them. I was nineteen fuckin’ years old, you should’ve heard all the shit I took, I said I hadda take a shit. They wouldn’t let me. So I whack a guy out, practically in Scollay Square, the guy that was supposed to do it was sick and I hadda do it, I took him out nice and clean. And I shit myself.
“They started calling me ‘Shitpants,’ ” Torrey said. “But then, I was twenty-two, I got a contract on one of the guys made a lot of fun of me. I see him coming out of the place and he sees me and I’m getting out of the car with the piece and he says, ‘No, no, Richie, look, I’ll straighten it out.’ And I just look at him and I keep coming at him and he’s got his hands up. He says, his hands’re up like he’s trying to give me something, he says, ‘No, Richie, look, gimme a little time.’ I say, ‘What’re you calling me Richie for? How come you’re not calling me Shitpants?’ Then I gutshoot him. Then I gutshot him again. He puts the hands down. Ever kick a man inna balls?”
“No,” Schabb said. “I hit a guy in the teeth once, but he was grabbing my wife’s ass at a party and I more or less had to.”
“No,” Torrey said. “Well, you gutshoot a guy and it hits him, he grabs just like a guy that’s grabbing for the balls, that you kicked inna balls. Like he’s worried, he’s gonna lose them.
“Guy does the same thing,” Torrey said, “you shoot him inna belly with a thirty-eight. It’s just slow enough so he can still stand up. Forty-five’d knock him over. He gets them hands right over the holes and he holds on.
“This guy looked down,” Torrey said, “sees the blood on his nice grey suit, running out his fingers. Looks up again. ‘Lemme alone, Richie,’ he says, ‘lemme alone. I can straighten it out.’
“ ‘Call me Shitpants,’ I say, and by now I’m right on top of him, and he actually kneels down. I got the piece pointing right practically in his eye. ‘Lemme alone, Richie,’ he says, he’s still got his hands on his belly, his head’s way back on his neck.
“ ‘Still calling me Richie,’ I say, ‘how come you’re not calling me Shitpants, huh?’ Then I say, ‘Here comes the rest.’ He was hurting. His mouth’s going, nothing comes out. I shot him in the face.”
“Jesus,” Schabb said.
“You shoot a man inna face,” Torrey said, “close range, it kind of comes apart, you know? All flies to pieces, bone chips and stuff.”
“Cut it out,” Schabb said. The car slowed at the lin
oleum store and stopped at the light.
“He shit himself,” Torrey said. “Man dies, everything lets go. You could smell it. About two seconds after I shoot him in the face, I shoot him again, and he goes right over backwards and you could hear everything letting go. Smell it too, like I say.”
“Okay, Richie,” Schabb said, “you did it. I’m not hungry any more.”
“Hell,” Torrey said, “that wasn’t why I told you. Makes me sick too. That’s the last hit I had. Guy called me in, next one come up. Them things don’t pay bad, you know? Says, ‘Maybe you wonder why we didn’t use you.’ I said, ‘No.’ He says, ‘Well, the last time, we heard you liked it too much. That’s why.’ Get that? I was actually very scared. It’s natural to be scared. I’m scared now. It was just, there was something personal in that one, I didn’t tell them guys about. This one, there’s nothing personal, so I don’t have nothing else. I can feel scared, I can think about it. But, being scared, it’s natural. Just like the first time you get laid. Always decide, I want a turkey dinner, soup and salad and dessert and nuts. It’s just a way, putting it off, you don’t have to face it so soon.
“The thing you got to understand,” Torrey said, “is that you have gotta face it. Me, I’d much rather stop and have a couple doughnuts and we let the Greek get down the gym and then there’s too many people around and we go home, do it tomorrow. But then you just gotta be scared all over again tomorrow. Don’t do any good. Turn right.”
The car took the right and proceeded a hundred yards past a Dunkin’ Donuts stand. There were two trailer trucks parked at the street. Inside, at the counter, slope-shouldered men bent over magenta cups, filled with coffee.
“Turn right again,” Torrey said. Schabb turned off Route Three-A onto Weymouth Street.
Weymouth Street was crowded with double-decker houses painted brown and ivory, white and green, and grey and white. Each house had a first-floor front porch and a second-floor front porch. The second-floor porches were crowded with charcoal grills and tricycles and aluminum mesh chairs. The first-floor porches were empty. There were no lights on.
“Go up about six houses and pull over,” Torrey said.
Schabb parked under the overhanging branches of a maple tree.
“Turn the radio on,” Torrey said.
“Turn it on yourself,” Schabb said.
“Look,” Torrey said, “don’t be any more of a pain in the ass than you gotta be, all right?”
“I’m not the nigger any more,” Schabb said.
“Oh Christ,” Torrey said. He turned the radio on.
“What’re you listening for anyway?” Schabb said.
“I’m not listening for anything,” Torrey said. “I just want the fuckin’ radio on, all right?”
“It’s all right with me,” Schabb said. “What’re you getting so jumpy about?”
“Shut off the fuckin’ engine,” Torrey said.
The Impala whispered down beneath the tree. It was twenty minutes past six.
“All right,” Torrey said, as the radio gave the extended weather forecast, “see the green and white up on the left, maroon Bird with the vinyl roof inna yard?”
“Yeah,” Schabb said.
“His,” Torrey said. “Y’s about ten, twelve minutes from here. Opens at seven, right?”
“That’s what he says,” Schabb said.
“Right,” Torrey said. “But the Greek’s careful. He’ll give himself twenny minutes. He’s a slow driver, too. Maybe twenny-five minutes. He’d rather get there and sit in the car and wait, than be late. So I figure, next fifteen minutes, he comes out. Soon’s I see him, you start up, we roll up and let him have it and that’ll be the end of that. Okay?”
“Okay,” Schabb said.
Torrey reached under his jacket with his right hand. From the area near his left kidney he withdrew a large revolver from his belt.
“What’s that?” Schabb said.
“Ruger Blackhawk,” Torrey said. “I was counting onna guy to get me a shotgun, he comes up with this. Probably better anyway. Greek won’t see this so fast.”
“Jesus,” Schabb said, “minute he sees us roll up, he’s gonna know. He’s gotta gun himself, hasn’t he?”
“Thirty-eight,” Torrey said. He opened the cylinder lock, examined the cylinder and found all chambers loaded. He closed the cylinder with a snap.
“You should’ve got the shotgun,” Schabb said.
“Look,” Torrey said, “you do the best you can. Keep in mind, I’m gonna have this out. He’s gonna have that thirty-eight in his pants. Thirty-eight’s a two-incher. This’s a four. I still got all the edge I need. Start the fuckin’ car.”
“What?” Schabb said.
“Start the fuckin’ car,” Torrey said. “Door’s opening. That’s his foot. See it?”
Schabb started the car and put it in gear.
“Let her creep,” Torrey said.
Schabb saw the left side of a man’s body emerge from the aluminum storm and screen door on the first-floor porch of the green-and-white house. He saw the tail of the Greek’s sport coat. He saw the rest of the Greek, from the back. He saw the Greek start down the steps.
“Give her some gas,” Torrey said. He had the revolver in his right hand. “Keep her onna curb, take her along.”
The Impala moved down the street. It passed a brown-and-ivory double-decker, a brown-and-white double-decker, and a white-and-grey double-decker. The Greek was at the bottom of the stairs. He took a springy step onto the walk. He passed swiftly around the right rear of the Thunderbird sedan. The driveway was two strips of concrete in grass.
“Up a little,” Torrey said, “fast.”
Schabb nudged the accelerator. The Impala reached the place where the Greek’s drive met the street.
“Stop,” Torrey said.
Schabb stood on the brake and the front end of the Impala dove. Schabb heard the passenger door open. He saw Torrey’s left leg leaving the car. He heard Torrey say, “Greek.”
Schabb had his head around. He saw Torrey sprinting up the driveway from the street. Torrey was in a semicrouch. His right arm was stiff in the upper arm. Schabb could not see the forearm.
Schabb saw the Greek crouch. He saw the Greek’s right hand flash back toward his belt, then forward again with a revolver. He saw Torrey’s right arm stiffen. Torrey’s body was at a different angle, turned slightly away from the right. Schabb saw the Greek’s hand pick up, then down.
Schabb saw Torrey reel slightly. Schabb saw the Blackhawk briefly as it pointed toward the sky. Schabb saw the Greek crouch at the left rear fender of the Bird. He saw the Greek’s hand kick up with the revolver, then kick down again. He heard shots. He saw Torrey stagger back. He saw the Blackhawk pointing toward the sky. He saw the Greek’s right hand kick upward again. He saw Torrey’s body lurch in its stride. He saw the Greek straighten up. He heard the shot. He saw the Greek point the black revolver at Torrey, as Torrey’s body recovered its balance again. The Blackhawk flew out of Torrey’s hand. Schabb saw the Greek’s right hand kick up, then down. Schabb saw a white piece fly away from Torrey’s head, in the back. Schabb heard the shot. Schabb saw Torrey reel back again. Schabb jammed the accelerator to the floor. The motor roared wildly. Schabb jerked the transmission out of PARK. The Impala leaped forward as Torrey came down on the grass. Schabb rolled the wheel over to miss a white Plymouth Fury at the curb, one door down from the Greek’s. The Impala slewed. Schabb hauled the wheel over hard. The Impala slewed to the right. Schabb got the Impala straightened out.
At the corner of the street, Schabb turned the Impala hard right. He looked back as the car turned. The Greek stood two hundred yards back. His hands were at his sides.
SALLY BARCA was sitting at Schabb’s desk when Schabb came into the Regent Sportsmen’s Club.
“Who’re you?” Schabb said. “How’d you get in here?”
“My name’s Barca,” Sally said. “Come in through the front door just like any other white man, two days
ago. Where’ve you been?”
“I been out of town,” Schabb said. “I had business out of town. Where’s Richie?”
“Aw, come on,” Barca said. “Richie’s still down the Southern Mortuary, probably. I dunno where Richie is. I know how Richie is, though, and so do you. Where the fuck’ve you been?”
“Who wants to know?” Schabb said.
“You look awful white,” Barca said. “You sick? I’m a friend of Richie’s. I’m one of the guys said it was all right for him to whack out the Greek. Didn’t turn out too good for Richie, huh?”
Schabb sat down. “Richie’s dead?” he said.
“You get shot four or five times, close range,” Barca said, “it’s inclined to make you dead. Where the fuck’ve you been? The Greek’s been practically crazy.”
“Looking for me,” Schabb said.
“Looking for you to stay away from you,” Barca said. “The Greek called me, same morning. Claims you put Richie up to it.”
“I did like hell,” Schabb said.
“I know that,” Barca said. “I told Richie, he oughta have a contract. He was too fuckin’ cheap. Tough shit for him. Where the fuck’ve you been?”
“I was with Richie,” Schabb said.
“No shit,” Barca said. “The Greek told me that. ‘I could’ve killed him right then and there,’ he said, ‘and I should’ve.’ I know where you were. Where the hell’ve you been?”
“I drove intown,” Schabb said. “I put the car in the Under-common garage. I got a cab over to Cambridge Street. I stopped at a packy and I bought three quarts of Beefeaters. Then I got a room at the Holiday. I been there ever since.”
“Drunk,” Barca said.
“No,” Schabb said. “Scared. I was only drunk when I was awake. I was scared all the time. I figured the Greek was gonna kill me.”
“You and the Greek oughta start a club,” Barca said. “The Greek thinks you’re gonna kill him.”
The Digger's Game Page 17