Cogan's Trade

by George V. Higgins

“If he thought it was me that did it, he might,” Cogan said. “What I was thinking of, this guy I know, he’s got this one broad that is tops at setting guys up. She gets in real fights with them, and they give her their fuckin’ teeth to get her out of the room before the cops come. I was thinking of sending her up there, see, I told him, no more ass, he’s going to work, but he’s so drunk he won’t remember whether he had somebody send her up or not, and he’d take her if he didn’t. Now, this hotel, they don’t exactly keep tabs on people, but it’s a good place and they’re not gonna want no whore fights going on in there, and he’ll get busted for that and pretty soon they’ll revoke bail on him and back he’ll go.”

  “Kind of rough on him,” the driver said.

  “Not actually,” Cogan said. “Actually, I think it’s the best thing for him. He’s gonna kill himself if he does this much longer. He won’t get enough potato jack in the can to kill him, and if he’s not in the can he’ll kill us.”

  “I suppose he really should talk to Mitch’s people,” the driver said.

  “Albert,” Cogan said, “how’re they gonna know?”

  “Ah,” Albert said. “I can tell him, I suppose.”

  “If you want,” Cogan said. “Let him make up his own mind.”

  “Okay,” the driver said, “do it. Now, that leaves us with Amato.”

  “I come up with something, I think,” Cogan said. “I think I can set him up myself.”

  “I thought you couldn’t,” the driver said. “I thought he knew you.”

  “He does,” Cogan said. “He also knows the kid, one of the kids he used on the job. And that kid, I bet, is gonna know where Amato’s gonna be, the next few nights or so.”

  “Will he do it?” the driver said.

  “I was waiting for you,” Cogan said, “I started thinking. Yeah, I think I know a way.”

  “Will he be all right?” the driver said.

  “Oh,” Cogan said, “you can’t tell.”

  “Well, it’s serious, isn’t it?” the driver said. “It’s a serious question.”

  Cogan stared at the driver. “For a while,” he said. “Not long, but a while. Talk to the man.”

  FRANKIE SAT at the first bar downstairs in the Carnaby Street, late in the afternoon. He leaned back on the bentwood stool and watched the waitresses chatting, idle until customers came.

  Cogan hung the pilled suede coat on a peg and sat down next to Frankie. He ordered a beer.

  “Heineken?” the bartender said.

  “Yeah,” Cogan said.

  “Bottle or draft?” the bartender said.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Cogan said. “Draft.”

  “They always do that,” Frankie said.

  “It’s a pain in the ass,” Cogan said. “I wouldn’t’ve come in here, I thought I was gonna have to go through something like that.”

  The bartender put a frosted mug in front of Cogan.

  “I would,” Frankie said. “This guy, I dunno how he does it, he’s got to have the best-built girls in Boston working for him. I come in here every day.”

  “I know,” Cogan said.

  Frankie looked at him. “I never seen you before in here,” he said. “I don’t know you.”

  “Didn’t say you did,” Cogan said. “Very few guys know me. I’m just a guy, is all. I never been in here before in my life.”

  “How’d you happen to come in today?” Frankie said.

  “Looking for you,” Cogan said. “I was looking for you and a guy told me, he said you told him you come in here a lot, ’round this time of day, see if you can get up nerve enough, talk to a girl. So I came in. Simple, huh?”

  “Who’s the guy?” Frankie said.

  “Just a guy,” Cogan said, “guy, a friend of yours, actually. Knows a little about you, told me where to look you up. Well, he didn’t tell me himself. He told a guy, and the guy was up here and he told me. Because I asked the guy, this friend of yours.”

  “Who’s this friend?” Frankie said.

  “China,” Cogan said.

  “Never heard of nobody by that name,” Frankie said. He finished his beer and started to straighten up.

  Cogan put his right hand on Frankie’s right arm. “China’ll be surprised to hear that,” he said, “very surprised. Here’s a guy, concerned about you, your friends’re concerned about you, you know that, Frankie? They’re worried. Guys like China. China was really, he, well, he insisted I hadda go and talk to you, is what he did. I wasn’t sure I oughta bother you, you know? Got yourself a place and everything? ‘Sounds like he’s doing all right to me,’ is what I said. ‘No reason I should go around and bother him.’ You have got a place, haven’t you, Frankie?”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said.

  “Somewhere south of New Hampshire, I bet,” Cogan said.

  “Right onna peg,” Frankie said.

  “Norwood, to be exact,” Cogan said. “Why’d you do that, alla them trucks?”

  “I dunno,” Frankie said.

  “Now whyn’t you relax a little, Frankie, okay?”

  Cogan said. “You know how it is when a guy, when China wants a guy to do something, you got to do it, is all, China’s all down there, locked up and everything, he’s gotta depend on his friends, do the right things for guys he’s worried about. I’d be embarrassed in front of China, I hadda tell him, he ever found out, a guy he wanted me to talk to, I didn’t talk to him. You know how China is.”

  Frankie leaned back again.

  “Have another beer,” Cogan said. “Look at the girls. Jesus, I dunno how you can stand the noise out there. Still, I suppose, guys got all kinds of reasons for doing things. Gotta car, too, I understand.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said.

  “Lemme give you some advice, all right?” Cogan said.

  Frankie did not answer.

  “I had one of them things myself,” Cogan said, “they first come out. You got the hood scoops, right?”

  Frankie did not answer.

  “Ah, come on,” Cogan said, “you got the green Geetoh with the scoops. Don’t fuck around with me, right?”

  Frankie nodded.

  “You’re gonna have trouble with it,” Cogan said, “couple months or so. January, when it gets cold. Fuckin’ thing won’t run. It’ll start but it won’t run. You can do anything you want to it, it won’t run, and when it’s really cold, down around seven, eight below, it won’t start.

  “Now lemme tell you what you got to do,” Cogan said. “You got to pack them scoops. Mine just had the one, the split one in the middle. But, well, you got the two, I bet you’re still gonna have the same trouble, the car just won’t warm up. You’re gonna have to pack them scoops. It’s the scoops. Your engine can’t get warm in that thing when it’s cold unless you run it about ninety miles an hour the minute you get her going, and you do that, you’re gonna bend a fuckin’ valve, is all. What I used to do, I used to put masking tape right over them scoops. Looks like hell, but it works. Got that? Masking tape.”

  Frankie nodded.

  “You see what I mean,” Cogan said.

  “Uh,” Frankie said, “uh, no. No, I don’t.”

  “Your friends,” Cogan said. “Your friends’re worried about you. See? I even heard, you’re carrying.”

  “Fuck, no,” Frankie said.

  “Well,” Cogan said, “now, that’s good. Because, you wanna be careful about that. You, what, you been out a month?”

  “Six weeks,” Frankie said.

  “Right,” Cogan said. “Onna robbery thing, am I right?”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said.

  “Well, there you are,” Cogan said, “and that’s why it’s such a good thing, you’re not carrying. You know how those guys are. They’re gonna be measuring your dick every time somebody pulls a job looks anything like what you did. You think they don’t know you’re out?”

  “Nope,” Frankie said.

  “And of course,” Cogan said, “they’re not gonna get nothing on you, because you
’re not doing nothing, am I right?”

  “Just havin’ a beer and watchin’ the girls,” Frankie said.

  “Sure,” Cogan said. “Nothing wrong with that. But, they pick you up, even though you didn’t pull a job, you’re carrying, they’re gonna run you again.”

  “I know that,” Frankie said.

  “Well,” Cogan said, “that’s good. That shows, your friends that’re worried about you, shows them you must’ve grown up some since you went in.”

  Frankie looked at Cogan. “Grown up some?” he said. “A dog’d get born and live and die in the time I was in.”

  “Well,” Cogan said, “yeah, you’re right. But, maybe even since you got out. Maybe you grown up some since then.”

  “Well,” Frankie said, “I finally got laid.”

  “That’s good,” Cogan said. “How was it?”

  “Not so good,” Frankie said. “Matter of fact, it was kind of shitty. I naturally got some broad that’s been fuckin’ since they found out how to do it, and I naturally shot my mouth off all over the place and I got through and she told me I’m a lousy lay. I’m gonna keep at it, though. I figure, can’t be too tough to get the hang of it, and there must be some reason, there’s so many people running around doing it.”

  “That’s the idea,” Cogan said. He made a sucking noise with his tongue and his teeth. “Jesus,” he said, “that’s too bad. If I’d’ve only run into you sooner. I should’ve got on this right away, when I first get the word from China and them. I knew a guy could’ve helped you along that line. Really knew some great broads. But he’s dead.”

  “Oh yeah?” Frankie said.

  “Yeah,” Cogan said. “It’s too bad. You maybe saw it inna paper. Somebody whacked him out the other night. Markie Trattman. Nice guy. A real nice guy, and what that guy didn’t know about getting broads, nobody knew.”

  “Must’ve fucked the wrong one, I guess,” Frankie said.

  “Yeah,” Cogan said, “it was either that or something else. He got somebody pissed off, that’s for sure. That’s the way it is with most of them guys, I think, that get whacked. They get somebody pissed and then something happens. You got to be careful, these days. You do something, looks perfectly all right to you, and the right guy gets pissed off for no reason at all and you’re in the shit. Look at China. How long you known China?”

  “China?” Frankie said. “Ten years or so, I guess.”

  “Well,” Cogan said, “that’s long enough. Now there’s a guy, you should’ve heard what they’re saying about China, year or so ago.”

  “I did,” Frankie said.

  “Yeah,” Cogan said, “and, knowing China, you got to know, it’s not true. China’d eat shit before he’d talk to anybody. But the trouble is, some asshole gets it in his head that something’s going on or something, and he starts spreading stuff around about China, and of course nobody asks any questions or does anything smart like that. They just talk and talk and talk and pretty soon China’s getting all this static, and he wasn’t even doing anything.

  “Now,” Cogan said, “China’s a smart bastard. He’s down there and he knows he’s gotta see somebody and see them quick. So he gets himself a habe or something and they bring him up here and he gets a chance to get the word to a few guys and somebody got in to see him and he told him: ‘Look, I’m gonna get a shiv up my ass if somebody doesn’t start stopping all this talk and shit, you know? And, I’m not gonna stand still for that. If I gotta protect myself, I’m gonna have to go to somebody and start telling them things, and I don’t want to do that, all right?’ So the guy comes out and he puts it around and China’s all right again with everybody. See, that’s what I mean. China’s a smart bastard, knows how to protect his ass. Markie, well, he knew a lot about broads, but I guess he didn’t know nothing about protecting his ass.”

  “Kind of hard to cover your ass,” Frankie said, “you don’t even know some guy’s after you for dipping your wick. Kind of hard.”

  “Yeah,” Cogan said, “but there’s other things it could’ve been, it could’ve happened. Now Markie, Markie ran a game. And it got knocked over. You know that?”

  “I think I heard something about it,” Frankie said.

  “Yeah,” Cogan said. He drank his beer. To the bartender he said: “Lemme have another one.” To Frankie he said: “Want another one?”

  “I think I’m set,” Frankie said.

  “Right,” Cogan said. He accepted the fresh mug and drank from it. “Good,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Nothin’ like a cold beer, I always say. Well, now, Trattman always ran that game, right? He had a game running ever since anybody can remember. And he had a game, went over before. He got robbed before. And you know something?” Cogan said. “It was actually Markie, had it knocked over.”

  “Maybe he did it again,” Frankie said.

  “There’s a lot of silly shits that’re running around, saying that,” Cogan said. “I actually heard some of that talk myself. And it pissed me off. Because, Markie wasn’t no particular friend of mine, you understand, I bet I didn’t talk to him more’n once, twice, in my whole life. So, he gets himself in some kind of trouble, it’s not up to me, go around and straighten him out. Who am I? Just a guy he knows. Why’s he gonna listen to me? But since then, I thought, I should’ve. I really should’ve. Because there wasn’t nothing to that talk and shit. Markie wouldn’t do that again. He was way too smart for that. But see, that’s what I mean. He hadda know, he hadda know the kind of talk that was going around, and he should’ve been smart enough, he heard some of it, like China, you know? Do something about it. So some silly shit don’t decide he’s gonna make himself all kinds of friends, all he’s gotta do is whack Trattman out. It’s a crazy fuckin’ world.

  “See, Frankie,” Cogan said, turning slightly toward him, “I think that’s what China and them think, your friends, that’re worried about you. They think, well, they dunno how much you grown up, since you got out, even. They think you need somebody around, knows about things, advise you.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said.

  “Teach you how to cover your ass,” Cogan said. “See, like I was saying, it’s not what you been doing so much’s it is what guys think you been doing, and that’s what you got to look out for, and when it happens, well, you got to be prepared to do something.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said.

  “So,” Cogan said in a lower voice, “where’s he gonna be, tomorrow night?”

  “Who?” Frankie said.

  “Johnny Amato,” Cogan said. “Tomorrow night. Where’s he gonna be?”

  “I dunno,” Frankie said.

  “Frank,” Cogan said, “you got to keep in mind what I told you. Your friends’re worried about you. You wanna finally get laid right, it’s your friends, they wanna see you get the chance, you know what I mean? And it’s your friends, wanna know where Squirrel’s gonna be.”

  “This’s the first time I seen you,” Frankie said.

  “New friends’re best,” Cogan said. “Your other one, there, you can’t depend on him, you know? Look at what he got you in before. All that time. You could’ve been out getting a decent piece of ass, ’stead of pounding sand up yours and everything.”

  “I don’t know who the fuck you are,” Frankie said.

  “Very few guys do,” Cogan said. “Oh, China, maybe, and, oh yeah: Dillon. Dillon knows me. You’re, you strike me as a pretty intelligent guy. Want me to call Dillon for you, and you can talk to him, see who I am? There’s not much to find out, I can tell you that. But you can talk to him. Wanna talk to Dillon?”

  “No,” Frankie said.

  “Well okay,” Cogan said. “Where’s he gonna be? I know you’re gonna know, if you don’t know now.”

  “I haven’t got no idea,” Frankie said. “I seen John three or four times since I got out. I don’t know what he does, nights. Goes home, I guess.”

  “Okay,” Cogan said. He finished his beer. “See you around, Frankie, my friend.” He started
to get off the stool.

  “Wait a minute,” Frankie said.

  “There’s things,” Cogan said, “there’s things that won’t wait. You tell me, you don’t know. Okay, I accept that. But I got something to do. I got to find a guy that knows.”

  “Where John’s gonna be tomorrow night,” Frankie said.

  “And something else now, I guess,” Cogan said. “Like where you’re gonna be, the day after. You gonna be here again? Gonna come in about three-thirty, drink about four beers, hang around until you eat, leave and go up Pagliacci’s like you always do, see what’s still breathing enough to fuck, go home around midnight, one o’clock? That what you’re gonna be doing day after tomorrow? Or are you gonna be doing something else, so it takes me a couple, three days extra? It’s not gonna matter. You could just save me a lot of time, is all.”

  Frankie said nothing.

  Cogan got off the stool. He rested his forearms on the back of it. “Look,” he said, “you gotta be realistic, right, kid? You gotta be. I know the guy. I also know what’s goin’ through your head. He’s, you think he’s a friend of yours, right? You probably, you probably got something lined up with him right now, am I right?”

  Frankie did not answer.

  “It don’t matter,” Cogan said. “I know how you feel. But you think, I bet you figured, that Trattman thing, it was gonna work, right?”

  Frankie did not answer.

  “Them things,” Cogan said, “lemme tell you something, kid: them things, they never work. Guys with bright ideas, you know? Like Squirrel. They all know the end-around, and they’re not gonna get something and work it steady and make it work and make it pay. Not them. He’s always been like this, always been looking for a hustle, and guys like him, all they ever do is fuck things up. For everybody else.”

  “Trattman got hit,” Frankie said.

  “There’s all kinds of reasons for things,” Cogan said. “Guys get whacked for doing things, guys get whacked for not doing things, it don’t matter. The only thing matters is if you’re the guy that’s gonna get whacked. That’s the only fuckin’ thing.”

  Frankie nodded.

  “You,” Cogan said, “you’re one of the few guys that know, right?”