Текст книги "Cogan's Trade "

Автор книги: George Higgins

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

RUSSELL, CARRYING A BROWN-PAPER BAG, came out of the Arlington Street MBTA station just before six o’clock and turned off Arlington at St. James. At the newsstand on the corner the old man was cutting wire on bundles of the Globe. Two men in business suits waited in a light green Ford sedan at the newsstand, the passenger with his head and left hand out of the window, offering change. The driver watched Russell turn right on St. James. Holding the microphone in his right hand, the driver spoke into it: “All units, this is unit three. He finally made it.”

Russell crossed the street, pausing for a Greyhound bus to pull into the terminal parking lot, in from Bangor. The driver of the third Yellow Cab in line at the terminal spoke into his microphone: “Unit four to all units. I got him now. He’s on the sidewalk. He’s about to enter the station.”

The light green Ford started moving toward the next intersection. It turned right at Stuart Street and went the wrong way up behind the terminal.

In the station a man in a light blue private security force uniform stood at the top of the stairs, his back to the doors, watching the reflection of the entrance doors in the glass of the windows of the lounge. He wore a hearing aid button in his right ear.

Russell came through the doors, into the terminal.

The man in the light blue suit bent his neck to the left and talked out of the left side of his mouth into the small rectangular bulge in his uniform shirt. “This is unit seven. All units converge.”

The two men in business suits left the light green Ford and went to the doors of the terminal on the easterly side. The driver got out of the cab and went to the door on the westerly side. Four men got out of a blue Dodge Polara in front of the terminal. Two moved to the front of the terminal. One went to join the cab driver on the westerly side. One joined the men from the light green Ford on the easterly side. Two baggage handlers, each wearing a hearing aid button, stepped back from the baggage check-in and stood near the doors at the back of the terminal. One of the ticket sellers, in a white shirt, stepped out from behind the counter, moving slowly.

Russell paused to let the ticket seller walk in front of him. The ticket seller roused a drunk, asleep on the bench. He began to usher the drunk toward the easterly doors. After Russell had his back to them, the drunk required less assistance.

Russell went to the baggage lockers on the westerly side of the terminal.

The man in the security force uniform watched from the top of the stairs. He spoke again. “Unit seven to all units. West side, west side.”

Russell inserted the key to locker 352 and turned it.

The men from the light green Ford entered the terminal through the easterly doors.

Russell opened the locker and took out a box wrapped in brown paper. He opened the bag and put the box in. Leaving the locker door ajar, he turned toward the front of the terminal. He carried the bag in his left hand.

The driver of the cab entered through the westerly door. The two men in the baggage room went out into the passenger area of the terminal. The men from the Polara came in through the front doors and the man in the security force uniform turned slowly away from the front doors as Russell approached them.

The men from the light green Ford walked up behind Russell, one on each side. When they were half a pace behind him, they took him firmly by the elbows. Russell’s body sagged.

The man on Russell’s right said: “Bureau Narcotics. You’re under arrest.” He had a chrome-plated forty-five automatic in his right hand. He stuck the barrel close to Russell’s face.

The man on Russell’s left had handcuffs in his left hand. He stepped backward without letting go of Russell’s arm and swung it behind Russell. He locked one cuff on Russell’s left wrist and took the bag from him. He pulled Russell’s right arm back and locked the wrist into the cuff. He patted Russell down. He shook his head.

The man with the automatic said: “You’re pretty fuckin’ obvious, my friend. Matter of fact, you’re so fuckin’ obvious I was afraid you’d forget where you left the stuff, or lose the key or something. You’ve got a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you at a trial in a fuckin’ court of law. You got a right to an attorney, and if you can’t afford an attorney, us long-suffering good and noble taxpayers’ll go out and treat you to the best fuckin’ shyster we can find. I think you also got a right to have your head tested, and in your case, I think you oughta, see if there’s anything in it at all.”

“I wanna make my phone call,” Russell said. The agents urged him toward the door.

“They got a real nice phone in the Marshal’s office, my friend,” the agent said. “It’s a great little instrument. You can call any place in the country on it. That’s if you know how to dial. If you don’t know how to dial, we’ll teach you how to do it. If you call long distance, we’ll put it on your bill.”

“Thanks,” Russell said.

“Buddy,” the agent said, “don’t thank me. I think you’re gonna be surprised when you get that bill. You’re goin’ in for all day on this one, my friend. Unless of course your friend down there in New York figured out how stupid you really are, and sold you quinine or something. All’s well that ends well, right, my friend?”

“Shut up,” Russell said.

The agents escorted Russell out of the terminal, into the darkness.

“That’s not one of your rights, my friend,” the agent said. “That’s one of my rights. But I got a little deal for you, all right, my friend? Any time you wanna talk, just tell me, and I’ll shut up. Just say the word and you have got the fuckin’ floor.”

“Fuck you,” Russell said.

The Polara made a U-turn on St. James and pulled up in front of the terminal.

The agent dug the barrel of the automatic into Russell’s rib cage. “That, my friend,” he said in a soft voice, “is not the kind of talk I meant. People’ve been known to fall down a lot getting in and out of cars and so forth when they talk like that. Got it?” Russell said nothing. “And another thing, my friend,” the agent said. “Not only are you stupid but you stink. I think you’re gonna get twenty years and a bath. I dunno which you need more.”

“THE STUPID SHIT,” Frankie said. He sat in Amato’s office. “You know who he picks to call, of course. Me. Only he don’t remember I moved, so he calls Sandy, and he got her up and she’s all pissed and she calls me and give me a whole ration of shit and then I got to call him and I hadda girl with me. And of course I got to give my name to them, they won’t let anybody else talk to him.”

“That’s good,” Amato said.

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “Oh, I’m gonna really enjoy this, I can tell. Wants me to come down and see him. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘sure, Russell, and I won’t have a hundred ballbusters following me around for the rest of my life if I do that, either. No thanks. I didn’t have nothing to do with it and I told you what was gonna happen and you wouldn’t listen to me.’

“ ‘Did you tell them?’ he says to me,” Frankie said. “ ‘Are you the fuckin’ bastard that told them?’

“ ‘Russell,’ I said,” Frankie said, “ ‘nobody hadda tell them. You told them yourself. What am I gonna tell cops anything for? Tell me that, huh? You wanna blame somebody, blame yourself.’ That calmed him down some. Well, will I make bail for him? ‘Depends,’ I said. See, he hasn’t got no money left. Spent it on his problem, which I don’t think they’re probably gonna let him go out and sell, now. ‘What’s the bail?’ Just what you’d expect, his record and a pound of that stuff. One hundred thousand dollars.”

“Ten K from you,” Amato said.

“Well,” Frankie said, “there’s guys that’ll write one for five per cent if you wanna handle some things for them now and then, but onna guy like him I doubt you could get it even from one of them. But either way, it’s too much, and besides, I tell him, ‘Keep in mind, I just got out of the can myself. Where’d I get all that bread?’ No, I said I’d call somebody for him, but that’s all, he can make his own deal. ‘You ask me,’ I said, ‘I don’t even think that’s gonna do it for you, though. You raise the hundred, they’ll go to double surety or two hundred or something. Those guys aren’t gonna let you out. Forget it.’

“So that’s what he tells me,” Frankie said, “and then he says: ‘Frankie, if I don’t get out of here, I’m gonna tell them you were in it with me.’ ”

“Nice guy,” Amato said.

“Ah,” Frankie said, “he was all pissed off. I don’t blame him. And what the fuck’s he gonna tell them? I said: ‘Russell, get off the pot, all right? You bring me into this, I’ll tell them everything you told me about Goat-ass stealing that other stuff, and all the dogs and the insurance thing you had with Kenny onna car and everything. So don’t hand me that shit.’ He’ll be all right. It’s just, he’s looking at a lot of time. You can’t blame him. I asked a guy, he said his guess is, probably eight, ten, something like that. So naturally that means, they probably told him guys’ve been getting fifteen or so, maybe more.

“Them guys,” Frankie said, “I mean, they are bad. This kid I talked to, he said they come at you from just about every place at once. ‘They tell you,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to say nothing to them. But that sure don’t stop them from saying something to you. They toss you in New York,’ he said, ‘it’s gonna take them, always, three or four hours, before you can see a judge, and all the time they’re talking to you. I think them guys’ve got cassettes in them. “You’re a lost dude this time. You’re gonna go in and you’re never gonna come out again. You’re crazy, that’s all. We know you’re not in it alone. You better talk about it.” ’ So, he was probably pissing his pants when he called me. So I told him: ‘Russell, I tell you what: I’ll get you a lawyer. That’s all I can do for you.’ ”

“The fuck’s a lawyer gonna do for him?” Amato said.

“He’s gonna do it for me,” Frankie said. “He’s gonna get Russell off my back. He wanted Mike Zinna.”

“I doubt if you can get him Mike,” Amato said. “I doubt if Mike’ll touch him.”

“Oh, for Christ sake,” Frankie said. “Of course I can’t get him Mike. I can’t afford Mike, I couldn’t get Mike for myself. And Mike, Mike couldn’t do nothing for him. What’s he gonna do, the guy’s alone and he’s got it in his hands? Make it disappear? What Russell really needs is a magician. No, I got him Toby.”

“I dunno Toby,” Amato said.

“That’s because you never had nothing to do with junk,” Frankie said. “When they grab you with the junk, you call Toby and you pay him no more’n a grand and he gets you as good a deal as anybody could. The cops all know him. He’s cheap and all the good anybody can do for Russell, Toby’ll do it, and without going all ape-shit and telling the guy to give them the names of everybody he ever saw.

“Added to which,” Frankie said, “there’s certain things Toby won’t do, and that’s good for me. Because Russell’s gonna want something else, I figure.”

“Somebody hit the guy he thinks put him in,” Amato said.

“Right,” Frankie said. “So, all right, I’m a bastard, but there’s no way inna world he’s gonna be able, get Toby to tell me that, and I’m not personally gonna go down and see him.”

“Where is he?” Amato said.

“Charles Street,” Frankie said.

“You’ll get the message, then,” Amato said.

“I don’t object to hearing it,” Frankie said. “You hear it, you can always say, well, what the fuck, I wouldn’t go around and do something like that on what I heard. No, if the guy asked me, I’d have to tell him something, I guess, and I don’t wanna do that, you know? I like Russell. He was all right to me, and I told him, not to do this. But shit, Goat-ass just did what he wanted, he went out and stole four pounds of procaine or something like that, and I suppose some fuckin’ cop was bright enough, starts wondering who wants pounds of that stuff and that was it for Russell. Goat-ass didn’t do anything. And besides, who the fuck am I? I didn’t, I don’t know anybody.”

“I see where Trattman knows a couple guys or so, though,” Amato said.

“That poor bastard,” Frankie said.

“Well,” Amato said, “I mean, it wasn’t like, you didn’t expect it or something.”

“Sure,” Frankie said. “But, you know, when it didn’t happen, and Russell was telling me all that stuff there, then I was scared shitless, it wasn’t gonna happen. I thought it was gonna happen to me. That don’t mean, well, yeah, I’m glad it happened to him. But, I still wish it didn’t even happen to him, you know? Didn’t have to. Like Russell. I knew this was gonna happen to Russell. I told him. But the fuck, I know the guy. And I can’t do nothing to help him. I don’t know anybody.”

“He took his chances,” Amato said.

“Sure,” Frankie said, “and now he’s gonna take his time. And you’re taking your chances and I’m taking my chances and we’re gonna do this thing, sooner or later, and probably they’re not gonna get us this time, either. But I was thinking about it, right? Suppose, me and Dean go in the place, all of a sudden we got all kinds of cops around. Who do I call? Who do I call, that’s not gonna give me the same kind of shit I give Russell? You know why Russell called me? Because, who else’s he got to call? And it’s the same thing. If we get grabbed in there, Dean calls Sandy. And what do I do? Have him tell her, get me somebody too? I can’t call you, for Christ sake. They’d be waiting for that. I, we haven’t got no friends, either. You look at it, you and me and Russell’re in exactly the same position, except he’s in it now and we’re not in it yet.”

“Well, Jesus,” Amato said, “I mean, this was your idea and everything. It isn’t like, I came around and saw you on this one. Shit, you’re afraid of it, forget it. Won’t piss me off any. I just went down there and I did, I did what you wanted. I haven’t got no investment in this. I made almost four thousand yesterday alone. I can do without it.”

“Won for a change,” Frankie said.

“Yeah,” Amato said, “I kind of liked it too. Broke even about, the first part of the week. I got fifteen hundred or so Thursday after and then last night, another twenty-five onna Knicks. Knicks’re gonna take it, this time.”

“Yeah,” Frankie said. “John, you told me it was gonna snow in the winter, I’d go out and bet against it, you know that?”

“Nice when you win, though,” Amato said. “I figure, after what I been through, I’m gonna be winning pretty good when I start.”

“I figure,” Frankie said, “I’m never gonna start. I’m gonna stick to things I can figure out.”

“Well,” Amato said, “what is it, then?”

“How does it look?” Frankie said.

“It looks good to me,” Amato said. “It’s nice and dark, they backed the block up to where they put the fill and there’s a lot of brush and stuff there and signs on the roof that’ll cover you when you’re up on the roof. It’s brick in front, which don’t matter, and it’s cinderblock in back. The roof’s flat. Looks like tar and pebbles, some kind of cheap shit. I’d go in through the roof. There’s a grocery store on one side and a place that sells glasses on the other side and I suppose you could go in through there. But I wouldn’t. I’d go the roof. The guys in there in the daytimes’re those dopes from Northeast Protective that couldn’t see a hockey game in Boston Garden. The cops, I didn’t do the cops yet. Northeast always works on two, three hour schedules because they don’t hire enough guys. But if you don’t want to do it, it’s okay.”

“John,” Frankie said, “it’s not this job. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s not this one and it’s not gonna be the next one, either, that’s giving me the yikes. It’s just, ah, shit, I dunno what it is. I don’t like having guys after me, you know? I don’t care who they’re working for, I don’t like having guys after me.”

THE BLACK GIRL, lanky, arched her spine and bent her arms behind her to fasten her bra.

“The first one?” Mitch said. “She wasn’t bad. She wasn’t good but she wasn’t bad, either. She was all right. Seemed like she was in an awful hurry, though.”

“Well, after all,” Cogan said, “it was probably pretty short notice for her and all.”

The black girl adjusted her breasts in the bra cups. Then she walked up behind Cogan’s chair on the apricot rug and used the heel of her left hand to touch his right shoulder. “My dress, honey,” she said, “you’re sittin’ on my dress.” Cogan moved forward without turning his head. The black girl pulled the white dress out from under him. She put it on over her head, her feet splayed on the rug.

“Shit,” Mitch said, “its not that. It’s the same thing as it is with everything else. Nobody does anything right any more.”

Cogan laughed.

“I mean it,” Mitch said. He picked up the glass on the end table next to his chair. “This’s empty,” he said, looking at it. “Want one?”

“Too early for me,” Cogan said.

“Early?” Mitch said. He stood up in his tee shirt and shorts. “After noon.”

“Still too early,” Cogan said. “You go ahead if you want, though.”

“I’m gonna,” Mitch said. He went into the bathroom.

The black girl arched her back again to zip the dress. “Honey,” she said, walking around in front of Cogan and stooping, back-to, “could you zip me up?”

“No,” Cogan said.

Mitch ran water in the bathroom. “Screwing’s no different’n anything else,” he said.

“You bastard,” she said, straightening up. She turned and looked at Cogan. “I thought you were kidding.”

“I never kid,” Cogan said. He inclined his head toward the bathroom. “Get your trick to do it.”

Mitch came out of the bathroom, the glass full of dark Scotch and water. “Nobody gives a good shit any more,” he said. “You ask somebody to do something and you’re willing to pay for it, and they say they’ll do it and then they about half do it.”

The girl backed up to Mitch. “Zip my dress, honey,” she said. “Your nice friend there wouldn’t do it.”

Mitch zipped the dress. “They still want all the money, though, bet your ass on that. No half money, no sir. All the money.” He went back to the chair, sipping from the glass. “Half the job. Pisses me off.”

The black girl sat down on the bed and put on her red shoes.

“For a guy that’s been having himself a regular party for three days or so,” Cogan said, “you sure bitch and moan a lot.”

“I’ve been paying for it,” Mitch said. “I been paying for it myself. I can bitch about it if I want. You know this broad, this Polly?”

The black girl stood up and straightened her dress. She looked at Mitch. “Honey?”

“Onna bureau,” Mitch said. He drank. “Wallet’s onna bureau.”

The black girl walked across the room, rotating her hips.

“Everybody knows Polly,” Cogan said.

“That’s what the broad you sent up said,” Mitch said.

The black girl picked up the wallet.

“There’s a hundred and seventy-three bucks in that,” Mitch said. “When I get up I wanna find a hundred and forty-eight, got that?”

“Oh-kay,” the girl said. She removed currency, counted it and put some back in the wallet. She put the wallet down. She picked up the shiny red shoulder bag from the bureau, opened it and put the money in. “No tip, Honey?” she said.

“No tip,” Mitch said.

“Because you know, Honey,” she said, “I got to give all this to my man. Girl needs something for herself now and then.”

“No tip,” Mitch said.

“You’re the original sport,” Cogan said.

“Fuck her,” Mitch said. He drank again. “This’s afternoon. She’s, this one’s gravy, right, Honey?”

“It’s better’n filing,” the girl said.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Mitch said. “I never did no filing.”

The girl walked toward the door. “Well,” she said, “it’s not much better’n filing, some times. But it’s, it’s mostly better. Some times, you know, you get an old guy, and then it’s just faster.” She opened the door.

“You know, Honey,” Mitch said, “some day some old bastard you just milked, he might decide to carve you up some, talking like that. How’d you like that?”

“Jesus,” the girl said in the doorway, “I don’t know. You think I’d come?”

“If you could, you might,” Mitch said. “Probably not, is what I think.”

“Fuck you,” the girl said closing the door.

“Which,” Mitch said, “is pretty much what I had in mind when I had her come up here. Christ you got some funny gash in Boston. I hadda practically talk her into it. That Polly, there? Same thing. Nothing but french. ‘For Christ sake,’ I say, ‘I wanna get laid. Isn’t that what you do?’ ”

“No, it’s not,” Cogan said. “Any guy you asked could’ve told you that. I could’ve told you that.”

“You didn’t, though,” Mitch said.

“Well, you didn’t ask me,” Cogan said. “Wasn’t me that had her come up here. That broad I sent, she was all right, I assume? The guy said she’s all right.”

“No more’n that,” Mitch said. “I couldn’t get over it. I said to her: ‘Whaddaya mean, french? I happen to like fucking. Who’s hiring who, here?’ Didn’t make no difference at all. You can feel her up, you can finger-fuck her, but you can’t fuck her. For Christ sake. A fuckin’ blow job.”

“It’s supposed to be a great blow job,” Cogan said.

“When you wanna get laid,” Mitch said, “there’s no such thing as a great blow job. She’s telling me, guys spend two, three hundred a night for what she does. Is that true?”

“I guess it used to be,” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Mitch said, “well, you know what I think? I think you’re all nuts, letting broads get away with that.”

“She’s supposed to be afraid of the clap,” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Mitch said, “well, okay. That line of work, I don’t think you oughta be able to say like that, but I didn’t have no luck with her. She, she still didn’t fuck anybody that I could tell you about. Her teeth fall out, boy, she’s gonna be the hit of the world. But not me. You know something? I’ll tell you something.” Mitch finished his drink. “I haven’t had a real piece of ass since I was in Florida.”

“That was one fine-lookin’ broad you had down there,” Cogan said.

“Sunny,” Mitch said. “That was Sunny. I suppose you fucked her too, after I was gone.”

“Mitch,” Cogan said, “when me and Dillon got there that night, she was with you. When we left, you’re still there and, wasn’t she still with you? You’re there, what was it?”

“Three weeks,” Mitch said.

“Three weeks,” Cogan said. “And I was there five days, inna middle. How the fuck’m I gonna do that?”

“I dunno,” Mitch said. He picked up the glass. “Empty again.” He got up. “Sure you won’t join me?”

“Not late enough yet, either,” Cogan said.

Mitch went into the bathroom. Cogan heard ice go into the glass. He did not hear water running. “Sammy did it,” Mitch said from the bathroom.

“The guy from Detroit,” Cogan said. “Sharp-looking little ginzo.”

“Sammy’s Jewish,” Mitch said.

“Okay,” Cogan said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

“No trouble,” Mitch said. “He looks like a ginzo. I wished he was. But he’s Jewish. All the years I known that guy, he still did it. The son of a bitch.”

Cogan heard water running in the bathroom. Mitch emerged with a dark Scotch and water. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his left hand. “It’s my own stupid fault,” he said. “The night before I’m leaving, we’re having dinner and he comes over, I introduce them and everything. I don’t know why this bothers me, you know that?”

“No,” Cogan said.

Mitch sat down. He put the glass on the end table. “I mean, I know. When I’m there, I’m there and she’s with me. When I leave, you’re there, and she’s with you.”

“She wasn’t with me,” Cogan said.

“I didn’t mean you,” Mitch said. “I mean: any guy. Anybody that’s there, she’s with him. You leave, she’s not with you any more.”

“Oh,” Cogan said.

“See,” Mitch said, “that’s what I mean. I know that. I give her, well, last year, I’m down there, I was only there two weeks. No, three weeks. Anyway, that’s how many nights?”

“Twenty-one,” Cogan said.

“No,” Mitch said, “ah, anyway, I had her all signed up. It was fourteen nights. You know what that cost me? Three thousand dollars.”

“Now,” Cogan said, “that really oughta do it. I wouldn’t pay no broad three thousand to do anything. I wouldn’t care what she could do. I wouldn’t pay it.”

“I didn’t care,” Mitch said. “I was still with the union then, and the guys that had the jobs, they were always very nice to me. You didn’t have no wildcats or anything, well, see what I mean? I didn’t care. So it’s a lot. I’m not in love with the girl, right? I only give her for when I’m there.”

“She’s still a great-looking girl, though,” Cogan said.

“She is,” Mitch said. “That fuckin’ Sammy. The night you saw her, what’d she have on?”

“Tell you the truth,” Cogan said, “I didn’t notice what she was wearing, so much’s what she was wearing it on. Some yellow thing or something. You could see quite a lot.”

“There’s quite a lot to see,” Mitch said. “The night Sammy comes by, right? She’s got this gray thing on. It’s like silk, and it’s gray, and there isn’t any back on it and she’s got these mammoth tits, she’s really something. I could’ve beat up five guys with the horn I had on, and I, I had her all them other nights, right? So Sammy comes up and I introduce them, and how long am I there for and how long’s he there for, and I’m not really paying attention or anything, we’re having some wine and so I asked him to sit down. And pretty soon I got to go to the Men’s. So I go, and I’m gone a pretty long time, because I got this huge prong on and I gotta practically stand on my head if I wanna piss in the hopper and not in my own fuckin’ mouth, and still, I wanna be careful with it, you know? It was really big. I don’t think I could’ve blinked. I don’t think I had no skin left. She’s good, Sunny’s good about that. Sunny can’t get you up, you’re probably dead. But this’s the last time, and she’s not gonna have to. Because I’m all ready to go, I can ever get through dinner. My friend, I don’t care what you say, I seen every kind of ass there is, you know that?”

“You’ve seen it this week,” Cogan said. “You been here, what, three days, what I hear you had a look at most of the ass there is in Boston.”

“I like it,” Mitch said. “That’s what it is, I like it. It’s like, it’s a hobby with me, you know? I never do nothing when I’m home. Nothing. But that’s why, I go the races. Once a year, I go to the races, and I get laid. Only this year, probably I’m not goin’ the races.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Cogan said. “I’d get all fucked out. You, I think you’re probably in good shape. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t fuck for three days, is all. I couldn’t do it.”

“I was your age,” Mitch said, “I felt exactly the same way.”

“Sure,” Cogan said. “I got work I got to do.”

Mitch drank from the glass. “I used to think the same way,” he said. “Then, I dunno when it happened, I dunno why it happened. I just started doing it. I went down there, the very first time I went down there, I got the suite. I was having a terrible time with Margie, and she finds out about it and she’s giving me all kinds of hell about it, you asked her and she’d tell you she drinks because I go down there. Well, it was her or me. But I can tell you, boy, you want ass, get yourself a, there’s no ass inna whole wide world like a young Jewish girl that’s hookin’.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Cogan said.

“That broad,” Mitch said, “she was in Oberlin, she was in college, right? And she quit. Whaddaya think of that?” He drank.

“You’re gonna be all right,” Cogan said, “tomorrow or the next night?”

“I’m all right, right now,” Mitch said. “Christ sake. Lemme alone, willya? Well, she quit. And she took up hookin’. Now you get a broad like that, they really go right to work on it, you know? And they get so, they really know their fuckin’ business. That broad, Sunny, she’s not, she isn’t half my wife’s age and she knew things which, if Margie knew them she’d go down the station and turn herself in. She really would.

“So, I come back the table,” Mitch said. “I finally get rid of that wine without pissing on my own fuckin’ chin and they’re both there and Sammy’s being very polite and all, and finally he leaves and then we finish and I thought to fuckin’ God, I can pole-vault up to the room with just what I got of my own, and we go up there and I want to tell you, three thousand bucks, it’s not cheap and I don’t care whether you got it or not, it’s fuckin’ expensive, but it’s worth it, it was honestly worth it. I give her three for the whole time and that night alone, it was worth it all. Only, I don’t tell her that, of course.”

“Mitch,” Cogan said.

“So the next day I get up,” Mitch said. “I also get up, but I hadda twelve-thirty plane so it’s just a quickie. Just a quickie with Sunny’s about nine times better’n a whole fuckin’ date with another broad. And then I go down and I get some steam, and I come back up and I got to give her the rest of the money. See, you give them half when you get there and then when you’re through, down there, you give them the rest. So I say, I tell her, I really appreciate it, I know what this means, all that time right out in one chunk and all. And she tells me, see, she’s out of circulation and everything, she tells me: ‘It’s all right,’ there isn’t any problem, and I give her the money and everything, and she’s leaving, and, well, she’s gonna stay with Sammy the next two weeks and he’s hitting her four for it. That cocksucker.”

“Look,” Cogan said, “this after, I’m supposed to meet a kid, all right? I think I got a guy that can take you around and all.”

“I can’t go out,” Mitch said.

“I didn’t mean fuckin’ around,” Cogan said. “You come up here to do something. For that. I was gonna talk to him and then if I’m satisfied, he can do something without having his brother hold his hand all the time, I was gonna bring him up here and talk about it with you.”

“It’s all right with me,” Mitch said.

“Well,” Cogan said, “I’m glad to hear that. Only, it’s not all right with me. Because you’re not gonna be able, be able to make it tonight, and I don’t want this kid thinking about things too long, he’s liable to go tell his brother.”

“Aw right,” Mitch said, “where the fuck is he? Get him up here and we’ll set the guy up.”

“You,” Cogan said, “I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do, right? You’re goin’ to bed.”

“I’m not tired,” Mitch said.

“You sure as hell look tired to me,” Cogan said. “You go to fuckin’ bed. And, it’s two-thirty now, you shit. I’m gonna call you at seven-thirty and I better wake you up, because if I don’t, I’m gonna drop a dime on a couple cops I know and they’ll take you back where you’re supposed to be.”