Текст книги "Cogan's Trade "

Автор книги: George Higgins

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

“So,” Mitch said, “they open up the cars and there’s the shotguns, me and Topper’s car. It was Topper’s wife’s car, actually. Two shotguns right there. I just bought the fuckin’ shotgun, for Christ sake. I went down the place and I bought the fuckin’ shotgun. I hadda have my wife’s uncle sign for it, of course, but I actually went out and paid for the thing. Nobody gave it to me or anything. I never even used it once. Guy looks at them. Then he comes over. Treasury. I’m under arrest. Felon in possession. You think, you think I said a single word to them? No. But what does he say: ‘Mister Mitchell,’ and then he starts telling me. So, it probably just happened, they know my record and everything. I look at Topper. Nope, they arrest him, too. They know his name. I’m thinking: pretty soon I start asking around, see how come these guys know when I’m gonna take a shit and everything.

“ ‘Just for your information,’ the guy says to me,” Mitch said, “ ‘you might be interested to know, we picked you up at the Throg’s Neck Bridge this morning. You guys’ve got to learn some day, stop having these conventions.’ So there I am. I’m probably gonna go to jail for a fuckin’ shotgun I bought in a fuckin’ store, I was gonna use to shoot geese with, for Christ sake.”

“Jesus,” Cogan said.

Mitch finished the martini. He signaled to the waiter, pointing to Cogan’s empty stein first.

“You’re hitting that stuff pretty hard, aren’t you, Mitch?” Cogan said.

“I was up all night,” Mitch said. “I can never sleep, I’m going some place the next day onna plane. Them things make me nervous. Then, I come in like this, I got to sleep before I’m good for anything that day. I’m gonna go the hotel, we finish here, get some sleep. I told the doctor, he was gonna put me back on the cortisone, it started up again after that thing in Maryland, and I said: ‘No.’ I don’t care what it is, I’ll change my pants three times a day if I have to, I got to get rid of this weight I got on me. Only I think, well, Topper feels responsible. And he looks, he’s little and he’s old and he didn’t take a pinch for about thirty years, I think. So, they’re probably gonna both be his shotguns. I was just doing an old man a favor, driving him down there and all.”

“Yeah,” Cogan said, “but if they don’t …”

“I do time,” Mitch said. “It’s very simple. If they’re not his guns, I do time. I did it before. If I have to, I can do it again. They’re gonna have to practically turn themselves inside out, get me more’n three even with the rap sheet I got, for that. Oh Jesus, do them guys love arresting you. They just love it. They get somebody, they finally get a guy, they know his name, Jesus Christ, you’d think some of them’re little kids. Like to bash them right inna mouth, they like it so much. Bastards. But, big fuckin’ deal. I do a year. I don’t like it, but shit, that’s the way it goes.”

“Rough onna wife, though,” Cogan said. “That’s the one thing, you know, Carol can never get it off of her mind, I might get bagged and have to go to jail. Most of the time she don’t give me any shit, except about the way I’m out all the time and everything. But every so often, well, they hooked four guys there and they got them in front the grand jury and they asked them, who’s the guy they’re looking for, you know? Like you say: the guy, they know who he is. And naturally they don’t say anything. And then they get this immunity.”

“They been doing that down in Brooklyn,” Mitch said. “They got everybody in the slammer, and what’d they do? They wouldn’t say anything.”

“Yeah,” Cogan said. “So, the same thing, they go to jail. And if they don’t tell them, which they’re naturally not gonna do, they’re gonna have to stay there. So they’re in the can. And my wife was saying, well, I told her, I said, I’m not big enough. And I’m getting out of it anyway, fast as I can. Guys like me, they don’t even know I’m around. Those’re much bigger guys’n I am. But I can see it. I think, I don’t think she could take it, really, something like that happened. Every time they come in and ask for the toll sheets, there, everybody knows, they talk about it the cafeteria. And she gets all worried and everything. ‘Just promise me one thing, you’ll stay away from phones where they know you.’ So, I do. But I’m almost out of that anyway. I don’t think she could take it, really, something like that happened.”

“None of them can,” Mitch said. The waiter delivered the martini and the beer. Mitch drank the beer. He wiped his mouth. He belched, softly. “The last time, the last time she actually took out the papers. And I didn’t blame her. She was a lot younger then. But when we’re trying that thing, the last day? The jury’s gonna get the case that day. I get up and she’s already up. I dunno how long that is, but I was up at five or so to take a leak, and she wasn’t in bed then. She says: ‘Doesn’t look good, does it?’ Well, what the hell, it didn’t. The cop lied on the stand, of course, put me in the place at nine-thirty, it was at least after ten when I got there that night, and the jury believed him, of course. So, I say, no, it didn’t. And we go in the bedroom, get dressed. And I’m putting my pants on and I’m watching her, she’s getting dressed, I dunno how she does it, the way she drinks and everything, but she always hadda nice body, and I was thinking, you know? Now I’m goin’ away again, and she’ll start beating the shit out of the sauce and everything, and I know she’ll play around. Shit, I mean, I don’t like the feeling it gives me in the nuts, knowing it, but I wouldn’t even ask her, you know? Just because I’m inna can, she’s supposed to go without it just like she’s inna can with me? So she looks at me. ‘This’s the third time I’ve had to do this, Harold,’ she says. She never called me Mitch, and she knows I hate that name.

“ ‘Look,’ I tell her,” Mitch said, “ ‘you never know what’ll happen.’ ” He drank some of the martini. “ ‘What’s gonna happen, you never know.’

“And she says to me,” Mitch said, “ ‘Well, you think you know what’s gonna happen, and I think it’s gonna happen, and I don’t know if I can take it again.’

“So it happened,” Mitch said, “and then the papers come up and I was gonna sign them, let her have what she wants if this’s what she wants. She went through it twice. The girl don’t owe me nothing. She probably is sick of it. But then, I asked her to come up and see me, and I said: ‘Margie, look, you know? You want this, you’re really sure, you can have it. But what’s it gonna get you, huh?’ She was, she was thirty-nine, forty, then. ‘You’re still gonna have the kids, you’re still gonna have to know, I get out, I’m not gonna be in here forever and you’re gonna have to see me when I see them. I’m not gonna stop coming around, seeing them. And, we been together a long time. Unless, unless you really got somebody else you really got to have, okay?’ See, I knew she was seeing this guy. So, she don’t answer me. And I say: ‘Look, do this for me. Don’t do nothing now. You had, you know, when I come out last time, we’re both a lot younger then and all, and you hadda decide then.’ And she looks at me: ‘And you promised me then,’ she says, ‘you promised me then, you were all through. And here I am again, and you’ll promise me now, again, and I’ll wait five years and get six more, and then you’ll do something again.’

“ ‘Margie,’ I said,” Mitch said, “ ‘what can I say to you? I know. You’re right. But all I’m asking, you can do, wait’ll I come out again. Because, I dunno who the guy is,’ ” Mitch said, “and I did, of course. I knew about it two days after she was with him the first time. I don’t blame him, either. ‘I oughta at least, you oughta at least do this for me: I oughta be around the same’s he is. Because we always got along all right.’ And she starts crying and shaking her head, and I really thought. But she didn’t. And it was all right. I think, you know, you know anything about kids? Probably not.” Mitch finished the martini.

“You’re not having any more of those things,” Cogan said. “You’ll fall on your ass if you do.”

“I can handle it,” Mitch said. “I was drinking before you got out of your father’s cock. Don’t tell me what I do.” He signaled the waiter. He pointed twice at Cogan’s empty stein. “Nobody knows anything about kids,” Mitch said. “But, it’s really hard on the kids. I think it was that, probably, what did it to them, the way they hadda be and all. They’re no good. Oh, they’re good enough. My daughter’s all right. But my son, he won’t have nothing to do with me. And I think, this’s the funny part, all right? I think it probably was that, that she did it for, and it probably would’ve been better for them if she didn’t. I think that’s why she drinks so much, now.”

“I thought she was all right,” Cogan said, “we’re down in Florida, there.”

“She was,” Mitch said. “Look, when I was down there she was all right. When I went down there. She really was. I believed it. But see, that was the first time she was all right, and since then, I seen what happened. I talked to some guys, everybody that’s got somebody like that, and the first time they shake it, you know, you always think they shook it and that’s the end of it. They always think that, they think that themselves. But they never do. Nobody like that’s ever all right again, ever. I came back, there, I was home about a month and we’re going at it left and right, this and that, well, look, I dunno what it is, you know? But I wasn’t sorry I hadda come up here, lemme put it that way. She was going at it again. They can’t stay away from it when they get like that. The best they can do is, they can stay away from it for a while. I think something finally happens to them. I go away, I go away on this thing again, she’ll go down the slide once and for all before they get the gray suit on me. And this time, boy, I find that out, I get the papers again from her, this time I sign them. It’s too fuckin’ rough for me.”

The waiter brought two steins of dark. He set them both in front of Mitch. Cogan said: “Check.” The waiter nodded. Mitch drank half of the first stein.

“It’s a terrible amount of shit, you got to go through,” Cogan said.

“Hey,” Mitch said, “look, you know? What can you do? Do the best you can. Think I’m gonna leave the country like some fuckin’ draft dodger or something? Fuck that. It don’t make no difference anyway. What’re we doing?”

“We got this,” Cogan said, “we got two guys. There’s actually four guys, but one of them’s probably not around and I’m not sure, we really want the other one. So, we got two guys, for sure, and one of them knows me, so here you are.”

“Well,” Mitch said, “am I doing a double or what? These guys hang around or something?”

“Uh uh,” Cogan said. “Well, I mean, you wanna take the double, it’s all right with me, you think you can handle it. You need that?”

“I could use the dough,” Mitch said. “I’m gonna have to try this thing and it’s gonna cost me my left ball to do it. You know where the pricks indicted me? Maryland. Not in New York, Maryland. So I got to go down there and everything, and fart around in some motel, and it’s gonna mean two lawyers, my guy, that looks like he never got out the garment district in his life, Solly’s a great guy, but if a guy ever looked like a sharp New York Jew, it’s Solly. And then the other guy, some guy that probably wears overalls or something, so they don’t hook me just because I got Solly. Yeah, I need dough.”

“Well,” Cogan said, “you want the two of them, it’s fine with me.”

“I oughta take you up on it,” Mitch said. “But I think, I’m not supposed to be up here, you know? I’m restricted, New York and Maryland and that stuff, I’m supposed, I’m not supposed, go any place else unless I ask them. Well, I didn’t ask. So I probably shouldn’t hang around here any longer’n I absolutely have to. And, two’s risky, too. No, I better stick with the one.”

“Okay,” Cogan said. “Now, here’s the thing: that’s gonna be the guy that knows me. Well, he don’t know me, but he’s one of the few guys that probably knows who I am, all right? He knows me and he knows Dillon, and if he hears anything, he’s gonna figure, he’s gonna be waiting for Dillon or me. So, he’s the one.”

“He got friends?” Mitch said.

“One of the guys that we might do,” Cogan said. “He’s a kid, he could be around. He’s a fairly tough kid, too. The other kid, he’s the guy that’s apparently not around. So, there might be the one.”

“We gonna do anything about him?” Mitch said.

“Right now,” Cogan said, “it depends. I honestly don’t know. See, the other guy, I got him in mind for tonight. And a lot depends, what happens after that.”

“The fuck happened, anyway?” Mitch said.

“One of them fuckin’ things,” Cogan said. “There’s this guy, got a game, all right? And he got some guys, one time, knock it over for him, and then, well, he got away with it. So, and then everybody says: ‘Okay.’ Then this other guy comes along, and he gets these two kids, and they go in and they knock it over again, right? They think he’s gonna get blamed for it again. That’s the guy I’m doing. I’m gonna put his light out tonight, I figure, things go all right.”

“Dumb shit,” Mitch said. He finished the first stein.

“Right,” Cogan said. The waiter brought the check. Cogan paid it.

“On your way back,” Mitch said, “you think you’re gonna be in this neighborhood again this year, you can bring me two more.”

“No, you can’t,” Cogan said to the waiter. He took the second stein. “I’m gonna drink this, even if I don’t want it. He’s drinking coffee. Bring the man nice black coffee.”

“Hey,” Mitch said.

“Hey yourself,” Cogan said. “I’m gonna have to talk to you. I don’t wanna have to go down, see you inna fuckin’ tank. Too many guys around down there, listening to other people’s business. Coffee for you.”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” Mitch said.

“Watch television,” Cogan said.

“I probably won’t,” Mitch said. “You’re gonna line something up for me, instead.”

“You gotta have that?” Cogan said.

“Shit,” Mitch said. “I’m not working tonight, right?”

“Nope,” Cogan said.

“And I’m probably not working tomorrow night, either,” Mitch said. “We got to set this thing up, and all. Who’s gonna help me?”

“I got a kid,” Cogan said. “He’s not the sharpest thing I ever seen, but he’ll do what you tell him. You want him to drive, he’ll drive. Anything.”

“Is he gonna fuck up?” Mitch said. “Never mind what somebody tells him, does he fuck up?”

“Look,” Cogan said, “this kid’d tear a fuckin’ car in half with his bare hands, you asked him. He’s very dependable. But you got to tell him. You tell him, he’ll do it. He’ll go through a fuckin’ building, he’s got to.”

“I personally,” Mitch said, “I’d rather have a guy that’d see the building and go around it. I can’t afford, I don’t want no guy that’s gonna go on no fuckin’ rampage the minute I let him out of my sight. You sure you can’t come in on this?”

“Look,” Cogan said, “the guy’s name’s Johnny Amato. I know him. I did, he wanted Dillon to do something for him once, and Dillon couldn’t do it. So Dillon told him, if it was all right, he’d ask me, and the guy said: ‘Yeah.’ So I did it, and he paid me. He knows me.”

“How much does this kid know?” Mitch said.

“Kenny?” Cogan said. “Kenny knows nothing. I didn’t tell him nothing. He don’t know you’re in town. He knew it, it wouldn’t mean nothing to him.”

“I don’t want him,” Mitch said.

The waiter brought Cogan’s change and the coffee.

“I don’t want that, either,” Mitch said.

The waiter left.

“I didn’t say you wanted it,” Cogan said.

“I don’t want no fuckin’ nutcakes, either,” Mitch said.

“Well,” Cogan said, “look, I mean, you got to tell me what you want, then, right? Because I don’t know.”

“Where is this guy?” Mitch said.

“Quincy,” Cogan said. “Wollaston, actually.”

“I don’t know where the fuck that is,” Mitch said.

“I can show you,” Cogan said.

“But he knows you,” Mitch said. “Great. Look, this other guy, the one you’re doing?”

“Yeah,” Cogan said.

“Do him,” Mitch said, “and the way I get it, that’s gonna do something to the guy I’m supposed to hit.”

“Got to,” Cogan said.

“Gonna make him relax, or something,” Mitch said.

“I think,” Cogan said.

“Okay, then,” Mitch said. “So, we got to give him a chance to relax then, haven’t we? And you got to get me somebody that can drive a car without running into things, and also you got to get me something. You haven’t got anything yet, I assume.”

“I was gonna ask you what you wanted,” Cogan said.

“Good,” Mitch said, “forty-five Military Police. I never use nothing else.”

“Okay,” Cogan said.

“If you’re the guy that’s starting it,” Mitch said, “it’s a great thing. One of them. And a guy that can do things. How long’s that gonna take you?”

“Day or so,” Cogan said.

“And a car,” Mitch said.

“Still a day or so,” Cogan said.

“And where he’s gonna be,” Mitch said.

“Same thing,” Cogan said.

“You know something?” Mitch said. “I don’t think you can do it that fast.”

“I can,” Cogan said.

“Well,” Mitch said, “then I think you’re not gonna and I don’t care if you can or not. Now, this’s, we’re gonna do this, this is Thursday. We’re gonna do him Saturday night. That’s when we’re gonna do it. You guys’re all half-assed up here. You don’t take the time to think about things. I do.”

“Always glad to meet a guy, you can learn something from,” Cogan said.

“I been at this a long time,” Mitch said. “I messed up some things, but never one of these. Now, that leaves me tonight and tomorrow night. Who’s gonna see me tonight?”

“I can’t promise nothing special,” Cogan said.

“Don’t like fuckin’, is that it?” Mitch said.

“Never paid for it, anyway,” Cogan said.

“Well, company’s what I want,” Mitch said. “You get me some company for tonight. I’ll take it from there. Fourteen-o-nine. I’m in the tower, all right?”

“That,” Cogan said, “I’ll do the best I can for you. That’s something you’re gonna have to decide.”

“HE’S NOT WALKING RIGHT,” Gill said. He wore a dark blue tanker jacket and sat opposite Cogan in the Hayes Bickford across the street from the Lobster Tail.

“Of course he’s not walking right,” Cogan said. “He’s hurt. He’s all beat to shit.”

“It takes him a long time to do something,” Gill said. “I seen him, he was getting out of his car. It takes him a long time.”

“He’s all taped up,” Cogan said.

“He’s sure slow,” Gill said.

“He don’t feel good,” Cogan said. “You wouldn’t feel good, either.”

“What’re we gonna do, Jack?” Gill said.

“You’re gonna drive the car,” Cogan said. “Never mind thinking about what I’m gonna do. You just think about what you’re gonna do.”

“I’m gonna get some money,” Gill said.

“Five hundred,” Cogan said, “same as always, five hundred. You don’t fuck anything up.”

“I ever fuck anything up with you?” Kenny said.

“Kenny,” Cogan said, “the world’s full of guys that never fucked up, and then they did something and they fucked up once and they’re doing time. So this’s no night to start, not when I’m with you. What’d you get for a car?”

“Olds,” Gill said. “Last year’s Four-four-two. Nice car.”

“Don’t get attached to it,” Cogan said. “You got everything in it, I gave you?”

“Sure,” Gill said.

“The way I gave it to you and all,” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Gill said.

“Okay,” Cogan said, “all you gotta do is, you got to drive.”

“Who is this guy?” Gill said.

“Don’t matter,” Cogan said.

“No,” Gill said, “I mean, really. Who is this guy? This the guy Steve and Barry beat up?”

“Kenny,” Cogan said.

“I didn’t mean nothing.” Gill said. “I was just wondering. I was, there was this guy, really got beat up, he was running a card game. And this guy, he’s hurt, I was wondering if it was the same guy.”

“Who told you about the guy with the card game, Kenny,” Cogan said.

“Jack,” Gill said, “like I said, I was just wondering. I didn’t mean nothing. What’d he do with the card game?”

“He had a couple guys come in and knock it over,” Cogan said.

“Oh,” Gill said. “See, well, I couldn’t understand it. Steve and Barry.”

“You figured I should’ve asked you,” Cogan said.

“I could’ve used the money, Jack,” Gill said.

“You can always use the money,” Cogan said. “Thing of it is, and I didn’t ask them, incidentally, you got that?”

“Sure,” Gill said.

“The thing needed two guys,” Cogan said. “That’s why you didn’t get called.”

“I could’ve got another guy,” Gill said. “I could’ve got the guy I had with me onna dogs.”

“Uh huh,” Cogan said, “well, okay, Kenny. Next time I need two guys, I’ll call you.”

“He would’ve been all right,” Kenny said. “He’s a good guy. Only, I don’t think he’s gonna hang around much now.”

“Okay, Kenny,” Cogan said, “you just keep things in mind, I need two guys some time, I’ll maybe call you first and if you can get me a guy, I’ll use you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kenny said. “See, I was just thinking, was all, Jack.”

“That’s your weak spot, Kenny,” Cogan said. “Never mind it. Just do like I tell you, everything’ll be all right.”

“Does he know?” Gill said.

“Nah,” Cogan said, “he oughta, but he probably doesn’t. I don’t think so, no.”

Wearing a gray and red tattersall coat, Mark Trattman, his hands in his pockets, emerged from the Lobster Tail alone. The attendant in the snorkel coat started walking down the street.

“Son of a bitch,” Cogan said. “Didn’t score tonight for a change.”

“He was drinking his drink through them little plastic things you’re supposed to steer them with,” Gill said. “Those little green and white things.”

“Yeah,” Cogan said. He set his coffee cup down. “Where’s the fuckin’ car?”

“Around the side,” Gill said. “I thought you said—”

“Never mind what you thought I said,” Cogan said. “Move your big dumb ass. The guy’s going home.”

“I don’t get it,” Gill said.

“Neither’s he, tonight,” Cogan said. “Never again, either. Come on, for Christ sake, we’re gonna get home early for a change.”

The yellow 4-4-2 trailed Trattman’s tan Coupe de Ville through eight consecutive green lights on Commonwealth Avenue, westbound. Cogan rode in the back, sitting behind the driver’s seat. He kept his hands down, out of sight.

“Jesus,” Gill said, “he’s pretty good at this. He hits them all, just’s they turn.”

“He knows the speed,” Cogan said. “They’re set for nineteen or twenty miles an hour, I think it is. Something like that. He does it all the time, for Christ sake. He oughta.”

“Jack,” Gill said, “what if, what if he hasn’t gotta stop?”

“We’ll take him home and put him to fuckin’ bed then,” Cogan said. “Just keep after him, Kenny, and remember what I told you about thinking. Don’t worry about nothing. Just you change lanes now and then and everything’ll be all right.”

On the long hill at the synagogue, the Cadillac swung into the right lane and the brake lights came on as it approached the intersection of Chestnut Hill Avenue. The traffic light was red. A streetcar moved west toward Lake Street beyond the intersection.

“Middle lane, Kenny,” Cogan said. “There’s three lanes, it goes to three lanes up here. Take the middle.” He began to straighten up in the back seat. He leaned over and cranked down the right rear passenger window with his left hand.

The 4-4-2 approached the Cadillac quickly off the left rear.

“Right up even,” Cogan said, “nice and smooth.”

The traffic light remained red. There were no other cars. The traffic lights on Chestnut Hill Avenue turned yellow.

“Right up next to him,” Cogan said. “Then a little bit ahead. Put me right next to him, Kenny. Atta boy.”

Gill stopped the 4-4-2 with the open right rear window even with the driver’s window of the Cadillac. Trattman looked lazily at the car. He looked back at the traffic light.

Cogan ran the 30-06 Savage semi-automatic rifle out the rear window of the 4-4-2 and fired five times. The first bullet crazed Trattman’s window. Trattman lurched off to the right and was snubbed up abruptly. Cogan said: “Good for you, Markie, always wear your seat belt.”

The Cadillac started to creep forward as Cogan finished firing, Trattman bent forward at an angle over the passenger seat. When Gill swung the 4-4-2 left on Chestnut Hill Avenue, the Cadillac was halfway across; it ran up against the curbstone as the lights in the apartments at the intersection started to come on.