The Digger's Game

by George V. Higgins

  “That’s what I tell him,” Torrey said. “That’s what I’m saying, he thinks like a businessman. He don’t know, is all. All he knows is he can’t get bonded no more and he don’t trust anybody that looks straight. I tell you, Greek, we got ourselves a fine fat gaffer in this guy.”

  “It’s all right to talk about things in front of him then,” the Greek said.

  “He is joined up,” Torrey said. “I personally guarantee it. He is in.”

  “See,” the Greek said, “I was nineteen, I get out of the training school there, I make myself a little promise. I was, I wasn’t going back. Well, I didn’t. And one way I didn’t, I watch what I say in front of guys. You’re sure.”

  “You can talk in front of him,” Torrey said.

  “He knows what we got to do, then,” the Greek said.

  “He knows about the man,” Torrey said. “He knows the guy in Worcester and he knows, he knows about, the guy in, how we got to send down to Providence. I put it right on him, he was telling me how we could take that chickenshit thing I had going up there in Lynn and turn it into something. I said, ‘Look, I’m interested, no question. But there’s maybe some things you don’t understand about this kind of operation, the way it works, what you got to do, you know?’

  “He says, ‘Look, I can guess. I been around some. You don’t need to draw me a picture.’ And I say, ‘Mill, I’m gonna draw you a picture. There’s one thing I learn, a thing like this, everybody that’s in it better know exactly what he’s in. See, I don’t want you go running to the man or something, telling me you didn’t know what you’re getting yourself into. So I’m telling you right now, your own personal information and nobody else’s, because if I catch you telling anybody else, I’m gonna kill you, all right? A piece of this, we got to work this on the okay from Worcester, and we get that okay, there’s a price on it. We got to pay the money down to Providence there, all right? You understand that?’

  “He says, ‘Yeah.’ I say, ‘You mean it, now. You’re getting in this, you’re gonna be connected, is all there is to it. Because you can’t do this, you’re not connected. You understand that.’

  “He says, ‘I understand.’ He says, ‘You’re not telling me anything I didn’t know, I started talking to you. I was looking for you, for Christ sake. You think I went looking for somebody, I didn’t know the guy I was looking for?’

  “I say, ‘Okay, then, you’re in. But you know, it’s like getting married, it’s like getting married in Italy, there, you know? We never had no divorce, we haven’t got any now. You’re in, you’re in, and you stay in. That means you go out someday and you take your medicine, you go inna grand jury or something, okay, that’s what you do. You go out and you take your fuckin’ medicine. You don’t, I come around and wreck you personally, because I have to. Okay?’

  “He says,” Torrey said, “he says, ‘Okay. I told you, I don’t have no objections.’

  “I say, ‘I hope so. I hope you got it clear in your mind. I’m responsible for you, you come in. I got to be sure and you got to be sure, because I got to cover my ass. I been covering my ass for a long time. I know how to do it. I know, I bring a guy in, I’m taking a chance, is what I’m doing. I don’t take no big chances. I wanted big chances, I’d take my own goddamned tours. I don’t. So, you get him in the shit, I’m the guy gonna have to go down there, explain how come, and that I can’t do. So I better not have to, Mill. There’s a lot of guys’d like to have another crack at the man, they’re not satisfied, he’s already doing time, they figure, they figure he’s gonna get out someday. That they don’t want. They’re looking for guys like you that didn’t always understand everything they said they understood. You better not be one of them. Because, you turn out to be one of them, I’ll have to do something. And I’ll do it, Mill, no matter how much I like you personally. I’ll do it.’ He says, ‘Okay.’ He’s okay, Greek. Now what is this shit, if we collect?”

  “Well,” the Greek said, “I look at this stuff, all right? Three kinds of paper.” He tapped the stack nearest his right hand with his right forefinger. “Jewish paper. Names I recognize. Easy stuff. Big sports with the fat-ass yachts and the golf carts in Newton. Every one of them drives the Cad. Used to playing, used to losing, used to paying. No pissing and moaning at all. I floated some of them a fast hundred K for a land deal now and then, it’s a Sunday and they’re inna hurry and the banks’re closed. Only thing is, they’re so used to losing, they don’t lose all that much. I figure there’s less’n half what we got here, there. What we oughta get off them guys, we oughta get a piece of what they pay the cunts to fuck them. Then we’d really make out.”

  The Greek tapped the middle stack. “Not one goddamned name in here I recognize. The addresses I do. Needham, Wellesley, Beverly, that kind of thing. Duxbury, Hingham, Sharon.

  “Now I make a guess on that,” the Greek said, “professional guys. Doctors, lawyers, guys that fix people’s teeth and feet and that kind of stuff. Sweat their balls off twenty years and all of a sudden they’re making thirty and they go right out of their fuckin’ minds. Get their hair styled, all of a sudden they know everything. First thing they do, they go to Vegas and lose about six K apiece.”

  “They’re guys Mill knew,” Torrey said. “I dunno much about them.”

  “Just what I thought,” the Greek said, “I left that out. First thing they do, they get themselves a smart-ass broker like him, and they lose about two K. That makes them feel so good, they go to Vegas and drop six.”

  “They got it, though,” Torrey said.

  “Most of them, yeah,” the Greek said. “They just don’t know they got it, it’s in appreciation onna house or it’s in what they can borrow from the bank. They got it, they just don’t know they got it. So first you gotta convince them of that, that they got it. Then, the next thing, you got to convince them they owe it. See, they’re used to getting things, they spend money, they get a new car or they get a boat or a trip or something. Furniture. They already had what they got for this. You got to convince them of that, too. Then, they’re not used to a guy like me. They all, they all borrowed money. When they hadda pay the money, guy sends them a letter. They haven’t got the money, guy sends them a piece of paper. Any banker inna world’s gonna trust a guy, kind of job they got. So I gotta teach them that: I don’t trust them. Few calls do it. I snarl at them. They pay. They read all them books. I’ll get that.”

  “So where’s the problem?” Torrey said.

  “Problem’s this,” the Greek said, tapping the pile on the left. “These guys I know. Digger Doherty’s group, the guys hang around the Bright Red, there. I would have to say, I would have to say if somebody was to ask me, we got twenty-eight K in the Digger and them, and that’s gonna be hard to get out. I don’t think bringing in them jamokes was such a hot idea.”

  “We hadda fill the plane,” Torrey said. “We had fourteen beds at the hotel, we’re gonna have to pay for, at least one night, we don’t use them, the whole three nights, they don’t rent them to somebody else. Miller told me he was coming up empty, his other prospects. I said I’d see what I could do. So I tried the Digger.”

  “Richie,” the Greek said, “you hang around the wrong type of guys. You know them guys?”

  “Yeah,” Torrey said, “I know them guys.”

  “You know them guys,” the Greek said, “you don’t know them too good. Those’re hard Harps. They haven’t got twenty-eight K in the one place since the day they’re born, all of them put together. In addition to which, they are very tough guys. I used them myself, somebody got it in his head the Greek was running a charity here. I had very good results. The fuckin’ Digger, he’s got a machinegun. Most guys know the Digger, know he’s got a machinegun, it’s one of those things everybody knows. There’s talk the Digger used the machinegun a couple times. I get the Digger personally, I call in the Digger, I get somebody else he sends around, he’s tied up and he can’t do that particular one, it don’t make no difference. You get
the same thing and you get it, too. You get one or two of them bastards from the Bright Red and you send them around to whale the piss out of somebody, they go around and whale the piss out of him. That could give me some trouble. Maybe they decide now, I go to see them, there isn’t anybody big enough, come in and whale the piss out of them. Then what do I do?”

  “Two things,” Torrey said. “That’s only if they welsh. I know the Digger a long time. I know Mikey-mike Magro a long time. They’re a couple of loudmouth micks, is what they are.”

  “They can also deliver,” the Greek said. “Never mind how much noise they make.”

  “You gimme a chance to finish,” Torrey said, “that’s what I’m saying. I know the guy and I don’t like the guy, but I got to say, I never see the guy come up short on anything. So, I don’t think you’re gonna need anybody, go in and whack him. His friends, either. They lose, they pay. I thought of that when I ask them.”

  “Still, maybe they don’t,” the Greek said. “Then who’s got the problem? You got the problem? No, I got the problem. Which you give me. Which you didn’t ask me, was it all right for everything, you’re maybe giving me this big fat headache. See, Richie, that’s what I don’t like, you not asking me, before. I don’t want no more of that.”

  Miller Schabb opened the door after knocking. He carried a large paper bag that was wet at the bottom. “You guys through kissing and hugging?” he said. “Okay for the niggers to come in now?”

  “Come on in, Mill,” Torrey said. “Shut the fuckin’ door and shut your goddamned yap, too, while you’re at it. The Greek didn’t know where you stood, was all.”

  Schabb put the bag on a pad of white paper. “Look at that,” he said, “goddamned stuff. Gets all over you, got to go out, it isn’t even ten o’clock yet and I bet it’s ninety already. I tell you something: tonight on the way home, I’m stopping at Lechmere and getting a coffeepot.”

  “You get it,” Torrey said, “you clean it.”

  “Sure,” Schabb said, “sure, I’ll clean it. I also sweep out and I clean the toilet, too. That’s what I do, Greek, I’m on the shit detail.”

  “Willya come off it, Mill, for Christ sake?” Torrey said. “Greek don’t have nothing against you. He just didn’t know. He’s getting old, getting worried, he just wanted to be sure.”

  “Yeah,” the Greek said. “See, Mill, somebody should’ve told you. You got, see, Richie’s the kind of partner you got to watch. He gets himself all pissed off or something and then he goes out and does something, and then everybody else’s got to run around and everything trying to cover his ass for him. Richie’s okay for a partner if you watch him real close and don’t leave him go down the North End and start waving his arms at the cops or something. It don’t mean nothing.”

  “It don’t mean nothing,” Torrey said, “long as you understand what it means, Greek. This is my business. Miller’s in it and you’re in it, because I wanted you guys in it. That’s all. It’s still my business. I can’t work it with you guys, either one of you, I’ll go get some new guys and run it with them. I can do it. I’m the guy with the okay, don’t forget.”

  Schabb distributed the cups of coffee. “I dunno what I’m gonna forget,” he said, “since I wasn’t here and all. You guys mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “The Greek’s afraid he can’t do his job, is all,” Torrey said. “He don’t want to admit it, but that’s basically what it is.”

  “I don’t like that kind of talk, Richie,” the Greek said. “I come in here, I been doing this more’n twenty years, putting money out and getting it back in again, and I’m as cold as a nun’s cunt. You, you had a good idea, now you don’t want to listen to anybody else, you want to start something, pretty soon you got the FBI putting three guys in white sedans out there and all. Okay, don’t listen. Be a big asshole. Then when you fuck it up good and everybody’s good and screwed, you can tell everybody, you screwed it up because you’re just like a little kid and you wanted to, I guess.” The Greek leaned forward, toward Richie. “Now you can do that, you want,” he said, “you can. But I was here when you got here and I’ll be here when you’re gone, I still got my regular business. And you’re not gonna fuck me up with it, clear?”

  “What he’s afraid of,” Torrey said to Schabb, “he’s afraid the guys down the Bright Red’ll tell him to go home, and make him cry.”

  “I don’t know those guys,” Schabb said. “I was after some other guys, I know them from around town. You see them various places. I had about thirty of them, the movers that don’t always go home at night, like they’re supposed to, I figured them for naturals. Except I didn’t figure, I was talking the last two weeks in July, first week in August. That’s when these birds take the family to the Cape and pretend they’re behaving themselves. I got about four out of the lot and I was counting on twenty. We could’ve lost some serious money on that. So I asked Richie.”

  “Richie give you some bad advice, then,” the Greek said. “I’ll do the best I can with it this time, but I don’t want no more of this. Next time, ask me, too, see what I got to say.”

  “Okay,” Torrey said, “ask him, Mill, is it all right, we got the Holy Name?”

  The Greek said, “What?”

  “Yeah,” Schabb said, “Saint Barbara’s Holy Name from Willow Hill there. Going to Freeport over Labor Day. Three glorious days and nights of sun, sand, excitement and luxury living in the glamour center of the Caribbean, a welcome Daiquiri in the well-appointed Casino Lounge, a pineapple in every spacious room, a spectacular view of sparkling beaches and azure water from your own private terrace. Plus: a surprise gift for the ladies, an orchid corsage about the size of a quarter that we get for thirty-eight cents apiece. All for the incredibly low price of three hundred and fifty dollars a couple, including round trip by jet and transfers between the airport and the hotel. I cut the parish school in for five hundred to get the pastor to let me in the door, but I did it.”

  “Per couple,” the Greek said. “They’re taking their wives.”

  “Sure,” Schabb said. “One or two of them wanted to know if they could bring the kids, but I said I couldn’t arrange it.”

  “Isn’t that something?” Torrey said.

  “It sure is,” the Greek said. “It’s a mess of shit, is what it is. Those guys haven’t got ten bucks to put on the table. What’re you giving them, counters? How much you staking them?”

  “Twenty dollars a couple,” Schabb said. “I could’ve done a little better, it’s a cheap plane ride, but I figured the twenty was enough. That’ll get them inside at night.”

  “It’ll get them inside the first night,” the Greek said. “Daddy’ll lose the twenty while the little woman watches. Then he’ll lose six bucks more. Then they’ll go back the room and eat the fuckin’ pineapple. Why the fuck’re we giving away pineapples, for Christ sake? Who wants a goddamned pineapple?”

  “Everybody wants a pineapple,” Schabb said. “They started doing that in Hawaii. Pretty soon the word got around. Now your average clown doesn’t think he’s been to a resort if there isn’t a pineapple on the commode when he walks in the room.”

  “Yeah,” the Greek said. “Well, this group, we probably ought to give one slice of pineapple. All night long the old lady’ll be at him, dropping all that great American dough, gambling. He wasn’t so goddamned stupid they could’ve stayed home and seen a movie on the six bucks. The next two days they spend getting the sun, on which we don’t make no money, the way I get it. We’ll be lucky we make expenses.

  “We get unlucky,” the Greek said, “it’ll be worse. The silly bastards won’t quit. They’ll lose their fuckin’ shirts and sign everything you put in front of them, and then I’ll have to go out and take a lot of washing machines and secondhand cars to write the stuff off. Why in Christ you want them nickel-stealing hot dogs for, can you tell me that?”

  “We’re, they’re not signing any papers,” Schabb said. “The priest thought of that one right off
, and I agreed with him. ‘No, Father,’ I said, ‘nothing like that. No credit gambling. Just what they bring with them. We’re not that kind of operation, Father, trying to victimize people. Basically, we’re just a travel agency. Labor Day’s a slack period in the package-tour business. Just a way to keep the airplanes going and the hotels full. Frankly, we expect to take a loss on this, but the hotels make it up to us.’ ”

  “At least you didn’t lie to a priest,” the Greek said. “What are we gonna do with this?”

  “We’re gonna take pictures of them,” Torrey said. “That first night, they’re blowing the twenty, we’re gonna, we got this guy with a camera. He’s gonna take about eighty pictures of those jerks. Then he’s gonna send them back, and Mill’s gonna make up a brochure.”

  Schabb grinned.

  “I don’t get it,” the Greek said.

  “It makes the flyer,” Schabb said. “I talked to the Philadelphia group the other day; they did that. They got a deadhead bunch and they made about sixty dollars on the deal. But then they put it on the brochure: ‘The Holy Sucker’s Men’s Club, Satisfied Customers At Play In San Juan.’ Ten pictures of fat guys and women. You should see the business it gets them. The used-car dealers and the appliance distributors and the Rich Kids A.C., the guys who really want to go and have the money we’re interested in, they take the pamphlet home. How does the wife argue with them? You’ve really got something you can work with, then. A trip like this is just something you get through. Then it pays and it pays and it pays, and it just never stops.”

  “You see, Greek?” Torrey said. “Now you understand? That all right with you?”

  “That’s pretty fuckin’ good,” the Greek said. “I got to admit it. That is all right.”