The Digger's Game
Page 18
“I would’ve if I knew how,” Schabb said.
“Since you don’t know how,” Barca said, “you want a new partner?”
“You gonna kill the Greek?” Schabb said. “He’s hard to kill, I can tell you that much.”
“Nah,” Barca said, “no more need for that. The Greek says he just wants his old business back. Nobody else ever wanted it, so it’s his. Me? I’m looking for a new gaff. I done this and that, just like all the other assholes, spend all their time onna phone, playing music for the FBI. Except I’m not old yet, and I’m not broken down. I got the machines and stuff, and it’s all right, but shit, I want something permanent. Bobby, Bobby keeps telling me, the old man fades out, Bobby’s gonna be total boss and it’s the pot of gold. Bobby’s just old enough, swallows all that crap. And he’s a nice guy. But Bobby ain’t me. So I was thinking, what’s the matter, you and me run this? I know what you can do, and you know, there’s certain aspects, you need a guy knows his way around. We can handle things, maybe sooner or later, we get Bloom, huh?”
“And then what?” Schabb said. “What happens after that?”
“Nothing,” Barca said. “We get rich, is all. After a while, Bobby and them forget it’s temporary, long’s they get their cut, it’s all right. They’ll leave us alone. Whaddaya say? And the Greek, he’ll leave us alone.”
“Look,” Schabb said, “when I came in here, I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of being dead. I’ll take anything.”
Barca came out of the chair. “Okay,” he said, “that’s out of the way. Now lemme go see the old man and hold his hand. Oh, by the way, you wouldn’t send Richie no flowers, now?”
“Mister Barca,” Schabb said, “the whole idea of Regent is, you look at it hard and you can’t see Richie. No way.”
JUST BEFORE HE LEFT the Edison plant on Friday afternoon, Harrington went to the payphone and called 742–5533. The switchboard operator said, “FBI.” Harrington said he had seen an ad in the paper about a reward. The switchboard operator connected him to a man who identified himself as Special Agent Falk.
“I seen the ad in the paper,” Harrington said.
“What ad, sir?” the man said.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Harrington said, “for them fur robbers.”
“The insurance company offers that, sir,” the man said.
“If I tell you,” Harrington said, “I get the reward?”
“The insurance company would decide that,” the agent said.
“Okay,” Harrington said, “lemme tell you something, you talk to the insurance and I’ll call you Monday. I got the box, all right? And the paper. How’s that?”
“I don’t understand,” the man said.
“The guys that took the furs,” Harrington said.
“Yeah,” the agent said.
“They cut the fence, I read inna paper,” Harrington said. “A bolt cutter?”
“Yeah,” the man said.
“The bolt cutter come inna box,” Harrington said.
“Um,” the man said.
“There ain’t no fingerprints on the bolt cutter,” Harrington said.
“Well,” the man said.
“Look,” Harrington said, “they was wearing gloves. They wasn’t wearing gloves, they had the paper and the box. The gloves’re inna box.”
“Ah,” the man said.
“I got the paper and the box,” Harrington said.
“Uh huh,” the man said.
“You call the company,” Harrington said. “I gotta think this all over. I’m gonna need some protection and all, I give you that box.”
“Where can I reach you?” the man said.
“I’ll call you Monday,” Harrington said. He hung up.
THE DIGGER GOT HOME at two thirty-five in the beginning of a late September frost. His wife met him at the door. She was wearing a lavender satin mandarin gown; it was slit above the knee on each side, and it was tight across her breasts. The Digger had removed it two years before from a crate of goods stored temporarily in the cellar of the Bright Red.
“Paul’s here,” she whispered.
“Oh,” the Digger said, “I didn’t know that. I see the big car inna street and I figured probably the Governor stopped by for a taste.”
“He’s been here since midnight,” she said.
“They changed the closing hours,” the Digger said. “I kept meaning to tell him.”
“Jerry,” she said.
“Jerry nothing,” the Digger said. “I bet he enjoyed himself, looking at you in that.”
“I thought you liked this,” she said.
“You know goddamned right well I like that,” the Digger said. “I like what you’re wearing it over, too. I can see your goddamned nipples right through that stuff, for Christ sake. That’s why the hell I bought it for you in the first place. Doesn’t mean I want you wearing it to the fights with me, for Christ sake.”
“I was wearing it for you,” she said, “I was watching television and waiting for you to come home. I didn’t know he was coming over.”
“You could’ve changed when you found out who it was,” the Digger said.
“Jerry,” she said, “I would’ve been embarrassed. He would’ve known right off, it’d be like telling him. Besides, he’s a priest.”
“He’s my brother, too,” the Digger said. “They don’t cut off your goddamned equipment when you put the collar on, you know. You give him a drink, I assume?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You maybe even had a couple of pops yourself,” the Digger said.
“One or two,” she said.
“Good,” he said, “I’ll give him about, say, twenny minutes and then I’ll be up and we’ll do it a few times, how’ll that be?”
“Best offer I had tonight,” she said.
The Digger slapped his wife on the buttocks as she started up the stairs.
Paul sat in the living room. He was wearing the Roman collar and the dickey. He had removed his coat.
“An unexpected pleasure, Big Brother,” the Digger said. “I get home at two in the morning, ordinarily I don’t expect I’m gonna find a priest on the couch. You guys started making house calls?”
“Jerry,” Paul said, “I’ve got one or two things on my mind, and I’m rather concerned about them. I thought maybe you could help me out.”
“Well, I tell you what,” the Digger said, “you just let me get myself about three ounces of something and I’ll see what I can do.”
The Digger returned with a glass of Jack Daniel’s and ice. He sat down. “What is it, my son?” he said.
“I’ll come right to the point,” Paul said. “This afternoon I called up to see why it was taking so long to get my passport renewed, and after a lot of hemming and hawing I reached somebody who told me that it had been renewed but then it wasn’t sent. So naturally I inquired why it wasn’t sent, and when they intended to send it, and I explained about the Fahey trip, and they just wouldn’t tell me. So at long last they told me to call the FBI.”
“Good gracious,” the Digger said, “you been burning draft cards or something, Paul baby?”
“I called the FBI,” Paul said, “and I talked to a number of very polite people, and they very courteously told me almost nothing either. I began to get a little upset. I mentioned calling the Bishop and I may have even said something about the Pope. I just couldn’t understand why my passport was being held up. They finally told me to call somebody in the office of the United States Attorney.
“I did that,” Paul said. “I asked the man quite bluntly if the government had some reason for not wanting me to leave the country, and he was as puzzled as I was. But he said he’d look into it.
“Just before supper,” Paul said, “he called me back. It seems there’d been a mistake, and he said it’d all been straightened out. I asked him, of course, what the mistake was, and he wouldn’t tell me.”
“But you’re gonna get the passport,” the Digger said.
“So there you are,” the Digger said. “You’re all set.”
“Not exactly,” Paul said. “I’ve been puzzled about that mistake all day. Then I remembered that the old passport was issued to me at the house, because I was still moving around when I got that and I wasn’t sure I’d be at Holy Sepulchre permanently. And that started me thinking. I wondered if perhaps that accounted for the mistake. Maybe there was somebody else named Doherty who used to live at 58 Pershing Street who interested the government.”
“Not Maureen,” the Digger said, “she been hanging around with them Berrigans?”
“I doubt it,” Paul said, “and probably not Kathy, either. Ma and Pa’re both dead. That leaves you and me.”
“Seems to,” the Digger said.
“This evening I called some people I know,” Paul said. “I didn’t make an awful lot of progress. But I did find out that when the FBI or someone has an important investigation going on, they alert the State Department. Apparently they have some sort of a liaison office or something. Did you know that?”
“No,” the Digger said, “it, I never really thought about it.”
“No,” Paul said, “well, tell me this: is there an investigation going on?”
“I suppose so,” the Digger said, “them guys’re generally out scouting around for something to do.”
“Yes,” Paul said. “Well, that was what I came over here to talk to you about. And when I got here, Aggie told me about your trip.”
“Well,” the Digger said, “yeah, but you don’t need, we’re going San Juan and all, I got the tickets today. El San Juan. But I didn’t apply for no passport. You don’t need any passport to go to San Juan, Puerto Rico.”
“There’s something you do need, though,” Paul said. “You need money.”
“Right,” the Digger said.
“Now it wasn’t so long ago,” Paul said, “you came out to see me, and you were in very much the same kind of bewilderment then that I’m in tonight. You needed money, quite a lot of money, and you didn’t know where you were going to get that money if I didn’t give it to you.”
“I remember that,” the Digger said.
“I believed you,” Paul said, “I believed you and I gave you some money.”
“Three K,” the Digger said. “Don’t think I didn’t appreciate it.”
“And you gave something to me in exchange,” Paul said, “you gave me your word that you wouldn’t commit any crimes. Didn’t you?”
“Yup,” the Digger said.
“Now the way I look at things,” Paul said, “you either lied to me or you’ve broken your word. Either you didn’t need money, and you said you did just to cheat me, or else you did need money and you got money by committing a crime, which means you’ve broken your word.”
“I could’ve mortgaged the house and stuff, like you said,” the Digger said.
“You could have,” Paul said. “Keeping in mind that I can call Gerry Fitz at the Registry of Deeds and find out, did you?”
“No,” the Digger said.
“No,” Paul said. “Now, I’m not going to ask you what you did since you talked to me, that you swore to me you wouldn’t do, that’s got the FBI or somebody in a mood to keep all Dohertys in the country for a while. Mostly because I’m afraid you’d tell me. You didn’t kill anybody, did you?”
“No,” the Digger said.
“Of course we now have a new problem,” Paul said. “I don’t think you lied to me when you came for the money, but I’m pretty sure you broke your word after you gave it to me, and that means you’re probably willing to lie to me now, to cover what you did. So perhaps you did kill a man.”
“No,” the Digger said, “I didn’t kill anybody.”
Paul stood up. “I hope that, at least, is the truth,” he said. He put on his coat. He extended his hand as the Digger got up. They shook hands. “Sit back down and finish your drink,” Paul said, “I know where the door is and I can find my own way out. I just want you to know, this is the last time I’ll have to do it. And you stay away from me, is that clear? You’ve got a good wife and a good family, and you don’t know what to make of it, but there’s nothing more I can do for you and there hasn’t been for some time, but now I know it. And I do know it, too, is that clear?”
“Clear,” the Digger said. “Good night, Paul.”
Paul released his hand. “Yeah,” he said, “and good night to the Digger, too.”
In the bedroom Agatha Doherty was reading, her back against the headboard of the bed, her legs bent to form a rest for the magazine. When the Digger came up she put down the magazine and got up and went into the bathroom. He could hear her brushing her teeth. When she emerged he looked at her and said, “You took your nightgown off.”
“I did?” she said.
“I can see the nipples better now,” he said, “and the hair, too. You be sure and bring that kimono to Puerto Rico.”
“I’m looking forward to that,” she said. She was removing the gown.
“So’m I,” he said. “I got the tickets today. A-number-one, first cabin all the way. It’s all set with the Magros, incidentally. He said what they’d do, they’d come over here and stay with the kids, ’stead of them going over there.”
“I thought you were going to ask Harrington,” she said.
“I was,” the Digger said, “but Harringtons’ve got kids of their own, and that’d mean we’d have to take theirs. Besides, I’m never too sure what Harrington’s doing.” He got into bed.
“What’d Paul want?” she said, moving toward him.
“Well,” the Digger said, “it’s kind of a long story. Basically, I borrowed some dough off him a long time ago, and now he finds out we’re finally getting a vacation and he’s pissed off.”
“Can’t you pay him?” she said. “Or doesn’t he want that?”
“Look,” the Digger said, “let’s kind of forget what Paul wants for a while, all right? There’s something I want.”
“If it’s all right with you,” she said, “it’s all right with me.”