At End of Day

by George V. Higgins

  “Don’t like bein’ sniffed at,” Cistaro said, laughing. “But I behave, I keep calm. I said, ‘Sweetie, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the law’s against, or what you may think. Meet me with the rest of the money next week. And the vig of course, too—twenty-seven fifty.’ ”

  McKeach nodded and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, his eyes narrow. “Okay,” he said. “Then I think maybe, all the grief and the abuse those two’ve given us, doing this service for them, they should maybe get some trouble back. Rich people they deal with, very selfish, and mean. Disturbing dead men’s bones, desecrating holy ground, and for what? To make their living rooms look nice? I think they should be ashamed of themselves. No wonder there’s all kinds of laws against it. Federal especially.” He paused, staring at Cistaro. “We ought to think about that.”

  Cistaro stared back, saying nothing, and nodded.

  “Now,” McKeach said, “two more things to deal with, and then I think we can go home.

  “Item one. Max, a big pickup tomorrow, the Box’s house over in Canton.”

  “This’s right,” Rascob said. “Talked to the Box’s wife right after lunch. She says everything’s moonlight and roses. They already had calls from eleven their people, so there’re then only five more to report. Said they’re all telling her things’ve been goin’ great, no problems with more prescriptions—‘just hadda go visit a lotta new stores, but everything went like a charm.’ So, took him a month to expand like we wanted, like Jackie said, ‘Get me the volume.’ But give the Box credit, he’s good. He knows what he’s doing, and no one can rush him, and result is he gets the job done.”

  McKeach pursed the left side of his mouth. “Well, so far, anyway. We don’t have the stuff in hand yet. How much’re we payin’ him this load?”

  “A buck anna quarter a pop,” Rascob said.

  “Regardless of what the pop is,” McKeach said, “a buck anna quarter a pop.”

  “Regardless of what kinda stuff,” Rascob said. “Me and Timmy agreed we’d go that way. The benzos Jackie says’re what they ask for, the guys buy off his trucks. But if they’re not available, anything else, and the price’s what the driver says it is. So, figure we simplify the whole thing—we pay the Box a buck anna quarter, instead the buck that we used to, because of the extra effort and risk that him and his people’ve taken on increasing the volume for us. Our end goin’ in’s twenny grand. Jackie, same reason, now pays one seven five. Comin’ out we now take in thirty-five, one eighty profit a year, same number Jackie projects. Like he says—‘I was doin’ all right sellin’ food, coffee and smokes. For gravy, this’s good money.’ Said his drivers’ll love it. They’re the ones been beggin’ for more stuff, see the market every day, know they’ll do even better. He sells to them now at two twenny-five, and they get whatever they can—sky’s the limit for them.”

  “Yeah, but that’s all right, they take the big risk,” McKeach said. “One stray cop, his eyes open, buttin’ in onna line to get coffee? Sees a sale goin’ down? Guys drivin’ the trucks and sellin’ the stuff—those guys could have their lives ruined. They should get as much as they can.” He displayed the small smile. “As long’s they dunno who we are, of course, where Jackie is gettin’ the goodies.”

  “They don’t,” Rascob said, imitating the smile. “And Jackie dunno where we’re gettin’ ’em, either. I think we got this one airtight.”

  McKeach nodded. He looked at Cistaro. “This’s good, I think, Nick, way it’s gone so far. But anything involvin’ drugs, got to be supercareful. Not just the cops got a hard-on for drugs—every tailgater in town. I think with this shipment—Maxie taking twenty out to pay the Box, the pills; he then hasta transport them Jackie; he makes the delivery; on his way back here he’s got thirty-five large?

  “That’s four chances for someone to hit him. And this’s not like our usual thing, where only the people he sees know how much’s involved, an’ they’re people we known a long time. Like on Tuesdays, example, he picks up the bags–everyone he sees knows what he’s doin’, there’s lotsa cash in his trunk. So some wise guy tailgates him, we’ll know who it is and the bastard is dead by nightfall. Our protection there is that knowledge. Everyone knows who we are, what we’re doin’, sure, but we know who everyone is.

  “This new operation—makes me uneasy. Too many people—we dunno who they all are. Well, we know their names—names they’re usin’, at least—but that’s not like who they are, where they live. Whether they’re dependable.

  “Like the Box and his wife—so far they’re all right, but we dunno how long that lasts. From what Maxie tells me, they sound kind of strange, some kinky shit goin’ on there—this crippled kid’s pimpin’ his wife. I’m like you with the fairies on that kind of shit—I don’t care what they do as long as I’m left out of it—but now I know they do this kind of shit, can I be sure what they’ll do next? So there’s that, then, ’n’ the new-people mix.”

  He cleared his throat and looked back at Cistaro. “So anyway, what I am thinkin’ is this—if we’re expandin’ now, goin’ big time, gettin’ into distributin’ here, maybe we oughta step up our security. You got any thoughts on that for me?”

  “I dunno,” Cistaro said. “The downside of it is, the more guys you show doin’ somethin’, the more dough you make people think you’ve got involved. How long we been doin’ this with Jackie, two or three years? Jackie asked us if we could supply him the junk along with the gambling and loans?”

  McKeach nodded.

  “Okay,” Cistaro said, “two or three years and everything’s gone along good. People’re now used to it, Max comes around. ‘Oh, he’s just this guy comes to see Jackie on Tuesdays, stays a while, goes away and then comes back. Can’t be much—nothin’ get excited about there.’

  “But now all of a sudden he changes the day. Used to be Tuesdays, now he comes on Thursday, and he’s got someone else ridin’ with him. This hasta mean there’s more money involved. You’re talkin’ precautions—the one thing while you’re takin’ ’em you don’t wanna do is get other people’s attention.

  “Because once you start them thinkin’, ‘Must be lotsa dough there,’ then the next thing they think is, ‘This might be worth knockin’ off.’ Like you say, this would not be connected people, people we know, pull some of that shit—not on us. Not unless they had terminal cancer, not long to live anyway. This’d be assholes, young guys fulla beans, think they’ve got the weight, and any time they want they can come in an’ take over from us.

  “Now, any guys did try that, sure, we’d find out who it was. And we’d clip them and put them to sleep. But things wouldn’t then go back to normal. Doing that would take time, and it’d make noise, and therefore stir up the cops. Which’s always a pain in the ass. So, sure, there’s no question, we can protect ourselves, but do we really want all this shit?

  “Myself, what I think is the answer is No, but I dunno how sure I am of that. So, little compromise here—how about we do something like this? Rico rides shotgun for Max tomorrow, but in my Expedition, not with him. Soon’s Max turns in here, Rico drops him. Sort of an armed escort, right?”

  McKeach nodded. “I like it,” he said. He looked first to Rico, then Rascob. “You two guys work it out. Walkie-talkies or something, some code that sounds harmless so you can keep in touch but means nothin’, someone with a scanner.”

  He considered. “What bothers me here, I think what it is, it’s the whole damn operation itself. We know the product but not sellin’ it. Always before, when drugs’re involved, mostly always we’ve just been financin’. Like this kid Charlie Ford—got that major thing, him, the big million six that’s a big chunk of what we get outta Jinksie’s last Arabian car deal? Well, I see Ford today, and I’m glad to say, and you’ll be glad to hear, that thing’s lookin’ very damned good. More and more I like the way this kid’s looking. He’s now got his base, bought this house south of here, and it’s funny, don’t wanna say where? And he’s kind of worried
he’s tellin’ me that. ‘It’s not like I don’t trust you, I just don’t wanna say.’

  “I say, ‘Course you don’t trust me. Don’t trust anybody. Fewer people that know stuff the better. You doan needah worry ’bout that. You did wanna tell me, then I would worry. So you, you don’t worry, it’s fine.’ Next month or so, I think, that investment pays off—he’s now projectin’ a three-five return for us, maybe a little bit more.

  “So anyway, back to the first of the year, I’d say we are lookin’ quite good. Back then we take the nine hundred grand we’d built up the Coke cooler, doin’ our regular business, since the last time, in August, we bought real estate, the three brown-stones on Marlborough Street, and we put it out there with Jinksie. There we double it plus—one million nine.

  “One-point-six of that now we’ve got with the Ford kid. Pretty soon, he tells me, we double-plus again.” McKeach laughed. “We’re gonna need some more real estate pretty soon, I think. We do know the financing end.

  “And the storage end, too, we know that.” He paused, frowning. “Not that it always works right.” He pointed his left index finger at Rascob. “That damn jigaboo, Junie Walters. You went there again today, Max?” Rascob nodded. “And he wasn’t there again, right?”

  Rascob nodded. “I went there again and he wasn’t there. His gofer, there, Bishop, all dressed in black?”

  “They all dress black,” McKeach said with scorn. “Think they’re all nigger Zorros or somethin’. Want you to think they’re that Fruit of Islam shit—once you see ’em you run for your life.”

  “Yeah,” Rascob said, “well, this one is Bishop. I recognize him from last week. And the week before that——”

  “An’ the week before that,” McKeach said. “Lemme think, now, just how long’s it been?” Then he nodded. “And also the week before that one.” He paused. “Did he give you the rent, the ten a week? No, of course not, the son of a bitch. He laughed in your face’s what he did.”

  Rascob shrugged. “What he did, gave me nothin’ but shit. Different shit from the shit that he gave me last week, but still shit all the same—doesn’t matter. ‘The Man says to tell you he’ll see you next week. Or somethin’. Today he is in therapy.’ ”

  “Right,” McKeach said. “Seventy grand he’s now behind. And he’s still got the stuff comin’ in, goin’ out. Or so my observers tell me.” He looked to Cistaro. “You see any need to discuss this? What needs to be done about this?

  “Keep in mind now, I put this pieceah black shit inna hospital once, first time I got this kindah shit. Thought after I did it that’d be enough. Establish we’re serious. From what I understand, and my source isn’t perfect, I did a pretty good job. Junius had quite a time for himself. The burns that he got, he went into the lantern—apparently they weren’t that bad. Not life-threatening’s what I am told. Some crocodile skin onna back of his neck—and his shoulder, too, what I’m told. His shirt caught on fire and it melted. Melted his skin along with it. But it should heal up all right, few minor scars. Nothin’ to worry about. He’s takin’ long fast walks now, get back in shape. Every morning, Jamaica Pond there? He’s got a big condo up in the Jamaica Estates there, walks around the whole pond every morning, at sunrise. Dorothy’s friend she worked with, she was at the Faulkner Hospital? Sees him out there, she goes out, way to work.

  “The right eye? That is different. Dorothy says her Mass General friend hears at Mass Eye and Ear that he’s still got the patch over it—‘Most probably have it for life.’ Okay, he can do shirt ads.

  “They also hadda wire his jaw shut. Last she got he was livin’ on mush—from the blender, you know? Raw cheeseburgers, drink through a straw. I hadda do that onna number of people, generally worked pretty good—but I still dunno if they put pickles and fries in. Hafta have Dorothy have her friend ask.” He paused a beat for the laugh and it came.

  “Up ’til now I taught someone a lesson like that, it’s always worked pretty good.” He shook his head. “This time around, doesn’t seem like it did.” He sighed. “Maybe I’m gettin’ old.” He looked at Cistaro again. “But anyway, old or not, this’s one I think I should handle myself. You got any objection to that?”

  Slowly and deliberately Cistaro shook his head. He presented the small smile.

  “Okay,” McKeach said, and he nodded. “Important,” he said. “They have to know, I don’t forget these things.” Then he cleared his throat.

  “Now,” McKeach said, “last pieceah business. This morning—Max of course knows some of this—I get this call, and it’s from Jenny Frolio. Been years since I talked to her. She’s surprised I still know her voice. But what she’s got to say to me is that Dominic’s sick and been taken to Quincy Hospital. Hasn’t been feelin’ good, past two-three days, and then this morning around five A.M., which is when he usually gets up and comes upstairs, he doesn’t. See, she doesn’t say this but what I assume is that since they had the second-floor addition put on there, she’s been sleepin’ the bedroom upstairs and he’s still been sleepin’ down. In other words, not in the same bed, you follow me. Although from some the other things she said I think he was still comin’ after her from time to time, get his ashes hauled. How often naturally I do not know, but I gather enough to suit her.

  “So anyway, she gets the coffee goin’ and goes downstairs to check him out. ‘After all,’ she says to me, ‘the man is eighty-six, and I don’t care how strong he’s always tellin’ me he is, showin’ me his muscles like he thinks I’m still sixteen again; still all I think about, he looks in a bathing suit—he’s not a young man anymore. So it’s quite natural he might have somethin’ wrong with him, and therefore, get my robe on, go down and check on him.

  “ ‘He looks all right, he’s awake, lyin’ there, but he still hasn’t got up yet. So naturally I say to him—because this isn’t like him, lie around in bed like this after he’s woken up. Usually as soon’s he’s awake, he’s onna floor doin’ his situps, eighteen situps every mornin’. And please don’t ask me “How come eighteen?”, “Why isn’t it fifteen or twenty?” I dunno the answer that either; I don’t think he does himself. Just, eighteen is what he does, and been doin’, many years. But this morning he isn’t. So I say, “Why?” to him and he says to me, got this funny look on his face, “I dunno. I don’t feel good. My stomach doesn’t feel good, like I ate something, you know? And my chest here, it feels kind of funny.”

  “ ‘So I say, “All right then, I’m callin’ Doctor Farmer.” He’s this young doctor that they got now over at the hospital that took over a few years ago, Doctor Melia retired. I like him all right but not Dominic, he doesn’t. Not that there’s anythin’ wrong with him. There’s nothing wrong with him at all; just Dominic doesn’t like change. But it isn’t that, he doesn’t like him. It’s he just says, “No, don’t call Doctor Farmer, get the ambulance. Ambulance quick.”

  “ ‘And so then, well, I know that there’s really something wrong, and that’s what I better do, but before I can do it, even leave the room, he gets this look across his face, and groans, like this: “Ahhhhh,” you know, very loud, and then his whole body sort of comes up inna bed, and his eyes—go completely wide open. And then he starts to sort of relax, you know? Like air goin’ out a balloon. And that’s when I know that I don’t think it’s gonna matter too much how long it takes the ambulance, to get here. This’s it for Dominic. My Dominic ain’t gonna make it.’

  “And she was right—he didn’t,” McKeach said. “I guess he was still technically alive when the EMTs got to him, said a couple things to them but it was hard to understand him. The left-hand side his face, and the whole left side his body, I guess, that was all kind of paralyzed. But then he had another one when they had him on the stretcher goin’ out the ambulance, and sometime after that probably while he’s inna truck. Anyway, when he got the hospital they tried a few more times revive him with the paddles on his chest, but nothin’ they did seemed to do it. So Dominic is finely dead.”

  “I assume y
ou’ll be goin’ the funeral?” Cistaro said. “I know you and him’re never that close, but you did know the guy a long time.”

  “Over forty years,” McKeach said. “But that don’t mean I’ll go his funeral. He was one of the guys I inherited from Brian. I don’t even think them two were that close. Dominic didn’t look all that cut up to me, I saw him after Brian G. went down. Far’s I could tell, all that interested him was who he paid now that Brian’s dead, and I said, ‘You’ll be now payin’ me, my guy, the same guy. The same guy you been paying for Brian.’ And that was okay with him. Forget now who it was, but two guys before you, Max, the guy before Nino Giunta. ‘He now works for me. So from your end it all works the same.’

  “And he then said to me, ‘If someone interfered with me, at any time, I always knew I could call Brian.’ His protection, you see, that was what concerned him. His insurance he was payin’ for.

  “And I said to him, ‘Well, that’s what I been sayin’. Someone gives you some shit, you give me a call, and I promise you, he won’t give you no shit after that. Like I just told you, we’re all gonna miss Brian, but I am a guy Brian sent if you called, so from your end it’ll all work the same.’ And he was happy—that’s all there was to it.

  “And besides,” McKeach said, “I couldn’t go the funeral if I wanted, let the FBI take pictures of me and everybody else there, have ’em inna paper—‘Local hoods all seen at funeral’—’cause the funeral is all over. Almost over, anyway. She was having that taken care of this afternoon.

  “I said to her ’What?’ when she said that to me, I asked her when the wake’s gonna be, make Max go by for me, pay my respects. ‘Funeral’s this afternoon? What is this, Dominic’s Jewish? Gotta bury him by sunset, something?’