Killing Them Softly

by George V. Higgins

  “He’s lucky they didn’t put him to sleep,” Frankie said.

  “Well,” Amato said, “he is. But you got to understand Mark. All the guys like Markie. He’s a genuine hot shit. And look when they find out: when everybody’s open again. They’d’ve found out it was him when the games’re all closed and everybody’s hearing footsteps and nobody’s making any money, then, I think, they would’ve done it to him. But they didn’t. And then, when they did, well, what the fuck, huh? It wasn’t none of their money and just as long as it doesn’t happen again, because all the customers, you’re not gonna get them coming in unless they think it’s protected, but the protection’s really there, well, shit on it.”

  “I bet it probably wouldn’t happen again that way,” Frankie said.

  “And that’s the angle,” Amato said.

  “What’s it good for?” Frankie said.

  “I figure,” Amato said, “I was there twice. I been there twice since I got out. I run into Markie one night, I was in town seeing what’s going on and looking around and I run into him and we had a couple drinks and he says, he tells me he’s got this thing and I should come up. So, twice, both times onna Wednesday. He runs it two nights a week, Wednesdays and Fridays. Now the guys that’re there, that come on Wednesday, there’s a few that come both nights but it’s really a different group the two nights. There was probably, I would say about forty thousand flying around the nights I was there. There’s this one creep that wears fuckin’ velvet pants, and he had at least five on him both the nights I was there. So, a little more, a little less. And of course that’s just what I saw. Most guys, go to something like that, they’ll carry a little more’n what they’re gonna let you see, case they get a bad run of cards and they got to ride something out. So you go in there, you’re gonna give everybody a nice little massage and everything, you’re probably gonna come up with, say, ten more.”

  “Not bad,” Frankie said.

  “Now there’s guys,” Amato said, “I was there, I heard talk, see, Markie just got divorced again and apparently he had a little party, had a couple hookers come in and eat each other and everybody had a great time and some of these guys’re pissed off, he didn’t invite them. ‘Friends only, no customers,’ he says. So they get on him, and some of the Friday night guys were there and that’s how these guys find out about it. ‘They’re good customers,’ Markie said, ‘good customers’re the same as good friends, my book.’ So I got an idea, there’s more dough there onna Friday’n there is onna Wednesday. So the question is, when’re we gonna do it? And I think, I still think, a Wednesday. Friday that place’s different. During the week it’s pretty quiet, but on Fridays and Saturdays they got a lot of people coming and going, getting laid and all, and that’s just another fuckin’ thing you got to think about, parties going on and everything. And I think, I dunno, I kind of think maybe there’s some guys in there, Fridays, don’t come Wednesdays, the kind of guys I don’t want to get pissed off. I didn’t see nobody there Wednesdays, had any muscle. I think it’s better.”

  “How’re we cutting this?” Frankie said.

  “A third,” Amato said. “I get a third.”

  “That’s high, John,” Frankie said.

  “Not for this,” Amato said. “I know where it is and I know what it is. A third’s right. You, I don’t care what you do. You can get that wild man or somebody, do it for five, get him. Fine with me.”

  “The guy who goes in with me gets the same’s I do,” Frankie said.

  “Up to you,” Amato said.

  “You’re not going in,” Frankie said.

  “Uh uh,” Amato said. “They’d burn me the minute I came inna door. I’m gonna be a long ways away from that place that night and I’m gonna have a lot of people around me, saw me there. See, that’s what, that’s why I think of you. All I can really do is show somebody where the thing is. I can’t go near it, and I need a guy I can trust, somebody that isn’t gonna tell me, they come up with thirty, it’s really fifty and they’re fucking me and there’s no way I can check. I gotta just be the guy that does the brainwork on this. What I need’s two guys to do the job the way I tell them.”

  “All right,” Frankie said, “I’m in. Now, what about Russell?”

  “What about him?” Amato said.

  “I’m still thinking, he’s gonna be the other guy,” Frankie said. “You get used to that?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Amato said. “You can go in with Tarzan in his fuckin’ spotted jockstrap if you can get him to do it, don’t matter to me. I just want, get somebody who’s gonna do it right. There’s only two things a guy’s gotta have, right? He’s gotta have balls, which you say the guy’s got, and he can’t be nobody my padrones know.”

  “Well, Jesus,” Frankie said, “China Tanzi knows me, for Christ sake.”

  “China don’t count,” Amato said. “China’s in Lewisburg and he’s gonna be in Lewisburg for a long time. Making furniture for the government or something, and theres a lot of guys’re not too happy with China anyway right now. They think he probably should’ve got fifteen or twenty in Atlanta like everybody else that was in that thing, instead of just the five. Shit, he hadda record worse’n anybody else’s that was in it, and he gets the five and he’s not inna same place and, I mean, that’s got to make guys wonder, you know? How come? It was going around for a while, China’s not even in Lewisburg. They got him on ice somewhere, they’re feeding him steaks and bringing his family around and talking to him. Well, somebody says it’s not true. I dunno. But nobody’s listening to China much any more. I already thought of that.”

  “Well,” Frankie said, “I’m gonna ask Russell, then. I don’t think he knows anybody.”

  “What’d he go in for?” Amato said.

  “It was kind of a wild thing, I guess,” Frankie said. “You know how it is, a guy wants to tell you, he tells you. He didn’t tell me. But the way I get it, him and another guy, they decided to go after this drugstore, you know? All-night drugstore. Well, it was one of them guys that the boogeys’re always after and he hadda gun in there and there was a whole mess of shit. Started shooting and everything, after they got the stuff, and the guy that was with Russell, well, I dunno. They both had the same kind of guns and I think probably what Russell did, he probably swapped guns. See the guy in the drugstore got hit, but he took the guy that was with Russell out on the way. Anyway, Russell goes on trial and it was the dead guy that got all the shit, put Russell up to it and everything. Russell’s just a clown that went along with something he didn’t understand and look at his war record and everything. Which I guess was pretty good. So he come out of it a lot better’n he would’ve, otherwise.”

  “You’re sure he’s not gonna go into this stoned,” Amato said.

  “He’s not on anything big,” Frankie said. “You heard the guy. He’s a very savvy guy. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what it does. He don’t take nothing he can’t handle.”

  “You wanna be sure,” Amato said. “Guys that go around robbing drugstores, they’re not always guys that’re just after money. Some times they’re hurting and they need something and they haven’t got no other way, they can get it. And they need it. A guy like that, he can’t live without it, he doesn’t get it, you know?”

  “Look,” Frankie said, “Russell’s a motorcycle nut. That’s all. The first month I knew the guy, all he ever did was piss and moan, he hadda sell this fuckin’ monster bike, he had a Munch, one of them Mammoths? He hadda sell the bike, pay his fuckin’ lawyer. If there’s a bike in this, no, I wouldn’t take Russell. He’d go hairy-assed apeshit the minute he came in. The stuff? He uses the stuff. That’s all. He’s not hooked.”

  “Because one thing,” Amato said, “one thing we really don’t need on this is a guy that’s going to go in there and start something off and get some guy. Because then they’ll have to report it and that’s when everybody’s inna shit up to his eyeballs. If Markie, Markie did this before. He was gonna do it aga
in, he’d be just as careful as the last time, get some guys that’d go about it in the right way. These guys’re his customers. He wants them robbed, not hit. He wants them back again, they get time to think about it and forget it happened.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Frankie said.

  “I hope you’re right,” Amato said. “Now, the other thing is, this thing’s gotta move, all right?”

  “All right with me,” Frankie said. “I don’t do something pretty soon, I’m gonna have to go back and knock onna gate and say: ‘Lemme back in. I can’t think of nothing and it’s starting to get cold.’ ”

  “Because it’s just a matter of time,” Amato said, “some other fresh bastard’s gonna think of it and then it’s gone and we haven’t got the money.”

  “No trouble,” Frankie said. “I’m starving and he’s got to go some place pretty soon with them dogs, and like I say, I don’t get my ass in gear pretty soon, I might as well kiss it good-bye. You got the stuff?”

  “A car,” Amato said. “The kids Connie got, most of them’re stupid enough, but there’s one of them, probably if he started to get wet and he was outdoors, he’d go inside. I know where there’s a nice Chrysler. I think he can get it without hot-wiring his balls. I got two thirty-eights, which oughta be enough. You’re gonna have to get your own ski masks or something.”

  “I’d like a sawed-off for this one,” Frankie said. “Something big, scare the shit out of them, you walk in the door.”

  “You get one,” Amato said, “use it. Okay by me. Just don’t start taking your fuckin’ time about it, is all. We’re not the only smart guys in the world.”

  4

  The 300F did eighty quietly on Route 128 north.

  “She looked really great,” Russell said. “I mean, really. Beautiful big tits, fucked like it was going out of style. This’s really a great car, isn’t it? It’s like riding in your fuckin’ bedroom, but it’s still a great car.”

  “I wished,” Frankie said, “one of the things I really wish, I wish you could still get a car like this.”

  “Keep this one,” Russell said.

  “Just what I need,” Frankie said, “a nice, hot car. No, you can’t do it, and there’s none of them around that’re in decent shape enough to buy. Fuck. Tell me about her some more.”

  “Wanna blow your mind?” Russell said. “You’re not gettin’ any still, are you?”

  “Tomorrow night I’m getting some,” Frankie said. “This goes all right, this’s my last night, a priest. Tell me about it. I’ll take care my own hog.”

  “Well, you had the practice,” Russell said.

  “That’s nice talk,” Frankie said, “guy like you that was sticking it in Goat-ass’s satchel. Very nice talk.”

  “That’s the first rule,” Russell said, “a clean old man. I didn’t see no broads around, up there.”

  “Who said Goat-ass was clean?” Frankie said.

  “Not me,” Russell said. “That’s the next rule. If there’s no old man around that’s clean, take the dirty one.”

  “I should’ve had them get you a goat,” Frankie said. “I had some clout with the keepers. I should’ve done that. The rest of us could’ve watched. You sure you’re not fooling around with them dogs, like John said, right?”

  “Dogs’re liable to bite,” Russell said. “I knew a kid, I knew a kid that had a dachshund once … never mind that. Lemme give you some advice, Frank: stay away from the dogs. You can get nipped, and what I hear, that hurts. Stick with broads. If you can find one.”

  “You know?” Frankie said. “I’m not sure I can. Maybe it’s the same thing. Maybe they’re not making broads any more, either. You can’t get a nice hemi, because it’s liable to make somebody sick or something, it burns gas, and it’s probably, it wouldn’t surprise me, there’s no more broads, either.”

  “There’s broads,” Russell said. “Just like us. There’s always broads. Squirrel wants to do something, he knows where he finds us. We go in and we go out and he’s having drinks some place, and he gets the same as we do. He knows where we are. The girls? They’re the same. They’re just as crazy as we are. It’s just one crazy bastard taking advantage of another crazy bastard. That’s all it is. That broad I was with? She’s crazy. She’s beautiful but she’s crazy. The way she looks, she didn’t have nothing to do with that. She don’t have nothing to do with the way her head’s fucked up, either. But it is. She’s fuckin’ batty.

  “She lives up onna Hill, right?” Russell said. “I go up there, she opens the door, she’s naked. Right there. Kind of threw me. She is really a good-looking girl. The stuff I been having, well, it’s not like I don’t appreciate it, you know? I was in a long time. But this kid, she was something. So I stand there, I’m just looking at her. And she says: ‘We’re gonna make it, right? You gonna stand there all day?’ So I go in and I bang her. Great. And then we’re lying there and I’m playing with her and she had some really good grass and it was great. Except she’s fuckin’ nuts. The girl’s completely nuts.”

  “Gimme the number,” Frankie said. “Don’t go back there. I wouldn’t want you hanging around with no nutty women. Just gimme the number. I’ll go up there and I’ll read the fuckin’ Bible to her or something.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t going back,” Russell said. “I said she was crazy.”

  “I don’t think you oughta go back,” Frankie said. “You’re gonna get in trouble, up and coming fellow like yourself, hanging around with crazy people. Turn her over to me. I’ll counsel her, is what I’ll do. I’ll make her feel better.”

  “Right,” Russell said, “and then she’ll do what she says she’s gonna do and you’ll get blamed for it and that’ll be the end of you, Cochise. She’s gonna kill herself.”

  “They all say that,” Frankie said. “It’s the first thing they think of to say, a lot of them. I dunno why they do it. They probably, they went to Catholic school or something. It don’t matter. I was going with this girl, I used to go with? Friend of Sandy’s. Had her pants glued on, for Christ sake. Not a bad-looking kid. She had kind of buck teeth. Nice ass. She wanted to get married. I didn’t know anything, for Christ sake. I wanted to get laid. Get married, go to jail, cut your foot off: I would’ve done it. I was so fuckin’ horny I would’ve done anything to get laid. I remember, I used to go, can you believe this? I used to go fuckin’ parking with this broad. I used to take my old man’s beat-up car and drive and drive and drive, get some place where she didn’t think maybe somebody knew her father’d see us. Used to go down Chickatawbut, the reservoir? I was almost twenny years old and this kid was, what, I dunno, seventeen, probably, and I used to spend fuckin’ hours tryin’ to get my fuckin’ bare hand on her fuckin’ bare tit. I think it took me almost a year. I took her to drive-ins, I took her to dances, I fed her booze, I breathed in her fuckin’ ear, and all I could do, I could feel her up from the outside. Through the sweater, through the blouse, if she was really drunk I could get my hand inside and feel her up through the bra. For Christ sake. The night, I finally got my hand inside the bra. Inside. I didn’t have it unhitched or nothing, just, I got my hand in there. I came in my pants.”

  Russell began to laugh.

  “I did,” Frankie said. “And I hadda drive home that way, all stuck together for Christ sake. The guys, I used to hang around down the Howdy. And I’d hear the guys, there’s all these broads that put out. And I believed them. And they gimme names. The actual names. And I didn’t do nothing. I used to think, this was when I was working the oil company, I was gonna be a repairman, they give you your own little truck and you make about ten grand a year, now, and you always got to go out in a fuckin’ blizzard about three o’clock inna morning, oh, it’s a great fuckin’ life, and I used to think, well, what I thought was, I got to have a girl I can respect. I don’t want none of them whores. You imagine that? True love. True fuckin’ love. I don’t want no girl that just wants to fuck. I want a girl that just wants to fuck me, and you know what we’
re gonna do? We’re gonna get married and we’re gonna live happily ever after. That’s what we’re gonna do.”

  “With about nine hundred screamin’ kids and a fuckin’ house and all that shit,” Russell said.

  “Right,” Frankie said. “So, inna meantime, I dunno, her father wouldn’t let her go out with me more’n twice a week. Fridays and Saturdays. I could visit her Wednesdays, but there’s always somebody else there and I hadda be out of there by ten, because she hadda go to school the next day.”

  “High school?” Russell said.

  “High school,” Frankie said. “I’m twenty years old and here’s this broad I’m absolutely out of my mind over, and she’s in high school.”

  “Some time, I hope,” Russell said, “you got over being an asshole.”

  “I’m not sure,” Frankie said. “I remember one night I get her home, she hadda be home by eleven-thirty, Friday nights, on Saturdays she can stay out till midnight. I got her home about two in the morning. I dunno if it was a Friday night or a Saturday night. We used to go down the Blue Hills Drive In and she’d French-kiss me and, probably at least one other couple inna car, and it’d drive me fuckin’ nuts. Blue fuckin’ balls. Three times a week. And I get her home and the old man’s up, and he’s raring to go. ‘Did you do it?’ he screams at me. I played dumb. ‘Do what?’ You should’ve seen his face. It’s a wonder he didn’t have some kind of attack or something. She was standing right there. ‘Did you fuck her, you rotten little bastard?’ I was fuckin’ stunned. I got my mouth open, I couldn’t say nothing. I think I came in my pants that night, too, and I didn’t dare look, see if it came through, because once I did, he’d know, and he’s still screaming at me. ‘You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do, you little prick? You little fucking bastard? You think I don’t know?’ I thought he was gonna fuckin’ kill me. And she, that little bitch, she was just as rough on him as she was on me. ‘Daddy’ she says, ‘your language is filthy.’ And she stomps upstairs and there’re the two of us, looking at each other. He slammed the fuckin’ door.