Killing Them Softly

by George V. Higgins

  “I changed my mind,” Frankie said. “He’s too nervous. He wants to leave. I never fuck with this guy. We’re not gonna go over you after all. You been very smart. Stay smart. Nobody’s dead. Don’t try to follow us.

  Russell opened the door and went out. He walked quickly on the deck to the stairs. He set down the bag in his right hand and used the hand to remove the ski mask. He put the mask in his pocket. He picked up the bag. He went down the stairs quietly, with the two cases.

  Frankie moved the shotgun back and forth slowly, covering the room. He waited forty seconds or so. None of the men moved. Frankie stood near the door.

  Frankie opened the door quickly, backed through it, shut it and dragged one of the chairs in front of it. He waited.

  Frankie stepped back from the door. He put the shotgun under his coat. He moved quickly down the deck. He removed his mask as he went. He went down the stairs quickly and across the parking lot. Russell was in the car. Frankie got in on the driver’s side and started the engine. The Chrysler, without lights, traveled quickly and quietly down the drive, under the oaks, into the dark.

  5

  At five minutes past two in the afternoon the silver Toronado, black vinyl roof, Rhode Island registration 651 RJ, came up Boylston Street and eased into the curb lane in front of a flocked emerald-green-and-white Fleetwood illegally parked in front of the 1776 Pub. The Toronado stopped in front of Brigham’s, a car length from the Tremont Street intersection.

  Jackie Cogan, in a pilled suede coat, dropped his Salem on the sidewalk, stepped on it, and got into the Toronado. He shut the door. Without looking at the driver he said: “Hang a right and go a couple blocks.”

  The driver wore a light gray, glen plaid suit. He had very long white hair. He put the Hydramatic in gear. “This isn’t near the courthouse, I assume,” he said.

  “Nah,” Cogan said. “Just a big hole. All the construction jocks, that’s all there is. There’s always three or four of them, sitting in their cars, trying to get warm. Forget it.”

  The driver turned the Toronado right on Tremont Street. “He was very concerned,” he said. “When I told him I called and Dillon said to see you, he was very concerned. How is the fellow?”

  “He’s not good,” Cogan said. “He came in Monday, he was out about three weeks and he came in Monday and he hadda have a guy come in and take over for him. I don’t think he was in at all, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then yesterday he called me, the guy he had those days was tied up and could I get somebody. So I did. He’s not in today, either. They told, the doctor said if he took things easy, he was inna hospital over two and a half weeks, and then if he took it easy, he oughta be all right this week. So, he’s around but he looks shitty, and I saw him, I saw him yesterday. He’s still getting it in the arm and he says it makes him nervous, still, not smoking, he’d probably be better off if he was. Says it feels like somebody stuck a knife in his chest.”

  “He probably won’t be able to handle anything for a while, then,” the driver said. He stopped at the red light at the Kneeland Street intersection.

  “He sure can’t right now,” Cogan said. “I think, I personally think the guy’s in very bad shape. He was, you know, every time I ever saw the guy he was always bitching about how he felt lousy and everything, his stomach was bothering him and if it wasn’t that it was something else. But he’s really sick now, and you can tell because he don’t say anything about it unless you come right out and ask him, and even then he doesn’t really want to talk about it. I think he’s worried himself.”

  The light changed and the Toronado crossed the intersection and the driver said: “He told me, when he heard, that if Dillon wasn’t available I was to talk to the fellow he sent.”

  “When you get up the movie place there,” Cogan said, “see that? Go down the right there, and there’ll be a place you can park.”

  “Is that you?” the driver said.

  “Dillon said where you’d be and for me to go there and wait for you,” Cogan said. “I looked around all right, I didn’t see nobody else that might’ve been there to see you. Did you?”

  The driver parked the Toronado behind a pink Thunderbird sedan. “Mark Trattman’s game got hit a couple nights ago,” the driver said.

  “I heard that,” Cogan said. “Somewhere around fifty-three thousand they got?”

  “Well,” the driver said, “probably closer to fifty. Two kids.”

  “Yeah,” Cogan said.

  “You or Dillon heard anything about two kids?” the driver said.

  “You hear lots of things,” Cogan said. “I heard they had masks on, for one thing.”

  “Correct,” the driver said.

  “So,” Cogan said, “maybe they’re not kids.”

  “They had long hair,” the driver said. “The people could see it sticking out, from under.”

  “Look,” Cogan said, “my wife’s mother’s sick and we hadda go over and see her Sunday, so of course we hadda go to church, too, the old bat doesn’t get any wrong ideas. And the priest had long hair, for God’s sake. And they could’ve been wearing wigs or something. You can’t tell.”

  “Well,” the driver said, “they were dressed like kids. They had dungarees on and they smelled like animals, Trattman said.”

  “Trattman said,” Cogan said. “Look, anyway, there’s lots of guys that stink.”

  “Trattman also said,” the driver said, “the one that talked had a voice like a kid.”

  “Trattman said,” Cogan said.

  “So far’s I know,” the driver said, “there’s nothing wrong with Trattman’s hearing, or his nose or anything.”

  “Nope,” Cogan said. “Nothing I ever heard about, anyway.”

  “But then, of course, when I talked to him …”

  “You talked to Trattman?” Cogan said.

  “No, of course not,” the driver said. “Trattman called Cangelisi, and they got word to him and then I talked to him.”

  “Oh,” Cogan said.

  “Is that important?” the driver said.

  “Probably not,” Cogan said. “I was just wondering, how Trattman decided to call you. I wouldn’t’ve done that.”

  “Well, I do talk to him,” the driver said.

  “Yeah,” Cogan said, “but I don’t, and I didn’t know you, I knew there was somebody, of course, but I never heard of you before in my life. Just seemed funny, is all.”

  “Well, I didn’t talk to him,” the driver said. “Trattman. But I talked to him last night and I talked to him again this morning.”

  “So nobody,” Cogan said, “nobody’s actually talked to Trattman about this.”

  “Just Cangelisi,” the driver said. “Trattman called him from the place and he couldn’t get him and he woke his wife up and everything.”

  “Yeah,” Cogan said. “So all we got right now, to go on, is what Trattman told some guy. And that’s what I’m supposed to go out and find two kids on, what Trattman told some guy, I never even talked to.”

  “That’s not what he said,” the driver said. “He said that I was to call Dillon, and I called Dillon, and then I talked to him and he told me to talk to the fellow that Dillon sent and see what you thought, I assume it’s you, anyway, what you thought ought to be done next.”

  “What happened to Zach?” Cogan said.

  “I’m not really sure,” the driver said. “They had some kind of a disagreement. I think it was about the way he handled the petition for cert. Zach. He didn’t tell me very much about it, but he did say he couldn’t represent him any more. I called Zach when he first called me, naturally.”

  “Zach was with him for a long time,” Cogan said. “I talked to Zach a lot.”

  “Not so long, actually,” the driver said. “About five years. No more’n that. When he first started out he had McGonigle.”

  “Magoo?” Cogan said. “He came up here for a guy and they practically hadda carry him in court in a basket.”

  “He’s had some bad lu
ck,” the driver said. “And that was probably before you were born, when he had McGonigle. Then, Zach told me, well, he didn’t have as many problems then. That was really before he really needed a lot of legal work done. But then he had Mindich and then he had the fellow from New York, Mendoza, and then he used Zach. It’s good trade,’ Zach told me. Tor five years it’s good business. It’ll drive you nuts, but the money’s good.’ See, according to Zach, he blames you when things don’t come out the way he wants them to, and then he gets a new lawyer.”

  “Zach was the guy I had to talk to,” Cogan said. “Nice guy. He helped me set my thing up. Say hello to Zach for me, you happen to see him.”

  “I will,” the driver said. “Now, what do I tell him?”

  “Well,” Cogan said, “the games’re shut down, right?”

  “Most of them,” the driver said. “Somebody called Testa and he said he’d like to see somebody try to come into his operation. So I guess he’s still working. The rest of them’re pretty much closed.”

  “Same thing that happened the last time,” Cogan said.

  “It’s temporary,” the driver said. “He told me that. He said as soon as I talked to you, to let the fellows know what you want. Or Dillon, rather. Originally it was to’ve been Dillon.”

  “I talked to Dillon,” Cogan said.

  “What does he think?” the driver said.

  “Well, the first thing that anybody’d think about in a thing like this,” Cogan said.

  “This is the second time,” the driver said. “That’s what he said.”

  “It happened before,” Cogan said. “Four years ago, and now it happened again.”

  “The last time, I gather,” the driver said, “the man who did it actually was Trattman himself.”

  “With a couple Indians,” Cogan said. “He put on a big show and all, but it was Trattman. Dillon said he even used to brag about it some times.”

  “And nobody found out about it,” the driver said.

  “Not till after,” Cogan said.

  “Well,” the driver said, “this time they worked him over a little.”

  “Once,” Cogan said. “They hit him one rap. One. I think, if I was Trattman and I was doing it again, I’d probably get at least one rap myself.”

  “Well,” the driver said, “where do we go from here? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know enough yet, do much thinking,” Cogan said. “Because, see, I don’t necessarily think this, but it still might’ve really been two kids this time. Or else it might’ve been Trattman. But it could’ve been some guys that knew he did it before. So it’s one of two things here. Mark’s been spending it a little more lately. He could’ve decided, do it again, nobody’d ever think he’d do it twice. But, you ever been up that place?”

  “No,” the driver said.

  “You know something?” Cogan said. “Nobody’s ever been up that place. Nobody but Trattman. It’s, it’s just not the kind of place that guys go. Except, I was checking around, Dillon mentioned this guy he knew, he used to know, guy was in Walpole and when he come out, they taught him landscaping, and when he come out that’s what he did, and Dillon said he thought maybe that guy did some work up there. So I called him. There’s eighty-six rooms in that place. It’s way the hell off in the woods, and there’s eighty-six rooms in it, and except for Markie’s game there’s not one single thing going on in that place. In the middle of the week the guys that’re using those rooms’re guys that’re selling things, and they work all night. That’s all they do. I talked to Gordon and he said he, when the place first opened up, he put a couple his girls in there. ‘They went nuts,’ he told me. ‘All they did all night was sit in the bar all by themselves and drink. The only guy they ever saw was the bartender. They’re getting fat and I’m losing dough hand over fist, it was awful.’ The place moves a little on the weekends, but then it’s guys that come in with girls. ‘Or fuckin’ amateurs,’ Gordon said. ‘Between the fuckin’ amateurs and the fuckin’ niggers you can’t do squat anyway these days.’ But during the week? Forget it. Nothing. There isn’t even a regular guy taking action in there, ’s how bad it is.

  “Now you think about that,” Cogan said, “and keep in mind, I got absolutely no reason, think the guy’s dancing me around. You think about that for a minute. When’d that game go over? Right around midnight, am I right?”

  “Around eleven-thirty, I guess,” the driver said.

  “Right,” Cogan said. “They go up there and all, most of the lights’re on. ‘The place does a good business,’ Gordon tells me, ‘it’s full almost all the time. It just don’t do no other business.’ So these kids, if that’s what they are, they go there on the right night and they go to the exact room where it is and they go right in, the door’s open, and they take everybody’s money. How about that, huh?”

  “Trattman admitted that,” the driver said. “He said he’d started to get careless. Instead of opening the windows or something they’d taken to leaving the door open a little bit, let the smoke out. He said that.”

  “Good,” Cogan said. “But the guy that’s running the games isn’t supposed to get careless, you know? He’s supposed to think about things like that.”

  “He was in the toilet when they came in,” the driver said.

  “I don’t care where he was,” Cogan said. “He wasn’t doing what he was supposed to’ve been doing, and one way or the other, those two guys knew he wasn’t. And they knew he wasn’t gonna be, and they knew where to find him.”

  “Right,” the driver said.

  “So,” Cogan said, “for now it don’t matter, Trattman did it or somebody did it to Trattman.”

  “It doesn’t?” the driver said.

  “Not to Trattman,” Cogan said. “That’s where we got to start. We start with Trattman, and we start real good, too.”

  “Now wait a minute,” the driver said.

  “I’ll wait a week if you want,” Cogan said.

  “I’ll have to talk to him before you go ahead and do, whatever it is you’re planning to do,” the driver said.

  “Talk to him,” Cogan said. “I got plenty of things to do. Tell him I said we hadda talk to Trattman and see what he says.”

  “He wouldn’t object to that,” the driver said.

  “Really talk to him,” Cogan said. “You can’t do anything else, that I can see.”

  “I can tell you right now,” the driver said, “he’s not going to okay anything major just on your suspicions. He’s very concerned about starting something that’ll make things worse than they already are.”

  “I know that,” Cogan said.

  “The last time we had somebody handled it was against both our better judgment,” the driver said, “and as soon as he got better he went straight to the FBI and started telling lies like you wouldn’t believe. It’s just a good thing for him that the fellow got cold feet when they brought him in to the grand jury. And it cost us a lot of money to make his feet cold, too, I can assure you. So he’s not going to want anybody going overboard on this. Who’s going to do it, you?”

  “Do what?” Cogan said.

  “Talk, have this little talk with Trattman,” the driver said.

  “Well,” Cogan said, “I could. But, I talked to Dillon about this and we think, I better not. Might be better if Markie wasn’t too interested in me right now.”

  “He’s going to want to know,” the driver said.

  “Sure,” Cogan said. “Tell him, I talked to Dillon and we think, Steve Caprio and his brother.”

  “Dillon knows who they are?” the driver said. “He’s used them before?”

  “Dillon knows who they are,” Cogan said. “I know who they are. Barry was on the Wasp with me. He’s really kind of an asshole, but he was also, the guy that was the champ had to beat Barry, the light-heavy champ, he hadda beat Barry to get there. Steve’s all right. They’ll do what you tell them.”

  “I mean it, now,” the driver said.

  “Oh sur
e,” Cogan said. “I know that. You guys always mean it. You gotta mean it. I understand that. I haven’t been around much myself, hardly at all, but I talk to a lot of guys and I know. Now, how’re we working this? You calling me?”

  “I tell you what,” the driver said, “I’ll talk to him and then I’ll see what he’s got to say, and I’ll call Dillon.”

  “Okay,” Cogan said. “Then, I assume, you think Dillon’s in good enough shape, he can handle.”

  “No,” the driver said. “You said he can’t.”

  “Dillon said Dillon can’t handle,” Cogan said. “That’s why you’re talking to me today.”

  “Correct,” the driver said.

  “So,” Cogan said, “that’s what I mean. You want Dillon to handle, call Dillon. Okay by me. You want me to handle …”

  “I’ll call you,” the driver said.

  “I’ll call you,” Cogan said. “I’m out, I’m out a lot. I’ll get in touch with you.”

  6

  Steve and Barry Caprio waited together in the doorway of the Hayes Bickford opposite the Lobster Tail on Boylston Street. “I tell you,” Barry said, “I wouldn’t’ve recognized the guy.”

  “Jackie said that,” Steve said. “Guy lost some weight and he thinks he’s got a wig or something. He’s also, he’s a pretty sharp dresser now, and he sure didn’t used to be.”

  “Must’ve come into a little money or something,” Barry said.

  “Probably not,” Steve said, “not what Jackie thinks, anyway. He thinks all of a sudden, guy started spending a couple dollars now and then. ‘Probably come outa the divorce better’n he expected,’ is what Jackie thinks. He used to be the tightest cocksucker you ever saw.”

  “Christ sake,” Barry said, “he hadda be. The way he used to chase broads alla time? What’s he been married, about nine times?”

  “Dillon thinks three,” Steve said. “Dillon was there. Jesus, Dillon looks like shit.”

  “Dillon’ll be all right,” Barry said. “That prick, he’s too mean to die. Ever see his eyes?”