Killing Them Softly

by George V. Higgins

Trattman retched and bled from the mouth and nose. He raised his right hand feebly toward his face. He touched his face lightly with the tips of his fingers. Slowly he shook his head.

  “Can’t hear you, Markie,” Steve said. “Who’re the kids, Markie?”

  Trattman explored the pulpy flesh around his mouth. He sighed. Tears came from his closed eyes. He shook his head slowly. “I,” he said, “they … I didn’t …”

  “He still says he don’t know nothing,” Barry said.

  “Yeah,” Steve said, “how about that?”

  “Think he doesn’t?” Barry said.

  “Jesus,” Steve said, “maybe he doesn’t, after all.”

  “You can’t tell about guys, though,” Barry said.

  “I know it,” Steve said. “I heard about a guy once, somebody asked him if he knew a couple guys and he said he didn’t. But you know what? He did.”

  “Better ask him again?” Barry said.

  “Yeah,” Steve said.

  Trattman screamed softly through his bloody lips.

  “Pick a place,” Steve said, “you don’t get all covered with stuff.”

  Trattman moaned. His head lolled to the right. He got his eyes open as Barry stepped forward again. He saw Barry’s right hand, closed in a fist, swing back across Barry’s chest until the fist passed over Barry’s left shoulder. He closed his eyes quickly and moved, jerkily, to his own left. Barry brought his fist back in a flat arc. The heel of his hand hit Trattman at the right hinge of his jaw. His head snapped fast to the left as the bone broke. His torso stretched upward and to the left, then sagged down. The back of his head hit the edge on the left rear fender of the LTD. When he hit the pavement he was lying on his left side, face up. His eyelids fluttered open, then closed. He gagged softly on something wet in his throat.

  Steve walked up to Trattman and bent over him. “Markie,” he said softly, “you sure?”

  Trattman moaned. His head shifted on the pavement.

  “About the kids,” Steve said. “It’s the kids, Markie, we’re supposed to talk to you about. You sure you don’t know who those kids are? You really sure?”

  Trattman moved his head slightly.

  “Because I got to be sure,” Steve said. “I really got to be, Markie, that’s all there is to it. You make me stay here all night, me and Barry, making sure, I’m not gonna like it. And it’s gonna be an awful long night for you, Markie.”

  Trattman vomited suddenly, a small amount of pink material and blood. Some of it spattered Steve’s shoes and the wide cuffs of his pants.

  “You bastard,” Steve said. He stepped back quickly. He stepped forward quickly and kicked Trattman on the left side of the rib cage, near the belt. Ribs cracked. Holding his foot at an angle, Steve wiped his shoe on the skirt of Trattman’s coat. Trattman gasped and moaned and sighed. “You cocksucker,” Steve said. He stepped back again.

  “Whaddaya think, Steve?” Barry said.

  “Get inna car,” Steve said. “Strikes me right, I’ll back over the prick.”

  As the LTD began to move, the taillights illuminated Trattman in red. Then he lay in the mist and darkness, breathing loudly and moaning from time to time. Then he passed out.

  The LTD left the parking lot at the Hammond Pond Parkway exit.

  On Route 9, eastbound, Barry said: “I hurt my fuckin’ hand again. I always do.”

  “Kiss it and make it better,” Steve said. “It’ll be all right. That fuckin’ Cogan, though. I’m gonna make him pay for these clothes that that cocksucker ruined.”

  “Think we oughta get the car washed?” Barry said.

  “I’m gonna,” Steve said. “Just be onna safe side. I’m gonna leave you off, and you take the gun, okay? There’s a place in Watertown, it’s open all night. I’ll go there.”

  “And then,” Barry said, “then where’re you gonna go?”

  “None of your fuckin’ business,” Steve said. “Why, you wanna come?”

  “I’m not gonna be able to sleep,” Barry said. “I always have to calm down some.”

  “Tell Ginny you don’t want no beer,” Steve said. “Have her give you some warm milk and stuff.”

  “Fuck you,” Barry said. “Whaddaya think, though, about the guy? Think he knows?”

  “I don’t think,” Steve said. “Who the fuck wants to think about him? He’s just a shit.”

  “Well,” Barry said, “I mean, I worked him over pretty good.”

  “Probably,” Steve said, “he probably knows.”

  “He stood up pretty good, then,” Barry said. “If he does, I mean.”

  “He’s gotta stand up pretty good,” Steve said. “He knows what’s gonna happen to him, he doesn’t. He knows.”

  7

  Frankie parked the dark green GTO convertible in front of Amato’s Driving School and got out. He wore tan flared corduroy jeans over Dingo boots, a white turtleneck and a doubleknit gray blazer. He locked the car and went inside.

  “Well,” Amato said, “you still got a good ways to go, but you look a little better, anyway. And the hair’s a lot better. You got too much of that spray on it there, though.”

  “I don’t spray it,” Frankie said. “I ain’t no fuckin’ queer. That’s gel on it. The guy that cut it gave me the stuff.”

  “Find another guy, the next time,” Amato said. “Also got yourself something to drive around in, I see.”

  “I was never that hot for trolleys,” Frankie said.

  “What’d it go for?” Amato said.

  “Eighteen hundred,” Frankie said. “Plus the fuckin’ sales tax, of course. It’s in pretty good shape.”

  “Things’re a little better,” Amato said.

  “Things’re a lot better,” Frankie said. “I was out last night, me this girl, I had a place to take her and a car to take her to the place in. I got that thing? I had a little beef with the guy down to Probation, there. Can’t understand it, I got to have my license back so soon. So I hadda tell my brother-in-law, I went back to get my stuff. ‘By the way, anybody asks you, you loaned me the money, all right?’ So he looks at it. Dean’s all right. I’m not asking no questions,’ he says, ‘nothing like that at all. But I think you’re doing better’n me, all of a sudden.’ Yeah, it’s really great. I was down the Probation and the guy looks at me and he says: ‘Nice clothes.’ I said: ‘Look, the last time I come in, you’re giving me the hardeyes, I look like a bum. I figured you’re gonna violate me for it, for Christ sake. So now I beat up on my family and get some dough and I finally look like something that didn’t come in on a truckload of chickens, and now you’re pissed about that.’ Yeah, it’s great.”

  “Where’re you living?” Amato said.

  “Place in Norwood,” Frankie said. “Just a studio thing, the furniture was all in it. It’s right on Route 1, though. But what the fuck if it’s noisy, you know? The noise’s all outside.”

  “The fuck’d you go all the way out there for,” Amato said. “I would’ve thought, guy like you’d stay around Boston some place. I would.”

  “Well,” Frankie said, “it’s a little cheaper, you know? And, I know too many guys around right in town. My brother-in-law, for example, I hadda place in Boston, the first thing you know he’d want to be coming over all the time and using the place, and then Sandy’d get all pissed off at me and everything. And, I just thought about it and I figured, it’s gonna be more of a hassle living there’n it’s gonna be of a hassle to live some place else. The guy down Probation, he got all stirred up about that, too. ‘How come you’re in Norwood? What’re you doing there?’ So I told him, guy I know’s gonna give me a job there, how’s that? Taking care of the building, and I get something off of my rent and everything and I can still get another job and stay out of trouble.”

  “They check on that,” Amato said. “That’s one thing they do check on.”

  “And when they do,” Frankie said, “they’re gonna call the guy and that’s exactly what he’s gonna tell them. I’m a maintenance enginee
r for Hes-Lee Apartments.”

  “Janitor,” Amato said.

  “Janitor,” Frankie said.

  “What’s that pay?” Amato said.

  “Well,” Frankie said, “it pays fifty, sixty a week. Only I don’t think I probably oughta try and collect it very often, you know? The guy’s, I told him I just got out of the can, and pretty soon I’m in talking to the head honcho, this big enormous Jew. It was his idea.”

  “He’s fuckin’ around with his taxes,” Amato said.

  “Yeah,” Frankie said, “or he’s got a honey some place or something. I dunno. I don’t give a shit.”

  “So,” Amato said, “what are you gonna do, then?”

  “Well,” Frankie said, “that’s one of the things I come down, I figured I’d talk to you about, you know? See, I was thinking about some things and I was talking to Russell about some things and he was thinking about some things, but I didn’t want to do anything, really, until we see. If things come out all right on that other thing. So, I hear, I hear they did. And I come down.”

  “Trattman got the shit beaten out of him,” Amato said.

  “That’s what I mean,” Frankie said. “So I was wondering, you got anything else in mind?”

  “No,” Amato said, “I really don’t. You know how I know I don’t? I stop down the Square in the morning. I go in, get the paper, see a couple the guys, maybe there’s something going on. I always did that, before, and the minute I get out, I’m doing it again. I’m like them old guys you see, the first thing they do in the morning’s go down and stand up at the bar and have coffee and anisette. Except I don’t have no coffee or anything, and instead I get a newspaper. It’s just a habit. And, I been doing this for a long time, I always seen the Brink’s, every Friday morning. Picking up the dough for the Armstrong factory. Since I was, what, since I was fifteen, probably. I used to do that when I was going to school. I played the dogs something fierce when I was in school.”

  “Uh uh,” Frankie said.

  “Well,” Amato said, “that’s what I mean. How I know, I really haven’t got anything. Because when I start thinking about that, I’m not thinking any more. Outside the barbut, no, nothing.”

  “I still feel the same way about that,” Frankie said. “I personally don’t think anybody could get past Billy’s Fish before you had guys all over you. And that alley, that alley’s narrow. I bet it isn’t more’n three feet wide.”

  “You went down there again, huh?” Amato said.

  “I was down there the night, the night before last,” Frankie said. “I heard about Trattman. So, I wouldn’t want to’ve been Trattman or anything, but I didn’t feel bad about it, you know? Come out just like you said. I can’t just sit around now. I got to get something else lined up. I was thinking, you know? And one of the things, the way guys get back in, they do something, and they plan it right and everything, and they do it and it works. And then they sit around. And then they run outa dough. And then they got to do something else, quick. And they do. And they get caught and they go away again. I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing no more time.

  “I start thinking,” Frankie said. “ ‘John’s right about the other thing, I’m right down here, maybe he’s right about this.’ So I went over and I looked it over. Of course this wasn’t, I think it was Tuesday or something and there wasn’t anybody standing around watching everybody, you know? So that’d be different. But, I still don’t think it makes much difference, John. I still don’t think you can touch that thing.”

  “You’re probably right,” Amato said. “That’s another habit I got. See, at least I know it. When I can’t think of anything I start thinking about that or the Brink’s again. I’d like to do that one, you know? It’s the kind of thing, it’s almost like a sitting duck, except it isn’t. Both of them are. Plus which, there’s a lot of dough in both of them. And I can always use some of that.”

  “You haven’t been doing good again?” Frankie said.

  “Frank,” Amato said, “I been getting murdered, is what I been doing. I dunno what the fuck it is. I’m not stupid. It seems like, the last good year I had was, you know when that was? I was thinking about it. It was nineteen sixty-two, can you imagine that? I got nothing in sixty-three, nothing. I think I was lucky if I even broke even. And I was getting my balls cut off when we did that thing. That’s why I went for it, for Christ sake. That’s what started making me think about it in the first place.”

  “That’s one of the things I was thinking about,” Frankie said, “another one of those.”

  “Jesus, Frank,” Amato said, “I don’t know. Those guys, knocked over the South Shore the other day? Buncha fuckers, I dunno who they were. I had about six cops walking up and down out front here, waiting around, see if anybody’s gonna come around and see me. They’re gonna be thinking about us now, anything like that happens.”

  “Let ’em think,” Frankie said. “I was thinking, the thing that went ragtime the last time, it was Mattie.”

  “Right,” Amato said.

  “We had somebody instead of Mattie, that didn’t shit a fuckin’ brick when somebody asks him his name or something,” Frankie said, “we wouldn’t’ve had no problem at all.”

  “That’s right,” Amato said. “Shit, the first time, there, even the Doctor was all right. He must’ve had the fuckin’ rag on or something.”

  “All right,” Frankie said. “And another thing was, we had, I think we probably had too many guys. That’s another thing I was thinking about. I think, two guys working oughta be enough. One that’s gonna set everything up and then the two guys that never went near the place, to actually do it, and then, you keep it down to that many guys, you oughta be able, kind of control the kind of guys you get, you know?”

  “We couldn’t do it around here,” Amato said.

  “I wasn’t thinking of around here,” Frankie said. “What I was thinking, how about down around Taunton some place? How about that?”

  “Too hard,” Amato said. “I couldn’t get down there that often. For Christ sake, I take half a day off or something, go over the Registry and take care a lot of fuckin’ horseshit oughta take about ten minutes, I got to talk to a lot of fuckin’ stooges that haven’t got no manners, it takes me half a day? You know something? I haven’t got no real complaint. A guy gets himself elected to something or something, he’s got a whole family full of morons, they can’t get no work humping the garbage? Beautiful. I’d rather, they’re doing something, they’re doing nothing and we’re all carrying the lazy fuckers onna welfare. But these people, they haven’t got no manners. I can tell you what they are, you know what they are? They’re, they don’t give a shit. You can stand there and stand there and stand there, of course you haven’t got nothing else to do, and then, they’re all sitting around, these young cunts with big tits and everything, and it gets to be four-thirty, they just sit down. They go talk to their boyfriends, about how they’re gonna do it inna fuckin’ bathtub or something that night, and then it’s five o’clock and they hang up, he’s running the fuckin’ water or something, and they tell you, come back tomorrow. Fuck you, in other words.

  “I got the same problem here,” Amato said. “Nobody’s doing a fuckin’ thing. I go down the Registry, I stand around all the time there, I waste the whole fuckin’ day, I come back here, you think anybody’s doing anything? Wrong. They’re all fuckin’ around. Talking, bullshittin’ and everything. Connie, I give Connie credit. She did the best she could with this thing. I admit it. I come back and it’s still running, which I didn’t expect. But it’s just all right. The kids she got in here, they’ll work if you watch them like hawks. But you just let them find out you’re not gonna be around for a day or so and watch them goof off. It’s something awful.

  “Last month?” Amato said. “Last month the bills’re almost a week late going out. The checks’re two and a half, at least. I had guys calling me up. ‘Uh, Mister Amato, about your order?’ And then he tells me, three new transmissions
he put in, couple tune-ups, I also owe for three tires they hadda have fixed, one of my great customers don’t know they got curbs on roads, and the guy’s into me for around eight hundred bucks and he wouldn’t mind seeing his money.

  “So I go out there,” Amato said, “the kid’s sitting there. She’s putting on nail polish, for Christ sake, she’s talking to her boyfriend onna phone. I wait. I only pay her, for Christ sake. No reason she oughta stop talking about how they’re gonna do it after closing, it’s not closing yet and I’m still paying her. No, of course not. She finally gets off. I tell her, Jesus Christ, we can’t do business like this. We need a wrecker or something, this guy, he’s not gonna send one. ‘Mister Amato,’ she says, ‘I haven’t had time. I’ve been so busy.’ Jesus. I pay that broad one thirty-five for that.”

  “That the one with the nice ass?” Frankie said.

  “That’s the one,” Amato said. “Before I get through that silly little bitch’s gonna have me in court, and I’m gonna look awful stupid, I’m telling the judge, I got the money, I just couldn’t get the girl to hang up long enough to send it out.”

  “How is she?” Frankie said.

  Amato did not reply immediately. Then he said: “Well, okay, yeah. But Jesus Christ, I mean, you still gotta get the work done and everything.”

  “You don’t learn nothing,” Frankie said. He was grinning. “I bet when you were a little kid it took them about eight years to get you to stop shitting in your pants.”

  “I know it,” Amato said. “But, I still can’t be going down to Taunton or some place every day. I got to keep this thing going even if I can’t do anything else, you know?”

  “Every day,” Frankie said, “that’d be if you’re going in when it’s open.”

  “You wanna go in through the roof or something?” Amato said.

  “Yeah,” Frankie said. “One of them Sunday night jobs. The back wall or something like that. Two guys that knew where everything was, and I figure, somebody went down there once and just made a little map, that’d be enough to go in on. You know what you’re gonna have to do when you get in there. All you got to know is where it is.”