Killing Them Softly

by George V. Higgins

  “I know it,” Frankie said, “and you know it. He apparently doesn’t. It don’t make no difference. It’s what he thinks. He thinks we’re inna shit around here, and the thing that proves it is, he thinks he is, and he thinks so from talking too much to a guy that works for Dillon. Kenny must’ve said something, finally, that tipped him. That’s why.”

  “You brought him in,” Amato said. “I asked you all kinds of things about him, you remember. You said he was all right. Remember that?”

  “I made a mistake,” Frankie said. “How the fuck’d I know this was gonna happen? He was Mister Tight-Asshole before, there was nothing you could’ve done to the guy, make him say anything. I thought he’d do it and that’d be the end of it. I didn’t know he was gonna go to Confession to Kenny Gill.”

  “You used to hand me a good deal of shit about the Doctor,” Amato said. “He was all my fault.”

  “He was your mistake,” Frankie said. “I did a lot of time for your mistake. Now what I want, I don’t want to get dead for my mistake. I tell you what, we get this straightened out? You can give me all kinds of shit if you want. I know it. I didn’t know he was motor-mouth, but I brought him in and he was. Okay, so what do we do now? I didn’t know he was gonna start off and be the big operator. ‘I can’t waste no time, I just knock over this guy’s game for a hundred thou.’ I thought he was smart. Now I see, he wasn’t, and he’s gonna save his ass and then we get the shit. Fuck him.”

  “You’re sure about this Gill kid,” Amato said.

  “I’m surer about him’n I am about fuckin’ God,” Frankie said. “Ever go the zoo, see an ape? That’s Kenny. Looks like a fuckin’ ape, he’s all bowlegged and he’s got real short legs, too. This huge body, and he walks, he walks like a fuckin’ monkey. Hands practically drag onna ground when he walks. You looked at him, you’d think somebody skinned him and put a pair of pants on him and took away his fuckin’ club. And, he’s stupid. He knows things, he knows how to do things, because somebody told him and he listened and the guy talked real slow, too, nice and loud. Kenny can listen. Otherwise, he’s stupid. His idea of talking is, he listens, and somebody asks him something, he goes uh, uh, uh. That’s when he feels good. When he don’t feel good, he don’t say anything. You ask him something, he’ll sit there and he’ll stare at you, and he thinks about it. He tries to think about it. He’s not very good and he’s not very fast. You got an hour or so, he’ll do his best. That’s what he does. Then he might say something. It’ll be just the same thing you said to him. He always agrees with you. Kenny knows about, probably, two things. You hit one of them, you can talk. Otherwise, no. And he breathes. He’s good at breathing.”

  “Ah,” Amato said, “well, at least he shouldn’t be too tough.”

  “He did work for Dillon,” Frankie said.

  “Wyatt Earp did things for Dillon,” Amato said. “The way I get it, I seen him myself, don’t forget, don’t matter what anybody did for Dillon. Dillon’s gonna die.”

  “You remember Callahan?” Frankie said.

  “No,” Amato said.

  “Sure,” Frankie said, “the lawyer, there. Used to work for the man some times. Car blew up.”

  “Right,” Amato said.

  “Kenny Gill did that,” Frankie said.

  “That happened,” Amato said, “we’re inna can.”

  “That’s how I found out, it’s Kenny,” Frankie said. “China told me, he was up onna habe and his wife give him the word. Six sticks on the fire wall.”

  “That’s an awful way to do a guy,” Amato said.

  “Callahan’d agree with you,” Frankie said, “lost most of his stuff in that. Blew his ass off, for one thing. Would’ve gotten all of him if he had the door all the way closed, he hit the switch. China told me: ‘Kenny’s nuts. He’d do anything Dillon told him, Dillon said: “Kenny, cut your dick off,” Kenny’d cut his dick off, take it right out and start chopping away. There’s a lot of guys around that’re afraid of Dillon and they don’t even know it’s Kenny they’re really afraid of.’ ”

  “I better have Connie start the car inna morning?” Amato said.

  “That’s an idea,” Frankie said, “and if it don’t go off, have her drive over and start mine for me. No, but we got to think of something. I thought, the first thing I thought of, we oughta take Russell out. That’s the very first thing I thought of to do. I don’t like it, I never did nothing like that, but that son of a bitch, if I’m in the hole, he’s the one that got me there, and I could kill him for it, I really could.”

  “That gonna be such a good idea?” Amato said.

  “No,” Frankie said. “He already did the damage anyway, and if we put him to sleep it’ll just prove it to everybody, that we’re the guys that did it. One way or the other, he’s gonna go anyway. He’s either right, and they’re gonna kill us all, or else he’s gonna go to Canada or he’s gonna get caught with that stuff and go to the jug and he’s never gonna come out again. No, right now the main thing we got to worry about is Kenny. I don’t think they’re gonna send Kenny around to see me. I know him and I wouldn’t let him get inside a block of me, I’d take him out. So they got to get somebody else, and that’s gonna take them a little time.”

  “Plus which,” Amato said, “I wonder if they’d do it, the way things’re going right now. Too much noise.”

  “They’d do it,” Frankie said. “We got to start being very careful and looking around and everything.”

  “No,” Amato said, “nope, I can’t figure it. It was Trattman’s game got hit. It was Trattman got beat up. Trattman didn’t have no other reason, get beat up, and they don’t go around beating guys like that up like that for the fun of it. Nope, they’re not looking for us. Nobody’s even thinking about that thing any more.”

  “John,” Frankie said, “look, I hope you’re right. I wanna live a long time. I just got started and I like it.”

  “I’m right,” Amato said.

  “You don’t mind, though,” Frankie said, “I look around a little.”

  “Frankie,” Amato said, “get as nervous as you like. We did it and we’re clear. I’m going over to Brockton a couple more times and tend to business. I’ll let you know when it’s time to stop worrying and go to work again.”

  11

  In the early afternoon, Cogan drank a stein of dark in Jake Wirth’s. He sat far back, on the bar side, and watched the bar door. In the dining area, beyond the brass rail, medical technicians and the interns hustling them sat in white jackets and drank steins of dark and gossiped about the New England Medical Center.

  Mitch came through the bar door. He scanned the room quickly, found Cogan and started across the wooden floor and the sawdust. He wore a plain Harris Tweed sports coat and gray flannel slacks and a dark blue shirt, open at the throat. His hair was black and short. He had very light skin. At the table he offered his hand and said: “Jack.”

  They shook hands. Cogan said: “Mitch.” They sat down. Cogan signaled one of the waiters; he raised two fingers.

  “Uh uh,” Mitch said.

  “Wagon?” Cogan said.

  “Gettin’ fat,” Mitch said. The waiter approached. “Beefeater martini,” Mitch said. “Onna rocks. Olive. Right?” The waiter nodded.

  “You had lunch?” Cogan said.

  “Onna plane,” Mitch said. “I had lunch onna plane. Some lunch.”

  “Oughta have the goulash,” Cogan said. “Basically it’s beef stew, but they put tomatoes and stuff in it. It’s pretty good.”

  “They still got that place down the alley, all the bums go and you can get beef stew there?” Mitch said.

  “Conway and Downey’s,” Cogan said, “yeah. Isn’t that great beef stew?”

  “I used to think so,” Mitch said. “Dillon took me in there one time. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘you know all the good joints, don’t you?’ It was one of those lousy days, snowing and everything, Christ, you couldn’t get around any place, and we’re having all kinds of problems with this gu
y and Dillon took me in there. He got all pissed off. Any time you want to piss Dillon off, make him think you think he’s doing something bush. Sets him right off. That and telling him there’s nothing the matter with him. I guess there is, though, huh?”

  “This time there is,” Cogan said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mitch said. “I dunno, I guess, shit, I’m fifty-one years old and I’m getting fat. I don’t know, I never had no trouble with my weight. I was about thirty, thirty-five, Jesus, you know something? When I was thirty, for Christ sake, you know who was fuckin’ President? Harry fuckin’ Truman.”

  “He’s about a hundred years old now,” Cogan said.

  “For all I know,” Mitch said, “he’s fuckin’ dead. I dunno. I used to, I used to cut down onna potatoes then, that’s all I had to do. No more problem. Work out now and then, lay off the potatoes. I could always have a glass of beer when I wanted one.”

  “Maybe more’n one,” Cogan said.

  “Well,” Mitch said, “once or twice, maybe. But I could do it, then. Now, now I can’t do it. Now, I look at a glass of beer, I get fat. Pisses me off. It’s that cortisone I was taking, you know? It bloats you. I was, I said to the doctor, I told him, this stuff’s gonna get me so fat I’ll die of that. And he tells me, no, soon’s I stop taking it, I’ll go right down again. But I didn’t.”

  “What’re you on cortisone for?” Cogan said.

  “Colitis,” Mitch said. “I was sick last spring, the summer. I really felt shitty. I didn’t take that much of it, you know? I wasn’t on it for that long. Except, well, I almost got real sick. I was, I hadda see the cock doctor and he gimme penicillin, and I didn’t bother to tell him, I’m onna cortisone, and I guess you’re not supposed to do that, mix them two things like that. I was really sick for about a week or so. Couldn’t get or do anything.”

  “My wife had to take that stuff,” Cogan said, “that cortisone. I think it was that. Maybe it was something else. She didn’t gain that much weight, though.”

  “She got arthritis or something?” Mitch said.

  “Poison oak,” Cogan said. “She likes to be outdoors all the time she can, she’s got this real nice garden. And she was out there and she got this poison oak. So, she didn’t think anything about it, probably pulled some roots or something she shouldn’t’ve, and the next thing you know, well, she’s covered with that calomine lotion all the time and she’s itchy and it just wouldn’t go away. So she finally went the doctor, and he tells her, it’s in her bloodstream, and that’s when she started taking the stuff. It got in her hair, you know? It was all over her scalp and down behind her ears and everything. She gets up before me, she goes to work earlier’n I do, and it used to wake me up, she was in the bathroom, crying, it hurt so bad to comb her hair. So they said, we’re never gonna beat it putting things on it, we’re gonna have to have you take something. I think it was cortisone. She really went through hell there, for a while.”

  “She’ll probably get it again next year, too, then,” Mitch said.

  “I know it,” Cogan said. “I asked the doctor that, and he said no, that’s just if it gets in your blood and you don’t take nothing for it to kill it, then it comes back again if you just put stuff on it. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Them guys don’t always know what they’re doing. See, the big problem with her, is, she’s got, she’s always had this real bad problem with bugs, you know? Bees and hornets and stuff. She’s allergic to them.”

  “Swells all up and everything?” Mitch said. “When I was a kid I used to do that.”

  “Worse’n that,” Cogan said, “she could actually die. She’s got, she never leaves the house, she hasn’t got a needle with her, adrenalin, I got one in the glove box in the car, I got one in the truck. They told her, you get stung, you get stung above the neck, you got five minutes to get that shot. Twenny minutes below the neck. They told me: ‘Hit her the shot. Don’t try to get her to the hospital. You won’t have time. Her heart’ll stop.’ ”

  “Jesus,” Mitch said, “that’s a tough thing.”

  “She’s a tough girl,” Cogan said. “She’s lived like that most of her life. ‘There’re bees in the world,’ she says. 1 can’t stay inside all my life. What if a bee comes inside?’ She told me, she got stung a couple years ago, we’re having dinner, this place right on the water and I guess they’re hiving underneath it or something and, she don’t wear no perfume, of course, and I generally got more brains but somebody gave me some of that Brut and I had it on, and one of the bees comes out and I guess he was probably looking for me. So he lands on her neck and the waiter sees it and, he’s gonna be helpful, he tries to brush it away. I didn’t see what he was doing, he was already doing it. Well, he missed, and the way he did it, he drove the stinger right in and she screams. And she goes for her bag and she starts to turn blue. Well, I had the one I carry, and I practically knock the tables over, getting around to her, and she can’t get no breath, you know? So I give her the shot and she’s all right. ‘Feels just like everybody took all the air out of the world,’ she says.

  “And every so often,” Cogan said, “she puts up with all of this, she knows what can happen to her, we got to go down and see her old lady, and Carol’s got two sisters, all right? And they each got about a million kids and Carol’s good with them. And her mother hasn’t got no sense. She gets this look on her face. She don’t have to say anything. Just sits there. And she knows what Carol’s got, of course, but she looks at her and my wife’s tough. ‘Ma,’ she’ll say, ‘Aunt Carol’ll have to be the limit, is all. You can’t always do the things you’d like to do.’ ”

  “You can’t never do the things you’d like to do,” Mitch said. “Never. Every time you do, you get inna shit. Look at Dillon.”

  The waiter, having served the interns and technicians twice, brought the drinks to Cogan and Mitch.

  “First of the day,” Mitch said. “Except for the ones I had on the plane, anyway.” He drank. “Buck and a half for a stinking drink,” he said. “They oughta be ashamed of themselves. Fuckin’ bandits. No, look at Dillon. There’s a guy. I never seen the guy do too much of anything. He’d take a drink, he liked a big meal now and then, I guess he used to get a broad when he needed one. I dunno, I never saw him, but I assume he did.”

  “He used to go and see his wife some times,” Cogan said.

  “She was a beauty,” Mitch said. He finished the drink. He signaled the waiter. “He told me once, he caught her going through his pockets. I told him: I’d kill a broad I caught doing that.’ And you know what he told me? ‘No,’ he says, ‘I always like to know, anybody that’s around me, how far he’s willing to go. Now, about her, I know.’ I dunno, I think Dillon’s had a pretty lousy time. The only time I ever saw him doing anything, have any fun, was that time he was down in Florida, there. Too bad for the guy. Did the same thing all his life, I dunno. I wouldn’t’ve done it.”

  “You still in the union?” Cogan said.

  “Nah,” Mitch said. “I hadda give that up. There’s too many, you know what they’re doing now? It’s the fuckin’ PRs, mostly. You hear about it and everybody thinks: it’s the niggers. But it’s not. New York, maybe some place else it is. But not New York. New York it’s PRs. I dunno what the fuck it is. I been there, I been in New York almost twenty years. The whole time I been there, somebody’s been howling for something. It’s not the niggers, it’s the PRs. Those bastards, they come in onna plane, they own the whole fuckin’ town all of a sudden. All of a sudden everybody’s got to get down and kiss the goddamned PRs’ ass. You get yourself a sandwich and there’s a hungry PR around, because, of course, there’s always gonna be a hungry PR around, they’re too fuckin’ good-looking to go to work or anything, forget your sandwich. There’s gonna be some guy from Washington standing around, giving you the hardeyes. ‘Leave him have the sandwich, Jason. He’s a spic and he’s entitled.’ I look around, you look around in New York and all you can see is spics, wall-to-wall spics wiggling their ass. I swear
they’re all queer. No, I’m selling cars.”

  “Jesus,” Cogan said, “I wouldn’t think, it’d pay that good.”

  “Doesn’t,” Mitch said, “don’t pay for shit. But you’re the guy, owns the thing, all right? Now that guy makes out. Guys that’ve got the same kind of job I have, you really got to hammer ass and get lucky, too, you wanna make a buck. But the guy, he’s my wife’s uncle, right? I should’ve married him. Him and me get along fine. So I do all right, and I’m outdoors and you get to go to the meetings and all. It’s just for the time being. I go near one of them fuckin’ jobs now and everybody’s screaming fuckin’ bloody murder. I got a record and I got this and I got that, and that asshole in New Jersey, I swear every time the guy picked the phone up he was telling somebody what a hot shit I am, oh, he was a great one. So, you got to wait, it’ll die down. It always does. The fuckin’ Chinks’ll be next. What the fuck, I mean, sooner or later they’re probably gonna have a fuckin’ election and that crazy fuckin’ guy that wants to give the world away to somebody, anybody, so long’s he’s a nigger himself and thinks the niggers oughta own the world, he’ll get his ass whipped and then things’ll quiet down again. I’ll find something.”

  The waiter brought two more drinks. He was an elderly man, bent in the formal uniform. “Where do you have to go for these?” Mitch said. The waiter straightened up and stared at Mitch. “I said: Where do you have to go for these things?” Mitch said. “I know it’s some place outa the building, here, it’s obviously gotta be. You maybe even got to walk a couple blocks, take a cab or something. I was just wondering.”

  “No, sir,” the waiter said, “we only have one man on the service and lunch bars today, and he’s very busy. Are the drinks all right?”

  “Well,” Mitch said, “as a matter of fact, no, it’s mostly evaporated by the time it gets here.”

  “Mitch,” Cogan said. “Yeah,” he said to the waiter, “the drinks are all right.”

  The waiter went away.