Killing Them Softly

THE DRIVER TURNED OFF the ignition of the silver Toronado and waited for Cogan to cross the trolley tracks behind Cronin’s in Cambridge. When Cogan got in, the driver said: “You know, I hate to be a burden to anybody, but life’d be a whole lot easier for me if you could bring yourself to use a telephone now and then to talk about things. They’ve got pay phones now, anybody can use them. I bet I can even give you two or three numbers in Providence alone that’re pay phones, and if you wanted to call me up and talk to me about something, all you’d have to do is call me up and say which one. This running back and forth every time somebody gets a runny nose’s raising hell with me. My wife’s sick and one of the kids’s sick and my practice’s going to hell, and that isn’t even enough for you, one of the last good Saturdays we’re likely to see in a long time I think, and I had to give up nine holes to come up here and talk to you. That’s all I seem to do, lately, cancel appointments and drive up here to talk to you.”

“You oughta talk to the man, Albert,” Cogan said. “Sounds to me like you’re the kind of man, deserves a raise. Tell him to get in touch with me. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“You’re all heart,” the driver said. “Okay, I’m here. Let’s have the latest bad news. What’s messed up now?”

“Well,” Cogan said, “we seem to have a little problem.”

“We’re not supposed to have any more little problems,” the driver said, “no little problems at all. I’ve talked to him and we’ve done everything you asked. No problems at all, big or little. Tell me one thing you asked for, that we didn’t go along with.”

“Nothing,” Cogan said. “Only, there’s a couple things I didn’t know.”

“Tell me about it,” the driver said.

“Mitch,” Cogan said. “He can’t do it. I had things pretty well lined up for tonight. I know where Amato’s gonna be, and I’m pretty sure I can find out before dark where the kid that I’m sure of’s going to be. But at least we had Amato lined up. We could do a double, if things went right, or we’d at least get the Squirrel and he’s the big one anyway. But Mitch can’t do it.”

“You asked for him,” the driver said. “You and Dillon both asked for him. You said you couldn’t do it, and Dillon of course can’t. We got you what you asked for.”

“What I asked for,” Cogan said, “was, I didn’t know this, see? I wanted Mitch the way he was a year, a couple years ago. He’s fuckin’ worthless now.”

“What’s the matter with him?” the driver said.

“The first thing I heard about,” Cogan said, “he’s got this beef down in Maryland. He thinks he’s gonna do a bit for it and he’s scared of the bit because he thinks his wife’s gonna dump him if he does. Which, from what he tells me, she is, and even if she wasn’t, he hasn’t got any idea he’s gonna really enjoy doing the bit anyway.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with this,” the driver said.

“It don’t seem to, at first,” Cogan said, “except that he’s not supposed to go any place but Maryland without getting permission, and naturally he didn’t, come up here, so he’s afraid to go out and he stays inna room all the time. Because they’ll heave him in just for being here.

“Anyway,” Cogan said, “he’s staying inside and he’s fucking everything that jumps.”

“He said,” the driver said, “when I told him you wanted Mitch, he said it was all right, but it might be the best idea if you could find some way to keep the fellow locked in the bathroom all the time he’s here. Well, what is it? Won’t he come out?”

“He’ll come out if we want him to,” Cogan said. “I don’t think we do. When he landed here he wanted me to get him a broad, and I thought, what the fuck business is it of mine? I thought he wanted a broad. I called up a guy, guy got him a broad. Beautiful. But what he did was get that broad to give him the names of some other broads, and these aren’t hookers in from Lawrence for the night, either. These’re girls that see a lot of guys and talk to a lot of guys, and they all know he’s in town by now, and that isn’t gonna help us. This kid I sent around, I asked for one that’s just getting started and doesn’t know anybody from a pisshole in the snow. But he also found Polly, he tells me, and there isn’t one guy in town doesn’t know Polly, and this silly bastard hadda fight with her, for Christ sake. That girl talks to cops.”

“Has he lost his mind?” the driver said.

“I think,” Cogan said, “I think there’s a limited amount of shit a guy can take, and Mitch went over his limit. When I met him he was drinking up a storm, and I said something to him and he told me, it scares the shit out of him when he’s got to fly and he can’t sleep the night before and he’s got to get something in him so he can sleep. So, okay, and I could see there’s a lot of things bothering him. Let the guy do what he wants.

“Well,” Cogan said, “that was three days ago, and what he didn’t fuck in them three days, he drank. When I left him, he was drunk. Two-thirty in the afternoon, and he was finishing up a fight with another heavy cruiser he got from some place. Really drunk, talking and everything, he can’t remember what year things happened, for Christ sake, and I chew him out for it and he’s gonna go right out in his skivvies and do the job now. He won’t shut up.”

“Have you talked to Dillon?” the driver said. “Is Dillon well enough to talk to?”

“Told me he went out for a walk yesterday,” Cogan said. “Said he’s feeling much stronger, he had a good dinner last night and watched TV. Yeah. Dillon thinks what I think. This guy’ll blow the whole thing if we don’t do something. He’ll get another broad and another jug up there, and if one of the ones he had already didn’t get the word onna street, the next one will. We need that guy out of town yesterday, is what we need.”

“Well,” the driver said, “you invited him up here. Send him back.”

“He wouldn’t go,” Cogan said. “He’s hungry for the dough, said he really needs dough. Lost his job or something and everything. He wouldn’t go if I told him. I don’t think he’d do anything I told him, unless he was so drunk he couldn’t think of anything else to do. Which he probably is.”

“I can’t get in touch with him today,” the driver said.

“It’s nothing like that,” Cogan said. “What I got in mind, I’m gonna get him grabbed.”

“Turn him in,” the driver said. “Won’t he talk?”

“If he thought it was me that did it, he might,” Cogan said. “What I was thinking of, this guy I know, he’s got this one broad that is tops at setting guys up. She gets in real fights with them, and they give her their fuckin’ teeth to get her out of the room before the cops come. I was thinking of sending her up there, see, I told him, no more ass, he’s going to work, but he’s so drunk he won’t remember whether he had somebody send her up or not, and he’d take her if he didn’t. Now, this hotel, they don’t exactly keep tabs on people, but it’s a good place and they’re not gonna want no whore fights going on in there, and he’ll get busted for that and pretty soon they’ll revoke bail on him and back he’ll go.”

“Kind of rough on him,” the driver said.

“Not actually,” Cogan said. “Actually, I think it’s the best thing for him. He’s gonna kill himself if he does this much longer. He won’t get enough potato jack in the can to kill him, and if he’s not in the can he’ll kill us.”

“I suppose he really should talk to Mitch’s people,” the driver said.

“Albert,” Cogan said, “how’re they gonna know?”

“Ah,” Albert said. “I can tell him, I suppose.”

“If you want,” Cogan said. “Let him make up his own mind.”

“Okay,” the driver said, “do it. Now, that leaves us with Amato.”

“I come up with something, I think,” Cogan said. “I think I can set him up myself.”

“I thought you couldn’t,” the driver said. “I thought he knew you.”

“He does,” Cogan said. “He also knows the kid, one of the kids he used on the job. And that kid, I bet, is gonna know where Amato’s gonna be, the next few nights or so.”

“Will he do it?” the driver said.

“I was waiting for you,” Cogan said, “I started thinking. Yeah, I think I know a way.”

“Will he be all right?” the driver said.

“Oh,” Cogan said, “you can’t tell.”

“Well, it’s serious, isn’t it?” the driver said. “It’s a serious question.”

Cogan stared at the driver. “For a while,” he said. “Not long, but a while. Talk to the man.”