Killing Them Softly

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 guy 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.

“The next one I’m gonna send in for,” Mitch said. “They probably got an order blank in a magazine or something, you can mail it in and then when you get here it only takes them about a week to get you what you want.”

“You picked it,” Cogan said.

“The only place in fuckin’ Boston I know about, I could remember, for Christ sake,” Mitch said. “I never come here. You know how many times I come here? I been here, this’s the fourth or fifth time I been here in my whole life. I just never come here, is all. Every time I have to go somewhere, it’s Detroit, it’s Chicago, it’s something like that. I was in St. Louis, the last time I hadda go someplace. I just never come here. Guy asked me the other day, I wanna do something. I told him no, I was gonna be out of town. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘you going all the way to Brooklyn or something?’ ”

“You tell him, you’re coming up here?” Cogan said.

“For Christ sake, no,” Mitch said. “I was just saying, I never come up here much. I suppose, when they needed somebody, they usually must’ve had somebody else they used to call. Course I haven’t been doing much except staying away from a lot of things lately anyway. Or things’ve been staying away from me, anyway.”

“Yeah?” Cogan said.

“Yeah,” Mitch said. He finished his drink. He signaled to the waiter and pointed to his glass. The waiter, slowly, began to move toward the service bar. “You don’t mind if I drink one of them beers while I’m waiting for that guy to make it in from the airport, do you?” Mitch said. He was reaching for a stein of dark.

“No,” Cogan said. “It’ll make you fat, though, I thought you said.”

Mitch drank some of the beer. “Yeah,” he said. “First there was that thing on the phones. Jesus, I could’ve killed that guy. I mean it. I could’ve found somebody, gimme the okay, I would’ve done him for nothing. On the fuckin’ cuff. Then, then, well, I hadda leave the hall on account of that. And I wasn’t feeling good, you know? So I go the doctor, and he gives me the stuff, and he asks me: have I been under some kind of tension or something. Of course not, just gettin’ my name in the paper all the time, more’n Rockefeller, I bet, I used to be a guy that could go in and organize something and keep everything going all right, now all of a sudden I don’t do nothing but break people’s legs and stuff and throw bombs or something at them. I forget what it was. And I’m getting hell from my wife all the time, naturally. No, there’s nothing bothering me. And I take the stuff and I get fat and then I got myself a good dose in Saratoga, I was up there with a couple of the guys, and then they grabbed me down in Maryland on that gun thing.”

“What gun thing?” Cogan said.

“I was goin’ huntin’, for Christ sake,” Mitch said. “Me and another guy. You know Topper?”

“No,” Cogan said.

Mitch finished the beer. The waiter arrived with the drink. “You didn’t bring him a beer, I bet,” Mitch said.

“No, sir,” the waiter said. “You only wanted the one, I thought.”

“You thought wrong,” Mitch said. “Bring him a beer, too. I just drank the man’s beer on him.”

“I don’t want any more,” Cogan said to the waiter. “It’s all right.”

The waiter nodded.

Mitch shrugged. “Okay,” he said, “don’t have no more. Yeah. Topper. Nice guy. Lives out on Long Island. We move out there, guy tells me, I should look him up. ‘Getting old,’ he says, ‘still a nice guy.’ So I do. Likes to fish.”

“I went fishing once,” Cogan said. “Got onna fuckin’ boat. All these guys, drinking beer. I look at the guy. What is this?’ I say. ‘I can go the ball game, I want to watch guys drinking beer.’ It was awful. It was rough and all them guys, drinking beer, they all start throwing up. Fuck fishing.”

“This’s surf casting, he does,” Mitch said. “You go out and you stand on the beach and all. It’s pretty good.” Mitch drank half of the martini. He belched silently. “It’s just, the only thing wrong with it is, you got to get up too early. But what the fuck, he wants to go. My wife starts in on me. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I tell her, ‘leave me alone, all right?’ You ever been shooting geese?”

“No,” Cogan said. “That’s the trouble, I work. I work all night and all day and then I go home and I go to bed. So naturally, I take a few days off, I still live the same way. My wife, now what my wife’s always telling me, I’m working too hard. And that’s true. See, I had this one operation, and it’s all right, but anybody can see what’s happening, it’s just a matter of time, the state starts taking all kinds of action, and it’ll still be there, no question about that, but it’s not gonna be as good. So I started, I started up this thing with the cigarettes, and I got that thing going pretty good. Six months after I take it over, it’s going like a bat out of hell. So, good, I hadda get a guy and give him some of it, I still supply him but he runs the locations I got west of here and I just take care of the others. So, it’s getting better. But it drives her batty, we go some place and we get there and then I can’t sleep. I’m not used to going to bed so early, and I stay up and then I sleep late and we can’t do nothing. ‘You’re exhausted,’ she tells me, and I am. But I tried changing it back and forth and I can’t do it. I been at it too long. I oughta get into something else, I guess. Better hours.”

“You got to change every so often,” Mitch said. “That’s one of things, the union thing? It went to hell, well, I didn’t like it. But I was doing it a long time, I was, in a way I was kind of glad too, you know? That’s what Topper says. He’s seventy, at least, he doesn’t do things any more. He was telling me that. ‘The trouble with you guys,’ he says, ‘you spend your whole life, you’re doing the same thing and all you’re ever doing’s getting old. You’ve got to keep trying new things.’ So I listened to him, we’re goin’ down the Maryland shore, there, a whole bunch of people’re just taking over this motel and they’re all the right kind of guys, we’re gonna hunt geese. So, we go down there, I, there was probably a couple hundred cops around the place? And we’ve got the shotguns in the trunk. Oh, fuckin’ beautiful. ‘Where’re you going? What’re you gonna do? Where’re you from?’ So we don’t say anything, naturally, I mean, they done a lot of things but this isn’t fuckin’ Russia yet, I think, and everybody’s standing around and now they’re gonna start searching cars. And I’m gonna ask them, they got any warrants or anything, and I’m really gonna do it. Topper takes hold of me. There’s four or five of them standing around, I was really afraid he was going to say something. Just shakes his head. Doesn’t even do that, really. Topper’s all right. I don’t say anything.

“So,” Mitch said, “they open up the cars and there’s the shotguns, me and Topper’s car. It was Topper’s wife’s car, actually. Two shotguns right there. I just bought the fuckin’ shotgun, for Christ sake. I went down the place and I bought the fuckin’ shotgun. I hadda have my wife’s uncle sign for it, of course, but I actually went out and paid for the thing. Nobody gave it to me or anything. I never even used it once. Guy looks at them. Then he comes over. Treasury. I’m under arrest. Felon in possession. You think, you think I said a single word to them? No. But what does he say: ‘Mister Mitchell,’ and then he starts telling me. So, it probably just happened, they know my record and everything. I look at Topper. Nope, they arrest him, too. They know his name. I’m thinking: pretty soon I start asking around, see how come these guys know when I’m gonna take a shit and everything.

“ ‘Just for your information,’ the guy says to me,” Mitch said, “ ‘you might be interested to know, we picked you up at the Throg’s Neck Bridge this morning. You guys’ve got to learn some day, stop having these conventions.’ So there I am. I’m probably gonna go to jail for a fuckin’ shotgun I bought in a fuckin’ store, I was gonna use to shoot geese with, for Christ sake.”

“Jesus,” Cogan said.

Mitch finished the martini. He signaled to the waiter, pointing to Cogan’s empty stein first.

“You’re hitting that stuff pretty hard, aren’t you, Mitch?” Cogan said.

“I was up all night,” Mitch said. “I can never sleep, I’m going some place the next day onna plane. Them things make me nervous. Then, I come in like this, I got to sleep before I’m good for anything that day. I’m gonna go the hotel, we finish here, get some sleep. I told the doctor, he was gonna put me back on the cortisone, it started up again after that thing in Maryland, and I said: ‘No.’ I don’t care what it is, I’ll change my pants three times a day if I have to, I got to get rid of this weight I got on me. Only I think, well, Topper feels responsible. And he looks, he’s little and he’s old and he didn’t take a pinch for about thirty years, I think. So, they’re probably gonna both be his shotguns. I was just doing an old man a favor, driving him down there and all.”

“Yeah,” Cogan said, “but if they don’t …”

“I do time,” Mitch said. “It’s very simple. If they’re not his guns, I do time. I did it before. If I have to, I can do it again. They’re gonna have to practically turn themselves inside out, get me more’n three even with the rap sheet I got, for that. Oh Jesus, do them guys love arresting you. They just love it. They get somebody, they finally get a guy, they know his name, Jesus Christ, you’d think some of them’re little kids. Like to bash them right inna mouth, they like it so much. Bastards. But, big fuckin’ deal. I do a year. I don’t like it, but shit, that’s the way it goes.”

“Rough onna wife, though,” Cogan said. “That’s the one thing, you know, Carol can never get it off of her mind, I might get bagged and have to go to jail. Most of the time she don’t give me any shit, except about the way I’m out all the time and everything. But every so often, well, they hooked four guys there and they got them in front the grand jury and they asked them, who’s the guy they’re looking for, you know? Like you say: the guy, they know who he is. And naturally they don’t say anything. And then they get this immunity.”

“They been doing that down in Brooklyn,” Mitch said. “They got everybody in the slammer, and what’d they do? They wouldn’t say anything.”

“Yeah,” Cogan said. “So, the same thing, they go to jail. And if they don’t tell them, which they’re naturally not gonna do, they’re gonna have to stay there. So they’re in the can. And my wife was saying, well, I told her, I said, I’m not big enough. And I’m getting out of it anyway, fast as I can. Guys like me, they don’t even know I’m around. Those’re much bigger guys’n I am. But I can see it. I think, I don’t think she could take it, really, something like that happened. Every time they come in and ask for the toll sheets, there, everybody knows, they talk about it the cafeteria. And she gets all worried and everything. ‘Just promise me one thing, you’ll stay away from phones where they know you.’ So, I do. But I’m almost out of that anyway. I don’t think she could take it, really, something like that happened.”

“None of them can,” Mitch said. The waiter delivered the martini and the beer. Mitch drank the beer. He wiped his mouth. He belched, softly. “The last time, the last time she actually took out the papers. And I didn’t blame her. She was a lot younger then. But when we’re trying that thing, the last day? The jury’s gonna get the case that day. I get up and she’s already up. I dunno how long that is, but I was up at five or so to take a leak, and she wasn’t in bed then. She says: ‘Doesn’t look good, does it?’ Well, what the hell, it didn’t. The cop lied on the stand, of course, put me in the place at nine-thirty, it was at least after ten when I got there that night, and the jury believed him, of course. So, I say, no, it didn’t. And we go in the bedroom, get dressed. And I’m putting my pants on and I’m watching her, she’s getting dressed, I dunno how she does it, the way she drinks and everything, but she always hadda nice body, and I was thinking, you know? Now I’m goin’ away again, and she’ll start beating the shit out of the sauce and everything, and I know she’ll play around. Shit, I mean, I don’t like the feeling it gives me in the nuts, knowing it, but I wouldn’t even ask her, you know? Just because I’m inna can, she’s supposed to go without it just like she’s inna can with me? So she looks at me. ‘This’s the third time I’ve had to do this, Harold,’ she says. She never called me Mitch, and she knows I hate that name.

“ ‘Look,’ I tell her,” Mitch said, “ ‘you never know what’ll happen.’ ” He drank some of the martini. “ ‘What’s gonna happen, you never know.’

“And she says to me,” Mitch said, “ ‘Well, you think you know what’s gonna happen, and I think it’s gonna happen, and I don’t know if I can take it again.’

“So it happened,” Mitch said, “and then the papers come up and I was gonna sign them, let her have what she wants if this’s what she wants. She went through it twice. The girl don’t owe me nothing. She probably is sick of it. But then, I asked her to come up and see me, and I said: ‘Margie, look, you know? You want this, you’re really sure, you can have it. But what’s it gonna get you, huh?’ She was, she was thirty-nine, forty, then. ‘You’re still gonna have the kids, you’re still gonna have to know, I get out, I’m not gonna be in here forever and you’re gonna have to see me when I see them. I’m not gonna stop coming around, seeing them. And, we been together a long time. Unless, unless you really got somebody else you really got to have, okay?’ See, I knew she was seeing this guy. So, she don’t answer me. And I say: ‘Look, do this for me. Don’t do nothing now. You had, you know, when I come out last time, we’re both a lot younger then and all, and you hadda decide then.’ And she looks at me: ‘And you promised me then,’ she says, ‘you promised me then, you were all through. And here I am again, and you’ll promise me now, again, and I’ll wait five years and get six more, and then you’ll do something again.’

“ ‘Margie,’ I said,” Mitch said, “ ‘what can I say to you? I know. You’re right. But all I’m asking, you can do, wait’ll I come out again. Because, I dunno who the guy is,’ ” Mitch said, “and I did, of course. I knew about it two days after she was with him the first time. I don’t blame him, either. ‘I oughta at least, you oughta at least do this for me: I oughta be around the same’s he is. Because we always got along all right.’ And she starts crying and shaking her head, and I really thought. But she didn’t. And it was all right. I think, you know, you know anything about kids? Probably not.” Mitch finished the martini.

“You’re not having any more of those things,” Cogan said. “You’ll fall on your ass if you do.”

“I can handle it,” Mitch said. “I was drinking before you got out of your father’s cock. Don’t tell me what I do.” He signaled the waiter. He pointed twice at Cogan’s empty stein. “Nobody knows anything about kids,” Mitch said. “But, it’s really hard on the kids. I think it was that, probably, what did it to them, the way they hadda be and all. They’re no good. Oh, they’re good enough. My daughter’s all right. But my son, he won’t have nothing to do with me. And I think, this’s the funny part, all right? I think it probably was that, that she did it for, and it probably would’ve been better for them if she didn’t. I think that’s why she drinks so much, now.”

“I thought she was all right,” Cogan said, “we’re down in Florida, there.”

“She was,” Mitch said. “Look, when I was down there she was all right. When I went down there. She really was. I believed it. But see, that was the first time she was all right, and since then, I seen what happened. I talked to some guys, everybody that’s got somebody like that, and the first time they shake it, you know, you always think they shook it and that’s the end of it. They always think that, they think that themselves. But they never do. Nobody like that’s ever all right again, ever. I came back, there, I was home about a month and we’re going at it left and right, this and that, well, look, I dunno what it is, you know? But I wasn’t sorry I hadda come up here, lemme put it that way. She was going at it again. They can’t stay away from it when they get like that. The best they can do is, they can stay away from it for a while. I think something finally happens to them. I go away, I go away on this thing again, she’ll go down the slide once and for all before they get the gray suit on me. And this time, boy, I find that out, I get the papers again from her, this time I sign them. It’s too fuckin’ rough for me.”

The waiter brought two steins of dark. He set them both in front of Mitch. Cogan said: “Check.” The waiter nodded. Mitch drank half of the first stein.

“It’s a terrible amount of shit, you got to go through,” Cogan said.

“Hey,” Mitch said, “look, you know? What can you do? Do the best you can. Think I’m gonna leave the country like some fuckin’ draft dodger or something? Fuck that. It don’t make no difference anyway. What’re we doing?”

“We got this,” Cogan said, “we got two guys. There’s actually four guys, but one of them’s probably not around and I’m not sure, we really want the other one. So, we got two guys, for sure, and one of them knows me, so here you are.”

“Well,” Mitch said, “am I doing a double or what? These guys hang around or something?”

“Uh uh,” Cogan said. “Well, I mean, you wanna take the double, it’s all right with me, you think you can handle it. You need that?”

“I could use the dough,” Mitch said. “I’m gonna have to try this thing and it’s gonna cost me my left ball to do it. You know where the pricks indicted me? Maryland. Not in New York, Maryland. So I got to go down there and everything, and fart around in some motel, and it’s gonna mean two lawyers, my guy, that looks like he never got out the garment district in his life, Solly’s a great guy, but if a guy ever looked like a sharp New York Jew, it’s Solly. And then the other guy, some guy that probably wears overalls or something, so they don’t hook me just because I got Solly. Yeah, I need dough.”

“Well,” Cogan said, “you want the two of them, it’s fine with me.”

“I oughta take you up on it,” Mitch said. “But I think, I’m not supposed to be up here, you know? I’m restricted, New York and Maryland and that stuff, I’m supposed, I’m not supposed, go any place else unless I ask them. Well, I didn’t ask. So I probably shouldn’t hang around here any longer’n I absolutely have to. And, two’s risky, too. No, I better stick with the one.”

“Okay,” Cogan said. “Now, here’s the thing: that’s gonna be the guy that knows me. Well, he don’t know me, but he’s one of the few guys that probably knows who I am, all right? He knows me and he knows Dillon, and if he hears anything, he’s gonna figure, he’s gonna be waiting for Dillon or me. So, he’s the one.”

“He got friends?” Mitch said.

“One of the guys that we might do,” Cogan said. “He’s a kid, he could be around. He’s a fairly tough kid, too. The other kid, he’s the guy that’s apparently not around. So, there might be the one.”

“We gonna do anything about him?” Mitch said.

“Right now,” Cogan said, “it depends. I honestly don’t know. See, the other guy, I got him in mind for tonight. And a lot depends, what happens after that.”

“The fuck happened, anyway?” Mitch said.

“One of them fuckin’ things,” Cogan said. “There’s this guy, got a game, all right? And he got some guys, one time, knock it over for him, and then, well, he got away with it. So, and then everybody says: ‘Okay.’ Then this other guy comes along, and he gets these two kids, and they go in and they knock it over again, right? They think he’s gonna get blamed for it again. That’s the guy I’m doing. I’m gonna put his light out tonight, I figure, things go all right.”

“Dumb shit,” Mitch said. He finished the first stein.

“Right,” Cogan said. The waiter brought the check. Cogan paid it.

“On your way back,” Mitch said, “you think you’re gonna be in this neighborhood again this year, you can bring me two more.”

“No, you can’t,” Cogan said to the waiter. He took the second stein. “I’m gonna drink this, even if I don’t want it. He’s drinking coffee. Bring the man nice black coffee.”

“Hey,” Mitch said.

“Hey yourself,” Cogan said. “I’m gonna have to talk to you. I don’t wanna have to go down, see you inna fuckin’ tank. Too many guys around down there, listening to other people’s business. Coffee for you.”

“I won’t be able to sleep,” Mitch said.

“Watch television,” Cogan said.

“I probably won’t,” Mitch said. “You’re gonna line something up for me, instead.”

“You gotta have that?” Cogan said.

“Shit,” Mitch said. “I’m not working tonight, right?”

“Nope,” Cogan said.

“And I’m probably not working tomorrow night, either,” Mitch said. “We got to set this thing up, and all. Who’s gonna help me?”

“I got a kid,” Cogan said. “He’s not the sharpest thing I ever seen, but he’ll do what you tell him. You want him to drive, he’ll drive. Anything.”

“Is he gonna fuck up?” Mitch said. “Never mind what somebody tells him, does he fuck up?”

“Look,” Cogan said, “this kid’d tear a fuckin’ car in half with his bare hands, you asked him. He’s very dependable. But you got to tell him. You tell him, he’ll do it. He’ll go through a fuckin’ building, he’s got to.”

“I personally,” Mitch said, “I’d rather have a guy that’d see the building and go around it. I can’t afford, I don’t want no guy that’s gonna go on no fuckin’ rampage the minute I let him out of my sight. You sure you can’t come in on this?”

“Look,” Cogan said, “the guy’s name’s Johnny Amato. I know him. I did, he wanted Dillon to do something for him once, and Dillon couldn’t do it. So Dillon told him, if it was all right, he’d ask me, and the guy said: ‘Yeah.’ So I did it, and he paid me. He knows me.”

“How much does this kid know?” Mitch said.

“Kenny?” Cogan said. “Kenny knows nothing. I didn’t tell him nothing. He don’t know you’re in town. He knew it, it wouldn’t mean nothing to him.”

“I don’t want him,” Mitch said.

The waiter brought Cogan’s change and the coffee.

“I don’t want that, either,” Mitch said.

The waiter left.

“I didn’t say you wanted it,” Cogan said.

“I don’t want no fuckin’ nutcakes, either,” Mitch said.

“Well,” Cogan said, “look, I mean, you got to tell me what you want, then, right? Because I don’t know.”

“Where is this guy?” Mitch said.

“Quincy,” Cogan said. “Wollaston, actually.”

“I don’t know where the fuck that is,” Mitch said.

“I can show you,” Cogan said.

“But he knows you,” Mitch said. “Great. Look, this other guy, the one you’re doing?”

“Yeah,” Cogan said.

“Do him,” Mitch said, “and the way I get it, that’s gonna do something to the guy I’m supposed to hit.”

“Got to,” Cogan said.

“Gonna make him relax, or something,” Mitch said.

“I think,” Cogan said.

“Okay, then,” Mitch said. “So, we got to give him a chance to relax then, haven’t we? And you got to get me somebody that can drive a car without running into things, and also you got to get me something. You haven’t got anything yet, I assume.”

“I was gonna ask you what you wanted,” Cogan said.

“Good,” Mitch said, “forty-five Military Police. I never use nothing else.”

“Okay,” Cogan said.

“If you’re the guy that’s starting it,” Mitch said, “it’s a great thing. One of them. And a guy that can do things. How long’s that gonna take you?”

“Day or so,” Cogan said.

“And a car,” Mitch said.

“Still a day or so,” Cogan said.

“And where he’s gonna be,” Mitch said.

“Same thing,” Cogan said.

“You know something?” Mitch said. “I don’t think you can do it that fast.”

“I can,” Cogan said.

“Well,” Mitch said, “then I think you’re not gonna and I don’t care if you can or not. Now, this’s, we’re gonna do this, this is Thursday. We’re gonna do him Saturday night. That’s when we’re gonna do it. You guys’re all half-assed up here. You don’t take the time to think about things. I do.”

“Always glad to meet a guy, you can learn something from,” Cogan said.

“I been at this a long time,” Mitch said. “I messed up some things, but never one of these. Now, that leaves me tonight and tomorrow night. Who’s gonna see me tonight?”

“I can’t promise nothing special,” Cogan said.

“Don’t like fuckin’, is that it?” Mitch said.

“Never paid for it, anyway,” Cogan said.

“Well, company’s what I want,” Mitch said. “You get me some company for tonight. I’ll take it from there. Fourteen-o-nine. I’m in the tower, all right?”

“That,” Cogan said, “I’ll do the best I can for you. That’s something you’re gonna have to decide.”