Peril

EDDIE

He didn’t like it, but he had to do it. When you were a guy’s friend, you helped that guy out. And so, with no further consideration, he picked up the phone and dialed the number.

“Caruso.”

“Vinnie, it’s Eddie. It’s been a while, huh?”

“Since what?”

“Since we seen each other.”

“I was down at the marina a couple weeks ago.”

Caruso was right, and Eddie thought it was pretty stupid how he’d said it had been a while when it really hadn’t. He thought fast and said, “Yeah, but we didn’t really have time to talk, you know. So, listen, I was thinking maybe we could have a drink sometime. I mean, like tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause, during which Eddie tried to imagine what Caruso was thinking.

“Eddie, let me ask you something,” Caruso said finally. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I mean, that little shit fire you, something like that?”

“Little shit?”

“That little shit you work for. Fucking Tony. Did he fire you is what I’m asking.”

“No.”

“ ’Cause if he did, I could do something about it, Eddie,” Caruso said. “ ’Cause Mr. Labriola, he trusts me, you know, like a son.”

“Tony didn’t fire me,” Eddie told him. “How come you think that?”

“ ’Cause I figure you want to see me ’cause you need a little cash, maybe.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that.”

“But, Eddie, if you need cash, you don’t come to me like you would some fucking shylock, you know? You come to me like a friend.”

“I don’t need money, Vinnie.”

“You don’t need money?”

“No.”

“So, what do you need, Eddie?”

Eddie sensed that the phone was not the best place to tell Caruso what he was after. A guy would say okay to a certain kind of favor over the phone, but there were favors that called for a guy to really put something on the line, and when you asked for one of those, you needed to look the guy in the eye.

“I was thinking we might have a drink, Vinnie. I could tell you then.”

“And it don’t have to do with money?”

“Money, no. It ain’t about money.”

The fact that it wasn’t about money seemed to put Caruso on alert.

Eddie tried to ease his mind. “It ain’t nothing bad, Vinnie. Nothing to worry about. Just a favor.”

“Okay,” Caruso said. “Where you want to meet?”

“How about Billy’s Grill?”

Caruso laughed. “Jesus, Billy’s Grill. I ain’t been there in fifteen, twenty years.”

“But we used to hang out there, remember?”

“I remember. Especially that night when I was all… fucked up.”

Eddie recalled that night well. Caruso had gotten all steamed and decided to whack Rudy Kellogg for stealing Cindy Mankowitz even though Rudy had done no such thing and Cindy had gone out with Vinnie only once, and that on a dare from Kathy Myerson.

“I would have done it, you know,” Caruso said. “I would have done it if you hadn’t got that knife away from me.”

Eddie doubted that Vinnie would have done anything at all, but this didn’t seem the right time to say so. “So, Billy’s Grill?”

“Sure, okay.”

They settled on a time, then Eddie listened while Caruso boastfully jawed about the easy money he had and the big expensive things he bought with it. After that, Vinnie yapped away about the nightspots he preferred, and even claimed to have a few babes who just couldn’t get enough of him. Eddie doubted that any of this was true, and the fact that Vinnie felt compelled to spin such stories suggested that the awkward, orphaned kid he remembered from his boyhood had been a better guy than the man Eddie was scheduled to meet at Billy’s Grill later in the day. It was because he’d gone to work for Old Man Labriola, he supposed. You couldn’t work for a guy like that and not have some of it rub off on you. It was like working in a coal mine, Eddie decided, only the black dust was on your soul. Too bad, he concluded when he finally hung up. Too bad Vinnie went that way.