He still looks like a cop and they sure as hell know what one looks like. The car pulls away slowly, goes down to the corner and turns onto Pershing.
“That was pretty good, Hero. Gotta admit. We, uh, kinda stand out a little bit here right?”
Mick is looking straight ahead. “Yeah little bit, but then so does Jimmy.” He nods forward, “There’s the apartment building up on the right.”
“How do we even know the little fuck will be here, inspector?”
“White Sox home opener is a week away. I was told he’d be here. If not, we wait.”
The place is a fucking dive. Big shock there. And noisy, real noisy on the first and second floor. As we head up it gets a little more quiet. One thing for sure, if the little turd is here, we’re the only three white boys in the building.
Mick knocks twice on the door that has a rusted, upside down four hanging on by a thread and the B is gone but you can see the dirty outline where it used to be.
No answer, no shadow under the bottom of the door. Nothing at all.
Mick knocks again, three times and harder. I’m standing to the side to where Jimmy won’t see me right away.
“Get the fuck outta here, you little rat bastards!” The shrill voice from inside sounds tight and high strung.
Mick knocks again even harder. Four, five times.
The door flies open and Mick puts his foot along the bottom of the door. I step into the doorway too, where Little Jimmy can see me.
He doesn’t rattle right away. “And who might the fuck you be?” he snaps at Mick.
“We’re your friends, Jimmy.” Mick smiles at him.
He looks at Mick and dismisses him. “You, I never seen before and I’m glad for that.” He looks up at me and squints. “You though, you big fuckin’ mope, you do look familiar.”
I look at Jimmy and my head is still bangin’ but I can’t help but grin at him. Then I look over at Mick, “I don’t normally like pickin’ on midgets but fuck me, this is gonna be fun.”
I take one step towards him and of course he tries to close the door. Mick shoots an arm out and easily opens it up even farther. Then I shoot an arm out and easily knock the little pint-sized fuck about halfway across the kitchen floor. I swear he leaves two fingers and maybe a thumb still gripping the door.
He’s sitting on a ratty ass folding chair now in the center of the living room, if you want to call it a living room. His head is swiveling back and forth between me and Mick. We got everything shoved to the walls to give us room and we’ve barely started on him.
Mick, naturally, is the good guy.
“Look,” Jimmy says, “I was kidding around, okay? I just didn’t know who you guys were. How the hell was I supposed to recognize the Sawyer brothers? Especially together, right? I mean, shit.” He looks at me, all pleading like. “I only seen you when you were like fifteen or some shit. I, I have to act tough, but I ain’t, you know.”
His voice is high, excited and he is all motion. Just like his jittery meth freak son, Paulie, but older, much smaller and not all cranked up.
They don’t call him Little Jimmy Kerrigan for nothing. He’s five foot zero and that’s on his tip toes, probably only goes about one thirty five, one forty, sopping wet. He’s got short cropped red hair going quickly to grey. Pinched in face, long nose and no chin, except the false purple one I just formed by knocking him into last week. I mean, this homely-ass guy probably hasn’t been laid since the Cubs won a world series.
All I know is he must be smart, sneaky, or maybe clever because he ain’t got much else going for him. Him and Speedo must have looked like Mutt and Jeff running around together.
“Look, Jimmy, just tell us what happened and tell us how to find what we said we need. We really don’t want to hurt you. But we will.” Mick’s leaning in as he’s talking but then straightens up and walks away. “You can bet your ass we will.”
“I, look, I just don’t know nothin’, boys. Really, seriously.” He’s got the saddest look on his face I think I ever saw. But hey, you know.
I step up and hit him so hard in the chest I think I might have broke his fuckin’ sternum. He flips over backward in the chair and goes straight back real hard, his head bouncing off the old wood flooring. He lays there for a minute holding his chest with both arms and then he starts laughing. I trade looks with Mick.
Then we both realize he ain’t laughing. His chest is heaving up and down. Then he curls up. What we’re hearing is crying. The old guy is balled up and crying like a baby. Real crying.
I look at Mick again and walk to the filthy window with no drapes.
In between the pitiful sobs, I can hear him saying, “Ahhh you guys…oh no, no more” and “Okay, stop. Okay, please stop.” The guy is falling apart. Finally he slowly rolls up on a bony elbow and stops the loud crying, but the tears are still coming.
He looks at Mick and the old guy is just done, running on empty. Hell, he was done ten, fifteen years ago, no doubt. You can tell by the eyes and I’ve seen those eyes before. So has Mick, I bet.
To tell you the truth, I don’t want to hurt the old guy anymore. I don’t want to mess him up more than he already is. This guy never really hurt anybody, probably never killed anybody. Just a loser, trying to get by in life. I can’t mess with him anymore. But I gotta act like I will.
I walk over to where he’s laying, sneak a look at Mick and draw back a fist “We ain’t done. Come here, you old fuck.”
“Hold it a sec, Jerzy.”
“Why? He ain’t telling us shit.”
“He will.”
“Ah, fuck that. You’re only feeling sorry for him because he’s a fucking leprechaun, Mick. Don’t go all Irish on me.”
I raise my fist again, but Mick says, “Wait.” He kneels in front of where Jimmy is. “Tell us what we need to know, Jimmy. Please do it. Because here’s the problem,” he looks up at me and back down to Jimmy. “He won’t kill you, he’ll just keep hurting you. Bad. He knows how to do that.”
“I know…I know.” Jimmy was gasping for breath and trying to save whatever dignity he had left. He looks at Mick, then over to me and I can see the fear. I can also see the crumble. He is wore the fuck out with life and getting beat on just wasn’t worth it. Pretty sad little fucker and he was making me feel bad, I’ll admit that. And that, governor, is pretty damn rare.
“I’ll tell you everything I know, boys. Just no more, though, ‘kay? Please?”
Mick put his hand under one arm and lifted him back up to his feet. Jimmy grimaced and held his chest. I maybe didn’t break it, but I must have at least cracked something.
I put the chair back up on its legs and he falls into it.
“You want some water, or a drink? What do you have?” Mick asks him.
“I got some Jameson in the cupboard.” He points into the ragged ass kitchen and his face tightens up again. Then he forces a smile.
I go get it and hand it to Mick. Mick, the good cop that he is, hands the bottle to Jimmy like he’s his oldest friend in the world.
Jimmy takes a long swig and then another short one right after that.
I stand over Jimmy’s right shoulder but he doesn’t look at me, doesn’t have to. He can feel me there.
“We had it dicked.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and keeps going. “We had the fucking jewels and nobody was gonna catch us. Clean, it was so clean. I had it planned down to the last detail.”
“Yeah, what then?” Mick pulled another chair from the kitchen and sat down across from him.
“Speedo couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Bragged to a couple guys in the bar the night after it went down. Fucking dumbass.”
There was a pause and you could see his mind working its way through it. Remembering. The one chance he had probably ever had in his rotten little life to make some decent money.