“My what?”
“Your bad cholesterol level.”
“I don’t pay attention to that shit. But yours… I figure yours is right off the goddamn chart. Am I right or am I right?”
Max, walking back to his desk with the drink, said, “I hope you’re kidding, Bobby. I mean, you must be in your forties, right? I probably have about ten years on you, but you should still start thinking about HDL and LDL. Believe me, problems can sneak up on you, especially if you have a high-fat, low-fiber diet. And you especially need to watch yourself, I mean being crippled and all. You probably don’t get your heart rate up a lot.”
Bobby, glaring, said, “Thanks for the medical advice.”
“No problem,” Max said, resting the drink on the desk. “Now, Bobby, look. You can see I’m a nice guy, can’t you? I mean I’m concerned about your health and everything. And you seem like a pretty nice guy to me. We’re both older guys, been around the block a few times – we probably have a lot in common we don’t even know about. So what I want to know is why can’t you just be straight with me and tell me exactly who you are and why you took that picture.”
“Why I took that picture? Because if I didn’t have that picture you wouldn’t pay me the quarter of a million dollars you’re going to.” He seemed like he was getting a big rush from this, fucking with a big shot businessman. Yeah, this was probably the highlight of this loser’s life.
Max’s hand was shaking, but he said, “Why the hell would I pay you one cent? So you have a picture of me screwing my executive assistant. Big shit. I could’ve hired someone to take that picture myself if I really wanted it.”
Max forced a laugh, but Bobby stayed deadpan.
“You’re going to pay me a quarter of a million dollars cash on Monday morning at nine o’clock,” Bobby said. “If not, a copy of that picture’s going to the NYPD.”
Max stared at Bobby. Finally, he smiled, said, “That was a joke, right?”
“I’ll be here at nine o’clock sharp,” Bobby said. “I want the money in one suitcase, two at most. How you get it in there is your problem.”
He started to back away from the desk.
Max said, “Whoa, whoa, hold up a second. This is all bullshit. I mean you’re kidding, right?”
Bobby started wheeling away. Suddenly, Max was feeling light-headed and he wasn’t sure whether it was drunkenness or panic. He said, “Hey, get back here.”
Bobby stopped, turned around slowly.
In a hushed voice, Max said, “Look, usually I’d tell you to take a hike, but I really don’t need this bullshit in my life right now, so here’s what I’ll do – the picture for a thousand bucks.”
“My price is non-negotiable,” Bobby said.
“Come on, a quarter of a million dollars? You have to be out of your fucking mind.”
“I know a lot more about you than you think,” Bobby said. “I read the papers, but I also use my head, I put two and two together. ‘Grieving husband’ my gimp ass.”
Max said, “Look, even if I wanted to give you that kind of money, I don’t have it.”
“Monday – nine A.M. sharp. Oh, and you can keep that copy of the picture.” Bobby looked up at the poster of the blonde on the Porsche. “Maybe you wanna hang it on the wall.”
After Bobby left, Max poured himself another vodka tonic. His head was spinning and he had lost sensation in his face. Feeling dizzy, he opened his door and called for Angela to come into his office. When she came inside, Max was lying on the couch, holding his head.
“What’s wrong?”
Max told her to lock the door, then motioned with his hand weakly toward the desk and the picture. Angela picked up the photo, stared at it for a few seconds, said, “That bollix.” Then she started smiling, said, “I look pretty good, don’t I?”
Max snatched the photo and said, “I can’t believe this day is happening. First herpes, now this!”
“What did he ask for?”
“The bastard wants two-fifty K or he’s going to the police.”
“So?”
“So, did you hear what I just said? Are you an idiot or something? Once the cops find out about me and you they’ll be on our backs for good.”
“That wasn’t nice.”
“What?”
“Calling me an idiot. You do that in Ireland, you better be holding more than a fookin drink.”
“Jesus, I feel like I’m gonna throw up,” Max said. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
“I’ll get you some coffee.”
“Fuck coffee! There’s only one way out of this,” Max said, and he covered his face with his hands. How the hell did it come to this? “Can you get in touch with your cousin today?”
“My cousin?”
“I think we have another job for his friend Popeye.”
Fifteen
“What about your coffee?”
“Fuck the coffee.”
“I would, but I don’t fancy the blisters.”
The coffee burned Dillon’s tongue. He was in the Starbucks beside Penn Station, and he spat out the scalding liquid, going, “Fookin thing.”
A guy, yuppie-looking, gave him a long stare. Dillon was up for it, was he ever, glared at the guy, snarled, “The fook you looking at?” He was delighted how his New York accent was coming along, and the brogue still riding point. The guy quickly looked away. But Dillon was antsy, needed to wallop someone, some bastard needed a hiding and soon. When the compulsion hit him, as it did more and more, he had to have an explosive interlude, blow the cobwebs out.
He got out of there, an employee asking, “Everything okay, sir?”
Dillon paused, then said, “Hunky fucky dory yah wanker.”
Translate that.
It was evening, the darkness bringing out the predators, skells in abundance. Even though Forty-second Street was now more a tourist attraction than a sleaze zone, it still had pockets of peril and Dillon had quickly found them. He stood in a doorway near Ninth Avenue, saw a lost Japanese tourist, camera hanging from his neck, a T-shirt with “Giuliani Rules” on it.
Dillon moved fast, hit the guy from behind, his knife out and the nip’s throat sliced before he could mutter, “Banzai.”
Dillon said, “Call it quits on Pearl Harbor a cara.”
But, for fook’s sake, all the guy had was plastic. Where were the bucks? He also had a packet of Menthol Lights and a Zippo, with the inscription Small change. No truer words. Dillon kicked him in the head for good measure and, as he headed up the block, he lit a menthol, enjoying the crank of the lighter, thinking, Johnny Cash and Zippos, it was a mighty country.
He began, like a mantra, the sports lingo he’d been learning, measuring out the phases like a new language. You grew up in Ireland and hurling was the sport of necessity, this American deal was a whole new territory. But he loved the sound of it, like praying but without the guilt or the bartering you had to do with god. He started, “Them Knicks need to take it to the next level, what to plug in and take out, they need a point guard, Isaiah Thomas better get his head outa his arse, the old days, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, they had a core, then the Bulls, ah they had it, the fookin Lakers, what was going on there, and the Sox, way to go boyos.” Like that. No idea what he was saying but getting off on the melody.
No one paid him any heed, just one more crazy fuck, with a menthol cig and a bug up his ass.
New York, you gotta love it.
Walking down Fifth Avenue, all Angela could think about was the way Bobby Rosa had looked at her. On his way out of the office, he’d winked at her and smiled and said, “Goodbye, sweetheart.” He wasn’t really her type. She didn’t mind the wheelchair, but guys with beards had always kind of disgusted her because they reminded her of her uncle Costas from Astoria who used to try to feel her up when she was thirteen. But Bobby didn’t seem like a bad guy. She felt bad that they were gonna have to kill him.
Angela didn’t know how everything had gotten so screwed up. It was bad enough that that innocent girl had to die, but then Dillon had to go and kill a cop. Getting Max’s money was turning out to be a lot harder than she’d thought it would be. Besides, after hearing on the news about how brutal Dillon had been with the two women and then seeing him stick that knife into the cop’s chest like he was getting off on it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry him anymore anyway. You marry a whackjob like that, were you expecting white roses? Yeah, right. She didn’t know where all that rage came from. One minute, he was talking about all that Buddhist peace shit or quoting the poetry of that Yeats guy, and the next thing he’d smack her across the face.