“He’s fuckin’ around with his taxes,” Amato said.
“Yeah,” Frankie said, “or he’s got a honey some place or something. I dunno. I don’t give a shit.”
“So,” Amato said, “what are you gonna do, then?”
“Well,” Frankie said, “that’s one of the things I come down, I figured I’d talk to you about, you know? See, I was thinking about some things and I was talking to Russell about some things and he was thinking about some things, but I didn’t want to do anything, really, until we see. If things come out all right on that other thing. So, I hear, I hear they did. And I come down.”
“Trattman got the shit beaten out of him,” Amato said.
“That’s what I mean,” Frankie said. “So I was wondering, you got anything else in mind?”
“No,” Amato said, “I really don’t. You know how I know I don’t? I stop down the Square in the morning. I go in, get the paper, see a couple the guys, maybe there’s something going on. I always did that, before, and the minute I get out, I’m doing it again. I’m like them old guys you see, the first thing they do in the morning’s go down and stand up at the bar and have coffee and anisette. Except I don’t have no coffee or anything, and instead I get a newspaper. It’s just a habit. And, I been doing this for a long time, I always seen the Brink’s, every Friday morning. Picking up the dough for the Armstrong factory. Since I was, what, since I was fifteen, probably. I used to do that when I was going to school. I played the dogs something fierce when I was in school.”
“Uh uh,” Frankie said.
“Well,” Amato said, “that’s what I mean. How I know, I really haven’t got anything. Because when I start thinking about that, I’m not thinking any more. Outside the barbut, no, nothing.”
“I still feel the same way about that,” Frankie said. “I personally don’t think anybody could get past Billy’s Fish before you had guys all over you. And that alley, that alley’s narrow. I bet it isn’t more’n three feet wide.”
“You went down there again, huh?” Amato said.
“I was down there the night, the night before last,” Frankie said. “I heard about Trattman. So, I wouldn’t want to’ve been Trattman or anything, but I didn’t feel bad about it, you know? Come out just like you said. I can’t just sit around now. I got to get something else lined up. I was thinking, you know? And one of the things, the way guys get back in, they do something, and they plan it right and everything, and they do it and it works. And then they sit around. And then they run outa dough. And then they got to do something else, quick. And they do. And they get caught and they go away again. I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing no more time.
“I start thinking,” Frankie said. “ ‘John’s right about the other thing, I’m right down here, maybe he’s right about this.’ So I went over and I looked it over. Of course this wasn’t, I think it was Tuesday or something and there wasn’t anybody standing around watching everybody, you know? So that’d be different. But, I still don’t think it makes much difference, John. I still don’t think you can touch that thing.”
“You’re probably right,” Amato said. “That’s another habit I got. See, at least I know it. When I can’t think of anything I start thinking about that or the Brink’s again. I’d like to do that one, you know? It’s the kind of thing, it’s almost like a sitting duck, except it isn’t. Both of them are. Plus which, there’s a lot of dough in both of them. And I can always use some of that.”
“You haven’t been doing good again?” Frankie said.
“Frank,” Amato said, “I been getting murdered, is what I been doing. I dunno what the fuck it is. I’m not stupid. It seems like, the last good year I had was, you know when that was? I was thinking about it. It was nineteen sixty-two, can you imagine that? I got nothing in sixty-three, nothing. I think I was lucky if I even broke even. And I was getting my balls cut off when we did that thing. That’s why I went for it, for Christ sake. That’s what started making me think about it in the first place.”
“That’s one of the things I was thinking about,” Frankie said, “another one of those.”
“Jesus, Frank,” Amato said, “I don’t know. Those guys, knocked over the South Shore the other day? Buncha fuckers, I dunno who they were. I had about six cops walking up and down out front here, waiting around, see if anybody’s gonna come around and see me. They’re gonna be thinking about us now, anything like that happens.”
“Let ’em think,” Frankie said. “I was thinking, the thing that went ragtime the last time, it was Mattie.”
“Right,” Amato said.
“We had somebody instead of Mattie, that didn’t shit a fuckin’ brick when somebody asks him his name or something,” Frankie said, “we wouldn’t’ve had no problem at all.”
“That’s right,” Amato said. “Shit, the first time, there, even the Doctor was all right. He must’ve had the fuckin’ rag on or something.”
“All right,” Frankie said. “And another thing was, we had, I think we probably had too many guys. That’s another thing I was thinking about. I think, two guys working oughta be enough. One that’s gonna set everything up and then the two guys that never went near the place, to actually do it, and then, you keep it down to that many guys, you oughta be able, kind of control the kind of guys you get, you know?”
“We couldn’t do it around here,” Amato said.
“I wasn’t thinking of around here,” Frankie said. “What I was thinking, how about down around Taunton some place? How about that?”
“Too hard,” Amato said. “I couldn’t get down there that often. For Christ sake, I take half a day off or something, go over the Registry and take care a lot of fuckin’ horseshit oughta take about ten minutes, I got to talk to a lot of fuckin’ stooges that haven’t got no manners, it takes me half a day? You know something? I haven’t got no real complaint. A guy gets himself elected to something or something, he’s got a whole family full of morons, they can’t get no work humping the garbage? Beautiful. I’d rather, they’re doing something, they’re doing nothing and we’re all carrying the lazy fuckers onna welfare. But these people, they haven’t got no manners. I can tell you what they are, you know what they are? They’re, they don’t give a shit. You can stand there and stand there and stand there, of course you haven’t got nothing else to do, and then, they’re all sitting around, these young cunts with big tits and everything, and it gets to be four-thirty, they just sit down. They go talk to their boyfriends, about how they’re gonna do it inna fuckin’ bathtub or something that night, and then it’s five o’clock and they hang up, he’s running the fuckin’ water or something, and they tell you, come back tomorrow. Fuck you, in other words.
“I got the same problem here,” Amato said. “Nobody’s doing a fuckin’ thing. I go down the Registry, I stand around all the time there, I waste the whole fuckin’ day, I come back here, you think anybody’s doing anything? Wrong. They’re all fuckin’ around. Talking, bullshittin’ and everything. Connie, I give Connie credit. She did the best she could with this thing. I admit it. I come back and it’s still running, which I didn’t expect. But it’s just all right. The kids she got in here, they’ll work if you watch them like hawks. But you just let them find out you’re not gonna be around for a day or so and watch them goof off. It’s something awful.
“Last month?” Amato said. “Last month the bills’re almost a week late going out. The checks’re two and a half, at least. I had guys calling me up. ‘Uh, Mister Amato, about your order?’ And then he tells me, three new transmissions he put in, couple tune-ups, I also owe for three tires they hadda have fixed, one of my great customers don’t know they got curbs on roads, and the guy’s into me for around eight hundred bucks and he wouldn’t mind seeing his money.