“Now this other kid,” Cogan said, “him I know. He was on the jobs that the Squirrel and him went in for, and he got out about the same time, and I heard it and I sent down to China and, what about this kid, could it be him? And China said: ‘Certainly could be.’ So, him I’m sure of. All we got to do now, we got to think about that other kid. He bothers me.”
“Should we move now?” the driver said. “Or, do you want to wait.”
“I talked to Dillon about that,” Cogan said. “Him and me, we both think: now. Games’re closed, right?”
“Grant’s Tomb,” the driver said.
“People’re losing money,” Cogan said.
“A fair inference,” the driver said.
“They don’t like losing money,” Cogan said.
“Except for Testa,” the driver said. “He’s still open.”
“So what we oughta do,” Cogan said, “and me and Dillon both think this, you think about it and it’s the only thing to do. We oughta hit Trattman now and get things started so people can get back to doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
“Trattman?” the driver said. “What brings Trattman into this? You told me yourself, it’s this Amato fellow and his friends.”
“It is,” Cogan said. “Trattman didn’t have anything to do with it. This stuff I’m getting, plus I had Trattman talked to, you’re right. I had him asked and I’m sure.”
“You ought to be,” the driver said. “Your boys went a little bit overboard there. They damn near killed the man.”
“When I talked to Steve,” Cogan said, “I didn’t know that. When I talked to you. All he told me was they worked him over and he said he didn’t know anything. That’s all I knew.”
“I had one hell of a time understanding him,” the driver said. “The first time he called, I was out. My secretary talked to him. She didn’t get more’n a third of what he said. I had to call him back and I had trouble understanding him. Hell, I had trouble, calling him back. The numbers he left, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. I finally figured it out. It had to be Trattman. Cangelisi called me, all upset, and said Trattman called him and he gave me to Trattman, gave him my number. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I didn’t sic those monkeys on him. If you didn’t, you know who did. You take care of him.’ Then when I finally reached him, I understood why the kid had trouble. He’s got a broken jaw.”
“I heard that,” Cogan said.
“He’s also got broken ribs and a broken nose and he got three or four teeth broken and there’s something wrong with his septum,” the driver said. “And he told me, there was some question about his spleen. He was in the hospital when I talked to him.”
“I heard some of that,” Cogan said. “He’s out now, I understand.”
“Must be his spleen’s all right then,” the driver said. “He’s not happy, though.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Cogan said. “We aim to please.”
“He’ll be sorry to hear it too,” the driver said. “When I tell him. I have to tell him.”
“Tell him anything you want,” Cogan said. “You’re his lawyer and all.”
“Trattman blames him,” the driver said. “I didn’t tell Trattman anything, of course, but you and I both know, you weren’t authorized to go that far.”
“You know how guys are,” Cogan said. “They go out to do something and they get all excited and everything. When I found out, I called Steve. He said Barry, Barry, look, Barry’s an ironworker, all right? He’s a very tough guy. All of them guys carry, for Christ sake. They’re always falling off something or getting into fights and stuff. He’s a tough guy. That’s why I use him. And Steve said, well, apparently they’re about halfway along and things’re going all right, and then Barry decided, Barry’s very nutty about his wife. You can’t talk to the guy about her. I dunno what she is, she’s an angel or something. At least he says so. So, things’re going along, Steve said, and Barry decides Trattman fucked his wife. She was staying some place with her mother, Barry’s up in Maine on some kind of a beef, and I dunno how the hell it got started, Steve don’t know either. But Barry gets this idea in his head, Trattman fucked his wife, and that’s when the guy got his jaw broken and the ribs. Barry kicked him. ‘I oughta bitch too,’ Steve said to me, ‘I was standing too close to him and the cocksucker threw his cookies on my pants.’ I told him, go fuck himself.”
“Is that what I’m supposed to tell him?” the driver said. “I was very specific when I talked to you. He told me to be. Shove him around if you want, but don’t hurt him too badly. I told you he didn’t want him hurt.”
“Ah, come on,” Cogan said, “of course you did.”
“All right,” the driver said.
“You guys always do that,” Cogan said. “I know that. You guys, you don’t know how to break an egg. You want things done all right, you know what you want and the guys to go get it, and you take what you get because that’s what you wanted, but you always go out after and you say, you didn’t want nobody, do that. Quit shittin’ me, all right? They know, they know who Steve is. They know what him and Barry do. Shit, I mean, they’re guys that’ve always been around. When Jimmy the Fox, there, he started to get all jumpy, I had three hundred locations and there wasn’t nothing left for nice ghinny boys like him, there, he started making a lot of noise and I heard about it, I turned over forty joints to Steve just like that. They all know who Steve is. They know what he does. He don’t know anything. He’s just a good guy to have around, and all the guys’ve used him.”
“The thing of it is,” the driver said, “he didn’t okay it.”
“He okayed it,” Cogan said. “I told you who I was gonna use. He knows it just as good as I do, Steve’s gonna go out and do what he thinks you want him to do. You tell him what you want, he’s gonna listen, he’s gonna go out and do what he thinks you want. Don’t matter what you say. And, he okayed it, he had you call Dillon and he had you see me. Now cut the shit. It’s not gonna make any difference anyway. We gotta hit Trattman and the man knows it.”
“I don’t understand that,” the driver said. “I thought you believed him.”
“My friend,” Cogan said, “I do. It don’t make a bit of difference. Once before, Trattman did something, right? And he was lying. He was blowing smoke up the man’s ass.”
“Correct,” the driver said.
“This time,” Cogan said, “this time Trattman didn’t blow no smoke.”
“And he got beaten up,” the driver said, “very badly beaten up.”
“But we’re sure, this time,” Cogan said. “This time, last time we thought we were sure and we weren’t. This time we are.”
“Correct,” the driver said.
“Now,” Cogan said, “the guys that go to the games, they’re not sure. Well, they are sure. They’re sure Trattman’s got a license, because he can do it and nobody does anything about it. So that’s the same thing. So what do you think they’re gonna do? You think they’re gonna go the games?
“And never even mind them,” Cogan said, “what about the guys on the street? Whaddaya think they think, huh?”
“I’ve got no idea,” the driver said.
“They think,” Cogan said, “they think: Trattman. He did it before and he did it again. And he lied about it before and nobody did nothing, and now he did it again and all he got was beat up.”
“He could’ve died,” the driver said.
“Because he stuck out,” Cogan said. “This’s his second time, the way they see it, the second time he did it. The first time you do it and if nobody catches up to you, great. The second time you can do it and somebody whales the shit out of you.”
“If that’s what they think,” the driver said.