“Ah,” Amato said, “well, at least he shouldn’t be too tough.”
“He did work for Dillon,” Frankie said.
“Wyatt Earp did things for Dillon,” Amato said. “The way I get it, I seen him myself, don’t forget, don’t matter what anybody did for Dillon. Dillon’s gonna die.”
“You remember Callahan?” Frankie said.
“No,” Amato said.
“Sure,” Frankie said, “the lawyer, there. Used to work for the man some times. Car blew up.”
“Right,” Amato said.
“Kenny Gill did that,” Frankie said.
“That happened,” Amato said, “we’re inna can.”
“That’s how I found out, it’s Kenny,” Frankie said. “China told me, he was up onna habe and his wife give him the word. Six sticks on the fire wall.”
“That’s an awful way to do a guy,” Amato said.
“Callahan’d agree with you,” Frankie said, “lost most of his stuff in that. Blew his ass off, for one thing. Would’ve gotten all of him if he had the door all the way closed, he hit the switch. China told me: ‘Kenny’s nuts. He’d do anything Dillon told him, Dillon said: “Kenny, cut your dick off,” Kenny’d cut his dick off, take it right out and start chopping away. There’s a lot of guys around that’re afraid of Dillon and they don’t even know it’s Kenny they’re really afraid of.’ ”
“I better have Connie start the car inna morning?” Amato said.
“That’s an idea,” Frankie said, “and if it don’t go off, have her drive over and start mine for me. No, but we got to think of something. I thought, the first thing I thought of, we oughta take Russell out. That’s the very first thing I thought of to do. I don’t like it, I never did nothing like that, but that son of a bitch, if I’m in the hole, he’s the one that got me there, and I could kill him for it, I really could.”
“That gonna be such a good idea?” Amato said.
“No,” Frankie said. “He already did the damage anyway, and if we put him to sleep it’ll just prove it to everybody, that we’re the guys that did it. One way or the other, he’s gonna go anyway. He’s either right, and they’re gonna kill us all, or else he’s gonna go to Canada or he’s gonna get caught with that stuff and go to the jug and he’s never gonna come out again. No, right now the main thing we got to worry about is Kenny. I don’t think they’re gonna send Kenny around to see me. I know him and I wouldn’t let him get inside a block of me, I’d take him out. So they got to get somebody else, and that’s gonna take them a little time.”
“Plus which,” Amato said, “I wonder if they’d do it, the way things’re going right now. Too much noise.”
“They’d do it,” Frankie said. “We got to start being very careful and looking around and everything.”
“No,” Amato said, “nope, I can’t figure it. It was Trattman’s game got hit. It was Trattman got beat up. Trattman didn’t have no other reason, get beat up, and they don’t go around beating guys like that up like that for the fun of it. Nope, they’re not looking for us. Nobody’s even thinking about that thing any more.”
“John,” Frankie said, “look, I hope you’re right. I wanna live a long time. I just got started and I like it.”
“I’m right,” Amato said.
“You don’t mind, though,” Frankie said, “I look around a little.”
“Frankie,” Amato said, “get as nervous as you like. We did it and we’re clear. I’m going over to Brockton a couple more times and tend to business. I’ll let you know when it’s time to stop worrying and go to work again.”
11
In the early afternoon, Cogan drank a stein of dark in Jake Wirth’s. He sat far back, on the bar side, and watched the bar door. In the dining area, beyond the brass rail, medical technicians and the interns hustling them sat in white jackets and drank steins of dark and gossiped about the New England Medical Center.
Mitch came through the bar door. He scanned the room quickly, found Cogan and started across the wooden floor and the sawdust. He wore a plain Harris Tweed sports coat and gray flannel slacks and a dark blue shirt, open at the throat. His hair was black and short. He had very light skin. At the table he offered his hand and said: “Jack.”
They shook hands. Cogan said: “Mitch.” They sat down. Cogan signaled one of the waiters; he raised two fingers.
“Uh uh,” Mitch said.
“Wagon?” Cogan said.
“Gettin’ fat,” Mitch said. The waiter approached. “Beefeater martini,” Mitch said. “Onna rocks. Olive. Right?” The waiter nodded.
“You had lunch?” Cogan said.
“Onna plane,” Mitch said. “I had lunch onna plane. Some lunch.”
“Oughta have the goulash,” Cogan said. “Basically it’s beef stew, but they put tomatoes and stuff in it. It’s pretty good.”
“They still got that place down the alley, all the bums go and you can get beef stew there?” Mitch said.
“Conway and Downey’s,” Cogan said, “yeah. Isn’t that great beef stew?”
“I used to think so,” Mitch said. “Dillon took me in there one time. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘you know all the good joints, don’t you?’ It was one of those lousy days, snowing and everything, Christ, you couldn’t get around any place, and we’re having all kinds of problems with this guy and Dillon took me in there. He got all pissed off. Any time you want to piss Dillon off, make him think you think he’s doing something bush. Sets him right off. That and telling him there’s nothing the matter with him. I guess there is, though, huh?”
“This time there is,” Cogan said.
“Son of a bitch,” Mitch said. “I dunno, I guess, shit, I’m fifty-one years old and I’m getting fat. I don’t know, I never had no trouble with my weight. I was about thirty, thirty-five, Jesus, you know something? When I was thirty, for Christ sake, you know who was fuckin’ President? Harry fuckin’ Truman.”
“He’s about a hundred years old now,” Cogan said.
“For all I know,” Mitch said, “he’s fuckin’ dead. I dunno. I used to, I used to cut down onna potatoes then, that’s all I had to do. No more problem. Work out now and then, lay off the potatoes. I could always have a glass of beer when I wanted one.”
“Maybe more’n one,” Cogan said.
“Well,” Mitch said, “once or twice, maybe. But I could do it, then. Now, now I can’t do it. Now, I look at a glass of beer, I get fat. Pisses me off. It’s that cortisone I was taking, you know? It bloats you. I was, I said to the doctor, I told him, this stuff’s gonna get me so fat I’ll die of that. And he tells me, no, soon’s I stop taking it, I’ll go right down again. But I didn’t.”
“What’re you on cortisone for?” Cogan said.
“Colitis,” Mitch said. “I was sick last spring, the summer. I really felt shitty. I didn’t take that much of it, you know? I wasn’t on it for that long. Except, well, I almost got real sick. I was, I hadda see the cock doctor and he gimme penicillin, and I didn’t bother to tell him, I’m onna cortisone, and I guess you’re not supposed to do that, mix them two things like that. I was really sick for about a week or so. Couldn’t get or do anything.”
“My wife had to take that stuff,” Cogan said, “that cortisone. I think it was that. Maybe it was something else. She didn’t gain that much weight, though.”
“She got arthritis or something?” Mitch said.
“Poison oak,” Cogan said. “She likes to be outdoors all the time she can, she’s got this real nice garden. And she was out there and she got this poison oak. So, she didn’t think anything about it, probably pulled some roots or something she shouldn’t’ve, and the next thing you know, well, she’s covered with that calomine lotion all the time and she’s itchy and it just wouldn’t go away. So she finally went the doctor, and he tells her, it’s in her bloodstream, and that’s when she started taking the stuff. It got in her hair, you know? It was all over her scalp and down behind her ears and everything. She gets up before me, she goes to work earlier’n I do, and it used to wake me up, she was in the bathroom, crying, it hurt so bad to comb her hair. So they said, we’re never gonna beat it putting things on it, we’re gonna have to have you take something. I think it was cortisone. She really went through hell there, for a while.”