“How’re we cutting this?” Frankie said.
“A third,” Amato said. “I get a third.”
“That’s high, John,” Frankie said.
“Not for this,” Amato said. “I know where it is and I know what it is. A third’s right. You, I don’t care what you do. You can get that wild man or somebody, do it for five, get him. Fine with me.”
“The guy who goes in with me gets the same’s I do,” Frankie said.
“Up to you,” Amato said.
“You’re not going in,” Frankie said.
“Uh uh,” Amato said. “They’d burn me the minute I came inna door. I’m gonna be a long ways away from that place that night and I’m gonna have a lot of people around me, saw me there. See, that’s what, that’s why I think of you. All I can really do is show somebody where the thing is. I can’t go near it, and I need a guy I can trust, somebody that isn’t gonna tell me, they come up with thirty, it’s really fifty and they’re fucking me and there’s no way I can check. I gotta just be the guy that does the brainwork on this. What I need’s two guys to do the job the way I tell them.”
“All right,” Frankie said, “I’m in. Now, what about Russell?”
“What about him?” Amato said.
“I’m still thinking, he’s gonna be the other guy,” Frankie said. “You get used to that?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Amato said. “You can go in with Tarzan in his fuckin’ spotted jockstrap if you can get him to do it, don’t matter to me. I just want, get somebody who’s gonna do it right. There’s only two things a guy’s gotta have, right? He’s gotta have balls, which you say the guy’s got, and he can’t be nobody my padrones know.”
“Well, Jesus,” Frankie said, “China Tanzi knows me, for Christ sake.”
“China don’t count,” Amato said. “China’s in Lewisburg and he’s gonna be in Lewisburg for a long time. Making furniture for the government or something, and theres a lot of guys’re not too happy with China anyway right now. They think he probably should’ve got fifteen or twenty in Atlanta like everybody else that was in that thing, instead of just the five. Shit, he hadda record worse’n anybody else’s that was in it, and he gets the five and he’s not inna same place and, I mean, that’s got to make guys wonder, you know? How come? It was going around for a while, China’s not even in Lewisburg. They got him on ice somewhere, they’re feeding him steaks and bringing his family around and talking to him. Well, somebody says it’s not true. I dunno. But nobody’s listening to China much any more. I already thought of that.”
“Well,” Frankie said, “I’m gonna ask Russell, then. I don’t think he knows anybody.”
“What’d he go in for?” Amato said.
“It was kind of a wild thing, I guess,” Frankie said. “You know how it is, a guy wants to tell you, he tells you. He didn’t tell me. But the way I get it, him and another guy, they decided to go after this drugstore, you know? All-night drugstore. Well, it was one of them guys that the boogeys’re always after and he hadda gun in there and there was a whole mess of shit. Started shooting and everything, after they got the stuff, and the guy that was with Russell, well, I dunno. They both had the same kind of guns and I think probably what Russell did, he probably swapped guns. See the guy in the drugstore got hit, but he took the guy that was with Russell out on the way. Anyway, Russell goes on trial and it was the dead guy that got all the shit, put Russell up to it and everything. Russell’s just a clown that went along with something he didn’t understand and look at his war record and everything. Which I guess was pretty good. So he come out of it a lot better’n he would’ve, otherwise.”
“You’re sure he’s not gonna go into this stoned,” Amato said.
“He’s not on anything big,” Frankie said. “You heard the guy. He’s a very savvy guy. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what it does. He don’t take nothing he can’t handle.”
“You wanna be sure,” Amato said. “Guys that go around robbing drugstores, they’re not always guys that’re just after money. Some times they’re hurting and they need something and they haven’t got no other way, they can get it. And they need it. A guy like that, he can’t live without it, he doesn’t get it, you know?”
“Look,” Frankie said, “Russell’s a motorcycle nut. That’s all. The first month I knew the guy, all he ever did was piss and moan, he hadda sell this fuckin’ monster bike, he had a Munch, one of them Mammoths? He hadda sell the bike, pay his fuckin’ lawyer. If there’s a bike in this, no, I wouldn’t take Russell. He’d go hairy-assed apeshit the minute he came in. The stuff? He uses the stuff. That’s all. He’s not hooked.”
“Because one thing,” Amato said, “one thing we really don’t need on this is a guy that’s going to go in there and start something off and get some guy. Because then they’ll have to report it and that’s when everybody’s inna shit up to his eyeballs. If Markie, Markie did this before. He was gonna do it again, he’d be just as careful as the last time, get some guys that’d go about it in the right way. These guys’re his customers. He wants them robbed, not hit. He wants them back again, they get time to think about it and forget it happened.”
“He’ll be all right,” Frankie said.
“I hope you’re right,” Amato said. “Now, the other thing is, this thing’s gotta move, all right?”
“All right with me,” Frankie said. “I don’t do something pretty soon, I’m gonna have to go back and knock onna gate and say: ‘Lemme back in. I can’t think of nothing and it’s starting to get cold.’ ”
“Because it’s just a matter of time,” Amato said, “some other fresh bastard’s gonna think of it and then it’s gone and we haven’t got the money.”
“No trouble,” Frankie said. “I’m starving and he’s got to go some place pretty soon with them dogs, and like I say, I don’t get my ass in gear pretty soon, I might as well kiss it good-bye. You got the stuff?”
“A car,” Amato said. “The kids Connie got, most of them’re stupid enough, but there’s one of them, probably if he started to get wet and he was outdoors, he’d go inside. I know where there’s a nice Chrysler. I think he can get it without hot-wiring his balls. I got two thirty-eights, which oughta be enough. You’re gonna have to get your own ski masks or something.”
“I’d like a sawed-off for this one,” Frankie said. “Something big, scare the shit out of them, you walk in the door.”
“You get one,” Amato said, “use it. Okay by me. Just don’t start taking your fuckin’ time about it, is all. We’re not the only smart guys in the world.”
4
The 300F did eighty quietly on Route 128 north.
“She looked really great,” Russell said. “I mean, really. Beautiful big tits, fucked like it was going out of style. This’s really a great car, isn’t it? It’s like riding in your fuckin’ bedroom, but it’s still a great car.”
“I wished,” Frankie said, “one of the things I really wish, I wish you could still get a car like this.”
“Keep this one,” Russell said.
“Just what I need,” Frankie said, “a nice, hot car. No, you can’t do it, and there’s none of them around that’re in decent shape enough to buy. Fuck. Tell me about her some more.”
“Wanna blow your mind?” Russell said. “You’re not gettin’ any still, are you?”