“We don’t need you negotiating for us, fool,” said Joey. “I didn’t spend thirty years driving a cab without learning how to negotiate the fare.”
“But if you like the deal as it is, then sell the damn thing by yourselves and be done with it. You don’t need me or my dad. That’s capitalism.”
“Yes, yes it is. Precisely put.”
“But there’s a problem,” said the big man.
“There always is, isn’t there, Ralph? Let me guess.” I closed my eyes, rubbed my hands over my face as if trying to pull an idea out of the air. “Something makes me think you don’t know where this object is.”
“Jesse, why didn’t you tell us your boy here was an Einstein?” said Joey. “Why didn’t you brag on him? I had a boy like that, I’d tell the world.”
“He’s not as smart as he thinks,” grumbled my father.
“Actually, Joey, since my father isn’t really interested, we don’t need to involve him in these discussions any further, do we?”
“This is the deal of a lifetime, and you want to cut out your own dear dad?” said Joey. “I admire the hell out of that.”
“My father and I have learned never to mix business with blood. Why don’t we go someplace to talk?”
“How about a bar?” said Joey, smacking his lips. “All this talk about money builds up a thirst.”
“I bet a lot of things build up a thirst for you, Joey.”
“Don’t never trust a man who don’t drink or don’t laugh,” said Joey. “That’s what my daddy taught me. That and not to trust nobody named Earl.” He swallowed the rest of his beer. “Which was, unfortunately, my daddy’s name.”
“Then let’s go,” I said. “The drinks are on me when we get where we’re going.”
“Why, that is most generous of you, squire. Most generous. Let’s be on our way, then. I’m sure your dad’s got better things to do than waste his time talking to old friends.”
“I’m sure he does. Just give me a minute with him, won’t you, for some family stuff?”
As soon as they left to wait for me outside in the taxicab, I sidled over to my father, still in his chair. He roughly grabbed my sleeve. “Do you know who they are?” he said.
“Yeah, I know. They’re two of the guys who used to hang out with Charlie the Greek thirty years ago.”
“Then why are you getting involved with them?”
“To remove them from your house, for one thing. They only came to you to get to me, and you didn’t seem so happy to have them here.”
“It’s Sunday. The Phils are on.”
“And you wouldn’t want to miss that.”
“What are you doing here anyways?”
“I wanted to see how you are. And maybe also to ask a few questions. Like why you owe that old witch Kalakos a favor.”
He turned away. “None of your business.”
“It is now, since she’s using it to rope me deeper into her son’s cesspool. You’re going to have to tell me sometime before I get submerged. But not now. Now I have to share a pitcher with Big Ralph and Little Joey.”
“Be careful.”
“Oh, I think I can handle a pair of sweet old guys like that.”
“They’re not that old, and they’re not that sweet.”
I looked at the still-open front door and the Yellow Cab waiting outside for me.
“When they were boys, they roamed the neighborhood like wolves,” said my father. “They beat some kid to near death with a baseball bat.”
“You got me into this.”
“I made a mistake.”
“I don’t think they’d let me ditch them now, do you? Besides, I have a question they might be able to answer.”
“Like what?”
“Like who the hell knew enough to make those two old crooks an offer.”
23
“So we saw on the TV you’re representing that Charlie Kalakos,” said Joey Pride, the froth of a beer on his upper lip.
We were sitting in the back booth in the Hollywood Tavern, just down the road from my father’s house. There was a half-filled pitcher of beer between us, rough-hewn glass mugs, a bowl of little pretzels. I took a handful of pretzels from the basket on the table, shook them like dice, popped one into my mouth. “Yes, I do.”
“And there was something about some painting by some dead guy that was stolen from some museum,” said Joey.
“Yes, there was.”
“So we was just wondering” – he glanced at Ralph – “the way guys, they wonder about things, what this Charlie was planning to do with the painting?”
“Give it back,” I said.
“Give it back, huh?” said Joey. “Aw, that’s nice. Isn’t that nice, Ralph?”
Ralph nodded, his huge face devoid of any appreciation of Charlie’s selfless gesture. “Nice,” said Ralph.
“It’s an underrated virtue, don’t you think?” said Joey Pride. “Everyone wants to be tough or ruthless, everyone wants to be king of the world, don’t they? But nice is, well, nice. And that Charlie is a hell of a nice guy.”
“You guys know Charlie?” I said with unbridled disingenuousness.
“Who, Charlie Kalakos?” said Joey. “Sure we know Charlie. We grew up with the boy. Little Charlie, nice Charlie, dumb-ass Charlie Kalakos, trying to rip off his oldest and dearest friends.”
“What do you mean by rip off?”
“Well, that painting, it don’t just belong to Charlie, now, does it?”
“You’re right. Legally, it still belongs to the museum.”
“But we’re not talking legally here, are we, Victor? Legally is only for when lawyers and cops gather around to sniff each other’s butts, like dogs at the hydrant. We’re talking now about what’s right. And what’s right is that those that did the job with Charlie all those years ago, they should get their fair share.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But that’s going to be hard to work out, because Charlie refuses to talk about the heist and who was involved in it with him.”
“See what I told you, Ralph? The boy wants to keep it all to himself.”
“So it appears,” said Ralph.
“It’s not that simple,” I said. “There’s a federal prosecutor very keen on finding out who else was involved with Charlie in that robbery thirty years ago. She wants Charlie to spill to her all the details, and he’s refusing.”
“There’s a fed still hunting them what pulled that job?” said Ralph. “That don’t make no sense.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t, since the statute of limitations has already run. But still, she’s hunting. I thought she was simply looking for the painting, but it’s not that. She’s got some other reason to be looking hard into that robbery.”
The two men glanced at each other as if they knew exactly what Jenna Hathaway was looking for. Interesting.
“I want you boys to understand that Charlie, by keeping his mouth shut, is not trying to stiff his fellow thieves, he’s trying to protect them.”
“Protect them out of their money,” said Ralph morosely.
I leaned forward, looked first at one and then the other. “Let’s cut to the chase. Them is you, right?”
Joey gave the bar a quick scan before leaning forward and lowering his voice. “Them is us.”
“Damn, I knew it,” I said. “It must have been a hell of a thing to be in on that.”
“Greatest thing we ever done,” said Joey, and from the self-satisfied smirks that slipped onto his and Ralph’s faces, I knew they were bursting to talk about it.
“But I’m confused, guys. I heard it was pulled by a bunch of professionals.”
“That’s what we wanted them to think,” said Joey.
“But it was just us,” said Ralph.
“So how did five guys from the neighborhood fall into the biggest heist in the city’s history?”
Joey picked up his beer, downed it, poured himself another mugful from the pitcher. He glanced at Ralph, Ralph nodded back.
“You can’t tell nobody.”
“I’m a lawyer, Joey. If you can’t trust a lawyer, who can you trust?”