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“Back home, you refuse to drink with a man, might be seen as an insult.”

Todd gave a long look at the glass beside his boot, said

“We’re a long way from Tipperary.”

I thought Boyle might come over the desk but went with it, laughed, said

“Aye, you’re right there, boyo.”

Griffin was laying wedges of bills in piles and I saw a tiny smile. Fleeting but it was there.

Boyle stood up, said to Todd

“Get your arse down to the pier 80, I got some freight coming in.”

Todd moved and I stood. Boyle said

“Not you laddie, I need you.”

Then to Todd

“You can manage your own self. You have a mouth on yah for two men.”

Todd had reached the door when Boyle shouted

“Any problem with that apartment?”

Todd gave it some thought, then

“Nothing major, Nick. Your laddie... had to shoot the owner.”

Then he was gone.

Griffin was watching me, definite interest showing and Boyle turned to me, asked

“That right, you put a cap in some guy?”

My mind was reeling and I got out

“He walked in on us.”

Boyle looked at Griffin, said

“Doncha hate when that happens?”

Griffin, as usual, said nothing. Boyle was putting on the jacket of his suit, an Armani, the real thing, you could tell by the way the jacket hung. He fixed the lapel, asked me

“You like the suit?”

I did.

On him it looked cheap. He was just a cheap guy, not all the clothes in the city were going to alter that. I said

“Class.”

It was the right answer. I didn’t look at Griffin. I knew he’d have the smirk in place. Boyle smacked me on the back and I don’t mean a friendly pat, a hard wallop, said

“Stick with me boy, you’ll have one yer own self.”

I loved being called boy.

A gray Caddy was parked in the alley. Boyle threw me the keys, said

“Let’s see what you got.”

The fuck sat in the back, lit up a cigar, a Cuban he said, and it smelled cheap. Not unlike the cologne that he smothered himself in. He gave me an address in the East Village, said

“Swing by the Towers, we’ll see how your old man’s doing.”

My heartbeat accelerated and Boyle laughed, said

“Just fucking with you kid. Had you going.”

He did.

I liked being called kid as much as I liked boy. As we swung into the Village, Boyle asked

“How’s your old man? He doing okay as a rent-a-cop?”

Now that’s exactly how I saw my father but I didn’t much appreciate Boyle calling him so. He laughed again, said

“Look at the face on yah kid. You could explode. I like a bit of spirit. Now your buddy Todd there, he’s a cold cunt.”

The obscenity as icy as the sentiment. I put the car in park, got out and waited on the sidewalk. Boyle didn’t move, then the window rolled down and he asked

“The door gonna open by itself?”

He wanted me to open the door?

He did.

Biting down, I grabbed the handle, eased it out and he lumbered towards me, said

“You have a bit to learn yet.”

The smell of the cigar was overpowering and if that came from Cuba, we’d been sold a crock for longer than we knew.

We went into a brownstone and I headed for the stairs. Boyle laughed, said

“Whoa there Butch, we’re going down.”

Butch?

My first surprise was to see Griffin already there. How the hell had he managed that?

The second was the man tied to a chair.

He looked familiar and then it hit me, the doorguy, the man who’d been on the front in the Upper East Side, who’d fucked off for a drink. His face was swollen and he looked at me with pleading in his eyes and I was thinking a line of shit

How’d he end up here?

What the fuck was going on?

And pleading, the fuck did he think I could do?

Boyle smiled, said

“Nicky, meet Mr. Slovak, recently custodian of the prestigious address you knocked over.”

Was I supposed to shake hands, ask

“How you doing?”

How he was doing was pretty bad.

Boyle gave him a casual slap on the back of the head, almost friendly. Griffin was watching me with those dead eyes and I noticed pliers in his left hand, and fuck, blood on it or was it rust? Jesus, I thought, be rust. I knew, call it instinct, that a guy like Griffin, his tools would be pristine.

Like that word, “pristine”, got a ring to it, right?

Yeah, them Reader’s Digests, worth their weight in... whatever.

Boyle went to a small cabinet, took out a bottle of Jameson, two glasses, poured stiff amounts, handed one to me and said

“We’re gonna drink to this bollix, this fuckhead, who was supposed to call up if the owner returned. Mr. Slovak got the bucks in advance, cos I’m like an upfront kind of guy.”

Griffin gave a snort like a bull in heat, not a sound you’d want to hear a lot. I avoided meeting his eyes and Mr. Slovak, well, he sat on, going nowhere, no appointments to meet and he may have whimpered but I think that was my imagination. I fucking hope so. Boyle continued

“Our lookout, our representative if you will, what’s he doing, he’s knocking back the old vodka or whatever shite they have in his homeland. I’ll bet he’s sorry he came to the land of opportunity now. So he’s soaking up the sauce and the owner returns, leaving me boyos unprotected.”

He looked at Slovak with, I swear, something like concern, like, you doing okay there buddy? Then clinked his glass with mine, said

“Sláinte amach.”

The Irish toast. I’d heard my old man use it like a zillion times. I muttered

“Back at yah.”

Not meaning a word of it and tossed back the hooch. It took a second then it burned, oh yeah, just the way you love it, like a sweet lady rubbing your belly, the belly of the beast... jeez, I’d had three... four? ...serious drinks in the last hour and was beginning to feel them. I’d be needing them.

“No snapshots of life flashing before my eyes, thank fuck. I mean, thank God. Devout, that’s me.”

— Ray Banks, The Big Blind

I’m skipping the whole deal with the doorman. You wanna know why? Cos I can... well, I can blot it out. Gimme enough Makers Mark or, better, some of that Tennessee hooch, Knob Creek, I can blot out almost anything, even Shannon.

Shannon and her little boy. He was ten years old last Wednesday. Happy birthday little buddy. I taught him how to play ball and for a Down Syndrome kid, he could throw pretty damn good. I think of him, I get an ache above my left lung, from the bullet hole, I tell myself.

It was three days after Griffin went medieval on the doorman’s ass. I was in Rocky Sullivan’s, the joint on Lexington? Yeah, Irish, I know, but what you gonna do? Todd asked me along, he had a hot date... well, hottish. Babe from Long Island, I forget her name and I guess Todd forgets it too. Rocky’s specializes in writers and music. Lots of bands from the Old Sod wash up there and writers, they say you ain’t arrived till you read there. I’d heard Eoin Colfer read there once. Guy had a nice deadpan humor.

That evening, it was open mike... Yeah, you know that lame gig, comedians, poets, singers, whoever, get up there and strut their pathetic efforts. It sure gets you drinking and I didn’t need a whole lot of excuse. The scene in the basement was Technicolor in my mind. Jesus, the blood when Boyle took off the poor bastard’s first finger...

I was sinking Jim Beam, Sam Adams back. Todd was chatting to the babe, extolling the freaking Red Sox. Real smart, bring out a woman and talk sports? He glanced at me as I ordered up a fresh batch, muttered

“Whoa, slow down there tiger.”