“I shit you not one more time,” Jilly said. “It was indeed Junior’s mother. Didn’t make a difference. She made Angelo look bad there, embarrassed him, he took care of things. How this came about tonight, us waiting here. The old man stepping in, or you’d be dealing with Junior the next ten years with this bullshit, like some fucking shrink pro’ly. Why we’re here waiting on this New York guy now, the old man.”
“So the old man’s wife now, she’s a Maria too, but not the original, not Junior’s mother,” Tommy said.
“You’re quicker’n you look,” Jilly said.
“Okay, I get that, but there’s another thing I don’t get,” Tommy said. “Why we’re farmin it out the first place. I mean, what the fuck, we can get a couple guys down the docks put on a couple masks, go to work, shove’m in a container there, send it across the ocean someplace.”
“Angelo’s got his reasons,” Jilly said. “The man knows what he’s doing, although I don’t like the idea reaching out to New York either, tell you the truth.”
Tommy shrugged.
“Who knows, maybe he’s thinkin ahead,” Jilly said. “Let it go. Angelo’s no dope.”
“You know the guy, the one from New York?”
“Nope,” said Jilly, looking away then. “I don’t like he’s from there is all. Shit fuckin city it is.” He stopped to sip his drink again. He set it down and remembered something. He pointed at Tommy. “We’re sure they’re down the Tidewater Marina, ’Napolis there, right, the two of them?”
“Where they been the last two nights,” Tommy said. “Since Junior is out to Vegas for some convention.” He pulled a set of Polaroid pictures from his pants pocket and showed Jilly the top one, the back of a cabin cruiser. The Tina Marie was clear across the rear of the boat.
“Guy’s got a pair,” Tommy said, “I give him that much. Names the boat after his wife and fucks his girlfriends on it.”
“Not after tonight he don’t,” Jilly said. He took the pictures and flipped through them quickly. He stopped to stare at one of a topless woman being groped on the deck of the Tina Marie. He said, “Fucking twat, look at her.”
Jilly handed the pictures to Tommy. “Make sure you lose those later.”
“Will do,” said Tommy, stashing them. He sat back in his chair and stretched through a yawn. “I never much minded it, though, New York,” he said after the yawn. “It’s got a lot to be said for it, all the things you can do there anytime the night.”
“It’s a pisshole,” Jilly said. “And it’s got them fucking teams I hate.”
“What, the sports thing? You’re not serious.”
“As a fucking heart attack. I hate the place. They could flush it down the toilet all I care.”
“So, what, like you don’t care what happened there, nine-one-one? That didn’t bother you?”
Jilly pointed a finger. “That’s an entire other matter, what happened there. And it wasn’t just them, either. Pennsylvania got it too. And the capital. That was an act of war against the country, something completely different. I’m talking in general here. I hate the fucking place. I hate the city and both baseball teams play there. And don’t get me started on the Jets, those cocksuckers.”
Tommy shrugged again. “Okay, fair enough. I hear ya.”
“Shula starts Unitas, it’s a different game altogether,” Jilly ranted. “Maybe we don’t cover the spread, but there’s no way that faggot white-shoed cocksucker and his nylon commercials beats Johnny U. Wearing nylons, for Christ sakes, a football player.”
Tommy didn’t know what Jilly was referring to. He left it alone while the old man finished his fourth anisette.
“What time this guy supposed to get here?”
“Half an hour ago,” said Jilly, suddenly seething. He slapped the shot glass down loud enough for the waitress and several other people across the room to hear. He said, “Back when you were six, whatever, ’84 it was, I think, Colts up and left middle of the night? That all started when they lost to the Jets back in ’69.”
Tommy tried to get him off the subject. “Who’s he with in New York, this guy we’re waitin on?”
Jilly wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Vignieri,” he said.
“Aren’t they having their own problems?”
“Who isn’t? Fucking deals they offer today, the government, guys are lining up like it’s the lotto to make a deal.”
Tommy noticed the rain coming down harder, but didn’t mention it. “Angelo tight with New York?”
“Used to be very tight with them,” Jilly said. “I suppose he still has something going there, or why he reached out inna first place?”
“The one coming here a made guy?”
The waitress was back with another anisette. She set it on the table and picked up Tommy’s glass to refill.
“Fuck knows,” Jilly said when the waitress was gone. “I’ll tell you a good one, though, you wanna hear a war story about a made guy come down here from New York to do a thing a few years ago.”
Tommy moved his chair in. He set his elbows on the table and smiled.
Jilly smiled too. “Guy comes here to do a job, take somebody out from Philly was hiding the Camden Yard. Was between the bosses, something do with the casinos in Atlantic City, back when they first went up. Anyway, the New York guy comes down, has dinner with a few of us, he don’t shut up breaking balls about the Jets, the Mets, and then I think it was the Knicks too, I’m not mistaken. They won it too that year, but not against the Bullets. Bullets were gone early, I think. Anyway, he’s going on and on about the greatest city inna world, a couple of us get an idea, we get up to piss and make a call over to Lombard Street, some crazy kids hanging out there. A few of them go back to the hotel this New York hot shot is staying and fuck up his car.”
Tommy laughed. “Now I know you’re shittin me.”
Jilly made the sign of the cross. “I shit you never,” he said. “It was kid stuff, don’t get me wrong. We’d all rather have put a couple in his big fat mouth, the cocksucker, but it turns out, the kids they sent to the garage there, the hotel garage the guy was staying, they slash the four tires plus the one in the trunk, they rip up the upholstery, all the leather there, and they carve Erioles and Colts all over the hood, the fenders. Shoved a golf ball or some shit in the gas tank too. The guy was fucking livid when he gets back from whatever he did. It was dumb shit, but we all pissed our pants the next few days after. Angelo heard the story and sent the kids fucked the car up some kegs of beer and a few of the older broads from one of the strip joints.”
“Who was the guy? You remember him?”
“Agro something. Somebody Agro, I think. He’s a big shot there now, I’m not mistaken. Skipper with the Vignieri crew.”
“That’s one I gotta remember,” Tommy said. “It’s a great way to fix a ball-breaker.”
Jilly looked up toward the front door and spotted a man wearing sunglasses. “Look at this mamaluke,” he whispered. “Middle of the fucking night, he’s the nightrider with those shades.”
Tommy turned to see who Jilly was talking about.
“He puts on a white baseball hat, he’s our guy, which he is, I can tell,” Jilly said.
The man in the sunglasses pulled a white baseball cap from his coat pocket. He took his time looking around the restaurant before putting it on.
“Cocksucker,” Jilly said.
“What?” Tommy said.
“Fucking Mets hat.”
Forty-five minutes and thirty-five miles later, which was all that separated Baltimore from Annapolis, Jilly sat in a stolen Taurus half a block from the Tidewater Marina while he waited for Tommy Red and the guy from New York to return from their visit to the Tina Marie. The rain was coming down hard. It had just started to thunder when Jilly spotted the white Mets hat.
He flashed the headlights to get their attention. The two men ran back to the car. Jilly unlocked the doors when they were close. Tommy sat in the back. The guy from New York sat up front.