“ ‘Margie,’ I said,” Mitch said, “ ‘what can I say to you? I know. You’re right. But all I’m asking, you can do, wait’ll I come out again. Because, I dunno who the guy is,’ ” Mitch said, “and I did, of course. I knew about it two days after she was with him the first time. I don’t blame him, either. ‘I oughta at least, you oughta at least do this for me: I oughta be around the same’s he is. Because we always got along all right.’ And she starts crying and shaking her head, and I really thought. But she didn’t. And it was all right. I think, you know, you know anything about kids? Probably not.” Mitch finished the martini.
“You’re not having any more of those things,” Cogan said. “You’ll fall on your ass if you do.”
“I can handle it,” Mitch said. “I was drinking before you got out of your father’s cock. Don’t tell me what I do.” He signaled the waiter. He pointed twice at Cogan’s empty stein. “Nobody knows anything about kids,” Mitch said. “But, it’s really hard on the kids. I think it was that, probably, what did it to them, the way they hadda be and all. They’re no good. Oh, they’re good enough. My daughter’s all right. But my son, he won’t have nothing to do with me. And I think, this’s the funny part, all right? I think it probably was that, that she did it for, and it probably would’ve been better for them if she didn’t. I think that’s why she drinks so much, now.”
“I thought she was all right,” Cogan said, “we’re down in Florida, there.”
“She was,” Mitch said. “Look, when I was down there she was all right. When I went down there. She really was. I believed it. But see, that was the first time she was all right, and since then, I seen what happened. I talked to some guys, everybody that’s got somebody like that, and the first time they shake it, you know, you always think they shook it and that’s the end of it. They always think that, they think that themselves. But they never do. Nobody like that’s ever all right again, ever. I came back, there, I was home about a month and we’re going at it left and right, this and that, well, look, I dunno what it is, you know? But I wasn’t sorry I hadda come up here, lemme put it that way. She was going at it again. They can’t stay away from it when they get like that. The best they can do is, they can stay away from it for a while. I think something finally happens to them. I go away, I go away on this thing again, she’ll go down the slide once and for all before they get the gray suit on me. And this time, boy, I find that out, I get the papers again from her, this time I sign them. It’s too fuckin’ rough for me.”
The waiter brought two steins of dark. He set them both in front of Mitch. Cogan said: “Check.” The waiter nodded. Mitch drank half of the first stein.
“It’s a terrible amount of shit, you got to go through,” Cogan said.
“Hey,” Mitch said, “look, you know? What can you do? Do the best you can. Think I’m gonna leave the country like some fuckin’ draft dodger or something? Fuck that. It don’t make no difference anyway. What’re we doing?”
“We got this,” Cogan said, “we got two guys. There’s actually four guys, but one of them’s probably not around and I’m not sure, we really want the other one. So, we got two guys, for sure, and one of them knows me, so here you are.”
“Well,” Mitch said, “am I doing a double or what? These guys hang around or something?”
“Uh uh,” Cogan said. “Well, I mean, you wanna take the double, it’s all right with me, you think you can handle it. You need that?”
“I could use the dough,” Mitch said. “I’m gonna have to try this thing and it’s gonna cost me my left ball to do it. You know where the pricks indicted me? Maryland. Not in New York, Maryland. So I got to go down there and everything, and fart around in some motel, and it’s gonna mean two lawyers, my guy, that looks like he never got out the garment district in his life, Solly’s a great guy, but if a guy ever looked like a sharp New York Jew, it’s Solly. And then the other guy, some guy that probably wears overalls or something, so they don’t hook me just because I got Solly. Yeah, I need dough.”
“Well,” Cogan said, “you want the two of them, it’s fine with me.”
“I oughta take you up on it,” Mitch said. “But I think, I’m not supposed to be up here, you know? I’m restricted, New York and Maryland and that stuff, I’m supposed, I’m not supposed, go any place else unless I ask them. Well, I didn’t ask. So I probably shouldn’t hang around here any longer’n I absolutely have to. And, two’s risky, too. No, I better stick with the one.”
“Okay,” Cogan said. “Now, here’s the thing: that’s gonna be the guy that knows me. Well, he don’t know me, but he’s one of the few guys that probably knows who I am, all right? He knows me and he knows Dillon, and if he hears anything, he’s gonna figure, he’s gonna be waiting for Dillon or me. So, he’s the one.”
“He got friends?” Mitch said.
“One of the guys that we might do,” Cogan said. “He’s a kid, he could be around. He’s a fairly tough kid, too. The other kid, he’s the guy that’s apparently not around. So, there might be the one.”
“We gonna do anything about him?” Mitch said.
“Right now,” Cogan said, “it depends. I honestly don’t know. See, the other guy, I got him in mind for tonight. And a lot depends, what happens after that.”
“The fuck happened, anyway?” Mitch said.
“One of them fuckin’ things,” Cogan said. “There’s this guy, got a game, all right? And he got some guys, one time, knock it over for him, and then, well, he got away with it. So, and then everybody says: ‘Okay.’ Then this other guy comes along, and he gets these two kids, and they go in and they knock it over again, right? They think he’s gonna get blamed for it again. That’s the guy I’m doing. I’m gonna put his light out tonight, I figure, things go all right.”
“Dumb shit,” Mitch said. He finished the first stein.
“Right,” Cogan said. The waiter brought the check. Cogan paid it.
“On your way back,” Mitch said, “you think you’re gonna be in this neighborhood again this year, you can bring me two more.”
“No, you can’t,” Cogan said to the waiter. He took the second stein. “I’m gonna drink this, even if I don’t want it. He’s drinking coffee. Bring the man nice black coffee.”
“Hey,” Mitch said.
“Hey yourself,” Cogan said. “I’m gonna have to talk to you. I don’t wanna have to go down, see you inna fuckin’ tank. Too many guys around down there, listening to other people’s business. Coffee for you.”
“I won’t be able to sleep,” Mitch said.
“Watch television,” Cogan said.
“I probably won’t,” Mitch said. “You’re gonna line something up for me, instead.”
“You gotta have that?” Cogan said.
“Shit,” Mitch said. “I’m not working tonight, right?”
“Nope,” Cogan said.
“And I’m probably not working tomorrow night, either,” Mitch said. “We got to set this thing up, and all. Who’s gonna help me?”
“I got a kid,” Cogan said. “He’s not the sharpest thing I ever seen, but he’ll do what you tell him. You want him to drive, he’ll drive. Anything.”
“Is he gonna fuck up?” Mitch said. “Never mind what somebody tells him, does he fuck up?”
“Look,” Cogan said, “this kid’d tear a fuckin’ car in half with his bare hands, you asked him. He’s very dependable. But you got to tell him. You tell him, he’ll do it. He’ll go through a fuckin’ building, he’s got to.”
“I personally,” Mitch said, “I’d rather have a guy that’d see the building and go around it. I can’t afford, I don’t want no guy that’s gonna go on no fuckin’ rampage the minute I let him out of my sight. You sure you can’t come in on this?”
“Look,” Cogan said, “the guy’s name’s Johnny Amato. I know him. I did, he wanted Dillon to do something for him once, and Dillon couldn’t do it. So Dillon told him, if it was all right, he’d ask me, and the guy said: ‘Yeah.’ So I did it, and he paid me. He knows me.”