Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition) (6 page)

“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.”

T
HE 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?”

“Tomorrow night I'm getting some,” Frankie said. “This goes all right, this's my last night, a priest. Tell me about it. I'll take care my own hog.”

“Well, you had the practice,” Russell said.

“That's nice talk,” Frankie said, “guy like you that was sticking it in Goat-ass's satchel. Very nice talk.”

“That's the first rule,” Russell said, “a clean old man. I didn't see no broads around, up there.”

“Who said Goat-ass was clean?” Frankie said.

“Not me,” Russell said. “That's the next rule. If there's no old man around that's clean, take the dirty one.”

“I should've had them get you a goat,” Frankie said. “I had some clout with the keepers. I should've done that. The rest of us could've watched. You sure you're not fooling around with them dogs, like John said, right?”

“Dogs're liable to bite,” Russell said. “I knew a kid, I knew a kid that had a dachshund once … never mind that. Lemme give you some advice, Frank: stay away from the dogs. You can get nipped, and what I hear, that hurts. Stick with broads. If you can find one.”

“You know?” Frankie said. “I'm not sure I can. Maybe it's the same thing. Maybe they're not making broads any more, either. You can't get a nice hemi, because it's liable to make somebody sick or something, it burns gas, and it's probably, it wouldn't surprise me, there's no more broads, either.”

“There's broads,” Russell said. “Just like us. There's always broads. Squirrel wants to do something, he knows where he finds us. We go in and we go out and he's having drinks some place, and he gets the same as we do. He knows where we are. The girls? They're the same. They're just as crazy as we are. It's just one crazy bastard taking advantage of another crazy bastard. That's all it is. That broad I was with? She's crazy. She's beautiful but she's crazy. The way she looks, she didn't have nothing to do with that. She don't have nothing to do with the way her head's fucked up, either. But it is. She's fuckin' batty.

“She lives up onna Hill, right?” Russell said. “I go up there, she opens the door, she's naked. Right there. Kind of threw me. She is really a good-looking girl. The stuff I been having, well, it's not like I don't appreciate it, you know? I was in a long time. But this kid, she was something. So I stand there, I'm just looking at her. And she says: ‘We're gonna make it, right? You gonna stand there all day?' So I go in and I bang her. Great. And then we're lying there and I'm playing with her and she had some really good grass and it was great. Except she's fuckin' nuts. The girl's completely nuts.”

“Gimme the number,” Frankie said. “Don't go back
there. I wouldn't want you hanging around with no nutty women. Just gimme the number. I'll go up there and I'll read the fuckin' Bible to her or something.”

“I didn't say I wasn't going back,” Russell said. “I said she was crazy.”

“I don't think you oughta go back,” Frankie said. “You're gonna get in trouble, up and coming fellow like yourself, hanging around with crazy people. Turn her over to me. I'll counsel her, is what I'll do. I'll make her feel better.”

“Right,” Russell said, “and then she'll do what she says she's gonna do and you'll get blamed for it and that'll be the end of you, Cochise. She's gonna kill herself.”

“They all say that,” Frankie said. “It's the first thing they think of to say, a lot of them. I dunno why they do it. They probably, they went to Catholic school or something. It don't matter. I was going with this girl, I used to go with? Friend of Sandy's. Had her pants glued on, for Christ sake. Not a bad-looking kid. She had kind of buck teeth. Nice ass. She wanted to get married. I didn't know anything, for Christ sake. I wanted to get laid. Get married, go to jail, cut your foot off: I would've done it. I was so fuckin' horny I would've done anything to get laid. I remember, I used to go, can you believe this? I used to go fuckin'
parking
with this broad. I used to take my old man's beat-up car and drive and drive and drive, get some place where she didn't think maybe somebody knew her father'd see us. Used to go down Chickatawbut, the reservoir? I was almost twenny years old and this kid was, what, I dunno, seventeen, probably, and I used to spend fuckin'
hours
tryin' to get my fuckin' bare hand on her fuckin' bare tit. I think it took me almost a year.
I took her to drive-ins, I took her to dances, I fed her booze, I breathed in her fuckin' ear, and all I could do, I could feel her up from the outside. Through the sweater, through the blouse, if she was really drunk I could get my hand inside and feel her up through the bra. For Christ sake. The night, I finally got my hand inside the bra.
Inside
. I didn't have it unhitched or nothing, just, I got my hand in there. I came in my pants.”

Russell began to laugh.

“I did,” Frankie said. “And I hadda drive home that way, all stuck together for Christ sake. The guys, I used to hang around down the Howdy. And I'd hear the guys, there's all these broads that put out. And I believed them. And they gimme names. The actual names. And I didn't do nothing. I used to think, this was when I was working the oil company, I was gonna be a repairman, they give you your own little truck and you make about ten grand a year, now, and you always got to go out in a fuckin' blizzard about three o'clock inna morning, oh, it's a great fuckin' life, and I used to think, well, what I thought was, I got to have a girl I can respect. I don't want none of them whores. You imagine that? True love. True fuckin' love. I don't want no girl that just wants to fuck. I want a girl that just wants to fuck
me
, and you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna get married and we're gonna live happily ever after. That's what we're gonna do.”

“With about nine hundred screamin' kids and a fuckin' house and all that shit,” Russell said.

“Right,” Frankie said. “So, inna meantime, I dunno, her father wouldn't let her go out with me more'n twice a week. Fridays and Saturdays. I could visit her Wednesdays, but there's always somebody else there
and I hadda be out of there by ten, because she hadda go to school the next day.”

“High school?” Russell said.

“High school,” Frankie said. “I'm twenty years old and here's this broad I'm absolutely out of my mind over, and she's in high school.”

“Some time, I hope,” Russell said, “you got over being an asshole.”

“I'm not sure,” Frankie said. “I remember one night I get her home, she hadda be home by eleven-thirty, Friday nights, on Saturdays she can stay out till midnight. I got her home about two in the morning. I dunno if it was a Friday night or a Saturday night. We used to go down the Blue Hills Drive In and she'd French-kiss me and, probably at least one other couple inna car, and it'd drive me fuckin' nuts. Blue fuckin' balls. Three times a week. And I get her home and the old man's up, and he's raring to go. ‘Did you do it?' he screams at me. I played dumb. ‘Do what?' You should've seen his face. It's a wonder he didn't have some kind of attack or something. She was standing right there. ‘
Did you fuck her, you rotten little bastard?
' I was fuckin' stunned. I got my mouth open, I couldn't say nothing. I think I came in my pants that night, too, and I didn't dare look, see if it came through, because once I did, he'd know, and he's still screaming at me. ‘You think I don't know what you're trying to do, you little prick? You little fucking bastard? You think I don't know?' I thought he was gonna fuckin' kill me. And she, that little bitch, she was just as rough on him as she was on me. ‘
Daddy
' she says, ‘your language is
filthy
.' And she stomps upstairs and there're the two of us, looking at each other. He slammed the fuckin' door.

“After that,” Frankie said, “after that I can't see her
no more on Wednesdays. Only weekends, and Jesus, every time I go there I expect they're gonna put the old man in the car with us, we go out. So, I start hanging around with the wrong type of guys. And I meet a couple guys, and one of them knows Johnny, and I meet Johnny, and I start doing a few things for John. And you know something? I was still in love with that crazy kid. I probably would've married her. I dunno if her old man would've let me fuck her, I was married to her. Maybe Fridays and Saturdays. Long's I got her home by midnight. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Then I got hooked and they try me, I was in the can the whole time, and they all come to the trial, him too, now and then, and I got the time, there. Sandy and my mother and Janice and everything. Ten years. What's ten years? I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I was, I wasn't even twenty-one years old. Somebody says ten years to me. What's that mean? That judge, you know what he said? If you continue in this path, young man, you'll be in serious trouble before you're through.' Then he gives me ten years. Serious trouble. That's probably when they cut your nuts off and make you eat them.

“So they're taking me away, fuckin' old deputy, his uniform's got soup all over it, and they're all crying, my mother's crying, Sandy's crying, Janice's crying, she's havin' fuckin' hysterics. I should've told her, go out and throw the bumper around, always helped me when you wouldn't come across and I sure can't help you now. And the deputy, he wouldn't let them talk to me and I was still punchy, I was on his side. I just got ten and I never even got a hand-job off this broad and now I got to go through this? Pissed me off. I said to him: ‘Get me out of here.' And she's gonna do this,
she's gonna do that, it was awful. So, I was in about three months, Sandy comes to see me. Janice's married. It don't mean anything.”

“Broads're different now,” Russell said. “You been in too long. This broad, this broad means it. You can tell. She's gonna do it, and then the guy that's with her when she does it, he's gonna have to explain a lot of things, and that I can't do. You can't do it either. She needs a good leaving-alone.”

“I can make up my own mind,” Frankie said.