The Digger's Game (16 page)

“Keep that quiet,” Schabb said. “I plan to say something else, it looks as though saying something else’d make a difference.”

“Shit,” Torrey said, “tell them there’s an ocean full of mermaids down there, you want. They’ll have a better time gettin’ screwed’n I had setting up the screwing no matter what you tell them. Then I get home, I take a couple aspirin, practically fall on my face I’m so drunk, I drink like a bastard onna plane, only way I can stop
myself from jumping out, and then bang, six thirty, the phone rings. It’s the Greek. That fuckin’ guy, he was probably in bed before it’s dark last night.”

“He didn’t go for the trip,” Schabb said. “That was one thing that bothered him.”

“I know,” Torrey said. “And the Digger paid him out and pissed on his shoe for him, and now it’s this and that, that fuckin’ guy. That fuckin’ guy. He’s turnin’ into a regular fuckin’ pain in the
ass
.”

“What the hell’s the matter with him?” Schabb said. “He was all right when he started. Now, nothing you do suits him.”

“He’s got two things the matter with him,” Torrey said. “He lost his nerve. That’s the first thing. Then he gets greedy. All at once. He diddles along for twenny years with this pissy-ass little operation of his. Then he gets this. He starts counting his dough from this, and he likes that all right, but he’s still sweating the diddly-shit he gets from the other.”

“That’s his regular business,” Schabb said.

“His regular business is dogshit,” Torrey said. “He’s down the G.E. all the time, two hundred guys, five bucks apiece, six back on payday. The really big stickers go for twenty, twenty-four back. Chickenshit six for five, week after fuckin’ week. He’s had about three K a week turning over there ever since the Korean War, and he takes out six big ones a week. He don’t pay more’n a point a week back, he’s had it so long, two at the most, he’s probably got his own dough in it now. Fifteen, sixteen, twenty, thirty a year he takes in, and he’s loving it. He should’ve stayed at it. Nobody ever would’ve bothered him. He was small shit and he was
happy being small shit. He could’ve joined the fuckin’ Chamber of Commerce.

“Then the fuckin’ Strike Force gets Mister Green,” Torrey said. “I still say it’s a bad rap, conspiracy to, for gambling. Shit. Mister Green never touched no gambling in his life. Strictly money. He wouldn’t know a horse from a fuckin’
beagle
, for Christ sake. He looked like a fuckin’ minister or something. That guy was
big
. He probably had, I would say he probably had two or three million moving around.”

“Cash?” Schabb said.

“Cash,” Torrey said. “Checks made out to cash he gets back from the heavy trade, two mill at least. I bet I’m low. He was thinking about taking this, his case’s on appeal and he decides it’s probably not worth the risk. But he wasn’t very hot for it anyway. Too small for Mister Green, this thing.”

“We can generate five thousand dollars a week in points on this,” Schabb said.

“He figured that,” Torrey said. “Matter of fact, he thought it might go ten, even more. ‘But it’s spread all over the place,’ he says. ‘I got to have guys running around. And this thing I’ve got, it could be problems. I tell you, lemme think about it. I’ll give it to somebody for a while, this thing gets settled. I trip over something, I could get five or six years for this. I gotta be careful.’

“Yeah,” Torrey said, “well, they turn him down, appeal, and he’s getting ready, do the five. Only, see, his lawyer didn’t tell him something, so he don’t know, he thinks all he needs is somebody mind the store maybe two or three years. So he cops out, he says he can’t beat
it if he tries it, there’s no way around it, his great lawyer says, he’ll just end up getting more time if he does. Only, they got this new thing, they can do before they try you, they got this, they say, ‘Organized crime.’ You know what that does?”

“No,” Schabb said.

“No,” Torrey said. “Mister Green didn’t know either. Well, they get you on something with a five-year top, they can whack you
thirty fuckin’ years.
”

“Ah,” Schabb said.

“And they did it to him,” Torrey said. “Thing comes up, one of them motherfuckin’ micks up there, and they give him twenty years. His lawyer’s standing there, big dumb grin on his face, the judge gives him the twenty. He says, right inna courtroom, ‘Twenty years? I hear you right?’ The clerk says, ‘Twenty years, to be served.’ Mister Green says, ‘You fuckin’
asshole
’; see, he’s talking to his lawyer. The judge gives him another six months for contempt, on and after. Then the lawyer sees the judge after, talks him out of the six months. But he’s still doing twenty.

“So now,” Torrey said, “now, they revoke bail on him, and he’s gonna appeal again, incompetence of counsel, but he’s going away while they think that one over, he don’t have no time, make arrangements, nobody can see him except his family, which he don’t tell nothing to, and his fuckin’ dumb lawyer, that he’s all through talking to, he can’t do nothing. So the other guys get together, they take Jesse Bloom and the Greek and they just, they give Bloom the heavy stuff and they give the Greek me. ‘Take care of things awhile. Just take care of things, we figure something out. Don’t get no ideas, it’s yours.’

“All of a sudden,” Torrey said, “all these years, Greek and Bloom’re big league. Bloom, I think he would’ve made it anyway. The Greek, no way. He’s playing with more dough inna week, he’s used to seeing inna month. It threw him, is all. He’s got everybody all upset. He’s treating major guys like they’re into him for ten a week down the G.E. People’re getting calls: ‘The fuck is it with this guy, he’s gonna piss his pants or something, somebody doesn’t do something.’ And they stall around. And the Greek, he decides he needs some muscle up the Beach, he sends up a couple guys and he don’t set them straight, they beat up a wrong guy, doesn’t owe the Greek money. And he happens to be a guy, he’s not into anything but he knows who is, and he’s a guy that as a result knows some guys to call. And he calls them. And they don’t care what Mister Green says, and they don’t care what nobody else says, it’s either the Greek gets taken off that stuff or they hit him. So, he gets taken off, they take him off that and they give him something a baby couldn’t fuck up.

“Mill,” Torrey said, “you can’t shine shit. This’s what they give the Greek. They give him me. They give Bloom the heavy stuff, the way they see it, they give me the Greek. See what happens, you got a nice thing up to Lynn and you start thinking, you got your feet up onna desk someday and you think, ‘This could be all right?’ You get the word back, go ahead, expand, and then they tell you, you win the Greek.

“Oh
no,” Torrey said, “I tell them that. That’s what’s the reason, nothing’s moving up there, the word’s out the Greek’s got the old business and he’s fuckin’ crazy. ‘You gimme Bloom. Mister Green comes out, I’ll have a nice thing going here, I got a good man, help me, Mister
Green can leave Bloom this and Bloom won’t bitch at all. Gimme Bloom.’

“Nothing doing,” Torrey said. “They’re not giving me Bloom. The Greek. You want this, all right. Greek’s part of the price. Bloom’s doing all right. You get the Greek onna track again.

“I go see the Greek,” Torrey said. “I hadda lot of trouble doing
that
, even. I call him, I get his wife. She says, ‘He’s not here.’ I say, ‘Have him call me.’ Then I wait. He don’t call. Next day, I call him again. I get his wife. ‘He’s out, he’s not here.’ Okay. I tell her, ‘Have him call me, willya? It’s important.’ I wait. He don’t call.

“I know what he thinks,” Torrey said. “He thinks, ‘All them guys screaming and yelling, Richie’s calling for the Office. Gonna take things away from me.’ I know that. He’s not calling me because he don’t wanna hear that. He’s calling other guys, though, he’s got time enough for that, he gets them calls all right. He’s telling them, how good he’s doing, he wants them to call me off.
I
want them to call me off. They’re all laughing at both of us.

“So finally,” Torrey said, “one of them says, ‘For Christ sake, Greek, willya leave me alone, call Richie, willya? He don’t want anything you got. It’s something else.’

“He calls me,” Torrey said. “It’s like I’m tryin’, collect a bill off him. You know where he picks, I’m supposed to meet him? Onna plaza, front of City Hall, lunchtime.

“I say, ‘Look, Greek, you look to me like a man that was worried about something.’ He says, ‘I got a lot of big money out. I gotta be careful.’ Careful, he says.
Sure, we’re talking about business in front of the whole goddamned world, he’s telling me about being careful, fuckin’ asshole. I say, ‘Greek, willya calm the fuck down? The Office, they gimme something, I’m supposed to see you about business. There’s no contract, all right? Nobody’s gonna do anything, you.’

“After that I call them,” Torrey said. “I told them, this guy’s gonna have a fuckin’ baby. He’s hearing footsteps. He’s not gonna work out. I got a good thing here. He’s gonna ruin it. For Christ sake, gimme Bloom, put the Greek back on six for five.
Please
.

“ ‘No,’ they say,” Torrey said. “The Greek’s my responsibility. He’s, I’m what they’re doing, the Greek, keep him quiet, Mister Green gets out. ‘Mister Green’s not getting out,’ I tell them. ‘He gets out, the Greek’s gonna fuck things up so bad by then, Mister Green’s gonna have to sell razor blades, for Christ sake. Gimme Bloom, for Christ sake.’ No, I gotta keep the Greek, Mister Green’s gonna get out, the Greek’ll have this, everything’s gonna be all right. I don’t believe them, they don’t believe me. No, I got the Greek.”

“Well,” Schabb said, “I don’t know about them, but I believe you, Richie. That guy has gone haywire.”

“Of course he has,” Torrey said. “I said, ‘Look, this’ll make the Greek worse. It won’t make him better, it’ll make him worse. He’ll get nervous and he’ll do something else. I can’t control the bastard, he’s fuckin’ crazy. There must be somebody else. Lemme have Bloom. I can’t have Bloom, lemme have somebody else, don’t shit his pants, he gets the big nut. Not this asshole.’ They tell me, ‘No.’ I’m supposed to shape him up and quiet him down. Well of course there ain’t no way to do that. I tell you, Mill, you come around, I was interested,
I talk to you, I didn’t know it’s gonna turn out like this, that fuckin’ old lady, I really didn’t.”

“Hey, look,” Schabb said, “you never gave me any guarantee. I knew what I was getting into. Maybe there’s some way, we can get the Greek straightened out so a human being can live with him for a while.”

“My friend,” Torrey said, “there’s only one thing you can do with the Greek, make him fit to live with.”

“Well,” Schabb said, “let’s hear about it. This has got the makings of a good thing. I know, I can tell. There’s a market for what we can do. There’s nobody else trying for it, the way we are. We play this right, we’re going to take them guys and then get repeat business. We know the guys, we know the places, we know where we can get the money. We’ve got to consider what we stand to lose here.”

“I know that,” Torrey said. “I been looking for a setup like this all my life. No question about it.”

“Well, all right,” Schabb said. “Now, what it is, the Greek. From what you say, the only way he’s comfortable is to have a lot of small-timers on the string. They don’t interest us. If there’s a guy that wants to borrow five bucks for three days, and that’s what the Greek’s interested in, for God’s sake, let the Greek have it and we’ll work this. We can really get something going. If the Greek’s out, he’s out. No hard feelings on my part. This may be a little hard. From what you say, the Greek wants the tit. Okay, let him have it. Get him out of this. They ought to understand that. The possibilities this thing’s got, it’s stupid to have the Greek in.”

“That’s what I tell them,” Torrey said. “That’s exactly what I tell them. It’s stupid.”

“He could wreck it all,” Schabb said. “Look, this’s
important to me, you know? We oughta have a receptionist. We can get a good kid, eighty-five a week, all right? No shorthand or anything, but what we need her for is to answer the phone. It makes a nice impression, when we’re both out of the office. We can make this into a high-class operation.”

“Sure,” Torrey said.

“We should get some rugs in here,” Schabb said. “A nice blue shag, sort of turquoise. The tile doesn’t make it. Somebody wants a big tour lined up, you think I’ll bring him up here? This looks like a boiler room. We need more space. We should knock the wall out and go through. We should have private offices. We should have about six drawers, six stacks of filing cabinets.”

“What’re we gonna put in them?” Torrey said.

“You stick around,” Schabb said. “I met a girl the other night. Works down at the airport. For two bucks a copy she’s going to get me a copy of every international passenger manifest that comes through her desk. Name and address, every son of a bitch that’s got the dough to fly out of the country.”

“Some of them’re on expense accounts,” Torrey said.

“Because they’re making big money,” Schabb said. “That’s why they’re flying out of the country on expense accounts. That’s what we put in the files.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Torrey said.

“This could be a blockbuster operation,” Schabb said. “I had half a chance here, I could be doing better’n I was doing before I got grabbed.”

“Except for the Greek,” Torrey said.

“That’s the way I see it,” Schabb said. “That’s the way you tell it to me, and I don’t have any reason to argue with you, either. I really need this, Richie. I’m
used to having things better than I got them right now. I’d like to see this turn into something.”

“And it’s the Greek,” Torrey said, “the fuckin’ Greek that’s fucking it up. He even pisses and moans about the rent.”

“Richie,” Schabb said, “we gotta do something about the Greek.”

“Well,” Torrey said, “there’s only one thing you can do, like I said.”

“Which is?” Schabb said.

“Lemme think awhile,” Torrey said. “Lemme talk to some people, too.”