The Digger's Game (19 page)

“Yeah,” Harrington said.

“Go there,” Jay said. “Now, there’s a turnoff right when you get past it, going towards Worcester. Forget about it. I want you to go all the way up past the next set of lights, and then turn and come back to it.”

“How come?” Magro said.

“So it looks like we’re coming from the ballgame out
to the stadium, there. Last time they play, I’m out at Valle’s with the wife and a whole bunch of guys come by, left their cars there and went to the game. So, nobody pays any attention to them. Anybody sees us is gonna figure we went out to the game in Harrington’s car, stopped some place, had a few drinks and something to eat, horse around some before we pick up the other car.

“Same kind of thing at the other end,” Jay said. “Guys we’re meeting’re gonna get there about half an hour before we do. They get dropped off, go in, sit down and have something to eat. In a while we show up, park the thing off to the side, get in the other car, there, and that’s it. They get through, go outside, get in the thing and off they go, just like they left it there when they come in from Springfield. This’s that diner right at Route Twenty, you know where I mean?”

“Lot of gas stations and stuff there?” Magro said.

“That’s the one,” Jay said. “You oughta get there about five or ten minutes before me and the Digger. Same thing. Go up a little ways, turn around, come back. There’s an all-night station right across the street, you’ll be able to see us when we come in.”

“Candy,” the Digger said. “My little kid could do this one. Pure fuckin’ candy.”

“I still don’t like this moon,” Harrington said.

“I was telling him, Marty,” Magro said, “you remember the time Maloney sends Dig and me and Brennan down the Sylvania there? You’re supposed to be buying then.”

“Yeah,” Jay said, “record players, wasn’t it? That fuckin’ Maloney. He tried to set me up at least once, I
think. I couldn’t be sure, you know? I would’ve had him whacked, I was.”

“Well,” Magro said, “that night Maloney’s setting us up. Real bright moon, and we get down there, we’re so excited we’re practically throwing up, and there’s guys in there ahead of us, cleaning out the goddamned semi we’re after. And it’s that fuckin’ Maloney that’s doing it, for Christ sake, give us the job in the first place.”

“That cocksucker,” the Digger said, “was I glad when he got it. Best thing that happened in a long time was they had the war down there onna the Avenue and it ends up, Terry’s bleedin’ to death onna sidewalk.”

“At least he didn’t know who shoots him,” Jay said. “I give him that, anyway. I always thought he hadda lotta dog in him, but didn’t none of it show that night.”

“Bull
shit
,” the Digger said. “He didn’t
know
he was bleedin’ to death, you know. He was just being careful.”

“Jeez, Dig,” Magro said, “I dunno as you ought to talk like that.”

“Whaddaya mean?” the Digger said.

“Well,” Magro said, “I heard, it was probably you give him what he wasn’t talking about that night.”

“I heard it onna fuckin’ radio,” the Digger said. “I was nowhere near the place that night. I was up the place, I was working the Bright Red. Cut that shit.”

“Yeah,” Jay said, “I heard that, too. I heard something like that, Mikey-mike. And another thing I remember, about twenny minutes after Maloney died, the Digger’s got all the stuff Maloney’s supposed to’ve had. Of course he doesn’t share it with anybody, but he had it.”

“Now look,” the Digger said.

“You did, Dig,” Jay said, “you had all them shoes. Remember, you’re trying to sell me shoes about two weeks after, I said to you, ‘Where’d you get all the shoes, Dig? I didn’t hear no shoes around except what Terry had.’ And you, you never give me a straight answer, you remember that? There’s only two guys in town that’re really better off when Terry’s hit. There’s you, because it turns out you got all them shoes, and there’s the Greek.”

“The Greek had shoes?” the Digger said.

“Nah,” Jay said, “Terry owed the Greek money. I seen the Greek after Terry’s gone, and I said, ‘Hey, Greek, see your customer there, you’re always bitching about, got himself shot up a little. Hope you had the policy on him.’ And he wouldn’t talk to me, either. Greek ever get his money, Dig?”

“The Greek didn’t get his money,” the Digger said, “I wouldn’t be going to Newton tonight, I can tell you that.”

“And then there was that other thing,” Magro said, “you remember that, Marty? There was an awful lot of bullets down the Avenue that night. The door Terry come out of, it’s practically shot off the hinges. Now keep in mind, the Digger’s got a machinegun.”

“Ah, come on,” Jay said, “you know better’n believe that. That old fuckin’ story. That’s just a story guys like to tell, isn’t that right, Digger?”

“Sure,” the Digger said. “The fuck I’d be doing with a machinegun?”

“Well,” Magro said, “you could’ve shot Terry Maloney with it. Them’re all forty-fives in him. They could’ve come out a grease-gun.”

“Could’ve come out a forty-five, too,” the Digger
said. “I used to know a guy had one of them, too, kept it under the front seat of his car, last I heard, pointed it at a guy once or twice.”

Magro and Jay spoke together. Jay said, “Ah, Dig, that was just in case of trouble or something, and besides, I didn’t have anything against Terry. Except he tried to set me up.” Magro said, “It wasn’t my car and it wasn’t my gun, Dig. Just a couple things I used to borrow now and then, when I needed something.” The Digger, Magro and Jay laughed.

Harrington said, “You guys’re making me nervous, you know.”

The Digger patted Harrington on the right shoulder. “Nothing to be worried about, Harrington,” he said, “nobody’s got anything tonight.”

“Digger,” Jay said, “you haven’t really got a machinegun, have you?”

“Well,” the Digger said, twisting around slightly to get his left elbow and forearm further onto the back of the front seat, “I, well, I’ll tell ya the truth, Marty, yeah. I got ten machineguns, actually. You know how it is, you’re inna booze business, you got three kinds of cops coming around all the time, you buy your license, you serving kids, you running the whorehouse, you keeping maybe some stuff in the cellar, nobody, somebody forgot to pay taxes, that kind of thing. They’re always coming in and looking up my ass. I tell you guys something, I dunno why none of them eight or nine hundred guys ever finds my ten machineguns. Got them right out in plain sight in the cellar there. Big wooden box, got a sign painted on it: ‘Don’t anybody look in this box. Doherty’s Ten Machineguns.’ Beats me how come they don’t find it.”

“Couldn’t’ve been the Digger,” Jay said to Magro. “Digger says he don’t even have a machinegun.”

“Yeah, right,” Magro said, “must’ve been that other guy I keep hearing about, got a forty-five auto with a fifty-shot clip, carries this telephone pole around with him, just nails her right up to the pole and lets off the whole thing with a wire. Must’ve been him. Or a whole lot of guys, all got forty-fives.”

Harrington’s car traveled through Kenmore Square. He took the left and drove up the hill past Fenway Park.

“Maloney was a funny guy,” Jay said. “I never heard of him. Then all of a sudden it seems like there’s nobody else around but Terry Maloney. Guys were saying you couldn’t even start to think of something, five minutes later Terry’s already doing it.”

“Yeah,” the Digger said, “and fuckin’ it up. Every time the son of a bitch went out, somebody got shot. More cops down around the Avenue’n they got in the whole FBI. I bet I know six or seven guys, got in the shit doing something nice and quiet and the cops’re so busy looking around for Maloney they see these guys, you know?”

“Well,” Jay said, “there was Greggie Halb, there. Got grabbed down the track.”

“Sure,” the Digger said. “Terry set him up, though. The cops had Terry figured for what Greggie’s doing, and they go and talk to Greggie, and Greggie lets them go right on thinking it’s Terry. So Terry finds out and dumps Greggie. I didn’t blame Terry for that one. That’s about the only thing, though. Terry, he was a kid, he grew up out to Saint Agatha’s, there, he didn’t
understand
anything, you know? That was his problem.
His family had some dough. His brother, Billy, the one that sells the cars, big asshole buddies with my brother, that’s what Terry should’ve been. He didn’t know how to do them other things.”

“Billy Maloney knows how to do a few things,” Jay said. “I know a guy, retired from the Post Office, wanted to be some kind of court officer.”

“Oh, sure,” the Digger said. “That kind of thing, him and my holy brother’re down to five dinners a week, shaking hands and their pictures in the paper. But Billy, actually I think Billy’s kind of a class guy. He give Terry the regular funeral there, just like he dies in his mother’s arms, what is it, that cemetery off of Brush Hill there, just like Terry’s the greatest thing inna world.

“That was a funny thing,” the Digger said, “none of the guys go, of course, because we all figure, what the hell, Terry’s been tryin’ to fuck everybody, all the time he was alive, he’s dead, fuck him. But my holy brother goes, and then he comes down the place after and he gives me this big speech, all the grief Terry handed his family, Paul sure don’t want me doing nothing like that to him. My great fuckin’ brother. So I say, ‘Look, I’m glad you told me. I was just going out tonight, see if I could get somebody to shoot me or something, looks like such a great thing and all. But seeing things, your point of view, I’m not gonna do it. I changed my mind.’ So he got all pissed off and all. He always does that. I ever told him how Terry tried to set me up, he would’ve shit.”

It was ten forty-five when Harrington turned the Galaxie off Route Nine inbound and entered the parking lot at Valle’s. Jay edged forward in the back seat. “Supposed
to be down in the back, there,” he said. “Tan Merc.”

“Keys’re in it?” the Digger said.

“In it, and it’s wiped down,” Jay said. “That’s a pretty good kid, you know? He’s smart and he’s dependable. You get him to do something, there’s no complaints or anything and he does it fuckin’ right. I’m gonna have to get him something bigger.”

Harrington stopped the Galaxie behind the Mercury sedan. “All right,” the Digger said, turning again toward the back seat, “you got the gloves, Mikey-mike.”

Magro had torn the paper off his parcel. He opened the box and removed three wads of beige cotton. They stank of oil. He gave one to Jay and one to the Digger. He unrolled the remaining wad and spread out two thin cotton gloves.

“Jesus, Dig,” Jay said, putting gloves on, “you must be getting old.”

“I don’t like it,” the Digger said, stretching the gloves over his hands. The cuffs stopped an inch short of his wrists, leaving the heels of his palms uncovered. He wiggled his fingers. “I just figure, this’s big enough, somebody’s probably gonna be interested enough, look for prints. Might as well not take any chances.”

Magro reached into the box and pulled out a heavy-duty bolt cutter.

“That’s wiped?” the Digger said.

“Three-in-One Oil,” Magro said.

“Okay,” the Digger said. “Now, it’s almost ten to eleven. Harrington, one thirty, you be waiting in the Howard Johnson’s on One Twenty-eight next to the Turnpike.”

“Gonna be closed,” Harrington said. “What if the
state cops come around, ask me, did my girlfriend forget to show up or something.”

“Open tonight,” the Digger said. “Coffee for drivers. Go in and sit down where you can see the lot. Soon’s you see us get in the car, out you come and we go home.”

“Okay,” Harrington said.

“Now another thing,” the Digger said. “You’re gonna have some time on your hands. Take this paper and the box and get rid of it.”

“Where the Christ I do that?” Harrington said.

“Well,” the Digger said, “you look around some, is what you do. You asked me, I’d say, find a motel or something, shopping center, got one of them Dumpsters, and throw it in.”

“Somebody’ll see me,” Harrington said.

“Oh for Christ sake,” Magro said, “doesn’t matter if they do. Nobody pays any attention to people throwing junk away.”

“You didn’t mention,” Harrington said to the Digger, “I hadda throw anything away.”

“Harrington,” the Digger said, “I also didn’t mention you could have a couple cups of coffee while you’re waiting for us. It’s okay, believe me, you can still do it. And you’re taking the garbage out, too, just like I say. So quit arguing with me and just fuckin’ do it, all right? Just do it and be at the Johnson’s, like I said, will you do that?”

“I’ll be there,” Harrington said.

M
AGRO DROVE WEST
on Beacon Street.

“It’s a green Vega,” Jay said, “right up here in front of the barbershop, ’cross the street from the Mobil.”

“Where’s the fuckin’ U-Haul?” the Digger said.

“In the station with all the other U-Hauls,” Jay said. “In the morning they had nine or ten of them, now they got ten or eleven of them, they stayed closed all day and in the middle of the afternoon, they’re all home watching the ballgame, the kid pulls up, backs her in, unhooks and drives away. Calls me up: ‘Went like a charm,’ he said. ‘Waited over in Cambridge, this dude comes along in a Vette with Michigan plates, I let him unload the trailer, he goes in the apartment the last time, I hooked it.’ Then he tells me, he’s laughing like hell, ‘Tonight I’m going back and hook the Vette. I got a guy down in New York I call, gimme a full bill for it. Thanks for the job, Marty.’ The Vega, I ask him, you get the car all right? He says, ‘Grabbed her right off the lot in Brockton this morning. No sweat. Took her over through Randolph and took the plates off an Olds at the Holiday. Wait’ll that guy gets up.’ ”