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  Praise for George V. Higgins

  “Posing as a tough-guy documentarian, Higgins is an experimental virtuoso.”

  —Newsweek

  “Nobody talks the talk like the late George V. Higgins. His mastery of the patois of the Boston criminal class is legendary.”

  —San Jose Mercury News

  “The Balzac of the Boston underworld.… Higgins is almost uniquely blessed with a gift for voices, each of them … as distinctive as a fingerprint.”

  —The New Yorker

  “He can rival and surpass Ross MacDonald.”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  “A marvelous writer.”

  —Providence Sunday Journal

  ALSO BY GEORGE V. HIGGINS

  The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972)

  FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2011

  Copyright © 1973 by George V. Higgins

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2011. Previously published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 1973.

  Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-94727-7

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  THERE WERE THREE KEYS on the transmission hump of the XK-E. The driver touched the one nearest the gearshift boot. The fat man, cramped in the passenger bucket, squinted at it in the moonlight.

  “Back door,” the driver said. “Three steps, aluminum railing, no outer door. No alarm. You got a problem of being seen. There’s a whole mess of apartments back up on the place, and they got mostly kids in them and them fucking bastards never go to bed, it seems like. What can I tell you, except be careful.”

  “Look,” the fat man said, “I’m gonna act like I was minding my own business. This is what you say it is, tomorrow morning nobody’s even gonna know I was there. Nobody’ll remember anything.”

  “Uh huh,” the driver said, “but that’s tomorrow. First you got to get through tonight. It’s tonight I’d be worried about, I was you.”

  “I’ll decide what I’m gonna worry about,” the fat man said.

  “You got gloves?” the driver said.

  “I don’t like gloves,” the fat man said. “In this weather especially, I don’t like gloves. What the hell, somebody spots me, the heat comes, I’m dead anyway. Gloves ain’t gonna help me. You wait like you say you’re gonna, nobody’s even gonna know I was in there until everybody’s been around handling things and so forth.”

  “That’s what I thought,” the driver said, “no gloves. I heard that about you. The Digger goes in bare-ass.” The driver pulled a pair of black vinyl gloves out of the map pocket on his door. “Wear these.”

  The Digger took the gloves in his left hand. “Whatever you say, my friend. It’s your job.” He put the gloves in his lap.

  “No,” the driver said, “I really mean it, Dig. You want to go in bare-ass, you go in bare-ass. That’s all right with me. But you get to that paper, the actual paper, you put them gloves on first, and you keep them on, okay?”

  “I wouldn’t think it’d help them,” the Digger said. “So many people handling the stuff and all. I wouldn’t think it’d make much difference, time they found out.”

  “Well, take my word for it,” the driver said, “it does. It really does. Now I really mean it, you know? This is for my protection. Gloves on as soon as you get to the paper.”

  “Gloves on,” the Digger said.

  “You get inside,” the driver said, “you go left down the corridor and it’s the fourth door. The fourth door. There’s about six doors in there and they all got the company name on them, but this is for the fourth door.” He touched the second key. “It says ‘General Manager’ down at the bottom, there, so in case you get screwed up, that’s the one you’re looking for.”

  “Can I use a light?” the Digger said.

  “Not unless you really have to,” the driver said. “Near as I can make out, there’s no windows anybody can look in and see you moving around, but you never know what’ll reflect off something. I was you, unless I absolutely had to, I wouldn’t.”

  “Okay,” the Digger said, “no light.”

  “I don’t think you’re gonna need one anyway,” the driver said. “We got a pretty good moon here and all. You should be able to get along all right.”

  “Fourth door,” the Digger said. “Must be some kind of suspicious outfit, got a different key for every door and all. They must be afraid somebody’s gonna come in after hours or something and steal something.”

  “Well,” the driver said, “I don’t know that for sure. It could be, this’ll open any door, once you get inside. But the offices’re separate, you know? They haven’t got any doors between them. So it’s not gonna do you any good, you get into the third door or something, because what we want isn’t in there. I’m just trying to save you time, is all.”

  The driver touched the third key. It was smaller than the first two. “ADT,” he said. “Metal box right behind the door, just about eye level. The lock’s on the bottom on the right. It’s got the yellow monitor light, so you won’t have no trouble finding it anyway. Twenty-second delay before it rings. Plenty of time. Oh, sometimes they forget to set it when they lock up. If the yellow light’s off, don’t touch it. You do and you’ll turn it on and then you’re gonna have all kinds of company. I’m pretty sure it’s on. So you turn it off. I told him, I said, ‘Make sure that alarm’s on. I don’t want nobody coming in Monday and seeing the alarm’s off and looking around.’ He said he would. But just to be on the safe side, don’t touch it if the light isn’t on.”

  “Do I still go in if it’s off?” the Digger said.

  “Sure,” the driver said. “The important thing is, get the paper. I’m just saying, it’d be better if the alarm was on when you go in. And you shut it off and get what we want and then turn it on again and get out. You got another twenty seconds when you turn it on. Oh, and it’s a cheapie. No puncher for when it’s on and off, no signal anywhere it got turned off. Single stage, it all works off the key. If it’s on, and you don’t turn it off, it rings. But that’s all it does.”

  “Chickenshit outfit,” the Digger said.

  “Well,” the driver said, “it’s really just for the typewriters and, you know, in case the junkies come in and start tearing the place apart. They don’t keep any real dough there. It’s just for intruders, is all.”

  “Trespassers,” the Digger said.

  “Yeah,” the driver said, “trespassers. Speaking of which, I assume you’re not a shitter or anything.”

  “No,” the Digger said.

  “You know you’re not a shitter,
too, don’t you?” the driver said.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure,” the Digger said. “I never done much of this, but when I been in some place, I never did, no.”

  “Well, in case you get the urge,” the driver said, “wait till you get home or something. I had a real good guy that I always used, and he was all right. He could get in any place. You could send him down the Cathedral and he’d steal the cups at High Mass. But Jesus, I used him probably six or seven years and I never have the slightest problem with him, and the next thing I know, he’s into some museum or something they got out there to Salem, and he’s after silver, you know? And he shits, he turned into a shitter. Left himself a big fuckin’ pile of shit right on the goddamned Oriental rug. Well, he wasn’t working for me or anything, and hell, everybody in the world was gonna know the next day he was in there, because the silver was gone. But that was the end of him as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have no more use for him. The thing is you don’t want nobody to know you been in there until you’re ready, okay? So no shit on the desks or anything. Keep your pants on.

  “The stuff we want,” the driver said, “you go over to the file cabinets and they keep them in the third one from the window. The middle drawer, okay? In the back, behind the ledgers. They keep the ledgers up to the front, and then there’s the divider there, and the books’re behind the divider. There’s three of them. The one they’re actually using’s on top and then there’s two more, the reserve ones.”

  “You got a key for the cabinet?” the Digger said.

  “Usually not locked,” the driver said. “If it’s locked, the key’s on the frame of the door you just came through. Up on the wood there, over the door. But it’s probably not gonna be locked. If it’s locked, unlock it and then when you’re through, lock it again and put the key back. If it’s not locked, just open it and take the stuff and then close it up again. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the Digger said. “You want some canceled checks, I assume.”

  “Don’t need them,” the driver said. “Somebody might go looking for something and then they notice they’re gone. I got a way, I got something I can copy all ready.”

  “They don’t use a check-signer or anything?” the Digger said.

  “Sometimes they do,” the driver said, “sometimes they don’t. It’s got a meter on it and they’re pretty careful about that anyway. It’s only when the guy’s away they use that, and I guess they must’ve had some trouble or something because they keep that locked up pretty good and it’s in another one of them offices, in a safe. So I’m not gonna bother with trying to get that.”

  “Okay,” the Digger said.

  “Take from the first book,” the driver said. “They’re all numbered in sequence and they’re about, they just started using that book. So they’re probably going to, by the end of the month they’ll be getting down to where they’d be using it up. It’s a six-across book. Take the last five pages, okay?”

  “Okay,” the Digger said.

  “Don’t take no more’n that,” the driver said. “You do and they’re liable to spot it the next time they use the book.” From the floor under the driver’s seat he produced a razor knife. “Take them out right along the binder. Don’t leave no shreds. Shreds can fall out and get somebody looking. Nice, clean cuts. One page at a time. Don’t use where it’s perforated. Cut them out right along the binder. Okay?

  “Don’t take nothing from the other books,” the driver said. “The petty-cash box, it’s probably got about eighty dollars in it. Leave it be. No stamps, no currency if there’s any, no nothing. Five pages of checks and that’s all. You give them all to me. I want thirty checks and I don’t want no more’n thirty checks taken. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the Digger said.

  “The guy I got,” the driver said, “it’s going to be important for him the checks went out some time this month, because he’s on vacation and he’ll be able to prove where he was all the time. We get checks from one of the other books, they start coming in, he’s not gonna be protected. Okay?”

  “Okay,” the Digger said. “How’d you meet him, anyway?”

  “It was a business thing,” the driver said. “He needed some money and this friend of his sent him around to see me.”

  “Jesus,” the Digger said, “I don’t know where the hell you’d be without us guys pressed for dough. You’d probably have to go out and work for a living.”

  “Some guys,” the driver said, starting the Jaguar, “some guys need more’n they have, some guys have more’n they need. It’s just a matter of getting us together, Dig, that’s all it is.”

  “I’m thinking of changing sides,” the Digger said. “If I get through this without doing time, I’m definitely gonna change sides.”

  “I recommend it,” the driver said, “it’s lots more comfortable. Still, it shouldn’t take you more’n an hour, and you’re fifteen hundred bucks ahead of where you were when you closed up tonight.”

  “Yeah,” the Digger said, “one and a half down, sixteen and a half to go. Someday, my friend, I’m gonna get smart, and when I do, well, I just hope you can find another guy, is all.”

  “Digger,” the driver said as the fat man began to get out, “as long as they keep making women and horses, they’ll always be a guy to find. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “YOU LOOK TIRED, DIG,” Harrington said. “You look like you been up all night or something.” Harrington was a foreman at Boston Edison. He worked on Saturdays as a supervisor. He took the Dort Ave bus home every night; he got off a block away from the intersection of Gallivan Boulevard. The Bright Red was on that corner and he stopped in for a couple of cold ones. Weeknights he drank his beer and read the Record. Saturdays were quiet and he read the Record at work, his feet on the desk and a cardboard container of coffee growing cold beside the portable radio. Saturday nights he talked.

  “I was,” the Digger said. “You’d think a guy as old as I am’d learn sometime, you can’t stay up all night ’thout feeling like hell the next day. Not me, I never learn.”

  “You out drinking or something?” Harrington said.

  “Nah,” the Digger said, “I was down to the Market, I see this guy. I had something to do. I just didn’t get around to going home, is all. I guess I roll in about four. What the fuck, it’s Saturday. It’s not like it’s the middle of the week, you hadda come in here and bust your ass, everybody gets out of work the same time. I can handle it.”

  “See, I was wondering,” Harrington said. “You look like that, I see you looking like that, I was wondering, maybe you got that problem again.”

  “Martinis,” the Digger said. “No, I didn’t have that. That’s a funny thing, you know? I think, I haven’t had that kind of problem since the first time I was talking to you. Which was a pretty long time, I think. No, that much I learn, I don’t drink no more of that stuff, that fuckin’ gin. That stuff’ll kill you, I know that much. No, it was something else.”

  “Broads,” Harrington said. “You’re a stupid shit, Dig, I always told you that. You’re a stupid shit, fool around with the broads. That’s dumb. I maybe grew up in Saint Columbkille’s, I maybe don’t know my ass from third base, I’m out here, the chocolate factory, I still know enough, I don’t fool around with no broads. I know that much, at least. You’re a dumb shit, staying out all night, fool around with broads. It don’t change, Dig, you got to know that. The monkey is the monkey, a cunt is a cunt. Why you wasting your time? Oughta go home and sleep.”

  “I don’t fool around,” the Digger said.

  “Okay,” Harrington said, “you’re an asshole. You stayed up till four in the morning because you wanted to. You’re a fuckin’ asshole. I thought you had more sense. You’re too old for staying out like that. No wonder you look like death warmed over. You stayed out because you wanted to. You’re an asshole.”

  “I had a reason,” the Digger said.

  “Sure you did,” Harrington said. “You wanted to get laid, was your rea
son. You didn’t get laid. You’re an asshole.”

  “Look,” the Digger said, “I went to Vegas the other week.”

  “So I hear,” Harrington said. “All the high rollers going out to Vegas. ‘Look, you dumb shit,’ they say to me, ‘you can’t lose. Up front you pay a grand and they give you eight-twenty back in the chips and the plane ride and the hotel and everything. Broads. You never see the broads like you see the broads in Vegas. Got to fight them off.’ So I say, ‘Okay. I believe you. How come I gotta tell them the name every bank I ever had an account, huh? It’s probably, they want to make sure, I’m a nice fellow, don’t want to give the money away, somebody doesn’t need it or something. That’s probably it.’ Oh no, that’s not it. It’s just to be sure, you know? They don’t want no deadbeats. Okay, that’s what I’m saying. I’m gonna win, what difference does it make, I’m a deadbeat or not? No difference at all. So all right, I’m not going. They ask me that, the bank accounts, I think they think I’m not gonna win. They think I’m gonna lose, is what they think. Now, they been at it a lot longer’n I have. I think I bet with the smart money this time. I think I’m gonna lose, too, and I can’t afford to lose. So I’m not going.

  “Well,” Harrington said, “I dunno if you was around or not, but I take so many kinds of shit I figure, Howard Johnson went into the shit business, twenty-eight flavors. The wife won’t let me; I don’t have no balls; when am I gonna get smart: all the rest of it. Then everybody goes, and it gets quiet. Beautiful. I actually enjoy coming in here, three or four days, although I think, them millionaires get back from Vegas, I’m gonna have to go down the parish hall, drink tea with the Guild, I expect any peace and quiet.

  “Then everybody comes back,” Harrington said. “Funny thing, I don’t hear nothing. Nothing about broads, I don’t see anybody with the big roll, nothing. I start to wonder, what is it? Girls wouldn’t do it? Nah, can’t be that. All you guys talk nice, use the deodorant there. Steaks tough? Frank Sinatra goes there and the steaks’re tough? Can’t be that. Everybody got airsick? Nah, all you guys’re over the Bulge, some of you were in Korea, every single one of you wins the Medal of Honor, at least in here. Beats me. I just can’t understand it. See, I know you guys didn’t lose no money. You’re all too smart for that. You all told me so, a lot. So I finally decide, you’re being nice to me. I’m Mickey the Dunce and you’re all being nice. Out pricing the Cads with all the dough you won, you’re just not telling me because you don’t want me to feel bad. You guys, you’re saints, you know that, Dig? Saints. I said that to my wife.”