The Digger's Game Read online

  “Two hundred,” the man said.

  “Five hundred,” the Digger said. “This was hurry-up, and it’s not my usual line of work. I did it, I said I’d do it, the five. Gimme the five, I break your fuckin’ nose so you know I mean business.”

  “You got to leave go my arm,” the man said.

  “I’ll leave go,” the Digger said. “You keep it in mind, I can move fast enough I caught you the first time. Nothing funny, the next time I get you, you’re gonna need treatment.” The Digger let go.

  The man reached into his left-hand pants pocket and removed a few bills. He put them on the table and started to get up.

  “Siddown,” the Digger said.

  The man sat down. The Digger counted the bills. “Okay,” he said, “you can go.”

  “Thanks a whole fuckin’ bunch,” the man said.

  “Don’t give me no shit,” the Digger said. “I know who you are. I know what your fuckin’ name is and I know what you fuckin’ do. I got a dime or so and you tried to screw me. I decide I want to drop one of them dimes, call somebody I know in Boston P.D., you’re gonna need more’n one Cadillac to save your greasy ass.”

  “Fuck you,” the man said. He started to get up again, warily.

  “It’s okay,” the Digger said. “I’m satisfied. You can go now. Cheap ghinny pisspot.”

  “I could kill you, you know,” the man said.

  “I don’t know any such fuckin’ thing,” the Digger said. “You ever made a pass at me, well, you better make a good one, is all. You’d be lying inna window down to Tessie’s before the sun came up, and I’d be having a beer on your luck. Fuck off.”

  The short, swarthy man left. The Digger beckoned a pock-faced waitress. “Wild Turkey,” he said. “Double.”

  “It’s almost closing,” she said.

  “Two Wild Turkeys,” the Digger said. “I gotta ride the trolley, I might as well start off first class.”

  In the floodlights on the apron of the terminal to the north, two priests escorted a large number of middle-aged people toward a Northeast 727. Each of them carried a TAP flight bag, white and green.

  The waitress came back. She put the drinks on the table. “Three-fifty,” she said.

  The Digger put a five on the table. “Keep it,” he said. “What’s that?”

  “Pilgrimage, most likely,” she said, squinting. “Those’re Portuguese Airlines bags. They connect with TAP in New York. Probably going to Fatima.”

  The Digger watched the passengers straggle aboard after the waitress had left. He finished the first Wild Turkey and raised the second to his lips. “Jesus Christ,” he said to himself, “I think I’d rather take the trolley.”

  “IS THAT FUCKIN’ PAPER here yet?” The Greek began talking as soon as he had shut the door of the sparsely furnished office of The Regent Sportsmen’s Club, Inc., at 236 Beacon Street, Boston. His black hair was shiny from recent washing; more black hair bloomed from the collar of his white polo shirt.

  “Greek,” said Croce Torre, also known as Richie Torrey, “I meant to tell you before, what a great thing you are to start off a week.” Torrey had a belly. He was grinning.

  “Look,” the Greek said, “the start of the week’s most of the week, in my end of things. I got today and I got tomorrow to get this new stuff squared away so I can take care my regular business. A week and a half’s already lost. The longer I wait, the more shit I get, I finally go around. I mean, I can’t hack around the rest of my life with this goddamned thing, you know? We’re gonna do it, for Christ sake let’s do it.”

  On the other side of the office, Miller Schabb sat at a grey metal desk and muttered into the telephone. “Yeah, Herbie, yeah, I hear you. I know, it’s … Yeah, the busy season. Well, there’s another season too, Herbie, isn’t there, not quite so busy. You told me about that one yourself. Nobody in the world wants airplanes then. You get my point? I’m still going to be wanting airplanes. That’s if I get my airplanes now. You can’t give me airplanes now, when I want them, you’re not going to see much of me later on, you follow me?”

  “Look,” Torrey said, “I don’t run the U.S. Mail, you know? The stuff just got here. It come in, it was here the first thing. Must’ve, maybe it come in Saturday.”

  “Well,” the Greek said, “okay. Let’s have it so we can see what we got to work with here.” He removed his blue and white cord sports jacket. His biceps stretched the woven fabric of the polo shirt into a coarse mesh.

  “How old’re you, Greek?” Torrey said.

  “Forty-one,” the Greek said. “Gimme the fuckin’ paper, will you?”

  “Miller’s got the paper,” Torrey said. “He wanted to look it over. He’ll be off in a minute, so calm down for Christ sake. You lived forty-one years, you look great, you can afford a couple minutes. Sit down and relax. Christ, I wished to God, I’m thirty-one and I wished to God I looked as good as you do.”

  The Greek rubbed his middle. It was flat. “You don’t look like I do because you don’t work at it like I do.”

  Schabb said, “That’s right, Herbie. Now you’re getting the idea: when you got airplanes up the gazoo, I’m going to be a nice fellow to know. No, Herbie, no, I wouldn’t threaten you.”

  “The first thing I do, every morning,” the Greek said, “over to the Y. I’m there when they open, seven o’clock. I play handball an hour. Swim half a mile. Forty laps. I take a little steam, then shower and I shave. I get dressed, I go over the diner in the Square, bowl of Total and black coffee. Good solid meal and it don’t put any fat on you, something happens and you haven’t got time for lunch, you’re still all right. Three years I’ve been doing that. See, you get older, you got to do something. I didn’t use to have to do anything at all, keep in shape. Now I do.”

  “I couldn’t take that,” Torrey said. “You probably have to get up about six to do that.”

  “Six thirty or so,” the Greek said.

  “Yeah,” Torrey said, “well, see, I couldn’t’ve done that today. Last night, Sunday night, okay? Nice quiet night. I was married, I didn’t use to do anything Sunday night. Watch the tube or something. But last night, I’m down to Thomasina’s there. White clam sauce. Few drinks, couple bottles of wine. Then we go up the Holiday, very good group up there. Pick up this girl, we go back to my place, she’s got to make an omelette, okay? By now, two in the morning. Cheese omelette, little more white wine, time we finish eating the omelette, it’s after three thirty.”

  “Then you ate her,” the Greek said. “Then it’s almost four thirty. No, you’re right. You couldn’t’ve got up with me.”

  “There ain’t no calories in muffin,” Torrey said. “I don’t say I did it, you know, but if I did, that won’t put any weight on you.”

  Schabb said, “No, Herbie, no Electra. You put an Electra out there on the end of the ramp, half my trip’s going to see it and blow right away. ‘Oh no, Mill, not that coffee grinder. Them things come down.’ They got a reputation.… I don’t care what they did to them, they still got a reputation. You got to give me a jet, Herbie.”

  “Just kind of a degenerate, is all,” the Greek said. “You’re a fuckin’ degenerate, Richie. I dunno how you can look in the fuckin’ mirror in the morning.”

  “My friend,” Torrey said, “it was a good enough night, I can’t. I can’t even see the mirror. Last Wednesday, there, I go to the ballgame. Then afterwards we go to this club, all the college kids and secretaries go.”

  “Whyn’t you hang around playgrounds or something?” the Greek said. “Leave the kids alone, you fuckin’ degenerate, you’re giving them bad habits.”

  Schabb raised his voice: “Now look, Herbie. You can think anything you want. The fact is, I bought three planes from you. I filled the one I had and the other two’re going to be filled and if I don’t fill the other two, I’m still good for the money and you know it. You try to get that from the Knights of Columbus before they take off. You just try it.”

  “Yeah,” Torrey said, “wel
l, I can see you don’t know much about kids any more, Greek. I pick up this kid and we go back and you know what it was? Strawberry.”

  “You’re shitting me,” the Greek said.

  “I am not shitting you,” Torrey said. “Strawberry. They got that spray now. Now, you old fart, you tell me I’m teaching bad habits a kid’s got strawberry in the beaver before I ever meet her. You just tell me that.”

  “I don’t fuckin’ believe it,” the Greek said. “She must’ve been a hooker or something.”

  “She’s a file clerk down to this insurance company,” Torrey said. “She’s no hooker, because I didn’t give her no money. Hell, you look at her you figure, she walked in a bar by mistake, thought it was a church. You’d just be wrong, that’s all. She likes getting it, nothing more’n that. How about that, Greek, huh?”

  “You guys’re gonna take over the world,” the Greek said. “The next thing, guy wants to get blown, he’s gonna have to taste like London Broil.”

  “Sure,” Torrey said, “she’s having dinner, you’re having dessert. That’s a great idea, Greek.”

  “Yeah,” the Greek said, “well, I tell you, I think I’m gonna get myself a nice place way the hell out in the country and go out there with the family and start a chicken farm. I’m not gonna bring kids up in a world, people walking around with vanilla pussy, hot fudge cocks. This fuckin’ country’s going to the dogs, you know that, Richie? Guys like you.”

  Schabb said, “That’s a hell of a lot better, Herbie. Yeah. Yeah. Seven-twenty-seven’s fine, Herbie. Now, read it back to me.”

  “You oughta try it before you knock it, Greek,” Torrey said. “You look good enough. You could still make out.”

  “I look good because I want to look good and I work at it,” the Greek said. “Not because I want to go around like a goddamned pervert. You want to go around in them yellow things, shirts, pants, the white shoes, it’s probably all right, you look like a nigger pimp. Don’t matter to you. I got some self-respect.”

  “You’re afraid,” Torrey said. “You work so hard taking showers there, you probably don’t think, you’re not sure you can get it up.”

  “Also,” the Greek said, “also, I need to look good. Your action, you can wear a fuckin’ dress if you want. People’re probably gonna laugh at you some, but that’s all right. You take me, your average stiff borrows some, he thinks I collect my own, he doesn’t pay. So, he maybe starts thinking about not paying, he kind of looks at me out there, he thinks, ‘Son of a bitch can do the work himself, I don’t pay.’ So he pays. I’m up the hundred two hard guys cost me. Plus which, I don’t get the kind of heat you get when you start moving guys around personal. Nice and peaceful is the way I like things.”

  Schabb said, “All right. That’s fine, Herbie, you got a deal. Always a pleasure to talk to you.” He hung up. He smiled. “I got the plane for Columbus Day,” he said to Torrey. To the Greek he said, “Good morning, Greek.”

  “You know you got a degenerate for a partner?” the Greek said. “He’s eating little kids.”

  “You eating kids, Richie?” Schabb said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I can’t help it,” Torrey said. “You remember the other night, there. Everything goes black and then I did it again.”

  “Told you about the strawberry one, I guess,” Schabb said. “Unbelievable, huh?”

  “I don’t believe it,” the Greek said. “I should’ve gone in the Church like my mother was always after me to do. I can’t take this kind of thing. You got some paper for me to see, Mill?”

  “Yeah,” Schabb said, “right here.” He removed a thick packet of papers, check-sized, held together with a rubber band, from the desk. He tossed it across the room to the Greek; it landed on the second grey metal desk. The Greek moved behind the desk and slipped the packet out of the band.

  “You had some trouble,” Torrey said to Schabb.

  “Yeah,” Schabb said. “You’d think we’re trying to steal airplanes, ’stead of buying them, probably the best customer he’s got. One more like this and we’ll have to hijack the damned things. For a guy that’s always griping about how lousy business is, he’s sure awful tough to do business with.”

  “You count this stuff?” the Greek said. He was sorting the papers into three piles.

  “I looked at it, is all,” Schabb said. “There’s quite a bit of money there. Maybe the boys didn’t win the whole State after all.”

  “I make it one-eighty-eight K,” the Greek said.

  “That’s quite a bit of money,” Torrey said.

  “What’d the plane cost us?” the Greek said.

  “Twenty-eight,” Schabb said.

  “Hotel,” the Greek said.

  “Three K, promo, free drinks and that stuff, tips for the bells,” Schabb said.

  “Pretty high, you ask me,” the Greek said. “We deliver the fish, we also got to pay to ice them down. How many guys we had?”

  “Eighty,” Schabb said.

  “Eighty K in front from them,” the Greek said, “sixty-six K, was it, we hand back in counters?” Schabb nodded. “What’d that cost us?”

  “Twenty-two,” Schabb said.

  “Twenty-five K, counters and promo, twenty-eight for the plane,” the Greek said, “any other expenses?”

  “You wanna count the rent and phone here?” Torrey said. “It’s pretty steep, three bills, lights’re extra, they do give you the air conditioning.”

  “Damned nice of them,” the Greek said. “No. Fifty-three, expenses. One-thirty-five starting out with the paper, we collect it all.”

  “Not bad at all,” Schabb said.

  “We collect it all?” Torrey said. “What is this shit, we collect it all.”

  “Just what I said,” the Greek said, “We collect it all, we got one-thirty-five here. We don’t collect it all, we got less. Plus the points, of course.”

  “Greek,” Torrey said, “I don’t understand this. That’s what we got you for, you know, collect it all.”

  “I could use a coffee,” the Greek said.

  “Mill,” Torrey said, “get coffee.”

  “Why should I get coffee?” Schabb said. “I don’t even want coffee. I told you anyway, we ought to get a pot and put it in here.”

  “That don’t work,” Torrey said. “I had one up to the place in Lynn there, somebody was always going home at night and leaving the thing plugged in. So, you get one of two things. You got a pot that’s practically welded itself together, all the coffee stewed away, and that’s useless. Or else, there’s enough coffee, you come in the next day and you got a pot you’re never gonna get rid of the taste of it. And somebody’s always spilling it. It’s easier.”

  “For a muffin man,” the Greek said, “you’re awful dainty, Richie. I never knew you’re so neat.”

  “Never mind neat,” Torrey said. “Mill, willya get coffee for Christ sake?”

  “No,” Schabb said. “I’m no errand boy. Call somebody up, you want coffee, have them bring it up. You’re gonna do that, I’ll have a cup myself, matter of fact. Large regular, and a Danish.”

  “No calls,” Torrey said, “I’m expecting a call. I don’t want the line tied up.”

  “Richie,” the Greek said, “this is just a waste of time, all right?”

  “Looks like it,” Torrey said.

  “Mister Schabb,” the Greek said, “me and Richie want coffee. Richie and me, we’re not going for coffee. You’re going for coffee, got that? Now, go for coffee. Get me two blacks. Get him what he wants. Pay for it yourself. Don’t talk about it no more. Just do it, all right?”

  Schabb looked at Richie.

  “Don’t look at me, Mill,” Torrey said. “The man tried to tell you nice, I tried to tell you nice, you don’t want to be told that way. Now you got told the other way. Get the fuck out of here and get the fuckin’ coffee and just do it, all right?”

  “I guess I am the errand boy,” Schabb said, getting up.

  “No,” the
Greek said, “you’re just the guy that’s nice enough to go out and get coffee for everybody and so me and Richie here can have a little discussion, just between him and me. You had a little more experience, none of this would’ve happened.”

  After the door closed, the Greek said, “Is he all right?”

  “He’s a great guy,” Torrey said. “The thing about him, he’s perfect, you know? Because he still, basically he’s still a businessman, you know what I mean? He still thinks like they do. He likes the pussy probably a little more’n the average married guy oughta, and he’s kind of a wise-ass, but he still, he’s still a businessman. He tried to line up the bar association.”

  “Hey,” the Greek said, “that’d be something.”

  “Wouldn’t it, though?” Torrey said. “All them bastards with a license to steal, getting screwed themselves for a change.”

  “Wouldn’t be bad for dough, either,” the Greek said. “Some of those guys, you can really make out on them. They got good dough. The flashy ones in the knit suits and El Ds. Take them right over the fuckin’ hurdles. They think they know fuckin’ everything.”

  “He’d do it for nothing,” Torrey said. “Miller hates lawyers. He thinks he should’ve beat that fraud thing.”

  “Well, shit,” the Greek said. “I thought he got an S.S. out of it.”

  “Sure,” Torrey said. “Myself, I think he made out beautiful. A suspended and a fine and he hadda make restitution. So, a thousand the fine, thirty thou I think it was, they got him for, he told me himself, well, he didn’t actually tell me but I could tell, you know? He got close to seventy-five before they nailed him. So, forty K profit, he don’t go the can, he’s still mad as hell. ‘I had the fix in,’ he says. ‘It was in the bag. I give, my lawyer tells me it’s five for him and ten for the prosecutor and something for the judge, it’s gonna be dismissed. No evidence or something. So, I pay it over. Then, whammo, I get it right between the eyes. I got screwed.’ ”

  “So,” the Greek said, “big deal. He got fucked. I can understand that. But still, he comes out of it all right. I clouted a car when I was a kid and I done three months up the Lyman School. The guy got the car back, too. I would’ve taken his deal. I wouldn’t care if somebody did blow smoke up my ass.”