The Friends of Eddie Coyle Read online

  “I don’t like an automatic,” the second man said. “I had one once and I pulled it out and pointed it at the guy and good thing for me, he backed down. Then I think, well, as long as I got it out I might as well check it out, and I didn’t have one in the chamber. You can’t tell with one of those things. If he’d’ve come at me I would’ve stood there dry-snapping it at him and he’d’ve taken my fucking head off. You just don’t have time to crank one in when you need a piece, is all, and I never met a guy yet that used one regular and didn’t get himself in some kind of a close one, sooner or later, on account of the fucking thing jamming on him when he needed it. I like a goddamned revolver.”

  “I got what you want, then,” the stocky man said. “I got eight of them. Five Smiths, a Colt Python and two Rugers. Forty-one mags, the Rugers. That fucking mag looks just like a cannon, so help me. Got a mouth on her like the Sumner Tunnel. You could hold up a bank all by yourself with that thing.”

  “What’re the Smiths?” the second man said. “Thirty-eights, I hope. I don’t know as I can get any of that forty-one ammo.”

  “Three of them’re thirty-eights,” the stocky man said. “Two three-fifty-sevens, not that it matters. Great big ventilated ribs on the mags. Look, you need shells for anything, I can get you that too.”

  “I’m all set on thirty-eights, as far as that goes,” the second man said. “You could get me some three-fifty-seven and forty-one ammo, I’d appreciate it. What’s it all going to cost me?”

  “Usual rate,” the stocky man said. “Buck and a half for all the guns, every one of them, I mean. I’ll throw in the ammo, account you’re a good customer and all.”

  “Twelve bills,” the second man said. “Fair enough.”

  “Okay,” the stocky man said. “Now, you still want the rest of the order, don’t you? I mean, I got ten more at least, coming early part of next week. And then, well, you said you wanted about thirty, and I figure the rest of them’ll be in before, say, the end of the month.”

  “Oh sure,” the second man said. “I can use anything you can get. We’re going to need at least five Monday, maybe more, if Arthur decides to get enough people to do the job right. And I like to have a couple extras in the car, you know? So if you got to use one on the job you can wipe it off and heave it down the river and still have something on hand. So if everything goes right, we’ll probably be dumping the whole eight you got for me by Monday night, and that’ll mean I’ll need the next batch fast.”

  “I got a week, though,” the stocky man said.

  “Look,” the second man said, “unless I can talk Arthur into acting sensible, you probably got a year. That dumb son of a bitch, he won’t throw a gun away. Gets attached to them. I don’t know how many times I told him to get rid of a piece and he’d say: ‘No, I paid a hundred for this gun,’ or whatever it was he paid for it, ‘and I didn’t even use it yet. No reason to throw it away.’ And he’s sitting there with ten, eleven grand in the pocket. So he gets whipped in three days after the Lowell job and he’s got a gun on him and they don’t even have to prove he was on the Lowell thing, they give him a fat three or so for carrying without a permit. And then they laugh at him. He’s the tightest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen. But I think maybe that taught him something. He did, what, twenty months of that for a gun that cost him maybe a hundred bucks. Five dollars a month he saved. You can get electric lights for five bucks a month, and Arthur goes to jail. Dumb fuck. But you figure, I can use the whole thirty probably by Christmas. You go ahead.”

  “All right,” the stocky man said. “When do you want them? It isn’t tomorrow, is it?”

  “What do you mean?” the second man said. “Oh, no, a week from tomorrow. I’d like to pick them up probably tomorrow.”

  “Same place?” the stocky man said.

  “I think that’s going to be a little out of my way tomorrow,” the second man said. “I got to be somewhere else. I tell you, I’ll give you a call and you come and meet me. When I call you, I’ll tell you where I’m going to be.”

  “I wasn’t planning to be home,” the stocky man said.

  “Okay,” the second man said. “What I’ll do is call Dillon as soon as I know where I’m going to be and tell him I told my wife I was going to be there, and have him tell her if she calls that I went out but I’m coming back and he’ll have me call her. Then for him to call me and tell me she called. I’ll leave a number. I’ll do that before nine. You call Dillon and tell him you called me at home and my wife said I was at Dillon’s, and he won’t think anything, he’ll give you the number and you can call me up and we’ll meet somewhere. Okay?”

  “I hope she’s good looking,” the stocky man said. “If I got to go all through that so your wife doesn’t know where you are, I sure hope she’s good looking, is all I can say.”

  4

  “You remember Eddie Fingers,” Dave said. “Eddie Coyle? Fellow that got his hand busted up after they put Billy Wallace away for a long time on a gun that he bought from somebody. Got himself in a whole mess of trouble up in New Hampshire trucking a little booze that didn’t belong to him about this time last year.”

  “He the bank robber?” Waters asked. “The one from Natick?”

  “That’s his sidekick,” Dave said, “Artie Van. Arthur Valantropo. Eddie doesn’t rob banks. He’s a thief. Doesn’t go in for that kind of rough stuff, although I suppose he was down on his luck, he might take a crack at almost anything.”

  “I was thinking of another guy,” Waters said. “Hangs around Artie Van too. Van went in on a carrying charge and this guy was up to see him all the time. Looked like he had smallpox or something.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Dave said.

  “Italian name,” Waters said. “It’ll come to me. All I can think of right now is Scanlon, and that sure isn’t it.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said, “well, I had this call from Coyle the other day, so I went out to see him.”

  “I thought we loaned you to Narcotics,” Waters said.

  “You did,” Dave said. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough. But this Coyle gets around, I thought maybe he had something to say about drugs.”

  “Shit,” Waters said.

  “I was terrible disappointed,” Dave said. “I said so at the time.”

  “What’d he want?” Waters said.

  “He’s coming up for sentencing in New Hampshire after the first of the year,” Dave said.

  “He wants some references,” Waters said.

  “That was what he had in mind,” Dave said. “What he said he had in mind, anyway.”

  “What’s he got to trade?” Waters said.

  “Black militants,” Dave said. “Claims he knows about some group that’s buying machine guns.”

  “Believe him?” Waters said.

  “I think he was telling me the truth,” Dave said. “I think what he was telling me was the truth, anyway. He said he didn’t know much and he didn’t, not about that, anyway.”

  “There probably isn’t very much to know,” Waters said. “I never seen such a bunch of pigeons on black militants since we started getting a wise guy or two every so often. The Panthers’re the best thing ever happened to the Mafia, far as they’re concerned. They’ll trade you ten niggers for one wop any day of the week. I think it’s beautiful.”

  “It has its points,” Dave said. “I’d damned sight rather see the wise guys trading off Panthers’n see the wise guys trading with Panthers.”

  “There’s talk they’re doing that,” Waters said.

  “I don’t think so,” Dave said. “Not around here, anyway. I don’t doubt they drink from the same water holes, but they’re not working together. Not yet. The wise guys’re bigots, you know.”

  “Scalisi,” Waters said. “The guy that hangs around with Artie Van is Jimmy Scalisi. Somewhat of a hard guy, a bad bastard from the word go. Dolan and Morrissey from SP Concord were trying to get Artie Van turned around when he was up at the farm ther
e, Billerica, and Artie’s going around and around, and the next thing you know, Scalisi and some friend of his’re up to see him. Artie didn’t say boo after that. I take it that Scalisi’s some kind of craftsman with a pistol.”

  “That’s what made me wonder,” Dave said. “I dunno whether Eddie Fingers is telling me all he knows about the militants or not. He knows I’m a cop, of course, and he knows I’m a federal cop, so he’s got to figure I got a hard-on for Panthers. Not that he ever said Panthers. But Eddie’s not stupid. He’s got something in mind. What I wonder is whether all he’s got in mind is a recommendation from the government when he comes up for sentencing. I think maybe not.”

  “Why?” Waters said.

  “How the hell did Eddie Fingers find out some black man’s buying machine guns?” Dave said. “Does he hang around with black guys? Not this trip. So who else is involved? Somebody who’s selling machine guns. Now why would Eddie Fingers be hanging around a guy who’s selling machine guns?”

  “Eddie Fingers is looking to pick up some guns,” Waters said.

  “Exactly,” Dave said. “Eddie doesn’t like machine guns, but he’s gotten in the gravy before, supplying guns. That’s how he got his hand smashed up. I think maybe Eddie’s doing business again. I think he’s talking to me so if somebody sees him doing business, it’ll be all right, he’s undercover.”

  “It’d be worth something to catch the guy he’s doing business with,” Waters said. “He’s at least arming the wise guys, and maybe the Panthers too. I’d like a look at him. Can we put a tail on Eddie Coyle?”

  “Sure,” Dave said, “and he’ll spot it six minutes out of the box. Eddie’s not the bravest guy in the world, but he’s not dumb and he’s gotten very careful. That isn’t the way to do it.”

  “What is the way to do it?” Waters said.

  “The first thing is to get me off this dope kick I’m on,” Dave said. “Nobody ought to object very much. So far, what I turned up, a sophomore in Weston High could produce on a warm afternoon.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Waters said. “Suppose you get off. What’re you going to do then?”

  “Eddie Coyle is a creature of habit,” Dave said. “I’ll work from that angle.”

  5

  Seven and a half miles east of Palmer, Route 20 bends to the north at the top of a hill, then banks away toward the south, leaving a rest area in a grove of pine trees. Late in the evening, a bearded young man swung a gold Karmann Ghia coupe onto the gravel parking area, shut off the headlights, and settled down to wait while his breath condensed on the inside of the windshield and the frost descended on the metal.

  In the dark, Jackie Brown brought his Roadrunner off the Massachusetts Turnpike at Charlton, sent it hard through the ramp curves, and then vigorously west on Route 20. He arrived at the rest area fifteen minutes or so after the bearded man in the Karmann Ghia. He parked and switched off the ignition, then waited five minutes. The right directional signal of the Karmann Ghia flashed once. Jackie Brown got out of his car.

  There was a strong smell of plastic, oil, and paint inside the Ghia. Jackie Brown said: “It’s a good thing you told me you got a new car. I wouldn’t’ve figured you for this. What happened to the Three-ninety-six?”

  “I got my fucking insurance bill,” the bearded man said. “Then I went out for a ride and I had to fill the goddamned thing, and it cost me nine bucks worth of superpremium, and I said the hell with it. Goddamn car was eating me blind.”

  “Went like a bird with a flame up its ass, though,” Jackie Brown said.

  “I’m getting too fucking old for that,” the bearded man said. “I bust my ass all day to take home a hundred and seventy bucks a week and I just can’t swing the kind of money it costs. I’m thinking about getting married and settling down.”

  “You been taking almost that off me,” Jackie Brown said.

  “Shit,” the bearded man said. “Last six months I got you for thirty-seven hundred dollars. I spent that easy. I got to stop hacking around, is all. I keep this up, I’m gonna be behind bars before I’m through.”

  “Okay,” Jackie Brown said, “it’s a bad night. You got the stuff, is all I want to know. I got the money.”

  “I got two dozen,” the bearded man said. He wrenched his body around and lifted a shopping bag out of the luggage bin behind the seats. “Most of them’re four-inchers.”

  “That’s all right,” Jackie Brown said. “I got the money right here. Four-eighty, right?”

  “Right,” the bearded man said. “How come it’s all right, four-inchers? Six months ago you used to piss and moan something awful, I brought you anything but two-inchers. All of a sudden it doesn’t matter any more. How come?”

  “I got a better class of trade,” Jackie Brown said.

  “Who the fuck’re you dealing with?” the bearded man said. “You hooked in with the goddamned Mafia or something?”

  Jackie Brown smiled. “Let me lay it right on you,” he said. “I don’t honestly know any more. I got this black guy that comes around every so often, but he’s kind of short on dough, and besides, what he wants, you can’t give. I got to get that from somebody else. Then I got this fat guy, about, oh, thirty-six, thirty-seven, and I’ll be goddamned if I know what he does. Looks like a mick, but I don’t even know his name. He wants me to think it’s Paul, but I’m not sure. That son of a bitch’ll take every piece I can deliver. Never seen such a man for guns. Four-inchers, six-inchers, thirty-eights, mags, forty-ones, forty-fives, forty-fours, you name it. He’ll take anything, cash on the fucking barrelhead. That motherfucker’ll go through a dozen guns in a week, come up begging for more. Now, you was to ask me, I’d be inclined to think he was in somewhere with the Mob, but then, he isn’t about to tell me, and I’m not about to ask. He pays in American money is all that interests me. Same with the black guy. I was in Nassau for the weekend and I had me the sweetest piece of caramel ass you ever dreamed of, and that fat bastard that’ll take anything, he paid for it. I think it’s great. He can work for the Salvation Army if he wants, I don’t care. He just keeps bringing money, it’s all right with me.”

  “You do all right off me,” the bearded man said.

  “I give you twenty dollars apiece for iron that costs you fucking nothing,” Jackie Brown said. “You never got a bit of feedback from me. I don’t hassle you about nothing. I know what you’re dumping the money on, I know all right, but as long as you can function, it’s okay with me. You get my ass in the gears, I’ll turn up the flame under yours. You could do ten years for what you’re doing all by yourself. What you’re doing for me is a sideline, and I know it. But it’s a damned good sideline for you, and don’t you forget it. I got a phone too. I can call the cops in Springfield just as fast as you can call them in Boston.”

  “Fuck you,” the bearded man said.

  “I’ll see you next week,” Jackie Brown said. “I want at least two dozen. I’ll have the money.”

  6

  Dillon explained that he was frightened. “Otherwise I would help you, see?” he said. He sat on the bench on the Common in the midst of the insistent November sunshine, hunched over to protect his stomach. “I mean, I understand, what it is you got in mind, that you’re willing to protect me. But I want to tell you this: you can’t do it, you can’t possibly do it. Because nobody can do it, you know? Nobody. This is something which I got into all by myself, and I am not going to get out of it.”

  Foley said nothing.

  There were seven derelicts working their usual station down at the subway entrance at the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets. Six of them sat along the retaining wall and discussed events of importance. They wore overcoats and hats and worn-out heavy shoes in the sunshine, partly because they were generally cold and partly because they had memories enough to know that winter was coming again, so that they would need the warm clothing which they did not dare to leave in the empty buildings where they slept. The youngest of the derelicts accosted businessme
n and women who had been shopping. He worked diligently to keep them in front of him, trying to block their progress so that they would listen to him. It is harder to refuse to give a man a quarter after you have listened to him for a while, and noticed him. Not impossible, but harder. The younger derelict was still agile enough to maneuver, and could raise the price of a bottle of Petri faster than the others. Dillon watched him while he talked.

  “I tell you what it is,” he said. “The principal thing which bothers me is the truck. Now I know that sounds kind of funny, because I suppose you would think that what would be worrying me would be the guys in the truck or some guy I don’t even know that I see maybe watching me pretty close in the bar or something.”

  North on Tremont Street, just beyond the Information Stand and the Fountain and the Parkman Bandstand, a couple of Jesus screamers were working a moderate crowd of clerks and secretaries and sightseers. The woman was tall. She had a good loud voice and a bullhorn to help it along. The man was short and walked around distributing leaflets. The wind delivered enough of what she was saying to distract Dillon from watching the derelicts.