The Friends of Eddie Coyle (10 page)

Three figures came slowly into the moonlit parking area. Two of them carried rifles. They approached uncertainly. Jackie Brown said: “That’s far enough.” He picked up the spotlight and pointed it at them. “The two of you there, hand the rifles to the guy that was with me. Then stand still.”

The kid had trouble getting all of the rifles into his arms.

“Now you come over here to the car. When you get here, I’ll open the trunk from inside here. Put the rifles in the trunk and shut it. Come up to the window here and I’ll give you the money. You other guys stand nice and still. I got a forty-five on you every minute. Any funny stuff and I’ll put a big hole in you.”

The kid did as he was told. Jackie Brown pushed the button of the inside trunk release with his knee. He heard the trunk gulp open. He heard the rifles clunking into the compartment. “Shut the goddamned trunk,” he said. He heard the trunk close. “Come up here and don’t get in the way of the light.”

The kid came up to the window. “Where’s the ammo?” Jackie Brown said.

“Huh?” the kid said.

“Where’s the fucking goddamned bullets?” Jackie Brown said. “I told you I could use five hundred rounds. Where the fuck is it?”

“Oh,” the kid said, “we couldn’t get no ammo.”

“You couldn’t get any,” Jackie Brown said. “You can steal the goddamned guns right out of stores, but you can’t get any bullets. What the hell do I do with guns and no bullets? I can’t get that stuff outside.”

“Look,” the kid said, “we’ll get it for you, honest. It’s just, the kid that was going to get the ammo for us, he got sick and he wasn’t on duty there when we come up. We didn’t want to take no chances getting it from somebody that maybe we couldn’t be sure was all right.”

“All right,” Jackie Brown said. “I’m gonna be nice to you. Here’s the whole five hundred for the guns. I oughta keep back a couple hundred for this putting me in the ditch with the ammo. But fuck it, my big weakness is I’m a nice guy. Now you get the rest of the stuff and you call me, okay?”

“Okay,” the kid said. “Thanks a lot.”

“And lay off them fucking eggs,” Jackie Brown said. “They’ll get you before you’re through.”

Foley and Waters sat in the chief’s office with their feet on his desk and his television murmuring the tail end of the David Frost Show.

“I appreciate you waiting around, Maury,” Foley said. “I didn’t expect to have to see you today, but then I got the call and after I talked to him, I decided I better come in.”

“It’s all right,” Waters said. “My wife keeps telling me I shouldn’t do this, hang around government property after regular working hours, but I figure, hell, I’m supposed to catch the goddamned kids with their bombs. Only fair to give them a sporting shot at me, isn’t it?”

“Look,” Foley said. “I got to get clear of this junk detail once and for all. There’s something going on with Eddie Fingers. The guy’s all over the place all of a sudden, first he’s seeing me, then I get this today that he’s playing games with Scalisi. First it’s
the brothers and now it’s the wise guys, and in the meantime I don’t hear from him. I think I better be around for a while. This could turn into something.”

“You check out the Panthers on that?” Waters said.

“Shit,” Foley said, “I called old reliable Deetzer, who else’ve I got to call? He doesn’t know anything, he told me so. I been telling Chickie Leavitt for at least a year we had to get somebody in there, and we don’t because we won’t spend the fucking money. The Deetzer knows about as much about what’s going on as I do, only he’s honest and admits it.”

“The Bureau’s supposed to have something in there,” Waters said.

“Did we call the Bureau?” Foley said. “No, I bet. Nobody got around to it.”

“We called the Bureau,” Waters said. “I did it myself. They didn’t know anything about it. They said they’d look into it.”

“And thank you very much for calling,” Foley said. “How about SP, they doing anything?”

“Everything copacetic as far as they know,” Waters said. “Boston PD, the same. I think Coyle was jerking you off.”

“I think so, too,” Foley said. “What I want to know is, what the fuck is he up to? That bastard, he’s about this high in the bunch, but he gets around more’n any man I ever see. One day he’s here and the next day he’s there, you’d think he was a fucking stray dog. I wish I had a line on half of what he’s doing.”

“Does he work anywhere?” Waters said.

“Yeah,” Foley said, “he’s an expediter over at Arliss Trucking, night expediter, but you just try to find him there. He works about as much as Santa Claus.”

“Arliss Trucking,” Waters said, “now where have I heard that one before?”

“It’s in eight or ten files,” Foley said. “It’s a goddamned front for the boys. They all get reportable income from Arliss, and none of them work there. That company hires more people on less business than I ever see. They’re the owners of record for about nine Lincoln Connies and at least four Cads. The Kraut spotted Dannie Theos the other day in a big maroon Bird and ran the number, it’s registered to Crystal Ford, lease card, rented to Arliss Trucking.”

The Frost Show ended and the news began. The announcer said: “In Wilbraham, early today, four gunmen burst into the home of a young bank officer, terrorized his family, and compelled him to hand over the contents of the vault at the Connecticut River Bank and Trust Company branch in that town. Officials estimated the take in excess of eighty thousand dollars, noting that the robbery was almost identical to one committed last Monday at the First Agricultural and Commercial Bank and Trust Company in Hopedale. The FBI has been called in on the case, and a full-scale investigation is underway.”

“Did Scalisi ever operate that way?” Waters said.

“I don’t know much about Scalisi,” Foley said, “you want the honest to God’s truth. My friend says Scalisi’s been awful busy lately, can’t stay at one phone long enough for anybody to call him back there. But I thought Scalisi was pretty much of a hit man, didn’t do much of anything else.”

“They branch out,” Waters said.

“I know it,” Foley said. “My friend there, he runs a saloon, and I know fucking well he’s got an undisclosed interest, and
he knows I know. But he’s sure to have all kinds of other action going that I never dreamed of, let alone owning the saloon. He’s a strange guy. I bet I talked to him a hundred times, and I couldn’t tell you how much good stuff he’s given me. I’m always handing him twenty, and he’s always poor-mouthing me, and yet I know he’s got something cooking all the time, you can feel it. It’s like you’re in a movie, and the other guy’s in the movie with you, but he
knows
you’re both in a movie, and what comes next. And you don’t. I get the feeling, all the time, he’s playing me.”

“What do you think he’s doing?” Waters asked.

“It’s hard to say,” Foley said. “What he’s doing with me, that’s easy. He’s keeping a hook in. If he gets grabbed, he’s going to come around to me and say: ‘Hey, I need some help. I helped you. Are you a stand-up guy or not.’ But half the stuff I get from him is stuff I get by listening to what he says, he doesn’t know what he’s telling me. And the other half, well, it’s usually about somebody else, somebody that he doesn’t like, maybe, or somebody that put the hammer on him and he’s looking to get back. I’m almost certain he was in on the Polack hit, I could stake my life on it. I saw him the other day, a few days ago, I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and I said to him: ‘We still friends, Dillon?’ This was right after I see Eddie Fingers that time in the plaza. And he starts this long involved rigamarole about how he’s scared, he can’t talk to me, he can’t go to the grand jury for me, the town’s buttoned up. Now the only grand jury I know about is the DA’s, and that’s about the Polack hit and they got that other fellow there, I hear, Stradniki, Stradnowski?”

“Stravinski,” Waters said, “Jimmy the Whale.”

“The Polack,” Foley said, “yeah, him. They got the other
Polack. And I’m not interested in that case, for Christ sake. They hit the Polack two years ago, it’s nothing concerns me. But my friend’s all uptight about it, he’s so relieved when I start asking about something else it’s like he finally took a piss after four days of drinking beer. Which is how I pick up what I got on this other matter, he gave me that for nothing, really, he was so relieved I wasn’t pushing him.”

“Who else was on that job,” Waters said, “the Polack job?”

“A bunch of other tailgaters,” Foley said. “I assume so, anyway. The Polack never did anything but steal, but he started getting lazy. You remember, they got away with about a hundred thou worth of stuff off Allied Storage, and then somebody stole it from the guys that stole it. The Combat Zone sounded like a war was going on there for a while, and the Polack turned up dead in the trunk of a Mercury in Chelsea. I heard Artie Van, for one.”

“There’s an interesting guy,” Waters said. “I always thought Artie Van did a lot more’n he got credit for.”

“A real shadowy character,” Foley said. “From what I hear, a genuine stand-up guy. Until he gets in jail. Then people start to fret. But hard as nails and fish hooks while he’s on the street. I hear they used to call up from Providence whenever they had a particularly bad piece of work and get ahold of Artie Van to carry the mail. But it’s just what I hear.”

“You hear anything about Artie Van and Jimmy Scalisi?” Waters said.

“Not together, no,” Foley said.

“I was wondering,” Waters said, “you suppose Van and Scalisi’re making these withdrawals from banks?”

“It’s a thought,” Foley said. “I just wonder where Eddie Coyle fits in.”

“Suppose Eddie Coyle was the armorer,” Waters said. “I’m just thinking out loud, now.”

“Hard to figure,” Foley said. “Coyle’s a small-timer. A colossal pain in the ass, of course, but basically a small-timer. I don’t see how he’d get in there. I could check into it.”

“Why don’t you do that,” Waters said. “I’ll call Drugs and tell them I got to pull you off for a couple more weeks. They’ll understand, I’m sure.”

Jackie Brown brought the Roadrunner slowly into the Fresh Pond Shopping Center, chose a place in the middle of a row of cars, and killed the engine. He looked at his watch. It read two-fifty-eight. He opened the glove compartment and removed a tape cassette. He put it into the tape deck. Johnny Cash began to sing about Folsom Prison.

At five minutes past three Jackie Brown was dozing. The stocky man rapped on the window. Jackie Brown swung his head around. The stocky man had a cart full of shopping bags. He motioned to Jackie Brown to get out of the car.

“Where are they?” the stocky man said.

“In the trunk,” Jackie Brown said.

“They in anything?” the stocky man said.

“A box,” Jackie Brown said. “A big box with some newspapers in it.”

“Okay,” the stocky man said. “I got an extra bag here. Take it. Then we go around to the trunk and you open it. I’ll put some of these bags in so it’ll look like I was getting groceries for you. You put the guns in the bag and put the bag in the cart. Nobody’ll pay any attention at all.”

“Where’s the money?” Jackie Brown said.

“Right here,” the stocky man said. He handed over six hundred dollars in tens and twenties.

“This the genuine?” Jackie Brown said.

“If it isn’t,” the stocky man said, “you get in touch with me and I’ll call my banker. Far as I know it’s the McCoy. You want to count it?”

“No,” Jackie Brown said. “I haven’t got much time. I’m supposed to be at the Route 128 railroad station at four-thirty. Let’s get going.”

“Fine with me,” the stocky man said. He pulled the shopping cart back to the trunk.

“What’s in the fucking bags?” Jackie Brown said.

“Three of them’re full of bread,” the stocky man said. “The rest’ve got meat and potatoes and some beer and vegetables, that kind of thing.”

“What’re you giving me?” Jackie Brown said.

“The bread,” the stocky man said. “Man can always use a little bread. You can feed the goddamned pigeons or something. Go find some squirrels. Squirrels love bread.”

“Your wife make you do the shopping too?” Jackie Brown said.

“My friend,” the stocky man said, “you don’t have much time and I’m kind of in a hurry myself. I don’t have time to explain married life to you, and besides, you wouldn’t believe me anyway.
I didn’t believe it when they told me, and you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Let’s stick to business.”

Jackie Brown opened the trunk. Inside there was a cardboard box which appeared to be filled with newspapers. The five M-sixteens lay across it.

“Jesus,” the stocky man said.

“Don’t get your bowels in an uproar,” Jackie Brown said, “those’re for somebody else. Your stuff’s in the box, like I said.”

“For Christ sake get it in the bag and hurry,” the stocky man said, “those look like fucking Army rifles to me.”

“Well,” Jackie Brown said, “they’re military.”

“Machine guns?” the stocky man said.

“Machine guns,” Jackie Brown said. “The only thing that’s more of a machine gun is the Colt, the AR-fifteen. But these’re pretty good. Want to see one?”

“No,” the stocky man said. “Fill the goddamned bag.” He began lifting bags of bread into the trunk.