Authors: George V. Higgins
Cistaro said nothing.
“The people I owe money to—they always get it. So they know they can trust me.
You?
I’ve never seen before, in my entire life. So you have no experience to go on, and simply don’t realize that. Are you pressed for cash? How much do you need? I’ll see if I can help you.”
Cistaro showed more teeth. “
I’m
not pressed for cash,” he said pleasantly. “People like you, who owe
me
—
they
are pressed for cash. Why they come to me, the first place—get the cash they got to have, they haven’t
got
no cash. That’s what you did, you know it or not. Came to me referred, okay? Any other hurtin’ puppy—guy you asked where you could find ninety large, right off? He said come to me.”
“Oh, but I’ve never seen you before,” Crawford said mildly.
“You seen people, work for me,” Cistaro said. “You seen them when you saw my money. Didn’t see my
face
then, but you seen Ben Franklin’s pictures and you seen the presidents. That means you seen me.
“Six weeks ago, you fall in our laps, said you needed cash for two. Forty-five a week then, just like it is today. Which we told you, and you said you understood.
An
’—that even though it was a lot more’n you’re used to paying, it was acceptable. That was what you said to Tony. Next time Tony saw me, he told me you said that.
“Kid never heard that one before. ‘ “Acceptable,” he said.’ Could not get over it. Well, what the hell, he’s just a kid. Hasn’t been around that much—you’re something new for him.”
Crawford’s expression gradually changed. “Would this Tony be Anthony, the barber? The young fellow in the shop down on Broad Street? The guy that Mario took me to see, before the three-day weekend? He said he had another appointment coming in at three-fifteen, so he had to hurry.”
“Look, he cuts hair—financial district,” Cistaro said. “Why we took him on. Where he is, an’ what he does, and who he does it to. Good location for him? Good one for us, too. Every day he’s seeing people who at one time or another need some money in a hurry; so happens they’re tapped out; got no place to get it. People talk to barbers. Why this is I do not know. If this guy knows everything there is to know, you know? What’s he doin’ cutting hair? But they do it, all the time, all his people, just the same. They got something on their minds, who they go and tell it to? To him. There he is, he’s just a kid, all he knows’s cutting hair—so they ask him for advice.
“Which day it was? Don’t know. Sometime last month. The deal was for two weeks. All our weeks end on Friday—’til you miss one. Then all weeks end
every
day—so which day it was don’t matter. Two weeks was what you said you wanted. Then, well, apparently it’s taking longer’n you thought it would. Perfectly all right with us, long’s you’re all right. Keep it ten
years
, if you want, long’s you
stay
all right.
“Three-four weeks, that’s what you were—perfectly all right.
We sent a guy around, day you got the money, look you up and check you out? Here you were, just like you tell Tony—looked okay to him. But then week five—no check.
“ ‘Fuck happened?’ we think. ‘Something go wrong with this guy? Well, we’ll give him another week—prolly come in then. Tell us what went wrong.’ But six weeks was due last Friday—once again no check comes in. Now it’s seven weeks, today. Tony doesn’t hear from you, see you come around? Naturally he’s concerned—he calls us.” Cistaro paused for a beat or two and scowled at Crawford. “Like he knows he hasta do.
“Gotta understand the kid,” Cistaro said. “Position you put him in, okay? Mario introduced you, right? This’s fine for Mario, but for Tony, not so fine. This’s all he knows about you—Mario says you’re all right. Okay, far as it goes. We’ll take Mario’s word on that, so long’s we see it’s
true
. But Mario’s a
cus
tomer. He don’t
work
for us. He’s got no responsibility, you don’t turn out all right.
“Tony works for us. He’s got the responsibility—but he knows you not at all. Even after a month or so, he don’t know you all that well. High-class neighborhood here and all? Kind of people you got up here, this end of town?
Look
like they got lots of money—but hey, how does he know?
“ ‘Newbury Street? I don’t go there. This guy Crawford came to me—I didn’t go to him. I don’t know where he comes from. Never see the guy before. What the hell I do?’
“Tony’s a good kid. Wants to do what’s right for everybody, not make some dumb mistake. So he asked me what to do. I told him, ‘Hey, don’t worry, kid. I’m over there from time to time. I’ll take care of it.’ So that’s how come I’m here here today, all right?
“Put it to you, black and white—just connect the dots. Reason I am here today: You owe me one hundred and three thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars.
Me
—not Mario. Not Tony. The original ninety; the forty-five hundred you owe week five,
which you miss; plus the forty-seven twenty-five, week six; plus the forty-seven twenty-five you owe today. You made me nervous. Lots of guys would up you five points onna week-six ice, and five more in top of that this week, week seven, but I never been a guy saw any point in bumping up the count so high guy can’t see no way out. I leave that tah the government.”
He laughed, one bark. “So, you can give me thirteen nine-fifty or one-oh-three nine-fifty, either way is easiest for you. Which’s it gonna be?”
“Look,” Crawford said, shaking his head, “what I said originally there, about owing people money? People owing me? There’s something that you have to understand about this business that I’m in. It all depends on exactly what it is that we’ve sold you—what we’re
selling
you, I should say. That determines when it is the buyer owes the money. All right? And even then he still has thirty days, of course, a chance to see it in the home—if it looks like we expected. It’s on
approval
, see? Everything we do—the kind of goods and services we deal in—it always works that way.
“And rarities, all right? Antiquities we deal in? What was involved in the deal that we got you involved in, through the Tony that we heard about through Mario, all right? That’s what was involved. These’re artifacts we’re dealing in, genuine antiquities, one-of-a-kind things. And, well, it’s
very
difficult, for
anyone
, involved in
any
of these transactions, to say exactly when or how the whole deal will be … well, brought to fruition. Or sometimes—fairly
often
, actually—even
if
it ever will be. Brought to fruition, I mean. If you understand me.”
Cistaro stared at him.
“Half the time they have to be … well, sometimes the countries that they come from, see? We find that what we have to do is go outside regular channels, the normal export-import regulations that you have … they … that they would normally apply, would apply in these kinds of, ah, cases.
“These things can be sensitive. These other countries—third-world countries, really, no use pretending otherwise—they’re not always keen on having them, well, having what we find
removed
. From the areas where we’ve
found
them—and this’s
after
, mind you, someone’s paid a good deal to have them prospected for, looked for. When no one even in these countries themselves was absolutely sure that they were there, even
dreamed
that they were there. And then if they’d
been
found, to dig them up. Or if they’d have any value if they did.”
“
Really
,” Cistaro said.
“
Yes
,” Crawford said. “So it all can be a very delicate, and
time
-consuming, business, and therefore very
expensive
, in and of itself. As well. And then the actual process of having them removed; you have to be
exquisitely
careful about how you go about having them do that. Because these things are
so
fragile. From the
sites
where they’re found, I mean—even
those
’re sensitive. Have to be careful how you dig. And then from the
countries
,
God
—when it comes to physically taking them out of the countries where they originate, well, it’s like having a tooth pulled.
“I mean,
hell
, sometimes we have to spend as much as six or seven months, arranging transportation through
another
country, as backward as the first, maybe even two or three. The kind of provenance, a paper trail, that enables us to, you know, get them passed along, almost from hand to hand, really. Document specialists and so forth, just to get them into Switzerland, ultimately through Customs here, they finally reach New York. But once we get them as far as Switzerland, well, then we always feel as though we can breathe a little easier, the hard part’s behind us now. But it’s never really sure.
“Now the buyer we go through this for, we acquire these things for—none of this’s his responsibility. Any of his concern at all. He’s completely apart from all of this, knows nothing
about it. And that’s the way it has to be, as far as he’s concerned—the way he wants it. That’s why the huge markup. In this instance, for example, the artifacts involved in this deal that we’re financed with the money that I got from your man Anthony … well, the actual intrinsic value of the pieces, in the objective sense, I mean, is probably in the neighborhood of thirty, thirty-five, forty thousand the outside.”
“That much,” Cistaro said, looking interested.
“Oh, yes,” Crawford said. “The rest? All eaten up by these imponderables. And the buyer that we have for them, the customer who ordered them, see if we could get them for him and’s been waiting several months now for the chance to get his hands on them, these pieces, well, this is
so
speculative,
so
uncertain a procedure, that he doesn’t owe the money until the artifacts are actually in his possession. In his home. That’s why they cost so much, when they actually
do
arrive.”
“I see,” Cistaro said.
“So,” Crawford said, “
as
you see, it isn’t simple, this kind of business isn’t. We deal in fairly large sums of money, but one way or the other, it’s always tied up. Pretty well tied up. So, it may surprise you to hear this, but I don’t keep that kind of cash—–”
Crawford was still talking as Cistaro dragged him out of his chair by his blue tie with gold stars and drew his chin down hard against and then across the surface of his desk, not with sudden impact but irresistible force and unpleasant friction, until his pelvis butted up against the back edge of the desk, so that he extended his neck to its limit and choked, and had to stop talking.
“
Nooo
, Mister Crawford,” Cistaro said pleasantly, over Crawford’s head, as though disciplining a generally good dog that had oddly misbehaved, “I don’t think you understand the kind of business you’ve been doing with us—
sir
. The only times I’m
ever surprised is when I tell a broad to blow me and she says ‘sure’ and puckers up, no fuckin’ argument.
“I don’t care what kind of cash you got or where you keep it. Only kind I care about’s American, getting what’s owed to me. I don’t get it, first I get mad. Then I get worried. Start to think. ‘This gets around, Mister Crawford didn’t pay me, didn’t have the cash on hand, and I said, “Well, that’s okay—pay me when you can. It’s real convenient for you”? What if everyone who owes me hears about this, huh? And as a result he starts to think
he
now doesn’t have to pay me any longer, he’s s’posed to, huh? If it’s not convenient for him. I won’t do nothin’ to them?’
“Trynah give you some idea, here—this is how I start to think when I begin to worry.”
He paused. “I think, ‘If Mister Crawford doesn’t pay me, there is no two ways about it—I’ll have to do something to him.’ That’s how I think when I’m worried.
“Now, Mister Crawford, I don’t like bein’ worried,” he said, still speaking pleasantly, gradually releasing his grip on the blue tie with the stars, now crumpled. Crawford used his hands on the desk to push himself straight up, his face red but growing pale. He waggled his head around, swallowing, and ran his right forefinger around the inside of his collar. He tugged his tie loose at his collar, then looked down at it as though he’d never seen it before and couldn’t imagine how it had gotten around his neck.
“But even though you got me worried, I’m still gonna be nice to you,” Cistaro said. “I got some things I got to do today after lunch, which I’m gonna have first, before I do them. So I won’t be back to see you again this afternoon ’til around five o’clock. Maybe a little after. But I
will
be back.
“So, do me a favor, all right? Traffic can get bad that time of day. Wait for me, okay?
Wait
for me. Be here when I get back. Don’t let it slip your mind, and then when five o’clock comes, I
haven’t made it back, just turn off all the lights, lock up and go home, as usual. Uh uh. You don’t want to do that. I won’t like it, you’re not here, I come back, a little after five, you’re not here. Get all upset, and we do not want that. Especially,
you
don’t.
“Have the money for me. Thirteen nine-fifty will be fine. Whole wad’d be even better, both our points of view, you can manage that. That way you wouldn’t have to think, ‘Now he’s gone, I can relax, but only for a little while. He’s comin’ back in here next week, forty-five hundred more. Week after that, same thing.’
“Because I am—you realize that. No more sendin’ checks to Tony, or not sendin’ checks to Tony, dependin’ on your mood or how things are in Switzerland. Every week from now on until you and me are even, you are gonna see me here and you’ll have cash money for me. Or else more will happen to you than your necktie gettin’ wrinkled—you should have that in mind. You might like it lots better, you could pay me off today. But anyway, the thirteen nine-fifty, that’ll do it for today. That’s the minimum, okay? Five
P.M.
this afternoon.”
Crawford swallowed again and nodded.
Cistaro left the office, closing the door behind him and treading as lightly as he could going down the creaking open staircase. There was a slim woman about forty in a black dress with a gold jacket fluffing her dark hair as she emerged from the corridor beneath the mezzanine as he reached the main floor. “Good afternoon,” she said, smiling but frowning slightly. “Would there be something I could help you with?”