Authors: George V. Higgins
“Yeah,” Rascob said, “well, that’s pretty much what he was saying. ‘It’s all feasibility now.’ Can they
do
it here, workin’ with us—assumin’ that, of course, because that’s the only way, without us they know they can’t. But can they get enough hotel rooms at the time of year they want ’em? All the schools around here? Rooms already booked? For the graduations, see? If they are, then it don’t matter—kinda rates we get them—they can’t get the rooms.
“So, they’d
rather
do it here; makes much better sense. But first they hafta find out if they
can
. Or should they start lookin’ someplace else.”
“Well, but that’s what I’m saying,” McKeach said. “Like:
what
other place? What do they mean when they say ‘other place’? They got any idea whatsoever of this? What he’s talkin’ about when he says this?”
“I dunno,” Rascob said. “I didn’t ask him that, you know? All I did was, I basically listened. I told you all he told me.”
“Motherfuckers,” McKeach said.
“Yeah, I know,” Rascob said.
“Well, keep on top of him,” McKeach said. “Rusty’s a good guy and all, but every now and then he’s been known to get it in his head he might do some freelance stuff. Slightest hint he’s doin’ that—you know, not
tellin
’ us about—well, you lemme know right off. I’ll go over, see the bastard. Get his memory improved.”
“I’ll do that,” Rascob said.
“Yeah,” McKeach said. “Now, that brings us our boy Jackie, everybody’s favorite pinup. What is goin’ on with him?”
“He’s got three more trucks comin’ on line this week,” Rascob said. “These’d be the break-and-lunch trucks go around from plant to plant, job to job, you know? Ones with quilted caps you see outside the factories, selling sandwiches and coffee. In this case, job to job.”
“Where’s he
gettin
’ all these jobs?” McKeach said. “Every month or so, it seems like, puttin’ on more trucks.”
“Construction,” Rascob said. “We had this mild winter, right? Construction’s startin’ early. Last year they didn’t finish all the roadwork. Guess once the money gets there, carries over, year to year, ’til the job gets done. Plus which, got the naval air base closin’, down South Weymouth there, shopping center goin’ in. Means it’s just a matter ah time, demolition work gets started,
and then as soon as that gets finished, they start puttin’ up the stores.
“Comin’ down or goin’ up—all the same to Jackie. You bring those crews in, get ’em workin’, gotta have their coffee, Coca-Cola, bottled water, usually three times a day. The two breaks, morning, afternoon, and then once a day they stop, let ’em have a meal. These guys make good money, want a solid meal for lunch? Lots of them don’t wanna bother, bringin’ it from home. They do, somebody’s got to make it, right? Most of them, wives also workin’, don’t want to get up early making sandwiches their lunch.”
“And they then buy our stuff too,” McKeach said.
“Jackie says his trucks didn’t have the stuff on paydays, be another fleet of trucks pullin’ in right behind him, ‘Pretty soon those guys’d be sellin’ coffee too. It’s a commodity now, like the Nabs and Drake’s Pound Cake. The way you get the stops is by bein’ reliable, on time, with good product. No excuses—truck broke down; the snow’s too deep; your route guy’s got the flu? You show up with ah coffee, Winstons and Marlboros. Fresh. Scratch tickets with the games they want. Bread inna sandwiches an’ stuff is
fresh
.
Always
. Never missin’ a beat. Every day, day in, day out, truck is there on time. Boss on the job won’t be makin’ calls day after day—“Where the fuck’s the guy the truck? My guys’re goin’ apeshit here. Where the hell’s your man?” If he’s
my
man, his truck’s
there
, and what those guys want is
on
it.’ ”
“Including the stuff,” McKeach said.
“So he says,” Rascob said. “He’s sellin’ benzos for two bucks a pill, his guys on the trucks. They sell three for eight to the guys on the job. Who then turn around and sell them to
their
friends that they
work
with for
four
bucks apiece. ‘And some of
them
then turn it around.’ This’s what he can’t get over. ‘They buy more than they know they’ll use so they can sell it onnah street for six, eight bucks a
pop
.” ’
“Jesus Christ,” McKeach said. “Many times I hear it, I’ll never get over it.”
“ ‘Strictly supply, demand,’ he says,” Rascob said. “ ‘Think about this, if you want, what the hell is goin’ on. The market’s not for
anything
. Nothing owns the market. It’s not for crack, not pot, not heroin; not hash, not coke, not ecstasy; Darvon, Demerol, or Dilaudid; knockouts or Special K. Whatever’s around—that’s what the market’s for, and I mean
anything
. You had a fuckin’ smorgasbord, all right? As much of any kind of drugs anyone could want? Choice’d be the benzos. But if capsules aren’t around, then the Darvon and Dilaudid, and the bags of marching powder. You got guys that look like they could tangle assholes with a buncha
paratroopers
, come out on the winning side? There they are takin’ Halcion like housewives with the screamin’-meemies. Buspar and Xanax—made for people with anxiety, and here’re these muscle builders fightin’ jackhammers all day, got arms on them like trees, and they’re
woofin
’ ’em down, fifty and a hundred times the normal dose. Wash ’em down with a ball and a beer. CC and a Coors Light on a fistful of Valium. You don’t have to fly to Florida see the magic kingdom.’ ”
“So, we need more stuff,” McKeach said.
“From what Jackie tells me,” Rascob said, “we will
always
need more stuff. No matter how much we get.”
“So then this after,” McKeach said, “you leave here, you hafta go and see the Box.”
“You mean I got to go tah the office, count the money,” Rascob said.
“Right,” McKeach said, “you got to go the fuckin’ office, an’ you count ah fuckin’ money. Don’t need me to tell you that, you count ah fuckin’ money. You need me for is to tell you—
after
you count the fuckin’ money, then you go and see the Box.”
Rascob sighed. “Mack,” he said, “I hate doin’ that. I hate goin’ to the Box.”
“So do I,” McKeach said grimly, “but I’m the boss, and that’s why you hafta go.”
“Maybe he won’t be home,” Rascob said.
“He’ll be home,” McKeach said. “He works at home. He’s in demand. You’ll be lucky all he does is make you wait.”
E
MMETT
N
AUGHTON
FOR
THE
FOURTH
or fifth time wearing “one of my fancy new outfits”—well-cut dark grey Donegal tweed jacket, a soft wool grey shirt open at the collar and dark grey flannel pants, all purchased by his wife, Caroline, on Nassau Street in Dublin; and tasseled black Bally loafers; she bought those on Grafton Street—knew that even in good clothes that fitted, he still looked like a man out of uniform and uncomfortable that way.
Caroline had thought that the first time he wore any of the new clothes—“Oh, dear, still not quite ready to think about making the change.” But she kept it to herself. The next time she talked to her sister, Marybeth, she said she realized lots of men love their jobs “just as much as Em does—they
are
what they do. So
of course
they find it hard, transitioning retirement. But he’s going to be a handful. Ever since the mandatory age was knocked out, he thinks if he keeps putting it off in his own mind, the day’ll never come.
“Seventy’s what he’s saying now, but he won’t be ready when he’s
ninety
, if he lives that long. He’s
never
going to be ready. You know how often you’ve heard him say he was ‘born to be a cop.’
I think he’s determined to be one the day he dies—and not a
retired
cop, either.”
To him she said that maybe he could somehow persuade Matty at the barbershop to leave his hair “a little fuller, that might help a little.”
“You mean ‘a little
longer
,” ’ Naughton said. “Fuller’d be
better
, and Matty’s a hell of a barber, but fuller’s not within his powers. And if he
did
leave it longer, then when I’m in uniform I’d look uncomfortable, and for the selfsame reason—then
the uniform
wouldn’t look right. So I wouldn’t feel right. No, day comes when I decide, let them retire me, ten-eleven years from now, more important for me to feel right in the uniform than to feel right out of it.”
With Jim Dowd, some years his junior, feeling the elder’s obligation to transmit wisdom he’d acquired on his own, he allowed himself to be more forthright. “Seen it happen, time and again—men I started working for. They moved up? I moved up too—no coincidence. Their time came to hang it up, they’d get this hangdog expression—tricked into havin’ their balls cut off. ‘Someday,’ they’d always said; thinkin’
they’d
get to decide later, ‘someday’ ever came. Didn’t mean that; meant someone else’d make that decision for them, and had, and now
someday
’d come.
“Probably true in any line of work, it’s sure true in law enforcement. The more a man loves it, better he gets at it. Better he gets at it, harder it is, put it aside. For
anything
—two weeks’ vacation, or a weekend with the family. Much less think about walking away from it forever;
staying
away? Sees himself getting older; pretty soon he’s gonna
die
.
“Then all of a sudden, day arrives—he’s
gone
. Comes as a jolt.
“Early part of his career, it’s all right. Home with the wife and family. His wife’s a good girl and she wants him to be happy, and he is. She sees his dedication, and it does have its rewards. Rank
means more money. Seniority? A desk job. Less hazardous duty; better chance when he goes out the door in the morning, next time she sees him is, he comes back in that night. Not onna slab with a sheet over him—some young punk put a bullet in him. Or caught a breadknife in the belly from a husband and a wife perfectly happy fighting with each other, until he showed up and got between them. Plus the better hours—and, let’s not forget, more pay.
“Policemen’s wives—and husbands, too,
and
domestic partners as well, mustn’t leave them out—fine and dedicated lot, salt of the earth. Taking nothing away from them when I say I’ve yet to meet a policeman’s wife who didn’t like to see him bringing home a bigger paycheck.
“But still, the more successful the man is in his job, because he loves it, more his wife comes to see it as her rival. Gradually, over the years, she begins to compete with it, to fight it. She
tolerates
the fact that it takes him away from her—she
says
‘all that time it takes from his family,’ but she really means ‘from me.’ So if you see him fairly regularly doing something else that doesn’t involve her—
every day
you see him doing it and he’s as happy as can be—you still have to understand it’s only because she’s
lettin
’ him. And also understand that somewhere down the line when she thinks he’s had about enough fun, going off by himself, doing things that don’t involve her, she’s gonna put her foot down and that’ll be the end of it.
“Control’s what it’s about. When
she
decides there’s been enough of his horsin’ around—stamping out crime and making the world safe for democracy, whatever the hell he’s been doing—then forever and after he’s going to do what
she
wants. And that’s all, and that is
it
.
“Which, naturally … most men who’ve gotten used to command, exercising power over other people, been doing it for years, the idea of someone else who’s not even a
cop
, a superior
officer, telling them what to do all the time, when and where they’re gonna do it—their own
wife
? Does not appeal to them.
“Maybe
especially
their own wife. Mere
idea’s
embarrassing.
“Husbands don’t like it, kind of supervision shit—and so they fight back. That’s why you’ll see old doctors, old dentists, old lawyers—all kinds of old men who got that way running their own businesses, forty, fifty years, still going to work every day. Money’s not the issue; they’ve got all of that they need. They’re still at their desks because they hadda close look at their older friends, retired; saw how miserable they were; figured out in
their
jobs, nobody could kick them out or drag ’em out. So they didn’t leave.
“And those wives who were so keen on their husbands getting through—they don’t like their men retiring either, once they’ve tried it for a while. That’s why you see so many stories in the paper all the time, letters, all these women writing in—husbands, sick, retired, always underfoot. In the way all the time, giving orders; trying to run everything around the house—which the women always ran before any way they liked because the boys were off at work. And then the other women writing in, tell them to stop complaining—least their husbands’re
alive
, get in their way and take them ballroom dancing and give them a little cuddle now and then—don’t hear much about that nasty sex stuff, though, except now and then there will be one, speaks for all the rest of them—‘Thank God
that’s
over with,’ and the day the old goat comes home with any of that Viagra stuff’s the day she’s out the door—because the women who’re now writing in to tell them to shut up, their husbands’re dead, and if they knew then? They’d be lightin’ the big candles in the sanctuary every single blessed day.
“Caroline’s the light of my life and the mother of my childen and I’ll always love her dearly, but I’m putting retirement off as
long as I possibly can. I know what it’s gonna be like—I am not lookin’ forward to it. Even now, still years away, every so often I catch her warming up the engine when she thinks I’m not lookin’, payin’ attention, gettin’ ready, run my life soon’s I turn in the badge. Suppose it hasta come someday, but I’m not lookin’ forward to it. Could also be the day I start to see the end of my marriage comin’.”
Except on ceremonial occasions, Detective Lieutenant Inspector James Dowd of the Special Investigations Bureau, Massachusetts State Police had been wearing plain clothes on the job for nineteen years. Arriving a few minutes late meeting Naughton for one of their very occasional lunches at the Terrace, on Soldier Field Road between Harvard Stadium on the Boston side of the Charles River, he thanked Eileen, the hostess, for showing him to Naughton’s table. “Never would’ve recognized him, all decked out like this.”