The Friends of Eddie Coyle (6 page)

“Fuck you,” Dillon said.

“Hey look,” Dave said. “There isn’t anything going on. You can talk all you want, but the grand jury’s got you guys up so tight you’re choking on it. By the end of the week, Artie Van’s going to be shining shoes or selling papers or maybe pimping or something. You oughta get unemployment.”

“Cut it out,” Dillon said.

“All right,” Dave said, “that was a cheap shot. I apologize. But there isn’t anything going on.”

“There’s something going on,” Dillon said.

“Bunch of the boys getting together to watch dirty movies?” Dave said.

“You want the truth?” Dillon said. “I don’t know what it is. People’re sort of avoiding me. But something’s going on. Guys calling up asking for guys that aren’t there. I don’t know what it is, but they got something going.”

“Here’s twenty,” Dave said. “Who’s calling up?”

“Remember Eddie Fingers?” Dillon said.

“Vividly,” Dave said. “Who’s he looking for?”

“Jimmy Scalisi,” Dillon said.

“Is that so,” Dave said. “And does he find him?”

“I dunno,” Dillon said. “I’m just a messenger boy.”

“They give you numbers,” Dave said.

“Telephone numbers,” Dillon said. “I got a liquor license. I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

“You work for a guy that’s got a liquor license,” Dave said. “Ever see him? You’re a convicted felon.”

“You know how it is,” Dillon said. “I work for a guy with a liquor license. I forget sometimes.”

“Want to forget this?” Dave said.

“I’d just as soon,” Dillon said.

“Merry Christmas,” Dave said.

Samuel T. Partridge, having heard his wife and children descend the stairs, their bathrobes swishing on the Oriental runner, the little girls discussing nursery school, his son murmuring about breakfast, showered lazily and shaved. He dressed himself and went downstairs for eggs and coffee.

In the family room beyond the kitchen he saw his children standing close together next to the Boston rocker. His wife sat in the Boston rocker. All of their faces were blank. Three men sat on the couch. They wore blue nylon windbreakers over their upper bodies, and nylon stockings pulled down over their faces. Each of them held a revolver in his hand.

“Daddy, Daddy,” his son said.

“Mr. Partridge,” the man nearest him said. His features were frighteningly distorted by the nylon. “You are the first vice president of the First Agricultural and Commercial Bank and Trust
Company. We are going to the bank, you and I and my friend here. My other friend will stay here with your wife and children, to make sure nothing happens to them. Nothing will happen to them, and nothing will happen to you, if you do what I tell you. If you don’t, at least one of you will be shot. Understand?”

Sam Partridge swallowed both his rage and the sudden gout of phlegm that rose into his throat. “I understand,” he said.

“Get your coat,” the first man said.

Sam Partridge kissed his wife on the forehead. He kissed each of his children. He said: “Don’t be afraid, everything will be all right. Do what Mummy tells you. It’ll be all right.” Tears ran down his wife’s cheeks. “Now, now,” he said. “They don’t want to hurt us, it’s money they want.” She started in his arms.

“He’s right,” the first man said. “We don’t get any kicks at all from hurting people. It’s the money. Nobody does anything silly, nobody gets hurt. Let’s go to the bank, Mr. Partridge.”

In the driveway behind the house there was a nondescript blue Ford sedan. Two men sat in the front seat. Each of them wore a nylon stocking over his head, and a blue windbreaker. Sam Partridge got into the back seat. The men from the house sat on each side of him. The driver said: “You sleep late, Mr. Partridge. We been waiting a long time.”

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” Sam Partridge said.

The man who talked in the house took charge of the conversation. “I know how you feel,” he said. “I understand you’re a brave man. Don’t try to prove it. The man you’re talking to has killed at least two people that I know about. I don’t say what I’ve done. Just keep calm and be sensible. It isn’t your money. It’s all insured. We want the money. We don’t want to hurt anybody. We will, but we don’t want to. Are you going to be reasonable?”

Sam Partridge said nothing.

“I am going to gamble that you’re going to be reasonable,” the spokesman said. He took a blue silk kerchief from his jacket pocket and handed it to Sam Partridge. “I want you to fold this and put it over your eyes for a blindfold. I’ll tie it for you. Then sit down on the floor of the car here.”

The Ford began to move as Sam Partridge squirmed down between the seats. “Don’t try to see anything,” the spokesman said. “We have to take these stockings off until we get to the bank. When we get there, you just be patient until we get dressed up again. We’ll go in the back door, the way you always do. You and I will stay together. Don’t be concerned about my friends. Just tell your people not to unlock the front door and not to pull the curtains. We will wait until the time lock opens. My friends will take care of the vault. We will come back to this car when we’ve finished. You will explain to your people that they are not to call the police. You will tell them why they are not going to call the police. I know it’s uncomfortable, but you will ride back to your house the same way you are now. We will get my friend at your house. When we get a safe distance away, we will let you go. Right now we don’t plan to hit you on the head, but we will if you make us. Otherwise we don’t plan to hurt you or anybody else, unless somebody fucks up. What you said was right: we want the money. Understood?”

Sam Partridge said nothing.

“You make life hard for me,” the man said. “Since I have the pistol, that is not a good idea. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Sam Partridge said.

In the bank, Mrs. Greenan sobbed quietly as Sam Partridge explained the situation.

“Tell them about the alarm,” the spokesman said.

“In a few minutes,” Sam said, “the time lock on the vault will open. These men will take what they came for. I will then leave with them. We will return to my house. There is another man at my house, with my family. We will pick him up and leave. This man has told me that my family won’t be hurt and that I will not be hurt if no one interferes with them. They will release me when they are satisfied that they have gotten away. I have no choice but to believe that they will do what they say. So I ask you, all of you, not to set off the alarms.”

“Tell them to sit down on the floor,” the spokesman said.

“Please sit down on the floor,” Sam said. Mrs. Greenan and the others sat awkwardly.

“Go over to the vault,” the spokesman said.

Next to the door to the vault, Sam Partridge had his field of vision contracted to include only two objects. There was a small clock set into the steel door of the vault. It stood at forty-five minutes past eight. There was no second hand. The minute hand did not appear to be moving. Eighteen inches away from the clock, down two feet from its eye-level location, there was the black-gloved hand of the spokesman. It held, very steadily, a heavy revolver. Sam saw that there was some kind of a rib on the barrel, and that the handle was molded out to cover the top of the hand that held it. He saw touches of gold inside the black metal of the cylinders. The hammer of the revolver was drawn back to full cock. The minute hand did not seem to have moved.

“What time does it open?” the spokesman said quietly.

“Eight-forty-eight,” Sam said absently.

In July they had taken the children to New Hampshire and rented a cottage on a palette-shaped pond north of Centerville.
They had rented a boat one morning, an aluminum rowboat, with a small motor, and he had taken the children fishing while his wife slept. Around eleven they had come in because his son wanted to go to the bathroom. They beached the rowboat and the children ran up the gravel slope to the tall grass, and through the tall grass in the sunshine to the cabin. Sam had removed a string of four pickerel from the boat and placed it on the gravel. He had bent back to lift out the rods and the tackle box and the thermos of milk and the sweaters. He straightened up with the articles and turned toward where he had placed the fish.

On the loose gravel of the shore, perhaps a foot from the stringer of fish, a thick brown timber rattler was coiled. Its head was perhaps a foot off the ground. The rattles of its tail lay drooped against one of its fat coils. It had been swimming; its smooth, textured body was wet, and it glistened in the sun. The patterns of brown and black repeated themselves regularly along the skin. The eyes of the snake were glossy and dark. Its delicate black tongue flickered out, without a discernible opening of its jaws. The skin beneath the jaws was creamy. The sun had fallen comfortably warm upon the thick snake and upon Sam, who was repeatedly chilled, and he and the snake had remained motionless, except for the snake’s black, delicate tongue which flickered in and out from time to time, for several lifetimes. Sam had begun to feel faint. The position in which he had frozen, almost erect, with the children’s articles and the tackle in his hands, made his muscles ache. The snake appeared relaxed. It made no sound. Sam could think of nothing but his uncertainty; he did not know whether rattlers struck without rattling. Again and again he reminded himself that it made no difference, that the snake could easily satisfy any such ritual quickly enough to hit
him before he could get away. Again and again the question nagged at him. “Now look,” he had said at last to the snake, “you can have the goddamned fish. You hear me? You can have them.”

The snake had remained in the same position for a time. Then its coils had begun to straighten. Sam had decided to try to jump if it came toward him. He knew that it could swim faster than he in the water, and he had no weapon. The snake completely controlled the situation. The snake turned slowly on the gravel, its weight rubbing the pebbles against each other. It proceeded up the slope, diagonally away from the cabin. In a while it was gone, and Sam, his body aching, rested the articles on the seats of the boat, and began to tremble.

The spokesman said: “What time does it say now?”

Sam swung his eyes back from the black revolver to the clock. “It doesn’t seem to move,” he said. “Eight forty-seven, I think. It really isn’t much good for telling time. All it does is show the mechanism is working, really.”

When he had told his wife about the snake, she had wanted to leave at once and give up the four days remaining on the cabin rental. And he had said: “We’ve been here what, nine days? That snake’s been here all his life, and he’s big enough so it’s been a long time. There’s probably a snake somewhere else in New England, too. The children haven’t gotten bitten so far. There’s no reason to think he’s going to get more aggressive between now and Saturday. We can’t spend our lives in Ireland just because the kids might get bitten by a snake some time.” They had stayed. But they had noticed themselves picking their way through the long grass, and watching carefully where they stepped on the gravel, and when they were in the water, Sam was constantly watching for the small head and the thick shiny coils in the blue pond.

“Do you want to try it now?” the spokesman said. “Or does it set off the alarm if you try it before the set time?”

“No,” Sam said. “It just doesn’t open. But there’s a click when it hits the set time. There isn’t any use in trying it until you hear that click.”

There was a dry snap inside the door of the safe. “There it is,” Sam said. He began to turn the wheel.

The spokesman said: “When you get it open, move over toward the desks there, so I can watch you and the rest of them at the same time.”

Sam stood near his own desk, staring at the pictures of his family, pictures that he had taken. There was a Zenith desk set with two pens and an AM-FM radio in the front center area; his wife had given it to him for company when he had to work late. Yesterday’s
Wall Street Journal
lay folded on the near corner of the desk. Mrs. Greenan collected the mail each morning and brought him the
Journal
before sorting the rest of it. Her routine had been interrupted. She would be helpless all day. In the morning, regular customers would be calling to inquire about their deposits and withdrawals, because the tickets and checks would not arrive when expected. No, that was not correct: there would be something in the papers about this, something on television.

The other two men converged from the positions they had taken up in the bank. Each of them produced a bright green plastic bag from under his coat, and shook it out. They went into the vault. They did not speak. The black revolver remained steady.

The other two men emerged from the vault. They placed the green plastic bags on the floor. One of them produced another
bag and shook it out. He went back into the vault. The second man drew his gun and nodded.

The spokesman said: “When he comes out, you remind your people about the alarm. Then tell them there is going to be some shooting, but no one’s going to get hurt. I’m going to have to take out those cameras you got there.”

“Why do you bother?” Sam said. “Those are for people who cash bad checks that you ordinarily don’t notice in the course of business. Everybody in here’s been staring at you guys for the past ten minutes. They can’t identify you. Why take the chance? There’s a drugstore next door and he’s open by now. If you think this place is soundproof, it isn’t. You start shooting and you’ll bring somebody for sure.”