Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition) by George V. Higgins Page B

“So, you only lost about thirty-two, forty-two hundred on it. Bloom give you what Mike cost you?”
    â€œNope,” Barry said.
    The Cadillac went into the Terrace Hotel garage.
    â€œNope,” Steve said. “You ask him for it?”
    â€œNope,” Barry said.
    â€œSure,” Steve said. He parked the LTD half a blockfrom the garage and turned off the ignition. “So, you almost go to jail again, and you spent on that what I spent on this car. That’s what I mean. Sooner or later you’re gonna have to start picking your spots, like I do. Otherwise you’re gonna spend the rest of your life tryin’ to get out of things that you shouldn’t’ve got into in the first place, and you’re never gonna have nothin’.”
    â€œLook,” Barry said, “okay, you got all this talk and shit for me, lemme ask you this: you’re doing so good, how come you’re still going out and beating guys up, huh?”
    â€œIt’s not the money,” Steve said. “You wanna see how much money I got on me, right this minute?” He moved on the seat, reaching for his wallet.
    â€œNo,” Barry said.
    Steve relaxed. “I got twenty-one hundred bucks on me right this minute,” he said. “I don’t owe nickel one on this car and I sent Rita’s check to her the other day. No, I’m doing a favor for a guy. This thing come up, Jackie’s done some things for me when I couldn’t do them.…”
    â€œJackie don’t beat guys up,” Barry said.
    â€œNo,” Steve said, “but there’s things that Jackie does do, you know? There’s other things inna world that guys do besides going around and doing things to other guys, Barry. You wouldn’t know that because the only thing you ever thought about was how you could grab a fast hundred and never mind what you’re doing on the long run. Jackie gimme that thing, when he was getting away from the machines he had in the locations on Route 9, there. He didn’t have to do that.”
    â€œHe couldn’t handle it himself, though,” Barry said.
    â€œNo, he couldn’t,” Steve said. “But he didn’t have to give it to me. He didn’t have to say to the guys, ‘Now,I want you to give this thing to Stevie, he’s a good guy.’ But he did. So, if Jackie asks me to do him a favor, and I can get a fast hundred out of it for my dumb brother, I’m gonna do it.”
    â€œI can use the dough,” Barry said. He lit a Winchester cigar.
    â€œWhy’re you smoking those fucking things?” Steve said.
    â€œBecause they’re not gonna kill me as fast,” Barry said.
    Steve lit an L&M. “Well,” he said, “you inhale them, don’t you?”
    â€œSome times I forget and then I do,” Barry said. “Not very often, though. It’s like swallowing fuckin’ fire when you do it.”
    â€œSure,” Steve said, “and you’re not gonna tell me, there isn’t more shit in them’re these.”
    â€œShit,” Barry said, “I mean, how long’ve we been smoking?”
    â€œI started when I was twelve,” Steve said.
    â€œOkay,” Barry said, “and I was a big asshole then just like I am now, I did everything you told me to do, so I was eleven. So, I mean, I been smoking close to thirty years, it’s probably not gonna make much difference now anyway. Ginny was after me about it, I smoked them Omegas for a while. I did them, and then there was that other kind of thing there.”
    â€œBetween the Acts,” Steve said. “I can’t figure them things out, I never could. They smell just like anything else, when you’re the guy that’s smoking them. But when you’re the guy that’s with the guy that’s smoking them, you’d swear the bastard spent the whole day burning a cat or something.”
    â€œYeah,” Barry said.