Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition) by George V. Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

a wild thing, I guess,” Frankie said. “You know how it is, a guy wants to tell you, he tells you. He didn’t tell me. But the way I get it, him and another guy, they decided to go after this drugstore, you know? All-night drugstore. Well, it was one of them guys that the boogeys’re always after and he hadda gun in there and there was a whole mess of shit. Started shooting and everything, after they got the stuff, and the guy that was with Russell, well, I dunno. They both had the same kind of guns and I think probably what Russell did, he probably swapped guns. See the guy in the drugstore got hit, but he took the guy that was with Russell out on the way. Anyway, Russell goes on trial and it was the dead guy that got all the shit, put Russell up to it and everything. Russell’s just a clown that went along with something hedidn’t understand and look at his war record and everything. Which I guess was pretty good. So he come out of it a lot better’n he would’ve, otherwise.”
    â€œYou’re sure he’s not gonna go into this stoned,” Amato said.
    â€œHe’s not on anything big,” Frankie said. “You heard the guy. He’s a very savvy guy. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what it does. He don’t take nothing he can’t handle.”
    â€œYou wanna be sure,” Amato said. “Guys that go around robbing drugstores, they’re not always guys that’re just after money. Some times they’re hurting and they need something and they haven’t got no other way, they can get it. And they need it. A guy like that, he can’t live without it, he doesn’t get it, you know?”
    â€œLook,” Frankie said, “Russell’s a motorcycle nut. That’s all. The first month I knew the guy, all he ever did was piss and moan, he hadda sell this fuckin’ monster bike, he had a Munch, one of them Mammoths? He hadda sell the bike, pay his fuckin’ lawyer. If there’s a bike in this, no, I wouldn’t take Russell. He’d go hairy-assed apeshit the minute he came in. The stuff? He uses the stuff. That’s all. He’s not hooked.”
    â€œBecause one thing,” Amato said, “one thing we really don’t need on this is a guy that’s going to go in there and start something off and get some guy. Because then they’ll have to report it and that’s when everybody’s inna shit up to his eyeballs. If Markie, Markie did this before. He was gonna do it again, he’d be just as careful as the last time, get some guys that’d go about it in the right way. These guys’re his customers. He wants them robbed, not hit. He wants them back again, they get time to think about it and forget it happened.”
    â€œHe’ll be all right,” Frankie said.
    â€œI hope you’re right,” Amato said. “Now, the other thing is, this thing’s gotta move, all right?”
    â€œAll right with me,” Frankie said. “I don’t do something pretty soon, I’m gonna have to go back and knock onna gate and say: ‘Lemme back in. I can’t think of nothing and it’s starting to get cold.’ ”
    â€œBecause it’s just a matter of time,” Amato said, “some other fresh bastard’s gonna think of it and then it’s gone and we haven’t got the money.”
    â€œNo trouble,” Frankie said. “I’m starving and he’s got to go some place pretty soon with them dogs, and like I say, I don’t get my ass in gear pretty soon, I might as well kiss it good-bye. You got the stuff?”
    â€œA car,” Amato said. “The kids Connie got, most of them’re stupid enough, but there’s one of them, probably if he started to get wet and he was outdoors, he’d go inside. I know where there’s a nice Chrysler. I think he can get it without hot-wiring his balls. I got two thirty-eights, which