The Drop

  From the kitchen phone, Marv called the Deeds kid to see when he planned to head over to the bar and was shocked and sickened to hear that he was already there and had been for an hour.

  “The fuck are you doing?” he said.

  “Where else am I going to be?” Deeds said.

  “Home. So nobody gets a good look at you until you, you know, rob the fucking place.”

  “No one ever notices me,” Eric said, “so don’t worry about it.”

  “I just don’t get it,” Marv said.

  “Get what?”

  “This was so simple—you show up at the designated time, do the thing, and leave. Why can’t anyone just stick to a fucking plan in this world anymore? Your generation, you all pack your assholes with ADD before you leave the house every morning?”

  Marv went to the fridge for another beer.

  Deeds said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m in his head.”

  “Whose head?”

  “Bob’s.”

  “If you were in that guy’s head you’d be screaming, and you’re not screaming.” Marv cracked the beer. He softened his voice a bit. Better to have a chilled-out partner than one who thought you were pissed at him. “Look, I know what he seems like, but I shit you not, do not fuck with that man. Just leave him alone and don’t call attention to yourself.”

  “Oh,” Eric said, “so what am I supposed to do for the next couple hours?”

  “You’re in a bar. Don’t drink too fucking much, stay frosty, and I’ll see you at two in the alley. That sound like a plan?”

  Eric’s laughter came through the receiver strained and girlish at the same time, like he was laughing at a joke no one else could hear and no one else would get if they could.

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said and hung up.

  Marv stared at his phone. Kids these days. It was like on that day in school when they taught personal responsibility, this entire fucking generation had banged in sick.

  ONCE THE GAME ENDED, the crowd grew a lot thinner, though those that stayed were louder, drunker, and left bigger messes in the bathroom.

  After a while, even they started to fade. Rardy passed out by the pool table and his friends dragged him out of there, one of them shooting Bob apologetic looks the whole way.

  Bob glanced over at Eric and Nadia from time to time, still sitting at the same cocktail table, talking. Every time he did, Bob felt more and more diminished. If he glanced over there enough times, he’d vanish.

  After four Stolis, Eric finally went to the bathroom, and Nadia walked up to the bar.

  Bob leaned on the bartop. “Are you with him?”

  Nadia said, “What?”

  Bob said, “Are you? Just tell me.”

  Nadia, “Good God, what? No. No, I’m not with him. No, no, no. Bob? I show up at my house this afternoon, he’s waiting in my kitchen with a gun in his waistband like it’s Silverado. Says I gotta come with him to see you.”

  Bob wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe her so hard it could shatter his teeth; they’d shoot out of his mouth, spray all over the bar. He got a good look in her eyes finally, saw something he still couldn’t fully identify—but it definitely wasn’t excitement or smugness or the bitter smile of a victor. Maybe something worse than all of that—despair.

  Bob said, “I can’t do this alone.”

  Nadia said, “Do what?”

  Bob said, “It’s too hard, you know? I’ve been serving this . . . sentence for ten years—every fucking day—because I thought somehow it’d square me when I got to the other side, ya know? I’d get to see my ma and my old man, stuff like that? But I don’t think I’ll be forgiven. I don’t think I should be. But, but I’m supposed to be alone on the other side and on this one too?”

  “No one’s supposed to be alone. Bob?” She put her hand on his. Just a second, but it was enough. It was enough. “No one.”

  Eric came out of the bathroom and worked his way up to the bar. He jerked a thumb at Nadia. “Be a hot shit and grab our drinks off the table, would ya?”

  Bob walked off to settle a tab.

  BY ONE-FORTY-FIVE, THE CROWD was gone, just Eric, Nadia, and Millie, who’d amble off to the assisted-living place up on Edison Green by one-fifty-five on the dot. She asked for her ashtray and Bob slid it down to her and she nursed her drink and her cigarette in equal measure, the ash curling off the end of her cigarette like a talon.

  Eric gave Bob an all-teeth smile and spoke through it, softly. “When’s the old biddy pack it in?”

  “A couple minutes.” Bob said, “Why’d you bring her?”

  Eric looked over at Nadia hunched on the stool beside him. He leaned into the bar. “You should know how serious I am, Bob.”

  “I know how serious you are.”

  “You think you do, but you don’t. If you fuck with me—even in the slightest—it doesn’t matter how long it takes me, I’ll rape the shit out of her. And if you got any plans, like Eric-doesn’t-walk-back-out-of-here plans? You got any ideas in that vein, Bob, my partner on the Richie Whelan hit, he’ll take care of you both.”

  Eric sat back as Millie left the same tip she’d been leaving since Sputnik—a quarter—and slid off her stool. She gave Bob a rasp that was 10 percent vocal cords and 90 percent Virginia Slim Ultra Light 100s. “Yeah, I’m off.”

  “You take care, Millie.”

  She waved it away with a “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and pushed open the door.

  Bob locked it behind her and came back behind the bar. He wiped down the bar top. When he reached Eric’s elbows, he said, “Excuse me.”

  “Go around.”

  Bob wiped the rag in a half circle around Eric’s elbows.

  “Who’s your partner?” Bob said.

  “Wouldn’t be much of a threat if you knew who he was, would he, Bob?”

  “But he helped you kill Richie Whelan?”

  Eric said, “That’s the rumor, Bob.”

  “More than a rumor.” Bob wiped in front of Nadia, saw red marks on her wrists where Eric had yanked them. He wondered if there were other marks he couldn’t see.

  “Well then it’s more than a rumor, Bob. So there you go.”

  “There you go what?”

  “There you go.” Eric scowled. “What time is it, Bob?”

  Bob reached under the bar. He came back out with the ten thousand dollars wrapped in the bag. He unwrapped the bag, pulled the money out, and put it on the bar in front of Eric.

  Eric glanced down. “What’s this?”

  Bob said, “The ten grand you wanted.”

  “For what, again?”

  “The dog.”

  “The dog. Right, right, right,” Eric whispered. He looked up. “How much for Nadia, though?”

  Bob said, “So it’s like that.”

  “Appears to be,” Eric said. “Let’s just all chill a couple more minutes, then get a look in the safe at two.”

  Bob turned and selected a bottle of Polish vodka. Picked the best one actually—the Orkisz. Poured himself a drink. Drank it down. Thought of Marv and poured himself another, a double this time.

  He said to Eric Deeds, “You know Marv used to have a problem with the blow about ten years ago?”

  “I did not know that, Bob.”

  “You don’t have to call me by my name all the time.”

  “I will see what I can do about that, Bob.”

  “Anyway, yeah, Marv liked the coke too much and it caught up with him.”

  “Getting close to two here, Bob.”

  “He was more of a loan shark then. I mean, he did some fence, but mostly, he was a shark. There was this kid? Into Marv for a shitload of money. Real hopeless case when it came to the dogs and basketball. Kinda kid could never pay back all he owed.”

  “One-fifty-seven, Bob.”

  “The thing, though? This kid, he actually hit on a slot at Mohegan. Hit for seventeen grand. Which is just a little more than he owed Marv.”

  “And he didn’t pay Marv back, so
you and Marv got all hard on him and I’m supposed to learn—”

  “No, no. He paid Marv. Paid him every cent. What the kid didn’t know, though, was that Marv had been skimming. Because of the coke habit? And this kid’s money was like manna from heaven as long as no one knew it was from this kid. See what I’m saying?”

  “Bob, it’s fucking one minute to two.” Sweat on Eric’s lip.

  “Do you see what I’m saying?” Bob asked. “Do you understand the story?”

  Eric looked at the door to make sure it was locked. “Fine, yeah. This kid, he had to be ripped off.”

  “He had to be killed.”

  Out of the side of his eye, a quick glance. “Okay, killed.”

  “That way, he couldn’t ever say he paid off Marv and no one else could either. Marv uses the money to cover all the holes, he cleans up his act, it’s like it never happened. So that’s what we did.”

  “You did . . .” Eric barely in the conversation, but some warning in his head starting to sound, his head turning from the clock toward Bob.

  “Killed him in my basement,” Bob said. “Know what his name was?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Bob.”

  “Sure you would.”

  “Jesus?” Eric smiled.

  Bob didn’t. “Richie Whelan.”

  Bob reached under the bar and pulled out the 9mm. He didn’t notice the safety was on, so when he pulled the trigger nothing happened. Eric jerked his head and tried to push back from the bar rail, but Bob thumbed off the safety and shot Eric just below the throat. The gunshot sounded like a slat of aluminum siding being torn off a house. Nadia screamed. Not a long scream, but sharp with shock. Eric made a racket falling back off his stool and by the time Bob came around the bar, Eric was already going, if not quite gone. The overhead fan cast thin slices of shadow over his face. His cheeks puffed in and out like he was trying to catch his breath and kiss somebody at the same time.

  “I’m sorry, but you kids,” Bob said. “You know? You don’t have any manners. You go out of the house dressed like you’re still in your living room. You say terrible things about women. You hurt harmless dogs. I’m tired of you, man.”

  Eric stared up at him. Winced like he had heartburn. He looked pissed off. Frustrated. The look froze on his face like it was sewn there, and then he wasn’t in his body anymore. Just gone. Just, shit, dead.

  Bob dragged him into the cooler.

  When he came back, pushing the mop and bucket ahead of him, Nadia still sat on her stool. Her mouth was a bit wider than usual and she couldn’t take her eyes off the floor where the blood was, but otherwise, she seemed perfectly normal.

  “He would have just kept coming,” Bob said. “Once someone takes something from you and you let them? They don’t feel gratitude, they just feel like you owe them something more.” He soaked the mop in the bucket, wrung it out a bit, and slopped it over the main blood spot. “Makes no sense, right? But that’s how they feel. Entitled. And you can never change their minds after that.”

  She said, “He . . . You just fucking shot him. You just . . . I mean, you know?”

  Bob swirled the mop over the spot. “He beat my dog.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Last Call

  MARV SAT UP THE street in his car, parked under the broken streetlamp where no one would notice him, and watched the girl come out of the bar alone and walk down the street in the other direction.

  Didn’t make a bit of fucking sense. Deeds should be out of there by now. Should have been out ten minutes ago. He saw movement by the window with the Pabst light and the light went off. But in the moment before it did, he’d seen the top of someone’s head.

  Bob. Only Bob was tall enough for his head to peek above that window. Eric Deeds would have had to take a running jump at that light chain. But Bob, Bob was big. Big and tall and way, way smarter than he let on most days and, fuck, just the kind of guy who could stick his Dudley Do-Right schnoz into things and mess them all up.

  That what you did, Bob? You fuck me up here? You ruin my shot?

  Marv looked at the bag on the seat beside him, the plane tickets peeking out of the front pocket like a middle finger.

  He decided the smart thing might be to drive around to the alley, sneak in through the back, and see what was what. He knew what was what, actually—Eric had failed to close the deal. In a moment of desperation, Marv had even called his cell ten minutes ago and got no answer.

  Of course there’d be no answer. He’s dead.

  He’s not dead, Marv argued. We’re past those days.

  You might be. Bob, on the other hand . . .

  Fuck it. Marv was going to drive around back, see what was fucking what. He put the car in drive, and his foot had just started to come off the gas when Chovka’s black Suburban drove past, the white van on its ass. Marv popped the shift back into park and slid himself down his seat. He watched over the dash as Chovka and Anwar and a few other guys climbed out of the vehicles. Everyone but Chovka carried rolling duffel bags. Even from this distance Marv could tell they were empty, the guys swinging them as they walked to the front door. Anwar knocked and they stood there, waiting, the breath puffing white from their mouths. Then the door opened and they let Chovka go in first before following him inside.

  Fuck, Marv thought. Fuck fuck fuck.

  He looked down at the plane tickets—it wasn’t going to do him much good to arrive in Bangkok the day after tomorrow without a dime to his name. The plan had been to leave with enough money that he could bribe his way over the border into Cambodia, work his way as far south as Kampuchea, where he figured no one would look. He had no exact idea why he figured no one would look there, just that if he were looking for himself, Kampuchea would be about the last place he’d expect to find him. The last place would be, like, Finland or Manchuria, someplace really cold, and maybe that would have been the best bet, the smartest play, but Marv had lived through so many New England winters he was pretty sure his right nostril and his left nut were permanently damaged by frostbite, so fuck going someplace cold.

  He looked back at the bar. If Eric was dead—and it sure seemed fucking probable at this point—then Bob had just saved the Umarov organization as well as every syndicate in the city millions of dollars. Millions. He’d be a fucking hero. Maybe they’d tip him a security fee. Chovka had always liked Bob because Bob sucked up so much. Maybe he’d give him as much as 5 percent. That would get Marv to Cambodia.

  So, okay, new plan. Wait for the Chechens to leave. Then go have a talk with Bob.

  He sat up a little taller in his seat, now that he had a plan. Though it occurred to him that he probably should have learned Thai. Or at least bought a book on the subject.

  Whatever. They’d have one at the airport.

  CHOVKA SAT AT THE bar and scrolled through RECENT CALLS on Eric Deeds’s cell phone. Bob stood behind the bar.

  Chovka turned the phone to Bob so he could see the number of a recent missed call.

  “You know that number?”

  Bob nodded.

  Chovka sighed. “I know that number too.”

  Anwar came out of the cooler, pulling a rolling duffel bag behind him.

  Chovka said, “He fit?”

  Anwar said, “We broke his legs. He fit fine.”

  Anwar dropped the bag full of Eric at the front door and waited.

  Chovka pocketed Eric’s phone, pulled out one of his own.

  The other Chechens came out of the back.

  George said, “We pack the money into kegs, boss. Dakka will be by, he say, another twenty minutes with the beer truck.”

  Chovka nodded. He was concentrating on his phone, texting away like a sixteen-year-old girl during school lunch. When he finished texting, he put the phone away and stared at Bob for a very long time. If Bob had to guess, he’d say the silence went on for three minutes, maybe four. Felt like two days. Not a soul moving in that bar, not a sound but that of six men breathing. Chovka stared into Bob’s eyes and then p
ast his eyes and over his heart and through his blood. Followed that blood through his lungs, through his brain, moved through Bob’s thoughts and then his memories like moving through the rooms of a house that might already be condemned.

  Chovka reached into his pocket. He placed an envelope on the bar. Raised his eyebrows at Bob.

  Bob opened the envelope. Inside were Celtic tickets.

  Chovka said, “They’re not floor seats but they are very good. They’re my seats.”

  Bob’s heart pumped again. His lungs filled with oxygen. “Oh. Wow. Thank you.”

  Chovka said, “I’ll drop off some more next week. I don’t go to all the games. There’s a lot of games, you know? I can’t get to all of them.”

  Bob said, “Sure.”

  Chovka read a message off his phone and began texting in response. “Got to give yourself an hour before the game to get there, an hour after because of the traffic.”

  Bob said, “Traffic can get bad.”

  Chovka said, “I tell Anwar, he says it’s not bad.”

  Anwar said, “It’s not like London.”

  Chovka was still texting. “What’s like London? Let me know if you enjoy them, Bob. He just came in?” He pocketed his phone, looked at Bob.

  Bob blinked. “Yeah. Right through the front door after I let Millie out.”

  Chovka said, “Put that gun in your face but you said, ‘Not tonight,’ eh?”

  Bob said, “I didn’t say anything.”

  Chovka mimed pulling a trigger. “Sure, you did. You said pop.” Chovka reached into his inside pocket again, came out with another envelope. It flapped open when he tossed it on the bar, thick with money. “My father want you to have this. The last time my father gave money to someone? Whoo. You honorary Umarov now, Bob.”