“Because this was your deal. You were the one vouched for Fish.”
“Bullshit,” Jo Jo said.
“You come to me, I was trying to do you a favor.
Don’t whine to me it didn’t work out.”
“You bastard,” Hasty said.
He turned off at Mass. Avenue and drove past Boston City Hospital. He didn’t like the city, and didn’t spend much time there. It took him two or three false turns to find Tremont Street and another ten minutes to find the block where Gino Fish had his storefront.
“You needa be careful about
this,” Jo Jo said. “That Vinnie Morris is a quick sonova bitch.”
“I thought you were a tough guy,”
Hasty said. “Are scred of these peopleT”
“No, but it don’t make no
sense,” Jo Io said, “go charging fucking in there?
Yelling and waving your arms, you :know?, ,
“The goddamned fairy took my
money,” Hasty said.
“The Horsemen’s money. If I have
to I’ll bring the whole militia company in here. And I’m going to tell him that.”
Hasty parked beside a hydrant near the Cyclorama, and got out.
“You going to back me?” he said
to Jo Jo.
“I didn’t cut in for
that,” Jo Jo said. “I set up the deal.
They welshed on it. It’s between you and them.“
“You yellow belly,” Hasty said.
He slammed the door, and turned and went down Tremont Street to the storefront. It was empty. The door was locked. Hasty groaned in anger and disappointment and turned and went back to his car. He got in and started up without a word.
“Nobody there?” Jo Jo said.
Hasty nodded as he yanked the Mercedes out into the traffic and drove out of the South End on Tremont Street.
“I knew there wouldn’t
be,” Jo Jo said. “Why I didn’t waste time walking down there.”
“You’re a yellow
belly,” Hasty said.
“You want to go one on one with
me?” Jo Jo said.
“These are your people, Jo Jo. I want my weapons, or I want my money.” ,
“You been stiffed, asshole. Don’t
you get it? There aren’t any fucking weapons.” Jo Jo said “weapons” in exaggerated scorn.
“There never were any weapons. They saw you coming.”
“You brought me to them. You get the money back.”
Io Io shook his head.
“I mean it, Io Io. You are in this far too deeply to just walk away.”
Io Io felt a little tingle of fear race up the backs of his thighs. His glance shifted onto Hasty’s face, and held. He pulled his chin down into his neck almost like a turtle retracting, and his neck thickened.
“I may be in it, Hasty, but I sure as shit ain’t in it alone.”
Hasty didn’t answer right away. He had
driven out of the South End and onto Charles Street where it ran between the Common and the Public Garden. The city rose up all around them. A cold rain had begun to spit and Hasty turned the windshield wipers on to low intermittent.
“I do not believe what I am
heating,” Hasty said finally.
He was choosing his words carefully, talking as if to an adolescent, trying to speak with the icy assurance of
