I’m sorry, okay?’
‘Of course. I was thinking. . .‘ He paused, trying to word the proposition just right.
‘Yeah?’
‘We have a situation. Something has come up. If you, uh, felt up to it. It could, uh, you could stay busy for a day or two. No. No, it’s not a good idea. Forget it.’
‘Forget what? You ain’t told me anything to forget.’
‘A bad idea.’
‘You wanna tell me about it? Let me decide?’
‘It’s the girl.’
‘What girl?’
‘I told you about the girl. Domino.’
‘The one you and Hotchins share. That one?’
‘It is not exactly like that. He knows nothing about the woman and me.’
Burns laughed hard. He sat down next to DeLaroza and slapped his knee several times. ‘That’s rich, that is. You and him fuckin’ the same broad and he’s not in on it. I’ll tell you somethin’, Victor. You got some kind of funny balls, you do.’
‘The problem is not funny.’
‘It is to me. You ever hear of Angel Carillo? Big don in Philly, maybe the big don in Philly. No? Well, you don’t read much, because Angel makes the headlines now and then. He had an arm, name of Donny Duffield, Irish punk but a good arm. Very quick. He did a hit, it was no planning. He’d just go out, do it, go have a beer. Anyways, Donny introduces Angel to this broad which Donny has been punchin’ since high school. A real looker. And Angel gets a thing for her, starts takin’ her out, buyin’ her shit, clothes, jewellery, the old wham bam. Sets her up in this cushy apartment. And all the time Donny is giving her the old squirtaroo on the side. I mean Angel is maybe gettin’ it once, twice a week; Donny, he’s over there dippin’ in morning, noon, and night. You know those goddamn micks, got a hard-on thirty-six hours a day. So Angel finds out about it and he muscles Donny down to the old ice house there and he says to him, “Whaddya mean, you’re fuckin’ my girl?” And Donny says, “Whaddya mean, ‘your girl’? I was luck in’ her long before you.” And Angel says, “Yeah, but she’s my girl now.” And he takes out the old stiletto and whacko, clean as a whistle, he takes off Donny’s cock and balls. “Okay,” Angel says when he’s through, “you want her, you got her.” And like that he gives her back to Donny, who has to piss through a hole in his belly. Funny, hunh? What a sense of humour.’ Burns leaned back in his chair and laughed again.
DeLaroza rubbed gooseflesh from his arm. ‘I really don’t see the analogy,’ he said.
‘You don’t make the connection, hunh?’
‘I seriously doubt that Donald Hotchins would castrate anyone.’
‘Ah, what ya mean, you take me literally there. No, I ain’t sayin’ he’d do it in so many words. But what’s the dif between him and Angel Carillo? They both of them are heavy hitters there, Victor. You don’t take from them. Angel, he does his own cuttin’. Hotchins gets it done for him. Maybe in a different way, see. But the end result, that’s the same. Like they say, don’t fuck with Matt Dillon, he’s got the biggest gun. I was you, I’d back off.’
‘That is not the problem. I cannot tell him about her. That she is a prostitute, I mean. After all, I introduced them. There is too much at stake here.’
‘So let him dump on her. Lemme tell you something, partner. You better stay outa the picture. You better be the man that wasn’t there, you know what I mean?’
‘I just give advice.’
‘And money,’ Burns said viciously’.
‘Yes, money. This man is going to be the next president.’
‘I don’t get you, Victor. What’s in all this for you? Takin’ these chances. You were afraid Corrigon would make you, somebody else could too. All this so you can call the White House when you get the urge? Big deal.’
‘It is what I want. What do you want? To walk free, yes? To put the past behind you. I have done that already. We have played a different kind of game, you and I.’
‘I played the only game I knew. The spots, there, they come on the leopard.’
‘Well, you wilt get what you want, finally.’
‘I’m still busy cleanin’ up, Victor. I’ll never walk free again. The onus was on me before I ever met you. It started when I was a kid. You think they ever let you off the hook? Shit, the only way you get out, they take you away feet first, throw roses in your face. All they gotta do, somebody sees my face one time and every pistol in the fuckin’ country’s after me. You think them years in Nebraska was easy, livin’ like a goddamn shirt salesman? All I want is to be covered until I get lost again, see what I mean? Go someplace, sit in the sun, get freckles. I’m fifty- six, I ain’t got all that much time left. But I wanna use what I got. I want the rest of it to be good, see? It ain’t gonna be easy now, keeping the Feds and the Family from tumblin’ on to me. Thing is, what’s all these millions you parlayed for us gonna do for me I can’t enjoy it, right?’
DeLaroza toyed with the cigar.
‘There’s something else about all this,’ he said.
‘Oh, yeah? How’s that?’
‘She knows something. She saw you with Corrigon that night. She was leaving my place.’
‘She saw me hit Corrigon?’
‘No. After. Putting him in the car.’
