Bomber's Law (2 page)

“You gonna say that to a guy, this guy that's been bustin' your balls? So he can just go and call up some talk show and say, he'll probably use his own cellular phone, phone he's got right in his car—maybe forgot to stop at a stop sign, or get a new sticker there, but he remembered, get that phone in all right: ‘You know what this cop just
said to me? He said sure they know, you
bet
they all know, what goddamned Buddy Royal is doin' and what it ends up costing us, and he said, he told me, that that doesn't matter, they don't even give a good shit. What they care about's who's got his sticker, his new inspection sticker, not the guy who is cutting up cars. “He's just a fuckin'
annoyance.
Some kind of a nuisance or somethin'.' ” Yeah, you do that and you won't get thanked.

“But
then
, then we finally go in and
do
it,” Brennan said morosely, “Buddy's number finally comes up, like you knew that some day it just hadda. And then what do we get? A guy jerkin' his chain is the game highlights of it, some guy who's got no respect for him. Because most guys, you know, they don't dare to say to him: ‘Hey, Buddy, you little piece-ah shit.' Because you know, well, maybe you wouldn't, but he thinks he's a real desperado. Capone in his mind's not as big as he is, John Gotti or Raymond, any of them guys. No one's as big as Buddy Royal. Well, maybe Capone, but the rest of them guys? Buddy eats their lunch all the time. If you take Buddy's word for it, I mean, but you'd be a fool if you did, because he is completely full of it.

“But most of the guys that he does business with, they're not gonna say this to him. They're not gonna say to him: ‘Buddy, you asshole,' because then he might get mad at them, you know? And this they don't want to have happen. Because, let's say, you tap out onna weekend. All teams that you bet on, every one won, they all won but they lost onna spread. And on Settle-up Day, which's Tuesday, like always, your book's gonna wanna see money. None of your fuckin' excuses, all right? You're gonna get healthy next fuckin' week, he'll just carry you over 'til then? And the this and the that and the other, all if he'll just carry you? ‘Uh-uh,
sorry
, no-no, can't do that. Nobody runs no tabs here. Management policy here.' And so then, what do you do?

“Simple. What you do there is, you get somebody's 'Vette, somebody's pretty-new 'Vette that you saw his blonde honey there out drivin' one day, you're just goin' downah the store, and you take it to Buddy and Buddy will take it—it's just like you went to a bank. Bada-
bing
, bada-
boom
, you got four or five grand, go see Mike the Book and he's happy. He's happy; you gave him the dough you owed him. You're happy; you're not gettin' beat up. And Buddy is happy, he's
got a new 'Vette, so
he's
gonna make a few bucks. Everyone inna whole world is happy again—'cept for maybe the guy had the 'Vette and his honey. Those two people, they're probably not. But everyone else is, and that includes you, and that's why you give Buddy no shit, piss him off so he doesn't forget it. Because you always know where Buddy is, where he is going to be, because if you ever needah, you can sell him something, and this is good thing to know.

“But not this guy,” Brennan said, “this guy that called him up, I forget which day now, I forget which day it was now. I think that it might've been last Wednesday there, Wednesday or Thursday or something. Anyway, this guy does not give one good shit about
anna-thing
, anna-thing in the whole world. He must have a trust fund or somethin', it's like. Or maybe some oil wells or something. Because when Buddy starts in with his usual routine, like he does always does, alla time, every time that he gets onna phone, the first thing he does is he warns the guy. ‘Now be careful now what you say here. Because this line's tapped, you know. They're after me here. So be careful what you say on it.' ”

“How's he know the line is tapped there?” Dell'Appa said. A Boston inbound commuter train made up of stainless-steel-rib-sided passenger cars salvaged three decades or so before from the shells of moribund New England railroads expiring in the lethal embrace of Conrail, pulled by two antiquated GM diesel engines—ex-Boston & Maine; New York, New Haven & Hartford—demeaned in their fourth and fifth decades of sturdy service by broad midriff stripes of faded purple paint, Easter egg-accented with yellow, passed under the road and stopped briefly at the Plexiglas-shielded, aluminum-framed passenger platform next to the tracks emerging from the southeasterly side of the bridge.

Brennan craned his neck to look in turn at each of the semitrailer-size outside rearview mirrors he had mounted on the leading edges of the doors of the Blazer. He saw no one. The train started up again almost at once and pulled away. He looked at his watch. “Six forty-three,” he said. He nodded. “Looks like this's a regular mornin', he's goin' in at the regular time, the time that he usually does.”

“Meaning: seven forty-eight,” Dell'Appa said resentfully.

“Usually, yeah,” Brennan said, settling back again into the seat.
“That's when he usually does. But like I say, you're never sure. Sure in advance is what I mean, exactly what he will do. What is is if he misses the ones that come before that—well, not
misses
, exactly, because if he wasn't here to take a particular one, any particular train, it wasn't like he
tried
to, tried to make it but he didn't; it's because he didn't
want
to, want to take it, take that particular train. Because that's the way he usually is: regular as regular clockwork. But if they're up early for some reason, like Joey hasta be somewhere or something, some distance away from here, or it's one of those unusual days, like I say, unusual but they do happen, when he himself hasta be in early himself. And then it's been known to happen that he will catch one of the earlier ones. So that's why we hadda be here. In case he did that today. Because then otherwise you wouldn't've been here to see Joey, when he comes by here with him.”

“Yeah,” Dell'Appa said, folding his arms across his chest. “Joey. I
thought
it was him we were after. This Buddy shit, I didn't know from. So we really are here to see Joey.”

“Well, you have to do it,” Brennan said. “You know you have to do that, if you're gonna be followin' the guy, see what the guy looks like and so forth. And his car, and so forth and so on.”

“I know what a goddamned old gray Cadillac Sedan de fuckin' Ville fuckin'
looks like
, for Christ fuckin' sakes,” Dell'Appa said. “Honest to Mother of
God.
”

“Well, sure, but not this one,” Brennan said, “not necessarily his one, you don't, because those things, they don't all look alike. Especially when they get that old there. It all depends what kind of care they had taken care of them along the line there, you know?
After
they were new. Everybody knows that. You know that. It's when they're all brand new, before anybody hardly even drove them, then they all look the same. Like each other. But now, eight, ten years later, well, the paint and all that stuff? That's when it all depends. And consequently they don't all now, they don't all look the same at all now. So you couldn't be sure if you had the right one, if I didn't show you which one.”

“Bob,” Dell'Appa said slowly and softly, “I know the guy's registration, remember? I know the numbers, the numbers that're on the registration and the license plate that he has to have attached to the
rear of the vehicle in a prominent and easily visible position, right? I
know
all those things; these things I already know. So if I went to the place where he ordinarily goes, where he
always
goes, in fact, every morning after he leaves here, and I saw that gray Cadillac four-door hardtop with that fucking license plate on the fucking back bumper of it, then I would know I had the right car. Simple as that, Bob; simple as that.”

“Yeah,” Brennan said, “but you wouldn't know for sure if he drove it there, if he was the one drove it there. He could've just had someone else just drive it there for him, and he went off someplace else, with someone else, do something, and ditch his tail while he was doing it, something he didn't want us to see him doing. Or maybe just to take a day off from having us tail him. He could've done that, you know, too.”

Dell'Appa groaned.

“I know, I know,” Brennan said, “but this's still the sort of thing that you got to keep in mind on these things. It's not just the old slash-and-burn, you know, here; you go in, you do this, you do that, and then
boom
, it's all over—you're finished. Nothing at all like that here. This kind of thing, this thing that we're doing here, what you've got to be is, you got to be very methodical about it. Got to be very methodical about it at all times.”

He made a broad smoothing motion with his right hand. “
Patient
, that's what you've got to be with this stuff here. Always've got to be very methodical, very patient. Always keep your mind at all times on what it is that you're doing. Focused. Got to be focused at all times. Got to say: ‘All right now, am I sure of this here? Is this the right thing to do here, right here at this point in time here? Is this what I ought to be doing? To get where I want to be going in this, well then, is this the right way to go?' And also: ‘Am I really sure about this?'

“That's what you have to do, all the time in this. That is what we have to do. Because that's the only way you can ever be sure, we can ever be sure. About any of this stuff you're doing.” He nodded. “So, yeah, I know, so you hadda get up. And you don't like gettin' up, right? Well, who does? You tell me who likes gettin' up. No, you can't, because nobody does. But so, neither can I, so I certainly can't blame you for that. But trust me, I know what I'm doin', and even though I know you don't trust me in this, believe me, I know what
I'm doin'. And just sittin' here like this, sittin' right here, like we're doin', all right? This's the best way to do it.”

Dell'Appa sighed. He had closed his eyes.

“Yeah, I know, I'm borin' you,” Brennan said. “Well, that's the trouble with you guys. Alla you young guys're like that. You think, you're all, you're all just like that kid there, that Leno kid there on TV. They threw Johnny Carson off of there, and then look what happened to them. They throw Carson off and they put the kid on, and then so what happens then, huh? The other kid gets all mad, am I right about this? And so what does he do then? He
quits.
That's what he's gonna do, at least. So that's what I mean about that. They started out there, they had Carson and Leno and also the other kid there, they say: ‘Right, this's goin' too good. Things're goin' along 'way too good around here. We gotta find some way, fuck up. I know, I got it. I know what we do: we dump Carson and that oughta do it.' So they did that and by Jesus it did it. Now what've they got, now they did all of that? They got Leno is what they've got: Leno. Carson's gone and the other kid, too. The other kid's packing his bags.”

“Tell me how Buddy Royal knew his phone was being tapped,” Dell'Appa said, his eyes still shut. “That at least sounded interesting. The gear that we use now's very low-voltage drain, and the drain's only during a call. So how'd he find out we were on? How'd the guy know? Tell me that. Somebody tell him or something? We got a leak in our pail? Oughta find out who it is, if we do, find out as fast as we can, stick a soldering gun up his ass.”

“He didn't
know
,” Brennan said. “Buddy didn't know we had the wire.”

Dell'Appa opened his eyes. “You just told me he did know,” he said. “You just finished telling me, two, three minutes ago, that Buddy Royal told the guy who called him up last Wednesday or Thursday, you weren't sure, that his line was tapped. You just told me that yourself.”

“That's what I'm tryin' to tell you, you asshole, for Christ sake,” Brennan said. “That's what it is about Buddy—he always told guys that stuff. Like it made him a big man, he's warnin' them: ‘Everyone's after me here. That's how fuckin' big a guy
I
am.' But he don't actually know that we're on, even though we now actually are, and
we're hearin' him tell guys we are. But he's been tellin' 'em that stuff for years. It's not like it means anything.

“Anyway, to this guy it sure doesn't. This guy calls him Wednesday, I mean. And Buddy tells him, and he isn't impressed at all. He says: ‘Like who is this, Buddy? Who do you mean? Who is it that's after you now?'

“Well,” Brennan said, “you would've thought, the way Buddy reacts, you would've thought at least he must've been sittin' bare-ass onna throne, takin' a good shit himself, and some guy that maybe owed him a thrill or two, maybe just give him a tickle, figured out how to get a cherry bomb under there, right about under his balls, and that's when he set the thing off. Because Buddy yells, and I mean, really
yells
: ‘Just what the fuck do you mean? What the fuckin' fuck you mean by that? You know who I mean, you fuckin' asshole, you know who I mean when I say. I mean, I mean the State fuckin' Police. And the FBI bastards, and all of them fuckin' guys there. Plus all the insurance company snoops, and the snitches and private assholes. Cocksucker. That is who's after me there. Who the fuck else would it be? The fuckin' Rat Patrol, maybe? Saint Catherine's Bugle Team there?'

“Oh, he's as mad as a hornet,” Brennan said. “He's practically frothin' the mouth. You can almost see him, hoppin' around there, face gettin' all red—he's a very excitable guy there—bangin' his hands on his desk, and this guy is laughin' at him. I mean: actually laughin' at him. You can hear him over the phone. ‘Shit, I don't know,' the guy says. UPS, maybe? A COD package? Bunchah guys from the bakery or something? Kid that brings overnight from the post office? How the fuck should I know? What I hear, could be just about anyone.' ”