The Drop (12 page)

“Animals,” he whispered and closed his eyes to all that blood. “Fucking savages.”

AT PEN
’
PARK
,
BOB
threw a stick and Rocco charged up the path for it. He brought it back, dropped it in front of Bob, and Bob threw it again, putting everything he had into it. While Rocco raced down the path, Bob reached into the gym bag and grabbed the packaged arm. He turned toward the channel and threw the arm like a tomahawk. He watched it arc high and tumble end over end before it reached its zenith in the sky and dropped quickly. It landed in the middle of the channel with a splash bigger than Bob would have predicted. Louder too. So loud he expected the cars driving past on the roadway on the opposite bank to all stop. But none did.

Rocco returned with the stick.

Bob said, “Good boy.”

Bob threw the stick again and it bounced on the asphalt and then off the path. Rocco bounded across the park.

Bob heard tires behind him. He turned, expecting to see one of the park ranger pickup trucks, but instead it was Detective Torres driving toward him. Bob had no idea if he’d seen anything. Torres stopped and he got out of his car and approached Bob.

Torres said, “Hey, Mr. Saginowski.” He glanced at the empty bag at Bob’s feet. “We haven’t caught them yet.”

Bob stared at him.

“The guys who robbed your bar.”

“Oh.”

Torres laughed. “You remember, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Or have you been robbed so many times it all just blends together?”

Rocco ran up to them, dropped the stick, panted. Bob threw the stick and Rocco ran off again.

“No,” Bob said. “I remember.”

“Good. So, yeah, we haven’t found them.”

Bob said, “I assumed.”

Torres said, “You assumed we didn’t do our job?”

Bob said, “No. I always heard robberies were hard to arrest on.”

Torres said, “So what I do for a living is pointless, what you’re saying.”

There was no way to win in this conversation so Bob just clammed up.

After a while, Torres said, “What’s with the bag?”

Bob said, “I keep leashes and balls and poop bags in there and stuff.”

Torres said, “It’s empty.”

Bob said, “Used my last poop bag, lost a ball.”

Rocco trotted up, dropped the stick. Bob threw it and the dog took off again.

Torres said, “Richie Whelan.”

Bob asked, “What about him?”

Torres asked, “You remember him?”

Bob said, “His friends were in the bar last week toasting the anniversary.”

Torres asked, “What anniversary?”

Bob said, “The last time anyone ever saw him.”

Torres said, “Which was at your bar.”

Bob said, “Yeah, he left. Walked off to score some weed, I always heard.”

Torres nodded. “You know an Eric Deeds? Blond guy?”

Bob said, “I don’t know. I mean, maybe, but it’s not ringing a bell.”

Torres said, “He supposedly had some words with Whelan earlier that day.”

Bob gave Torres a helpless smile and a matching shrug.

Torres nodded and kicked at a pebble with the toe of his shoe. “‘Whoever is holy, let him approach.’”

Bob said, “’Scuse me?”

Torres said, “Church’s position on who can receive Communion. If you’re in a state of grace, have at it. If not, repent and
then
have at it. But you still don’t take the sacrament. You forget to repent for something, Mr. Saginowski?”

Bob said nothing. He threw the stick for Rocco again.

Torres said, “See, me, I fuck up most days. It’s a hard path to walk. End of the day, though, I go to confession. It’s better’n therapy or AA. Come clean with God, next morning, receive Him at Holy Communion. You, though? Not so much.”

Rocco brought back the stick, and this time it was Torres who picked it up. He held it in his hand for quite a while until Rocco started to whine. It was a high-pitched sound, one Bob had never heard before. But then he wasn’t in the habit of taunting his dog. Just as he was about to grab the stick from Torres’s hand, the cop cocked his arm and released the stick into the air. Rocco took off after it.

Torres said, “Meaningful penance, Mr. Saginowski—you should give it some thought. Good-looking dog.”

He walked off.

A
FTER TORRES LEFT
,
BOB
walked through the park for a bit but couldn’t really remember much of it before he and Rocco found themselves back by his car. He felt so light-headed he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to drive, so he stood by the car with his dog and looked at the hard winter sky, the sun trapped behind a wall of gray as thick as terry cloth. A few months from now, if the arm floated up somewhere along these banks, would Torres make the connection? Would he come for Bob then?

He’s already coming for you now
.

Bob took a long breath, held it, and then exhaled. This time, it didn’t make him dizzy or pop the air in front of his face.

He told himself it was all going to work out. It was.

He got in his car and looked at himself in the visor mirror and said it out loud. “It’s going to be fine.”

Not that he believed it, but what were you gonna do?

He drove into Saint Dom’s Parish and over to his house to drop Rocco off. As they got out of the car, Nadia exited the house.

Nadia said, “I came by to give him his afternoon walk. I freaked. Your cell on?”

Bob looked at his cell. “On vibrate. I didn’t feel it.”

“I called a bunch of times.”

His screen read
Missed Call Nadia (6)
. “I see that now.”

She cocked her head slightly. “I thought you were working today.”

Bob said, “I am. I just . . . Yeah. It’s too long a story to go into. But I should have called you. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no, no. Don’t worry about it.”

Bob came up on the porch with Rocco, who rolled over at Nadia’s feet. She scratched his chest.

Bob said, “You know an Eric Deeds?”

Nadia kept her head down and continued scratching Rocco’s chest. “I don’t
know-him
-know-him, but I know him. You know, from around.”

Bob said, “The way he said it, I figured you—”

“Figured I what?”

“Nothing. No. I don’t know what I—”

Now she looked at him. Looked at him with something in her eyes he’d never seen before. Something that told him to turn and run as fast as he could.

“Why’re you on my ass about it?”

“What? I just asked a question.”

She said, “You were insinuating.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Now you’re just arguing with me to argue with me.”

“I’m not.”

She rose from her knees. “See? I don’t need this shit. Okay?”

Bob said, “Wait. What happened here?”

“You think you can just push me around, think you found a speed bag to tap-tap-tap with your big fist?”

“What?” Bob said. “Jesus. No.”

She went to walk past him. Bob started to reach for her and then thought better of it, but it was too late.

“Don’t you fucking
touch
me.”

He took a step back from her. She pointed her finger in his face and then walked down the stairs, double-time.

On the sidewalk, she looked up at him. “Asshole,” she said, her eyes brimming.

She walked away.

Bob stood there with zero idea how he managed to fuck up this big.

ONCE HE GOT BACK
to the bar, Bob stayed in the back for an hour with a hair dryer and the wet money. When he came out, the bar was still mostly empty, just a few old-timers drinking bottom-shelf rye down the end closest to the door. Cousin Marv and Bob stood down the other end.

Bob said, “I just asked a question and everything went, like, sideways.”

Cousin Marv said, “You could hand them the Hope Diamond, they’d complain about the weight.” He turned a page of the paper. “You’re sure he didn’t see anything?”

“Torres?” Bob said, “Positive.” Though he wasn’t.

The front door opened and Chovka entered followed by Anwar. They passed the three old guys and came down the bar and took stools by Cousin Marv and Bob. They sat. They put their elbows on the bar. They waited.

The three old guys—Pokaski, Limone, and Imbruglia—didn’t even have a conversation about it before they all left their stools at the same time and wandered off by the pool table.

Cousin Marv wiped down the bar by Chovka even though he’d wiped it down a minute before they came through the door. “Hi.”

Chovka ignored him. He looked at Anwar. They both looked back at Bob and Cousin Marv. Chovka dug in his pocket. Anwar dug in his. Their hands came back out of their coats. They placed cigarette packs and lighters on the bar.

Bob rummaged under the bar and returned with the ashtray he kept there for Millie. He placed it between them. They lit their cigarettes.

Bob said, “Get you a drink, Chovka?”

Chovka smoked. Anwar smoked.

Bob said, “Marv.”

Cousin Marv asked, “What?”

Bob said, “Anwar drinks Stella.”

Cousin Marv went to the beer cooler. Bob pulled a bottle of Midleton Irish whiskey off the top shelf. He poured a healthy glass and placed it in front of Chovka. Cousin Marv returned with a Stella Artois and placed it by Anwar. Bob grabbed a coaster and lifted the beer, placed the coaster under it. Then he pulled a manila envelope out from under the register and placed it on the bar.

Bob said, “The bills are still a little damp, so I wrapped them in a Ziploc. But it’s all there.”

Chovka said, “A Ziploc.”

Bob nodded. “I was going to, you know, toss it in a dryer, but we don’t have one here, but I did the best I could with a hair dryer. But if you spread it all out on a table? They should all be crisp come morning.”

“How’d it get wet in the first place?”

“We had to clean it,” Bob said.

“Something on it?” Chovka’s eyes were very still.

“Yes,” Bob said.

Chovka considered the drink Bob had placed in front of him. “This isn’t what you gave me last time.”

Bob said, “That was the Bowmore 18. You thought it tasted like cognac. I think you’ll like this more.”

Chovka held the glass up to the light. He sniffed it. Looked at Bob. He put the glass to his lips and took a sip. He placed the glass on the bar. “We die.”

“’Scuse me?” Bob said.

“All of us,” Chovka said. “We die. So many different ways this happens. Anwar, did you know your grandfather?”

Anwar drank half his Stella in one gulp. “No. He’s dead long time.”

“Bob,” Chovka said, “is your grandfather still alive? Either of them?”

“No, sir.”

“But they lived full lives?”

“One died in his late thirties,” Bob said, “the other made it into his sixties.”

“But they lived on this earth. They fucked and fought and made babies. They thought
their
day was
the
day, the last word. And then they died. Because we die.” He took another sip of his drink and repeated, “We die,” in a soft whisper. “But before you do?” He turned on his stool and handed Anwar the glass. “You gotta try this fucking whiskey, man.”

He slapped Anwar on the back. He laughed.

Anwar took a sip. He handed the glass back. “It’s good.”

“‘It’s good.’” Chovka snorted. “You don’t understand the finer things, Anwar. That is your problem. Drink your beer.” Chovka drained the rest of the glass, eyes locked on Cousin Marv. Then on Bob. “You understand the finer things, Bob.”

“Thank you.”

“I think you understand many more things than you let on.”

Bob said nothing.

Chovka said, “You’ll handle the drop.”

Cousin Marv asked, “Tonight?”

Chovka shook his head.

They waited.

Chovka said, “Super Bowl.”

And he and Anwar pushed off the bar. They scooped up their cigarettes and lighters. They walked down the bar and out the door.

Bob and Cousin Marv stood there, Bob again feeling so light-headed he wouldn’t have been surprised to wake up on the floor ten minutes from now with no recollection of how he got there. The room didn’t spin exactly, but it keep dimming and brightening, dimming and brightening.

Marv said, “You notice he never once referred to me, directed a question or comment my way? Only time he ever looked at me it was like I was a bit of toilet paper still stuck in his ass, he had to do another reach around.”

“I didn’t get that at all.”

“You didn’t get it at all because you were all fucking chummy with him. ‘Here’s your mint julep, massah, and forgive me if it doesn’t taste like the eighteen-fucking-year-old cognac I gave you last time you checked up on us field slaves.’ You fucking kidding me? He’s going to fucking kill me.”

“No, he’s not. You’re not making sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense. He thinks me and dead fucking Rardy—”

“Rardy’s not dead.”

“Really? You seen him around lately?” He pointed at the door, whisper-hissing. “That fucking Chechen thinks me and Rardy hatched this thing with the One-Armed Corpse. You, he thinks you’re too stupid or too fucking, I dunno,
nice
to rob him. But me, he gives the death stare.”

“If he thought you had his five thousand, where’d he get the five grand in the bag from?”

“What?”

“The guys who stuck us up stole five grand. There was five grand in the bag with the”—he looked over by the pool table, made sure the three old guys were still there—“hand. So he found his money with the kid and he sent it back to us.”

“Yeah?”

“Which means he can’t think you have it if he sent it to us and we just gave it back to him.”

“He can think I put the stickup guys up to it and they were holding the cash while I waited for things to cool down. And even if he doesn’t think that, it’s in his head, now that I’m a piece of shit. I’m not to be trusted. And guys like that don’t ask if their opinions are
rational
. They just decide one day you’re a flea and tomorrow’s Flea Killing Day.”

“Are you listening to yourself?”

Marv’s face was beaded with sweat. “They’re gonna use this place for a Super Sunday drop. Then they’re gonna knock it over and either shoot us or leave us to live long enough for all the other crazy Chechneyans and fucking Georgians who put their money in our safe that night to decide we orchestrated it. And then they’re going to work on us in some basement for three or four days until we don’t have eyes or ears or fucking balls and all our teeth are smashed in. And then? Two in the hat, Bob. Two in the hat.”