The Drop (18 page)

“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.”

M
ARV 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 past 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.”

Bob couldn’t think of anything to say but “thank you.”

Chovka patted Bob’s face. “Dakka will be by soon. Good night.”

Bob said, “Good night. Thank you. Good night.”

George opened the door and Chovka exited, lighting a cigarette. Anwar followed, pulling the roller bag of Eric behind him, the wheels bumping over the threshold and then again on the icy sidewalk.

WHAT THE FUCK WAS
this now? Marv watched the Chechens exit the bar with one duffel bag that required two guys to lift it into the back of the van. He would have thought they’d have more than one bag. All that money?

He rolled down his window as they drove off and flicked his cigarette out onto the crust of snow by the hydrant. The cigarette rolled off the hard mound, rolled down the curb, and hissed when it found a puddle there.

Another thing he’d need to do when he got to Thailand—quit smoking. It was enough already. He went to roll the window up and saw a guy standing three inches away on the sidewalk.

Same guy who’d asked him for directions a few weeks back.

“Ah, shit,” Marv said softly as the guy shot him through the nose.

“
GO IN PEACE NOW
to love and serve the Lord.”

Father Regan made the sign of the cross and that was it—the final mass.

They all looked around at one another, the hardy few, the penitents and patrons of the seven—Bob and Torres, Widow Malone, Theresa Coe, Old Man Williams, as well as several people who hadn’t been by in a while making return cameos and guest appearances for this, the final show. Bob could see the same numbness in all their faces—they’d known it was going to happen and yet, somehow, they hadn’t.

Father Regan said, “If anyone would like to purchase one of the pews before they are sold for consignment, please call Bridie in the rectory, which will be open for another three weeks. God bless you all.”

No one moved for a minute. And then Widow Malone shuffled out into the aisle and Torres was next. Followed by some of the guest stars. Bob and Old Man Williams were the last two out. At the holy water font, Bob blessed himself within these walls for the last time and caught Old Man Williams’s eye. The old man smiled and nodded several times but said nothing, and they walked out together.

ON THE SIDEWALK
,
HE
and Torres stood looking back up at it.

“When did you take your tree down this year?” Bob asked.

Torres said, “Day after Little Christmas. You?”

Bob said, “Same.”

They nodded at each other and went back to looking at the church.

“Just like I predicted,” Torres said.

“What’s that?”

“They sold it to Milligan Development. It’s going to be condos, Bob. Seculars sitting up there behind that beautiful window, sipping their fucking Starbucks and talking about the faith they put in their Pilates teacher.” He gave Bob a soft, rueful smile and shrugged. After a minute he said, “You love your father?”

Bob looked at him long enough to see he was completely serious. “A shitload.”

Torres said, “You guys were close?”

Bob said, “Yeah.”

“Me too. You don’t hear that a lot.” He looked up again. “It was a gorgeous church. Sorry to hear about Cousin Marv.”

“Carjacking gone bad, they said.”

Torres widened his eyes. “That was an execution. A block and a half from your bar.”

Bob looked up the street for a bit and said nothing.

Torres said, “Eric Deeds. I mentioned him to you once.”

“I remember.”

“You didn’t then.”

“I remember you mentioning him.”

Torres said, “Ah. He was in your bar Super Bowl Sunday. You see him?”