Laura Lippman - Baltimore Noir

Jilly shook his head. “This is too familiar, tell you the truth, although Senior didn’t sit around take it up the ass, I’ll tell you that much.”

Tommy seemed surprised. “The old man, the boss?”

“Was ’69, the year New York fucked us from both ends, the Jets over the Colts in the Super Bowl there, and then the Mets over the O’s in the series. You pro’ly weren’t born yet.”

“Don’t think I was. I was like, six, that other thing happened, midnight run, the Mayflower vans, whatever.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jilly said, “we all earned. Anybody taking action made out that year, but then there’s that other thing, the pride issue. Bitter fucking pill to swallow, losing to New York twice the same year. Made Angelo crazy, that’s for sure.”

“What happened?”

Jilly glanced around the restaurant before he leaned forward to whisper. “Senior gets wind his old lady is out there with some guy with the Erioles,” he said. “Had me and Eddie Bats, which was the muscle end of his crew back then, had us thinking it was one of the team we was gonna have to whack. This is the same night the O’s take game one down Memorial. Cuellar beat Seaver, goes the distance on a six hitter. Buford nails Seaver first inning, home run. Great fucking game.”

Jilly sat back to savor the memory. He saw Tommy was waiting for more, and then leaned forward again. “Anyway,” he continued, “Angelo gets wind it’s somebody with the Erioles organization with his wife, but there’s only two of us he comes to this with. He wants it dealt with quiet, no muss, no fuss, but serious, no bullshit either.”

“Was he runnin his own crew back then?”

“Yeah and no,” Jilly said. “We were his guys, me and Eddie Bats. Like I said, his muscle, but we weren’t a formal crew. Things was different back then. Why the books never reopened here. Baltimore fell outta the loop when it came to families and so on, what they got there in New York.”

“I hope it was better’n it is today,” Tommy commented.

“Today you got rats riding shotgun,” Jilly said. “Makes it hard to get serious about taking a blood oath, the guy giving it is wearing a wire. Another New York phenomenon, the bosses rat now.”

“Yeah, well, makes it hard to earn sometimes, what we got down here,” Tommy said. “There’s strength in numbers.”

Jilly said, “Weakness, too, but you’re young yet, you’ll learn. More guys on a job, more you got to worry about. I did two bids at Maryland Pen before it become a transition center, whatever the fuck that means, because a couple too many guys on a job couldn’t hold their water.”

Tommy nodded.

“Just sit tight about earning,” Jilly said. “You’ll get your play soon enough. You’re with tight people now.”

Tommy said, “So what happened, the old man?”

Jilly leaned forward again. “Angelo was married a few years,” he whispered. “Maria was what, I don’t know, twenny-five, maybe? Twenny-six? Anyway, Angelo sends me and Eddie to the stadium see what’s what after the game. He had some guy from the dock workers’ union there feeding him tickets down to the field boxes he hands off to Maria. She was a big fan. Where he met her originally, an Erioles game.”

“No shit?”

“I shit you not.” Jilly stopped to push his empty shot glass closer to the edge of the table for the waitress. “She takes her eyes off’a you a minute, maybe she sees I’m dry over here.”

Tommy turned to the waitress and pointed at Jilly’s empty glass. She started over.

“Anyway, winds up Maria likes them young,” Jilly continued. “She married Angelo, and he was up there in age compared to her, but the kid she’s with out the stadium lot there a couple times a week, one of the kids hawking the beers and soda and whatnot, working the stands there, he’s gotta be twenny-one, I guess, he was selling the beer, but that’s a lot younger than she is, or Angelo was. Bottom line, it’s not Boog Powell, Brooks Robinson, or Jim fucking Palmer she’s banging. It’s some kid hawking shit in the stands. The time Angelo musta been thirty-five or so. Imagine what he felt like, his wife is out banging some kid sells hot dogs, pro’ly in the backseat of his father’s car.”

“Jesus Christ, was this, like, common knowledge?” Tommy asked.

Jilly stopped and waited for the waitress to replace his drink with a fresh one. She smiled at Tommy again. He returned the flirting with a wink before she left them alone.

“Yeah and no,” said Jilly. “I mean, a few more people than us knew about it, me and Eddie Bats. Some might’ve seen them at the game there, or afterward, whatever. Somebody brought it to Angelo’s attention the first place, where to look for the guy and all. She was hanging around the stadium, getting fucked in the car for Christ sakes. She didn’t try hard enough to hide it, you ask me. And it was like twice a fucking week there, whenever they were home, the O’s.”

Tommy was shaking his head in disbelief.

“I mean, Eddie wound up dead a few years later, so whoever he told must’ve known after the fact, but don’t forget now, this was more’n thirty years ago.” He paused to sip at his drink again. “Anyway, long horror story short, the Mets take game two, then three and four, and Angelo, while he’s making it hand over fist on the local book, everybody and their mother was all over the O’s, huge favorites they were going into the series that year, two twenny-game winners, that lineup and all, like I said, we all killed on that series, anybody taking action.”

“What my old man said,” Tommy interjected. “Big money year that was, the sports book.”

“Right,” Jilly said. “But it was Angelo’s pride killed a guy. After the Colts lost to the Jets, Angelo hated anything New York. Anything had to do with the place. Even though we made on that game, too, all the local money was laying the eighteen points, some guys were giving nineteen, even with the money we made off the Super Bowl there, it was after the Mets upset the O’s he went completely crazy. He tells me and Eddie after the O’s drop game four, if they lose game five, which they did, we was going back to the stadium there with the kid his wife was banging and toss him off the roof. ‘Let the cocksucker see if he can fly like an Oriole,’ he tells us.”

Tommy sat up straight. “Holy shit,” he said. “That was you?”

Jilly put a finger to his lips. “Easy does it,” he said. “No need to announce it here.”

“Holy shit,” repeated Tommy, a little lower this time. “Holy fuckin shit, Jilly. I remember my old man talkin about that one day. He was explainin to me the worst thing he ever witnessed, the Erioles losing to the Mets like that. He said some guy was so depressed, some kid worked the stadium there, he went up the roof and jumped.”

“It’s better that’s what people think,” Jilly said.

Tommy chuckled. “I wished the old man was still alive. I could straighten him out on that, him and his fuckin Erioles.”

Jilly took offense. “What, you got something against the O’s?”

“I couldn’t care less,” said Tommy, waving the question off. “Fuckin faggots making telephone-number salaries to play games. Please. I like to shake them down is what I’d like to do. I put it to a guy a couple years ago, about shakin down some of those clowns, see how tough they are with a gun in their mouths, see if they wanna part with some of that cash they make for jerkin off half speed around the bases, but he says it’d bring federal attention unless we went after the home team guys lived in Baltimore, and he wasn’t about to shake down a couple of home team guys.”

Jilly was expressionless.

Tommy said, “You can relax, Jilly, I didn’t do it. I never bothered. Need a crew to get away with somethin like that, at least a partner with big enough balls.”