Laura Lippman - Baltimore Noir

“Yeah, well, just pick another city, you’re gonna do something crazy like that. ’Less you wanna make a couple hundred thousand enemies.”

“It was an idea. Nothin ever come of it.”

Jilly was still staring. Tommy opened his hands and said, “What, I burn a picture of the Pope?”

Jilly rubbed his face.

“What happened afterwards?” Tommy asked. “The kid dove off the cliffs there? Angelo is still married, no?”

“Different broad,” Jilly said. “Different Maria, come to think of it. The original was let go shortly thereafter, the difference between the father and son, you ask me. One has balls, speaking of them. The other don’t.”

Tommy was confused. “Let go how? What, his old lady isn’t the same one back then?”

“He gave her walking papers and not a fucking dime to go with them,” Jilly said. “I get the call to drop her off the Travel Plaza, give her the scratch for a bus ticket, like the Peter fucking Pan, one fucking way, and that’s what I did. She had two bags with her, suitcases, that was it. Her eyes were red like what you says Junior looked like.”

Tommy was incredulous. “This was Junior’s mother? Are you shittin me?”

“I shit you not one more time,” Jilly said. “It was indeed Junior’s mother. Didn’t make a difference. She made Angelo look bad there, embarrassed him, he took care of things. How this came about tonight, us waiting here. The old man stepping in, or you’d be dealing with Junior the next ten years with this bullshit, like some fucking shrink pro’ly. Why we’re here waiting on this New York guy now, the old man.”

“So the old man’s wife now, she’s a Maria too, but not the original, not Junior’s mother,” Tommy said.

“You’re quicker’n you look,” Jilly said.

“Okay, I get that, but there’s another thing I don’t get,” Tommy said. “Why we’re farmin it out the first place. I mean, what the fuck, we can get a couple guys down the docks put on a couple masks, go to work, shove’m in a container there, send it across the ocean someplace.”

“Angelo’s got his reasons,” Jilly said. “The man knows what he’s doing, although I don’t like the idea reaching out to New York either, tell you the truth.”

Tommy shrugged.

“Who knows, maybe he’s thinkin ahead,” Jilly said. “Let it go. Angelo’s no dope.”

“You know the guy, the one from New York?”

“Nope,” said Jilly, looking away then. “I don’t like he’s from there is all. Shit fuckin city it is.” He stopped to sip his drink again. He set it down and remembered something. He pointed at Tommy. “We’re sure they’re down the Tidewater Marina, ’Napolis there, right, the two of them?”

“Where they been the last two nights,” Tommy said. “Since Junior is out to Vegas for some convention.” He pulled a set of Polaroid pictures from his pants pocket and showed Jilly the top one, the back of a cabin cruiser. The Tina Marie was clear across the rear of the boat.

“Guy’s got a pair,” Tommy said, “I give him that much. Names the boat after his wife and fucks his girlfriends on it.”

“Not after tonight he don’t,” Jilly said. He took the pictures and flipped through them quickly. He stopped to stare at one of a topless woman being groped on the deck of the Tina Marie . He said, “Fucking twat, look at her.”

Jilly handed the pictures to Tommy. “Make sure you lose those later.”

“Will do,” said Tommy, stashing them. He sat back in his chair and stretched through a yawn. “I never much minded it, though, New York,” he said after the yawn. “It’s got a lot to be said for it, all the things you can do there anytime the night.”

“It’s a pisshole,” Jilly said. “And it’s got them fucking teams I hate.”

“What, the sports thing? You’re not serious.”

“As a fucking heart attack. I hate the place. They could flush it down the toilet all I care.”

“So, what, like you don’t care what happened there, nine-one-one? That didn’t bother you?”

Jilly pointed a finger. “That’s an entire other matter, what happened there. And it wasn’t just them, either. Pennsylvania got it too. And the capital. That was an act of war against the country, something completely different. I’m talking in general here. I hate the fucking place. I hate the city and both baseball teams play there. And don’t get me started on the Jets, those cocksuckers.”

Tommy shrugged again. “Okay, fair enough. I hear ya.”

“Shula starts Unitas, it’s a different game altogether,” Jilly ranted. “Maybe we don’t cover the spread, but there’s no way that faggot white-shoed cocksucker and his nylon commercials beats Johnny U. Wearing nylons, for Christ sakes, a football player.”

Tommy didn’t know what Jilly was referring to. He left it alone while the old man finished his fourth anisette.

“What time this guy supposed to get here?”

“Half an hour ago,” said Jilly, suddenly seething. He slapped the shot glass down loud enough for the waitress and several other people across the room to hear. He said, “Back when you were six, whatever, ’84 it was, I think, Colts up and left middle of the night? That all started when they lost to the Jets back in ’69.”

Tommy tried to get him off the subject. “Who’s he with in New York, this guy we’re waitin on?”

Jilly wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “Vignieri,” he said.

“Aren’t they having their own problems?”

“Who isn’t? Fucking deals they offer today, the government, guys are lining up like it’s the lotto to make a deal.”

Tommy noticed the rain coming down harder, but didn’t mention it. “Angelo tight with New York?”

“Used to be very tight with them,” Jilly said. “I suppose he still has something going there, or why he reached out inna first place?”

“The one coming here a made guy?”

The waitress was back with another anisette. She set it on the table and picked up Tommy’s glass to refill.

“Fuck knows,” Jilly said when the waitress was gone. “I’ll tell you a good one, though, you wanna hear a war story about a made guy come down here from New York to do a thing a few years ago.”

Tommy moved his chair in. He set his elbows on the table and smiled.

Jilly smiled too. “Guy comes here to do a job, take somebody out from Philly was hiding the Camden Yard. Was between the bosses, something do with the casinos in Atlantic City, back when they first went up. Anyway, the New York guy comes down, has dinner with a few of us, he don’t shut up breaking balls about the Jets, the Mets, and then I think it was the Knicks too, I’m not mistaken. They won it too that year, but not against the Bullets. Bullets were gone early, I think. Anyway, he’s going on and on about the greatest city inna world, a couple of us get an idea, we get up to piss and make a call over to Lombard Street, some crazy kids hanging out there. A few of them go back to the hotel this New York hot shot is staying and fuck up his car.”

Tommy laughed. “Now I know you’re shittin me.”

Jilly made the sign of the cross. “I shit you never,” he said. “It was kid stuff, don’t get me wrong. We’d all rather have put a couple in his big fat mouth, the cocksucker, but it turns out, the kids they sent to the garage there, the hotel garage the guy was staying, they slash the four tires plus the one in the trunk, they rip up the upholstery, all the leather there, and they carve Erioles and Colts all over the hood, the fenders. Shoved a golf ball or some shit in the gas tank too. The guy was fucking livid when he gets back from whatever he did. It was dumb shit, but we all pissed our pants the next few days after. Angelo heard the story and sent the kids fucked the car up some kegs of beer and a few of the older broads from one of the strip joints.”