Page 128 of Hard to Kill
“Gotta give you a hard no,” he says.
“It wasn’t a request, Jimmy.”
“I don’t care whether it was or not,” he says.
He hasn’t changed his tone, or raised his voice, doesn’t sound angry, or confrontational, or as if he’s looking to pick a fight. But I’ve seen this set to his whole impressive self before, eyes and expression and even body language. The old boxer who once told me he knew everything in the ring except when to stop coming.
“Morelli threatened everybody. You talk all the time about risk and reward in this business. We need to be done taking risks, no matter how hard we want to go at these people. They’ve already gotten to you more than once. They got to Ben. They got to Brigid. They got to me again. We’re out.”
“I’m not stopping,” he says. He’s still staring across Division Street. “Not even if you fire me.”
“Come on,” I tell him. “Nobody’s talking about firing you. Are you kidding? I’d fire myself before I’d fire you.”
We both sip coffee. He’s back to looking at me. Still completely calm. Sometimes with him that’s not necessarily a good thing.
“I’m just telling you how it is,” Jimmy says. “One of these people killed my partner. Or knows who killed my partner. They killed the DA who brought us in on the Carson case. I can’t let that go.”
What comes out of him next comes out in a harsh whisper.
“You should know me well enough by now to know that I don’t let shit go.”
“Even if it puts us all in danger?”
“What the hell are you talking about, Janie? We’re already in danger.”
I can’t remember the two of us ever having a real argument. We have disagreements all the time, though rarely on the big things. But he never gets genuinely angry with me.
Until now.
“I’m not telling you to let anything go,” I say. “I’m asking you, Jimmy.”
ONE HUNDRED TWO
Jimmy
HE DOESN’T CALL JANE for a couple of days. She doesn’t call him. Longest they’ve gone since she was in Switzerland.
Jimmy does get a call from Detective Craig Jackson a couple of nights later, almost two in the morning, Jackson knowing how little Jimmy sleeps. He’s calling because he’s still trying to help Jimmy out. And because Craig Jackson didn’t let shit go, either.
“I think I got a lead on who Champi and Licata were answering to,” Jackson says.
Jimmy can hear the excitement in his voice, like he’s giving off sparks at his end.
“Don’t tell me. It was Salvatore.”
“Bigger.”
The next morning Jimmy is sitting with Lieutenant Paul Harrington, the kind of boss he wished he had with the cops, at the Sip ’N Soda in Southampton, just down from Town Hall. It’s a place out of the past, including Jimmy’s, 1960s or earlier, with its old-fashioned counter and fountains and homemade ice cream and tiled floor. They’re at a small table outside, facing 27A. Harrington has apologized to Jimmy for not meeting him earlier, but one of the perks of retirement is being a late sleeper for the first time in his life.
“You’re tellingmethat Jackson toldyouthat Sonny Blum himself was running these guys?” Harrington asks.
“Word for word, practically.”
Harrington laughs. “Have you seen any of the videos of the poor bastard from a few years ago? One time they found him wandering one of the streets near that fortress he lives in, over there in Garden City, wearing what looked like one of Vincent the Chin’s old bathrobes. Rememberthatpoor bastard? Mr. Vincent Gigante himself. Brother of a priest. Not that it helped him much when his brain turned to oatmeal.”
Harrington is having an honest-to-Christ egg cream because they still serve them at Sip ’N Soda. For the life of him, Jimmy can’t remember the last time he saw somebody with an egg cream in front of them.
“My opinion?” Harrington says. “Just thinking out loud here? I think somebody is trying to send you down a rabbit hole.”