The Digger's Game

Synopsis: The Digger: Aka Jerry Doherty; he is one of those hard Harps. You want a Zenith stereo or an RCA AccuColor, he can sell it to you very cheap. If it doesn't burn you when you touch it. You want a clean job of breaking and entering, you see the Digger. Right now, every little bit helps, because he is in $18,000 worth of trouble. He went to Las Vegas on one of those package tours the other day, one thing or another happened, and he had to sign some paper before he left.

The Bright Red: A bar in Dorchester the Digger owns; this is one thing he won't sell or mortgage.

Agatha Doherty: She's married to the Digger, and there are some things that bother her. For instance, where does he go at night when the rest of the family has gone to bed? Or the $1100 he told her he lost in Vegas.

Father Paul Doherty: Rector of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the Digger's brother; weight, 290 pounds. He lives in a comfortable rectory, has a cottage at Onset, goes to Ireland in the fall. He has bailed the Digger out of trouble before this.

Harrington: He spends a lot of time in The Bright Red talking to the Digger. He could use about 35 big ones to buy the boat his wife has been after him about for the past eight years. His principal trouble is he's got a big mouth.

Richie Torrey, aka Croce Torre, and Miller Schabb: They run a package-tour business, sometimes for the Holy Name Society or the Knights of Columbus, but the main idea is to fill the planes up with suckers headed for some place with casinos in it. The organization put them in this business, but their trouble is, they got the Greek along with it.

The Greek: He has lots of muscles as a result of working out at the Y every morning before breakfast. They are not bad to have in the juice business, where some people object to the high rates of interest the Greek charges on things like gambling debts from Vegas. He has the paper on the Digger. He is going to see the Digger very soon.

A tan stucco wall, eight feet high and capped with red tiles, shields the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from the noise of very light traffic on Larkspur Street in Weston. The driveway openings in the wall were built to accommodate LaSalles and Zephyrs.

Before noon the Digger eased the broad Oldsmobile through, reminding himself that he had managed the entrance before without gouging a fender.

The Digger parked at the edge of the oval drive, brushing the right fender with the heavy green foliage of the rhododendrons. Blood-colored hedge roses, pruned severely square, bloomed along the inside wall. Ponderous hydrangeas in white wooden tubs drooped before the roses. The air was crowded with fat honeybees around the flowers. On the lawns an underground sprinkling system put up low, whispering fountains in the sunlight; a few corpulent robins walked in the spray, shaking their feathers now and then. In the shade of tall black maples at the end of the lawns, a silky silver Weimaraner arose and padded off toward the rear of the rectory. Keeping a close watch for bees, the Digger walked to the door of the stucco rectory, pushed the bell and sighed.

Mrs. Herlihy was about to turn 60. She was gradually putting on flesh. She dressed in blue, simple suits, and might have been the hostess of a small tearoom known for its delicate pastries. Escorting the Digger toward the study, she said: "You could be twins."

In the study, the Digger looked at the mutton-stripped, glass-front bookcases and the seven-foot carved-cherry desk. The carpet was a rose-colored Oriental; it took the sun nicely where the French doors opened onto the flagstone terrace. At the corner of the terrace there were four potted tree roses; a small gray bird perched on one of them and sang.

"I hate that woman," the Digger said when Paul came into the study.

"Mrs. Herlihy?" Paul said. "I think the world of her. She runs the house perfectly. She has a very pleasant manner. I think sometimes we ought to ordain Mrs. Herlihy and let her take over the rest of the work. I haven't said that to Mrs. Herlihy." Paul wore a pale-yellow LaCoste sport shirt and white slacks. He wore white slip-on shoes, no socks.

"You had your hair cut," the Digger said. "It's different. It's, it's a different color. You're touching it up. I gotta hand it to you, Paul, you look like a bishop. You live like a bishop, too. Not bad at all. I'm in the wrong line of work is what I think."

"Oh, come on," Paul said, "you do all right. A workingmen's bar in Dorchester? That's like a private gold mine. If Pa'd had something like that, he would've been in seventh heaven."

"He would've been in some kind of heaven," the Digger said, "and a lot sooner, too. Or else maybe down to the Washingtonian, drying out. He had enough trouble staying off the tea as it was. He hadda bar, I think he would've been pickled all the time. In addition to which it's no soft touch, you know, things the way they are. New law now, we gotta serve broads. Guys don't like it, guys' wives don't like it, I agree with them: Booze and broads don't mix. Also, I gotta put in another toilet, which is going to run me a good three thousand before I'm through and I lose space, too. Time I get it, it'll be time for Father Finn's regular sermon about the evils of drink and that'll fall the trade off for a week or two. It's no picnic, Paul."

"I could speak to Father Finn, if you want," Paul said.

"I'd rather you didn't," the Digger said. "It gets Aggie upset and all, and it costs me money, but it also don't encourage anybody else, thinking about going to the Licensing for another joint. Ask him instead how he likes the ghinny assistant."

"Still your old tolerant self, I see, Jerry," Paul said.

"I been around," the Digger said, "I work hard, I seen a few things. I can think what I want. I don't like ghinnies is all. I got reasons."

"Heaven's (continued on page 92)digger's game(continued from page 86) going to be hard for you," Paul said. "They're nowhere near as selective as you are, from what I hear."

"Yeah," the Digger said, "I heard that, too. I didn't hear it from Father Finn, of course, but I see Alioto's working around to that every so often. Coons and everything. 'Course, that's only true if there's anything to the rest of it, shade just doesn't go down and that's the end of you."

"You're not sure?" Paul said.

"Put it this way," the Digger said, "if they got that thing and all, it's not crowded. I sure don't know that many guys I'd expect to find there."

"You expect to get the chance to look, though," Paul said.

"Well," the Digger said, "there was Ma. Now, Ma, she did what she was supposed to do, and she laid off the other stuff, and she put up with Pa and me. So, and that other thing, she had a son a priest, which is the free ticket, the way I get it. So, it's all true, Ma is OK. Now, me, I figure the one chance I got is to kick off when it's raining--no golf, a weekday, say in April, no ball game, middle of the afternoon, so you already had your nap. I see it coming, I'm gonna say: 'Aggie, gimme the chaplain, baby. Call over to Saint Hilary's, Father Finn ain't in, try the Lutherans and then the Jews. Worst comes to worst, the black fella down in the store Columbus Ave., under the el.' Because that's the only chance I got, somebody comes by when I'm too weak to get in any more trouble and wipes it all off, says: 'Let him in, God. He made it.' Ma, Ma could've died in a closet when the Broons're playing Canadiens, there isn't a priest for miles. She still would've been all right. Maureen's inna convent. She goes and they say: 'Let her in, works for the Boss.' Kathy? Kathy married the Corola wine company. Either she goes straight to hell for marrying the wop or she goes straight to heaven for living with the wop, I forget which Ma finally decided. Either way, nothing she can do about it. You got the retirement plan. Me, I gotta be realistic. I go at a time when I can't get the house call, I'm sunk."

"Does it bother you?" Paul said.

"Yeah," the Digger said, "a little."

"Enough to do something about it?" Paul said.

"No," the Digger said, "not enough for that. I figure, I make it, great. They gotta, there's gotta be some reason they call it paradise. I don't make it, it's there to be had, well, too bad, at least I'll see all my friends in the other place. And if there isn't no place, either kind, well, at least I didn't waste no time worrying about it."

"I think that's a healthy attitude," Paul said.

"Yeah," the Digger said.

"I do," Paul said. "It's not that far off from mine. The way I look at it, I'm telling people what I really believe to be true. But maybe it isn't true. All right. If they do what I tell them, and it's true, I've done a lot of good. That makes me feel good. If they do what I tell them, and it isn't true, what've they lost? There's nothing wrong with the model of Christian life, even if there isn't any jackpot at the end. It's an orderly, dignified way to live, and that's not a bad thing."

"I don't think that's what Ma thought you were up to when you got ordained, there," the Digger said.

I'm sure it wasn't," Paul said. "Ma was a good, simple woman. I don't think it's what I was up to when I got ordained."

"That's nice talk," the Digger said.

"I didn't mean anything," Paul said. "I mean it: She knew what she believed in, and she believed in it. I'd give a great deal today for a church full of people like her. I offer Mass at least twice a week for the repose of her soul."

"Now, there's something I could use," the Digger said, "a little of that repose of the soul. That'd be just the item."

"Well," Paul said, "you had yourself a little excursion a week or so ago. Things can't be that bad."

"How'd you hear that?" the Digger said.

"I ran into Aggie," Paul said. "I had some business at the chancery and then I took the trolley in town and went to see Father Francis at the shrine, take him to lunch. Aggie was coming out when I went in. She had Patricia with her. Those are beautiful children, my nephews and niece, even if I am their uncle."

"I wonder what the hell she was doing in there," the Digger said. "She didn't tell me she was in town."

"You were away," Paul said. "I suppose she figured, well, the cat's away. Here's my chance to get roaring drunk. So, naturally, she stopped in at the shrine with your daughter to get things off to a proper start. She said you were out in Las Vegas and she was in shopping and stopped in at the shrine to say a prayer for your safe return. Nothing sinister about that, is there?"

"No," the Digger said, "I didn't mean that. I just didn't know she was in there is all. She can do what she likes."

"How'd you happen to be in Las Vegas?" Paul said.

"Oh, you know," the Digger said, "one thing and another. I know this guy, he's inna travel business, he had this deal, he had some room onna plane, and did me and some of the guys want to go? So, you know, we hear a lot about Vegas, yeah, we'll go. So, you pay five bucks, you join this club, then they can give you the plane fare practically for nothing. They got this kind of a special deal with the hotel, so, really, it's pretty cheap, you do it that way. It's almost all the way across the country and all. You get your meals, couple of drinks, you can play golf. I played golf. It's really a pretty good deal."

"You like Vegas, huh?" Paul said.

"It's pretty hot," the Digger said. "During the day, it was awful hot. See, that's one of the reasons you can get the rate, going out this time of year. It's so hot a lot of people don't want to go. So the hotels, you know, they pay part of it. But it was still hot. One of the days it got up to a hundred and fifteen. I wouldn't want to live there. I just wanted to see what it was like."

"Of course, the main attraction's the gambling," Paul said.

"Well, but they have a lot of big-name entertainment there, too," the Digger said.

"Who'd you see?" Paul said.

"It was kind of funny, actually," the Digger said. "I was going to, they had this opera fellow that was supposed to sing there, Mario Lanza?"

"Mario Lanza's been dead about ten years," Paul said.

"Must've been somebody else, then," the Digger said. "Like I say, I forget his name. Anyway, he was sick. Nero. Franco Nero?"

"The only one I ever heard of," Paul said, "was Corelli. I doubt he sings out there."

"I dunno," the Digger said. "Whoever it was, he was sick. So they just had, it was some guys I never heard of. They had a comedian and they had this floor-show and a guy sang popular."

"Did you by any chance do some gambling, Jerry?"

"Well, yeah," the Digger said, "I did some gambling."

"How much gambling did you do?" Paul said.

"Now, look," the Digger said, "gambling, you know, I done it before. I know where Suffolk is, the Rock, Gansett. I even bet onna baseball game now and then. I didn't, I know about gambling, Paul. I didn't have to go all the way out to Vegas to gamble.

"Well, that's true, of course," Paul said. "Did you win or lose?"

"I lost," the Digger said.

"You lost," Paul said.

"Look," the Digger said, "I'm not one of them guys comes around and he's always telling you he won. People lose gambling. I lost."

"That's why they run gambling, I (continued on page 138)digger's game(continued from page 92) think," Paul said. "People lose their money at it."

"Mostly," the Digger said, "mostly, they do."

"How much did you lose, Jerry?" Paul said.

"Well," the Digger said, "if it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon not go into it."

"Jerry," Paul said, "I'd love not to go into it. You got a deal."

There was an extended silence. There was a ship's clock on the mantel of the fireplace in the study of the rectory of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It had a soft tick, inaudible except in near-absolute silence. It ticked several times.

"How's your car running?" the Digger said.

"I've been thinking of turning it in," Paul said.

"Something the matter with it?" the Digger said. His face showed concern. "Car's not that old, you don't drive it all the time. It's, what, a six-thousand-dollar item? Oughta be all right for five years or so."

"It's two years old," Paul said. "Nineteen thousand miles on it. There's nothing wrong with it. I was just thinking, I might trade it. I always wanted a Cadillac."

"Those're nice," the Digger said. "I wouldn't mind one of them myself. I see one a while back, had a real close look at it. Really a nice car."

"Yeah," Paul said. "But I can't buy a Cadillac. The parishioners, they wouldn't mind. Most of them have Cadillacs themselves. But Billy Maloney, sold me the Buick, he'd be angry. And Billy's a good friend of mine. Then there's the chancery. They wouldn't like it. You buy yourself a Cadillac, in a way, it's sort of like saying: 'I've got all I want.' At least they're not going to give you any more, and that's about the same thing. I can't have a Cadillac. But then I started looking at those Limiteds."

"That's another nice car," the Digger said.

"And it's still a Buick," Paul said, "so it won't get anybody's nose out of joint. But it's the closest thing to a Cadillac that I've seen so far."

"What do they go for?" the Digger said.

"Bill treats me all right," Paul said. "This'll be the fourth car I've bought from him. I suppose, twenty-eight hundred and mine."

"He's using you all right," the Digger said. "That's an eight-thousand-dollar unit, I figure, you get it all loaded up. You do all right, Big Brother."

"Around seventy-four hundred, actually," Paul said. "My one indulgence, you know?"

The Digger looked around the room. "Yup," he said, "right. Cottage. In the winter, Florida. Didn't Aggie tell me something about, you're going to Ireland in a month or so?"

"October," Paul said. "Leading a pilgrimage. Something like your Las Vegas thing, I suppose. Except Lourdes is supposed to be the highlight, no naked women and no gambling. Just holy water. Then you get to come back through Ireland and get what really interests you, the Blarney stone and that idiocy they put on at Bunratty Castle. All that race-of-kings stuff."

"Gee," the Digger said, "I would've thought the types out here'd be too fine for that, all that jigging around."

"They are," Paul said. "You couldn't sell a tour in this parish if you put up ten plenary indulgences. In the summer, God bless them, the envelopes come in from Boothbay and Cataumet. The ones who aren't all tanned in February, from taking the kids to St. Thomas, are all tanned from taking the kids to Mount Snow. This is for Monsignor Fahey's parish, Saint Malachy's in Randolph. He set it up. Then his doctor told him he'd prefer the monsignor didn't travel around too much until everybody's sure the pacemaker's working all right. So Monsignor Fahey asked me to take it. Well, he was my first pastor, and he still gets a respectful hearing at the chancery. I'll do the man a favor."

"Look," the Digger said, "speaking of favors. I got a problem I was hoping maybe you could help me out with."

"Sure," Paul said.

"Well, I didn't tell you yet," the Digger said.

"I meant: Of course you have," Paul said.

"I don't get it," the Digger said.

"Jerry," Paul said, "am I stupid? Do you think I'm stupid?"

"God, no," the Digger said. "You had, what was it, college, and then you're in the seminary all that time. You went over to Rome there, you even went to college summers. Now you got all this. No, I don't think that."

"Good," Paul said.

"I never had any education like that," the Digger said.

"Because you weren't interested," Paul said. "Not interested enough to do what you had to to get it."

"Well," the Digger said, "I mean, you wanted to be a priest. I thought Ma was always saying that's something you get from God. You don't just wake up inna morning and say: 'What the hell, nothing to do today, guess I'll be a priest.'"

"You could've done it other ways," Paul said. "You could've finished school in the Service. You could've finished school when you were in school, instead of being in such a hurry to be a wise guy that you couldn't bother."

"I hated school," the Digger said.

"Right," Paul said. "That's what I'm saying. Nobody handed me anything I've got."

"I didn't mean that," the Digger said. "You earned it. I know that."

"I don't," Paul said. "I don't know any such thing. I think I lucked out. I was in the right place at the right time, two or three times."

"That's just as good," the Digger said.

"It's better," Paul said. "I'll take it any time. My problem wasn't getting it. My problem was keeping it after I got it. That problem is you."

"Now, just a goddamned minute," the Digger said.

"Take two, if you like," Paul said, "they're small. I've been here eight years. Eight years since Monsignor Labelle got so far into his dotage nobody could pretend anymore, and they put me in as administrator. That was in November. He was still alive in December, when Patricia was christened. After Christmas."

"I thought we might get into that again," the Digger said. "Funny thing. I did time and then I come out and I never been in trouble again. Governor even give me a piece of paper, everything's fair and square. But the other thing, I guess that's gonna go on for the rest of forever, that right?"

"Keep in mind how you got to be such buddies with the governor," Paul said. "And if you want to bring up that Christmas when I was Uncle Father and Daddy both, you can go ahead. I didn't plan to."

"I made a mistake," the Digger said. "I admit it. I didn't think it was a mistake at the time. Now I know. Move over, Hitler."

"Come off it, Jerry," Paul said.

"Come off it yourself," the Digger said. "Big deal. I went to a football game. The state'd forget about it by now, they couldn't prove after eight years I went to a football game and it was a crime. I think probably even Aggie forgot about it by now."

"She'll never forget," Paul said.

"You guys," the Digger said, "you guys know more about women on less practice than anything I ever see. You want to know something? That celibacy thing, I hope you get what you're after, stop a lot of this pious horseshit about family life we been getting every Sunday ever since I can remember. Serve you guys right."

"Aggie's a fine human being," Paul said.

"She is," the Digger said. "You never saw a better one. But the Blessed Virgin Mary she's not."

"So," Paul said, "she had your baby and then you couldn't make Christmas, (continued on page 175)digger's game(continued from page 138) because you wanted to go down to Miami. That was a mean thing to do."

"It was," the Digger said. "Eight years later, I see it now. I had it thrown up to me enough. I asked her, she mind if I went to the football game. 'No.' I go. All right, I knew she didn't like it. But I figure, she don't, it don't make her mad enough to say she don't like it. So I go. Then she gets a whole lot of backer-uppers like you and I get more shit about that game'n I get for stolen goods. The judge was easier on me and he put me in jail. At least that ended sometime."

"I tell you what," Paul said, "let's act like adults. The game was Kitty Lee. Forget the charming story about the game, all right? Aggie never believed it, anyway. I did, but I'm nave. I was nave. I believed you."

"Well," the Digger said, "we went to the game."

"Sure," Paul said. "Then in February I had Monsignor Labelle in the ground and I was trying to get this shop on an even keel again. Trying very hard, because I'd been a priest sixteen years and this was the first parish I really wanted. Thirty-eight years old, and a prize in my hands if I didn't mess it up. And you showed up."

"I did," the Digger said.

"Yeah," Paul said. "Kitty was a year shy of the age of consent when you went off to that game with her, and the Chinese family didn't take to that kind of mistake, did it, Jerry?"

"The old man was a little pissed," the Digger said.

"That's a very handy way of putting it," Paul said. "He'd been to the district attorney, in fact. So I had to call Eddie Gaffney down at Saint Pius and get him to speak to somebody who knew the assistant D. A. on the case. And I also had to explain to Eddie why it was that my half-witted brother, whom he'd gotten a pardon for, out of the goodness of his heart, was in trouble again."

"Somebody got a thousand dollars for that pardon, I remember it," the Digger said. "I think it might've been Goodness Gaffney's thieving lawyer brother up to the Statehouse there, was the fellow, I think about it long enough."

"Jerry," Paul said, "a lawyer represents you, he gets a fee."

"Somebody else does," the Digger said, "it's a bribe they call it."

"I call it a fee," Paul said. "Since I paid it, I think I ought to get to call it what I like. I thought that was all it was going to take to set you up, so I wouldn't have to worry about you anymore. Then Kitty Lee came along and I was in for it again. It was harder that time. The Lees were mad and they were, what were they, anyway, Jerry, Congregationalists?"

"Some kind of Protestants," the Digger said.

"Congregationalists," Paul said. "Eddie Gaffney had to call Father Wang. Father Wang called the Reverend Dr. Wong. Dr. Wong seriously exaggerated your contrition to the Lees. Where the hell did you meet Kitty Lee, anyway?"

"Inna bar," the Digger said. "I was down to the Saratoga, there, she come in with a couple guys I knew. I scooped her. She was a cute kid."

"That was a great idea, Jerry," Paul said.

"I know," the Digger said. "I should've asked to see her license."

"Five thousand dollars for not asking," Paul said.

"I thought that was steep at the time," the Digger said.

"I didn't," Paul said. "If Mr. Lee'd wanted twenty, I would've given it to him. Statutory rape. Mann Act. Great stuff for me, Jerry. Five thousand was cheap. Dirty, but cheap."

"It was still high for hush money," the Digger said.

"Maybe," Paul said, "but it was my check. It was my money. I knew I wasn't going to get it back. If I'd've thought you could get five thousand dollars together in a bank vault with a rake, I might've asked you. As it was, I took Mr. Lee's offer before he changed his mind."

"Half of it was mine, anyway," the Digger said.

"Half of what?" Paul said. "Half of what was yours?"

"The five," the Digger said. "I'm not knocking you. I appreciated what you did. But half that five, that should've been mine, anyway. The rest, the rest was yours."

"From what?" Paul said.

"The Hibernian insurance," the Digger said. "Ma had five from the Hibernians, she died. You got it all."

"I was the beneficiary," Paul said.

"Sure," the Digger said, "and she's inna rest home, I went over there every goddamned morning before I go down the place, I stop at the store first and I buy her a pack of Luckies and the paper. Rain or shine, and I talk to her at least an hour. I think I missed once, the whole eight months she was there. I had the runs and I couldn't get as far away from the toilet as it would've taken me to drive there. I got hell for that, too. Listen to her, day after day, bitching about the way they treat her, they treated her good. That's a good home. 'What am I doing here, you'd think I didn't have a family,' all the rest of it. Every damned day."

"I know," Paul said, "I caught some of that, too."

"I got a seven-room house," the Digger said. "I'm a good Catholic, I got four young kids. Two oldest in one room and Patricia and Matthew in the other one, she keeps him up all night with the crying, makes him cranky as hell all the time, she was just a little kid. They were both little kids, and Aggie's taking care of both of them, she's not getting no sleep, I got to listen to Ma. Where am I supposed to put her? She started in on me one day, I was up late and I guess probably I was a little hard on her. 'Ma,' I said, 'you can sleep inna goddamned yard, all right? No, I'll do better'n that for you. The garage, put a nice cot there. Beat the hell out of the car, but, and I got to warn you, might be a little chilly this time of year. Better wait till she warms up some. Then you can come and live inna garage, all right? Wait till May.' She got all pissed off, hollering and yelling, raised me from a pup, she wallops the pots over to the Poor Clares, this and that, now she's old and sick. Jesus, it was awful."

"I know," Paul said, "I got some of it, too."

"Well," the Digger said, "where the hell're you gonna put her? You're over to Saint Stephen's then. You put her inna tabernacle, maybe?"

"Not me," Paul said, "I could do no wrong. You."

"Oh," the Digger said, "beautiful. I was also getting it when I wasn't even around."

"She was a querulous old woman," Paul said. "She had a lot of pain. She was immobile, and she'd always done for herself. She was sick."

"And when she died," the Digger said, "she had five thousand bucks, which she didn't leave to me."

"Look," Paul said, "I'll add some things up. If you want, when I get through, I'll split down the middle with you, all right?"

"Deal," the Digger said.

"Coughlin nailed me fourteen hundred dollars for Ma's funeral," Paul said. "Twenty months before, eleven-hundred for Pa's. I paid it. I looked him right in the eye. I said: 'You know, Johnny, I thought eleven was pretty high when I settled for my father. This was almost the identical funeral, same casket and everything. I think fourteen hundred's a little steep.'

"'I know it,' he said, in that oily voice he uses when he's giving you the business," Paul said, "'but I can't help it, Monsignor, to save myself. Everything's going up all the time. I just can't keep up with it. I sympathize with you, believe me. This is rock bottom.'

"'Calling me Monsignor doesn't ease the pain, Coughlin,' I said," Paul said, "and I paid him. That was the last time Coughlin saw anything the archdiocese had to hand out. That was the most expensive fourteen-hundred-dollar funeral that devil ever ran, I can guarantee you that."

"I thought Dad's insurance covered his funeral," the Digger said.

"It did," Paul said. "He had five with the Hibernians, too. A thousand from the union. Social Security was a little over two hundred."

"So that didn't come out of you," the Digger said.

"Sorry," Paul said. "I got the canceled check for his funeral, if you'd like to see it. The insurance went to Ma. I never asked her for it. She had nothing else. No Social Security from the Poor Clares, no retirement, either. That insurance was all she had."

"Bastards," the Digger said.

"If they had it," Paul said, "guys like you'd have to pay for it. Since they don't, guys like me have to pay for it. No complaint: The Church didn't treat Ma like it should've, and that was bad, but it treated me a lot better'n it probably should've, and I took it. So she washed the floor and she walked on it and she slipped and she broke her hip. How many years'd she done that?"

"Ever since I can remember," the Digger said.

"Sure," Paul said, "you take it in stride. The hospital was thirty-three hundred dollars that I paid, plus whatever she paid."

"Hey," the Digger said.

"That was before the nursing home." Paul said. "Flynn runs a good home, as you say. He also charges all outdoors. In two months of drugs and special nurses and the man who cuts toenails, she went right through all the money in the bank that I hadn't asked her for. Then I started writing checks again. Every week, two-fifty-three, two-fifty-seven, two-fifty-six. I figure, thirty-five hundred dollars or so. OK, want half?"

"No," the Digger said.

"You're sure," Paul said. "Eleven for Pa's funeral, fourteen for hers, thirty-five hundred for her being sick, in the home, plus the thirty-three I paid the hospital, you sure you don't want half of the Hibernians?"

"I didn't know," the Digger said. "I figured, Ma's probably pissed off at me, I went inna can. I didn't know you spent all that dough."

"What is it you want, Jerry?" Paul said.

"Money," the Digger said.

"That," Paul said, "that I know. When Aggie told me where you were, I went inside the shrine and offered up a prayer. Before I saw Father Francis. I asked God to grant you a safe return. I also asked Him to keep you out of games you couldn't afford. I even asked Him to let you win. I was praying for me. I said: 'God, You're not paying attention. He's going to get in trouble. Please get him out.'"

"Father Doherty," the Digger said, "I got some bad news for you about the power of prayer."

"How much?" Paul said.

"Eighteen thousand dollars," the Digger said.

The ship's clock ticked several times.

"That," Paul said, "is a very impressive sum of money."

"I think so," the Digger said. "I know I was impressed. I didn't really know, you know, how bad it was. Then I get back to the room, and I add everything up. Well, I had an idea. But I add it up, I was, I was impressed. I felt like somebody kicked me in the guts is how I felt."

The clock ticked several more times.

"I can understand that," Paul said. "Of course, the question is, where're you going to get the money?"

"Well," the Digger said, "I got some of it."

"How much?" Paul said.

"About two thousand," the Digger said.

"That leaves you sixteen thousand to get," Paul said.

"That's the way it come out when I did the figuring onna way over here," the Digger said.

"Where do you plan to get it?" Paul said.

"I been running a little short of ideas," the Digger said. "I know where to get sixteen, but it's probably gonna get me in a deep tub of shit. That don't appeal to me. That's why I come out here. Now you say, you remind me, all them times I come out here, I'm inna bind. Right. But I don't like asking you, you know? I know you're pretty sick of it. I'm a big pain in the ass. But it isn't I don't plan all them things, you know? I just got a way, it seems like I can stay out of trouble just so long, and then there I am, in trouble again. And here I am again. I had some way, getting that dough, Paul, I wouldn't be here. But I don't. I haven't got any way of getting it, won't get me in worse trouble'n I'm in already."

"Who," Paul said, "to whom do you owe all this money? Forgive me, I'm innocent. Is it some casino? I never knew anybody in a scrape like this."

"Well," the Digger said, "actually, probably, I don't know yet. Some loan shark."

"How much time will he let you have," Paul said, "to raise this money?"

"Time?" the Digger said. "He'll let me have the rest of my life is what he'll let me have. That's the way he wants it. It's me, I don't want the time. I figure the vig goes me four and five hundred. Probably five, maybe I hold him off for four, it's somebody it turns out I know."

"Four hundred dollars a month," Paul said.

"Four hundred a week," the Digger said. "I got two grand. That's either vig plus sixteen off the nut or it's five weeks to raise the eighteen. See, that's what I come out here, find out, what do I do, what do I plan on? I dunno how I use the two."

"Say it," Paul said.

"Say what?" the Digger said.

"Say what you want me to do," Paul said. "Those other times I listened to your story and then I said I'd try to help you, and you said: 'Thanks,' and I started making telephone calls and presuming on friendships, trying to find a way out for you. This time I want you to say right out what you want me to do. I think it might do you good to hear yourself say it."

"I want you to give me sixteen thousand dollars," the Digger said.

"Not lend," Paul said, "give."

"Yeah," the Digger said, "I admit it, I'm not looking for no loan."

"No," Paul said.

The clock ticked.

The Digger cleared his throat. "Paul," he said, "you know, maybe you don't know, you know what this means. It don't matter, what shy got the paper, you know? They all work the same way. They're going to come around and say, where's the money? And I got to have the money for him is all. Otherwise, well, they got, every one of them has got a guy or so with a Louisville Slugger, come around and break your kneecaps for you or something. I mean that, Paul. I could get my knees broke."

"I believe it," Paul said. "You convinced me, a long, long time ago, that if anybody knows how those things're done, you do."

"Furthermore," the Digger said, "furthermore, I'm not getting the knees broke. It just don't appeal to me. I'm not gonna sit around and wait, I'm gonna do something before it happens."

"That seems to have a threatening sound to it," Paul said.

"You can take it any way you want," the Digger said. "One way or the other, I'm getting that dough. You don't give it to me, I'm getting it some other way. But I am getting it. I don't need the kind of grief a man gets if he don't."

"Well, now," Paul said, "let's see. There aren't an awful lot of ways you can do that. Seems to me as though about the only thing you can do is go to a bank and get yourself a mortgage man."

"That's one of the first things I think of," the Digger said. "I can hock The Bright Red. Then I think, I'll be lucky, somebody'll give me ten onna place. So that means: The house, I got to hock the house. What's that good for? I suppose I could probably get five onna house, I was to go out and look for it. So I'm still short, and not only that, what's Aggie got then? Nothing. So I think, I say, I'm not gonna do it. It's not Aggie and the kids' fault, I need that kind of dough. It's something I did. I can't go out and do that to them. I gotta keep them things free."

"Very touching," Paul said. "Of course, it doesn't leave you much room to maneuver, but there it is."

"There it is," the Digger said. "I'm not looking for no credit, Paul. I'm just telling you, I'm not getting no more mortgages. So that leaves me, that leaves me with some of the other things I think of to do."

"Which are?" Paul said.

"Well," the Digger said, "I don't know as I oughta answer you that one. See, some of them could be kind of risky, and you might get nervous."

"Now, that," Paul said, "that is very definitely a threat. As little as I know about being threatened, I can recognize that. Just what do you plant to do, Jerry? Rob the poor box down at Saint Hilary's?"

"What I got planned," the Digger said, "it's none of your business, Paul. You don't want to help? OK, you don't want to help. I give you credit, you lay it right onna line. You don't gimme the long face and say: 'Jeez, Jerry, I don't have it.' Man knows where he stands with you, at least. Until the kneecaps go, anyway."

"I have got it," Paul said.

"There you go," the Digger said. "Of course you got it. You got the fancy dogs running around and the hair, dyeing the hair, the whole bit. 'Course the kneecaps aren't yours, but that don't matter, does it?"

"Oh, come off it, Jerry," Paul said. "None of this belongs to me and you know it. It all belonged to Labelle before me, and it'll belong to somebody else after me. None of this is mine, Jerry."

"But you're still all right, right, Paul?" the Digger said. "Long as Paul's all right, that's all that matters."

"The car's mine," Paul said. "The clothes're mine. I've got a couple of very small bank accounts, when you think about how long I've had to work to get them. I couldn't live two years on what I've got in the bank. The rest belongs to the Church."

"You got the place at Onset," the Digger said.

"I have," Paul said. "I paid fifteen-five for that place seven years ago. I've reduced the principal considerably since then, mostly by putting money into it that I might've liked to spend on something else. It's about twenty-eight thousand now, with appreciation and inflation and the improvements I've made. I owe three thousand on the note now. So, in equity, I've got twenty-five thousand dollars, say. About that."

"That's what I was saying," the Digger said.

"Those things," Paul said, "American Express'll trust me for a month and I've got a new set of Walter Hagens. I've got five thousand dollars' worth of A.T. & T. I spent twenty-four years of my life grubbing up that very little pile. If I retire at sixty-five the way I expect I'll have to when I get to be sixty-five, I've got nineteen years left to add to it. If I can stay on till I'm seventy, or don't die or something before then, I'm precisely halfway along. Otherwise, I'm on the decline.

"Now, what is it you want, Jerry?" Paul said. "You want those twenty-four years to pay for three or four days of you making a goddamned ass of yourself. That's what your position is. You're forty-two years old and you're still acting like you never grew up, and you expect me to pay for it. You want me to turn over everything I've got, to you, and start over. I won't do it.

"That house in Onset is my retirement home. I've got to pay it off before I get on a pension, because I won't be able to carry more than the taxes when I retire. Maybe not even those. I'd better not live too long is what I'm saying. If I mortgage it now, to pay off some bookies in Nevada, I won't have it when I quit. I just won't. I'll have to sell it and throw the money into the common pot of some home for drooling old priests and spend the rest of my years getting chivied about by jovial nuns. No, thanks. This time you want more'n I can afford."

"I'm sorry I came," the Digger said.

"You're nowhere near as sorry as I am." Paul said. "That doesn't mean I'm not sorry you got yourself into this mess, though. Now, you told me what you wanted me to do, and I told you I won't do it. And you're mad. If you're interested, I'll tell you what I will do, and you can take it or leave it. If you'd lather be mad, you can be mad. Suit yourself."

The Digger had started to get up. He sat down again. "I'm desperate," he said. "I'll take anything."

"Oh, I know that," Paul said, "but this is a little more than that, taking something. This is a deal. A deal, you have to give something, am I right?"

"Yup," the Digger said.

"I'll give you my Limited," Paul said. "I've got three thousand dollars in a special bank account, what I got for Christmas and Easter and baptisms and weddings over the past few years. There isn't going to be any more of that now, the pastor's special get-rich-slow scheme, but that's the way it goes. The Electra's good for at least another year, and my Limited's probably not as important to me as your kneecaps are to you. Or to me, for that matter. You can have three thousand dollars, free, gratis and for nothing. You don't have to pay it back."

"But I got to do something," the Digger said.

"Correct," Paul said. "I get your solemn word: This is the last time. You're my brother, but you're a little old now to need a keeper, and I've had my share of the job. I don't want it anymore. I never had much luck at it, anyway.

"I don't ask for miracles, Jerry," Paul said. "They're nice, but they're hard to come by. You'll be in another mess next year. You know it and I know it. I don't want promises of good behavior."

"OK," the Digger said.

"What I want," Paul said, "what I want is peace and quiet. I want a promise that you'll go to someone else the next time you get in the soup. You won't even tell me about it."

"Ok," the Digger said.

"I'm not finished," Paul said. "I'm at the point where a man has to drive a hard bargain. I should've done it before, but I didn't. Now I've got to, or you'll just keep on coming back until you beggar me.

"You started talking about risky things," Paul said. "I know your history. You went to prison for minding Dinny Hand's cellar full of stolen jewelry, twenty years ago, and you didn't learn a solitary thing. You almost went to prison when they found out about those television sets and stereos in the cellar of The Bright Red. It was all I could do to persuade them the help put them in there and you didn't know about it, and you know I was lying, Jerry, and I knew it, too. Your vacation was all that saved you, that time, that and the silence of your friends.

"I know the way your mind works," Paul said. "I don't like it, but I know it. When you get the chance, you steal. The trouble is that you're not a very good thief. You've been caught twice. The last time you were next door to a long sentence. You got away that time. You won't get away again. You see, I know them, too, from dealing with them in your behalf. They remember a man who got one free. If he slips again, they land on him."

"Just out of curiosity." the Digger said, "what do you care, this is the write-off and all? I don't mean nothing by it, I'm just asking."

"I've been here two years short of the magic number," Paul said. "Nobody's ever been pastor of Holy Sepulchre for ten years without making domestic prelate. I'd like to, Jerry, I'd really like to. I'd like for you not to foul it up for me."

"That's what I thought," the Digger said.

"What you think is your business," Paul said. "Your family deserves something better'n weekends traveling back and forth to Walpole to see Daddy. I deserve something better'n coming downstairs every year to hear about Little Brother's latest calamity. You tell me you won't mortgage the house or the saloon to get the money that you lost all by yourself. But there's no other legal way to get it. So you're telling me you'll commit crimes. And I'm telling you you'll get caught. Don't give me that pious stuff about your family. I'll give you three thousand dollars. For that I get your promises: no more emergency visits and no more crimes. You'll get caught."

"You're buying me off," the Digger said.

"I'm buying me," Paul said, "I'm buying me off. I told you. I'm making provision for my old age. I'm through bailing you out. Now I'm buying me off. I want those assurances. For three thousand dollars, we're quits. Take it or leave it."

"Take it," the Digger said. "You got my word."

"I'd better have," Paul said. "I was really looking forward to that Limited."

• • •

"Jesus Christ, Dig," the Greek said, "you got way in over your fuckin' head. I saw that fuckin' marker, I almost fuckin' shit. The fuck's the matter with you, you lose your fuckin' mind or something? Guys, guys like us, you haven't got that kind of fuckin' money. What the fuck happened?"

"You'd make some guy a great fuckin' wife, you know that, Greek?" the Digger said. "That fuckin' mouth of yours, come inna my place and start playing it like it was a fuckin' radio, anybody ask you to do that? Fuck you, Greek."

"Fuck you, Dig," the Greek said. They sat at a table at the rear of The Bright Red. They had draught beers in front of them. It was early in the afternoon and the air conditioner made a steady white ripple of interference across the ball game on the television set above the front door. "That's my fuckin' eighteen K you're getting so fuckin' big about. It was your eighteen, you had eighteen K, I might come around and be nice. But it's my paper and I know fuckin' well you haven't got the dough and that makes you a big fuckin' problem. Them I don't like."

"Look at that," the Digger said, "a hundred and sixty-five thousand a year and the bastard can't get the fuckin' ball outa the fuckin' infield, for Christ sake."

"I assume you're not down on them," the Greek said.

"Line's wrong," the Digger said. "No way them bastards get five more'n Cleveland, McDowell there. I laid off."

"Still at it," the Greek said. "I'm beginning to see it, now, how it happened. You just haven't got no fuckin' sense is all."

The Digger thought for a moment. "That's about right," he said, "I think that's about right. I start off, blackjack, twenty-one, they call it. I had eight hundred and twenty bucks and three days and I'm there the first night, I just couldn't wait."

"The fuck you doing playing blackjack?" the Greek said. "My little kid knows enough, don't play blackjack."

"Look," the Digger said, "my little kid, too. My holy brother. Everybody knows that, got any fuckin' brains at all. But see, I see this old bastard, brown sports coat. He's betting thousand-dollar bills. I never saw more'n two of them in my whole fuckin' life, and one of them was queer. A guy, stupid shit, wanted to sell me a hundred of them. This guy, he's got the genuine and he's peeling them off like they're onna outside of something he's gonna eat, all right? So, I got to be all right, I see that. I pay a grand, the trip, the eight-twenty's somebody else's, I'm peeling fives, it's gonna last me a long time, I lose every goddamned hand. Which, of course, I'm not gonna do, I'm too fuckin' smart for that. So I win some, I lose some. You been to Vegas, Greek?"

"Nah," the Greek said. "I went to fuckin' Havana before that fuckin' Commie took over, I lost my fuckin' shirt. Nothing like what you did. About five hundred. I said: 'I'm not doing that again.' Got hell from my wife, too. I don't go for that shit, making other guys rich with my money."

"Your wife," the Digger said. "My fuckin' wife, she knew about this she would fuckin' kill me. Anyway, the old bastard's got a credit card. Shows it, he can cash checks. He writes out the check and this sleepy-looking cocksucker OKs it. The old bastard gets his own thousands back, he starts in again. Only now, of course, he's out the check. Now right fuckin' there, Greek, is when I should've quit, right onna fuckin' spot. But I don't.

"I think," the Digger said, "I think I'm different, not like the old coot. I had about sixty of the house money. I had eight-eighty. Beautiful, I think, old bastard's using up all the bad luck. I'm gonna sit there and make hay. He sits there, calm as hell, nerves like he's got, he oughta be robbing banks, all I gotta do is bet steady and fast and I make a bundle.

"See what I mean?" the Digger said. "Stupid. No more fives. Twenties. Some good cards, some bad cards, I win some and I lose some, they deal them fuckin' cards like they're coming out of a pistol, bang, bang, bang. Pretty soon I haven't got no money left.

"I was surprised," the Digger said. "I had eight-eighty when I start playing twenties. I wasn't playing that long. I win a few. Can't be. But there it is, they got the whole eight-eighty back and I, I'm out of money.

"Now," the Digger said, "I'm not like the old bastard. I haven't got no credit card. But, the tour there, special arrangement and all? I can sign a marker. You know about that, right? You being the guy that winds up with the markers."

"Uh-huh," the Greek said, "and the outcome is you owe the fuckin' money, Dig. You signed the paper, you owe the dough. No other way."

"I did," the Digger said. "That night I sign five of what you got."

"That's when you should've quit," the Greek said.

"Yeah," the Digger said, "I should've quit when I get onna plane, me giving the Greek all that, plus the eight-twenty I give them that they give me. My wife, well, it, I lost almost six K and it's still early when I get up, and you got no idea, the shit I took, my wife, I told her, I'm spending a grand, go to Vegas. Boy, I got up from that table, almost six grand down, it's like they had one of them hookups, I could hear her and she don't even know it yet. She still don't know it.

"I went to bed that way," the Digger said. "All that stuff they give you, all the broads in Vegas? Well, I don't screw around much. But I had it in mind, you know, things go all right, maybe I try a little strange tail. Well, that night I'm not interested in no broads. I couldn't've got it up on a bet. I was fuckin' sick is what I was.

"The next day I get up. I feel awful. The kid, his girl didn't get her period, two weeks late? I'm the same way. I'm not doin' that again, no, sir. No more fuckin' cards. Breakfast and then I'm gonna have lunch and then I'm gonna have dinner, but no more cards for the Digger. This is the first day I'm there, I'm already onna ropes. I'm gonna be a good boy. And think about how I come up with five for being stupid.

"Now, that place," the Digger said, "they got that place laid out pretty good. The pictures they give you, you got swimming, you got the golf, the horseback riding, you can shoot pool, and tennis, they got tennis, you want to sit around the pool, they got broads with big tits to look at. Great. Except, it's over a hundred, we're there, all three days. I never rode a fuckin' horse in my life, and I don't want to. And besides, they got, they don't want you riding no horses, they got them casinos open day and night. You go down for fuckin' breakfast, people gambling. Gambling's what they got for you to do. That's all they got for you to do. Unless maybe you wanna go the library, down the airport, watch the planes'r something.

"I'm not gambling," the Digger said. "I sit around the pool, I see a lot of dumpy old fat kikes with baggy tits, they got white and blue hair and their skin, you could make shoes out of it. All these guys look like King Farouk flappin' around in them rubber things they wear on the feet, and they're all smoking cigars. Now and then, you see something go by, little short of seventy, the old bastards look at her and you know, hundred-dollar whore, made out of sheet metal, you fucked her and you'd cut it off on a rough edge.

"I took about all of that I could," the Digger said. "Then I go to the movies. I fly all the way across the country and I go the movies, I gotta stay out of trouble."

"How's the movie?" the Greek said.

"Shitty," the Digger said. "One of them spy-story things. They show half of it, I don't care about the rest. You can't believe it. It's all shit. But I stay. I don't stay, I can go down the street and watch them press pants or something. It's not as bad as the fuckin' pool and at least I'm not losing no money. Of course, I'm not making no money, and making money, that is what I'm thinking about. Every single goddamned minute. That and how if I don't think of something, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life, probably, being married to a sawmill.

"I go back the hotel," the Digger said. "I still haven't got anything in mind. I meet Mikey-Mike, couple the other guys, we have dinner. Food isn't bad, that I give them. OK, and we see a show, and a couple after-dinners, and we pay and I get the change in quarters. They're all going back and forth, one of them gets a hundred off the slots, grabbed it right after this jerk in a raincoat that dumped about five hundred into it, next guy plays roulette, buck a turn, drops two-fifty the night before, still in pretty good shape and all, six hundred buckos left and he likes golf, he's out all day and he feels pretty good. Tonight he gets it back. And Mikey-Mike, shacked up all day, hundred and a half, one of the guys says to him: 'Lot of bread.' Mikey-Mike says: 'No, not for what they do to you for that. It's dirtfuckin'-cheap.'

"So I'm all," the Digger said, "I feel bad, you know? Everybody's having a good time, got sense enough, pace themselves, I hadda spend the day inna movies because I'm a big asshole. So I think: Shit, I can't spend two more days like this, I'll be an old man, the time I go home. I'll play the slots. Man's got to do something.

"Eight fuckin' quarters," the Digger said, "two fuckin' dollars. You lose six, two bucks more, don't scare you much. I play nice and slow. Make them last. Them things're rigged there. Every so often you win a little something, keep you interested. Pretty soon, though, no more quarters. There's this woman there, got to be four hundred years old. Plays three machines all at once. I watch her. She talks, you know? Can't hear what she says, just talks all the time. I was lower'n I've ever been in my life. I get change a five. The Digger, I got nickels. I'm playing' fuckin' nickels.

"I lose and I lose," the Digger said. "The old lady leaves, probably going someplace, have a nice quiet heart attack or something. I jackpot nickels. Beautiful. Why the fuck don't I jackpot quarters? Never mind, God don't hate me after all. I got, I got probably two hundred and fifty nickels. In paper cups. I take them over the change booth. 'Gimme quarters.'

"Two paper cups full of quarters," the Digger said. "I take one the old lady's machines. Might as well get it over with. Eight quarters. Ten quarters. Twenty quarters, it keeps on eating them. I haul the lever. Jackpot, quarters. Fifty bucks.

"I go the change booth again," the Digger said. "Half dollars. I'm halfway down the first roll. I jackpot the halfs and now I got, it's one of them machines, you can play three lines at once, I got three jackpots.

"Now," the Digger said, "anybody beats the machine, there's this red light, flashes, they make some noise about it. Gets the other dumb fucks hungrier. You hit one on the fifties on all three lines, they put you inna Hall of Fame. Take a Polaroid of me, two girls in cowboy suits. One of them says to me, couldn't hear it unless you happened to be standing next to her, 'You wanna get the best French inna desert?' I'm too smart for that. 'The money,' I say, 'gimme the money.' Twenty-five hundred in silver dollars."

"So you go back to the blackjack table," the Greek said.

"Not on your fuckin' life," the Digger said. "I said: 'Folding money. Gimme paper. I can't carry this stuff around.' Well, they got a lot of trouble finding that. I say: 'Look, no shit, all right? I'm not putting it in the dollar slots, I gotta get a truck, take it home. Gimme hundreds. I'll take fifties, hundreds is what I want.' They piss and moan a lot, but they do it.

"I go back to the room," the Digger said. "I went to bed. I felt a hell of a lot better'n I felt when I got up from it inna morning, I can tell you that, I'm not even, but at least I got something to work with. Tomorrow I'm gonna get up and think some more, maybe I end up getting my ass outa the gears.

"I get up the next day," the Digger said. "I feel pretty good. I go out the pool and have breakfast, a little vodka and orange juice, I read the paper. All the time, I'm thinking. How do I get out of this? How'd I get into it? Doing something they know better'n I know. Playing cards. I didn't play cards, fifteen years. I was always getting my brains beat out, playing cards. I don't know cards, cards're not my game. I know sports. I make a buck, it's because I know sports, I'm betting against somebody else, maybe knows sports, don't know sports so good. OK, sports action. They also got sports action up the ass in Vegas.

"That particular day," the Digger said, "I see in the paper Oakland at Boston. Oakland, Vida Blue. Sox've got Siebert listed. You do any bookin', Greek?"

"Bookin's for jerks," the Greek said. "No."

"Lotta rich jerks around, then," the Digger said.

"Because there's a lot of guys like me around, collect their stuff," the Greek said. "Look closer the books, next time you see a rich one, is my advice. There's a few. Not many."

"Well, I go down there," the Digger said, "Santa Anita Race Book. No change inna pitchers. They got Oakland, six and a quarter.

"Now, that don't sound bad, you just come up and look at it," the Digger said. "Blue's hotter'n hell. But Blue's pitching in the Fenway. I remember a southie, pitched there once or twice, done all right, but that's Mel Parnell and he don't play for Oakland. He's a little retired, the way I hear it. Also, anything hot as Blue's due to lose. And anyway, say what you want about Siebert, he's smart and he can throw that thing, and by now he's been around the Fenway long enough, he don't throw up when he comes out and looks at the wall. I think: Digger, you got something here, isn't anybody else knows about it. So, they don't take no credit, the books, I put the twenny-five down on the Sox. Guy hears me, kind of laughs and says: 'You guys from Boston, you're too loyal.' I think, nobody gets six offa Siebert inna Fenway, but I don't say anything.

"They're four, no, three, they're three hours behind us," the Digger said. "Game's, the game's at night. Quarter of seven out there, starts seven-thirty here, over by quarter of ten. All I got to do is find something to do till supper. I'll play golf. It's just what I need. I ask the hotel, can I rent clubs. I get out onna course. I played thirty-six holes. It's over a hundred. I'm all alone. I hate what I'm doing and I'm lousy at it and there's all these fat bastards zooming around inna carts and having a hell of a time, and I walk and I sweat and I walk and I sweat some more. I played nine. I had three beers. Nine more, I had a sandwich and a couple more beers. Then I play eighteen more. Front nine, four beers. I don't sweat at all, now. I don't piss. I'm drying up. Back nine, I had three more.

"Now," the Digger said, "I'm half drunk, full of beer. I go back the hotel, my head's all full of air or something. All that sun, too. So I stop in the bar, do something sensible: I have a few beers. I got to do something, I'm waiting for the fuckin' game, I'm too fuckin' nervous to eat. I don't want to take a shower, it's too much goddamned trouble, go up the room and go through it, even if I do smell like a wet horse. Hell, I lose, I stink like shit anyway. I win, I'm a rose. Blow the shower. Have another beer. Six-thirty, I stroll around to the book, nice and casual. They go extra innings, I'm gonna have a baby or something. Results up: It's a final, I win. I am fuckin' goddamned even."

"Good old Sonny Siebert," the Greek said.

"He'd've been there, I would've bought him a drink," the Digger said. "So I take the dough, I go back the hotel, king of the fuckin' world, all right? Take a shower, have dinner, all that kind of stuff, and I'm gonna fuckin' enjoy it, you know? I see Mikey-Mike and we go and we have dinner, and I really, I hadda great meal. 'So,' he says to me, 'what about tonight? You wanna get laid?' I say: 'Nope, not me. I'm gonna be a good boy.' Well, all right, Mikey-Mike's gotta leave, he's got this appointment to get blown and that, and I say: 'Go ahead. I'll sit here a while and then I go watch the show.' See, by then I'm getting over all that beer I drink.

"Well," the Digger said, "they got this goddamned fairy, comes out and what's he gonna do? He's gonna sing. Not to me, he isn't gonna sing. I call the waiter over. 'I thought I was gonna see a show,' I say. 'What's this faggot doing? I thought there's naked women or something.' He says: 'Inna lounge. Revue's inna lounge, week nights.'

"I go in the bar," the Digger said. "I get a Wild Turkey and I sit down. Then I get another Wild Turkey. Then the show starts. Waiter steered me right: naked women. I start to think: Maybe Mikey-Mike's right, I do wanna get laid, after all. Then the top girl comes out. That's when I decide, I do wanna get laid, That broad, who was that broad with the big tits, got killed in the car accident?"

"I dunno," the Greek, said.

"Mansfield," the Digger said.

"Jayne Mansfield," the Greek said.

"Yeah," the Digger said, "her. Remember the tits she had on her?"

"They were big," the Greek said. "I remember that."

"This girl had bigger tits'n Jayne Mansfield," the Digger said. "I couldn't fuckin' believe,I never saw anything like that in my life. There's this guy sitting next to me, I'm at the bar? I said to him: 'Look, I know I'm seeing that. I haven't gone nuts or anything. But that, that's two guys in a girl suit or something. There's nothing like that in the world.'

"'That's Supertits,' he says. 'She's full of silicone. Had one of them Japanese jobs. Fifty inches.' I say: 'Them things oughta go twenny pounds apiece. That broad, she shouldn't be able to walk around.'

"'They're just like rocks, too,' he says," the Digger said. "'You ask nice, you can get some of that. I don't recommend it, but you can. Three hundred an hour, isn't worth it. It's like fuckin' onna goddamned ramp, anyway, and she thinks, she lets you pull 'em, she earned her money. You can pull those, you can stretch bricks. I was you, I wouldn't do it. You want to get laid, go get a good ho and get laid. They'll give you a ride for the dough. Less dough, too.'

"I say: 'No, thanks,'" the Digger said. "'Way things've been going for me, I'd probably get cancer.' So he says: 'You been playing against the house. Everybody gets cleaned out, doing that. What you need is a nice friendly game.'

"Oh, he's got a great line of shit," the Digger said. "This and that, we get a group of guys together, he's up from L.A. with a group of guys from the barbershop, he runs a barbershop in L.A. comes up to Vegas because you meet a sophisticated kind of guy there, knows what he wants."

"You fuckin' dummy," the Greek said. "You oughta go to the home, you shit-head."

"I didn't go for it, Greek," the Digger said. "You can call me all the names you want, you got all the paper there, I still, I ain't lost my fuckin' marbles, you know. I know when I'm gettin' hustled. I don't walk out in front of trucks, somebody asks me to. I said: 'No.' So he says, well, he says, what am I gonna do? I'm going to bed. 'Good Christ, man,' he says, 'it's ten-thirty. You come to Las Vegas, go to bed at ten-thirty?' So I say, I told him, thirty-six holes of golf, all the excitement, I'm not as young as I used to be. Yup, I'm going to bed. So there I am. Quarter of eleven, I'm inna rack. Haven't been to bed so early since I was ten. I was fuckin' exhausted."

The Digger sighed. "One o'clock inna morning. Right on the dot. I'm awake. I'm burning up. Big white blisters on my arms. I got a couple on my neck. My face is on fire. Scalp's on fire. Now I know why them guys're running around onna course in the carts under the awnings. I got a Charley horse in my leg. Goes on and off. This tremendous pain in the left arm. I don't know what it's from. My stomach feels fuckin' awful. My head's still all full of air, only now I got this headache, I hadda headache like I never seen before. I stink. I stink so bad I can't stand the smell. Then all of a sudden, the pain in the arm, it's the heart attack. I did too much in one day. I'm havin' a fuckin' heart attack and I'm gonna die. Oh, Jesus.

"Then I let this tremendous fart. I could've blown myself outa bed, all that beer, and it stinks to high fuckin' heaven. I'm sicker'n I was before, it stinks so bad. I got to get up. I got to throw up.

"I go inna bathroom," the Digger said, "I heave and I heave and I heave. The roast beef I had for dinner, the sandwiches, things I didn't even eat, I heave. Then I throw up bile, dry-heave for probably about three days. My spine's coming up any minute.

"Finally I stop. Terrible taste in my mouth, I have a drink of water and I brush my teeth. The water tastes good. I had three glasses. Makes me sick again. Back down, heave up alla water, dry-heave some more. That time I don't drink no water.

"I get up," the Digger said, "weaker'n a cat. I got to get some Coke or something. Sweating like I did a mile and six furlongs. I'll go out into the bedroom and give the air conditioning a shot at that terrible stink inna bathroom and get room service bring me about eight Cokes.

"The bedroom was worse," the Digger said. "While I'm sleeping I probably been farting in there for about two hours, and the air's way behind catching up. I got to get out of there, the air gets changed, or I'm gonna be sick again.

"I thought," the Digger said, "I thought I was gonna have to beat up the bartender to get a Coke off him with no booze. I had three of them, he keeps looking at me. 'Costs almost the same,' he says, 'sure you don't want a sticka rum in it?' I start to feel better, stomach's quieting down. All that sugar, I threw up everything I owned, of course, sugar's the only thing keeping me alive.

"Stomach's working," the Digger said, "now, the head. I go out, find a drugstore. Beautiful night, cold, clear. The air really feels good on the face, you know? Different from inside. Inside smells like old ladies. I find a drugstore. Two Alka-Seltzer. I'm starting to feel halfway human again. I'm gonna go back the hotel and go to bed.

"You gotta go through the casino to go to bed," the Digger said. "You died in that place, they'd have to carry you out through the gambling. Nobody'd mind. They wouldn't even see you.

"I feel great," the Digger said. "Come off a bender like that, always feel great, the head's clear, nothing in the gut, besides, you feel good after you feel lousy, feeling good feels even better, right? You appreciate it. Anyway, now I don't want to go to bed. Room needs time to air out, anyway. I'll play a little blackjack.

"That was a great fuckin' idea," the Digger said. "Right up there with Jack Kennedy goin' down to Dallas, see how things're going.

"I pull up a stool at the high stakes," the Digger said. "I pull out the roll which Sonny Siebert's nice enough to get for me. Girl starts dealing the cards. Barmaid comes along, would I like a drink. Sure. I get a very tall screwdriver. Playing along, ten bucks a hand, staying about even, girl keeps bringing screwdrivers, I keep drinking them, tipping her with chips, and I stay and I stay and I stay. This new dealer comes on. Nice set of boobs, nothing like the monsters inna bar, but she's about thirty, they're cranked up nice and high there, I can look at them as long as I play. I play. I tip the barmaid a few more chips. All of a sudden, it's daylight. I had about eighty dollars' worth of screwdrivers, if you count what I tip the broad for them, probably a pint and a half of vodka in me, no food, and I'm losing.

"Jesus Christ, am I losing," the Digger said. "I'm in a panic. I go up to twenty, got to get it all back. Sox don't play before we leave, no way I can get it back off them. Girl with the nice boobs leaves and this other one comes on, got a mouth she got in a store, very mean mouth. Deals just as fast, and I can't buy a hand.

"I think it's about eight in the morning," the Digger said, "Mikey-Mike comes in, been out getting laid, three hundred bucks and they kept him leaping around all night and he's all shot. Not as bad as me, though. Comes up, says: 'Digger, Jesus, you don't look so good. What happened, your face? You been up all night.'

"That finally makes me get up," the Digger said. "See, you want to talk to somebody, you gotta get up and leave the place, somebody else can lose his shirt. Mikey-Mike says: 'You look down, Dig. You lose the five you win, right?' Yeah. 'I hope you didn't go around signing no more things, there.' I pull out the paper. 'How much, Dig?' I don't know. I can't even tell him. He stops right there, we're inna middle of the casino and all these dead people're playing the machines and stuff, inna corner somebody jackpots and the lights're flashing and everybody goes whoop, whoop, whoop, and he counts and I stand there. 'Thirteen, Dig, that include the five?' Uh-uh."

"What the fuck'd you do?" the Greek said.

"Look," the Digger said, "I couldn't kill myself, all them cocksuckers around, they wouldn't've paid no attention. Don't do me no good, eat the paper. All I got's copies. I'm sick and I'mdrunk the second time in a day and I don't have nothing on my stomach, I just look at him. He says: 'Come on, Dig, time to go home.' I slept all morning and they got me up and load me on the plane and I slept on the plane and we get home, I go down to Mondo's there and I have breakfast and coffee and I come home, sleep about ten more hours, get up and I said to myself: 'All right, professional fuckin' dumb shit, you're inna jam. You been inna jam before, you got out. Let's see how we get out of this one.'"

"I'd be interested to hear what you come up with," the Greek said. "You got a little problem here. It isn't like I don't understand and all, but still, Dig...."

"Whaddaya mean, I got a problem?" the Digger said. "This, this's Tuesday. Friday I got a problem. I got two days before I got a problem."

"Friday you got two weeks of problem," the Greek said. "I can't give you no special consideration, Dig, you know that, but, well, I'm not nailing you no vig for last week, today. Friday, Friday you owe for two."

"Uh-uh," the Digger said, "you're late. That's your tough shit. I was right here Friday. Nobody come around, see me about no paper. You can't sit there, tell me, you don't come around, I'm supposed to send a check to somebody, I don't even know who's got the paper, is that it? None of that shit."

"Dig," the Greek said, "Friday you owed the money the hotel."

"Right," the Digger said. "Way things're going, this week, too, most likely. But I didn't owe it to you last Friday, because if I did, you would've been around. I don't see the hotel here. They come around, I'll deal with them. You, no juice for last week."

"Dig," the Greek said, "fair, Ok? You lost the money. You don't pay the money, you pay the vig. I got to pay the vig, you gotta pay the vig me. That's the way it is."

"Greek," the Digger said, "you're a nice guy, I like you and you always treated me all right. I don't, I don't blame you for nothing, all right?"

"I'm glad to hear you say that," the Greek said. "I always thought, I was saying--"

"But you're a fuckin' liar," the Digger said. "You being an old buddy and all, I don't like to say it, but it's God's honest truth. You're a fuckin' liar and that's all there is. to it."

"Dig," the Greek said, "I hope we're not gonna have trouble here, all these years, account a simple matter of business."

"Me fuckin' too," the Digger said. "But you don't owe no vig the hotel, and I know it, because I checked up on it and I know. You don't owe no vig the hotel. There's just one thing you gotta do: You gotta front the money back. That's all. They stand you thirty-sixty-ninety, just like you went into Kennedy's and bought a fuckin' suit. There ain't no vig, the hotel. I checked it. So don't gimme no more of that shit."

"Yeah?" the Greek said. "And where the fuck I get the money, the hotel? You want to tell me that? I'll tell you. I get it, my business's where I get it. I gotta get vig on dough I don't collect, I gotta pay out. I don't care what anybody told you, I gotta pay outa my regular cash. Who told you?"

"This angel," the Digger said, "come to me in a fuckin' dream. The fuck do I care, problems you got in your business? I got problems, my business, too. I come around and tell you, no dough this week, I got business things? No. Guys forget, ring up the beer, drivers leave nineteen cases, charge twenty, I don't come bitching to you. The vig starts when the paper's onna deck. Not before. You got some kinda problem with the hotel, that's between you and them. Nothing to do with me."

"Dig," the Greek said, "right this minute, today, you owe me six hundred. Not Friday. Today. Friday, twelve. Six and eighteen today, twelve and eighteen Friday. Now, how you gonna pay, or am I gonna have a problem with you?"

"Six?" the Digger said. "More shit? What's this six?"

"I'm doing you a favor," the Greek said. "Six is low."

"You think I'm a fuckin' chump, Greek," the Digger said. "I dunno as I go for that. You think you're gonna whack me six on eighteen and I'm gonna sit still for a screwing like that, I'm just gonna fuckin' let you do it to me? You know who you're talking to? I'm gonna take your fuckin' head off and serve it on a fuckin' platter to my fuckin' dog is what I'm gonna do, and I haven't even got a fuckin' dog. I'm gonna have to go out and buy one, and I will, too, Greek, you know me, you know.

"You're gonna juice me over three points a week on eighteen?" the Digger said. "You know the fuckin' rate's about two over five hundred. You know that. You're throwing shit at me. You comein here looking for money, I'm willing to give you money, I didn't think you're trying to make a fool out of me."

"This is no shit, Dig," the Greek said.

"You better change some things, then," the Digger said, "some of the way you're thinking. Nobody shits me and lives. Nobody shits the Digger."

"Friday," the Greek said, "I'm coming back here. Twelve big ones from you, and I see you the next one. Otherwise, eighteen and six big ones now."

"Greek," the Digger said, "Friday I'll be here. You get eighteen and six big ones, or you get six big ones and you see me again the next one. But there is no way inna fuckin' world you see twelve big ones Friday. No way inna world."

"You're pushing me," the Greek said. "I run a business. You know that. The juice's six. It's the normal. You signed the fuckin' papers. You pay the fuckin' rate. Everybody gets treated thesame."

"Everybody that don't, that don't know he's being shitted and can do something about it," the Digger said. "I know, see, that's the difference, and I can do something about it, too. Try me out, Greek. I'm not one of your dumb shits, and you think I am, you think I changed, this oughta be fun after all."

"I'm not gonna fuckin' argue with you," the Greek said. "Friday I come in for the twelve. You haven't got the fuckin' eighteen and I know it. Maybe then you'll be ready, talk sense, I got some work I could put your way. Maybe we can straighten this thing out."

"I'll be here," the Digger said. "Come in. I think now I'm looking forward to it."

• • •

"Marty, look," the Digger said. They sat in The Saratoga Club, members only. It was a long, narrow room on the second floor of a three-story building near the North Station. It was open at 3:25 A.M.

Marty Jay had heavy jowls and fat cheeks; his eyes were large, almost bulging. He had very little hair. From time to time, he wiped his skull with a maroon-silk handkerchief and the hairs stood up in swirls.

"I seen the Greek today," the Digger said. "Yesterday. I went to work, the Greek comes in. The Greek's got the paper."

"Huh," the fat man said, "I figured Bloom for that operation. Looked to me like something Bloom'd be interested in doing."

"It was Bloom," the Digger said, "things'd be different. It ain't Bloom. It's the Greek."

"I wonder how come the Greek," the fat man said. "Richie's got that. He's got some piano player in there, but it's Richie's. He never had no respect for the Greek. Well, OK. What's the Greek want?"

"Six on eighteen," the Digger said. "You're shittin' me," the fat man said. "From you the Greek wants that? In-fuckin'-credible. It's three a week, three points, and you cut it down. Fiveis right on eighteen. You, he oughta go you four. He's crazy."

"That's the Greek," the Digger said.

"Small shit," the fat man said. "Always was. I wonder why the fuck Richie gets the Greek. I wouldn't touch the Greek with a pole if I was drownin'. You know something?"

"No," the Digger said.

"Things're all fucked up in this town with the shys, Mr. Green dead and all."

"Mr. Green's not dead," the Digger said. "You got a thing, you're dropping people off tonight."

"Mr. Green's doing twenty down to Atlanta," the fat man said. "If that ain't dead, it's close enough."

"Oh," the Digger said, "well, and that. I agree with you."

"Fuckin' guys," the fat man said, "the only thing they want, get their name inna paper. Go charging around and they're doing this and they're doing that, ends up, you got the Greek doing things he don't understand. Lemme tell you, Dig, somebody's gonna get hurt, result of this. Nobody gets hurt, Mr. Green's running things, things're always quiet and nice. Now? Shit."

"Look," the Digger said, "I'm not gonna keep on payin' the Greek no six."

"Shit," the fat man said, "see Bloom. Bloom'll use you all right. Bloom's fair."

"Yeah," the Digger said, "but then I gotta pay Bloom four on eighteen. But I, I gotta wipe it up. I got five, I gotta get thirteen."

"Don't make no waves, Dig." the fat man said. "You start making waves, somebody's down to Atlanta. You, I thought you're retired. Better stay retired. Things're too hot. You're liable, somebody else's gonna go down Atlanta, you stir them bastards up."

"Marty," the Digger said, "I did something for Mickey."

"I heard that," the fat man said. "I didn't believe it. 'Not the Digger,' I say, 'Digger's retired.' You unretired?"

"I told you, Marty," the Digger said, "I need dough. I didn't hear nothing from you, Marty."

"True," the fat man said. "Of course, you gotta keep in mind, I didn't know you're inna market. That kinda stuff's sort of out of my line, too. Although, I hear what Mickey gets, I think, I thought about maybe going back into it."

"What'd Mickey get?" the Digger said.

"Hey," the fat man said, "Mickey's in here this night, tells me he's satisfied with the world, all right. Said you clouted him thirty checks, right?"

"Right," the Digger said.

"Construction company," the fat man said, nodding, "they use that account, payrolls. Also, credit rating. Ninety K in that account, every week, payrolls come in, put in what they think they're gonna need, runs about a hundred and thirty K. So, they meet the payroll, and anybody calls up the bank, says: 'Am I gonna get paid, my rock wool?' the bank's gonna say: 'Sure, baby, you and everybody else inna world.' Only this week, the bank's wrong. The payroll's ninety thou heavier. That's Mickey's."

"Jesus," the Digger said, "that's beautiful. How's he know?"

"Broad inna bank," the fat man said. "That guy, he must fuck them into blindness, things they do for him. 'Course, he don't screw you inna bed, at least, you done all right for him, too. He's gonna run about five K, expenses, on ninety, he's Fat City and everybody else's full of shit. You included."

"Shit," the Digger said.

"Don't cost no more," the fat man said, "go ahead, if you like."

"Look," the Digger said, "you got anything?"

"I heard about something," the fat man said. "First time, I turn it down. Too fuckin' risky. Nobody experienced to go along. Now I hear about it again. Don't sound so risky, I had some help."

"The fuck is it?" the Digger said.

"What the fuck," the fat man said, "it'd take a guy and a guy, and a guy and a car, and they'd all have to be good guys."

"That's two plus us," the Digger said. "I can get the two."

"And a car," the fat man said. "The rest of it, there's some other things, I can take care of them. A kid and some stuff."

"What's it worth?" the Digger said.

"All in all," the fat man said, "I would say, a hundred and ten."

"Tell me how much for me," the Digger said.

"I got trouble with the physical," the fat man said. "The guy and the guy and the car, you pay them out of yours."

"Right," the Digger said.

"Down the middle," the fat man said. "Just like always."

"Fifty-five," the Digger said.

"Plus the guy, and the guy with the car," the fat man said.

"Must be pretty rough," the Digger said.

"Not for the right guys," the fat man said. "Look, Mickey's stuff's smoother. You get hooked, straight B and E. This is tough. All kinds of people around. It's got some problems."

"Fifty-five," the Digger said.

"For the right guys," the fat man said.

"I tell you what," the Digger said, "I'm gonna talk to a guy. I think I know another guy, got a car."

• • •

In the doorway of The Regent Sportsmen's Club, the Greek said: "Where the fuck is Y. A. Tittle?"

"Hey, Greek," Schabb said, "who?"

"Richie," the Greek said. He shut the door. "Richie's in Concord, I hadda guy, used to do some work for me, in Concord same time's Richie, Richie's onna football team. Quarterback. Tittle's the big hambone with the Gynts, then, they all start calling Richie Y. A. Tittle. Where the fuck is he, still in bed? Man oughta be able to be around by noon, good night's sleep, even if he does have a lot to do before he finally goes to sleep."

"Antigua," Schabb said. "Called me up last night, said he wouldn't be in, couple days'r so. Lining up a deal down there."

"Broads," the Greek said. "Richie never lined up a deal in his life. He's down there getting laid."

"No," Schabb said, "guy called him, really looks good. We need it, too, compete. The other outfits, they got Curaçao and Caracas. Those're good items, you get the carriage trade with them, not just the hackers you get with Vegas and Freeport. Aruba, too. Richie's going to fly down there and look things over. KLM, they practically pay you to fly people into Aruba."

"Beautiful," the Greek said, "fuckin' beautiful. He'll fuck himself out down there. At my expense. I'm buying the bastard a third of ten pieces of ass and a tan he'll use to get more ass up here. I'm losing my grip. I didn't use to be such an asshole."

"Look," Schabb said, "what difference it make? He said it'd be worth the ride to look into this. I agree with him. I don't care if he gets laid. Nothing wrong with getting laid. We didn't think it'd bother you."

"My friend," the Greek said, "I'm up here working for a living. I got problems, which I got from the last great idea you two guys had. He's down in the sun, goofing off, I'm paying for it. Who's tending to business, we don't all go to shit?"

"Look," Schabb said, "what's the problem?"

"The Digger," the Greek said, "just like I said. I was over there yesterday, that tony joint he runs for hard guys, he practically told me: Go fuck myself."

"He won't pay?" Schabb said.

"He'll pay," the Greek said. "Said he's gonna pay, anyway. Gonna pay Friday."

"I still don't see," Schabb said. "I thought you figured he wasn't gonna pay."

"He's not paying the vig, the first week," the Greek said. "He's not, he says he can get better'n the three points I hit him. Some stupid shit put it out we don't have to pay juice, the hotel. So, I get screwed the first week, I get screwed the price on this week, it's getting out all over I'm high onna rate, and then the son of a bitch practically tells me: Go fuck myself. I think he did tell me, go fuck myself. And you can bet, he's gonna mention that around town a few times, told the Greek to go fuck himself."

"So what?" Schabb said. "What the hell you care what he says? We're getting the money. That's what we're after."

"I got a regular business," the Greek said. "I got money out from here to Worcester. The way I do business, I make money having money out at good points. I get them points because people know the Greek don't fuck around. Now, thanks to you and Richie and your goddamned fuckin' bright ideas, I got this fat shit down to Dorchester running around telling people I'm high, I scare, and go ahead, just tell the Greek, go fuck himself. That kind of thing, I came into this to get more business. I didn't come into this, get a lot of shit stuck on me, fuck up my old business. I was after easy dough."

"Well," Schabb said, "there's all that other stuff. You must be doing all right on that."

"I am," the Greek said. "The Jewish paper, fine, no sweat. Them guys go in for six points, they pay six points without a fuckin' whimper. I like doing business with them guys. How'd you get them?"

"When I was selling stock," Schabb said, "I had a little red book. It had good names to call, when I wanted to move a large lot fast. Interested, and the money was right there. Then, when I had a good deal or something I knew about, I would also call one or two of them. I want to tell you, Greek, I had one or two good dinners on calls like that. I like an appreciative client, boy."

"Dinners," the Greek said, "you must be an asshole, telling guys when to buy and then they make a mint and you get a dinner."

"Greek," Schabb said, "the way things are, it's not when to buy. Any jerk can tell you when to buy: Buy when it's low. It's when to sell. When it's not going higher. That's what I knew, and that's what I told them. Those dinners're in Paris, and there's six or seven of them, and they're all at Maxim's, get it? You check in at Pan Am, you don't pay for anything. The girl that's with you, your wife ever saw you, you'd be in serious trouble. On the way back, she gets off in New York. You never see her again. You don't pay her anything, either. You go down to Miami Beach, you stay at the Doral and you play golf. You don't pay for that either. When I went to dinner around here, I went in a Cad, and I didn't pay for the Cad any more'n I paid for the dinners. There're dinners, Greek, and then there're dinners. It all depends where the dinner is, hack it?"

"Oh," the Greek said.

"I didn't get in the shit because I was crooked," Schabb said. "I got in the shit because a guy that told me when the stuff was at the top, the guy that was making it go in the first place, got himself in the shit with the SEC. He was very tough, that guy. The minute they grabbed him, he squawked like a chicken. I'm one of the guys he squawked about. They didn't even prosecute him, just us. Bastard."

"I was wondering," the Greek said.

"Look," Schabb said, "I was no more crooked'n anybody else. I was good and crooked, I just thought Mr. Cool'd stay clear, and he didn't, and I guess I thought if he ever got caught, he'd keep his mouth shut, and he didn't. So, I took it right on the chin, and when I did, I took that little red book with me. Those guys're reliable. They always, pay. It's probably a good thing the bank examiners aren't around too soon after they pay, too soon, anyway, because I've got just the slightest idea it's somebody else's money they're paying with. But you give one of them bastards a pen and a phone and the market open, you'll always get your money, and right off. A month later, he'll have that thing smoothed over so fine nobody'd ever be able to pick it up. You got honest money on that paper."

"Pure gold," the Greek said, "a hundred and eighteen thou, out in a week, two at the most, straight juice, a flat six K at least and we never loaned them guys a fuckin' cent. That is my idea, a tit."

"How about my other friends?" Schabb said. "How you doing with them?"

"The Protestants," the Greek said.

"Very few of them," Schabb said. "Some, maybe, but very few."

"All of them think they are," the Greek said. "Professional guys. Guy like that, starts in onna high living, he's generally good for about thirty-five K a year, got the house and the car and wears four hundred worth of knits and a twenny-dollar tie and he's getting his hair styled. Once they get that old razor cut, they think they know fuckin' everything. And boats, big onna boats."

"Those're the ones," Schabb said.

"Right," the Greek said. "I meet a little resistance, that kind of guy. He's got a house, OK, it's got a mortgage, he's been paying the mortgage awhile, he's run it down some, the house went up a lot. He don't have no dough he can get his hands on, but he's got the equity, you know?"

"Regular margin accounts," Schabb said, "that's where I got them. They call up and buy eight K, then they want the certificate fast. They're hocking it. Very little actual cash. Credit up the yin-yang."

"Sure," the Greek said, "I got a regular side line in that kinda guy. Take the honey down to Puerto Rico, don't want the wife seeing no canceled checks. OK, he's into me for a grand, he pays it back. They got it. The thing is, you gotta kinda pry it off them, gotta make him understand, he's gambling, OK, he got nothing for something. They're not used to that. Used to seeing something back for two or three K. New boat, goddamned station wagon, three weeks in Europe. Cards, he already seen the cards, dealer had twenty, he had nineteen, they don't want to remember that. Didn't happen. I gotta convince them it did. Takes time. Gotta call at the office, frighten the little honey, call the house, scare the wife, you heard me onna phone, you'd think I had something wrong with the throat. 'Where is he? I call him the office, he ain't there. I call him the house, he ain't there. He lives inna garage, that it? I understood he's a respectable citizen, owes me some money. Better have him call me.' They always call. Sooner or later, they call. They get used to the idea, they gotta pay. They go out, first they talk the wife down, Christ sake, I'm gonna kill them. Then they hock the Master Charge and the stock and the insurance and they meet me and they pay off the whole nut. Them guys don't haggle. They pay the rate. Just takes a little time, get them used to it. I'm doing all right with them."

"So," Schabb said, "how much we make off my friends?"

"Four-four out," the Greek said, "five points a man, out by Labor Day. Eight, nine K."

"And you're still bitching," Schabb said. "We're making out all over the place and you're bitching. There's things about you, Greek, I'm never going to understand."

"Mr. Schabb," the Greek said, "that wraps it all up. Lemme ask you a personal favor, all right? You just tell Richie that, OK? You just said the whole of it, right fuckin' there."

• • •

"Harrington," the Digger said, "how you doin' on that boat of yours, you getting anywhere?"

"Look," Harrington said, "everybody else inna world, it's Friday night, they haven't gotta go to work tomorrow. I gotta go to work tomorrow, no Saturday for Harrington. You know why that is? Because I gotta, that's why. Just leave me alone, all right, Dig? Lemme have a couple beers, just like it was Friday night for me, too. No guy that's gotta work six days a week to make the payments on what he's got is gonna see a boat he hasn't got already. I wished to God I never sold the boat I used to have."

"I know something you could do, 'd get you the down payment onna boat," the Digger said.

"Yeah?" Harrington said. "And then what about them others, I gotta stop going down to Saint Hilary's for my laughs every Sunday, hear what the Portugee's got to say this week about them poor unfortunate thieving Puerto Ricans that haven't got no money. I can work Sundays, too."

"Well," the Digger said, "you played your cards right, might not be all that many of them, you know? You oughta be able to get a pretty good boat for thirty-five hundred or so, you could pay for more'n half of it right off."

"Oh-oh," Harrington said. "Excuse me, I think I'm gonna have to go home right about now. I gotta go to work tomorrow, you know. I'll see you the first of the week, probably. I'll come in for a beer, we can talk about how the Sox do Sunday."

"The fuck's the matter with you?" the Digger said.

"Look," Harrington said, "I got a nervous stomach. I come in here a few days ago, your problem is, you're inna hole eighteen and juice. Now you're giving me, you're saying you got a way, I can get about, what, two grand, I do something you got in mind. You're talking about somebody else's money, I think."

"How much you make inna week?" the Digger said.

"None of your fuckin' business," Harrington said.

"Not enough for a boat, though," the Digger said.

"Not enough for a wife and three kids and a car and a house in Saint Hilary's," Harrington said. "Not enough for no lawyer, either, and it's a lot more'n I'd get making license plates inna can, too."

"Never mind the can," the Digger said.

"Right," Harrington said, "and don't do nothing that's gonna get you put into it, either, that's what I say. Lemme have another beer."

The Digger returned with Harrington's beer. "You can make two thousand dollars for less'n three hours' work," the Digger said. "You're sure you wanna turn that down, OK, I can get somebody else. I'm tryin' to do you a favor. You like working six days, you don't want no boat, OK, be a shit, if you want, all your life. Just thought I'd give you the chance. Two grand for three hours."

"That's more'n I make at the Edison," Harrington said. He drank some beer. "The trouble is, the Edison never told me, go out and kill somebody important, and I never had the cops looking for me, anything I did at the Edison. Which is probably why it don't pay as good."

"Nobody's gonna get hurt," the Digger said. "Nothing like that. You'd just have to drive your own car."

"Sure," Harrington said. "Of course, while I'm driving it, the motor's running and I'm outside a bank and you guys're inside holding it up, and all the driving I got to do is get it in gear and make it go like a bastard and hope I don't get shot. Like I said, I finish this beer, I'll go home and say the Rosary with Father Manton onna radio, I think. Got saved from the temptation, there."

"Look," the Digger said, "the only way you could shoot a guy on this job is, you'd have to bring a guy along to shoot is all. If I ever see a tit, Harrington, this here's a tit."

"What is it?" Harrington said.

"Uh-uh," the Digger said, "that's not the way it goes. I make a rule, long time ago, I don't tell anybody what it is until after he decides, he's in or not. You in or not?"

"How can I, what do you think I'm gonna do?" Harrington said. "Say I'm gonna do something, I don't even know what it is I'm gonna do? I never done anything like this before. Take pity onna guy, Dig, tell me what I'm gonna do, I tell you I'm gonna do it."

"Look," the Digger said, "week from tonight, Labor Day weekend, right? You're gonna pick me up and then you're gonna pick up two other guys, and you take us, about a twenny-minute drive," the Digger said. "This is before midnight. About two hours later, some time around two in the morning, you pick up, you pick us up and you drop us off. That's it."

"I finally get to bed Labor Day, I'm gonna have two thousand onna bureau I didn't have when I get up?"

"No," the Digger said, "nobody's got the dough Monday. You'll have to wait a little bit."

"How long?" Harrington said.

"Look," the Digger said, "I dunno. It can take a little time to get the dough, one of these things. Inside a week or so, I guess. But I personally guarantee you, you get the dough."

"Yeah," Harrington said, "but maybe something happens to you. I still get the dough? I mean, where's that leave me?"

"Better oft'n I am, something's gonna happen to me," the Digger said. "Look, I get hit by a truck, you haven't got your dough, you do the best you can. You might get fucked."

"That's what I thought," Harrington said. "I don't know about this."

"OK," the Digger said, "that's fine. I'm gonna take that, you're not interested. And one more thing: Forget you had this talk with me, right? I wouldn't want to think you went out and told somebody anything."

"I didn't mean that," Harrington said.

"You're a nice guy," the Digger said, "I like you. But you either gotta shit or get offa the fuckin' pot is all, I haven't got time to wait around while you go this way and that and say, 'Gee, Digger, gee.' I like things to go right when I do something, get everything all set up ahead of time, so everybody knows what he's gotta do and what the other guys've gotta do. So make up your fuckin' mind."

"I wished I knew more about it," Harrington said.

"You know all you're gonna know unless you come in," the Digger said. "I told you as much as I'm gonna."

Harrington said he would have another beer. When the Digger brought it, Harrington said: "Look, this's gotta be something pretty big we're after, two thousand for cab fare. There's, how many of us?"

"Probably four," the Digger said.

"OK," Harrington said, "four. I got probably the easiest thing to do, I'm getting the two, you said, you told me, it's gonna get you clear on the eighteen. Now, I figure, that's twenny thousand dollars, and them other guys, they're not working for nothing. So there's gotta be quite a bit of money coming out of this."

"Harrington," the Digger said, "the two is tops. Don't gimme none of that shit. I can get five guys in ten minutes, do it for a grand. I'm being nice to you, get it?"

"No," Harrington said, "I didn't mean that. It's just, this isn't no bank or anything, is it?"

"No bank," the Digger said.

"OK," Harrington said. "OK. No bank, I'm in."

"Beautiful," the Digger said. "I guarantee you, you'll never regret it."

"Now," Harrington said, finishing his beer, "tell me if I'm wrong. It's jewelry, right? Gotta be jewelry. Isn't anything else worth that kind of money, except money, four guys can move that fast."

"Isn't jewelry," the Digger said. "Look, you read the paper, what kinda ads you see inna paper this time of year?"

"I don't read them," Harrington said. "I'm always giving the wife a whole bunch of money for stuff, kids're going back to school and that, we gotta practically buy out Zayre's. I dunno. We're not stealing kids' clothes?"

"No," the Digger said. "You oughta look at them ads better. All them guys down the Beach, they think: This is the year I get the wife a mink stole. Them other guys can afford the minks, their wives already got a stole, wear to the supermarket or something. They want a nice chinchilla. So naturally, all them guys, sell furs, got the ads in. All over the place there's them trucks coming in with furs. And that is the real stuff, you know? That stuff moves. We're gonna get ourselves a trailer load."

"We got a buyer?" Harrington said.

"Well," the Digger said, "the less you know, the better off you are, but he's also the guy, you go back far enough and you look at everything and all, that we're stealing the furs from. He knows we're stealing them."

"Ah," Harrington said, "insurance."

"Yeah," the Digger said. "See what I mean, this's a tit? We're stealing insurance. See what I mean, safe?"

"Beautiful," Harrington said.

"You bet," the Digger said. "We take them furs out of the place that the guy owns, and we turn them over to a guy runs another place, and the guy that owns the other place is gonna sell them and the first guy howls like a bastard, all his furs're gone. Then he's gonna get the insurance, and he keeps his stock up, he's gonna buy from the guy we sell to. He's gonna buy his own stuff from the guy we sold it to, with the insurance money. Nice, huh?"

"Jesus," Harrington said, "I'd rather know him'n you. He's doing better, any of us."

"You see the Super Bowl?" the Digger said.

"Yeah," Harrington said. "Shitty game, I thought. Baltimore."

"Onna field goal," the Digger said. "Last-minute fuckin' field goal, all right?"

"The guy that owns the stuff," the Digger said, "he missed the spread on that field goal. Cost him one hundred thousand dollars. He's been paying juice a long time. He's through. He's getting even."

• • •

"The Greek was in," Schabb said. "He had a whole lot of things on his mind."

"I know, I know," Torrey said. "I got home, one this morning. I was absolutely beat. I actually, onna way up, there's this girl, little heavy, but I look her over and she didn't mind, you know? I would've invited her up for a drink. Not this trip. I was so tired all I wanted to do was sleep."

"Well," Schabb said, "the Greek was right about that one, anyway. He said you'd fuck yourself out down there."

"The Greek, the Greek," Torrey said. "That don't make me tired. I been onna steady jump for almost a week. You see a guy and you talk to him. Then you see somebody else. Looks like a pretty good deal, but first you better check and see what this other guy can do. You're making calls, it's this and that, you got to fly all over the place on these dinky little planes that scare the living shit out of you. It comes right out of you. I, the screwing's not as good there as it is here."

"Keep that quiet," Schabb said. "I plan to say something else, it looks as though saying something else'd make a difference."

"Shit," Torrey said, "tell them there's an ocean full of mermaids down there, you want. They'll have a better time gettin' screwed'n I had setting up the screwing, no matter what you tell them. Then I get home, I take a couple aspirin, practically fall on my face I'm so drunk, I drink like a bastard onna plane, only way I can stop myself from jumping out, and then bang, six-thirty, the phone rings. It's the Greek. That fuckin' guy, he was probably in bed before it's dark last night."

"He didn't go for the trip," Schabb said. "That was one thing that bothered him."

"I know," Torrey said. "And the Digger paid him out and pissed on his shoe for him, and now it's this and that, that fuckin' guy. That fuckin' guy. He's turnin' into a regular fuckin' pain in the ass."

"What the hell's the matter with him?" Schabb said. "He was all right when he started. Now nothing you do suits him."

"He's got two things the matter with him," Torrey said. "He lost his nerve. That's the first thing. Then he gets greedy. All at once. He diddles along for twenny years with this pissy-ass little operation of his. Then he gets this. He starts counting his dough from this, and he likes that all right, but he's still sweating the diddly shit he gets from the other."

"That's his regular business," Schabb said.

"His regular business is dogshit," Torrey said. "He's down the G. E. all the time, two hundred guys, five bucks apiece, six back on payday. The really big stickers go for twenny, twenny-four back. Chickenshit six for five, week after fuckin' week. He's had about three K a week turning over there ever since the Korean War, and he takes out six big ones a week. He don't pay more'n a point a week back, he's had it so long, two at the most, he's probably got his own dough in it now. Fifteen, sixteen, twenny, thirty a year he takes in, and he's loving it. He should've stayed at it. Nobody ever would've bothered him. He was small shit and he was happy being small shit. He could've joined the fuckin' chamber of commerce.

"Then the fuckin' strike force gets Mr. Green," Torrey said. "I still say it's a bad rap, conspiracy to, for gambling. Shit. Mr. Green never touched no gambling in his life. Strictly money. He wouldn't know a horse from a fuckin' beagle, for Christ sake. He looked like a fuckin' minister or something. That guy was big. He probably had, I would say he probably had two or three million moving around."

"Cash?" Schabb said.

"Cash," Torrey said, "checks made out to cash he gets back from the heavy trade, two mill at least. I bet I'm low. He was thinking about taking this, his case's on appeal and he decides it's probably not worth the risk. But he wasn't very hot for it, anyway. Too small for Mr. Green, this thing."

"We can generate five thousand dollars a week in points on this," Schabb said.

"He figured that," Torrey said. "Matter of fact, he thought it might go ten, even more. 'But it's spread all over the place,' he says. 'I got to have guys running around. And this thing I've got, it could be problems. I tell you, lemme think about it. I'll give it to somebody for a while, this thing gets settled. I trip over something, I could get five or six years for this. I gotta be careful.'

"Yeah," Torrey said, "well, they turn him down, appeal, and he's getting ready, do the five. Only, see, his lawyer didn't tell him something, so he don't know, he thinks all he needs is somebody mind the store maybe two or three years. So he cops out, he says he can't beat it if he tries it, there's no way around it, his great lawyer says, he'll just end up getting more time if he does. Only, they got this new thing, they can do before they try you, they got this, they say: 'Organized crime.' You know what that does?"

"No," Schabb said.

"No," Torrey said. "Mr. Green didn't know, either. Well, they get you on something with a five-year top, they can whack you thirty fuckin' years."

"Ah," Schabb said.

"And they did it to him," Torrey said. "Thing comes up, one of them mother-fuckin' micks up there, and they give him twenty years. His lawyer's standing there, big dumb grin on his face, the judge gives him the twenty. He says, right inna courtroom, 'Twenty years? I hear you right?' The clerk says: 'Twenty years, to be served.' Mr. Green says: 'You fuckin' asshole,' see, he's talking to his lawyer. The judge gives him another six months for contempt, on and after. Then the lawyer sees the judge after, talks him out of the six months. But he's still doing twenty.

"So now," Torrey said, "now, they revoke bail on him, and he's gonna appeal again, incompetence of counsel, but he's going away while they think that one over, he don't have no time, make arrangements, nobody can see him except his family, which he don't tell nothing to, and his fuckin' dumb lawyer, that he's all through talking to, he can't do nothing. So the other guys get together, they take Jesse Bloom and the Greek and they just, they give Bloom the heavy stuff and they give the Greek me. 'Take care of things awhile. Just take care of things, we figure something out. Don't get no ideas it's yours.'

"All of a sudden," Torrey said, "all these years, Greek and Bloom're big league. Bloom, I think he would've made it anyway. The Greek, no way. He's playing with more dough inna week, he's used to seeing inna month. It threw him is all. He's got everybody all upset. He's treating major guys like they're into him for ten a week down the G. E. People're getting calls: 'The fuck is it with this guy, he's gonna piss his pants or something, somebody doesn't do something.' And they stall around. And the Greek, he decides he needs some muscle up the Beach, he sends up a couple guys and he don't set them straight, they beat up a wrong guy, doesn't owe the Greek money. And he happens to be a guy, he's not into anything, but he knows who is, and he's a guy that, as a result, knows some guys to call. And he calls them. And they don't care what Mr. Green says, and they don't care what nobody else says, it's either the Greek gets taken off that stuff or they hit him. So he gets taken off, they take him off that and they give him something a baby couldn't fuck up.

"Mill," Torrey said, "you can't shine shit. This's what they give the Greek. They give him me. They give Bloom the heavy stuff, the way they see it, they give me the Greek. See what happens, you got a nice thing up to Lynn and you start thinking, you got your feet up onna desk someday and you think: 'This could be all right'? You get the word back, go ahead, expand, and then they tell you, you win the Greek.

"Oh, no," Torrey said, "I tell them that. That's what's the reason, nothing's moving up there, the word's out the Greek's got the old business and he's fuckin' crazy. 'You gimme Bloom. Mr. Green comes out, I'll have a nice thing going here, I got a good man, help me, Mr. Green can leave Bloom this and Bloom won't bitch at all. Gimme Bloom.' But they're not giving me Bloom.

"I go see the Greek," Torrey said. "I hadda lot of trouble doing that, even. I call him, I get his wife. She says: 'He's not here.' I say: 'Have him call me.' Then I wait. He don't call. Next day, I call him again. I get his wife. 'He's out, he's not here.' OK. I tell her: 'Have him call me, willya? It's important.' I wait. He don't call.

"I know what he thinks," Torrey said. "He thinks: 'All them guys screaming and yelling, Richie's calling for the office. Gonna take things away from me.' I know that. He's not calling me because he don't wanna hear that. He's calling other guys, though, he's got time enough for that, he gets them calls all right. He's telling them how good he's doing, he wants them to call me off. I want them to call me off. They're all laughing at both of us.

"So finally," Torrey said, "one of them says: 'For Christ sake, Greek, willya leave me alone, call Richie, willya? He don't want anything you got. It's something else.'

"He calls me," Torrey said. "It's like I'm tryin', collect a bill off him. You know where he picks, I'm supposed to meet him? Onna plaza, front of city hall, lunchtime.

"I say: 'Look, Greek, you look to me like a man that was worried about something.' He says: 'I got a lot of big money out. I gotta be careful.' Careful, he says. Sure, we're talking about business in front of the whole goddamned world, he's telling me about being careful, fuckin' asshole. I say: 'Greek, willya calm the fuck down? The office, they gimme something, I'm supposed to see you about business. There's no contract, all right? Nobody's gonna do anything, you.'

"After that, I call them," Torrey said. "I told them, this guy's gonna have a fuckin' baby. He's hearing footsteps. He's not gonna work out. I got a good thing here. He's gonna ruin it. For Christ sake, gimme Bloom, put the Greek back on six for five. Please.

"'No,' they say," Torrey said. "The Greek's my responsibility. He's, I'm what they're doing, the Greek, keep him quiet, Mr. Green gets out. 'Mr. Green's not getting out,' I tell them. 'He gets out, the Greek's gonna fuck things up so bad by then, Mr. Green's gonna have to sell razor blades, for Christ sake. Gimme Bloom, for Christ sake.' No, I gotta keep the Greek, Mr. Green's gonna get out, the Greek'll have this, everything's gonna be all right. I don't believe them, they don't believe me. No, I got the Greek."

"Well," Schabb said, "I don't know about them, but I believe you, Richie. That guy has gone haywire."

"Of course he has," Torrey said.

"Well, all right," Schabb said. "Now, what it is, the Greek. From what you say, the only way he's comfortable is to have a lot of small-timers on the string. They don't interest us. If there's a guy that wants to borrow five bucks for three days, and that's what the Greek's interested in, for God sake, let the Greek have it and we'll work this. We can really get something going. If the Greek's out, he's out. No hard feelings on my part. This may be a little hard. From what you say, the Greek wants the tit. OK, let him have it. Get him out of this. They ought to understand that. The possibilities this thing's got, it's stupid to have the Greek in."

"That's what I tell them." Torrey said. "That's exactly what I tell them. It's stupid."

"He could wreck it all," Schabb said. "Look, this's important to me, you know? We oughta have a receptionist. We can get a good kid, eighty-five a week, all right? No shorthand or anything, but what we need her for is to answer the phone. It makes a nice impression, when we're both out of the office. We can make this into a high-class operation."

"Sure," Torrey said.

"We should get some rugs in here," Schabb said. "A nice blue shag, sort of turquoise. The tile doesn't make it. Somebody wants a big tour lined up, you think I'll bring him up here? This looks like a boiler room. We need more space. We should knock the wall out and go through. We should have private offices. We should have about six drawers, six stacks of filing cabinets."

"What're we gonna put in them?" Torrey said.

"You stick around," Schabb said. "I met a girl the other night. Works down at the airport. For two bucks a copy, she's going to get me a copy of every international passenger manifest that comes through her desk. Name and address, every son of a bitch that's got the dough to fly out of the country."

"Some of them're on expense accounts," Torrey said.

"Because they're making big money," Schabb said. "That's why they're flying out of the country on expense accounts. That's what we put in the files. This could be a blockbuster operation, we had a chance."

"Except for the Greek fucking it up," Torrey said.

"That's the way I see it," Schabb said. "That's the way you tell it to me, and I don't have any reason to argue with you, either. I really need this, Richie. I'm used to having things better than I got them right now. I'd like to see this turn into something. Richie," Schabb said, "we gotta do something about the Greek."

"Well," Torrey said, "there's only one thing you can do, make the Greek fit to live with."

"Which is?" Schabb said.

"Lemme think awhile," Torrey said. "Lemme talk to some people, too."

This is the second of three installments of "The Digger's Game." Part III of the novel will appear in the March issue.