Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [109]
Skinny walked back to the living room, took off the single glove, and put it in the brown paper bag with the gun. Victor was engrossed in The Flintstones, still sitting in Sally's leatherette recliner. Skinny put on his clothes, then walked back into the bedroom and collected the shell casings from the floor. He put them in the bag and put the bag in his jacket pocket.
"That was loud," said Victor.
"So's the television," said Skinny. "This neighborhood, we should be okay."
"Do we gotta wipe the place down?" asked Victor, his eyes still on the screen.
"No," said Skinny. "We're here alla time. It's normal they find prints. Long as nobody sees us comin' in or out. Try and keep your hand in fronta your face onna way to the car."
"That's good . . . My fuckin' arm . . . I don't feel like cleanin' no apartment the way I feel . . . " Victor jerked a thumb toward the television. "You believe this Betty Rubble? The dress she got on? You can almost see bush unner there!"
"We're all done," said Skinny.
Victor got up from the chair. "Wilma's not too bad . . . " he said. "But that Betty, she's got it all over the other broad. Barney's got the better piece a ass hands down. I'll bet she's better inna sack too."
"Let's go see the lawyer," said Skinny.
They let themselves out the door and closed it behind them. They left the television on.
Forty-Three
THEY GOT GRABBED comin outta Sally's place," said Charlie Wagons.
"A terrible thing," said Danny Testa, shaking his head.
The two men walked, side by side, down Elizabeth, Charlie in his bathrobe and slippers, Danny in a dark double-breasted suit that was snug around the shoulders. Danny stepped around a dog turd.
"Fuckin people should clean up after their dogs," he said.
"The cops were right across the street," said Charlie. "They were listening the whole time. They heard it happen. Got it on tape, the whole fuckin' thing. They been there—who knows how fuckin' long they been there . . . They could hear every goddamn thing in the apartment. Sally farted in his sleep, they could hear."
"I read the paper," said Danny. "What really happened?"
"What happened is they walk outta Sally's and a million fuckin' cops come runnin outta the place across the street. You know the bakery there? They were up there in the apartment over the store. Takin' their pictures, listenin' in . . . Vic and Skinny aren't even in the car yet, they got cops swarmin' all over 'em. Squad cars, plainclothes, feds . . . They still had the gun . . . everything . . . Skinny had the gun in his pocket when they grabbed him."
"You talk to them?"
"No," said Charlie. "The lawyer called me. I hadda walk five blocks to the pay phone, call the guy back. It don't look good. They got 'em cold. They gonna have to go away for a while."
"Son of a bitch," said Danny "
Yeah . . . " said Charlie.
"So is there a problem for us?"
"From them? From Skinny and Vic? No . . . They ain't gonna be able to separate them from the lawyer, and the lawyer's gonna do what I tell him to do."
"Skinny did the actual work . . ."
"Skinny, forget about, he ain't gonna say nothin' . . ."
"And Vic?"
"He'll do what the lawyer tells him."
"There's nothin' we can do?"
"On this? Nah . . . I don't think so . . . Looks like they gotta go to the can."
"That's too bad. Skinny's a great guy," said Danny.
"Skinny's worried about the other thing," said Charlie. "He's got the one count hangin' over him he's gonna go away for . . . He's thinkin' about the other thing. The thing he done with Sally."
"The guys the other night?"
"Nah, that's no problem. The other guy. You know that guy? The one—"
"The one from the fish market?"
"That