Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [80]
Sally leaned in close to Harvey, shifting his bulk in the seat. "Lemme tell you somethin' else . . . I don't trust you. I don't believe a fuckin' thing comes outta your mouth. You're a thief. You took money outta my pocket. You borrow money from some other guys—that's stealing from me. That makes you a thief. You can be a thief, you can be a rat. That's the way I see it. You better hope I'm wrong about that."
Sally put his fingers around Harvey's skull like he was holding a basketball and banged it against the door frame. He leaned across Harvey and opened the door. Victor stepped back a few feet. "Have a nice day," said Sally. He pushed Harvey out of the car onto the sidewalk. Victor helped him to his feet, holding him at the elbow. Harvey found his errant loafer and put it back on. Sally roared away from the curb, the power steering shrieking as he turned the wheel.
Harvey did his best to rearrange himself. He tucked his shirt into his pants and patted down his mangled lapels.
"See you Monday," said Victor. He released his grip on Harvey's elbow, wiped his hand on his pants, smoothed his hair, and walked slowly across Spring Street.
Thirty-Three
SALLY FIDDLED with the dial on the car radio. There was only the sound of static. "I can't get nothin' on this thing," he complained. Skinny, sitting next to him in the front seat of the parked Ford, lit one cigarette from the lit end of another and said, "You gonna run down the battery, you keep playin' with it like that. That would be real great, you can't start the fuckin car."
Rain was coming down in sheets. The water ran in streams across the windshield, concealing the occupants. It was twelve-thirty at night, and the Brooklyn street was empty except for a few parked cars. Sally and Skinny sat hunched down behind the dashboard, their hands cupped around the glowing ends of their cigarettes, eyes fixed on the trailer office of Calabrese Construction Company in the building site across the street. There was an office building going up, its dark skeleton looming up in the rain.
Sally and Skinny watched the trailer through an open gate. A short driveway of wet, rutted earth led from it to the street, the deep tire tracks from trucks and earthmovers filling with rainwater. There was a hastily thrown together cinder-block landing under the trailer door, and a few wooden planks disappeared into the muddy pools in front of it. Behind the louvered window of the trailer, dark shapes moved in front of a light.
"When are these guys gonna leave?" muttered Sally. "They don't have homes, these people?"
"Maybe they're fuckin' each other," offered Skinny.
Sally stubbed out his cigarette in an already overflowing ashtray and moved his hands impatiently up and down the barrel of the big shotgun on his lap. It was an Ithaca Mag-10 Roadblocker, with a distinctive rubber butt-guard. Sally lit another cigarette. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard. He picked his nose.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," said Sally.
"They'll be comin' outta there any minute," said Skinny, the barrel of a Mossberg Bullpup just visible from under the folds of his rain poncho. "They gotta go by Joey Balls's place before closing," said Skinny. "Joey closes his place at one-thirty."
"Maybe they're not goin' tonight," worried Sally. "Maybe they want to eat Chinese tonight."
"Joey's their skipper. They gotta be there," said Skinny. "Every night they come here, they go there later. Every night. Joey doesn't like no once-a-week. He wants it every night . . ."
"I wish they'd hurry the fuck up in there,'5 said Sally "Any minute now," said Skinny. He pulled the hood of his poncho up over his head and snapped the collar around his chin. "Wait till they get to the middle of the street."
"You sure that's their car over there?" asked Sally. He looked over at the silver Seville parked a few car-lengths down the street.
"I'm sure," said Skinny.
"What time you got?" asked Sally Skinny looked at his watch.