The Bobby Gold stories - Anthony Bourdain [31]
The cop took a long sip of his coffee and let out a grateful sigh. "That's good," he said. "That's good coffee."
"What do you want?"
"Gee. What do you think I want?"
"You want me to snitch. You want me to wear a wire. You want to be my new best pal so you can keep me out of jail, keep me from going to prison. You want to provide me with a new secret identity, large-breasted women, a house in Arizona next to Sammy Bull's. You want me to call you late at night and breathe heavily into the phone so you can go round up miscreants, arrest people I know. You want me to start giving Tommy V long lingering looks so I can get close to him and then tell you what he dreams about. Forget it. Nobody tells me shit. I don't give a shit about Eddie. And I'm retiring . . ."
"Retiring?" laughed the cop. "Retiring? What are you gonna do? What can you do — other than bust people up into nice little pieces?"
"I'll find something. I can always work security."
"What security? Who's gonna hire you? You're an ex-con! You can't get bonded. Nobody who's not mobbed-up is gonna give you a fuckin' job. What are you gonna do? Stand next to an A TM machine the middle of the night? What are you gonna put on the application where it says last place worked? NiteKlub? People gonna say, 'Oh, that's the place where that Eddie Fish got killed!' Your boss. Not too good at your job, they might think. Forget it. You'll be screwed. You'll be dunking fucking fries at Chirpin' Chicken."
"I was thinking of going back to school," said Bobby, telling the truth for the first time.
"Now that's nice. That might work," said the cop. "I saw your old transcript, you know. You weren't stupid once . . . Had a nice future up there until you got grabbed driving for Eddie. Eddie skated on that scot-free didn't he? And what does he do when his old pal, the guy who went to prison for him, gets out? He hires him as a fucking bouncer. He makes his old buddy into a trained ape. You could have been, what? A doctor? You were pre-med, right? Things coulda turned out real different for you, you hadn't started listening to Eddie."
"Eddie had nothing to do with it," said Bobby, irritated. That episode of his life was a sore point, as Connely clearly was aware.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Einstein," said the cop. "That's what you said then. It got you five years. You think your friend Eddie could have done eight to ten? I don't care how early you got out. He woulda snitched off everybody he ever knew. He snitched you off, didn't he?"
"Bullshit!"
"Oh yeah? Think? Listen up, moron. Wake up and smell the coffee. How do you think they picked you up with that carload a dope, genius? You think they're that smart up there? You just looked suspicious - so they pulled you over, happened to have a warrant? Eddie got grabbed two days earlier. He traded the load — and your ass — for a nice cushy community service, licking envelopes at some friend of his daddy's office. His father put it together for him. You didn't know that?"
"He had nothing to do with it."
"I got the fucking arrest record. Eddie Fish, detained while enjoying the services of a prostitute and found to be in possession of a controlled substance. You want to see the CI report? The one where he put it all on you? Told the nice troopers what kind of car you'd be driving and where and when? You surround yourself with bad people, Bobby. You're not a good judge of character."
"Fuck off. This conversation is over," said Bobby. "You want to talk more, call my lawyer."
"Awww . . . Is that any way to be? With an uncertain future in front of you - and a new girlfriend - I thought at least you'd want to listen."
At the mention of Nikki, Bobby slowly moved his hand across the table and pushed the cup of coffee onto the cop's lap.
"Ooops. Terribly sorry," said Bobby, without any attempt at conviction in his voice.
Connely stood up and separated the wet fabric of his pants from his crotch, shaking his head.
"That wasn't nice," he said.