“Six hundred,” Barry said. “I needed the dough. Ginny was starting to get the caps, there, and that was the first time I hadda pay.”

“Six hundred,” Steve said. “So, you only lost about thirty-two, forty-two hundred on it. Bloom give you what Mike cost you?”

“Nope,” Barry said.

The Cadillac went into the Terrace Hotel garage.

“Nope,” Steve said. “You ask him for it?”

“Nope,” Barry said.

“Sure,” Steve said. He parked the LTD half a block from the garage and turned off the ignition. “So, you almost go to jail again, and you spent on that what I spent on this car. That’s what I mean. Sooner or later you’re gonna have to start picking your spots, like I do. Otherwise you’re gonna spend the rest of your life tryin’ to get out of things that you shouldn’t’ve got into in the first place, and you’re never gonna have nothin’.”

“Look,” Barry said, “okay, you got all this talk and shit for me, lemme ask you this: you’re doing so good, how come you’re still going out and beating guys up, huh?”

“It’s not the money,” Steve said. “You wanna see how much money I got on me, right this minute?” He moved on the seat, reaching for his wallet.

“No,” Barry said.

Steve relaxed. “I got twenty-one hundred bucks on me right this minute,” he said. “I don’t owe nickel one on this car and I sent Rita’s check to her the other day. No, I’m doing a favor for a guy. This thing come up, Jackie’s done some things for me when I couldn’t do them.…”

“Jackie don’t beat guys up,” Barry said.

“No,” Steve said, “but there’s things that Jackie does do, you know? There’s other things inna world that guys do besides going around and doing things to other guys, Barry. You wouldn’t know that because the only thing you ever thought about was how you could grab a fast hundred and never mind what you’re doing on the long run. Jackie gimme that thing, when he was getting away from the machines he had in the locations on Route 9, there. He didn’t have to do that.”

“He couldn’t handle it himself, though,” Barry said.

“No, he couldn’t,” Steve said. “But he didn’t have to give it to me. He didn’t have to say to the guys, ‘Now, I want you to give this thing to Stevie, he’s a good guy.’ But he did. So, if Jackie asks me to do him a favor, and I can get a fast hundred out of it for my dumb brother, I’m gonna do it.”

“I can use the dough,” Barry said. He lit a Winchester cigar.

“Why’re you smoking those fucking things?” Steve said.

“Because they’re not gonna kill me as fast,” Barry said.

Steve lit an L&M. “Well,” he said, “you inhale them, don’t you?”

“Some times I forget and then I do,” Barry said. “Not very often, though. It’s like swallowing fuckin’ fire when you do it.”

“Sure,” Steve said, “and you’re not gonna tell me, there isn’t more shit in them’re these.”

“Shit,” Barry said, “I mean, how long’ve we been smoking?”

“I started when I was twelve,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Barry said, “and I was a big asshole then just like I am now, I did everything you told me to do, so I was eleven. So, I mean, I been smoking close to thirty years, it’s probably not gonna make much difference now anyway. Ginny was after me about it, I smoked them Omegas for a while. I did them, and then there was that other kind of thing there.”

“Between the Acts,” Steve said. “I can’t figure them things out, I never could. They smell just like anything else, when you’re the guy that’s smoking them. But when you’re the guy that’s with the guy that’s smoking them, you’d swear the bastard spent the whole day burning a cat or something.”

“Yeah,” Barry said. “So, I didn’t have any cigarettes for over a year now, except when I was up in Maine, there. I had about twenny packs of Luckies in them three days, I can tell you that. But except for that, I been using these things. I don’t feel no better, though. I thought I would. Them guys that’re try in’ to put you guys out of business all the time, you think you’re gonna feel better if you stop. Ginny told me that too. But I don’t. I just eat more. Some day they’re gonna say you can’t sell the fuckin’ things any more. That’s what’s gonna happen.”

“Never happen,” Steve said. “Look, how many guys are there, you think, can go back and forth like you do? Huh? Maybe two. They’re not gonna do that. Shit, they did the same thing with booze. They do it and, well, look, they think they’re taxing them now, right? How much taxes you think me and Jackie pay on that stuff, huh? So you think, they can’t get the taxes on what they’re letting me sell, you think they’re gonna, they’re gonna be able to stop me from selling them? I pay on about one third of the stuff I sell. Just enough so it’s not too fuckin’ easy for them, a kid could catch me doing it. And nobody looks at the bottom of them things. So, and they know I’m doing it, and guys’re doing it, and they know they can’t stop me and they also know, if they didn’t let guys sell them at all, they couldn’t do it.”

“Jesus,” Barry said, “it takes this fucker long enough, don’t it?”

“Well,” Steve said, “you got to allow the guy a certain amount of time, you know. I asked Jackie. I said, ‘Great, the guy’s gonna get laid and I’m gonna wait around all night for Christ sake.’ Jackie says, no, he don’t stay out late. He gets what he wants and then he goes home. Never stays out past one.”

“I still think it’s kind of nice of us,” Barry said, “letting the guy get his rocks off like this. Probably how he stays in so good shape.”

“He’s a fairly smart bastard,” Steve said.

“Not tonight he’s not gonna be,” Barry said.

“Well,” Steve said, “I mean, and that’s the kind of guy he is too, like about the broads, there. He’s not smart enough, he doesn’t marry any of them. Some times he’s not smart. And the same thing with the games there, see? Most of the time he runs a good game and all, and everybody’s happy and that’s when he’s being smart. He’s not making any noise and he’s only taking guys that want to get taken and he don’t kill it, you know? He don’t take them for a lot. And he don’t talk about how he’s taking them. No, he just sometimes, it seems like every so often he’s gotta take everybody for everything, and that’s the same thing.”

The Coupe de Ville paused at the garage exit and Steve started the LTD. The Cadillac went down a short street and turned west on Kneeland Street. Steve put the LTD in drive and went east on Kneeland Street. In the rearview mirror of the LTD the taillights of the Cadillac receded into Park Square.

“You’re sure he’s going home,” Barry said.

“Yup,” Steve said. “He’s just too fuckin’ cheap, take the Turnpike.”

Steve kept the LTD in the middle lane on the Massachusetts Turnpike and did not exceed sixty-five miles per hour. The LTD reached the Allston exit in less than seven minutes. Steve threw change into the tollgate basket and turned right on Cambridge Street. At eleven-fifty he parked the LTD beside a hydrant on Sheridan Street in Brighton and shut the ignition off.

“All right,” he said, “it’s the third brick one down there on the left.”

“The one with the yellow Chev,” Barry said.

“The next one,” Steve said.

“No driveway,” Barry said.

“Right,” Steve said. “Cheap bastard parks on the street.”

At nine minutes past midnight the Cadillac moved slowly by the LTD. Steve and Barry eased down on the seats.

At twenty minutes past twelve the Cadillac moved slowly past the LTD. Steve said: “If he comes by once more I’m gonna move and give him this place.”

At twelve thirty-five, Trattman walked up Sheridan Street, approaching the LTD from the rear, on the same side of the street. When he got to the rear bumper of the LTD, Steve said: “Now.”

Barry and Steve got out of the LTD. Barry said: “Right there.”

Trattman stopped. He frowned. He said: “You guys, you guys …”

Steve pointed a thirty-eight Chiefs Special, two-inch barrel, at Trattman. He said: “Get inna car, Markie.”