The Weight (10 page)

I’d never been in that apartment. Couldn’t even tell you what floor it was on. Or even if Solly was telling the truth about it. What he told me was all I knew. I never asked him any questions.

“So?” Solly says. “Come on over and sit with an old friend.”

A soft light showed me Solly’s chair and another one, empty. One, only. Solly never let more than one person at a time in his basement.

That’s what he told me, anyway.

I sat down. The chair looked old. It was comfortable, though. And soft, real soft. You sank deep down into it. Like sitting in quicksand.

There was some kind of little table to my right. Fresh ashtray, little box of matches.

“Go ahead,” Solly told me. “Don’t worry about the windows. I got a machine, filters out the smoke.”

What he meant was, the basement windows had all been bricked up.

“I gave it up.”

“Yeah? Good for you, kid. You want something to drink, maybe?”

“No thanks.”

“Relax, okay? I was gonna do anything, I could have done it already.”

“I know.”

“You got the money, right?”

“The money you sent me Upstate? Yeah. I appreciate that. Made the time a lot easier. Those magazines, too. I never heard of cons subscribing to magazines before.”

“Depends on the joint,” Solly said. “Some, you can mail in just about anything. Others, you’d be lucky to get even a letter from your own lawyer.”

“Yeah. Well, like I said, Solly, I’m grateful and all, but—”

“—where’s the rest of your money, huh?”

“I don’t care
where
it is.”

“You didn’t use to be this cute, Sugar. What’d you do, take one of those college courses while you were away?”

“I’m not the one being cute here, Solly. Everyone else got their money. Me, I waited a long time for mine. I don’t even know how much there is, but we had to have cleared enough to give me a vacation. A long vacation.”

“You don’t want to work anymore?”

“Fuck, what
is
this? I don’t know how big a pie there is to slice, but I know it won’t be enough for me to live on the rest of my life, okay? So, yeah, I’m going back to work. But not for a while. There’s something I’ve got to do first.”

“What are you—?”

“Just give me my fucking money, Solly.”

“Ah. Now,
that’s
the Sugar I know. You want the numbers; I got the numbers. The stones came out to around five mil, retail. Even when loose stones are GIA-registered, you can still usually get about half for them. Overseas, I mean.”

When Solly said “overseas,” I knew he meant Asia. Just something I found out on my own. Solly never tells people anything, except what to do.

“So,” he said, “figure around two-point-five. Take off expenses, came out to a little more than two. You, Big Matt, and Jessop did the job, so it’s a three-way split.”

He didn’t bother to say that it was a three-way split of
half
. That’s always Solly’s deal. He sets up the job, does all the planning, deals with disposing of whatever the team he puts together takes, turns it into cash. For that, his piece is 50 percent.

One time, Solly even had to turn cash into cash. The thick stack of bills we found in one of the safe-deposit boxes I pried open sure looked used, but Solly said the consecutive serial numbers meant it couldn’t be spent here. “Overseas,” again.

I figured that box belonged to a bent cop. That’s what some of them do—take cash out of the buy-money bin and replace it with their own stuff. The count comes out right, so nobody catches wise. Maybe that blows a buy-and-bust for the narco boys somewhere down the line, but a cop on the take wouldn’t care about that. What he’d want was a way to track down his
own
money, in case some guy like me got his hands on it.

“So I’ve got about three-fifty coming.”

“Not quite. Pretty close, though.”

“You didn’t send me
that
much money while I was—”

“You think I’d take off for that?” He sounded insulted.

I just shrugged.

“Big Matt and Jessop each anted up five. Me, I put up ten. Only fair, am I right? In fact, I didn’t send even that much. You end up with a salary of about seventy-five K a year, Sugar. Three sixty-nine, total.”

“Fair enough.”

“Yeah, it
is
. And it might even be that you come out ahead.”

“Yeah?
You
do a pound for that much money?”

“I don’t mean that,” he said, waving his hand like he was brushing away a pesky fly. “The statute of limitations—”

“It’s up.”

“It’s up for
you
, Sugar. Big Matt and Jessop, they both took off right after they got paid. Me, I spent some time down in Florida. Couple of years, in fact.

“The only thing keeping the heat off is that this was just money. No big-deal ‘cold case,’ like an unsolved murder. Nobody’s gonna do a TV show about some drill-through heist. But if either of the others got popped for something
else…
who knows?”

“Big Matt wouldn’t give us up.”

“I agree,” he said, real solemn.

“And you put this Jessop guy in yourself.”

“That I could have been wrong about.”

“What!?”

“Jessop has been … hard to reach lately.”

“Maybe somebody took him off the count,” I said. That happens to men like us more than usual, I’m pretty sure. You steal for a living, you’re going to make people mad. You pull off a big job and start living too large, you call attention to yourself.

And it doesn’t matter
who
notices. Not too many people are real thieves anymore. Some punks, they think you’re holding heavy cash, they might come in shooting. That’s not a win-or-lose for you; it’s just three different ways to lose.

You win a gunfight in your own place, the cops still aren’t going away. Self-defense isn’t worth much if you can’t explain how you got your hands on all that cash the dead guys had been trying to jack you for.

You take a homicide fall, anyone you ever worked with is going to wonder how you’ll stand up. Specially if you’re looking at the needle.

Your partners wonder too much, you lose again. Someone you never heard of puts up your bail, that tells you you’re on the spot. Sure, you can refuse the bail; stay right where you are. But where you are, there’s no place to hide.

“Maybe,” Solly said.

“You got his for-real name?”

“You think I’m stupid? I had that, I could find out what I need in an hour. I got
a
name, just like you did.”

“The guy who sent him to you …?”

“Gone. Not even two weeks ago, you believe that? Albie had a bum ticker. The fat fuck’s idea of exercise was chewing.”

“So …?”

“So—
Albie
, I trusted. Known him for more years than you’ve been alive. Jessop … Ah, I’m getting too old for this stuff. I never even asked Albie for his vitals, just his credentials, you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like loose strings, Sugar.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I … I don’t know. There’s guys in this business, nobody ever works for them twice. That’s not me. Who’s got a more solid rep? You don’t get that for nothing. It’s like everything else—you pay for it. I make my payments on the installment plan, understand?”

“No. Solly, if—”

“Look, kid. All I’m saying is, I always play it
careful
, okay? Careful, that’s not something you are; it’s something you
do
. Every job, every time. That’s how come I’m … trusted, okay?”

“Sure. But I already—”

“Will you fucking let me
talk?
Just listen, for a damn minute. I got no reason to think this Jessop is … a problem. But I don’t like not knowing where to find him.”

“If he knew your pal, he’s in the business. How hard could it be?”

“What, you think we’re like some fraternity or something? Get together once a year, tell stories about the good old days? I know a few people, sure. But every phone call, that’s somebody
else
I owe. Besides, this ain’t phone work, understand?”

“Yeah. What I don’t understand is why you’re telling me all this. Tell Big Matt—he’s the one with something to lose.”

“He’s out, Sugar.”

“Somebody took him—”

“No,” he cut me off. “The opposite. He’s gone total Square John. Married, kid on the way.”

“How could he just …?” I couldn’t finish the sentence; I didn’t know what words to use.

“Oh, he told me in front,” Solly said. “That last job, it was gonna be
his
last job, no matter what. We score, he’s got enough to get a house, all the stuff you need to go straight. That’s what he said. I remember it real clear. ‘When this is over, so am I. No more stealing diamonds for me; I’m going to be buying them. Buying
one
, anyway.’ His girl, she’s not in The Life. Didn’t have a clue what Big Matt did for a living. His real living, I mean.”

“What did she think he—?”

“He buys houses. Real wrecks. Somewhere way out west, where you can buy them for next to nothing. Then he fixes them up and sells them. Lives in the house while he’s doing the repairs.”

“Pretty smart.”

“It is,” Solly said. “Big Matt, he’s a thinker.”

Meaning, I’m not
, I thought, but I kept that to myself. Just sat and waited.

“Prices have gone through the fucking roof since you’ve been away, Sugar. Actually, more of a spike. So the co-ops are down from what they were asking a few years ago, but rentals, they
never
go back. You’d be lucky to find a decent apartment for under two grand. And that wouldn’t even be the city—probably have to go out to Brooklyn or something.”

“I’m not broke,” I reminded him.

“No, you’re not. But you’re going to have to go back to work sooner or later.”

“Sure.”

“Aah!” he said, like he was throwing the word out of the room. “If Albie said this Jessop was stand-up, that should be good enough for me, right?”

“I didn’t know him.”

“It’s … it’s a respect thing, Sugar. I can’t just go out and cut my losses. I got no feeling from this guy. Nothing. Probably solid as a stone. But …”

I kept quiet. Still couldn’t figure out what all this blah-blah was
about. Solly was a talker, I knew. I mean, he
liked
talking. I guess there weren’t too many people he could talk to anymore.

“How about if you nose around a little? Find the guy, talk to him, see if he’s righteous?”

“What do I care? You said it yourself—I’m in the clear. Even if he walked into a police station somewhere and started running his mouth, how’s that my problem?”

“I got a responsibility.”

“To who? Everyone who sits in takes their chances; that’s the way it is.”

“I got a responsibility to
Albie
, okay?” The old man was really getting worked up; I never heard him sound angry, like that. “I can’t just … you know. It’d be like one of those preemptive strikes. Tap the guy, and we can all rest easy. But that wouldn’t be fair to Albie. It’d be like I didn’t trust his judgment.

“That happens, you know. Man gets old, he should get respect. Not for being old, but for the
wisdom
he has. Albie wasn’t soft in the head. Not fucking
senile
, okay? He still had it up here,” Solly said, tapping his temple.

“That’s good enough for me.”

“For you, sure. For me, it can’t be. A man gets old, he wants to leave a will, make sure he takes care of everyone who he should be taking care of. But you know what nobody should ever leave, Sugar? Loose threads, that’s what.”

“I’m not going around playing private eye, Solly.”

“I wasn’t asking for a favor.”

“What? You want to
pay
me, to do this thing?”

“Absolutely.”

“Solly, I’m not exactly broke. I don’t live big. It could be a real long time before I have to make another move. Anyway, you know I’m not a contract man.”

“You got a car?”

“Where would I get a car?”

“You could’ve rented one, maybe.”

“With what? My credit card?”

“Never mind. I got you a car. You’ll love it. Papered to the max, full-cover insurance and all. Let’s go and get your money.”

“Solly …”

“What?”

“I got to get a place. Some clothes. Set up right, before I do anything. I can’t walk around with a duffel bag stuffed with cash. What’s your damn problem? I held up my end, didn’t I?”

“Sure. Sure, you did, Sugar. You went first; now it’s my turn. And that’s—what?—finding you a place to stay, fixing you up with ID, all that?”

“It always
has
been,” I said, letting him hear I didn’t like what he was talking about.

“And, like I told you before, things have changed since you been away.”

“I did five fucking years alone. Like I’m supposed to.
That
didn’t change.”

He nodded his head slowly, like a bunch of thoughts were bouncing around inside. “You’re right, kid. Come on. Let’s take that ride.”

I followed him through the back exit. We walked down a cement hall. At least it looked like cement—the only light was Solly’s flash, and he just sprayed it around a little. I guess he did that for me—no way Solly needed it after all these years.