Killing Them Softly (Cogan's Trade Movie Tie-in Edition)

drive up to Boston, you know. I hadda go to Framingham, I didn’t have to come down here. I’m trying to be nice to you.”
    â€œWhat the hell’s wrong in Framingham,” the driver said, “sky falling there or something?”
    â€œNah,” Cogan said. “Stevie was outa hundred-millimeters and I had his car anyway and he had my truck, so I went out there and met him and give him some. I like to do a guy a favor now and then.”
    â€œDo me a favor,” the driver said. “Never do me any favors. I’ve seen how you work.”
    â€œTell you what,” Cogan said, “gimme the money.”
    The driver handed Cogan a thick white business envelope.
    â€œÂ â€™Scuse me,” Cogan said. He slid off the stool.
    â€œYou going to
count
it?” the driver said.
    â€œI gotta take a leak,” Cogan said. “Just lemme alone, all right? You make me nervous. I get nervous, I always gotta take a leak. Have some more ginger ale, for Christ sake.”
    Cogan went to the Men’s Room. Cogan returned.
    â€œYou feel better?” the driver said.
    â€œNo,” Cogan said, “there’s only fifteen in there.”
    â€œThree guys,” the driver said. “I’m not sure, I had to ask him whether I should pay you for the kid or not. He said I should.”
    â€œHe was right, too,” Cogan said. “That’s five apiece.”
    â€œCorrect,” the driver said. “That’s what he told me to pay Mitch.”
    â€œYeah,” Cogan said, “but the way I got it, Mitch got inna fight with a whore, the dumb shit, and now they got him in the can. Mitch couldn’t do it. I come through for everybody on short notice. From now on, the price’s ten.”
    â€œDillon only charges five,” the driver said. “He told me that, too.”
    â€œNot any more,” Cogan said.
    â€œLook,” the driver said, “you’re filling in for Dillon. You get what Dillon gets. No more. Take it up with Dillon. I can’t do anything about it.”
    â€œYou can’t do anything about anything,” Cogan said. “None of you guys can. Everything just goes haywire and everything, that’s fine, you need somebody, get things straightened out. I’m just telling you, is all, it’s gonna cost more, now on.”
    â€œTell Dillon,” the driver said. “Take it up with him.”
    â€œDillon’s dead,” Cogan said. “Dillon died this morning.”
    The driver was silent for a while. Then he said: “He’s going to be sorry to hear that.”
    â€œNo sorrier’n I am,” Cogan said.
    The driver sipped his ginger ale. “I assume,” he said, “I assume.… What killed him?”
    â€œI know the name of it,” Cogan said. “I got home this morning, my wife left me a note, they took Dillon the hospital about midnight or so. They told me what it was. That’s all I know.”
    â€œHe died in the hospital, then,” the driver said.
    â€œLike I say,” Cogan said, “I dunno what it is. All I know’s what they told me. ‘Myocardial infarct.’ You know what that is? I guess it’s the same thing, the heart trouble.”
    â€œThat’s what he had,” the driver said. “Well, how about that? Dillon’s dead. Son of a bitch.”
    â€œHe wasn’t a bad guy, actually,” Cogan said.
    â€œNo,” the driver said, “no, I guess he wasn’t. He wasn’t a bad guy.”
    â€œHe always,” Cogan said, “he never, well, I knew Dillon a long time, right? It was Dillon, really, got me started, said I oughta get something besides the booking, something that’d be around and like that, you know? He was the guy that really plugged me in. I knew Dillon a long time.”
    â€œHe knew him a long time too,” the driver said. “He had a lot of respect for him.”
    â€œSure,” Cogan said, “so’d I. You know why?”
    â€œYou were afraid of him?” the driver said.
    â€œNah,” Cogan said. He finished his beer. “Nah, it wasn’t that. It was, he knew the way things oughta be done, right?”
    â€œSo I’m told,” the driver said.
    â€œAnd when they weren’t,” Cogan said, “he knew what to do.”
    â€œAnd so do you,” the driver said.
    â€œAnd so do I,” Cogan said.

George V. Higgins
KILLING THEM