Bomber's Law Read Free Page B

very low-voltage drain, and the drain’s only during a call. So how’d he find out we were on? How’d the guy know? Tell me that. Somebody tell him or something? We got a leak in our pail? Oughta find out who it is, if we do, find out as fast as we can, stick a soldering gun up his ass.”
    â€œHe didn’t
know
,” Brennan said. “Buddy didn’t know we had the wire.”
    Dell’Appa opened his eyes. “You just told me he did know,” he said. “You just finished telling me, two, three minutes ago, that Buddy Royal told the guy who called him up last Wednesday or Thursday, you weren’t sure, that his line was tapped. You just told me that yourself.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you, you asshole, for Christ sake,” Brennan said. “That’s what it is about Buddy—he always told guys that stuff. Like it made him a big man, he’s warnin’ them: ‘Everyone’s after me here. That’s how fuckin’ big a guy
I
am.’ But he don’t actually know that we’re on, even though we now actually are, andwe’re hearin’ him tell guys we are. But he’s been tellin’ ’em that stuff for years. It’s not like it means anything.
    â€œAnyway, to this guy it sure doesn’t. This guy calls him Wednesday, I mean. And Buddy tells him, and he isn’t impressed at all. He says: ‘Like who is this, Buddy? Who do you mean? Who is it that’s after you now?’
    â€œWell,” Brennan said, “you would’ve thought, the way Buddy reacts, you would’ve thought at least he must’ve been sittin’ bare-ass onna throne, takin’ a good shit himself, and some guy that maybe owed him a thrill or two, maybe just give him a tickle, figured out how to get a cherry bomb under there, right about under his balls, and that’s when he set the thing off. Because Buddy yells, and I mean, really
yells
: ‘Just what the fuck do you mean? What the fuckin’ fuck you mean by that? You know who I mean, you fuckin’ asshole, you know who I mean when I say. I mean, I mean the State fuckin’ Police. And the FBI bastards, and all of them fuckin’ guys there. Plus all the insurance company snoops, and the snitches and private assholes. Cocksucker. That is who’s after me there. Who the fuck else would it be? The fuckin’ Rat Patrol, maybe? Saint Catherine’s Bugle Team there?’
    â€œOh, he’s as mad as a hornet,” Brennan said. “He’s practically frothin’ the mouth. You can almost see him, hoppin’ around there, face gettin’ all red—he’s a very excitable guy there—bangin’ his hands on his desk, and this guy is laughin’ at him. I mean: actually laughin’ at him. You can hear him over the phone. ‘Shit, I don’t know,’ the guy says. UPS, maybe? A COD package? Bunchah guys from the bakery or something? Kid that brings overnight from the post office? How the fuck should I know? What I hear, could be just about anyone.’ ”
    â€œI’m not following you,” Dell’Appa said.
    â€œWhat?” Brennan said.
    â€œI don’t get it,” Dell’Appa said.
    â€œDon’t get what?” Brennan said. “What the hell’re you talking about?”
    â€œWhat the hell’m
I
talking about?” Dell’Appa said. “What the hell
you’re
talking about is what the hell I’m talking about.”
    â€œI don’t get it,” Brennan said.
    â€œGoddamnit, Bob,” Dell’Appa said, “the bakery truck guys, and the UPS guys, and the mailmen and
all
of this shit. All of this shit that you’re tellin’ me, that the guy that called Buddy on Wednesday said to him that got him so hugely pissed off. I don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense to me, not the slightest bit of sense at all.”
    â€œOh,”