The Friends of Eddie Coyle Read Free Page B

gave me some real stuff, too,” the driver said. “You tell me about a guy that’s going to get hit and fifteen minutes later he gets hit. You tell me about some fellows that’re planning a bank job, but you don’t get around to telling me until they’re coming out the door with the money and everybody in the world knows about it. That’s not working for uncle, Eddie. You got to put your whole soul into it. Hell, I been hearing it around that maybe you’re not even really going straight. I keep hearing you’re maybe mixed up in something else that’s going on.”
    “Like what?” the stocky man said.
    “Oh, well,” the driver said, “you know how it is with what you hear. I wouldn’t confront a man with something I heard. You know me better’n that.”
    “Well,” the stocky man said, “suppose we were to talk about some machine guns.”
    “Just to change the subject,” the driver said.
    “Yeah,” the stocky man said. “Suppose you had a reliable informer that put you onto a colored gentleman that was buying some machine guns. Army machine guns, M-sixteens. Would you want a fellow like that, that was helping you like that, would you want him to go to jail and embarrass his kids and all?”
    “Let me put it this way,” the agent said, “if I was to get my hands on the machine guns
and
the colored gentleman
and
the fellow that was selling the machine guns, and if that happened because somebody put me in the right place at the right time with maybe a warrant, I wouldn’t mind saying to somebody else that the fellow who put me there was helping uncle. Does the colored gentleman have any friends?”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised,” the stocky man said. “Thing is, I just found out about it yesterday.”
    “How’d you find out?” the driver said.
    “Well, one thing and another,” the stocky man said. “You know how it is, you’re talking to somebody and he says something and the next fellow says something, and the first thing you know, you heard something.”
    “When’s it supposed to come off?” the driver said.
    “I’m not sure yet,” the stocky man said. “See, I’m right on the button with this one, I come to you soon as I heard it. I got more things to find out, if you’re—if you think you might be interested. I think a week or so. Why don’t I call you?”
    “Okay,” the driver said. “Do you need anything else?”
    “I need a good leaving alone,” the stocky man said. “I’d assoon not have anybody start thinking about me too much on this detail. I don’t want nobody following me around, all right?”
    “Okay,” the driver said, “well do it your way. You call me when you get something, if you do, and if I get something, I’ll put it in front of the U.S. Attorney. If I don’t, all bets’re off. Understood?”
    The stocky man nodded.
    “Merry Christmas,” the driver said.

3
     
    Three heavyset men wearing nylon windbreakers and plaid woolen shirts, each of them holding a can of Schaefer beer, marched past the stocky man under Gate A as the first quarter ended. One of the men said: “I don’t know why the fuck I come down here every week, I don’t know the fuck why I do. Look at those stupid bastards, fifteen minutes, down seventeen points, Buffalo’s running right through them. It was nine points on the card and I took the Pats because I figure they’ll at least stay that close. Goddamned game.”
    Several minutes later a man with a florid complexion, his face scarred from acne, came up to the stocky man. “You take your own fucking time showing up, don’t you?” the stocky man said.
    “Look,” the second man said. “I get up this morning and take the kids to church and the little bastards screamed so bad I hadto take them out. Then the old lady starts the music about how I never stay home, and I won’t finish painting the house and the car’s all goddamned dirty and everything else. I couldn’t find a place to park when I got here. So why don’t