Read Online The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins - Free Book Online Page B

“Jesus, I don’t know. I got you the first batch when I said, and I was a week ahead on the dozen. I’m doing the best I can, you know. These things sometimes take time.”
    “Time is what I haven’t got,” the stocky man said. “I told you the kind of people I deal with. I’m getting pressure. Tomorrow night I’m supposed to see the man. I need the guns.”
    “I can’t get them for you by tomorrow night,” Jackie Brown said. “I can’t possibly get them to you before the weekend. You got to understand, the factory just makes one thing at a time. When you get a mixed batch, it’s because you’re getting some of the last batch and some of the batch they’re making now. I don’teven know what they’re turning out. Maybe the new stainless stuff. I just don’t know. It’ll take me a couple days to find out what’s available.”
    “I don’t care whether it’s the stainless or not,” the stocky man said. “I got to have the stuff tomorrow night. I got a long ride and I got to have the stuff with me when I make it.”
    “No day,” Jackie Brown said. “No day, no way. No can do. I told you: I get quality stuff. It takes some time. It isn’t like buying a fucking loaf of bread. I got a thing set up that works pretty good, dependable stuff that won’t get anybody in trouble. I’m not going to screw it up just because your people’ve got hot pants. I got to think of the future. You’ll have to tell them: Wait. The stuff’ll come. What’s the big emergency, anyway?”
    “One of the first things I learn is not to ask a man why he’s in a hurry,” the stocky man said. “The man says he’s in a hurry and I already told him he could depend on me, because you told me I could depend on you. Now things’re working out different, and one of us is going to have a big fat problem. Now let me tell you something, kid,” the stocky man said, “that’s another thing I learn. When one of us’re going to have a problem, you’re going to be the one, I got anything to say about it.”
    “Now look,” Jackie Brown said.
    “Now look, nothing,” the stocky man said, “I’m getting old. I spent my whole life sitting around in one crummy joint after another with a bunch of punks like you, drinking coffee, eating hash, and watching other people take off for Florida while I got to sweat how the hell I’m going to pay the plumber next week. I’ve done time and I stood up, but I can’t take no more chances. You can give me a whole ration of shit and this and that, and blah, blah, blah. But you, you’re still a kid and you’re going out andcoming around and saying: ‘Well, I’m a man, you can take what I say and it’ll happen. I go through.’ Well, you’re learning something too, kid, and I advise you, you better learn it now, because when you say that, when you get me out there all alone on what you say, well, you better be there in back of me. Because once you say it’s going to happen,
it’s going to fucking happen
, and if it doesn’t you got your cock caught in the zipper but good. Now I don’t want no talk and shit from you. I want ten guns from you and I got the money to pay for them, and I want them tomorrow afternoon at the place where we were before, and I’m going to be there and you’re going to be there with those goddamned guns. Because if you’re not, I’m going to come looking for you, and I’ll find you, too, because I’m not going to be the only one that’s looking and we know how to find people.”
    “I got to go to Rhode Island tonight,” Jackie Brown said. “I’ll be back late. I got to see some people late tomorrow afternoon. Can I meet you early some place tomorrow? So I can get free by, say, three o’clock? Because you’re coming up faster’n we said, you know, and I already told you, I got other people I see too.”
    “Tomorrow afternoon’s okay,” the stocky man said. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at the same place we were before. You still got that