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Authors: George V. Higgins
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didn’t try an O.K. Corral thing with them. What the hell bothers you about this guy? He takes out another cheap crook, he’ll probably get caught again, and even if he’s gotten a little experience, so he can do it with some finesse and get away with it, he’s still doing society a favor and making a dollar that’ll keep him off welfare. What’s got you so lathered up?”
“I know some things that’re evidently not in that file of yours,” Riordan said.
“You have my undivided attention,” Walker said.
“This all goes back awhile,” Riordan said, “and I was occupied with winning the hearts and minds of certain peasants in the more remote villages of South Vietnam when it went down.”
“And also involved, I believe you told me,” Walker said, “in picking up a few pieces of good old American shrapnel in your knee, courtesy of an artillery battery that was having a little trouble with its coordinates. Or its drug habits.”
“What the hell,” Riordan said, “anybody can make a mistake. Short round? Happens all the time. Kind of gives a man a little twinge or two when it happens, but it’s better’n charging your ticket home on your own American Express card. That’s a long ride over there, back here. Expensive.”
“Well,” Walker said, “like you said that night, I supposewhen you get the DSC and about your fourth Silver Star, what the hell, huh? You roll with the punches.”
“You ever tell anybody I told you that,” Riordan said, “and I will personally get out the tools of my old trade and jump out of a tree some night and teach you how to hold your breath a lot longer’n you think you can. I was drunk the night I told you that.”
“More late-breaking news,” Walker said. “Tell me about Magro. I don’t care if it’s totem-pole hearsay. And don’t make any plans about jumping out of trees on anybody. You’re finished, with all that scrap iron. First move you make, the noise’ll give them time enough to get out of the way.”
“The part about the furs is right,” Riordan said. “Magro was a thief before he took up shooting, or at least before he got caught at it. He was much better at stealing.”
“Who’d he work with?” Walker said.
“There is a fellow named Jerry Doherty,” Riordan said. “Runs a tavern down in Dorchester. Big fat guy.”
“I know the gentleman,” Walker said. “We had him as a lodger here for a while, some years ago, if memory serves me correctly. Won the Mister Congeniality Award, or would’ve, if we gave one. A very beneficial influence among his peer group in the inmate population, as Mayes would say. He was always laughing and having a grand time for himself, never had a harsh word to say about anybody. Of course one or two of his fellow guests insulted him, but that soon stopped. Digger Doherty. I asked him how he managed to be so cheerful under these conditions, and why it was that even very tough guys who didn’t like him, liked him. He grinned at me and said, ‘Walker, I reason with them.’
“I told him he must be some reasoner. ‘I am,’ he said ‘Oh, you’ll get a guy now and then who doesn’t want to listen, you know? Doesn’t want to hear what the other guy’s got to say. But if you catch him down by the garbage dock, you cangenerally change his mind for him. There was one guy that I hadda reason with
four times.
Not even he thought he was a reasonable man. But I convinced him. I am very good at convincing people, and when I get a really hard case, I call in some of my reasonable friends and we all reason with him, all at once. He comes around. I always tell a man that what goes around, comes around, and I never yet run into a guy that went around and didn’t come around.’
“So I said to Digger,” Walker said, “ ‘Digger, it sounds to me like maybe some of us in the administration could perhaps learn something about negotiating from you and your friends, and I wonder if maybe you’d be kind enough to
“I know some things that’re evidently not in that file of yours,” Riordan said.
“You have my undivided attention,” Walker said.
“This all goes back awhile,” Riordan said, “and I was occupied with winning the hearts and minds of certain peasants in the more remote villages of South Vietnam when it went down.”
“And also involved, I believe you told me,” Walker said, “in picking up a few pieces of good old American shrapnel in your knee, courtesy of an artillery battery that was having a little trouble with its coordinates. Or its drug habits.”
“What the hell,” Riordan said, “anybody can make a mistake. Short round? Happens all the time. Kind of gives a man a little twinge or two when it happens, but it’s better’n charging your ticket home on your own American Express card. That’s a long ride over there, back here. Expensive.”
“Well,” Walker said, “like you said that night, I supposewhen you get the DSC and about your fourth Silver Star, what the hell, huh? You roll with the punches.”
“You ever tell anybody I told you that,” Riordan said, “and I will personally get out the tools of my old trade and jump out of a tree some night and teach you how to hold your breath a lot longer’n you think you can. I was drunk the night I told you that.”
“More late-breaking news,” Walker said. “Tell me about Magro. I don’t care if it’s totem-pole hearsay. And don’t make any plans about jumping out of trees on anybody. You’re finished, with all that scrap iron. First move you make, the noise’ll give them time enough to get out of the way.”
“The part about the furs is right,” Riordan said. “Magro was a thief before he took up shooting, or at least before he got caught at it. He was much better at stealing.”
“Who’d he work with?” Walker said.
“There is a fellow named Jerry Doherty,” Riordan said. “Runs a tavern down in Dorchester. Big fat guy.”
“I know the gentleman,” Walker said. “We had him as a lodger here for a while, some years ago, if memory serves me correctly. Won the Mister Congeniality Award, or would’ve, if we gave one. A very beneficial influence among his peer group in the inmate population, as Mayes would say. He was always laughing and having a grand time for himself, never had a harsh word to say about anybody. Of course one or two of his fellow guests insulted him, but that soon stopped. Digger Doherty. I asked him how he managed to be so cheerful under these conditions, and why it was that even very tough guys who didn’t like him, liked him. He grinned at me and said, ‘Walker, I reason with them.’
“I told him he must be some reasoner. ‘I am,’ he said ‘Oh, you’ll get a guy now and then who doesn’t want to listen, you know? Doesn’t want to hear what the other guy’s got to say. But if you catch him down by the garbage dock, you cangenerally change his mind for him. There was one guy that I hadda reason with
four times.
Not even he thought he was a reasonable man. But I convinced him. I am very good at convincing people, and when I get a really hard case, I call in some of my reasonable friends and we all reason with him, all at once. He comes around. I always tell a man that what goes around, comes around, and I never yet run into a guy that went around and didn’t come around.’
“So I said to Digger,” Walker said, “ ‘Digger, it sounds to me like maybe some of us in the administration could perhaps learn something about negotiating from you and your friends, and I wonder if maybe you’d be kind enough to
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