The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins Page B

After a white man strenuously stated the headlines, the evening news report began. As the waitress arrived with Foley’s drink, a black man with heavy jowls and an accent that made
er
sounds into
or
sounds delivered the first story.
    “Four gunmen, masked with nylon stockings, made off with an estimated ninety-seven thousand dollars from the First Agricultural and Commercial Bank and Trust Company in Hopedale this morning,” he said. “The bandits invaded the Dover home of bank official Samuel Partridge shortly before dawn. Leaving one to hold the family hostage, they forced Partridge toaccompany them to the bank. Employees were held at gunpoint while the robbers looted the vault of most of the bank’s currency, leaving only coins and a few small bills behind. Partridge was then driven back to his home, where the robbers picked up the guard they had left. After being blindfolded, Partridge was turned loose on Route 116 in Uxbridge, near the Rhode Island line. A blue Ford, apparently the getaway car, was found two miles away. The FBI and the State Police have entered the case. Partridge told me this afternoon. . . .”
    A bulky black man wearing a double-breasted blue silk suit came into the bar and paused for an instant. Foley stood up and waved him over.
    “Deetzer,” Foley said, “how goes the battle for equal rights?”
    “We’re definitely losing,” the black man said. “This morning I told her I wouldn’t be home for dinner, and now I got to empty the garbage for three months, and take the kids to the zoo Saturday.”
    “What do you hear, Deetzer old man,” Foley said.
    “I hear they serve a drink here now and then,” the black man said. “Can I get one of those?”
    Foley signaled the waitress and pointed to his glass. Then he raised two fingers.
    “Are we eating here, Foles?” the black man said.
    “Might as well,” Foley said. “I could use a steak.”
    “Is uncle paying?” the black man said.
    “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Foley said.
    “I’m beginning to remember hearing some things now,” the black man said. “What shall we talk about?”
    “I been thinking about going into the holdup business,” Foley said. “What I want to do is get up an integrated gang. We’dbe invincible, Deetzer. Four bastards no smarter’n you and me got ninety-seven K out of some little bank in the woods this morning, no muss, no fuss, no bother. And here we are, deserving young men, family types, hacking along on a fucking salary.”
    “I heard on the radio a hundred and five thousand,” the black man said.
    “Well there you are, Deetzer,” Foley said. “A day’s work and all they got to worry about now is the Effa-Bee-Eye. You’ll be trotting the garbage from now until Easter, they’ll be getting a tan on the beach at Antigua, and I’ll be beating the bushes with snow to my jock until Washington’s Birthday, tracking down housewives who pay ten bucks for six ounces of Lipton Tea and two ounces of bad grass.”
    “I was thinking about joining a commune,” the black man said. “I heard about this place up near Lowell, everybody welcome, you take off your clothes and screw all day and drink boysenberry wine all night. Trouble is, I hear all they get to eat is turnips.”
    “You’re too old for a commune,” Foley said. “They wouldn’t take you. You couldn’t get it up enough to meet the specs. What you need is some government-funded job with a secretary that comes in every afternoon, strips down to the garter belt, and gets it up for you.”
    “I applied for that job,” the black man said. “I know just the one you mean. Pays thirty grand a year and you get a Cadillac and a white man to drive it. They told me it was filled. Some kid from Harvard Law School, got hair down to his navel and a beard and wears boots. They said I wasn’t qualified to lead the people to the promised land, what they needed was a nice Jewish boy that didn’t wash.”
    “I thought they had their