One Hundred Eight Jimmy

ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

Jimmy

NO POINT IN ASKING the guy his name again. Jimmy already has a better idea about finding out later, if he needs to.

Just not now.

"Here's how I'd like this to go," the guy says. "Let me help you help me. Think of it that way."

"Win, win, so to speak?"

"Exactly!"

Jimmy sees that the guy is barely making a dent in his whiskey. Maybe he's pacing himself. Or he's already had a few and is worried about driving back to wherever he came from.

"How about we cut to the chase," Jimmy says. "It's getting late and I'm tired."

"Not tired of me, I hope."

"To be determined."

"I like a man who doesn't screw around."

"You might maybe want to hold off on reaching that conclusion."

The guy nods in agreement.

"So here it is," he says. "Sonny, he has good days and bad days. Mostly bad. But out of the sky he just had a couple of good ones, and that's when he found out you've been asking a lot of questions about him. And what he has sent me here to tell you is that he'd like to call a cease-fire. So to speak. Just you and him. A rare opportunity with Sonny, you want to know the truth."

Now Jimmy nods. He's the one smiling back at the guy now.

"You're telling me the guy who's still the head of the mob on Long Island needs a cease-fire with a broken-down ex-cop?" Jimmy says. "Get the hell out of here."

"Just sayin'."

"Does this mean it's Sonny who's been behind all the killing and general bullshit?"

"Not saying that at all," the guy says. "And not here to litigate the past. I am just authorized to tell you that shit got out of hand and now he wants it to stop before anybody else gets killed."

"Not until I find out who killed my old partner."

"Wasn't us," the guy says. "Like I said: shit got out of hand. But now the people who did let it get out of hand are gone."

"Who killed Mickey Dunne?"

"Licata."

Just like that, bingo bango, as Mickey used to say.

"Who called it?"

"Licata called it. He was worried that you and the lawyer lady were going to trace too much shit back to him, which you fuckin' ay did anyway, and he did something he never used to do."

"Which is?"

"Panicked."

"I thought it was Champi who did Mickey."

"What Anthony wanted you to think. He wanted you to think Champi did a lot of shit he didn't do."

"And you know all this how?"

He shrugs. "I lead a very interesting life. But all you need to know is that when the boss found out, on one of those good days, he took care of it."

"Why did Salvatore get clipped, too?"

"That's between Sonny and Salvatore. Or was."

Jimmy checks his phone, remembers he turned it off.

"And what do I get if I agree to this truce you're talking about?"

"More of the answers you want to the questions you still got."

"And what if I continue to be the stubborn bastard I've always been, and decide to find those answers on my own?"

The guy has another small taste of the whiskey. Jimmy thinks he drinks like Janie's birds used to.

"Sonny got tired of sending boys to do a man's job when it came to delivering the message he wants delivered."

"So here you are, the man with no name, like Eastwood in those old spaghetti westerns."

"Sure."

It comes out shoo-wah. City accent.

"Just so we're clear," Jimmy says, "what is the message, exactly?"

One last smile.

"Jesus," the guy says. "Do we have to draw you a picture? We get our peace accord squared away, or the pause button comes off on the killing, and you all go. Her first."

He stands, drinks up, walks out of the bar without saying another word, or looking back.

Jimmy points at the empty glass sitting there on the bar.

"Bag this," he says to Kenny Stanton, and then calls Danny Esposito and tells him he's got some prints he needs to have run.

Then Jimmy calls Paul Harrington.

"I may have a lead on Sonny," Jimmy says.