Marry, Bang, Kill by Andrew Battershill

Author:Andrew Battershill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2018-02-23T16:47:33+00:00

25

Mousey hadn’t met a person like Tommy Marlo in a long time, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed people exactly like Tommy Marlo until he did.

It had taken less than three minutes of conversation for Mousey to confirm his file-read on Tommy, and less than fifteen to elicit a confession for the money-stash robbery. The kid was a small-time street mugger with about a half a lobe more than most of his contemporaries and a lobe and a half less than a modestly talented sixth-grade debater. Mousey liked him, he was a nice kid, all armed robberies aside.

Even his last decade in Chicago, working SIU and Inter­nal Affairs, running bag for the DA, he’d been operating at too high a level to meet many Marlos. Sketchy, dumb, funny, reckless, and sweet small-time street criminals. Tommy was exactly the kind of person Mousey had always used and sometimes helped and usually made friends with working vice, when Mousey had been a young guy who was having fun doing his job.

Talking to Tommy, even just looking him in the eye, Mousey knew him to an acute degree. Knew how to play him, knew how well Marlo meant, knew how dangerous he really was and really wasn’t. On the street, guys like Marlo were victims who just got out in front of it and did their victimizing first. It reminded Mousey not just of people he’d known but of a time, and of himself. When he’d loved it. When he’d been having the time of his life, working crazy shifts, riding obscene, joyful amphetamine rushes, playing a quick, scary, hilarious game every second of his life.

Tommy had finally gotten up to stand, pacing gingerly with his hands consciously elevated, as if maintaining an imaginary force field over his lower body. He stilled himself, caught Mousey’s eye. “You’re a cop. Right, Mousey? You’re a cop.”

Mousey held Marlo’s gaze, took a sip of his water, and then set to staring at the thick, layered spread of forest leading up the hill. “Not at this moment, no.”

Mousey stayed staring off, but he heard Marlo start moving around again, kicking sticks as he paced. “That’s a thing you’re saying to fuck with me. Right? I mean, you’re not a cop at this moment means you’re a cop sometime. And for the fucking police, that time is anytime. So tell me, I’m ready to go, man.”

“Go where?” Mousey looked over at Marlo, half a smile peeking through his grimace like sun through an eyelid. “Well, Tommy, you’re going wherever you want. I used to be a cop, as in I’m not anymore, and I wasn’t exactly a stickler even when I was. So you’re going wherever you want to go, Tommy. That’s your business.”

“Why’d you pump me for all the details, then?”

“I was a cop. I’m nosy as fuck, that part stays with you. Even if you’re not a stickler.”

Tommy seemed to accept that, moved over to an adjacent rock, and started to sit down with extreme care.

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