The Drop Read Online Free

says he’s yours now. It’s a dog.”
    Bob said, “Yeah, but . . .” and couldn’t find the words to express something he’d felt since he’d first lifted the puppy out of the barrel and stared into its eyes, that for the first time he could ever recall, he felt like he was starring in the movie of his own life, not just sitting in the back row of a noisy theater watching it.
    Cousin Marv patted his shoulder, leaned in reeking of smoke, and repeated himself. “It’s. A. Dog.” And then he walked back into the bar.
    AROUND THREE , ANWAR , ONE of Chovka’s guys, came in through the back for last night’s book. Chovka’s guys were running late on pickups all over the city because the BPD had dropped a little harassment raid down on the Chechen social club last night, put half the runners and bagmen in jail for the night. Anwar took the bag Marv handed over and helped himself to a Stella. He drank it in one long, slow pull as he eye-fucked Marv and Bob. When he finished, he burped, put the bottle back on the bar, and left without a word, the bag of money under his arm.
    “No respect.” Marv dumped the bottle and wiped up the ring it had left on the bar. “You notice?”
    Bob shrugged. Of course he noticed, but what were you going to do?
    “This puppy, right?” he said to lighten the mood. “He’s got paws the size of his head. Three are brown but one’s white with these little peach-colored spots over the white. And—”
    “This thing cook?” Marv said. “Clean the house? I mean, it’s a fucking dog.”
    “Yeah, but it was—” Bob dropped his hands. He didn’t know how to explain. “You know that feeling you get sometimes on a really great day? Like, like, the Pats dominate and you took the ‘over,’ or they cook your steak just right up the Blarney or, or, you just feel good ? Like”—Bob found himself waving his hands again—“good?”
    Marv gave him a nod and a tight smile. Went back to his racing sheet.
    Bob alternated between taking down the Christmas decorations and working the bar, but the place started to fill after five, and pretty soon it was all bartending all the time. By this point, Rardy, the other bartender, should have been pitching in, but he was late.
    Bob made two trips to run a round over to a dozen guys by the dartboards who laid fiber-optic cable in all the hotels springing up down the Seaport. He came back behind the bar, found Marv leaning against a beer cooler, reading the Herald, but the customers blamed Bob for the slowdown, one guy asking if his Buds were coming by fucking Clydesdales.
    Bob nudged Marv aside, reached in the cooler, and mentioned Rardy was late. Again. Bob, who’d never been late in his life, suspected there was something hostile at the core of people who always were.
    Marv said, “No, he’s here,” and gestured with his head. Bob could see the kid now, Rardy about thirty but still getting carded at the door to a club. Rardy, chatting up customers as he worked his way through the crowd in his faded hoodie and battered jeans, porkpie hat resting on the crown of his head, always looking like he was on his way to open mic night for either poetry or stand-up. Bob had known him for five years now, though, and he knew Rardy didn’t possess an ounce of sensitivity and couldn’t tell a joke for shit.
    “Yo,” the kid said when he got behind the bar. He took his time removing his jacket. “Cavalry’s here.” He slapped Bob on the back. “Lucky for you, right?”
    OUTSIDE IN THE COLD , two brothers drove past the bar for the third time that day, looping around back through the alley, and then out onto Main, where they headed away from the bar so they could find a parking lot to do another couple of lines.
    Their names were Ed and Brian Fitzgerald. Ed was older and overweight and everyone called him Fitz. Brian was thinner than a tongue depressor and everyone called him Bri. Except when they were referred to as a pair, in which case some folks