American Buffalo Page 3
DON: Yeah.
BOB: And he’s got the suitcase . . .
DON nods.
He gets in the car . . .
DON: Uh-huh . . .
BOB: He drives away.
DON: So where is she?
BOB: He’s goin’ to pick her up.
DON: What was he wearing?
BOB: Stuff. Traveling clothes.
DON: Okay.
Pause.
Now you’re talking. You see what I mean?
BOB: Yeah.
DON: All right.
BOB: And he had a coat, too.
DON: Now you’re talking.
BOB: Like a raincoat.
DON: Yeah.
Pause.
Good.
Pause.
BOB: Yeah, he’s gone.
DON: Bob, go get me that coffee, do you mind?
BOB: No.
DON: What did you get yourself to eat?
BOB: I didn’t get anything.
DON: Well, get me my coffee, and get yourself something to eat, okay?
BOB: Okay. (Good.) (Exits.)
Pause.
DON: How’s your bacon?
TEACH: Aaaahh, they always fuck it up.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: This time they fucked it up too burnt.
DON: Mmmm.
TEACH: You got to be breathing on their neck.
DON: Mmmm.
TEACH: Like a lot of things.
DON: Uh-huh.
TEACH: Any business . . .
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: You want it run right, be there.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: Just like you.
DON: What?
TEACH: Like the shop.
DON: Well, no one’s going to run it, I’m not here.
Pause.
TEACH: No.
Pause.
You have to be here.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: It’s a one-man show.
DON: Uh-huh.
Pause.
TEACH: So what is this thing with the kid?
Pause.
I mean, is it anything, uh . . .
DON: It’s nothing . . . you know . . .
TEACH: Yeah.
Pause.
It’s what. . . ?
DON: You know, it’s just some guy we spotted.
TEACH: Yeah. Some guy.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: (Some guy . . .)
DON: Yeah.
Pause.
What time is it?
TEACH: Noon.
DON: (Noon.) (Fuck.)
TEACH: What?
Pause.
DON: You parked outside?
TEACH: Yeah.
DON: Are you okay on the meter?
TEACH: Yeah. The broad came by already.
Pause.
DON: Good.
Pause.
TEACH: Oh, yeah, she came by.
DON: Good.
TEACH: You want to tell me what this thing is?
DON (Pause): The thing?
TEACH: Yeah.
Pause.
What is it?
DON: Nothing.
TEACH: No? What is it, jewelry?
DON: No. It’s nothing.
TEACH: Oh.
DON: You know?
TEACH: Yeah.
Pause.
Yeah. No. I don’t know.
Pause.
Who am I, a policeman . . . I’m making conversation, huh?
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: Huh?
Pause.
‘Cause you know I’m just asking for talk.
DON: Yeah. I know. Yeah, okay.
TEACH: And I can live without this.
DON (reaches for phone): Yeah. I know. Hold on, I’ll tell you.
TEACH: Tell me if you want to, Don.
DON: I want to, Teach.
TEACH: Yeah?
DON: Yeah.
Pause.
TEACH: Well, I’d fucking hope so. Am I wrong?
DON: No. No. You’re right.
TEACH: I hope so.
DON: No, hold on; I gotta make this call.
TEACH: Well, all right. So what is it, jewelry?
DON: No.
TEACH: What?
DON: Coins.
TEACH: (Coins.)
DON: Yeah. Hold on, I gotta make this call.
DON hunts for a card, dials telephone.
(Into phone) Hello? This is Donny Dubrow. We were talking the other day. Lookit, sir, if I could get ahold of some of that stuff you were interested in, would you be interested in some of it?
Pause.
Those things . . . Old, yeah.
Pause.
Various pieces of various types.
Pause.
Tonight. Sometime late. Are they what ...!!?? Yes, but I don’t see what kind of a question is that (at the prices we’re talking about . . .)
Pause.
No, hey, no, I understand you . . .
Pause.
Sometime late.
Pause.
One hundred percent.
Pause.
I feel the same. All right Good-bye. (Hangs up.) Fucking asshole.
TEACH: Guys like that, I like to fuck their wives.
DON: I don’t blame you.
TEACH: Fucking jerk . . .
DON: (I swear to God . . .)
TEACH: That guy’s a collector?
DON: Who?
TEACH: The phone guy.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: And the other guy?
DON: We spotted?
TEACH: Yeah.
DON: Him, too.
TEACH: So you hit him for his coins.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: —And you got a buyer in the phone guy.
DON: (Asshole.)
TEACH: The thing is you’re not sitting with the shit.
DON: No.
TEACH: The guy’s an asshole or he’s not, what do you care? It’s business.
Pause.
DON: You’re right.
TEACH: The guy with the suitcase, he’s the mark.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: How’d you find him?
DON: In here.
TEACH: Came in here, huh?
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: (No shit.)
Pause.
DON: He comes in here one day, like a week ago.
TEACH: For what?
DON: Just browsing. So he’s looking in the case, he comes up and with this buffalo-head nickel . . .
TEACH: Yeah . . .
DON: From nineteen-something. (I don’t know. I didn’t even know it’s there . . .)
TEACH: Uh-huh . . .
DON: . . . and he goes, “How much would that be?”
TEACH: Uh-huh . . .
DON: So I’m about to go, “Two bits,” jerk that I am, but something tells me to shut up, so I go, “You tell me.”
TEACH: Always good business.
DON: Oh yeah.
TEACH: How wrong can you go?
DON: That’s what I mean, so then he thinks a minute, and he tells me he’ll just shop a bit.
TEACH: Uh-huh . . . (Stares out of window.)
DON: And so he’s shopping . . . What?
TEACH: Some cops.
DON: Where?
TEACH: At the corner.
DON: What are they doing?
TEACH: Cruising.
Pause.
DON: They tum the corner?
TEACH (waits): Yeah.
Pause.
DON: . . . And so he’s shopping. And he’s picking up a beat-up mirror . . . an old kid’s toy . . . a shaving mug . . .
TEACH: . . . right . . .
DON: Maybe five, six things, comes to eight bucks. I get ‘em and I put ‘em in a box and then he tells me he’ll go fifty dollars for the nickel.
TEACH: No.
DON: Yeah. So I tell him (get this), “Not a chance.”
TEACH: (Took balls.)
DO
N: (Well, what-the-fuck . . .)
TEACH: (No, I mean it.)
DON: (I took a chance.)
TEACH: (You’re goddamn right.)
Pause.
DON (shrugs): So I say, “Not a chance,” he tells me eighty is his highest offer.
TEACH: (I knew it.)
DON: Wait. So I go, “Ninety-five.”
TEACH: Uh-huh.
DON: We settle down on ninety, takes the nickel, leaves the box of shit.
TEACH: He pay for it?
DON: The box of shit?
TEACH: Yeah.
DON: No.
Pause.
TEACH: And so what was the nickel?
DON: I don’t know . . . some rarity.
TEACH: Ninety dollars for a nickel.
DON: Are you kidding, Teach? I bet it’s worth five times that.
TEACH: Yeah, huh?
DON: Are you kidding me, the guy is going to come in here, he plunks down ninety bucks like nothing. Shit yeah.
Pause.
TEACH: Well, what the fuck, it didn’t cost you anything.
DON: That’s not the point. The next day back he comes and he goes through the whole bit again. He looks at this, he looks at that, it’s a nice day . . .
TEACH: Yeah . . .
DON: And he tells me he’s the guy was in here yesterday and bought the buffalo off me and do I maybe have some other articles of interest.
TEACH: Yeah.
DON: And so I tell him, “Not offhand.” He says that could I get in touch with him, I get some in, so I say “sure,” he leaves his card, I’m s’posed to call him anything crops up.
TEACH: Uh-huh.
DON: He comes in here like I’m his fucking doorman.
TEACH: Mmmm.
DON: He takes me off my coin and will I call him if I find another one.
TEACH: Yeah.
DON: Doing me this favor by just coming in my shop.
TEACH: Yeah.
Pause.
Some people never change.
DON: Like he has done me this big favor by just coming in my shop.
TEACH: Uh-huh. (You’re going to get him now.)
DON: (You know I am.) So Bob, we kept a lookout on his place, and that’s the shot.
TEACH: And who’s the chick?
DON: What chick?
TEACH: You’re asking Bob about.
DON: Oh yeah. The guy, he’s married. I mean (I don’t know.) We think he’s married. They got two names on the bell. . . . Anyway, he’s living with this chick, you know . . .
TEACH: What the hell.
DON: . . . and you should see this chick.
TEACH: Yeah, huh?
DON: She is a knockout. I mean, she is real nice-lookin’, Teach.
TEACH: (Fuck him . . .)
DON: The other day, last Friday like a week ago, Bob runs in, lugs me out to look at ‘em, they’re going out on bicycles. The ass on this broad, un-be-fucking-lievable in these bicycling shorts sticking up in the air with these short handlebars.
TEACH: (Fuckin‘ fruits . . .)
Pause.
DON: So that’s it. We keep an eye on ‘em. They both work. . . (Yesterday he rode his bicycle to work.)
TEACH: He didn’t.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH (snorts): (With the three-piece suit, huh?)
DON: I didn’t see ‘em. Bobby saw ‘em.
Pause.
And that’s the shot. Earl gets me in touch the phone guy, he’s this coin collector, and that’s it.
TEACH: It fell in your lap.
DON: Yeah.
TEACH: You’re going in tonight.
DON: It looks that way.
TEACH: And who’s going in?
Pause.
DON: Bobby.
Pause.
He’s a good kid, Teach.
TEACH: He’s a great kid, Don. You know how I feel about the kid.
Pause.
I like him.
DON: He’s doing good.
TEACH: I can see that.
Pause.
But I gotta say something here.
DON: What?
TEACH: Only this—and I don’t think I’m getting at anything—
DON: What?
TEACH (Pause): Don’t send the kid in.
DON: I shouldn’t send Bobby in?
TEACH: No. (Now, just wait a second.) Let’s siddown on this. What are we saying here? Loyalty.
Pause.
You know how I am on this. This is great. This is admirable.
DON: What?
TEACH: This loyalty. This is swell. It turns my heart the things that you do for the kid.
DON: What do I do for him, Walt?
TEACH: Things. Things, you know what I mean.
DON: No. I don’t do anything for him.
TEACH: In your mind you don’t, but the things, I’m saying, that you actually go do for him. This is fantastic. All I mean, a guy can be too loyal, Don. Don’t be dense on this. What are we saying here? Business.
I mean, the guy’s got you’re taking his high-speed blender and a Magnavox, you send the kid in. You’re talking about a real job . . . they don’t come in right away and know they been had . . .
You’re talking maybe a safe, certainly a good lock or two, and you need a guy’s looking for valuable shit, he’s not going to mess with the stainless steel silverware, huh, or some digital clock.
Pause.
We both know what we’re saying here. We both know we’re talking about some job needs more than the kid’s gonna skin-pop go in there with a crowbar . . .
DON: I don’t want you mentioning that.
TEACH: It slipped out.
DON: You know how I feel on that.
TEACH: Yes. And I’m sorry, Don. I admire that. All that I’m saying, don’t confuse business with pleasure.
DON: But I don’t want that talk, only, Teach.
Pause.
You understand?
TEACH: I more than understand, and I apologize.
Pause.
I’m sorry.
DON: That’s the only thing.
TEACH: All right. But I tell you. I’m glad I said it.
DON: Why?
TEACH: ‘Cause it’s best for these things to be out in the open.
DON: But I don’t want it in the open.
TEACH: Which is why I apologized.
Pause.
DON: You know the fucking kid’s clean. He’s trying hard, he’s working hard, and you leave him alone.
TEACH: Oh yeah, he’s trying real hard.
DON: And he’s no dummy, Teach.
TEACH: Far from it. All I’m saying, the job is beyond him. Where’s the shame in this? This is not jacks, we get up to go home we give even/thing back. Huh? You want this fucked up?
Pause.
All that I’m saying, there’s the least chance something might fuck up, you’d get the law down, you would take the shot, and couldn’t find the coins whatever: if you see the least chance, you cannot afford to take that chance! Don? I want to go in there and gut this motherfucker. Don? Where is the shame in this? You take care of him, fine. (Now this is loyalty.) But Bobby’s got his own best interests, too. And you cannot afford (and simply as a business proposition) you cannot afford to take the chance.
(Pause. TEACH picks up a strange object.) What is this?
DON: That?
TEACH: Yes.
DON: It’s a thing that they stick in dead pigs keep their legs apart all the blood runs out.
TEACH nods. Pause.
TEACH: Mmmm.
Pause.
DON: I set it up with him.
TEACH: “You set it up with him.” . . . You set it up and then you told him.
Long pause.
DON: I gave Earl ten percent.
TEACH: Yeah? for what?
DON: The connection.
TEACH: So ten off the top: forty-five, forty-five.
Pause.
DON: And Bobby?
; TEACH: A hundred. A hundred fifty . . . we hit big . . . whatever.
DON: And you what?
TEACH: The shot. I go, I go in . . . I bring the stuff back (or wherever. . .)
Pause.
DON: And what do I do?
TEACH: You mind the fort.
Pause.
DON: Here?
TEACH: Well, yeah . . . this is the fort.
Pause.
DON: (You know, this is real classical money we’re talking about.)
TEACH: I know it. You think I’m going to fuck with Chump Change?
Pause.
So tell me.
DON: Well, hold on a second. I mean, we’re still talking.
TEACH: I’m sorry. I thought we were done talking.
DON: No.
TEACH: Well, then, let’s talk some more. You want to bargain? You want to mess with the points?
DON: No. I just want to think for a second.
TEACH: Well, you think, but here’s a helpful hint Fifty percent of some money is better than ninety percent of some broken toaster that you’re gonna have, you send the kid in. (Which is providing he don’t trip the alarm in the first place . . .) Don? You don’t even know what the thing is on this. Where he lives. They got alarms? What kind of alarms? What kind of this . . . ? And what if (God forbid) the guy walks in? Somebody’s nervous, whacks him with a table lamp—you wanna get touchy—and you can take your ninety dollars from the nickel shove it up your ass—the good it did you—and you wanna know why? (And I’m not saying anything . . .) because you didn’t take the time to go first-class.
BOB re-enters with a bag.
Hi, Bob.
BOB: Hi, Teach.
Pause.
DON: You get yourself something to eat?
BOB: I got a piece of pie and a Pepsi.
BOB and DON extract foodstuffs and eat.
DON: Did they charge you again for the coffee?
BOB: For your coffee?
DON: Yes.
BOB: They charged me this time. I don’t know if they charged me last time, Donny.
DON: It’s okay.
Pause.
TEACH (to BOB): How is it out there?
BOB: It’s okay.
TEACH: Is it going to rain?
BOB: Today?
TEACH: Yeah.
BOB: I don’t know.
Pause.
TEACH: Well, what do you think?
BOB: It might.
TEACH: You think so, huh?
DON: Teach . . .
TEACH: What? I’m not saying anything.
BOB: What?
TEACH: I don’t think I’m saying anything here.
Pause.
BOB: It might rain.
Pause.
I think later.
TEACH: How’s your pie?
BOB: Real good.
TEACH (holds up the dead-pig leg-spreader): You know what this is?
Pause.
BOB: Yeah.
TEACH: What is it?
BOB: I know what it is.
TEACH: What?
BOB: I know.
Pause.
TEACH: Huh?