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Sonny Blum

ROBBY SASSOON IS SITTING with Sonny Blum in the den of Sonny’s home in Port Washington, one of his many. Robby has been called here by the old man. Sonny already knows about the shootout in Water Mill.

“If they finally lock the Jacobson kid up at the jail in Riverhead,” Blum says, “maybe he can get some kind of family discount.”

Blum knows what he knows, as he tells Robby, because he has a cop in Southampton on his payroll, the same way he has cops on his payroll just about everywhere.

Robby jumped at the chance to have a face-to-face with the boss. Maybe this is how he’s going to be told about his next assignment. He’s assuming it has to be Jane Smith, or her investigator.

Or both.

He and Blum both have glasses of whiskey in their hands. It’s late, but they have been talking for a while. It’s not often that Sonny Blum gets to confide in somebody like this.

“I’ve always been a big-picture guy,” Blum says now. “Not so much of a detail guy. But then, I got guys like you to handle details, which means doing their fucking jobs the way I want them done.”

They both drink. It’s a warm night, but Blum still has a fire going.

“What I’ve always known, though, as a big-picture guy,” Blum continues, “is the power of information. You hear people talk about information being power all the time. But, see, with me it was always information and power. It’s why I started putting all those cops on scholarship, way back.

Joe Champi. Anthony Licata. You ever hear of them? ”

Robby nods.

“I had them on the payroll at the start, along with their boss, Harrington,” Blum says. “The one you just capped.”

Robby smiles. “He never saw it coming.”

“Sometimes that’s the best way, am I right?” Blum says, and starts laughing, until the laughter dissolves into a coughing fit.

There’s a glass of water next to the whiskey. He drinks some of that and the coughing eventually stops.

“It all started around the same time, me owning these cops and owning Jacobson and McKenzie after the two of them got high one day, high as a kite in high school, and shot Jacobson’s old man and his girlfriend,” Blum says.

“My cops show up and they collect all the evidence, and they immediately know they’ve got these kids by the balls.

So I’ve got two rich kids. I’ve got McKenzie’s old man, too.

And from that moment on, just with Jacobson’s money and the money from McKenzie’s old man, it’s like they’re a main branch of the Bank of Sonny Blum.

How’d that old song go? I felt rich as Rockefeller. ”

Robby smiles and raises his glass, in admiration. “Nice work if you can get it.”

Blum drinks more whiskey now. “And the money has been flowing, from the Jacobson family and the McKenzie family, ever since.”

“Sounds like a sweetheart deal,” Robby says.

“But then this Rob Jacobson, as much of a dumb-ass as he is when it comes to women, turns out to be a smart bastard,” Blum says.

“And when he’s old enough, he cuts himself a side deal with Joe Champi.

Used to call him his Uncle Joe. At which point Joe is double-dipping out of the same pot.

And unfortunately, what Joe is selling is proof of me doing all kinds of things—including the kind of shit you do for me—that would put me away for about two hundred years. ”

“How come you didn’t have me take him out?” Robby says.

“Jacobson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Because he made it clear that he had it set up so’s if anything like that ever happened to him, the shit he had on me would go to the cops and to the feds,” Blum says. “So now Rob Jacobson and me, we had each other by the balls.”

“So how come you didn’t have me take out Champi?”

“I was about to,” he says, “except the lawyer lady took him out first.”

Blum pauses as if he just remembered something and says, “You still seeing Jacobson’s wife, by the way?”

“Sadly, no,” Robby says. “But I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Blum, it was fun while it lasted.”

“No shit,” Sonny Blum says. “The pictures you took of the two of you? I sent them to Jacobson. Just to remind him I can get to him anytime I want and anyway I want if he ever tries to screw me over.”

He finishes his drink.

“I hate loose ends,” Blum says.

He stands now. It’s late and he’s tired. Getting old truly is for shit. How can you be this old with a fire going?

He notices Sassoon’s glass is empty, too.

“Is it time for me to take out Smith and Cunniff, Mr. Blum?” Robby asks. “I assume that was one of the reasons you wanted to see me tonight. You’ve already told me I’ll have to get that done at one point or another.”

Blum nods. “It’s time,” he says, then points to Sassoon’s own empty glass. “One more for the road?”

“Why not?” Robby Sassoon says.

The old man takes a long time getting out of his chair, shuffles across the room, takes Sassoon’s glass out of his hand as he heads for the bar behind him.

“You really are good at what you do,” Sonny says.

“Well, thank you, sir.”

“Too good,” Blum says, before he takes the gun out of his pocket and blows the back of Robby Sassoon’s head off, the sound like a cannon going off in his den, able to back up quickly enough that the blood doesn’t get on him, not that he would care much either way.

He watches Sassoon slump to the side, hit man who just got hit, almost like poetic justice, blood pouring out of the head wound, what’s left of him slowly sliding out of the chair and onto the floor.

Sonny Blum looks down at the body. It’s time for a new rug in here, anyway.