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The Drop
The Drop
The Drop
Ebook225 pages3 hours

The Drop

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Dennis Lehane returns to the streets of Mystic River with this love story wrapped in a crime story wrapped in a journey of faith—the basis for the major motion picture The Drop, from Fox Searchlight Pictures directed by Michaël Roskam, screenplay by Dennis Lehane, and starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini.

Three days after Christmas, a lonely bartender looking for a reason to live rescues an abused puppy from a trash can and meets a damaged woman looking for something to believe in. As their relationship grows, they cross paths with the Chechen mafia; a man grown dangerous with age and thwarted hopes; two hapless stick-up artists; a very curious cop; and the original owner of the puppy, who wants his dog back. . . .

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateSep 2, 2014
ISBN9780062365484
Author

Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane is the author of thirteen novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He grew up in Boston, MA and now lives in California with his family.

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Rating: 3.691441382882883 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I saw this movie a few years ago, and I found it disappointing, due to the direction and the acting by Tom Hardy, and that really bugged me, because I felt that I should like the story. And so when I came across this book at a used book sale, I picked it up to see if my notion was right, and indeed I much prefer the story in written form thanks to the additional insight into the character's thoughts and the lack of Hardy.

    I still envisioned James Gandolfini as Cousin Marvin though. He was spot on.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Read this short story after seeing the movie so my reaction to it is no doubt colored by Tom Hardy's amazing performance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    We've all known people who were stuck in the past—the high school jock who didn’t make the pros or the prodigy who flunked out of college. They spend their days looking backward and lose the way forward. They stop changing, stop growing. And if enough time passes, they’re frozen forever in a single moment—like the dinosaurs in the La Brea Tar Pit.

    Which brings me to Dennis Lahane’s novel The Drop

    The novel takes place in the underworld of Boston bars. Bob the bartender is a haunted, lonely man whose life has been stuck in neutral for years. Then he finds a puppy in a garbage can and this small accident changes everything—and not just for Bob.

    As in real life, Bob sometimes wishes he hadn’t saved the puppy and there are no assurances that his life will turn out for the better—after all, this is Lehane’s Boston. But at the end of the novel, the reader believes that whatever life brings Bob, he’ll meet it on his own terms.

    It’s redemption, Lehane style--plenty of blood and guts, but with a glimmer of hope in all the gore.

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Drop - Dennis Leharne *****This is only the second book I have read by Leharne, the other being Shutter Island a few years back. Shutter Island was a good read but also a kind of forgettable book and I never really bothered actively seeking out the author. I came across the Drop in a second hand book store and liked the sound of the blurb and thought it was worth a read. It seemed fairly short at just over 200 pages so I decided to give it a punt.The story is set in a downtown Boston bar where Bob Saginowski is tending, working for his employer and cousin Marv. Things seem to go well, and Bob lives day to day without too much hassle. One day however when he is walking home, he finds an abandoned puppy and persuades a friend to look after it. Soon after a robbery takes place at the bar that causes the police to look into not just the current situation, but also deeds buried in the past. Throw in the local gangsters and you have an intricate tale of violence and deception, when the puppies original psychopathic owner also comes looking, Bob’s world is turned upside down.A really worthwhile read, at times dark but always gripping.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Drop by Dennis Lehane is a very highly recommended, gritty, bleak crime novel set in Boston.

    Bob Saginowski works as a bartender for his cousin Marv in a bar Marv used to own. Now the bar is owned by the Chechen mafia. Bob, an introspective loner who regularly attends mass but never takes communion, finds a puppy beaten near death in a garbage can on his way home from work one night. As he rescues the puppy, he meets the woman whose garbage can the puppy was dumped in, Nadia Dunn. After Nadia determines why he is going through her garbage, she helps him by cleaning up the puppy's injuries and cares for the puppy until he is able to come back for it. Then she helps Bob buy supplies and gives him advice about training his puppy. Bob is hopeful that the puppy and Nadia will both be a good edition to his otherwise solitary life.

    When the bar is robbed one night, it is clear that whoever did it doesn't fully understand who really owns the bar and why members of the Chechen mafia are owners no one should want to cross. Bob notices a detail about one of the robbers when giving a description to the police that could be a clue to the identity of the robbers.

    In a further complication, a psychotic man claims he is the owner of Bob's dog, now named Rocco after a Saint, and is threatening Bob. Cousin Marv is also up to something.

    The Drop is definitely noir fiction and not for the faint-hearted. It is a dark, tension filled novel where cruel men demonstrate just how loathsome they can be to each other, as well as a puppy.
    There is language. The atmosphere is one of hopelessness and resignation to the cruelties of life, with perhaps, the smallest distant glimmer of some hope. I galloped through this short novel, wanting to know what happened next.

    Apparently The Drop was based on a short story, “Animal Rescue,” and is the novelization of the screenplay for the soon-to-be-released movie of the same name. I have a feeling it will make an excellent movie.


    Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Entertaining yarn -- easy to read -- about a going-nowhere bartender, the dog he saves, and the life-altering choices he makes. Not a biggie, though, and certainly not one of Lehane's best.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Drop is my fourth venture into the world of Dennis Lehane and I have yet to be disappointed. More often than not Lehane’s world is that of South Boston, where life is far from easy and people know better than to talk to cops, even when you are sitting across from them at mass. Bob Sagonowski and Eric Deeds come from that world but that is about all they have in common. Bob is homely, hard-working, and very quiet. Classic movie fans might be reminded of Ernest Borgnine’s character in the movie Marty. Eric is handsome, fast talking, and so crooked he could hide behind a corkscrew. He’s the type of character that makes you uneasy whenever he appears; a quintessentially evil character with no moral compass whatsoever.A reader who hasn’t read Dennis Lehane before might think that this is a simple good vs. bad confrontation. Such a reader might be in for a surprise. Nothing is black and white in Boston. There are just varying shades of gray, and some of them are rather attractive.Bottom line: Lehane as created, in this short book, a collection of very well crafted characters. The plot is simple, yet dramatic. I enjoyed it very much.FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Once I started reading this gritty novel I did not want to stop. To me the prose style at times sounds something like Hemingway and at others like Hammett. There are quite a few odd characters on display - Cousin Marv, Rardy, Deeds - and the protagonist, Bob, is a box of surprises. He slowly grows to full redemptive glory through the care of an abandoned puppy - the sweetest aspect of the story and Bob's life. There's a subplot about the closing of a neighborhood catholic church; Bob is a regular attendee of the 7am mass but never takes communion.

    One side of Boston I never knew and I can quite imagine it is there. I might read another novel by Lehane but I did leave this one a bit blue. It is quite a brutish world he paints.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Ah, Dennis Lehane is back in Dorchester at last! Though it's called "East Birmingham" here (why?), this gritty short novel takes us back to the streets and the era of his first novels. The center that doesn't hold here is Cousin Marv's bar, where Marv's cousin Bob bartends and where the Chechen mob has taken over, using it as a money drop for all their illegal activities. Bob is a strange character for Lehane, quiet, isolated, devoid of human contact - until, walking home from work, he finds a nearly dead dog in a trash can.It's not a soppy (or shaggy) dog story, but a twisty turn-y one, full of the neighborhood jamokes so beloved by Lehane fans.The movie, directed by Lehane, James Gandolfini's last, out on DVD, "dropped" right in and out of theatres, so you can read this first. The book came right from the movie script, but the setting was moved from Boston to Brooklyn. Probably not a great decision, but the book stands on its own.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The road to novelization was a long one for Dennis Lehane's The Drop. It began as a short story titled Animal Rescue in a collection known as Boston Noir. Then it was turned into a screenplay for a Thomas Hardy movie titled The Drop before morphing into the novelization that it is now. A gritty, stylized crime drama with the characters that Lehane has become famous for.Much like Lehane's early novels, Prayers For Rain, Shutter Island and the brilliant Mystic River, The Drop is driven with characters whose deeds and thoughts are the blood of the novel as they survive the mean streets of Boston. "...It finally got to Marv and he scowled. "I don't like what you're, you know, insinuating. We got robbed." "I know you got robbed." "But you're treating us like suspects." "Not for robbing your own bar, though." Torres gave Marv a soft roll of the eyes and a sigh. "Marv-it's Marv, right?" Marv nodded. "That's what the sign above the building says, yeah." "Okay Marv." Torres patted Marv's elbow and Bob got the feeling he was trying not to smirk. "Everyone knows you're a drop." "A what?" Marv put his hand behind his ear, leaned in. "A drop," Torres said. "A drop bar..."Bob worked the bar at Cousin Marv's, a quiet shift nowadays, since the Chechens had taken over the neighborhood. Back in the day, Bob was part of a crew that Marv ran but those days had long gone. Now he just tended bar and kept quiet and to his self. But change was coming for Bob and it all began on his stroll home and the soft cries coming out of the trash barrel. Buried under the trash was a beaten and starved puppy and for once Bob could not turn away. He could not pretend that all the troubles happening around him weren't.Marv's bar was going to be the site of the big drop. When all the gambling money was collected and delivered to one central location for the Chechens to claim. No one knew in advance where the drop was going to happen. The bar, and the Chechens had many such bars across the city, didn't even learn that it was to be the drop until that day. But this time even Marv himself had different ideas. In one night, Bob will remember who he is. In one night, it won't be enough just to take whatever the world is throwing at him."...I'm sorry, but you kids," Bob said. "You know? You don't have any manners. You go out of the house dressed like you're still in your living room. You say terrible things about women. You hurt harmless dogs. I'm tired of you, man..."The Drop is coming and all that stands between the money and those who want to take it, is a very tired man. A man the neighborhood has forgotten, but a man who is beginning to remember just who he is."...For a time, neither of them said anything. Then Torres leaned in. "No one ever sees you coming, do they?" Bob kept his face as clear and open as Walden Pond. He held out his hand and Torres shook it. "You take care, Detective..."The Drop is vintage Lehane. The characters rich and vibrant and the neighborhood that live in breathes with a life of its own. Like most of Lehane's earlier work, no character is really a good person. They all carry their baggage, all have done misdeeds. But they live with their acts and carry on with their lives the best they can. They live and for them it is enough to live. But there comes a moment when each much decide what their lives and the way they live them are worth. A moment that comes altogether for them on the night of the Drop.The Drop does lose a little in all its separate incarnations and in the sense that it was never written as a true novel, but a short story that was the basis of a film. It is the film, that this novelization is based upon and so in that it does lose some of its strength. But Lehane novels are powerful enough to begin with and The Drop is a story that fits completely in the mold.A very good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The author always does an excellent job. His books are tight, detailed, and with strong character development. Even though this seemed like an expanded short story I felt the characters were very strong and deep. Lehane writes rather dark stories but they are easy to read. Not too much suspense. I will look forward to the movie.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A short story expanded to use it as a tie-in with the recently released movie of the same name. The short story was titled “Animal Rescue” which I was unaware of when I received this book. I just like Dennis Lehane. Bob Saginowski is a lonely bartender with a secret when he finds a puppy in a trash can. His boss is Cousin Marv but not really the owner of ‘Cousin Marv’s since it is now run by the Chechan mob. Then there is the police detective at his church who wants to know his secret. Toss in a recently released convict, the upcoming closing of Bob’s church, the new woman in Bob’s life and you have a pretty good story in a little of 200 pages. I really liked the development of Bob’s character but at times the story was slow and my mind drifted.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I made the mistake of watching the movie trailer first so I can only picture Tom Hardy as Bob and James Gandolfini as Cousin Marv. Honestly though, I don't think that's a bad thing. I mean, have you seen Tom Hardy? Yowza! That was one of our main reasons for picking this for book club, because we knew we'd have a great movie to look forward to as well!This book is quite short for Dennis Lehane novel, in fact, this was originally a short story entitled "The Animal Rescue" that Lehane expanded, and then wrote a screenplay for (his first), at the request of a producer. The resulting story was released at the same time as the movie.If the movie is half as good as the book, I am going to love it. "The Drop" is phenomenal, it's easily one of my favorite crime/thriller reads of the year. It's gritty, engrossing and totally packs a punch at the end. For being so short, there is some amazing character building. Bob, the bartender and animal rescuer is awesome. Why don't I have a Bob in my life? Tom Hardy seems like an ideal fit to play him. I don't want to summarize the book too much and give it away. Just trust me on this, read it!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am a big Dennis Lehane fan. He writes great detective books about Boston but also has done a great period piece" The Given Day". You may be familiar with Mystic River and Shutter Island. The Drop is currently a movie with James Galdofino(his last movie) and Lehane wrote the script. This is a short novel but the characters and language are terrific. If you like the crime genre and have never read Lehane than this is a perfect introduction to a great author.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It's not about a mystery or a big revelation in the end of the novel,. There is no much of a suspense here. It's about an atmosphere that author creates - similar to some other his novels. It's that gritty and depressing side of Boston we are not familiar with. I love it. I love the characters, love the story, the pace of this short novel - but most importantly, the atmosphere.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a novelization of a movie that was just released, with a screenplay by Lehane. It is a good story, but it is a very quick read – an undersized book with large font, so much fewer words per page than the usual and only about 200 pages anyway. So it lacks musch of the depth and breath that you come to expect and enjoy from a typical Lehane book. Still, it is very well done. I'll have to go see the movie now.What I've read about the the movie says it is set in Brooklyn, which makes no sense.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Two days after Christmas, as Bob Saginowski is walking home from his late night shift at TheDropCousin Marv’s Bar, he hears whimpering emanating from a garbage can. Investigating, he finds under the debris, a bleeding, obviously beaten puppy. Nadia, the occupant of a nearby house offers to help clean up the puppy, ultimately named Rocco after the Patron Saint of dogs. Both lonely, Nadia and Bob soon form a relationship. When the bar, previously owned by Bob’s cousin Marv but now owned by brutal Chechen mobsters and used as a drop for mob cash, is robbed the following night, the Chechens strongly advise Marv and Bob to recover the money or suffer serious consequences. To make matters worse for Bob, the dog’s psychotic previous owner, Eric, wants it back and threatens Bob, Nadia and Rocco. It is the relationship among all these characters that drives the plot.Let me start by saying I’m a big Dennis Lehane fan. I love his mysteries and the characters. His historical fiction is good. The Given Day is a phenomenal book. So I was excited to get an advance copy of The Drop.The Drop is an expansion of the Lehane story, Animal Rescue, included in the book boston noir. It was a disjointed story to begin with, however, and all he did was transform it into a disjointed novel. Bob, Nadia, Marv and Eric all harbor deep, dark secrets and desires. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make them overly interesting. The predictable plot and ending contain little ‘noir’ and less suspense.There are changes that Lehane made from the short story that don’t seem significant. For instance, The Drop takes place after Christmas; Animal Rescue after Thanksgiving. Why change it?There are oblique references to the short story, as well. In Animal Rescue the dog is named Cassius, after Cassius Clay. In The Drop, Bob mentions that he almost named the dog Cassius instead of Rocco. I’m sure that was for his own amusement, but I didn’t find it funny.I seem to be the only one who was dissatisfied with this book. All the reviews are glowing and I didn’t realize that they made a movie out of it.But, sadly, The Drop fell far short of my expectations. I will not follow the crowd on this one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    dropI am fast becoming a big Dennis Lehane fan. I read Shutter Island and loved it. I recently reviewed Live By Night and loved it. Even more recently, I devoured The Drop in one bite (on a flight between Cleveland and New York/JFK) and loved it. That's a pretty good track record!Bob is a loner, a bit of a social misfit, a man with secrets that come between him and the world -- and Bob is desperately lonely. When he finds a battered puppy stuffed in a garbage can, he seems to have finally found a friend - not only the puppy, but a woman he meets nearby who encourages him to take in the dog. It would not be wise to step between the man and his new friends.That's only part of the story. Bob works for his Cousin Marv at the bar everyone thinks Marv owns, but is really a front for the Chechen mob. Cousin Marv used to be somebody, be a tough guy, but in the end, he wasn't tough enough. The Chechens treat him like an errand boy and it galls him, maybe enough to do something stupid.I think everyone reading The Drop sees the end coming. Cousin Marv's bar is going to be "the drop" on one of the biggest nights of the year and that makes them a target. We all know that something bad is going to happen - the question is who will it happen to and how will they react. You can't help but root for Bob, I think, and his poor puppy and his friend, Nadia. You want things to work out for them and there are so many ways this could all go wrong. I kept expecting one more twist, one more complication, and that's the tension that kept me turning pages, rushing towards the end.I am looking forward to seeing the movie, although I had a hard time imagining Tom Hardy as a misfit loner...until I saw the stills from the movie. You can see it in the hunch of his shoulders and the set of his mouth. It's going to be interesting to watch. In the meantime, I strongly recommend the book. It's a quick read and very enjoyable. It looks like I'll be working my way through Lehane's back catalog, while I wait for the next novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    THE DROP isn't new. It was originally a short story in BOSTON NOIR. It's title was different then: "Animal Rescue." Now it's a movie, and, apparently, someone knew it would sell as a standalone novel movie tie-in. That person is surely correct, but this is one rare novel whose movie is likely better than the book."THE DROP" is a more accurate title than is "'Animal Rescue.'" The story has more to do with drops at a bar than it does with the rescue of a puppy from a garbage can. Still, the dog rescue and subsequent care do occur. And any animal lover will like the story for that, alone.But the story is really about a lonely bartender (who rescues the abused puppy), his boss, a police detective, and the Chechen mafia. Of course, one of the bad guys is the dog's original owner. And no reader can be blamed if she cares more about what will happen to that puppy and the lonely bartender than about what will happen with the rest of the characters.Dennis Lehane has always been so consistently good that it was safe to preorder his books; no review of the ARC was necessary because you knew you were going to love it. That's not true anymore. Even so, this book did make me anxious to see the movie.I won this book through goodreads.com.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    3.5 Such an amazing collection of characters and all set in very familiar ground for LeHane, the cruel underside of Boston. A bar robbed, the wrong bar, one that is actually owned by a Chechen mob.A pathetic and abused pug proves to be the initialing factor that a lonely man named Bob needs to add a little something to his naturally boring life. But is Bob who he pretends to be? Are any of the people, these characters on the up and up? Do they all have hidden agendas and lives filled with secrecy and pain? Well this is a Lehane story and these are the tough gritty streets of Boston, so of course anything goes and often does. This author is a magician, even things and circumstances that appear normal and make sense, often are twisted around, leaving this reader with a 'where did this come from?" Amazing.ARC from NetGalley..
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The story opens with a group of friends gathering at a pub, Cousin Marv's, to celebrate the life of a friend who went missing from this bar ten years ago. The reader is left with the opinion that there will be more to this as the story continues.Bob is the bartender. He's a loner who attends daily Mass but never receives communion. The reader wonders what he may have done that makes him feel that he can't receive. Later when he learns that his church is going to be sold for commercial purposes it brings a message about the Catholic Churches with dwindling parishioners and aging priests. Churches must close and parishes are combined.Cousin Marv tells Bob to take down the Christmas decorations on Dec 27th and even objects to Bob's kindness in running a tab for a senior citizen who spends much of her time at the bar.On his way home one night, Bob hears a whimpering sound from a dumpster and finds an abandoned puppy. As he's getting the puppy out of the dumpster, a woman raises her window and yells at him to get out of her garbage. When the woman, Nadia, learns what Bob was doing, she becomes friendly.I enjoyed Bob as a character. He reminded me of Marty, in the 1950s movie of that name. The warmhearted butcher in that film seemed like Bob who didn't have any friends before Nadia. Bob was also proud of being the owner of an animal that depended on him. When the original owner of the dog appeared and wanted the dog back, it created a dramatic sequence.There is also a memorable scene when a character gets out of prison and travels south to see the man who was his protector in jail. What happens in this man's house was also well written.I didn't think we had enough background on Nacia or Marv to understand why they acted the way they did. "The Drop" was not up to the excellence of "Mystic River," but still a good read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Joy's review: This is a short, light read from a guy that really knows how to write. Bartender finds a beat-up dog; the dog gives him some backbone and personality; bad guys turn up; interesting stuff happens. My main complaint is that I dreaded turning pages because I was expecting something bad to happen to the dog. I'm happy to report that nothing did.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    What a powerful little story! "The Drop" is a quick read of 200 pages. This is a gritty tale set in a working class bar in Boston controlled by the ruthless Chechen mob. Internal dialogue and routine life, such as going to Mass, spiked by jarring criminal action unfold this tale featuring a dog.I love dogs. I hate it when bad things happen to dogs and other animals, fictionalized or real. I love it when people undo the bad things that happened.The characters of Bob, the bartender, his cousin Marv, and robbery detective Torres, seem ordinary in most ways, yet are quite extraordinary. Bob and Torres go to daily 7:00 a.m. Mass at Saint Dominic's with Father Regan. Bob occasionally does the Stations of the Cross. His father also went to Saint Dom's, an old, traditional church built in the 1800's.As the characters change, so does Saint Dom's. Due to dwindling attendance and expense, the Church is slated to be closed and sold to developers, and Father Regan transferred. Although not critical to the plot, Saint Dom's significance to Bob and Torres provides a framework for the story revolving around the bar."The Drop" contains a full gamut of the human condition: love, evil, faith, greed, cruelty, fear, malaise, kindness, concern, . . . It's just that the degree of each varies.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'll read just about anything Lehane writes.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was the 3rd or 4th Lehane book that I have read, and I can’t say that I liked this one all that much. All the characters are hard cases, and I didn’t care for any of them. As a Pit Bull owner and advocate I like that Bob saved the dog, but even that stressed me out since the poor dog was in the very center of the ongoing drama and its safety never guaranteed.Lehane is a really good writer so it is not disappointing in that respect, but it was too sad and depressing for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a great, quick read, full of all the good stuff Lehane excels at so well. A nice, tight crime novel, something I wish we could get more of from Lehane, though I do enjoy his forays outside of the genre. I haven't seen the movie, but now I want to.

    I think there's really only one thing that I wasn't crazy about in this novel, and that was the overuse of everyone's names. It almost seemed conspicuous, as though the author had a specific reason for it, though if he did, I couldn't figure out what the purpose was.

    Other than that, another great Lehane read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Originally conceived as a short story, "Animal Rescue" in the collection Boston Noir, The Drop retains the tightness of the original while somehow managing to further develop unforgettable characters Bob Saginowski, Cousin Marv, Eric Deeds and Detective Torres. Even the minor characters shine through the grit of Lehane's subtle yet intense narration. This short novel earns its five stars in every snatch of dialogue and evocative image. As a writer myself, I both admire and aspire to Lehane's superb mastery of the storytelling craft. The Drop makes me want to reread Mystic River, A Drink Before the War & Gone Baby Gone and delve headfirst into all his other novels. I can't recommend this novel enough.

Book preview

The Drop - Dennis Lehane

CHAPTER 1

Animal Rescue

BOB FOUND THE DOG two days after Christmas, the neighborhood gone quiet in the cold, hungover and gas-bloated. He was coming off his regular four-to-two shift at Cousin Marv’s in the Flats, Bob having worked behind the bar for the better part of two decades now. That night, the bar had been quiet. Millie took up her usual corner stool, nursing a Tom Collins and occasionally whispering to herself or pretending to watch the TV, anything to keep from going back to the seniors home on Edison Green. Cousin Marv, himself, made an appearance and hung around. He claimed to be reconciling the receipts, but mostly he sat in a corner booth in the rear, reading his racing form and texting his sister, Dottie.

They probably would have closed up early if Richie Whelan’s friends hadn’t commandeered the opposite corner of the bar from Millie and spent the night toasting their long-missing, presumed-dead friend.

Ten years ago to the day, Richie Whelan had left Cousin Marv’s to score either some weed or some ’ludes (which was a matter of some debate among his friends) and had never been seen again. Left behind a girlfriend, a kid he never saw who lived with her mother in New Hampshire, and a car in the shop waiting on a new spoiler. That’s how everyone knew he was dead; Richie never would have left the car behind; he loved that fucking car.

Very few people called Richie Whelan by his given name. Everyone knew him as Glory Days on account he never shut up about the one year he played QB for East Buckingham High. He led them to a 7–6 record that year, which was hardly newsworthy until you looked at their stats before and since.

So here were long-lost-and-presumed-dead Glory Days’ buddies in Cousin Marv’s Bar that night—Sully, Donnie, Paul, Stevie, Sean, and Jimmy—watching the Celts get dragged up and down the court by the Heat. Bob brought their fifth round to them unasked and on the house as something happened in the game that caused them all to throw up their hands and groan or shout.

"You’re too fucking old," Sean yelled at the screen.

Paul said, They’re not that old.

Rondo just blocked LeBron with his fucking walker, Sean said. Fucking what’s-his-name there, Bogans? He’s got an endorsement deal with Depends.

Bob dropped off their drinks in front of Jimmy, the school bus driver.

You got an opinion on this? Jimmy asked him.

Bob felt his face pinken, as it often did when people looked directly at him in a way that he felt forced to look directly back. I don’t follow basketball.

Sully, who worked a tollbooth on the Pike, said, "I don’t know anything you follow, Bob. You like to read? Watch The Bachelorette? Hunt the homeless?"

The boys all chuckled and Bob gave them an apologetic smile.

Drinks’re on the house, he said.

He walked away, tuning out the chatter that followed him.

Paul said, I’ve seen chicks—reasonably hot ass—try to chat that guy up, they get nothing.

Maybe he’s into dudes, Sully said.

Guy ain’t into anything.

Sean remembered his manners, raised his drink to Bob and then to Cousin Marv. Thanks, boys.

Marv, behind the bar now, newspaper spread before him, smiled and raised a glass in acknowledgment, then went back to his paper.

The rest of the guys grabbed their drinks and raised them.

Sean said, Someone going to say something for the kid?

Sully said, To Richie ‘Glory Days’ Whelan, East Bucky High class of ’92, and a funny prick. Rest in peace.

The rest of the guys murmured their approval and drank, and Marv came over to Bob as Bob placed the old glasses in the sink. Marv folded up his paper and took in the guys at the other end of the bar.

You buy them a round? he asked Bob.

They’re toasting a dead friend.

Kid’s been dead, what, ten years now? Marv shrugged his way into the leather car coat he always wore, one that had been in style back when the planes hit the towers in New York City, had been out of style by the time the towers fell. Gotta be a point where you move on, stop scoring free drinks off the corpse.

Bob rinsed a glass before putting it in the dishwasher, said nothing.

Cousin Marv donned his gloves and scarf, glanced down the other end of the bar at Millie. Speaking of which, we can’t keep letting her ride a stool all night then not pay for her drinks.

Bob put another glass on the upper rack. She doesn’t drink much.

Marv leaned in. When’s the last time you charged her for one, though? And after midnight you let her smoke in here—don’t think I don’t know. It’s not a soup kitchen, it’s a bar. She pays her tab tonight or she can’t come in until she does.

Bob looked at him, spoke low. Her tab’s like a hundred bucks.

Hundred-forty actually. Marv worked his way out from the bar, stopped at the door. He pointed at all the holiday decorations on the windows and above the bar. Oh, and, Bob? Take the Christmas shit down. It’s the twenty-seventh.

Bob said, What about Little Christmas?

Marv stared at him for a bit. I don’t even know what to say to that, he said and left.

After the Celtics game whimpered to an end like the mercy killing of a relative no one was particularly close to, Richie Whelan’s friends shoved off, leaving only old Millie and Bob.

Millie let loose a smoker’s cough of limitless phlegm and duration while Bob pushed the broom. Millie continued to cough. Just when it seemed she might choke to death, she stopped.

Bob pushed the broom up by her. You all right?

Millie waved him off. Aces. I’ll have one more.

Bob came around behind the bar. He couldn’t meet her eyes, so he looked at the black rubber floor covering. I gotta charge you. I’m sorry. And, Mill’?—Bob felt like shooting himself in the fucking head he was so embarrassed to be a member of the human race right now—I gotta settle the tab.

Oh.

Bob didn’t look at her right away. Yeah.

Millie busied herself with the gym bag she carried out with her every night. ’Course, ’course. You got a business to run. ’Course.

The gym bag was old, the logo on its side faded. She rummaged through it. She placed a dollar bill and sixty-two cents on the bar. Rummaged some more, came back with an antique picture frame with no picture in it. She lay it on the bar.

That’s sterling silver from Water Street Jewelers, Millie said. RFK bought a watch for Ethel there, Bob. That’s worth bucks.

Bob said, You don’t keep a picture in there?

Millie looked off at the clock above the bar. It faded.

Of you? Bob asked.

Millie nodded. And the kids.

She looked back into her bag, rummaged some more. Bob put an ashtray in front of her. She looked up at him. He wanted to pat her hand—a gesture of comfort, of you-are-not-entirely-alone—but gestures like that were better left to other people, people in the movies, maybe. Every time Bob tried something personal like that, it came off awkward.

So, he turned and made her another drink.

He brought the drink to her. He took the dollar off the bar and turned back toward the register.

Millie said, No, take the—

Bob looked back over his shoulder at her. This’ll cover it.

Bob bought his clothes at Target—new T-shirts, jeans, and flannels about every two years; he drove a Chevy Impala he’d had since his father had handed him the keys in 1983, and the speedometer had yet to find the 100K mark because he never drove anywhere; his house was paid for, the property taxes a joke because, shit, who wanted to live here? So if there was one thing Bob had that few would have guessed he had it was disposable income. He put the dollar bill in the drawer. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of bills, and held it in front of him as he peeled off seven twenties and added them to the drawer.

When he turned back, Millie had swept the change and the picture frame back into her gym bag.

Millie drank and Bob finished cleaning up, came back around the bar as she was rattling the ice cubes in her glass.

You ever hear of Little Christmas? he asked her.

’Course, she said. January sixth.

Nobody remembers it anymore.

Meant something in my time, she said.

My old man’s too.

Her voice picked up a tone of distracted pity. Not yours, though.

Not mine, Bob agreed and felt a trapped bird flutter in his chest, helpless, looking for a way out.

Millie took a huge drag off her cigarette and exhaled with relish. She coughed a few more times and put out her smoke. She put on a raggedy winter coat and ambled to the door. Bob opened it to a light snowfall.

’Night, Bob.

Careful out there, Bob said. Watch the ice.

THIS YEAR, THE TWENTY-EIGHTH was trash day in his section of the Flats, and people had long since put their barrels to the curb for the morning pickup. Bob trekked the sidewalks toward home, noting with a mix of amusement and despair what people threw out. So many toys so quickly broken. So many discards of things that worked perfectly fine but had been designated for replacement. Toasters, TVs, microwaves, stereo equipment, clothing, remote-controlled cars and planes and monster trucks that only required a little glue here, a strip of tape there. And it wasn’t as if his neighbors were wealthy. Bob couldn’t count how many domestic squabbles over money had kept him up at night, had lost track of all the faces who climbed on the subway in the morning and sagged with worry, Help Wanted pages clutched in sweaty fists. He stood behind them in line at Cottage Market as they thumbed through their food stamps and in the bank as they cashed their SSI checks. Some worked two jobs, some could only afford housing through Section 8 allowances, and some studied the sorrow of their lives at Cousin Marv’s, eyes gone far away, fingers clutching their mug handles.

And yet they acquired. They built scaffolds of debt, and just when it seemed the pile would come tumbling down from the weight, they bought a living room set on layaway, tossed it up on top. And as they needed to acquire, they seemed to need to discard in equal or larger measure. There was an almost violent addiction in the piles of trash he saw, the sense it gave him of shitting out food you shouldn’t have eaten in the first place.

Bob—excluded from even this ritual by his mark of loneliness, his inability to draw anyone to him who seemed interested in him beyond five minutes of topic-of-the-day conversation—sometimes gave into the sin of pride on these walks, pride that he himself did not consume recklessly, felt no need to purchase what they demand he purchase on TV and radio and billboards and in magazines and newspapers. It would bring him no closer to what he wanted because all he wanted was to not be alone, but he knew there was no getting rescued from that.

He lived alone in the house he grew up in, and when it seemed likely to swallow him with its smells and memories and dark couches, the attempts he’d made to escape it—through church socials, lodge picnics, and one horrific mixer thrown by a dating service—had only opened the wound farther, left him patching it back up for weeks, cursing himself for hoping. Stupid hope, he’d sometimes whisper to his living room. Stupid, stupid hope.

But it lived in him, nonetheless. Quietly, even hopelessly most times. Hopeless hope, he’d think sometimes and manage a smile, people on the subway wondering what the hell Bob was smiling about. Odd, lonely Bob the bartender. Nice enough guy, can be depended on to help shovel a walk or buy a round, a good guy, but so shy you couldn’t hear what he was saying half the time, so you gave up, tossed him a polite nod, and turned to someone else.

Bob knew what they said, and he couldn’t blame them. He could step outside himself enough to see what they saw—a never-was loser, ill at ease in social situations, given to stray nervous tics like blinking too much for no reason and cocking his head at odd angles when he was daydreaming, kinda guy made the other losers look a little brighter in comparison.

You have so much love in your heart, Father Regan said to Bob the time Bob broke down crying in confession. Father Regan took him back into the sacristy and they shared a couple glasses of the single malt the priest kept tucked away on a closet shelf above the cassocks. You do, Bob. It’s plain for everyone to see. And I can’t help but believe some good woman, some woman with faith in God, will see that love and run to it.

How to tell a man of God about the world of man? Bob knew the priest meant well, knew that he was right in theory. But experience had shown Bob that women saw the love in his heart, all right, they just preferred a heart with a more attractive casing around it. And it wasn’t just the women, it was him. Bob didn’t trust himself around breakable things. Hadn’t in years.

That night, he paused on the sidewalk, feeling the ink sky above him and the cold in his fingers, and he closed his eyes against the evening.

He was used to it. He was used to it.

It was okay.

You could make a friend of it, as long as you didn’t fight it.

With his eyes closed, he heard it—a worn-out keening accompanied by distant scratching and a sharper, metallic rattling. He opened his eyes. A large metal barrel with a heavy lid clamped tight on top. Fifteen feet down the sidewalk on the right. It shook slightly under the yellow glare of the streetlight, its bottom scraping the sidewalk. He stood over it and heard that keening again, the sound of a creature that was one breath away from deciding it was too hard to take the next, and Bob pulled off the lid.

He had to remove some things to get to it—a doorless microwave and five thick Yellow Pages, the oldest dating back to 2005, piled atop some soiled bedding and musty pillows. The dog—either a very small one or else a puppy—was down at the bottom, and it scrunched its head into its midsection when the light hit it. It exhaled a soft chug of a whimper and tightened its body even more, its eyes closed to slits. A scrawny thing. Bob could see its ribs. He could see a big crust of dried blood by its ear. No collar. It was brown with a white snout and paws that seemed far too big for its body.

It let out a sharper whimper when Bob reached down, sank his fingers into the nape of its neck, and lifted it out of its own excrement. Bob didn’t know dogs too well, but there was no mistaking this one for anything but a boxer. And definitely a puppy, the wide brown eyes opening and looking into his as he held it up before him.

Somewhere, he was sure, two people made love. A man and a woman. Entwined. Behind one of those shades, oranged with light, that looked down on the street. Bob could feel them in there, naked and blessed. And he stood out here in the cold with a near-dead dog staring back at him. The icy sidewalk glinted like new marble, and the wind was dark and gray as slush.

What do you got there?

Bob turned, looked up and down the sidewalk.

I’m up here. And you’re in my trash.

She stood on

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