Hooligans

"Ten minutes," he said, putting the red light on the top of the car and flicking on the siren. It was the longest ten minutes of my life. We boomed south along the river, where late-returning shrimp boats were reduced to streaks of light.

  The place was near Back O'Town, a row house that had been converted into pleasant apartments facing the small river they called Hampton Run. Flat roof, fancy front door; a classy-looking place. There were a lot of police cars parked haphazardly in the narrow street in front.

  Cowboy Lewis was standing by the door, looking very unhappy.

  "I fucked up," he said tightly. "They got by me."

  "Who got by you, Cowboy?" I asked.

  "Whoever did them in," he said, looking at my feet.

  "Them?" Stick said.

  "There's two of 'em," he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the building. "Second floor in the front."

  "Who else?" I asked as we headed for the door.

  "Della Norman," he said.

  A new name!

  "Should that mean something to me?" I asked.

  "She was Longnose Graves' favorite lady," said Stick.

  "Yeah, but she was in bed with Logeto when he got hit," Lewis added.

  I whistled through my teeth.

  The mess was in a second-floor bedroom.

  "The singing rope," I said, looking at the man's neck.

  Dutch's "Huh?" told me he had never heard of the trick.

  "That's what the Vietnamese call it, the singing rope. A knockoff of the Thuggee knot."

  It was also known among the British as the Bombay Burke—Bombay because the Thuggee stranglers operated in India, Burke being British slang for strangulation, named after an Englishman who tried to kill Queen Victoria, failed, and had his neck stretched for his trouble.

  It had been more than a dozen years since I had last seen that particular kind of bruise. It was blood red and about the size of a half dollar, in the soft place at the base of Logeto's skull on the back of his neck. The deep, gnarled, bloody ring around his throat filled in the picture.

  "Anybody else here?" Stick asked Dutch.

  "Salvatore," Dutch answered. "He's out checking the neighborhood."

  "I haven't seen a mark like that since Nam," I said.

  "Beautiful. What in hell next?" said the weary lieutenant.

  Cowboy Lewis filled the doorway, the handle of a Cobra .357 looming from the front of his pants, right over the fly.

  "If that goes off accidentally, you're gonna have to change your name," Dutch said. Lewis didn't say anything. "Okay," said Dutch, "let's have the long and short of it."

  "It's SOP, Logeto coming over here. It's every Monday night, rain or shine, six o'clock or close to it. He usually stays an hour, hour and a half. He had two limos and four shooters. He goes in, the four goons start pitching coins in the hall. Two hours later the mark's still there. About eight thirty I started getting nervous. Finally I decided to take the door, have a look."

  "By yourself, with four gorillas between you and Logeto? That don't call for backup in your book?" Dutch demanded.

  Cowboy shrugged. "I had buckshot loads in the Magnum. I go in, start up the stairs, get some shit, show the cannon. 'You wanna get picked up in a dustpan, fuck around' is all I told 'em. I put my ear against the door, give a call or two. Nothin'. So I kicked it in."

  He swung his arm casually around the room, indicating what he had found.

  The bed looked like a plowed field. Covers and sheets half on the floor, pillows on head and foot. The woman lay on her side naked, her hair sprawled across her face. Logeto was on his face, fully dressed, both fists clutching the sheets, his feet hanging off the bed but not quite touching the floor.

  "So that's Della Norman," I said. Even in death, you could tell she was a dish.

  "Apeshit," Stick said.

  "He means Longnose ain't gonna handle this too well," Dutch said, and shook his head ruefully. "A new wrinkle," he went on. "What in hell was Tony Logeto doin', shacked up with the Nose's favorite lady?"

  The arrival of Chess, the ME, broke his thought train. Chess was short and on the tubby side, wearing old pants and a pajama top stuffed half in and half out of his pants. He was not too happy about being there.

  "And who do we have here?" he asked.

  "Tagliani's son-in-law and Longnose Graves' girlfriend."

  Chess looked up with a lascivious grin. "Isn't that interesting," he said. "It's the best part of the job, y'know, the inside stuff. I wonder how Longnose is going to take this."

  "Badly," Stick chimed in.

  Chess put down his black satchel. "Ladies first. Let's get some pictures before I mess things up."

  The photographer appeared, shot the room top and bottom, and was gone in ten minutes. The doc stepped in and started his work, jabbering continually as he did.

  "We got a simple strangulation here, on the woman. From the front I'd say. See the thumbprints here on her larynx. Death was quick. My guess's her carotid, jugular, the whole shooting match in her throat is crushed. Powerful set of hands at work here."

  He kept probing, talking while studying the corpse.

  "You gotta slow down there, Dutch. The freezer downtown is full and we don't have but five people in pathology and I got a vacation comin' up in three months. It would be nice to be finished by then."

  "Ho, ho, ho," Dutch said, his sense of humor wearing thin, as was all of ours.

  I looked around the apartment while the ME continued his work. It occupied the front side of the building. The living room, bedroom, and kitchen all faced the street. The place was decorated in early nothing. Expensive furniture that didn't go together. Her closet had enough clothes in it to start a salon.

  The bathroom and several closets were adjacent to an alley that ran along the side of the building. There was only one door into the apartment, the one we had all come in through.

  I ambled into the bathroom. It was large, with a double sink, commode, step-in tub, and stall shower.

  The window over the commode was open and the curtains shifted idly in the breeze. I took a look out.

  Straight up to the roof, straight down to the street.

  I went back to the scene of the crime.

  A new face had appeared. His name was Braun, out of homicide, a short, slender, hawk-faced man with age spots on the backs of his hands and dark hair turning white.

  Braun said in a nasal voice, "I hear, Dutch, that you're planning to retire tomorra. There won't be anything left for you t'do."

  Dutch said, "Don't make me laugh too hard, I'll wet my pants."

  "How many is this between last night and tonight?" Braun asked, continuing to needle the big man. "Got enough for a football game yet?"

  "Just do yer job, okay, Braun? Leave the comedy to Bob Hope."

  The homicide cop looked at Della Norman.

  "Lookit that spook's tits. Bet there was some good pussy went through the window when she blinked out."

  "You want maybe we should all step out in the hall for a minute or two while you get a little?" Dutch chided.

  "Up yours," Braun said.

  All class.

  Chess finished his work on the woman and turned to Logeto.

  "What've we got here?" Chess said. "Looks as though there's been a hangin'."

  "Jake here says this job looks like an old Vietnam trick called the singin' string or something."

  "D'they learn it on The Lawrence Welk Show?" Braun asked.

  "It's called the singing rope," I corrected. "The way it works, you take a rope, tie a knot halfway down it, and tie a small stick in the end. The Arvies would come up behind their target, whip the rope around his throat, catch the stick, and twist. The knot pops the main nerve in the back of the neck and paralyzes the mark. After that, all it takes is about sixty seconds or so to finish the job."

  "You like havin' the Feds do yer thinkin' fer yuh?" Braun asked.

  Cowboy Lewis made a growling sound deep in his throat and balled up his fists. Dutch la
id a gentle hand on the big man's shoulder.

  "Anybody touch anything up here?" Chess asked.

  The Cowboy shifted from one foot to the other.

  "I used toilet paper when I phoned in it. No prints," Cowboy said.

  "Excellent, m'boy. I see you teach them right," Chess said to Dutch.

  "Yeah, all yuh gotta do now's teach 'em to talk," Braun said.

  "Cowboy, g'downstairs, see what you can shake outta those dago coin-tossers," Dutch said, probably saving Braun a trip to intensive care. When Lewis was gone, Dutch said to Braun, "What's your problem, putz?"

  "You and your special headquarters and shit," said Braun. "So far looks t'me like all you've done is fuck up."

  "You make a lot of noise for somebody with six unsolved murders in his lap," Dutch said.

  Braun said, "We got enough bodies downtown for one night."

  "Braun, you cry too much. You can't see straight through all the tears," Dutch said.

  "Fuck you," Braun said.

  Tension crackled in the room. Chess broke up the witty repartee.

  "Well," he said, "if you two Shirley Temples are tired of goosin' each other, I'd like to get this pair down on a slab and start work."

  "It ain't my beat anymore," Dutch said. "I get 'em alive, putz here gets 'em dead."

  "What's your guess about the time, Doc?" I interjected, hoping to ease things a little.

  "I'd guess—and I'm guessing, remember, don't hold me to this—I'd guess they were both killed close together, the girl first. Three to four hours ago, give or take."

  It was ten thirty-five.

  The ME turned Logeto's body over and the dead mobster lay on his back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling with his tongue stretched out of his mouth. The corpse was nattily dressed. His tie wasn't even loose.

  An idea or two began to brew in my head.

  I ambled out into the hall, found the stairs to the roof, and climbed up them. The door to the roof was unlocked. I checked it out, looking down to the open bathroom window and giving the brick wall a close check. There were three grooves in the ledge above Della Norman's bathroom window.

  As I came back down I saw the Stick talking to one of the four coin-tossers, a weasel-faced little hood who stood sideways, looking off down the street someplace as he spoke, as if the Stick were not there.

  Stick finally nodded and left his stoolie, entering the building and joining me on the second floor.

  "I got sidetracked," he said. "That little shit I was talking to, his brother's in the dock waiting to be sentenced for pushing. He's hoping I'll go to bat, get the bastard a reduced sentence. But he doesn't know shit about what happened and neither do the other three. What he says, Logeto came here at six fifteen. They saw him go into the girl's apartment, which is usual for Monday night. They heard some bedsprings rattling a coupla minutes later, figure Logeto was so horny he jumped right to it. They made a couple of jokes, then pitched dollars until Cowboy Lewis showed up and busted in."

  "Go take a look inside."

  We went back into the apartment together. Della Norman's body was already wrapped up and on a stretcher. The ambulance lads worked a body bag over Logeto's feet and wheeled both bodies out. Braun followed them into the hall and Dutch, Stick, and I were alone in the room.

  "What's this bit about them getting Burked?" Dutch asked. "What's that all about?"

  Stick said. "I saw this once downcountry. The CRIPS used it. Silent and quick."

  "What's a CRIP?"

  "Combined Recon and Intelligence Platoons. They were kind of the army's on-the-spot Green Berets. Only they didn't have the training. They recruited everybody. Guys in the brig, misfits, old French Legionnaires, mercenaries, people who didn't want to come back after their tour was up. Basically they were assassination squads. Send 'em out, kill a village leader or a tax collector, some rebel leader who's getting a little muscle. Like that."

  Morehead shook his head. "Different kind of army," he said.

  "You were in the army?" said Stick.

  "Korea. Foot soldier. Sixteen months," the big German said. "You remember Korea, boys? Nowadays most people think Korea's the name of an all-night grocery stand."

  "Poor old Della," the Stick said. "Why would anybody want to ice her?"

  "What about her?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "Della and I got along. I had occasion to bust her once. A pot charge. It was just a fishing expedition, see if maybe we could turn up something on Nose. She figured it out and took it like a sport."

  "Wonder what Logeto was doing with her."

  "Maybe she was just a good piece of ass," the Stick conjectured. "Wasn't he supposed to be the Taglianis' resident cocksman?"

  "That's a simple enough explanation," Dutch said.

  I was barely listening. I was too busy wondering how Logeto and Della Norman had been killed without being seen or heard by four goons at the foot of the stairs.

  "I can think of one reason Della was killed," I said.

  "We're holding our breath," said Dutch.

  I did some verbal logic, to hear what the ideas sounded like:

  "Logeto came here every Monday night. Whoever killed him knew that, knew what time he usually came, and he or she also knew that there was a lot of heat on. Getting past Logeto's bodyguards wouldn't be easy. So what's the answer? Come in first and kill the girl. Killer knew Logeto would come in alone; he's too macho to have his boys sweep the place first. So he or she killed the girl and then waited. When Logeto came in, the killer Burked him. Logeto never made a sound."

  "Then he or she dusted off through the bathroom using a dropline," Stick finished.

  "Except they went up, not down," I said. "And got away across to the roof next door so they wouldn't be seen from the ground."

  "That's probably how he got in," Stick said. "Went down the line, killed them both, then went back up."

  "Beautiful planning," I said.

  Dutch chewed that over for a moment or two. "Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Got a lot of guts, acing out a mobster with four of his handymen pitching coins in the hallway below."

  "Yeah. Or desperate," I said.

  "Desperate?"

  "Yeah. Either somebody with more guts than Moses or somebody who can't afford not to get it done."

  Dutch said, "In that case, if it's Nance doing this number for Chevos, that leaves only Costello, Bronicata, Stizano, O'Brian, and Cohen left."

  "Five to go," said Stick.

  Dutch was leaning against the wall of the apartment with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

  "It's the full moon," he said woefully. "Pregnant women have babies, men go apeshit. What can I tell yuh."

  "That's good," the Stick said. "That's what we'll tell the papers, that it was the full moon."

  29

  DISAWAY

  I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

  The phone rang several times during the night. How many times, I couldn't tell you. Finally I put it on the floor, threw a pillow over it, and died. The next thing I knew, someone was trying to knock down my door. I flicked on the lamp, struggled into a pair of pants, and found Pancho Callahan standing on the threshold.

  "Change in plans" was all he said.

  "Huh?" was all I could muster.

  "Tried to call," he said.

  "Appreciate it," I mumbled, and started back to bed.

  "Going out to the track," he said in his abbreviated patois.

  "What, now?"

  "Yep."

  "What time is it?"

  "Five."

  "In the morning!"

  "Yep."

  "Tuesday morning?"

  "Tuesday morning."

  I stared bleakly at him. He looked like a page out of GQ magazine. Gray cotton trousers, a tattersall vest under a blue linen blazer, pale blue skirt, a wine tie with delicate gray horses galloping aimlessly down its length, and a checkered cap, cocked jauntily over one eye.

  He didn't look any more like a cop tha
n John Dillinger looked like the Prince of Wales.

  "Not on your life," I croaked.

  He put his hand gently on the door.

  "Gonna be a great day."

  I was too tired to argue.

  "Smashing."

  At exactly 5:15 we were in a red sports car with more gadgets than an F104, heading out into a damp, musty morning. As we crossed the tall suspension bridge to the mainland, we picked up fog so thick I couldn't see the shoulder of the road. Callahan, a tall, muscular chap, with high cheekbones and a hard jaw that looked like it might have been drawn with a T-square, chose to ignore it. He drove like it was a sunny afternoon on the interstate. I was beginning to think the whole bunch was suicidal.

  "Foggy" was the only word out of him during the twenty-minute trip. Not a mention of the previous night's events.

  He eased back on the throttle when we reached the entrance to Palmetto Gardens, tossed a jaunty salute to the guard, who had to look twice to see him through the soup, and parked near the stables.

  "Here, pin this on your jacket," he said, handing me a green badge that identified me as a track official. I did as I was told and followed him to the rail, which popped out of the damp haze so suddenly I bumped into it. So far, all I could tell about the track was that it was in Georgia and about twenty minutes from town, if you drove like Mario Andretti.

  "Wait here," Callahan said, and disappeared for five minutes. I could hear, but not see, horses snorting, men coughing, laughter, and the clop of hoofs on the soft earth as I stood in fog so thick I couldn't see my own feet. When Callahan returned, he brought black coffee in plastic foam cups and warm, freshly made sinkers. I could have kissed him.

  "What the hell are we doing out here?" I asked, around a mouthful of doughnut.

  "Workin' three-year-olds," he answered.

  "That's it? That's what we're doing here in the middle of the night? Listening to them work the three-year-olds?"

  "So far."

  "Is this something special? How often do they do this?"

  "Every morning."

  "You're shitting me."

  He looked at me through the fog and shook his head.

  "You're not shitting me. Great. I was dragged out of bed for, uh . . . to stand around in this . . . this gravy listening . . . just listening . . . to a bunch of nags doing calisthenics."