Hooligans

  "Impressive, huh?" Callahan said.

  Impressive was an understatement.

  It sprawled out in the morning sun, a white structure framed against a forest of trees. It was three tiers high with cupolas on each end and a glass clubhouse that stretched from one end of the top floor to the other. The designer had modeled the building after Saratoga and other venerable tracks. It looked like it had been there for fifty years. There were azalea gardens to give it color and giant oak trees standing sentinel at its corners. Great care had obviously been taken to remove only those trees necessary. The parking lot even had freestanding oaks and pines breaking up the blacktop. It was a stunning sight and, I had to admit, a tribute to Harry Raines' taste. The clubhouse windows sparkled in the morning sun, and in the infield the grass was the color of emeralds.

  "Wow!" I said.

  "Some nice operation," Callahan agreed.

  The Mercedes was gone.

  I decided to get back to the subject at hand.

  "Why are you so interested in Disaway?" I asked.

  "He was two horse in the third race Sunday."

  "Is that good luck or something?"

  "Remember the tape Sunday night?"

  "How could anybody forget it?"

  "You forgot something," Callahan said. "Tagliani told Stinetto it was a fix for the four horse in the third heat."

  "I still don't get the point."

  "The four horse was Midnight Star. He went off as place favorite, eight to one, won, paid a bundle. The favorite was Disaway. Wasn't set up for Midnight Star to win, was set up for Disaway to lose. No sense any other way. Sunday, everything was A-one for him, up against a weak field, track was soft, he went off a five-to-two favorite. Strolled in eighth."

  "Eighth!"

  "It can happen. We all have bad days."

  "So the trick was to slow Disaway down?" I said.

  Callahan nodded. "Midnight Star romped first, paid $46.80. You bet Midnight Star, you got $46.80 for every two bucks you put down. Figure it out, bet a thousand bucks, go home with $23,400 smackers—not a bad day's work. My way of thinking, Disaway wasn't just having a bad day Sunday."

  "Supposing Midnight Star had a bad day?"

  Callahan smiled. "That's horse racing," he said.

  "How did they do it? Make him lose, I mean?"

  "Lots of ways. Legal ways."

  "You think the jockey was in on it?"

  "Maybe, not likely. Scoot doesn't like Thibideau or the trainer. He's a straight-up kid; like to think it wasn't him."

  "How about the trainer?"

  "Smokey? Maybe again, but he was pissed because he thought the boy booted the horse early. Didn't know Thibideau told him to."

  "So that makes it the owner?"

  "Looks that way. Thing is, Tagliani knew about it. Tagliani got wasted couple of hours later. Maybe there's no connection, but got to think about the possibilities."

  "So what do we do about it, go to Raines?"

  "Can't. Illegal wiretap. Dutch can't afford to have anybody know about it. No tape, all we got's guesswork."

  "So we forget it?"

  "I don't forget it," he said ominously. "Happens once, it'll happen again."

  31

  INVITATION

  I was tired of the track and anxious to get back to town. There were a lot of loose ends that needed tying up and I suddenly felt out of touch with things. It was pushing noon, so I told Callahan I needed to make a phone call or two and then I'd grab a cab back to town.

  "Stick's on his way out," Callahan said. "Back gate, fifteen minutes. "

  "How do you know that?" I asked, wondering whether Callahan was psychic in addition to his other talents.

  "Arranged it last night," he said, and added in his cryptic dialogue, "Due at the clubhouse. See ya."

  "Thanks for the education," I said.

  Callahan stood for a moment appraising me and then nodded. "Disaway runs again Thursday afternoon. Ought to be here."

  "It's a date," I said.

  He started to leave, then turned back around and offered me his hand. "You're okay," he said. "Like a guy who listens. Thought maybe you'd turn out to be a know-everything."

  "What I don't know would fill the course."

  "You know plenty," he said, turning and heading across the infield toward the clubhouse.

  I went looking for a phone to check the hotel for messages. By daylight, I had started having second thoughts about the night before. I knew some of the phone calls had been from Dutch. I wondered whether any of them had been Doe calling.

  I was walking past the stables when I heard her voice.

  "Jake?"

  The voice came from one of the stalls. I peered inside but saw nothing, so I went in cautiously. I could hear a horse grumbling and stomping his foot and the pungent odor of hay and manure tickled my nose, but my eyes were slow adjusting to the dark stable after leaving the bright sunlight.

  "Are you going blind in your old age?" she said from behind me. I turned around and she was standing in the doorway, framed against the brash sunlight, like a ghost. My eyes gradually picked out details. She was all dolled up in jodhpurs, a Victorian blouse with a black bow tie, and a little black derby. Twenty years vanished, just like that. She looked eighteen again, standing there in that outfit, scratching her thigh with her riding crop. My knees started bending both ways. I felt as awkward as a schoolboy at his first dance.

  "You could have called," she chided, as if she were scolding a kid for stealing cookies.

  "I got tied up," I said.

  She came over to me and ran the end of the riding crop very gently down the edge of my jaw and down my throat, stopping at that soft depression where the pulse hides.

  "I can see your heart beating," she said.

  "I don't doubt it for a moment."

  "Can you forgive me?"

  "For what?"

  "Twenty years ago?"

  "There's nothing to forgive," I lied. "Those things happen."

  She shook her head slowly and moved closer. "No," she said, "there's a lot to forgive. A lot to forget, if you can forget that kind of thing."

  "What kind of thing?"

  "You know what I'm talking about," she said evasively.

  "Look, Doe, I..."

  She put the tip of the crop against my lips, cutting off the sentence.

  "Please don't say anything. I'm afraid you're going to say something I don't want to hear."

  I didn't know how to answer that, so I just stood there like a fool, grinning awkwardly, wondering if we could be seen from outside the stall. If we could, it didn't seem to concern her. She stepped even closer, put the riding crop behind my neck, and, holding it with both hands, drew me closer. Her mouth opened a hair, her eyes narrowed.

  "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I never wanted to hurt you. I didn't know Chief had written that letter until Teddy told me. You just stopped writing and calling, like you'd died."

  "The phone works both ways," I heard myself say, and I thought, Shut up, you fool, play it out. Let her talk. You've been dreaming about this moment for twenty years; don't blow it now.

  "Pride," she said. "We all have our faults. That's one of my worst. I wanted to write, then Teddy told me to leave you alone. He said you'd had enough. Please forgive me for being so foolish."

  I wondered if she really thought we could puff off twenty years so easily. Say we're sorry and forget it. Was she that sure of my vulnerability? The armor started slipping around me but she moved closer, six inches away, and shaking her head gently, she breathed, "There will never be anyone like you for me. Never again. I've known it ever since I lost you, just as I knew you wouldn't come last night."

  "How did you know that?" I said, my voice sounding hoarse and uncertain.

  "Because I don't deserve it," she said, and her lips began to tremble. "Because I wanted you to come so much and-"

  "Hey, easy," I said, putting a finger against that full, inviting mouth.

&
nbsp; What's happening here? I thought. How about all the decisions I had silently made to myself the night before? Is this all it takes to break old Kilmer down?

  Yeah, that's all it takes.

  Then she closed her eyes, and her lips spread apart again, and she moved in and it was like the old days. I got lost in her mouth, felt her tentative tongue taking a chance, and responded with mine. And then she was in my arms and it was all I could do to keep from crushing her. I felt her knee rubbing the outside of mine, heard the riding crop fall into the sawdust, felt her hands sliding down the small of my back, pressing me closer to her.

  I forgot all the things I was going to say to her. The accusations, the questions that would clear up the dark corners of my mind. Whatever anger lurked inside me vanished at that moment. I slid my hands down and felt the rise of her buttocks and pressed her to me.

  "Oh, Jake," she said huskily, "I wish it was that summer again. I wish the last twenty years never happened."

  Don't we all, I thought; wouldn't that be nice. But I didn't say it.

  "Forget all that," I mumbled without taking my lips away. "Nothing to forgive."

  "Oh, Jake, I want it to be like it used to be," she said, with her lips still brushing mine. "Come tonight. Please come tonight. Don't stay away again."

  And without thinking any more about it, I said, "Yes." And I knew I meant yes. I knew I would go and the hell with Dutch and the Taglianis and the hell with safety and distance and vulnerability. I would go because I wanted to and because it was my payoff for twenty years. I said it again. And again.

  "Yes . . . yes . . . yes."

  32

  UP JUMPS THE DEVIL

  When I left the stable, the first person I saw was Stick. He was leaning against the dreaded black Pontiac and was looking right at me when I came out. She was a couple of feet behind me, standing inside the stall but visible nevertheless. His expression never changed; he simply looked the other way as he took out a cigarette and lit up.

  "Later," I said quietly, without turning, and walked straight to the car. Stick had traded in his slept-in seersucker for a pair of ratty chinos, dirty tennis shoes, and a black boatneck T-shirt, but the brown fedora was still perched on the back of his head.

  "Sorry if I'm late," I said, staring out the windshield.

  "First things first," he said, swinging around and heading back out the gate.

  We drove a couple of minutes in silence and I finally said, "That wasn't what it looked like."

  "I didn't see a thing."

  "Look, I knew her a long time ago. It's no big thing."

  "No big thing. Gotcha."

  "It's no big thing!"

  "Jake, it's nothing to me," he said. "See no evil, hear no evil, that's me."

  "What do you mean, evil!"

  "It's a saying. Hey, there's no need to be touchy, man." He drove a moment or two more and added, "I admire the hell out of the way you gather information." And he started to laugh. I started to get burned, then he looked over at me and winked. He reminded me of Teddy. I was waiting for him to add the "Junior" on the end of the sentence. I started laughing too.

  "Shit," I said.

  "Is it that important?"

  "I don't know," I said with disgust. "It's one of the balls I've been juggling."

  I was surprised at how easily it came out.

  "Well, if you want an amateur's opinion, I sure wouldn't throw that one away."

  "Her husband's the fucking racing commissioner," I said.

  "I know who her fucking husband is," he said with a chuckle. "Anybody who's been in town for fifteen minutes knows who her husband is."

  More driving. More silence. Then he started to chuckle again. "I got to tell you, Jake, I really do admire your style."

  "It hasn't got anything to do with the job," I told him. "This is old, personal business. Something that was never finished properly."

  "O-kay," he said, drawing out the "Oh" for about five minutes. "Well, I'm glad you're doing it up right this time."

  "Don't be an asshole," I grumbled.

  "Why don't you talk about it?"

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Okay." A long pause. "But I know you want to."

  "I don't want to talk about anything!"

  "It's just like the blues. I can tell."

  "Damn it, Stick, drop it."

  "Done," he said, and dropped it. I didn't. He was right-I had to get it off my chest.

  "There was a time—in my . . . late-blooming youth—when I thought I was going to marry her. I took it for granted, one of my more spectacular mistakes."

  "Marry her, huh. Shit, you do have a problem."

  "It's no problem."

  "Hey, this is the Stick, my friend. You can bullshit me about not finishing things properly and all that crap, but don't tell me it's no problem."

  "It's no problem," I said emphatically. It sounded more like I was trying to convince myself than him.

  "Jake, getting into it is never the problem. Getting out of it, that's the problem."

  "I'm already out of it. What I'm trying to avoid is getting back in."

  "Oh, that's what you're trying to do?"

  "Yes!"

  "You got a unique approach," he said, and after a few seconds he asked, "Are you still in love with her?"

  "Shit."

  "No shit."

  I sighed. "Hell, I don't know. Maybe I'm in love with the idea of her. Maybe I never took the time to get out of love with her. I haven't worked it out."

  "When are you going to see her again?"

  I had a moment of panic, as though I'd told him too much already. The old paranoia.

  "What time tonight are you going to see her?" he repeated.

  "Who says I'm going to see her tonight?"

  He shot me another crazy smile.

  "Nine o'clock," I said.

  "You need some backup?"

  "Don't get funny."

  "I don't mean that, Jake," he said seriously. "I mean do you want me to cover you? Keep an eye on the place, make sure nobody's hounddogging you? What I'm trying to say is, I'm for you. Whatever it means to you, I hope it comes out right."

  I was moved by his concern. There was a lot of Teddy in Stick. But I was wary of him. I was wary of everybody. I had taken two steps, back to back. First opening up to Doe, and now Stick. I was moving farther away from my safe spots. It scared hell out of me.

  "I shouldn't have come back to this fucking place," I snapped finally.

  "Aw, c'mon," he said. "Then you wouldn't have met me. I'm the magic man, my friend. I can wave my hand and make the impossible come true."

  "Where are we going?" I asked, deciding to change the subject.

  "City docks."

  "What's out there?"

  "We got a surprise for you."

  "Who's 'we'?"

  "Me and Zapata."

  "Well, try to keep it under ninety, will you?"

  "The Bird here runs a little rough under ninety," he said, grinning as he patted the steering wheel.

  "Too bad about the Bird," I said. "I run a little rough over ninety. What happens at the city docks?"

  "The shrimpers unload there," he said, as if that explained everything. I decided to be surprised and said no more.

  He turned right onto Front Street and drove slowly in the direction of the beach. In the first two blocks I saw six hookers, working in pairs. Two were chatting with a very friendly policeman, whose hands moved from one rear end to the other throughout the conversation; another pair was negotiating something with a middle-aged couple in a Winnebago wearing Iowa plates; and two more almost jumped in front of the car trying to get our attention. After that I lost interest.

  "I took a detour. This is the scenic route," Stick said as I watched the strip joints, lingerie stores, and porno houses glide past the window. "I thought you'd like to see it in the daytime."

  "So this is what America's all about," I said. "Fifty-year-old swingers in recreation vans
are replacing Bunker Hill. Whatever happened to Beaver Cleaver and the father who knew best and the days when a major crisis was whether Ricky was going to run out of gas in the Nelsons' Chevy?"

  "Who's Beaver Cleaver?" he said, sarcastically.

  When I'd seen enough, Stick turned off Front, went two blocks north, and turned east on Ocean Boulevard. There was very little traffic to disturb the palmettos, palm trees, and azaleas that lined the divided highway. It looked much better in the daylight, without benefit of Day-Glo streetlights.

  The day had turned hot and humid and we drove with the windows down, back over the bridge to Thunderhead Island. We were still an island away from the ocean, but I could feel the air getting cooler.

  I was remembering Oglethorpe County twenty years ago, and riding the two-lane blacktop out to the beach on warm summer nights. The county spread out over ten or eleven islands and the people had a fierce kind of pride that all islanders seem to possess, an independence which, I suppose, comes from living in a place that is detached from the mainland. The islanders I knew didn't give a damn what anybody else thought or did. They did it their own way.

  "Y'know, years before booze was legal in the state, drinks were sold openly across the bar in this county," I told him. "They called it the free state of Oglethorpe."

  "Breaking the law in those days had a certain charm to it," he said. "That's probably where Titan's power started."

  I had never thought about it before, but Stick was probably right. That's where the patronage had begun. God knows where it had spread.

  "What do you think of Titan?" I asked.

  "The toughest seventy-five-year-old man I ever met," he said emphatically.

  Twenty years had transformed Thunderhead Island from a deserted, marshy wonderland to a nightmare of condos; stark, white, three-story monoliths that lined the river to the north, while to the south, the marsh had been dredged out, cleaned up, and concreted into a sprawling marina. There was hardly a tree in sight, just steel and stone, and the masts of dozens of sailboats, endlessly bobbing up and down, up and down, like toothpicks.

  I wondered who got rich—or richer—when they plundered this piece of paradise.

  The Stick interrupted my angst.

  "I had the computer pull the military files on everybody in the Triad who was in Nam," he said. "Costello was in Saigon for about six weeks on some legal thing. The rest of the time he was in Washington. Adjutant general's office. Big shot. A couple of their musclemen did time too. But Harvey Nance—that's his real name, Harvey—he's another case entirely. He was in Nam for two years. He was in CRIP, operating out of Dau Tieng. You know about CRIP?"