Hooligans

  "You have to prove racketeering on the Taglianis," he said. "From what I hear, you ain't got doodly-shit on any of them. You're gonna bust out here, just like you did up north. They got you buffaloed, doughboy. Admit it."

  I wanted to tell the crafty old bastard more, but I decided not to. Instead, I said:

  "If he's dirty, he's going to get turned up."

  "I said, don't be silly, boy. Harry Raines is as honest as a Swiss pocket watch. You're dreamin' if you think different. Dangerous dreamin'. Harry, Sam Donleavy, me, we all did our best to keep Dunetown clean. Sounds to me like you may be tryin' to put a size two shoe on a size ten foot."

  "On the other hand, if the shoe fits . . . "

  I let the rest of the sentence dangle.

  "Let me put it to you straight, doughboy," he said with unmistakable authority. "You stay away from Doe Raines."

  I didn't answer him. We sat and stared through the shadows for several moments. His jaw was flinching.

  "This isn't going anywhere," I said finally. "I owe you my thanks. I don't know what you're doing out here, but I'm glad you showed up. A little law never hurt anybody."

  "A little law ain't worth a damn," he said. "Either you got muscle or you got numbers. You didn't have either."

  I asked it suddenly. I wasn't planning on it, it just popped out, kind of like my gun popping out at the dog fights.

  "Is this your game, Mr. Stoney?"

  He chuckled to himself, a mischievous chuckle, a tsk-tsk chuckle, which made me feel like a wahoo, which is exactly what he wanted.

  "I'm gonna give you a little advice, us being in the same game, so to speak. I been at it forty-five years. How about you?"

  "Almost ten."

  "People are gonna gamble, doughboy, it's natural. The reason it's natural is because most people are losers and they see themselves as losers and they don't think they'll ever amount to a goddamn, so they gamble because in their eyes it's their shot at changin' their luck. So people'll gamble, and a lot of hardass law ain't gonna change it. The same thing can be said of whorin'. Always gonna be whorin' goin' on, doughboy. A man wants to get laid, he's gonna get laid. Now, my job isn't to teach 'em not to gamble or not to get laid; that's a job for a preacher. No, my job is to make sure they don't get hurt bad at it. We all know gamblin' and whorin' can attract some unsavory characters around it, so for that reason I keep my finger on things. I like to know who's doin' what. That way I keep things from gettin' outta line, my folks from gettin' hurt."

  "That didn't answer my question," I said.

  "The answer to your question is yes and no. I own quite a few fightin' dogs. It's kind of a tradition in my family. Been fightin' dogs all my life, just like my pap and his pap before him. The Titans've raised pit dogs since before Georgia was a colony. But I don't run the game, Mr. Kilmer. That's gaming and that's felonious, and while I can tolerate it and my conscience doesn't have a problem with misdemeanors, it balks when it comes to felonies."

  It was my turn to laugh.

  "That's the damnedest bit of rationalization I've ever heard," I said.

  "Call it what you will, it's the way I keep law and I haven't had a lot of trouble doin' it and I been at it for longer than you've been alive, so that ought to tell you something. Besides, this ain't Cincinnati or Chicago or New York, it's south Georgia."

  "You want to tell me what happened between Nose Graves and Cherry McGee? There was a definite touch of the Bronx to that. "

  "Why are you interested?"

  "Because Cherry McGee had done dirty laundry for Tagliani in the past. I don't believe in coincidence, Mr. Stoney."

  "Mm-hmm. So finish it."

  "So I think Cherry McGee was sent in here by Tagliani to test the waters, find out if there was any local problem. Graves turned out to be a permanent problem for McGee, Then Uncle Franco decided to cool it. Now why do you think he backed off? It wasn't his style."

  "It's your story, boy, why don't you tell me."

  "Maybe he didn't want to attract any more attention. That's a possibility."

  "Obviously not one you favor," he said sarcastically.

  "No. "

  "And what's your notion, doughboy?"

  "Maybe he was told to back off."

  Titan never changed his expression but his knuckles got a little whiter over the cane.

  "Now, who might do a thing like that?" he asked.

  "I thought you could tell me."

  "Until this very minute, I never thought to connect the two together. "

  "It's just a thought," I said. "If Franco had been in bed with somebody in Dunetown, that somebody might have told him to cool it before the whole deal went sour."

  "You got a hell of an imagination."

  "Not really. I can't imagine why the man that did McGee in is sitting over in that other limo and he's counting the take from the first fight, and the sheriff is sitting thirty feet away discussing modern romances."

  "I've known Luther Graves since he was a bulge in his mama's belly. What he does, he does honestly. He's like a snake—he only gets mean when you step on him. Like I told you, this is still a small town and it's still my job to keep an eye on it. If it's gonna happen anyway, I like to deal with people who are predictable."

  "You telling me he runs a straight game? Is that what you're saying?"

  "However you care to put it."

  "Well, Mr. Stoney, it's been your county for so long I guess you can run it any way you want to."

  He looked over at me finally, a smile flirting with the corners of his mouth, his eyes still gleaming under shaggy white brows.

  "You probably got a little more brains than I gave you credit for," Titan said. "Now I'll ask you a question. Did you kill 'em, doughboy?"

  "Did I kill them?"

  I had to laugh at that one. But I stopped when I realized he wasn't kidding. It was definitely something he had considered.

  "I can get off right down there," I said. "That blue Ford."

  Titan's man was still leaning on the hood.

  "You avoidin' my question?"

  "It's an insulting question, Sheriff. Besides I was with half a dozen other cops when two of the slayings took place and I was on an airplane flying down here when Tagliani and his party got iced. And besides that, I'm not in the killing business. Thanks for calling off the dogs, if you'll pardon the pun."

  I started to get out of the car.

  "Just don't go around here actin' like Buffalo Bill or Pat Garrett or something. I got enough problems on my hands."

  I got out of the limo and leaned back in and offered him my hand. He kept his folded over the gold handle of his cane.

  "Thanks for the ride," I said.

  "Take my advice about Doe Raines, one law officer to another," he said, without looking at me. He pressed a button and the window slid up. The conversation was over.

  48

  SO . . . LONG . . .

  The Kid was sitting in the front seat when I got in my car. As I was about to find out, he was the philosopher of the outfit.

  "Okay I hop a ride back to town with you?" he said. "We don't want you to get lost or something."

  "Where's your pickup?" I asked.

  "I gave it to Zapata," he answered. "He put his bike in the back."

  "My pleasure," I said, cranking up.

  "Well," he said, "I din't hear no shootin' so I guess you two got along."

  "More or less," I said.

  "You sure don't volunteer much," the Kid said.

  "It was kind of a personal thing," I said. "I used to know Titan, a long time ago."

  "Oh."

  "How come you showed up out here?" I asked.

  "It was Dutch's idea for Zapata to come out. He said you get in trouble when you're out alone. I was following Graves."

  "Very astute of Dutch."

  "No sweat. Is it any of my business what the fuck you were doin' out here?"

  "O'Brian's button is running scared. He wants an escort out of town. "
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  "Did he give up anything for it?"

  I laughed. "I'm not really sure," I said. "According to him it's just one big happy family out there."

  "You believe that?" the Kid asked.

  "Sure. I also believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny."

  "Must burn your ass, puttin' in all that work on this bunch and they get wasted all over the place."

  "I don't like murder," I said, "no matter who the victims are."

  He was quiet for a moment, then he said:

  "My stepfather told me once, you take two violins which are perfectly tuned, okay, and you play one, the other one also plays."

  "No kidding," I said, wondering what in hell violins had to do with anything.

  "The old fart was full of caca," the Kid went on, "but he played the violin. Not good, but he at least played the fuckin' thing. I couldn't do it, man. Me and the violin, it was war at first sight. Anyways, I figure he's probably right on that score."

  "Uh-huh," I said, wondering what he was leading up to. Then he told me.

  "He only told me one other thing in my whole life that I remember, and that didn't make any sense to me at the time. Shit, I was just a kid; it was later on I figured it out, what he meant, I mean. Anyways, what it was, I was pissed off, see, because my best friend at the time din't always see things exactly the way I did. The old man says, 'Trouble with you, Fry'—he called me Fry 'cause I was small as a kid; that always pissed me off too—'trouble with you, Fry, you think everybody sees things the same as you.' Then he reaches down, scratches his ankle. 'My foot itches. That's reality to me. Yours don't. That's reality to you.' That's it; he goes back to the sports page.

  "So, y'know, I'm maybe eight, nine, at the time, what do I know from reality and itching feet. I figure the old man's temporarily unwired. Twenty years later I'm after this creep in the French Quarter, a three-time loser facing a felony; I get him, he's down for the full clock, right? Son of a bitch is always one step a-fuckin'-way, I can't quite lay my hand on him. I'm thinkin' I know this guy better than anybody, why can't I nail his ass? Then one night I remember what the old fart told me. What I come to realize is that maybe I know this guy's MO, front and back, but I'm not thinking like him, instead I'm thinking like me thinking like him, see what I mean?"

  "So did you catch him?" I asked.

  "I would have but the dumb son of a bitch shot himself cleaning his .38. Really burned my ass. But I would've had him. So what I been tryin' to do, see, I been thinking like whoever's icing all these people here."

  "And what've you come up with?"

  "Not a fuckin' thing," he said.

  I sighed. For a moment I thought the Kid had come up with something important. But he wasn't finished yet. "I don't know the why, see," he went on. "If I had a handle on the why, I would nail his ass. Or hers. Y'know, it could be a fancy, ever think of that?"

  "Well," I said, rather pompously, "once we establish motive—"

  He cut me off. "We're not talkin' motive, man. We're not talkin' about motive, we're talkin' about where that fucker's head's at. Why he's doin' it. Y'see, life ain't logical. That's the myth. Truth is, nothing is real, it's all what we make it out to be. It's the same thing—when his foot itches and we scratch ours, that's when we nail his ass."

  "Okay," I said, "if my foot starts itching I'll let you know."

  He chuckled. "Think about it," he said.

  "And thanks for the backup."

  "It's what it's all about," he said.

  Five minutes down the road my headlights picked up Zapata. The pickup was idling on the shoulder and he was waving at us with a light. I pulled over.

  "Kid, you know where South Longbeach Park is, down at the end of Oceanby?"

  "No."

  "Then follow me. Don't drag ass."

  "What the hell's going on?" I yelled at him as he crawled back into the pickup.

  "There's been a massacre out there," he yelled back, and roared out onto the highway in front of me. He had a red light on the roof and a siren screaming under the hood. I haven't driven like that since I was in high school. Most of the time I was just hanging on to the steering wheel.

  It took us thirty minutes to get to South Longbeach. We came in behind the theater, a grim and foreboding specter in the darkness, even knowing as little as we did.

  This one had drawn the biggest crowd yet, at least a dozen cop cars, red and blue lights flashing everywhere.

  The brass buttons were in a semicircle about fifty yards in diameter around the front of the theater. Nobody got inside the circle, including them. Several men from homicide were stretching a yellow crime scene banner around the perimeter of the movie house and car.

  Nick Salvatore, smoking a cherry cigar, was sitting on the fender of his car, looking as sad as a basset hound. Dutch was sitting sideways on the front seat of his car, his legs stretched out into the street.

  "It's funny," he said, to nobody at all. Then he looked around and said, "Is this whole thing getting funny to anybody else or is it just me?"

  "What the hell happened?" I asked.

  "Somebody tried to top the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre," Dutch said.

  "Right in front of my fuckin' eyes," Salvatore said, shaking his head.

  Dutch was shaking his head too. "The last four days, that's a year's work for the geniuses in homicide. If we're real lucky, they might turn up a clue by the next census."

  "Who is it this time?" I asked.

  "The family man," said Dutch. "That's what I remember you saying about him. A big family man."

  "Stizano?"

  "And a rather large party of friends. Salvatore saw it go down. He's an eyeball witness, can you believe that? Doesn't anybody see the humor in all this?"

  Salvatore ignored Dutch. He was anxious to tell his story again.

  "You won't believe this," he said, speaking very slowly and deliberately, as though he were being recorded, and pointing out little scenes of interest as he described the massacre. "Stizano, when he comes outta the show, I'm maybe a hundred yards from him, all of sudden it's like . . . like somebody started shaking the ground. They fuckin' keeled over. Now here's where it really gets weird, man. I don't hear nothin', I don't see nothin'. The loudest noise was the slugs, thumpin' into them. Then the glass started going, the box office, marquee. Sweet Jesus, it got fuckin' surreal."

  There were five bodies lying helter-skelter in front of the theater. Glass and debris everywhere. Several slugs had whacked the car.

  "Looks like a bomb went off in front of the place," I said.

  "It was fuckin' surreal, is what is it was," Salvatore intoned.

  "Who're the rest of these people?" I asked, pointing at the massacre.

  "Coupla shooters, the driver, and another guy I've seen with Stizano more often than not," Salvatore said.

  "Pasty-faced little runt, looks like he died of malnutrition?" I asked.

  "That's the one."

  "Name's Moriarity. He's Stizano's number one button."

  "Not anymore," Salvatore said. His tone was changing, becoming almost gleeful.

  The scene was as bizarre as any Fellini film.

  Stizano lay on his back, staring at the underside of the marquee with a smile on his face and a cigar still clamped between his teeth. His black suit was full of bullet holes. It looked like a rabid dog had chewed up his chest. One of his shooters was five feet away, huddled against the box office on his side in an almost fetal position. His Borsalino hat was knocked down over the side of his face, somewhat rakishly. The bodyguard, whom I had pegged as a onetime Chicago hoodlum named Manny Moriarity, a.k.a. Dead Pan Moriarity, was leaning against the side of the theater on his knees, his right hand under his coat, and the only expression he ever had, on his face. Two slugs in the forehead, one under the right eye, and his chest was open for inspection. The other gunman, who looked like a body builder, lay face down with his hands buried beneath him, clutching the family fortune. The chauffeur had managed to get around t
he side of the car and had sat down, made a little cup in his lap with his hands, and tried to stop his insides from spilling out. He hadn't been very successful but it didn't make any difference. He was as dead as the rest of them.

  As the little Italian completed his story, the Stick arrived in front of a trail of blue smoke that wound like an eel back down the dark street and, looking at the scene of the crime, said, "They giving away free dishes?"

  "You're very sick," Dutch said. "There're five people dead over there. "

  "Bank night," Stick said.

  Salvatore repeated his story to the Stick and then pointed across the street to the park.

  "Had to be from over there. And, uh, uh . . . "

  "Yeah?" Dutch said.

  "This is gonna sound a little crazy."

  "I'd feel there was something wrong if it didn't," Dutch said wearily.

  "Okay . . . I don't think—judging from the way these people went down, okay—I don't think . . . or what I think is, it was one gun."

  "One gun did all this?" said Dutch. "This looks like the Battle of the Bulge here."

  "I know it. But, see, uh, they went down just bim, bam, boom, right in a row, like they was ducks in a shootin' gallery, starting with the driver, there, swingin' straight across. Next it was the two gunners, then the button—what was his name?"

  "Dead Pan Moriarity," I coached.

  "Dead Pan Moriarity," Dutch repeated, and smothered a giggle.

  "Yeah, him, and finally Stizano. I mean, Dutch, it was some kind of fuckin' weapon. Took 'em all out in like . . . ten seconds!"

  The Stick was leaning over Stizano, pointing his finger and counting to himself. He stood up, shaking his head.

  "I make it eight slugs in Stizano, could be more. Look at him; he didn't know it was coming. Fucker's still smoking his cigar and smiling."

  Stick giggled, a kind of uncontrollable, quirky little giggle, which got Dutch started, only he didn't giggle, he laughed, and the laugh grew to a roar. Then Salvatore broke down and started in and before I knew it, I was laughing along with the rest of them. The harder we tried to stop, the harder we laughed. We were standing there in hysterics when the chief of police arrived.