Hooligans

  "This'll take about thirty seconds."

  "Trash. The spell is broken."

  A moment later Stick's whiskey tenor rasped its hello.

  "Sorry to bother you," I said, "but there's something I didn't tell you back there."

  "Yeah?" His interest was lukewarm.

  "I got a good look at the shooter in the car. It was Turk Nance."

  "Is that supposed to be a surprise?" he replied.

  "Just thought you'd like to know," I said.

  "Breakfast," he said. "I'll meet you at the hotel at nine. We'll grab some groceries and go hunting."

  "You sound out of breath. Have you been jogging?"

  "Fuck off, Kilmer."

  Click.

  DeeDee returned with the coffee. We sat on matching highback deacon's benches, facing each other across a rock maple serving table.

  "Okay," I said. "Where were we?"

  She stirred cream into her coffee and tasted it before she answered my question.

  "I haven't seen or heard from Tony since Saturday. It's really uncommon for him to go more than a day or two without a call."

  "Maybe he's out of town," I suggested.

  "He said he'd be back Sunday night or early Monday."

  "That's only a couple of days."

  "I have this dreadful feeling something's wrong," she said, then after a moment of thought, added, "Maybe I should start from the beginning."

  "That would help."

  "Tony's been in trouble before."

  "Oh?"

  "Three years ago. He and this friend of his, who's a shrimper, were caught smuggling marijuana."

  "How much?"

  "A lot. Two or three hundred pounds."

  "That's a lot."

  "He was sentenced to two to five years. It could have been worse, but it was his first offense."

  "How much time did he do?"

  "Almost a year."

  "Has he been clean since then?"

  "Clean?"

  "Out of trouble?"

  She nodded.

  "Why did he do it? I mean, was there anything other than the money?"

  She toyed with her coffee, thinking about the question.

  "He wanted something he couldn't afford," she said finally. "All the money in the world couldn't buy it."

  "Doe Findley?"

  "Raines."

  "Right, Raines."

  "So you know about that?"

  "That's all I know."

  "It was the same with Tony and Doe as it was with you and me, except you never gave me a second look. I was always the caretaker's ugly little kid."

  "You don't know that," I said. "I happen to be a one-woman man."

  "Still?" It was a gentle pass and I passed it gently.

  "Still."

  "That was my ego talking. Anyway, I think Tony's been in love with Doe since the first time he ever saw her. I don't blame her for what happened. Harry Raines was busy running around the state politicking for the gambling laws. She was lonely and Tony was always around. It just happened."

  "So he decided to make a quick killing and take her away from all that?"

  "No, it was over before he got in trouble. But in his mind, I think Tony feels if he has a decent car and money in the bank . . . oh, I don't know. Maybe he was just rebelling against the whole system, getting even for things he never had. He never really talked about it. When he went to prison, all he said was that he was glad Dad died before it happened."

  "And you think he's mixed up in dope again?"

  "That's what I'm afraid of. He left Saturday morning. We went to dinner Friday night and he told me he had this job to do, that it was absolutely safe. 'Not to worry,' he told me, 'I'll be back for Sunday brunch.' I haven't heard from him since."

  "He didn't say what the job was?"

  She shook her head. "Things have been rough for him this past year. I offered to help, but he turned me down. I think he was desperate."

  "Did he say anything about narcotics?"

  "All he said was 'After this, we'll be as good as the rest of them.' He wouldn't say any more."

  "Did he drive when he left?"

  She nodded. "A white Mustang. I think it's a '79. But it looks brand-new."

  "How about the license?"

  "I'll get it for you."

  She got up and rooted through a large mahogany desk, leafing through papers until she found a duplicate of the car registration. She handed it to me, along with a photograph from her wallet. It was a color Polaroid of a tallish, dark man, handsome, but a bit too intense, who looked to be in his early thirties and was built like a lifeguard. He was sitting on the edge of a swimming pool with his legs in the water.

  "I remember him now," I said.

  "I thought perhaps you might check around. Maybe somebody knows or has heard something," she said. "I don't want to do anything official. Do you understand?" It was more of a plea than a request.

  I nodded. "Sure, I can do that. Is that all?"

  "I'd just like to know he isn't . . . "

  She didn't finish the sentence. She began to tremble. I moved over beside her and put an arm around her. The more she tried to stop trembling, the worse it got.

  "I'll check around first thing," I said, trying to comfort her. "Don't worry, I'm sure he's all right. It's been five days. If anything had happened to him, you'd know it by now."

  I wasn't sure that was true, but it sounded good and she bought it. She was suffering a delayed reaction to both her brother's disappearance and the action in the alley. I gently massaged her neck with two fingers, stroking the tight muscles that ran from the base of her skull to her shoulders. After a while she loosened up. She shifted, turning toward me, and curled up.

  I massaged her neck until my fingers got stiff, and she talked about a time that linked us to the past, but in different ways.

  "It's funny, the things I remember about Doe from our school days," she said, and giggled. "Did you know," she went on, as if sharing a secret, "that the maids used to iron Doe's underwear? I know that sounds silly, to remember something like that. But when I heard it, I thought, That's the way it should be. That's the way a princess gets treated. That's what she is, a princess. Her father is the king and she lives in a castle on the ocean and nothing bad ever happens to her. I know that's not true, though. She lost Teddy." She paused and then added, "She lost you."

  "That's not quite accurate," I said. "She didn't lose me."

  "Oh, yes," she said with a nod, "she lost you."

  I didn't disagree. There wasn't anything to disagree with. We had different points of view.

  "I used to dream of being Doe," she said. "When we had a picnic, Doe always carried the flag and the rest of us cleaned up the trash. It's just the way it was. She never asked to be treated special; nice things just happened to her. I suppose it's always that way with the rich."

  She said it almost wistfully and without malice, like it was an undeniable fact of life, and I suppose it was, until life inevitably caught up with even the rich. For the flash of a second I considered telling her what really happened to Teddy, but I didn't want to bust her pretty balloon. She seemed to have control of her memories. Perhaps that's why she recalled them with such innocence and without angst. She had learned the difference between memories and dreams.

  She dozed off that way. It felt good there, with her curled up in my lap. I thought I might relax for a few minutes before going back to the hotel, to make sure she was sleeping soundly. I leaned back and thought about Tony and DeeDee Lukatis, always on the outside looking in, close enough to savor the sweet life, but never close enough to taste it. I thought about Tony Lukatis, who tried to make the dream come true and ended up in jail instead, and DeeDee, harboring a futile high school dream for all those years. I fell asleep thinking about them and realizing that in the end, DeeDee, Tony, and I were not that much different.

  I had the same old dream again that night, only this time Tony Lukatis was running on the ridge.

/>   53

  NUMBERS GAMES

  I awoke to soft sunlight, filtering through gauze drapes, and the smell of fresh coffee. Sometime during the night DeeDee had slipped a pillow under my head and draped a blanket over me, but I still felt like I'd been stretched on the rack.

  She was wearing a plain black silk dress and her long hair was gathered in a bun at the back of her head, quite a departure from the previous night. Either way, she was a knockout. She put a tray with orange juice, toast, and coffee on the table in front of me.

  "Thanks," I said. "What time is it?"

  "A little after eight. This should give you enough strength to go back to the hotel and clean up before you meet . . . what's his name?"

  "Mickey Parver. Everybody calls him Stick but don't ask why, it's too early to talk."

  The juice was ice cold, the coffee strong and hot, and the toast wasn't burned. I wolfed it down while she sat across from me and had her second cup.

  "I want to thank you for last night," she said. She sounded almost embarrassed.

  "For what, almost getting you killed?"

  "I mean later, after that. It's the first time I've slept in days. And thanks, too, for . . . listening to me ramble."

  "Better watch out," I said. "Your inhibitions are showing again."

  "I only wish there was some way I could repay you."

  There it was, the perfect opening. It was time to play cop again. I sipped a little more coffee. It was tough coming out with it.

  "Maybe there is," I said finally.

  She was pleased at the prospect. "Really?" she cried. "What? Anything!"

  I sipped at my coffee for a moment or two, trying to phrase it just right, but that never works. No matter how I put it, it was going to come out wrong in the end.

  "You might want to think about this," I said.

  "Think about what?"

  "What I'm about to ask you."

  Her smile started to fade.

  "You know a man named Cohen who banks at the Seacoast?" I asked.

  "Yes. Not personally, just as a customer of the bank."

  "Does he come in often?"

  "Usually every day. Why?"

  "Do you handle his account?"

  She cocked her head like a puppy hearing an unfamiliar sound.

  "No," she said. "Mr. Seaborn handles it personally."

  There it was. The connection. My pulse picked up but it still didn't prove anything. "Is that customary? I mean for the president of the bank to handle an account personally?"

  "He does it on several major accounts, if that's what the customer wants. What's this about, Jake?"

  "I need some information," I said. "It will be kept totally confidential, I promise you that. There's no danger of anyone ever finding out where it came from. It will only be used by me to dig up some background information."

  Her forehead furrowed into a deep frown.

  "What is it? What do you want?" she asked. Her tone was becoming more formal.

  "I need the access number for the bank's computer, and Cohen's account number or numbers."

  She was shocked. For two full minutes she stared at me in disbelief, then she lowered her eyes to the floor.

  "So," she said, "we both wanted something."

  There was no response to that. It was true.

  "If it's at all risky . . . " I said, but her stare killed the sentence while it was still in my mouth.

  "Isn't giving out that information a felony?" she asked.

  "Only if you're caught."

  "Seems to me somebody said that to Tony once."

  I was prepared to take whatever abuse she might throw my way. It was a rotten thing to ask, a rotten position to put her in. Had it not been for her concern over Tony and my promise to try and help, I could never have broached the subject. I'm sure all of that was racing through her mind.

  "Look," I said, "if you don't trust me, forget it. I'm still going to get a line on Tony for you, if it's possible."

  "Thanks for telling me that, anyway," she said. She stared at the floor some more. I decided to push it.

  "There are laws that make it possible to put people away," I said, "people who deserve to be put away, if we can prove their money is earned illegally. I believe Cohen is a money man for the Mafia. That's who tried to kill us last night."

  She looked up sharply, her concern tempered by curiosity.

  "It isn't the first time they've tried to put me away," I said. "I have a bullet hole in my side as a memento from their last try:"

  She kept staring without comment, making me work for it.

  "Would you like to hear how they make their money? Or what they do to people who get in their way?"

  "I got a hint of that last night," she said, getting up and taking the tray back to the kitchen. When she returned, she said, "Come on, I'll take you to the hotel."

  She didn't say anything else. She got her things together and checked the door to make sure it was locked when we left. Just a couple of normal folks heading off for the daily grind. In the daylight her street was like a picture from an eighteenth-century history book. I almost expected to see Ben Franklin strolling by with a kite or Thomas Paine ranting on the street corner. It didn't seem possible that Front Street was only a few blocks away.

  DeeDee didn't say a word on the way to the Ponce. When we got there she turned to me, her face tortured with anguish and anxiety.

  "I know how to reach you," I said. "I'll call, even if I don't hear anything definite." I started to leave the car.

  "Jake?"

  "Yeah?"

  She sat for a minute longer, then shook her head. "I can't do it," she said. "I owe a lot to Charles Seaborn, and somehow what you're asking seems like an affront to him. When Tony got in all that trouble, some of the directors at the bank wanted Mr. Seaborn to fire me. They felt it gave the bank a bad image. He stuck by me through it all, never said a word or asked anything more of me than I usually gave. I didn't even know about it for months. Lark found out and told me. I'm sorry, but what you're asking . . . I'd feel as if I'd done something to him personally."

  "My mistake," I said. "I never should have asked."

  "I'm glad you did," she said. "I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to ask me. I'm just sorry I feel this way."

  "Loyalty's a rare commodity, don't apologize for it," I said. "I'll be talking to you."

  "Thanks again," she mumbled as I got out of the car. I watched her drive away and went into the hotel. The Stick was sitting in the lobby reading the morning paper.

  "This is a terrible hour to be getting in," he said drolly. "What'll the neighbors think?"

  "You know what you can do with the neighbors," I snapped.

  "Uh-oh. Get out on the wrong side of the bed?"

  "I never got into bed."

  "Ah, that's the problem."

  I glared at him and suggested breakfast in the room to save time. "I need a shower," I growled.

  We went to the room and I ordered food. I needed more than the toast and coffee DeeDee had provided. Then I got Dutch on the phone and gave him a quick report on the night's activities, not wanting him to hear it from anybody else. In the excitement at the movie theater I had forgotten to tell him about my meeting with Harry Nesbitt. I started off with that, finishing with the shootout at Casablanca.

  The latter got him fuming.

  "I'll have Kite pick up that son of a bitch Nance now," he growled.

  "Won't do any good. He's probably got a dozen people who'll swear he was six other places at the time."

  "So what do we do, ignore it?"

  "For the time being," I said. "When we get him, I want to get him good—and I want it to stick."

  "What do you want to do about Nesbitt?" Dutch asked. "It doesn't sound like his info on Nance was too swift."

  "Maybe Nance went around the bend," I said. "I can't imagine Costello or Chevos pulling a stunt that stupid the way things are."

  "Why not?" the Stick cut in. "If he'd nailed
you, they could've written you off as another victim."

  "I made a promise to Nesbitt and I'd like to keep it," I told Dutch. "Can we find a couple of honest cops who'll smuggle him down to Jax and stick with him until his plane leaves?"

  "I'll take care of it," Dutch said. "Let me know when you hear from him."

  "Thanks. Stick and I are working on some other things. I'll catch up with you later."

  He rang off and I gave Stick the license number of the black Pontiac. He called the DMV while I showered and shaved.

  The license plates were hot, stolen a few hours before Nance and company came calling on me.

  "Shit," I growled, "the way this day is starting maybe I ought to go back to bed and start over."

  A bellhop who didn't look a day over fifteen showed up with breakfast. The phone rang and I answered it, trying to eat, talk, and put fresh clothes on at the same time.

  "Good morning, darling." Doe's voice was as soft as lambskin and husky with sleep. "Sleep late?"

  I looked over at Stick, who was back into his newspaper, then turned my back to him and dropped my voice an octave.

  "Yeah. A late night. A lot happened."

  "I thought about you all day and all night."

  "Me too," I mumbled.

  "It was torturous being with Harry after the other night."

  I made a dive for the safe spots, but stopped before I got there. I thought, Why does it scare me when it's what I want to hear?

  "That's understandable," I answered.

  "Are you under the covers? I can hardly hear you."

  "My partner just stopped by for breakfast," I half whispered.

  "Ah, so that's it," she purred. "Well, I'll let you go. I just wanted to hear your lovely voice before I got up. I want to lie here and think about you. Please make it happen again soon. God, how I miss you."

  "Well, that's good," I said awkwardly.

  She laughed. "What a silly thing to say," she replied. "I'll be staying at Windsong for a week or so, alone. Harry's staying at the townhouse. I'm coming out here after the party tonight."

  "Party?"

  "Babs' cocktail party, you goose. If you miss it, she'll kill you—that's if I don't do it first. See you at six. Thank you for coming back, Jake. I love you, my sweet."

  "Uh, yeah, me too."

  She hung up.