Hooligans

  "Coup de grace," I said.

  "What?" Charlie One Ear asked.

  "Just thinking out loud."

  "So what else do you think?" he said.

  "What I've always thought. We got an M-16, probably with a forty-millimeter grenade launcher mounted on it, that takes care of the Stizano massacre and Draganata. We got an American 180, sounds like a dentist drill, fires a hundred eighty rounds in six seconds, which takes care of the Tagliani kill, O'Brian, and the boys on the boat. The rope trick was used on Logeto and Della Norman. And we got a .357 that was used to put the insurance shots into Stinetto, Tagliani, and Lukatis. Not that big an arsenal for all the damage that's been done to date."

  "How about Harry Raines?" Charlie One Ear asked.

  "We won't know for sure until they get the slug out. Dutch says it was probably a 38 or close to it. That means it could be .357 or even a nine-millimeter. They're all about the same diameter."

  "And Nance shoots a nine-millimeter Luger, right?" Stick asked.

  "Nance didn't shoot Harry Raines."

  He looked at me with surprise.

  "How do you know that?"

  "Instinct," I said. "Really, logic. First of all, he's not a contact killer. He likes to work from a distance. Second, he's a planner. He wouldn't ice his mark in a fog with two people twenty yards away. It's too risky. Nance is a pro. He's only made two mistakes that I know of."

  "What were they?"

  "He missed me twice," I said.

  Dutch and our breakfast arrived at the table together. He had found us there to tell us that Harry Raines was dead.

  "About forty-five minutes ago," the big man said, sinking into the booth beside me. "I been up all night. It's a sad, sad thing. Doe Raines is a wreck and Stoney Titan is blaming everybody but the President. Donleavy finally stepped in to make the arrangements."

  I listened but didn't hear any more. I was thinking about Doe and the devils that had shown themselves to her in the hospital, devils that could twist her mind into a private hell if they were not dealt with, and quickly. Strange how lovers and family always assumed the guilt of death. Both DeeDee and Doe had lost loved ones in the same day and both were assuming guilt for the loss. I still wondered if Doe knew or cared that Tony Lukatis was dead. She had bigger things to deal with now.

  "Does Chief know yet?" I asked finally.

  "I dunno, that's probably Mr. Stoney's chore," said Dutch. The death of Harry Raines didn't seem to spoil his appetite. He ordered a breakfast that would have given me indigestion for a week.

  "I can't believe it," Dutch said. "Sam Donleavy and I were talking about all this as it was happening."

  "What time did he call you?" I asked.

  "I called him," he said. "About five after eight."

  "Where?"

  "He lives in the condos out on Sea Oat, just before you cross over the bridge to the Isle of Sighs."

  That gave Sam Donleavy an airtight alibi. I had talked to him at quarter to eight. Even the Stick at his best could not have driven the distance from Sea Oat to town in less than fifteen minutes. To drive both ways in twenty minutes was literally impossible.

  "I've got something for you, Jake," Charlie One Ear said, breaking into my reverie. "Stick asked me to check out the Tagliani bank accounts. Three of those companies are foreign."

  "Incorporated in Panama?" I said.

  "Now, how'd you know that?" asked Dutch.

  "Protected corporations," I said. "Which are they?"

  "The Seaview Company, which owns the hotels; a company called Riviera, Incorporated, which does maid and janitorial service for the hotels and other clients; and another called the Rio Company, which is some kind of service outfit, although we couldn't find out much about it. The Thunder Point Marina and the Jalisco Shrimp Company are both owned by Abaca Corporation, which is a local company. The restaurant is a proprietorship."

  "Bronicata the proprietor?"

  "Yep."

  "Makes sense," I said. "They need a few legitimate businesses as part of the washing machine."

  Charlie One Ear, encouraged by my enthusiasm, left to see if he could dig up more facts.

  Dutch's beeper started bugging us and he went to check it out. He returned, both amused and surprised.

  "What now?" asked Stick.

  "Everybody seems to be turning their cards up," he said. "Nose Graves made a wreck out of the Jalisco Shrimp Company not twenty minutes ago. Nobody's hurt but he spread the place all over the county. What's left is burning."

  "Shit!" I said grimly. "It's starting."

  "What's starting?" said Dutch.

  "What I've been afraid of," I said. "Open warfare. If it's not stopped, Harry Raines won't be the only innocent victim. I've seen a gang war up close, in Cincy. It isn't pretty. It'll make the Tagliani massacres look like a harmless warm-up."

  That put a crimp in the conversation for a moment. Then Dutch reached in his pocket and took out the tape recorder I had hung on Harry Raines' bed.

  "I almost forgot," he said. "I retrieved this for you."

  "Anything on it?" I asked.

  "I haven't checked," he said.

  "Do you know Graves did the Jalisco job for sure?" the Stick asked Dutch.

  "Absolutely. That was the Mufalatta Kid on the horn," Dutch said. "Seems we did something right for a change. The Kid was shagging Graves and watched the whole thing happen."

  He gathered up our checks. "I'll let the city pay for these," he said. "Let's go have a talk with the Kid."

  "Where is he?" asked the Stick.

  "Baby-sitting on Longnose Graves' doorstep," Dutch said, and his Kraut face broadened into the biggest smile I had seen since I got to Doomstown.

  65

  LONGNOSE GRAVES

  The usual twenty-minute drive across Dunetown to Back O'Town took the Stick less than fifteen. He turned off the siren six or seven blocks from the scene and flew dead-stick the rest of the way in. Dutch smoked two cigarettes, back to back, without taking them out of his mouth once they were lit. He didn't say anything, just sat stiff-legged, puffing.

  "Go a block past the club and pull in behind the drugstore across the street," Dutch told Stick as we neared the end of the journey. "Kid doesn't want we should turn him up to Graves' bunch. "

  "Gotcha," Stick said. He wheeled in behind the drugstore, stopped, braked, turned the car off, and was outside on his feet before I could pull mine out of the floorboards. All Dutch said was "Phew. He never drove like that with me before."

  "He never drove any other way with me," I said. "You're damn lucky."

  The drugstore was an antique, like the ones I remember from childhood, like Bucky's was, in downtown Dunetown, before it became Doomstown. It had a marble fountain top and wire-rung chairs and smelled of maraschino cherries and chocolate instead of vitamin pills and hair spray. A gray-haired black man behind the counter sized us up and nodded toward the Kid, who was sitting back from the front window, sipping something pink that looked medicinal. He was watching a two-story row house, which stood alone in the middle of the block. A vertical neon sign over the front door of the place said that it was the Saint Andrew's African Baptist Church.

  "I didn't know he was the Reverend Graves," I said.

  "Used to be the church," Mufalatta said. "When they moved to their new place, the sign ran the wrong way, so Nose bought it. He calls the place the Church."

  "Doesn't that upset the Saint Andrew's African Baptist congregation?" I asked.

  "Naw, he's head of the choir," the Kid said, and left it at that.

  "Who's around?" the Stick asked.

  "Two carloads of 'em just went inside," Mufalatta said. "Man, are they feelin' high. You never saw such grins in your life."

  "How did they waste the shrimp company?" I asked.

  "Just drove in, two cars of 'em, pulled up to the front door, got out, and checked to make sure the place was empty. Then they doused it with Molotov cocktails and tossed a couple sticks of dynamite in the fr
ont door as they was leaving. Man, the place went sky high."

  We all stood there, staring across the street at the Church, wondering what to do next.

  "If we're going to arrest him, don't we need a warrant?" I asked.

  "Arrest them? Arrest who, man? Graves?" was the Kid's amazed response. "The four of us are gonna sashay in there and bust Nose Graves and maybe eight of the meanest motherfuckers south of Jersey City? Us four? Shit, man. Death with honor, si; death by suicide, bullshit."

  "Then why don't I just go in and have a talk with him," I suggested.

  Mufalatta looked at me like I was certifiable. Dutch chuckled deep in his throat, like he had just heard a dirty joke. The Stick didn't do anything; he stood there and pro and conned the idea in his head. He broke the silence.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "He's being suckered," I said. "Maybe we can stop this craziness before anybody else dies."

  "Do tell," said the Kid. "And you think he's gonna give a royal shit what you think, man?"

  "What've we got to lose?" I said. "Stick and Dutch, keep an eye on our front and back doors. The Kid and I'll go in and gab with Graves."

  "Absolutely crazy as shit," the Kid said.

  "I'll second that," said Dutch.

  "Hell, why not?" the Stick said. "Sometimes crazy shit like that works."

  Dutch sighed. "Let's get some more backup over here," he said.

  "Why?" I asked. "This isn't the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We just want to talk."

  "The man just blew up a business," Dutch reminded me. "If he knows he was seen doing it, he's not gonna be too receptive to any chitchat with the cops. "

  I shrugged. "Then we won't tell him yet," I said, and walked out the front door and across the street with Mufalatta legging it beside me.

  "This is crazy, man," he said. "This guy has no fuse at all, okay? No fuse, man. You light him up, he blows all over the fuckin' place. They will hear it in West L.A. Shit, they will hear it in West Fuckin' Berlin, is what they'll do. You hear me talkin', man? Am I just makin' my gums bleed for fun?"

  "I heard you, Kid," I said. "He's got a short fuse."

  "No fuse, brother. None. N-o-n-e. None!"

  We entered the club.

  "Okay, okay," Mufalatta said as we walked into the dark stairwell. "Just let me get us to the man, okay? Let me do that because, see, I think in this case I have a gift of communication which you don't."

  "How's that?" I said.

  "Because you're a thick-headed, fuckin' honky, that's why, and this man don't even trust high yellows."

  "Get us to the man," I agreed with a nod.

  We walked up a short flight of steps to the main floor of the building. It was a cathedraled room with a pulpit at one end and pews shoved back in a semicircle to form a large dance floor. The room was tiered. On the second tier there were low-slung tables surrounded by large cushions. The color scheme was cardinal red and devil black. Four stereo speakers the size of billboards were booming against visible sound waves. The music was so loud it hurt my Adam's apple. Not a ray of sunshine penetrated the once sacred interior.

  Two black giants were sitting in wooden chairs at the top of the stairs. They looked both of us up and down, then one of them said rather pleasantly, "Sorry, gents, no action till four o'clock."

  "It ain't that way," Mufalatta shouted. "We're here to talk with the man."

  The two giants exchanged grins, then laughed loud enough to drown out the music. One of them yelled, "What you gonna do, turkey, ask him to boogie?"

  "Yeah," I said, taking out my wallet and letting it fall open to my buzzer. "Here's our dance card."

  "Shit," the Kid said. "There goes diplomatic relations down the fuckin' toilet."

  The big guy doing the talking looked like I was waving a pretzel at him. He looked at Mufalatta, then me, trying to put us together, then pointed at me. "You stay right there, both a you," he said, and to his partner, "Keep an eye on them."

  He turned and lumbered across the dance floor, up into the shadows. The other giant stood and glared at us alternately, his eyeballs clicking back and forth. Obviously he was a man who followed orders to the letter. When you're that big, you don't have to think.

  There was a minute or two more of musical torture and then the music magically stopped.

  "Up here," Ape One yelled down. "Do them first."

  "On the wall," Ape Two said. "I'm gonna toss you."

  He patted us down and took a .357 and a switchblade knife away from Mufalatta. All I had that looked threatening was a nail file, which he studied for several moments.

  "It's a nail file," I said finally.

  "No shit," he said. "I thought it was a toothpick."

  Ape Two led us across the hardwood floor and up into the far corner of the room to the only booth in the place. Inside the booth was a round table and, behind it, a hand-carved chair big enough to suit the Queen. Graves was sitting in the chair with one leg draped over an arm. He was dressed like a Brazilian banker, in tan linen with a dark brown handkerchief draped from his jacket pocket and a brown-and-white-striped tie. Like Zapata, he wore sunglasses in the dark.

  Several of his lieutenants slipped back into the shadows. They didn't go anywhere, they just became part of the ambience.

  Graves leaned forward and pulled his glasses down slightly, peering over them.

  "Well, what do you know, it's the dog lover."

  I smiled. The Kid didn't do anything.

  "You shouldn't do that," Graves said in a whispery rasp. "Come in a man's place flashing all that shit around."

  Mufalatta smiled. "Well, what is was, King Kong and Mighty Joe Young there didn't think looks was enough to get us an audience."

  Graves smiled. He was a handsome man. Whoever had done the job on his nose had done him a favor.

  "Who the fuck are you?" he said quietly.

  "Feds," I told him.

  He whistled softly through his teeth. "That's bad," he said. "Am I drafted?"

  "Yeah, the marines can hardly wait," Mufalatta said.

  "So, say your thing, man. What's it about?"

  "Can we keep this between just a couple of us?" I asked.

  Graves looked at Ape Two.

  "They's totally clean," the black giant grunted.

  Graves leaned back and waved his hands. "Okay," he said, "give us some air. You men drink?"

  "Not right now," I said.

  "You the talker, dog lover?" he asked, nodding toward me.

  I said I was.

  "So talk."

  I didn't know how I was going to start or exactly what I was going to say. I had to wing it. Graves was no fool. If we were there because of the morning raid on Chevos' shrimp company, we would have come in force with warrants. We wanted to talk and he was all ears.

  "Things come to me," I said. "Because of my business I hear things."

  "And what's been comin' at you, man?" the lean, ebony mobster said, still smiling.

  "It comes to me that a Cincinnati gangster named Tagliani and his outfit came down here to set up shop. They wanted the Front Street action, but they knew they had to get past you, one way or another. They may have had some local help moving in here—that's up for grabs right now—but one person Tagliani definitely did not have help from was Stoney Titan, and since you and Stoney have a deal, they couldn't ease you out. It comes to me that the Taglianis decided to try the water, find out just how tough you were, so they sent an Ohio hoodlum named Cherry McGee in to test you. He couldn't take you, so Tagliani managed to frame you, and after you did your clock, you came out and blew McGee up, along with a couple of his pistols.

  "Meantime, they started taking over, squeezing in here and there. They started dealing heavy drugs, mostly cocaine, to service the big rollers from out of town, which, it comes to me, is not your style. They also had big money, and that's where they started hurting you. They were squeezing you out because they had the financing.

  "So it comes to me that you decided to
make one big move, a coke connection in South America that would net you maybe twenty, thirty mil on the street plus bite a big hole in their trade.

  "Then, last Sunday, Tagliani hijacked your load, killed your people, and burned the boat, which left you without your goods and owing the connections that fronted you. So, it comes to me, you declared war and started wasting Taglianis. And then when Harry Raines got hot under the collar over all the shooting, you put him away."

  I paused for a moment and then said, "That's the way it comes to me."

  He took off the sunglasses and bored holes in me with cast iron eyes.

  "Dog lover, you're so full of shit you're contagious," Graves murmured, without humor. "Comes to you, my ass."

  "I said that's the way it comes to me, I didn't say that's the way it was. But that's how it could be played, if enough people wanted it done that way."

  He leaned back and toyed with the glasses. Now I had his interest.

  "Okay," he whispered, "how do you think it was?"

  "Well, here's the way it wasn't. I don't think you killed any of the Tagliani clan, except maybe McGee and some of his gang. And I don't think you put Harry Raines away. Not only that, but I can probably prove you didn't."

  "That's damn nice of you, brother," he said. "What do you want me to do in return, marry your sister?"

  "I want you to call off your guns, right now. Before the shooting really starts and a lot of people who don't have anything to do with this get wasted."

  "You want we should stand in the middle of the boulevard and invite that fuckin' Nance to have target practice on us, that it?" his voice rasped.

  "I'll take care of Nance," I said. "I got more reason than you. He's tried to kill me twice."

  For some reason that impressed Graves. He said, "I'm not real clear on what it is you're offering me to do for what."

  "If you hang up your guns, I'll see to it that the Taglianis do the same. Then all you have to do is sit back and let the Feds put the rest of the Tagliani clan away and it'll be all yours again."

  "And the Feds're just gonna leave me alone, right?"

  "That's the way it'll work out," I said.