Hooligans Part 43

"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 ma.s.sacre. "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 f.u.c.kin' 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 gla.s.s started going, the box office, marquee. Sweet Jesus, it got f.u.c.kin' surreal."

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

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

"It was f.u.c.kin' surreal, is what is it was," Salvatore intoned.

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

"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 b.u.t.ton."

"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 the 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 b.u.t.ton-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 f.u.c.kin' 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. f.u.c.ker'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.

Chief Walters was fifty pounds overweight and had bloodshot eyes, a nose full of broken blood vessels, and a neck that was two sizes too big for his collar. He looked like a man who sweats easily.

"I must have missed something," he said, in a fat man's labored voice, heavy with bourbon. "What the h.e.l.l's so funny?"

"You had to be here, Herb," said Dutch.

"Obviously you weren't," Walters said. "Maybe we better talk about this in the morning."

"We can talk about it right now," Dutch said with more than a touch of irritation as his smile faded.

"Right now I think I'd better join my people," Walters said, leaning on the "my."

Dutch defused the situation by introducing Walters to me, earning me a damp, insecure handshake.

"Dutch can obviously use all the help you can give him, right, Dutch?" he said.

"Why don't you go over and give the boys in homicide a pep talk," Dutch said.

"If I can help you in any way, Kilmer, just pick up the phone. I answer all my calls personally."

"That's wonderful," I said.

As he walked away he added somewhat jovially, "At least you can't say we've got a dull town here, right, Kilmer?"

I began to wonder if the whole d.a.m.n police force had been recruited from some funny farm for old cops.

"Well, you've met the chief," Dutch said, "now you can forget him."

"Twelve in Stizano and this guy with the hat," the Stick cried out, returning to his self-appointed task of counting bullet holes in dead people.

Callahan was last to arrive, wearing a three-piece gray suit with a rose in his lapel. He got out of his car and looked around. No comment. While we were counting bullet holes and scratching our heads, Callahan vanished into the park and returned five minutes later with a whiskered, filthy relic wearing the dirtiest trench coat I've ever seen. You could smell his breath from across the street.

"Don't anybody light a match," Salvatore said as they approached.

"Saw something," Callahan said, explaining the b.u.m in tow.

The drunk sniffed a few times, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

"D'wanno trouble," he mumbled.

Dutch leaned over him, his hands stuffed in his pants pockets and an unlit Camel bobbing in his mouth. "I'll tell you what," he said. "You don't spit it out, you'll have more trouble than a constipated goose."

The b.u.m looked offended at first, until it dawned on him that he was, for the moment, the center of attraction. Suddenly he started singing like a magpie.

"I was down in the park near the pond, see, grabbing forty on a bench, and, uh, first thing I know, see, I hear a lotsa like clicks. Sounded like, uh, m'teeth." He hesitated and laughed but the laugh turned into the worst cough I've ever heard.

"Keep talkin', pops," Dutch said. "You're doin' fine. Just don't cough up a lung before you're through is all I ask."

The b.u.m's Sterno eyes glittered feebly. "What's in it fer me?" he demanded. Then, looking around, he said, "Got a b.u.t.t?" to everybody in earshot.

The Stick gave him a cigarette, steadying the old man's hand while he lit it.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"J. W. Guttman," he said proudly. "My friends call me Socks." He grinned and pointed to his feet. He wore no shoes but his toes wiggled through holes in a pair of rancid, once-white sweat socks.

"Okay, Socks, so you were on your favorite bench down there, you heard somebody's teeth clicking," Dutch said.

"That's what it sounded like." He flicked his uppers loose with his tongue and rattled them sharply against his lower plate. "Tic-tic-tic-tic, like that."

"Fine," Dutch said, rolling his eyes.

"And then all them lights down to the movie start blowin' up. Sounded like the Fourth of Julahrrgh." He coughed again, cutting off the end of the sentence.

"Did you see anything?" Dutch asked him.

He gathered his breath together and sighed. "Been tryin' to tell yuh-seen, uh, this car."

"Where?"

"On Pelican Avenue, goin' toward the beach."

"What kind of car?" Dutch demanded.

"Just a car. They all look alike."

"Did it have a color?" Dutch asked.

"Uh, well, it was a dark car."

"Verdammt," Dutch said.

"Black?" the Stick asked. "Two-door, four-door?"

"Tol' ya, it was dark. Coulda been-" He stopped and thought hard for several seconds. "Blue, right? Sure enough, in the dark there, see, coulda been blue. Dark green, maybe . . . "

He hunched up his shoulders, coughed, shivered, and did a little jig. Something under the stack of rags he was wearing was gnawing on him.

"Anybody know what's he talking about?" Dutch said.

"Maybe he thinks it's a test," Salvatore said.

"Somethin' else," J. W. Guttman said, when he had regained his breath.

"Don't make me beg," Dutch said.

"Had funny wheels."

"Funny wheels," Dutch said.

Guttman nodded vigorously. "That's right."

"What kind of funny wheels?" Dutch asked, and, turning to me, said under his breath, "I'm beginning to feel like a straight man for this old fart."

"Big floppy wheels. I could hear them . . . flop, flop, flop, up there on Pelican."

"What the h.e.l.l's he talkin' about?" the Stick asked.

"Beats me," said Dutch. "Floppy wheels, huh, J. W.?"

"Popeta, popeta, popeta. That's what it sounded like."

"Maybe somebody had a flat," I suggested.

Socks smiled grandly, a man suddenly thrust into the limelight by tic-tic-tic and popeta, popeta, popeta.

"That's it?" said Dutch.

"It was dark," J. W. Guttman whined.

"I know it was dark," Dutch snapped.

The little man cowered.

"Five people get blown away and the best witness we can muster up is a whacked-out dipso," Dutch said, shaking his head. "Go back to your bench, Mr. Guttman."

"Socks."

"Socks." Dutch started to walk away and Socks grabbed his sleeve. "Look, Cap'n, how 'bout takin' me in, maybe you could, uh, book me for like a material witness. Cap, I ain't had a square meal since Saint Patrick's Day."

Dutch took out a tenspot and motioned one of the patrolmen over.

"Take Socks here over to the lunch counter, buy him a decent meal, and stay with him until he eats it," Dutch said.

"Me?" the cop said in disbelief.