Hooligans Part 9

"The boys giving you a hard time?" he asked.

"How'd you guess it?"

"I got some jazz when I first came on. Kind of like an initiation. But they think Dutch hired me, so they weren't as suspicious as they will be toward you. You're a Fed, man. That makes you a bada.s.s. Don't let it get you down; they'll come around."

"So as far as they're concerned, you're just another one of the boys, that it?"

"You got it."

"What's your angle in all this?" I asked.

"Dutch's had me playing the field, kind of getting my feet wet. One day this guy, the next somebody else. But the last week, since Mazzola made the Tagliani gang, I've been hawking Costello and that little fink, Cohen."

"And . . . ?"

"h.e.l.l, you know the outfit better than any of us," he said. Then, smiling, Stick added, "Don't you ever do reports? I didn't know s.h.i.t about Tagliani until Cisco filled me in. I mean, there's some chicken-s.h.i.t stuff in the box about them, but nothing with any meat on it."

"Yeah, I know. I'm bad about reports. I'm like Dutch. Anybody can read them."

"In answer to your question, Costello keeps away from the rest of the players."

"How about Cohen?"

"The same. A mousy bookkeeper."

"Don't undersell him. He's got more tricks than a gypsy magician."

"I'll keep that in mind. Have you seen Cisco yet?"

"Talked to him on the phone. I'm meeting him for breakfast. Maybe you ought to join us."

"I think I'll pa.s.s. If any of these guys spot me with you this soon they could get antsy. Right now they trust me. I'd like to keep it that way."

"Whatever," I said as Dutch joined us.

"That was a nice job," he said to me. "I liked the little heart tug at the end." And then to Stick: "What have you been up to?"

"Houndd.o.g.g.i.ng Costello. He and Cohen spent the day on his yacht, talking business."

"Great. That's two more we can alibi." Then back at me: "You talk to Cisco yet?"

"Just before the meeting. He suggested maybe Stick and I should team up. Is that a problem?"

"I guess not. It's a pretty loose operation. I'll move you around a little bit, just so's the rest of the boys don't wonder why I've put the two newcomers together. So what can I tell you, you don't know already?"

"Anybody on the local scene I ought to know about?" I asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Just Longnose Graves," Dutch said.

"Longnose Graves?" I said, chuckling at the moniker.

Dutch stared at me through his hooded eyes. "He ain't a laughing matter," the big man said.

"Oh? Who is he?"

Dutch scratched the edge of his jaw with a thumb. "The local bandit," he said. "Not a local bandit, the local bandit." He tossed a sideways glance at the Stick. "This business tonight, I hope it doesn't blow up like the Cherry McGee thing."

"Cherry McGee?" I said. "Would that be the McGee from up in Pittsburgh?"

"The McGee I'm talking about is planted in the local cemetery," said Dutch. "Compliments of Nose."

The Stick drew himself a cup of coffee and poured me one. It was strong enough to swim the English Channel.

"So what's the story on Graves? What's he called? Longnose?"

"Not to his face," Dutch said. Then he ran down the pedigree: "Graves once had a beak, made Durante look like he had a nose job. He had an inch or so shaved off it in a fight, but the name sticks. He's black, a dandy, but not pimp-dandy, know what I mean? Sports jackets, shirt and tie, likes sports cars-that's more his style. Long before I got here, Graves controlled whatever underworld Dunetown had in the old days. Ladies, sharking, the book. He doesn't deal in hard drugs; in fact, he probably kept them out of Doomstown."

"That's a switch," I said.

"Moral fiber," said the Stick.

"Sure," Dutch snickered, and went on. "About two years ago this outsider, Cherry McGee, moved into town with a bunch of roughnecks and decided to take some of the action. First he tried easing Nose out. When that didn't work, he tried buying Nose out. Still no dice. So then McGee decides to burn down one of Graves' clubs, to show Nose he was serious. A mistake."

Stick chimed in with a character observation.

"Graves has great comeback talent," he volunteered. "Going against him was no different than McGee jumping off the Bay Bridge and thinking he could fly."

Dutch continued, "McGee did something uncharacteristic. He dropped a frame on Graves. Extortion. And it washed. Graves did a deuce off a nickel in Little Q."

"Little Q?"

"Felony Disneyworld," said the Stick. "A very hard-time joint in this state-or any other for that matter."

"When Nose comes out, he comes out like a Brahman bull comin' out of the chute," said Dutch.

"Did he keep the business while he was gone?" I asked.

"It was nip and tuck. The trip cost everybody. In the end it was a trade-off-three of Graves' boys went down in the street; a couple of McGee's shooters ended up in the swamp."

"Is it still going on?"

"Not since McGee and his top gun got their brains handed to them, wham, bam, just like that," said Dutch.

"Hey, Chief, it's the phone for you," Chino yelled from across the room. "It's Kite Lange, babblin' like Niagara Falls."

"Excuse me," Dutch said, and dashed for the phone.

"Who's this Mufalatta Kid?" I asked the Stick.

"Black cop, out from New Orleans. He's very good. Moves easy on the range. A real cool operator, but make him mad, you got a ton of bad n.i.g.g.e.r on a hundred-and-fifty-pound frame."

Dutch's "Schmerz!" could be heard for miles. The room got as quiet as a prayer meeting. Then he said it again, this time louder and, to everyone's shock, in English. "Holy s.h.i.t!"

He slammed down the phone.

"Somebody just blew up Johnny Draganata in the family swimming pool while Lange was sittin' shiva half a block from his house," the Dutchman bellowed.

The war room sounded suddenly like a hen house.

"Now listen t'me," Dutch boomed. "I want Tagliani's bunch covered like a strawberry sundae, and now. I'm goin' up to Draganata's. Chino, you come with me. The rest of you know your marks. Let's roll before the whole town gets snuffed."

He rushed back to us.

"You two wanna join us?"

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," I said.

"Let's roll," the Dutchman roared, and moved faster than any big man I ever saw.

11.

DEATH HOUSE ON FLORAL STREET.

It was like Sat.u.r.day afternoon at the county fair and the Stick was Joey Chitwood. He slapped the blue light on the top of his black Firebird and took off, driving with one hand while he lit cigarettes, tuned the police radio, and hit the siren with the other, cigarette bobbing in the corner of his mouth as he talked. Pedestrians and traffic ran for cover before the screaming Pontiac. I hunkered down in my seat and stiff-armed the console.

"You nervous?" he asked.

"Not a bit," I lied.

He hit Azalea Boulevard sideways and straightened out doing seventy. I could feel the seat moving out from under me.

I liked the Stick's cavalier att.i.tude, but his driving was downright hazardous. I knew he had to be a good cop or he wouldn't be in the Freeze. The Federal Racket Squad, which everybody called the Freeze, was three years old, understaffed, underpub-licized, underlobbied, and under the gun. The FBI wanted to make it part of their dodge, but so far we had maintained our integrity because our job was mainly gathering information, not strict law enforcement. At least, that's what it was supposed to be. Sometimes it didn't work out just that way. Cisco Mazzola, who had formed the outfit, was an ex-street cop and he hired only street cops. As far as I could tell, the Stick fit in perfectly.

He seemed to know the town. His course took us down a few alleys and past an impressive row of old homes, restored to Revolutionary grandeur, their lights blurring into a single streak as we vaulted down the street.

"How long you been here?"

"Coupla months," he said around the cigarette dangling from his lips.

"So you were here for the Graves-McGee showdown?"

"Just after it happened."

"I knew a Philly shooter who operated out of Pittsburgh named McGee," I said, still making small talk. "But he called himself Ipswitch. "

"I wouldn't know about that," Stick said. "Actually, it was all over when I got here. All I know is what I heard on the gaspipe."

More turns. More screaming tires. More fleeing pedestrians.

"What's this Graves like?" I asked.

"Like Dutch said, for years he had the town sewed up. I get the idea the local law left him alone as long as he didn't get too far out of line."

"Wasting McGee wasn't getting out of line?" I asked.

"Y'know, I don't think anybody blamed him for the McGee thing. In fact, I get the feeling the locals were glad he did McGee in. "

"Could he be behind this Tagliani chill?"

"I suppose he could. Mufalatta's keeping an eye on him. If anybody will know, the Kid will."

We drove away from the downtown section and across the bridge to Skidaway Island, which lay between the city and the beach. The rain had stopped and the moon seemed to be racing in and out of the clouds. As we crossed the bridge, the old-town charm of Dunetown vanished, swallowed up by redwood apartment complexes and condos that looked like gray boxes in the fleeting moonlight. There was something sterile and antiseptic about Skidaway. Twenty years ago it was a wild, undeveloped island, a refuge for wildlife and birds. Now it appeared almost overpopulated.

Stick took Ocean Boulevard like it was Indianapolis. The souped-up engine growled angrily beneath us and the needle of the speedometer inched past one-twenty. The landscape became a blur. Five minutes of that and he downshifted and swerved off the four-lane and headed off through a subdivision, its houses set back from the road behind carefully planted trees and shrubs. In the dark it could have been any planned community.

"Cisco says you lived here once," Stick said past the cigarette clenched between his teeth.

"I just spent a summer here," I answered, trying to adjust my eyes to the fleeing landscape.

"When was that?"

"I hate to tell you. Kennedy was still the President."

"That long ago, huh?" he said, somewhat surprised.

"I was still a college boy in those days," I said. I was beginning to feel like an antique.

He made a hairpin turn with one hand.

"Surprised you, huh, how much it changed?"

I laughed, only it didn't come out like a laugh; it sounded like I was gagging.

"Oh, yeah, you could say that. You could say I was surprised, and I haven't even seen the place in the daylight."

"I couldn't tell you about all that. No frame of reference, y'know. "

"This used to be a wildlife refuge," I said. "That give you an idea?"

He flipped the cigarette out the window and whistled through his teeth.

"I doubt if you'll see a sparrow out here now. Rents are too high."