Hooligans Page 15

  "Holy shit," Stick muttered, "that's damn near criminal."

  "She's not a day over fifteen, Stick."

  "I don't remember fifteen-year-olds being stacked like that when I was a kid," he said somewhat mournfully. "Do you remember them looking like that?"

  I remember Doe at fifteen, coming up to Athens with Chief for homecoming, flirting with me every time Teddy or Chief looked the other way. She definitely looked like that.

  "Seems to me they were all flat-chested and giggled a lot," Stick went on.

  "They're giggling," I pointed out.

  "That's a different kind of giggling."

  "They're just beginning to figure it out," I said.

  "Figure what out?"

  "How to drive a man up the wall."

  "She's got the angle, all right," he said, drumming the fingers of one hand on his steering wheel and staring back at the little cutie, who lowered her sunglasses and stared back.

  "Oh my," Stick moaned. "You just don't know where to draw the line."

  "About three years older than that," I said.

  "What a shame."

  He took a long pull on his beer, smacked his lips, and sighed.

  "I missed all that," he said. "They were little girls when I went to Nam and they were grown up and spoken for when I got back. What a fuckin' ripoff."

  The girl in the TR-3 leaned her head way back and shook her long black hair across her face, and then she leaned forward and flipped it back and smoothed it out with her hands. The shirt came perilously close to falling completely open.

  "She's doing that on purpose," Stick said, watching every move. He looked back over at me. "Fifteen, huh?"

  "At the most."

  "Shit. What a fuckin' ripoff."

  The driver of the TR-3 cranked up and pulled around in a tight little arc so they drove past us.

  "Love your hat," the girl in the white cotton shorts purred as they went by. Stick whipped the hat off and scaled it like a Frisbee in the wake of the TR-3. It hit the parking lot and skipped to a stop as the sports car vanished around the building. Stick retrieved his hat and got back behind the wheel.

  "All bluff," he muttered, and then added, "I may have to take the night off."

  "I wouldn't mind taking the rest of my life off," I said. "I been on this case too long. Almost six years. I'm sick and tired of the Taglianis. They're enough to give anybody the blues."

  "Relax. The way things are going there won't be any of them left to be sick and tired of," he said almost jauntily, staring at another young girl in a bikini bathing suit who was sitting on the back of a convertible, her face turned up toward the sun. Her long, slender legs were stretched out in front of her and her breasts bubbled over the skimpy top. The driver, a skinny kid in surfing trunks and a cutoff T-shirt, stared dumbly at her in the rearview mirror.

  "Look at that kid in the front seat," Stick said. "He doesn't know what the hell to do about all that."

  "It'll come to him," I said.

  "They're all over the place," Stick cried lasciviously. "You know what this is? It's a plague of young flesh. Do you get the feeling this is a plague of young flesh?"

  "Yeah," I said. "God's throwing the big final at us. He's testing our mettle."

  "Mettle, shmettle," Stick said. "If that little sweetie in the back of the convertible takes a deep breath, her top'll fly off and kill that kid up front." After a moment he added, "What a way to go."

  He finished his beer and put the empty bottle on the floor between his legs. "That's all it is then? You're tired of the Tagliani case?"

  I wondered whether he was fishing and what he was fishing for. Then I thought, who cares, so he's fishing. Suddenly I had this crazy thought that while Stick was younger than me and newer at the game, he was protecting me. It was a feeling I had known in the past and it scared me because it made me think about Teddy.

  "I've been chasing Taglianis longer than anything else I've done in my whole life," I said. "Longer than college, longer than law school, longer than the army. I know everything there is to know about the fucking Taglianis. "

  "That's why you're here enjoying the land of sunshine and little honeys," Stick replied. "Think about it-you could be back in Cincinnati. Now that's something to get the blues over."

  "I hope you're not gonna be one of those jerks who always look on the bright side," I said caustically.

  In a crazy kind of way, I felt a strange sense of kinship with the Taglianis, as if I were the black sheep of the family. My life had been linked to theirs for nearly six years. I knew more about the Tagliani clan than I did about the Findleys or any of the hooligans. I knew what their wives and their girlfriends were like, what they liked to eat, how they dressed, what they watched on television, where they went on vacation, what they fought about, how often they made love. I even knew when their children were born.

  "You want to hear something really nuts?" I said. "I almost sent one of the Tagliani kids a birthday card once."

  "I knew a detective in D.C., used to send flowers to the funeral when he wasted somebody. He always signed the cards 'From a friend.'"

  "That's sick," I said.

  "You know what we oughta do, buddy? When this fiasco is all over we ought to take a month's leave, go down to the Keys. I got a couple of buddies live down there, sit around all day smoking dope and eating shrimp. That's the fuckin' life. Or maybe get the hell out of the country, hit the islands, Aruba, one of those. Sit around soaking up rays, getting laid, forget all this shit."

  "Wouldn't that be nice?" I said.

  "We'll do it," he said, slapping the steering wheel with the palm of his hand, and then he said suddenly, "Hey, you married?"

  "No, are you?"

  "Hell no. What woman in her right mind would spend more than a weekend at the Holiday Fuckin' Inn."

  "That's where you're staying, the Holiday Inn?"

  "Yeah. It's kind of like home, y'know. They're all exactly alike, no matter where you are. If you get one of the inside rooms overlooking the pool, the view doesn't even change."

  "I had this little basement apartment when I was in Cincy," I said. "I took it by the month because I didn't think I'd be there that long. There weren't even any pictures on the wall. Finally I went out and bought some used books and a couple of cheap prints to try and doll the place up but it didn't work. It always seemed like I was visiting somebody else when I came home."

  "Yeah, I know," he said. "It's been like that since Nam. We're disconnected. "

  That was the perfect word for it. Disconnected. For years I had worked with other partners but always at arm's length, like two people bumping each other in a crowd. I didn't know whether they were married, divorced; whether they had kids or hobbies. All I knew was whether they were good or bad cops and that we all suffered from the same anger, frustration, boredom, and loneliness.

  "Don't you ever wonder why in hell you picked this lousy job?" I asked him.

  "That's your trouble right there, Jake, you think too much. You get in trouble when you think too much."

  "No shit?"

  "No shit. Thinking can get you killed. You didn't make it through Nam thinking about it. Nobody did. The thinkers are still over there, doing their thinking on Boot Hill."

  There was a lot of truth in what he said. I was thinking too much. There was this thing about Cisco telling me to forget murder unless it was relevant. That bothered me. Hell, I was a cop and murder is murder, and part of the job, like it or not, is to keep people alive, like them or not, and keeping them alive meant finding the killer, no matter what Cisco said. It was all part of the territory. And there was the lie about Teddy which I hadn't thought about for years, because I had stuffed it down deep, along with the rest of my memories. I had walked away from the past, or thought I had. I had even stopped dreaming, though dreams are an occupational hazard for anyone who has seen combat. Now the dreams had started again. You can't escape dreams. They sneak up on you in the quiet of the night, shadow and smo
ke, reminding you of what has been. You don't dream about the war, you dream about things that are far worse. You dream about what might have been.

  "Hell, it's very complicated, Stick," I said finally. "I don't think I've got it sorted out enough to talk about. Sometimes I feel like I'm juggling with more balls than I can handle."

  "Then throw a couple away."

  "I don't know which ones to throw."

  "That's what life's all about," he said. "A process of elimination."

  "I thought I had it all worked out before I got here," I said. "It was very simple. Very uncomplicated."

  "That's the trap," he replied. "Didn't Nam teach you anything, Jake? Life is full of incoming mail. You get comfortable, you get dead."

  "That's what it's all about, Alfie?"

  "Sure. It's also the answer to your question. We're cops because we have to keep ducking the incoming. That's what keeps us alive."

  Finally I said, "Yeah, that's what we'll do, go down to the islands, lay out, and forget it all."

  "That's all that's bugging you, a little cabin fever then?"

  "Right."

  He flashed that crazy smile again.

  "I don't believe that for a fuckin' minute," he said as he cranked up the Black Maria.

  23

  HEY, MR. BATMAN

  Cowboy Lewis was waiting in the Warehouse when we got back. The big, rawboned man was sitting at a desk, laboriously hunting and pecking out a report on a form supplied by the department. He didn't worry about the little lines or how many there were. He typed over them, under them, through them, and past them. Getting it down, that was his objective. There were a lot of words x'd out and in one or two places he had forgotten to hit the spacer, but I had to give him A for effort. At least he was doing it. His face lit up like the aurora borealis when he saw me.

  "Hey, I was writing you a memo," he said, ripping it out of the Selectomatic in midword. "I'll just tell you."

  I looked at the partially completed report and told him that would be just fine. The thought occurred to me that I could sign it myself and send it to Cisco. That would probably end his bitching about my reports, or lack thereof, forever.

  "Salvatore says you're interested in that little weed, uh . . . " He paused, stymied temporarily because he had forgotten the name.

  "Cohen?" I helped.

  "Yeah. Little four-eyed wimp, got his head on a swivel?" he said, twisting his head furiously back and forth to illustrate what he meant.

  "That's him," I replied. "Unless times have changed, he's the bagman for the outfit."

  "Yeah," he said, which was his way of agreeing. "Carries one of those old-timey doctor's bags, black. Hangs on to that sucker like he's got the family jewels in there."

  "That's about what it is," said Stick, "the family jewels."

  "I shadowed him three days—Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, last week—and got him cold." Lewis took out a small black notebook. "He stays real busy in the morning. Moves around a lot. Goes to the bank every day at two o'clock, just as it closes."

  "Every day?" I asked.

  "All three days he went to the bank there on the river." He nodded.

  "This activity in the morning—does he always go to the same places?" Stick asked.

  Lewis shook his head. "He's all over town. But he always seems to wind up on the Strip around noon. Leastwise he did these three days. "

  "Where does he bank?" I queried.

  "Seacoast National, down there by the river like I said. Although sometimes he makes deposits at the branches."

  The good-news worm nibbled at my stomach. That was Charles Seaborn's homeplate.

  "Cash deposits?" I asked.

  "Never got that close," Lewis said with a shrug. "Didn't wanna tip my hand, y'see. He travels first class. Big black Caddy limo with a white driver looks like he could carry the heap in his arms. Then there's another pug in the front seat and a souped-up Dodge Charger with a high-speed rear end following them. Usually two, three mutts in it."

  "Like a little parade?" Stick suggested.

  "Yeah," he said with a smile, "a little parade. Any one of 'em could win an ugly contest, hands down. The Charger is usually in pretty tight. Half a block behind at best."

  "And he moves around a lot, you say?" I threw in.

  "Uh-huh. But he always ends up there at the bank by the river, just before it closes."

  He offered me his notebook, which had notations scrawled everywhere. Slantwise, up the sides of the pages, upside down. It was far worse than his typed report.

  "What does all this mean?" I asked.

  He looked a little hurt. "That's addresses and stuff," he said. "See here, 102 Fraser, that's an address where he stopped. Here's Bay Br. That's the Bay branch of the bank. Uh, I don't know what this one is for sure, but I can figure it out."

  "Any of these addresses mean anything to you?"

  "Well, some of 'em do. See here where I wrote down 'Port?' That's the Porthole Restaurant on the way out to the Strip. He hit there two days, Tuesday and Friday. 'Bron,' that's Bronicata's joint. That was Wednesday."

  "He sure eats a lot," I said.

  "Naw. Never stays that long. Five minutes, sometimes ten. I ambled in behind him once at the Porthole. He has a cup of coffee at the corner of the bar, goes to the can, and leaves. Two guys from the Charger sit a few stools away, another grabs a table near the door. The other two stand by the car. He sure ain't lonely."

  It was an excellent tail job, but it was impossible for me to decipher his notes.

  "This is a great job," I told him, "but I need a big favor. Can you list the places he stopped with the dates and times for me? Nothing fancy, just write them down in a straight line on a sheet of paper."

  "Can't read my writing, huh?" he said, looking hurt again.

  I tried to ease the pain. "It's strictly my problem," I said. "I have a very linear mind."

  His "Oh" told me that he didn't quite get my meaning but wasn't interested in pursuing it any further.

  "Does Dutch have you shadowing Cohen anymore?" I asked.

  "Tomorrow," he said. "I'm pulling a double. Logeto tonight, Cohen in the morning. Then I'm off a day."

  "Maybe he ought to watch the car instead of Cohen," Stick suggested. "Some of his operators probably have a key to the trunk. He parks in a lot or on a side street somewhere, goes into a place, and while he's gone, the henchman makes a drop in the trunk."

  "Excellent idea," I said. "Also you might switch cars with one of the other guys. These people are very nervous. They keep their eyes open; that's their job."

  "That and cutting down anybody that gets near the family jewels," Stick said.

  "Got it," Cowboy said. "I'll get right on this list." He returned to his desk.

  I pulled Stick out of earshot. "When he gets finished," I said, "we need to pull a link matrix on this stuff, just to see where these pickups overlap. The same with the rest of the gang. This Cohen is very particular. I'm sure he's smart enough to avoid any obvious patterns, but in the long run he's going to end up setting patterns whether he likes it or not."

  "What's the significance of the restaurants?" Stick asked.

  "I'd have to guess."

  "So guess."

  "Bronicata probably owns the Porthole, as well as his own place. Maybe some other eateries around town as well. That's probably dope money. The hotels' is probably skim. I'm sure they have double-entry books to keep the Lepers off their ass."

  Stick said, "We might have Salvatore pay Mortimer another visit and find out who he pays and when. That could give us a lead on the pros take."

  He had learned his lessons well, the Stick. He was revealing himself as a first-class detective with a handle on how the mob operates and I told him so.

  "Thanks, teacher," he said with that crooked smile of his. "Anything else?"

  "Yeah. It wouldn't hurt to know who owns the businesses they frequent. We've got to start putting together some kind of profile on the whole Triad operation her
e."

  "Charlie One Ear's the man for that. He knows all the tricks and you can't beat that computer he uses for a brain. I can help with the legwork."

  "Good enough," I said.

  "How about dinner tonight?" Stick asked. "Maybe hit a few hot spots afterward."

  "I'm tied up tonight," I said. "Can we shoot for tomorrow night?"

  Stick smiled. "I'll check my dance card," he said.

  Charlie One Ear appeared from the back of the building with an expression that spelled trouble.

  "You need to have a chat with Dutch, old man," he said to me.

  "Trouble?"

  "I think his feelings are hurt."

  "Oh, splendid," I replied.

  "I'll fill Charlie in," Stick said as I headed back toward the big man's office. Dutch operated out of a room the size of a walk-in closet. A desk, two chairs, one of which he occupied, and a window. The desk could have qualified for disaster aid. It was so littered with paper that he kept the phone, which he was using when I knocked, on the windowsill.

  "Talk to ya later," he barked into the phone, and slammed it down. I decided to close the door.

  "You don't have t'do that," he growled. "We ain't got any secrets here." He pointed to the other chair. "Take a load off."

  I sat down. He cleared his throat and moved junk around on his desktop for a minute or so, then took off his glasses and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

  "I don't wanna sound unappreciative," he started, "but I got a way of doing things, okay? It may not be SOP, and it may not be to the Fed's liking, but that's the way it is. Now, it seems to me that all of a sudden you're kind of running this operation, got my people running errands all over town, doing little numbers on wayward pimps, like that, and I like to get things off my chest, so I'm speaking my piece right up front."

  "Is that all that's bothering you?" I asked. I sensed that there was something else behind his annoyance but I wasn't sure exactly what.