Hooligans (24 page)

twenty years. Now, as it grew dark outside, shadows stretched across the room like accusing fingers

pointing at me. In the loneliness of the dark, romance wore off and reality took over. Other memories

started coming back to me. The past began to materialize again, unfettered by candlelight and daisies.

One face emerged from the harsh shadows and began to taunt me. It was Stonewall Titan.

I remembered Titan the night of the party, a little man, a shade under five five, who chose not to wear

a tux, opting instead for his usual dark, three-piece winter suit, and arriving just minutes before Doe

made her entrance.

More than once during the evening I caught him staring across the room at rue with those agate eyes

glittering in the candlelight. I didn‟t pay any attention to it at the time; it didn‟t seem important. Mr.

Stoney never smiled much anyway; he was a quiet man, constantly introspective or contemplative or

both, not an uncommon demeanor for short people. But now, reflecting on it, it strikes me that it was a

hard look, almost angry, as if 1 had offended him in some way.

After Doe came over and officially welcomed Teddy and me to her party, after she had taken my hand

and almost squeezed my fingers off and then drifted off to greet the rest of the guests, I worked my

way across the room and greeted the taut little man. He stared up at me and said, “You really stick to

it, don‟t you, boy? Been waiting a long time for tonight.”

“What do you mean?” I asked with a smile.

“Just don‟t count your chickens,” he said, and moved away.

That was the end of it. A caustic remark which he never repeated again during the summer I spent

with the Findleys. I had forgotten it. Looking back on the moment, it occurred to me that the little

man probably thought me unworthy of the Findley dowry. And since that night seemed to be the end

of my probation period, he apparently had been overruled. After that, I was treated more like family

than ever before. But Stonewall Titan never warmed up to me, I presume because I had offended him

by going the distance.

Was I really being tested during those years or was it just my paranoia, an excuse to back away from

another emotional commitment, to remain disconnected, as Stick called it? None of this had occurred

to me at the time. When you‟re nineteen or twenty years old and it‟s all going your way, you don‟t

think about such things.

But now in the darkness of the room, my suspicions were stirred.

Was that it? Was it all part of the Findley test? Were Doe and Teddy part of that three-year probation

during which they sized me up and checked me out for longevity_ consistency, durability, loyalty, all

the
important
things? Perhaps I had never passed the test at all. Perhaps they had seen in me some fatal

flaw that I myself did not perceive, something more ominous than bad ankles, something that did not

prevent Teddy from accepting me as his best friend, but precluded my becoming one of the Findley

inheritors. Perhaps my blood had never been blue enough.

Wake up, Kilmer.

Lying there, I began to feel like a piece of flux caught between two magnets. One drew me toward

Doe and Chief and the sweet life that might still be there. The other, toward the Taglianis of the

world, which was, ironically, a much safer place to be. In a funny way, I trusted the Taglianis

precisely because I knew I
couldn‟t
trust them and there was safety in that knowledge.

A lot of raw ends were showing. It scared me. It clouded my judgment. Dunetown was dangerous for

me. It was opening me up. My Achilles‟ heel was showing.

The magnets were drawing me out of my safe places.

I lay there, immobilized, staring at the lazy ceiling fan until the room was totally dark. At five after

nine the phone rang. It rang for a long time. At twenty after, it rang again. I didn‟t move. I lay there

like a statue. I couldn‟t talk to her, not right then. At nine thirty it rang twelve times; I counted them.

After that, every five minutes. At five of ten I heard a scratching at the door. It sounded like a

cockroach crawling across a kitchen cabinet. I raised upon one elbow and looked over. There was a

slip of paper under the door.

I picked it up and sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes before I turned on the light, it was a

phone message from Dutch Morehead.

Tony Logeto had made the list.

28

It didn‟t take me five minutes to get dressed. As I hurried through the lobby toward the garage, the

Black Maria roared into the motor lobby and screeched to a stop. The front door swung open and I

crawled in. Stick dropped it into first arid left an inch of rubber in the drive.

“I hope to hell the place isn‟t far,” I moaned.

“Ten minutes,” he said, pulling the red light on the top of the car and flicking on the siren. it was the

longest ten minutes of my life. We boomed south along the river, where late-returning shrimp boats

were reduced to streaks of light.

The place was near Back O‟Town, a row house that had been converted into pleasant apartments

facing the small river they called Hampton Run. Flat roof, fancy front door; a classy-looking place.

There were a lot of police cars parked haphazardly in the narrow street in front.

Cowboy Lewis was standing by the door, looking very unhappy.

“I fucked up,” he said tightly. “They got by me.”

“Who got by you, Cowboy?” I asked.

“Whoever did them in,” he said, looking at my feet.

“Them?” Stick said.

“There‟s two of „em,” he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the building. “Second floor

in the front.”

“Who else?” I asked as we headed for the door.

“Della Norman,” he said.

A new name!

“Should that mean something to me?” I asked.

“She was Longnose Graves‟ favourite lady,” said Stick.

“Yeah, but she was in bed with Logeto „when he got hit,” Lewis added.

I whistled through my teeth.

The mess was in a second-floor bedroom.

“The singing rope,” I said, looking at the man‟s neck.

Dutch‟s “Huh?” told me he had never heard of the trick.

“That‟s what the Vietnamese call it, the singing rope. A knock-off of the Thuggee knot.”

It was also known among the British s the Bombay Burke— Bombay because the Thuggee stranglers

operated in India, Burke being British slang for strangulation, named after an Englishman who tried to

kill Queen Victoria, failed, arid had his neck stretched for his trouble.

It had been more than a dozen years since I had last seen that particular kind of bruise. It was blood

red and about the size of a half dollar, in the soft place at the base of Logeto‟s skull on the back of his

neck. The deep, gnarled, bloody ring around his throat filled in the picture.

“Anybody else here?” Stick asked Dutch.

“Salvatore,” Dutch answered. “He‟s out checking the neighborhood.”

“I haven‟t seen a mark like that since Nam,” I said.

“Beautiful. What in hell next?” said the weary lieutenant.

Cowboy Lewis filled the doorway, the handle of a Cobra .357 looming from the front of his pants,

right over the fly.

“If that goes off accidentally, you‟re gonna have to change your name,” Dutch said. Lewis didn‟t say

anything. “Okay,” said Dutch, “let‟s have the long and short of it.”

“It‟s SOP, Logeto coming over here. It‟s every Monday night, rain or shine, six o‟clock or close to it.

he usually stays an hour, hour and a half. He had two limos and four shooters. He goes in, the four

goons start pitching coins in the hail. Two hours later the mark‟s still there. About eight thirty, I

started getting nervous. Finally I decided to take the door, have a look.”

“By yourself, with four gorillas between you and Logeto? That don‟t call for backup in your book?”

Dutch demanded.

Cowboy shrugged. “I had buckshot loads in the Magnum. I go in, start up the stairs, get some shit,

show the cannon. „You wanna get picked up in a dustpan, flick around‟ is all I told „em.

I put my ear against the door, give a call or two. Nothin‟. So I kicked it in.”

He swung his arm casually around the room, indicating what he had found.

The bed looked like a ploughed field. Covers and sheets half on the floor, pillows on head and foot.

The woman lay on her side naked, her hair sprawled across her face. Logeto was on his face, fully

dressed, both fists clutching the sheets, his feet hanging off the bed but not quite touching the floor.

“So that‟s Della Norman,” I said. Even in death, you could tell she was a dish.

“Apeshit,” Stick said.

“He means Longnose ain‟t gonna handle this too well,” Dutch said, and shook his head ruefully. “A

new wrinkle,” he went on. “What in hell was Tony Logeto doin‟, shacked up with the Nose‟s

favourite lady?”

The arrival of Chess, the ME, broke his thought train. Chess was short and on the tubby side, wearing

old pants and a pyjama top stuffed half in and half out of his pants. He was not too happy about being

there.

“And who do we have here?” he asked.

“Tagliani‟s son-in-law and Longnose Graves‟ girlfriend.”

Chess looked up with a lascivious grin. “Isn‟t that interesting,” he said. “It‟s the best part of the job,

y‟know, the inside stuff. I wonder how Longnose is going to take this.”

“Badly,” Stick chimed in.

Chess put down his black satchel. “Ladies first. Let‟s get some pictures before I mess things up.”

The photographer appeared, shot the room top and bottom, and was gone in ten minutes. The doc

stepped in and started his work, jabbering continually as he did.

“We got a simple strangulation here, on the woman. From the front I‟d say. See the thumbprints here

on her larynx. Death was quick. My guess‟s her carotid, jugular, the whole shooting match in her

throat is crushed. Powerful set of hands at work here.”

He kept probing, talking while studying the corpse.

“You gotta slow down there, Dutch. The freezer downtown is full and we don‟t have but five people

in pathology and I got a vacation comin‟ up in three months. It would be nice to be finished by then.”

“Ho, ho, ho,” Dutch said, his sense of humour wearing thin, as was all of ours.

I looked around the apartment while the ME continued his work. It occupied the front side of the

building. The living room, bedroom, and kitchen all faced the street. The place was decorated in early

nothing. Expensive furniture that didn‟t go together. Her closet had enough clothes in it to start a

salon.

The bathroom and several closets were adjacent to an alley that ran along the side of the building.

There was only one door into the apartment, the one we had all come in through.

I ambled into the bathroom. It was large, with a double sink, commode, step-in tub, and stall shower.

The window over the commode was open and the curtains shifted idly in the breeze. I took a look out.

Straight up to the roof, straight down to the street.

I went back to the scene of the crime.

A new face had appeared. His name was Braun, out of homicide, a short, slender, hawk-faced man

with age spots on the backs of his hands and dark hair turning white.

Braun said in a nasal voice, “I hear, Dutch, that you‟re planning to retire tomorrow. There won‟t be

anything left for you t‟do.”

Dutch said, “Don‟t make me laugh too hard, I‟ll wet my pants.”

“How many is this between last night and tonight?” Braun asked, continuing to needle the big man.

“Cot enough for a football game yet?”

“Just do yer job, okay, Braun? Leave the comedy to Bob Hope.”

The homicide cop looked at Della Norman.

“Lookit that spook‟s tits. Bet there was some good pussy went through the window when she blinked

out.”

“You want maybe we should all step out in the hall for a minute or two while you get a little?” Dutch

chided.

“Up yours,” Braun said.

All class.

Chess finished his work on the woman and turned to Logeto.

“What‟ve we got here?” Chess said. „Looks as though there‟s been a hangin‟.”

“Jake here says this job looks like an old Vietnam trick called the singin‟ string or something.”

“D‟they learn it on The Lawrence Welk Show?” Braun asked.

“It‟s called the singing rope,” I corrected. “The way it works, you take a rope, tie a knot halfway

down it, and tie a small stick in the end. The Arvies would come up behind their target, whip the rope

around his throat, catch the stick, and twist. The knot pops the main nerve in the back of the neck and

paralyses the mark. After that, all it takes is about sixty seconds or so to finish the job.”

“You like havin‟ the Feds do yer thinkin‟ fer yuh?” Braun asked. Cowboy Lewis made a growling

sound deep in his throat and

balled up his fists. Dutch laid a gentle hand on the big man‟s shoulder.

“Anybody touch anything up here?” Chess asked.

The Cowboy shifted from one foot to the other.

“I used toilet paper when I phoned in it. No prints,” Cowboy said.

“Excellent, m‟boy. I see you teach them right,” Chess said to Dutch.

“Yeah, all yuh gotta do now‟s teach „em to talk,” Braun said.

“Cowboy, go downstairs, see what you can shake outta those dago coin-tossers,” Dutch said, probably

saving Braun a trip to intensive care. When Lewis was gone, Dutch said to Braun, “What‟s your

problem, putz?”

“You and your special headquarters and shit,” said Braun. “So far looks t‟me like all you‟ve done is