Hooligans (33 page)

It wasn‟t much more than that, although it seemed a sturdy enough place. It was built on stilts about

twenty yards off shore and was connected to land by a wooden bridge no more than three feet wide.

The tide was in and the cabin, which looked about two rooms large with deck surrounding it and

screened porch at one end, was perched barely three feet above the water. A small boat, tied to one

end of the platform, rocked gently on the calm surface of the bay.

Nesbitt was right—there wasn‟t a blade of grass within twenty yards of the cabin.

The place was as still as a church at dawn.

A slate-gray Continental was parked under the trees near the water‟s edge. It had been there awhile;

the hood was as cool as the rest of the car. I walked out to the edge of the clearing and held my hands

out, prayer style, palms up.

“O‟Brian? It‟s me, Kilmer.”

A mockingbird cried back at me arid darted off through the palmettos. Somewhere out near the shack

a fish jumped in the water. Then, not a sound.

I waited a moment or two.

“It‟s Jake Kilmer,” I yelled. “I‟m coming on out.”

Still nothing.

I tucked both sides of my jacket in the back of my belt to show him 1 wasn‟t wearing a gun and

started walking out onto the platform, holding on to both railings so he could see my hands.

“O‟Brian!”

A fish jumped underfoot and startled me. I could see why O‟Brian had built his shack on this spot. He

could drop a line out the window and fish without getting out of bed.

“O‟Brian, it‟s Kilmer. You around?”

Still no answer.

I reached the cabin. The front door was locked, so I went around to the porch, held my face up against

the screen, cupped my eyes, and peered inside. The place was as empty as a dead man‟s dream.

“O‟Brian?”

Still no sounds, except the tie line of the boat, grinding against the wooden railing.

Worms began to nibble at my stomach.

“Hey, O‟Brian, are you in there?” I yelled. I startled an old pelican setting on a corner of the deck and

he lumbered away, squawking as he went. There was no answer.

I tried the screen door and it was open. The cabin was empty; nobody was under the bed or stuffed in

the shower, But the radio was on with the volume turned all the way down, and the beginnings of a

fishing lure dangled from a vise on the porch table.

The worms stopped nibbling and started gnawing at my insides.

I went back outside and started around the deck. The boat was empty.

I might have missed the two bullet holes except for the blood. It was splattered around two small

nicks in the rear wall of the cabin; crimson, baked almost brown in the hot sunlight, yet still sticky to

the touch.

The worms in my stomach grew to coiled snakes.

“Oh, shit!” I heard myself whisper.

I knelt down on the deck and peered cautiously under the cabin. The first thing I saw was a foot in a

red sweat sock jammed in the juncture of two support posts. The foot belonged to Jigs O‟Brian. The

rest of him was floating face down, hands straight out at his sides, as if he were trying to embrace the

bay.

Fish were nibbling at the thin red strands that leaked from his head like the tentacles of a jellyfish.

I didn‟t need a medical degree to tell he was DOA.

40

SKEELER’S JOINT

Dutch almost swallowed the phone when I got him on the line. He was on his way before I hung up.

The coroner reacted in much the same way.

Dutch arrived fifteen minutes later with Salvatore at the wheel, followed by an ambulance with the

coroner and his forensics team close behind.

The big German lumbered out to the cabin with his hands in his pants pockets, an unlit Camel

dangling from the corner of his mouth, and stared ruefully down at me through his thick glasses.

Salvatore was behind him, glowering like a man looking for a fight.

“I take the full rap for this one,” I said. “If you hadn‟t called Salvatore off, O‟Brian might be alive

now.”

“1 should have left Salvatore on his tail,” Dutch said. “That was my mistake.”

“You just did what I asked,” I said. “I told O‟Brian I‟d be alone. Where are your pals from

homicide?”

“On the way,” he said with a roll of his eyes, adding, “What did it this time, a flamethrower?”

“Small caliber, very likely a submachine gun,” I said.

“How do you figure that?”

“He‟s got a row of. 22‟s from his forehead to his chin so perfect the line could‟ve been drawn with a

straightedge. My guess is, the first couple of shots knocked his head back. The gun was firing so fast

it just drew a line right down his face, zip, like that.”

I drew an invisible line from my forehead to my chin with a forefinger.

“Some gun,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “There‟s only one weapon I can think of that fits the bill.”

“Well, don‟t keep us in suspense,” said Dutch. Salvatore began to show signs of interest. He stopped

staring into space long enough to give rue the dead eye.

“The American 180. Fires thirty rounds a second. Sounds like a dentist‟s drill when it goes off.”

“Like on the tape of the Tagliani job,” Dutch said.

“Yeah, just like that. I figure whoever aced him came in by boat and whacked O‟Brian when he came

out of the cabin. Two of the slugs went through his head; they‟re in the back wall.”

“So what does all that mean to us?” Dutch said.

While the coroner was studying the bloodstained holes in the back wall of the cabin, his men were

shooting pictures of O‟Brian‟s body from everywhere but underwater.

“Chevos owns boats,” I said. “It‟s his thing. I‟ve heard he lives at the Thunder Point Marina. Where

would that be from here?”

Dutch pointed due east. Thunder Point was a mile away, a misty, low, white structure surrounded by

miniature boats.

“You really want to pin this one on Nance, don‟t you?” Dutch asked.

“Maybe.”

“Look, I got nothing against headhunting; sometimes it can get great results. You got something to

settle with that
sheiss kopf
it‟s okay with me.”

The coroner dug the two bullets out of the wall and went back across the bridge to shore.

“Maybe he‟s holed up on a boat,” I said.

“That‟s assuming he knows we‟re looking for him.”

“Well, hell, I make a lot of mistakes,” I said.

Dutch put a paw on my shoulder. “Aw, don‟t we all,” he said, puffing that discussion to bed. He

strolled up and down the deck of O‟Brian‟s shack, berating himself, like an orator grading his own

speech.

Salvatore stood in one place, staring back into space and grinding fist into palm, like a bomb looking

for someplace to go off.

“We should‟ve brought „em all in, the whole damn bunch,” Dutch said, “get it out in the open. I laid

off because it‟s homicide‟s baby. Well, it‟s our baby too. The Red Sea‟ll turn Kelly green before that

bunch of
pfutzlukers
get their heads out far enough to see daylight. Ain‟t it just wonderful!” He stared

off toward „Thunder Point. “I‟m gonna haul that bunch of
ash lochers
in and get some answers. If

nothing else, maybe we can throw these killers off their stride.”

His tirade brought only a grunt from Salvatore, who was glaring back into space.

Dutch sighed. “Okay, let‟s see who we got left.”

He started counting them off on his fingers. “There‟s the Bobbsey Twins, Costello and Cohen. Then

there‟s Stizano and the pasta king, Bronicata, and your pals, Chevos and Nance. I miss anybody?”

There wasn‟t anybody else. Like Christie‟s Ten Little Indians, the field was running out.

“One thing,” I said. “If you start hauling these people in, you better have a lot of help. They come

complete with pistoleros. And you‟ll also be dealing with Leo Costello. He‟s quick and a helluva lot

smarter than you‟d like him
to
be. The son of a bitch sleeps with a habeas corpus under his pillow.”

“I‟ll keep that in mind,” Dutch said.

Salvatore finally broke his silence. He looked at me and said, “What it is with me, see, I coulda

followed that ugly fuckin‟ Mick into his bedroom and held his nuts while he balled his old lady and he

still wouldn‟t know I was there. [got a talent for that kind of thing. Me and Zapata, we‟re the invisible

men.”

“I told him I‟d be alone,” I protested. “We took a chance, what can I tell you? Next time I‟ll know

better.”

He stared at me for a beat or two longer and suddenly said, “Ah, shit, let‟s forget it.”

“What do you think O‟Brian wanted?” Dutch asked.

“I don‟t know, but if anybody knows, Nesbitt does,” I said. “Let‟s put him on the radio, find out his

story.”

“Done,” said Dutch. “I‟ll add him to the list.”

We walked back across the narrow pier to solid land, where the coroner flagged us down.

“Stoney Titan‟s on his way out,” he said, and turned to me. “He says he wants a word or two with

you.”

“Looks like the old man‟s finally throwing his oar in,” Dutch said.

I didn‟t feel up to my first round with Titan; I had something else on my mind. “I‟ve got some things

to do,” I told Dutch. “You know as much about this mess as I do; you talk to the old man.”

“He‟s not gonna like that even a little bit,” the big man growled.

“Tough shit,” I said, and drove off toward Benny‟s Barbecue. I was anxious to see if the gray Olds

was still there. It wasn‟t, but as I turned into the place, Stonewall „Titan‟s black limo passed me,

going like he was late for the policemen‟s ball.

I pulled around to the back of Bennys, oyster shells crunching under my tires, and found a tallish,

deeply tanned man with dishwater-blond hair that had seen too much sun and surf loading soft-drink

crates through the back door of the place. He was wearing black denim shorts and dirty sneakers, no

shirt, and could have been thirty, fifty, or anything between.

“We don‟t open until five,” he said as I got out of the car.

“I‟m looking for a pal of mine,” I said, following him inside. The place was dark and there was the

leftover chill of last night‟s air conditioning lingering in the air, which smelled of stale beer and

shrimp He looked at me over his shoulder.

“1 don‟t know anybody,” he said flatly. “Half the time I can‟t remember my kids‟ names.”

“1 saw his car here a little earlier,” I said.

“No kidding. Maybe he had a flat.”

“He wasn‟t around.”

“Probably ran outta gas. Maybe he had to walk up to the boulevard, pick up a can.”

“Could be. I kind of felt he was in here.”

“Hmm,” he said, stacking the soft drinks in the corner. “You know how long I been here in this spot?”

“No, but I bet you‟re going to tell me.”

He drew two beers from the spigot behind the bar and slid one across the bar to me. It was colder than

Christmas in the Yukon.

“Thirty-three years. Be thirty-four in September.”

I sipped the beer and stared at him.

“You know why I been here this long?” he went on.

“You mind your own business,” I said.

“Right on the button.”

“This guy‟s name is Nesbitt. Little squirt with roving eyeballs.”

“You ain‟t been listening to me,” he said.

“Sure I have,” I said, sipping my beer. “If a fellow looks like that should come back by, tell him

Kilmer says we need to have a talk. Real bad.”

“That you? Kilmer?”

“Uh-huh.”

“A guy I knew once had a mark on him, thought he was safe in downtown Pittsburgh. Then a

wheelbarrow hill of cement fell off a six-story building right on his head.”

The metaphor seemed a little vague to me, but I took a stab at retorting.

“Tell him I won‟t drop any cement on his head.”

The bartender chuckled and held out a hand. “Ben Skeeler,” he said. “The place used to be called

Skeeler‟s but everybody kept sayin‟ „Let‟s go to Benny‟s so I finally changed the sign.”

He shook hands like he meant it.

“Long as we‟re being so formal, maybe I could see some ID,” the cautious man said.

“That‟s fair enough,” I said, and showed him my buzzer.

He looked at it and nodded. “I hope you‟re straight. The way I get it, you‟re straight, but this town

car‟ bend an evangelist faster than he can say amen.”

I waited for more.

“Tough, too. I heard you was tough”

“I talk a good game,” I said finally.

“These days, you know, you never can be too sure.”

“Uh-huh.”

“County ambulance just went by actin‟ real serious,” he said. “You wouldn‟t know anything about

that, would you?”

“Man named O‟Brian just got himself killed out on the bay,” I said.

His eyes got startled for a moment and then he looked down into his beer glass. “That so” was all he

said. He pulled on his ear, then took a folded-up paper napkin out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“Dab your lips,” he said. “I gotta get back to work.”

He went outside and I unfolded the napkin. The message was written hurriedly in ballpoint that had

torn through the napkin in a couple of places and left several inkblots at the end of words. It said:

“Uncle Jolly‟s Fillup, route 1-4 south about 18 miles. Tonight, 9 p.m. Come alone.”

No signature. Skeeler came back with another crate of soft drinks.

“You know a place called Jolly‟s Fillup, route 14 south of town?”

“Sounds like a filling station, don‟t it?” he said.

“Now that you mention it.”

“You‟ll know it when you get there” he said, and went back outside. I finished my beer and followed

him.

“Thanks for the beer. Maybe I‟ll come back and try the shrimp,” I said as I got into the car.