Hooligans (58 page)

front door.

Outside, all hell had broken loose.

At least two of Nance‟s shooters and one of Craves‟ men were down in the street.

Pedestrians were cowering behind parked cars and in alleyways.

The Church was in the middle of a block with Gordon Street in front of it and Marsh Street behind.

Empty lots on both sides. It was under siege. The front of the place was aflame, as was a police car

sitting sideways in the middle of Gordon Street on blown-out tires.

Both ends of the street were clogged with blue and whites.

The mob car slammed on its brakes as it neared Gordon, and the human cargo hanging on to the door

was vaulted end over end into the street. He lay there clutching his ankles until a volley of gunfire

from the Church stilled him. The Nance car spun around and started back our way. As it did, Dutch

Morehead pulled his Olds out of Marsh Street, into the lot, jumped out, and dashed for cover. The Kid

shot off a rear tire and most of the rim as the sedan roared past. The Nance car lost control, tried to

swerve out of the path of the Olds, slammed into the front end of the Dutchman‟s car, vaulted over it,

and slid to a grinding halt on its side.

Nance‟s men started crawling out of doors and windows. Cops swarmed up from Marsh Street and

were all over them.

The other car was nowhere to be seen. Then it suddenly burst backward out of an alley beside the

drugstore and into Gordon Street, spun around on screaming brakes, and careened into the lot as the

Stick‟s black Pontiac roared out of the alley in pursuit. Longnose Graves dashed from the door of the

Church and emptied his pistol into the fleeing car.

As Nance‟s car passed our doorway, showering dirt and debris toward us, the Mufalatta Kid sent one

burst into its rear window. He could handle a shotgun, all right, but it didn‟t slow down the escaping

car. It cut left into Marsh, glanced off a police car, sideswiped a brick wall, and was gone, with Stick

growling off after it.

Fire trucks and ambulances arrived. More confusion.

The Church was burning out of control. Graves‟ people tumbled out into the street, coughing and

rubbing their eyes. A fast body count showed three of Nance‟s men dead to two of Graves‟ gunmen.

Graves was not in the roundup.

Dutch said, “He must‟ve slipped us in the confusion.”

I didn‟t believe that. I went back to the side door and ran upstairs. Smoke swirled through the Church.

Flames were snapping at the far end of the room.

Graves was sitting on his wooden throne, tie askew, suit and face smoke-smeared, a bullet hole high

in his left chest, his .38 aimed at the floor. He looked up with surprise as I stumbled through the

smoke to the booth.

He raised the pistol and pointed it at my head. His rasping voice said, “Shit, dog lover, you don‟t

know when you‟re well off.”

“Why don‟t you get out of here while you can,” I said.

“I ought to kill you on general principles,” he said.

“What‟s stopping you?”

His finger squeezed and an electric shock sizzled through me. The hammer clicked harmlessly.

“Out of bullets, poet,” he said, laughed, and threw the gun at my feet.

67

Dutch and I piled into the Kid‟s car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. It was like a frontline medcorps unit. Doctors, nurses, and attendants raced in and out of doors in bloodstained robes,

while several of the wounded lay on stretchers in the hallway, waiting their turn in the emergency

room.

“How bad is this one?” a hawk-faced nurse asked as they wheeled Graves in, a blood bottle stuck in

his arm.

“Bullet in the chest and bleeding,” the attendant said.

“Room three,” she snapped officiously, and then to Graves, “Do you have hospitalization?”

Graves looked up at her and managed a smile.

“I‟m on welfare, lady,” he whispered. And they wheeled him away.

Kite Lange and Dutch filled us in on the particulars. Dutch had hardly finished his phone call to me

when Nance and his sidekicks had whipped into the street. One car had gone in from Morgan Street,

across the empty lot to the side door. Nance had driven straight to the front of the church, gunned

down one of Graves‟ men, and thrown a stick of dynamite through the front door. Then all hell

exploded. Lange, coming in close behind, rammed Nance‟s car and ruined his own in the process.

Nance had headed up the alley beside the drugstore, only to run into Stick coming toward him,

slammed into reverse, and backed out. We knew the rest of the story.

“My car‟s a wreck,” Lange moaned.

“Your car was already a wreck,” said the Kid. “We‟ll go to the city dump tomorrow and get you

another one.”

Dutch was as busy as a centipede with athlete‟s foot, assigning cops to the wounded and trying to get

a final count on dead and injured. Miraculously, only one cop had been hurt in the melee. He had

broken a toe jumping out of his burning patrol car. A quick count showed two of Graves‟ men dead,

three shot or burned, and the boss himself fighting for his life. Five more had been arrested at the

scene.

“We may be missing one or two more,” volunteered the Kid. “I think there was thirteen of them,

countin‟ Graves.”

Nance had not fared well either. Three were dead, two more hanging on for dear life, two had minor

wounds, and three were in custody.

“One of „em looks like he got struck by lightning,” Dutch said. “The whole top of his head‟s stove

in.”

“That was me,” the Kid muttered.

“What‟d you hit him with, a meat cleaver?” asked Dutch.

“Table leg.”

“That‟s gonna look great on the report,” Dutch said.

“Anybody see how many there were in the getaway car with Nance?”

“Three or four,” said the Kid.

“Not bad,” I said. “This may have been Waterloo for both gangs. They‟ve got to be running out of

hoodlums about now.”

“Let‟s hope Stick nailed Nance and the rest of his bunch,” Dutch said.

“If anybody can, he can,” I said.

I was right—and wrong.

A few minutes later an ambulance wheeled into emergency, followed by the Stick. The ambulance

held three more of Turk Nance‟s gunmen, one of whom had literally lost his head in the shooting.

“That was me, too,” Mufalatta murmured again.

“You had some day,” Lange said.

No Nance.

“They headed for the interstate bridge,” Stick explained. “I radioed ahead, had the bridge sealed off.

They tried to go cross-country and hit a delivery truck. Nance was AWOL. I don‟t know what the hell

happened to him, but I‟ve put an all points out on him.”

“We got the little s.o.b. this time,” Dutch said. “We can nail him with murder, arson, creating a public

nuisance, discharging firearms in the street.

“Yeah,” 1 said, “all we got to do is find him.”

“How about Nose?” the Kid asked. “What do we charge him with? He was just protecting his ass.”

“Concealed weapons?” Stick suggested.

“There wasn‟t anything concealed about them,” Dutch said. “1 don‟t know what we‟re gonna do

about Nose. There‟s gotta be something we can stick him with.”

“One thing for certain,” Stick said, “it‟s sure as hell gonna attract a lot of people.”

It did. Within thirty minutes Chief Walters, Titan, Donleavy, and several other dignitaries were in the

emergency clinic, all asking questions. I had better things to do. 1 asked the Stick to run me back to

the park to get my car and check on the progress of our black-water diver. As we started to leave,

Titan grabbed my arm.

“What the hell happened over there?” he demanded.

“Ask Dutch,” I said. “I‟m busy.”

“I‟ll bet my pension you shook up this ruckus,” he said, his voice beginning to rise. He sounded like a

dog whining.

“That‟s right. I attacked all twenty-five of them with my nail file,” I said, and walked out.

A few doors down from emergency, bronze casket was being loaded through the morgue entrance into

a hearse. Doe Raines was standing alone, watching the procedure. I walked down to her. She was

wearing a severe black suit and a black hat and was carrying a black purse. As usual, she was dressed

impeccably for the occasion.

“I‟m sorry,” I said. “If it‟s any consolation, I really think Harry was one of the few people in this town

who weren‟t involved in the whole mess. His only sin was naiveté.”

She looked up at me. She was drifting aimlessly through a bad dream. Her makeup, heavier than

usual, could not cover the grief lines around her eyes. Her voice, low and husky with sorrow, sounded

like it was coming from someplace far, far away.

“It‟s been ghastly,” she said in a tiny voice. “The newspapers in Atlanta and New York have been

calling. TV stations. I don‟t know what to say.”

“Let somebody else do the talking. Let Donleavy do it. Besides, when they get down here they‟re

going to find a lot more to interest them than you.”

“I‟ve done a lot of thinking,” she said. “Can we talk a little later on? I‟ll be at the funeral home until

seven. Can we have a drink after that?”

“Sure.”

“I‟ll be at the townhouse,” she said. “It‟s on Palm right up the street from the hotel. The Breezes.”

“I‟ll see you about seven thirty,” I said.

“Yes, thank you,” she murmured, shifting her attention back to the hearse.

I watched her drive away, remembering what DeeDee had said about Doe being a princess and

everything always working out well for her.

The Stick drove back to the park like a human being, apparently having had enough action to hold

him for an hour or two. The fog had lifted and a warm drizzle had started. We found Baker emptyhanded.

“I have just about cleared the shelf,” he said. “But I been thinking, this killer might just have thrown

the gun up under the pier. For one thing, it would not have made as loud a sound such as throwing it

out in the river would have.”

“What‟s under there?” I asked.

“One helluva mess,” Whippet said around his chewing tobacco.

“It‟s liken I told you, sir,” Baker said. “Cables, old rope, ship propellers, lust a lot of junk. The

weapon could have slipped down amongst all that there, but it might be stuck close up to the surface

of it also. I‟ll certainly give her a try.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I looked at my watch. It was barely one o‟clock but it seemed like days since dawn. I sat down under

a tree to think while the Stick went off for hot dogs and Cokes. Then I remembered the tape recorder.

I took it out and rewound it. There was an hour‟s worth of tape, all of it full, none of it worth the

bother. The Stick came back and we listened as we ate.

We could hear Raines‟ voice, muttering, sometimes yelling in agony. Once it sounded like he was

giving football signals. Another time he said Doe‟s name very distinctly, but nothing before or after it.

Nothing else was intelligible.

I looked at Seaborn‟s window several times, but if he was there, he wasn‟t showing himself. Someone

had already placed a black wreath on the side door of Warehouse Three.

“What next?” the Stick asked.

“I‟m going to sit here for a while, while Baker plumbs the murky depths,” I said.

“It‟s swarthy depths,” said the Stick. “He‟s plumbing the swarthy depths.”

“Right, swarthy,” I said.

We watched Baker‟s air bubbles playing on the surface of the river while I mentally catalogued the

events of the previous five days. Ideas were forming slowly. There‟s a thin line between what is

logically true and what is fact, what can be proven and what can‟t. Most of my ideas were logically

true. Proving them was going to be touchy. I decided to go for broke, throw the long bomb, and break

up the ballgame. it was a risky plan but Stick loved it. I knew he would. It appealed to every perverse

bone in his body.

Facing Nose Graves had been nervy. Now it was time to try something rash.

68

It was nearly five when I went to the bank. It was closed but I had been watching the place for two

hours and I knew Seaborn was still there, Now I could see him, through the double glass doors, sitting

back in his office behind that massive desk, talking frantically into the phone.

I tapped on the front door. A bank guard, swaybacked by time, shuffled slowly up, tried to talk to me

through the door, and gave up. I could have driven to Key West in the time it took him to open the

door. He fiddled with his keys, took two or three stabs at the latch before he got the key in, arid finally

got the door open a sliver.

“We‟re closed,” he said, in a patronizing voice that sounded like it was squeezed from a balloon.

“Open at nine in the morning.”

“I‟ve got an appointment with Mr.
Seaborn,” I said. I was getting almost casual about lying.

He looked me up and down, sizing me up. “I‟ll check with the president,” he said. “What was the

name?”

“Khmer. it still is.,,

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” I said.

He closed and locked the door and shuffled across a wide, cold, marble lobby to the office in the back.

I could see his stooped frame, silhouetted in Seaborn‟s doorway. Finally he turned and sine-footed

back to the door. He didn‟t have a fast bone in his body.

He opened it another sliver.

“The president says he‟s busy and—”

I had my wallet out and I flashed my buzzer as I shoved past the old gentleman. “The hell with

protocol,” I said. “This is business.”

Seaborn looked up wide-eyed when I entered the office. I closed the door behind me and leaned