Hooligans (62 page)

panicked and took it to Tagliani, who had Leadbetter burned. That‟s when Rio was set up and

Tagliani put Donleavy on the sleeve.”

“And had him on the hook forever,” Galavanti said.

“You get an A in the course. Want to try Cherry McGee next?”

“Cherry McGee? How about the Kennedys and Anwar Sadat?” she said. “Let‟s not leave anybody

out.”

“You want to finish the story for me?‟ I said.

“Go ahead, you‟re doing great,” she said. “Except that Long-nose Graves killed Cherry McGee arid

his hoodlums.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Didn‟t he?”

“Nope.”

“Humph,” she said. “I‟ll admit we tried everything but prayer to hang it on Graves.”

“And couldn‟t,” I said, “because he didn‟t do it. At least Graves says he didn‟t and I‟m inclined to

believe him.”

“Why?”

“I kind of like him.”

“Well, that‟s one hell of a good, legitimate reason,” she said caustically.

“Why would he deny it?” I said. “Everybody thinks he did it anyway, and he wanted to. Somebody

beat him to it.”

“Any ideas?” she asked, then, waving her hand vigorously in front of her face, said, “How silly of me,

I‟m sure you do.”

“Same cast,” I said.

“Are you saying Tagliani killed his own man?”

“Cherry McGee and Graves were in a Mexican standoff and Donleavy was on the spot again. He had

to stop all the shooting before Raines got nervous. When Tagliani couldn‟t nail Graves, he eliminated

McGee. McGee was a hired hand, he wasn‟t family. Tagliani couldn‟t have cared less.”

She whistled softly through her teeth. “Can we prove any of this?” she asked.

“Donleavy and Seaborn may break down and unload it all,” I said. “But if you‟re as good as they say

you are, it doesn‟t make any difference. Donleavy can only hang once, and most of the Taglianis who

were involved are probably dead.”

She looked at me like she was waiting for a second shoe to drop. Finally she said, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well, what do you want out of all this?”

I said, “Cohen, alive and spilling his guts. Then I‟ll have my RICO case. It would help me a lot if you

got a court order to freeze the pyramid account until we can get into it. I‟d like to know nobody‟s

going to push the erase button on the computer before we get there.”

“I‟ll take care of that in short order,” she said, running in high gear, her eyes as bright as a Mexican

sunrise. “Nobody‟s going to believe this,” she said, standing up and flipping her glasses on the desk.

“There is one more little favour I began.

She eyed me slyly. “I knew it,” she said.

“Did either Winslow or Lukatis have any priors?” I asked.

“I wish you‟d let me in on this thing you have about Lukatis.” “It‟s personal,” I said.

She pondered my question a little longer.

“Yes, there was a case on the books against Winslow,” she said finally.

“For what?”

“Controlled substance.”

“What happened to it?”

“Dead-docketed.”

“For...

“Lack of evidence.”

“Ah, good old lack of evidence,” I said.

“Look,” she said, “if I don‟t have the goods, I can‟t go to the grand jury. My buck and wing is

terrible.”

“I‟m not blaming you,” I said quickly. „Was it dropped before or after the trip with Lukatis?”

“I really don‟t remember.”

“Guess.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“Well?”

“Probably after.”

“Beautiful. And Titan asked you to drop the case, right?”

She had to think about that one for a while.

“Not exactly,” she said. “He just didn‟t come up with the goods for an indictment.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Okay, we‟re even, kiddo. By the way, I suggest you push for a no bond on

Donleavy. If I‟m right, he probably has half a million dollars waiting for him in Panama. If he gets on

the street, he‟1 turn rabbit.”

“Over my dead body,” she snapped.

“Don‟t say that,” I groaned. “We‟ve got enough of them already. Who knows, kiddo, you just might

ride the Raines case into the governor‟s mansion.”

I winked at her as she scurried by and headed for the booking desk:

71

The Breezes reeked of money. The conservative, two-story townhouses were Williamsburg gray with

scarlet trim, and the walkways wound through ferns and flowering bushes that looked almost too good

to be real. Some intelligent contractor had left a lot of old oaks and pines on the development and

there wasn‟t a car in sight; the garages were obviously built facing away from the street. The lawn

looked like it had been hand-trimmed with cuticle scissors.

There was a combined exit and entrance in the high iron-spike fence that enclosed the compound. It

was divided by an island with a guardhouse and around-the-clock guards. The one on duty, a tall

black weightlifter type, was starched into his tan uniform, and his black boots glistened like a

showroom Ferrari.

He looked at me through no-shit eyes and shifted his chewing gum from one cheek to the other. He

didn‟t say anything.

“My name‟s Kilmer, to see Mrs. Raines,” I said.

He checked over his clipboard, leafing through several sheets of paper, and shook his head.

“Not on the list,” he said.

“Would you give her a call? She probably forgot. It‟s been a rough day for her.”

“I got a „no disturb‟ on that unit,” he said.

“She‟s expecting me,” I said, trying not to lose my temper.

“There‟s no Kilmer on the list and I got a „no disturb‟ on that unit,” he said, politely but firmly. “Why

don‟t you go someplace and call her, tell her to call the gate and clear you.”

I showed him my card and his eyes stuck on the first line— “Agent—U.S. Government”—.--and

stayed there until he looked back up.

“My brother‟s a city cop,” he said, looking out the window at nothing in particular. “He‟s taking the

Bureau exams in the fall.”

“Fantastic. You know what‟s going on tip there at Mrs. Raines‟ place, don‟t you?”

“You mean about Mr. Raines?”

“Yeah.”

“Terrible thing.” He looked back at the buzzer and asked, “This official?”

“What else?” I said in my official voice.

“They got tough rules here, buddy. Nobody, not nobody, goes in without a call from the gate first. It‟s

in the lease.”

“Like I said, she‟s expecting me; probably forgot to give you the name with everything else that‟s

going on. Why don‟t I ride through?”

“Hell, I‟ll just call her,” he said. “Guest parking is to the right, behind those palmettos.”

I pulled in and parked in the guest lot, which was so clean and neat it looked sterilized. When I got

back, the guard had his grin

“A-okay,” he said, making a circle with thumb and forefinger. “You were right, she forgot. First walk

on the left, second unit down, 3-C.”

I thanked him and headed for 3-C. The place was as quiet as the bottom of a lake. No night birds, no

wind, no nothing. Pebbles crunched under my feet when I reached the cul-de-sac. It was a class

operation, all right. Each condo had its own pool. There wasn‟t a speck of trash anywhere. Soft bugrepellent lights shed a flat, shadowless glow over the ground s.

Three-C stood back from the gravel road at the end of two rows of azaleas. It seemed like a cathedral

on Christmas Eve. I pressed the doorbell and chimes played a melody under my thumb. Chains

rattled, dead bolts clattered, the door swung open, and she was standing there.

The events of the last twenty-four hours had taken their toll. Her eyes were puffed, her face drawn and

sallow. Grief had erased her tan and replaced it with a gray mirror of death. She closed the door

behind me and retreated to a neutral corner of the room, as though she were afraid I had some

contagious disorder.

“I‟m glad you‟re here,” she said, in a voice that had lost its youth.

“Glad to help,” I said.

“Nobody can help,” she said.

“You want to talk it out?” I suggested. “It helps, I‟m told.”

“But not for you, is that it?”

I thought about what she‟d said. It was true, there were few people in the world I could talk to. A

hazard of the profession.

“I guess not,” I said. “Nobody trusts a cop.”

“It‟s hard to realize that‟s what you do.”

I looked around the place. It was a man‟s room, no frills, no bright colours. The colour scheme was

tan and black and the antique furniture was heavy and oppressive. The walls were jammed with

photographs, plaques, awards, all the paraphernalia of success, squeezed into narrow, shiny brass

frames. The room said a lot about Harry Raines; there was a sense of monotonous order about it, an

almost urgent herald of accomplishment. A single flower would have helped immensely.

Oddly, Doe was in only one of the pictures, a group shot obviously taken the day the track opened.

The rest were all business, mostly the business of politics or racing: Raines in the winner‟s circle with

a jockey and racehorse; Raines looking ill-at-ease beside a Little League ball club; Rains with the

Capitol dome in Washington soaring up behind him; Raines posing with senators, congressmen,

governors, generals, mayors, kids, and at least one president.

“Didn‟t he ever smile?” I asked, looking at his stern, almost relentless stare.

“Harry wasn‟t much for smiling. He thought it a sign of weakness,” Doe said.

“What a shame,” I said. “He looks so unhappy in these photographs.”

“Dissatisfied,” she said. Resentment crept into her tone. “He was never satisfied. Even winning didn‟t

satisfy him. All he thought about was the next challenge, the next victory, another plaque for his wall.

This was his place, not mine. I‟m only here because it‟s convenient. As soon as this is all over, I‟m

getting rid of it. I‟m sick to death of memorials, and that‟s all this house is now.”

“How about you, did you satisfy him?”

“In what way?” she asked, her brow gathering up in a frown.

“I mean, were you happy together?”

She shrugged.

“We had all the happiness money can buy,” she said ruefully. “And none of the fun that goes with it.”

“I‟m sorry,” I said, feeling impotent to deal with her grief. “I‟m sorry things have turned so bad for

you.”

She sat down primly, her hands clasped in her lap, and stared at the floor.

“Oh, Jake, what happened to it all?” she said, without looking up. “Why did it shrivel up and die like

that? Why were we betrayed so? You, Teddy, Chief, all the things that had meaning for me were

ripped out of my life.”

“We all took a beating,” I said. “Poor old Teddy got the worst of it.”

“Teddy,” she said. “Dear, sweet Teddy. He didn‟t give a damn for the Findley tradition. In one of his

letters from Vietnam he said that when you two got back, he was going to buy a piece of land out on

Oceanby and the two of you were going to become beach bums. He said he was tired of being a

Findley. It was all just a big joke to him.”

“We talked about that a lot,” I said. “Sometimes I think he was halfway serious.”

“He was serious,” she said, sitting up for a moment. “Can‟t you just see it? The three of us out there

telling the world to drop dead?” She looked up at me and tried to bend the corners of her mouth into a

smile. “You see, I always knew you‟d come back here, Jake. Sooner or later Teddy would get you

back for me. Only what I thought was, it was a glorious fantasy, not a nightmare. Then Teddy died

and the nightmare started and it never ended and it keeps getting worse.”

She picked at a speck of dust for a moment and then said, “The gods are perverse. They give lollipops

to children and take them away after the first lick.”

I wanted to disagree with her; but I couldn‟t. What she said was true. It‟s called growing up. In her

own way, Doe had resisted that. Now it was all catching up to her at once and I felt suddenly

burdened by her sadness. Not because of Raines‟ death—there was nothing to be done about that—

hut because of what they didn‟t have when he was alive; because the bright promises of youth had

become elusive; because the promises of the heart had been broken. I remembered Mufalatta „s story

about the two violins. She was playing a sad tune and my violin was answering.

“Harry knew from the start that he was second choice,” she went on. “I never deceived him about that.

But I tried. In the beginning we both tried real hard. Then Chief got more and more demanding and

Titan started talking politics and Harry started changing, day by day by day, and pretty soon I was just

part of the territory to him. Just another plaque on the wall. I wanted the commitment, Jake. Oh God,

how I wanted that. And now I want him back. I want to tell him I‟m sorry that it was all a. . . a.

She shook her head, trying to find a way to end the sentence, so I ended it for her.

“An error in judgment?” I suggested.

She looked up at me and said, “Au error in judgment? What a cheap way to sum tip a life.”

I was trying to think of a way to tell her about Sam Donleavy, but I didn‟t have a chance to get around

to it.

“I can‟t stay here, Jake,” she said, staring at the pictures on the wall. “Every place I look I see him.”

She looked at me. “Drive me out to Windsong, will you, please? Get me out of here.”

“Let‟s go,” I said. I could tell her on the way out.

She did whatever women do before they leave the house—it seemed like an eternity of puttering

around—then we left and walked back to my car. We didn‟t say anything but she clung to my arm so

hard it hurt.