Hooligans (19 page)

“Bites his fingernails.”

Zapata turned to me. “You want this guy?”

I wasn‟t sure what I‟d do with him, but I said, “Sure, it‟s a start.”

“Thirty minutes,” Zapata said. “Wait here. Come on, Salvatore, I need company,” and they were

gone.

“Zapata‟s amazing,” Charlie One Ear said, watching them rush out the door. “Nose like a

bloodhound.”

“Looks more like a waffle iron,” I said with a laugh.

“True,” said Charlie One Ear. “But that doesn‟t impede his instinct for finding people. He‟s unerring.”

I got the impression maybe Zapata had been hit one or two times too many on the soft part of his

head. Later I learned that he was as streetwise as any cop I‟ve ever known. He may have been short

on Shakespeare, but he was long on smarts.

“He was a middleweight contender, you know,” Charlie One Ear continued. “Got full of patriotism,

volunteered for the army, and spent a year in Vietnam. Then he came back and joined the Hell‟s

Angels. I‟ve never quite understood why.”

“You seem to have a nice team going,” I said. “You spot them, Zapata finds them, and Salvatore

sticks to them.”

“Like flypaper,” said Charlie One Ear.

Stick excused himself to go call the coroner and see if there were any autopsy reports yet. When he

left, I leaned over the table toward Charlie One Ear.

“I‟ve got to ask you something,” I said. “It‟s a personal thing.”

“Yes?”

“1 heard your father was an English kid and your mother was a Ute Indian. Whenever your name

comes up, somebody says that.”

“Only partly correct. It was my grandparents and she was a Cree. I inherited my memory from my

father and my instincts from my mother. Thank God it wasn‟t the other way around. I‟m quite

flattered you‟ve heard of me.”

“Charlie Flowers, the man who smashed the Wong Yang Fu opium ring in San Francisco almost

single-handed! You‟re a legend in your time,” I said with a smile.

“I really enjoy this, y‟know,” he said, grinning back. “I have an enormous ego.”

“Is it true you once busted so many moonshiners in Georgia that they threw together and hired a

couple of Philly shooters to do you in?”

“Actually it was four, including Dancing Rodney Shutz out of Chicago, who was reputed to have

killed over sixty people, a lot of whom didn‟t deserve the honour.”

“And you got „em all?”

“Yes. Without a scratch, I might add. They made a mistake. They all took me on at once—I suppose

they thought there was safety in numbers.” He paused for a moment and then flashed a twenty-dollar

smile. “Dancing Rodney was so aghast I don‟t think he realizes to this day that he‟s dead.” We both

broke out laughing.

“So what‟re you doing here?” I asked.

His smile stayed but got a little brittle. “Well, I don‟t share Dutch Morehead‟s consternation with

condos. My wife and I enjoy ours quite a lot. Beautiful view. We‟re near the water. The climate‟s

wonderful He paused. He could have let it drop there, but he went on. “Besides, I couldn‟t get a job

anywhere else.”

“What!”

He took out one of those long, thin Dutch cigars, lit it, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. “I was

working internal affairs for the state police out in Arizona a couple of years back. There had been a lot

of killing and they suspected it was dope-related. The main suspect was a big-time dealer named

Mizero. They sent me in, undercover, to check it out. It was Mizero‟s game all right, but he had an

inside man, a narc named Burke, who was very highly situated. What they were doing, Mizero would

make a big sale. Maybe a hundred pounds of grass. Then Burke would step in, bust the buyer,

confiscate his money and goods, tell him get lost and he wouldn‟t press charges. If the buyer got

antsy, Mizero would push him over. Then they‟d re-sell the dope.

“I got too close to the bone and blew my cover. So Burke decided he had to get rid of Mizero. The

trouble was, it went the other way. Mizero dropped Burke. The locals made a deal with the state to

keep Burke out of it. It was an election year and this was a big case. Nobody wanted to deal with a

bad-cop scandal.

“I was a key witness for the prosecution. They knew they couldn‟t muzzle Mizero, so they wanted me

to testify that Burke was working undercover with me. I said no, I won‟t do that. Some things I‟ll do,

but I won‟t perjure myself for anyone, particularly a bad cop. Next thing you know, they ship me out

of state so the defense can‟t call me, and put out the word I‟m a drinker, a big troublemaker. And, get

this, they put it out that I committed perjury! For over a year everybody in the business thought I was

a drunken liar. And I don‟t even drink.”

“How about the Feds?” I said.

“They didn‟t want me back. I was always too independent to suit the bureaucrats. Anyway, Dutch

heard about it. I was living in Trenton working a security job and lie showed up one day, didn‟t ask

any questions, just offered me a job. After I took it, I said, „I don‟t drink and I‟ve never told a Ii e

under oath in my life,‟ and he says, „I know it,‟ and it‟s never come up since.”

Then he leaned across the table toward me. “That‟s my excuse, what‟s yours?”

“I know the rest of the Cincinnati Triad is here. I just want to dig a hole under all of them. I don‟t care

where they fall, but I want them to drop.”

“Is it because you couldn‟t nail them up there?”

“That‟s part of it.”

“And the rest of it‟s personal?” he said.

I nodded. “Absolutely.”

He gave me another big smile. “Splendid,” he said. “I truly admire a man who‟s strongly motivated.”

He offered me his hand. “I think Zapata and I will have a go at finding this Nance chap.”

“I‟d like that a lot,” I said.

A minute or two later Stick came back to the table. “Zapata just called,” he said. “They‟ve already

spotted Tanner. He‟s at the Breakers Hotel eating breakfast.”

“See what I mean about Chino?” Charlie One Ear said with a grin, and we were on our way.

21

Okay, Cisco, you‟re always complaining that I don‟t file reports. So I have a thing about that. I can‟t

type and it takes me forever to peck out one lousy report. Also there are never enough lines on the

forms and I can‟t get the stuff in between the lines that are there. If you want to know the truth, it‟s a

royal pain in the ass. But if I were going to write a memorandum, it would probably go something like

this

I‟ve been in Dunetown less than twenty-four hours. So far I‟ve witnessed one death, seen three other

victims, fresh on the slab, been treated like I got smallpox by Dutch Morehead and his bunch of

hooligans, and seen just enough of Dunetown to understand why they call it Doomstown. It‟s an

understatement.

Due process? Forget it. It went out the window about the time Dunetown got its first paved road. As

far as the hooligans are concerned, due process is the notice you get when you forget to pay your

phone bill. Most of them think
Miranda
is the president of a banana republic in Central America.

Stick understands the territory but he‟s kind of in the squeeze. He has to go along with the hooligans

so they won‟t tumble that he‟s a Fed. On the other hand, he‟s smart enough to know that any evidence

these guys might gather along the way would get stomped flat at the door to the courthouse.

What we‟re talking about, Cisco, is education. Stick is a smooth operator. The rest of Dutch

Morehead‟s people would rather kick ass than eat dinner. Yesterday I tried to discuss the RICO

statutes with them and Chino Zapata thought I was talking about a mobster he knows in Buffalo.

The only exception is Charlie “One Ear” Flowers, who knows the game but doesn‟t buy the rules.

He‟s like the rest of these guys—they‟ve been fucked over so much by the system that they walk with

their legs crossed. I‟m not making any value judgments, mind you. Maybe some of them deserved

their lumps.

Take Salvatore, for instance. He was up on charges in New York City when Dutch found him. The

way I get it, Salvatore was on stakeout in one of those mom and pop stores in the Bronx. It had been

robbed so often, the people who owned it took out the cash and put it on the counter every time

somebody walked into the store. The old man had been shot twice. Classic case. It‟s the end of the

year and Salvatore is behind two-way glass and this freak comes into the store and starts waving a

Saturday night special around. Salvatore steps out from his hiding place, says, “Merry Christmas,

motherfucker,” and blows the guy into the middle of the street with an 870 riot gun loaded with rifle

slugs. The police commissioner took issue with the way Salvatore. did business. Now he‟s down here.

One thing about them, they don‟t complain. Between you arid me, I‟m glad they‟re here.

You can add this to everything else: every time I go around a corner I get another rude shock. Like

going out to the beach today. I wasn‟t ready for that. The traffic should have been a clue. It got heavy

about a quarter mile from where the boulevard terminates at Dune Road, which runs parallel to the

ocean. See, the way I remember Dune Road, it was this kind of desolate macadam strip that merged

with the dunes. It went out to the north end of the island and petered out at the sea; one of those old

streets that go nowhere in particular.

Now it‟s four lanes wide with metered parking lots all over the place. There are three hotels that

remind rue a lot of Las Vegas, and shops and fast-food joints one on top of the other, and seawalls to

protect the hotel guests from the common people. Two more going up and beyond them condos

polluting the rest of the view. And the noise! It was a hurricane of sound. Stereos, honking horns, and

hundreds of voices, all jabbering at once.

La Cote de Nightmare is what it is now.

See what I mean about rude shocks? The Strip, that‟s one rude shock.

Anyway, I‟m on my way out there with Stick and Charlie One Ear followed in his car. Going

anywhere with Stick is taking your life In your hands. He doesn‟t drive a car, he flies it. He can do

anything in that Pontiac but a slow roll and I wouldn‟t challenge him on that. I ought to be getting

combat pay.

Without boring you with details, Salvatore and Zapata made this St. Louis pimp named Mortimer

Flitch and we went out to have a chat with him.

He was hanging out on the Strip and before I go any further with that, let me tell you about the Strip_

The first thing I noticed when we got there, the hotels are almost identical triplets. Take the Breakers,

for instance. The lobby is the size of the Dallas stadium. It would take about five minutes to turn it

into a casino. I could almost hear the cards ruffling and the roulette balls rattling and the gears

cranking in the slot machines. When Raines pushed through the pari-mutuel law, he promised there

would never be any casino gambling in Dunetown. Well, you can forget that, Cisco. They‟re ready.

It‟s just a matter of time. I‟ll give them a year, two at the most. What we‟re looking at is Atlantic City,

Junior. About fifteen minutes told me all I wanted to know about the Strip.

When we got there, the pimp, Mortimer, is sitting in a booth in the coffee shop looking like he just

swallowed a 747. Salvatore is sitting across from him, kind of leaning over the table, grinning like

he‟s running for mayor. One thing I left out: Salvatore carries a sawed-off pool cue in his shoulder

holster. It‟s about eighteen inches long and it‟s always catching on things, which doesn‟t seem to

bother him a bit. Zapata is standing by the door. That‟s their idea of backup.

When we arrived, Zapata split. He‟s on the prowl for Nance and Chevos. That makes me feel real

fine, because if Chevos and Nance are within a hundred miles of here, Zapata will find them. I‟ll

make book on it.

We join Salvatore and Mortimer at the table and then I see why this Mortimer Flitch has got that

screwy look on his face. Salvatore has his pool cue between Morti men‟s legs and every once in a

while he gives the cue a little jerk and rings Mortimer‟s bells.

“Tell him what you told me there, Mort,” Salvatore says, and bong! he rings the bells and Mortimer

starts singing like the fat lady in the opera.

“I got in a little trouble in Louisville about two months ago and—”

Bong! “Tell „em what for,” says Salvatore.

“Beating up this chippie. She had it coming—

Bong! “Forget the apologies,” says Salvatore.

“Anyway, the DA was all over me and—”

Bong! “Tell „em why,” says Salvatore.

“It, uh, it—”

Bong!

“It was my fifth offense. Anyway, I give a call to a friend of mine, does a little street business in

Cincy, and he says forget it out there, things are real hot, I should try calling Johnny O‟Brian down

here. So I did and he sends me the ticket.”

Mortimer stopped to catch his breath and Salvatore gave him another little shot.

“Tell „em about the hotel and all,” he says.

“Look, O‟Brian did me all right. I could get blitzed over this.” Bong! “„Told „em about the fuckin‟

hotel, weed.”

“He gets me a suite here in the Breakers, gives me two G‟s, and says I got a couple of weeks to line

up some ladies. It‟s a sixty-forty split. He gets the forty.”

Salvatore looked over at me and smiled.

“What else you want to know?”

“Did you bring any ladies with you?” I asked.