Hooligans (43 page)

“Let‟s go!” I yelled, and started running, pulling her beside

Headlights pierced the gray swirling world around us. The car was beading in on us. I was almost

dragging her as we reached the narrow passageway between two old warehouses. I shoved her in.

There were half a dozen garbage pails piled up at the mouth of the alley.

“Down!” I yelled, and shoved her behind the cans.

The car, a black Pontiac, swept by a moment later, its brakes squealed, and there were three shots. I

didn‟t hear them; they exploded against the cans and the wall behind us.

I clawed for my .357 and gave them three back. They smacked into the side of the car and it sudden y

backed away from the mouth of the alley.

I looked behind us. The alley was about a car and a half wide, two hundred feet long. No doorways,

although there was a loading platform and alcove about halfway down. The loading platform lip

1utted three feet into the alley. There was dim light at the other end.

“We‟re going to run for it,” I said. “I‟ll be behind you. If you hear any shooting, keep running. If they

come after us in the car, keep running.”

She looked at me, terrified.

“Go, now!” I gave her a shove.

She pulled off her shoes and took off. I went after her. She could move, I‟ll give her that, even in

stocking feet on cobblestones. We were almost to the end of the alley when I heard the rumble of the

sedan.

The car had gone around the warehouse and was in front of us. Its headlights burst back on, turning

the swirling fog into dancing halos.

“Damn,” I cried, spinning her around. We dashed back the way we had collie. The car screamed

around the corner behind us. I heard a pop, heard the slug wheeze past my ear, heard rubber tearing at

cobblestones. Light flooded the alley.

We ran to the loading platform and I dove up onto the lip, pulled her on top of me, and rolled over

against a metal door at the back of the loading alcove.

The driver of the car swerved toward our side of the alley, saw the platform lip too late. Metal

screamed against wood. The corner of the platform pierced a headlight, ripped through it, and tore

part of a fender away. The sedan lurched sideways, its tires trying to get a grip on the cobblestones as

it skidded sideways and raked the opposite wall with its rear end. Sparks showered from its tortured

rear end.

The gunner was undaunted by all the action. Three more shots spanged off the metal door behind us.

Among other things, I‟m a rotten shot. But my .357 was equipped with phosphorescent T-sights and I

swung the heavy pistol with the car, steadied my hand, lined up the little green button on the end of

the barrel with the notch in the back sight, and started shooting at the face leering in the rear window.

Three slugs splattered the rear windshield.

They were playing hardball. The sedan slammed to a stop and I could hear the driver slapping it into

reverse. Before he could let out the clutch I heard a cannon explode at the other end of the alley. It

exploded three times. Two shots blew out the rest of the rear glass. The third one streaked off the rear

bumper, an inch above the gas tank.

Stick‟s voice yelled down the alley:

“Go for the tires!”

Followed by another blast that sparked off the cobblestones barely an inch off target.

That whiskey-troubled voice was the sweetest sound I have ever heard.

“It‟s okay,” I told DeeDee. “It‟s Stick. We‟re home free.”

I lined up my little green sights and put two slugs into the left rear. The tire blew like a hand grenade

going off. The driver shifted gears and roared off in retreat, the deflating tire peeling off the rim and

the steel hub shrieking along the street. The hubcap spun off and clattered loudly against one wall.

The ruined sedan ploughed into the garbage cans, showered them into street and river, screeched

around the corner, and was swallowed by the fog.

I turned back to DeeDee, who was leaning against the metal door. Her eyes were the size of full

moons.

“Okay?” I asked.

She stared at me for several seconds and then nodded furiously. “Are you good on numbers?”

“I w-w-work in a b-b-bank, remember,” she stammered. “B-C-O-3-9-6,” I said.

She repeated it. “Is that the license?” she asked.

“Right.”

A moment later the Stick came running up, his .357 in hand.

“You two okay?” he asked breathlessly.

I threw my arms around him.

“Yeah, and damn am I glad to see you,” I said, bear-hugging him. “Where the hell did you come

from?”

“When we left the place there was a joker standing up the street under a light,” Stick answered. “So

we stopped at the edge of the park for a couple of minutes, just in case.”

“So that‟s what that was all about,” Lark pouted as she brought up the rear. “I thought it was love.”

Stick gave her that crazy look of his. “It was both, darlin‟,” he said. “I doubled up.”

“Whatever that means,” she said.

“It means we‟re still alive,” I said, “for which we‟ll be eternally grateful.”

“Just part of our twenty-four-hour service,” he said gleefully. “Keeps us on our toes.”

I helped DeeDee off the platform and she sighed and fell up against me. I could feel her heart

thumping against my chest.

“C‟mon, we‟ll follow you pal,” Stick said, pulling roe up the alley by the arm. “Dutch is right. You‟re

dangerous when you‟re out alone.”

52

At DeeDee‟s suggestion, she and I went back to her place. It was ten minutes away, in the restored

section of town not far from where Della Norman and Tony Logeto had died a few days ago.

On the way she asked, “Shouldn‟t we report this to somebody?”

“I‟m one of the somebody‟s you report it to,” 1 said. “Besides, the car‟s probably registered to some

nonentity. By now they‟ve either dumped it in the river or dropped it at some body shop. We‟ll never

see it again.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about these things.”

“It‟s what I do.”

“I thought you just did investigative work.”

“Sometimes it upsets people.”

“Upsets
people” she cried. “Is that what you call it?”

The house was tucked among shaggy oaks, a two-hundred-year-old Revolutionary house that had

been meticulously restored, as had the others on the street. It was like stepping into the eighteenth

century. The inside was just as authentic. It was a museum piece, filled with bric-a-brac, old etchings

and maps, and antique furniture that was as authentic as it was uncomfortable. There wasn‟t a cushion

iii the living room.

“This was my inheritance,” she said. “Dad didn‟t have much, but he bought this house for a song

when it was a falling-down wreck. He and Tony did most of the restoration work themselves. It took

them years.”

“Does Tony live here with you?”

“Sometimes,” she said vaguely. We made small talk for ten or fifteen minutes, trying to talk past the

awkwardness of the situation. Finally I got Lark‟s phone number and she went off to make coffee.

Lark answered the phone after eight or nine rings. Her voice was still sultry, but not quite as pleasant

as earlier in the evening.

“Hello?” she said tentatively.

“I‟m sorry to bother you,” I said. “DeeDee gave me your number. I need to talk to the Stick. It‟s very

important.”

“Who?”

“Mickey.”

“You could have waited just about two minutes more, you know,” she said, “just two little minutes.”

“This‟ll take about thirty seconds.”

“Trash. The spell is broken.”

A moment later Stick‟s whiskey tenor rasped its hello.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said, “but there‟s something I didn‟t tell you back there.”

“Yeah?” His interest was lukewarm.

“I got a good look at the shooter in the car. It was Turk Nance.”

“Is that supposed to be a surprise?” he replied.

“Just thought you‟d like to know,” I said.

“Breakfast,” he said. “I‟ll meet you at the hotel at nine. We‟ll grab some groceries and go hunting.”

“You sound out of breath. Have you been jogging?”

“Fuck off, Kilmer.”

Click.

DeeDee returned with the coffee. We sat on matching high-back deacon‟s benches, facing each other

across a rock maple serving table.

“Okay,” I said. “Where were we?”

She stirred cream into her coffee and tasted it before she answered my question.

“I haven‟t seen or heard from Tony since Saturday. It‟s really uncommon for him to go more than a

day or two without a call.”

“Maybe he‟s out of town,” I suggested.

“He said he‟d be back Sunday night or early Monday.”

“That‟s only a couple of days.”

“I have this dreadful feeling something‟s wrong,” she said, then after a moment of thought, added,

“Maybe I should start from the beginning.”

“That would help.”

“Tony‟s been in trouble before.”

“Oh?”

“Three years ago. He and this friend of his, who‟s a shrimper, were caught smuggling marijuana.”

“How much?”

“A lot. Two or three hundred pounds.”

“That‟s a lot.”

“He was sentenced to two to five years. It could have been worse, but it was his first offense.”

“How much time did he do?”

“Almost a year.”

“Has he been clean since then?”

“Clean?”

“Out of trouble?”

She nodded.

“Why did he do it? I mean, was there anything other than the money?”

She toyed with her coffee, thinking about the question.

“He wanted something he couldn‟t afford,” she said finally. “All the money in the world couldn‟t buy

it.”

“Doe Findley?”

“Raines.”

“Right, Raines.”

“So you know about that?”

“That‟s all I know.”

“It was the same with Tony and Doe as it was with you and me, except you never gave me a second

look. I was always the caretaker‟s ugly little kid.”

“You don‟t know that,” I said. “I happen to be a one-woman man.”

“Still?” It was a gentle pass and I passed it gently.

“Still.”

“That was my ego talking. Anyway, I think Tony‟s been in love with Doe since the first time he ever

saw her. I don‟t blame her for what happened. Harry Raines was busy running around the state

politicking for the gambling laws. She was lonely and Tony was always around. It just happened.”

“So he decided to make a quick killing and take her away from all that?”

“No, it was over before he got in trouble. But in his mind, I think Tony feels if he has a decent car and

money in the bank. . . oh, I don‟t know. Maybe he was just rebelling against the whole system, getting

even for things he never had. He never really talked about it. When he went to prison, all he said was

that he was glad Dad died before it happened.”

“And you think he‟s mixed up in dope again?”

“That‟s what I‟m afraid of. He left Saturday morning. We went to dinner Friday night and he told me

he had this job to do, that it was absolutely safe. „Not to worry,‟ he told me, „I‟ll be back for Sunday

brunch.‟ I haven‟t heard from him since.”

“He didn‟t say what the job was?”

She shook her head. “Things have been rough for him this past year. I offered to help, but he turned

me down. I think he was desperate.”

“Did he say anything about narcotics?”

“All he said was „After this, we‟ll be as good as the rest of them.‟ He wouldn‟t say any more.”

“Did he drive when he left?”

She nodded. “A white Mustang. I think it‟s a „79. But it looks brand-new.”

“How about the license?”

“I‟ll get it for you.”

She got up and rooted through a large mahogany desk, leafing through papers until she found a

duplicate of the car registration. She handed it to me, along with a photograph from her wallet. It was

a colour Polaroid of a tallish, dark man, handsome, but a bit too intense, who looked to be in his early

thirties and was built like a lifeguard. He was sitting on the edge of a swimming pool with his legs in

the water.

“I remember him now,” I said.

“I thought perhaps you might check a round. Maybe somebody knows or has heard something,” she

said. “I don‟t want to do anything official. Do you understand?” It was more of a plea than a request.

I nodded. “Sure, I can do that. Is that all?”

“I‟d just like to know he isn‟t.

She didn‟t finish the sentence. She began to tremble. I moved over beside her and put an arm around

her. The more she tried to stop trembling, the worse it got.

“I‟ll check around first thing,” I said, trying to comfort her. “Don‟t worry, I‟m sure he‟s all right. It‟s

been five days. If anything had happened to him, you‟d know it by now.”

I wasn‟t sure that was true, but it sounded good and she bought

it. She was suffering a delayed reaction to both her brother‟s disappearance and the action in the alley.

I gently massaged her neck with two fingers, stroking the tight muscles that ran from the base of her

skull to her shoulders. After a while she loosened up. She shifted, turning toward me, and curled up.

I massaged her neck until my fingers got stiff, and she talked about a time that linked us to the past,

but in different ways.

“It‟s funny, the things I remember about Doe from our school days,” she said, and giggled. “Did you

know,” she went on, as if sharing a secret, “that the maids used to iron Doe‟s underwear? I know that

sounds silly, to remember something like that. But when I heard it, I thought, That‟s the way it should

be. That‟s the way a princess gets treated. That‟s what she is, a princess. Her father is the king and she