Hooligans (13 page)

crackled with the electricity generated by the power brokers, arm-wrestling for position.

Only Findley and Titan seemed immune to the games. Together they called the business and political

shots of the entire county, unchallenged by the other robber barons of Dunetown. It was in this room

that Chief had given Teddy and me one of our first lessons in business.

“Right over in that corner,” he had told us, “that‟s where Vic Larkin and I locked horns for the last

time. We owned half the beach property on Oceanby together; our fathers had been partners. But we

never got along. Larkin wanted to develop the beach front, turn it into a damn tinhorn tourist trap. He

just didn‟t have any class. I favoured leaving it alone.

“One night it came to a head. We had one helluvan argument sitting right over there. „Damn it,

Victor,‟ I says to him, „we‟re never gonna get along and you know t. I‟ll cut you high card. Winner

buys the loser out for a dollar.‟

“Vie turned pale but he had guts, I‟ll give him that. I told the bartender to bring us a deck of cards and

we cut. He pulled a six, I pulled a nine. That nine bought me a million dollars‟ worth of real estate for

one buck.”

“You call that good business?” Teddy had asked.

“I call it gambling,” Chief had said. “and that‟s what business is all about, boys. It‟s a gambler‟s

game.”

From the look of the crowd, there weren‟t too many gamblers left among the Dunetown elite. What

was missing was the electricity. There was no longer a hum in the air, just a lot of chatter.

The blond woman who had been outside with Doe had returned to the room and was talking to a small

group of people. She was wearing a wraparound mauve silk dress and an off-yellow wide-brimmed

hat and her eyes moved around the room as she spoke, taking in everything.

“The blonde you‟re eyeballin‟ is Babs Thomas,” Dutch said. “Don‟t say hello unless you want

everybody in town to know it five minutes later.”

“Local gossip?” I asked.

“You could call her that. She does a snitch column in the Ledger called Whispers.‟ Very apropos You

wanna know the inside on Doomstown‟s aristocracy, ask her. She knows what bed every pair of shoes

in town is under.”

I jotted that down in my memory for future reference and then said, “I just saw Stonewall Titan out

front.”

“Yeah?” Dutch said.

“I figured Titan was probably dead by now,” I said.

“Mr. Stoney will tell God when he‟s ready to go, and offhand I‟d say Cod‟s gonna have to wait

awhile_ How well do you know him?”

“Too long ago to matter,” I said, which was far from the truth. I don‟t think Dutch believed it either,

although he was kind enough to let it pass.

“I saw him, too, coming out of the bar,” said Dutch. “We had words. He gave me some sheiss.”

“What does Titan expect you to do?” I asked.

“End it.”

“Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that. „Get it done before Harry gets wind of it,‟” he says.

“Gets wind of it!” I replied. “How the hell does he hope to keep Raines in the dark? And why?”

“He‟s hoping we‟ll nail this thing down fast so the Committee can shove it under the carpet.”

“What Committee?” I asked.

Dutch hesitated, staring into his drink. He rattled ice in his glass for a few moments, then shrugged.

„Local power structure,” he said, brushing it off.

“You just took a left turn,” I said.

“Y‟see, Raines doesn‟t think beyond the racetrack,” Dutch said, still ignoring my question. “The

paper and the TV stations tend to play down any violence that happens. Now we got Mafia here, it

could be Raines‟ worst nightmare come true. I could get my walking papers over this.”

“So you said.”

The waitress brought our drinks. I decided not to press him on who or what the Committee was for the

moment.

“Fill me in on Titan,” I said.

He jiggled the ice in his highball.

“Only trouble with Stoney Titan, he‟s been sheriff for too damn long. Forty years plus; that‟s one hell

of a long time.”

“You think he‟s on the take?”

“Not the way you mean,” Dutch said. “Nothin‟ goes down in this town he don‟t know about, Not a

card game, not a floating crap game, not numbers. Not a horse parlour. He knows every hooker by her

first and last name, every bootlegger, dope runner, car booster. A man can‟t be around that long, know

that much, he isn‟t bent just a little, know what I mean? On the other hand, he‟s a tough little bantam,

not a man to take sides against.”

I remembered Titan differently. I remembered him on soft summer afternoons with his coat across his

knees, drinking bourbon with Chief and talking on the porch at Windsong. I remembered he always

put his gun in the trunk before coming up to the house and took off his coat because he wore his

badge pinned on the inside pocket and I guess that was his way of saying it was a friendly call. And I

remembered him as thinner and not as gray, a wiry little man with a fast step and twinkling eyes. Hell,

I thought, he‟s pushing hard on eighty. Funny how people never age in your memory.

“I wonder if he was on Tagliani‟s payroll,” I thought aloud.

“He isn‟t bent in that direction. No way,” Dutch said. “Stoney doesn‟t need money or power. And

he‟s too old to get sucked into that kind of game. Titan coulda been a state senator, probably

governor. God knows he‟s got the power. But he‟s like a man who can‟t swim—he never goes in over

his head.”

“Then maybe he had Tagliani killed,” I suggested.

“Not his style. Squeeze Tagliani out, maybe. But this high-style execution isn‟t gonna be good for

Dunetown. And I don‟t see a hope in hell of cleaning this up right away, do you?”

I admitted that there was very little to go on at that point. I also told him I didn‟t think the town could

keep the gang slayings a secret for too long.

“A day or two,” I said, “maybe.”

“When Cherry McGee and Nose Graves were going at it, the press kept it buried,” he said. “AS far as

most folks know, the hoods that went down during that melee were robbers and thieves, part of the

body count that can be chalked up to your normal, everyday crime statistics.”

“Can‟t you sneak some of this information to them?” I said. “Having the press on your side can help

sometimes.”

He leaned over the table toward me and said, “You don‟t understand, Jake m‟boy. They know it

already. It‟s their option to underplay it. It‟s the way things have always been done here.”

“As I recall, a sheriff is a very big man in this state,” I said.

“Nothing like Stoney. Big doesn‟t even cover it. The way I hear it, he‟s delivered the swing vote for

two governors, half a dozen senators, and this county helped give the state to Kennedy in 1960.”

“A lot of people owe him then,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“He could probably put Raines in the statehouse.”

“He could give him one helluva shove.”

“And the town blowing up around them could sink Raines, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that. But Raines is a heavy hitter. He might could slug his way out of

a scandal if it didn‟t touch him directly.”

I leaned across the table and said very quietly, “You know as well as I do they can‟t ignore this. It‟s

going to blow up bigger than Mount Saint Helens.”

“Stoney‟s point is well made,” said Dutch. “The sooner we stop it, the better.”

“For Raines?”

“For everybody.”

“Do you like Titan?” I asked bluntly.

“He‟s a relic,” Dutch said. “And I love relics.”

14

Dutch looked as if he were getting ready to pack it in for the night, but there was still a question left

hanging in the air. He had avoided it. I didn‟t want him to. I decided to back into it with a shocker.

“You think there‟s any chance Harry Raines is behind this?” I asked, It worked. He looked up as if I

had thrown cold water in his face.

“I‟m just trying to get a fix on all the players,” I said,

“Why would Harry want to create this kind of problem for himself? I told you, it‟s his worst

nightmare come true.”

“Maybe he thinks he can keep it quiet like the Cherry McGee affair. Get rid of these hoodlums and

pass it off as some kind of kook slaying.”

“You‟re reaching, son,” he said. “Harry Raines has more to lose in this than anybody.”

“Maybe that‟s what he wants everybody to think.”

“You‟re serious, aren‟t you.”

“You can look at it two ways. He‟s got the most to lose when this gets out, but he also has the most to

gain by getting rid of the Triad.”

“You know, if I didn‟t know better, I might think that‟s the way you want it to play out.”

“Just asking. Like I said, I‟m trying to cover all the bases.”

“You‟re out of the ballpark on that one,” he said, scowling at me over his drink. He looked around the

room and jiggled his ice some more.

It was time to force the issue. Dutch Morehead knew more than he wanted me to know, I was sure of

it.

“Look, Dutch,” I said, “I don‟t mind standing muster for your SOB‟s. I understand all that. I‟ll make

my peace with them in my own way. But I think it‟s time we started trusting each other. Right now I

have the feeling I‟m not playing with all the cards and you hold the missing ones.”

He continued to play with his drink. Finally he said, “All right, what‟s stuck in your craw?”

“What about this Committee you mentioned? What‟s that all about? I mean, look around, Dutch. This

is the crème de la crème of Dunetown in here. Society, politics, money. This is their watering hole.

They act like nothing‟s happened. Three mainline mobsters and a woman have been butchered and

there isn‟t a frown in the place.”

“They don‟t know about it yet,” he said. “And the local press is gonna keep it under wraps as long as

they‟re told to.”

“By whom?”

He sighed as only a big man can sigh. It shook the table.

“I got a few questions first,” he said.

“My old man used to say, „You can‟t listen when you‟re talking.

“Is that a fact,” he said. “Well, my old man used to say, „You can‟t get water out of a low well

without priming it.”

1 started chuckling. “You‟re older than I am, Dutch, I suppose you can keep this up a lot longer. What

do you want to know?”

“You been playin‟ coy ever since you got here, actin‟ like this is your first trip to town,” he said. “See,

I ain‟t buyin‟ that because I don‟t think you‟re on the level and it ain‟t a one-way street, y‟know, it‟s

give and take.”

I had been underestimating the big man. He was either a lot more perceptive than I had given him

credit for or he knew more about me than I thought he did.

“Give me a for instance.”

“For instance, I got this gut feeling you know all about Chief and Titan and the Findleys.”

I wasn‟t sure I could trust Dutch Morehead, I wasn‟t sure I could trust anybody. But I had to start

someplace. I decided to prime the pump a little.

“No bullshit,” he said.

“No bullshit,” I answered. “I lived with Chief Findley and his family for one summer. That was 1963.

Teddy Findley was my best friend. We played football together. We were in Nam together. I was with

him when he died.”

“Uh-huh.”

That‟s all he said. He was waiting for more.

“1 never knew my own father,” I went on. “He died at Guadalcanal before I was born. I guess Chief

was like a father figure to me. What he said was gospel. You could. . . you could feel the power of the

man when he walked in the room. It made the room hum. I‟ve got mixed feelings about all that now.”

“I‟ve heard that about him. There isn‟t much left anymore.”

“No, now Raines is doing the humming.”

“So what‟s that to you?”

“Bottom line, if Raines is the man now, then he has to take the rap for what‟s happened here. Sooner

or later it‟s going to fall on him.”

“So?”

“So how come he‟s got his head stuck so far in the sand?”

“Harry Raines is a local boy,” he said. “Surprised everybody because he was kind of a hell-raising kid

who grew up to be a shrewd businessman and a tough politician. His old man was a barely respectable

judge, had a passion for all the things judges ain‟t supposed to lust after—women, racehorses,

gambling. Hell, the old man died in his box at Hialeah with a fistful of winning tickets in his hand.”

“So that‟s where the interest in horse racing started,” I said.

“From what I hear, by the time Harry was old enough to pee by himself, he‟d been to every racetrack

in the country. He handicapped his way through Georgia, played football, was one of Vince Dooley‟s

first All-Americans, got a law degree at Harvard, came back, went to work as a lawyer for Chief,

married Doe Findley, and inherited the political power of the city, then ran for the state senate and

was elected, thanks in no little way to Stoney Titan. There it is in about two paragraphs, the story of

Harry Raines.”

“Nice merger,” I said, with more acid than I had planned.

Dutch‟s eyebrows rose. Then he pursed his lips and said, “I suppose you could say that”

“So Chief picked him out, right?”

“I don‟t know, that‟s before my time. We ain‟t exactly drinkin‟ buddies, Raines and me. I don‟t know

the particulars.”

“How‟d he get to be racing commissioner?”

“Gave up his seat in the state senate and stumped one end of this state to the other, selling the idea.

His big edge was that it would raise tax money for the school system. He also turned over the