Hooligans Part 26

"What's this bit about them getting Burked?" Dutch asked. "What's that all about?"

Stick said. "I saw this once downcountry. The CRIPS used it. Silent and quick."

"What's a CRIP?"

"Combined Recon and Intelligence Platoons. They were kind of the army's on-the-spot Green Berets. Only they didn't have the training. They recruited everybody. Guys in the brig, misfits, old French Legionnaires, mercenaries, people who didn't want to come back after their tour was up. Basically they were a.s.sa.s.sination squads. Send 'em out, kill a village leader or a tax collector, some rebel leader who's getting a little muscle. Like that."

Morehead shook his head. "Different kind of army," he said.

"You were in the army?" said Stick.

"Korea. Foot soldier. Sixteen months," the big German said. "You remember Korea, boys? Nowadays most people think Korea's the name of an all-night grocery stand."

"Poor old Della," the Stick said. "Why would anybody want to ice her?"

"What about her?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Della and I got along. I had occasion to bust her once. A pot charge. It was just a fis.h.i.+ng expedition, see if maybe we could turn up something on Nose. She figured it out and took it like a sport."

"Wonder what Logeto was doing with her."

"Maybe she was just a good piece of a.s.s," the Stick conjectured. "Wasn't he supposed to be the Taglianis' resident c.o.c.ksman?"

"That's a simple enough explanation," Dutch said.

I was barely listening. I was too busy wondering how Logeto and Della Norman had been killed without being seen or heard by four goons at the foot of the stairs.

"I can think of one reason Della was killed," I said.

"We're holding our breath," said Dutch.

I did some verbal logic, to hear what the ideas sounded like: "Logeto came here every Monday night. Whoever killed him knew that, knew what time he usually came, and he or she also knew that there was a lot of heat on. Getting past Logeto's bodyguards wouldn't be easy. So what's the answer? Come in first and kill the girl. Killer knew Logeto would come in alone; he's too macho to have his boys sweep the place first. So he or she killed the girl and then waited. When Logeto came in, the killer Burked him. Logeto never made a sound."

"Then he or she dusted off through the bathroom using a dropline," Stick finished.

"Except they went up, not down," I said. "And got away across to the roof next door so they wouldn't be seen from the ground."

"That's probably how he got in," Stick said. "Went down the line, killed them both, then went back up."

"Beautiful planning," I said.

Dutch chewed that over for a moment or two. "Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Got a lot of guts, acing out a mobster with four of his handymen pitching coins in the hallway below."

"Yeah. Or desperate," I said.

"Desperate?"

"Yeah. Either somebody with more guts than Moses or somebody who can't afford not to get it done."

Dutch said, "In that case, if it's Nance doing this number for Chevos, that leaves only Costello, Bronicata, Stizano, O'Brian, and Cohen left."

"Five to go," said Stick.

Dutch was leaning against the wall of the apartment with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

"It's the full moon," he said woefully. "Pregnant women have babies, men go apes.h.i.+t. What can I tell yuh."

"That's good," the Stick said. "That's what we'll tell the papers, that it was the full moon."

29.

DISAWAY.

I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

The phone rang several times during the night. How many times, I couldn't tell you. Finally I put it on the floor, threw a pillow over it, and died. The next thing I knew, someone was trying to knock down my door. I flicked on the lamp, struggled into a pair of pants, and found Pancho Callahan standing on the threshold.

"Change in plans" was all he said.

"Huh?" was all I could muster.

"Tried to call," he said.

"Appreciate it," I mumbled, and started back to bed.

"Going out to the track," he said in his abbreviated patois.

"What, now?"

"Yep."

"What time is it?"

"Five."

"In the morning!"

"Yep."

"Tuesday morning?"

"Tuesday morning."

I stared bleakly at him. He looked like a page out of GQ magazine. Gray cotton trousers, a tattersall vest under a blue linen blazer, pale blue skirt, a wine tie with delicate gray horses galloping aimlessly down its length, and a checkered cap, c.o.c.ked jauntily over one eye.

He didn't look any more like a cop than John Dillinger looked like the Prince of Wales.

"Not on your life," I croaked.

He put his hand gently on the door.

"Gonna be a great day."

I was too tired to argue.

"Smas.h.i.+ng."

At exactly 5:15 we were in a red sports car with more gadgets than an F104, heading out into a damp, musty morning. As we crossed the tall suspension bridge to the mainland, we picked up fog so thick I couldn't see the shoulder of the road. Callahan, a tall, muscular chap, with high cheekbones and a hard jaw that looked like it might have been drawn with a T-square, chose to ignore it. He drove like it was a sunny afternoon on the interstate. I was beginning to think the whole bunch was suicidal.

"Foggy" was the only word out of him during the twenty-minute trip. Not a mention of the previous night's events.

He eased back on the throttle when we reached the entrance to Palmetto Gardens, tossed a jaunty salute to the guard, who had to look twice to see him through the soup, and parked near the stables.

"Here, pin this on your jacket," he said, handing me a green badge that identified me as a track official. I did as I was told and followed him to the rail, which popped out of the damp haze so suddenly I b.u.mped into it. So far, all I could tell about the track was that it was in Georgia and about twenty minutes from town, if you drove like Mario Andretti.

"Wait here," Callahan said, and disappeared for five minutes. I could hear, but not see, horses snorting, men coughing, laughter, and the clop of hoofs on the soft earth as I stood in fog so thick I couldn't see my own feet. When Callahan returned, he brought black coffee in plastic foam cups and warm, freshly made sinkers. I could have kissed him.

"What the h.e.l.l are we doing out here?" I asked, around a mouthful of doughnut.

"Workin' three-year-olds," he answered.

"That's it? That's what we're doing here in the middle of the night? Listening to them work the three-year-olds?"

"So far."

"Is this something special? How often do they do this?"

"Every morning."

"You're s.h.i.+tting me."

He looked at me through the fog and shook his head.

"You're not s.h.i.+tting me. Great. I was dragged out of bed for, uh . . . to stand around in this . . . this gravy listening . . . just listening . . . to a bunch of nags doing calisthenics."

Callahan turned to me and smiled for the first time. "Flow with it, pal. You're here, enjoy it. Put a little poetry back in your soul. "

"What are you, some kind of guru, Callahan?"

"Horse sense. Besides, Dutch says you need to learn about the track. "

"I can't even see the track. And don't call me pal. I'm not a dog, my name's Jake."

"Sure."

He moved down the rail and I followed. Dim shapes began to take form in the fog. The outriders were leading their riderless charges through the opening in the fence and out onto the track.

"This is the morning workout," Callahan said. "Gets the kinks out of the ponies." He pointed to a stately-looking cinnamon-brown gelding, frisky and hopping about at the end of its tether. "Keep your eye on that boy there," he advised.

"What about him?" I asked.

"That's one fine horse."

"Oh."

"If you don't mind my asking," he said, "just how much do you know about racing?"

I had been to the horse races twice in my life, both times out in California with Cisco Mazzola, who loved three things in life: his family, vitamins, and betting the ponies, and I'm not real sure in what order. Both times I had lost a couple of hundred dollars I couldn't afford to lose, making sucker bets. After that, Cisco stopped inviting me.

I said, "I know the head from the tail and that's about the size of it."

"That's okay," Callahan said, although he seemed surprised at my ignorance. "Keep your ears open, I will give you the course."

Before the day was out, I was to learn a lot about Pancho Callahan and a lot more about racing, for he talked to me constantly and it was like listening to a poet describe a beautiful woman.

"First, I will tell you a little about Thoroughbreds," he said. "Thoroughbreds are different from all other animals. Thoroughbreds are handsome, hard, spooky, temperamental. They are independent and proud. And they are also conceited as h.e.l.l because, see, they know how good they are. The jockey, if he is worth his weight, he takes his kid in tow and he talks to him and he disciplines him around the track. The trainer may tell the jock how he wants him to run the race, like maybe hold the pony in until the backstretch or let him loose at the five-eighths pole or the clubhouse turn, like that, but once that gate opens up, it is just the jock and the horse and that is what it's all about."

In the fog, with the sun just beginning to break behind the large water oaks nearby, we could hear the horses but not see them until they were on top of us. The three-year-old gelding was frisky and playful and the outrider was having trouble with him. He was snorting and throwing his long neck across the saddlehorn of the outrider and trying to bite his hand as they galloped past in the fog, which was eerily magenta in the rising sun's first light.

It was one h.e.l.l of a sight. Callahan was right, there was poetry here.

The three-year-old was to become a lot more important than either Callahan or I realized then. His name was Disaway. And on this particular morning, he wanted to run.

"He is full of it," Callahan said. "A real Thoroughbred feeling frisky. Is that a sight?"

I allowed as how it was a sight.

"Thoroughbreds are trained to break fast out of the gate and open up and run quickly and flat away to the finish line, save up a little extra and put it on hard near the end, like a swimmer doing the two twenty," Callahan said. "This horse wants to go, so they have to calm him down a bit. Otherwise he will be too brash and spooky when the rider is up."

So they were not running hard and instead were trotting in and out of the cotton wads of fog, working out the early morning kinks. When they brought him in, he made one more halfhearted effort to bite the outrider and then, hopping slightly sideways, he kicked his heels a couple of times and settled down. The trainer led him to the tie-up to be saddled.

Disaway was a fine-looking animal with very strong front legs and a sweat-s.h.i.+ny chest, hard as concrete. The muscles were quivering and ready. Callahan walked close and stroked first one foreleg, then the other, then strolled back to the rail.

No comment.

The owner was a short, heavy man in a polo s.h.i.+rt with a stopwatch clutched in a fat fist and binoculars dangling around his neck. His name was Thibideau. He stood with his back to the jockey, chewing his lip. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and sounded like it was trapped deep in his throat.

"Okay," he said, without turning around or looking at the rider, "let's see what he can do. You open him up at the three-quarter post. "

The exercise rider looked a little surprised and then said, "The three-quarter, yes, sir."

They threw the saddle over the gelding's back, all the time talking to him and gentling him, and got ready to let him out.