Hooligans Part 3

And that was the end of that.

4.

LEADBETTER'S LEGACY.

The rain had turned into a driving storm by the time we got to Dutch Morehead's war room, which was in a small, rundown shopping center in the suburbs, a mile or two from the center of town. Lightning etched in purple monochromes a shabby, flat, one-story building that had once been a supermarket. Its plate-gla.s.s windows were boarded over and the entire building was painted flat black.

"Looks like Gestapo headquarters," I said.

"Psychological," Dutch grunted.

A less than imposing sign beside the entrance announced that it was the SPECIAL OPERATIONS BRANCH. Below it, even less imposing letters whispered DUNETOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT. I had to squint to read that line.

"Nice of you to mention the police department," I said.

"I thought so," Dutch said.

"What exactly does Special Operations Branch mean?" I asked.

"I'm not real sure myself," he said. "I think they just wanted to call us the SOB's."

A moment later Dutch roared like a lion demanding lunch.

"That sorry, flat-a.s.sed, pea-brained sappenpaw!" he said, curling his lip.

"Who?" I said, thinking maybe I had offended him.

"That six-toed, web-footed, sappenpaw, klommenshois Callahan," he raved on. "The mackerel-snapping, redheaded putz stole my d.a.m.n parking place again! If I told him once, I told him- arrgh . . . " His voice trailed off as he whispered further insults under his breath.

A half dozen cars in various stages of disrepair were angle-parked along the front of the building. Dented fenders, cracked winds.h.i.+elds, globs of orange primer where paint jobs had been started and never finished, hood ornaments and hubcaps gone; it looked like the starting line of a demolition derby.

"Your boys got something against automobiles?" I asked.

He growled something under his breath and wheeled into a spot marked only THE KID.

"I'll take Mufalatta's place," he said defensively. "He's never around anyway."

We were fifty yards from the front door, a long way in the raging storm. He cut the engine and leaned back, offering me a Camel.

"No thanks, I quit," I said.

"I don't wanna hear about it," he said, lighting up. He cracked the window and let the smoke stream out into the downpour.

"I can understand about your feelings toward old man Findley, " he said. "The old boy had a lotta cla.s.s, I'll give him that. He dealt one last hand before he retired."

"How's that?"

"His last hurrah. He brought in Ike Leadbetter to head up the force here. Findley was smart enough to know the burg needed some keen people to keep an eye on things when the track was built-the local cops were about as sophisticated as a warthog in a top hat. Leadbetter had been through the mill already. He'd done a turn up in Atlantic City before he came here, so he was savvy. Was Leadbetter brought me in."

"And Leadbetter is good?"

"Was. "

"Where'd he go?"

"No place. He's dead. Leadbetter knew what was gonna happen, I mean law-wise. He had learned a lot in Atlantic City. And he was honest."

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Three years ago, ran his car into the river, if you can believe that. "

"You don't?"

"I stopped believin' in accidents an hour after I got here."

I was beginning to wonder how Tagliani fit into the picture. Killing a police chief was not exactly his way of doing things.

Anger crept back into Dutch's tone. "The way it was, the case went to the homicide boys. You lump that whole bunch together, what you end up with is a bigger lump. Not a one of 'em can count to eleven without takin' off his shoes. " Pause. "It went down as an accident, period, end, of course."

"Who took Leadbetter's place?"

"Herb Walters."

"What's the score with him?"

"Old-timer. Up through the ranks. Scared for his job. He don't swim upstream, if that's what you mean. Herb likes calm waters."

"Is he honest?"

"That's an excellent question. I just don't know. I guess old Herb's okay; he just hasn't had an original thought since the first time he went to the john by himself." He stopped, then after a moment added: "Actually he's just a kiss-a.s.s to the people on the green side of town."

I laughed. "I gather you don't like him."

"That's very smart gathering."

"Why would anybody want to blitz Leadbetter?"

"Why would a lotta people not want to? A smart, tough, no-nonsense cop, honest as the Old Testament, in a town going to h.e.l.l. When Leadbetter was running the show, you couldn't find a pimpmobile anywhere on Front Street. Now every other vehicle you see's either a pink Caddy or a purple Rolls-Royce."

"How does your outfit fit into all this?"

"It's borderline. We try to monitor the out-of-towners, but local stuff is handled by vice. Don't even ask me about them."

I slid down in my seat and shook my head.

"Wonderful," I said. "Maybe I'll just take some sick leave and sleep this one out."

"Stick around and watch the fireworks," he said.

"You think that's going to happen, eh?"

"Well, what I don't think is that Turner and his pistol and his wife had a suicide pact."

I laughed. "His name's Tagliani," I said.

"Whatever. "

"I agree," I said. "It's my experience that when a mafioso capo di tutti capi gets wasted, it doesn't just quietly blow over."

"Verdammt!"

"If you're right and Leadbetter was a.s.sa.s.sinated, that could have been the kickoff, right there."

Dutch threw away his b.u.t.t and checked the weather. It was still like a monsoon outside. He sighed.

"Look," he said, "here's the long and short of it, okay? The way it went was that big daddy Findley plugged in Leadbetter, tells him keep the town clean. But Leadbetter inherits a department so old and leaky, if it was a bucket you couldn't carry rocks in it. He can't just vacuum out the whole outfit. That's where I come into the picture. Ike brings me in, gives me a decent budget, says, 'Go out, get yourself a dozen or so of the toughest no-s.h.i.+t lads you can find. Boys who know something about the LCN and can't be bent.' So I went lookin'. What I got is one mean bunch of hooligans. They're savvy and tough enough to take heat. And they're about as friendly as a nest of copperheads."

I said "Uh-huh" pensively. There was a message in all that for me.

"I just want you to understand the way the land rolls, see," he went on. "What it was, Leadbetter didn't trust anybody on the old force. Our job was to keep our eyes open, build up our snitches, ha.s.sle the out-of-town conmen, grifters, dips, hustlers. Put a little heat under the undesirables so they'd move on. Try to keep a line on who's who and what's what. The tough thing is to do it without walkin' on toes. We ha.s.sle a hooker, vice gets p.i.s.sed. We break down an out-of-town dice game, bunco goes crazy. So we pretty much been spinning our wheels up till now. I mean, we do okay, but . . . " He paused, looking for the next sentence, and finally said, "Maybe I'm just tired of doin' rounds with the front office."

I let it all sink in. What I thought I was hearing was that the local police were either stupid or on the take. It was Morehead's job to cover all the bases.

"Leadbetter and Findley played it real smart," Dutch continued. "They gave us very loose power, so to speak, and fixed it so we report to a select committee of the city commission."

"You're not part of the department, then?"

"Yeah. We deal with them when we have to. But Walters can't fire any of us, so we pretty much play it our way. He don't like it, but it's a tough-sheiss situation for him. Otherwise, we'd probably all be sorting files in Short Arm, Kansas, by now."

"He fights you?"

"Not in the open. But he wants control. He's a back-fighter. h.e.l.l, I'm talkin' too much," he growled suddenly, and fell silent. I could tell from his flat monotone that he was having trouble trusting me. He was being just friendly enough not to be unfriendly.

The storm rolled over and the rain turned to a fine mist.

He locked the car and we headed for the front door, squeezing up against the building to keep out of the rain that swirled under its eaves.

"Once ya get t'know the gang, you can come, go as ya please," Dutch said as we hurried toward the door. "For now, they ain't gonna give you a dime for the toilet unless I'm with you."

I stopped and he almost ran into me. He loomed over me, his hands jammed in his pockets and an unlit b.u.t.t in his mouth.

"You got a hard-on for Feds?" I asked.

"Let's just say we've had a few bad rounds with 'em," he said, studying me through eyes the color of sapphires. Rainwater dribbled from the brim of his battered brown felt hat.

"Well, who hasn't?" I said.

"You are the Fed," he said.

"Look, I'm on your side. I'm not the Feebies or the Leper Colony. You've dealt with the Freeze before. You and Mazzola are practically old pals by now."

"Like I said, it's one-on-one in there. These guys don't even trust each other sometimes."

"How about you?" I asked. "Am I on probation with you, too? Where do you stand?"

"Out here in the rain getting soaked," he said. "Can we maybe continue this inside? There's a lot more of me getting wet than there is of you."

And he turned and stomped off toward the door.

5.

THE WAREHOUSE.

Dutch Morehead herded me toward the door with his sheer bulk. I'd been this route before, getting the red eye from the local police. Local cops don't like to deal with Feds because they get treated like kids and because they get the runaround from the Feebies and the shaft from the Lepers. My outfit, the Federal Racket Squad, was different. Part of the job was working on the local level, pointing them in the right direction on interstate cases. Sometimes it took a while for that to sink in.

I decided to save a little time, so I put on my tough-guy act.

"I just like to know where I stand without reading a road map," I snapped as we hurried along through the rain. "If I'm on some kind of probation with this bunch of yours, then screw it. I'll go it alone."

He stopped me and smiled condescendingly.

"Cut the bulls.h.i.+t," he said.

"No bulls.h.i.+t," I said. "The h.e.l.l with this one-on-one, sink-or-swim c.r.a.p. I didn't come here to audition for you and yours."

"What the h.e.l.l got under your saddle all of a sudden?"

"You know what the Freeze is all about?" I demanded, and went on before he could answer. "We're the only federal agency around who works with the street cops. The FBI, the IRS, Justice Department, they're all in it for themselves."

"And you're not?" he demanded. "You came here to bust this Tagliani's b.a.l.l.s, right or wrong?"

"I came here to find out what he's doing here-"

"Was," he interrupted.

"Was," I agreed. "But if he was here, then the rest of his bunch is close by. I know this outfit, Dutch. I know this gang better than anyone alive. Sure, I want to bring the whole bunch down. What do you want to do, send flowers?"