Hooligans Part 7

"Just what is the Freeze?" Charlie One Ear asked without looking up from his puzzle.

They were going to make it tough.

"Well, I'll tell you what it's not. It's not the Feebies or the Leper Colony," I said. "We have two jobs. We work with locals on anything where there's a hint of an interstate violation. And we go after the LCN. We're not in a league with the Leper Colony. We don't kiss a.s.s in Was.h.i.+ngton by victimizing some little taxpayer who can't protect himself, and we don't hold press conferences every five minutes like the Feebies."

"What's the LCN?" Zapata asked.

"La Cosa Nostra, you f.u.c.kin' moron," Salvatore taunted.

Zapata looked back over his shoulder at Salvatore. "Big deal. So I never heard it called LCN before. My old man didn't suck a.s.s for some broken-down old mafioso."

"That's right," Salvatore said. "Your old man swept floors in a Tijuana wh.o.r.ehouse."

"You shoulda been brung up in a wh.o.r.ehouse," Zapata shot back. "Maybe you wouldn't wear an earring, like a f.u.c.kin' f.a.g."

"Hey, you're talking about my mother's wedding ring!" roared Salvatore.

"All right, all right," Charlie One Ear said, holding up his hand.

"You keep outta this," said Salvatore. "At least I got an ear to put it in; some dip didn't eat it for dinner."

I wondered why Dutch didn't step in and stop things before they got out of hand. Then Zapata started snickering and Salvatore broke out in a laugh and Charlie One Ear smiled, and I got a sudden sense of what was happening. You see it in combat, this kind of barbed-wire humor. It's a great equalizer. It says: I trust you; we're buddies; you can say anything about me you want; n.o.body else has the privilege. It bonds that unspoken sense of love and trust among men under pressure, a macho camaraderie in which the insult becomes the ultimate flattery.

I was beginning to understand what Dutch meant. This was a tight little society and they were letting me know it in their own way.

They all got into it except Pancho Callahan, who never cracked a smile. He stared at me over a pyramid of fingers through cold gray eyes, the way you stare at a waiter in a restaurant when he forgets your order. I got the message. "Screw the buddy-buddy humor, hotshot," he was saying. "Show us what you got."

"You guys can rehea.r.s.e your act later," Dutch said, throwing a wet towel in the works. "If we listen, maybe we can learn something. Did all of you forget that part of our deal was to keep organized crime out of this town? Look what we ended up with."

They all eyeballed me.

"Not him," Dutch growled, "the pfutzlker Taglianis."

Dutch never swore in English, only German. I doubt that any of his gang knew what the h.e.l.l he meant most of the time. n.o.body ever asked, either.

"Go on," he said to me. "Keep trying."

"Look, this gang up here on the wall is no penny-ante outfit and they didn't come here for the waters. They came here to buy this town. I been after these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds since the day I joined the Freeze. "

"So what d'you want outta all this?" Cowboy Lewis asked.

"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "The RICO anti-crime laws refer to any monies earned from illegal sources as IGG," I said, "which stands for ill-gotten gains."

That drew a laugh from Charlie One Ear. "Ah," he said, "the wonders of the government never cease."

"What's RICO stand for?" Lewis asked, seriously.

"Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations-gangland fronts," I said.

"IGG simply means the kiwash they make from dope, gambling, prost.i.tution, extortion, p.o.r.nography . . . all the LCN's favorite tricks. The LCN has to wash that money, and it isn't easy. So they invest in legitimate businesses-even banks-to clean it up. RICO gives us the power to bust them if we can prove that any business depends for its support on IGG. If we can prove that, we can confiscate their money, their businesses, their equipment, their yachts and Rolls-Royces and all the rest of their toys. And we can also make cases against the racketeers and everybody connected with them. That goes for legitimate businessmen, politicians, or anybody else that gets in bed with them."

Zapata piped up: "Do we get credit for this course?"

"Yeah," Salvatore chimed in. "When's the final?"

More laughter.

"Give him a chance," Dutch snapped.

"Okay," I said, "let's forget the bureaucratic bulls.h.i.+t. Here's what you're dealing with. In the Freeze we spend most of our time working with the locals, tying known LCN racketeers to IGG, and the IGG to legitimate sources that have been corrupted. That's what I'm after-I want to know how they got their hooks into Dunetown and who they had to buy to do it. I'm not interested in making individual cases for prost.i.tution or gambling or even homicide. Anything I get that can help you in those areas is yours."

"We've heard that song before, old man," Charlie One Ear said caustically.

"Enough of this true-and-false c.r.a.p," Dutch said. "Let's get to the meat and potatoes."

I gave them a brief history of the Triad, very brief so they wouldn't fall asleep.

"Franco Tagliani was very cautious," I said. "Before we nailed Skeet, Franco had made quite a name for himself. He was a big shot in Cincy. He contributed to the arts, ballet, symphony, local sports teams, everything including the humane society. He loved animals. Everybody's lovable old Uncle Franco, right? When we dumped Skeet, we figured Franco would have to come out of the closet, so we started a matrix on him. What we call a link a.n.a.lysis. We charted every sc.r.a.p of information that came our way that related to the Triad, even the most insignificant stuff. Bits of bulls.h.i.+t from snitches, restaurants they frequented, social gatherings, weddings, pals, acquaintances, habits, police records, vacation trips. h.e.l.l, we even had Interpol checking on them when they left the country. It all went on the matrix, and we kept refining it, and finally we ended up with this."

I took a chart out of my briefcase and pinned it on the wall.

CINCINNATI TRIAD.

"There it is," I said. "The Cincinnati Triad. Anybody thinks they came here for their health should go back to school."

No grumbling this time. I had their attention.

I started down the list while I was still ahead, beginning with Franco, once the consigliere, the legal brains, for Skeet, and until a few hours ago, G.o.dfather to the Triad.

"Tagliani was a cla.s.sic mafioso," I said. "His religion was family, friends, and f.u.c.k everybody else; Tagliani's three daughters are all married to family capi. The Triad's respected in La Cosa Nostra. n.o.body messes with them. At least n.o.body has until now.

"Stinetto was Franco's executioner, the official enforcer for the outfit, and Tagliani's bodyguard. One of the few people Tagliani trusted. All the other capi were under Stinetto's direct command. Stinetto was an old-timer. He made his bones in the fifties, about the time Buggsy Siegel bought his. So what I'm saying, they were both tough old pros. Taking them out together like that was ingenious and gutsy."

Dutch jumped in at this point. "Whoever pulled this off poisoned two guard dogs and got past three armed guards. n.o.body laid an eye on him or them."

There was another face that was not on Dutch's board: Leo Costello, Mr. Clean, the consigliere of the outfit, summa c.u.m laude graduate of Chicago Law School, mid- to late thirties, married to Tagliani's daughter Maria.

"Costello was a major in Nam," I said. "Adjutant general's office. He never saw combat, spent most of his time preparing court-martial cases. The man won't touch a gun, doesn't even hunt. He prefers the country club set to his own family."

"Mazzola put us on to him," said Charlie One Ear. "Him and his friend.

"Lou Cohen?" I asked.

"The same," said Flowers. "Neither one of them changed their names."

"That sounds like him," I said. "Costello avoids as much contact as possible with the rest of the mob. He doesn't have any shooters around him. And Cohen is a quiet, reclusive accountant. The money brains and the bagman for the outfit. The Lepers've been trying to burn Cohen for at least ten years. Zip. But Costello may have to show his colors now."

"How come?" asked Zapata.

"Because he's the most likely one of the bunch to take over as capo di tutti capi now that Franco's bought the farm. That's unless there's something we don't know," I added.

"Such as?" asked Dutch.

"Such as somebody else in the family pus.h.i.+ng the old man across and taking over."

"Oh," said Dutch, "that such as."

I went on, running down the list of felons who were now in residence in Doomstown: Johnny Draganata, the tough, no-quarter Mustache Pete from the old school, and professor and priest to all the Tagliani soldiers, the final authority on tradition and protocol; Rico Stizano, also known as the Barber, because that's what he had once been in Chicago, until he married Tagliani's sister. Now his speciality was gambling. A big family man. They all were.

Tony Logeto, Tagliani's son-in-law, was a cannon and a muscle man, married to Tagliani's oldest daughter, Sheila, and a specialist in loan sharking, extortion, and anything that required more muscle than brains. Logeto saw himself as a big ladies' man. A lot of ladies apparently did too.

"Anthony Bronicata is another old-timer," I told them. "He's a onetime soldato with a lot of notches on his gun. In dope circles he's known as the Peg, short for Il Peggiore, which means the Worst, and that-in the trade-means don't mess with him. He's king pusher, pipeline to the street, and we've never been able to put a finger on him for anything-possession, conspiracy, distribution, nothing. Bronicata's front is always a restaurant. The only good thing I can say about him is he makes pretty fair fettuccine. You want him? If we can nail his a.s.s, he's yours."

I had very little recollection of O'Brian. In my mind I remembered him as a short little Irishman with a bl.u.s.tery red face and bad teeth. Dutch's photo showed that he had a pug nose and a go-to-h.e.l.l smile, and his picture was the only pleasant one in the bunch, but I didn't let that fool me for a minute. As the newest member of the clan, he still had to prove himself, and that made him more unpredictable than any of the rest.

Dutch observed, "All these guns around, and it didn't help Tagliani for a minute."

"Never does if they want you bad enough," I said.

I pulled two new photographs out of my briefcase and held them up.

"These two look familiar to anybody?" I asked.

There were no takers.

I held up the clearer of the two photos, that of a round-faced man in his sixties with a pleasant smile, his snake eyes hidden behind sungla.s.ses.

"This is Tuna Chevos," I said. "We'll turn him up."

"How would you know that?" Charlie One Ear asked.

My stomach started to churn just thinking about Chevos and Nance, his personal a.s.sa.s.sin.

"I have this little buzzer inside me goes off whenever I'm within fifty miles of the son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"Something personal?" Charlie One Ear asked, raising his eyebrows.

I stared at him dead-eyed for a full minute before he looked away. Then I held up the other picture, a somewhat fuzzy photograph of a lean, hard, ferret-faced man in his midthirties, his eyes also obscured by sungla.s.ses.

"You see Chevos, this one is close behind. He's the Greek's numero uno, your friendly little neighborhood a.s.sa.s.sin. His name is Turk Nance and he's the deadliest one of the lot, a psychopath with a temper as thin as a shadow. They're both cobras. Chevos married into the family but they're outsiders. They play by their own rules."

"Maybe they did the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d in," Zapata suggested.

"Maybe, but I don't think so."

"Why not?" Dutch asked.

"I don't say I'm ruling them out," I replied. "I said I don't think they did it. It's still family. Salvatore, you know what I mean?"

"He's right," Salvatore said. "I mean, what you say, this Chevos was the old man's brother-in-law. Unless there was real bad blood . . . " He let the sentence dangle.

"So where do these two bombos fit in?" Cowboy Lewis asked.

"Chevos brings the stuff in, Bronicata gets it to the wholesalers," I said. "Nance is Chevos' personal soldato. If Chevos says go flush your head in the toilet, Nance's head is as good as in the bowl. There's one other thing-don't let Chevos fool you because he's got Nance for backup. The story goes that Chevos killed his own brother to make his bones for Skeet. I don't know if his brother needed killing, but if he was in the same league as Chevos, it was no big loss.

"Nance started in the streets, got a postgrad course in Vietnam, probably killed at least half of the Bannion gang himself. He favors a nine-millimeter Luger with a twelve-inch barrel and hollow points soaked in a.r.s.enic. A real sweetheart. He's also a muscle freak. Sooner or later, when he can plant Chevos someplace safe for an hour or two, he'll show up at the best fitness center in town. Everybody in the family is scared s.h.i.+tless of both of them.

"Turk Nance. Remember that name. If you have trouble with him, shoot first."

"You keep tellin' us what you don't want," Callahan said in a dead monotone. "What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

I thought about that, about why I was here and what had happened to Dunetown and was going to happen to it. I thought about a lot of things in the next few seconds.

"I want the whole d.a.m.n bunch off the street. I don't care if you do it or I do it or we do it together. They're the c.o.c.kroaches of our society."

I looked at Charlie One Ear. "You ask me is it personal? I got five years invested in this bunch. In the whole rat pack only Costello and Cohen are clean. The rest of them have rap sheets that'll stretch from here to Malibu and back."

I started pacing. I had lost my temper for a moment, not because of Charlie One Ear or because Dutch Morehead's hooligans didn't trust me. I was used to that. It was because of Cincinnati. I stopped and looked at each of them in turn.

"Yeah, f.u.c.kin'-A it's personal," I said. "One of my partners on the Tagliani job was Harry Nome, Wholesome Harry we called him. Best inside man I ever met. He was undercover in Chevos' dope operation. Nance tumbled him. They took him for a ride and Nance stuck his gun up Harry's nose, ripped it off with the gunsight-I mean he ripped it off. Then he tossed Harry out of a car doing about fifty. Harry came out of it a paraplegic.

"We had another man, on loan from the Drug Enforcement Agency. He tried to burrow into the operation at the New Orleans end. We never saw him or heard from him again. Nothing. He just disappeared. That's been three years now.

"I had an informant, a hooker named Tammi. She was eighteen years old, recruited by Stizano, who hooked her on horse when she was fifteen. They had her working interstate and she wanted out, so she agreed to talk to the attorney general about how hookers are moved around on the national circuit, who runs it, that sort of thing. Very strong stuff. Nance got her away from us. He cut off her nose and both ears, stuffed them down her throat, and strangled her with them. Costello-Mr. Clean? He was Nance's mouthpiece. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d wasn't even indicted."

I paused for a minute, letting it all sink in.

"Naw," I said, "it isn't personal. It's never personal, right? I mean, why should I be p.i.s.sed? I was lucky. When they took a shot at me, the bullet went in my side, here, just below the ribs, popped out my back, and went on its merry way. The bullet hurt, but not like the a.r.s.enic it was soaked in."

I sat down.

Not bad, I thought. Not bad at all. Save up the rough stuff until the end.

n.o.body said anything else for a minute or two.

I didn't know it at the time, but there was another name I should have added to the list that night: Longnose Graves.

I would get to know him well in the next few days. I would get to know a lot of people well in the next few days, very d.a.m.n few of them for long.

9.

s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g UP ROYALLY.