As it started getting dark, the visiting team rolled up, a group of edgy, sharp-faced badgers in polyester knits. Mug-book faces. Twenty in all and traveling in a herd. The Romans had arrived; time for the festivities to begin.
"Track dudes," Mufalatta said. "Always a bunch don't get enough action at the races. Look at those threads, man. Now there's a fuckin' crime."
Next the emperor arrived—in a silver and gray stretch Lincoln limo big enough to throw a Christmas party in. The chariot stopped for a chat with the guard at the road.
"That's Elroy Luther Graves in that car there," the Mufalatta Kid said. Now I knew what the Kid was doing there.
"Elroy Luther?"
"That's his name, babes, Elroy Luther Graves," he said.
"Nice to know," I said, and decided to get a peek at the man everybody seemed to have a healthy respect for. As I started toward the limo, I ran into the back of Mufalatta's hand. He never looked at you when he spoke; he was always staring off somewhere at nothing in particular.
"Uh-uh," he said.
"Uh-uh?" I said.
"Uh-uh. Not that way."
"Fuck him," I growled.
Mufalatta moved his hand. "Okay," he said, "but you're on his turf, man. No place to start trouble."
I thought about that for a minute. What Mufalatta was telling me was that it wasn't just Graves' turf, it was the Kid's too.
"I didn't know you had something going," I said. "Sorry."
"Don't be. It's the way things happen. You'll get the hang of it. "
"Okay," I said, "so we do it your way."
"That's cool," he said. "For now, the Kid's way is to hang loose, don't splash the water, don't wave your face around a lot, lay back, see what comes along."
"Is there gonna be trouble here?"
"Anyplace Elroy Luther is, there could be trouble. It comes to him like flies to a two-holer."
"Well, are you expecting trouble?"
"I just answered that," the Kid said, and shut up.
"I'm going to mosey around," I said.
I followed the silver chariot a hundred yards down the road until it ended at an old frame roadhouse, a big place with a cone-shaped roof, boarded-up windows, and a lot of noise inside.
And there were the dogs. Mean dogs. Not yipping dogs. These were angry, snarling, growling, scarred, teeth-snapping, gum-showing, slobbering dogs, biting at their cages with yellow teeth. I could feel the gooseflesh on my arms rising like biscuits in a stove.
In all, I estimated three hundred fifty to four hundred people were packed inside, all of whom had paid ten dollars a head, man, woman, and child, to the giant at the door. He was bald and black-bearded, wore overalls and no shirt, had arms like a truck tire and curly hair on his shoulders. For those who were not impressed by his size, there was a .38 police special hanging haphazardly from his rear pocket.
When the crowd outside the arena had thinned to half a dozen, a tall, pole-thin black man got out of the front seat of the Lincoln. The rear window glided silently down and he reached in and drew out a wad of bills big enough to strangle Dumbo. I got a quick look at a handsome black face at the window. I had imagined Nose Graves to be ugly. If that was Nose Graves, and I was fairly sure it was, he was the lady-killer type. Older than I'd thought, probably forty-five or so, give or take a couple of years either way. His bushy hair was graying at the temples and he had a deep scar almost the width of one eyebrow, another over his ear that carried a gray streak with it. His nose was straight and no larger than mine. He was wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses. My guess was, Nose Graves probably wore those glasses to bed.
The window went back up without a sound and the skinny man headed for the rear door of Uncle Jolly's. So that was the pitch, then. Longnose Graves was the banker. It was his house.
I sauntered up to the gate. My sawbuck vanished into the keeper's fist. He cut me about six ways with his black eyes before jerking his head for me to go in.
Noise, heat, odor, hit me like a bucket of hot water. Tiers had been built up and away from a pit in the middle of the room. Fruit jars of moonshine were being passed back and forth. Some of the families had brought picnics and were wolfing down dinner, waiting for the tournament to start. Smoke swirled around half a dozen green-shaded two-hundred-watt bulbs that hung from the ceiling over the plywood rink.
Most of the crowd could have been dirt farmers living on food stamps—until the betting started. That's when the U.S. Grants and Ben Franklins appeared.
The place suddenly sounded like a tobacco auction. Graves' man stood in the ring and handled it with the bored finesse of a maitre d'. A wizened, mean-looking little creep, with a flimsy white beard, whom I took to be Uncle Jolly, stood behind him with a large roll of movie tickets over one wrist, handing out chits as the bets were made, after scribbling what I assumed to be the size of the bet and the number of the dog on the back.
A lot of money was going down, big money. And this was only the first fight. Clyde Barrow could have knocked over this soiree and retired.
45
DOUBLE FEATURE
It had seen better days, the South Longbeach Cinema, a movie palace once long ago, when Garbo and Taylor were the stars and glamour and double features eased the pain of the Depression. Its flamingo-painted walls were chipped and faded now, and the art deco curves around its marquee were terminally spattered by pigeons and sea birds.
It stood alone, consuming, with its adjacent parking lot, an entire block, facing a small park. Behind it, looming up like some extinct prehistoric creature, was the tattered skeleton of a roller coaster, stirring bleak memories of a time when the world was a little more innocent and South Longbeach was the playground of the city's middle class.
Now the theater was an ethnic showplace, specializing in foreign flms shown in their original language. It attracted enough trade to stay open, but not enough to be cared for properly. The park across the street was rundown too. Its nests of palm trees dry and dusty, the small lake polluted, most of its lights broken or burned out. At night nobody went near the place but drunks, hoboes, and predators.
The ocean was hidden from the area by an abutment, the foot of one of the many towering dunes from which the city had taken its name. The road that wound around it to the beach was pockmarked by weather and strewn with broken bottles and beer cans.
A long black limousine was parked in the "no stand' zone in front of the theater. The double feature was Roma and La Strada. Stizano and his bunch had come only for the last feature, La Strada. Stizano, an inveterate movie buff, had dropped his wife off, and come back to the movies with his number one button and two other gunsels. It was his way of relaxing.
They were still dressed in black. First came the shooters, both of whom looked like beach bums in mourning, their necks bulging over tight collars. They studied the street, then one of them stepped back and opened the theater doors and the number one button exited, a thin, sickly-looking man, the color of wet cement. He shrugged and summoned his boss.
Stizano was portly, with white hair that flowed down over his ears, and looked more like the town poet than a mobster. He walked with an ebony cane, his fingers glittering with rings.
The chauffeur walked around the back of the car to open the door.
Suddenly they were marionettes, dancing to the tune of a silent drummer. Tufts flew from their clothes; popcorn boxes were tossed in the air.
The only sound was the thunk of bullets tearing into the five of them, then the shattering of glass as bullets ripped into the show windows of the theater and an explosion of shards as the box office was obliterated, then the popping of the bulbs in the marquee.
Poppoppoppop . . . poppoppoppop . . .
Poppoppoppoppoppop . . .
Broken bulbs showered down on the street.
Five people lay in the outer lobby, on the sidewalk, in the gutter.
It had happened so fast there were no screams.
Nor the sound of gunfire.
Nor the
flash from a weapon.
Nothing.
Nothing but five puppets dancing on the string of death.
Then, just like that, it was all over. Silence descended over the park.
There was only the wind, rattling the dried-out palms.
A bird crying.
Somewhere, far on the other side of the park, a car driving lazily past on the way to the beach.
And the sizzling wires dangling in front of the theater.
46
DOGS
Harry Nesbitt was sitting up in the back of the arena, in a corner under a burned-out light. I stopped a couple of rows below him and checked out the crowd. Nobody was interested in us; they were concentrating on the two dogs getting ready for the first fight. One was a dirty gray pug, its lacerated face seamed with the red scars of other battles. The other, a white mutt, part bulldog, was fresh and unscathed and an obvious virgin to the pit.
Two men, obviously the owners of the dogs, were on opposite sides of the pit but not in it, and they seemed to be washing the dogs down with a white substance. One of the men reached over and nipped the bulldog's neck.
I moved up and sat down next to Nesbitt.
"I wasn't sure you'd show," he said.
"I'm a real curious fellow," I said. "Besides, I like your pal Benny Skeeler."
"Yeah, what a guy."
"What are they doing?" I asked, nodding toward the arena.
"Checking out each other's dogs. That white stuff there, that's warm milk. They're checking for toxics in the dog."
"Why's that one guy biting it on the neck?"
"Tastin' the skin. Some claim they can taste it if the dog's been juiced up."
He pointed down at the small bulldog.
"Lookit there, see that little no-hair mutt down there, looks like a bulldog only uglier."
"I really don't like dog fights, Nesbitt."
"Call me Harry. Makes me feel secure, okay?"
"Sure, Harry."
"Anyways, that ugly little bowser, that's called a hog dog. You know why? Because they use them kind of mutts to hunt wild boars. The dog grabs the boar by the ear, see, and he just hangs on for dear life, pulls that fuckin' hog's head right down to the ground and holds him there. Tough motherfuckers. I got a hundred down on that one."
"You do this often?"
"Every week. Better than horse racing. The reason I picked the place, nobody'll ever go with me. So I know I ain't meetin' unexpected company, see what I mean?"
The owners retrieved their animals and took them into the pit. For the first time the two animals were aware of each other, although they were tail to tail across the arena. Hackles rose like stalks of wheat down the back of the scarred old warrior. The bulldog hunkered down, sleeked out, his lips peeled back to show gum and tooth.
Neither of the dogs made a sound, no growling, no barking. It was eerie.
The betting was done. The crowd grew quiet, leaning forward on the benches.
The referee, a lean man with a warty face and a jaw full of chewing tobacco, whistled between his teeth and the place was silent.
"Gentlemen," warty-face said, "face yer dogs."
I turned away, looking over at Nesbitt, who was wide-eyed, waiting for two dogs to tear each other to pieces.
"So let's get on with it," I said.
I heard the referee cry, "Pit!"
The crowd went crazy. The dogs still did not bark. I was to learn later that they are trained to fight without a sound. It conserves energy.
My companion was really into it. He was on his feet. "Get 'im, ya little pissant!" he screamed.
"So let's get on with it," I yelled to Nesbitt. "This isn't one of my favorite things here, with the dogs."
"You know what's goin' down, man. Do I look like I wanna end up a chopped liver sandwich?" he said, without taking his eyes off the pit. He was almost yelling so I could hear him above the crowd.
"Okay, speak your piece," I said.
"Look, Kilmer, I din't have nothin' to do with Jigs gettin' pushed across."
"What are you telling me for?"
His speech came in a rush. He was talking so fast he almost stuttered.
"I'll tell you why, see. Because I was eyeballin' you in the restaurant up until you left. You had breakfast with a couple of guys, then you talked with a couple of other guys, then you went down and got your own car, okay? I drive on out the highway ahead of you, see, wait at the place, at Benny's. You pass it goin' in. I was there when you come by. It was exactly five to eleven."
"So?"
"So I couldn't of killed him. Shit, I talked to him on the phone right after you finished breakfast. "
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you talk to him?"
"Look, I don't trust none of this, okay? I mean, O'Brian says he wants to bullshit with you. Lay off, he says, I promised him I'd be alone. It's one on one, he says. So I keep an eye on you when you come down in the morning, I call to tell him where everything's at, he says go to Benny's and wait until you leave. I din't have time to nix him, fer Chrissakes."
One of the dogs let out the damnedest sound I ever heard. It was a cry of agony that seemed to go on forever. My eyes were drawn to the pit.
The old fighter had the little hog dog by the thigh and was shaking his head while the newcomer was trying desperately to back away.
"He's got my boy fanged," Nesbitt said.
"What's fanged?"
"Bit right through his thigh and impaled his own lip. He can't let go, that ugly one can't."
The referee cautiously approached the fighting animals and took a stick and started prying the old warrior's jaws loose. I'd seen enough.
"Look, can we go outside and talk? This definitely is not my thing."
"Weak stomach?"
"Yeah, right."
"They take a little time out here, when the ref has to use the breaking stick like that."
"So what'd O'Brian say when you called him?" I asked.
"Nothin'. Nobody was around. Some shrimpers, a guy trying to make city marina in a sailboat. That was it."
"What time was that?"
"You left at ten-oh-five."
"You'd be up shit creek if I turned the time around a little, wouldn't you?"
"Where you think I am right now? Up shit creek without the proverbial, no less, is where I'm at. Everybody's on my ass, okay? The locals, the Fed, the Tagliani family, what's left of them. I mean, I got everybody on my ass but the fuckin' marines . . . "
"Somebody threaten you?"
"I don't have to hear from the pope, pal. I was O'Brian's chief button. My job was keepin' him alive. I fucked up. You think I'm gonna get a second chance? O'Brian was family, he was son-in-law to old man Franco."
"Maybe that's what they wanted."
"What the hell's that mean?"
"I'm talking about supposing somebody wanted Jigs out of the way, somebody big in the family. Supposing they put it to somebody to ice Jigs. And this somebody rigs the whole thing to provide himself with a perfect alibi—like me, for instance. Shit, Harry, what do you take me for—"
"Hey, you think I done O'Brian in? You think I done that thing? C'mon. And the family put my nose to it? Come on. Shit, you need help, dreamin' up a story like that. The whole fuckin' family's getting aced one on top of the other, you think it's one of them behind it?"
"Why not? This is quite a plum, Doomstown. Be a nice place to control."
"Shit, you think this is an inside job, you're on the wrong trolley."
"How about Chevos? Or Nance?"
"That's family!"
"Not really."
"There ain't any bad blood there. Everybody was happy until the Tagliani knockover. Everybody had their thing."
"It's happened before, y'know. Somebody gets greedy. Like that."
"Not this time, pal. I mean, that Nance, he's a badass and all that, but I don't see him and Chevos doin' that. Look, I'm tellin' you, except for that local nigger there wasn'
t any problems."
"I still don't trust you, Harry," I said. "You could've dragged me all the way out to this pasture to try to get me to fix yourself up an alibi."
He was sweating. The dogs were at it again but he had lost interest. He was mine for now. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and leaned closer to me, whispering over the bellowing crowd.
"What d'ya want to know? Uh, the guys with you, one was the size of a semi, the other one was missing an ear . . . uh, you had a feast would choke a fuckin' hippopotamus. Then you went over and talked to two other birds . . . "
He rambled on, filling in details as they came to him, things nobody would have thought to tell him. He was a very observant man.
"Okay," I said, cutting him off, "so maybe for now I choose to believe you. You got something to trade? This is your party, so I assume you want something, and since Christmas is long gone, I figure you got something to throw in the pot. Otherwise we wouldn't be out here in this shithouse."
"Look, I know I'm probably on the shit list. I can't take a chance on leaving town if I'm gonna get busted. The Triad has got people all over the state on the payroll, man. I get busted, the boys'll hear about it, y'know, like yesterday. I won't make it to the South Carolina border, fer Chrissakes."
"That's what you want, a guarantee the law'll let you out of town without a hassle?" I asked with surprise.
"Once I'm loose, I'm okay," he said. "I got some friends in Phoenix. I'll take a moniker. But I can't take a chance, see, some dumb flatfoot, pardon the French, turns me up down here."
"Why don't you drive?"
"It's their car, their credit cards. I left the car in a downtown parking lot with the cards locked in the dash, sent them the keys. I'm breaking as clean as I can. Hell, I was even afraid to tap my bank account, y'know? It's all set up by the company."
Hooligans Page 27
