Hooligans

by William Diehl

  "And what's the lady here guilty of, holding my coat while I did it?"

  "I'll admit that bringing you two out here was bad judgment on somebody's part, but we can work all this out."

  "Good, I'm glad you see it that way," I said. "If you'll just arrange for a ride back to town, we'll be leaving."

  "Not quite."

  "You're skating on no ice, Costello. You may not be guilty of kidnapping, but holding us against our will sure as hell makes you an accessory."

  "I'm just trying to arrange a negotiation here," he said, holding his hands out at his sides and smiling. "So everybody comes out happy."

  "There's no way that can happen."

  "You're all bluff, Kilmer. Right now you couldn't lick a postage stamp in a court of law, and you know it."

  "I've got Donleavy cold for murder one," I said. "And I've got Seaborn and his bank against the wall. Before it's over, they'll both be singing like Pavarotti."

  "I never had anything to do with either one of them," Costello said. "I may have said hello once or twice."

  "Oh, I get it. It's Save Costello's Ass Week, that's what we're talking about here? Okay, here are my terms. You give us Nance for murder and kidnapping, Cohen and his books for violation of the RICO acts, Chevos for smuggling and accessory to murder, and you become a friendly witness for the Fed. I'll see if maybe we can get you off with five to ten."

  "Dream on," he said with a laugh. It was his last.

  The chopper was bearing in, coming closer.

  Whah, whah, whah, whah . . .

  Christ, he thought, just like the old days.

  The guards didn't even hear the boat until it bumped the dock. He was ready.

  "What the hell's that?" one of them said. They both turned toward the boat.

  The laser's red pinpoint settled over the heart of the first one. He still had his shotgun over his shoulder.

  Brrddtttt.

  He went down like an elephant stopped on him. The other one started to scramble. He didn't have time to yell; he made a dash for the trees. Stick squirreled a burst into the sidewalk, twenty meters in front of him. A dozen rounds whined off the walk and tore through his legs. He went down on his face. The second burst finished him.

  Stick jumped ashore and ran toward the house. He blitzed the two big lights as he ran. The chopper was getting louder but Stick was committed. He didn't need any air for this one. This one was a piece of cake. Piece of fuckin' cake.

  He dropped behind a tree, twenty yards from the door to the main room, swung the M-16 up, and checked the kitchen and the living room one more time. Bronicata was leaning over a large pot, sipping something from a spoon. The other two were standing next to him.

  The five were still in the living room, gabbing. No women, thank God.

  He swung the M-16 around and launched a grenade into the center of the big room.

  It happened fast.

  Chevos opened the door and said, "There's a helicopter coming in from the bay, flying pretty low."

  "Probably some businessman coming home late for dinner," Costello said.

  I could see through the door into a bedroom. Nance was sitting on a large, round waterbed, holding an icepack against his jaw. Beyond that there was a large, high-ceilinged room with half a dozen or so goons, and beyond that the kitchen. Bronicata was cooking something. Just a nice domestic get-together. The boys' night out.

  Suddenly the living room erupted in a garish orange flash. The explosion followed an instant later and blew the room to pieces.

  After that, everything happened so fast, I remember it almost like a series of still pictures.

  Sweetheart Pravano was lifted four feet off the ground and thrown against the wall. His face was gone.

  Another hoodlum went out the back window head first as if he had been bounced off a trampoline.

  Another fell to his knees in the middle of the room, clutching a bloody mess that had been his chest a moment before, and fell forward screaming, "Mother!"

  Bits and pieces of furniture were thrown around the room like dust.

  In the kitchen Bronicata was almost knocked into his soup pan.

  The explosion blew Chevos' face forward into the room.

  I grabbed Doe, twisted her around, and went to the floor on top of her.

  Costello was knocked off his chair.

  An M-16 started chattering.

  Bronicata did a toe dance in the kitchen while his pots and pans exploded around him, then fell across the hot stove as if embracing it.

  His two pals were slammed against the wall and riddled.

  In the other room Nance whirled and dropped to his knees behind the bed.

  Chevos was on his knees, a 32 in his fist, his glasses hanging from one ear, hissing like a snake.

  Costello rolled over and shook his head.

  The smell of gunpowder flooded the room.

  Nance turned toward me, his smashed face curdled with hate, his Luger in his hand.

  I dragged Doe to her feet and pushed her toward the far corner of the room, away from the doorway.

  The Luger roared and I felt the round twirl through my arm and hit the wall beyond. I knocked Chevos' glasses off, grabbed his arm, and twisted him around, turning his gun hand down and away from his body.

  The M-16 thunked again and the waterbed erupted. Geysers of water plumed up from it. Nance dove face down on the floor, huddling by the bed.

  Costello pulled a 38 and leaped for the corner, grabbing at Doe.

  I got the 32 away from Chevos, shoved him out of the way, jumped across the room, got a handful of Costello's jacket, and threw him against the other wall. It didn't stop him. His lips curled back and he swung the .38 up. I shot him twice in the chest. He fell back against the wall and dropped to his knees. The gun bounced out of his hand. His knuckles rested on the floor. He stared at my belt buckle; then his mouth went slack and dropped open.

  The window beside me burst open. The drapes crashed down, and then I heard the dentist's drill, an inch from my ear, hum its tune.

  Brrdddtttt.

  So much for Chevos.

  I stuffed a handkerchief inside my jacket. The bullet wound burned. I could smell the almond odor or arsenic. The Stick jumped through the window with the grace of a dancer, the 180 submachine gun in one hand, the M-16 in the other. He held a finger to his lips and pointed toward Nance's room.

  We heard footsteps run across broken glass and debris and smash a window. Stick jammed the 180 under his arm, pulled a .357 out of his belt, tossed it to me, and dove through the doorway into the bedroom, the chattering 180 back in hand as he went.

  "He's heading for the water," Stick yelled, and went over the windowsill and into a garden behind the place. "Stay with the girl. He's mine."

  A shot whined between us and smacked the windowsill. Stick hunched down and took off in a crouch, jumping this way and that, threading his way through the trees. He didn't make a sound.

  I went back into the other room. Doe was facing the wall with her hands over her face. I led her outside, to the side of the house away from the shooting.

  "Stay right here, don't move," I said. "You'll be safer here. I've got to check the rest of the house."

  She nodded but her eyes didn't like the idea.

  I went back inside.

  A quick check turned up ten bodies in the house. Nobody had survived. The bomb, or whatever it was, and the burst from the M-16 right after it, had killed five gunmen in the living room and three in the kitchen.

  There was a shot outside.

  A muffled burst of M-16 fire.

  I checked the .357 and half ran, half stumbled out the back door. Another burst, down near the water.

  I started after them.

  Nance was out on the dock. He started to get aboard the yacht. I heard the pumf of the grenade launcher, and the back end of the yacht erupted. Nance was blown back onto the dock. He got to his feet, kept running away from Stick. The big luxury boat started to burn. In th
e light of the flames, I saw Nance scramble aboard a sailboat at the end of the dock, her sails furled loosely around the boom.

  The Stick was hunched near the bowline. He moved away from me, toward the shadows on the far side of the sailboat. Then suddenly he leaped over its side.

  His submachine gun was chattering.

  Nance got off three shots before he started his dance. He went up on his toes, spun around, slapping his body as if bugs were biting him. His hands flew over his head, and he fell backward onto the deck like a side of beef. One foot kicked halfheartedly and he went limp.

  I picked up the M-16 and ran out onto the dock. The Stick was walking awkwardly toward the stern, where Nance was lying.

  "Stick!" I yelled.

  He turned and crouched in a single move; then his shoulders drew up suddenly, his knees buckled, and he fell over onto the deck.

  I jumped aboard the sailboat and ran back toward the stern, where he was lying. I was ten feet from him when he raised up and lifted the 180. For a second I thought he was going to shoot me. I just froze there. He swung it up, to my left, and squeezed off two or three bursts. The bullets chewed a ragged line up the mast. Bits and pieces of wood flew out of it, followed by streams of white crystals. They poured out of the bullet holes in the shattered mast, sparkling like snowflakes, were caught in the wind and whisked away, out over the bay and into the darkness. Stick sighed and his head fell back on the deck.

  I leaned over him. His eyes were turning gray.

  He flashed that crazy smile.

  "Wasn't it . . . one helluva . . . blast," he said, in a funny, tired, faraway voice, "while it lasted? Huh, Jake?"

  "It was one helluva blast."

  His lips moved but he didn't say anything.

  "You did it all, didn't you? Took on the whole Tagliani clan?" I said.

  He didn't answer. All he said was "Burn . . . boat, 'kay?"

  The Stick winked, then sighed, and it was all over.

  Up near Chevos' compound, I could hear sirens and see red and blue reflections through the trees. People shouting. Doors slamming.

  I turned Nance over. Half a dozen slugs had removed most of his chest. He wouldn't be soaking any more slugs in arsenic. The look frozen on his face was pure terror, the mask of a man who had died in fear. That's one I owed that I'd never repay.

  I checked over the mast. It was on hinges, the kind that can be lowered for repairs and going under low bridges. I examined it closely, then picked up the machine pistol and raked the mast with gunfire. I started at the base and let the . 22-caliber slugs tear it to pieces. As the slugs ripped up the birch pole, the shining white crystals sifted out, sparkling as the wind caught them and tossed them, twinkling, out over the water. I kept shooting until the gun was empty. The powder poured out. I sat down next to Stick and watched twenty-four million dollars' worth of cocaine dance on the wind and dissolve in the sea. It took a while.

  I rolled Nance's body off the deck and watched it splash into the bay. Then I carried Stick ashore and fired a grenade into the engine of his sailboat. The back end of the sleek craft exploded, then burst into flames. I threw the M-16 and the 180 as far out into the bay as I could fling them and headed back up the hill to see what was happening.

  76

  VOTE OF CONFIDENCE

  I labored back up the hill toward the big cottage, lit now by the roving searchlights of a chopper that hovered a few feet above the roof. There were a lot of red and blue lights flashing, by now standard procedure every time the SOB's showed up anyplace.

  A small fire was burning in one of the rooms and I could hear the throaty blast from a fire extinguisher. There was a lot of smoke and broken glass around the place. As I passed the kitchen window I got a brief look at the inside of the house. I could see down the length of the five-room cottage. I didn't stop to count bodies, I knew the score already.

  The chopper swung away from the house and dropped down into a corner of the parking lot, throwing shards of glass and dirt in little waves below it. Cowboy Lewis jumped out and dashed from under the whirring blades.

  I found Doe in the back, standing with Dutch. Her eyes were as round as quarters and she was trembling. I'm sure she was as confused as she was stunned by the sudden explosion of activity and by the destruction. I walked straight over to her and an instant later she was huddled against me, burrowing into my chest with her nose, like a puppy.

  "What in hell happened?" Dutch asked as the rest of the group began to gather around us. He sounded like he was in shock. I realized it was the first time I had seen all of the hooligans together at one time. All but one.

  "Nance lifted Mrs. Raines and me off the street in front of her townhouse," I answered. "Stick hit the place and got us out. Just that simple."

  I looked back down the hill.

  "We need to get somebody down there," I said. You could hardly hear my voice. "Stick's lying at the bottom of the hill."

  "Is he dead?" Salvatore asked.

  "Yeah." I nodded.

  "Aw, shit," Cowboy Lewis said. "Aw, shit!"

  He started down the hill and Dutch tried to stop him. "We got an ambulance on the way, Cowboy," he said gently.

  "I'm gonna get him. Fuck the ambulance."

  "I'll go along," Charlie One Ear said, and followed him through the smoke.

  Callahan strolled out of the wreckage looking startled, with Kite Lange behind him carrying the extinguisher. "All dead in there," he said incredulously. "Every last one of 'em. I count ten. Biggest total yet."

  "Why in hell would they kidnap you?" Salvatore said.

  "Costello wanted to make a deal. He was willing to turn up Nance and Chevos and dump Sarn Donleavy and Charles Seaborn if I'd get him off the hook."

  "Otherwise?"

  "He was going to kill us."

  Dutch squinted his eyes and looked down his nose at me.

  "How's that again?"

  I had started another lie. I was getting pretty good at it by now.

  "Let me give you the scenario, okay? Nance and Chevos were going to throw in with Bronicata and Cohen, get rid of the rest of the family, and take over the town. Nance was the official shooter. I don't know the reasons—what difference does it make anyhow? There's none of them left to disagree. Any problems with that?"

  Dutch humphed and shuffled his feet around a bit.

  "How about Nance?" Mufalatta asked.

  "He's floating around in the bay," I said. "Stick's last official act."

  "We got the weapons? Any of that?" Dutch asked.

  "They fell in the bay," I said.

  They all looked at each other, then back at Dutch, and then at me.

  "How about the toot?" Zapata asked.

  "In the mast of the sailboat that's burning down there," I said. "By now it's either in the bay or turned to charcoal."

  I looked at each of the hooligans in turn, waiting for comments. Only Dutch spoke up.

  "It ain't gonna work," he said. "There's holes in it."

  "Fuck the holes," Salvatore said.

  "It'll work," I said.

  "How about Titan? Chief?"

  "I'll take care of that."

  "It's some story," Dutch said, shaking his head.

  "You got a better one?" I asked.

  Cowboy came back up the hill with Stick over his shoulder. He laid him on the grass away from the building and started to take off his Windbreaker.

  "Don't do that," I said. "Don't cover him up."

  He hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Whatever you say," he replied.

  "Anybody else got any problems with the story?" I asked.

  "What story?" Cowboy asked. "I missed it."

  I repeated it for Cowboy and Charlie One Ear. Charlie One Ear raised his eyebrows and greeted the outcome with a wry smile. But his answer was instantaneous.

  "I don't see a problem," he said. One by one they all chimed in. No problem, they agreed.

  "I've got to get the lady home," I said. "Anybody got a car I c
an use?"

  Half a dozen sets of car keys were offered. I took Dutch Morehead's sedan. It was the only one I was sure was clean.

  As we were walking away, the Mufalatta Kid said, "Hey, Kilmer?"

  I turned around. "Yeah?"

  "We're gonna need to replace Stick. You ought to think about that. "

  "Thanks. I'll do that," I said. And smiled for the first time in several hours.

  77

  RETURN TO WINDSONG

  When we got to the end of the lane leading to Windsong, Stonewall Titan's black limousine was parked in the drive. Luke Burger, the sheriff's man, was leaning against the hood of the car. He didn't take his eyes off me from the moment I stepped out of the car I had borrowed from Dutch.

  I started toward the house and he said, "Just a minute there. Gonna have to pat you down."

  "Don't even think about it," I said, without looking at him or slowing down. I'd had enough of hard talk and tough people for one night. I put an arm around Doe, led her across the long green lawn to the house, around the porch, and up the front steps to the door. Warren, the family retainer, opened it before I got a hand on the doorknob, as if a psychic doorbell had rung inside his head. He was older and grayer and arthritis had slowed him down, but he was as starched and precise as ever.

  "Good evening, sir," he said with a smile, as if it were twenty years ago and I was dropping by for dinner. Then he looked closer at both of us and added, "Gracious, are you all right?"

  "We're okay," I said as we went into the broad entrance hall. I had feared coming back to this house with its ghosts, long gone. But now I had too many other things on my mind, and so there was only curiosity. I figured the years would have distorted my memory of the place, but there were few surprises. I doubt that a single picture, vase, or stick of furniture had been moved in two decades. It was like a museum, preserving the past for future generations of Findleys, generations that would no longer carry the name, which had died with Teddy. Warren led us through the sprawling entrance hall with its twin curved staircase at the far end, and into a sitting room large enough to accommodate a Legionnaires' convention.