Part 3 (2/2)
”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?”
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