Part 8 (2/2)
”Yeah, him. He's home too.”
”Everybody's home tonight,” Zapata said with a chuckle.
”Is any of this stuff from the past few weeks, from when you started watching these guys, is any of this on paper?” I asked.
Dutch said, ”We don't make reports. You put it on paper and somebody can read it.”
”Like who?” I asked.
”Somebody, anybody,” he said vaguely.
”You know what burns me?” said Chino. ”What f.u.c.kin' burns me is that these a.s.sholes have got themselves watertight alibis and they don't even know it.”
”Wouldn't it be fun not to tell them,” Charlie One Ear said wistfully.
Dutch said, ”Okay, Charlie, put your good ear to the ground, see if you can turn up something. The rest of you, back out on the range; see if we can stop this daisy chain before it goes any further. If you run across the Mufalatta Kid, Kite Lange, or the Stick, tell them to get in touch. Any questions?”
There weren't any.
As the gang started to disperse, Cowboy Lewis got up and walked straight toward me. He moved two desks out of his way to get to me.
”It's Jake, right?” he said.
”Yeah. ”
He stuck out his hand.
”My name's Chester Lewis. They call me Cowboy.”
”Right.”
”You want this a.s.shole Nance, right?”
”Yeah, I want him, Cowboy.”
”Then he's yours.”
”Thanks,” I said, pumping his hand.
”You got a right,” he said, whirled on his heel, and headed straight out the door. As he left, a new face appeared in the doorway.
I knew who it was without asking.
10.
STICK.
The new guy was ignored by the rest of the bunch, who were too busy talking about the tapes to notice him. He came straight toward me.
He was what some women would call a primal beauty. Indian features, high cheekbones, long, narrow face, hard jaw, brown eyes, thick, s.h.i.+ning black hair that tumbled over his forehead and ears. Six feet tall and lean, he was my height and ten pounds trimmer. His seersucker suit looked like he balled it up and put it under his pillow at night; his tie had a permanent knot in it and was hanging two inches below an open collar. The points of his s.h.i.+rt collar curled up toward the ceiling, and I doubt that his loafers had ever seen a shoes.h.i.+ne rag. Obviously, dressing wasn't a real big thing with him.
He looked bagged out, and not just from a bad night. The circles under his eyes were permanent and his dimples were turning into crevices. He had the deep, growling voice that comes from too many drinks or too many cigarettes or too many late nights or all three. He was wearing a battered old brown felt hat, and a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.
Twenty-nine going on forty. One look, you knew he drove the women crazy.
Not jaded yet?
”I'm Parver,” he said. ”Everybody calls me Stick.”
We moved away from the rest of the bunch, back toward the coffeepot.
”You a poolshooter?” I asked, to get the conversation off the ground.
”Not really, why?”
”The moniker.”
”It's short for Redstick. Everybody thinks I look like a d.a.m.n Indian,” he said with disgust. ”Truth is, I'm Jewish and I'm from Boston. ”
”I'm Jake Kilmer,” I said. ”That's all I ever was.”
We shook hands.
”This about the Tagliani chill?” he asked. He said it casually, as though murder in Dunetown were as common as sand fleas on the beach.
I nodded.
”It looks like two gunners,” I said. ”They killed a couple of guard dogs, got by a couple of armed guards, and killed all three of them.”
”Three?” Stick said. ”When Cowboy raised me, he said Tagliani and Stinetto got it.”
”After wasting Tagliani and Stinetto, they dropped off a bomb to finish the job. Tagliani's wife walked in. She died in the hospital.”
”Too bad,” he said. ”Though I can't say as I'm too upset over the two goons.” So much for sympathy. ”How do you figure there were two shooters?”
”The house was wired. Dutch has the whole scene on tape, what there was of it. It was all over in about thirty seconds.”
”Not so great for you. In town for an hour and your mark gets snuffed out from under you.”
”That's the breaks.”
”Guns and bombs,” he mused. ”Sounds like the Lincoln County war. ”
I said I hoped not.
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