Part 12 (1/2)
”With Tagliani, Stinetto, and Draganata out of the way, that just about takes out all the old line. Except for the Barber,” I said.
”They gotta figure it's Nose,” said the Stick. ”Some hothead Tagliani torpedo will take a pop at one of Graves' boys and we'll have a three-way war on our hands.”
”That's if they don't start shootin' each other,” said Dutch.
”h.e.l.l,” the Stick said. ”It's probably a coupla Philly shooters on their way home already.”
”Or a coupla China soldiers with nothing to do right now,” Dutch said.
”s.h.i.+t, it could be anybody,” the Stick sighed.
”Which is why I'm finis.h.i.+ng my meal and going home,” I said. ”We can sit here all night speculating on who shot who. Let's. .h.i.t it fresh in the morning.”
We paid the check; the Stick said good night and left. Dutch and I drove the ten minutes back to the hotel in silence.
The black limo was still parked under the marquee of the Ponce when we got back. As I got out of the car I noticed the tag: ST-l. I told Dutch I would check my messages and meet him in the bar for a nightcap.
There was a phone call from Cisco and a hotel envelope, sealed, with my name printed meticulously across the front.
I called Cisco, gave him the latest body count, and told him I'd give him the details over breakfast.
As I started toward the bar I finally saw him, the first of several specters from the past. I was tired and getting irritable and I wasn't ready to face up yet, but there he was in his three-piece dark blue suit and a gray homburg, leaning on a gold-handled ebony cane, his snowy hair clipped neatly above the ears, his sapphire eyes twinkling fiercely under thick white brows.
Stonewall t.i.tan, sheriff and kingmaker of Oglethorpe County, Mr. Stoney to everything that walked on two feet in the town, was standing under the marquee wiggling a short, thick finger under the nose of a tall and uncomfortable-looking guy in a tweed jacket and gray flannels. t.i.tan had made or destroyed more than one political dream with a wave of that finger. The man in tweeds went back into the bar.
Finished, t.i.tan turned and, leaning on the cane, limped toward his car, where a tall and ugly bird in a tan and black county policeman's uniform held the door for him. As he was about to enter the car, he saw me and hesitated for an instant. His bright blue eyes glittered in brief recognition, then his hard jaw tightened and he climbed into the limousine and was gone.
Then I saw her.
I moved behind a fern, watching her through its slender leaves, like a high school swain eyeing his first crush. I don't know what made me think I could have avoided seeing her. It had to happen sooner or later. Later would have been better.
Doe Findley still looked eighteen, still had the long blond silky hair, the caramel tan, eyes as gray as ever. A flash of memories tumbled through my mind: Doe on water skis, her silken hair twisting in the wind; roaring across the beach in a dune buggy; playfully wrestling on the boat dock with Teddy and pus.h.i.+ng him into the bay in his best sports coat and pants, then chasing me across the wide lawn down to the edge of the bay.
Doe watching the sun set off the point at Windsong, an image as soft and fragile as a Degas painting.
Time had erased a lot of images from my mind, but those were as clear as a painting on the wall, even after twenty years.
It came and went quickly.
She was talking to a chic blond woman; then she laughed and turned and joined a tall guy in Ultrasuede who was holding open the door of a dark blue Mercedes sedan.
So that was Harry Raines. My dislike for him was intense and immediate, a feeling I didn't like but could not control. I looked for flaws, blemishes on the face of this golden boy who had it all. His blond hair was thinning out the way a surfer's hair thins out, and he had traded his tan for an office pallor, but he was a handsome man nonetheless, with the bearing and presence that most powerful men exude. Harry Raines wore success the way a beautiful woman wears diamonds. If he had flaws, they were not apparent. I watched as he helped her into the car, trying to ignore the feelings that hit me in waves, like the aftershock of an earthquake. A handsome, good-looking pair. I tried to shove my feelings down in the dark places where they had hidden for all those years but it didn't work. As the Mercedes drove off into the dark I was aware that my hand was shaking.
Easy, Kilmer, I told myself; that was then, this is now. The lady probably doesn't even remember your name. I tried shrugging it off and joined Dutch.
Some things never change. The Ponce Bar was one of them. It was a dark, oaken room with a brick floor, a zinc-topped bar, and Tiffany lamps over the stalls and tables. The mirror behind the bar itself ran half the length of the room and was etched gla.s.s. They had built the hotel around it, rather than change a brick of the place. Politicians had been made and trashed in this room, business deals closed with a handshake, schemes planned and hatched. It was the heartland of the makers and breakers of Dunetown. For two hundred years the room had crackled with the electricity generated by the power brokers, arm-wrestling for position.
Only Findley and t.i.tan seemed immune to the games. Together they called the business and political shots of the entire county, unchallenged by the other robber barons of Dunetown. It was in this room that Chief had given Teddy and me one of our first lessons in business.
”Right over in that corner,” he had told us, ”that's where Vic Larkin and I locked horns for the last time. We owned half the beach property on Oceanby together; our fathers had been partners. But we never got along. Larkin wanted to develop the beach front, turn it into a d.a.m.n tinhorn tourist trap. He just didn't have any cla.s.s. I favored leaving it alone.
”One night it came to a head. We had one h.e.l.luvan argument sitting right over there. 'd.a.m.n it, Victor,' I says to him, 'we're never gonna get along and you know it. I'll cut you high card. Winner buys the loser out for a dollar.'
”Vic turned pale but he had guts, I'll give him that. I told the bartender to bring us a deck of cards and we cut. He pulled a six, I pulled a nine. That nine bought me a million dollars' worth of real estate for one buck.”
”You call that good business?” Teddy had asked.
”I call it gambling,” Chief had said. ”And that's what business is all about, boys. It's a gambler's game.”
From the look of the crowd, there weren't too many gamblers left among the Dunetown elite. What was missing was the electricity. There was no longer a hum in the air, just a lot of chatter.
The blond woman who had been outside with Doe had returned to the room and was talking to a small group of people. She was wearing a wraparound mauve silk dress and an off-yellow wide-brimmed hat and her eyes moved around the room as she spoke, taking in everything.
”The blonde you're eyeballin' is Babs Thomas,” Dutch said. ”Don't say h.e.l.lo unless you want everybody in town to know it five minutes later.”
”Local gossip?” I asked.
”You could call her that. She does a snitch column in the Ledger called 'Whispers.' Very apropos. You wanna know the inside on Doomstown's aristocracy, ask her. She knows what bed every pair of shoes in town is under.”
I jotted that down in my memory for future reference and then said, ”I just saw Stonewall t.i.tan out front.”
”Yeah?” Dutch said.
”I figured t.i.tan was probably dead by now,” I said.
”Mr. Stoney will tell G.o.d when he's ready to go, and offhand I'd say G.o.d's gonna have to wait awhile. How well do you know him?”
”Too long ago to matter,” I said, which was far from the truth. I don't think Dutch believed it either, although he was kind enough to let it pa.s.s.
”I saw him, too, coming out of the bar,” said Dutch. ”We had words. He gave me some sheiss.”
”What does t.i.tan expect you to do?” I asked.
”End it.”
”Just like that?”
”Yeah, just like that. 'Get it done before Harry gets wind of it,'” he says.
”Gets wind of it!” I replied. ”How the h.e.l.l does he hope to keep Raines in the dark? And why?”
”He's hoping we'll nail this thing down fast so the Committee can shove it under the carpet.”
”What Committee?” I asked.
Dutch hesitated, staring into his drink. He rattled ice in his gla.s.s for a few moments, then shrugged. ”Local power structure,” he said, brus.h.i.+ng it off.