Part 49 (2/2)

”That the tax boys won't tumble on to?” the Stick said.

”Right. ”

”That's been tried before by experts.”

”Well,” I said, ”there's always somebody who thinks he has a better mousetrap.”

54.

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

Dutch Morehead had a hunch.

When we arrived at the Warehouse, he was sitting with his feet on the desk under the two holes he had put in the ceiling the night before.

”Did y'see this?” he asked, tossing us the morning paper.

The article was on page 7, circled with a ballpoint pen:MAN BELIEVED VICTIM

OF s.h.i.+PWRECK.

The story, datelined Jacksonville, went on to say that an unidentified white male had washed ash.o.r.e twenty miles north of the resort town the night before. Local police speculated that he was aboard a trawler believed to have burned at sea three days earlier. Charred wreckage of the boat had been floating up along the coast for two days. An autopsy was planned and there were no other details. The item was about three inches long.

”Don't we have enough trouble?” the Stick said.

”I already talked to the boys down there” was Dutch's answer.

”I guess we don't,” the Stick replied.

”I got this hunch,” the Dutchman said. It was obvious he was feeling proud of himself.

”s.h.i.+t!” the Stick said. ”Now what?”

”The Coast Guard got the name of the s.h.i.+p off some of the wreckage. It sailed out of Maracaibo nine days ago with a crew of four. Maracaibo is right around the corner from Colombia, and Colombia spells cocaine to me. The Department of Natural Resource boys have been picking up bits and pieces of it since Monday morning. Then this morning another stiff floated up. This new one is a black guy. Both of them are full of bullets, Jake. Twenty-twos.”

”What's that got to do with-”

”I'm not finished yet,” he said. ”The labels in this black dude's s.h.i.+rt and pants say he's from Doomstown. Designer jeans, a two-hundred-dollar s.h.i.+rt, five-hundred-dollar boots. And one other thing-he has a s.h.i.+v mark, from here to here.” He drew a line with a thumb from ear to mouth.

”I'll be d.a.m.ned,” Stick said. ”St.i.tch Harper?”

”Fits him like homemade pajamas. He also had an empty holster on his belt,” said the Dutchman. ”Now what sailor do you know dresses like that and packs heat?”

”Who's St.i.tch Harper?” I asked.

”One of Longnose Graves' top honchos.”

”If it's St.i.tch Harper,” Dutch said, ”we just might have us a whole new scenario working. And I'll know in an hour or so. I got photos of both victims comin' in on the telex.”

”Okay, let's hear the theory,” I said.

The way Dutch had it figured, Longnose Graves was bringing several kilos of c.o.ke by boat from Colombia to Doomstown. Graves bragged the information to Della Norman and she bragged it to her new boyfriend, Tony Logeto, who, in turn, pa.s.sed it on to the rest of the Taglianis. Somewhere east of Jacksonville Beach, someone from the Tagliani clan hijacked the s.h.i.+pment, killed the crew, and burned the boat. If that's the way it happened, it was a clever scheme. It did Graves out of several million dollars' worth of snow and at the same time made him a loser to his people.

”I think,” Dutch concluded, ”that Graves is on the warpath. Add to all this his old lady gettin' snuffed in bed with Logeto, you got to have one angry mobster on your hands.”

The idea had a lot of merit and I told him so. If Dutch's theory was true, the most likely person to have pulled off the hijacking was Turk Nance, which could account for Nance's whereabouts for the past few days.

”The way I see it,” Dutch said, ”it's either Costello or Graves who's behind all the killing. And right now Graves is the only one with a motive.”

”We don't have anything to move on,” Stick said.

It was true-it was all ifs and maybes. I decided to play devil's advocate.

”Supposing that Costello is real greedy,” I said. ”Maybe he decided to scratch out everybody except the ones he needed, which would be Tuna Chevos, who controls the waterways, Lou Cohen, his financial wizard, and Bronicata, who's the narcotics pipeline to the street. Maybe they got together, made a front-end deal to waste all the rest of the family, ruin Graves' credibility, and split the town up three ways.”

”It's not as strong as the case against Graves,” Dutch said. ”He's fighting for his life and he's got a revenge motive to boot.”

”Either way, we need that dope,” the Stick said, ”Without the c.o.ke, all we got is speculation.”

One thing we all agreed on: If the dead black man wasn't St.i.tch Harper, or somebody from Graves' gang, Dutch's hunch would be colder than an Alaskan picnic. We decided to table all further discussion until the pictures arrived.

While we were waiting, I went looking for Charlie One Ear. He was sitting in his cubicle, dressed in his best with a cigarette bobbing at the end of a fancy holder, touch-typing a report at about a hundred and twenty words a minute.

”You do that like you know what you're doing,” I said.

”My mother believed in the broadest kind of education,” he said.

”Do me a favor, will you?” I asked. ”I'm trying to get a line on a Tony Lukatis, thirty years old, dark . . . ”

”I know Lukatis,” he said. ”Did time in Little Q. Pot smuggling.”

”That's him.”

”Is he in trouble again?” Charlie One Ear asked.

”His sister's a friend of mine,” I said. ”She thinks he may be involved in another-”

I stopped in midsentence. My stomach was doing slow rolls.

”My G.o.d,” I said, and ran back to the telex room with Charlie a few steps behind me. Dutch was sitting beside the machine, leafing through some reports.

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