Part 74 (2/2)

”How?” she asked.

”By convincing myself that Nance was the killer because I wanted him to be. For awhile I even tried to build a case against Harry, because I wanted you.'

”You did that?” she said, moving away from me.

”Yeah,” I said, ”we all did a little G.o.d playing. Stick certainly did his share. And you, Mr. Stoney.”

”That's good thinkin', doughboy,” said t.i.tan. ”There's only one thing wrong with it.”

”And what's that?” I asked.

”It wasn't my idea at all,” he said, pausing for effect, and then his lip curled up in a smile. ”It was Parver's idea from the start.”

”Why?” I demanded. ”What did he want out of it?”

”Not one d.a.m.n thing,” t.i.tan said. ”Besides, if what you say's true, how come he didn't stop at just Tagliani?”

I didn't have an answer for that, and still don't. I shrugged my shoulders. ”I don't know. It's moot, anyway. None of this can ever be proven.”

Chief finally spoke up. ”Then why bring it up?” he said sternly.

”Yes,” Doe said, moving closer to her father, ”why bring it up?”

I sensed that suddenly I was no longer the hero.

”Because it's his game now,” said t.i.tan. ”He has all the cards, right, doughboy?”

”Is that it?” Doe asked angrily. ”You were in this for yourself all the time?”

”Yeah, doughboy,” said t.i.tan. ”What do you want out of it?”

I thought about it for a moment, looking at Doe, standing beside her beloved Chief, as she always would. At t.i.tan, with his bulldog jaw jutting out at me, invincible to the end. Their allegiance to each other was clear. I was the outsider, as I had always been. I don't think it occurred to any of them that in the end they not only had lost their precious town but cost Harry Raines his life. They would never stand accountable for their actions-I guess that's one of the perks that comes with power.

”The same thing Stick wanted,” I said. ”Nothing.”

I turned and walked out.

78.

EULOGY.

Driving away from Windsong, I felt a sense of relief, not so much at leaving the place but because I had feared coming back to that house with all its ghosts, and now the fear was gone. If there were ghosts at Windsong, they were keeping alive a memory of laughter and youth and a time that was as sweet as the remembered taste of hot dogs and burnt marshmallows, and the smell of campfires on the beach. If I had learned nothing else in coming back to this house, I had learned to treasure those moments of my life, not trample them in despair. And if that fleeting time, twenty years ago, was to be the only green summer of my life, at least it was mine. n.o.body could ever take that away from me.

Cis...o...b..ew in the next morning, raising merry h.e.l.l.

It was very easy to lay the Tagliani ma.s.sacre off on Nance, Costello, and Chevos; there was n.o.body of consequence left to argue about it. Costello had kept Cohen at arm's length, so Cohen was in the dark. Since they were part of the conspiracy, t.i.tan and Chief also had to go along. Besides, people hear what they want to hear. A hero cop is always good copy.

To Dutch and the rest of the SOB's, it was a state secret, never to be shared outside the team. As for Cisco, he kept mum, too, although he was still bugging me for my report two months later. I never filed it. So what else is new? But he wanted to know. He wanted answers to all the questions. And though I didn't answer a lot of them, and couldn't answer some, one thing kept bugging him until he finally put the question straight to me.

”You didn't get emotionally involved in this thing, did you, Jake?” he asked, over one of his breakfasts of garbage and vitamin pills.

”What do you mean?” I replied.

”I mean, you didn't have something going with the Raines dame, did you?”

I thought about that for a long time before I said no.

I don't really think that was a lie. It should have been obvious to me all along that a dalliance with a football player could never last, any more than one with a lifeguard. For me, the patterns of Dunetown now fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Chief had erased me from Doe's life, just as t.i.tan had erased Tony Lukatis; Harry Raines had filled the spot left by Teddy Findley, just as Sam Donleavy had taken the place once reserved for me. In the end, when the puzzle was complete, the picture was all sound and fury, and the irony was that Tagliani, who was never really a part of it, was the catalyst that brought it all tumbling down. Uncle Franco had come to Dunetown seeking the same kinds of things we all want. He thought he could buy respectability. All he bought was the long, dark, forever tunnel. The one with no light at the end.

Looking back on it now, I think maybe the Stick, in his own way, was looking for the same things too. I'll never know the answer to that, but I'd like to think that he wanted to put some sense of order back in his life, to find something of value to replace the values he had lost in that faraway place all of us would like to forget and never will. Or maybe he had simply lost that dream forever. Maybe he was just doing what he did best, the best way he knew how. Whatever he wanted, I hope he found it. I hope death is kinder to him than life and, like all our fallen comrades, he is in some special place reserved for those who stalked the rim of h.e.l.l and never came back.

One thing for d.a.m.n sure, Stick had one fine sendoff. He was buried in that beat-up hat of his. The hooligans were the pallbearers and there was an honor guard and Dutch read a eulogy that had everybody weeping. And there was a bugler playing taps, and another, off somewhere in the cemetery, echoing its sad eloquence. Everybody was there but Doe. Beautiful Doe, elusive to the end. But DeeDee Lukatis was there, and Lark, and Cisco. And Chief Findley and Stonewall t.i.tan showed up. Salvatore even wore a tie.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

William Diehl is a former reporter for the Atlanta Const.i.tution and one-time managing editor of Atlanta Magazine. He is the author of SHARKY'S MACHINE and CHAMELEON. He lives off the coast of Georgia with his wife, Virginia Gunn.

Also by William Diehl.

CHAMELEON.

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