Hooligans

EXIT SCREAMING

The house was a two-story brick and stone structure nestled against high dunes overlooking the bay.

The backyard was terraced, rising from the swimming pool to a flat that locked like a child‟s dream.

There was a gazebo and an eight-horse carousel and a monkey bar set and a railroad with each car just

large enough to accommodate one child.

Two men smoked quietly in the gazebo.

From high above, on top of the dunes that separated the house from the bay, the sound of the child

laughing could be heard, followed by his grandfather‟s rough laughter. Their joyous chorus was

joined by the sound of a calliope playing “East Side, West Side, All Around the Town.” The child was

on the carousel, his grandfather standing beside him with an arm around the boy. The horses, eyes

gleaming, nostrils flaring, mouths open, jogged up and down in an endless, circular race. Below them,

in the pool, an inner tube floated, forgotten.

The figure, dressed entirely in black, crouched as it moved silently and swiftly through the sea grass

on top of the dune to a point above the house. Only the swimming pool was visible. The figure was

carrying a weapon that had the general conformity of a rifle but was larger.

The figure slid to the ground and eased quietly to the edge of the dune, looking down at the old man

arid the child. He waited.

A woman appeared at the sliding glass door at the back of the house.

“Ricardo, bedtime,” she yelled.

The child protested but the woman persisted.

“Once more around,” the old man yelled back, and the woman agreed and waited.

The figure on the dune also waited.

His last ride finished, the little boy ran gleefully down the terrace and then turned back to the older

man.

“Come kiss me good night, Grandpa,” he called back. The grandfather smiled and waved his hand.

“Uno momento,” he called back, and then motioned to the men in the gazebo to shut down the

carousel.

The child skipped to his grandmother arid they entered the house together.

The figure on the dune fitted what looked like a pineapple onto the end of the weapon and adjusted a

knob on the rear of the barrel. There was the faint sound of metal clinking against metal.

The old man looked around, not sure where the sound had come from.

One of the men in the gazebo stood up, stepped out onto the terrace, and looked up.

“Something?” the other one said.

The first one shrugged and walked back into the gazebo.

There was a muffled explosion—

Pumf!

A sigh in the night air over their heads.

Then the terraced backyard of the house was suddenly bathed in a sickening orange-red glow.

The two men in the gazebo were blown to the ground. The grandfather arced like a diver doing a back

flip as he was blown off the terrace. He landed in the pool. The merry horses were blown to bits.

The night calm was shattered by the explosion, by a crescendo of broken glass, by the screams.

8

THE CINCNNA11 TRIAD

Morehead had pinned seven photographs on a corkboard in the front of the big room, each one

identified with a felt-tip pen. Since we had already made Tagliani and Frank Turner as one and the

same, ditto Stinetto and Nat Sherman, Dutch crossed them out.

Until a couple of hours ago Tagliani had been capo di tutti capi, “boss of all bosses” of the Cincinnati

„Tagliani family, known as the Cincinnati Triad.

For fifty years the Taglianis had ruled the mob world in southwest Ohio, operating out of Cincinnati.

The founder of the clan, Giani, its first capo di tutti capi, died when he was eighty-three and never

saw the inside of a courtroom, much less did time for his crimes. The empire was passed to his son,

Joe “Skeet” Tagliani. While the old man had a certain Old World charm, Skeet Tagliani was nothing

less than a butcher. Under his regime the Taglianis had formed an alliance with two other gang

leaders. One was Tuna Chevos, who married Skeet Tagliani‟s sister and was also one of the

Midwest‟s most powerful dope czars. Across the Ohio River, in Covington, an old-time Mafioso

named Johnny Draganata controlled things. When a black Irish hood named Bannion tried to take

over, Skeet threw in with Draganata. The war lasted less than three months. It was a bloodbath and to

my knowledge there isn‟t a Bannion hoodlum left to talk about it.

Thus the Cincinnati Triad was formed: Skeet Tagliani, Tuna Chevos, and Johnny Draganata.

I had put Skeet away for a ten spot, but it had taken three years of my life to do it and I had spent the

better part of the next two trying to prove that his brother, Franco, had taken over as capo in Skeet‟s

place. It was a nasty job and costly. Several of our agents and witnesses had died trying to gather

evidence against the Taglianis.

Then Franco had vanished, poof, just like that, no trace— and another year had gone down the drain

while I chased every hokum lead, every sour tip, up and down every dead-end alley in the country.

The Cincinnati Triad had simply disappeared.

A clever move, Tagliani selling out and hauling stakes like that. Clever and frustrating. Now, almost a

year later, he had turned up iii Dunetown—stretched out in the morgue with a name tag on his toe that

said he was Frank Turner. The name change was easy to understand.

What he was doing on ice was not.

The other five faces in Dutch‟s photos were familiar although their names, too, were new. „[hey were

the princes of Tagliani‟s hoodlum empire, the capi who helped rule the kingdom: Rico Stizano, who

was now calling himself Robert Simons; Tony Logeto, who had become Thomas Lanier; Anthony

Bronicata, now known as Alfred Burns; and Johnny Draganata, the old fox, whose nom de plume was

James Dempsey. The subject in the last picture was less familiar to me, although I knew who he was:

Johnny “Jigs” O‟Brian, a nickel-dime hoodlum who had been doing odd jobs for the mob in Phoenix

until he married Tagliani‟s youngest daughter, Dana. At the time the Triad had done its disappearing

act, O‟Brian was doing on—the—job training running prostitution.

Cute, hut not a11 that original. „The new names helped explain initials on suitcases, gold cuff links,

silk shirts, sterling silverware, that kind of thing. The Tagliani bunch was big on monograms.

[hen there were the two missing faces, „Tuna Chevos and his chief executioner and sycophant, Turk

Nance. In the whole mob, Chevos and his henchman, Nance, were the most deadly. The setup here

seemed too perfect for them to be very far away. Besides, Chevos was a dope runner and the coastline

of Georgia from South Carolina to Florida was the Marseilles of America. Dope flowed through there

as easily as ice water flowed through Chevos‟ veins.

“Recognize these people?” Dutch asked, pointing to the rogues‟ gallery.

I nodded. “All of „em. Cutthroats to the man.”

“Okay,” he said, let‟s get on with it”

I decided to play it humble and sat down on the corner of the desk.

“1 don‟t want to sound like I know it all,” I said, “but I‟ve been hound-dogging these bastards for

years. I know a lot about this mob because I‟ve been trying to break up their party ever since I got out

of short pants.”

Not a grin. A tough audience. Salvatore was cleaning his fingernails with a knife that made a machete

look like a safety pin. Charlie One Ear was doing a crossword puzzle.

“Just what is the Freeze?” Charlie One Ear asked without looking up from his puzzle.

They were going to make it tough.

“Well, I‟ll tell you what it‟s not. It‟s not the Feebies or the Leper Colony,” I said. “We have two jobs.

We work with locals on anything where there‟s a hint of an interstate violation. And we go after the

LCN. We‟re not in a league with the Leper Colony. We don‟t kiss ass in Washington by victimizing

some little taxpayer who can‟t protect himself, and we don‟t hold press conferences every five

minutes like the Feebies.”

“What‟s the LCN?” Zapata asked.

“La Cosa Nostra, you fuckin‟ moron,‟ Salvatore taunted.

Zapata looked back over his shoulder t Salvatore. “Big deal. So I never heard it called LCN before.

My old man didn‟t suck ass for some broken-down old Mafioso.”

“That‟s right,” Salvatore said. “Your old man swept floors in a Tijuana whorehouse.”

“You shoulda been brung up in a whorehouse,” Zapata shot back. “Maybe you wouldn‟t wear an

earring, like a fuckin‟ fag.”

“Hey, you‟re talking about my mother‟s wedding ring!” roared Salvatore.

“All right, all right,” Charlie One E2,r said, holding up his hand.

“You keep outta this,” said Salvatore. „At least I got an ear to put it in; some dip didn‟t eat it for

dinner”

I wondered why Dutch didn‟t step in and stop things before they got out of hand. Then Zapata started

snickering and Salvatore broke out in a laugh and Charlie One Ear smiled, and I got a sudden sense of

what was happening. You see it in combat, this kind of barbed-wire humour. It‟s a great equalizer. It

says: I trust you; we‟re buddies; you can say anything about me you want; nobody else has the

privilege. It bonds that unspoken sense of love and trust among men under pressure, a macho

camaraderie in which the insult becomes the ultimate flattery.

I was beginning to understand what Dutch meant. This was a tight little society and they were letting

inc know it in their own way.

They all got into it except Pancho Callahan, who never cracked a smile. He stared at me over a

pyramid of fingers through cold gray eyes, the way you stare at a waiter in a restaurant when he

forgets your order. I got the message. “Screw the buddy-buddy humour, hotshot,” he was saying.

“Show us what you got.”

“You guys can rehearse your act later,” Dutch said, throwing a wet towel in the works. “If we listen,

maybe we can learn something. Did all of you forget that part of our deal was to keep organized crime

out of this town? Look what we ended up with.”

They all eyeballed me.

“Not him,” Dutch growled, “the pfutzluker Taglianis.”

Dutch never swore in English, only German. 1 doubt that any of his gang knew what the hell he meant

most of the time. Nobody ever asked, either.

“Go on,” he said to me. “Keep trying.”

“Look, this gang up here on the wall is no penny-ante outfit and they didn‟t come here for the waters.

They came here to buy this town. I been after these bastards since the day I joined the Freeze.”

“So what d‟you want outta all this?” Cowboy Lewis asked.

“I‟ll tell you what I want,” I said. “The RICO anti-crime laws refer to any monies earned from illegal

sources as ICC,” I said, “which stands for ill-gotten gains.”

That drew a laugh from Charlie One Ear. “Ah,” he said, “the wonders of the government never

cease.”

“What‟s RICO stand for?” Lewis asked, seriously.

“Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations—gangland fronts,” I said.

“ICC simply means the kiwash they make from dope, gambling, prostitution, extortion, pornography..

. all the LCN‟s favourite tricks. The LCN has to wash that money, and it isn‟t easy. So they invest in

legitimate businesses—even banks—to clean it up. RICO gives us the power to bust them if we can

prove that any business depends for its support on ICC. If we can prove that, we can confiscate their

money, their businesses, their equipment, their yachts and Rolls-Royces and all the rest of their toys.

And we can also make cases against the racketeers and everybody connected with them. That goes for

legitimate businessmen, politicians, or anybody else that gets in bed with them.”

Zapata piped up: “Do we get credit for this course?”

“Yeah,” Salvatore chimed in. “When‟s the final?”

More laughter.

“Give him a chance,” Dutch snapped.

“Okay,” I said, “let‟s forget the bureaucratic bullshit. Here‟s what you‟re dealing with. In the Freeze

we spend most of our time working with the locals, tying known LCN racketeers to ICC, and the ICC

to legitimate sources that have been corrupted. That‟s what I‟m after—I want to know how they got

their hooks into Dunetown and who they had to buy to do it. I‟m not interested in making individual

cases for prostitution or gambling or even homicide. Anything I get that can help you in those areas is

yours.”

“We‟ve heard that song before, old man,” Charlie One Ear said caustically.

“Enough of this true-and-false crap,” Dutch said. “Let‟s get to the meat and potatoes.”

I gave them a brief history of the „Triad, very brief so they wouldn‟t fall asleep.

“Franco Tagliani was very cautious,” I said. “Before we nailed Skeet, Franco had made quite a name

For himself. He was a big shot in Cincy. He contributed to the, ballet, symphony, local sports teams,

everything including the humane society. He loved animals. Everybody‟s lovable old Uncle Franco,

right? When we dumped Skeet, we figured Franco would have to come out of the closet, so we started

a matrix on him. What we call a link analysis. We charted every scrap of information that came our

way that related to the Triad, even the most insignificant stuff. Bits of bullshit from snitches,

restaurants they frequented, social gatherings, weddings, pals, acquaintances, habits, police records,

vacation trips. Hell, we even had Interpol checking on them when they left the country. It all went on

the matrix, and we kept refining it, and finally we ended up with this.”

I took a chart out of my briefcase and pinned it on the wall.

CINCINNATI TRIAD

“There it is,” I said. “The Cincinnati Triad. Anybody thinks they came here for their health should g

back to school.”

No grumbling this time. I had their attention.

I started down the list while I was still ahead, beginning with Franco, once the consigliere, the legal

brains, for Skeet, and until a few hours ago, godfather to the Triad.

“Tagliani was a classic Mafioso,” I said “His religion was family, friends, and hick everybody else;

Tagliani‟s three daughters are all married to family capi. The Triad‟s respected in La Cosa Nostra.

Nobody messes with them. At least nobody has until now.

“Stinetto was Franco‟s executioner, the official enforcer for the outfit, and Tagliani‟s bodyguard. One

of the few people Tagliani trusted. All the other capi were under Stinetto‟s direct command. Stinetto

was an old-timer. He made his bones in the fifties, about the time Buggsy Siegel bought his. So what

I‟m saying, they were both tough old pros. Taking them out together like that was ingenious and

gutsy.”

Dutch jumped in at this point. “Whoever pulled this off poisoned two guard dogs and got past three

armed guards. Nobody laid an eye on him or them.”

There was another face that was not on Dutch‟s board: Leo Costello, Mr. Clean, the consigliere of the

outfit, summa cum laude graduate of Chicago Law School, mid-to late thirties, married to Tagliani‟s

daughter Maria.

“Costello was a major in Nam,” I said. “Adjutant general‟s office. He never saw combat, spent most

of his time preparing court-martial cases. The man won‟t touch a gun, doesn‟t even hunt. He prefers

the country club set to his own family.”

“Mazzola put us on to him,” said Charlie One Ear. “Him and his friend.

“Lou Cohen?” I asked.

“The same,” said Flowers.. „Neither one of them changed their names.”

“That sounds like him,” I said. “Costello avoids as much contact as possible with the rest of the mob.

He doesn‟t have any shooters around him. And Cohen is a quiet, reclusive accountant. The money

brains and the bagman for the outfit. The Lepers‟ve been trying to burn Cohen for at least ten years.

Zip. But Costello may have to show his colors now.”

“How come?” asked Zapata.

“Because he‟s the most likely one of the bunch to take over as capo di tutti capi now that Franco‟s

bought the farm. That‟s unless there‟s something we don‟t know,” I added.

“Such as?” asked Dutch.

“Such as somebody else in the family pushing the old man across and taking over.”

“Oh,” said Dutch, “that such as.”

I went on, running down the list of felons who were now in residence in Doomstown:

Johnny Draganata, the tough, no-quarter Moustache Pete from the old school, and professor and priest

t all the Tagliani soldiers, the final authority on tradition and protocol; Rico Stizano, also known as

the Barber, because that‟s what he had once been in Chicago, until he married Tagliani‟s sister. Now

his speciality was gambling. A big family man. They all were.

Tony Logeto, Tagliani‟s son-in-law, „as a cannon and a muscle man, married to Tagliani‟s oldest

daughter, Sheila, and a specialist in loan sharking, extortion, and anything that required more muscle

than brains. Logeto saw himself as big ladies‟ man. A lot of ladies apparently did too.

“Anthony Bronicata is another old-timer,” I told them. “He‟s a onetime soldato with a lot of notches

gun his gun. In dope circles he‟s known as the Peg, short for I1 Pegiore, which means the Worst, and

that—in the trade—means don‟t mess with him. He‟s king pusher, pipeline to the street, and we‟ve

never been able to put a finger on him for anything—possession, conspiracy, distribution, nothing.

Bronicata‟s front is always a restaurant. The only good thing I can say about him is he mikes pretty

fair fettuccine. You want him? If we can nail his ass, Lie‟s yours.”

I had very little recollection of O‟Brian. In my mind I remembered him as a short little Irishman with

a blustery red face and had teeth. Dutch‟s photo showed that lie had a pug nose and a go-to-hell smile,

and his picture was the only pleasant one in the hunch, but I didn‟t let that fool me for a minute. As

the newest member of the clan, he still had to prove himself, and that made him more unpredictable

than any of the rest.

Dutch observed, “All these guns around, and it didn‟t help Tagliani for a minute.”

“Never does if they want you bad enough,” I said.

I pulled two new photographs out of my briefcase and held them up.

“These two look familiar to anybody?” I asked.

There were no takers.

I held up the clearer of the two photos, that of a round-faced man in his sixties with a pleasant smile,

his snake eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

“This is Tuna Chevos,” I said. “We‟ll turn him up.”

“How would you know that?” Charlie One Ear asked.

My stomach started to churn just thinking about Chevos and Nance, his personal assassin.

“I have this little buzzer inside me goes off whenever I‟m within fifty miles of the son of a bitch.”

“Something personal?” Charlie One Ear asked, raising his eyebrows.

I stared at him dead-eyed for a full minute before he looked away. Then I held up the other picture, a

somewhat fuzzy photograph of a lean, hard, ferret-faced man in his mid-thirties, his eyes also

obscured by sunglasses.

“You see Chevos, this one is close behind. He‟s the Greek‟s numero uno, your friendly little

neighbourhood assassin. His name is Turk Nance and he‟s the deadliest one of the lot, a psychopath

with a temper as thin as a shadow. They‟re both cobras. Chevos married into the family but they‟re

outsiders. They play by their own rules.”

“Maybe they did the old bastard in,” Zapata suggested.

“Maybe, but I don‟t think so.”

“Why not?” Dutch asked.

“I don‟t say I‟m ruling them out,” I replied. “I said I don‟t think they did it. It‟s still family. Salvatore,

you know what I mean?”

“He‟s right,” Salvatore said. “I mean, what you say, this Chevos was the old man‟s brother-in-law.

Unless there was real bad blood He let the sentence dangle.

“So where do these two bombos fit in?” Cowboy Lewis asked.

“Chevos brings the stuff in, Bronicata gets it to the wholesalers,” I said, “Nance is Chevos‟ personal

soldato If Chevos says go flush your head in the toilet, Nance‟s head is as good as in the bowl.

There‟s one other thing—don‟t let Chevos fool you because he‟s got Nance for backup. The story

goes that Chevos killed his own brother to make his bones for Skeet. I don‟t know if his brother

needed killing, hut if he was in the same league as Chevos, it was no big loss.

“Nance started in the streets, got a postgrad course in Vietnam, probably killed at least half of the

Bannion gang himself. He favours a nine-millimetre Luger with a twelve-inch barrel and hollow

points soaked in arsenic. A real sweetheart. He‟s also a muscle freak. Sooner or later, when he can

plant Chevos someplace safe for an hour or two, he‟ll show up at the best fitness centre in town.

Everybody in the family is scared shitless of both of them.

“Turk Nance. Remember that name. If you have trouble with him, shoot first.”

“You keep tellin‟ us what you don‟t want,” Callahan said in a dead monotone. “What the hell do you

want?”

I thought about that, about why I was here and what had happened to Dunetown and was going to

happen to it. I thought about a lot of things in the next few seconds.

“1 want the whole damn bunch off the street. I don‟t care if you do it or I do it or we do it together.

They‟re the cockroaches of our society.”

1 looked at Charlie One Ear. “You ask me is it personal? I got five years invested in this bunch. In the

whole rat pack only Costello and Cohen are clean. The rest of them have rap sheets that‟ll stretch

from here to Malibu and back.”

I started pacing. I had lost my temper for a moment, not because of Charlie One Ear or because Dutch

Morehead‟s hooligans didn‟t trust me. I was used to that:. It was because of Cincinnati. I stopped and

looked at each of them in turn.

“Yeah, fuckin‟-A it‟s personal,” I said. “One of my partners on the Tagliani job was Harry Nome,

Wholesome Harry we called him. Best inside man I ever met. He was undercover in Chevos‟ dope

operation. Nance tumbled him. They took him for a ride and Nance stuck his gun up Harry‟s nose,

ripped it off with the gunsight-.--I mean he ripped it off. Then he tossed Harry out of a car doing

about fifty. Harry came out of it a paraplegic.

“We had another man, on loan from the Drug Enforcement Agency. He tried to burrow into the

operation at the New Orleans end. We never saw him or heard from him again. Nothing. He just

disappeared. That‟s been three years now.

“1 had an informant, a hooker named Tammi. She was eighteen years old, recruited by Stizano, who

hooked her on horse when she was fifteen. They had her working interstate and she wanted out, so she

agreed to talk to the attorney general about how hookers are moved around on the national circuit,

who runs it, that sort of thing. Very strong stuff. Nance got her away from us. He cut off her nose and

both ears, stuffed them down her throat, and strangled her with them. Costello—Mr. Clean? He was

Nance‟s mouthpiece. The bastard wasn‟t even indicted.”

I paused for a minute, letting it all sink in.

“Naw,” I said, “it isn‟t personal. It‟s never personal, right? I mean, why should I be pissed? I was

lucky. When they took a shot at me, the bullet went in my side, here, just below the ribs, popped out

my back, and went on its merry way. The bullet hurt, but not like the arsenic it was soaked in.”

I sat down.

Not bad, I thought. Not bad at all. Save up the rough stuff until the end.

Nobody said anything else for a minute or two.

I didn‟t know it at the time, but there was another name I should have added to the list that night:

Longnose Graves.

I would get to know him well in the next few days. I would get to know a lot of people well in the

next few days, very damn few of them for long.

9