Hooligans

MONEY TALK

It was nearly five when I went to the bank. It was closed but I had been watching the place for two

hours and I knew Seaborn was still there, Now I could see him, through the double glass doors, sitting

back in his office behind that massive desk, talking frantically into the phone.

I tapped on the front door. A bank guard, swaybacked by time, shuffled slowly up, tried to talk to me

through the door, and gave up. I could have driven to Key West in the time it took him to open the

door. He fiddled with his keys, took two or three stabs at the latch before he got the key in, arid finally

got the door open a sliver.

“We‟re closed,” he said, in a patronizing voice that sounded like it was squeezed from a balloon.

“Open at nine in the morning.”

“I‟ve got an appointment with Mr. Seaborn,” I said. I was getting almost casual about lying.

He looked me up and down, sizing me up. “I‟ll check with the president,” he said. “What was the

name?”

“Khmer. it still is.,,

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” I said.

He closed and locked the door and shuffled across a wide, cold, marble lobby to the office in the back.

I could see his stooped frame, silhouetted in Seaborn‟s doorway. Finally he turned and sine-footed

back to the door. He didn‟t have a fast bone in his body.

He opened it another sliver.

“The president says he‟s busy and—”

I had my wallet out and I flashed my buzzer as I shoved past the old gentleman. “The hell with

protocol,” I said. “This is business.”

Seaborn looked up wide-eyed when I entered the office. I closed the door behind me and leaned

against it. He looked out the window, then back at me, his face doing every number in the book as he

tried to change his expression from fear to anger.

“What do you mean by this?” he demanded. “This is the second time in two days you‟ve intruded on

me without —“

“I didn‟t intrude on you yesterday,” I said, without waiting for him to finish. “I came to tell you your

secretary had a death in the family.”

“What are you doing here now?”

“I thought we could have a little talk, Mr. Seaborn, just you and me.”

“About what?”

“About Franco Tagliani, who called himself Frank Turner. About Lou Cohen‟s banking habits. About

Harry Raines, who got himself killed right over there.” I nodded toward the window. He followed my

gaze, but looked up instead of out, toward the top floor of Warehouse Three. Heavy storm clouds

were brewing again and it was dark enough for lights but there weren‟t any. Nobody was home. The

boss was dead.

Seaborn‟s nervous fingers rippled up and down the desk as if it were a concert piano.

“I hardly knew Mr. Turner,” he said. “And I don‟t know anything about poor Harry‟s death.” He

paused for a minute and then said, “Perhaps I should summon my lawyer.”

“You could do that. Or you and I could have a private little chat. Just the two of us. That‟s if you want

to cooperate. Otherwise, you don‟t have to call your lawyer, I‟ll leave. Somebody else will come

back; that‟s when you‟ll need your lawyer. That‟s when they read you your rights and all that stuff

you see in the movies.”

He turned ash gray.

“What is it, then?” he said, in a faltering voice that was rapidly losing what little character it had. He

looked back over at the warehouse.

“There‟s nobody over there,” I said. “The place is closed. Another death in the family. So what‟s it

going to be? Talk? Or lawyers?”

“Ahem. We can. . certainly., start... uh.

“Look here, Mr. Seaborn, there are some things I know, and some things I think I know, and some

things I‟m strictly guessing at. I think maybe you can eliminate some of my guesswork.”

He didn‟t say anything. He sat there like a man with his head in the guillotine, waiting for the blade to

drop.

“I repeat,” Seaborn said, putting a little strength back in his voice. “I knew the man as Turner. He was

just another businessman. We were actively soliciting new business and capital into the community,

that‟s no secret And he made us a very attractive offer.”

“No strings attached, right?”

He paused for a minute and said, “Right.”

“Who proposed the banking arrangements?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“This is what I know, Mr. Seaborn. I know that Tagliani did his banking with you. I know that Lu

Cohen was the bagman for the operation and made all the cash deposits directly to you. I also know

that a lot of that cash came from pimping, gambling, and narcotics, and that classifies it as ill-gotten

gains, which is dirty money, and that means we can confiscate it, and any other money made through

the use of it, by anybody connected to them.”

“I don‟t know where his money came from,” Seaborn said.

“Cohen made enormous cash deposits to you almost every day. You didn‟t find that odd?”

“It‟s not my business to question my customers,” he said.

“It‟s your business to report all deposits over ten thousand dollars to the IRS, isn‟t it?”

That stumped him. He looked out the window again. I followed his gaze. I could see Stick down on

the pier, talking to Whippet.

“I assure you,” he said, after a long pause, “that there was nothing illegal in his banking transactions.

It would be a violation of confidence to discuss it any further.”

“At least three of the accounts are Panamanian mirror accounts,” I said.

“Still none of my business and perfectly legal,” he said, too quickly.

He was feeling stronger and putting up a pretty good fight. I had only two cards left to play.

“What about the Rio Company?” I said.

“What about it?” he said. “It‟s one of their corporations. They have dozens. I really don‟t know for

what purpose. I was not Cohen‟s confidant, I was simply his banker.”

He seemed sincere enough. So I played my last ace.

“How about the pyramid accounts?” I asked.

This time he jumped as if a flea had bitten his ass.

“I told you, I don‟t know anything about their business,” he said, almost in a whisper.

I reached into my pocket and took out the tape recorder, punched the play button, and sat it on the

edge of the desk. The heart monitor was beeping a monotonous background to Harry Raines‟ strained

breathing. He was muttering, then a pause, then he cried out, “Doe!”

Seaborn‟s eyes bulged. His Adam‟s apple was doing a little dance.

I turned the player off.

“He said a lot before he died,” I lied.

Seaborn‟s tough shell began to peel away. He stared at the recorder as if it were a black widow spider

crawling across the desk toward him.

“We were talking about what I know,” I said. “I know you called Sam Donleavy at Babs „Thomas‟

party a little after seven. I know you were in the bank because your lights were seen by two witnesses.

I know that when Harry Raines was shot, he was either walking from his office in the warehouse

toward here, or from here toward his office. It‟s illogical to think he was meeting somebody in the

park, it was too foggy. Whoever shot him was either waiting for him or caught up with him.”

His fingers started playing on the desk again.

I said, “He came here and braced you about Tagliani. You broke down, and before it was over, you‟d

told him the whole story. He threatened to expose you, and when he left, you went out the back door

of the bank, followed him, and shot him.”

His face turned purple. “You‟re insane!” he screamed. “I don‟t even own a gun. And I didn‟t have

time to run after him. I was still sitting right here when—”

He stopped babbling and fell back in his chair.

“When you heard the shot,” I said.

He sat dead still for a full minute; then his face went to pieces and he nodded.

“1 swear to Cod I don‟t know who shot Harry,” he said, almost whimpering. “I‟ve done nothing

illegal. There was nothing illegal in the way Cohen‟s money was handled.”

“It‟s a subterfuge,” I said.

“You‟re guessing,” he said. “Besides, that‟s not what Harry was so angry about.”

“He was angry because you‟d gotten into bed with the wrong people, right?” I said.

“That‟s as good a way of putting it as any,” he said.

“What did you tell Sam Donleavy on the phone?”

“I told him... I told him Harry knew everything. 1 couldn‟t help it. Harry came here and he was insane

with anger. Abusive. He could always intimidate me with that cold stare of his, anyway. I don‟t know

why he suddenly got so upset. He went crazy. 1 told him everything. I tried to make him understand

how it happened, that we didn‟t know who Turner really was until it was too late. He was screaming

about trust and loyalty.”

“What did Donleavy say?” 1 asked.

“He talked to Harry.”

“Raines was here when you called the Thomas woman‟s apartment?” 1 said with surprise.

“Yes.”

“And... ?“

“Sam had to go out to his place and wait for a phone call. He said he‟d call us when he got there.

About forty minutes later he called back.”

“Did you talk to him?”

Seaborn nodded. “Yes. He told me he had to talk to Dutch Morehead at eight o‟clock and that he

would ask Harry to come out to his place and they‟d have it out. He said he felt Harry would be

reasonable, that we‟d done nothing really wrong, nothing illegal. Then he talked to Harry.”

“Did Raines say anything?”

“He just listened for a minute and then said, „All right, I‟ll see you there.‟ Then he hung up and left.

He didn‟t say anything else to me, just turned around and stalked out of here. That‟s the way Harry

Raines was. He couldn‟t forgive anything. Mister Perfect. All he ever cared about was his career, his

goddamn career. He wouldn‟t have been anything if he hadn‟t married Findley‟s money.”

“And you were sitting here all by yourself when he was shot,” I said.

He nodded.

“That‟s your alibi, is it? Mister, if I were the jury, you‟d have one foot strapped in the chair already.

You have a motive, you had the opportunity, and you haven‟t got an alibi.”

His shoulders sagged. He looked out the window again and then dry-washed his hands, like a funeral

director pitching for the solid copper casket. Sweat twinkled on his upper lip and across his forehead.

“I didn‟t kill Harry Raines,” he repeated. “Neither did Sam. He was miles away when it happened. We

don‟t know who killed him or why. I assumed it had something to do with these other killings.”

“I‟m sure it does, in some way or another,” I said.

The phone rang, startling both of us. He stared at it for several rings, then picked it up as if he were

afraid it would burn him.

“Hello? Yes He looked over at me wild-eyed and mouthed the word “Sam.”

I held out my hand and he gave me the phone.

“Sam, this is Jake Kilmer.”

Silence. Ten or twenty seconds of silence. When he finally answered he was quite pleasant.

“Sorry about our lunch date, old man,” he said.

“It‟s been a pretty grim day all the way around,” I said. I looked up at the warehouse. The lights in the

corner office were on. “Where are you now?”

“As a matter of fact, I‟m in my office. You can see it from Charlie‟s window. The river corner.”

“Do you have a minute or two now?” I asked.

Another silence.

“I was planning to go over to the funeral home,” he said. “But I can take a few minutes.”

“I‟ll be right over,” I said. I gave the phone back to Seaborn.

“He hung up,” Seaborn said, with surprise.

“I‟m sure he found out what he wanted to know”

“What do you mean?”

“He wanted to know who you were talking to.”

Seaborn looked over at the warehouse his face caved in.

“What do we do now?” he said, almost to himself.

“Go home, Mr. Seaborn,” I said. “You can‟t do anything here, so go on home.”

He stared at the big, bare desktop for a second and then said, “Yes, I suppose so.”

We left the bank together. Seaborn went to his car; I returned to the pier.

Baker was sitting on the edge of the concrete dock sipping coffee from a Thermos.

“No luck, eh?” I said.

He shook his head. “I‟ll make one more attempt before dark,” Baker said.

“1 appreciate your effort, Mr. Baker,” I said, then to Stick, “Did you find out what I wanted to

know?”

“Nothing to it. A silver-plated S&W .38, two-inch barrel, black handles.”

“I‟m going upstairs,” I said. “You got the number?”

“Yep.”

“Give me fifteen minutes”

“You got it.”

As I turned to leave, he said, “Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Love your style,” he said with a grin.

69

THANK YOU, MA BELL

Number Three Warehouse was a three-story brick building dating back to the late 1700s with nothing

between it and the river but the narrow cobblestone walkway behind it leading from the park. A small

sign over the wreath told me the company was closed because of Harry Raines‟ death. The door was

unlocked.

I remembered coming there with Teddy and marveling at how clean and polished everything was.

Nothing had changed. The brass hand railings and doorknobs were dazzling and the wood looked

oiled and elegant. There was about the place, as there is with most old buildings, that kind of musky

odour that comes with age and care.

Donleavy‟s office occupied most of one corner of the third floor, overlooking both park and river. He

was wearing his dark blue mourning suit but had taken off the jacket and was in his shirtsleeves. The

air conditioning was off and he had the office windows open; although the rain had stopped and the

sun had peeked out before dropping to the horizon, it was still warm and muggy in the office. His

smile was sad but sincere and his handshake was so vigorous it was almost painful.

That was quick” was his greeting. “Sorry it‟s so hot in here. The air conditioning‟s been off all day.”

I told him I could live with it and peeled my jacket off too.

“I‟ll just put on the answering machine so we won‟t be disturbed,” he said.

“Would you mind leaving the line open?” I said. “I don‟t have my beeper with me. I had to leave this

number.”

“No problem,” he said amiably.

From his window I could see the park below. A small group of people clustered around the spot where

Harry Raines was shot and a couple of pretty girls sat on one of the park benches, giggling and

knocking shoulders. The river sparkled brightly in the dying sun.

On the other side of the park was the darkened Seacoast National Bank. It reminded me of DeeDee

Lukatis, her own grief all but forgotten in the wake of Harry Raines‟ death, and the bitter irony that

linked Doe and DeeDee with death. Altogether, a sad view on this particular day.

“The last twenty-four hours have been insane,” Donleavy said with a sigh.

“Yeah,” I said, watching George Baker appear over the side of the pier, pull off his face mask, and

start talking to Stick. “It‟s been one thing after another.”

He followed my gaze down to the waterfront.

“I hear they‟ve been diving down there all day,” he said.

“We‟re looking for the gun that killed Harry Raines.”

“What makes you think it‟s in the river?” he asked.

“Logic,” I said.

“Logic?”

“Sometimes it‟s all we have to go on. A young couple was nearby and heard the shot. She screamed. I

figure the killer ran in the opposite direction, toward the river. Not knowing who else might be nearby

in the fog, he tossed the gun in the river.”

“Any luck so far?” he queried, showing only mild interest.

“Not yet,” I said.

“You say „he.‟ Are you sure the killer is a man?”

“Figure of speech,” I said. “It could be a woman.”

“Humph,” he said, and dismissed the subject of murder temporarily. “I was thinking,” he said.

“Perhaps these mobsters had phony credit profiles. Maybe that‟s how they got by us. It‟s not

uncommon, you know.”

He reached into a small refrigerator, took out a couple of Cokes, popped the tops off them, and

handed me one.

“It‟s possible,” I said, although it was obvious I didn‟t believe

“Well, I‟m jumping ahead of you,” he said. “You should be doing the talking.”

“Did you ever find that book with those dates?” I asked. His eyes rolled with embarrassment.

“My God,” he said, “with everything that‟s been happening, I completely forgot it. I‟ll make a note to

myself to dig it up.”

“That‟s all right,” I said. “I may not need the information after

Baker slid down over the side of the pier and dropped out of view. Good man, he was making one last

effort.

“Do you think Harry‟s death is connected to these other killings?” Donleavy asked.

“It seems likely, doesn‟t it?”

“I wouldn‟t know. I don‟t know much about police work.”

“I thought maybe being a lawyer I said, and let the sentence hang.

“I went to law school but I never practiced law,” he said. “Harry asked me to come on board straight

out of college. I‟ve never really worked anywhere else.”

“Well,” I said, “let‟s just say I‟m not real big on coincidence. It happens, hut it isn‟t logical, it‟s the

long shot. Logic is simply using all the facts you have in order to draw a conclusion.”

“Seems to me there‟s a danger in that,” he said. “You tend to look only for the evidence to prove the

conclusion.”

“I suppose,” I said, noncommittally. “Anyway, logically speaking, Harry Raines‟ death would seem to

be connected to the „Tagliani massacres.”

“That‟s a rather gruesome way of putting it.” He shuddered.

“Gruesome work,” I said. “Murder always is.”

“Why would they want to kill Harry?”

“It‟s the way things happen. One thing leads to another. One murder leads to another.”

“So you think these mobsters did it all,” he said, making it a statement rather than a question.

1 looked back at him. The park was growing dark.

“No,” I said.

“But you said—”

“I said I thought they were connected. I don‟t think the same person killed the Taglianis and Harry

Raines.”

“Oh. Logic again?” he said. His mouth was iron-bent in a smile.

He opened a walnut cigar box on his desk and offered me one of those thin cheroots, the kind

riverboat gamblers in costume dramas always seem to prefer, accepted my refusal with a shrug, and

peeled the wrapper from his own.

“So what does logic tell you about all this?” he asked as he lit the cigar.

I sat down on the windowsill.

“First, I‟d say Raines was obviously coming over here when he got shot,” I said.

“That certainly seems logical,” Donleavy said. “He was probably parked in the company lot.”

“He was parked behind the bank.”

“Well, he still maintains his office here. Maybe he was coming over to get something.”

I went on. “Second, all the Tagliani killings were well planned. Daring, perhaps, but infinitely well

planned and executed. That isn‟t logic, that‟s fact. Logic tells me Raines‟ death wasn‟t. It has all the

earmarks of a sudden move, even a desperate one.”

“How so?”

“Because the killer couldn‟t plan on it being foggy, so he must have decided to use the fog, and that

means the killer had to know exactly where Raines was going to be and the exact moment he was

going to be there. As our witness said, „You couldn‟t see your hand in front of your face.”

“Perhaps he followed Harry,” Donleavy suggested.

“Yeah, except our ear witnesses only heard one person, which leads me to believe the killer was

waiting for Raines.”

“Interesting,” Donleavy said, contemplating the tip of his cigar for a moment. He then added, “Look,

Jake, I may as well tell you, Harry was on his way out to my place. He was very angry. He and

Charlie Seaborn had words. I called Charlie just after I talked to you. Harry was there. I told him I

thought at worst we were guilty of poor judgment and he agreed to come and talk it out, once and for

all.”

“Did Raines have a bad temper?” I asked.

“Only when he felt threatened. He couldn‟t stand being intimidated, by anything or anybody.”

“How about Seaborn? How upset was he?”

He chuckled. “Charlie‟s easily upset, a worrywart. But he certainly wasn‟t distraught enough to kill

somebody.”

“Perhaps there was a problem beyond just had judgment,” I suggested.

“What do you mean?”

“Ever hear of the Rio Company?” I asked.

His expression didn‟t change.

“The what?” he said.

“Rio Company,” I repeated.

He shook his head. “No, should I have?”

I explained to him about the Panamanian Mirror Rule and Virgin Island accounts and that whole

rigmarole. Donleavy was a lawyer, I was sure he knew what it was all about. I guess I wanted to make

sure he knew that I knew.

“The Rio Company is what we call a Hollywood box,” I said. “It‟s like a street on a sound stage, all

front with nothing behind it. It‟s usually used as a payoff.”

“A payoff? For what?”

“Favours, hush money, politicians, illegal lobbies, bad cops. „[„hey have a lot of palms to cross in

their business.”

“Doesn‟t cash work anymore?” he said, laughing.

“This isn‟t the old days,” I said. “We‟re not talking about a few Ben Franklins here and there, we‟re

talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. „The trick is how to hide it. „The Hollywood

box is one good way. They pay off their graft with dirty money and use the banks to clean it along the

way.”

“And this Rio Company was used for that purpose, eh?” he said.

I nodded.

“Are you implying that Charlie Seaborn was involved in all this?” he said, his face clouding with

concern.

“I‟m not implying anything. But his hank is being used as the instrument. He helped set up a rather

elaborate subterfuge to help make it work. And a lot of the money that went through those accounts is

what is called ill-gotten gains. It can be confiscated under the RICO act. I‟m not sure how deeply

involved Seaborn is. He may be guilty only of stupidity. But he could be on the sleeve.”

“The sleeve?”

“The take, part of the payoff. He could be getting a piece of the Rio Company—that‟s if he knew

what he was doing and Tagliani felt it necessary to put him on the sleeve. I don‟t know the answer to

that yet.”

“What do you think?”

“I don‟t think he was.”

“Why?”

“Too much to lose. I think Seaborn‟s indiscretion was that it looked good for the bank and good for

the town and he didn‟t think about the consequences. Seaborn‟s a small-town banker. It probably

never occurred to him that what he was involved in was illegal until it was too late to get out. That‟s

the way it usually happens.”

“Who else was getting paid off?” Donleavy asked, leaning across his desk. “What cops? What

politicians?”

“I‟m working on that.”

“Any ideas?”

“A few.”

“Care to share them?” he asked. “1 assure you, I am as interested in resolving this mess as you are.”

“I‟m sure you are,” I said.

He was leaning on the desk now, staring intently at me.

“Any more logic?” he asked, still smiling.

“I‟ve been thinking a lot about Raines‟ death,” I said. “Trying to narrow down the possibilities.”

“Have you come up with anything?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Logic tells me that there‟s only one person who could have killed Harry Raines.”

“And who‟s that?” he asked eagerly.

“This is going to sound crazy,” I said.

“Try me.”

“It seems to me the only person who could have killed Harry Raines was you.”

“Me!” he gasped, and started to laugh. “Well, except for the fact that I was at my place on Sea Oat

Island twenty miles from here and couldn‟t have done it, how did you come up with such a notion?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “You have two alibis, me and Dutch. And yet, I have this thing about the logic

of the situation. According to Seaborn, you were the last one who spoke with Harry Raines before he

was killed. He left Seaborn‟s office without even saying good-bye and he was gunned down two

minutes later. That makes you the only one who could have known exactly where he was going, arid

when.”

“Now how would I have known that?” he demanded.

“When you talked to Raines, you must have told him to come here, not to your condo. You knew he‟d

walk straight across the park. All you had to do was go down and wait for him.”

His eyes were beginning to bob like fishing corks on the sea. His white shirt front was stained dark

gray with sweat. He jumped

“Christ, I think you‟re serious,” he said angrily.

“Deadly so,” I said.

“You‟re out of your mind, Kilmer,” he snarled. “My God, talk about trying to prove a preconceived

notion! Barring the fact that I couldn‟t have done it, what reason would I have had for killing by best

friend? A disagreement over an error in judgment? Don‟t be ridiculous.”

I could have given him a lot of stereotyped reasons—greed, power, fear of Raines—-hut they would

have been simple answers. They didn‟t cover the abstractions.

He sat back down, put his feet on his desk, and glared at me over the end of his cigar.

“Well?” he challenged.

“Let‟s forget the obvious and deal with the abstractions,” I said.

“What the hell do you mean, abstractions?” he said.

“Look, I understand you, Donleavy,” I said. “There was a time when I could‟ve been in the same boat,

doing things the way I was told to do them, or expected to do them, running the show in the same old

ways, with an occasional pat on the head. I also know that in the end I would have had to make a

name for myself, to prove I was worth the trust, that I wasn‟t just somebody‟s lover or best friend.

„The thing is, you were smarter than I was. You had it figured out from the beginning. You knew the

power was given and you knew it could be taken away. I learned that lesson the hard way. Hell, I

never did know the rules.

“You were given the power, the day-.to-day business of running Findley Enterprises. You got it from

Raines, who got it from Chief, and you ran it the way it was always run, the way the Findleys had run

things since Oglethorpe was governor. But sooner or later, Donleavy, you had to prove your value,

not only to everyone else, but to yourself. You had to prove you weren‟t a sycophant, just another

jock with a rich friend. And not just any rich friend. Harry Raines lived by the rules. He managed the

Findley businesses brilliantly, got himself elected state senator, moved a mountain by swaying public

opinion in favour of the pari-mutuel laws, and looked like a shoo-in to be the next governor. A tough

act to follow. You had to show Dunetown that Sam Donleavy could move a mountain or two

himself.”

“Big deal,” Donleavy snapped. “Since when is ambition a crime?”

“There‟s nothing wrong with ambition,” I said. “It‟s all in how you handle it.”

“And just what do you know about how I handle things?”

“I know that Raines was a clone of the old guard. I think when the opportunity presented itself, you

saw yourself as a harbinger of the new. Dunetown was growing, and suddenly you had a chance to

revitalize the town—before the track was even finished. After all, tourist trade was booming; the city

was growing faster than flies in a dung heap. What you needed was to pump fresh money into the

system that had been passing the same old tired bucks back and forth for centuries. Then a windfall

blew your way. A chance to develop the beach with new hotels, condos on the waterfront,

subdivisions in the swamplands. Dunetown to Boomtown, courtesy of Sam Donleavy.

“Except the dream turned into a nightmare. Dunetown became Doomstown, because the opportunity

was spelled T-a-g-l-i-a-n-i. “You‟re ploughing old ground,” he snapped, culling off the sentence.

I ignored him and kept ploughing.

“And when you found out you were in bed with La Cosa Nostra, you had to make one helluva

decision. Tell Raines? Risk his wrath? Or ride it out? What did you have to lose? Tagliani was

reclusive, his people were running legitimate businesses, everything was coming up sevens for you, so

why rock the boat, right, Sam?”

He hadn‟t moved. He was twisting the cheroot between his lips, staring straight into my eyes.

“So far, nothing you‟ve said is incriminating, immoral, or illegal,” he said.

“Right. But you forgot one thing—the Golden Rule of Findley. They didn‟t give a doodly-shit

whether it was immoral, illegal, incriminating, irregular, or anything else. „The unwritten rule of

Findley was that Harry was going to be the next governor and your job was to cover his ass, not

grease your own. You fucked up, Sam. When you made your deal with Tagliani, you jeopardized

Harry Raines‟ political career and padded your own, and that was an error Raines would never

forgive. It was imperative that Tagliani‟s real identity be protected, not for him, but for you. You

needed to keep that power until you established your own power base. Then the war with the

Taglianis broke out and you ran out of time. Like I said, the power is given and the power is taken

away.”

“Nobody has taken anything away from me!” he said, rising up as though he had grown an inch.

It was time to go for the jugular.

“That‟s a lie,” I said. “You committed the big sin. You betrayed Raines‟ trust. He knew Seaborn was

too naive to get as deeply involved as he was on his own, and he really didn‟t have any hold over

Seaborn, anyway. But you? You he had by the short hairs. Harry was the only person in the world

who could destroy you, and he was going to do it. It wasn‟t the killer who said You‟re finished‟ to

Harry Raines down there iii the fog; it was Harry Raines, saying it to you. So you shot him.”

His expression didn‟t change. He blew a thin stream of blue smoke out into the room and watched it

swirl away in the breeze from the windows, and then he laughed in my face.

“Nobody‟ll believe that hot air,” he sneered. “You couldn‟t get that story into small claims court if

you had Clarence Darrow, John Marshall, and Oliver Wendell Holmes on your side.”

I ignored him. I said, “The irony of all this is that Raines might still be alive if it weren‟t for a horse

with a game leg and his croaked owner. It was the death of the horse, the shock of learning that a race

had been fixed and Tagliani knew it, that woke Raines

up.

The phone gave me a breather. Its buzzer startled Donleavy. He snatched it up, said, “Hello,” paused,

and then handed the receiver to me.

“Kilmer,” I said.

It was the Stick. “You were right,” he said. “I dialled the other number.”

“Any other news?”

“Not yet. Baker‟s doing his best. You want me to come up now?”

“That sounds good, thanks,” I said. I gave the phone back to Donleavy.

“Now that your course in Psych 101 is over,” Donleavy said, slamming down the phone, “maybe you‟

-l like to tell me how I‟m supposed to have gotten here from Sea Oat. Did Peter Pan fly me over?”

“You never went home,” I said. “You came straight here from the Thomas cocktail party.”

I took out the card he had given me he night before, the one with his home phone number on it, and

picked up the phone.

One of the dozen or so yellow lights on its base lit up as I dialled the number. When it started to ring,

the light beside it gleamed.

He stared down at it dumbly.

“Pick it up,”! said.

He hesitated for a moment and then lifted the phone.

“It‟s called call-forwarding,” I said, the - two of us staring at each other across the desk. “Courtesy of

Ma Bell. If you want to forward your calls to another number, you punch in a code on your home

phone, followed by the new phone number. The calls are forwarded automatically. Obviously you use

it all the time; your home phone‟s on it right now. That w your home number I just dialled.”

He wasn‟t talking. The muscles under his ear were jerking with every heartbeat. He tapped the ash off

the cigar without taking his eyes off me. I went on:

“When you left the party last night, you came here instead of going home. You knew Raines was in

Seaborn‟s office; you had talked to him when Seaborn called you at Babs‟ party You also knew

Raines would intimidate Seaborn enough to get the whole story. You probably had your gun there in

the desk, or in the car. After I called you, you called Seaborn‟s office again, told Harry you‟d meet

him over here. „Then you went downstairs and took the walkway through the park toward the bank.

When he came up on you and said, „You‟re finished,‟ you knew your career was flushed, so you shot

him. „The girl screamed, you ran back toward the river, dumped the gun, and came back here in time

to get Dutch‟s call.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Well “ he said, “I must admit you‟ve got quite the imagination. But I

can see why you don‟t practice law. You couldn‟t get anywhere with that outrageous bunch of

circumstantial bullshit.”

The office door opened and the Stick meandered in, his hat perched on the hack of his head as usual

“Who the hell are you?” Donleavy demanded.

“He‟s with me,” I said, and to the Stick, „Did you get it?”

He smiled and took a package out of his jacket pocket. It was

381 a Baggie containing a very wet silver-plated S&W .38, with black rubber pistol grips. I looked at

it. There was a number scratched on a piece of tape on the side of the bag.

“The number of your .38—is it 7906549?” 1 asked Donleavy.

“What .38?” he demanded.

“The one you bought on February third of last year at Odum‟s Sport Shop on Third Street,” Stick said.

“Mr. Odum remembers it very well. The only thing he had to look up was the exact day and the serial

number.”

“This is hard evidence,” I said. “There‟s nothing circumstantial about a murder weapon.”

“That gun was stolen from me months ago,” he squealed.

“Tell it to the judge,” I said.

“Let me see that,” he demanded.

“When we get downtown,” I said. “You want to book the man, Stick?”

“Delighted,” he said, grinning, “What‟s the charge?”

“Murder in the first,” I said. “Let‟s go all the way.”

Stick took off his hat and peered into it. He had a list of rights printed on a card taped to the inside of

the crown and started reading them to Donleavy.

“You have a right to remain silent—”

Donleavy swatted the hat out of his hands. “The hell with that,” he snarled, reaching for the phone.

I laid a forefinger on the receiver. “You can make your call from the tank like everybody else does,” I

said.

The Stick took out a pair of cuffs and twisted Donleavy rudely around. “Normally we wouldn‟t need

these,” he said quietly in Donleavy‟s ear as he snapped on the cuffs. “That was a mistake, doing that

thing with my hat. Your manners are for shit.”

“Hell,” I said, “we all make mistakes. Look at poor old Harry, he wrote his own epitaph: „Here lies

Harry Raines. He trusted the wrong man.”

Donleavy was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. We escorted him downstairs and turned him over

to two patrolmen in a blue and white and told them we‟d meet them at the station.

“What do we do now?” Stick asked.

“Pray,” I said.

We didn‟t have to. George Baker came running across the park as we started back toward our cars. He

was still in his wet suit, although he had changed his flippers for boots.

“Gotcha a present,” he said, and handed me an S&W .38, black handles, two-inch barrel. It was

wrapped in a cloth to protect whatever fingerprints might be on it. I checked the registration. It was

Donleavy‟s gun.

“I assure you, that‟s the weapon,” Baker said proudly. “It has not been underwater long enough to

gather rust.”

“Thank you, Mr. Baker,” I said with a smile. “You just saved my ass.”

“Well now, sir, that‟s a compliment which I will certainly not liken to forget.”

I gave Stick the Baggie he had given me in Donleavy‟s office, the one with the other S&W silverplated .38 in it.

“Where did you get this one?” I asked Stick.

“A friend of mine on Front Street,” he said.

“Beautiful,” I said.

“That was one helluva play up there,” he said. “Remind me never to play poker with you.”

“I don‟t play poker,” I said.

“Love your style, man,” said the Stick.

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