owners in town, but maybe we‟ll luck out and nab them before they get too far.”
Five minutes later Zapata answered his page. Stick snatched up the phone.
“Chino, it‟s Stick. Where the hell are you?”
“Outside one of these strip joints on Front,” he answered.
“What are you doing there?”
“Watching Silo Murphy, the one they call Weasel.”
“You got Murphy in sight right now?” the Stick said.
“Yeah. He didn‟t go on the boat ride, so I stuck with him. Salvatore‟s still trying to get a line on that
fuckhead Nance.”
“I‟m on my way,” said the Stick. “If he leaves, follow him and keep me cued through central. What‟s
your number?”
“Seventy-three. What‟s goin‟ on?”
“Ten minutes. Tell you when I get there,” said Stick. He slammed down the phone and headed for the
door.
In Dutch‟s office the rest of the SOB‟s were also wrestling with the problem.
“How about the traffic chopper,” suggested Cowboy Lewis. “Maybe we can run down Costello‟s
cruiser.”
“Good idea, get on it,” said Dutch. “So where do we stand right now?”
“Salvatore and Zapata are still on the street,” said Charlie One Ear. “Mufalatta‟s on the range
rounding up the rest of the Graves gang. The rest of us are here.”
“Where‟d the Stick go?” demanded Dutch.
“He‟s checking on Chino,” said Charlie One Ear.
“Not anymore,” said Callahan. “He just went out the door like his underwear was on fire.”
“Sheiss, what next!” cried the Dutchman.
I came around with elephants thundering in one ear and out the other and the bitter-salty taste of blood
in my mouth. I was stretched out on a fairly comfortable Naugahyde sofa. Doe was sitting beside me,
bathing my aching head with a wet cloth.
“Oh, thank God!” she said as I opened my eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I‟m fine. It‟s you they knocked out.”
“Where are we?”
“I‟m not sure. They blindfolded me,” she said. “We‟re near the water, though, I can smell it.”
My nose had been knocked out of commission along with half of my other senses. I couldn‟t have
smelled my hair if it was on fire.
“How long did it take to get here?”
“Twenty minutes, thirty maybe. I‟ve never been very good about time and I don‟t have a watch on.”
“My God, how long have I been out?”
“Another ten.”
“They must‟ve hit me with a poleaxe.”
“Actually it was a little black stick one of them had strapped to his wrist.”
“Just a plain old-fashioned sap,” I said. “Just like me.”
I sat up slowly, so my head wouldn‟t fall off, got my feet on the floor, and sat very still to keep from
vomiting. Eventually the nausea went away. The room was small and tidy and looked like a doctor‟s
office, without the medical journals and four-year-old National Geographics strewn everywhere. The
only light in the room came from a table lamp made from a wooden anchor with “Saint Augustine,
Florida, 1981” hand painted on it. The room had two windows, both heavily draped, and there was a
TV monitor camera mounted high in one corner.
I decided to see if I could stand up. That brought some activity from the other room. The door opened.
I could tell from the silhouette that it was Nance. I didn‟t realize how badly I had beaten him until he
turned sideways and the light from the other room fell across his face. Both eyes were swollen to slits,
he had bruises and gashes down both sides of his face, he was limping, and there was a cut that had
swollen t the size of an egg on the corner of his mouth, surrounded by a blue-gray bruise that spread
almost to his ear. He was a wreck. I felt better when I saw him.
“Hi, Nance,” I said. “Been a real shitty day for you, hasn‟t it?”
He made animal noises in his throat and started toward me but a hairy paw against his chest stopped
him. Arthur Pravano, the one they called Sweetheart, stepped past him.
“Don‟t make any more trouble,” he said to Nance. Sweetheart leaned on the doorjamb and stared at
me.
“Well, well,” I said, “the pool‟s get-ting full.”
“You talk awfully big for a man with his balls in the wringer,” said Nance.
“Go on outside,” Pravano said, and Nance bristled for a second, then turned and vanished from the
doorway.
“You ought to do something about him,” I said, “like give him a brain transplant for Christmas.”
“Big-mouth Fed,” he said, shaking his head. “You got about as much time left as an ice cube in a
frying pan.”
“No less than you,” I replied, althot.gh I was sorry the moment I said it. They were all in it up to their
eyeballs. Murder, kidnapping, arson—all could be proven, regardless of whether or not we broke
down Cohen, Donleavy, an d Seaborn and opened up the pyramid. They were all smart enough to
know you can only hang once. One or two more murders couldn‟t have bothered them less, so I cut
the smart talk and hoped that Doe wouldn‟t figure it out too.
“So why are we here?” I asked.
“It‟s a scientific experiment,” Pravano said. “We want to see how long it takes for a Fed to wet his
pants.”
“There‟s a lady in the room,” I said.
“She‟s got rotten taste,” he snarled.
“Your dance partner‟s no trophy winner,” I snapped back.
He let it pass. “Don‟t try nothing spectacular, okay, to impress the lady, like the thing with Turk back
there in town. Keep away from the windows. Don‟t make no racket, bust up the furniture, start no
fires, that kind of shit. We got people outside and people watching that.” He jerked a thumb toward
the monitor. “You fuck with that, I‟ll let Turk come in and blow off your goddamn balls, if you got
any.”
He left.
“Who was that!” Doe cried.
“One of the Seven Dwarfs,” I said, and tried a chuckle. It sounded more like a dirge.
Zapata was sitting sidesaddle on his hog, smoking a Fatima and watching the traffic go by, when
Stick got there.
“He‟s in that strip joint over there, drinking Scotch and checking crotch,” the Mexican said. “What
the hell‟s going on?”
“Costello and his bunch ditched the boys. They‟re out pleasure cruising on Costello‟s boat.”
“1 know. I been watching this Weasel „cause I heard him and Nance were, y‟know, kinda tight, if that
psycho has any friends. Anyways, he don‟t go on the boat. So I figure maybe he‟s gonna meet Nance
and I shag him. He comes over here. Is that what it‟s all about?”
“Dutch wants to have a talk with Weasel,” Stick said. “Let‟s go over and see can we ease him out of