“We don?t need to talk about this right now,” Chief said.
“Talk about what? You couldn?t get me out of the room now if you tried!” she protested.
“Let it pass,” Titan said, looking at his feet.
“No!” Doe said. She stood up. “That is this all about?” Chief said, “It?s nothing, baby. just business.”
“What kind of business?” she persisted.
I said, “The business of murder.” I wanted her to know. I wanted all the dark corners swept clean,
once and for all.
„Tell her,” said Chief. He was too old and tired to argue.
“The thing is, we know better, don?t we, Mr. Stoney?” I said. Titan turned his back to me and stared
into the empty fireplace. “Parver was an agent of the Freeze, the same outfit I?m in, but
he was assigned to Dutch Morehead and his squad,” I said. “Stick claimed he didn?t know anything
about the Cincinnati „Triad until my boss, Cisco Mazzola, tumbled on to it a month or so ago. It went
by me at the time. I?ve never been much on filing reports. That was one of my mistakes.”
“You mean you?re capable of making a mistake?” Titan asked caustically.
“Oh, I made a lot of them,” I said. “We all did.”
“For instance?” Titan asked.
“For instance, I had a five-man team in Cincinnati for three years working on the Tagliani case. There
were pictures, newspaper clippings, snitch reports, and a link analysis on the Triad in our confidential
files. Stick had spent six months studying our computer reports before he came here. He knew all
about Tagliani and his bunch. Stick made the Triad right after he got here. Had to be. The question is,
who did he take the information to?”
Nobody said anything. Doe still looked confused.
“No takers?” I said. “Okay, I?ll try. I think he came to you, Mr. Stoney. You?re the logical one, not
Dutch. You?re the one with the iron hand. You represented the law on the Committee.”
He didn?t say anything, he kept staring at the fireplace.
“So you asked Parver to kill Tagliani,” I finished.
Titan turned around and glared hard at me from across the room.
“Now why would he do a damn fool thing like that?” Doe said, getting defensive.
“Two reasons, I can think of. To protect Harry Raines? career, and to break the Triad?s back.”
“Hah,” said Titan. “I?m not a miracle worker.”
“You?re just finding that out,” I said, and before he could respond, I went on, “I think you honestly
believed by getting rid of Tagliani, you could run the Triad off, the old „get out of town before sunset?
routine, but it was a risky move. Then you found out I was coming down here and the whole story
