on Shakespeare, but he was long on smarts.
“He was a middleweight contender, you know,” Charlie One Ear continued. “Got full of patriotism,
volunteered for the army, and spent a year in Vietnam. Then he came back and joined the Hell?s
Angels. I?ve never quite understood why.”
“You seem to have a nice team going,” I said. “You spot them, Zapata finds them, and Salvatore
sticks to them.”
“Like flypaper,” said Charlie One Ear.
Stick excused himself to go call the coroner and see if there were any autopsy reports yet. When he
left, I leaned over the table toward Charlie One Ear.
“I?ve got to ask you something,” I said. “It?s a personal thing.”
“Yes?”
“1 heard your father was an English kid and your mother was a Ute Indian. Whenever your name
comes up, somebody says that.”
“Only partly correct. It was my grandparents and she was a Cree. I inherited my memory from my
father and my instincts from my mother. Thank God it wasn?t the other way around. I?m quite
flattered you?ve heard of me.”
“Charlie Flowers, the man who smashed the Wong Yang Fu opium ring in San Francisco almost
single-handed! You?re a legend in your time,” I said with a smile.
“I really enjoy this, y?know,” he said, grinning back. “I have an enormous ego.”
“Is it true you once busted so many moonshiners in Georgia that they threw together and hired a
couple of Philly shooters to do you in?”
“Actually it was four, including Dancing Rodney Shutz out of Chicago, who was reputed to have
killed over sixty people, a lot of whom didn?t deserve the honour.”
“And you got „em all?”
“Yes. Without a scratch, I might add. They made a mistake. They all took me on at once—I suppose
they thought there was safety in numbers.” He paused for a moment and then flashed a twenty-dollar
smile. “Dancing Rodney was so aghast I don?t think he realizes to this day that he?s dead.” We both
broke out laughing.
“So what?re you doing here?” I asked.
His smile stayed but got a little brittle. “Well, I don?t share Dutch Morehead?s consternation with
condos. My wife and I enjoy ours quite a lot. Beautiful view. We?re near the water. The climate?s
wonderful He paused. He could have let it drop there, but he went on. “Besides, I couldn?t get a job
anywhere else.”
