“That?s what it?s all about, Alfie?”
“Sure. It?s also the answer to your question. We?re cops because we have to keep ducking the
incoming. That?s what keeps us alive.”
Finally I said, “Yeah, that?s what we?ll do, go down to the islands, lay out, and forget it all.”
“That?s all that?s bugging you, a little cabin fever then?”
“Right.”
He flashed that crazy smile again.
“1 don?t believe that for a fuckin? minute,” he said as he cranked up the Black Maria.
23
HEY, MR. BAGMAN
Cowboy Lewis was waiting in the Warehouse when we got back. The big, rawboned man was sitting
at a desk, laboriously hunting and pecking out a report on a form supplied by the department. He
didn?t worry about the little lines or how many there were. He typed over them, under them, through
them, and past them. Getting it down, that was his objective. There were a lot of words x?d out and in
one or two places he had forgotten to hit the spacer, but I had to give him A for effort. At least he was
doing it. His face lit up like the aurora borealis when he saw me.
“Hey, I was writing you a memo,” he said, ripping it out of the Selectomatic in mid-word. “I?ll just
tell you.”
I looked at the partially completed report and told him that would be just fine. The thought occurred to
me that I could sign it myself and send it to Cisco. That would probably end his bitching about my
reports, or lack thereof, forever.
“Salvatore says you?re interested in that little weed, uh...” He paused, stymied temporarily because he
had forgotten the name.
“Cohen?” I helped.
“Yeah. Little four-eyed wimp, got his head on a swivel?” he said, twisting his head furiously back and
forth to illustrate what he meant.
“That?s him,” I replied. “Unless times have changed, he?s the bagman for the outfit.”
“Yeah,” he said, which was his way of agreeing. “Carries one of those old-timey doctor?s bags, black.
Hangs on to that sucker like he?s got the family jewels in there.
“That?s about what it is,” said Stick, “the family jewels.”
“I shadowed him three days—Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, last week—and got him cold.” Lewis
took out a small black notebook. “He stays real busy in the morning. Moves around a lot. Goes to the
bank every day at two o?clock, just as it closes.”
