them.
Costello alone seemed calm. He was a tall man and better looking than I would have liked, his sharp
features and hard-set jaw deeply tanned, his longish black hair bronzed by a lot of sun, his lean body
decked out in a blue blazer, a pale blue shirt open at the collar, white slacks, and white loafers. He
was one of those people whose age is superfluous. There were a lot of reasons to dislike him. Only his
brown eyes were a clue to his anger. They glittered with suppressed rage. My rage was open, my
hatred obvious, but I kept my mouth shut for the time being.
Chevos stood stoically in a corner of the cubicle, alone, staring at the wall, and Bronicata was
jabbering like a monkey in heat.
The rest of the Tagliani mob was dressed casually for the beach, looking like graduates of a Sing Sing
cellblock disguised as the Harvard crew team.
The hooligans rounded out the scene. A novice would have had one hell of a time separating the good
guys from the bad.
“Kick that door shut there, Pancho,” Dutch said, and Callahan closed the door.
Everybody chose up sides and lined up against opposite walls of the room, hooligans near the door,
Costello?s gunsels against the far wall.
Cowboy Lewis, wearing aged jeans, a faded Levi?s jacket, a Derringer-type cowboy hat, and a
brilliant red sunburn, was carrying a large grocery sack.
“We dumped „em comin? offa Costello?s rowboat,” Cowboy said, in a voice that sounded like he
swabbed his throat with number four sandpaper. I was to learn that Costello?s “rowboat,” as Lewis
had genteelly put it, was a sixty—foot yacht that slept ten.
Cowboy carried the brown paper bag to the front of the room and dumped its contents on Dutch?s
desk
Eight pistols of every kind and calibre, slip knives, brass knucks, two rolls of quarters, and other
assorted tools of the trade. “The heavyweights were all light,” he said.
Dutch?s eyebrows rose with the corners of his lips.
“Neat. Did you all hear the Russians re in Charleston or some such?” he asked nobody in particular.
Nobody answered, but there was a lot of grumbling and grousing.
“Definitely concealed weapons,” said Lewis, who was nursing a split lip.
“Where?d ya get the fat lip?” Dutch asked.
“The little asshole with the mouse clipped me when I wasn?t looking,” he said, jerking a thumb
toward one of the goons, who was wearing a black eye the size of a pancake. “1 had to use reasonable
force to subdue him.”
