The little asshole with the mouse got very tense.
“Okay, let?s start makin? a list?r two here,” said Dutch. “First off, we got concealed weapons—”
“They?s all registered,” said one of Costello?s rat pack, cutting Dutch off.
“Shut up,” Sweetheart Pravano said quietly. “L.C. says we don?t say nuthin? to these monkeys,
period.”
Salvatore?s eyes narrowed to slits and his fists balled and un-balled. Cowboy Lewis stared at a spot in
the corner of the ceiling and looked bored. Callahan just chuckled, and Chino Zapata took the gold
tooth out of the front of his bridgework, put it in the change pocket of his jeans, and shook out his
hands. Charlie One Ear mumbled something that could have been “shithouse mouse,” although I?m
not sure.
The Stick and I ambled into a neutral corner on the opposite side of the room from Dutch and laid
back, waiting for something to happen.
Callahan started it.
“Tag these and put „em away,” Dutch told him. The dapper cop found paper and pencil and went up to
the desk to complete his chore. He picked up a palm-sized .25 with a pearl handle, a cute little
weapon, accurate for maybe three feet if the wind isn?t blowing.
“Which one of you girls belongs to this?” Callahan said with a snicker, holding it between thumb and
forefinger, like a dead fish.
Sweetheart Pravano, well over six feet tall and built like a Russian weightlifter, stepped up and
slapped the carnation out of Callahan?s lapel.
„Whyn?t ya eat that daisy, ya fuckin? fag,” he said.
His comment was greeted with a right hook that hurt my jaw and sent Sweetheart soaring across the
room, head over heels over a table.
All hell broke loose.
Dutch was so appalled, he just watched it, open-mouthed.
Cowboy swept the artillery back into the paper bag and threw it in a desk drawer.
I held my corner of the room.
The Stick waded right in.
Makeshift weapons appeared from under jackets, armpits, pants legs.
Salvatore drew his sawed-off pool cue from his shoulder holster and whapped Weasel Murphy across
the back of the head as if he were swinging at a fastball. A tuft of Murphy?s hair lifted straight up and
Murphy slid across a table, sweeping file folders, baskets, and other stenographic paraphernalia before
him to the floor.
