“Name?s Moriarity. He?s Stizano?s number one button.”
“Not anymore,” Salvatore said. His tone was changing, becoming almost gleeful.
The scene was as bizarre as any Fellini film.
Stizano lay on his back, staring at the underside of the marquee with a smile on his face and a cigar
still clamped between his teeth. His black suit was full of bullet holes. It looked like a rabid dog had
chewed up his chest. One of his shooters was five feet away, huddled against the box office on his
side in an almost foetal position. His Borsalino hat was knocked down over the side of his face,
somewhat rakishly. The bodyguard, whom I had pegged as a onetime Chicago hoodlum named
Manny Moriarity, a.k.a. Dead Pan Moriarity, was leaning against the side of the theatre on his knees,
his right hand under his coat, and the only expression he ever had, on his face. Two slugs in the
forehead, one under the right eye, and his chest was open for inspection. The other gunman, who
looked like a body builder, lay face down with his hands buried beneath him, clutching the family
fortune. The chauffeur had managed to get around the side of the car and had sat down, made a little
cup in his lap with his hands, and tried to stop his insides from spilling out. He hadn?t been very
successful but it didn?t make any difference. He was as dead as the rest of them.
As the little Italian completed his story, the Stick arrived in front of a trail of blue smoke that wound
like an eel back down the dark street and, looking at the scene of the crime, said, “They giving away
free dishes?”
“You?re very sick,” Dutch said. “There?re five people dead over there.”
“Bank night,” Stick said.
Salvatore repeated his story to the Stick and then pointed across the street to the park.
“Had to be from over there. And, uh, uh
“Yeah?” Dutch said.
“This is gonna sound a little crazy.”
“I?d feel there was something wrong if it didn?t,” Dutch said wearily.
“Okay.. . I don?t think—judging from the way these people went down, okay—I don?t think. . . or
what I think is, it was one gun.”
“One gun did all this?” said Dutch. “This looks like the Battle of the Bulge here.”
“I know it. But, see, uh, they went down just him, barn, boom, right in a row, like they was ducks in a
shootin? gallery, starting with the driver, there, swingin? straight across. Next it was the two gunners,
then the button—what was his name?”
“Dead Pan Moriarity,” I coached.
“Dead Pan Moriarity,” Dutch repeated, and smothered a giggle.
