“Yeah, him, and finally Stizano. I mean, Dutch, it was some kind of fuckin? weapon. Took „em all out
in like. . . ten seconds!”
The Stick was leaning over Stizano, pointing his finger and counting to himself. He stood up, shaking
his head.
“1 make it eight slugs in Stizano, could be more. Look at him, he didn?t know it was coming. Fucker?s
still smoking his cigar and smiling.”
Stick giggled, a kind of uncontrollable, quirky little giggle, which got Dutch started, only he didn?t
giggle, he laughed, and the laugh grew to a roar. Then Salvatore broke down and started in and before
I knew it, I was laughing along with the rest of them. The harder we tried to stop, the harder we
laughed. We were standing there in hysterics when the chief of police arrived.
Chief Walters was fifty pounds overweight and had bloodshot eyes, a nose full of broken blood
vessels, and a neck that was two sizes too big for his collar. He looked like a man who sweats easily.
“I must have missed something,” he said, in a fat man?s laboured voice, heavy with bourbon. “What
the hell?s so funny?”
“You had to be here, Herb,” said Dutch.
“Obviously you weren?t,” Walters said. “Maybe we better talk about this in the morning.”
“We can talk about it right now,” Dutch said with more than a touch of irritation as his smile faded.
“Right now I think I?d better join my people,” Walters said, leaning on the “my.”
Dutch defused the situation by introducing Walters to me, earning me a damp, insecure handshake.
“Dutch can obviously use all the help you can give him, right, Dutch?” he said.
“Why don?t you go over and give the boys in homicide a pep talk,” Dutch said.
“I?ll help you in any way I can, Khmer, just pick up the phone. I answer all my calls personally.”
“That?s wonderful,” I said.
As he walked away he added somewhat jovially, “At least you can?t say we?ve got a dull town here,
right, Kilmer?”
I began to wonder if the whole damn police force had been recruited from some funny farm for old
cops.
“Well, you?ve met the chief,” Dutch said, “now you can forget him.”
“Twelve in Stizano and this guy with the hat,” the Stick cried out, returning to his self-appointed task
of counting bullet holes in dead people.
Callahan was last to arrive, wearing a three-piece gray suit with a rose in his lapel. He got out of his
car and looked around. No comment. While we were counting bullet holes and scratching our heads,
Callahan vanished into the park and returned five minutes later with a whiskered, filthy relic wearing
