“I?ll come along,” Donleavy said, and followed them into the ICU.
The minute they were out of the room, Titan turned on me, his teeth showing.
“Keep out of this,” he hissed, jabbing his finger in my face. “The one thing she don?t need
right now is you.”
“That?s up to her,” I hissed back.
“I?m telling you, back off. Get out of her life. I blame all this on you, you and that bunch of
stumblebums of Morehead?s. This never should have happened—”
“Forget it!” I barked back. “You can „t blame Morehead. Your mighty Committee screwed
up. That?s how Tagliani got in here.”
“Damn you,” he said in a threatening whisper. “We ain?t smart college boys like you hotshot
federals. So they got in! Morehead?s job was to keep this element in line if they did.”
“Screw you, Titan,” I said vehemently. “You?re just like the rest of these assholes who want
to pass the buck to somebody else.”
“I don?t give a hoot owl?s cross eyes what those wop bastards do to each other,” Titan said,
his voice rising to a shriek. “They want to kill each other off, that?s goddamn good riddance, I
say.”
He was trembling with rage, the rage of a man whose power had been compromised.
“That ain?t what I had to say to you, anyway,” he went on. “I?ll try appealing to your sense of
honour, if you got any. Don?t give the town reason to wag their tongues, doughboy. She
surely don?t need such as that at this time.”
“Doe and I are old friends. Did it occur to you that I may be able to help?”
“Keep away from her!” he screamed.
“Mind your own fucking business,” I said softly, and left the room.
“What was that all about?” Dutch asked as I joined them.
“Titan got a little out of line,” I said.
“Titan doesn?t get out of line,” Dutch said.
“Wrong,” I said. “He just did.”
We hung around for fifteen or twenty minutes. It was obvious that Raines? time was running
out, but the doctor was playing his prognosis close to the chest. Doe stayed in the unit with
Raines while Titan and Donleavy were knee to knee, palavering in the waiting room,
probably deciding who would replace Raines in the political structure. There were several
uniformed police hanging around and there was nothing further we could do, so we moved on
after I scribbled a brief note to Doe with some phone numbers on it and left it with a nurse.
