Hooligans

9

SCREWING UP ROYALLY

Dutch stood in front of the room, a Teutonic frown etched into his heavy features.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Any time.”

“I don?t want to upset anybody,” he said, turning to his troops, “but these.., ash lochers have been

under our surveillance two weeks. A whole family of them, and we didn?t even know it!”

The group looked stricken, none more than Charlie One Ear.

“I can?t believe it,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Not so much as a hint from any of my

canaries about this. I should think somebody, somebody, would have heard some goddamn thing!”

The rest of them stared at the floor and moved imaginary objects around with their feet. All except

Lewis, who stared at a corner of the room through squinted eyes, and Callahan, who spoke up again.

“Why you getting steamed up, Dutch?” he said. “We didn?t know who they were until last week. Up

till then we were just following them because Charlie One Ear had a hunch.”

“I?m including myself,” Dutch said. „We been making a lot of racket for these past nine months.

Busting pimps and pros, dropping dealers with a nickel bag in their shorts. We got a little too big for

our hats.”

“We didn?t know until—” Salvatore started.

“He?s right,” Charlie One Ear said. “We were much too casual about this mob. I was one of the

worst.”

“You, Chino, you were on Tagliani tonight, right?” Dutch asked.

“Who?”

“Franco Tagliani,” Dutch said, leaning an inch from the Mexican?s face. “He?s the one got killed

tonight while you were parked in his front yard. Remember?”

“I keep forgetting the new names,” Zapata said.

“Well, stop forgetting them. I don?t want to hear any more about Frank Turner or Nat Sherman or any

of the other monikers their people are using. From now on, we use their real-life names, okay?”

The group nodded in unison.

“So what happened?”

“On Sundays, oh. . . Tagliani and... oh.. . Nicky Stinetto go to. . . Bronicata?s joint for dinner, so I

went there and waited. Shit, you stand out like a blind man at a tit show, out there on Thunderhead

Island. There?s only one other house on Tur. . . Tagliani?s street. Twice I been hassled by the fuckin?