guards, and killed all three of them.”
“Three?” Stick said. “When Cowboy raised me, he said Tagliani and Stinetto got it.”
“After wasting Tagliani and Stinetto, they dropped off a bomb to finish the job. Tagliani?s wife
walked in. She died in the hospita1.”
“Too bad,” he said. “Though I can?t say as I?m too upset over the two goons.” So much for sympathy.
“How do you figure there were two shooters?”
“The house was wired. Dutch has the whole scene on tape, what there was of it. It was all over in
about thirty seconds.”
“Not so great for you. In town for an hour and your mark gets snuffed out from under you.”
“That?s the breaks.”
“Guns and bombs,” he mused. “Sounds like the Lincoln County war.”
I said I hoped not.
“The boys giving you a hard time?” he asked.
“How?d you guess it?”
“I got some jazz when I first came on. Kind of like an initiation. But they think Dutch hired me, so
they weren?t as suspicious as they will be toward you. You?re a Fed, man. That makes you a badass.
Don?t let it get you down; they?ll come around.”
“So as far as they?re concerned, you?re just another one of the boys, that it?”
“You got it.”
“What?s your angle in all this?” I asked.
“Dutch?s had me playing the field, kind of getting my feet wet. One day this guy, the next somebody
else. But the last week, since .Mazzola made the Tagliani gang, I?ve been hawking Costello and that
little fink, Cohen.”
“And...
“Hell, you know the outfit better than any of us,” he said.
Then, smiling, Stick added, “Don?t you ever do reports? I didn?t know shit about Tagliani until Cisco
filled me in. I mean, there?s some chicken-shit stuff in the box about them, but nothing with any meat
on it.”
“Yeah, I know. I?m bad about reports. I?m like Dutch. Anybody can read them.”
“In answer to your question, Costello keeps away from the rest of the players.”
“How about Cohen?”
“The same. A mousy bookkeeper.”
“Don?t undersell him. He?s got more tricks than a gypsy magician.”
