“I wouldn?t know about that,” Stick said. “Actually, it was all over when I got here. All I know is
what I heard on the gas pipe.”
More turns. More screaming tires. More fleeing pedestrians.
“What?s this Graves like?” I asked.
“Like Dutch said, for years he had the town sewed up. I get the idea the local law left him alone as
long as he didn?t get too far out of line,”
“Wasting McGee wasn?t getting out of line?” I asked.
“Y?know, I don?t think anybody blamed him for the McGee thing. In fact, I get the feeling the locals
were glad he did McGee
in.
“Could he be behind this Tagliani chill?”
“I suppose he could. Mufalatta?s keeping an eye on him. If anybody will know, the Kid will.”
We drove away from the downtown section and across the bridge to Skidaway Island, which lay
between the city and the beach. The rain had stopped and the moon seemed to be racing in and out of
the clouds. As we crossed the bridge, the old-town charm of Dunetown vanished, swallowed up by
redwood apartment complexes and condos that looked like gray boxes in the fleeting moonlight.
There was something sterile and antiseptic about Skidaway. Twenty years ago it was a wild,
undeveloped island, a refuge for wildlife and birds. Now it appeared almost overpopulated.
Stick took Ocean Boulevard like it was Indianapolis. The souped-up engine growled angrily beneath
us and the needle of the speedometer inched past one-twenty. The landscape became a blur. Five
minutes of that and he downshifted and swerved off the four-lane and headed off through a
subdivision, its houses set back from the road behind carefully planted trees and shrubs. In the dark it
could have been any planned community.
“Cisco says you lived here once,” Stick said past the cigarette clenched between his teeth.
“I just spent a summer here,” I answered, trying to adjust my eyes to the fleeing landscape.
“When was that?”
“I hate to tell you. Kennedy was still the President.”
“That long ago, huh?” he said, somewhat surprised.
“I was still a college boy in those days,” I said. I was beginning to feel like an antique.
He made a hairpin turn with one hand.
“Surprised you, huh, how much it changed?”
I laughed, only it didn?t come out like a laugh; it sounded like I was gagging.
“Oh, yeah, you could say that. You could say I was surprised, and I haven?t even seen the place in the
