„Local power structure,” he said, brushing it off.
“You just took a left turn,” I said.
“Y?see, Raines doesn?t think beyond the racetrack,” Dutch said, still ignoring my question. “The
paper and the TV stations tend to play down any violence that happens. Now we got Mafia here, it
could be Raines? worst nightmare come true. I could get my walking papers over this.”
“So you said.”
The waitress brought our drinks. I decided not to press him on who or what the Committee was for the
moment.
“Fill me in on Titan,” I said.
He jiggled the ice in his highball.
“Only trouble with Stoney Titan, he?s been sheriff for too damn long. Forty years plus; that?s one hell
of a long time.”
“You think he?s on the take?”
“Not the way you mean,” Dutch said. “Nothin? goes down in this town he don?t know about, Not a
card game, not a floating crap game, not numbers. Not a horse parlour. He knows every hooker by her
first and last name, every bootlegger, dope runner, car booster. A man can?t be around that long, know
that much, he isn?t bent just a little, know what I mean? On the other hand, he?s a tough little bantam,
not a man to take sides against.”
I remembered Titan differently. I remembered him on soft summer afternoons with his coat across his
knees, drinking bourbon with Chief and talking on the porch at Windsong. I remembered he always
put his gun in the trunk before coming up to the house and took off his coat because he wore his
badge pinned on the inside pocket and I guess that was his way of saying it was a friendly call. And I
remembered him as thinner and not as gray, a wiry little man with a fast step and twinkling eyes. Hell,
I thought, he?s pushing hard on eighty. Funny how people never age in your memory.
“I wonder if he was on Tagliani?s payroll,” I thought aloud.
“He isn?t bent in that direction. No way,” Dutch said. “Stoney doesn?t need money or power. And
he?s too old to get sucked into that kind of game. Titan coulda been a state senator, probably
governor. God knows he?s got the power. But he?s like a man who can?t swim—he never goes in over
his head.”
“Then maybe he had Tagliani killed,” I suggested.
“Not his style. Squeeze Tagliani out, maybe. But this high-style execution isn?t gonna be good for
Dunetown. And I don?t see a hope in hell of cleaning this up right away, do you?”
I admitted that there was very little to go on at that point. I also told him I didn?t think the town could
