Grant, a martinet Teddy and I had served under in Nam when we were still second lieutenants.
They were all yelling at me, but of course I couldn?t hear anything. It was a silent horror movie that
never ended.
A couple of years later, when I was working the street in San Francisco, I became friendly with
another patrolman who had served in Nam. His name was Winfield. He was a black guy and he was
taking college courses in psychology because he thought it would help him make detective.
One night over too many beers we started talking about dreams, so I told him mine and he gave me a
nickel?s worth of Psychology 101:
“Your values are all fucked up, Jake. One thing is, you think you?re different. Shit, join the club. I
figure it like this: it was one way here, the other way over there, okay? You get a lot of guilt over such
shit. Gets so you?re afraid to trust anybody because you don?t want them to find out. It happened to us
all, man. What you do, see, you decide what makes sense to you. Settle for that and fuck everything
else.”
After that we talked a lot. The dreams got fewer and farther between. Finally they stopped.
That night in Doomstown I had the dream again, only this time it wasn?t Teddy running on the ridge.
It was Franco Tagliani.
17
PLAYING BY THE BOOK
The Palm Room of the Ponce Hotel was big, cheery room, as bright as a hothouse and decked out in
as many hanging plants, ferns, and potted flowers, it was decorated in soft hues of green, yellow, and
pink, with windows down one side that faced the hotel courtyard. Once, in summertimes past, the
cream of Dunetown society had sunned itself and gossiped around the pool. it had since been
converted into a giant fish pond spiked with lily pads, and while there were still a few old deck chairs
scattered about the area, the place had a forlorn, faded, unused look about it. The restaurant, however,
was breezy, cheerful, and buzzing with early morning conversation.
I showed up the next morning at a few minutes after eight with my head pounding and the taste of old
overshoes and amaretto in my mouth. I put on my sunglasses and groped my way through the
restaurant.
Francisco Mazzola, the peerless leader of the Freeze, was seated near a window overlooking the
courtyard. He had half a dozen vitamin pills of varying sizes and colors lined up in front of his plate
and was gulping them down with orange Juice. He pumped my hand, threw an arm around my back,
and slid the morning paper in front of me as 1 sat down.
