Free Hooligans by William Diehl

each of them in turn.
    “Yeah, fuckin‟-A it‟s personal,” I said. “One of my partners on the Tagliani job was Harry Nome,
    Wholesome Harry we called him. Best inside man I ever met. He was undercover in Chevos‟ dope
    operation. Nance tumbled him. They took him for a ride and Nance stuck his gun up Harry‟s nose,
    ripped it off with the gunsight-.--I mean he ripped it off. Then he tossed Harry out of a car doing
    about fifty. Harry came out of it a paraplegic.
    “We had another man, on loan from the Drug Enforcement Agency. He tried to burrow into the
    operation at the New Orleans end. We never saw him or heard from him again. Nothing. He just
    disappeared. That‟s been three years now.
    “1 had an informant, a hooker named Tammi. She was eighteen years old, recruited by Stizano, who
    hooked her on horse when she was fifteen. They had her working interstate and she wanted out, so she
    agreed to talk to the attorney general about how hookers are moved around on the national circuit,
    who runs it, that sort of thing. Very strong stuff. Nance got her away from us. He cut off her nose and
    both ears, stuffed them down her throat, and strangled her with them. Costello—Mr. Clean? He was
    Nance‟s mouthpiece. The bastard wasn‟t even indicted.”
    I paused for a minute, letting it all sink in.
    “Naw,” I said, “it isn‟t personal. It‟s never personal, right? I mean, why should I be pissed? I was
    lucky. When they took a shot at me, the bullet went in my side, here, just below the ribs, popped out
    my back, and went on its merry way. The bullet hurt, but not like the arsenic it was soaked in.”
    I sat down.
    Not bad, I thought. Not bad at all. Save up the rough stuff until the end.
    Nobody said anything else for a minute or two.
    I didn‟t know it at the time, but there was another name I should have added to the list that night:
    Longnose Graves.
    I would get to know him well in the next few days. I would get to know a lot of people well in the
    next few days, very damn few of them for long.
    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