Free Hooligans by William Diehl Page A

happened?”
    “On Sundays, oh. . . Tagliani and... oh.. . Nicky Stinetto go to. . . Bronicata‟s joint for dinner, so I
    went there and waited. Shit, you stand out like a blind man at a tit show, out there on Thunderhead
    Island. There‟s only one other house on Tur. . . Tagliani‟s street. Twice I been hassled by the fuckin‟
    downtown blue and whites, fer Christ sakes.”
    “So it‟s your call to jump ahead of your mark that way?” Dutch asked.
    “It was just a routine surveillance, Dutch. Shit, I was hungry, nothing to eat for seven hours. I went
    ahead, grabbed some groceries so I‟d be ready when he split. Who had any thought he was gonna get
    hit?”
    “I‟m sorry you didn‟t get a printed invitation!” Dutch said. “How about Stinetto, who had him?”
    Charlie One Ear sank a little lower in his chair.
    “I‟m afraid I have to plead guilty,” he said. “It was a double-up, Dutch. We knew they were going to
    dinner together, so I told—”
    “So you told Chino to go to the restaurant and you‟d cover the house,” he said, finishing the sentence.
    “Right.” Callahan said, “It‟s routine with him, Chief. Tagliani goes to Bronicata‟s every Sunday for
    dinner. He usually meets one or two of his capi there. Draganata, Stizano, Logeto. Like that.
    Bronicata usually sits with them.”
    “Big deal, so who does the dishes? What [want to know is who was at dinner?”
    “Logeto and, uh, the red-haired guy...” Chino said.
    “O‟Brian,” I coached.
    “Yeah. And, of course, Bronicata.”
    “I suppose you was eyeballing Bronicata, too, right, since you was there anyway,” Dutch growled at
    Chino.
    “1 had Bronicata,” Callahan said quietly. “They all split together. 1 put Bronicata home before 1 came
    back here.”
    “Who had O‟Brian?”
    Lewis raised his hand. “Same thing,” he said. “He went straight home too.”
    “What happened there in the restaurant?” Dutch said.
    Chino said, “1 was inside, watching the whole team. So Bronicata gets this phone call, comes back
    looking like he just swallowed a jar of jalapeño peppers. There‟s some chi chi—”
    “Chi chi? What the hell‟s chi chi?” Dutch asked.
    “They was whispering.”
    “Oh.”
    “Then the Irishman and Logeto both split like the place was on fire. Coupla minutes later the waiter
    brings the check, tells me the joint‟s closing for the night. „What the hell‟s goin‟ on?‟ I say. He tells
    me the chef had a heart attack. I guess the call was to tell them the old man got aced.”
    Dutch, who was twirling one side of his moustache and staring at the ceiling, said, “it don‟t make a lot
    of sense, y‟know. Tagliani follows the same procedure every Sunday. There he is, in the car with only
    Stinetto and the chauffeur, who couldn‟t shoot the shit with the pope. An easy mark, yet the shooter
    chooses to waste two guard dogs and blow up Turner and Sherman in the house.”
    “It‟s Tagliani and Stinetto,” Charlie One Ear said sedately. All that bought him was a dirty look.
    “Salvatore,” Dutch went on, “who was your mark?”
    “Stizano,” he said. “He‟s home also. 1 left his place when you called us in.”
    “Cowboy?”
    “The playboy—what‟s his name?”
    “Logeto?” I suggested.
    “Yeah, him. He‟s home too.”
    “Everybody‟s home tonight,” Zapata said with a chuckle.
    “Is any of this stuff from the past few weeks, from when you started watching these guys, is any of
    this on paper?” I asked.
    Dutch said, “We don‟t make reports. You put it on paper and somebody can read it.”
    “Like who?” I asked.
    “Somebody, anybody,” he said vaguely.
    “You know what burns me?” said Chino. “What fuckin‟ burns me is that these assholes have got
    themselves watertight alibis and they don‟t even know it.”
    “Wouldn‟t it be fun not to tell them,‟ Charlie One Ear said wistfully.
    Dutch said, “Okay, Charlie, put your good ear to the ground, see if you can turn