“What‟s starting?” said Dutch.
“What I‟ve been afraid of,” I said. “Open warfare. If it‟s not stopped, Harry Raines won‟t be the only
innocent victim. I‟ve seen a gang war up close, in Cincy. it isn‟t pretty. It‟ll make the Tagliani
massacres look like a harmless warm-up.”
That put a crimp in the conversation for a moment. Then Dutch reached in his pocket and took out the
tape recorder I had hung on Harry Raines‟ bed.
“I almost forgot,” he said. “I retrieved this for you.”
“Anything on it?” I asked.
“I haven‟t checked,” he said.
“Do you know Graves did the Jalisco job for sure?” the Stick asked Dutch.
“Absolutely. That was the Mufalatta Kid on the horn,” Dutch said. “Seems we did something right for
a change. The Kid was shagging Graves and watched the whole thing happen.”
He gathered up our checks. “I‟ll let the city pay for these,” he said. “Let‟s go have a talk with the
Kid.”
“Where is he?” asked the Stick.
“Baby-sitting on Longnose Graves‟ doorstep,” Dutch said, and his Kraut face broadened into the
biggest smile I had seen since I got to Doomstown.
65
LONGNOSE GRAVES
The usual twenty-minute drive across Dunetown to Back O‟Town took the Stick less than fifteen. He
turned off the siren six or seven blocks from the scene and flew dead-stick the rest of the way in.
Dutch smoked two cigarettes, back to back, without taking them out of his mouth once they were lit.
He didn‟t say anything, just sat stiff-legged, puffing.
“Go a block past the club and pull in behind the drugstore across the street,” Dutch told Stick as we
neared the end of the journey. “Kid doesn‟t want we should turn him up to Graves‟ bunch.”
“Gotcha,” Stick said. He wheeled in behind the drugstore, stopped, braked, turned the car off, and was
outside on his feet before I could pull mine out of the floorboards. All Dutch said was “Phew. He
never drove like that with me before.”
“He never drove any other way with me,” I said. “You‟re damn lucky.”
The drugstore was an antique, like the ones I remember from childhood, like Bucky‟s was, in
downtown Dunetown, before it became Doomstown. It had a marble fountain top and wire-rung
chairs and smelled of maraschino cherries and chocolate instead of vitamin pills and hair spray. A
gray-haired black man behind the counter sized us up and nodded toward the Kid, who was sitting
back from the front window, sipping something pink that looked medicinal. He was watching a twostory row house, which stood alone in the middle of the block. A vertical neon sign over the front
door of the place said that it was the Saint Andrew‟s African Baptist Church.
“I didn‟t know he was the Reverend Graves,” I said.
“Used to be the church,” Mufalatta said. “When they moved to their new place, the sign ran the wrong
way, so Nose bought it. He calls the place the Church.”
“Doesn‟t that upset the Saint Andrew‟s African Baptist congregation?” I asked.
“Naw, he‟s head of the choir,” the Kid said, and left it at that.
“Who‟s around?” the Stick asked.
“Two carloads of „em just went inside,” Mufalatta said. “Man, are they feelin‟ high. You never saw
such grins in your life.”
“How did they waste the shrimp company?” I asked.
“Just drove in, two cars of „em, pulled up to the front door, got out, and checked to make sure the
place was empty. Then they doused it with Molotov cocktails and tossed a couple sticks of dynamite
in the front door as they was leaving. Man, the place went sky high.”
We all stood there, staring across the street at the Church, wondering what to do next.
“If we‟re going to arrest him, don‟t we need a warrant?” I asked.
“Arrest them? Arrest who, man? Graves?” was the Kid‟s amazed response. “The four of us are gonna
sashay in there and bust Nose Graves and maybe eight of the meanest motherfuckers south of Jersey
City? Us four? Shit, man. Death with honour, si; death by suicide, bullshit.”
“Then why don‟t I just go in and have a talk with him,” I suggested.
Mufalatta looked at me like I was certifiable. Dutch chuckled deep in his throat, like he had just heard
a dirty joke. The Stick didn‟t do anything; he stood there and pro and conned the idea in his head. He
broke the silence.
“Why?” he asked.
“He‟s being suckered,” I said. “Maybe we can stop this craziness before anybody else dies.”
“Do tell,” said the Kid. “And you think he‟s gonna give a royal shit what you think, man?”
“What‟ve we got to lose?” I said. “Stick and Dutch, keep an eye on our front and back doors. The Kid
and I‟ll go in and gab with Graves.”
“Absolutely crazy as shit,” the Kid said.
“I‟ll second that,” said Dutch.
“Hell, why not?” the Stick said. “Sometimes crazy shit like that works.”
Dutch sighed. “Let‟s get some moxie backup over here,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. “This isn‟t the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. We just want to talk.”
“The man just blew up a business,‟ Dutch reminded me. “If he knows he was seen doing it, he‟s not
gonna be too receptive to any chitchat with the cops.”
I shrugged. “Then we won‟t tell him yet,” I said, and walked out the front door and across the street:
with Mufalatta legging it beside me.
“This is crazy, man,” he said. “This guy has no fuse at all, okay? No fuse, man. You light him up, he
blows all over the fuckin‟ place. They will hear it in West L.A. Shit, they will hear it in West Fuckin‟
Berlin, is what they‟ll do. You hear me talkin‟, man? Am I just makin‟ my gums bleed for fun?”
“I heard you, Kid,” I said. “He‟s got a short fuse.”
“No fuse, brother. None. N-o-n-e. None!”
We entered the club.
“Okay, okay,” Mufalatta said as we walked into the dark stairwell. “Just let me get us to the man,
okay? Let me do that because, see, I think in this case I have a gift f communication which you
don‟t.”
“How‟s that?” I said.
“Because you‟re a thick-headed, fuckin‟ honky, that‟s why, and this man don‟t even trust high
yellows.”
“Get us to the man,” I agreed with a nod.
We walked up a short flight of steps to the main floor of the building. It was a cathedraled room with
a pulpit at one end and pews shoved back in a semicircle to form a large dance floor. The room was
tiered. On the second tier there were low-slung tables surrounded by large cushions. The colour
scheme was cardinal red and devil black. Four stereo speakers the size of billboards were booming
against visible sound waves. The music was so loud it hurt my Adam‟s apple. Not a ray of sunshine
penetrated the once sacred interior.
Two black giants were sitting in wooden chairs at the top of the stairs. They looked both of us up and
down, then one of them said rather pleasantly, “Sorry, gents, no action till four o‟clock.”
“It ain‟t that way,” Mufalatta shouted. “We‟re here to talk with the man.”
The two giants exchanged grins, then laughed loud enough to drown out the music. One of them
yelled, “What you gonna do, turkey, ask him to boogie?”
“Yeah,” I said, taking out my wallet and letting it fall open to toy buzzer. “Here‟s our dance card.”
“Shit,” the Kid said. “There goes diplomatic relations down the fuckin‟ toilet.”
„The big guy doing the talking looked like I was waving a pretzel at him. He looked at Mufalatta, then