showed off.
“He works crowds, bumps the shoulder of the mark. Usually the mark will touch his wallet to make
sure he hasn‟t been boosted. That does two things for Digit. One, it tells him where the mark‟s wallet
is. Two, the next time he bumps him, the mark is too embarrassed to check his belongings. Bingo!
The wallet‟s gone and so is Dan.”
“You don‟t miss a trick, there, Charlie,” Zapata said, shaking his head.
“The thing about Digit Dan that‟s remarkable,” said Charlie One Ear, “is that he always hits
somebody who‟s well heeled. He has that talent. He can look at a mark and tell how much money he‟s
got in his kick.”
“Amazing,” Zapata said, shaking his head.
“He‟ll be working the track tomorrow,” Charlie One Ear said. “We‟ll nail him. Now, about your
problem. Perhaps we can give you something there.”
That didn‟t surprise me.
“A pimp named Mortimer Flitch, alias Mort Tanner,” he continued. “A wimpy sort and not too flashy.
Handles high-class clientele, usually four or five girls at most. He calls Saint Louis home. He also has
a thing for ladies of means.”
“Rich broads, you mean,” Zapata said.
“Yes, Chino, rich broads.”
“A gigolo, eh?” said Stick.
“I hate to give him that distinction,” said Charlie One Ear.
“Where‟d you see him at?” Zapata asked.
“Out on the Strip, a week or two ago. This Turner thing came up and I never followed through.”
“It‟s Tagliani,” said Salvatore.
“What‟s he look like?” Zapata asked.
“Tallish, a little under six feet. Slender, I‟d say one forty, one forty-two. Wears three-piece suits.
Lightweight for the climate. Goes in for coloured shirts and has atrocious taste in ties. Flowers, lots of
bad colours, that kind of thing. Brown hair and not a lot of it. Combs it over his forehead to stretch it
out. Brown eyes. Always wears black boots.”
“Quirks?” Zapata asked.
“Bites his fingernails.”
Zapata turned to me. “You want this guy?”
I wasn‟t sure what I‟d do with him, but I said, “Sure, it‟s a start.”
“Thirty minutes,” Zapata said. “Wait here. Come on, Salvatore, I need company,” and they were
gone.
“Zapata‟s amazing,” Charlie One Ear said, watching them rush out the door. “Nose like a
bloodhound.”
“Looks more like a waffle iron,” I said with a laugh.
“True,” said Charlie One Ear. “But that doesn‟t impede his instinct for finding people. He‟s unerring.”
I got the impression maybe Zapata had been hit one or two times too many on the soft part of his
head. Later I learned that he was as streetwise as any cop I‟ve ever known. He may have been short
on Shakespeare, but he was long on smarts.
“He was a middleweight contender, you know,” Charlie One Ear continued. “Got full of patriotism,
volunteered for the army, and spent a year in Vietnam. Then he came back and joined the Hell‟s
Angels. I‟ve never quite understood why.”
“You seem to have a nice team going,” I said. “You spot them, Zapata finds them, and Salvatore
sticks to them.”
“Like flypaper,” said Charlie One Ear.
Stick excused himself to go call the coroner and see if there were any autopsy reports yet. When he
left, I leaned over the table toward Charlie One Ear.
“I‟ve got to ask you something,” I said. “It‟s a personal thing.”
“Yes?”
“1 heard your father was an English kid and your mother was a Ute Indian. Whenever your name
comes up, somebody says that.”
“Only partly correct. It was my grandparents and she was a Cree. I inherited my memory from my
father and my instincts from my mother. Thank God it wasn‟t the other way around. I‟m quite
flattered you‟ve heard of me.”
“Charlie Flowers, the man who smashed the Wong Yang Fu opium ring in San Francisco almost
single-handed! You‟re a legend in your time,” I said with a smile.
“I really enjoy this, y‟know,” he said, grinning back. “I have an enormous ego.”
“Is it true you once busted so many moonshiners in Georgia that they threw together and hired a
couple of Philly shooters to do you in?”
“Actually it was four, including Dancing Rodney Shutz out of Chicago, who was reputed to have
killed over sixty people, a lot of whom didn‟t deserve the honour.”
“And you got „em all?”
“Yes. Without a scratch, I might add. They made a mistake. They all took me on at once—I suppose
they thought there was safety in numbers.” He paused for a moment and then flashed a twenty-dollar
smile. “Dancing Rodney was so aghast I don‟t think he realizes to this day that he‟s dead.” We both
broke out laughing.
“So what‟re you doing here?” I asked.
His smile stayed but got a little brittle. “Well, I don‟t share Dutch Morehead‟s consternation with
condos. My wife and I enjoy ours quite a lot. Beautiful view. We‟re near the water. The climate‟s
wonderful He paused. He could have let it drop there, but he went on. “Besides, I couldn‟t get a job
anywhere else.”
“What!”
He took out one of those long, thin Dutch cigars, lit it, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. “I was
working internal affairs for the state police out in Arizona a couple of years back. There had been a lot
of killing and they suspected it was dope-related. The main suspect was a big-time dealer named
Mizero. They sent me in, undercover, to check it out. It was Mizero‟s game all right, but he had an
inside man, a narc named Burke, who was very highly situated. What they were doing, Mizero would
make a big sale. Maybe a hundred pounds of grass. Then Burke would step in, bust the buyer,
confiscate his money and goods, tell him get lost and he wouldn‟t press charges. If the buyer got
antsy, Mizero would push him over. Then they‟d re-sell the dope.
“I got too close to the bone and blew my cover. So Burke decided he had to get rid of Mizero. The
trouble was, it went the other way. Mizero dropped Burke. The locals made a deal with the state to
keep Burke out of it. It was an election year and this was a big case. Nobody wanted to deal with a
bad-cop scandal.
“I was a key witness for the prosecution. They knew they couldn‟t muzzle Mizero, so they wanted me
to testify that Burke was working undercover with me. I said no, I won‟t do that. Some things I‟ll do,
but I won‟t perjure myself for anyone, particularly a bad cop. Next thing you know, they ship me out
of state so the defense can‟t call me, and put out the word I‟m a drinker, a big troublemaker. And, get
this, they put it out that I committed perjury! For over a year everybody in the business thought I was
a drunken liar. And I don‟t even drink.”
“How about the Feds?” I said.
“They didn‟t want me back. I was always too independent to suit the bureaucrats. Anyway, Dutch
heard about it. I was living in Trenton working a security job and lie showed up one day, didn‟t ask
any questions, just offered me a job. After I took it, I said, „I don‟t drink and I‟ve never told a Ii e
under oath in my life,‟ and he says, „I know it,‟ and it‟s never come up since.”
Then he leaned across the table toward me. “That‟s my excuse, what‟s yours?”
“I know the rest of the Cincinnati Triad is here. I just want to dig a hole under all of them. I don‟t care
where they fall, but I want them to drop.”
“Is it because you couldn‟t nail them up there?”
“That‟s part of it.”
“And the rest of it‟s personal?” he said.