“Okay I hop a ride back to town with you?” he said. “We don‟t want you to get lost or something”
“Where‟s your pickup?” I asked.
“I gave it to Zapata,” he answered. „He put his bike in the hack.”
“My pleasure,” I said, cranking up.
“Well,” he said, “I didn‟t hear no shootin‟ so I guess you two got along.”
“More or less,” I said.
“You sure don‟t volunteer much,” the Kid said.
“It was kind of a personal thing,” I said. “I used to know Titan, a long time ago.”
“How come you showed up out here?” I asked.
“It was Dutch‟s idea for Zapata to come out. He said you get in trouble when you‟re out alone. I was
following Graves.”
“Very astute of Dutch.”
“No sweat. Is it any of my business what the flick you were doin‟ out here?”
“O‟Brian‟s button is running scared. He wants an escort out of town.”
“Did he give up anything for it?”
I laughed. “I‟m not really sure,” I said. “According to him it‟s just one big happy family out there.”
“You believe that?” the Kid asked.
“Sure. I also believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny.”
“Must bum your ass, puttin‟ in all that work on this bunch and they get wasted all over the place.”
“I don‟t like murder,” I said, “no matter who the victims are.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he said:
“My stepfather told me once, you take two violins which are perfectly tuned, okay, and you play one,
the other one also plays.”
“No kidding,” I said, wondering what in hell violins had to do with anything.
“The old fart was full of caca,” the Kid went on, “but he played the violin. Not good, but he at least
played the fuckin‟ thing. I couldn‟t do it, man. Me and the violin, it was war at first sight. Anyways, I
figure he‟s probably right on that score.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, wondering what he was leading up to. Then he told me.
“He only told me one other thing in my whole life that I remember, and that didn‟t make any sense to
me at the time. Shit, I was just a kid; it was later on I figured it out, what he meant, I mean. Anyways,
what it was, I was pissed off, see, because my best friend at the time didn‟t always see things exactly
the way I did. The old man says, „Trouble with you, Fry‟—he called rue Fry „cause I was small as a
kid; that always pissed rue off too— „trouble with you, Fry, you think everybody sees things the same
as you.‟ Then he reaches down, scratches his ankle. „My foot itches. That‟s reality to me. Yours don‟t.
That‟s reality to you.‟ That‟s it; he goes back to the sports page.
“So, y‟know, I‟m maybe eight, nine, at the time, what do I know from reality and itching feet. I figure
the old man‟s temporarily unwired. Twenty years later I‟m after this creep in the French Quarter, a
three-time loser facing a felony; I get him, he‟s down for the full clock, right? Son of a bitch is always
one step a-fuckin‟-way, I can‟t quite lay my hand on him. I‟m thinkin‟ I know this guy better than
anybody, why can‟t I nail his ass? Then one night I remember what the old fart told me. What I come
to realize is that maybe I know this guy‟s MO, front and back, but I‟m not thinking like him, instead
I‟m thinking like me thinking like him, see what I mean?”
“So did you catch him?” I asked.
“I would have but the dumb son of a bitch shot himself cleaning his .38. Really burned my ass. But I
would‟ve had him. So what I been tryin‟ to do, see, I been thinking like whoever‟s icing all these
people here.”
“And what‟ve you come up with?”
“Not a fuckin‟ thing,” he said.
I sighed. For a moment I thought the Kid had come up with something important. But he wasn‟t
finished yet. “I don‟t know the why, see,” he went on. “If I had a handle on the why, I would nail his
ass. Or hers. Y‟know, it could be a fancy, ever think of that?”
“Well,” I said, rather pompously, “once we establish motive—”
He cut me off. “We‟re not talkin‟ motive, man. We‟re not talkin‟ about motive, we‟re talkin‟ about
where that fucker‟s head‟s at. Why he‟s doin‟ it. Y‟see, life ain‟t logical. That‟s the myth. Truth is,
nothing is real, it‟s all what we make it out to be. It‟s the same thing—when his foot itches and we
scratch ours, that‟s when we nail his ass.”
“Okay,” I said, “if my foot starts itching I‟ll let you know.”
He chuckled. “Think about it,” he said.
“And thanks for the backup.”
“It‟s what it‟s all about,” he said.
Five minutes down the road my headlights picked up Zapata. The pickup was idling on the shoulder
and he was waving at us with a light. I pulled over.
“Kid, you know where South Longbeach Park is, down at the end of Oceanby?”
“Then follow me. Don‟t drag ass.”
“What the hell‟s going on?” I yelled at him as he crawled back into the pickup.
“There‟s been a massacre out there,” he yelled back, and roared out onto the highway in front of me.
1-le had a red light on the roof and a siren screaming under the hood. I haven‟t driven like that since I
was in high school. Most of the time I was just hanging on to the steering wheel.
It took us thirty minutes to get to South Longbeach. We came in behind the theatre, a grim and
foreboding spectre in the darkness, even knowing as little as we did.
This one had drawn the biggest crowd yet, at least a dozen cop cars, red and blue lights flashing
everywhere.
The brass buttons were in a semicircle about fifty yards in diameter around the front of the theatre.
Nobody got inside the circle, including them. Several men from homicide were stretching a yellow
crime scene banner around the perimeter of the movie house and car.
Nick Salvatore, smoking a cherry cigar, was sitting on the fender of his car, looking as sad as a basset
hound. Dutch was sitting sideways on the front seat of his car, his legs stretched out into the street.
“It‟s funny,” he said, to nobody at all. Then he looked around and said, “Is this whole thing getting
funny to anybody else or is it just me?”
“What the hell happened?” I asked.
“Somebody tried to top the Saint Valentine‟s Day Massacre,” Dutch said.
“Right in front of my fuckin‟ eyes,” Salvatore said, shaking his head.
Dutch was shaking his head too. “The last four days, that‟s a year‟s work for the geniuses in
homicide. If we‟re real lucky, they might turn up a clue by the next census,”
“Who is it this time?” I asked.
“The family man,” said Dutch. “That‟s what I remember you saying about him. A big family man.”
“Stizano?”
“And a rather large party of friends. Salvatore saw it go down. He‟s an eyeball witness, can you
believe that? Doesn‟t anybody see the humour in all this?”
Salvatore ignored Dutch. He was anxious to tell his story again.
“You won‟t believe this,” he said, speaking very slowly and deliberately, as though he were being
recorded, and pointing out little scenes of interest as he described the massacre. “Stizano, when he
comes outta the show, I‟m maybe a hundred yards from him, all of sudden it‟s like.. . like somebody
started shaking the ground. They fuckin‟ keeled over. Now here‟s where it really gets weird, man. I
don‟t hear nothin‟, I don‟t see nothin‟. The loudest noise was the slugs, thumpin‟ into them. Then the
glass started going, the box office, marquee. Sweet Jesus, it got fuckin‟ surreal.”