I‟m not sure whether it ties in or not, but a chap I know is carrying a rather large snow I monkey. He
says the coke market‟s been dry for more than a month, but the local snowbirds are dancing in the
street. The word is, the drought is about to end.”
“Harry Nesbitt mentioned that,” I said.
“When‟s this snowstorm going to happen?” asked Dutch.
“Imminently.”
“Does this snitch know who the importer is?”
“I wish you‟d refrain from calling them snitches,” Charlie One Ear said. “Some of these people take a
great deal of pride in working for me. It‟s rather like a public service for them.”
“Charlie, all canaries sing alike. Does he know who the distributors or not?”
“He only knows his own street connection.”
“Want a guess?” I said. “Bronicata. It‟s his game.”
“That makes sense,” Stick said. “Unless maybe it‟s Longnose Craves.”
The Mufalatta Kid broke his silence. “Nose don‟t touch hard stuff,” he said.
“Times are changing,” I countered. “This place is ripe for toot; it‟s wallowing in heavy rollers.”
“I ain‟t stickin‟ up for the dinge,” the Kid said. “On the line, he ain‟t nothin‟ but a shanty-ass, nickeldime nigger, say. He just don‟t fuck with heavy drugs, man. Ain‟t his style.”
Dutch stepped in. “Any idea how much coke we‟re talking about here?”
“Rumours vary. I would say fifty kilos, pure.”
“Gemutlich!” Dutch rumbled under his breath.
Salvatore whistled softly through his teeth. “We‟re talking bucks here,” he said.
Charlie One Ear took a thin, flat calculator from his shirt pocket and started adding it up.
“Let‟s see. A hundred and ten pounds of stuff, which they‟ll likely kick at least six, perhaps eight, to
one. Let‟s say roughly eight hundred pounds, which is roughly thirteen thousand ounces, which is
roughly three hundred thousand grams. At eighty dollars a gram, that would come to twenty-four
million dollars along the Strand. Roughly.”
That stopped conversation for almost a minute. Stick broke the silence.
“Well, that‟ll cover the old car payment,” he said.
Dutch turned to me again. “You‟re the one knows these people,” he said. “Do you think they‟d snuff
each other over twenty-four million bucks?”
“Hell, I might kill them for twenty-four million bucks, Dutch. The question is, does it make sense?
My answer is no, it doesn‟t. They deal in bigger numbers than that every week.”
Salvatore added his thoughts:
“I agree. It could happen if there was some rhubarb over territory, somebody in the family got his
feelings jacked off, personal shit like that. Then, maybe. I don‟t see them cuttin‟ each other up over
some dope deal either.” He shook his head vigorously. “That don‟t come across as a possibility.”
“So we‟re back to square one, and w got five more corpus delictis on our hands,” Dutch said.
“I‟ll keep digging, of course,” Charlie One Ear said, and went off to the other side of the park with
Salvatore and Callahan to look for car tracks.
They returned ten minutes later. Charlie stood with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, rocking on
his heels. After a proper dramatic pause he said, “It‟s highly likely the damage was done from the
other end of the park. We found what could be tire tracks. Actually it looks like someone may have
wrapped burlap or some other heavy material around the wheels so they wouldn‟t leave any
identifying tracks.”
“How far is it from back there to the theatre?” Dutch asked.
“About a furlong,” Callahan said, and when we all stared dumbly at him, he added, “Two hundred
yards, give or take a few feet.”
“An M-16 with a good scope could handle that,” said the Stick.
“Isn‟t that comforting,” Dutch said.
I took Callahan aside and told him about the game at the Breakers Hotel and Thibideau dropping over
fifteen grand.
“Interesting,” said Callahan. “Disaway‟ll go off, twenty, thirty to one tomorrow. It rains, pony wins,
„Thibideau can buy the Breakers.”
“Maybe I‟ll come to the races tomorrow afternoon,” I said.
“Back gate, one o‟clock. I‟ll wait ten minutes.” And he drifted back with the gang.
Dutch walked over and joined me.
“Twelve people blown out from under us,” he said, “and all we‟ve done so far is provide airtight
alibis for every good suspect we got. . . at least the ones that are still alive.”
“All but one,” I said.
“Who‟s that?” Dutch asked.
“Turk Nance.”
“You sure got a one-track mind,” he said, drifting off to talk to the Kid and Zapata. I checked the
time. It was half past twelve. I sought out Stick.
“How about a nightcap?” I suggested.
“Sure. Want to meet at the hotel?”
“Ever been to a place called Casablanca?” I asked.
His eyes widened. “I‟ve been to almost every place in town at least once,” he said. “Once was enough
for that place.”
“We‟ll take my car,” I said, ignoring his comment.
“Done,” he said with a shrug. As we headed for my rented Ford, Stick tossed his car keys to Zapata.
“Take my heap back to the Warehouse, will you, Chino?” he asked. “And keep it in second under
forty, otherwise it‟ll stall out on you” And then to me, “Let‟s go to the zoo.”
I was about to find out what he meant.
50
CASABLANCA
I didn‟t talk a lot on the way to the place. I was thinking about the Kid‟s itching-foot story, which led
me to murder, which led me back to the Kid.
Maybe I was wrong about Nance. Maybe the killer was closer to home. Could it have been Salvatore?
or Charlie One Ear? Callahan?
Almost any one of the hooligans could have done the jobs, except Dutch, who was with me when
Draganata was slain, and Mufalatta and Zapata, who were at Uncle Jolly‟s when Stizano got his.
Of the group, Salvatore might have a reason, perhaps something related to his Mafioso father and
Philadelphia. I was thinking about the why, not the motive. The itching foot.
I let it pass. I didn‟t like the idea.
Casablanca was on the downtown waterfront, a scant fifteen minutes from the scene of the crime. I
parked on the promenade overlooking the river and we walked down a circular iron staircase to the
river level. The Stick and I were quite a pair, me in my narc Windbreaker and boots, Stick in a suit
that looked at least a decade old, a tie that defied time, and his felt hat balanced on the back of his
head.
The nightclub was perched on the edge of a pier. The windows had been taken out for the summer and
replaced by shutters, all of which were open. A rush of music and heat hit us as we entered
“Welcome to Mondo Bizarro,” said the Stick.
The place looked like it had been designed by an interior decorator on LSD.
None of the tables and chairs matched.
Gigantic stills from the Bogart film covered most of the walls. Towering up one was a gigantic blowup of Bogart, with cigarette and snarling lip, standing in front of Rick‟s nightclub in his white tux.
Nearby, Peter Lorre leered frog-eyed at a fezzed and arrogant Sydney Greenstreet, while on another
wall Claude Rains, dapper in his uniform and peaked cap, peered arrogantly at Conrad Veidt, who
looked like he had just swallowed same bad caviar.
And, of course, Bergman. The eternal virgin stared mystically from under the sweeping brim of her
hat on the wall opposite Bogie.