Hooligans Read Online Free PDF

game, bunco goes
    crazy. So we pretty much been spinning our wheels up till now. I mean, we do okay, but He paused,
    looking for the next sentence, and finally said, “Maybe I‟m just tired of doin‟ rounds with the front
    office.”
    I let it all sink in. What I thought I was hearing was that the local police were either stupid or on the
    take. It was Morehead‟s job to cover all the bases.
    “Leadbetter and Findley played it real smart,” Dutch continued. “They gave us very loose power, so
    to speak, and fixed it so we report to a select committee of the city commission.”
    “You‟re not part of the department, then?”
    “Yeah. We deal with them when we have to. But Walters can‟t fire any of us, so we pretty much play
    it our way. He don‟t like it, but it‟s a tough-sheiss situation for him. Otherwise, we‟d probably all be
    sorting files in Short Arm, Kansas, by now”
    “He fights you?”
    “Not in the open. But he wants control. He‟s a back-fighter. Hell, I‟m talkin‟ too much,” he growled
    suddenly, and fell silent. I could tell from his flat monotone that he was having trouble trusting me.
    He was being just friendly enough not to be unfriendly.
    The storm rolled over and the rain turned to a fine mist.
    He locked the car and we headed for the front door, squeezing up against the building to keep out of
    the rain that swirled under its eaves.
    “Once ya get t‟know the gang, you can come, go as ya please,” Dutch said as we hurried toward the
    door. “For now, they ain‟t gonna give you a dime for the toilet unless I‟m with you.”
    I stopped and he almost ran into me. He loomed over me, his hands jammed in his pockets and an
    unlit butt in his mouth.
    “You got a hard-on for Feds?” I asked.
    “Let‟s just say we‟ve had a few bad rounds with „em,” he said, studying me through eyes the colour of
    sapphires. Rainwater dribbled from the brim of his battered brown felt hat.
    “Well, who hasn‟t?” I said.
    “You are the Fed,” he said.
    “Look, I‟m on your side. I‟m not the Feebies or the Leper Colony. You‟ve dealt with the Freeze
    before. You and Mazzola are practically old pals by now.”
    “Like I said, it‟s one-on-one in there. These guys don‟t even trust each other sometimes.”
    “How about you?” I asked. “Am I on probation with you, too? Where do you stand?”
    “Out here in the rain getting soaked, „he said. “Can we maybe continue this inside? There‟s a lot more
    of me getting wet than there is of you.”
    And he turned and stomped off toward the door.

    5

THE WAREHOUSE
    Dutch Morehead herded me toward the door with his sheer bulk. I‟d been this route before, getting the
    red eye from the local police. Local cops don‟t like to deal with Feds because they get treated like
    kids and because they get the runaround from the Feebies and the shaft from the Lepers. My outfit,
    the Federal Racket Squad, was different. Part of the job was working on the local level, pointing them
    in the right direction on interstate cases. Sometimes it took a while for that to sink in.
    I decided to save a little time, so I put on my tough-guy act.
    “I just like to know where I stand without reading a road map,” I snapped as we hurried along through
    the rain. “If I‟m on some kind of probation with this bunch of yours, then screw it. I‟ll go it alone.”
    He stopped me and smiled condescendingly.
    “Cut the bullshit,” he said.
    “No bullshit,” I said. “The hell with this one-on-one, sink-or-swim crap. I didn‟t come here to
    audition for you and yours.”
    “What the hell got under your saddle all of a sudden?”
    “You know what the Freeze is all about?” I demanded, and went on before he could answer. “We‟re
    the only federal agency around who works with the street cops. The FBI, the IRS, Justice Department,
    they‟re all in it for themselves.”
    “And you‟re not?” he demanded. “You came here to bust this Tagliani‟s balls,