Hooligans Read Online Free PDF Page B

right or wrong?”
    “1 came here to find out what he‟s doing here—”
    “Was,” he interrupted.
    “Was,” I agreed. “But if he was here, then the rest of his bunch is close by. I know this outfit, Dutch. I
    know this gang better than anyone alive. Sure, I want to bring the whole bunch down. What do you
    want to do, send flowers?”
    He lit his Camel and took a long pull, staring hard at me all the while.
    “Look here,” he said. “Before, when I was talking about what our assignment is, I left one thing out.
    We were supposed to keep organized crime out of Doomstown. All of a sudden, your boss tells me we
    got Mafia up to our eyeballs. How do you think that makes me feel? All of us, the whole bunch. Like
    monkeys, that‟s how.”
    “Cisco didn‟t invite them down here, y‟know. He just recognized a face and turned them up for you,
    that‟s all. If it was the Feebies, you can bet your sweet by-and-by they‟d be all over town and you
    couldn‟t find out what day it is From any of them.”
    “You‟re right there.”
    “So we throw in together and bring them down?”
    “If somebody doesn‟t beat us to it.”
    “Okay. So tell your boys to forget this college Charlie shit,” I said, still acting irritated. “This isn‟t
    pledge week at the old frat house and I‟m not here to impress anybody. If these guys are as tough as
    you make them sound, it‟ll help if you give me a vote of confidence off the top.”
    Not bad, Kilmer, not bad at all. Hard case but not hard nose. They can live with that.
    Dutch started laughing.
    “Sensitive, ain‟t you,” he said, and led me into the building. We walked through the front door into
    what looked like the entrance to a prison block: a small boxlike room, a door with a bell on one side,
    and a mirror in the wall beside it. One-way glass. Dutch shoved a thumb against the bell. A second
    later the door buzzed open. Inside, a black, uniformed cop sat in a darkened cubicle, watching the
    entrance. An Uzi submachine gun was leaning on the wall beside him. I nodded and got a blank stare
    back.
    “Looks like you‟re expecting an invasion,” I said.
    “Security. Nobody gets in here without one of us saying so. That includes everybody from the chief of
    police and the mayor to the President of the United States.”
    “Nice weapon,” I said, with a nod toward the Uzi.
    “We liberated it. My bunch is pretty good at dog-robbing,” Dutch said, then added, almost as an
    afterthought, “among other things.”
    Inside, the front of the place had been divided into half a dozen office cubicles. Behind them, in the
    centre of the building, was a fairly sophisticated computer system and a telephone switchboard.
    Behind that was what appeared to be a large meeting room, walled with chalk-and corkboards. A
    six—foot television screen was mounted in the wall at the front of the room and twenty or so oldfashioned movable chairs were scattered about, the kind with writing platforms attached, like they had
    in school when I was a kid—arid still do, for all I know.
    The big room in back was affectionately known as the Kindergarten.
    Two rooms filled the back end of the old supermarket. One was a holding cell that looked big enough
    to accommodate the entire D-Day invasion force, and the other was behind a door marked simply
    VIDEO OPERATIONS. I counted three uniformed cops on duty, including the man on the door and a
    black woman who was operating the switchboard.
    A pretty classy setup: Morehead‟s war room.
    “Are the uniform people part of your gang or on loan—out?
    “Probation. If they can hack the everyday stuff, they maybe can work their way into the gang. Also
    find out pretty quick whether they can keep their mouths shut”
    I decided to take one last shot at my immediate problem. “Before the rest of your guys show up,” I
    said, “can we settle this Fed problem?”
    “It‟s settled. We don‟t have a problem,” he said, trying to brush it