Hooligans Read Online Free Page B

else.”
    “Raines I echoed.
    “Harry Raines, the son-in-law,” he said.
    “Yeah, I know. I was just thinking about the name. Harry Raines,” I said.
    “Know him?”
    “Vaguely.”
    Harry Raines. I remembered the name but I couldn‟t put a face with it. Faces come hard after twenty
    years.
    “Raines put it all together. This whole racetrack thing.”
    “Why?”
    “You‟ll have to ask him that,” said Dutch.
    “This Raines a stand-up guy?”
    “I couldn‟t say different. What I hear, old Harry‟s gonna be governor one of these days.”
    “You mean because of the racetrack?”
    “I guess that‟s part of it.”
    “What‟s the rest of it?” I asked.
    “It‟s a long story,” he said. “Worth a dinner.”
    “Fair enough,” I said. “What do you think?”
    “About what?”
    “About whether Harry Raines is going to be governor or not?” “I think the sun rises in the east and
    sets in the west,” he said. And that was the end of that.

    4
    LEADBETTER’S LEGACY
    The rain had turned into a driving storm by the time we got to Dutch Morehead‟s war room, which
    was in a small, rundown shopping center in the suburbs, a mile or two from the center of town.
    Lightning etched in purple monochromes a shabby, flat, one-story building that had once been a
    supermarket. Its plate-glass windows were boarded over and the entire building was painted flat
    black.
    “Looks like Gestapo headquarters,” I said.
    “Psychological,” Dutch grunted.
    A less than imposing sign beside the entrance announced that it was the SPECIAL
    OPERATIONS BRANCH. Below it, even less imposing letters whispered DUNETOWN
    POLICE DEPARTMENT. I had to squint to read that line.
    “Nice of you to mention the police department,” I said.
    “I thought so,” Dutch said.
    “What exactly does Special Operations Branch mean?” I asked. “I‟m not real sure myself,” he said. “I
    think they just wanted to call us the SOB‟s.”
    A moment later Dutch roared like a lion demanding lunch. “That sorry, flat-assed, pea-brained
    sappenpaw!” he said, curling his lip.
    “Who?” I said, thinking maybe I had offended him.
    “That six-toed, web-footed, sappenpaw, klommenshois Callahan,” he raved on. “The mackerelsnapping, redheaded putz stole my damn parking place again! If I told him once, I told him—arrgh...”
    His voice trailed off as he whispered further insults under his breath.
    A half dozen cars in various stages of disrepair were angle-parked along the front of the building.
    Dented fenders, cracked windshields, globs of orange primer where paint jobs had been started and
    never finished, hood ornaments and hubcaps gone; it looked like the starting line of a demolition
    derby.
    “Your boys got something against automobiles?” I asked.
    He growled something under his breath and wheeled into a spot marked only THE KID.
    “I‟ll take Mufalatta‟s place,” he said defensively. “He‟s never around anyway.”
    We were fifty yards from the front door, a long way in the raging storm. He cut the engine and leaned
    back, offering me a Camel.
    “No thanks, I quit,” I said.
    “I don‟t wanna hear about it,” he said, lighting up. He cracked the window and let the smoke stream
    out into the downpour.
    “I can understand about your feelings toward old man Findley,” he said. “The old boy had a lotta
    class, I‟ll give him that. He dealt one last hand before he retired.”
    “How‟s that?”
    “His last hurrah. He brought in Ike Leadbetter to head up the force here. Findley was smart enough to
    know the burg needed some keen people to keep an eye on things when the track was built—the local
    cops were about as sophisticated as a warthog in a top hat. Leadbetter had been through the mill
    already. He‟d done a turn up in Atlantic City before he came here, so he was savvy. Was Leadbetter
    brought me in.”
    “And Leadbetter is good?”
    “Was.”
    “Where‟d he go?”
    “No place. He‟s dead. Leadbetter knew