Hooligans by William Diehl

the floor, crunching glass as it fell.
    Two more shots, spaced.
    Bang... bang!
    Footsteps running and the sound of something else hitting the floor.
    The something else was sizzling.
    A woman‟s voice,
    screaming,
    getting closer,
    entering the room.
    Baroomf!
    The explosion blew out the mike. Dutch punched the off button.
    “That‟s it,” he said.
    Charlie One Ear said, “Utterly charming. Too bad about the woman.”
    “Too bad about all of them,” Dutch snapped caustically. “They were worth more to us alive than
    dead.”
    Dutch ran the tape back and played it again. We all leaned forward, hoping to hear something
    significant, but there wasn‟t much. I listened to the shots, counting them.
    “That one, sounds like a dentist‟s drill I make that some kind of submachine gun,” Zapata said.
    Dutch played it again.
    It was a chilling tape. Just when you think you‟ve seen it all and heard it all, you run across something
    like this, listening to three people die. Mobsters or not, it raised the hair on my arms.
    “Definitely two guns,” Charlie One Ear said.
    “That‟s pretty good, Charlie. Stinetto‟s gun was still in his belt when we found him,” Dutch said.
    “Loaded and clean. The old man was light.”
    “Pretty good shooting,” Chino ventured.
    “Had to be two of „em,” said Salvatore.
    “Or an ambidextrous marksman,” Charlie One Ear said.
    “Fuckin‟ nervy one,” Zapata added.
    “Any other ideas?” Dutch asked.
    I kept mine to myself.
    “Okay, now pay attention. We got a man here can maybe shed a little glimmer on the night‟s
    proceedings, so everybody just relax a minute. This here‟s Jake Kilmer, Kilmer‟s with the Freeze and
    he‟s an expert on this outfit.”
    A moan of discontent rippled through the room.
    “You wanna listen to him, or stay dumb?” Dutch snapped without a hint of humour in his tone.
    The room got quiet.
    And colder than an ice cube sandwich.

    7

EXIT SCREAMING
    The house was a two-story brick and stone structure nestled against high dunes overlooking the bay.
    The backyard was terraced, rising from the swimming pool to a flat that locked like a child‟s dream.
    There was a gazebo and an eight-horse carousel and a monkey bar set and a railroad with each car just
    large enough to accommodate one child.
    Two men smoked quietly in the gazebo.
    From high above, on top of the dunes that separated the house from the bay, the sound of the child
    laughing could be heard, followed by his grandfather‟s rough laughter. Their joyous chorus was
    joined by the sound of a calliope playing “East Side, West Side, All Around the Town.” The child was
    on the carousel, his grandfather standing beside him with an arm around the boy. The horses, eyes
    gleaming, nostrils flaring, mouths open, jogged up and down in an endless, circular race. Below them,
    in the pool, an inner tube floated, forgotten.
    The figure, dressed entirely in black, crouched as it moved silently and swiftly through the sea grass
    on top of the dune to a point above the house. Only the swimming pool was visible. The figure was
    carrying a weapon that had the general conformity of a rifle but was larger.
    The figure slid to the ground and eased quietly to the edge of the dune, looking down at the old man
    arid the child. He waited.
    A woman appeared at the sliding glass door at the back of the house.
    “Ricardo, bedtime,” she yelled.
    The child protested but the woman persisted.
    “Once more around,” the old man yelled back, and the woman agreed and waited.
    The figure on the dune also waited.
    His last ride finished, the little boy ran gleefully down the terrace and then turned back to the older
    man.
    “Come kiss me good night, Grandpa,” he called back. The grandfather smiled and waved his hand.
    “Uno momento,” he called back, and then motioned to the men in the gazebo to shut down the
    carousel.
    The child skipped to his grandmother arid they entered the house together.
    The figure on the